How do you give yourself the moral authority to take 30 wives and have sex with teenage girls? Make it a religion!

Penn is one massive guy.

*politics

Adding video to channels (Politics) - requested by NetRunner.

I don't like this. Me, who always loves Maher.

Look, all religion is a matter of setting aside the rational mind and embracing belief in something outside yourself.

Romney was brought up in the Mormon Church, he didn't choose it. To ask him to set it aside as irrational is to ask him to set aside his family, his community, the very fabric of his life.

The Mormon church is one of the fastest growing religions on the planet, despite all the weirdness. I don't know how anyone could embrace the weirdness, but I do know why someone might embrace their culture -- it is structure, it is support, it is community, it is rules for living in an increasingly fractured society.

Don't pick on Romney for being Mormon. Not if you give every other non-atheist a pass on their particular brand of crazy.

You're taking it out of the context that this is a presidential candidate being discussed. His beliefs are very relevant to discussion if people are going to be able to vote for the person. Bill's bringing them to light, and mentioning that he feels this is one of the crazier beliefs out there. That's all relevant to a presidential candidate.

But Bill also has a way of delivering his information, it's what got him on T.V. You don't have to agree with how he goes about it, but it doesn't necessarily dilute the information itself.

(Unless you're just saying you don't like the way it was brought up, as opposed to don't discuss it at all. That I wouldn't argue with)

I'm not taking them out of context.

All religions have irrational beliefs. Don't pick on the Mormons.

Romney was BORN a Mormon. He didn't choose it.

Well, I had my say. You had your say. There it is.

>> ^Drax:

You're taking it out of the context that this is a presidential candidate being discussed. His beliefs are very relevant to discussion if people are going to be able to vote for the person. Bill's bringing them to light, and mentioning that he feels this is one of the crazier beliefs out there. That's all relevant to a presidential candidate.
But Bill also has a way of delivering his information, it's what got him on T.V. You don't have to agree with how he goes about it, but it doesn't necessarily dilute the information itself.

He says all religions are cons, the topic is just Romney, you can replace names and religions as you wish.
>> ^bareboards2:

I don't like this. Me, who always loves Maher.
Look, all religion is a matter of setting aside the rational mind and embracing belief in something outside yourself.
Romney was brought up in the Mormon Church, he didn't choose it. To ask him to set it aside as irrational is to ask him to set aside his family, his community, the very fabric of his life.
The Mormon church is one of the fastest growing religions on the planet, despite all the weirdness. I don't know how anyone could embrace the weirdness, but I do know why someone might embrace their culture -- it is structure, it is support, it is community, it is rules for living in an increasingly fractured society.
Don't pick on Romney for being Mormon. Not if you give every other non-atheist a pass on their particular brand of crazy.

>> ^bareboards2:

I don't like this. Me, who always loves Maher.
Look, all religion is a matter of setting aside the rational mind and embracing belief in something outside yourself.
Romney was brought up in the Mormon Church, he didn't choose it. To ask him to set it aside as irrational is to ask him to set aside his family, his community, the very fabric of his life.
The Mormon church is one of the fastest growing religions on the planet, despite all the weirdness. I don't know how anyone could embrace the weirdness, but I do know why someone might embrace their culture -- it is structure, it is support, it is community, it is rules for living in an increasingly fractured society.
Don't pick on Romney for being Mormon. Not if you give every other non-atheist a pass on their particular brand of crazy.


He chooses it everyday he lives. HE MUST KILL HIMSELF!!!

Romney was not BORN a mormon, he was born, as all babies, ignorant of everything, even stupidity. He was then raised as a mormon, and had the stupidity injected into his brain on a daily basis.

I don't believe it's not hard for someone to reject their religious background, but fuck... this world HAS to come to a point where we start calling religion out (every religion) on the stupid inane, bullshit it spreads.

If a person wants to believe in a non-specific godly entity which created the universe, that's one thing (although still pretty stupid, since there is zero evidence of that), but it's quite another when you believe in virgin births, and people parting seas in two, and talking snakes, and overlord Xenu, and Joseph Smith's unbelievably pathetic lies, and the word of schizos who think they talk to god and want to kill everyone who doesn't believe in them, etc...

Religion is NOTHING BUT bullshit, deception and complete ignorance. I'm not saying there aren't good people in all religions in the world (well, maybe most religions), but they need to get their heads out of their asses, and leave the fairy tales to children (which to be honest, in this day and age, are probably less likely to believe in something as obviously fake as a talking snake).

I clicked on your comment in the newest appreciated comments section. I could have sworn that it read" Romney was not BORN a moron. Mormon .... moron.... quite the similarity, a coincidence? I think not.
>> ^EMPIRE:

Romney was not BORN a mormon.


http://joedonatelli.com/mitt-romney%E2%80%99s-magic-underwear/10/10/2011/

lol I guess not. Let's not forget that one of the pivotal characters of Joseph Smith's con act, is an angel called Moroni. Only 1 letter away from moron.

I think he actually tried to see just how close he could come to calling people stupid to their face, and still get away with being called a prophet.

This is a demonstrably false statement:

@EMPIRE said Religion is NOTHING BUT bullshit, deception and complete ignorance.

I have often thought that atheists can be just as dogmatic and rigid and intellectually bankrupt as any religious person. Here is the proof of it. You have your belief and no facts are going to get in your way.

You are the holder of the One Truth. There can be no Other Truth. If someone believes otherwise, they are a Heretic and an abomination.

The world isn't perfect. It is full of flawed human beings just trying to get by, trapped by their meat puppet bodies and brains. Some need a crutch to make it through life. You would deprive them of their crutch? THEY WILL FALL DOWN.

I keep saying the same thing over and over here on the Sift. You'd think I'd learn to back out of these pissing matches. I don't though, because I know that atheists ultimately are intelligent people, open to rational thought. I wouldn't try to talk shinyblurry out of his beliefs. That is a complete waste of effort. I am enough of a Pollyanna to think a rationalist will eventually get it -- that humans are flawed, that humans have had gods since the very beginning of human consciousness, that thinking that ALL HUMANS will leave behind an evolutionary trait is a fools game.

The best we can hope for is to keep religion out of the laws as much as possible. That is where someone's evolutionary crutch needs to keep to itself and out of my life. And keep educating about rational thought, throwing a life line to people who are born into a religion and don't hear anything but their family's brand of dogma.

I said religion is nothing but bullshit, deception and complete ignorance.
I never once said I want to deny people the right to be stupid. I know very well, that religion is a crutch for many people. It's unfortunate that they have to lean on something as frail, demonstrably wrong, and more times than not a cancer on human societies such as religion, but it's their choice.

Now, just because I don't want to deny people their rights, doesn't mean I won't call them out on their bullshit when I see it. And that's what I think should be happening more often.
It's not funny or productive to make fun of someone who is merely ignorant of something, but doesn't have a problem with trying to learn some more (ignorance can be easily fixed with education). Unfortunately, as we all know, the vast portion of the population of this planet has no access to proper education. However, in the case of people brought up in a developed nation, with all the access to information and education, who..... oh, I dunno, think Joseph Smith is a prophet, need to be ridicularized for the stupidity of their belief system.

There has to be a line (although fuzzy I'm sure) that separates faith from mental insanity. Believing in something like Lord Xenu, I'm sorry, but it's the case of mental insanity. Should they be allowed to believe in it? Sure. But they should also be categorized as lunatics who should have absolutely no way to interfere with the normal proceedings of a civilized society.


>> ^bareboards2:

This is a demonstrably false statement:
@EMPIRE said Religion is NOTHING BUT bullshit, deception and complete ignorance.
I have often thought that atheists can be just as dogmatic and rigid and intellectually bankrupt as any religious person. Here is the proof of it. You have your belief and no facts are going to get in your way.
You are the holder of the One Truth. There can be no Other Truth. If someone believes otherwise, they are a Heretic and an abomination.
The world isn't perfect. It is full of flawed human beings just trying to get by, trapped by their meat puppet bodies and brains. Some need a crutch to make it through life. You would deprive them of their crutch? THEY WILL FALL DOWN.
I keep saying the same thing over and over here on the Sift. You'd think I'd learn to back out of these pissing matches. I don't though, because I know that atheists ultimately are intelligent people, open to rational thought. I wouldn't try to talk shinyblurry out of his beliefs. That is a complete waste of effort. I am enough of a Pollyanna to think a rationalist will eventually get it -- that humans are flawed, that humans have had gods since the very beginning of human consciousness, that thinking that ALL HUMANS will leave behind an evolutionary trait is a fools game.
The best we can hope for is to keep religion out of the laws as much as possible. That is where someone's evolutionary crutch needs to keep to itself and out of my life. And keep educating about rational thought, throwing a life line to people who are born into a religion and don't hear anything but their family's brand of dogma.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Real Time, Bill Maher, mormons, religion, elections' to 'Real Time, Bill Maher, mormons, religion, elections, Penn Jillette' - edited by Fusionaut

>> ^bareboards2:

I have often thought that atheists can be just as dogmatic and rigid and intellectually bankrupt as any religious person. Here is the proof of it. You have your belief and no facts are going to get in your way.
You are the holder of the One Truth. There can be no Other Truth. If someone believes otherwise, they are a Heretic and an abomination.


But this is where atheism is different to theism - "no facts are going to get in your way" is a theist point of view. Yes, I believe what I believe is correct, of course I do, but if someone believes otherwise I will listen. I will debate and discuss and I will change my beliefs if the other argument convinces me. This is how I became an Atheist in the first place, by listening and considering facts.

I will not declare them to be a Heretic, I will hear them out and if they say there is a bearded man in the sky who we must all obey without any facts to back it up, only then I will consider them to be wrong.

The problem with Bill Maher and his cackling hyenas, and most atheists in general, is that they seem to think that they have some sort of claim to rationality and logic above theists. Yet, as you pointed out, they are no less dogmatic about their faith than anyone else. Though you seem to think that they are in the superior position. I would say that you shouldn't forget about the religion of scientism which teaches that nothing exploded, and that this explosion magically produced order and complexity, and from this rocks became alive and turned into soup which turned into monkeys and then into you. These are metaphysical beliefs taken on faith. I find it amusing that people actually believe this nonsense without question and then have the nerve to call me irrational.

The fact is, everyone worships something. Every person has something which they bow down and kiss. Whether it is money, or celebrity, or power, or nature, or themselves, atheists are no different than anyone else. I also find it funny that you talk about crutches, as if atheists don't have crutches? What about drugs, alcohol, pornography, cigarettes, food, sex, etc? How many atheists do you know who use those crutches to get through life? Knowing Christ removes crutches from people, and being a Christian is freedom from crutches, not enslavement to one. Anyone who sins is a slave to sin, but anyone who knows Christ has been set free from that bondage.

So, I appreciate your attempted voice of reason, though you couldn't seem to manage it without condescension towards me, and Christians in general. Perhaps you feel you have to denigrate us in order to be socially accepted here. I think though that you see the futility of anti-theism, and the blind ignorance and hatred it produces in people. You know a tree by its fruit, and that fruit is rotten to its core.

>> ^bareboards2:
This is a demonstrably false statement:
@EMPIRE said Religion is NOTHING BUT bullshit, deception and complete ignorance.
I have often thought that atheists can be just as dogmatic and rigid and intellectually bankrupt as any religious person. Here is the proof of it. You have your belief and no facts are going to get in your way.
You are the holder of the One Truth. There can be no Other Truth. If someone believes otherwise, they are a Heretic and an abomination.
The world isn't perfect. It is full of flawed human beings just trying to get by, trapped by their meat puppet bodies and brains. Some need a crutch to make it through life. You would deprive them of their crutch? THEY WILL FALL DOWN.
I keep saying the same thing over and over here on the Sift. You'd think I'd learn to back out of these pissing matches. I don't though, because I know that atheists ultimately are intelligent people, open to rational thought. I wouldn't try to talk shinyblurry out of his beliefs. That is a complete waste of effort. I am enough of a Pollyanna to think a rationalist will eventually get it -- that humans are flawed, that humans have had gods since the very beginning of human consciousness, that thinking that ALL HUMANS will leave behind an evolutionary trait is a fools game.
The best we can hope for is to keep religion out of the laws as much as possible. That is where someone's evolutionary crutch needs to keep to itself and out of my life. And keep educating about rational thought, throwing a life line to people who are born into a religion and don't hear anything but their family's brand of dogma.

[operator error] Operative word is "can." Atheists "can" be just as dogmatic.

You clearly are not in that camp, thank the lord. Ha.

It may be that some day Science proves the existence of God. I'll change my mind then.

Thanks for your lucid and cogent statement. I really appreciate it.


>> ^Quboid:

Operative word is "can." Atheists "can" be just as dogmatic.

You clearly are not in that camp, thank the lord. Ha.

It may be that some day Science proves the existence of God. I'll change my mind then.

Thanks for your lucid and cogent statement. I really appreciate it.

>> ^bareboards2:
I have often thought that atheists can be just as dogmatic and rigid and intellectually bankrupt as any religious person. Here is the proof of it. You have your belief and no facts are going to get in your way.
You are the holder of the One Truth. There can be no Other Truth. If someone believes otherwise, they are a Heretic and an abomination.

But this is where atheism is different to theism - "no facts are going to get in your way" is a theist point of view. Yes, I believe what I believe is correct, of course I do, but if someone believes otherwise I will listen. I will debate and discuss and I will change my beliefs if the other argument convinces me. This is how I became an Atheist in the first place, by listening and considering facts.
I will not declare them to be a Heretic, I will hear them out and if they say there is a bearded man in the sky who we must all obey without any facts to back it up, only then I will consider them to be wrong.

oh shit. Shinyblurry in da house!! You all lose.......... your time and patience.

I believe the Big Bang Theory because I have faith in the scientific community.

There is a faith aspect to "science". I have faith that E=MC^2. I've never checked, but I have faith that the scientific community have checked. However, this is not blind faith. I could, if I was sufficiently motivated, read up on the science and prove this to myself.

Another reason why "science" isn't a religion is that if something is shown to wrong, it gets corrected. If those neutrinos sent from CERN disprove E=MC^2, then my mind is open to change. If something is shown to be wrong in religion, the people who show it up get in trouble.

The key is that I don't "believe this nonsense without question". I believe this with question and with the readiness to believe something else if something else is proven. I believe in facts because they are self-evident, and I believe in doubt because I believe we don't know everything and that we should strive to know more and to prove more. Denying proven without offering an alternative which can be backed up at all* just isn't reality. Do I feel I have a claim to rationality and logic? Well, that is what my beliefs are based on. There is proof for Earth being 4.5 billion years old, rational and logical proof.

* Of course, you presumably do believe that Christianity can be backed up, which is where we've even less chance of agreeing on anything. Every argument I've heard for religion is ultimately circular or illogical.

(I don't understand the crutches thing, from either side.)

>> ^shinyblurry:

The problem with Bill Maher and his cackling hyenas, and most atheists in general, is that they seem to think that they have some sort of claim to rationality and logic above theists. Yet, as you pointed out, they are no less dogmatic about their faith than anyone else. Though you seem to think that they are in the superior position. I would say that you shouldn't forget about the religion of scientism which teaches that nothing exploded, and that this explosion magically produced order and complexity, and from this rocks became alive and turned into soup which turned into monkeys and then into you. These are metaphysical beliefs taken on faith. I find it amusing that people actually believe this nonsense without question and then have the nerve to call me irrational.
The fact is, everyone worships something. Every person has something which they bow down and kiss. Whether it is money, or celebrity, or power, or nature, or themselves, atheists are no different than anyone else. I also find it funny that you talk about crutches, as if atheists don't have crutches? What about drugs, alcohol, pornography, cigarettes, food, sex, etc? How many atheists do you know who use those crutches to get through life? Knowing Christ removes crutches from people, and being a Christian is freedom from crutches, not enslavement to one. Anyone who sins is a slave to sin, but anyone who knows Christ has been set free from that bondage.
So, I appreciate your attempted voice of reason, though you couldn't seem to manage it without condescension towards me, and Christians in general. Perhaps you feel you have to denigrate us in order to be socially accepted here. I think though that you see the futility of anti-theism, and the blind ignorance and hatred it produces in people. You know a tree by its fruit, and that fruit is rotten to its core.

Oh and the reason atheists come across as if they think they know better? Because we do think we know better. Of course we do, of course we think what we believe is right, is right. Christians also come across as thinking they know better and you know why? Because they believe that what they think is right, is right. Condescension is inevitable. I find Christians condescending when they claim that they love us when that is clearly not the case.

I believe the Big Bang Theory because I have faith in the scientific community.

There is a faith aspect to "science". I have faith that E=MC^2. I've never checked, but I have faith that the scientific community have checked. However, this is not blind faith. I could, if I was sufficiently motivated, read up on the science and prove this to myself.

Well, this is only half the story. There is a certain amount of faith in science as a whole. This is because science doesn't actually prove anything:

http://www.digipac.ca/chemical/proof/index.htm

To believe in science you must have faith in empiricism, which says that all knowledge comes from sensory experience. Yet there are many truths empiricism cannot account for. Science itself is predicated on a series of unprovable assumptions called "brute givens" which presume the operations of the Universe have remained constant in the past and will continue to do so. Here is a good dialog on the matter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkBD20edOco

Please ignore the title, it was just the best clip I could find. Also, check out this conversation between a physics major and a bunch of physicists and mathematicians about him losing faith in empiricism:

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-184699.html

Another reason why "science" isn't a religion is that if something is shown to wrong, it gets corrected. If those neutrinos sent from CERN disprove E=MC^2, then my mind is open to change. If something is shown to be wrong in religion, the people who show it up get in trouble.

This isn't always true. For instance, the scientific community at large consider evolution to be "proven" and won't tolerate any dissent on the issue. A scientist who even breathes the words "intelligent design" will be totally ostracized, have their reputations ruined, be unable to publish scientific papers and lose their ability to get grants. It is nearly impossible to do any work on intelligent design for that reason. Evolutionary theories are the sacred cow of science, and they religiously defend it, even to the point of suppressing any debate on it, and also by propagating this view into our political and education system. They also file lawsuits to keep intelligent design from being mentioned in classrooms. This has clearly gone beyond the bounds of mere scientific inquiry. If scientists had taken this same attitude on classical mechanics, quantum mechanics may never have been discovered.

The key is that I don't "believe this nonsense without question". I believe this with question and with the readiness to believe something else if something else is proven. I believe in facts because they are self-evident, and I believe in doubt because I believe we don't know everything and that we should strive to know more and to prove more. Denying proven without offering an alternative which can be backed up at all* just isn't reality. Do I feel I have a claim to rationality and logic? Well, that is what my beliefs are based on. There is proof for Earth being 4.5 billion years old, rational and logical proof.

Well, you have to realize that some of things you seem to consider facts, aren't. The Big Bang theory is not a fact, it is totally unprovable. Not only that, but the theory itself doesn't even really work..it has a number of problems, from how stars and planets form, to the lack of observable matter and energy to make it work, to what they call the smoothness problem:

"These structures must have arisen from tiny variations in the energy density in the early universe. Where the densities were greatest is, presumably, where gravity caused matter to collapse into the structures we see today.

The problem is that to explain these structures seems to require a universe that was created in an incredibly smooth non-chaotic manner. This seems extremely unlikely."''

I like the last bit. It isn't unlikely if you consider the Universe was created by an omniopotent being. The basic problem with big bang cosmology and evoltuion is that they are not real science. You can't observe and test them, they are speculation and assumption about things that happened in the past. It is mere interpretation of data, and there are many ways to interpret it. We are both looking at the same facts, but interpreting them in different ways.

Of course, you presumably do believe that Christianity can be backed up, which is where we've even less chance of agreeing on anything. Every argument I've heard for religion is ultimately circular or illogical.(I don't understand the crutches thing, from either side.)

I don't preumse I can prove to you that Christianity is true. I can show you that there are good reasons to believe there is a God, and that there is good evidence for Christianity, but I cannot prove my experience. I can however tell you this is something you can prove to yourself. If you ask God for the evidence, He will provide it to you. You can do this by praying something like this: "Jesus, if you're real, I want to know about it. If you're God please come into my life and I will give it over to you" If you can pray those words and mean them, you will get an answer. He promised to reveal Himself to those who seek Him dilligently.

As far as the crutch thing goes, what I am speaking about is sin. Those who don't know God are in a servitude to their passions and desires. Meaning, the first priority is a fulfillment of these desires, which the intellect first assents to, and then seeks out a worldview that justifies this fulfillment. Meaning, the atheist naturally doesn't want to believe that which contradicts the fulfillment of his natural desires, and will resist believing it. Admitting that God exists also means that you have a responsibility to obey Him, which further means that you can no longer live according to fleshly desires. So, an atheist will resist the knowledge of God so they can continue to live as they please, doing that which they know by their conscience is wrong, but being unable to resist these things. It has virtually nothing to do with evidence; our sinful nature is just naturally inclined to be in rebellion against Gods authority and will continue to operate this way on any pretense that seems even remotely plausible.

>> ^Quboid:
I believe the Big Bang Theory because I have faith in the scientific community.
There is a faith aspect to "science". I have faith that E=MC^2. I've never checked, but I have faith that the scientific community have checked. However, this is not blind faith. I could, if I was sufficiently motivated, read up on the science and prove this to myself.
Another reason why "science" isn't a religion is that if something is shown to wrong, it gets corrected. If those neutrinos sent from CERN disprove E=MC^2, then my mind is open to change. If something is shown to be wrong in religion, the people who show it up get in trouble.
The key is that I don't "believe this nonsense without question". I believe this with question and with the readiness to believe something else if something else is proven. I believe in facts because they are self-evident, and I believe in doubt because I believe we don't know everything and that we should strive to know more and to prove more. Denying proven without offering an alternative which can be backed up at all just isn't reality. Do I feel I have a claim to rationality and logic? Well, that is what my beliefs are based on. There is proof for Earth being 4.5 billion years old, rational and logical proof.
Of course, you presumably do believe that Christianity can be backed up, which is where we've even less chance of agreeing on anything. Every argument I've heard for religion is ultimately circular or illogical.
(I don't understand the crutches thing, from either side.)
>> ^shinyblurry:
The problem with Bill Maher and his cackling hyenas, and most atheists in general, is that they seem to think that they have some sort of claim to rationality and logic above theists. Yet, as you pointed out, they are no less dogmatic about their faith than anyone else. Though you seem to think that they are in the superior position. I would say that you shouldn't forget about the religion of scientism which teaches that nothing exploded, and that this explosion magically produced order and complexity, and from this rocks became alive and turned into soup which turned into monkeys and then into you. These are metaphysical beliefs taken on faith. I find it amusing that people actually believe this nonsense without question and then have the nerve to call me irrational.
The fact is, everyone worships something. Every person has something which they bow down and kiss. Whether it is money, or celebrity, or power, or nature, or themselves, atheists are no different than anyone else. I also find it funny that you talk about crutches, as if atheists don't have crutches? What about drugs, alcohol, pornography, cigarettes, food, sex, etc? How many atheists do you know who use those crutches to get through life? Knowing Christ removes crutches from people, and being a Christian is freedom from crutches, not enslavement to one. Anyone who sins is a slave to sin, but anyone who knows Christ has been set free from that bondage.
So, I appreciate your attempted voice of reason, though you couldn't seem to manage it without condescension towards me, and Christians in general. Perhaps you feel you have to denigrate us in order to be socially accepted here. I think though that you see the futility of anti-theism, and the blind ignorance and hatred it produces in people. You know a tree by its fruit, and that fruit is rotten to its core.

I am guilty of acting this way. Christians aren't perfect, and when we act that way we are not obeying Christ. However, please don't believe that because some Christians are hateful, that love isn't the reason we preach the gospel. I do care what happens to you, and to the others here on the sift, because I feel you are all people of worth and value, with a unique love, and it hurts my heart to know you are separated from God. I could fulfill my duty to God and preach the gospel somewhere far less hostile, and it isn't fun to be openly ridiculed. I come here because I do care about you. I also relate to you because I grew up agnostic and used to think the same way.

>> ^Quboid:
Oh and the reason atheists come across as if they think they know better? Because we do think we know better. Of course we do, of course we think what we believe is right, is right. Christians also come across as thinking they know better and you know why? Because they believe that what they think is right, is right. Condescension is inevitable. I find Christians condescending when they claim that they love us when that is clearly not the case.

@shinyblurry

I would say that you shouldn't forget about the religion of scientism which teaches that nothing exploded


No. The "Big Bang Theory" does not say that "nothing exploded". And I've explained this to you before. And if you had read all the books you claim to have read (which you're either lying about, you're piss-poor at reading comprehension, or you just don't want to let go of your straw-man) you'd have read this explanation many times before. But it has somehow not sunk in, so I'll try again.

The "Big Bang Theory" does not say how that lump of hot dense matter came to be there. The Big Bang is not a "from nothing" beginning, it's a threshold beyond which we can't currently see or extrapolate. There are other theories that attempt to look further, but none of them is an "established winner" - and to a certain extent even "Big Bang" isn't an established winner, it's just as good a way as we've found to explain things like microwave background radiation and the general distribution of stuff we can see in the universe. From Wikipedia:

Thus, the Big Bang theory cannot and does not provide any explanation for such an initial condition; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the universe going forward from that point on.


It explains stuff starting at a certain point. It doesn't say where stuff came from. We don't know where it came from, but it's not very likely to be "nothing", as that doesn't make much sense.

I don't know why I'm trying again to help you understand this; I guess I'm hoping that some day it'll sink in. Sometimes you do seem to want to discuss things honestly, so I'm hoping this is one of those times and you finally give up on some of your silly mischaracterizations of science.

I think if you took any significant time to try to understand science, your opinion on it would change significantly. And please, please don't tell me you have. It's clear in every post you make that you haven't - not even at a pop-sci level - and lying about it is degrading to all of us.

No. The "Big Bang Theory" does not say that "nothing exploded". And I've explained this to you before. And if you had read all the books you claim to have read (which you're either lying about, you're piss-poor at reading comprehension, or you just don't want to let go of your straw-man) you'd have read this explanation many times before. But it has somehow not sunk in, so I'll try again.

You never explained anything but rather offered your amatuer opinion. Here is the opinion of an expert:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-09-03-hawking02_ST_N.htm

The "Big Bang Theory" does not say how that lump of hot dense matter came to be there. The Big Bang is not a "from nothing" beginning, it's a threshold beyond which we can't currently see or extrapolate. There are other theories that attempt to look further, but none of them is an "established winner" - and to a certain extent even "Big Bang" isn't an established winner, it's just as good a way as we've found to explain things like microwave background radiation and the general distribution of stuff we can see in the universe.

From Wikipedia:

Thus, the Big Bang theory cannot and does not provide any explanation for such an initial condition; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the universe going forward from that point on.

I am well aware of what the theory does and doesn't explain.

It explains stuff starting at a certain point. It doesn't say where stuff came from. We don't know where it came from, but it's not very likely to be "nothing", as that doesn't make much sense.

You're right, it makes no sense at all, yet this is what scientists claim happened.

I don't know why I'm trying again to help you understand this; I guess I'm hoping that some day it'll sink in. Sometimes you do seem to want to discuss things honestly, so I'm hoping this is one of those times and you finally give up on some of your silly mischaracterizations of science.

What you're doing is trying to assert yourself as some sort of authority on the matter over me, when it's clear you don't know what you're talking about. Science is indeed saying that something came from nothing.

I think if you took any significant time to try to understand science, your opinion on it would change significantly.

And please, please don't tell me you have. It's clear in every post you make that you haven't - not even at a pop-sci level - and lying about it is degrading to all of us.

I think it's clear that I know more about the subject than you do, especially the underlying philosophical implications science is predicated on, of which you seem to have no awareness of.

>> ^jmzero:
@shinyblurry
I would say that you shouldn't forget about the religion of scientism which teaches that nothing exploded
No. The "Big Bang Theory" does not say that "nothing exploded". And I've explained this to you before. And if you had read all the books you claim to have read (which you're either lying about, you're piss-poor at reading comprehension, or you just don't want to let go of your straw-man) you'd have read this explanation many times before. But it has somehow not sunk in, so I'll try again.
The "Big Bang Theory" does not say how that lump of hot dense matter came to be there. The Big Bang is not a "from nothing" beginning, it's a threshold beyond which we can't currently see or extrapolate. There are other theories that attempt to look further, but none of them is an "established winner" - and to a certain extent even "Big Bang" isn't an established winner, it's just as good a way as we've found to explain things like microwave background radiation and the general distribution of stuff we can see in the universe. From Wikipedia:
Thus, the Big Bang theory cannot and does not provide any explanation for such an initial condition; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the universe going forward from that point on.
It explains stuff starting at a certain point. It doesn't say where stuff came from. We don't know where it came from, but it's not very likely to be "nothing", as that doesn't make much sense.
I don't know why I'm trying again to help you understand this; I guess I'm hoping that some day it'll sink in. Sometimes you do seem to want to discuss things honestly, so I'm hoping this is one of those times and you finally give up on some of your silly mischaracterizations of science.
I think if you took any significant time to try to understand science, your opinion on it would change significantly. And please, please don't tell me you have. It's clear in every post you make that you haven't - not even at a pop-sci level - and lying about it is degrading to all of us.

@shinyblurry
Thank you sooo much for taking over the whole thread--again.

This behavior is the reason I think you should be banned.
Anyone dares to post anything you disagree with will have their thread hijacked.

Take it to the profile pages for those who want to argue with a zealot.

I haven't seen any good evidence for Christianity. I haven't seen any good evidence for the existence of God. The best evidence is just filling in the gaps in science. What happened before the Big Bang? I don't know. "God did it" isn't evidence, it isn't rational or logical. "God did it" used to be the explanation for the shape of the Earth and the movement of the stars, when that was questioned, the questioner was threatened with death. However, by continuing to question, we now know a lot about the solar system, enough to put satellites into orbit and photograph distance planets.

Scientific theories are indeed interpretation of facts and in many cases, it involves jumps because we can't explain everything. This is what the word "theory" means in this context, rather than the meaning the Fox News's of the world use when they pretend it means that science is guessing. That's why there is always doubt, always questions to be asked and answers to be listened to. The important thing is that it is interpretation and extrapolating data, i.e. it is based on what we can prove.

However, some answers have been listened to and fallen short. For example, Intelligent Design. This has been discussed and no rational, logical or empirical evidence have been put forward. This is why it has been rejected, by me and by the scientific community: not because we don't want to hear but because it's been talked to death, causes distracting controversy and frankly, it's clearly bullshit. I wouldn't want my child taught it in school because if you teach one unsubstantiated load of nonsense, where does it end? I want rational and logical things taught to my children. If I want my children to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I will teach them myself and when I struggle to explain the dinosaurs and radiocarbon dating that they learnt about in school, I should take a long hard look at myself.

I do rely on empirical evidence, we all do. You are relying on what you see too, what you see written on the pages of the Bible. Short of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" philosophy, everything we think exists is empirical. If we can't believe what we see or what we consider to be self evident, how can you believe what you think you are reading from what you think is a Bible?

Is believing my own eyes and my own mind what you want to call my religion? That seems to be to be very different to religion as I know the word.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

@shinyblurry
Thank you sooo much for taking over the whole thread--again.
This behavior is the reason I think you should be banned.
Anyone dares to post anything you disagree with will have their thread hijacked.
Take it to the profile pages for those who want to argue with a zealot.
<div id="widget_1289329668"><script src="http://videosift.com/widget.js?video=205715&width=500&comments=15&minimized=1" type="text/javascript"></script></div>


He engaging with me and is discussing my input to the thread as much as I am discussing his. He is no more taking over the thread than I am. Perhaps this isn't the place for this discussion, but his intelligent, considered debating isn't him being a zealot any more than I am. That you accuse him and not me suggests that you are being a zealot and you aren't accepting people posting things you disagree with.

... and it's 2am and I'm arguing religion on the internet. I do need to take a good hard look at myself!

>> ^Quboid:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
@shinyblurry
Thank you sooo much for taking over the whole thread--again.
This behavior is the reason I think you should be banned.
Anyone dares to post anything you disagree with will have their thread hijacked.
Take it to the profile pages for those who want to argue with a zealot.
<div id="widget_1289329668"><script src="http://videosift.com/widget.js?video=205715&width=500&comments=15&minimized=1" type="text/javascript"></script></div>

He engaging with me and is discussing my input to the thread as much as I am discussing his. He is no more taking over the thread than I am. Perhaps this isn't the place for this discussion, but his intelligent, considered debating isn't him being a zealot any more than I am. That you accuse him and not me suggests that you are being a zealot and you aren't accepting people posting things you disagree with.


Countless times shinny has done this--I'm calling him on it.

I've never seen you before.

@shinyblurry

You never explained anything but rather offered your amatuer opinion. Here is the opinion of an expert:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-09-03-hawking02_ST_N.htm


Congrats, you can use Google - but no, that isn't much of a link (I'm very surprised you couldn't find something better than that, really). Hell, the story doesn't even support the headline. But even if Stephen Hawking swears on his life that the Universe came from nothing, it wouldn't mean us "followers of Scientism" would believe that. Science doesn't work like that.

Again, there is no scientific consensus on seeing past the big bang. There just isn't. Stephen Hawking might have an idea - actually he has had a few contradictory different opinions on things over the years and he's honestly not universally respected at this point - but he's not "science" and US Today is not a great place to learn about science.

And did I explain it before? Yes, I did. I just checked. So did a couple other VS posters. And you commented on the Tyson Big Bang video. Did you watch it before writing your stupid comment (oh, and it was stupid)? In there, he explicitly says that the Big Bang theory doesn't explain what happened before a certain threshold. As Tyson says around 31 minutes, we need a new theory to get us before that.

That's the current scientific consensus. His talk is simple and easy to understand, and you pretended to watch it. Do you think he's lying about the current state of knowledge? Do you think he's wrong? Or do you think some new secret scientific consensus has maybe emerged since that video? Hint: it hasn't.

To be clear, I'm not making the opposite assumption. If Hawking said the Universe came from nothing, for all I know he's right. Maybe one day that will become part of established theory. Right now it isn't - in any way, shape or form - and it's not part of the general Big Bang theory; it's just the speculation, possibly not even terribly serious speculation, of a famous physicist.

To learn about what is the Big Bang theory, try the Wikipedia article - which, as I quoted before, does represent more or less the current consensus. (Hint: when you want to learn about scientific theory at a "popular" level, try Wikipedia before USA Today). As it says, science doesn't have a consensus on seeing past the Big Bang. You can see some other speculative theories at the end of that article.

Science doesn't have the full picture. People will try to figure out more, but until then Science is OK with not knowing everything.

But now I'm curious, about your full picture. How old is the Earth? How long ago were Adam and Eve (assuming you believe in a literal Adam and Eve)? Was there a worldwide flood? Why does it really, really look like there wasn't? Were there dinosaurs? When did they live and die? Was there pre-human human like beings (Cromagnons and what not)? If not, what are all those skeletons, artifacts and history? Why is it the further we dig the less complex the fossils are? Did all humans once speak the same language? Was there a tower of Babel where the languages split? Is the universe expanding?

Overall, is science right about pretty much everything, other than the few places it contradicts your scripture? Isn't that an odd coincidence? Or do you think science is wrong about a bunch of other stuff too?

The best evidence is just filling in the gaps in science.

I'll have to disagree with you here. To say the evidence for a creator is just filling in the gaps isn't true when it is a better explanation for the evidence. Take DNA, for instance. DNA is a complex coded language which contains grammar, syntax, phoenetics, etc There is no naturalistic explanation that can account for it; DNA is information, and information only comes from minds. The medium doesn't matter. Just as a message transcends the paper and ink it is written in, and just as you can write that message in the sand and has no loss of data, DNA is transcendent of its medium. A designer is a better explanation for the existence of DNA. Check out this article:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3040594/The-Linguistics-of-DNA-Words-Sentences-Grammar-Phonetics-and-Semantics

What happened before the Big Bang? I don't know. "God did it" isn't evidence, it isn't rational or logical. "God did it" used to be the explanation for the shape of the Earth and the movement of the stars, when that was questioned, the questioner was threatened with death. However, by continuing to question, we now know a lot about the solar system, enough to put satellites into orbit and photograph distance planets.

That is just a fallacy, though. Just because people used "God did it" as an explanation for things we know understand in more detail is not evidence against the existence of God. It is just evidence for the ignorance of people. Christians aren't against science. I am against things which aren't science, like things which have never been observed and are untestable, like macro evolution.

Scientific theories are indeed interpretation of facts and in many cases, it involves jumps because we can't explain everything. This is what the word "theory" means in this context, rather than the meaning the Fox News's of the world use when they pretend it means that science is guessing. That's why there is always doubt, always questions to be asked and answers to be listened to. The important thing is that it is interpretation and extrapolating data, i.e. it is based on what we can prove.

Science does a lot of guessing. This is why theories have changed so many times in the last few centuries. Not too long ago, science was certain the Universe was static and eternal. It was one of the evidences that atheists would use against Creationists. Now, we know the Universe had a definitive beginning. The scientist who discovered said that there is no other theory which lends itself so well to the creation account in Genesis.

My main point is that science has nothing to say about the existence of God. It is not anything it can prove or disprove. God is a spirit, and a spirit is an immaterial being. There is no empirical evidence for something immaterial.

However, some answers have been listened to and fallen short. For example, Intelligent Design. This has been discussed and no rational, logical or empirical evidence have been put forward. This is why it has been rejected, by me and by the scientific community: not because we don't want to hear but because it's been talked to death, causes distracting controversy and frankly, it's clearly bullshit. I wouldn't want my child taught it in school because if you teach one unsubstantiated load of nonsense, where does it end? I want rational and logical things taught to my children. If I want my children to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I will teach them myself and when I struggle to explain the dinosaurs and radiocarbon dating that they learnt about in school, I should take a long hard look at myself.

Again, intelligent design is a better explanation than natural selection by random mutation for a number of things. When darwinian theory was created, the cell was thought to be a simple ball of protoplasm. We now know the cell is more complex than the space shuttle, by an order of magnitude. There is no naturalistic process which can account for the existence of this complex and intricate nano-machinery. Just because you consider it "bullshit" doesn't make it so. The Universe has the appearance of design. There are 30 or so factors in physics which have to be precisely calibrated for the Universe to even form correct, let alone for life to develop. The odds of this happeneing by chance are beyond calculation. Instead of admitting that and changing the theory, scientists then postulate multiple Universes to make the design features in this one seem plausible as happenstance.

Here is a nice video on the complexity of the cell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSasTS-n_gM&feature=related

If you want to talk about radiocarbon dating, this again is something which is an interpretation of evidence based on a number of unprovable assumptions. It presumes that radioactive decay rates have remained constant in the past and that there was no contamination over periods of millions or billions of years. Check out this article:

http://biblicalgeology.net/blog/fatal-flaw-radioactive-dating/

I do rely on empirical evidence, we all do. You are relying on what you see too, what you see written on the pages of the Bible. Short of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" philosophy, everything we think exists is empirical. If we can't believe what we see or what we consider to be self evident, how can you believe what you think you are reading from what you think is a Bible?

I am relying on my own experience, and in my experience I have observed that the material reality is a veil, and behind that veil is a spiritual reality which encompasses it. I have seen the evidence of a higher power working in the world, who relates to us on a personal level. I believe the bible because my experience confirms it, not because I just assume it is true.

Is believing my own eyes and my own mind what you want to call my religion? That seems to be to be very different to religion as I know the word.

When you have faith in metaphysical claims, and that faith informs your entire worldview, that is indeed like a religion. What you are seeing is through the lens of that worldview..

>> ^Quboid:
I haven't seen any good evidence for Christianity. I haven't seen any good evidence for the existence of God. The best evidence is just filling in the gaps in science. What happened before the Big Bang? I don't know. "God did it" isn't evidence, it isn't rational or logical. "God did it" used to be the explanation for the shape of the Earth and the movement of the stars, when that was questioned, the questioner was threatened with death. However, by continuing to question, we now know a lot about the solar system, enough to put satellites into orbit and photograph distance planets.
Scientific theories are indeed interpretation of facts and in many cases, it involves jumps because we can't explain everything. This is what the word "theory" means in this context, rather than the meaning the Fox News's of the world use when they pretend it means that science is guessing. That's why there is always doubt, always questions to be asked and answers to be listened to. The important thing is that it is interpretation and extrapolating data, i.e. it is based on what we can prove.
However, some answers have been listened to and fallen short. For example, Intelligent Design. This has been discussed and no rational, logical or empirical evidence have been put forward. This is why it has been rejected, by me and by the scientific community: not because we don't want to hear but because it's been talked to death, causes distracting controversy and frankly, it's clearly bullshit. I wouldn't want my child taught it in school because if you teach one unsubstantiated load of nonsense, where does it end? I want rational and logical things taught to my children. If I want my children to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I will teach them myself and when I struggle to explain the dinosaurs and radiocarbon dating that they learnt about in school, I should take a long hard look at myself.
I do rely on empirical evidence, we all do. You are relying on what you see too, what you see written on the pages of the Bible. Short of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" philosophy, everything we think exists is empirical. If we can't believe what we see or what we consider to be self evident, how can you believe what you think you are reading from what you think is a Bible?
Is believing my own eyes and my own mind what you want to call my religion? That seems to be to be very different to religion as I know the word.

Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot say? I know you're used to having everyone agree with you, but on this site I am allowed to have a different opinion than yours and also express that opinion. Don't post videos mocking religion if you don't want this kind of discourse.

>> ^Boise_Lib:
@shinyblurry
Thank you sooo much for taking over the whole thread--again.
This behavior is the reason I think you should be banned.
Anyone dares to post anything you disagree with will have their thread hijacked.
Take it to the profile pages for those who want to argue with a zealot.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

@shinyblurry
Thank you sooo much for taking over the whole thread--again.
This behavior is the reason I think you should be banned.
Anyone dares to post anything you disagree with will have their thread hijacked.
Take it to the profile pages for those who want to argue with a zealot.
<div id="widget_865170862"><script src="http://videosift.com/widget.js?video=205715&width=500&comments=15&minimized=1" type="text/javascript"></script></div>


It takes more than one person to have a proper conversation.

as well this is not your baby, you post a video and its let loose into the wild and anyone can say whatever as long as it is not "breaking the rules"

I like turtles

I had a plain old cheese sandwich for dinner.

You ignore me extremely well, do it to him as well.

oh and

" chill out "

Again, there is no scientific consensus on seeing past the big bang. There just isn't. Stephen Hawking might have an idea - actually he has had a few contradictory different opinions on things over the years and he's honestly not universally respected at this point - but he's not "science" and US Today is not a great place to learn about science.

How quickly your commentary changes. I guess that's scientific, right? Before it was "NO ONE IS SAYING SOMETHING CAME FROM NOTHING STUPID!" Now it's that there is no concensus.

To be clear, I'm not making the opposite assumption. If Hawking said the Universe came from nothing, for all I know he's right. Maybe one day that will become part of established theory. Right now it isn't - in any way, shape or form - and it's not part of the general Big Bang theory; it's just the speculation, possibly not even terribly serious speculation, of a famous physicist.

Ahh, more science here..before you said, that something comes from nothing makes no sense. Now it's, a scientist said it so I can believe its true. Hah!

Science doesn't have the full picture. People will try to figure out more, but until then Science is OK with not knowing everything.

Science doesn't know anything about origins, whether it is the origin of the Universe, or life itself. It doesn't have a clue, and it is plainly obvious when one of the foremost scientists in the world is positing that something came from nothing and everyone is nodding sagely. The emperor has no clothes.

But now I'm curious, about your full picture. How old is the Earth? How long ago were Adam and Eve (assuming you believe in a literal Adam and Eve)? Was there a worldwide flood? Why does it really, really look like there wasn't? Were there dinosaurs? When did they live and die? Was there pre-human human like beings (Cromagnons and what not)? If not, what are all those skeletons, artifacts and history? Why is it the further we dig the less complex the fossils are? Did all humans once speak the same language? Was there a tower of Babel where the languages split? Is the universe expanding?

I don't want to lose the thread here. If you want to discuss all of these things, message me.

Overall, is science right about pretty much everything, other than the few places it contradicts your scripture? Isn't that an odd coincidence? Or do you think science is wrong about a bunch of other stuff too?

Science gets a lot right but overall it is blind. I appreciate science, and I have nothing against it. I am just against things which aren't science, such as macro evolution.

>> ^jmzero:
@shinyblurry
You never explained anything but rather offered your amatuer opinion. Here is the opinion of an expert:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-09-03-hawking02_ST_N.htm
Congrats, you can use Google - but no, that isn't much of a link (I'm very surprised you couldn't find something better than that, really). Hell, the story doesn't even support the headline. But even if Stephen Hawking swears on his life that the Universe came from nothing, it wouldn't mean us "followers of Scientism" would believe that. Science doesn't work like that.
Again, there is no scientific consensus on seeing past the big bang. There just isn't. Stephen Hawking might have an idea - actually he has had a few contradictory different opinions on things over the years and he's honestly not universally respected at this point - but he's not "science" and US Today is not a great place to learn about science.
And did I explain it before? Yes, I did. I just checked. So did a couple other VS posters. And you commented on the Tyson Big Bang video. Did you watch it before writing your stupid comment (oh, and it was stupid)? In there, he explicitly says that the Big Bang theory doesn't explain what happened before a certain threshold. As Tyson says around 31 minutes, we need a new theory to get us before that.
That's the current scientific consensus. His talk is simple and easy to understand, and you pretended to watch it. Do you think he's lying about the current state of knowledge? Do you think he's wrong? Or do you think some new secret scientific consensus has maybe emerged since that video? Hint: it hasn't.
To be clear, I'm not making the opposite assumption. If Hawking said the Universe came from nothing, for all I know he's right. Maybe one day that will become part of established theory. Right now it isn't - in any way, shape or form - and it's not part of the general Big Bang theory; it's just the speculation, possibly not even terribly serious speculation, of a famous physicist.
To learn about what is the Big Bang theory, try the Wikipedia article - which, as I quoted before, does represent more or less the current consensus. (Hint: when you want to learn about scientific theory at a "popular" level, try Wikipedia before USA Today). As it says, science doesn't have a consensus on seeing past the Big Bang. You can see some other speculative theories at the end of that article.
Science doesn't have the full picture. People will try to figure out more, but until then Science is OK with not knowing everything.
But now I'm curious, about your full picture. How old is the Earth? How long ago were Adam and Eve (assuming you believe in a literal Adam and Eve)? Was there a worldwide flood? Why does it really, really look like there wasn't? Were there dinosaurs? When did they live and die? Was there pre-human human like beings (Cromagnons and what not)? If not, what are all those skeletons, artifacts and history? Why is it the further we dig the less complex the fossils are? Did all humans once speak the same language? Was there a tower of Babel where the languages split? Is the universe expanding?
Overall, is science right about pretty much everything, other than the few places it contradicts your scripture? Isn't that an odd coincidence? Or do you think science is wrong about a bunch of other stuff too?

>> ^shinyblurry:

Take DNA, for instance. DNA is a complex coded language which contains grammar, syntax, phoenetics, etc There is no naturalistic explanation that can account for it; DNA is information, and information only comes from minds.


You claim that mutation/selection can't account for information, please run this http://boxcar2d.com/ for a few hours and explain where the resulting vehicles design comes from.

This shows, to anybody willing to watch, that the process popularized by Darwin addresses both your concerns. This is well established, has not been seriously challenged.

Please refrain from trying to make Scientific claims unless you spend the time to become scientifically literate.

You're just illustrating my point. That program was designed and coded by a mind. It is the coded digital information which makes it possible. It is the same story for DNA, and there isn't any naturalistic explanation for where the digital information came from; rather we know that information comes from minds, just if we see a message written in the sand we know a mind was behind it.




>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Take DNA, for instance. DNA is a complex coded language which contains grammar, syntax, phoenetics, etc There is no naturalistic explanation that can account for it; DNA is information, and information only comes from minds.

You claim that mutation/selection can't account for information, please run this http://boxcar2d.com/ for a few hours and explain where the resulting vehicles design comes from.
This shows, to anybody willing to watch, that the process popularized by Darwin addresses both your concerns. This is well established, has not been seriously challenged.
Please refrain from trying to make Scientific claims unless you spend the time to become scientifically literate.

@shinyblurry

Before it was "NO ONE IS SAYING SOMETHING CAME FROM NOTHING STUPID!"


No, that's a lie. What I said was:

No. The "Big Bang Theory" does not say that "nothing exploded".


And then here:

.before you said, that something comes from nothing makes no sense.


No, that's a lie. What I said was:

We don't know where it came from, but it's not very likely to be "nothing", as that doesn't make much sense.


I said it doesn't make much sense. I still don't think it makes much sense and I still think it's unlikely to be true. But it could be true. I could be wrong.

Maybe you think I'm being a jerk or something, but mischaracterizing my opinions, as you've clearly, clearly done is dishonest. The most charitable thing I can say is maybe you thought I meant something else. I didn't. I meant what I said.

one of the foremost scientists in the world is positing that something came from nothing and everyone is nodding sagely.


He's not a shaper of modern scientific though, despite being famous and having made some important contributions earlier in his career. The reaction to this speech that I see (and to much of what he has said in recent years) is far from "sage nodding". Rather, it was more like "Is he being serious?" - well, except from the press which reacted with predictable mania.

Look, if what you'd said was "some scientists think the Universe came from nothing, and I think that's silly", I would have just agreed with you (as I've done quite a few times in different threads, sometimes when your opinion isn't popular). But you have a continued habit of pointing out speculative science you don't like and arguing against it as though it was established dogma (you've done this here in the past with things like string theory). It really looked like that's what you were doing here.

If what you meant was "some scientists believe x", you have an odd way of saying it:

I would say that you shouldn't forget about the religion of scientism which teaches that nothing exploded


Between that, and your previous, repeated derision at the Big Bang theory, I suppose you can excuse me for thinking that's what you thought the scientific consensus was. And if you did understand that this wasn't the scientific consensus, how can you really justify your phrasing above?

Let's just say we both mischaracterized eachother, I'm sorry, and move on.

What I want to say is that I really admire Stephan Hawking for this theory. I applaud his intellectual honesty. He knows that infinite universe theories, string theory, brane theories, and the like are just so much fluff, that prop up big bang cosomology. That they are just acting as place holders to keep the theory from falling under the shadow of its Ultimate Cause. He knows that time, space and matter had a beginning at the big bang and doubtless he sees the obvious implications of this. But it can't be God, so he takes the denial of a Creation to its natural conclusion. He proposes as the Ultimate Solution to the problem of the Ultimate Cause, the God of atheism, the anti-God: nothing at all. This is the Ultimate Solution for science, to get something from nothing. You see, scientists don't like the big bang theory. It disturbs them. They were much happier when they all believed the Universe had always existed. They don't want to have to deal with this, because a Universe with a beginning inescapably leads to an eternal, transcendent first cause. All Stephan Hawking has done is remain true to their logic and to their denial. He is intellectually honest enough to admit that the big bang strongly implicates God, so since God can't exist, the Universe must have been created by nothing.


Stephan Hawking was asked in an interview that if he could have any one of his questions answered, what would it be? He answered "Why is there something rather than nothing." The sad irony of this question is painful to contemplate. The mental gymnastics he has gone through to deny the obvious fact of Creation just boggles the mind.


>> ^jmzero:
@shinyblurry
Before it was "NO ONE IS SAYING SOMETHING CAME FROM NOTHING STUPID!"
No, that's a lie. What I said was:
No. The "Big Bang Theory" does not say that "nothing exploded".
And then here:
.before you said, that something comes from nothing makes no sense.
No, that's a lie. What I said was:
We don't know where it came from, but it's not very likely to be "nothing", as that doesn't make much sense.
I said it doesn't make much sense. I still don't think it makes much sense and I still think it's unlikely to be true. But it could be true. I could be wrong.
Maybe you think I'm being a jerk or something, but mischaracterizing my opinions, as you've clearly, clearly done is dishonest. The most charitable thing I can say is maybe you thought I meant something else. I didn't. I meant what I said.
one of the foremost scientists in the world is positing that something came from nothing and everyone is nodding sagely.
He's not a shaper of modern scientific though, despite being famous and having made some important contributions earlier in his career. The reaction to this speech that I see (and to much of what he has said in recent years) is far from "sage nodding". Rather, it was more like "Is he being serious?" - well, except from the press which reacted with predictable mania.
Look, if what you'd said was "some scientists think the Universe came from nothing, and I think that's silly", I would have just agreed with you (as I've done quite a few times in different threads, sometimes when your opinion isn't popular). But you have a continued habit of pointing out speculative science you don't like and arguing against it as though it was established dogma (you've done this here in the past with things like string theory). It really looked like that's what you were doing here.
If what you meant was "some scientists believe x", you have an odd way of saying it:
I would say that you shouldn't forget about the religion of scientism which teaches that nothing exploded
Between that, and your previous, repeated derision at the Big Bang theory, I suppose you can excuse me for thinking that's what you thought the scientific consensus was. And if you did understand that this wasn't the scientific consensus, how can you really justify your phrasing above?

>> ^bareboards2:

I don't like this. Me, who always loves Maher.
Look, all religion is a matter of setting aside the rational mind and embracing belief in something outside yourself.
Romney was brought up in the Mormon Church, he didn't choose it. To ask him to set it aside as irrational is to ask him to set aside his family, his community, the very fabric of his life.
The Mormon church is one of the fastest growing religions on the planet, despite all the weirdness. I don't know how anyone could embrace the weirdness, but I do know why someone might embrace their culture -- it is structure, it is support, it is community, it is rules for living in an increasingly fractured society.
Don't pick on Romney for being Mormon. Not if you give every other non-atheist a pass on their particular brand of crazy.


Maybe it is too much to ask from Romney to see through his ultra-silly superstitions. Fine. There are lawns to be mowed and toilets to be unclogged everywhere. Put him to work. Just dont make him president of the most powerful nation on earth.

Call me an elitist intellectual atheistic asshole if you will, but the truth is that I think a presidential candidate ought to have the intellectual capacity to shed childish, inane superstition that is religion, and the intellectual honesty to admit it, despite the fact that this might enstrange them from family or friends, and voters..

Am I asking for a little more from the presidential candidate than I do for other people? Hell yeah.

>> ^shinyblurry:

You're just illustrating my point. That program was designed and coded by a mind. It is the coded digital information which makes it possible.


So you are claiming that the designs are placed in the simulation by the programmer, that they are deceiving you when they claim that the car is designed by genetic selection?

There is information in the simulation, the information is in the physics and the randomly generated track, just as in our universe the physical constraints create conditions that privilege certain patterns in both chemistry and behavior. Since the only non-random input to the system is physics based on our own, are you claiming that physics is a "mind" ?

>> ^shinyblurry:

It is the same story for DNA, and there isn't any naturalistic explanation for where the digital information came from; rather we know that information comes from minds, just if we see a message written in the sand we know a mind was behind it.


Here you conflate the data with the structure, you miss the basic fact that there are many, not terribly complex, chemicals that self replicate. You seem to be unaware that RNA ( referenced in your little puff piece apologetics video) is both self sorting and self replicating, requiring effectively no external mechanism to enable the creation of a system which synthesis information in the same manner as the simulation I linked.

Again you refuse to have a serious conversation, as you will not even address my points, you claim things without evidence, and then "support" them with hyperbole. If you are not claiming that physics is a mind, then you have not even bothered to comprehend the most basic explanation of that you claim to be arguing against, you are instead arguing against your own fever dream strawman, and not addressing any of us at all.

If you intend to navel gaze, please use your navel, the internet consist mostly of real people, Poe's law suggests you may even be one of them, so please at least attempt to seriously interact with us.

Let's just say we both mischaracterized eachother, I'm sorry, and move on.


Cool. For my part, I was a douche (as per usual, honestly). I appreciate your comment here. Thank you.

He answered "Why is there something rather than nothing."


I hadn't heard this story before; I very much agree with Hawking on that being a super great question.

I haven't conflated anything. You've simply misconstrued everything I've said because of your belief that RNA is simple, or could spontaneously evolve. You think your simulation demonstrates the creation of information which could lead to a system that creates cellular life. This is false; such a system could never generate RNA of cellular life. Even if it could generate RNA, to evolve the correct sequences of RNA nucleotides to form even one protein would be impossible to achieve even over billions of years, let alone enough proteins to create a cell. There is no experiment which has demonstrated that RNA can spontaneously evolve and be capable of creating life, now or ever. There is also no experiment which shows life evolving from non-living matter.

The information is what designed and built the simulation, and its structure generates different arrangements of that information based on certain preprogrammed variables which do not change. You are not making anything truly new, rather you are just shuffling things around. Such a simulation could never evolve on its own outside of programming. Just as DNA could never evolve on its own. The digital information it contains transcends its medium, just as a story transcends the paper and ink it is written on. Information only comes from minds, and that is what DNA code points to.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
You're just illustrating my point. That program was designed and coded by a mind. It is the coded digital information which makes it possible.

So you are claiming that the designs are placed in the simulation by the programmer, that they are deceiving you when they claim that the car is designed by genetic selection?
There is information in the simulation, the information is in the physics and the randomly generated track, just as in our universe the physical constraints create conditions that privilege certain patterns in both chemistry and behavior. Since the only non-random input to the system is physics based on our own, are you claiming that physics is a "mind" ?
>> ^shinyblurry:
It is the same story for DNA, and there isn't any naturalistic explanation for where the digital information came from; rather we know that information comes from minds, just if we see a message written in the sand we know a mind was behind it.

Here you conflate the data with the structure, you miss the basic fact that there are many, not terribly complex, chemicals that self replicate. You seem to be unaware that RNA ( referenced in your little puff piece apologetics video) is both self sorting and self replicating, requiring effectively no external mechanism to enable the creation of a system which synthesis information in the same manner as the simulation I linked.
Again you refuse to have a serious conversation, as you will not even address my points, you claim things without evidence, and then "support" them with hyperbole. If you are not claiming that physics is a mind, then you have not even bothered to comprehend the most basic explanation of that you claim to be arguing against, you are instead arguing against your own fever dream strawman, and not addressing any of us at all.
If you intend to navel gaze, please use your navel, the internet consist mostly of real people, Poe's law suggests you may even be one of them, so please at least attempt to seriously interact with us.

No problemo. The discourse on the internet lends itself to doucheeness.

It was a question that used to blow my mind, until I understood that there could be something eternal. That there never was nothing to begin with, which is in many ways even more difficult to grasp, but for some reason makes plausible sense.

>> ^jmzero:
Let's just say we both mischaracterized eachother, I'm sorry, and move on.
Cool. For my part, I was a douche (as per usual, honestly). I appreciate your comment here. Thank you.
He answered "Why is there something rather than nothing."
I hadn't heard this story before; I very much agree with Hawking on that being a super great question.

I thought the more interesting thing about mormons is how much they've been persecuted since their beginnings, yet still manage to be the fastest growing religion. Once people get an idea in their heads, there's no shifting it.

I'm kinda tired of the endless roundabout philosophical debate on whose got their interpretation of reality in the right order.

As far as I'm concerned, religion is an interesting study in history and psychology, and that's about it. If you can point to any real wisdom or facts that gods or prophets haven't just swiped from philosophers and scientists, let me know.

(Doubting anybody will make it this far down.)

@Phreezdryd, I read your comment (and agree wholeheartedly!). You underestimated my ability to skip over certain loooooooooong back and forths.

>> ^bareboards2:

@Phreezdryd, I read your comment (and agree wholeheartedly!). You underestimated my ability to skip over certain loooooooooong back and forths.

I tried to read a lot of the above.

Mormonism starts with a known con artist. Scientology starts with an apparently well medicated science fiction author, and possibly on a bet. Christianity didn't exactly begin in the friendliest of climates, and we may never know who actually started it, besides what the text claims. The list goes on of course across the planet.

Not to mention all the "cults" that have ended badly, or still skirt the edges of society today. Even the people who just believe in their personal psychic or tarot cards, astrology, etc.

The mind boggles at this effort throughout history to answer things possibly unknowable. And that's evidence enough for me to think none of them have a clue.

>> ^shinyblurry:

I haven't conflated anything. You've simply misconstrued everything I've said because of your belief that RNA is simple, or could spontaneously evolve.


Really? You thought that putting those two words together like that would convince me that you are taking anybody else seriously?

>> ^shinyblurry:

You think your simulation demonstrates the creation of information which could lead to a system that creates cellular life.


No, Please re-read your claim, and my response. You claimed that Information comes Only from minds, I provide counter evidence, you assert that I was claiming something else. I claim that you are not listening, you provide evidence.

>> ^shinyblurry:

such a system could never generate RNA of cellular life.


We have such a system, it's called the universe, and in it we find RNA. The universe does generate RNA, you and I are not in dispute on this point, only on the mechanism of that generation.

>> ^shinyblurry:
Even if it could generate RNA, to evolve the correct sequences of RNA nucleotides to form even one protein would be impossible to achieve even over billions of years, let alone enough proteins to create a cell. Even if it could generate RNA, to evolve the correct sequences of RNA nucleotides to form even one protein would be impossible to achieve even over billions of years, let alone enough proteins to create a cell.


That claim makes no sense.

To assert that something takes a particular amount of time requires a context of how wide spread the attempt is.

As an example I can not build a rocket to put people on the moon, this is impossible, I will not live long enough... None the less a large number of people, working in concert, with worse technology that we have access to did accomplish this task, it's possibility is a matter of scale.

In order to make an anthropic argument, I only need life to have happened once in all the space and time of the entire universe. Now I realize that you are just talking out your ass, that you have no numbers to back up your claims of probability, that your are simply making an argument from incredulity, but if you decide to try and cover your ass with some numbers realize we have about 100B years and 10⁸⁰ atoms to work with.

>> ^shinyblurry:

There is no experiment which has demonstrated that RNA can spontaneously evolve and be capable of creating life, now or ever. There is also no experiment which shows life evolving from non-living matter.


There again with the nonsense phrase, trying to really hit it home that you really have no clue what you are arguing against?

RNA is a molecule, it's not magic, it does nothing but what chemistry would expect of it, and still, it generates information through mutation/selection. This is, again, evidence against your absurd initial position which your argument from incredulity can not address. Even if you question the source of the molecule, the mechanism is the same, RNA is not a god antenna, it's a molecule, that synthesizes information through a simple, well understood, physical process.

>> ^shinyblurry:

The information is what designed and built the simulation, and its structure generates different arrangements of that information based on certain preprogrammed variables which do not change. You are not making anything truly new, rather you are just shuffling things around.


And neither has anybody, and you never have, and I never will. We are all bounded by our universe, we can not create or destroy, only move and arrange. There is, as far as we can tell, never anything new, and to say that that is true of the simulation provides no information about how it may be different from the physical universe in which we live, it is only one more way in which it is similar.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Such a simulation could never evolve on its own outside of programming.


Do you not get the concept of simulation? Nobody has claimed that the simulation is "real" only that it mimics, in a predictive way, certain aspects of the physical universe. Specifically it illustrates the compounding result of mutation/combination/selection, which is to synthesize information about the environment in a manner coded to best deal with that environment, a process, which you assert can not happen.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Just as DNA could never evolve on its own. The digital information it contains transcends its medium, just as a story transcends the paper and ink it is written on. Information only comes from minds, and that is what DNA code points to.


Your comparison is poor, paper and ink don't create words, DNA does. Understanding the information may require a "mind", whatever that means, but the information effecting and shaped by the physical world only requires mutation/selection, and we had that on this planet for billions of years before anybody realized there was any information in the system at all.

Let's start over because you're just going all over the place

This is the point: Your entire example is irrelevent. Yeah, you can generate all sorts of stuff when a system is already in place, when you have a preprogrammed design that itself generates designs. If you already have wheels and a chassis, you can build a boxcar pretty easily. Boxcars are inevitable at this point. All these things are possible because the information is already present. You can invent new words because you already have a language. Likewise, if you already have DNA, you can certainly expect a cell to form. What you're still dealing with is the chicken and the egg problem. You have to have proteins to create DNA and you have to have DNA to create proteins. Science has attempted to solve this problem by saying that RNA molecules evolved from the soup, yet there is no logical pathway for this to happen, because natural selection and mutation cannot account for it. The problems are far too vast to overcome, and experiment has yieled no conclusive results. So, my point stands, that intelligent design is a better explanation for the complex coded information in DNA, which naturalistic processes cannot account for.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I haven't conflated anything. You've simply misconstrued everything I've said because of your belief that RNA is simple, or could spontaneously evolve.

Really? You thought that putting those two words together like that would convince me that you are taking anybody else seriously?
>> ^shinyblurry:
You think your simulation demonstrates the creation of information which could lead to a system that creates cellular life.

No, Please re-read your claim, and my response. You claimed that Information comes Only from minds, I provide counter evidence, you assert that I was claiming something else. I claim that you are not listening, you provide evidence.
>> ^shinyblurry:
such a system could never generate RNA of cellular life.

We have such a system, it's called the universe, and in it we find RNA. The universe does generate RNA, you and I are not in dispute on this point, only on the mechanism of that generation.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Even if it could generate RNA, to evolve the correct sequences of RNA nucleotides to form even one protein would be impossible to achieve even over billions of years, let alone enough proteins to create a cell. Even if it could generate RNA, to evolve the correct sequences of RNA nucleotides to form even one protein would be impossible to achieve even over billions of years, let alone enough proteins to create a cell.

That claim makes no sense.
To assert that something takes a particular amount of time requires a context of how wide spread the attempt is.
As an example I can not build a rocket to put people on the moon, this is impossible, I will not live long enough... None the less a large number of people, working in concert, with worse technology that we have access to did accomplish this task, it's possibility is a matter of scale.
In order to make an anthropic argument, I only need life to have happened once in all the space and time of the entire universe. Now I realize that you are just talking out your ass, that you have no numbers to back up your claims of probability, that your are simply making an argument from incredulity, but if you decide to try and cover your ass with some numbers realize we have about 100B years and 10⁸⁰ atoms to work with.
>> ^shinyblurry:
There is no experiment which has demonstrated that RNA can spontaneously evolve and be capable of creating life, now or ever. There is also no experiment which shows life evolving from non-living matter.

There again with the nonsense phrase, trying to really hit it home that you really have no clue what you are arguing against?
RNA is a molecule, it's not magic, it does nothing but what chemistry would expect of it, and still, it generates information through mutation/selection. This is, again, evidence against your absurd initial position which your argument from incredulity can not address. Even if you question the source of the molecule, the mechanism is the same, RNA is not a god antenna, it's a molecule, that synthesizes information through a simple, well understood, physical process.
>> ^shinyblurry:
The information is what designed and built the simulation, and its structure generates different arrangements of that information based on certain preprogrammed variables which do not change. You are not making anything truly new, rather you are just shuffling things around.

And neither has anybody, and you never have, and I never will. We are all bounded by our universe, we can not create or destroy, only move and arrange. There is, as far as we can tell, never anything new, and to say that that is true of the simulation provides no information about how it may be different from the physical universe in which we live, it is only one more way in which it is similar.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Such a simulation could never evolve on its own outside of programming.

Do you not get the concept of simulation? Nobody has claimed that the simulation is "real" only that it mimics, in a predictive way, certain aspects of the physical universe. Specifically it illustrates the compounding result of mutation/combination/selection, which is to synthesize information about the environment in a manner coded to best deal with that environment, a process, which you assert can not happen.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Just as DNA could never evolve on its own. The digital information it contains transcends its medium, just as a story transcends the paper and ink it is written on. Information only comes from minds, and that is what DNA code points to.

Your comparison is poor, paper and ink don't create words, DNA does. Understanding the information may require a "mind", whatever that means, but the information effecting and shaped by the physical world only requires mutation/selection, and we had that on this planet for billions of years before anybody realized there was any information in the system at all.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Let's start over because you're just going all over the place
This is the point: Your entire example is irrelevent. Yeah, you can generate all sorts of stuff when a system is already in place, when you have a preprogrammed design that itself generates designs. If you already have wheels and a chassis, you can build a boxcar pretty easily. Boxcars are inevitable at this point. All these things are possible because the information is already present. You can invent new words because you already have a language. Likewise, if you already have DNA, you can certainly expect a cell to form. What you're still dealing with is the chicken and the egg problem.



Hey shiny, where've you been?

The existence of god doesn't solve the "chicken/egg" problem. You say that god is eternal. That doesn't solve the problem. It only makes it more complicated, i.e.: less likely.

Hey there. I guess I've just been focused on other things, but I still love you guys.

According to Occams razor, the theory that makes the fewest amount of assumptions is the right one. IE, do not multiple causes unnecessarily. There are only 2 ways to look at this. Either something came from nothing, which is logically incoherent, or there is an eternal first cause. The eternal first cause is obviously the more simple explanation. So, this eternal first cause created the Universe, and since we know that time, space, matter and energy had a beginning at the big bang, we know that the first cause is timeless, spaceless, immaterial and transcendent, as well as being enormously powerful. Those all match God perfectly. God is the most simple explanation for origins based on the evidence. Since God is uncreated and has always existed, we don't need to explain His origins either. The buck stops with Him.

Many scientific theories about origins violate occams razor but no one seems to care about that. For instance, the fine tuning of the Universe, the precise calibrations of the 30 or so values that make it and life possible, are a mathematical impossibility to come about by pure chance. The ratio of electrons to protons must be better than one part in 10 to the 37th power, otherwise no stars or planets would have formed. That's 1 with 37 zeroes. The expansion rate of the universe must be tuned to within one part in 10 to the 55th power. If you take all of those values together, you have a well crafted Universe which defies explanation by naturalistic means. Scientists have recognized this..even dawkins admits the Universe has the "appearance" of design.

So, to counteract this fact they postulate the multiple universe hypothesis. The corralary would be, if you have one roulette wheel, you are very unlikely to guess the number that comes up. But if you have 500 roulette wheels, your number suddenly becomes very likely to come up. So, if you have multiple universes, you can now explain away design because we just happen to be in the Universe that appears as if it is designed, which is mathematically certain to happen at some point. However, this metaphysical explantion, for which there is no evidence, completely violates occams razor. You now must not only explain all of these Universes and how the laws of physics evolved in them, but also the Universe Generator that is churning them out, which would require even more fine tuning than our Universe has.

On the question of first causes, science is rambling and incoherent, delving into metaphysics which contradict reason and just plain common sense. God is a far more simple explanation than any of this, and it matches the facts of the matter perfectly.

>> ^shinyblurry:
Let's start over because you're just going all over the place


No, lets not. I provided counter evidence to one absurd baseless assertion of yours , that "information" only comes from "minds", you have not provided any basis on which to defend your original position.

Your "this is going badly, let's start over" tactic is cute, don't get me wrong, but you insist that your ideological position be taken seriously, and I intend to do so, until it lies in tattered shreds on the floor.

>> ^shinyblurry:


This is the point: Your entire example is irrelevent. Yeah, you can generate all sorts of stuff when a system is already in place, when you have a preprogrammed design that itself generates designs. If you already have wheels and a chassis, you can build a boxcar pretty easily. Boxcars are inevitable at this point.


So you acknowledge that information is trivially synthesized, by non-minds? That's the opposite of your original claim. Is that a retraction?

So now you accept that once you have atoms, gravity, time, electromagnetism, you inevitably have the possibility of self replicating molecular systems, and therefor "life"? You seem to have decided that life is a magical barrier, but this distinction is false. The distinction between "life" and "non-life" does not exist.

You acknowledge that once a mechanism for inheritance exists the rest is inevitable, I agree, you simply lack the sense of scale on which the universe operates, which makes the preceding step entirely plausible.

>> ^shinyblurry:
You have to have proteins to create DNA and you have to have DNA to create proteins.


This is simply false. RNA codes for proteins, but RNA requires no proteins for it's own replication, it is entirely plausible, arguably likely, that once you have RNA, DNA would get a chance to compete.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Science has attempted to solve this problem by saying that RNA molecules evolved from the soup, yet there is no logical pathway for this to happen, because natural selection and mutation cannot account for it.


You assume that the argument is Random -> RNA -> DNA, but it is not. There are many simpler organic self replicators that, in the absence of an RNA ecosystem, would be able to prime the pump, by converting simple molecules into those more likely to contribute to spontaneous RNA synthesis, very much in the same way that cells work by creating conditions where the high concentration of particular ingredients allows proteins to replicate DNA, which proteins would not be able to do in the wild.

>> ^shinyblurry:

The problems are far too vast to overcome, and experiment has yieled no conclusive results. So, my point stands, that intelligent design is a better explanation for the complex coded information in DNA, which naturalistic processes cannot account for.


ID is not even a postulation, much less a hypothesis, it provides no information, illuminates nothing, it is theology dressed up in the garb of science. It's only science if it reliably predicts things, ID fails at this basic task, because, like all theology, it is useless.

We love you too. (but it's a rough, heathen love)

Just because the universe might be eternal, does not mean that God is the automatic solution, nor the simplest explanation. That's just the one that makes sense to you. I would say that an eternal universe filled with rocks and gas is a little less complicated than an eternal, thinking, feeling, all-powerful being. But again, that's just my opinion. Those are large concepts, and the rules of physics, or even the seemingly bizarre rules of quantum mechanics do nothing to help explain them.

Occam's razor is simply a pragmatic way to find a solution, it does not prove anything, but just suggest what a likely answer might be. People use that argument about the complexity of universal laws all the time, but the fact of the matter is, we still don't understand 99.99999999% of the universe or how it works. We can see that if we "tweaked the dials", it would probably look much different than the universe we know, but there isn't a scientist out there in this world that could tell you with any certainty what would happen. Only that on a large scale, things might fall inward or burst outward faster, or that water might not congeal the same way.

Point being, just because we can tell that the universe would be different, doesn't mean that it was designed. It just means that it is this way.

Speaking of complexity, here's an exercise for your brain: Think about a mountain, on part of that mountain, pressure builds up, and a rock slide starts to fall. When it finally settles, the rocks, all the little pebbles and large boulders and particles of dust are arranged in just a certain way. Even though it's just a pile of rocks, it contains within it an inconceivable amount of complexity. Nowhere else in the entire universe, will there ever be a pile of rocks that have the exact specifications of this one. And even if it did, it wouldn't be composed of the same stone, And even if was, the elements that make up the stone wouldn't be arranged the same way. Nor would it be the exact same temperature, unless it was in the exact same relative position in the universe with an identical sun, with all the particles of gas and dust in between them arranged in exactly the same way.

In a way, the pile of rocks, when you think about it, is an impossibility. And yet it exists. There is no simple solution to explain it. An eternal creator, or the laws of physics? Either way, the true meaning is something that neither of us can comprehend. And to say that either one is "simpler" than the other is merely a statement of faith. Not fact.

No, lets not. I provided counter evidence to one absurd baseless assertion of yours , that "information" only comes from "minds", you have not provided any basis on which to defend your original position.

Actually, I did. I pointed out that your simulation doesn't do what you said it does, even in a trivial way. I said information only comes from minds, so you provide a simulation programmed by a mind. I stated this only illustrates my point, but you insisted the output proved information doesn't have to come from minds. I just got finished pointing out that the whole thing is analogous to randomly piecing together letters of an existing language until you get a new word by chance. You still need the language for the word to mean anything, otherwise it is just nonsense. And you don't get the word without the language in the first place. If the boxcar simulation could produce helicopters, that might be something, but you're still dealing with the chicken and the egg problem. A system created by information which outputs information by design is not doing so without the involvement of a mind. A mind was behind the entire process and none of it could have happened without a mind so it doesn't count as an example. You can't use a design to prove there is no design needed. That's like saying you can prove you don't need a factory to build a car but you buy all of your parts to build the car from the factory.

Your "this is going badly, let's start over" tactic is cute, don't get me wrong, but you insist that your ideological position be taken seriously, and I intend to do so, until it lies in tattered shreds on the floor.

What I insist is that you substantiate your claims, which you have failed to do. Your overconfidence is amusing, but misplaced; the facts are not on your side. Abiogenesis is purely metaphysics and unproven.

So you acknowledge that information is trivially synthesized, by
non-minds? That's the opposite of your original claim. Is that a
retraction?

No, see above.

So now you accept that once you have atoms, gravity, time,
electromagnetism, you inevitably have the possibility of self
replicating molecular systems, and therefor "life"?

Nope, see above.

You seem to have decided that life is a magical barrier, but this distinction is false.

There most certainly is a barrier. Again, abiogenesis is pure metaphysics; it doesn't happen in the real world. Life doesn't come from non-life. Pasteurization, and the food supply in general, relies upon this fact.

The distinction between "life" and "non-life" does not exist.

So there is no difference between you and a rock? I can admit I see similarities, heart wise..:)

Let's see some evidence for your claim that there is no difference between life and non-life.

You acknowledge that once a mechanism for inheritance exists the rest
is inevitable, I agree, you simply lack the sense of scale on which
the universe operates, which makes the preceding step entirely
plausible.

No, I admit that if you don't have to do the work to get wheels and bodies, and you have a design that churns them out, boxcars are inevitable. If you already have the materials, and the blueprints, of course you're able to build the house. Without any of those things, it is an impossible proposition.

This is simply false. RNA codes for proteins, but RNA requires no
proteins for it's own replication, it is entirely plausible, arguably
likely, that once you have RNA, DNA would get a chance to compete.

It's not false. This is your pathway to DNA: RNA - (MAGIC) - DNA This is your pathway to RNA: ROCKS - (MAGIC) - RNA Just because you can get RNA to self-replicate doesn't automatically mean it is either likely or plausible this could happen.

You assume that the argument is Random -> RNA -> DNA, but it is not. There are many simpler organic self replicators that, in the absence of an RNA ecosystem, would be able to prime the pump, by converting simple molecules into those more likely to contribute to spontaneous RNA synthesis, very much in the same way that cells work by creating conditions where the high concentration of particular ingredients allows proteins to replicate DNA, which proteins would not be able to do in the wild.

The best science has been able to do is create some amino acids which is worlds away from a complex molecule like RNA. The difficulties are legion and many are just intractable. There is no proof that RNA could even survive in that kind of environment, because it is extremely fragile.

ID is not even a postulation, much less a hypothesis, it provides no information, illuminates nothing, it is theology dressed up in the garb of science. It's only science if it reliably predicts things, ID fails at this basic task, because, like all theology, it is useless
.

It most certainly is a theory and it is not theology; intelligent design only needs an intelligent designer, not an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent deity. It is a theory which states that certain elements and features of the Universe are better explained by intelligent causation than an undirected process like natural selection. It is an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent" design in nature, which biologists acknowledge, is actual design. It is only useless to you because you have ruled out design apriori, which is just simply ignorant.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Let's start over because you're just going all over the place

No, lets not. I provided counter evidence to one absurd baseless assertion of yours , that "information" only comes from "minds", you have not provided any basis on which to defend your original position.
Your "this is going badly, let's start over" tactic is cute, don't get me wrong, but you insist that your ideological position be taken seriously, and I intend to do so, until it lies in tattered shreds on the floor.
>> ^shinyblurry:
This is the point: Your entire example is irrelevent. Yeah, you can generate all sorts of stuff when a system is already in place, when you have a preprogrammed design that itself generates designs. If you already have wheels and a chassis, you can build a boxcar pretty easily. Boxcars are inevitable at this point.

So you acknowledge that information is trivially synthesized, by non-minds? That's the opposite of your original claim. Is that a retraction?
So now you accept that once you have atoms, gravity, time, electromagnetism, you inevitably have the possibility of self replicating molecular systems, and therefor "life"? You seem to have decided that life is a magical barrier, but this distinction is false. The distinction between "life" and "non-life" does not exist.
You acknowledge that once a mechanism for inheritance exists the rest is inevitable, I agree, you simply lack the sense of scale on which the universe operates, which makes the preceding step entirely plausible.
>> ^shinyblurry:
You have to have proteins to create DNA and you have to have DNA to create proteins.

This is simply false. RNA codes for proteins, but RNA requires no proteins for it's own replication, it is entirely plausible, arguably likely, that once you have RNA, DNA would get a chance to compete.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Science has attempted to solve this problem by saying that RNA molecules evolved from the soup, yet there is no logical pathway for this to happen, because natural selection and mutation cannot account for it.

You assume that the argument is Random -> RNA -> DNA, but it is not. There are many simpler organic self replicators that, in the absence of an RNA ecosystem, would be able to prime the pump, by converting simple molecules into those more likely to contribute to spontaneous RNA synthesis, very much in the same way that cells work by creating conditions where the high concentration of particular ingredients allows proteins to replicate DNA, which proteins would not be able to do in the wild.
>> ^shinyblurry:
The problems are far too vast to overcome, and experiment has yieled no conclusive results. So, my point stands, that intelligent design is a better explanation for the complex coded information in DNA, which naturalistic processes cannot account for.

ID is not even a postulation, much less a hypothesis, it provides no information, illuminates nothing, it is theology dressed up in the garb of science. It's only science if it reliably predicts things, ID fails at this basic task, because, like all theology, it is useless.

Just because the universe might be eternal, does not mean that God is the automatic solution, nor the simplest explanation. That's just the one that makes sense to you. I would say that an eternal universe filled with rocks and gas is a little less complicated than an eternal, thinking, feeling, all-powerful being. But again, that's just my opinion. Those are large concepts, and the rules of physics, or even the seemingly bizarre rules of quantum mechanics do nothing to help explain them.

To me it is simply a probability argument. If you say that everything is equally unlikely, then if you strip away all other concerns, you just have the question..was the Universe deliberately created? The answer is either yes or no. You have evidence that perhaps there is design, which implies an intelligent (and powerful) creator. You have evidence that perhaps it could have happened by chance, by naturalistic processes. From there, you have to figure out what explanation best matches reality. You could ask, does something as wonderful as life and as amazing as the Universe just happen by itself? You could ask, am I just a bunch of atoms moving through space or is there something more to me than that?

Is an eternal God hard to grasp? Yes, but easier I think than something from nothing. If it is something from nothing we will always be ignorant of the initial conditions. If God created it, He will (presumably) educate us about the mystery of His existence. He promised this:

1 Corinthians 13:12

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

It is basically saying that God promises full disclosure when His Kingdom is established on Earth..

Occam's razor is simply a pragmatic way to find a solution, it does not prove anything, but just suggest what a likely answer might be. People use that argument about the complexity of universal laws all the time, but the fact of the matter is, we still don't understand 99.99999999% of the universe or how it works. We can see that if we "tweaked the dials", it would probably look much different than the universe we know, but there isn't a scientist out there in this world that could tell you with any certainty what would happen. Only that on a large scale, things might fall inward or burst outward faster, or that water might not congeal the same way.

Well, just in the initial conditions of the Universe, you have several values which just defy any naturalistic explanation. Even atheist scientists have to admit that a straight forward explanation indicates a designer:

Fred Hoyle, Astronomer said

"A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."

This has major implications for scientific theories, because it isn't simply a matter of it being incredibly unlikely, it is also matter of contradicting the predictions of standard models. I think you'll enjoy this article:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0208/0208013v3.pdf

Speaking of complexity, here's an exercise for your brain: Think about a mountain, on part of that mountain, pressure builds up, and a rock slide starts to fall. When it finally settles, the rocks, all the little pebbles and large boulders and particles of dust are arranged in just a certain way. Even though it's just a pile of rocks, it contains within it an inconceivable amount of complexity. Nowhere else in the entire universe, will there ever be a pile of rocks that have the exact specifications of this one. And even if it did, it wouldn't be composed of the same stone, And even if was, the elements that make up the stone wouldn't be arranged the same way. Nor would it be the exact same temperature, unless it was in the exact same relative position in the universe with an identical sun, with all the particles of gas and dust in between them arranged in exactly the same way.

In a way, the pile of rocks, when you think about it, is an impossibility. And yet it exists. There is no simple solution to explain it. An eternal creator, or the laws of physics? Either way, the true meaning is something that neither of us can comprehend. And to say that either one is "simpler" than the other is merely a statement of faith. Not fact.

Sure, taken by itself, such a thing is astonishing to behold. Divorced from its circumstances, it is perplexing to say the least. Yet, either explanation for the origin of this impossibility leads to a definitive conclusion. If it was naturalism, there is no meaning to it. It just happened that way and at best you can invent a meaning for it and decide to believe it. If it was created, however, it was created for a purpose. It has meaning because of that purpose; it is invested with meaning. In naturalism, you are practically looking at something alien. It is cold, dead, inexplicable, and doesn't care about you. Under creation, you are at the least staring this quote from Einstein dead in the face:

"I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations."

I go a step further because I believe God has revealed a bit about his Dewey Decimal System, but essentially, I am in staring at this in awe and wonder. I think those rocks are amazing and startling, but I also praise God for making them that way.

>> ^Ryjkyj:
We love you too. (but it's a rough, heathen love)
Just because the universe might be eternal, does not mean that God is the automatic solution, nor the simplest explanation. That's just the one that makes sense to you. I would say that an eternal universe filled with rocks and gas is a little less complicated than an eternal, thinking, feeling, all-powerful being. But again, that's just my opinion. Those are large concepts, and the rules of physics, or even the seemingly bizarre rules of quantum mechanics do nothing to help explain them.
Occam's razor is simply a pragmatic way to find a solution, it does not prove anything, but just suggest what a likely answer might be. People use that argument about the complexity of universal laws all the time, but the fact of the matter is, we still don't understand 99.99999999% of the universe or how it works. We can see that if we "tweaked the dials", it would probably look much different than the universe we know, but there isn't a scientist out there in this world that could tell you with any certainty what would happen. Only that on a large scale, things might fall inward or burst outward faster, or that water might not congeal the same way.
Point being, just because we can tell that the universe would be different, doesn't mean that it was designed. It just means that it is this way.
Speaking of complexity, here's an exercise for your brain: Think about a mountain, on part of that mountain, pressure builds up, and a rock slide starts to fall. When it finally settles, the rocks, all the little pebbles and large boulders and particles of dust are arranged in just a certain way. Even though it's just a pile of rocks, it contains within it an inconceivable amount of complexity. Nowhere else in the entire universe, will there ever be a pile of rocks that have the exact specifications of this one. And even if it did, it wouldn't be composed of the same stone, And even if was, the elements that make up the stone wouldn't be arranged the same way. Nor would it be the exact same temperature, unless it was in the exact same relative position in the universe with an identical sun, with all the particles of gas and dust in between them arranged in exactly the same way.
In a way, the pile of rocks, when you think about it, is an impossibility. And yet it exists. There is no simple solution to explain it. An eternal creator, or the laws of physics? Either way, the true meaning is something that neither of us can comprehend. And to say that either one is "simpler" than the other is merely a statement of faith. Not fact.

>> ^shinyblurry:
What I insist is that you substantiate your claims, which you have failed to do.

I have claimed that there are methods to synthesize information that do not require the interaction of a mind. I have provided an example of one such system.

You object, but without either asserting that the simulation is a mind, or that it does not synthesize information, but instead you make some vague assertion about how it's instead not an example.

>> ^shinyblurry:
Abiogenesis is purely metaphysics and unproven.

Abiogenesis is, like all real knowledge, unproven. None the less it is, at present, the only coherent explanation for what can be demonstrated to exist.

There is no ID hypothesis, Behe came the closest to actually trying, and any competent high school biology student could pick his little charade to pieces in a few hours with a half decent encyclopedia.

Given two possibilities, one being unlikely, and the other being false, I'll go with unlikely.

>> ^shinyblurry:
So you acknowledge that information is trivially synthesized, by
non-minds? That's the opposite of your original claim. Is that a
retraction?

No, see above.


You said, and I quote: "if you already have DNA, you can certainly expect a cell to form."

Do you mean that DNA must already have the information required to do so? because lots of DNA does not, otherwise are you asserting that DNA is somehow "mind", which you claim would be required for that information to come into being?

>> ^shinyblurry:


The distinction between "life" and "non-life" does not exist.

So there is no difference between you and a rock? I can admit I see similarities, heart wise..:)

Let's see some evidence for your claim that there is no difference between life and non-life.


I am arguing not that there are no differences in the world, but that there is no concrete distinction between life and chemistry. You can assume there is, you can assert there is, but until you can demonstrate that there is I have nothing to disprove.

You can't disprove unicorns, I can't disprove the life boundary, and we have no reason to believe either exists.

>> ^shinyblurry:
It's not false. This is your pathway to DNA: RNA - (MAGIC) - DNA This is your pathway to RNA: ROCKS - (MAGIC) - RNA Just because you can get RNA to self-replicate doesn't automatically mean it is either likely or plausible this could happen.

Please consider this image: http://en.citizendium.org/images/thumb/f/f6/RNA_base_vs_DNA_base.jpg/350px-RNA_base_vs_DNA_base.jpg

The bottom right hydroxyl group is the only difference between RNA and DNA, to suggest that molecules can't lose parts, is to argue that the universe is not as it observably is.

Since the step you clearly label (MAGIC) in the RNA-> DNA path is so obviously trivial, why should anybody believe that the other step you label (MAGIC) is any more complex?

>> ^shinyblurry:
It is an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent" design in nature, which biologists acknowledge, is actual design. It is only useless to you because you have ruled out design apriori, which is just simply ignorant.

Perhaps an "effort", but not a method, or a hypothesis. ID makes no predictions, it simply tries to find arguments to prop up a baseless assumption, that is the opposite of science.

If any ID proponent, or any theologian for that matter, can demonstrate even one example of anything true that their ideology can reliably tell us that we don't already know I will admit that it has predictive power, and that it could qualify as a hypothesis, and then eventually a theory. I'm betting you can't find one.

I have claimed that there are methods to synthesize information that do not require the interaction of a mind. I have provided an example of one such system.

You object, but without either asserting that the simulation is a mind, or that it does not synthesize information, but instead you make some vague assertion about how it's instead not an example.

A mind created and designed it, therefore a mind is involved, therefore it is an invalid example..

Abiogenesis is, like all real knowledge, unproven. None the less it is, at present, the only coherent explanation for what can be demonstrated to exist.

Abiogenesis is unproven because there is no evidence, it is just metaphysics. It's your faith that it is true. It is not the only coherent explanation, it is just the explanation that you have to believe because you have ruled out an intelligent designer apriori.

There is no ID hypothesis, Behe came the closest to actually trying, and any competent high school biology student could pick his little charade to pieces in a few hours with a half decent encyclopedia.

Here is the hypothesis

http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1156

Here is a story about ID being published in a biology journal making predictions for cancer research

http://www.discovery.org/a/2627

I am arguing not that there are no differences in the world, but that there is no concrete distinction between life and chemistry. You can assume there is, you can assert there is, but until you can demonstrate that there is I have nothing to disprove.

There is obviously a concrete difference since life doesn't come from non-life, and has never once been observed doing so. You have everything in the world to prove here. Everything in the Universe is made up of atoms, does that mean there is no difference between you and me? Is there no difference between a duck and a neutron star? You can't just say that because there are trivial similarities that they are the same thing.

And if you think like that, and you just believe we are all chemicals in motion, then you can't trust your own mind because if our mental processes are just chemical reactions, then there is no reason to believe anything is true. If our mental states have their origin in non-rational causes, rationality can't be trusted. You can't know if the rationality we have from evolutionary processes is discerning the truth of the world or not. Even Darwin realized this:

"With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

The bottom right hydroxyl group is the only difference between RNA and DNA, to suggest that molecules can't lose parts, is to argue that the universe is not as it observably is.

Since the step you clearly label (MAGIC) in the RNA-> DNA path is so obviously trivial, why should anybody believe that the other step you label (MAGIC) is any more complex
?
Well this is plainly false. RNA to DNA is far more probable than ROCKS to RNA. The reason it is labeled magic is because there is no proof. It doesn't mean that they are both equally likely. It is less likely by large orders of magnitude.

The magic is RNA self-replication:

http://www.lifesorigin.com/chap10/RNA-self-replication-3.php

And if you had bothered to do any real research, you would see that the leap from soup to these complex molecules is anything but trivial..here is a list of just of basic issues...

http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/chemlife.html

Some quotes for you:

Instead of revealing a multitude of transitional forms through which the evolution of the cell might have occurred, molecular biology has served only to emphasize the enormity of the gap. We now know not only of the existence of a break between the living and non-living world, but also that it represents the most dramatic and fundamental of all the discontinuities of nature. Between a living cell and the most highly ordered non-biological system, such as a crystal or a snowflake, there is a chasm as vast and absolute as it is possible to conceive....

Molecular biology has also shown that the basic design of the cell system is essentially the same in all living systems on earth from bacteria to mammals. In all organisms the roles of DNA, mRNA and protein are identical. The meaning of the genetic code is also virtually identical in all cells. The size, structure and component design of the protein synthetic machinery is practically the same in all cells.

In terms of the basic biochemical design, therefore no living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth. For those who hoped that molecular biology might bridge the gulf between chemistry and biochemistry, the revelation was profoundly disappointing."

Dr. Denton, Ph.D (Molecular Biology),
An evolutionist currently doing biological research in Sydney, Australia

Now we know that the cell itself is far more complex than we had imagined. It includes thousands of functioning enzymes, each one of them a complex machine in itself. Furthermore, each enzyme comes into being in response to a gene, a strand of DNA. The information content of the gene (it's complexity) must be as great as that of the enzyme it controls.

A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNA gene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain, one consisting of a 1,000 links could exist in 41000 different forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 41000 = 10600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives us the figure '1' followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension."

Frank Salisbury,
Evolutionary biologist

Perhaps an "effort", but not a method, or a hypothesis. ID makes no predictions, it simply tries to find arguments to prop up a baseless assumption, that is the opposite of science.

If any ID proponent, or any theologian for that matter, can demonstrate even one example of anything true that their ideology can reliably tell us that we don't already know I will admit that it has predictive power, and that it could qualify as a hypothesis, and then eventually a theory. I'm betting you can't find one.

I did, see above. Here is a bunch more: http://www.discovery.org/a/2640


>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
What I insist is that you substantiate your claims, which you have failed to do.
I have claimed that there are methods to synthesize information that do not require the interaction of a mind. I have provided an example of one such system.
You object, but without either asserting that the simulation is a mind, or that it does not synthesize information, but instead you make some vague assertion about how it's instead not an example.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Abiogenesis is purely metaphysics and unproven.
Abiogenesis is, like all real knowledge, unproven. None the less it is, at present, the only coherent explanation for what can be demonstrated to exist.
There is no ID hypothesis, Behe came the closest to actually trying, and any competent high school biology student could pick his little charade to pieces in a few hours with a half decent encyclopedia.
Given two possibilities, one being unlikely, and the other being false, I'll go with unlikely.
>> ^shinyblurry:
So you acknowledge that information is trivially synthesized, by
non-minds? That's the opposite of your original claim. Is that a
retraction?
No, see above.

You said, and I quote: "if you already have DNA, you can certainly expect a cell to form."
Do you mean that DNA must already have the information required to do so? because lots of DNA does not, otherwise are you asserting that DNA is somehow "mind", which you claim would be required for that information to come into being?
>> ^shinyblurry:
The distinction between "life" and "non-life" does not exist.
So there is no difference between you and a rock? I can admit I see similarities, heart wise..:)
Let's see some evidence for your claim that there is no difference between life and non-life.

I am arguing not that there are no differences in the world, but that there is no concrete distinction between life and chemistry. You can assume there is, you can assert there is, but until you can demonstrate that there is I have nothing to disprove.
You can't disprove unicorns, I can't disprove the life boundary, and we have no reason to believe either exists.
>> ^shinyblurry:
It's not false. This is your pathway to DNA: RNA - (MAGIC) - DNA This is your pathway to RNA: ROCKS - (MAGIC) - RNA Just because you can get RNA to self-replicate doesn't automatically mean it is either likely or plausible this could happen.
Please consider this image: http://en.citizendium.org/images/thumb/f/f6/RNA_base_vs_DNA_base.jpg/350px-RNA_base_vs_DNA_base.jpg
The bottom right hydroxyl group is the only difference between RNA and DNA, to suggest that molecules can't lose parts, is to argue that the universe is not as it observably is.
Since the step you clearly label (MAGIC) in the RNA-> DNA path is so obviously trivial, why should anybody believe that the other step you label (MAGIC) is any more complex?
>> ^shinyblurry:
It is an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent" design in nature, which biologists acknowledge, is actual design. It is only useless to you because you have ruled out design apriori, which is just simply ignorant.
Perhaps an "effort", but not a method, or a hypothesis. ID makes no predictions, it simply tries to find arguments to prop up a baseless assumption, that is the opposite of science.
If any ID proponent, or any theologian for that matter, can demonstrate even one example of anything true that their ideology can reliably tell us that we don't already know I will admit that it has predictive power, and that it could qualify as a hypothesis, and then eventually a theory. I'm betting you can't find one.

>> ^shinyblurry:

A mind created and designed it, therefore a mind is involved, therefore it is an invalid example..


So, by this argument, if we live in a deist universe, in which the universe was created but the creator pays it no mind, then abiogenesis and evolution by natural selection are completely plausible. That's an interesting position, it does not really help you here.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Abiogenesis is unproven because there is no evidence, it is just metaphysics. It's your faith that it is true. It is not the only coherent explanation, it is just the explanation that you have to believe because you have ruled out an intelligent designer apriori.

You seem to not understand the meaning of apriori. A few hundred years ago everybody in the western world, at least claimed to, believe the creation myth of genesis. We got to here from there, don't pretend your ideology has not had a chance, you were in charge of the game, we called your bluff, you just had nothing in your hand, you still don't.

Evolving molecules exist, they came into being at some point after it was possible for them to exist in this universe. The only non-magic hypotheses we have are based on a naturalistic model where these molecules are generated by a series of non-evolving processes. The gaps in the chemical record are very much like the gaps in the fossil record used to be, we have not filled them all, but neither have we found one that can not be crossed, and no reason to think they will not be filled.

>> ^shinyblurry:
Here is the hypothesis


The ID position is stated there in four parts, the last three follow from common decent, and the first one is either false, like all Behe's examples, or undemonstrated. It is mathematically possible that there is irreducible complexity somewhere, just as with faeries and unicorns, absence of evidence is not evidence of existence.

All the Discovery Institute links were painful in their fail. DI is a propaganda organization, only one of their links discusses any scientific discovery, and it actually makes no ID claims. The rest of the articles either make no claim, or have been shown to be false. If Well's article is going to be your flagship falsifiable ID position, fine, but you should probably know it's already been falsified here .

>> ^shinyblurry:

There is obviously a concrete difference since life doesn't come from non-life, and has never once been observed doing so. You have everything in the world to prove here.

This is your premise, and your conclusion, draw the line, and I will show you something on either side that confounds your "distinction". If you can't define the problem, I can't show it's flaws. Refusing to define your terms may get you by in theology, we are talking chemistry here, chemistry does not "work in mysterious ways".

>> ^shinyblurry:

if our mental processes are just chemical reactions, then there is no reason to believe anything is true. If our mental states have their origin in non-rational causes, rationality can't be trusted. You can't know if the rationality we have from evolutionary processes is discerning the truth of the world or not.

Ontology can't help you here, gods, since the can intervene, make it more difficult to make truth claims, not easier.

>> ^shinyblurry:

The reason it is labeled magic is because there is no proof.

There is no proof of anything. There is evidence of RNA/DNA metabolism, there is evidence of general chemical probability, there is no evidence for irreducible complexity, or anticipatory design in any non lab built genome. You can scream about nonexistent, and unneeded proof all day, science follows the evidence.

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