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Who says omnipotent beings are outside the realm of possibility? Joel Send a noteboard - 20/06/2015 03:59:44 AM

It is outside the realm of (natural) SCIENCE, but so is a natural Big Bang, so natural science is at an impasse: Either its BEST explanation for EXISTENCE ITSELF is fundamentally flawed, or part of the ACTUAL explanation lies outside natural science. Which is perfectly fine so long as one does not insist natural science will (or at least theoretically CAN) eventually explain all things. In the good old days when science made its greatest and most revolutionary strides scientists grasped that implicitly (as most of the best still do,) yet quantum mechanics killing the notion of God as a mere deterministic Great Watchmaker somehow managed to kill ONLY the watchmaker while preserving the determinism.

It is probably best not to speculate on what Heisenberg and Schrödinger think of the wide range of certainties so many scientists have about so many so very uncertain things. Or perhaps todays scientists should ask themselves PRECISELY that question.


View original postSimple math will tell you that if you have an infinite number of planets circling an infinite numbers of stars then since spontaneous life is possible is not improbable it is undeniable.

Simple Thermodynamics will tell you we not only do but CAN not have an INFINITE number of ANYTHING, much less macroscopic entities like stars and planets. By that logic, omnipotent beings and all other (internally consistent) things would be just as inevitable. Indeed, Kant made precisely that argument for not only an omnipotent being but a NECESSARY one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Only_Possible_Argument_in_Support_of_a_Demonstration_of_the_Existence_of_God

Beside that, common sense tells us any experiment requiring an apparatus the size of a UNIVERSE, operating over ASTRONOMIC time scales, is almost the antithesis of "reproducible." Thermodynamics will also tell you recreating the whole universe from the contents of just ONE of its planets is impossible by definition: Matter is neither created nor destroyed.


View original postThere is science that creates an all knowing and all powerful being out of nothing so there is mathematical probability for it to occur.

I am sorry, but genuinely have NO idea what this statement means. Its literal meaning directly contradicts your subject line, most of your arguments and implicitly supports mine, so I conclude it means almost the opposite of what it says, but cannot imagine what. So I do not ignore it but cannot respond.


View original postEvolution is not the best possibility it is the only reasonable explanation.

Though similar and parallel, evolution is properly distinct from the Big Bang (and cosmology generally) as previously noted and you surely knew. I cited it mainly because Cannoli previously cited Fred Hoyle (who was far more qualified to speak on cosmology than on evolution) and because Hoyles repudiation of the Big Bang as "creeping religion" so perfectly illustrates how contrived and false the science/religion "conflict" is: When the Big Bang was first conceived the religious praised and the antireligious attacked it as evidence of Genesis; half a century later both sides have swapped positions DESPITE THE THEORY REMAINING UNCHANGED. The conflict is science v. religion ONLY in the minds of those predisposed against one or the other, because many people can and do embrace both.

Including many scientists; to answer the question of whether EVOLUTION is compatible with science, one should not consult Hoyle, but Francis Collins, whose biological achievements are UNEQUALED and has devoted considerable time and study to explaining just how reconcilable religion and science are. Collins is especially vexing for materialists because he not only ran the Human Genome Project but was raised by agnostic parents and was himself an atheistic until well after completing his doctorate and beginning his medical practice.


View original postThe one thing we can tell about god is that humans have a universal need to create one in order to make them feel they don't live in an arbitrary and uncaring universe. We tend to lock on the one we born into or if that doesn't fit find the one that appeals to us. Sorry but just because my grandparents believed in the teaching of bronze aged goat herders looking to explain why they kept being conquered is no reason for to unquestionably accept those beliefs when both science and the historical record proves them false.

Just as a leading biological researchers agnostic parents do not mandate he be atheist, though it does make it LIKELY he will remain so until mature enough for his own objective inquiries and consideration. But let us not pretend religious belief is restrcted to Bronze Age populations and their immediate descendants; virtually EVERY Westerner was a theist well into the Age of Enlightenment, including scientific giants like Newton, Decartes and Blaise Pascal, who in less than 40 years gave mathematics probability, science Pascals Law and theology Pascals Wager.


View original postIt does not matter how unlikely life is if it is possible it will appear over and over again. It does not mater how unlikely it is to have happened here because the places where life not only formed but managed to take the giant leap to sentience are the only places discussing how improbable it is. No one on Mercury wonders why life didn't form there.

That first statement does not follow at all, because:

1) It is unproven that life even CAN naturally arise given infinite time and components (whose ability to naturally arise is ITSELF unproven,)

2) Life has never HAD the infinite material postulated as sufficient for its natural development and

3) Life has never HAD the infinite time postulated as sufficient for its development.

The proposition is the biological equivalent of saying, "if we had any ham, we could make ham sandwiches, if we had any bread." It has never been demonstrated that the ham and bread can naturally assemble THEMSELVES, much less ALSO naturally assemble sandwiches from themselves, and even if we accept as given (i.e. absent ALL evidence) that they can do both given infinite time and material, Thermodynamics (as basic as natural scientific law gets) preclude BOTH infinite time and infinite material. All those assumptions are just that, and articles of faith, which would be perfectly fine for a theology—but are "anathema" to natural sciences empirical foundation. It posits not only an ex nihilo ham sandwich, but a KOSHER one.


View original postAbiogenesis is an interesting theory and at the moment untestable but it really plays no role in the present discussion.

Say huh? Aristotle proved an infinite material regression impossible 2300 years ago, and Thermodynamics has since vindicated him via Conservation of Matter and Energy, so there must be a First Organism just as there must be a First Cause for all things, meaning abiogenesis is the SOLE POSSIBLE theory, whether or not one accepts religion or science. Yet science forbids it as well absent the supernatural, thus necessitating the supernatural (again, see Kant, who, again, further argued that since an omnipotent neccessary being is on the list of "theoretically possible things" an infinite universe with infinite time makes it as inevitable as any other thing.)

All you have done is declare ABIOGENESIS IS NOT SCIENCE, by definition; it remains tenable theology (another Big Bang parallel.)


View original postWe don't know where life started but it doesn't really matter because lacking of understanding the exact steps taken does not open the door for supernatural explanations.

True, but natural science does not merely "lack understanding" of the exact steps: It DISPROVES all but ONE possible steps, then stops short of investigating it because its basis lies outside the realm of natural science. Would that all sciences advocates ceased their "scientific" declarations where their discipline requires, rather than trying to make it the panacea it never claimed to be (and in fact specifically denies being.)


View original postIf there was an ancient theory for creation that was not disproven by modern science you may have some small window to move it into the debate but like it or not every creation story passed down has proven to be nothing more than myth and the includes the Hebrew myth of a young Earth a world spanning flood, language being spread from the Tower Of Babble and on and on. Faith be definition does not require proof but when you have faith in spite of the proof against it you have to ask why you believe what you believe.

Negatives still cannot be disproven, as every decent philosopher (including natural ones) knows. Further, the only disproven POSITIVE under consideration is universal literalism, not theology, and every decent theologian rejects universal literalism if only because ALL holy texts include at least some obvious metaphor, often explicitly stated such. Violating sciences most absolute laws soley for sake of "proving" science>religion is bad science, but REJECTING fundamentalist literalism and then INVOKING it to prove science>religion is bad LOGIC. One cannot reject six day creation (or whatever) then insist all ones opponents adopt it solely for sake of being refuted.

Fundamentalist literalism is bad logic, period (i.e. theological and otherwise) as just demonstrated: Even the strictest fundamentlist would not contend that when David self-deprecatingly told Saul he was a "dead dog" he meant he was LITERALLY a deceased canine somehow capable of human speech; that was self-evidently metaphor despite not being stated such. How many other unstated biblical metaphors are just the same?

Further, the bibles "inerrancy" (a word that did not even EXIST until a bunch of far right secular politicians took over the Southern Baptist Convention in 1979) is no mandatory article of faith either: Whatever ones opinion of divine inspirations validity, it IS an article of Christian faith that all humans are morally and factually fallible, so biblical scribes no less so, and even divine inspiration allows room for trivial transcription errors. By way of clarifying example, if a transcription of the US Constitution misspelled one instance of "Congress" as "Conhress" or "Gongress," would that invalidate any or all of that transcription? If one copy had the first error and another the second, would it be fair to say, "these authors were ignorant primitives with NO idea of what they were talking about, and no thinking modern person should pay their inchoate lunacy any attention!"

You have but demonstrated what many people have long known: Fundamentalists are ruining religion for religious and nonreligious alike. What is truly depressing (but revealing) is that many are doing the same for science, "proving" far better than I ever could that flaw is HUMAN rather than religious.

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This message last edited by Joel on 20/06/2015 at 04:00:09 AM
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