Present a BETTER explanation for our existence than God

[Japhia888]

Yes it is. You are not allowed to change established scientific definitions simply because they do not suit your preconceived notion.
.

http://www.trueorigin.org/theobald1f.asp

The fact one species can give rise to another similar species does not mean there are no limits to the process, that a bacterium can give rise to a human.

 

[Squawk]

Yes it is. You are not allowed to change established scientific definitions simply because they do not suit your preconceived notion.
.

http://www.trueorigin.org/theobald1f.asp

The fact one species can give rise to another similar species does not mean there are no limits to the process, that a bacterium can give rise to a human.

You of course realise that the sheer improbability of massive jumps in evolution make it possible to trace common ancestry as we do. Of course there are limits, huge ones, it's the limits that enable us to use the evidence we have to draw the conclusions we do.

Do you honestly think people believe that a bacteria morphed into a human without intermediate stages that were near as dammit identical to previous states? If so then you are unequipped for this discussion. If not then are being disingenuous. Which is it?

 

[Japhia888]

1+1=2 (better) Science
1+1+1-1=2 (roundabout) God

how can you define with science alone, what is right, what is wrong ?
does absolute truth exist ?
is your world view based only on absolute proofs ?

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/atheismintro.html

A skeptic or atheist is governed by two main principles: 1) all beliefs must be supported by observational evidence, and 2) beliefs that contradict observational evidence cannot be tolerated. However, strong atheism states that there is no god, even though observational evidence indicates that the universe has a cause that cannot be detected observationally. So despite the lack of observational evidence for a naturalistic cause for the universe, the strong atheist believes that the universe has a naturalistic cause and that there is no god, contradicting the tenet that all beliefs should be based upon observational evidence.

 

[australopithecus]

A skeptic or atheist is governed by two main principles: 1) all beliefs must be supported by observational evidence, and 2) beliefs that contradict observational evidence cannot be tolerated. However, strong atheism states that there is no god, even though observational evidence indicates that the universe has a cause that cannot be detected observationally. So despite the lack of observational evidence for a naturalistic cause for the universe, the strong atheist believes that the universe has a naturalistic cause and that there is no god, contradicting the tenet that all beliefs should be based upon observational evidence.

Good job not many of us here are stong atheists then.

 

[TheFlyingBastard]

does absolute truth exist ?

Yes.

 

[Japhia888]

so if your god lacks the ability to be part of time, therefor she cannot interact with... so for argument say, some guy in the desert and give him 2 stone tablets with 10 guidelines on them.

If you read my entire reply to you, you would not make this objection. But here goes the answer again to you:

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/eternity.html

on a relational view of time God would exist timelessly and independently 'prior' to creation; at creation, which he has willed from eternity to appear temporally, time begins, and God subjects himself to time by being related to changing things. On the other hand, the Newtonian would say God exists in absolute time changelessly and independently prior to creation and that creation simply marks the first event in time.

as for the argument of there are no 2dimensional objects in our universe is "coockoo for cocao-puffs".
granted, almost any object in our world is 3 dimensional, but that isn't always relevant.
you'd probably have a piece of paper near by, you can write on the front and the back... but are you also writing on the sides?

no, but despite this, the paper has a thickness, thus a third dimension.

random mutation and enviromental pressure

these are mechanisms of evolution, not of abiogenesis.

that would be considered a representation of the information stored in your brain, not a copy.

nevertheless, this representation can be a exact copy of your thoughts.

same goes for copying a cd, your not making a copy of the cd,
your making a duplicate of the representation of the information, which is translated into music.

which comes out the same.

thats my point, we know it as language.
but for someone who doesn't know it, its just weird dots.

no, your point was, braille was just a pattern. Its not. Its information.

. ...- --- .-.. ..- - .. --- -.

no, but if we have a common agreement on what it means, it turns out information, since it can be replicated exactly.

could you tell us with language that might be and why its more complex that modern ones?

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/darwin-s-theory-of-evolution-f3/is-the-ability-of-humans-of-speach-explainable-trough-evolution-t68.htm

the more ancient languages seem to be the more complex languages, as do the languages of the more apparently "primitive" tribes living today.

"Even the peoples with least complex cultures have highly sophisticated languages, with complex grammar and large vocabularies, capable of naming and discussing anything that occurs in the sphere occupied by their speakers. The oldest language that can reasonably be reconstructed is already modern, sophisticated, complete from an evolutionary point of view."
Not only so, but the history of any given language, rather than representing an increasingly complex structure as the structure of its users supposedly evolved into higher levels of complexity, seems instead to record an inevitable decline in complexity.

"The evolution of language, at least within the historical period, is a story of progressive simplification."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language#Scenarios_for_language_evolution

Linguistic monogenesis is the hypothesis that there was a single proto-language, sometimes called Proto-Human, from which all other languages spoken by humans descend.

how did the "phonologic component" ever become so diverse and variegated?

Gradual changes are understandable (as in the gradual accretion of Latin words, Greek words, Germanic words, etc. to produce the modern English language), but

how could such vastly different linguistic systems as the Indo-European languages, the agglutinative languages of the Africans, and the tonal languages of the Mongols ever develop from a single ancestral language?

furthermore, the wiki article confirms : science has no clue whatsoever, how language could have evolved.

A man recognized universally as one of the world's greatest linguists is Dr. Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He himself is a thoroughgoing evolutionist,in fact, even an atheist and a Marxist. Yet he also recognizes the present impossibility of accounting for language by naturalistic evolution.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world. . . . There is no reason to suppose that the "gaps" are bridgeable. There is no more of a basis for assuming an evolutionary development of "higher" from "lower" stages in this case, than there is for assuming an evolutionary development from breathing to walking.3
Not only is there no animal that is capable of achieving anything like human speech, but also there is, at the other end of the scale, no human tribe that does not have a true language.

 

[Japhia888]

does absolute truth exist ?

Yes.

so how can you find out the absolute truth ?

 

[Japhia888]

Oh no, not this shit again. "You can't get to here if time goes back infinitely."
This isn't about completion or about travel. It's irrelvant. You don't start counting somewhere as infinity is a concept, not a number.
∞ <--- now.
The graph will not change, no matter where you are.

you cannot arrive here from infinity. Period. I've explained already, why. If you insist, you can, i cannot help you further to understand this.

No, that would be most inconvenient for you.

truth is too precious, to subordinate it to convencience. This is however what i feel, most atheists do.

 

[Japhia888]

Do you honestly think people believe that a bacteria morphed into a human without intermediate stages that were near as dammit identical to previous states? If so then you are unequipped for this discussion. If not then are being disingenuous. Which is it?

thats a extrapolation of what i quoted.

 

[lrkun]

how can you define with science alone, what is right, what is wrong ?

Science does not define what is right or wrong. What science does is accumulate knowledge which reflects the way our reality works. Consequently, I use the law to know what is right or wrong.

 

[lrkun]

does absolute truth exist ?

What do you mean by absolute truth? Do you mean truth in a sense that is 100 percent true, where there is no degree of error involved? Incidentally, I don't know if such exists.

 

[lrkun]

is your world view based only on absolute proofs ?

No, I question what I know on a daily basis. I test it again and again to ascertain, whether the results will be the same. When something new comes and is better than what I currently use, I test such and if such provides better results, I use it, if it doesn't, I discard such and continue to use what I previously did.

The test that I use is trial and error. Another test I use is the scientific method. There is always a degree of error with such.

 

[lrkun]

observational evidence indicates that the universe has a cause that cannot be detected observationally.

And this is what?

How can there be observational evidence if such cannot be detected with observation?

Please provide evidence for such, the following may suffice:

a. Studies
b. Evidence
c. References

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

I see you are still avoiding my request: please define evolution in a biological context. Until you do this, I will just assume you are unqualified to discuss this issue.

The fact one species can give rise to another similar species does not mean there are no limits to the process, that a bacterium can give rise to a human.

Therefore, you are agreeing with me that your earlier statement about macroevolution was wrong. You now agree that we have observed speciation and speciation is macroevolution. In addition, if you agree that species can give rise to other species than what is your objection to evolution. Do you believe there is a mechanism that stops evolution? Your argument does not make sense. I think you really need to stop trolling and do more research into this field of study.
Furthermore, please do not create straw men. No one claims that humans evolved from bacteria, humans are eukaryotic.
Your response seems to confirm that you are unqualified to discuss this issue.

 

[nemesiss]

ok, im gonna split my reply into pieces or else i'd be page stretching this to such extend that its just annoying to read through it all.
first;

as for the argument of there are no 2dimensional objects in our universe is "coockoo for cocao-puffs".
granted, almost any object in our world is 3 dimensional, but that isn't always relevant.
you'd probably have a piece of paper near by, you can write on the front and the back... but are you also writing on the sides?

no, but despite this, the paper has a thickness, thus a third dimension.

but, will you use that 3rd dimension to write on it?
most people don't, which makes that side irrelivant.

random mutation and enviromental pressure

these are mechanisms of evolution, not of abiogenesis.

well, there is more then 1 mechanism proposed and its still a field thats not fleshed-out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Current_models

this video by don exodus2 might explain enough.

that would be considered a representation of the information stored in your brain, not a copy.

nevertheless, this representation can be a exact copy of your thoughts.

same goes for copying a cd, your not making a copy of the cd,
your making a duplicate of the representation of the information, which is translated into music.

which comes out the same.

no.
if i take a cd and cd-r

after i put it into machine and "burn" it, it doesn't come out exactly the same, its still a cd-r.
just a used one.

thats my point, we know it as language.
but for someone who doesn't know it, its just weird dots.

no, your point was, braille was just a pattern. Its not. Its information.

. ...- --- .-.. ..- - .. --- -.

no, but if we have a common agreement on what it means, it turns out information, since it can be replicated exactly.

make an educated guess of what it could mean.... it may be just jibberish or it might actually mean something...

 

[nemesiss]

could you tell us with language that might be and why its more complex that modern ones?

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/darwin-s-theory-of-evolution-f3/is-the-ability-of-humans-of-speach-explainable-trough-evolution-t68.htm

the more ancient languages seem to be the more complex languages, as do the languages of the more apparently "primitive" tribes living today.

"Even the peoples with least complex cultures have highly sophisticated languages, with complex grammar and large vocabularies, capable of naming and discussing anything that occurs in the sphere occupied by their speakers. The oldest language that can reasonably be reconstructed is already modern, sophisticated, complete from an evolutionary point of view."
Not only so, but the history of any given language, rather than representing an increasingly complex structure as the structure of its users supposedly evolved into higher levels of complexity, seems instead to record an inevitable decline in complexity.

"The evolution of language, at least within the historical period, is a story of progressive simplification."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language#Scenarios_for_language_evolution

Linguistic monogenesis is the hypothesis that there was a single proto-language, sometimes called Proto-Human, from which all other languages spoken by humans descend.

how did the "phonologic component" ever become so diverse and variegated?

Gradual changes are understandable (as in the gradual accretion of Latin words, Greek words, Germanic words, etc. to produce the modern English language), but

how could such vastly different linguistic systems as the Indo-European languages, the agglutinative languages of the Africans, and the tonal languages of the Mongols ever develop from a single ancestral language?

furthermore, the wiki article confirms : science has no clue whatsoever, how language could have evolved.

A man recognized universally as one of the world's greatest linguists is Dr. Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He himself is a thoroughgoing evolutionist,in fact, even an atheist and a Marxist. Yet he also recognizes the present impossibility of accounting for language by naturalistic evolution.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world. . . . There is no reason to suppose that the "gaps" are bridgeable. There is no more of a basis for assuming an evolutionary development of "higher" from "lower" stages in this case, than there is for assuming an evolutionary development from breathing to walking.3
Not only is there no animal that is capable of achieving anything like human speech, but also there is, at the other end of the scale, no human tribe that does not have a true language.

its interesting that you still use that heavens forum as if its a reliable source, while most if not all of the assumptions on it have been disproven.

especially this sentence is an interesting one

urthermore, the wiki article confirms : science has no clue whatsoever, how language could have evolved.

especially that the link i posted, which is part of the same wiki page mentioned on that forum, lists four possibilities;
-monogenesis
-gestural theory
-Self-domesticated ape theory
-Synergetic approach

it's almost as if you didn't even take the time to read, went to that heavens forum, searched for anything related to evolution of speech and quoted a piece which would be the most relevant to the argument.

as for your question

how did the "phonologic component" ever become so diverse and variegated?
Gradual changes are understandable (as in the gradual accretion of Latin words, Greek words, Germanic words, etc. to produce the modern English language), but
how could such vastly different linguistic systems as the Indo-European languages, the agglutinative languages of the Africans, and the tonal languages of the Mongols ever develop from a single ancestral language?

this is basically saying "i believe in micro evolution, but not macro evolution"
and the answer is the same; "micro evolution is macro evolution, just on a different timescale"

 

[nemesiss]

so if your god lacks the ability to be part of time, therefor she cannot interact with... so for argument say, some guy in the desert and give him 2 stone tablets with 10 guidelines on them.

If you read my entire reply to you, you would not make this objection. But here goes the answer again to you:

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/eternity.html

on a relational view of time God would exist timelessly and independently 'prior' to creation; at creation, which he has willed from eternity to appear temporally, time begins, and God subjects himself to time by being related to changing things. On the other hand, the Newtonian would say God exists in absolute time changelessly and independently prior to creation and that creation simply marks the first event in time.

actually, THIS is the original post with a totally different source to quote from.

god CANNOT EXIST without time.

http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/dimensions.html

The State of God

To exist outside of time has another implication. If you existed outside of time, it would mean that there are no 'frames' of you that change snapshot-by-snapshot. If you are not part of time, and changing, viewing it from within, then you are outside of time viewing everything from the outside.

"I the LORD do not change."
Malachi 3:6

Without change-over-time, any eternal being is immutable. There are no frames, no changes over time. In other words: No progress, no retreat, no changes of mind, no learning, no psychology, no changing of emotions and no active thought. A being outside of time exists as one instant, one snapshot only (like our 2D painting in a 3D world; constant). Emotions, thought, planning, progress and all those other things require change over time. Knowledge, also, would be absolute.

Nothing new could be learned because everything that is real and true exists in the 4D object that the being outside-of-time sees all at once. A creator-god who created the universe would exist in a very strange state. This being would exist, forever, viewing the universe that it created as a single 4D object that itself doesn't change over time. All of reality, everything, is 'there', not 'happening' now, but merely existing in reality. Nothing in the world could ever surprise an eternal creator, just like the stickman will never do anything that the child hasn't already seen.

This explanation, going through all the dimensions, truly gives an idea of how a being could indeed be all-knowing about everything that goes on in the universe, but such a being lives in a sad state of eternal immutability. This ties in with one other commonly-cited feature of God: its perfection. If a being is perfect, it cannot change. God's all-knowing nature, the eternality of its existence outside of time, its status as an outside creator of the universe and finally its status as a perfect being, each predict that God is unchanging. William James calls this the lack of 'potential' for God:

"This absence of all potentiality in God obliges Him to be immutable. [...] Were there anything potential about Him, He would either lose or gain by its actualization, and either loss or gain would contradict his perfection. He cannot, therefore, change."

i could go on ranting what is wrong with both arguments, but first... Which stand do you take, the first or the second?

 

[TheFlyingBastard]

you cannot arrive here from infinity. Period. I've explained already, why. If you insist, you can, i cannot help you further to understand this.

You don't start counting at infinity, that's the whole point.

truth is too precious, to subordinate it to convencience. This is however what i feel, most atheists do.

...said the guy who says it's all magic. :lol:

 

[Rivius]

Also, Japhia, I'd advise you to read this to begin with:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

 

[borrofburi]

This is a copout, a fancy way to try to dodge the problem, but it doesn't work. "timeless eternity" is a meaningless phrase (if it's not, please rigidly define it; or, more precisely, as has been pointed out, please propose what it means to "exist" "outside of time", because all definitions of existence that I know of include a time element); it's rather like saying "this object is blue outside of colour" or "this object is green without light".

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/philosophy-and-god-f14/what-is-timeless-eternity-t296.htm#1298

Eternity is the simultaneous possession of boundless life which is made clearer by comparison with temporal things.

This becomes clear when we consider temporal things: whatever lives in time lives only in the present, which passes from the past into the future, and no temporal thing has such a nature that it can simultaneously embrace its entire existence, for it has not yet arrived at tomorrow and no longer exists in yesterday.

We cannot be considered eternal: Even one's life today exists only in each and every transient moment. Therefore, anything which exists in time"¦ cannot properly be considered eternal, for anything in time does not embrace the infinity of life all at once, since it does not embrace the future or the past.

Since every intellect understands according to its own nature, and since God lives in an eternal present, with no past or future, his knowledge transcends the movement of time and exists only in a single, simple, unified present.

This is not a rigid definition. It is metaphysical bullshit. If god has no past or future, then the sequence of events (since all sequences of events imply time) you propose that god undertook can not exist. There is no "before time"; there can be a "before time as we know it" but time is a requisite for ANY sequence of events. There is no "outside of time", for time is a requisite for a sequence of events; anything outside of time is permanently unchanging; nothing outside of time could create time because an unchanging thing can not create anything (since creation implies a 'before' creation and an "after" creation, which is a sequence of events, which requires some form of time).

http://vintage.aomin.org/JOHN1_1.html

Sorry but the bible can not prove itself to be true. Since I doubt the validity and veracity of the bible, you have to show it's true using evidence outside of it before I will lend any credence to its words. Moreover we're not even talking about your christian god yet, you're still arguing for deism. You have yet to provide anything even slightly able to move someone from deism to your christianity (because you continue to try to use the bible, the very thing that non-believers doubt, to prove that the bible is true (which, honestly, is blatant circular reasoning, and is just silly (and a little bit insulting))).

Besides, after this you go into a "something has always existed but it was a really special something and it existed in a really special way" rant; what you continue to fail to realize is the effects of occam's razor on your special pleading.

The Big Bang marking the beginning of the universe is amazing when one reflects on the fact that a state of "infinite density" is synonymous to "nothing." There can be no object that possesses infinite density, for if it had any size at all it could still be even more dense. Therefore, as Cambridge astronomer Fred Hoyle points out, the Big Bang Theory requires the creation of matter from nothing. This is because as one goes back in time, one reaches a point at which, in Hoyle's words, the universe was "shrunk down to nothing at all."

The big bang does not mark the beginning of "everything there is"; it marks the beginning of the universe as we know it. Moreover, "infinite density", as has been explained to you before, is not synonymous with nothing (and how dare you claim it to be a "fact"); instead it is synonymous with "our models don't really understand what happens here, at least not very well". Ultimately, what the big bang marks is not necessarily "everything coming from nothing" as you presume (it could, but we don't know that), but rather "the universe as we know it coming into existence from something we do not yet understand".

A quick analogy: let us say there's a single very smart human, but she has never seen any other humans; she traces the way her body changes and concludes that if you follow the processes and the chemistry back far enough, then she must have come from a single cell; after that her models break down and she concludes that the cell must have come from nothing, spontaneously generated; but since that doesn't make sense she posits that a super-being most have sparked the initial lipids into existence so they could expand into a cell. She's wrong of course, in reality all that happened was that a sperm cell connected with an egg cell (a process she doesn't and couldn't understand), and the egg cell changed in a way her model doesn't account for incorporating new DNA (a concept she doesn't and can't have) to become that single cell her model predicts to have happened.

The analogy of course is simple: we humans, being very intelligent (at our brightest moments, pretty stupid during other moments) have traced back the existence of the universe, with models that all point back to something very small as the origin. Prior to that point we see "nothing". That doesn't mean "nothing" is the right answer (it might be, we don't know); rather it probably means that our models are failing to account for something, even something we couldn't possibly understand because our universe as we know it lacks the initial universe-creating elements (as the female above also lacked part of the initial fetus creating elements, although if she had happened to investigate egg cells enough she might begin to understand the process better, and possibly even be able to genetically recombine other similar humans). That our models break down at the big bang is NOT a place for you to say "well obviously god dun it", any more than that the ancient greek's models of reality were not able to understand lightning was a valid place for them to say "well obviously god dun it".

The sad thing is, each time you bring up this "everything came from nothing therefore god did it" "argument", you then go on to point out "well technically it really does just mean our models aren't perfect"... If you already understand this, then you understand that your argument of "everything came from nothing therefore god did it" is fundamentally flawed because even if it were a "valid" argument (it's not), the premise is false (or at least very much not proven as your argument requires) therefore the argument can not be true (even if it is logically valid (which it isn't)).


Also, I can create matter from "nothing", since matter and energy can translate into each other. And guess what: energy has no volume and according to your own logic, is therefore nothing.

http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/What%20is%20infinity.htm

Wait a minute, I've run into this copy pasta before; yes I remember, I told you that wiki answers wasn't under any circumstances a valid source. Are you... a chat bot? Or are you purposefully not reading or ignoring my responses? Hmmm... Either way you're clearly ignoring the conversation at hand, and people who do not contribute the site (which is about having conversations) quickly find themselves not able to contribute to the site...