Proof there is a God

Discussion in 'Religion' started by JBrentonK, Sep 23, 2015.

  1. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    The unvarying consistency of the actiom, tested a million times and always *true*. That makes it a *constant* IMO.
    What hypothesis? That the ice caps are melting at an accelerated rate? Pictures, thousands of them.
    nonsense. All actions follow a mathematical function, else there would be chaos.
    Correct, but the evidence shows that the assumption, when it holds *true* in all appropriate circumstances, which have been tested in all possible ways by the scientific method, is *constantly true*.
     
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  3. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    No it's not. It's the best explanation.
    You only see it as absurd because the designer could be God.

    Is intelligent design a scientific theory?
    Yes. The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion. Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed. http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php

    jan.
     
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  5. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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  7. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    That indicates that the mathematical description is a good approximation of reality. It doesn't prove that the chicken came before the egg.

    The hypothesis that we've been talking about for lo these many days is the hypothesis that "reality results from mathematics". What does the Greenland icecap have to do with that?

    You keep saying that but you've provided nothing to back it up.

    No.

    All you're testing is the correlation between mathematics and reality. You've done nothing to show which causes which or which follows which.

    Mathematics describes reality with some degree of accuracy because we invented it to do exactly that. English also does the same thing.
     
  8. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    If you had said that God is an abstract linguistic concept of *implaccable mathematical order and function*,
    you might be on frmer ground. But when you assert the commonly held *belief* that God is a "being" and acts as a *sentient emotionally motivated and willfull causality*, then you begin to thread on thin ice, because then you are required to offer evidence of such *real* human properties as an inherent ability of the universe (or worse, apart from this universe), which is impossible.

    With respect, I submit that the word God is a *left-over" from millenia of *common assumptions*, a *Tulpa* created from early ignorance of the mathematical nature and functions of the Universe.
    A perfect example is the Bible, a book devoted to the creation of a Tulpa, named God.
     
  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    IMO, a Tulpa.
     
  10. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    perhaps
     
  11. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    It most certainty it is not. You have quite a lot of reading to do if you are going to mature towards understanding. It is only by knowing real from unreal can one gain the awareness of reality and oneself. By dismissing God as a mere tupla not only hinders you in mind and body, but blinds you as well.
     
  12. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    No, it is merely an explanation. "Best" is rather a subjective view and certainly not one that science advocates.
    Call it anything you want, it doesn't change the opinion. People are not as fickle as you seem to suggest that the mere word "God" sends them into bouts of rejection - it is the very notion of ID (whatever we label that "intelligence") that people have issue with, not "Ooh, the designer might be God, therefore we have to see it as absurd!"
    No, it is not. ID proponents would like to think that it is and then come up with pseudo-scientific notions to persuade the ignorant that it fits the definition of science.
    That said, if you really do wish to propose Dembski's notions of "Complex and Specified Information" in support of ID then perhaps you would care to discuss the errors in his calculations, the flaws in his use of the terms, his lack of modelling of birth and death in his book "No free lunch", and a host of other criticisms that effectively should negate his arguments to anyone who has an even modest understanding of probability etc.

    To quote Jeffrey Shallit from his review of "No Free Lunch" (https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/nflr3.txt)
    "The field of artificial life evidently poses a significant challenge to Dembski's claims about the failure of evolutionary algorithms to generate complexity. Indeed, artificial life researchers regularly find their simulations of evolution producing the sorts of novelties and increased complexity that Dembski claims are impossible."
    It might be commonly described as such to beginners, but your description lacks the requirement to offer predictions, to test those predictions, and refinement of the hypothesis. ID has no testable prediction. All it does is offer "tests" that rely on a priori assumptions in order to draw out a conclusion that supports those assumptions - i.e. question begging.
    The notion of CSI is exactly that - you lay out the assumption that anything with high levels of CSI will be designed, then show that there exists high levels of CSI in something - hence conclude it was designed. What it doesn't do is prove that high levels of CSI can only come from design. I.e. it doesn't prove soundness of the a priori assumption upon which the conclusion is based.

    As you can see, Jan, merely throwing out a notion that ID proponents cling to in order to justify the "scientific nature" of their "theory" won't get you too far. It may satisfy those who wish to have something to hang their pre-existing beliefs on, but it simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

    Care to try again?
     
  13. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Since God cannot possibly exist, and since I accept this, you haven't correctly characterized me there. But this is not a subjective issue. The fact that God can not possibly exist is established in facts completely external to any person's viewpoint, the least of which is my own view. And for that reason, intelligent design can not possibly be the best explanation for anything, except a resistance to facts freely available for anyone who wants to understand how the notion of God evolved from ancient myths to the popular myth of the times we live in. That is, intelligent design is (was) a repackaging of the Creationist doctrine that relabeled itself as it went through several makeovers (esp. here in the US) between the era of the Scopes Monkey Trial (purportedly authenticating such doctrine in repudiation of the facts Darwin discovered at Galapagos), and then gaining energy in the Nixon administration (esp. through fundamentalist Billy Graham) and especially in the Reagan administration, when Fundamentalists discovered they could completely infiltrate the Republican Party (and Tories [fusing somewhat with Labor parties] worldwide).

    Those facts are incidental to the proof that God can not possibly exist. However, they are the actual causes behind modern reluctance to admit to the proof, usually by reacting to it with a sort of blinders on, as opposed to treating those facts as objectively as any topic not touched by modern myth and superstition (that is, striving for objectivity). And it is this incidental set of facts which even brings me to comment on the subject. I don't think I would have an opinion on this if the belief in God had not usurped the power to forge public policy around the world - at first as a reaction to liberalism (as expressed in Modernism, the Beatniks and Hippies) but reaching critical mass as a reaction to Islamic terrorism (esp. the expressions of religious-motivated cruelty against the hostages taken at the US Embassy in Tehran). And I might not even care about the usurpation of the democratic process (people forging their own public policy out of a reasonable amount of authentic knowledge, as opposed to fear and hatred aroused by religious ideals) if it were not the case that the policies chosen serve two core interest groups: those who wish to reverse the trends of social progress (such as the ideas which led to the end of overt racism expressed in the Jim Crow and apartheid policies), and those capitalists who want to improve profits by returning to laissez faire economics (through deregulation). In a nutshell, both groups want to undo all the progress accomplished since the early Industrial Age, which is about the most evil you could ever hope to stuff inside of the sheep's clothing.

    And I don't even have to rise to the "moral" indignity of that charade. It's simply ridiculously absurd.

    All of that is obscuring the discoveries at Galapagos, and the mountains of evidence Darwin's explanation preceded, which corroborate the random nature of all existence, the spontaneous generation of the universe out of nothing, and the spontaneous generation of organisms from the materials and energy left over from the Big Bang, in accordance with the laws of Nature observed universally, esp. with regard to physics, chemistry and thermodynamics.
     
  14. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    This explanation contains all the quintessential ingredients of pseudoscience. The person who wrote this is propounding lies, disguised as intelligent reasoning. The label "Design theorist" is emblematic of the lexicon of a fraudster posing as a scientist (or a person capable of formulating valid logical statements, perhaps even as an person of average education and some exposure to math and science through basic education).

    It's easy to prove thus person's logic invalid through a simple test. Suppose we decide that the number on your ID card serves as a valid representation of "complex and specified information" (whatever that is supposed to mean; it has no meaning in the world of science as far as I know). Now, for each digit in that number, create a deck of cards numbered 0 through 9 (plus A through Z if your ID number contains alphas). Go to Las Vegas and rent a machine that shuffles the cards, plus a high speed card reader which catches all that information and allows you to search it for the first occurrence of your ID number. It will take a while using this method, but eventually your number will come up. For a much faster test, use an equivalent algorithm on a fast enough computer.

    The occurrence of patterns in nature, as a consequence of vast chains of events, which arise out of a combination of random processes plus processes which follow deterministic laws, predicts that, over extreme amounts of time, there will emerge somewhere a star system such as ours, with a planet like ours, in which the materials and energies left over from the Big Bang will result in the same natural history as that on Earth: atoms will coalesce into complex molecules, molecules will coalesce into complex polymers, and structure like those of RNA/DNA, membranes, and organelles will coalesce from all of those "complex and specified" reactants, according to the laws of chemistry, thermodynamics, and physics in general.

    Your author, for example, would have trouble reconciling his opinions with, say, the way diamond formed naturally on Earth. Pure diamond is nothing more than carbon subjected to high temperatures and pressures over a very long time. Yet the result is a highly organized arrangement of carbon atoms, something your author would have to reject to preserve the pseudoscience they are promoting. And that is ridiculously absurd. Estimate the number of naturally "organized" molecules found in the minerals on Earth alone. Similarly, molecules which organize into systems naturally occur, and those systems organize naturally into primitive cells. We live in an era which is ahead of its time in some regard to this, therefore the Creationists can't "create life" from a kit sold on ebay. Otherwise this whole discussion would be moot. But regardless of that fact, it's crazy to throw out all of the science which leads to the modern explanations of all existence.

    Also, I take issue with the term "irreducible complexity". All conventional matter can usually be reduced to molecules, and those molecules can be reduced to atoms, and those atoms can be reduced to their constituent particles, and so forth. Evidently the Creationists who came up with this language (irreducible complexity) believes matter can't be reduced, and/or that living organisms can't be reduced to their constituent particles. The main fallacy in this reasoning is that it ignores the processes by which "complex" organization of particles occurs - such as the way a diamond is naturally formed out of a mineral deposit rich in carbon. Again, some of the science is ahead of its time, so we can't order a kit online and demonstrate every step in detail. But that's no reason to throw out the vast evidence which explains how organization of particles is reapeatably demonstrated in natural processes which formed all of the minerals on Earth which preceded the abiogenesis of primordial cells. Logic requires that we make a few inferences here, but they are not that profound. In fact your author is in denial of the existence of just about all minerals on Earth, without regard to the fact that those minerals can not be exactly explained, captured in a home experiment, and made available to the public. (Noting that synthetic diamond is a relatively new invention; long ago your writer would have to claim that the machine which makes synthetic diamond can not possibly work, for the simple fact that the carbon atoms simply won't "fall into organization" even under the required conditions.) And evidently your author denies the evidence about the conditions that existed by which all minerals were formed.

    And those facts are still incidental to the main reasoning from which we are forced to conclude that God can not possibly exist. That reasoning goes like this: there nowhere exists any definition of God which is not purely an invention of the imagination. As a corollary, there rarely exists any definition of God which is not arrived at by first assuming that a pre-existing definition (or set of definitions) is true, which themselves were invented in the imaginations of anonymous predecessors, passed down as oral tradition, captured into text by people who heard the lore, and converted into doctrine by people (e.g. "Doctors of the Church") who influenced all of modern culture even if only through happenstance and the random way stories gain traction on their own.


    So all this person has done is to repudiate the vast discoveries and mountains of evidence leading to the current state of knowledge of the natural world. Again, I wouldn't necessarily take issue with this person as stated above, except that I do find it somewhat criminal to attack the repository of human knowledge (for lack of better words), since this is tantamount to any kind of dangerous attack on the public in general.

    In a word, the Creationists who believe this either never studied the laws of probability, or else for some reason are in rebellion against facts they learned, for any number of reasons (to include mental health issues) - simply out of a need to justify the absurd belief that something which can not possibly be true, is in fact true.
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2015
  15. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    The Mind is brain-in-action, a self-operating computer. But not only that, the mind can drive and direct the brain's structure, in some cases healing it. To create self-awareness one would need to logically duplicate this computer. You may not have known that about the brain would you now?

    Common CTMU Objections and Replies.
     
  16. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Why are you such an idiot?
     
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I mathematically proved that the egg came millions of years before the chicken.
    Do you believe that the melting Ice cap in Greenland is not a result of a series of mathematical functions in our ecosphere?
    YOU keep say THAT, ignoring all scientific evidence for the mathematical function.
    . Yes.
    Human symbolic representations (often beginning with the first letter of a linguistic word) are a shorthand notation of what would take entire books to explain verbally.
    If the explanation was presented in Chinese language, would you understand ?
    Is the Bible a comprehensive explanation of the Universe and its functions?

    Which would you prefer to use? "E = Mc^2". or "Energy equals Mass multiplied by the speed of light squared"?
    Human mathematical notation is a universal human symbolic language describing the Universal cosmological mathematical constants and functions, which exist independent of observation .

    As to English does the same thing is rubbish. Perhaps to people literate in the English language as well as having access to or the ability to construct observational instruments.
    OTOH, E = Mc^2 is universally understood by scientists all over the world. Allow me to show you the mathemayical language of the various sciences.
    http://rapidtables.com/math/symbols/Basic_Math_Symbols.htm

    p.s. You must be a terrible chess-player.
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2015
  18. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    sideshowbob,
    regarding the accuracy of language in describing scientific concepts, what does this mean:

    "能量合计光速乘的大量被摆正" ?
    or
    "η ενέργεια είναι ίση με τη μάζα που πολλαπλασιάζεται με την ταχύτητα του φωτός που τακτοποιείται"

    Now translate these sentences into English. OK, I'll save you the time, they both mean;

    "energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared"

    or in scientific language; "E = Mc^2"
     
  19. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Is it? OK, then who designed the designer? And who designed the designer that designed the designer? And further more, who designed the designer that designed the designer, that designed the designer?

    So why not forget all that befuddled bullshit and accept that the Universe came into existence by chance?
    Oh, and by the way, I generally ignore the religious section, but of late we have numerous incursions of religions fanatics into the science forums, doing their best to invalidate science.

    Wow! All Aid was giving you was a well thought out scientific reasoning, no insults or insinuations, other than your god or the god's god, or anyone else's god does not really exist based on scientific knowledge.
    Is this an example of Christian tolerence?
    I'm out of here!
     
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  20. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    I go one step further. IMO, in a timeless permittive pre-condition of infinite potential, it was *inevitable*.
    That would also support the concept of a multiverse, IMO.
     
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    With respct to all good religious people, I was not *dismissing* God by naming it a Tulpa. It merely says that the concept of God as a *living motivated being* is an invention of human imagination and unknowable if it is real or unreal, even if they have acquired a spiritual life of their own.

    Unlike the *mathematical function*, a Tulpa cannot be *objectively* proved or defined, but is a *subjective* experience. There are good Tulpas such as God and other benign spiritual beings, such as angels, but also bad Tulpas, such as the Devil and other evil spiritual beings, such as demons.

    Which, IMO, makes the spiritual world a crowded place.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2015
  22. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Jan, Irreducible Complexity has been disproven. Even the Pontifical Science Academy acknowledges the concept of Evolution. This falsifies the concept of irreducible complexity.

    Instead of accusing me of lacking wisdom, you may want to look up the Kitzmiller v Dover trial:
    And if you want to see a demonstration of apparent IC broken down into reducible parts, you may want to watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohd5uqzlwsU
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2015
  23. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Really?

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    Bye.

    Has it?

    I wasn't aware of accusing you of lacking wisdom.
    You accuse your own self of lacking wisdom, and from what I have seen thus far, I'm leaning toward your analysis.

    We may well agree on something yet.

    Kenneth Miller is super boring (IMO), I can't sit through it.
    Tell me at what point of the video he breaks stuff down.
    If it's the one where he uses a mousetrap as a tie clip. Don't bother.

    jan.
     

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