The Origin of Specious Nonsense. Twelve years on. Still going. Answer soon.

J C

spacecoyote wrote: »

Is that applying a more human definition of engineering though, in terms of redundancy. I get that if a fallable human is designing a piece of tech, like a car, then fail-safes make sense.

But if you're a divine, infallible, creator, who engineered the human form, why design something imperfectly?

Is the idea of redundancy not more in line with an evolutionary model?

God was allowing for the Fall, and the entry of imperfection and disease when He created redundancy to help living organisms cope with the effects of the Fall.

robindch

J C wrote: »

... go enjoy your Ferrari-like body Robin

I already do.

All I'm doing is pointing out that what you've written is entirely and trivially false.

J C

robindch wrote: »

I already do.

All I'm doing is pointing out that what you've written is entirely and trivially false.

... and spectacularly failing to do so.:)

looksee

So God was anticipating the fall? That does not seem like very intelligent design? Would it not have been more intelligent to design it so the fall did not happen, then he could have continued playing Edenville with his perfect characters. Either that or he is a psychopath on a power trip.

J C

robindch wrote: »

Yes, because they have more than one heart.

Your original claim was that multiple hearts were a bad idea as they could be "possibly working against each other". I've shown that evolution reckons they're just fine to the extent that many organisms have many hearts.

Your original point has therefore been refuted.

Its 'horses for courses' ... a design for an earthworm, with the low pressure circulatory system used in an earthworm ... will accommodate a number of low pressure hearts ... but a number of high performance mammalian hearts pumping within our high pressure circulatory system wouldn't be a good idea and could cause serious difficulties.
At the end of the day, neither of our positions will be delivered a 'knockout' blow by arguing about examples of excellent design in nature ... you will maintain that such design came about by NS gradually perfecting it, because of the adavntages that increasingly better design confers on organisms ... whilst I will argue that the design was intelligently created.
... however, it's when we look at the complex specified information that objectively produces these designs in living organisms that a 'knockout' blow becomes possible.
... there is no spontaneous mechanism for producing such complex specified functional information de novo ... and when any changes are randomly/spontaneously made to it, it inevitably degrades ... because the non-functional combinatorial space is observed to be effectively infinite ... whilst the functional combinatorial space is observed to be very limited indeed. The only way of overcoming this reality is by the appliance of intelligence.
A factory could never produce a functional widget by using random processes, irrespective of having a selection mechanism (which would end up selecting from the 'rubbish' that the random production unit would produce all the time). Factories use intelligently designed tightly specified processes to ensure that it is useful stuff within the tiny functional combinatorial space is produced ... and not some useless rubbish from the vast non-functional combinatorial space, that a random process would produce. There is an infinity of ways to produce a car that will never go ... but there is only a very limited amount of ways to produce a car that will go.
... and the appliance of intelligence is what bridges that effectively infinite gap ... to ensure that a functional car (or anything else) is produced.

J C

looksee wrote: »

So God was anticipating the fall?

He is omniscient ... so He knew it was going to happen ... but He couldn't prevent it happening without removing free-will.

looksee wrote: »

That does not seem like very intelligent design? Would it not have been more intelligent to design it so the fall did not happen, then he could have continued playing Edenville with his perfect characters.

He could have removed free will from the equation ... and ended up with perfect robots, like you say ... but they wouldn't be able to accept or reject His love for them as they would lack the free-will to do so.

looksee wrote: »

Either that or he is a psychopath on a power trip.

... the psychopaths on the power trip were Adam and Satan ... both creatures lovingly created by God ... who became so egomaniacal, that they began to think they were God !!!:)
Since then, God has been offering man His love and mercy ... and in many cases, having His offer thrown back in His face.

I'm sure that He feels something like the 'nice guy' who has his love rejected by a woman he loves ... only to see her go off with the local 'bad boy' ... who will inevitably live up to his 'bad boy' reputation with her as well. The dynamic is something similar ... Satan is exciting and dangerous ... and God is safe and reliable.
... but God has the consolation to also be loved back by many more people than reject Him.

Timberrrrrrrr

J C wrote: »

He is omniscient ... so He knew it was going to happen ... but He couldn't prevent it happening without removing free-will.

He could have removed free will from the equation ... and ended up with perfect robots, like you say ... but they wouldn't be able to accept or reject His love for them as they would lack the free-will to do so.


... the psychopaths on the power trip were Adam and Satan ... both creatures lovingly created by God ... who began to think they were God !!!:)
All God has been doing is offering man His love and mercy ... and in many cases, having His offer thrown back in His face.

A 6 year old died from cancer today, your "god" is a dick.

King Mob

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

A 6 year old died from cancer today, your "god" is a dick.

Remember that this cancer is a product of mutations that god purposefully built into his "perfect" creation as a punishment device knowing full well the pain and suffering it would cause.

JC should really try explaining why that little girl deserved cancer.

mickrock

Recently, scientists nonchalantly proposed that evolution may be intelligent.

They said that since evolution exhibits characteristics of learning behaviour it is not blind or directionless after all:

"For example, a key feature of intelligence is an ability to anticipate behaviours that that will lead to future benefits. Conventionally, evolution, being dependent on random variation, has been considered ‘blind’ or at least ‘myopic’ – unable to exhibit such anticipation. But showing that evolving systems can learn from past experience means that evolution has the potential to anticipate what is needed to adapt to future environments in the same way that learning systems do."

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2015/12/evolution-learning-theory-study.page


However, according to these scientists Darwinism is still the hero of evolution, doing all the heavy lifting, with intelligence helping it along a bit!

If nature and evolution are intelligent, that implies a degree of consciousness is inherent in them.

J C

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

A 6 year old died from cancer today, your "god" is a dick.

Having lost a child myself, I fully understand your pain and indeed anger. All very understandable emotions ... and I sincerely offer my deepest sympathy to everyone who knew and loved this child ... and are obviously devastated by her loss. Do you know her family or are you related to her?
My thoughts and prayers are with you all.
Jesus wasn't immune from deep emotion when faced with death ... He weapt at the grave of Lazarus.
I don't think it was God who killed this child ... it was Cancer that did so. Ultimately the moral responsibility for all death resides with the unholy alliance of Adam and Satan in bringing sin and death upon a once-perfect world.
Not much consolation to the parents and friends of this child, I know ... but that seems to be why death manifested itself within creation.

oscarBravo

J C wrote: »

Why do you think it was badly designed? ... it works perfectly well ... it's a bit extravagant allright ... but extravagance isn't a design fault.

Of course extravagance is a design fault if it doesn't serve a purpose. You haven't explained what purpose extravagance serves; you've merely done your usual creation "science" party trick of starting with the conclusion you want to reach, and inventing arguments to support it.

There are two possible explanations for the giraffe's laryngeal nerve: one is that it's a vestige of evolution from an earlier species without a neck; the other is that it was purposely designed that way by an "intelligent" designer who decided to make it uselessly extravagant for no useful purpose.

Only one of those explanations stands up to scrutiny. You'll claim it's the "goddidit" explanation, because you value your religious beliefs over rational thought.

J C

King Mob wrote: »

Remember that this cancer is a product of mutations that god purposefully built into his "perfect" creation as a punishment device knowing full well the pain and suffering it would cause.

JC should really try explaining why that little girl deserved cancer.

That little girl didn't deseve Cancer ... no more than anybody deserves death ... but death and sin entered the World at the Fall ... and physical death will be the last enemy vaquished, but only at the end of the World.

King Mob

J C wrote: »

That little girl didn't deseve Cancer ... no more than anybody deserves death ... but death and sin entered the World at the Fall ... and physical death will be the last enemy vaquished, but only at the end of the World.

No JC, you have not addressed anything with this meaningless waffle.

Did god design the capacity to get cancer into humans, Yes or No?
Could god have designed humans to never get cancer, Yes or No?

J C

oscarBravo wrote: »

Of course extravagance is a design fault if it doesn't serve a purpose. You haven't explained what purpose extravagance serves; you've merely done your usual creation "science" party trick of starting with the conclusion you want to reach, and inventing arguments to support it.

There are two possible explanations for the giraffe's laryngeal nerve: one is that it's a vestige of evolution from an earlier species without a neck; the other is that it was purposely designed that way by an "intelligent" designer who decided to make it uselessly extravagant for no useful purpose.

Only one of those explanations stands up to scrutiny. You'll claim it's the "goddidit" explanation, because you value your religious beliefs over rational thought.

There are two competing explantions ... God could have done it to show that extravagance by an omnipotent God isn't a big deal ... or it could be a vestige from an ancestor with a short neck ... but which explantion is right can only be settled by examining how the laryngeal nerve is produced in every Giraffe that is born on Earth ... and it is observed to be produced via tightly specified processes strictly controlled by tightly specified information in the Giraffe's genome ... which is the 'fingerprint' of intellligent action.

J C

King Mob wrote: »

No JC, you have not addressed anything with this meaningless waffle.

Did god design the capacity to get cancer into humans, Yes or No?
Could god have designed humans to never get cancer, Yes or No?

God designed Humans to be perfect and immortal (and therefore never to get cancer).
Death and Cancer entered the world at the Fall ... because immortal men and women, now with access to evil, would have made life on Earth a Hell for each other ... and if you doubt me, just think what it would be like to life on an Earth poulated by milliuons of immortal Stalin and Hitler-like people ... who could never be controlled by injuringor killing them.

We're all paying the price for Adam's Fall ... but, quite frankly, this isn't much consolation ...
However, the fact that we can look forward to immortality in Heaven, after our brief sojurn here on Earth, may provide some consolation for some, but obviously not all, people.

King Mob

J C wrote: »

God designed Humans to be perfect and immortal (and therefore never to get cancer)..

So that's a yes to both. The rest is empty waffle.

Now we've established that he was responsible, lets establish intent.

Did God know that his design would lead to suffering and death that could have been avoided? Yes or no?
Did God try to rectify his heinous actions in designing cancer? yes or no?

No need for the word salad this time. Simple yes and nos will do.

J C

mickrock wrote: »

Recently, scientists nonchalantly proposed that evolution may be intelligent.

They said that since evolution exhibits characteristics of learning behaviour it is not blind or directionless after all:

"For example, a key feature of intelligence is an ability to anticipate behaviours that that will lead to future benefits. Conventionally, evolution, being dependent on random variation, has been considered ‘blind’ or at least ‘myopic’ – unable to exhibit such anticipation. But showing that evolving systems can learn from past experience means that evolution has the potential to anticipate what is needed to adapt to future environments in the same way that learning systems do."

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2015/12/evolution-learning-theory-study.page


However, according to these scientists Darwinism is still the hero of evolution, doing all the heavy lifting, with intelligence helping it along a bit!

If nature and evolution are intelligent, that implies a degree of consciousness is inherent in them.

This is the only alternative explantion to direct creation.
At long last, it seems that conventional science is recognising the obvious requirement for intelligence to explain the CFSI observed in living organisms.
... now the only thing left is for science to demonstrate the operation / source of this intelligence.

... you guys have been so lucky to have been hosting one of the great scientific debates of history ... even though yet neither knew nor accepted it.

Timberrrrrrrr

J C wrote: »

Having lost a child myself, I fully understand your pain and indeed anger. All very understandable emotions ... and I sincerely offer my deepest sympathy to everyone who knew and loved this child ... and are obviously devastated by her loss. Do you know her family or are you related to her?

He!

His name was Bradley and no I didn't know him but have followed his story for the last year.

My thoughts and prayers are with you all.
Jesus wasn't immune from deep emotion when faced with death ... He weapt at the grave of Lazarus.
I don't think it was God who killed this child ... it was Cancer that did so. Ultimately the moral responsibility for all death resides with the unholy alliance of Adam and Satan in bringing sin and death upon a once-perfect world.
Not much consolation to the parents and friends of this child, I know ... but that seems to be why death manifested itself within creation.

Don't start with this cop out sh/te JC it was YOUR "god" that did this by choice!

lawred2

J C wrote: »

God designed Humans to be perfect and immortal (and therefore never to get cancer).
Death and Cancer entered the world at the Fall ... because immortal men and women, now with access to evil, would have made life on Earth a Hell for each other ... and if you doubt me, just think what it would be like to life on an Earth poulated by milliuons of immortal Stalin and Hitler-like people ... who could never be controlled by injuringor killing them.

We're all paying the price for Adam's Fall ... but, quite frankly, this isn't much consolation ...
However, the fact that we can look forward to immortality in Heaven, after our brief sojurn here on Earth, may provide some consolation for some, but obviously not all, people.

Do you truly believe that?

All power to you like but...

J C

King Mob wrote: »

So that's a yes to both. The rest is empty waffle.

Its actually a no ... God didn't design cancer ... it was 'designed' by Satan and Adam ... whose actions lead directly to the introduction of death and cancer into the world.

King Mob wrote: »

Now we've established that he was responsible, lets establish intent.

The intent was there allright ... Adam allied Himself with Satan, despite being warned that he would surely die.

King Mob wrote: »

Did God know that his design would lead to suffering and death that could have been avoided? Yes or no?

He knew that suffering and death couldn't be avoided ... with the way things would turn out ... but He also knew that you and me would exist ... and have our being ... and in my case, love Him.
... and I'm certainly glad that God still went ahead with His creation ... because I wouldn't exist, if He didn't do so.

King Mob wrote: »

Did God try to rectify his heinous actions in designing cancer? yes or no?

He didn't design it ... so He didn't have any responsibilty to rectify it ... but He did send Jesus Christ down on earth to atone for all sin therby ensuring that we don't have suffer spiritual death on top of physical death.

mickrock

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

A 6 year old died from cancer today, your "god" is a dick.

It's strange how people get so angry at something they don't believe in.

If a supernatural being is discounted and if, for the sake of argument, nature is considered to be innately intelligent, then cancer isn't a problem, is it?

Cancer cells will grow and thrive as best they can just like other living creatures. If the universe/nature is intelligent, that doesn't mean cancer cells are bad or evil in themselves.

J C

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

He!

His name was Bradley and no I didn't know him but have followed his story for the last year.

Another poster said it was a girl ... so I asumed it was.
We lost a boy actually ... so the loss of Bradley is bringing it all back to me.

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Don't start with this cop out sh/te JC it was YOUR "god" that did this by choice!

He allows it allright ... but, as I've explained, there are valid reasons for not making a fallen Humanity physically immortal.
Difficult to accept, if you have lost a child, I know ... but quite understandable when one looks at the big picture.
Of course, if one doesn't believe in God ... or an eternal reward in Heaven ... then life can look like a bit of a sick joke ... or just molecules 'doing their thing'.

Timberrrrrrrr

J C wrote: »

Another poster said it was a girl ... so I asumed it was.
We lost a boy actually ... so the loss of Bradley is bringing it all back to me.

He allows it allright ... but, as I've explained, there are valid reasons for not making a fallen Humanity physically immortal.
Difficult to accept, if you have lost a child ... but quite understandable when one looks at the big picture.
Of course, if one doesn't believe in God ... or an eternal reward in Heaven ... the whole think can look like a sick joke.

Never mi d immortality,.what harm has a 6 year old done? Why let an innocent child die a long slow agonising death?

Your "god" if he does exist is a sadistic prick.

mickrock

oscarBravo wrote: »

There are two possible explanations for the giraffe's laryngeal nerve: one is that it's a vestige of evolution from an earlier species without a neck; the other is that it was purposely designed that way by an "intelligent" designer who decided to make it uselessly extravagant for no useful purpose.

No, there are three possible explanations for the way organisms are

1 An intelligent designer
2 Blind, dumb, mindless, directionless evolution
3 Evolution that is the opposite of 2 i.e. intelligent

1 and 2 regard living things as essentially machines while 3 regards them as creative and self-organising, which form and maintain themselves.

Machines have no purposes or ends of their own, while organisms do.

robindch

mickrock wrote: »

Machines have no purposes or ends of their own, while organisms do.

A fallacy which has been debunked philsophically and biologically.

magicbastarder

mickrock wrote: »

If a supernatural being is discounted and if, for the sake of argument, nature is considered to be innately intelligent, then cancer isn't a problem, is it?

who is arguing that nature is inherently intelligent?

robindch

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

A 6 year old died from cancer today, your "god" is a dick.

While the emotion is understandable, that kind of language is best avoided.

Stephen Fry makes the same point a trifle more elegantly, and therefore effectively, in his now-famous interview with Gay Byrne:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwNYSQo

oscarBravo

J C wrote: »

There are two competing explantions ... God could have done it to show that extravagance by an omnipotent God isn't a big deal ... or it could be a vestige from an ancestor with a short neck ...

Correct. One of those explanations involves a bunch of question-begging, hand-waving and sciencey-sounding concepts; the other involves actual science.

As for the idea of cancer and death being Satan's invention and not God's, we're back to the trilemma: if God could prevent cancer but chooses not to, he's not exactly benevolent; and if he can't prevent cancer, then he's not omnipotent. I don't see the point in worshipping a deity that could prevent childhood cancer, but chooses not to.

Pherekydes

oscarBravo wrote: »

As for the idea of cancer and death being Satan's invention...

But Satan is God's invention.

It's all so contradictory...

Samaris

I don't quite get why there must be such an insistence on something utterly unprovable over and above what we can actually see.

Death is necessary for every living organism because either a population is immortal or it breeds, it can't really do both. Breeding, the introduction of new individuals is far more beneficial than being immortal, as every organism is subjected to wear and tear by its environment and its own systems.

The introduction of all these gradual changes over time leads to some unhealthy mutations or genetic couplings (how genes express, not the pair involved!), which, along with environmental damage, manifests as disease, cancers, etc. That and other organisms evolving into niches that ultimately prove harmful to the host (pathogens).

Like, we can see this. We have been able to see it for millions of years. Why on earth would one reject all visible evidence to pin all ones hopes on something intangible, designed to be unprovable and thus stunt exploration of what problems can be solved?

Ultimately, the "God wills it" approach leads to the point of view that treating diseases (amongst other things) is arrogantly interfering in God's will, despite a complete lack of evidence. And there never can be evidence beyond talking around in circles regarding hypotheticals. It is..infantilising humanity to insist that they cannot or must not change "God's Will". Surely if there is a loving God, He would want us to grow, learn, question, investigate, study and help others, rather than throw everything to Him, like toddlers utterly reliant on mammy rather than mature adults who can love their mammy but also get along with their own lives without needing to bring everything back to her to solve.

I prefer to stand my world view on stuff that is actually there and able to be investigated. God did not create cancer. Satan did not create cancer. There was no actual Adam, it is a foundation myth to explain ultimate beginnings, just as all religions seek to explain. Science seeks to explain it too, but the essential difference is a reliance on what is tangible rather than what can never be more than hypothetical "what ifs".