Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)
Options
Comments
-
-
-
-
-
I have a spiritual knowledge that works in real life - that's logical enough for me.
That would certainly explain why you have such a hard time understanding science, and why science rejects things like Creationism as failing the standards required to be called science.And I don't claim I'm infallible about all things. Neither does the Pope.
Considering you criticize science so much, a methodology that assumes no one has infallible knowledge and as such various checks and balances must be put in place to verify data and conclusions, it is quiet humorous that you then pretend to have access to infallible knowledge you and you alone had assessed.
Can you explain logically had you determined this knowledge was infallible?0 -
Advertisement
-
Simple answer, we don't. Science appears to be working out very well for explaining things so far, but we have no idea if it will be able to explain everything.
That is what our cognitive faculties are telling us. How can we trust that what we perceive is really true given the fact that truth finding is not something that would have been selected for under Darwinian principles?That is far better than simply guessing at an answer, which is what religion (and ID) do. There is no point having an answer if we have no idea (and no way to measure) if it is accurate or not.
Religions are not scientific disciplines and as far as I know nobody uses their religion to one up the scientific method. Religions just declare things and you either believe them or you don't. Religions don't test anything but the scientific method can be use to test the claims made by religion. So I think your fudging things a bit much here.
ID is the theory that life is intelligently designed. How does one come to this conclusion? Through intricate and thorough observation living systems bare all the hallmarks of design right down to its most basic and fundamental constituents. At this level we find complexity beyond anything that known intelligent agents are able to produce i.e. DNA.
DNA is the evidence for an intelligent designer. It contains the blueprints of every living system on earth encoded within itself. This encoded information is decoded through a very intricate and complex information processing system within the cell. Its complexity is mind boggling and in the absence of a general consensus for how DNA came about by natural processes the best explanation is that it was designed. Until it can be shown otherwise ID is best explanation because there are no other agencies or mechanisms known to produce such intricate and complex information processing systems other than those we know are the product of intelligent agents.Which is why you have thousands of religions in the world, each one claiming to know the answers but each one unable to demonstrate to anyone else who isn't already a believer that the answers are in anyway correct.
Like I said, some religious claims can be tested by the scientific method, but that doesn't mean the the religious texts from which such claims are derived are scientific documents, they're not, nor do they claim to be. Most of these are theological issues which are to be debated outside of the science lab. One can study and draw conclusions based on exposure to the facts that are available wholly apart from the science lab and thereby be as convinced as one needs to be about the truth or falsehood of any religious claim. There are other ways of arriving at a degree of certainty about such things without the need to test them in the science lab. The science lab has it own limitations, it can only deal with the tangible and observable as far as the ability of our cognitive faculties will allow.Which is why 99.99999999% of all life on Earth didn't evolve the brain capacity to do this.
We are the only species we are aware of that has ever existed that has the brain capacity to ask and answer these questions, and there have been millions if not billions of species over the history of the Earth.
Why do you think that that cognitive faculty was selected for? Where is the advantage for survival in it? And in a blind process like Natural Selection (NS) how could it foresee any benefit to select for such a faculty?So yes, the odds that evolution would produce a creature capable of understanding evolution seem very small. And that is what we find when we look around.
OK, but again, why, in a such a blind process as NS would this faculty be selected for, given that according to eminent scientists like Professor Dawkins the only purpose in life is to propagate DNA?Contrast that with the idea that the goal of the designer was to produce creatures that had this ability. Such an idea produces a designer who really had no clue what he was doing.
I fail to see how you can draw that conclusion. Can you elaborate your point please?Why would you assume that given that as I already said the vast vast vast majority of life forms never developed this ability you would assume it was the goal of the creator of life to produce life forms that had this ability.
Is it inconceivable that such a designer would design at least one species to have this ability?If it was wouldn't it make far more sense if an awful lot of them had this ability, rather than just one species out of millions?
That would totally depend on the will of the designer wouldn't it?Again this is the egotism of religion and ID shining through, the assumption that despite only existing for a blink of the eye in terms of the over all time, and only existing in a tiny tiny corner of the universe, we are some how monumentally special and the end goal of who ever created all this.
Huh???
When have I ever said that we were monumentally special and the end goal of whoever created all this?
No, real egotism is thinking that we as a randomly and purposelessly arranged bunch of atoms, molecules and cells swirling around in an insignificant part of space on an insignificant spec of dust have the audacity to think that our minuscule brains have the capacity to even begin to comprehend how our universe works and how we got here today and that we could ever arrive at the truth of anything.That speaks to your inherent egotism Soul Winner rather than any logical deduction.
We are all driven by our own egotism Wicknight, don't paint it like you don't have any. If you really hadn't then you wouldn't be able to boast of nearly 20,000 posts on boards.ie :pac:0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »That is what our cognitive faculties are telling us. How can we trust that what we perceive is really true given the fact that truth finding is not something that would have been selected for under Darwinian principles?
Ok, that question is getting a bit muddled.
Firstly we can't trust that what we perceive is really true particularly when as you say evolution is interested in keeping you alive not providing you with truth. This by the way is what we have been saying to you guys for a long time and is a very good reason not to believe in something like religion based solely on personal experience or the testimony of others, since our assessment ability, gut reactions and common sense are evolved to keep us alive not provide us with truth about the world around us. So you have sort of shot yourself in the foot there.
Secondly, we can attempt to verify what we perceive in a way attempts to eliminate a lot of the inherent bias in human perception and assessment, which is what science is. But even that cannot determine for certain that what we think is true really is. Certainty about the natural world is beyond our grasp (which makes claims by theists of infallible truth even more silly)Soul Winner wrote: »Religions are not scientific disciplines and as far as I know nobody uses their religion to one up the scientific method.
Religions make claims about reality, what exists and doesn't exist, what is true and what isn't true. Even something as basic as "God exists" is a claim about reality.
Now the thing that annoys theists like myself is that in making or accepting those claims you ignore all the things you just told me as to problems in epistemology that you are more than happy to apply to science when science starts coming up with conclusions you don't like or agree with.
There is an hypocrisy there.
And "bare all the hallmarks of design" is a personal assessment that is unscientific since you cannot verify or test it independently to your own judgement. What one person thinks looks designed might be completely different to what another person thinks.Soul Winner wrote: »ID is the theory that life is intelligently designed. How does one come to this conclusion? Through intricate and thorough observation living systems bare all the hallmarks of design right down to its most basic and fundamental constituents.
With no way of verifying if any of the judgments are accurate they are, from a scientific position, useless.
It would be like 10 people looking at a falling rock and each concluding what speed it was travelling at. They would, no doubt, all come up with a different speed since they are all guessing. One person might even conclude it wasn't falling but being pushed by an invisible hand that no one else could see.
In your opinion, which is completely unverifiable. You could just be wrong.Soul Winner wrote: »DNA is the evidence for an intelligent designer.
Give me an experiment that will determine that you are slightly more right or slightly more wrong than simply guessing.Soul Winner wrote: »Until it can be shown otherwise ID is best explanation because there are no other agencies or mechanisms known to produce such intricate and complex information processing systems other than those we know are the product of intelligent agents.
But you already admitted there is no known intelligent agent that could produce this.
Like I already said ID is pointless without the designer. You can, for theological reasons, introduce God, but that is not science.
Or put it another way. Imagine that no intelligence that could do this exists. Then where is ID left? It has to be natural since there is no other option.
You must demonstrate that such an intelligence exists otherwise it is just a guess. Biologists have demonstrated that Darwinian evolution exists and produces complexity. You have no demonstrated your designer exists, so it is pointless speculation.
If no such intelligence exists then ID is not only untestable, it is impossible.
This is the elephant in the room for ID, you all think the designer is God and thus is all powerful. But science cannot assume this just because you say so.Soul Winner wrote: »One can study and draw conclusions based on exposure to the facts that are available wholly apart from the science lab and thereby be as convinced as one needs to be about the truth or falsehood of any religious claim.
All the reasons you gave as to why scientists cannot know something apply to the scientists when they take off their lab coats and go home to supper.
You don't suddenly gain the ability to assess things better the moment you stop doing science. If that was the case science would be unnecessary.Soul Winner wrote: »Why do you think that that cognitive faculty was selected for? Where is the advantage for survival in it?
Have you noticed humans number in their billions and have spread across the globe creating technology that greatly enhances our lives and more importantly are ability to stay alive long enough to have kids?Soul Winner wrote: »And in a blind process like Natural Selection (NS) how could it foresee any benefit to select for such a faculty?
Natural selection doesn't foresee benefit. If it did every creature on Earth would have our brain power.
Something either is a benefit or it isn't, in that moment. We may, with our brilliant brains, end up destroying the world, NS wouldn't see that coming.
But in the present our increasing intelligence gave us evolutionary advantage. It allowed us to form social groups, it allowed us to control fire, it allowed us to farm, it allowed us to build shelter and construct language. Each stage NS selected the increase in intelligence as a beneficial mutation because it helped the humans with it survive better.
If the goal is to produce life that can understand that it is designed why do 99.99999% of all life forms lack this ability?Soul Winner wrote: »I fail to see how you can draw that conclusion. Can you elaborate your point please?
Let me guess, we are special, we were chosen. Funny that.Soul Winner wrote: »Is it inconceivable that such a designer would design at least one species to have this ability?
It is some what inconceivable that such a designer would only design one species out of 4 billion years and billions of species, that would have that ability.
We are a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the life that has existed on Earth and we have only existed on this planet for a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the time the Earth has had life on it. Even if we exist on this planet until the point where the Earth can no longer support life we won't have been on the planet as long as life has been to this point now.
It is only ego that makes people think we are the goal of any possible designer.Soul Winner wrote: »That would totally depend on the will of the designer wouldn't it?
At some point the designer is just being stupid.Soul Winner wrote: »Huh??? When have I ever said that we were monumentally special and the end goal of whoever created all this?
Here
if we were designed by a Higher intelligence then the fact that we can deduce to any degree of certainty any truth in the universe is just what we'd expect to be able to do in this scenario.
Why would you expect the designer of life on Earth to care about your mental abilities at all? You are one species out of billions.Soul Winner wrote: »No, real egotism is thinking that we as a randomly and purposelessly arranged bunch of atoms, molecules and cells swirling around in an insignificant part of space on an insignificant spec of dust have the audacity to think that our minuscule brains have the capacity to even begin to comprehend how our universe works and how we got here today and that we could ever arrive at the truth of anything.
Considering you have just describe religion, I agree with you.
Science on the other hand doesn't expect any of this.Soul Winner wrote: »We are all driven by our own egotism Wicknight, don't paint it like you don't have any.If you really hadn't then you wouldn't be able to boast of nearly 20,000 posts on boards.ie :pac:
I think I'm great. I don't require the universe to think that as well. :pac:0 -
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
georgieporgy wrote: »I think it was a monkey
Then how come we still have our arms and legs? :pac:
And I thought Science was confusing....This theological discussion is far more difficult to comprehend.0
Will try and get around to responding to the rest your post at some stage tomorrow. I think we're just going around in circles though, but nevertheless... Night night 
This discussion has been closed.
Advertisement