# God Created the Universe and that does not conflict with science.



## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

Topics raised in another thread contributed to the creation of this thread. 

I believe God created the universe. 
I also believe in evolution.
The two beliefs are not at all incompatible. There is no conflict between science and Monotheism. 

Since God created the natural processes, and evolution is a natural process, the study of evolution is studying (part of) God's work. 

Science isn't about if God exists or doesn't exist. Or if God created life or didn't create life. I believe God created life and evolution is a theory about how God did it. 

In conclusion, I don't see a conflict between my religious beliefs and science.


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

I believe as well like you, but think God may be much different than our various religions try to make him out. You need to be a creationist as well as an evolutionist to believe primal ooze evolved in to Donald Trump imo.


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## The_Tosser (Oct 20, 2015)

Pluto said:


> Topics raised in another thread contributed to the creation of this thread.
> 
> I believe God created the universe.
> I also believe in evolution.
> The two beliefs are not at all incompatible. There is no conflict between science and Monotheism.


lmfao.


If this is what gets fools through the day, they have the right to believe it.

Go through the Bible and count the begats........ It does indeed add up to around a 6ooo year old earth. Incompatible with science, in case you didn't know. Where did your holy book go wrong?

LMFAO.


Go read on religions that categorically came before the Pentateuch. (The source of the big-3 religions of the day).

You may notice that your religion - which is Christianity i assume (ask me how and why i assume this - even more evidence that religions are man made) looks and sounds like rip-offs of earlier religions. 

You don't seem to to understand even the basics of "Evolution", since "Evolution" says nothing about the "Creation of the universe". IE you're a complete science dumbass talking out of your ***, wondering why people laugh @ you all day long.

I could go on and on and on, but you have only faith to go on and 'faith' is nothing but belief without evidence. IE the exact opposite of what science is. You can't argue logic with people that can't follow logic and reason. You just have to sit back and laugh at what created gods and religion the first place, and understand that it's still alive and well in the psyche of the human mind.

I find it very humorous that people are so self-centered that they actually think that 'they' are the lucky ones to have found the right god. Lucky you! It not Zues, it's not Horus, it's not Hanuman. goddam you got lucky, you found the RIGHT god and he was in your own back yard!

roflmfao

Of course you don't find a conflict, your logic is impeccable! rofl.

We don't need to invoke a 'god'. We have come a long way in understanding the world and the universe around us. Each time we have made a discovery, we have pushed back the 'god did it' nonsense a little further. We have pushed back literally to the beginning of time itself, and we've done so using science and the scientific method. 

Religion is faith as i have mentioned. All religions tell some very fucked up and tall tales, most being re-tells of previously believed but now extinct religions. We can safely ignore this nonsense since it has not helped mankind progress even a single step. Science, through hard work has brought us to where we are. 

The fairy-tales of religion that have been hoisted upon us with no evidence whatsoever, can indeed be dismissed completely for this very same reason.

You can believe that 'a god' created the universe, but you still have all of your work ahead of you. You now have to convince, without evidence yet again, that he/she/it is the 'god' that 'you' believe in and none of the other current or extinct 'gods' of the past. 

People are this dumb! lol.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I have nothing against people believing whatever serves to comfort them, but the fault in the logic is that without belief in the story of creation outlined in the Bible, there is no foundation upon which to believe in God at all.

But whatever. Some people believe we die and then are reincarnated as kittens or flowers.

The only problem I have is that one of the tenents of religion is to "witness to the world to save their souls", so religious folks aren't content to believe themselves, but feel obligated to compel everyone else to share their beliefs.


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## tygrus (Mar 13, 2012)

Pluto said:


> In conclusion, I don't see a conflict between my religious beliefs and science.


Basically you are saying you have no evidence of anything so you desperately latch onto the hard science of evolution to further your bogus claim. This is weak and disingenuous. Go find your own evidence and leave scientists out of your mumbo jumbo.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

As far as the universe and our own oceans we have a long way to go to figure it all out.

Other then that who really knows what is beyond the universe or what other realities or even dimensions there are. I do believe in god but even if I didn't I wouldn't be able to come up with the evidence of what is all out there.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

I don't see a problem with this. Science and religeon are two very different things. They can co-exist side by side. The issue is when the two are mixed. Specifically when religion masquerades as science (or any form of critical thinking for that matter). Simply put, if you want a mechanistic understanding of how the world works you do science. If, however, you want to morally justify:

- anally rape children (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases), 
-suck off infants (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...thodox-jewish-babies-keep-getting-herpes.html) or;
- take a knife to a woman's genitalia (https://www.hrw.org/news/2010/06/16/qa-female-genital-mutilation) 

you want to get your guidance from religious texts.


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

I'm more along the lines of "The Great Spirit" rather than the Muslim/Christian shtick. These days we need as much faith to believe in some sciences as we do to believe in a Creator.
I do agree organized religion is about control only.


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## mordko (Jan 23, 2016)

In other words you believe that God created a chimp in his own image and then **** Sapience evolved from that. Makes sense, it's exactly how I imagine the Almighty.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

If all God did was to create the universe, specially tuning the dials on all the cosmological constants so that the universe would expand, matter would form into atoms, molecules, planets and stars, and that evolution would be given enough time to act so that after 4.5 billion years slightly smarter than usual apes would evolve, I guess that is possible. I suspect it is unknowable. But there is zero evidence that even if such a creator did exist at the beginning of the universe, it has done anything to influence the course of events since then. So, whichever flavour of human religion you subscribe to is still a work of fiction developed by mere humans, having nothing to do with the original creator other than that creator allowed the formation of the universe in such a way that humans would create their own religions.

All I can say about this belief is: who cares. It does not support an active God intervening in the universe today. It certainly does not endorse Christianity or Islam or Judaism or any of the others as having any relevance. It does not imply a soul (in the dualistic sense of something other than the material body) or an afterlife, as scientific evidence seems pretty hostile to these notions. There is no reason for anyone living today to care that some entity caused the universe to begin, deliberately or accidentally.

So, contrary to the popular opinion, I don't think someone can consistently be scientific and theistic. Acceptance of one means compromise on acceptance of the other.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

And I suspect that many people get themselves tangled up by the seeming impossibility that the universe just happened to work out in such a way that we evolved.

For all we know, there are an infinite number of universes with slightly different initial conditions. The fact that intelligent life exists is almost certainly impossibly unlikely over all of those universes. But all intelligent life will find it in a universe that makes it possible for intelligent life to arise. So, the conditional probability of the universe being amenable to the emergence of intelligent life given that intelligent life has emerged is likely almost 100%.

Perhaps this is unintuitive to people, which is why they fall back to the idea that some agent must have intentionally designed the universe, the galaxy, the solar system, the earth, the life on it.


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## tygrus (Mar 13, 2012)

Elon Musk says chances are high we are in a simulated reality.

http://thefederalist.com/2016/06/08/elon-musk-prefers-living-inside-a-computer-game-to-god/


So start praying to your programmer overlords. Pray they never hit delete.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

Then who or what created the overlords? It goes on forever there is no end to it.


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## fretwire (Apr 13, 2016)

Trying to argue 'god' with a monotheist inevitably ends up being a circular argument which almost by definition leads nowhere.

I remember reading somewhere that "Jesus being resurrected proves he was the son of god. Because if he wasn't the son of god how could he have been resurrected?". I think it was in the context of easter and why easter is such an important christian holiday. The person writing it did NOT seem to be joking (but man was that a funny thing to read).

I you believe there's a sentient being out there who created everything, controls everything and has a 'plan' for you, believe on. Some day hopefully you'll wake up and I'll be happy to help you back onto your feet.

I used to get annoyed by these discussions but these days it just makes me feel kinda sad.


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## fretwire (Apr 13, 2016)

Ok, scratch that last part, it still annoys me! 

Here's a good read written by a former nun:

https://www.amazon.ca/History-God-Karen-Armstrong/dp/0345384563


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## Moneytoo (Mar 26, 2014)

I wanted to say something smart, but found God that made me laugh: https://twitter.com/thetweetofgod - but once I saw that "he" has 2.3M followers but only follows one.. and checked who is That One... Nah, will keep looking


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Having grown up and studied in one particular Christian religion, I found it difficult to reconcile beliefs within the doctrine.

The basic premise is that if you believe in the Bible, in a nutshell you will believe....

A perfect God, who knows the beginning and the end, created an imperfect world knowing it would fail, and then would wipe out the world of sinners and finally wipe it from memories of the saved.

Kind of a strange concept.


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## lonewolf (Jun 12, 2012)

fretwire said:


> Trying to argue 'god' with a monotheist inevitably ends up being a circular argument which almost by definition leads nowhere.
> 
> I remember reading somewhere that "Jesus being resurrected proves he was the son of god. Because if he wasn't the son of god how could he have been resurrected?". I think it was in the context of easter and why easter is such an important christian holiday.



The 2 most important moons for cycles of the spiral calendar are the moon based on Easter & Yom Kippur. Before the new moon the moon disappears the book with snakes that talk, is probably talking about the moon & its cycle not a man.


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## fretwire (Apr 13, 2016)

sags said:


> The basic premise is that if you believe in the Bible, in a nutshell you will believe....
> 
> A perfect God, who knows the beginning and the end, created an imperfect world knowing it would fail, and then would wipe out the world of sinners and finally wipe it from memories of the saved.


Pretty solid evidence that humans invented god. Only a human could come up with crazy **** like that.


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## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

Do those who argue against a higher intelligence believe that humanity is the best that the universe has to offer? Seems unscientific. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/elon-musk-simulated-universe-hypothesis (Granted, Elon Musk is no scientist but everybody listens to him because Tesla)


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

andrewf said:


> And I suspect that many people get themselves tangled up by the seeming impossibility that the universe just happened to work out in such a way that we evolved.
> 
> For all we know, there are an infinite number of universes with slightly different initial conditions. The fact that intelligent life exists is almost certainly impossibly unlikely over all of those universes. But all intelligent life will find it in a universe that makes it possible for intelligent life to arise. So, the conditional probability of the universe being amenable to the emergence of intelligent life given that intelligent life has emerged is likely almost 100%.
> 
> Perhaps this is unintuitive to people, which is why they fall back to the idea that some agent must have intentionally designed the universe, the galaxy, the solar system, the earth, the life on it.



I feel that I must add my two cents worth this discussion.

According to Stephen Hawkings book, the universe is a "million, million, million, million miles ( 1 with twenty four zeros after it) in size. What does make it, a Sextillion (21 zeros),larger than a trillion (9 zeros) and a quadrillion 15 zeroes,
or a quintillion (18 zeros). There is no term yet that defines what a 1, followed by 24 zeros is..but maybe we could call it "unknown zillion"?

Now according to Steven Hawking, the universe started with what scientists have called the "Big Bang" theory., which scientist and physicists have (approximated) to be from a singularity event approximately 15 billion years ago, and it is still expanding today.
Hawking goes on to say " An expanding universe does not preclude a creator,but it does place limits on when he might have carried out his job!"

Our galaxy is just one of some hundred thousand million that can be seen using modern telescopes.Within these galaxies, there is more than likely countless planetary systems, so just from the possible numbers, many of those may have idea conditions to sustain life, maybe some of it is evolved less, and maybe on some evolved more than we have as humans in our 10,000 years of existence on this planet.

The planetary systems (our sun and the earth on which we live) are part of the Milky Way galaxy which is hundred thousand light years across slowly rotating, and has been theorized to have thousands of planetary systems, some even like ours.

So science and religious beliefs (in a creator) can co-exist without contradiction.

If one goes back to GENESIS in the old testament, the creation of earth was described as done in 6 days, with the
seventh day reserved for a day of rest. This is in harmony with the Jewish Sabbath, after all the old testament
contains a lot of ancient Jewish history.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

The_Tosser said:


> lmfao.
> 
> 
> If this is what gets fools through the day, they have the right to believe it.
> ...


You are hallucinating. LOL. I didn't say anything about the Bible. Belief in a creator of the universe does not rely on the Bible. Some people believed in a creator of the universe before the Bible was written. If they didn't believe in God before they wrote it, why would they write it?


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

sags said:


> I have nothing against people believing whatever serves to comfort them, but the fault in the logic is that without belief in the story of creation outlined in the Bible, there is no foundation upon which to believe in God at all.
> 
> But whatever. Some people believe we die and then are reincarnated as kittens or flowers.
> 
> The only problem I have is that one of the tenents of religion is to "witness to the world to save their souls", so religious folks aren't content to believe themselves, but feel obligated to compel everyone else to share their beliefs.


1. Belief in a creator doesn't rely on the Bible. Whoever wrote the creation story *already* believed before it was written. 
2. Witnessing to the world is not monopolized by organized religion. Everyone has a socially constructed world view that they wished others believed also.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

tygrus said:


> Basically you are saying you have no evidence of anything so you desperately latch onto the hard science of evolution to further your bogus claim. This is weak and disingenuous. Go find your own evidence and leave scientists out of your mumbo jumbo.


Huh? 

Should I believe you exist? For example, apparently someone with the handle tygrus created a post. Based on me observing your creation, that is your post, is that evidence you exist? 
You see, a creation (your post) is, I think, evidence of a creator. But I can't absolutely prove you exist, so I have to admit my belief you exist is based on some belief. 

Yes?


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

none said:


> I don't see a problem with this. Science and religeon are two very different things. They can co-exist side by side. The issue is when the two are mixed. Specifically when religion masquerades as science (or any form of critical thinking for that matter). Simply put, if you want a mechanistic understanding of how the world works you do science. If, however, you want to morally justify:
> 
> - anally rape children (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases),
> -suck off infants (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...thodox-jewish-babies-keep-getting-herpes.html) or;
> ...


The belief in a creator God does not *entail* moral justifications for destructive horrors. 
Apparently the atheist Stalin murdered millions of his own people, no doubt morally justified by something other than belief in God.


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## Kropew (Nov 24, 2013)

I believe we might be living in a simulated universe


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

andrewf said:


> So, contrary to the popular opinion, I don't think someone can consistently be scientific and theistic. Acceptance of one means compromise on acceptance of the other.


According to cosmologists the universe began with a big bang. Hawking believes that evolution commenced right then at the big bang. He believes that an original simple element, via a process of evolution, diversified into the elements so far identified. I'll go along with that. But he also wrote that he can't prove it and it is his faith. He actually used the word faith, and that's commendable. 

Obviously, as Hawking demonstrates, faith and science are not incompatable. All the evolution that he claims commenced with the big bang, I believe, are created processes. Other people chose the faith they are not created processes. I don't see how one faith is consistent with science, while the other faith requires compromise. 

Supposing we had an auto mechanics class in which the students were to tear down a v8 engine, determine how it worked, and then put it back together. In the class we had one or more students who believed that one requires direct empirical evidence for everything they believed. And supposing some other students didn't require direct empirical evidence for what they believed. 
The latter group believed the v8 engine was the consequence of intelligent design. The latter group were skeptical because they didn't directly observe any engineers designing it, and they didn't directly observe its manufacture.

In my view the group that requires direct empirical evidence is, in a sense, fundamentalist. The other group that believes in intelligent design is normal. 
To me, when I consider an atom, or a living cell, they look like inventions in a similar way that a v8 engine looks like an invention even though I never witnessed the inventors/engineers/ create it. 

Hence, I don't see any compromise at all.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

dogcom said:


> Then who or what created the overlords? It goes on forever there is no end to it.


Nope. Explanations come to an end. 

A team of archaeologists dig up some ancient implements, pottery and what not. The archaeologist says wow we found evidence of human life here as they left some of their creations behind. The skeptic in the dig team dissents and says you can't say people were here because of the problem of infinite regression: if you say the pottery and implements were made by intelligent designers, then you have to say where did the intelligent designers come from. 

Do you really? 

I don't think so. The infinite regression thing is not a problem. Explanations come to an end.


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## tygrus (Mar 13, 2012)

If a person was to say, there is some underlying mystery of the universe and its existence/creation, you would get no challenge from me at all. There sure is. Even science would agree with this.

Its when you make the leap to the bible and doctrine and all the gibberish in those texts is when I get my dander up, because all that is bogus superstition written by ignorant people and we are 2500 years past all that. The universe doesnt care who you sleep with or whether you eat meat on fridays or chop part of your genitalia away at birth.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

fretwire said:


> Trying to argue 'god' with a monotheist inevitably ends up being a circular argument which almost by definition leads nowhere.
> 
> I remember reading somewhere that "Jesus being resurrected proves he was the son of god. Because if he wasn't the son of god how could he have been resurrected?". I think it was in the context of easter and why easter is such an important christian holiday. The person writing it did NOT seem to be joking (but man was that a funny thing to read).
> 
> ...


Well I didn't say anything about Jesus being resurrected. For all I know its the Elvis isn't dead phenomenon. 

When I see a created thing, such as your post, I think there was a creator of it. I can't prove you exist just by looking at your creation, but it is not unreasonable to believe you exist. 
Similarly, when I consider a living cell, it looks like an invention/creation. So to me, it is reasonable to believe in a creator. Theories of abiogenesis and evolution of species are theories of how God did it. 

I'm sure you are familiar with the process of reverse engineering. Some people acquire a complex created entity and want to know how it was made, so they reverese engineer. to me, that's what some biologists who are trying to figure out the exact mechanisms of evolution are doing: reverse engineering what God did.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

tygrus said:


> If a person was to say, there is some underlying mystery of the universe and its existence/creation, you would get no challenge from me at all. There sure is. Even science would agree with this.
> 
> Its when you make the leap to the bible and doctrine and all the gibberish in those texts is when I get my dander up, because all that is bogus superstition written by ignorant people and we are 2500 years past all that. The universe doesnt care who you sleep with or whether you eat meat on fridays or chop part of your genitalia away at birth.


When you say "you" I presume you do not mean me. I didn't initiate the topic of the Bible in this thread. The Bible is not a science book and it does not claim to be a science book.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

carverman said:


> I feel that I must add my two cents worth this discussion.
> 
> Now according to Steven Hawking, the universe started with what scientists have called the "Big Bang" theory., which scientist and physicists have (approximated) to be from a singularity event An expanding universe does not preclude a creator,but it does place limits on when he might have carried out his job!"
> 
> ...


Excellent point. Very reliable belief.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

Pluto said:


> Excellent point. Very reliable belief.


Also, the great thing about believing in a creator is it gives you the moral belief that it's ok to rape children. I guess that's a plus too if you're into that sort of thing.


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## Moneytoo (Mar 26, 2014)

none said:


> Also, the great thing about believing in a creator is it gives you the moral belief that it's ok to rape children. I guess that's a plus too if you're into that sort of thing.


Logically speaking (yes, I know, hard to do in the matters of faith ) - if those children raped children in one of their past lives, it's only fair that they relive the experience from... ummm.. the receiving end  But no, I'm not into that sort of thing - just mildly curious why you keep bringing it up


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

Generally b/c the many of those who claim to believe in a creator simply use it as a vehicle to be horrible to people. It can be raping children, sucking off infants or taking a knife to children's genitalia as I posted links to above. Religious perverts.


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## Moneytoo (Mar 26, 2014)

I don't know, I see this thread as an opportunity to revisit my personal beliefs (and non-beliefs ) - and you seem to bring it a few levels down... Lighten up! As they say, you see in others only what you have in yourself


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

If you think about it the future goes on forever so does the past because before the big bang there could have been another big bang or multiples of this occurrence. This also could mean that entities could have evolved through knowledge and science at first and then to who knows what to the point of being a god that is able to create life and the universe. This entity could also through experiment came up with modern man and let it play out with his influence and added the bible as a playbook or something, you just never know. Our own energy or soul also could come from some energy that is put into life and taken out and stored as death would release it.

Our minds are to small and our science is not very developed to even comprehend such possibilities. So to say that religion is just stupid and science of today knows all is also stupid to say. Aside from my own belief in god which is faith based, we just don't know and that includes everyone on this forum.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

dogcom said:


> Our minds are to small and our science is not very developed to even comprehend such possibilities. So to say that religion is just stupid and science of today knows all is also stupid to say. Aside from my own belief in god which is faith based, we just don't know and that includes everyone on this forum.


Our minds are too* small...


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

carverman said:


> So science and religious beliefs (in a creator) can co-exist without contradiction.


But belief in a creator that has anything to do with the god in any religious text is unscientific. And it also means that all of those religious texts are not literally true.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Our minds are small, our eyesight is weak, our hearing is constrained, and we aren't very strong.

The great creator was a loser of a designer.


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## LBCfan (Jan 13, 2011)

OK, I'm with you. God did everything. So, I have a bit of a problem that I'm sure you can help me with. WHO CREATED GOD?


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Pluto said:


> According to cosmologists the universe began with a big bang. Hawking believes that evolution commenced right then at the big bang. He believes that an original simple element, via a process of evolution, diversified into the elements so far identified. I'll go along with that. But he also wrote that he can't prove it and it is his faith. He actually used the word faith, and that's commendable.


I believe you are misunderstanding or misquoting Hawking. Evolution through natural selection (what we are talking about) did not occur in the aftermath of the big bang.

Faith is not an admirable endeavor. It is accepting as true something for which we have no evidence. Science is accepting as true models of reality for which evidence does not exist to disprove that model, even though it is possible for such evidence to exist (falsifiability). So one does not have 'faith' in scientific theories as one has faith in a God/religion. One can merely accept a scientific theory contingent on the absence of evidence disproving it.



> Supposing we had an auto mechanics class in which the students were to tear down a v8 engine, determine how it worked, and then put it back together. In the class we had one or more students who believed that one requires direct empirical evidence for everything they believed. And supposing some other students didn't require direct empirical evidence for what they believed.
> The latter group believed the v8 engine was the consequence of intelligent design. The latter group were skeptical because they didn't directly observe any engineers designing it, and they didn't directly observe its manufacture.


This is just intelligent design claptrap. Natural selection is a rock solid explanation for how complex life arose on Earth, and a mountain of evidence documented consistent with the predictions as a consequence of evolution through natural selection. And nothing about natural selection requires any agency or intention.



> In my view the group that requires direct empirical evidence is, in a sense, fundamentalist. The other group that believes in intelligent design is normal.
> To me, when I consider an atom, or a living cell, they look like inventions in a similar way that a v8 engine looks like an invention even though I never witnessed the inventors/engineers/ create it.
> 
> Hence, I don't see any compromise at all.


You say you accept evolution, but here it sounds like are rejecting it. Nothing about evolution through natural selection suggests a creator steering the process.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Pluto said:


> Nope. Explanations come to an end.
> 
> A team of archaeologists dig up some ancient implements, pottery and what not. The archaeologist says wow we found evidence of human life here as they left some of their creations behind. The skeptic in the dig team dissents and says you can't say people were here because of the problem of infinite regression: if you say the pottery and implements were made by intelligent designers, then you have to say where did the intelligent designers come from.
> 
> ...


You sound like you don't understand science or skepticism. What competing theory would explain the natural formation of pottery shards or arrowheads unearthed in an archaeological site?


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Pluto, maybe you should steer back to _*why*_ you choose to believe that a creator is steering the process of evolution? Nothing about evolution requires a creator, so your belief in a creator is without logical basis. Is it just comforting? What is the significance of this creator to you? Does it imply an afterlife? Does it imply some moral code you should live your life by?

Essentially, so what if there was a creator? I'm genuinely curious to hear your response.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

LBCfan said:


> OK, I'm with you. God did everything. So, I have a bit of a problem that I'm sure you can help me with. WHO CREATED GOD?


Why is that a problem?

Example: Supposing someone told you their car was created in Japan by the Subaru corp. And then you say well that's a problem because you then have to answer who created Subaru corp. 
I go, Huh? Explanations come to an end. 
Another example: An archaeologist discovers ancient pottery and art work work and explains it by saying people created it and left it behind. Then you say that's a problem because you have to explain who created the people. No you don't. explanations come to an end. If some ancient people were the creators of ancient pottery, then that's the end of it. Similarly with the origin of the universe.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

andrewf said:


> Pluto, maybe you should steer back to _*why*_ you choose to believe that a creator is steering the process of evolution? Nothing about evolution requires a creator, so your belief in a creator is without logical basis. Is it just comforting? What is the significance of this creator to you? Does it imply an afterlife? Does it imply some moral code you should live your life by?
> 
> Essentially, so what if there was a creator? I'm genuinely curious to hear your response.


Another thread was getting hijacked by evolution vs creationism topic. This thread was created, in part, to give the hijackers an outlet here so they wouldn't muddle up the other thread. 

1. God "steering the process of evolution" Hmmmm. I don't recall saying that. I recall saying that I believe in evolution. I'm not sure that God is steering the process of evolution any more than a car engineer is steering your car when you are driving it. 

2. Belief in a creator is without logical basis: When people encounter an invention it is natural to assume there was an inventor. For example, you created your post in this thread. So I think it is quite reasonable to think you exist. But it isn't necessary that you exist. There could be other explanations for the origin of your post. For example, a computer could be generating all the posts on this forum and I am the only human on it. But I don't believe that, its just a possibility. I believe you exist based on observing your creation. Now supposing one were to ask me, why do you believe andrewf exists? it is not necessary that he exists. Is it comforting to believe andrewf exists? I don't get your questions. 

3. It isn't necessary to believe God exists, but it is reasonable to believe a creator God exists in the same way that it is reasonable for me to believe you exist. Stated another way, I can't prove you exist, but I believe you exist. If it is justified to believe you exist, then it is justified to believe God exists. 
4. after life. I think post death is like before we were born, but I can't prove it. 
5. I'm a pluralist. Everyone has a world view that they can't prove, they just believe it mostly because they were socialized to believe it.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

andrewf said:


> You sound like you don't understand science or skepticism. What competing theory would explain the natural formation of pottery shards or arrowheads unearthed in an archaeological site?


His question was about who created God. That assumes God was created. I don't buy that assumption. He was alluding to the so called problem of infinite regression. So me its not a problem because explanations come to an end.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Pluto said:


> 1. God "steering the process of evolution" Hmmmm. I don't recall saying that. I recall saying that I believe in evolution. I'm not sure that God is steering the process of evolution any more than a car engineer is steering your car when you are driving it.


So in your analogy, the engineer is steering the car by having designed it in the first place? Your point being that 'the creator' intended to create you and I today, and used the mechanism of natural selection to do so?



> 2. Belief in a creator is without logical basis: When people encounter an invention it is natural to assume there was an inventor. For example, you created your post in this thread. So I think it is quite reasonable to think you exist. But it isn't necessary that you exist. There could be other explanations for the origin of your post. For example, a computer could be generating all the posts on this forum and I am the only human on it. But I don't believe that, its just a possibility. I believe you exist based on observing your creation. Now supposing one were to ask me, why do you believe andrewf exists? it is not necessary that he exists. Is it comforting to believe andrewf exists? I don't get your questions.


You're making the leap that if some things were not 'created' we can't have any confidence that all things were not created. The chances of these posts appearing through some natural process (absent someone writing them) are infinitesimally low. You can't make the same argument about evolution, given that we evolved. 



> 3. It isn't necessary to believe God exists, but it is reasonable to believe a creator God exists in the same way that it is reasonable for me to believe you exist. Stated another way, I can't prove you exist, but I believe you exist. If it is justified to believe you exist, then it is justified to believe God exists.


This argument does not follow. They are not equally likely propositions.



> 4. after life. I think post death is like before we were born, but I can't prove it.
> 5. I'm a pluralist. Everyone has a world view that they can't prove, they just believe it mostly because they were socialized to believe it.


So why does it matter whether such a creator exists? I am indifferent to the possibility. I think it is unlikely, but I don't have a belief either way. Such a creator is irrelevant to my existence. Do you feel that the potential existence of such a creator has some relevance to your life? If so, in which way? To me, this is like saying there were supernovae that created the heavy atoms we are all made of, so in a sense, we were 'created' by supernovae. What do we do with that information? Go to the church of supernovae on sunday?


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

andrewf said:


> I believe you are misunderstanding or misquoting Hawking. Evolution through natural selection (what we are talking about) did not occur in the aftermath of the big bang.
> 
> Faith is not an admirable endeavor. It is accepting as true something for which we have no evidence. Science is accepting as true models of reality for which evidence does not exist to disprove that model, even though it is possible for such evidence to exist (falsifiability). So one does not have 'faith' in scientific theories as one has faith in a God/religion. One can merely accept a scientific theory contingent on the absence of evidence disproving it.
> 
> ...


1. So you have faith in Popper's falsifiability criterion for truth. 

2. I didn't say Hawking claimed natural selection commenced at the big bang. He has a theory of evolution of material that doesn't work by natural selection. 

3. "Faith is not an admirable endeavor. It is accepting as true something for which we have no evidence." You use the words faith and evidence. What is your criteria for separating the two? 

4. I don't say that natural selection requires agency. I believe natural selection is a process that God created. I believe God created material in such a way that evolution could occur without any intervention. Believing that God created natural processes isn't the same as rejecting natural processes. 

5. "claptrap' My, you are passionate. So much for the disinterested dispassionate scientist. You prattle on and on about rock solid evidence. My, you are emotional about your scientific beliefs. I take evolution as a fact even though the micro biological details are not clear. (I might add that Newton frequently expressed his belief in God in the midst of his science writings. He didn't have a problem with the idea that God created natural processes, and he has an enduring place in the history of science. You seem to be greatly offended by the circumstance that Newton and I have belief in God in common. 

6. I didn't say a creator was steering the process. I believe the process was created in the beginning, and it takes a very long time for the process to unfold. 


But your deeper issue is your belief that faith and evidence are in separate compartments. Will you elaborate on that some more? I have never found a clear division between belief/faith and evidence. Perhaps you could enlighten me on what you think is the dividing line.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

2. You are mixing different meanings of the word evolution in the same context. In the OP, you said you accepted evolution (presumably meaning natural selection, given the context), then you started referring to evolution in another sense (process of changing from simpler to more complex forms). You are asking to be misunderstood.

3. Faith is holding as true something that cannot be proven or disproven, regardless of evidence. Like, 'knowing' there was a creator god. I don't know if there was one or not, but I think it rather unlikely. And like I said, it doesn't even matter.

4. But now you're using capital 'g' God. What does capital 'G' have to do with this creator who started the top spinning? You need to define your terms here, because it common usage, it is generally referring to god of the abrahamic religions. And the God of the bible/quran/torah has nothing to do with this notion of a creator who set things in motion in the beginning and has not intervened ('steered') since.

5. I only get passionate because magical thinking is not helpful, and often harmful. I do sincerely apologize if the word claptrap was too strong for you. As for Newton, I will cut him some slack and judge him by the standards of his day and not ours. And it seems that you're just resorting to the appeal to authority fallacy here. 

6. If it is not steering (aiming, if you prefer)/intervening, why call it God? You seem to be applying the word God (capital G) with all the baggage that entails to thing/process that may or may not have existed and for no apparent reason. What would be different about your life if your belief that there was creator who initiated the universe but has not intervened since was incorrect? 

And the most the creator could have done was created a universe in which natural selection could occur. Which would still mean that life on earth was not designed, per se, but rather a naturally emergent consequence of those initial conditions. It seems you are arguing that the motions of a flock of starlings appear to orchestrated by someone 'designing' those motions. When really that phenomenon seems to be the emergent behaviour of some simple rules applied by each bird in the flock (maintain a position relative to your neighbours). 

I have to suppose that you're a determinist, and believe we have no free will. How else would a creator be able to achieve a very particular result from some initial conditions unless reality was deterministic?

I honestly find belief in a deity to be a truly bizarre idea. I have never been able to truly relate to it, which is why I find it fascinating. What seems to come as a consequence of this belief is what makes it horrifying.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

andrewf said:


> *But there is zero evidence that even if such a creator did exist at the beginning of the univers*e, it has done anything to influence the course of events since then. So, whichever flavour of human religion you subscribe to is still a work of fiction developed by mere humans, having nothing to do with the original creator other than that creator allowed the formation of the universe in such a way that humans would create their own religions.


Interesting hypothesis Andrew. Yes, it does have some merit. Nobody was around when the universe was supposedly created. Not even the greatest scientific minds today, can rationalize or fathom what took place EONS ago, well before humans evolved from the apes as some scientist believe, or perhaps some creator decided to make them out of dust,
and blew into this dust figure made in his own image, and created the first man called Adam. 

Realizing that to procreate, the creator needed another form of human with the ability to procreate and sustain life, and so (according to the Bible, he took ONE of Adams ribs and created Eve, his female companion).

We will leave all the other Biblical descriptions aside as to the evil serpent, the Garden of Eden (which was in Mesopotamia, or modern Iraq these days) and think a bit on the creationist theory or the universe. Once we get past the first chapter]
of the old testament of the Bible, it becomes more of an accounting of Israel and Jewish history, so at least those chapters
can be verified somewhat today.

None of the modern day scientists can explain how long or who created the universe. 
The "Big Bang Theory" is just a partial theory with no real scientific evidence as this even (supposedly) occurred 15 Billion years ago, and how did they establish that time frame.
Now, according to Hawking, human existence as we know it has only existed approximately 10,000 years on this planet.

Of that 10,000 years, only about 3,000 years (up to the current date) is documented in some form, either in tablets or dead sea scrolls or other writings scrawled on walls in Egypt.

How old are the pyramids compared to the formation of the universe and the planetary system?
What took place in the first 7,000 years of evolution of man? If we evolved from the apes, why then are there still great apes and other monkeys today in their natural form? 

To many questions and not enough evidence leads to supposition theories or explanations by scholars of religious beliefs that seem to be plausible (a superior creator) to satisfy their layman flock. IE: " If you are telling me God created man, that's good enough for me. If God made the heavens and the earth in 6 days and rested on the 7th day"...that's good enough for me. I believe you. 



> All I can say about this belief is: who cares. It does not support an active God intervening in the universe today. It certainly does not endorse Christianity or Islam or Judaism or any of the others as having any relevance. It does not imply a soul (in the dualistic sense of something other than the material body) or an afterlife, as scientific evidence seems pretty hostile to these notions. *There is no reason for anyone living today to care that some entity caused the universe to begin, deliberately or accidentally.
> *
> So, contrary to the popular opinion, I don't think someone can consistently be scientific and theistic. Acceptance of one means compromise on acceptance of the other.


Again Andrew, you are approaching this as someone with a scientific mind open to discussion and understanding.
Millions, actually Billions of people on this planet are born into religious thinking and for them that is good enough.
They don't care how the universe was created.


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

^


> ... Again Andrew, you are approaching this as someone with a scientific mind open to discussion and understanding.
> *Millions, actually Billions of people on this planet are born into religious thinking and for them that is good enough.
> They don't care how the universe was created*


 ... I think we, humans, are an alien's experiment that gone wrong. :biggrin: And Earth does not belong to us.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

carver, I think you're a bit confused. Human civilization may have started about 10k years ago (agriculture and creation of cities). But humans evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago. And asking why there are still chimps and gorillas is like asking why there are still wolves today even though we domesticated dogs.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

andrewf said:


> So in your analogy, the engineer is steering the car by having designed it in the first place? Your point being that 'the creator' intended to create you and I today, and used the mechanism of natural selection to do so?
> 
> No. I don't know what you mean by "steer" I never used the word in the first place.
> 
> ...


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

carverman said:


> If we evolved from the apes, why then are there still great apes and other monkeys today in their natural form?


This is the "great chain of being" fallacy, in which humans are the pinnacle of evolution and everything else is thought to be evolving toward this ultimate, most highly evolved creature.

Evolution is more like a tree, and we're just out on one of its many branches.

Cockroaches are probably more highly evolved than humans, as they achieved their optimal design millions of years ago; fossil cockroaches look pretty much like modern-day cockroaches. 

There are two main kinds of natural selection: stabilizing selection, which maintains good designs that work in their current environment, and directional selection, which is what leads to evolution. Most natural selection doesn't lead to any change at all.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Pluto said:


> andrewf said:
> 
> 
> > So in your analogy, the engineer is steering the car by having designed it in the first place? Your point being that 'the creator' intended to create you and I today, and used the mechanism of natural selection to do so?
> ...


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Beaver101 said:


> ^ ... I think we, humans, are an alien's experiment that gone wrong. :biggrin: And Earth does not belong to us.


You could be right there Beav...and if we don't start treating this planet the way it should be (consuming natural resources, burning up all the fossil fuels, and increasing the poplulation faster than ..rabbits..it won't "belong" to us much longer.

If you look into just 3,000 years of man being on this earth, where there is *some recorded history*, even if it's cave drawings done by Cro-magnon man or early **** sapiens similar to "Bigfoot", we really don't have much to show for the first 1,000 years of the supposed 3,000 years of recorded history. Ok, maybe the Pyramids and the ancient temples of Babylon carved into sandstone cliffs to show that 
more advance forms of humans were living back then..but..most of the scientific discoveries, except for earlier astronomers and Newton theories, and perhaps some medical discoveries, have been primarily discovered in the 20th century.

Inventions Like the first transistor by Bell Labs in 1946. Now 70 years later we have a technological revolution that for practical purposes re-invents itself as more advanced technological innovations and will continue re-inventing itself for years to come.

Unfortunately, we don't really know what these "years to come" will have in store for mankind. More wars? More starvation because there is not enough food to feed a continually growing population..and pollution..the worst of the modern day evils, followed by the other "Horsemen of the modern era Apocalypse....." as spelled in Revelations.

If we don't take care of this planet, we definitely may go the same way as the dinosaurs into extinction..and it won't take another 1,000 years to do it either.

Carverman (I'm not a philosopher... but I would like to play one on TV someday) :biggrin:


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

andrewf said:


> carver, I think you're a bit confused. Human civilization may have started about 10k years ago (agriculture and creation of cities). But humans evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago. And asking why there are still chimps and gorillas is like asking why there are still wolves today even though we domesticated dogs.


yes and no..some dogs are direct descendents of the wild wolves that roam this planet, such as the husky.Others are the result of a lot of interbreeding over
the millenia to produce special purpose dogs, such as fighting dogs (pit bull) , sheep dogs, guard dogs and miniature variations of all shapes an sizes.
Are they truely descents of the original wolves..or is it the same as humans..Darwinian theory of evolution says we first crawled on all fours before we began to walk on two legs and we could be in fact descendent of the apes. Movies (Planet of the Apes I, II etc) aside, the only real proof of that, if we can actually 
start to make some sense out of this from an evolutionary perspective is the Olduvai gorge in Tanzania, Africa and Dr. Leakey' s discovery of bones in this gorge, which have been carbon dated back a few thousand years....long before recorded history.

extraction from Wiki: 


> **** habilis, probably the first early human species, occupied Olduvai Gorge approximately 1.9 million years ago (mya); then came a contemporary australopithecine, Paranthropus boisei, 1.8 mya, and then **** erectus, 1.2 mya. **** sapiens is dated to have occupied the site 17,000 years ago.





> Though substantial evidence of hunting and scavenging has been discovered at Olduvai Gorge, it is believed by archaeologists[who?] that hominins inhabiting the area between 1.9 and 1.7 mya spent the *majority of their time gathering wild plant foods, such as berries, tubers and roots. The earliest hominins most likely did not rely on meat for the bulk of their nutrition.* Speculation about the amount of meat in their diets is inferred from comparative studies with a close relative of early hominins: the modern chimpanzee. The chimpanzee's diet in the wild consists of only about five percent as meat. And the diets of modern hunter-gatherers do not include a large amount of meat. That is, most of the calories in both groups' diets came from plant sources.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

carverman said:


> yes and no..some dogs are direct descendents of the wild wolves that roam this planet, such as the husky.Others are the result of a lot of interbreeding over
> the millenia to produce special purpose dogs, such as fighting dogs (pit bull) , sheep dogs, guard dogs and miniature variations of all shapes an sizes.
> Are they truely descents of the original wolves..or is it the same as humans..Darwinian theory of evolution says we first crawled on all fours before we began to walk on two legs and we could be in fact descendent of the apes. Movies (Planet of the Apes I, II etc) aside, the only real proof of that, if we can actually
> start to make some sense out of this from an evolutionary perspective is the Olduvai gorge in Tanzania, Africa and Dr. Leakey' s discovery of bones in this gorge, which have been carbon dated back a few thousand years....long before recorded history.
> extraction from Wiki:





> **** habilis, probably the first early human species, occupied Olduvai Gorge approximately 1.9 million years ago (mya); then came a contemporary australopithecine, Paranthropus boisei, 1.8 mya, and then **** erectus, 1.2 mya. ***** sapiens is dated to have occupied the site 17,000 years ago*.





> that tools discovered in Ethiopia and dated to 2.5 million years ago could have been made by Paranthropus boisei.[3


17,000 years ago? Well that kind of blows a hole in Dr. Hawking's suppositions that man has only been on this earth for "about" 10,000 years! And where exactly is this "Garden of Eden" that the Bible talks about..a land of milk and honey
that we abused (bite of the tree of knowlege) and were tossed out to fend on our own?

Carver (I'm not an anthropologist by any means, but I would like to play one on TV.):biggrin:


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

andrewf said:


> Pluto said:
> 
> 
> > You still have not explained why you refer to the initial top spinner of the universe as 'God'. Do you attach any significance to this entity other than the supposition that it initiated the universe?
> ...


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

carverman said:


> Was the earth created to support mankind, thereby requiring some kind of "creator", superior entity, referred to as "GOD", ALLAH, BUDDA or other forms of religious icons to create the inhabitants ..or did mankind develop from the lower beasts after thousands upon thousand of years of evolution by just evolution and basically nothing else?


I think a large part of the problem is that everything we are familiar with has a beginning and and end, so we can't really comprehend concepts like infinity or things that were "always there" and have no real beginning or end. We can't get our minds around what was there before the Big Bang, if there was a Big Bang, nor can we comprehend the idea of an infinite universe.

It's similar to understanding how animals think without words. Human babies can think without words, but for us as adults it's really hard to imagine how an animal can think without words and thus we typically conclude that animals can't think.

Since it's really hard to image how physics and biology could have acted by themselves to produce the world we see today, it's understandable why humans would invent the concept of gods as creators of it all. We have a hard time chalking it all up to chance and coincidence. But if you took five of the same-size planets and put them the same distance from the sun, at the end of a few billion years you'd see very different forms of life on each one. There's no inevitability: I suspect there's life on other plants somewhere in the universe, maybe on many planets, but I doubt any of it is anything like life on ours, because of the role of chance in evolution.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

andrewf said:


> Pluto said:
> 
> 
> > Abiogenesis could be falsified by evidence that life on earth was seeded from elsewhere (the martian meteorite example). Just one example. Evidence would be observations today that are consistent with the predictions that arise as a consequence of abiogenesis and no evidence that contradicts it.
> ...


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

andrewf said:


> All I can say about this belief is: who cares. It does not support an active God intervening in the universe today. It certainly does not endorse Christianity or Islam or Judaism or any of the others as having any relevance. It does not imply a soul (in the dualistic sense of something other than the material body) or an afterlife, as scientific evidence seems pretty hostile to these notions. There is no reason for anyone living today to care that some entity caused the universe to begin, deliberately or accidentally.


Who cares? Apparently your beliefs are important to you. So what would stop you from thinking that other peoples beliefs are important to them? 

I don't think science is hostile per se to belief in a creator. There isn't any scientific theory that specifically speaks to the issue one way or the other. its possible that atheists want to monopolize science, so they promote the fallacy that science disproves the existence of God. 

Too, in my dialogues with atheists many of them talk as if atheism is progress, and that atheism can in some sense save the human race from its problems. Some have a clear messianic flavor to their belief system. Is atheism relevant? Does the atheistic faith change the course of events?


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Pluto said:


> I don't think science is hostile per se to belief in a creator. There isn't any scientific theory that specifically speaks to the issue one way or the other.


I agree with this: actually I think the question "is there a god" is of no interest to science, because there's no way to answer the question objectively based on evidence. And the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, so it's simply not a scientific question. The only way to know, apparently, is after we die, and at that point it's too late: either you're dead and that's that or there's an afterlife but you can't communicate to the living about your discovery. So it's possibly the most uninteresting question in the world from a scientific perspective.


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## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

carverman said:


> 17,000 years ago? Well that kind of blows a hole in Dr. Hawking's suppositions that man has only been on this earth for "about" 10,000 years!


Here's a link to a talk by Stephen Hawking. In it, he refers to 10,000 years of *recorded* history. He does not say that man has only been here that long, just that we started writing things down around then.
http://www.hawking.org.uk/life-in-the-universe.html


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

All I know there are no atheists on my sailboat whenever the wind kicks up over 35...


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

carverman said:


> yes and no..some dogs are direct descendents of the wild wolves that roam this planet, such as the husky.Others are the result of a lot of interbreeding over
> the millenia to produce special purpose dogs, such as fighting dogs (pit bull) , sheep dogs, guard dogs and miniature variations of all shapes an sizes.
> Are they truely descents of the original wolves..or is it the same as humans..Darwinian theory of evolution says we first crawled on all fours before we began to walk on two legs and we could be in fact descendent of the apes. Movies (Planet of the Apes I, II etc) aside, the only real proof of that, if we can actually
> start to make some sense out of this from an evolutionary perspective is the Olduvai gorge in Tanzania, Africa and Dr. Leakey' s discovery of bones in this gorge, which have been carbon dated back a few thousand years....long before recorded history.
> ...


No, dogs are not the descendants of wolves from today. They are descendants of the wolves of a few tens of thousands of years ago.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

carverman said:


> Why is it, that the third planet from our sun supports life, yet the first two , and the planets from Mars( basically a barren dry planet) and beyond are either frozen, or in what is believed to be a gaseous isotropic state. (Jupiter)?
> 
> Was the earth created to support mankind, thereby requiring some kind of "creator", superior entity, referred to as "GOD", ALLAH, BUDDA or other forms of religious icons to create the inhabitants ..or did mankind develop from the lower beasts after thousands upon thousand of years of evolution by just evolution and basically nothing else?


It is really not at all surprising that given we evolved in this solar system, we evolved on the third planet and not the first, second or fourth. It would be quite astonishing indeed if humanity had evolved on Venus. Humanity could only have arisen on a planet that was conducive to its existence, therefore there does not need to be any intention behind creating such a planet. We would not be around to wonder about such things if the Earth was not conducive to complex life. This seems to be a large mental leap for people... and the reason why so many people wave their hands and say 'god did it'.

It's like being a lottery winner, and being surprised you bought a ticket. The surprising thing is that we exist, not that the conditions for us to exist allowed for it.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Pluto said:


> 1. according to this article,
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Extraterrestrial_organic_molecules
> The extra terrestrial hypothesis falls under the umbrella of abiogenesis. And it sort of begs the question anyway.
> 
> ...


I'm not atheist in the strictest sense of the term (having 'faith'-belief without evidence-that no gods exist). I allow the possibility (however remote I feel it is) that there is some thing that caused the creation of the universe as you are contending. I am almost certain that none of the gods in the various mythologies (Zeus, Ra, Yahweh, Krishna, Allah, Jesus, etc.) exist, as the far likelier explanation is that they are all the product of human imagination. 

You blatantly contradict yourself when you say you accept evolution, yet insist that cells, eyes, monkeys, bananas were directly designed by a creator. Evolution through natural selection is a process of accumulated random changes that selected by varying levels of fitness. Successful changes propagate faster than less successful changes. It gives the illusion of design, but it is not design.



> You see the method you employ with theism, is different than the method you employ with abiogenesis. And the only reason I can see is your own personal beliefs.


I have no certainty with regard to abiogenesis. It is a plausible theory rooted within our understanding of more fundamental science, with no strong evidence to contradict it. I would bet lunch that it is fact, but not my life.



> 3. What would be an example of a prediction flowing from abiogenesis? Clearly in order to know what observations to look for today that could be consistent with a prediction flowing from abiogenesis, we need to identify the predictions. Yes?


Good evidence would be the existence of life that independently arose in other places (Mars, Europa, etc.). I don't think that this particular theory will be easy to conclusively prove or disprove with the weight of evidence. I am unconcerned by this fact.



> 4. Newton. Due to progress in philosophy you expect Newton would not believe in a creator today. Will you tell me more specifically what progress you speak of? I presume that you mean the theory of evolution (natural selection), which tends to presuppose abiogenesis, which necessarily presupposes the appropriate material and conditions. Now I move on the your “probability” hypothesis.
> 
> It is legitimate to consider the question of the origin of the appropriate material. Astro physics/cosmology consistently claims there was a beginning to the universe. Science does not make claims about pre big bang events as far as I know. So here are some possibilties.
> a) the material of the universe always existed – ie there was no origin to the material
> ...


You may be interested in researching the proposition that this universe is just one of many (possibly infinite) that form a multiverse. (here is an interesting podcast on the subject) Of course, we will likely never 'know' exactly how the universe arose. I don't expect a satisfying answer in my lifetime. I am unconcerned by this fact.



> Now we get back to probabilities. You claim is there are advances in philosophy and science that make a, or b very likely, while c is extremely unlikely. Will you give me some facts about advances that you use to calculate the probabilities you speak of?
> 
> Science has advanced, but I’m not sure philosophy has. For example, microbiology is way ahead of where it was not too long ago. And when I read articles in science magazines about the living cell they make no bones about it: they say it is like a machine, and like an invention. What they say is consistent with the belief in a creator.


In Newton's day, statistics and probability was essentially undeveloped as a field of mathematics. He also lived in a time where the main theological debate was between papists and protestants, and where holding the wrong position could mean death or ostracism. Nonetheless, your argument seems to be 'Newton was brilliant and had a belief in god therefore belief in god is valid'. Should you also then believe in the five elements as supposed by Aristotle (who was also brilliant). And it is reasonable to suppose that Aristotle, had he lived today may have come to different conclusions.

Like a machine does not mean it is a machine. You can say that cells and organisms operate as if they were designed, but it does not prove they were designed. But to say it is designed (much less designed by a perfect entity) means that said entity designed life with all its failings, like childhood leukemia, guinea worm, polio, leprosy. Why were humans designed with wisdom teeth or appendices? What a shitty designer. 



> I think you have fallen big time for the atheist fallacy that science proves there is no creator God.
> Science isn’t about if God exists or doesn’t exist. Science is about figuring out how the universe works.


Science is continually slicing away the things that could not be explained previously and thus were explained by the supernatural. The principle of parsimony is that no more than necessary should be invoked to explain a phenomenon. A supernatural being is not needed to explain the universe, so one should not be invoked.



> Knowing: I know you by virtue of your creations, ie your posts. You accept that.
> I know God by virtue of God’s creations, ie the universe. But you don’t accept that. The only grounds for not accepting that is your personal faith.
> 
> And why do I capitalize the G in God? Why do people capitalize their names?


You don't answer the question. You seem to be highly evasive on the topic of what significance you attach to your belief in the existence of 'God'. Is it the basis of your morality (I'd be fascinated to hear more about that)? What do you (believe) you know about this 'God', besides the fact that it created the universe at the beginning and has not intervened since?


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## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

Pluto, FWIW, I agree with you and admire your patience in this thread.


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

I think many of us are on your base Pluto, but generally any discussion of religion makes people feel threatened and they lash out. I hope all here understand Christianity is only a small segment of religion.

And Báyaḳ approves of your effort!


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## martinv (Apr 30, 2009)

Eder said:


> I think many of us are on your base Pluto, but generally any discussion of religion makes people feel threatened and they lash out. I hope all here understand Christianity is only a small segment of religion.
> 
> And Báyaḳ approves of your effort!


So I looked up Bayak. If I have it right, it refers to a raven. Anyway, I thought this was a nice story about the raven to share from wikipedia;

He turned himself into a small speck of dirt and slipped into her drinking water and was swallowed. This made the daughter pregnant, and she gave birth to an unusual and fussy child who cried demanding to touch one of the bundles which had been stored hanging from the walls. The child was given one of the bags to quiet him, but when tired of playing with it he let it go, and it floated away from him and disappeared through the smoke hole. Once it reached the sky the bundle came undone and scattered stars across the sky. When the child cried to have it back again he was given the second bundle to play with, and he let it to float away through the hole in the ceiling, and it released the moon. This would happen again with the third and last bundle, which flew away and became sunlight. After Raven's tricks succeeded in bringing all the light to the world, he flew away through the smoke hole.

I would guess that there are an infinite number of religions. The question I would ask is, "how does one pick one?" And I don't mean which one is better than another one.


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## fretwire (Apr 13, 2016)

martinv said:


> I would guess that there are an infinite number of religions. The question I would ask is, "how does one pick one?" And I don't mean which one is better than another one.


Seems religions are more assigned than picked. In the early days you either accepted the religion you were assigned or you were killed. Since then it seems more often than not it's the parents who do the assigning.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

This thread is hilarious. It's like a bunch of grade 6 student debating philosophy. Geez people, pick up a book.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

fretwire said:


> Seems religions are more assigned than picked. In the early days you either accepted the religion you were assigned or you were killed. Since then it seems more often than not it's the parents who do the assigning.


Still seems to be the case, especially with Muslims and their daughters.


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## The_Tosser (Oct 20, 2015)

none said:


> This thread is hilarious. It's like a bunch of grade 6 student debating philosophy. Geez people, pick up a book.


lol Quran? Bible? you mean like that kind of book? rofl.

Get down with me brotha's and sista's..








> "When you believe in things you don't understand then you suffer........Superstition ain't they way...."


 sing it brother Stevie..


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

andrewf said:


> I'm not atheist in the strictest sense of the term (having 'faith'-belief without evidence-that no gods exist). I allow the possibility (however remote I feel it is) that there is some thing that caused the creation of the universe as you are contending. I am almost certain that none of the gods in the various mythologies (Zeus, Ra, Yahweh, Krishna, Allah, Jesus, etc.) exist, as the far likelier explanation is that they are all the product of human imagination.
> 
> You blatantly contradict yourself when you say you accept evolution, yet insist that cells, eyes, monkeys, bananas were directly designed by a creator. Evolution through natural selection is a process of accumulated random changes that selected by varying levels of fitness. Successful changes propagate faster than less successful changes. It gives the illusion of design, but it is not design.
> 
> ...


A) Your writing assumes there is some external (to people) objective neutral fixed criterion for truth that filters out theist beliefs, and allows atheist beliefs to pass through. It a fairy tale. Theories select facts that support it, and deselect facts that don't support it. One of your core beliefs in your theory is god does not exist. In order for you to retain that belief, you theory will deselect evidence that doesn't support it. 

By your use of the word evidence sometimes it seems like you are employing a theory of knowledge such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism. The basic idea was that they would formulate some criterion to clearly separate fiction from nonfiction, faith from evidence, and value from fact. But no such criterion was ever devised. Into the vacuum left by the kaput theory of indubitably true evidence came the coherence theory of truth which I endorse. 

https://www.google.ca/search?client...ory+of+truth&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

B) “contradiction”: I believe God created the natural process of the universe. One of those processes is natural selection. I don't see a contradiction. An intelligent designer/engineer designed the electrical system in my car. Where is the contradiction? 

Science is about how the universe works, not about if it was created. You don't seem to be aware that Darwin came from a theist family, and was a theist himself. There is nothing inherent in theism that is hostile to science. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton and many others were theists as well. Many scientists, then and now, are theists. Their theism didn't harm science and is quite comparable with science. You apparently subscribe the the faith that science and theism are mutually exclusive even though history and science itself shows other wise. 

C) contending something caused the creation of the universe.
No you misunderstand what I am saying. I'm saying

1. belief in a creator God is rational. 

2. I am not saying that because belief in God is rational, all rational people must believe in God.

3. I am saying: I believe God created the universe and that belief is coherent with my other beliefs.

You frame the issue differently. You frame it in terms of proving or disproving via some method that you have faith in. That's your faith. Two tools you have proposed to solve the issue of differing perspectives is math and statistics. So go for it. Lay it out. All you have done so far is state your faith that these tools can resolve the issue. 

D) I have certainty with regard to abiogenesis. You seem to assume that God couldn't have created the process of abiogenesis; so if abiogenesis it true, God doesn't exist. The assumption isn't a necessary one, and the conclusion doesn't make sense.

Humans create processes. For example, humans created the process to create stainless steel by merging iron and nickel. But I doubt you would argue that humans don't exist just because there is a process to make it. 
You assume abiogenesis and a creator God are two inherently mutually exclusive things, but I don't buy into your faith. 

E) 1. “supernatural”: - I don't use that word myself. That word originated around 1000AD, long after theism originated. The word supernatural implies a metaphysics that I do not accept. It implies a natural realm, and another realm outside nature two compartments to the universe. One of the problems with it is how do the two compartments interact with each other? I believe in the coherence theory of truth and the two compartment theory of the universe seems to be incoherent, so I reject it. (Unfortunately many theists and atheists allow that incoherent metaphysics to define the terms and structure of the issue.) 
2. multi-universes: Nothing wrong with theorizing in that way. Hawking and his colleges have evolved string theory into M-Theory, a multi univers perspective. Doesn't bother me. Incidently, the string, the thing they theorize about is unproven. It is assumed. So apparently it is OK to theorize about entities that are assumed. 

F) parsimony:- Maybe my rejecting the natural/supernatural compartments is an example of parsimony. But rejecting a metaphysics relies on replacing it with something else. Hence,

1. Natural selection presupposes abiogenesis.
2. Abiogenesis presupposes appropriate material (and conditions).
3. Material presupposes
a) material was created by God, or
b) it always existed, or
c) it created itself.


Atheists a priori reject (a). Given the rejection of (a), atheists are left with (b) or (c), for which there is no evidence. This bears on the atheist myth that their view is evidence based. 

My belief in (a) is consistent with my belief that a living cell is like an invention, like a machine. It is also consistent with the big bang theory of the beginning of the universe. 

Your a priori rejection of (a), leaving you, a priori, with (b) or (c), contributes to you downplaying the machine like, invention like characteristics of a living cell. One can see how your a priori faith guides your interpretations of biological entities. Interpreting according to your faith is an example of why an objective criterion for truth is a fairy tale. 

There is no external, fixed, objective, neutral criterion to solve the matter of differing views on this issue. An objective evidence based criterion to solve these issues is a fairly tale. Atheism, in science or out of it, is pure faith. Theism has a long and productive history in science and will continue to do so. 

In lieu of the comforting fairy tale of some objective criterion for truth, I accept the coherence theory of truth, and pluralism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralism


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

Eder said:


> I think many of us are on your base Pluto, but generally any discussion of religion makes people feel threatened and they lash out. I hope all here understand Christianity is only a small segment of religion.
> 
> And Báyaḳ approves of your effort!


Thanks. My regards to Báyaḳ.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

brad said:


> Since it's really hard to image how physics and biology could have acted by themselves to produce the world we see today, it's understandable why humans would invent the concept of gods as creators of it all. We have a hard time chalking it all up to chance and coincidence. But if you took five of the same-size planets and put them the same distance from the sun, at the end of a few billion years you'd see very different forms of life on each one. There's no inevitability: I suspect there's life on other plants somewhere in the universe, maybe on many planets, but I doubt any of it is anything like life on ours, because of the role of chance in evolution.


that's an interesting confession of faith. You are entitled to you own faith, of course. 

Natural selection presupposes life. And in your belief system, that presupposes abiogenesis. Abiogenesis presupposes material. Material presupposes

A. God created it, or
B. it always existed, or
C. It created itself. 

Athiest's pre-scientific beliefs contribute to them a priori rejecting A which leaves them with B. or C. Rejecting A, and choosing B or C is a matter of faith. 

There is no criterion for truth that can solve this issue of differing perspectives.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

none said:


> This thread is hilarious. It's like a bunch of grade 6 student debating philosophy. Geez people, pick up a book.


Well what book do you recommend that would resolve the issue of differing philosophies?

Have you read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions? Every time I ask that question, you vanish. What seems to be the problem?


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## The_Tosser (Oct 20, 2015)

It's a very fucked up god indeed that 'creates' a universe, then creates intelligent humans - (after allowing them to evolve from chemical to a biological entity) with brain power that nothing else on earth rivals, then provide so much intelligence that we figure out, using purely natural processes, 'how' not only we evolved with full geological column evidence first, then many years later backing up all hypothesis using genetic/DNA testing............. all of it contrary to iron-aged bullshit from the Bible to the Hadith's of Islam, and then have us do the following:

Believe in him/her/it based on zero evidence, IE Faith-based 'belief' only. A fucked up god indeed. Who would give such a fucking prick like that the time of day? - **** off, i would gladly say. THis is all just laughable.



> b) it always existed, or
> c) it created itself.
> 
> 
> Atheists a priori reject (a). Given the rejection of (a), atheists are left with (b) or (c), for which there is no evidence. This bears on the atheist myth that their view is evidence based.


This is why listening to amateur's with not one lick of comprehension on the matter can be as easily dismissed and the god they are hell bent on believing, with zero evidence.

In other words, Pluto, my flat-earth friend, you need to understand what Theoretical Physicists mean by "nothing", "always existed" and "created itself". It's your own fault for speaking about terms you know nothing about. It's tough stuff to be sure, but blathering on about 'magic' brings no-one closer as to the how's and why's. This is why science isn't done that way. this is why religion is a dead-end street of throw-backs to early humans where we knew much less than we do now.

Invoking the god of the gaps does nothing for you, except prove your ignorance.

There's a reason why scientists will state "we don't know" when they don't. It is how science is done. It's the only honest thing do. Since none of us are scientist specializing in this area, we should show enough humility to defer to those which a much greater understanding - the professionals - instead of errantly and ignorantly stating that since we don't understand, that it must be magic. This is all you're doing. 

Pathetic. You're invoking 'magic' as the creation of the universe, which only begs the question, who created the 'magic'? You have not advanced one step further. You've managed only to add ignorance to ignorance.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

The_Tosser said:


> It's a very fucked up god indeed that 'creates' a universe, then creates intelligent humans - (after allowing them to evolve from chemical to a biological entity) with brain power that nothing else on earth rivals, then provide so much intelligence that we figure out, using purely natural processes, 'how' not only we evolved with full geological column evidence first, then many years later backing up all hypothesis using genetic/DNA testing............. all of it contrary to iron-aged bullshit from the Bible to the Hadith's of Islam, and then have us do the following:
> 
> Believe in him/her/it based on zero evidence, IE Faith-based 'belief' only. A fucked up god indeed. Who would give such a fucking prick like that the time of day? - **** off, i would gladly say. THis is all just laughable.
> 
> ...


My you are so emotional and I see you passed elementary crude Anglo Saxon language class. You are entitled to believe material always existed, or created itself. But which ever one you subjectively pick, there is no evidence for it. 

What makes you think your subjectivity is superior to anyone else's?


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Pluto, can you first explain what you mean when you use the word God? How does it relate to more common definitions of the term? I wonder if a lot of our disagreement is stemming from a differig definition.

Do you believe this entity interacts with the universe today? Do you believe we as conscious beings have any relationship to this entity? Does this entity have anything to do with any or all of the various deities worshipped by humanity? To me it sounds like you could be calling some natural, unconscious process 'god'.


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## LBCfan (Jan 13, 2011)

Re: Thread title

YES IT DOES


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

The_Tosser said:


> It's a very fucked up god indeed that 'creates' a universe, then creates intelligent humans - (after allowing them to evolve from chemical to a biological entity) with brain power that nothing else on earth rivals, then provide so much intelligence that we figure out, using purely natural processes, 'how' not only we evolved with full geological column evidence first, then many years later backing up all hypothesis using genetic/DNA testing............. all of it contrary to iron-aged bullshit from the Bible to the Hadith's of Islam, and then have us do the following:
> 
> Believe in him/her/it based on zero evidence, IE Faith-based 'belief' only. A fucked up god indeed. Who would give such a fucking prick like that the time of day? - **** off, i would gladly say. THis is all just laughable.
> 
> ...




idk, why do the forum admins encourage obscene potty mouths?

there are only a handful of them. They only started to appear in 2014. The shouters in ALL CAPS began to appear at the same time.

the net effect is energy drain & degradation of the forum. It's too bad, this was once a decent & sharing community. No wonder so many talented folks have left.

.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

andrewf said:


> Pluto, can you first explain what you mean when you use the word God?
> 
> To me it sounds like you could be calling some natural, unconscious process 'god'.


I have described God as a creator God. 
Would you please direct me to what I wrote that might imply the idea that God is a natural process? I believe God created the natural processes. Science studies those natural processes. Hence there is no conflict between belief in God, and science. 

Abiogenesis, which I believe in, presupposes material
Material presupposes
a) a God created it (with the capacity to come to life), or
b) it always existed ( with the capacity to come to life), or 
C) it created itself (with the capacity to come to life). 

Athiests subjectively, and a priori reject (a). That leaves them with (b) or (c). No matter which one you pick, it's a faith. There is no criterion for truth in science, or outside of science that can resolve these differing perspectives. 

Yet you consistently write as if there is a criterion for truth that filters out God, and retains atheist origin theories. There is no such criterion for truth. It is a myth. It's a fairly tale.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

LBCfan said:


> Re: Thread title
> 
> YES IT DOES


That's a bit vague.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Can you answer my other questions, to be clear what you mean? So 'god' only created the universe, and did not create life? I don't know then why you keep returning to life as having been designed.


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## hboy43 (May 10, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> the net effect is energy drain & degradation of the forum. It's too bad, this was once a decent & sharing community. No wonder so many talented folks have left.


Yes, it is probably time to rotate back to the other site and leave this forum to the really smart guys like none and Tosser. Just helping them out really, don't want them to have to suffer a fool any more. Then they can bask in the glow of their own greatness.

Of course I wonder if all us idiots are so tiresome, why they don't just leave and hang out with their own kind? They could choose at any time to no longer "suffer fools gladly". Of course the reason is that they are just copulating posterior orifices.

Hint to the owners of this site: weak passwords is not your biggest problem here.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

andrewf said:


> Can you answer my other questions, to be clear what you mean? So 'god' only created the universe, and did not create life? I don't know then why you keep returning to life as having been designed.


I have said it many times: 

1. I believe God created material and the natural processes of the universe. One of the natural processes is abiogenesis. Another is evolution/natural selection. I'm not sure what it is that needs clarification. 
2. My beliefs do not conflict with science. 

To give more detail.

a) Many theists believe living beings are made of the dust of the earth. Dust=material. (I think athiests believe that too. 
b) Many theists believe randomness exists in the universe that God created. (I think athiests believe randomness exists too). 
c) Many thiests believe material has the capacity for life; something like loaded dice, has a capacity to turn up specific numbers when subjected to random forces. This theory of abiogenesis is then: material (like loaded dice) was created to have the capacity for life and when subjected to the appropriate random forces and conditions (there is plenty of that in the universe created by God) life began. (Since there is life made of material, I suspect athiests believe material has the capacity for life too.)

I suppose your question boils down to something like this: If someone loads some dice with the idea of winning at craps, and does win at craps, did he create the outcome? Of course he did. Now if God created material with the capacity for life (like loaded dice), and a universe with random events forces, and temperatures, such that eventually the right material would be subjected to the right conditions for the formation of life, did God create life? Yes, because everything required for life was provided by God. 

Now when science studies nature and natural processes, what they are doing is studying how the universe God created works. They are not showing, as athiests' fallacy states, that science proves God does not exist. You may object to the notion of intelligent design, but I think creating material with the capacity for life is intelligent.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

sags said:


> Having grown up and studied in one particular Christian religion, I found it difficult to reconcile beliefs within the doctrine.
> 
> The basic premise is that if you believe in the Bible, in a nutshell you will believe....
> 
> ...


Sags, the Bible is literature. They are stories. Would you critique the story told in the movie ET as if it were a scientific documentary on alien life visiting earth? If not, why would you critique the Bible as if it were a science book? This thread isn't about if the Bible conflicts with science, its about does belief in a creator God conflict with science.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

brad said:


> I think a large part of the problem is that everything we are familiar with has a beginning and and end, so we can't really comprehend concepts like infinity or things that were "always there" and have no real beginning or end. We can't get our minds around what was there before the Big Bang, if there was a Big Bang, nor can we comprehend the idea of an infinite universe.
> 
> It's similar to understanding how animals think without words. Human babies can think without words, but for us as adults it's really hard to imagine how an animal can think without words and thus we typically conclude that animals can't think.
> 
> Since it's really hard to image how physics and biology could have acted by themselves to produce the world we see today, it's understandable why humans would invent the concept of gods as creators of it all. We have a hard time chalking it all up to chance and coincidence. But if you took five of the same-size planets and put them the same distance from the sun, at the end of a few billion years you'd see very different forms of life on each one. There's no inevitability: I suspect there's life on other plants somewhere in the universe, maybe on many planets, but I doubt any of it is anything like life on ours, because of the role of chance in evolution.


As far as I'm concerned it is OK to believe that things were always there. But that's a faith. The faith that things were always there does not disprove the existence of God. 

It is not really hard for me to imagine how some people can believe that material always existed. It is obviously a faith. What's hard for me is atheists who faithfully insist it always existed, (not withstanding the Big Bang) and claim faith has no place in science. What they are really saying is only the atheist faith has a place in science.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

brad said:


> I agree with this: actually I think the question "is there a god" is of no interest to science, because there's no way to answer the question objectively based on evidence. And the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, so it's simply not a scientific question. The only way to know, apparently, is after we die, and at that point it's too late: either you're dead and that's that or there's an afterlife but you can't communicate to the living about your discovery. So it's possibly the most uninteresting question in the world from a scientific perspective.



I'm not sure how dying can resolve the matter. Many theists do not believe in an after life. After life or not, isn't really relevant to the origin of the universe. 

The atheist and biologist Richard Dawkins has great interest in it and has expended a great deal of energy on the issue. Of course he perpetually relies on the fallacy that if one does not have the same faith as he does, you must be wrong. Not very sophisticated thinking.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

No atheist seriously claims to have proven a god does not exist. What you are saying is that the universe is god's Rube Goldberg machine to design humanity. I guess that means it designed HIV and guinea worm and leukemia. Nice.

My response to this is that it is possible. So what (what would be the consequence of this possibility)? I'm not pretending to have any certainty as to the possible existence of such an entity. I'm not sure you should call it god or God though. It is quite different than most people's conception of a deity.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

andrewf said:


> No atheist seriously claims to have proven a god does not exist. What you are saying is that the universe is god's Rube Goldberg machine to design humanity. I guess that means it designed HIV and guinea worm and leukemia. Nice.


My interpretation of what Pluto's saying is that a god created the universe and set the wheels in motion, and then went off to do other things. The "wheels in motion" created life, which then evolved via natural selection and evolution.

Sure, it's possible, we have no way to prove or disprove it. I choose not to believe it, based on my faith that the world is as it appears, as opposed to a faith in the existence of an all-powerful being.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

He's going beyond saying that the universe was created. He is expressing a belief that everything that has evolved is by design of this creator, not merely an emergent phenomenon.

In terms of whether one should believe it, it feels like a Russell's teapot situation. Something that can neither be proven nor disproven should probably be disbelieved unless there is good reason to think otherwise.


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## Zipper (Nov 18, 2015)

Pluto seems to be a reasonably intelligent fellow.

It's too bad he was indoctrinated (brainwashed) before he could make rational decisions on his own.

I'm sure he has done this to his own children.

That's how all religions survive.

The "born again nuts" are a whole other story.

The key is to concentrate on not "infecting" the young before they can reasonably resist the god nonsense.


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## fraser (May 15, 2010)

I am of the belief that one's faith/religion is a very private and personal matter. My spouse and I have different beliefs. Not a huge issue since we respect each other.


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## fretwire (Apr 13, 2016)

My (now ederly) parents were from two different religions. One was a polytheist the other was a very strict monotheist. Their two religions had a long history of bloody conflicts.

So they got married.

(Then both left their religions behind).


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## LBCfan (Jan 13, 2011)

Pluto,

Are you upset that some god made you a planet and science took that status from you? You won't convert anyone here, just like you won't get a new convert by knocking on someone's door and giving them a copy of "The WatchTower" or "Awake".

Science doesn't do Sky Faries. It's just that simple.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Pluto said:


> I believe God created the universe.
> I also believe in evolution.
> The two beliefs are not at all incompatible. There is no conflict between science and Monotheism.
> 
> ...


I agree with nearly all of this. I share this belief that god created everything, and scientific study -- discovering the processes and equations that govern the universe -- does not challenge the notion of a god. We are simply discovering the rules of this universe.

Religious texts are human creations. It does not matter to me that religious books have some dumb things in them. These are not, _literally_, the word of god. What is known as the bible today has been revised, spliced, and edited countless times. Therefore I am unconcerned with conflicts between the texts and proven scientific reality.

I think churches are making a mistake by framing christianity as being based on "whether you believe in the bible". Kind of simplistic, and a bit silly if you know the history of the bible.

The core of the big 3 religions is pretty simple: there is one god, and this god created the universe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions

As I learn more about the universe, and how many amazing physical and mathematical rules govern it ... electromagnetism, gravitational waves (newly discovered), etc... I think to myself: wow, what a beautiful and elegant universe it is. God sure made a fantastic thing and I can't wait to see what other inner workings we figure out. I'm lucky and thankful to be here and experiencing all of this. As god is the one behind all of this, I am thankful to god.

*I'm also in the "so what" camp.* None of what I believe is of any consequence to anyone. It can't be proved or disproved. It doesn't matter to anyone except myself. But personally -- my own view of this -- is that the universe and physical laws are extremely complex (and very impressive). The universe doesn't look like an accidental slosh of matter & energy. It is extremely structured and methodical and again, I see a beauty and elegance in it. Most scientists do. I believe that the force that structured it was: god.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

The religious "texts" sometimes make me laugh out loud -- for the absurdity (the following is actually quite sad). For example:
Why Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Babies Keep Getting Herpes

" Metzitzah b’peh (MBP), the orogential (mouth to genitals) suctioning of blood from the penis of an infant male following circumcision, poses one of the most unique and upsetting public health issues . . . even if oral suction had been mentioned in the Mishnah "


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

james4beach said:


> It can't be proved or disproved. - my own view of this -- is that the universe and physical laws are extremely complex (and very impressive). *The universe doesn't look like an accidental slosh of matter & energy*. It is extremely structured and methodical and again, I see a beauty and elegance in it. Most scientists do. *I believe that the force that structured it was: god*.



How can you state for certain that it was "God" as we have been told to believe? 

How would/could God travel thousands of light years from one end of the universe to another? Why would God choose this planet to make his animal and human creations and not other planetary systems? 

Where did the water that forms 3/5ths of the earth's surface come from?
Why is the core of the earth still molten..demonstrated by volcanos erupting/lava flow and magma flow under the oceans.
Why are the tectonic plates of the various continents still moving?

Why do the oceans have salt water, yet the lakes and rivers have fresh water?
Why does the atmosphere create powerful electrical storms?

Hundreds of questions more on why our earth is unique from other planets in our solar system. And some feel that some superior entity is responsible for all this and much more?


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

Have Christians Created a Harmful Atmosphere for Gays?

“Sadly it is religion, including our own,” a Florida bishop wrote after the massacre in a gay club in Orlando, that can “plant the seed of contempt, then hatred, which can ultimately lead to violence” against gays, lesbians and transgender people. One congressman said, “We are not blameless, when we tell government contractors it is O.K. to discriminate against someone because they are gay or lesbian – or tell transgender school children that we will not respect their gender identity.”

But is it fair to say that people share any blame for Saturday night’s attack because they oppose L.G.B.T. equality for religious reasons? And while the media is focused on the role that Muslim anti-gay rhetoric may have played in this slaughter, do conservative Christians need to accept greater civil rights for L.G.B.T people in order to create a less hurtful atmosphere in the United States?



http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...istians-created-a-harmful-atmosphere-for-gays


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## tygrus (Mar 13, 2012)

james4beach said:


> The universe doesn't look like an accidental slosh of matter & energy. It is extremely structured and methodical and again, I see a beauty and elegance in it. Most scientists do. I believe that the force that structured it was: god.


You dont understand time and gravity, thats why you cant understand the universe and therefore default to superstition without evidence. Its classic lazy thinking.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

andrewf said:


> He's going beyond saying that the universe was created. He is expressing a belief that everything that has evolved is by design of this creator, not merely an emergent phenomenon.
> 
> In terms of whether one should believe it, it feels like a Russell's teapot situation. Something that can neither be proven nor disproven should probably be disbelieved unless there is good reason to think otherwise.


Russell's teapot: all he is saying is a claim to knowledge needs to be justified. I have offered my method of justification, The coherence theory of truth. But you haven't offered a description of your method to justify what you claim to be true. You use the words "proven" and "disproven" Without any elaboration on what constitutes proof. This is standard sophism. Formal logic, Russell's preferred field of endeavor, clearly states that all logic commences with one or more premises. A premise, is a presupposition. An assumption. These are unproven starting points. Appealing to Russell is equivalent to appealing to faith because accepting the conclusion of a logical argument relies on faith in the premise. 

Your premise is that there is a method of proof. What is your method of proof, (or justification)? How reliable is it? Is it a valid method?


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

andrewf said:


> No atheist seriously claims to have proven a god does not exist. What you are saying is that the universe is god's Rube Goldberg machine to design humanity. I guess that means it designed HIV and guinea worm and leukemia. Nice.
> 
> My response to this is that it is possible. So what (what would be the consequence of this possibility)? I'm not pretending to have any certainty as to the possible existence of such an entity. I'm not sure you should call it god or God though. It is quite different than most people's conception of a deity.


Richard Dawkin's makes the claim God does not exist frequently and that the theory of evolution proves God does not exist. He seems to be an excellent descriptive biologist. But outside that area of endeavor he is exceptionally mundane. He claims to know that physics and chemistry explain everything in the universe, without, like Russell's teapot, even attempting to justify (prove) such a claim. 

One consequence is science is based in faith. There is no ultimate, super deluxe criterion for truth. The religion of Scientism has no basis except faith. So people can believe what they want to.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

Pluto said:


> Richard Dawkin's makes the claim God does not exist frequently and that the theory of evolution proves God does not exist.


He has never said this. Provide a source but I know you can't because what you're saying (as usual) makes no god damn sense.


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## tygrus (Mar 13, 2012)

This thread is a small testament to the reason why our society is so messed up.

Pluto is trying to float that old hat presupposition that nobody can undertake any task without a initial starting bias. He has obviously never studied science and knows nothing about it. Science follows evidence that arises from theory and hypothesis and experimentation. Nothing more, nothing less.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

There is the possibility that god's invisible hand guides mutation and hence steers evolution. Unfortunately if that's the case - god is an incompetent idiot. Rabbits eating their own ****, our crappy appendix, it goes on and on. A great example (presented by Dawkin's) is the laryngeal nerve of the giraffe.







Personally, I'm more comfortable thinking that we are a product of extreme improbability (which over infinite 'time' is actually quite probably) rather than we are being governed behind the scenes by such an incompetent, needy, and cruel master. That's just me though.


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## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

none said:


> He has never said this. Provide a source but I know you can't because what you're saying (as usual) makes no god damn sense.


Of course he said that. Richard Dawkins authored "The God Delusion". He was a popular anti-theist until his angry, misogynistic, racist tendencies undermined his reputation.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

olivaw said:


> Of course he said that. Richard Dawkins authored "The God Delusion". He was a popular anti-theist until his angry, misogynistic, racist tendencies undermined his reputation.


If so show me the link. He couldn't have said that because the two topic are totally unrelated. 

show me the quote - but I know you can't because it's a stupid thing to say and Dawkins (although caustic) is a decent scientist and would not say such a stupid thing.

I have a number of his books - if you tell me where I'd be happy to look it up.

Unfortunately he really peaked with the selfish gene and the majority of his other books are reiterations of the same really interesting idea. He came up with the term 'meme'. A man well before his time there.


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## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

none said:


> If so show me the link. He couldn't have said that because the two topic are totally unrelated.
> 
> show me the quote - but I know you can't because it's a stupid thing to say and Dawkins (although caustic) is a decent scientist and would not say such a stupid thing.
> 
> ...


Pluto said: _Richard Dawkin's makes the claim God does not exist frequently and that the theory of evolution proves God does not exist. _ You claimed that he did not say that. Please see page 157 and 158 in your copy of _The God Delusion_. Dawkins' argument is that Darwinian evolution by natural selection was a better explanation for our existence than what he calls the "designer hypothesis". He uses this to argue that God almost certainly doesn't exist.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

none said:


> Have Christians Created a Harmful Atmosphere for Gays?



Wrong thread to post this particular subject ! There is an existing thread on the mass shooting in Orlando.

Please take your comments there, thank you.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

olivaw said:


> Pluto said: _Richard Dawkin's makes the claim God does not exist frequently and that the theory of evolution proves God does not exist. Dawkins' argument is that Darwinian evolution by natural selection was a better explanation for our existence than what he calls the "designer hypothesis". He uses this to argue that God almost certainly doesn't exist._


_

The argument whether He exists (or NOt), in the minds of most, is irrelevant. What needs to be answered is the hundreds of questions surrounding our unique eco-culture on this planet?

What makes it unique to support life as we know it.. Is it because earth is just the right distance from our sun and
covered with 3/5ths water? Or some other phenomena that made this earth, like the "Goldilocks and 3 Bears story"....not too hot (to boil away the water) and just right.

Nobody knows the correct answer..*its all just a bunch of suppositions and partial theories*. 
If the universe was indeed created by one mighty singular event (ie: the Big Bang theory of a Superstar exploding BILLIONS of years ago..and don't forget space time and earth time are completely different. An earth year has no relevance once you leave the confines of the solar system, neither is an earth day (24hrs to revolve on it's own axis). 
Every planet has it's orbit around our sun defined in earth years, but each one is completely different from the other. 




I was all ears, as they say, when he explained to me that Genesis 1:1 is a great example of how the Hebrew Scriptures are filled with *veiled marvels of hidden meaning and wonders that have puzzled rabbis for centuries.*

Click to expand...





Use of the “et” was puzzling, he said, because it wasn’t needed. The words ha’shamayim (the heavens) and ha’retz (the earth) were already sufficient to know the meaning of the verse, and the sentence would work fine without it. He also talked about how the word “barasheet” – which means “in the beginning” – is a compound word made up of “ba” (meaning “in”) and “sheet” (meaning “six”). “Bara” means “created” and “Elohim”, of course, means “God”, so that within the first half of the verse we can read, “In six God created…

Click to expand...





Moreover, the very first time the phrase is used, in Genesis 1:5, the Hebrew uses the cardinal number “one” (“echad” in Hebrew). In the following uses of the phrase “…the evening and the morning…”, the Hebrew switches to using ordinal numbers – second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth – referring to each day. It is as if God wishes to make it even more clear that each “yom” consists of day and night. Indeed, what we call a “day” consists of a cycle of day-time and night-time divided into 24 hours.

Click to expand...

Astronomers have discovered these unique phenomena called "Black Holes" Gravitation fields so immense that even light can't escape from them.
Will our Milky way galaxy someday start to shrink along with the shrinking universe (once it stops expanding) and everything will (probably) collapse and be swallowed up by these things?

Don't forget that in the Bible, there is a passage about "Alpha and Omega"...the beginning and the end..whether that will be the Armageddon that s referred to, or another cosmic event entirely..the question that begs to be asked...is this planned as part of creation by some cosmic creator who will destroy his creation some day, well beyond the epoch of man?_


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

tygrus said:


> You dont understand time and gravity, thats why you cant understand the universe and therefore default to superstition without evidence. Its classic lazy thinking.


The fact that the universe is complex and that humans have not yet discovered all the mechanisms, does not disprove the existence of god.

The two concepts (god and science) are completely compatible, as pluto says.

I just happen to believe that there is one common source underlying everything in the universe. This doesn't change anything in practice, nor does it change the scientific process.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

olivaw said:


> Dawkins' argument is that Darwinian evolution by natural selection was a better explanation for our existence than what he calls the "designer hypothesis". He uses this to argue that God almost certainly doesn't exist.


Yet many scientists, myself included, agree that natural selection and evolution is what's going on. And yet we also think there is a god.

These conflicts between god/science only occur if you read bibles & religious texts very literally. This stuff about god hand crafting people, these are fables and tales. If you recognize that the texts are heavily-revised human works, and stick to the core principles of religion, there is no conflict between the two.


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

^ Maybe god started as a dog? :biggrin:


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## tygrus (Mar 13, 2012)

james4beach said:


> The two concepts (god and science) are completely compatible, as pluto says.


Yes compatible to the point of having nothing what so ever to do with each other at all. Glad those definitions make you happy but its completely meaningless at the same time. 

Believe what you want but dont dare drag science down to religion's pathetic level.

Every day science makes your god a little smaller and less powerful.


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## mrPPincer (Nov 21, 2011)

Beaver101 said:


> ^ Maybe god started as a dog? :biggrin:


god - dog..
dog - god..

spooky..

You may just be on to something there Beav..

something deep..

This calls for much more thought.. ..there goes my weekend :topsy_turvy:
jk


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

james4beach said:


> Yet many scientists, myself included, agree that natural selection and evolution is what's going on. And yet we also think there is a god.
> 
> These conflicts between god/science only occur if you read bibles & religious texts very literally. This stuff about god hand crafting people, these are fables and tales. *If you recognize that the texts are heavily-revised human works, and stick to the core principles of religion, there is no conflict between the two.*


Tell that to the Muslims.."God (Allah) Willing" :biggrin:


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Beaver101 said:


> ^ Maybe god started as a dog? :biggrin:


Be careful there Beav! Good thing you are incognitor on this forum...Muslims don't take kindly to someone that reverses the letters..what's it called?:biggrin:

A palindrome is a word, phrase, number, or other sequence of characters which reads the same backward or forward... hence this palindrome
(read it backwards if you don't believe me).

"Dog, as a devil deified, lived as a god.",


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## mrPPincer (Nov 21, 2011)

carverman said:


> Tell that to the Muslims.."God (Allah) Willing" :biggrin:


exactly, I read the first page or two of the Koran in the library in highschool, like 40 years ago or something, and read, something to the effect of, 'if you are reading these pages and are not a believer you must be put to the sword'

Absolute garbage. period.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

mrPPincer said:


> exactly, I read the first page or two of the Koran in the library in highschool, like 40 years ago or something, and read, something to the effect of, 'if you are reading these pages and are not a believer you must be put to the sword'
> 
> Absolute garbage. period.


Thank goodness we live in a country where freedom of speech is something we enjoy. Saying those words in Islamic countries would probably result in a punishment similar to what you mention. Look what they go to people caught stealing in these countries...

I think we are going off topic here?

God, Jehovah, Allah ..*did they each create their own version of this universe..or separate ones?*


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

olivaw said:


> Pluto said: _Richard Dawkin's makes the claim God does not exist frequently and that the theory of evolution proves God does not exist. _ You claimed that he did not say that. Please see page 157 and 158 in your copy of _The God Delusion_. Dawkins' argument is that Darwinian evolution by natural selection was a better explanation for our existence than what he calls the "designer hypothesis". He uses this to argue that God almost certainly doesn't exist.


You don't understand what Richard is saying. He's referring to the idea of parsimony - i.e a more simple explanation is much more commonly correct that a more complex one. The idea of god is so mind boggling complex compared to the theory of evolution and therefore the God hypothesis is extremely unlikely. To non-scientists I can see how one might misinterpret that but it's very different from what you are suggesting.

Lets take a read:


Pages 157-158:

WHY THERE ALMOST CERTAINLY IS NO GOD 157
virgin?" Don't you know that in polite society we don't ask such
questions? That sort of question went out in the nineteenth
century.' But think about why it is impolite to ask such direct,
factual questions of religious people today. It is because it is embarrassing!
But it is the answer that is embarrassing, if it is yes.
The nineteenth-century connection is now clear. The nineteenth
century is the last time when it was possible for an educated person to
admit to believing in miracles like the virgin birth without embarrassment.
When pressed, many educated Christians today are too loyal
to deny the virgin birth and the resurrection. But it embarrasses
them because their rational minds know it is absurd, so they would
much rather not be asked. Hence, if somebody like me insists on
asking the question, it is I who am accused of being 'nineteenthcentury'.
It is really quite funny, when you think about it.
I left the conference stimulated and invigorated, and reinforced
in my conviction that the argument from improbability - the
'Ultimate 747' gambit - is a very serious argument against
the existence of God, and one to which I have yet to hear a theologian
give a convincing answer despite numerous opportunities and
invitations to do so. Dan Dennett rightly describes it as 'an unrebuttable
refutation, as devastating today as when Philo used it to
trounce Cleanthes in Hume's Dialogues two centuries earlier. A skyhook
would at best simply postpone the solution to the problem,
but Hume couldn't think of any cranes, so he caved in.'74 Darwin,
of course, supplied the vital crane. How Hume would have loved it.
This chapter has contained the central argument of my book, and
so, at the risk of sounding repetitive, I shall summarize it as a series
of six numbered points.
1 One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect, over the
centuries, has been to explain how the complex, improbable
appearance of design in the universe arises.
2 The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design
to actual design itself. In the case of a man-made artefact such
as a watch, the designer really was an intelligent engineer. It is
tempting to apply the same logic to an eye or a wing, a spider
or a person.
158 T H E G O D D F L U S ) O N
3 The temptation is a false one, because the designer hypothesis
immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the
designer. The whole problem we started out with was the
problem of explaining statistical improbability. It is obviously
no solution to postulate something even more improbable. We
need a 'crane', not a 'skyhook', for only a crane can do the
business of working up gradually and plausibly from simplicity
to otherwise improbable complexity.
4 The most ingenious and powerful crane so far discovered is
Darwinian evolution by natural selection. Darwin and his
successors have shown how living creatures, with their
spectacular statistical improbability and appearance of design,
have evolved by slow, gradual degrees from simple beginnings.
We can now safely say that the illusion of design in living
creatures is just that - an illusion.
5 We don't yet have an equivalent crane for physics. Some kind
of multiverse theory could in principle do for physics the same
explanatory work as Darwinism does for biology. This kind of
explanation is superficially less satisfying than the biological
version of Darwinism, because it makes heavier demands on
luck. But the anthropic principle entitles us to postulate far
more luck than our limited human intuition is comfortable
with.
6 We should not give up hope of a better crane arising in physics,
something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology. But even in
the absence of a strongly satisfying crane to match the
biological one, the relatively weak cranes we have at present
are, when abetted by the anthropic principle, self-evidently
better than the self-defeating skyhook hypothesis of an
intelligent designer.
If the argument of this chapter is accepted, the factual premise
of religion - the God Hypothesis - is untenable. God almost certainly
does not exist. This is the main conclusion of the book so far.
Various questions now follow. Even if we accept that God doesn't
exist, doesn't religion still have a lot going for it? Isn't it consoling?
W H Y T H E R i ; A L M O S T C E R T A I N L Y i S N O ( , ( ) [ ) 159
Doesn't it motivate people to do good? If it weren't for religion,
how would we know what is good? Why, in any case, be so hostile?
Why, if it is false, does every culture in the world have religion?
True or false, religion is ubiquitous, so where does it come from? It
is to this last question that we turn next.


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## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

none said:


> You don't understand what Richard is saying. He's referring to the idea of parsimony - i.e a more simple explanation is much more commonly correct that a more complex one. The idea of god is so mind boggling complex compared to the theory of evolution and therefore the God hypothesis is extremely unlikely. To non-scientists I can see how one might misinterpret that but it's very different from what you are suggesting.


Which is what Pluto said. He just omitted unnecessary detail in the interest of brevity. 

But since you claim to be a scientist and raised the parsimony principle, please resolve the Boltzmann brain paradox.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

olivaw said:


> Which is what Pluto said. He just omitted unnecessary detail in the interest of brevity.


Actually no, that's not what Pluto said. They are actually very different things.


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## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

none said:


> Actually no, that's not what Pluto said. They are actually very different things.


Actually yes, that is what Pluto said but never mind. Regardless of that, Dawkins erred. 

Nothing on the Boltzmann brain paradox?


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

Umm.... sure. Whatever. This thread is 50 shades of retarded.

Nope, doesn't sounds like my field.


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## tygrus (Mar 13, 2012)

none said:


> Nope, doesn't sounds like my field.


Simply put if the universe is driving to more complexity via natural laws, then the most complex structure we know of is a brain. Then it follows that there should be millions of brains just floating around everywhere. But clearly there isnt. And somehow that paradox assigns evidence to a creator and our special status as a result.


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## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

tygrus said:


> Simply put if the universe is driving to more complexity via natural laws, then the most complex structure we know of is a brain. Then it follows that there should be millions of brains just floating around everywhere. But clearly there isnt. And somehow that paradox assigns evidence to a creator and our special status as a result.


I'd explain the Boltzmann brain paradox a little differently. Random fluctuations in a featureless "thermodynamic soup" are far more likely to create standalone intelligences than to create the conditions that allowed us to develop our biological self awareness. Standalone intelligences should outnumber us by orders of magnitude. 

The paradox neither proves nor disproves the existence of God. What it does do is demonstrate to those who use science to mock other people's faith that they are standing on slippery ground if they come armed only with the theory of evolution and a rudimentary understanding of the big bang theory.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

> Tell that to the Muslims.."God (Allah) Willing"


Oh come now, don't pick on muslims.

The other religious texts are just as nutty. They all have horrible things when read literally. This article I posted mentions that orthodox jews interpret the scripture as meaning they must do mouth-to-genital rituals on babies... come now.

And here are parts of the bible that say to kill non-believers in christianity.

Don't pick on muslims. There are muslims who don't take the texts literally -- just as with other religions.

The problems are all the religious nuts who take each of their books too seriously and too literally, i.e. fundamentalists


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

tygrus said:


> Simply put if the universe is driving to more complexity via natural laws, then the most complex structure we know of is a brain. * Then it follows that there should be millions of brains just floating around everywhere*. But clearly there isnt. *And somehow that paradox assigns evidence to a creator and our special status as a result*.


Paradox. By what reasoning? Every religion has it's own definition of heaven and hell. In some religions, even though the physical body deteriorates very quickly once dead, but the soul (the life force), as defined in the Catholic religion, "is freed" and goes to purgatory (a state between heaven and hell), until the day of judgement, when all "souls" will be judged accordingly. 

Some (according to the Catholic religion) will enjoy heaven living with God and Jesus, while others will be banished to the place with lakes of brim fire and sulphur (centre of the earth?) where eternal torment will be their punishment and Lucifer and his demons will be there to ensure that.

Scary religious passages? Perhaps to make you want to go and donate a far chunk of your earthly wealth to the church, to ensure you too can have eternal life.
Or perhaps go to confession, confess all your sins and go out and sin no more?

Now lets lexamine at the Muslim religion and their definition of "heaven"...even suicide bombers are promised eternal salvation for their heinous act in which they blow themselves to pieces, but are promised in their "heaven" there are 72 virgins waiting for them.

All of this is just stories made up by those that want to control the population. To desecrate the words of the Qu'ran or practice another religion inside an Islamic state is punishable by death...so in essence..the Islamic version of "God" is not a merciful god or creator and that would be proof that perhaps "God" does not exist.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

none said:


> He has never said this. Provide a source but I know you can't because what you're saying (as usual) makes no god damn sense.


As usual you make a claim with no justification. What do you think his book the God Delusion is about? Its about belief in God is wrong, and it is wrong because, according to him, God doesn't exist.
What do you think the Blind Watchmaker is about? Why is the watchmaker blind? Because the watchmaker is nature itself. Why is it nature itself that creates life? Because God does not exist.


----------



## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

tygrus said:


> This thread is a small testament to the reason why our society is so messed up.
> 
> Pluto is trying to float that old hat presupposition that nobody can undertake any task without a initial starting bias. He has obviously never studied science and knows nothing about it. Science follows evidence that arises from theory and hypothesis and experimentation. Nothing more, nothing less.


You are assuming there is some criterion that separates evidence from assumption. What is the criterion? It doesn't exist. Its a fairy tale. You are merely proposing a doctrine with unresovable problems. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

none said:


> Personally, I'm more comfortable thinking that we are a product of extreme improbability (which over infinite 'time' is actually quite probably) rather than we are being governed behind the scenes by such an incompetent, needy, and cruel master. That's just me though.


That is your personal beliefs and value judgments which shows that science is value laden, and permeated by subjective personal beliefs. What makes your personal beliefs and value judgments superior to that of others?


----------



## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

none said:


> If so show me the link. He couldn't have said that because the two topic are totally unrelated.
> 
> show me the quote - but I know you can't because it's a stupid thing to say and Dawkins (although caustic) is a decent scientist and would not say such a stupid thing.
> 
> ...


The idea behind meme is as old as the hills. He just gave an old idea a new name, then uncritical thinkers such as yourself think it's original.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

james4beach said:


> The fact that the universe is complex and that humans have not yet discovered all the mechanisms, does not disprove the existence of god.
> 
> The two concepts (god and science) are completely compatible, as pluto says.
> 
> I just happen to believe that there is one common source underlying everything in the universe. This doesn't change anything in practice, nor does it change the scientific process.


In practice it seems to make a difference. In classical mechanics a practical difference is not at all obvious. But in biology theists are fine with the observation that a living cell has a machine like, an invention like character. Atheists tend to want to downplay such descriptions. Unprovable prescientific beliefs, which theism and atheism are, contribute to differing perceptions of a living thing. There is no scientific criterion to resolve such differing philosophic perspectives in science. Too, prescientific beliefs seem to play a role in which form of abiogenesis is preferred. Athiests might, on the basis of their faith, be disinclined to see inanimate matter as having the capacity for life - like loaded dice have the built in capacity to exhibit specific numbers when subjected to random forces. Instead, atheists seem inclined to rely on pure chance - its their best unproven prescientific belief to a priori eliminate God. How could science resolve such differing perspectives? In practice there may not be a solution. 

Logical Positivists tried to separate evidence from faith and failed. The cult of evidence, the cult of the fact, was abandoned decades ago. there is no objective way to show that theist scientists are based in faith, while the personal beliefs of atheist scientists are "objective".


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

tygrus said:


> Yes compatible to the point of having nothing what so ever to do with each other at all. Glad those definitions make you happy but its completely meaningless at the same time.
> 
> Believe what you want but dont dare drag science down to religion's pathetic level.
> 
> Every day science makes your god a little smaller and less powerful.


These are simply your personal faithful declarations. What makes your personal faith reliable?


----------



## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

Zipper said:


> Pluto seems to be a reasonably intelligent fellow.
> 
> It's too bad he was indoctrinated (brainwashed) before he could make rational decisions on his own.
> 
> ...


These are all value judgments: Infecting, nonsense, nuts, indoctrinated, brainwashed. 

Most atheists try to brainwash me with the false belief that atheists have a way of separating value judgments from facts. How come you just prattle on with value judgments and no facts?


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

carverman said:


> Be careful there Beav! * Good thing you are incognitor on this forum...Muslims don't take kindly to someone that reverses the letters*..what's it called?:biggrin:
> 
> A palindrome is a word, phrase, number, or other sequence of characters which reads the same backward or forward... hence this palindrome
> (read it backwards if you don't believe me).
> ...


 ... yeah, and you better change your password too. Even you have that Malaware/byte anti-virus or anti-devil installed on your machine. :biggrin:


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## mrPPincer (Nov 21, 2011)

carverman said:


> _incognitor_


typo no doubt, (you meant incognito, right?), but here's *incognitor*, enjoy..


----------



## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

none said:


> You don't understand what Richard is saying. He's referring to the idea of parsimony - i.e a more simple explanation is much more commonly correct that a more complex one. The idea of god is so mind boggling complex compared to the theory of evolution and therefore the God hypothesis is extremely unlikely. To non-scientists I can see how one might misinterpret that but it's very different from what you are suggesting.


a) none, a delusion is belief in something that is impossible, so Dawkins seems to be saying the existence of God is impossible. 

b) parsimony: Parsimony is not and never was a criterion for truth. If it was, Einstein's theories would be rejected in favour of Newton's. Some reliable explanations are simple, while other reliable explanations are more complex. 



c) none, you misunderstand what I am saying. To quote you,

“The idea of god is so mind boggling complex compared to the theory of evolution and therefore the God hypothesis is extremely unlikely.”

You are assuming that it is evolution vs God. That's your assumption that you make no attempt to justify. According to you and Dawkins there are only two options; either evolution created species, or God created species and you pick evolution. But why do you assume there are only two options? 
Cosmologists claims our universe commenced with the Big Bang, and no on can know anything pre Big Bang. As far as I can tell we have three religious options regarding the origin of material. : 

1. God created material.
2. Material always existed, or
3 Material created itself. 

Dawkins favours the religion of Naturalism which a priori and subjectively rejects option 1. He subjectively and a priori opts for either 2 or 3. That's his religious choice. (other names for his religion are Physicalism and Materialism).


Dawkins seems to think that if he crosses out the God option, then all of a sudden he isn't religious. It isn't so. Choosing either 2 or 3 is a religious choice too. 

The issue of God the creator vs evolution only exists between a him and a particular branch of theism. Not all theists believe like they do. Some theists believe 
1. God created material with the capacity for life. God created it like loaded dice which exhibit order when subjected to random forces. 
2. God created the randomness in the universe.
3. Life is made of material. 
4. When the material God created was subjected to random forces life began.
5. God created life with the capacity to mutate.
6 God created such that there would be variation in conditions such that, for example, mutations in bears could result in differing colors, and white bears could survive better in the arctic and brown and black bears survive better in other areas. 

None, there is no conflict with scientific theory and belief in a creator God. 

You are entitled to your religious beliefs that either material created itself, or it always existed. 

This isn't a scientific debate, it is a religious debate. There is no scientific way to prove the religion of Naturalism is true, and the theist religion is false. Some people don't want their kids taught the unprovable dogma of Naturalism to the exclusion of other perspectives. Its like the religion of Naturalism has become the new papacy and its adherents don't seem to be aware of it. Dawkins consistently avoids acknowledgment and discussion of his a priori prescientific beliefs that direct his scientific thinking. That's a flaw because when his unprovable presuppositions come to light, it fatally conflicts with his claim to be evidence based. Science can't know what happened pre Big Bang, so his a priori assumption that material created itself, or that it always existed is his religious belief. 

His claims that design is an illusion doesn't come from empirical evidence, it flows from his prescientific faith that God does not exist, and material always existed, or created itself. 

I'm sure Dawkins is a fine descriptive biologist, but he is poor at epistemology and ontology. There are far superior books on those subjects.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

What? This thread is still going on? LOL


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

You keep on saying that there is no evidence that the appearance of design in evolution is only an illusion. I would argue there is an abundance of evidence given the abundance of 'bad design' that one would expect as the result of the accumulation of small changes resulting from natural selection, and one would not expect if a designer started with a blank sheet of paper, designed a creature, and worked backwards. For instance, the laryngeal nerve in the giraffe (one of Dawkins' examples). And you cannot say something was designed if it arose as a natural consequence of selection acting on random variation. Any more than you can say a normally distributed set of outcomes of repeated 100 coin flips coming up heads is designed by the person who made the coin.

You still have not articulated what the thing you call god is to you besides the thing/entity that caused the universe to be. Calling it god is a red herring... it is more aptly called deus ex machina, as you have no idea what the nature of such a phenomena or entity would be. You believe that matter was created by something, it does not follow that the something is god/God/Yahweh/Allah/Zeus/Flying Spaghetti Monster/Santa/Tooth Fairy.

Do you worship this thing? Do you gain spiritual or moral guidance from it? One would expect so, since you call it god. You seem to have already answered in a rather cryptic way that there is no afterlife.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

Jesus is a jerk

http://jesusisajerk.tumblr.com/


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## protomok (Jul 9, 2012)

Hmmm, this has come up a few times now, perhaps we should start a poll thread to vote so we can settle this once and for all 

I personally don't see any evidence that belief in God conflicts with science. On evolution specifically I actually find the idea rather elegant. The idea of a creator designing a mechanism to create life. I think the main "conflict" arises when folks try to extrapolate parts of books like Genesis which were never intended to be Science textbooks. 

Personally belief in God (in my case Christianity) means a great deal to me and in no way do I feel I have to ignore Science or logic. Also for what it's worth based on a 5 second google search it looks like many U.S Scientists...just over 50% believe in some form of God or higher power - http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

none said:


> What? This thread is still going on? LOL


none, you took the time to supply a lengthy Dawkins quote, a positive departure from your usual ....


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

andrewf said:


> You keep on saying that there is no evidence that the appearance of design in evolution is only an illusion. I would argue there is an abundance of evidence given the abundance of 'bad design' that one would expect as the result of the accumulation of small changes resulting from natural selection, and one would not expect if a designer started with a blank sheet of paper, designed a creature, and worked backwards. For instance, the laryngeal nerve in the giraffe (one of Dawkins' examples). And you cannot say something was designed if it arose as a natural consequence of selection acting on random variation. Any more than you can say a normally distributed set of outcomes of repeated 100 coin flips coming up heads is designed by the person who made the coin.
> 
> You still have not articulated what the thing you call god is to you besides the thing/entity that caused the universe to be. Calling it god is a red herring... it is more aptly called deus ex machina, as you have no idea what the nature of such a phenomena or entity would be. You believe that matter was created by something, it does not follow that the something is god/God/Yahweh/Allah/Zeus/Flying Spaghetti Monster/Santa/Tooth Fairy.
> 
> Do you worship this thing? Do you gain spiritual or moral guidance from it? One would expect so, since you call it god. You seem to have already answered in a rather cryptic way that there is no afterlife.


1. Worship etc. The theme is belief in God does not conflict with science so these are not relevant. You ask about spiritual things. Did you ever look up what the word spirit means? It means breath. do you breath? If so, you have spirit. Do you worship nature? If so does it give you any guidance? do you believe physics and chemistry explain everything? 
2. What do you believe is the origin of material? and what would your evidence be for its origin? You have two options, it created itself, or it always existed. Which one do you prefer, and would it rationally cohere with your other beliefs? 
3. coin flips: pure randomness is your presupposition. You have no proof that pure randomness is the governing force. It could be that material is biased, like loaded dice, such that when subjected to random forces, exhibits order. In evolution, such order would be the embodiment of operational principles, giving living things their machine like character. You see, living things embody machine like operational principles that can not be explained by physics and chemistry. 

4. The emergence and persistence of specific forms (shapes) of life is rationally coherent with the idea that material has the capacity for life and it is like loaded dice such that random forces upon it tend to produce order. 
The idea of natural selection works well with color for camouflage. But color is not an operational principle; it is not an embodiment of a machine like operation. 
For example white bears do better in the arctic than brown bears. But it isn't clear that pure random chance could produce the bears lungs which embody a machine like operational principle. Also the persistent forms: bears have 4 legs. Pure randomness would imply samples of bears with 3, 5, 6 7, etc legs. But 4 seems to be the norm. I'm not sure pure randomness can explain that norm. Do we see nature randomly taking a stab at, say 6 legged bears? If not, why not? 
5. The emergence of persistent forms seem to presuppose that built in to material is a capacity for life, and a bias toward specific persistent forms (which embody machine like operations that can not be explained by physics and chemistry.) 
6. Even so, it isn't necessary to presuppose a creator God, although that is one option that hasn't been eliminated. It is possible that atheism, with its apparent preferred faith in naturalism, and presupposition that material created itself, or that it always existed, could come up with a rationally coherent theory. 

6. getting back to your pure chance coin toss. That is *your* presupposition that is consistent with your faith. But obviously your faith is not a necessary faith. There is no evidence that, for example, nature blindly took a stab at 6 legged bears and they were deselected by nature. Are there fossils of 5,6,7, 8 legged bears? The evolutionary tree shows specific and persistent forms (shapes) that embody machine like operational principles that can not be explained by physics and chemistry. So pure randomness is not evident. It just looks like there is no potential for the forms that are not on the evolutionary tree. Why? Material is biased, like loaded dice, to generate order and part of that order is specific shapes. In other words, it could be, some shapes were deselected at the inanimate material level. 

Oddly, atheists are a priori against such a theory. That's your faith. And that's an example of how faith can direct science. 

But the main theme is, faith is not necessarily in conflict with science. I don't see any criterion for truth emerge that would filter out a creator God, and retain atheism. That's because the criterion for truth is one's own beliefs which, through dialogue, may evolve.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

protomok said:


> Hmmm, this has come up a few times now, perhaps we should start a poll thread to vote so we can settle this once and for all
> 
> I personally don't see any evidence that belief in God conflicts with science. On evolution specifically I actually find the idea rather elegant. The idea of a creator designing a mechanism to create life. I think the main "conflict" arises when folks try to extrapolate parts of books like Genesis which were never intended to be Science textbooks.
> 
> Personally belief in God (in my case Christianity) means a great deal to me and in no way do I feel I have to ignore Science or logic. Also for what it's worth based on a 5 second google search it looks like many U.S Scientists...just over 50% believe in some form of God or higher power - http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/


Thanks for your input. 
(Part of the reason I spend time on this here is that the stock market is boring right now and it is an interesting diversion. Also I'm interested is seeking critique of my views. It isn't just bodies that evolve, minds do too if subjected to the right environment.


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

We are discussing the unknowable or un-provable IMO. God, an overarching universal intelligence, reincarnation, the afterlife, or none of these - your opinion on either side of the issue is just that. It is based on a belief or faith that (so far) no one can prove either way.
Even the great Harry Houdini didn't come through for us - or did he? http://weekinweird.com/2016/01/27/successful-seance-houdini-spoke-from-beyond-the-grave/).
I do wonder though, if there is nothing beyond this life, if there is no purpose or larger mystery in the universe, and so many people believe this, why don't we just live fully hedonistic, selfish lives with no regard for anyone but ourselves and our pleasure? With Trooper playing in the background, "we're here for a good time,not a long time..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gCjJC_INNE&list=RD8gCjJC_INNE


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Pluto said:


> Thanks for your input.
> (Part of the reason I spend time on this here is that the stock market is boring right now and it is an interesting diversion. Also I'm interested is seeking critique of my views. It isn't just bodies that evolve, minds do too if subjected to the right environment.


To be overly pedantic, individuals don't evolve in the Darwinian sense, populations do.


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

Trooper is evidence of divine intervention. Most under rated house band ever!! (Other than Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen of course)


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

protomok said:


> Hmmm, this has come up a few times now, perhaps we should start a poll thread to vote so we can settle this once and for all


Perhaps we can do one better. Can't the free market determine whether god exists?

I'm told that the free market can decide _all_ the great mysteries... belief in the free market is almost like an, er, religion


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

Eder said:


> Trooper is evidence of divine intervention. Most under rated house band ever!! (Other than Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen of course)


Yes, Clapton intervened, then Trooper raised hell.


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