Digging around for proof of God's existence

@sonship said
@vivify

National Academy of Science said "Intelligent Design . . . [is] not science because [it's] not testable by the methods of science."

So if you say this example falsifies Intelligent Design, then you agree that the complaint that ID is not falsifiable and therefore not science, is incorrect?

I don't know how relevant "falsifiability" is to whether a scientific idea is valid or not. So I can't answer that.

I do know evolution can be falsified if a cow gives birth to a duck, or something like that. ID can't be falsified, in the same way you can't prove whether Zeus really existed or not. You can disprove the claim that ID is a better explanation for life than evolution; but you can't prove or disprove the existence of a creator.

So I can at least answer that evolution is falsifiable (able to be proved right or wrong) and ID is not.

@sonship said
@kevcvs57

No reason why they couldn’t be but of course no reason why the should be. Evolution is only really a problem for those that adhere to a literal interpretation of any given holy book or God model.

Could you define a bit more "a literal interpretation of a holy book?" I mean does that mean a holy book which has no parables, no allegorical lang ...[text shortened]... supposed embarrassment suppose to hit me for believing in God and that He has communicated with us?

A God made Adam from clay and then made Eve from one of the clay mans clay ribs. If you think that is literally true or if you believe a God created everything in six days and then took a day off you are adhering to a literal interpretation of your holy books.
Nice try with the Big Bang whinge but nobody not even me thinks it refers to an actual ‘bang’ it’s just a handy way of trying to visualise the incredibly large expansion that is still taking place but given it was presumably expanding into a void I doubt it made any noise at all.

@kevcvs57

A God made Adam from clay and then made Eve from one of the clay mans clay ribs.

I believe that.

If so Adam must have been an extremely important human being in history.
The significance of a first man as head of the human race is very strong.

Though I am far away in time from THIS particular hugely signigicant human being, I am not that far away from another grandly significant man - Jesus Christ. And He is called "the last Adam" by Paul and "the SECOND man".

One of the things which influences me to believe there was a FIRST man is that the designated SECOND man is so impactful on the world's history.
Since Jesus of Nazareth is such a towering influence it would not surprise me that there was at the beginning of our race - a FIRST man Adam.

If you think that is literally true or if you believe a God created everything in six days and then took a day off you are adhering to a literal interpretation of your holy books.

It is important to me to examine what the Scriptures actually SAY. And I would say that the Bible nowhere says that God CREATED the earth in six days.

The word in Exodus 20:11, strictly speaking is not the word created in Genesis 1:1. It is the word "made" as in working with existing material.

"For in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day . . ."

Lots has been written on the difference between asah - made and bara - create. And I probably would concede that some overlap exists.
But that in Hebrew some overlap might be argued for in asah / bara doesn't mean the two words are always interchangeable.

Asah - was used for trimming nails, cutting hair, preparing a meal.
And some Hebrew translators say no other word beside bara could be used for creation out of nothing ex nihilo.

So I would say the Bible says God created the heavens and the earth in "the beginning" (Gen. 1:1) . And in six days God made (Exo. 20:11) heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them.

This is a brief comment on what the Bible says and doesn't say about creation.

Nice try with the Big Bang whinge but nobody not even me thinks it refers to an actual ‘bang’ it’s just a handy way of trying to visualise the incredibly large expansion that is still taking place but given it was presumably expanding into a void I doubt it made any noise at all.

Then it is imprecise language to convey a concept, not that altogether literal.
So the Bible is not unscientific. It uses language which is scientifically imprecise
according to modern standards.

The Queen of Sheba came from "the ends of the earth".
Caesar taxed "all the world".
And "the stars of heaven fell to the earth".

I don't necessarily take these statements as precisely literal.

I believe the ultimate creation of the universe is from God.
What Moses wrote was about God taking six days to restore what somehow had
become waste, void, dark, damaged, lifeless, chaotic. That is creation and
restoration.

I have seen scientific opinions inch closer and closer to something like this speculating about mass extinctions of a previous order via killer comets or killer asteroids or some other ancient cataclysm in the far distant past.

@sonship said

Nice try with the Big Bang whinge but nobody not even me thinks it refers to an actual ‘bang’ it’s just a handy way of trying to visualise the incredibly large expansion that is still taking place but given it was presumably expanding into a void I doubt it made any noise at all.

Then it is imprecise language to convey a concept, not that altogether lite ...[text shortened]... rder via killer comets or killer asteroids or some other ancient cataclysm in the far distant past.

“ The Queen of Sheba came from "the ends of the earth".
Caesar taxed "all the world".
And "the stars of heaven fell to the earth". ”
The first two may have to all intents and purposes been true if your knowledge of the world was restricted to the Mediterranean and Africa but the third one must be allegorical at best. Stars definitely do not fall to earth.
Yes I think I understand what you believe but your claiming it as fact by the use of word play and presuming to understand what the original authors were referring to. Presumably their were no human witnesses to the origins of the universe anymore than they witnessed the final days of the dinosaurs. Science is about finding pieces of a jigsaw scattered throughout the universe and trying to construct a viable picture. Religion seems conjure up the picture and ram whatever pieces are available into it even if it means cutting bits off and sticking missing bits on. Science is also acutely aware most of the pieces haven’t been found yet and thus are open to the picture changing, again this does not seem to be the case for those that follow religious dogmas and models of reality.

@vivify

I don't know how relevant "falsifiability" is to whether a scientific idea is valid or not. So I can't answer that.

Then I will assume you are probably not among critics saying that Intelligent Design is not part of science.

I do know evolution can be falsified if a cow gives birth to a duck, or something like that.

If a prehistoric cow like mammal is a ancestor directly related to a whale then that would not falsify evolution but show it to be true. It is buried under gradualism.

The cow had distant descendants which gradually were whales.
That's an example of evolution as I understand it.

Or the bird on the limb outside is a distant descendant of some pre-historic dinosaur. That's an example of evolution as I understand it.

Your example that you concocted was deliberately unrepresentative.

ID can't be falsified, in the same way you can't prove whether Zeus really existed or not.

So you are saying to me that the process of replication in a cell is manifestly far, far from an indication of a planning goal intending intelligence. And believing that it is is akin to believing that Zeus is real doing the things which Greek mythology attributed to him.

You go ahead and believe that things like cell mitosis and DNA replication arose by accident. I don't think things like that happen by happenstance even over millions of years.

You can disprove the claim that ID is a better explanation for life than evolution; but you can't prove or disprove the existence of a creator.

As I said before, remember the difference between "prove" and "an inference to the best explanation".

@sonship said
You go ahead and believe that things like cell mitosis and DNA replication arose by accident. I don't think things like that happen by happenstance even over millions of years.

You're arguing from ignorance. Because you don't know how unguided process can result in cell structures or functions, you then claim that space filled by your ignorance as the domain of ID.

In this thread, you said traits are "not likely random" and were proven wrong----twice. Prior to be shown slugs and bacteria that inherited traits randomly and not by design, you claimed it was due to ID. You filled the gap in your knowledge with ID.

ID relies on a continually receding pocket of ignorance in order to be valid. As science discovers more ways unguided processes were responsible for the universe, the less there is that ID can claim responsibility for, like that slug or that bacteria.

Here's another: Are elements designed? Surely the components that make up every single thing in the universe were designed, right?
Right, Sonship? God made the elements, not some unguided process, right?

Stars create new elements in their cores due to the immense pressure from a star's gravity:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/make-an-element/

Almost all of the elements in the universe originated in the high-pressure hearts of stars or during a star's violent death. Other elements, like francium and plutonium, are only produced in trace amounts by the decay of uranium

Yet ANOTHER example of something created by unguided process that ID clearly can't take credit for. Stars make almost all the elements in the universe; some elements not made in stars are created through the decay of other elements.

The more science discovers, the more irrelevant and insignificant ID becomes. Just like how your YouTube video was proved wrong, your claim that structures like DNA can't be created through unguided process is invalidated as information becomes more available.

@vivify

You're arguing from ignorance. Because you don't know how unguided process can result in cell structures or functions, you then claim that space filled by your ignorance as the domain of ID.

I only have time now for one comment.

Look, think of a situation. You have a room with a table full of coins. The coins are all scattered chaotically over the surface of a table randomly.

You have cameras on the door of the room. The door stays locked. The cameras absolutely record anyone going in or coming out of the room.

Now you come the next day. You check the recording. No one has entered into the room. But SOMEHOW . . . somehow -

The coins are arranged:
pennies on top of pennies,
nickels on top of nickels,
dimes on top of dimes,
quarters on top of quarters,
half dollars on top of half dollars,
silver dollars on top of silver dollars.

How it was done ??? You are totally baffled.

Which is the better explanation of what you DO know:

1.) The coins came together by accident.

2.) An intelligence arranged them properly.

WHO or WHAT did it is a mystery.
But which explanation about is the better explanation of what IS known?

I say #2.
They came together somehow by an intelligent agent.

@sonship said
@vivify

You're arguing from ignorance. Because you don't know how unguided process can result in cell structures or functions, you then claim that space filled by your ignorance as the domain of ID.

I only have time now for one comment.

Look, think of a situation. You have a room with a table full of coins. The coins are all scattered chaotical ...[text shortened]... of what IT known?

I say #2.
They came together somehow by an intelligent agent.

You said nothing that addresses my statement: you are arguing from ignorance, and claiming that space made by your ignorance is evidence of ID.

This would be like you claiming a kepto slug's algae gene can only be explained by ID, because you didn't know it could add to its DNA by eating and pass it off to its offspring. No matter how many analogies you use like your coin one, claiming ID is responsible for the slug's genes is clearly wrong.

That's your entire ID argument in a nutshell.

@vivify

You said nothing that addresses my statement: you are arguing from ignorance, and claiming that space made by your ignorance is evidence of ID.

That's because I said I was limited in time right now.

I am reading a lot about the plastic eating bacteria and writing someone about it with some questions. I like science you know.

This would be like you claiming a kepto slug's algae gene can only be explained by ID, because you didn't know it could add to its DNA by eating and pass it off to its offspring. No matter how many analogies you use like your coin one, claiming ID is responsible for the slug's genes is clearly wrong.

That's your entire ID argument in a nutshell.

I think part of the "nutshell" of my analogy is that there are limits to what science can explain. And we should go up to those limits and not whine if we cannot go beyond them.

Be back latter.

@sonship said
I like science you know.

Unless it contradicts it contradicts your religion.

I think part of the "nutshell" of my analogy is that there are limits to what science can explain. And we should go up to those limits and not whine if we cannot go beyond them.

Except we don't know what the limits of what humans can achieve and learn through science are.

You believe anything science cannot explain *right now* is evidence for ID. That's a flawed way of thinking, since humans constantly solve problems and answer questions they couldn't before. This includes subjects IDists previously thought could only be explained with a creator before being proved wrong.

@sonship said
Be back latter.

Take care. More important than arguing on a forum is that you enjoy your day, be healthy, happy, enjoy your friends and family.

Happy Friday.

@vivify said
Take care. More important than arguing on a forum is that you enjoy your day, be healthy, happy, enjoy your friends and family.

Happy Friday.

Let me ask you this.

Do you think it's possible that a God could have directed evolution into the direction he wanted it to go, you know, making sure this random chance, that genetic mutation, went the way he wanted it to go, making evolution into a toolbox, instead of a bunch of seemingly random events?

@suzianne said
Let me ask you this.

Do you think it's possible that a God could have directed evolution into the direction he wanted it to go, you know, making sure this random chance, that genetic mutation, went the way he wanted it to go, making evolution into a toolbox, instead of a bunch of seemingly random events?

It's more likely that a Creator would just let evolution do its thing. Here's why I say this:

There's something like one quintillion insects on planet earth. Imagine if we also add up all the bugs, arachnids, etc. Then imagine we include all the birds, marine life and all fauna on earth. The number of individual organisms are too staggering to count.

And we haven't even gotten to all the individual plant life. If we then try to add up all the microbes on earth, like bacteria and viruses....those are numbers too obscenely large to ever have hope of counting.

Now: is God really micro-managing each and every single genetic mutation from each and every individual organism that's ever lived over the past 4 billion years in earth's history....just to get an insanely specific outcome?

In this thread, we discussed bacteria that evolved the ability to eat plastic. Was this Creator deliberately driving the evolution of that bacteria so that it would one day be able to eat plastic found outside of a factory?

If God is driving mutations, that would invalidate natural selection, which states that organisms evolve as a response their environment. It would also fly in the face of decades of evidence and scientific study showing that evolution is a response to environment, if there's an intelligent being manipulating everything rather than a life-form's surroundings.

Perhaps, if you wanted, you could say a creator drove the circumstances for *certain* organisms to evolve, like humans. Humans have only been around for 200,000 years, which is fairly recent in terms of evolution; so a believer in God (or gods) could make the case that a Creator intervened in human evolution from an ape ancestor, at some point, so humans would end up as they are now.

There's no real conflict between the idea of a Creator and evolution, so that could work.