There are gaps in knowledge which can be made wider by scientific understanding. Then scientists realize that the more they understand the more they realize what is not understood. The origin of life is such a widening gap as knowledge increases. The gap is reveled by science. Two Nobel prize winning scientists were hailed for their discovery of how life began fifty years ago. However today, fifty years latter, how far short their experiments came to create life is known better. That gap was widened.
I saw a cartoon once of a group of scientists around a chalk board with intricate calculations proving something. The punch line was that one of them was saying "The most depressing thing is that everything we believe here today will one day be proven wrong."
The literature on the fine tuning of constants has been coming I think for less then sixty years now. You believe what you want.
I take an attitude that has three components.
1.) Let's see if scientists change their minds in the future.
2.) What is now the inference to the most satisfying explanation.
It seems that if you have a suspicion that ID has nothing to do with the fine tuning then your work should be to try to prove otherwise. I have seen maybe two only attempts at this:
1.) Propose billions of universes in which we just happen to be in the one appearing finely tuned for life - the multiverse.
2) Propose that the fine tuning is not a characteristic of the universe. You put it that it was not a property of the universe.
Sorry if you don't like some quotations as "cherry picked". But I submit them because they argue my position. And I am not against seeing some of your quotations of significance if you have some.
"Gradually, I realized that in the twenty years since I opted for philosophical atheism, a vast, systematic literature had emerged that not only cast deep doubt on, but also, from any reasonable perspective, effectively refuted my atheistic out look ... Today, it seems to me, there is no good reason for an intelligent person to embrace the illusion of atheism or agnosticism, to make the same intellectual mistakes I made."
[Patrick Glynn, "The Making and Unmasking of an Atheist" in "God The Evidence" Rocklin California Forum in 1997 ]
@sonship saidYou truly do not understand science.
There are gaps in knowledge which can be made wider by scientific understanding. Then scientists realize that the more they understand the more they realize what is not understood. The origin of life is such a widening gap as knowledge increases. The gap is reveled by science. Two Nobel prize winning scientists were hailed for their discovery of how life began fifty years ag ...[text shortened]... , "The Making and Unmasking of an Atheist" in "God The Evidence" Rocklin California Forum in 1997 ]
Zero, zip and nada.
@sonship saidAnd the successor to Newton was Albert Einstein who was an atheist.
@DeepThoughtThere is no evidence for Intelligent Design other than gaps in the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. All the evidence you're presenting is of the form of fine tuning problems in physics. This is what is meant by a God of the Gaps.
Some scientists are accused of this throwing up the hands and saying "Oh well. We don't understand this ...[text shortened]... heir faith in God was increased by what they understood rather than by what they didn't understand.
In times past it was actually dangerous for an atheist to express publicly his absence of belief in a god. Christians have a shameful history of persecuting non-Christians.
Cherrypick all you like, but you have only opinion and unsubstantiated claims for your whole belief system.
A number of posters objected to the example of the coins being arranged yet no explanation is known WHO or HOW it was done in the locked room with cameras.
No one was seen entering into the room and arranging the chaotic coins in their respective denominations - pennies together, nickels together, dimes together, quarters together ... etc.
My observations about the phenomenon would be:
1.) That the coins are arranged properly indicates intelligent manipulation whether you like it or not. It is a better explanation then much else anyone could propose.
2.) If it was a miracle - probably whoever did the miracle used intelligence to arrange the coins that way.
3.) If it was not a miracle but, let's say, the elaborate "trick" of a professional high tech illusionist or magician, it STILL indicates that person used intelligence.
(Maybe the designers of the room and the experiment had something going on as a method to accomplish this that is being concealed.)
Please notice that I did not say the phenomenon would prove God's existence. I do say that the phenomenon, when applied to the principle of Occam's Razor - has the simpler explanation that Intelligence is nonetheless responsible for the coins being stacked in their proper denominations.
The best explanation to a phenomenon does not always have to have an explanation FOR the explanation.
To prove that something is the best explanation it is not always necessary that you have an explanation OF the explanation.
We don't know how it was done. But we do surmise that the stacking of the coins in their respective denominations indicates intelligence somewhere was at work.
@sonship
As DeepThought rightly explained:
'There is no mechanism for the coins to pile themselves, so there would be no scientific explanation other than fraud. This is not analogous with creation.'
@sonship saidThat is why scientists investigate. Something happened, that is true. Why something happened requires investigation.
A number of posters objected to the example of the coins being arranged yet no explanation is known WHO or HOW it was done in the locked room with cameras.
No one was seen entering into the room and arranging the chaotic coins in their respective denominations - pennies together, nickels together, dimes together, quarters together ... etc.
My observations about the p ...[text shortened]... tacking of the coins in their respective denominations indicates intelligence somewhere was at work.
'There is no mechanism for the coins to pile themselves, so there would be no scientific explanation other than fraud. This is not analogous with creation.'
But If it was FRAUD the FRAUD indicates itself also was an intelligently pulled off one.
If we do not at some time settle on an explanation because there is no explanation for that explanation, we could never do science at all. In science whether we like it or not we have to rest with the best explanation at the time even when gaps in our knowledge remain or are more opened up.
We have best explanations for things at this time though we do not always have explanations FOR those explanations. The irony is that he may think he is doing the scientific en-devour a favor. I don't think it is doing science a favor by saying we know it could not be intelligent design because there is no explanation for how the coins were arranged.
That is why scientists investigate. Something happened, that is true. Why something happened requires investigation.
Who said "Stop investigating" ?
It may be said - "At this time, the best available explanation is thus and such. We continue to investigate."
You assume that ID theorist means to say "Stop studying, stop investigating."
@ghost-of-a-duke saidI disagree. When using the word "possible" one is talking in absolutes. I like to use the word improbable. It is not possible to disprove the existence of the Easter Bunny, but it is highly improbable that the Easter Bunny exists.
@sonship
As DeepThought rightly explained:
'There is no mechanism for the coins to pile themselves, so there would be no scientific explanation other than fraud. This is not analogous with creation.'
In the course of my life I have seen things which defied explanation but can only view them as currently unexplainable .
@sonship saidIt could possibly be an invisible inter-dimensionally traveling giraffe which perpetrated this fraud. It could possibly be anything. Science deals in probabilities .
@Ghost-of-a-Duke'There is no mechanism for the coins to pile themselves, so there would be no scientific explanation other than fraud. This is not analogous with creation.'
But If it was FRAUD the FRAUD indicates itself also was an intelligently pulled off one.
If we do not at some time settle on an explanation because there is no explanation for ...[text shortened]... it could not be intelligent design because there is no explanation for how the coins were arranged.
You truly do not understand science.
Zero, zip and nada.
In the quote from me the word "reveled" should have been "revealed".
Of course with such slight, terse little quips as you write amount to assertions only.
With you, I am pretty much left just to counting the number of accumulated times you ignore or evade questions put to you to draw out your logic.
"Ignore and business as usual" is not that impressive. It leads to "zero, zip and nada" logical reasoning for your assertions.
I think Caissad4 has still offered "zero, zip, and nada" for a reason why the claim of "God is" is an extraordinary claim.
"It is because it is because it is" [paraphrased] amounts to - it is because of "zero, zip, and nada"
"Zero, zip, and nada" is her well thought out logical reply to my question - "Why is the claim that God is extraordianary ?"
Interestingly, this has definite echoes of your own fallback position on the morally incoherent torturer god ideology you peddle. 'It is because it is'.
No it doesn't.
At the present time I have taught that if you are left in a state of perpetual separation from God, it is likely that your sins against Him will continue and increase more and more.
If while under His mercy one blasphemes and insults God, I cannot see the soul so separated will not more and more hate Him.
As the saved are more and more conformed to the image of Christ, perhaps the lost will be more and more conformed to the image of their leader Satan.
Perhaps the opposite curse is experienced by the lost to this blessing to the saved.
"Because whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He should be the Firstborn among many brothers." (Rom. 8:29)
If so then forever God will let them know how He feels about their continued crimes, sins, words, errors. The door of their doom is locked from the inside.
Perhaps then:
As in eternity the saved become like their Leader,
In eternity the lost become more and more like their leader.
That explanation may not be the best answer someone else might offer. But it is not "It is because it is because it is."
I left room for someone to demonstrate from the Bible why physical death must mean non-existence. I don't remember anyone explaining why. If they could then I would have to change my view perhaps.