1. Subscribermoonbus
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    29 Jul '15 21:11
    Originally posted by wolfgang59
    Nobody can seriously believe in an Intelligent Designer.
    The evidence is against it.

    However a Stupid Designer is more difficult to argue against.
    Why don't the theists use that???
    Interesting point. Gnosticism held that there were several gods and that the one who created the universe was a lower one who mistakenly believed himself to be the highest one. Moreover, the universe he created was a blunder. The fall from grace of humans was explained as the imprisonment of higher spirits in the blunder-world the lower god had mis-created.
  2. Subscribermoonbus
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    29 Jul '15 21:17
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    Well obviously the bacteria speculating about the motives and actions of man really doesn't tell us a whole lot. Again, this observation not only gets the theist off the hook, but is the theists Achilles heel in that the theist does tend to claim to know the mind of God and what hist motives are and key attributes etc. In reality, if God is really as supe ...[text shortened]... or to us as claimed then we have as much hope of knowing anything about him as a bacteria would.
    At the risk of truncating further discussion, I would agree that it is presumptuous to suppose that mere man can know the mind of God. Except insofar as God has made his mind known to man in some reduced form which mere man is capable of comprehending. And therein lies the rub (or Achilles heel, if you prefer): the infinite mind of God must necessarily be 'edited' in order to be comprehensible to a finite mind, and this editing must necessarily be a compromise. Something is bound to get lost, as when a color picture is reduced to black and white, or a three-dimensional solid is rendered as a plane figure.

    If there is a God and if He ever spoke to man, I cannot believe that he spoke only once and only to the Hebrews. If there is a God and if He ever spoke to man, then I suppose He did so using the medium most likely to be comprehensible to each people to whom He addressed Himself at the time: sometimes as a burning bush, sometimes as a blue elephant, sometimes in the voice of a Delphic priestess, maybe as a Hebrew carpenter's son, and maybe again after that in different guises in different times and places. And each time, there was a different 'edit', a different reduction from color to shades of gray--appropriate to what each people to whom He addressed himself was ready to hear at that particular time and place. (Christians won't like this idea because they think theirs is the only true religion.)

    Alternatively, if one believes there is no God, then all the sacred literature of the ages is nothing but transcendental ventriloquism.
  3. Standard memberRJHinds
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    30 Jul '15 04:031 edit
    Originally posted by moonbus
    What things? Cosmic dust?

    OK, there had to be a comet just at Jesus's' birth. There was no need to make billions of galaxies to produce that one comet. God could have just said "comet!"--and bingo, there was a comet.
    All things.

    Even the dumbest astronomers know there is more to the Universe than making comets. Maybe you should get some education on the subject and you would not have to ask such stupid questions. No offense, just saying.

    Maybe this will help as a start if you are really open to learning the truth.

    Intelligent Design - (The Design of the Universe)

    YouTube
  4. Cape Town
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    30 Jul '15 05:46
    Originally posted by wolfgang59
    However a Stupid Designer is more difficult to argue against.
    Why don't the theists use that???
    Many theists argue that the universe was 'cursed' after Adams downfall. Now I am not sure what to call that. A 'malicious' designer?
  5. Subscribermoonbus
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    30 Jul '15 05:57
    Originally posted by RJHinds
    All things.

    Even the dumbest astronomers know there is more to the Universe than making comets. Maybe you should get some education on the subject and you would not have to ask such stupid questions. No offense, just saying.

    Maybe this will help as a start if you are really open to learning the truth.

    [b]Intelligent Design - (The Design of the Universe)


    [youtube]FK6mWVx6DLA[/youtube][/b]
    I don't think you quite appreciate my original point. Given the story in Genesis, that the earth was made for man (specifically Adam), there was no need for anything at all in the universe beyond the earth and the sun (and maybe a comet about the time of Jesus). If there were only one sun and only one planet, I'd be willing to grant you that it would look like an intelligent designer had made that planet just for us to live on. But that's not the universe we observe. All those billions of galaxies are superfluous, and the vast space for them to move about in is superfluous too, if it's just for Adam. Economy of means is one of the hallmarks of intelligent design. One sun and one planet would demonstrate economy of means. Whereas, the universe we observe is such an overwhelmingly big waste that it defeats the idea that there was intelligence behind it. That's my opening 'gambit' here. Your patronizingly telling me that "all things" need space to move around in missed the point.
  6. Subscribermoonbus
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    30 Jul '15 06:20
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    Many theists argue that the universe was 'cursed' after Adams downfall. Now I am not sure what to call that. A 'malicious' designer?
    It's called punishment for original sin. As a loving father chastises his child to teach him moral right from wrong, so God is chastising us. Theists disagree on whether only man is being punished, or all of creation, for man's sin. Some theists have held that lions were vegetarians in the paradisiacal state before the fall, and that lions too fell, subsequently eating lambs (which before had lived in peace with lions).

    There was, allegedly, no death or disease before the fall. So disease must be part of the 'intelligent design' whereby man is being punished. Now consider HIV. The best available evidence to date indicates that the virus affected simians first and jumped species to infect humans. The logical conclusion must be that, if there is intelligent design at work in disease, then God uses apes as incubators, as guinea pigs for diseases to punish man. Malicious design from the ape's standpoint, I guess. Ah, but apes have no souls, a theist will reply. So their suffering doesn't count in the overall moral economy of the universe.

    One of the things that bothers me most about the intelligent design position is that it is so far far beyond egotistical that it can only be called egomaniacal--as if everything, from viruses to galaxies (cf. Ross's video, linked above), were here just for us. It's looney tunes.
  7. Standard memberkaroly aczel
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    30 Jul '15 07:20
    Originally posted by moonbus
    ... in the universe, why is there so much wasted space in it? It's about 99% empty (and getting more so, expanding at near light speed). Seems very inefficient. One planet and one sun would have sufficed to cover the creation story in Genesis. Any ideas?
    It's a quiet corner of the galaxy. Apparently other parts of the universe are better 'managed'
  8. Standard memberRJHinds
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    30 Jul '15 07:37
    Originally posted by moonbus
    I don't think you quite appreciate my original point. Given the story in Genesis, that the earth was made for man (specifically Adam), there was no need for anything at all in the universe beyond the earth and the sun (and maybe a comet about the time of Jesus). If there were only one sun and only one planet, I'd be willing to grant you that it would look li ...[text shortened]... . Your patronizingly telling me that "all things" need space to move around in missed the point.
    Exploring a Finely Tuned Universe

    By Andrew Zimmerman Jones and Daniel Robbins from String Theory For Dummies

    One major issue in cosmology for years has been the apparent fine-tuning seen in our universe. The universe seems specially crafted to allow life. One of the major explanations for this comes from string theory, which is the anthropic principle.

    To a physicist, the universe looks as if it were made for the creation of life. British Astronomer Royal Martin Rees clearly illuminated this situation in his 1999 book Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe.

    In this book, Rees points out that there are many values — the intensity of dark energy, gravity, electromagnetic forces, atomic binding energies, to name just a few — that would, if different by even an extremely small amount, result in a universe that is inhospitable to life as we know it. (In some cases, the universe would have collapsed only moments after creation, resulting in a universe inhospitable for any form of life.)

    The goal of science has always been to explain why nature has to have these values. This idea was once posed by Einstein’s famous question: Did God have a choice in creating the universe?


    Cosmological Constant

    YouTube
  9. Cape Town
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    30 Jul '15 08:56
    Originally posted by moonbus
    Given the story in Genesis, that the earth was made for man (specifically Adam), ...
    Genesis says no such thing.
  10. SubscriberSuzianne
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    30 Jul '15 10:12
    Originally posted by moonbus
    Interesting point. Gnosticism held that there were several gods and that the one who created the universe was a lower one who mistakenly believed himself to be the highest one. Moreover, the universe he created was a blunder. The fall from grace of humans was explained as the imprisonment of higher spirits in the blunder-world the lower god had mis-created.
    You speak to Christians here of gnostics? You might as well advocate paganism.
  11. The Ghost Chamber
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    30 Jul '15 10:16
    Originally posted by Suzianne
    You speak to Christians here of gnostics? You might as well advocate paganism.
    I thought Christianity assimilated paganism?

    Or was that the Borg?
  12. SubscriberSuzianne
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    30 Jul '15 10:23
    Originally posted by moonbus
    ... in the universe, why is there so much wasted space in it? It's about 99% empty (and getting more so, expanding at near light speed). Seems very inefficient. One planet and one sun would have sufficed to cover the creation story in Genesis. Any ideas?
    I wonder what would be the result if you had posted this in the science forum.

    I take the view of most scientists in that the universe is so vast that other intelligent life must have arisen many times and in many places in the universe. My take on it is that the universe is so vast so as to keep these civilizations away from each other. Relativistic difficulties make it almost impossible to span these distances within a normal lifespan. Life on Planet Earth has shown us that when a less advanced civilization meets a more advanced civilization, the outcome is never good for the lesser civilization. As witness to this idea, I give you the Incas, the Aztecs, the Mayans, as well as the indigenous peoples in what is now the US. I believe this is why the universe is so vast, simply to keep us away from each other.
  13. SubscriberSuzianne
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    30 Jul '15 10:32
    Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
    I thought Christianity assimilated paganism?

    Or was that the Borg?
    That's a decent argument. But what happened to the original 'pagans' wasn't really my point. I wasn't even directly comparing gnosticism to paganism, either. My point is that neither one has much bearing on modern Christianity. Even the gnostic Christians were pretty much done after the Council of Nicea put down their protests.
  14. SubscriberSuzianne
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    30 Jul '15 10:36
    Originally posted by twhitehead
    Genesis says no such thing.
    Then what, exactly, do you think the Creation story and the story of Adam and Eve was all about? Even if Genesis does not come out and say it, I think it can be inferred that God created Earth for man. What does God need with a planet?
  15. SubscriberSuzianne
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    30 Jul '15 10:42
    Originally posted by RJHinds
    Cosmological Constant

    [youtube]i4T2Ulv48nw[/youtube]
    Even Einstein himself considered his addition of the Cosmological constant to his field equations as a mistake.
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