There is no God !!!

Originally posted by Palynka
How can you call it evidence if it has no informative value?

I call it "evidence" to stay consistent with DF's post. Technically you are right.

I've wondered a bit about what I wrote though. On the one hand, I cannot conceive of any potential state of nature that could not be reconciled with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, supernatural Creator. For this reason, arguments from the current state of nature for the existence of such an entity are not compelling. On the other hand, if I look at the starry sky this evening and discover to my anstonishment that thousands of stars have moved from their previous positions to form a cosmic message saying, "Daniel, I am God. I am real. The Bible is my message to mankind. Pull your bloated head out of your a$$ before I send you to Hell," then I'd certainly be convinced (either that or terrified for my mental health).

So while I feel pretty sure of both of these positions, I'm not sure if there isn't an inconsistency in their union. I've been way to busy with a particularly nasty bit of my job market paper to give this much thought. So maybe somebody can help me out for now, and I'll give it more attention later.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Oh, and essentially spontaneous generation was dead by 1668.

The first serious attack on the idea of spontaneous generation was made in 1668 by Francesco Redi, an Italian physician and poet. At that time, it was widely held that maggots arose spontaneously in rotting meat. Redi believed that maggots developed from eggs laid by flies. To test his hypo ...[text shortened]... ur nailed that coffin shut) may be only 100 years ago in your world, but in my world it's 2006.

The dimwitt has but another question to ask. I am here merely to amuse. What is the difference then between the concept of evolution and spontaneous generation? Does not evolotion require spontaneous generation of some kind to be a plausible theory? I await your berrating response. (I even mispelled a few word here for your amusement) Can you find them?

Originally posted by whodey
The dimwitt has but another question to ask. I am here merely to amuse. What is the difference then between the concept of evolution and spontaneous generation? Does not evolotion require spontaneous generation of some kind to be a plausible theory? I await your berrating response. (I even mispelled a few word here for your amusement) Can you find them?

Ok, let the cat out of the bag! You're a faker right? I just can't believe that anyone, even a rabid fundamentalist, would be foolish enough to insult a sincere person so smugly, insist that they go educate themselves, and then link to a site that explicitly contradicts his own claim.

On my list of the insufferable fundamentalists here at RHP, you have just leap-frogged Arby Hill, Dj2, and, yes, even Darfius in a race to the bottom.

Originally posted by telerion
Ok, let the cat out of the bag! You're a faker right? I just can't believe that anyone, even a rabid fundamentalist, would be foolish enough to insult a sincere person so smugly, insist that they go educate themselves, and then link to a site that explicitly contradicts his own claim.

On my list of the insufferable fundamentalists here at RHP, you have just leap-frogged Arby Hill, Dj2, and, yes, even Darfius in a race to the bottom.

hahaha.....that's a funny post, thank you

Originally posted by telerion
Ok, let the cat out of the bag! You're a faker right? I just can't believe that anyone, even a rabid fundamentalist, would be foolish enough to insult a sincere person so smugly, insist that they go educate themselves, and then link to a site that explicitly contradicts his own claim.

On my list of the insufferable fundamentalists here at RHP, you have just leap-frogged Arby Hill, Dj2, and, yes, even Darfius in a race to the bottom.

Like I said, I am here to amuse. By the way, thanks so much for answering my question.

Originally posted by whodey
The dimwitt has but another question to ask. I am here merely to amuse. What is the difference then between the concept of evolution and spontaneous generation? Does not evolotion require spontaneous generation of some kind to be a plausible theory? I await your berrating response. (I even mispelled a few word here for your amusement) Can you find them?

Spontaneous generation requires that a fully developed form of life is produced ad hoc from no precursor within a defined time period (typically in the order of days). Evolution (i don't know about evolotion - maybe it helps burns?) does not require this. It requires the gradual build up of changes from a simple precursor (typically in the order of tens of thousands of years). Read my posts on the subject.

Spontaneous generation would be consistant with creationism. Were it proved to be true that would be a disproof of evolution.

I did not berate you earlier because you made a typo, everyone makes those, but rather because you claimed to be specialist in a subject (religion) and yet consistantly misspell one of the simplest terms within it's vernacular (belief).

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Spontaneous generation requires that a fully developed form of life is produced ad hoc from no precursor within a defined time period (typically in the order of days). Evolution (i don't know about evolotion - maybe it helps burns?) does not require this. It requires the gradual build up of changes from a simple precursor (typically in the orde ...[text shortened]... gion) and yet consistantly misspell one of the simplest terms within it's vernacular (belief).

When you say precursor I assume you mean a pool of amino acids millions of years ago that gave birth to life as we know it today, correct? The idea of spontaneous generation came about with scientists by them observing rotting meat and seeing how maggots seem to evolve from the meat. This observation, although provingly flawed, seems much more scientific than assuming something happened that has never been observed. Where is the scientific method to prove a precurser such as a pool of amino acids sprang forth life? If there is no scientific method to establish this then we have a scientific theory that is not based on the scientific method of observation. This is one of my main objections to evolution. The other objection is that all matter must come from some place. By the very definition of time all matter must have a begining. The only solution is that when matter was created, time as a deminsion to contain that matter was also created. I do not argue the evidence for the Big Bang. After all, the first Biblical creation was light.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Spontaneous generation requires that a fully developed form of life is produced ad hoc from no precursor within a defined time period (typically in the order of days). Evolution (i don't know about evolotion - maybe it helps burns?) does not require this. It requires the gradual build up of changes from a simple precursor (typically in the orde ...[text shortened]... gion) and yet consistantly misspell one of the simplest terms within it's vernacular (belief).

I found an article about spontaneous generation that you may want to take a look at.

http://www.thoemmes.com/science/evolution_intro.htm

In the artcle, which I did take the time to read all the way through this time, is about an evolutionist named Henry Charlton Bastian. In the article I feel somewhat vendicated. Here we see an evolutionist who struggles with the concept of spontaneous generation. It says that Heterogenesis is the formation of living things from previously living organic matter such as the rotting meat that produce maggots. This is what was referred to as spontaneous generation and is not the same as creationism. 'Spontaneous' imlies a random or lawless process in which a creator is not at the helm. Abiogenesis, on the other hand, is concerned with how living things spring forth from inorganic starting materials. This was acknowledged by all the scientists to be much more problematic. Both were confusingly lumped together under the term Spontaneous generation.

Originally posted by telerion
Ok, let the cat out of the bag! You're a faker right? I just can't believe that anyone, even a rabid fundamentalist, would be foolish enough to insult a sincere person so smugly, insist that they go educate themselves, and then link to a site that explicitly contradicts his own claim.

On my list of the insufferable fundamentalists here at RHP, you have just leap-frogged Arby Hill, Dj2, and, yes, even Darfius in a race to the bottom.

You are correct in that I was acting smugly and my data was flawed. I freely admit this and further submit that this happens in the scientific community as well. Take, for example, something I was taught in my science class. I was taught that all life on earth was dependent upon the sun. My instructor swore up and down that no life could be sustained without the magical power of the sun. If any one dare suggest otherwise in the scientific community, they to probably would have been berated. Today we know that there are life forms on the deep ocean floor that do not so much as recieve one ray of light from the sun. This is only because we went there to observe it. Once again, science was proved wrong.

Another example within the medical scientific community was a scientist who claimed that bacteria was one of the major causes of stomach ulcers within medical patients. He too was beraded and scorned by scientists who used skewed data and smugness to discredit him. He was later vendicated, however, by continuing to defy them by successfuly treating ulcers with antibiodics.

As we can see, we all tend to gravitate to a comfortable place of self assurance in "knowing it all". Answers and truth, therefore, can best be discovered through a mindset of humility and pursuit of the truth. As human beings, we are flawed and tend to not want to recognize this. We tend, rather, to defend our skewed beliefs to our dying breath by using factual data to do so. Hmmmm, humility and the pursuit of truth are both Biblical principles that we should adhere to. Perhaps I should follow some Biblical advice and do so as well.

Originally posted by telerion
The problem isn't that there is no evidence. The problem, from a scientific perspective, is that ANY state of the world can be made consistent with an omniscient, omnipotent, supernatural Creator. The natural world's being as it is then is uninformative.

As a challenge, can you think of anything we could discover about nature that could not be made c ...[text shortened]... ally here, so feel free to use your imagination when coming up with a hypothetical discovery.

I can't think of any, no. So that means that the world is either uninformative of immensely informative. How does one factor having an influence in everything exclude that factor for being learned about through everything? The problem here isn't a lack of evidence, it's an overabundance.
Why does one seed in a hole grow while another in the same hole doesn't? How do women know what to crave when pregnant? Why do catepillars turn into butterflies?
The evidence of God is everywhere, but it's so abundant that we take it for granted. I know I did before I learned about God (God made all the trees and every blade of grass, yada, yada, yada). But there are many things in this world we can't explain. And even if we could explain 100% of everything we see, touch, hear, etc, it still wouldn't rule God out of existance.

DF

Originally posted by DragonFriend
I can't think of any, no. So that means that the world is either uninformative of immensely informative. How does one factor having an influence in everything exclude that factor for being learned about through everything? The problem here isn't a lack of evidence, it's an overabundance.
Why does one seed in a hole grow while another in the same hole ...[text shortened]... everything we see, touch, hear, etc, it still wouldn't rule God out of existance.

DF

If gravity made things fall up, or we had 22 arms, or the sun revolved around the earth,
or we had magic powers: all of these would be 'our natural world.' That is, whatever we had
at our disposal, we could point at it and say, 'See, PROOF of God.'

Well, if anything can be used as proof, then how is it proof anymore? It has no
value or currency. I believe that was Telerion's point. The world around us neither
proves not disproves God's existence, because if the world was different, it wouldn't
change our opinions either way.

Nemesio

Originally posted by scottishinnz
[b]Spontaneous generation requires that a fully developed form of life is produced ad hoc from no precursor within a defined time period (typically in the order of days). Evolution (i don't know about evolotion - maybe it helps burns?) does not require this. It requires the gradual build up of changes from a simple precursor (typically in the order of tens of thousands of years). Read my posts on the subject.

Evolution it seems is both a slow and a fast process. The fossil records, rather than showing a series of gradual changes over time, offers instead a series of 'explosions'. This involves the Cambrien explosion, the rapid appearance of insects, even flying insects some 400 million years ago, the reptilian explosions, and avian explosions of the Cenozoic period. The rate of evolution seems conveniently to be capable of "speeding up" when changes suddenly occur. It all sounds alot like creation if you ask me. Also, why so many extinctions if animals evolve so quickly, and why does man evolve far more complex than other life forms on earth? I know you will say that extinctions are due to the fact that the animals did not have time to evolve and adapt to the environmental changes. However, what about those that did evolve? Where are the missing links if evolution is a slow process? All evidence seems to point to creation.

Originally posted by whodey
Evolution it seems is both a slow and a fast process. The fossil records, rather than showing a series of gradual changes over time, offers instead a series of 'explosions'. This involves the Cambrien explosion, the rapid appearance of insects, even flying insects some 400 million years ago, the reptilian explosions, and avian explosions of the Cenozoic per ...[text shortened]... the missing links if evolution is a slow process? All evidence seems to point to creation.

Well, since a fossil layer represents a minimum of 10,000 years then you can hardly call them literal explosions. They're merely coined that because of the way they appear suddenly within the fossil record.

Will get back to the rest of your point this arvo...

Originally posted by whodey
When you say precursor I assume you mean a pool of amino acids millions of years ago that gave birth to life as we know it today, correct? The idea of spontaneous generation came about with scientists by them observing rotting meat and seeing how maggots seem to evolve from the meat. This observation, although provingly flawed, seems much more scientific th ...[text shortened]... I do not argue the evidence for the Big Bang. After all, the first Biblical creation was light.

Point 1; Yes, spontaneous generation was a valid scientific hypothesis, later proved wrong. The upshot of this was that life cannot magically come into existance. What is it that creationists believe again?

Point 2; actually we DO know quite alot about the way the world was 3.5 billion years ago.. You'd be surprised what information you can get from rocks if you knw how to ask the right questions. Some of the planets oldest sedimentary rocks, dated to 3.5 billion years old, from western australia, have distinct carbon isotope signatures. From this we know that there were plenty of the consituents of life in the environment.

As I say to you, whodey, read my copious posts. Please, read them before you repost - I'm getting really sick of refuting the same old objections - please come up with something new.

[edit; oh, and point 3 - why DOES matter have to have a beginning? You've never explained that one to me.....]

Originally posted by Nemesio
If gravity made things fall up, or we had 22 arms, or the sun revolved around the earth,
or we had magic powers: all of these would be 'our natural world.' That is, whatever we had
at our disposal, we could point at it and say, 'See, PROOF of God.'

Well, if [b]anything can be used as proof, then how is it proof anymore? It has no
value or currenc ...[text shortened]... cause if the world was different, it wouldn't
change our opinions either way.

Nemesio[/b]

Absolutely! Well put. One rec to you, my friend!