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Re: Why I believe in ID.

Started by Squid, June 21, 2009, 04:57:53 PM

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kubedwheel

QuoteWhy is it that I have never ever heard a Christian hold up story of Lott offering his daughters to the crowd come to rape the angels as an example of goodness in the bible? Gen 19:5

3 factors to outrageous proposal: 1. Hospitality considered one of highest measures of man.  2. Wives / daughters typically viewed as property in his culture.  3. Living in degenerate society distorted his views.  Christians don’t hold up the story of Lot offering his daughters to the crowd as an example of goodness because it isn’t an example of goodness.  It’s an example of sin.

scott_hurst

Quote from: "kubedwheel"
QuotePretty much gibberish. You really need to have a much better understanding of our (humankinds) understanding of space and time before you argue on these things.
1) It is quite possible that our universe exists withing a large universe that may or may not have a beginning.
2) Outside our universe (or before the big bang) the very concept of time may become meaningless.

Your trying to refute my argument with speculation.  You have zero evidence.  A divine creator is a plausible explanation for the origin of the universe based on what I know.  Instead of flamming my post you should post a more plausible explanation of how our universe came into existence.

We have NO IDEA how the universe came to be.  We don't even really know what it means to ask the question.

I am pointing out that positing God, the God of the completely rediculous Bible is the real speculation.  

If you are going to try to inject God into cosmology, lets closely examine what makes you think a God exists to insert?  You are asserting that Big Bang is the ultimate beginning.  We have no way of knowing that is true.  We just know we are currently blind to what MIGHT have happened before it.  You are asserting that it must have a creator.  pffft.  You know no such thing.

scott_hurst

Quote from: "kubedwheel"
QuoteWhy is it that I have never ever heard a Christian hold up story of Lott offering his daughters to the crowd come to rape the angels as an example of goodness in the bible? Gen 19:5

3 factors to outrageous proposal: 1. Hospitality considered one of highest measures of man.  2. Wives / daughters typically viewed as property in his culture.  3. Living in degenerate society distorted his views.  Christians don’t hold up the story of Lot offering his daughters to the crowd as an example of goodness because it isn’t an example of goodness.  It’s an example of sin.

It's an example of sin, eh?  That sure isn't the message of the bible.

rlrose328

Quote from: "kubedwheel"ID is not an argument of ignorance.  Everyone is ignorant of how complex biological systems are brought about by evolution.  I know intelligence is capable of bringing about such systems, so I infer on what I know rather than what I don’t.

By goin this way with your debate, you ignore any possibility that matter can be spontaneously created (which has been done in the lab).  Therefore, intelligence is not the ONLY way that complex biological systems can be brought about.  

Your arguement is something like this:
There is a puddle outside on my patio.  I know that when I turn on my sink, water comes out.  Therefore, the puddle on the patio must have come from the faucet because it is complex.

With this premise, I'm not taking into account the fact that it might have rained.

I'm not saying your wrong... I'm just saying that there could be other explanations but you're so deadset on it being god that you refuse to consider other valid, scientific arguments.

And also remember... evolution and intelligent design (creationism) are not exclusive of one another.  Could a designer have made it all happen and is using us as an experiement to see how things will evolve over time?  Are we just one big experiement?  Who knows.  Neither you nor I know for sure.  And just because we don't doesn't mean there has to be a god who did it all.

Quote from: "kubedwheel"The process of natural selection selects organisms for survival based solely on their behavior. An organism that behaves as we behave but doesn’t have the attendant mental states that we have will have just as much survival value as we do. Mentality is not required for behavior, and nothing more than behavior is needed for survival, so there isn’t survival value to having mental states.

I do not agree with you on this one.  An organism that doesn't have the mental capacity to NOT jump off a cliff will not survive to evolve.  Period.  Living beings make really stupid choices all the time... drinking and driving, for example.  There have been many species that have disappeared because they weren't smart enough to stay up in the trees where they were safe from the creatures that would eat them.  In this respect, mentality IS required for behavior.  That much is common sense.
**Kerri**
The Rogue Atheist Scrapbooker
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HandsandDreams

If I may:

First off, the idea of evolution is often misunderstood.  Evolution is the sum of natural selection and genetic mutation, both things that we can all agree happen.  Now, with that said,

Quote from: "kubedwheel"The process of natural selection selects organisms for survival based solely on their behavior. An organism that behaves as we behave but doesn’t have the attendant mental states that we have will have just as much survival value as we do. Mentality is not required for behavior, and nothing more than behavior is needed for survival, so there isn’t survival value to having mental states.

You're talking about instinct.  You're saying, "If humans had the instinct to do what they did, they wouldn't need consciousness."  Have you seen the endangered and extinct species list?  They all had only their instincts, and we humans beat the competition hands down.  Our unique consciousness is the ability to study anything and reason out the best thing to do.  We don't need 8 gazillion instincts to do what we do; conceptual consciousness allows us to analyze and learn.

What you're saying is kinda like, if you're going to play chess, it's better to have your response to every possible piece combination on the board memorized than to simply have good general strategy.

Quote from: "kubedwheel"I find it highly unlikely that the rate of the big bang expansion and other fine-tuned examples just happened by chance.

It IS highly unlikely.  That's why we're still the only known intelligent life in the universe.  It's also highly unlikely that you'll win the lottery - but it happens.

Quote from: "kubedwheel"2. Moral Argument- This argument states that moral laws are evidence for God’s existence. The fact that we shouldn’t murder isn’t a fact about the world, it is a fact about how the world should be. Nothing in our physical world makes moral facts true.

Quite right.  A moral law, like any other concept (tree, art, human, etc.) does not exist physically.  You can point to examples of them, but nowhere do concepts take physical form.  They occur in human minds (that conceptual consciousness you put so little stock in) so we can better organize information.  In the case of moral laws, people eventually figured out "hey, we can all agree we don't want to be murdered, so let's make it a law not to murder, with consequences if you do."  It came from man's mind, not from God.

Quote from: "kubedwheel"Your trying to refute my argument with speculation.  You have zero evidence.  A divine creator is a plausible explanation for the origin of the universe based on what I know.  Instead of flamming my post you should post a more plausible explanation of how our universe came into existence.

How about this: I don't know, I don't need to know in order to live my life happily, and people more interested than me are working on an answer.  Why do you need to know so badly?

OP, I want to make it clear that I am not arguing against ID.  As others have said, ID and evolution are not necessarily contradictory ideas.  What I AM arguing against is an omnipotent being.  Perhaps there is some powerful being who put us here, who can do things beyond our wildest dreams, but I guarantee you he/she is still bound by the laws of science, even if we do not currently understand those laws.  There can be no effect without a cause.

kubedwheel

QuoteYou are asserting that it must have a creator. pffft. You know no such thing.

No, I said its possible a creator is responsible for the origin of our universe.

kubedwheel

QuoteBy goin this way with your debate, you ignore any possibility that matter can be spontaneously created (which has been done in the lab)

Could you or someone else please link or inform me of where I can find info on spontaneously created matter in labs? thanks.

JillSwift

So...

If complex things need a designer, then who designed the designer? Who designed the designer's designer? Etc.

Intelligent design falls apart because it demands an infinite regress.
[size=50]Teleology]

Heretical Rants


JillSwift

Quote from: "Heretical Rants"Isn't it obvious?  He designed himself!!!
Bwahahaha!  :typehappy:
[size=50]Teleology]

Whitney

Quote from: "kubedwheel"
QuoteBy goin this way with your debate, you ignore any possibility that matter can be spontaneously created (which has been done in the lab)

Could you or someone else please link or inform me of where I can find info on spontaneously created matter in labs? thanks.

"matter" was an incorrect word....however:

QuoteOne of the most important pieces of experimental support for the "soup" theory came in 1953. A graduate student, Stanley Miller, and his professor, Harold Urey, performed an experiment that demonstrated how organic molecules could have spontaneously formed from inorganic precursors, under conditions like those posited by the Oparin-Haldane Hypothesis. The now-famous "Miller-Urey experiment" used a highly reduced mixture of gasesâ€"methane, ammonia and hydrogenâ€"to form basic organic monomers, such as amino acids.[31] This provided direct experimental support for the second point of the "soup" theory as described above, and it is around the remaining three points of the theory that much of the debate now centers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_ ... quent_work

Whitney

Quote from: "kubedwheel"Thanks for the fast respond time, sorry it is taking me so long.
The TTSS could be an indirect step in the evolution of bacterial flagellum, however, a detailed evolutionary path is required from the TTSS to the flagellum to explain the flagellum’s origin.  And such a detailed path would presuppose that we know how many intermediate systems between the TTSS and the flagellum exist, systems whose functions are neither that of a TTSS nor that of a flagellum.  The bottom line is the bacterial flagellum needs roughly 30 more proteins than exist in the TTSS.

I think my previous comment still stands....there is no reason to think it is irreducibly complex.  Now you are saying we should think something is irreducible complex simply because we may not know all the steps to how it formed.  That's an argument from ignorance....of course, so is ID.

QuoteID is not an argument of ignorance.  Everyone is ignorant of how complex biological systems are brought about by evolution.  I know intelligence is capable of bringing about such systems, so I infer on what I know rather than what I don’t.

You are comparing apples to oranges.  We know that intelligence is used to make some complex things.  However, no one in their right mind thinks that it requires intelligence for a snowflake to form (they are very complex).

So...again, I'm going to  stand with my previous statement.

QuoteThe process of natural selection selects organisms for survival based solely on their behavior. An organism that behaves as we behave but doesn’t have the attendant mental states that we have will have just as much survival value as we do. Mentality is not required for behavior, and nothing more than behavior is needed for survival, so there isn’t survival value to having mental states.

Do you think that a non-conscious animal could make weapons?  Do you think that the ability to make weapons makes us better fit for survival?  If you answer no to either of these questions I am going to have to assume you're just an idiot or a troll and give up trying to reason with you.

rlrose328

Quote from: "Whitney""matter" was an incorrect word....however:

QuoteOne of the most important pieces of experimental support for the "soup" theory came in 1953. A graduate student, Stanley Miller, and his professor, Harold Urey, performed an experiment that demonstrated how organic molecules could have spontaneously formed from inorganic precursors, under conditions like those posited by the Oparin-Haldane Hypothesis. The now-famous "Miller-Urey experiment" used a highly reduced mixture of gasesâ€"methane, ammonia and hydrogenâ€"to form basic organic monomers, such as amino acids.[31] This provided direct experimental support for the second point of the "soup" theory as described above, and it is around the remaining three points of the theory that much of the debate now centers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_ ... quent_work

Thanks, Whitney.. I keep using the wrong word in that argument.  Ugh.  *I* knew what I meant.  :-)
**Kerri**
The Rogue Atheist Scrapbooker
Come visit me on Facebook!


PipeBox

Sorry, I was waiting to see if you were a hit-and-run poster before.  Let's look at your original post, your following clarifications in mind.

Quote from: "kubedwheel"The following are reasons why I believe in ID over evolution:

1. First Cause Argument- We know our universe had a beginning.  If you try to count from negative infinity to zero (zero representing the present) you would never reach it.  Science backs this up with the big bang theory.
I'm not sure what this has to do with biological evolution, which is covered specifically by evolutionary theory, but maybe you also take issue with cosmology.  Most likely, you hold the misconception that the two are the same, or as Hovind (I think) put it "Hydrogen to humans evolution."  Biological evolution entails genetic variation, it is a system of natural selection and mutation.  While it could be said that it functions on natural principles, just like cosmology, this is like conflating volcanology with stellar astronomy.

All of that aside, the universe may not have a beginning, and the Big Bang Theory is mute on the what the universe was doing before inflation.  It might not have existed, it might have been bouncing forever and anon (a bang, a crunch, a bang, a crunch, and so on), it might owe it creation to two colliding branes in an infinite, eternal sea of them, or it might have existed forever in a stable state prior to inflation.  3 out of 4 suggest reality is as eternal as God, though you might see that as an equivocal statement (I do not mean it as one).  In the case of the first, Brahma, Ra, Cronus, Jehova, the Celestial Teapot, Arceus, Meza Virs, or any other creator deity you can or cannot imagine.

Quote from: "kubedwheel"Since our universe exists we know that something that already exists had to bring it into existence. The universe has a creator.

If this creator were a being like the universe, a being that exists in time, then this creator would have to be created by something else.  This tells us that the creator must be an eternal being that exists outside of time.
Or part of an infinite regress of creator heritages.  You know, if there was a creator.

Quote from: "kubedwheel"I believe in the big bang theory, I just think there has to be a banger.
You accept the Big Bang Theory: it accounts for the observations of the blackbody background radiation of the universe and its expansion, as well as the uniformity.  You believe there was a banger, as it, at best, meets the criteria for an anthropic argument (which is a weak argument, as its only criteria is that we exist) and makes no other specific predictions for the universe.  Forgive me if you meant nothing by it and I'm arguing semantics.
   
Quote from: "kubedwheel"2. Moral Argument- This argument states that moral laws are evidence for God’s existence.  The fact that we shouldn’t murder isn’t a fact about the world, it is a fact about how the world should be.  Nothing in our physical world makes moral facts true.  Moral facts are not descriptive, moral facts have the form of commands.
Shared social instinct is as good a reason for believing in a creator as most hominids having five fingers (four fingers and one thumb, if you prefer).  These morals are not universally shared, as sociopaths and rapists, among others, demonstrate.  Being pentadactyl isn't a universal trait, either, but it is the norm (most people don't kill others wholesale without what they regard as a very good reason, which is another example of the human social mechanic at work), and the universe at large doesn't have five digits at the end of each of its non-existent limbs, nor any morality.  It is indifferent to our existence.  Our morality is an evolved trait, which while it is similar to other animal's, still differs, in much the same way as we have a unique appearance with many, many similarities.  The universe, however, is not remotely similar to us.

Quote from: "kubedwheel"Commands can only exist when there is a commander.
Are we the only ones receiving these moral imperatives (that aren't even universally imperative among us), because if that's the case, I find it rather curious that our morality is very near to that of the other members of family hominidae.  If everything receives these imperatives, then plenty must find a way to deny them.  Rather, morality is consistent with being a social construct, a derivative of inherited, evolved social instinct.

Quote from: "kubedwheel"Moral laws override everything else.  If someone morally ought to do something, then this over-rules any other consideration that might come into play.  Morality has the ultimate authority.  A command can only carry as much authority as the person who commands it, and since morality has more authority then any human or institution, God must be the commander.
In addition to the two replies directly above this one, I'll mention this means that God's authority must not be inviolable.  While it is true that a person will try to act within their morality as much as they can, this doesn't count for much, because people will disagree on when killing another person was justified, on what age is suitable for consent, on when, or if, torture is acceptable (whether you wish to call any given scenario torture or not, at what point is the cut-off for the discomfort you can cause another person before it becomes morally abhorrent?).  Does your God's morality include an impressive amount of moral ambiguity?  It's worth noting again that morality is thoroughly throttled as an argument for intelligent.

Quote from: "kubedwheel"3. Irreducible Complexity- Lehigh biochemist, Michael Behe introduced the concept of irreducible complexity. He defines it as “a single system that is necessarily composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.”

 A great example of irreducible complexity is the bacterial flagellum.  The flagellum is similar to an outboard motor.  The machinery of the flagellum includes a rotor, a stator, O-rings, bushings, mounting disks, a drive shaft, a propeller, a hook joint for the propeller, and an acid-powered motor.  In addition, the flagellum requires coordinated interaction of roughly 30 proteins, which requires about 20 proteins to direct their assembly.  

The bacterial flagellum is not the work of an unguided natural process, but rather a creator.
It's worth noting that evolution is not barred from creating irreducibly complex structures (though the more complex they are, the less likely they are to develop in novel fashion), but more importantly, the flagellum is not irreducibly complex, and we have yet to find any irreducibly complex system.  The claim is patently false.  The various proteins that make up flagella can function to ends other than motility, and also of note is that the proteins making up the flagellum vary wildly, sharing a few similarities in their respective domains (Eukaryota, Archaea, Bacteria), and they are an excellent example of convergent phenotypes, where they evolved independently to take advantage of the environment (in this case, a flagellum is quintescential in cellular movement), much like wings on bats, birds, and insects.   The specific functions of the reduced systems range well out of the lay education, which is exactly why the flagellum is a prime target for creationists.  Nevermind that the flagellum is a favored method of transport for a plethora of parasites and infectious bacteria.  Apparently your intelligent designer designed man's morality (with the appropriate ambiguity) and then applied the flagellum to kill and cause great pain to man, the sole shepherd of this designer's vague, but uniquely manifest (only through us, yes?) morality in the universe.  Anyway, have a video:
[youtube:2rpfd4c9]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdwTwNPyR9w[/youtube:2rpfd4c9]

Quote from: "kubedwheel"4. Origin of Consciousness- Evolution can only explain the origin of traits that have survival value, so where did our consciousness come from?
Our consciousness is not independent of our ability to hold our memories and perceptions in our heads, it is not independent of our ability to solve problems and reason and interact socially, rather our consciousness results from us possessing these traits.  Consciousness is not irreducibly complex, either, as reducing any of these traits will not instantly switch off consciousness.
   
Quote from: "kubedwheel"5. Pre-Cambrian explosion- We know that the Cambrian explosion was an explosion of information.  Fossilized organisms found in Cambrian sediment support this.  Sponges that existed before the Cambrian explosion needed 5 types of cells.  Organisms that emerge during the Cambrian Explosion require at least 50 cell types.  In addition, many new specialized proteins would be required for these multiple cell types, which in turn would require new genetic information.  Evolution cannot account for this eruption of new information.
I'm going to keep this simple.  Information can be increased through natural selection and mutation, and no one holds the expectation that the cell types differentiated literally over night, but they could be expected to evolve rapidly.  Have a video that will show you the applicable model about 7 minutes in, though I recommend you watch the whole thing:
[youtube:2rpfd4c9]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0[/youtube:2rpfd4c9]


I think if you given an in-depth look at the ID claims, you will find they come up short.  There is plenty we do not know, but what we do not know is not justification for specific assumption.  ID, rather than giving us a model of the biological world we can utilize, spends most of its time shooting at the rapidly-disappearing gaps in evolutionary theory, as though disproving evolutionary theory would vindicate creationism, as though there were only two possibilities.  Don't be fooled.
If sin may be committed through inaction, God never stopped.

My soul, do not seek eternal life, but exhaust the realm of the possible.
-- Pindar

Squid

We addressed the whole IC/Behe thing in this thread nearly two years ago.