I'm Not Giving Up The Watchmaker Argument , , , ,

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by JAG*, Sep 1, 2020.

  1. Richard The Last

    Richard The Last Well-Known Member

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    Interesting. Here is a line from your OP:
    You started this thread by basically telling everyone who believes different than you that they are "absurd, irrational, and illogical".

    Please believe as you wish.
    Have a great life.
    Rich
     
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  2. JAG*

    JAG* Well-Known Member

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    False.
    Totally False.
    I said the belief was "absurd, irrational, and illogical"
    I clearly said "This is absurd, irrational, and illogical"
    The belief and NOT the people.
    I called nobody "absurd"
    You posted Falseness.

    You put your False Spin on what I write.
    You put your False Twist on what I write.

    My view is that you are strongly biased and
    prejudiced against Christians and against the
    OP and that you desire to put it all in the very
    worst light possible.

    Your quote up there was just a brief quote that
    when read apart from the , ,

    , , ,entire context of what I wrote in my OP appears to
    be a bad thing . . .

    , , and when read in the context of your atheistic biased and
    prejudiced post -- appears to be a bad thing , ,

    But when read in the whole context of my OP it does
    NOT appear to be a bad thing.

    Here is the whole context. See the big bolded red to see my statement
    in its complete context.

    JAG Wrote:
    It is, in my view, absurd and irrational to believe that non-intelligent Time
    plus non-intelligent Chance plus non-intelligent Matter could have assembled
    a "highly complex working Rolex watch" , , ,

    If you can believe that non-intelligent Time plus non-intelligent Chance plus
    non-intelligent Matter could have assembled the "highly complex human eye"
    and the "highly complex human brain" , , ,

    , , , Then you can just as easily believe that non-intelligent Time plus non-intelligent
    Chance plus non-intelligent Matter assembled a "highly complex working Rolex Watch" , , ,

    You are depending on , , ,

    non-intelligent Time , , ,
    non-intelligent Chance , , ,
    non-intelligent Matter , , ,

    , , , to do your creating and assembling . . .

    This is absurd, irrational, and illogical because non-intelligent entities cannot
    create and assemble highly complex entities.
    End quote.

    You put your False Spin on what I wrote.
    You put your False Twist on what I wrote.

    JAG
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2020
  3. trevorw2539

    trevorw2539 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Pot calling the kettle black. You put a false spin on actual proven facts accepted by all but you.
     
  4. Ronald Hillman

    Ronald Hillman Banned

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    I find your response here fascinating, lets look at some of the threads started by the original poster of this thread,
    3 World Religions That Will Not Coexist With The Religion Of Secular Humanism
    Atheists Who Celebrate All The Good That God Causes.
    Do The People Have The Moral Authority To Outlaw Atheism?
    Question For John Atheist: Don't You Want To Remember Your Good Deeds Forever?
    In each and everyone of the above threads the poster attacks and misrepresents the position of atheists, in each and everyone of the above threads he misrepresents evolution and calls just about everything he disagrees with a religion. In each and every thread atheists and others try to explain the real thoughts of atheists and in each and everyone he announces he is right and they do not know their own mind. He declares that he is in an ideological war with atheists, that we cannot peacefully exist and that I am his enemy!

    Then you want to know why I spend so much time writing a post that attempts to give an honest answer to why I do not believe in any god, never have but might if the evidence was provided. Now it is absolutely clear that the original poster is not going to listen but there may be many reasonable Christians reading these threads who can see the honest position of an atheist, the honest truth about evolution, that I am not at war with the majority of honest and reasonable theists and I am not their enemy. I do not think that is wasting my time, the time of the other atheists and non believers who are trying to do the same thing. Why do you not ask the poster why if he is so sure of his faith he does not spend more time explaining why his god exists compared to all the other gods that others say exist, why is his ire so directed at a tiny minority view that non believers are. Incidentally Fundamentalists have a track record of attacking minority groups, The Jews, Gays, Atheists etc.



    In the 21st century, to someone given a secular education you will first have to show that,
    1. A god exists.
    2. That it is your god that exists.

    Then you can argue that your god raised a man from the dead and we can discuss why he left so little evidence, why he did it and what that means.
     
  5. trevorw2539

    trevorw2539 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If the belief is 'absurd, irrational and illogical' then by imputation the people who believe it must be 'absurd, irrational and illogical'. So you are calling us that. It's more illogical to believe in something/someone who has never been proven to exist. Some children believe in the tooth fairy. but soon grow out of it when they find the cash dries up.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2020
  6. ToddWB

    ToddWB Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Our God.. the God.

    No.. belief in God is primarily by faith.. there is a preponderance of evidence of his existence.. but to paraphrase scripture. "there are none so blind as those that will not see".
     
  7. Ronald Hillman

    Ronald Hillman Banned

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    If there is a preponderance of evidence for your god why not all the other gods? This is what has happened to apologetics they argue for a generic god and seldom for the god they actually believe in.
     
  8. Ronald Hillman

    Ronald Hillman Banned

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    If there is a preponderance of evidence for your god why not all the other gods? This is what has happened to apologetics they argue for a generic god and seldom for the god they actually believe in.
     
  9. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    so people with faith are blind? or do they have only have faith cause there is no such evidence?
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2020
  10. ToddWB

    ToddWB Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    We call those gods "fallen angels", created by the one God and who rebeled with Satan.
     
  11. Ronald Hillman

    Ronald Hillman Banned

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    All you are doing in offering circular logic, how do you know that your god is not Satan masquerading as the one god?
     
  12. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

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    It sounds biblical, but it's not.
    It's a proverb from the 1500's by an English writer named John Heywood.
    The full saying is: “There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.”

    In other words non-believers are willfully ignorant; to which I say, whatever floats their Ark.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2020
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  13. RoccoR

    RoccoR Well-Known Member Donor

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    RE: I'm Not Giving Up The Watchmaker Argument , , , ,
    ⁜→ trevorw2539, et al,

    BLUF: Exactly ! ...
    I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to
    stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it
    allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.
    ............................................................ .........ALBERT EINSTEIN
    (COMMENT)

    This adversarial set of positions is a paradox. The Abrahamic religions have self-contained institutional magic --- with the position that each of the other belif structures are different.
    Holing that there is only one true faith is similar to there the belief in the supernatural character is one of several paradoxes to be examine.

    Why humanity is prone to believe in deities is a mystery of the mind.

    [​IMG]
    Most Respectfully,
    R
     
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  14. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    agree, if there is evidence and rather then believe the evidence, believers only have faith - would not need faith if there was evidence
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2020
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  15. trevorw2539

    trevorw2539 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  16. trevorw2539

    trevorw2539 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That equally applies the other way round.

    As the Aztec priest offered the heart of a human sacrifice he had faith that the gods would hear him. Ditto Mayans. Other faiths have different methods of obtaining their god's favour believing that he will answer. The Christian answer to unanswered prayer is 'it wasn't gods will'. and answered prayer was god's will. The Hebrews who wrote the stories of the Torah had a similar idea. When they won a battle they were in God's favour. If they lost it was because they had sinned. In fact, if you study the Bible and relevant history of the time, it was simply their own fault for not reading the situation correctly.

    Luke's story of Jesus, the Jewish preacher, foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem - though written after the event - was another reaction to the situation in Palestine of the time. Palestine was not the peaceful place portrayed in the NT. It was a place of unrest. Even the priesthood knew that and did all they could tp keep the peace with the Romans. The Sadducees in particular had little reason to offend Rome. They prospered under Rome's rule. They were the elite of society and almost all the High Priests appointed by the incoming Governor - as was the custom then - were Sadducees. If Jesus ever did say those words it was simply because he could see that the result of the 'false Messiahs' who fought against Rome, and the Sicarri militant Zealots, would eventually force Rome to take over completely. While the Romans were tolerant of Jewish Beliefs there would, and did,come a breaking point. It's not rare for farseeing men to 'predict the future by understanding the situation of the time. Churchill spent a decade warning the UK of Hitlers ambition, and we didn't listen.
     
  17. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    Do you know how evolutionists explain the development of the eye?


    While you're pondering that, let me give you the latest discoveries of cosmology and astrophysics.

    They have found that supernova explosions emit an unbelievably powerful burst of high-energy gamma rays, and those rays can be beamed because they aren't emitted uniformly as an event of radiation. The reasons for that can be researched and found, but moving on .... if a bean of gamma rays were to strike earth as has happened a very few times in the last billion years, it would sweep away our ozone layer and that would allow UV to reach the ground with great intensity. UV causes genetic mutations. So imagine mutations among billions of creatures. Those whose mutations put them at a disadvantage would eventually fail to survive either immediately or as generations with the mutation passed on fail to compete. Meanwhile, those with advantageous mutations would have an "edge" over the competition. They would proliferate.

    Ok, rather than look for you to explain the evolution of the eye, I'll lay it out.

    Studies show that some simple life forms having no eyes are nonetheless sensitive to light. You probably have searched for earthworms .... nightcrawlers .... at night with a flashlight to gather fishing bait. And if you did you noticed that they often respond to the flashlight beam by shrinking back and ever withdrawing into the hole from which they emerged.

    There are also creatures with photo-sensitive spots, usually on their head. They aren't what we consider to be "eyes" but they are a bit more sophisticated than the sensitivity of the earthworm.

    Then there are creatures with such "spots" that are larger and more protruding.

    Then there are other creatures having rudimentary eyes that lack a lid; they are always exposed. Some salamanders, for example.

    Then there are creatures with eyes that are even more developed. The eye is contained within a sheath that has a hole in it to let light in, like some lizards. This gives them a more developed ability to make out shapes to identify them. The relatively small opening in the sheath forms a rudimentary alternative to our pupil and gives them an advantage.

    The greater advantage is then seen in the developed eye with the pupil that can be more or less opened to adjust to light, the ability to rotate, and with eyelids for protection.

    All these are very likely the result of numerous mutations because there is no other rational explanation for them, AND, Occam's razor says mutations are the most likely explanation, especially since we find the various transitional steps I listed.


    And the same kind of progression can be found to explain many other evolutionary developments, and together, they provide a very good argument for evolution as the cause of the development of all species.
     
  18. JET3534

    JET3534 Well-Known Member

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    A Rolex watch is a complex object.
    A Rolex watch was made in Switzerland.

    The Universe is a complex object.
    Therefore, the Universe was made in Switzerland.
     
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  19. Maquiscat

    Maquiscat Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure the argument specifies a Rolex......
     
  20. RoccoR

    RoccoR Well-Known Member Donor

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    RE: I'm Not Giving Up The Watchmaker Argument , , , ,
    ⁜→ Maquiscat, et al,

    BLUF: The Rolex Watch Argument is truly screwed up → the is both invalid and unsound.

    (COMMENT)

    There are really on five basic arguments worthy of consideration in the Argument for a Supreme Being. In the micro-thumbnail we generally state:

    ◈ The Aristotelian Proof
    ✦ It is an error in judgment to assume that change would involve something from nothing.​

    ◈ The Neo-Platonic Proof
    ✦ Something cannot exist without the some of the parts - assembled in the proper order.
    ◈ The Augustinian Proof
    ✦ The truths derived from arithmetic - given that 2 + 2 = 4 was true before the Earth was formed, it is true now, and will remain true through eternity.
    ✦ Such truths are not dependent upon the recognition by humanity. These truth are part of something larger than man.​

    ◈ The Thomistic Proof
    ✦ The establishes that the essence of the Supreme Being and existence of the Supreme Being are distinct from everything else.​

    ◈ The Rationalist Proof
    ✦ There is a solution for every problem faced, whether we can determine the answer or not. Thus in the law of first motion, some power was the force, and that force is the Supreme Being. We call this the PSR (Principle of Sufficient Reason).​

    In the everyday of most peoples life, the philosophies of the Augustin and Rationalization rule the day.

    [​IMG]
    Most Respectfully,
    R
     
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  21. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Seems to me the OP is premised on a false analogy.

    The universe was dynamically created according to discovered physical laws governing time, energy and matter. As righty pointed out nothing we consider intelligence is required for the passage of time, or any elemental energy/matter interaction.. Those interactions created the periodic table and the universe as we see it. While we have observed the natural creation of many of the organic components of life, we have yet to discover the environmental processes and circumstances that created terrestrial life. Randomness is a given

    A watch is an artifact invented by a sophisticated intelligence to eliminate randomness within that intelligence's continued existence by measuring the inexorable passage of time. A watchmaker fights against randomness, while the universe is predicated upon it.

    OTOH, that does not preclude a creator of the universe, just that the argument presented is fallacious.
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2020
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  22. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    You are forgetting that is it not a hurricane but a Universe with Laws both immutable and consistent which are as much a part of reality as any material thing. Also the "hurricane" goes on for several billion years. Even just one billion years is Deep Time, incomprehensible to the human psyche

    Are you familiar with the thought of Teilhard de Chardin? I dispute that he is just another variant of Intelligent Design. At least to me his ideas seem totally consistent with modern science if not completely scientific themselves.
     
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  23. An Taibhse

    An Taibhse Well-Known Member

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    Wow, who’d have thought.
     
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  24. Pag

    Pag Active Member

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    First , please don't use the irrelevant examples. We can't justify the evolution of human eye or brain by creation of rolex or boeing 747. The creation of rolex by any means can not be related to eye or brain.
    Second , no one said that the human body was built by attaching all parts together by chance INSTANTLY. It's a clear and deliberate discreditation of the theory of evolution as if we could ever assemble a boeing 747 together by a hurricane ( Irrelevant example)
    By what measure did you claim that the odds of no existence of any god is so astronomically low ?? You're claiming a very importand and vital point for all human race and this claim will influence their lives and yet your claim is completely baseless and your examples are all irrelevant .
    There's a rule in philosophy that says :" The burden and responsibility of proving a claim in on the claimant"
    When we came to this world we didn't know about any god, we didn't know that there's a so called "soul" in every human. You are claiming all these and doing nothing to prove it and saying discredit my idea if you can otherwise put your lives on the line and live according to my claim.
    Please elaborate using more reason.
     
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2020
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  25. RoccoR

    RoccoR Well-Known Member Donor

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    RE: I'm Not Giving Up The Watchmaker Argument , , , ,
    ⁜→ et al,

    BLUF: IF you take to the faith-based belief that a Supreme Being (SB) is the intelligent designer of (narrowing it down to just "man" as a for instance) THEN I would conclude that the Intelligence designer (the Supreme Being) is NOT perfect, NOT benevolent, and without the qualities of mercy and empathy.

    (COMMENT)

    IF the Supreme Being (SB) designed the human THEN the SB must be we must assume the responsibility for the evil that men do.

    ◈ Did not the SB direct the Israelites to commit genocide?

    ◈ How is it that the SB created so many flawed people?

    ◈ Were not the three crusades fought in the name of the SB? ​

    ◈ Did not the SB allow the environment to create COVID-19?​

    The concept of the divine watchmaker or the cosmic intelligent designer is all too convenient to be truth that is explainable. Yahweh (Old Testament), the God (SB) of Israel, is NOT easily separated in the concept of Covenant theology and that to the relationship from the chosen people. The SB demands trust that there is nothing ‘‘too difficult for him to do.’’ Just to name the few attributes of the SB that we all know:

    ◈ The SB Is All Powerful

    ◈ The SB is All-Knowing

    ◈ The SB is Everywhere

    ◈ The SB Is Perfect with the Wisdom in All Things

    ◈ The SB Is Infinite in space and time

    ◈ The SB Benevolent and abounds in Good Will

    ◈ The SB is always Right and Perfect in All things

    The theory is here, that the world could NOT be so screwed-up if our concept of the SB is correct.


    [​IMG]
    Most Respectfully,
    R
     

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