The universe is not fine tuned for life; life is fine tuned for the universe. If we had a universe with different constants, we might have a different kind of life.
I do not believe that ignorance and more importantly the bigotry that grows out of ignorance should go unchallenged. I question my own beliefs all the time, but since I am not restrained by a religion I am not invested in believing I am right and I am happy to learn and change. No there are just shades of grey, the problem with this world is the stupid are sure and the intelligent unsure. Yes I have seen the results of trusting devout Christians, thousands of raped children and destroyed lives! The Quran is the truest book ever written, you may refute the historical accuracy of details of the stories therein, but it would be unwise to ignore the archetypes illustrated.. those archetypes are as old as man. I can show you people who believe that just as much as you believe in your Bible, why are they wrong?
There you go @ToddWB this is the ignorance I am talking about, imagine a world in which you only ever listen to those who agree with you, how ignorant of the amazing diversity of other cultures, information and knowledge would you b?. Was not Jesus crucified because he had a message that others did not want to hear?
And again @ToddWB this is a barefaced falsehood that he repeats despite being shown over and over that it is not true, Intelligent Design is not believed by the majority of theists and in the US it is about half and half between ID and Evolution. Now if we did not point this out some poor smuck might believe it and believe only atheists believed in evolution when far more theists than atheists believe it. Should we ignore an untruth?
Who knows what "concrete" means. If you mean "solid" as in evidence that rises to the certainty-level of 2 + 2 = 4, then you have no "concrete" evidence for most of what you claim you believe. We have already observed that you are a Man Of Faith who holds Faith Based Beliefs in your Religion Of Evolution and in your Religion Of Atheism. That is what YOU say. But you don't speak for the world's 5 billion Theists. You do not speak for me. You do not speak for Christendom. You can speak for yourself with regard to what YOU think is required to "establish the existence of a deity" -- but you do NOT speak for me on what it requires. You are not the Authority on what is, or is not, dramatic evidence. You do not know what kind of supernatural "dramatic" evidence exists. I don't even believe that you are aware of what Christendom's major Christian Apologists have written on the existence of God. I don't believe you could "hold your own" in a debate with say Alvin Plantinga or William Lane Craig for 3 hours in front of a live audience. I believe you'd find out right quick that Christianity is not based on Fideism. Is your "Good luck with that" your way of ending with a declaration of victory? You have not "laid a glove" on my points in this thread. I am more than happy to allow what I have posted in this thread to stand in contrast to what you have posted without me making any additional comments on what you have posted, so far. You keep hitting the quote button, quoting my posts, then ignoring the substance of my posts, and then proceeding to make your Faith Based Religious Points associated with your Religion Of Evolution and your Religion Of Atheism. You have FAILED to refute the following , , , It is absurd and irrational to believe that unthinking non-intelligent Time plus unthinking non-intelligent Chance plus unthinking non-intelligent Matter could have assembled a "highly complex Working Rolex Watch" , , , If you can believe that unthinking non-intelligent Time plus unthinking non-intelligent Chance plus unthinking 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 unthinking non-intelligent Time plus unthinking non-intelligent Chance plus unthinking non-intelligent Matter assembled a "highly complex Working Rolex Watch" , , , You are depending on , , , unthinking non-intelligent Time , , , unthinking non-intelligent Chance , , , unthinking non-intelligent Matter , , , , , , to do your creating and assembling . . . This is absurd, irrational, and illogical because unthinking non-intelligent entities cannot create and assemble highly complex entities like the Human Brain, the Human Eye, and a Working Rolex Watch. The fine-tuned Human Person and the fine-tuned Earth and the fine tuned Universe demands an Intelligent Designer -- and it requires Great Faith to believe otherwise. My view is that you are a Man Of Great Faith. _______________ Thought For Today , , , “A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe.” ___The Atheist Fred Hoyle https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/199992.Fred_Hoyle JAG ``
It means part of the material world. If you do run into a deity, tell him I'd like to buy him a cup of coffee.
@(original)late I think you would hold your own rather well withj Alvin Plantinga on evolution! Unfortunately, however, Plantinga does claim that evolution is compatible with Christianity. Is this because he has sufficiently answered the many points of incompatibility that creationists have raised? No. For the most part, Plantinga doesn’t even interact with creationist arguments or the many biblical texts that contradict evolution. In fact, he displays his utter ignorance of creationist literature when he claims that we believe God created the world with built-in fossils and beams of distant starlight. Mr. Plantinga says he accepts the scientific theory of evolution, as all Christians should. https://creation.com/plantinga-conflict-evolution As usual the poster just makes things up!
Neither does Christianity. Christianity is not based on Fideism. There are many arguments that support the truth of Christianity that are in the areas of Probability and Plausibility and each individual, upon hearing these arguments, can "grade them" on some kind of scale --- it might be , , , ~ High Probability ~ Medium Probability ~ Low Probability Or it could be a % scale 10% 30% 50% 70% 90% 99% There are over 20 Arguments for the existence of God that are based upon Logic and other "secular" pieces of truth, by which I mean the 20 Arguments are not based upon Bible verses. _____ Back to the false secular god named "science" , , , What you call "science" can be a conglomeration of guesswork and speculation when "science" seeks to speak on these highly controversial philosophical/theological issues -- in these areas you do NOT have any scientific certainty. In these areas you are a Man Of Great Faith as you practice your Religion Of Atheism and your Religion Of Evolution. You are a distinguished "Man Of The Cloth" and know what Faith Based Beliefs are all about. If you claim that "science" knows for certain that there is no Intelligent Designer, then "science" is speaking on "blind faith" -- for indeed "science: is not even allowed to speak on supernatural subjects such as an Intelligent Designer. If you claim to KNOW scientifically that there is no Intelligent Designer, then you are truly a distinguished Man Of The Cloth and a Man Of Great Faith. Maybe you will soon be able to make the faith transition over to Christianity and become a Baptist Preacher? JAG
It seems highly improbable that something complex could have come by chance. But the way to make something improbable happen is to try it enough times. For example, only a very few planets can support life. But if we have trillions of planets, then at least one by mere chance will by able to support life. The universe had countless combinations of natural forces and environments. Eventually we will find at least one combination that can produce life (the chemical reaction behind abiogenesis) and one that can evolve it (natural selection and mutations). Actually we have some interesting theories that explain how this could have happened. Basically scientists have found that the eye socket and cells could have evolved gradually to increase to function of the eye from mere light sensing to the modern eye. We see these transitional stages in existing species. Obviously we can't prove this since we have no eye fossils, but you can't claim it can't evolve if there are some good ideas of how it did. https://www.nature.com/articles/eye2017226 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3632888/ https://kids.britannica.com/students/assembly/view/74661 God of the gaps fallacy. Just because you can't personally wrap your head around how it evolved doesn't mean it didn't. Natural selection and mutations can modify DNA to produce new or change features in organisms and select the ones that work. There are no known natural processes for doing the same thing for watches. We have found a bacteria that evolved the ability to digest nylon, a novel chemical first produced by humans. Digesting it requires proteins to bind to the right points in the chemical and then properly break them down to components the body can actually use. Yet with natural selection and mutations this actually happened. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC106626/ So you admit your position is based on faith not evidence. If you don't have any evidence, why would you have faith in a position you don't have any real expertise in? Evolution isn't pure chance. It involves natural selection that selects good mutations. We have a genetic code which is the difference between the species. Tweak the code in the right ways and you get new species and functionality. Every organism is born with dozens of mutations and there are trillions of trillions of organisms that have ever existed. So by mere chance, some will be born with the right tweaks. Natural selection selects the tweaks that move in the right direction and improve survival. Mutations can remove DNA, copy DNA, and edit DNA. A gene can be copied, and the copy modified to do new things. Complex structures can evolve because the ancestors that initially didn't have them didn't need them to survive. So only partially beneficial versions of these structures can evolve or simplified versions that initially do something completely different can evolve. As these structures evolve, organisms evolve to be dependent on them. For example, humans require a heart but bacteria, related to our ancestors don't. There is a partial bacterial flagellum in some bacteria that use only the motor part for cell excretion rather than locomotion. We can see evolution happen. I brought up the nylon digesting bacteria. Bacteria and viruses evolve resistance to our treatments. We have examples of significant morphological change like wolves evolving into chihuahuas. There are mountains of other examples like these. We also have genetic evidence. For example, humans and chimpanzees share the same inherited retrovirus DNA (DNA inserted by viruses that were passed on to children). Its extremely unlikely that these sequences will be in the exact same spots by mere chance. There is a human chromosome that is almost exactly the same as two chimpanzee chromosomes fused together. We can even see clear signs of a chromosome fusion in this chromosome. There is a lot of genetic evidence like this. The most convincing evidence is fossil evidence. The fossil record shows layers separated by millions of years with creatures somewhat different from each other. When you move up the layers you see a gradual change from simple to complex. Obviously some processes was gradually evolving more and more complex species. We also have a very detailed set of transitional fossils for the evolution of the first land animals, the first birds, the first mammals, the first whales, the first whales, and the first horses. We have fossils with brains and features transitional between humans and apes and in the right order. We even have Neanderthal DNA proving that they were very different from humans genetically. Fred Hoyle is from a time when even the big bang theory wasn't accepted yet and modern physics was still in its infancy. He believed the big bang was wrong and obviously the evidence has come out against him when we found the background radiation of the big bang. Also, he isn't talking about evolution but instead about abiogenesis. The theory of evolution and the evolution of complexity can still be true even if abiogenesis didn't happen. He claims blind forces can't produce complexity, but the first life was very simple if abiogenesis happened, and chemical reactions are well known for doing some amazing things. We also have examples of amino acids, nucleotides and chains of these being produced in conditions like the early earth. We also have some hypotheses of how abiogenesis like the RNA world theory.
Thank you. And thanks for your comment. Amen to your "God lives" -- indeed He does. _________ To the thread: Regarding "God lives" and life , , , "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."__The Lord Jesus {John 10:10} JAG
Your points? What points? All you've done is quote mine Fred Hoyle; that's what creationists do, especially with scientists, if they think it supports their narrative,otherwise they have no interest. Fred Hoyle had nothing but an opinion, end of story.
Lets put your argument in a logical way, A Rolex Watch is very complex. The Rolex Watch had a designer. The Universe is Complex Therefore the Universe had a designer. What you have done is create a false analogy fallacy, just because two objects have a common quality they must have another quality in common ie a designer. You cannot prove that logically, your using faulty logic. By using your faulty logic I can make up other analogies. The Rolex Watch is Complex. The Rolex Watch was made in Switzerland. The Universe is Complex Therefore the universe was made in Switzerland! See how logic works?
All that matters to me is what Fred said. Fred. Said. What Fred Said. You can discredit Fred all you want to. I will continue to present what , , Fred Said , , , , because what Fred Said makes sense to me and therefore I will continue to present what , , Fred Said What is really important is not who Fred was, but what Fred Said. The fact that Fred Said he was an atheist is merely an eye catcher. The POWER is in the obvious Truth in what , , Fred Said , , Some examples , , “Life cannot have had a random beginning ... The trouble is that there are about 2000 enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 10^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.”___Fred Hoyle “There is a coherent plan to the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for.”__Fred hoyle “A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe.”___Fred Hoyle “It isn't the Universe that's following our logic, it's we that are constructed in accordance with the logic of the Universe. And that gives what I might call a definition of intelligent life: something that reflects the basic structure of the Universe.”___Fred Hoyle Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/199992.Fred_Hoyle __________________ Then I have confidence in what I say. And here is what I say. JAG Writes: It is absurd and irrational to believe that unthinking non-intelligent Time plus unthinking non-intelligent Chance plus unthinking non-intelligent Matter could have assembled a "highly complex Working Rolex Watch" , , , If you can believe that unthinking non-intelligent Time plus unthinking non-intelligent Chance plus unthinking 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 unthinking non-intelligent Time plus unthinking non-intelligent Chance plus unthinking non-intelligent Matter assembled a "highly complex Working Rolex Watch" , , , You are depending on , , , unthinking non-intelligent Time , , , unthinking non-intelligent Chance , , , unthinking non-intelligent Matter , , , , , , to do your creating and assembling . . . This is absurd, irrational, and illogical because unthinking non-intelligent entities cannot create and assemble highly complex entities like the Human Brain, the Human Eye, and a Working Rolex Watch. The fine-tuned Human Person and the fine-tuned Earth and the fine tuned Universe demands an Intelligent Designer -- and it requires Great Faith to believe otherwise. My view is that if you believe that, then you are a Man Of Great Faith. JAG
Mr. Plantinga says he accepts the scientific theory of evolution, as all Christians should. Bet you would not last two minutes in a debate with a great christian apologist like Plantinga!
Do you think that it's possible to know that God lives by arriving at that point without science, without reason, ration, without reading or being convinced thru hearing or any of the senses?
The problem is that he is talking about modern bacteria and their enzymes which have been evolving for 4.5 billion years. If abiogenesis happened the first life was extremely simple and didn't have 2000 enzymes. Also, this probability is the odds that life comes out exactly as it is with the exact same sequence. But there are many sequences just from looking at the diversity of life. Additionally, chemical reactions don't randomly shuffle atoms around. They are directed by natural forces that work in certain ways. They can't completely randomly shuffle things around and they don't. The attraction of these chemical reactions is very predictable, non-random, and deterministic and can do some amazing things that seem improbable by mere random motions of atoms. Does he elaborate how he knows this? Evolution doesn't work by mere chance because it uses natural selection and is a slow and methodical processes. The junkyard example is completely random and very hasty. Some natural processes are better at producing complexity than others. Yet we have observed natural selection and mutations evolve a bacteria's ability to digest nylon. That is a little "Rolex watch" in nature produced by nature. We have a lot of evidence that evolution happened which I have explained before so our organs must have evolved. We also have a strong theoretical foundation for how complex structures can evolve. We have many examples of evolution happening before our eyes. While we can't prove how the eye or brain evolved because they don't fossilize, we have some good theories of how that might have happened. Its possible that there are many universes just like there are many planets which explains why the universe appears to be fine tuned just like earth appears to be fine tuned by nature of just being one really lucky planet out of trillions. Your own worldview is faith-based by your own admission. So even if you prove I have faith, the best outcome of this debate is a tie. We both don't know what we are talking about and nobody wins.
Yeah, it sure does , , , The people I trust , , , {I do not trust atheistic scientists to be unbiased and unprejudiced} , , ,the people I trust have presented probability figures like 10 followed by 164 zeros as the Probability stats regarding one small item in what is necessary for the human Person to come to exist. I don't buy it. Sell it if you can. Some of the people among your Ideological Tribe will "grab it" and swallow it "hook, line, and sinker" --- but not me. I don't believe it. And you can NOT prove it. You can put forward your "enough times" notion in various ways , , 999 trillion monkey's typing on 999 trillion typewriters for 999 trillion years can not produce the completed works of William Shakespeare or for that matter they could not produce the much shorter Bible, say the NIV Version of the Holy Bible. Your "enough times" thingy is a pure Faith Belief and it is not subject to refutation. There is no possible way to scientifically prove either way what I just wrote about the 999 trillion monkeys. So you can "put it forward" knowing that it can NOT be proven either way. You KNOW that your "enough times" notion can not be refuted. It is a very safe possibility. I say your "enough times" notion is a Faith Belief. You can NOT prove it was by "mere chance." You can not prove that it was not Designed by an Intelligent Designer to be that way. You assume "mere chance" to be true. On your "enough times" notion, then we could say the following , , 999 trillion monkeys piddling around in 999 trillion watchmaker shops for 999 trillion years could create and assemble a Working Rolex Watch {or however much longer you want to "run your Thought Experiment." And I mean make the Working Rolex Watch from scratch too -- and not just merely assemble the parts already made by say intelligent humans. This means the monkeys would have to be also creating the machines that made the little tiny wheels and screws that go into a Working Rolex Watch. The monkeys would have to make ALL the machines that made all the intricate parts of the Working Rolex Watch. The monkeys would have to make the machines that made the magnifying glasses that allowed them to look at the Rolex Watch as they were assembling it and screwing little screws into place that could not be vividly seen with the naked eye. The monkeys would have to make the machines that made the little tiny screwdrivers as well as the little tiny screwdrivers. The monkeys would have to make the machines that made the glass front for the Working Rolex Watch and they would also have to make machines that made the batteries for the Working Rolex Watch. And the polishing machines. The monkeys would have to make the machines that made electricity for the machines that did the mill work for the dozens of tiny intricate parts that make up a Working Rolex Watch. If you say that all that up there is impossible, then you have just wrecked your "enough times" possibility and destroyed it. So? So sell it if you can. It is much easier to "sell" John 3:16 John 3:16 makes far more sense than does your "enough times" Faith Based possibility. My view is that humanity is NOT going to buy your "enough times" notion because it reduces to absurdity. It is true that nobody can prove with Empiricism that 999 trillion monkey's piddling around inside 999 trillion Ford Factories for 999 trillion years could not create from scratch a fully assembled Ford Explorer. But humanity is NOT gonna believe it. Or we could do one with the monkeys creating a fully assembled Boeing 747. Or how about we do one with 999,999,999,999 trillion monkeys creating and assembling a fully operational 13 billion dollar USS Gerald Ford Aircraft Carrier complete with all its fully functional fighter jets and everything else needed from paper clips to the nuclear power plant. JAG
You know very well what my points are. They are the ones you have not refuted. Nor will you. False. I have made many of my own points. You know the ones you ignored and did not refute. And your "quote mine" notion was invented by atheists as a crafty ploy to escape from having to face quotes from people on their own side who said things that they did not want to face -- so they invented "quote mine" to wiggle and squirm out of having to face the unfavorable quote -- from their own Ideological Tribe. By the way, you did not refute a word that , , , Fred Said. That's what you say. Of course you're not biased against "creationists" any at all. Of course you're not prejudiced against "creationists" any at all. You're just a disinterested seeker of truth that will follow the evidence where ever it leads. You're not prejudiced in favor of your dearly beloved "scientists" any at all. _________ From all I can tell from reading, many writers accuse their opposition of "quote mining" --- adversaries in these highly controversial hot button issues complain about being "taken out of context" all the time in the literature. I heard Bart Ehrman accuse William Lane Craig fo taking him out of context in a debate once upon a time. I think Craig denied it. Ideological Enemies, don't you see. No more that Cosmo's opinion. You have nothing but an opinion. End of story. _________ However in the case of Dear Fred, you will be seeing Fred again, so its not the end of Fred's story. And if not Dear Fred, then you will be seeing the produce of the world's some 5 billion Theists and seeing it in threads on the Internet and on YouTube and in all other Social Media. You will not succeed in keeping 5 billion Theists from making their voice heard loud and clear in the world in the coming decades. _________ By the way , , , Who was Fred Hoyle? "Sir Fred Hoyle (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001)[1] was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis . . .He spent most of his working life at the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge and served as its director for six years." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle ________ “Life cannot have had a random beginning ... The trouble is that there are about 2000 enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 10^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.”___Fred Hoyle https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/199992.Fred_Hoyle JAG