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@Mopac
Mohammad, Buddha, Joseph Smith, Sun Myung Moon and dozens of others left churches too.
Leaving a church does not mean your teachings are correct.
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@crossed
Only someone who already believes would take the phrase "He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing." to mean that the authors understood that the Earth was a planet floating in space. It is simply not true that the Earth is suspended over nothing. For one thing, there is something in every direction from the Earth. For another, for the Earth to be "suspended over nothing" implies that there is some location that is beneath the Earth, which is incoherent .
Not only that, but there are many places in the Bible where the authors imply the Earth is flat. https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-verses-about-flat-earth/
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@keithprosser
True enough, which was why I found it interesting that disgusting used it as a reason to dismiss the idea of eternal life.
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@disgusted
It is interesting that you don't like the idea of an eternal existence because it seems pointless, when that is the same reason that theists give for not liking the idea of a universe without God.
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@Fallaneze
In short, when someone is "morally good" we're referring to their disposition or will. "Moral goodness" cannot exist apart from the mind, period, since both are only attributes of the mind. So one half of the dilemma fails.
The fact that "morally good" refers to someone's disposition or will is irrelevant to the dilemma. We can agree that moral goodness refers to someone's will, yet that goodness is measured against some standard. The question is whether that standard is determined by God or whether it is independent of God. The dilemma is that, if the standard is determined by God, then the only reason something is "good" is because God says it is, which makes morality seem rather whimsical and arbitrary. For the only reason murder and torture are wrong is because God says they are. If God suddenly decided they were good, then murder and torture would be good.
The other half, determining whether God's goodness is arbitrary or not, depends on whether God's nature is essential or inessential. If God's nature is essential, goodness is not arbitrary. In light of this, the dilemma fails.
Saying that God's nature is essentially good implies either that there is some standard by which God's goodness is measured or that goodness is defined by God's nature. In either case, all you are doing is restating the dilemma.
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@linate
Yes, the last percentage matters. In fact, the last fraction of a percent matters hugely.
You can find the equation that relates mass to speed here: https://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae388.cfm.
We can use the equation to easily determine the mass multiplier for traveling at various percentages of the speed of light by setting an object's rest mass to 1. Here are a few numbers..
Percentage of C Mass Mutiplier
25 1.03
50 1.15
75 1.51
90 2.29
95 3.20
99 7.09
99.5 10.01
99.9 22.37
99.99 70.71
99.999 223.61
99.9999 707.11
99.99999 2236.07
At 99 percent of the speed of light, our mass has increased by just over 7 times. But it still heads to infinite as we get incrementally close to C.
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@keithprosser
Right, some large changes in phenotype, like going from egg-laying to live birth, do require large changes in the genotype. Such large changes in genotype do not occur in a single generation, however. as you say.
My point was that it can be misleading to measure the amount of evolutionary change by phenotype rather than genotype, as ILD does, because a single mutation often has a profound effect on phenotype. This is, in fact, the definition of macromutation: a mutation that has a profound effect on the resulting organism. It in no way implies that the mutation results in a large change in genotype, or a giant evolutionary leap. Macromutations often are, in fact, alterations of a single nucleotide.
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@keithprosser
A large phenotypic change is not necessarily due to a large genotypic change. For instance, a single mutation on the GLI3 gene results in an extra finger on your hands. It is important to make this distinction, because evolution occurs by (and in fact is defined as) changes in the genotype.
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@IlDiavolo
This is the term the article used.
No it's not. The article never uses the word "naturalistic" or anything derivative of it.
This is what I take issue with. Natural selection is useless.
You can take issue with it all you want. The science contradicts you.
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@IlDiavolo
I've never mentioned "supernatural" forces. Lol. But thank you anyway for making my point in the OP, that anyone daring to criticise the Synthetic Theory or darwinism is a superstitous guy.
You said that a naturalistic perspective is insufficient to explain evolution. Naturalistic means non-supernatural, so of course I took that to mean that supernatural forces are required to explain evolution. You should have used the correct term if you meant that natural selection is insufficient to explain evolution.
And what is the difference?No, natural selection is incapable of explaininig diversity of species or the evolution.
Just because we have discovered that natural selection is not the only way traits change does not mean that natural selection is not the primary way traits change. Natural selection is still quite sufficient to account for the vast majority of changes over time, including speciation. Even without epigenetic change, speciation would still occur due to natural selection.
You are portraying epigenetics as some alternate evolutionary theory, when really it is just a refinement of current theory. Epigenetics does not preclude natural selection. Just as Einstein's theory does not mean Newton's theory was wrong, epigenetics does not mean Darwinism is wrong.
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@IlDiavolo
Naturalism typically means a belief that natural processes account for everything in nature, as opposed to supernatural. So of course I took your statement that the article says a naturalist perspective was insufficient to explain evolution to mean there must be some supernatural explanation. I now understand what you actually were trying to say.
What the article says is that random mutations and natural selection are not enough to explain evolution. Darwinism disregards several factors such as epigenetics and other discoveries like for example horizontal evolution which states that genetic information might be transfered from other organisms.
The article does not say that natural selection is not enough to explain evolution. It only says that natural selection is not the only process by which traits can change from one generation to the next. Of course, being written for a popular audience, it uses hyperbole to spin epigenetics as calling into question all of Darwinism. The fact is that under modern evolutionary theory natural selection remains the primary mechanism of evolutionary change, sufficient to explain most evolutionary change, especially long-term changes resulting in speciation.
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@IlDiavolo
The article points out that a naturalist perspective is not enough to explain evolution, because epigenetics have proved it wrong.
Have you actually read the article? 'f so, you are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting it. It mentions nothing about naturalism, or that a naturalist perspective is insufficient to explain evolution. Epigenetics is, in fact, just another naturalistic process.
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@IlDiavolo
That article says nothing about mutations and natural selection being insufficient at explaining macroevolution. It is about epigenetics. The idea is that an organism's behavior and environment can, to a limited extent, affect certain traits inherited by its descendants. The vast majority of change over long periods of time, however, are still explicable by natural selection. Epigenetics just acts as a fine-tuning knob on that evolution.The big question is if random mutations and natural selection are sufficient to truly explain what you just described. The answer is no, as this article explains (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/mar/19/evolution-darwin-natural-selection-genes-wrong).
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@Fallaneze
Again, you are making sweeping statements about "all physical laws," when we have yet to discover them all.
It does not logically follow that a beginning to time implies a choice. I'm not sure what else you mean by the 'quantitative problem."
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@Fallaneze
He is not just talking about the origin of physical laws. He is talking about the origin of the universe. He is essentially saying that the Big Bang did not require an outside agent. Here is the quote in full context, where he contrasts this explanation to religious explanations.
"Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. These had to be imposed on the universe by some external agency. There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside." --Hawking
Anyway, quoting Hawking amounts to an argument from authority. If you want to accept him as an authoritative source, then here is a quote from his final book.
"There is no god." --Hawking
If you think he is wrong about that, then you are just cherry-picking his statements.
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@Fallaneze
Do you claim that we have discovered all the applicable physical laws? If not, then how can you possibly eliminate physical laws as an explanation?
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@Fallaneze
Hawking was writing for a lay audience, and probably should have chosen his words more carefully. I doubt he meant to imply that we know all laws of physics.
But if you want to use Hawking as your authority, here is an excerpt from that same lecture..
"By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside."
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@Fallaneze
By rewriting the program I mean theistic claims such as answering prayers, performing miracles, bestowing blessings on certain activities or people, etc. Your view that God is hands-off and just lets the universe run is deism.
So you would take the hundred-and-first alien abduction claim as seriously as the first?
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@Fallaneze
We don't know all the laws of physics, so any claim that the Big Bang violated those laws is unfounded.
Your conclusion is based on us not yet understanding the Big Bang, We don't understand it, therefore God. That is precisely the God of the Gaps fallacy.
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@Fallaneze
God would have designed nature so there'd be a certain level of intellect exhibited in nature. That said, God is not "intertwined" in nature. A programmer is beyond the program he creates. He is not contained by it but he leaves signatures of his intelligence inside the program.
Stating how God would have designed nature is just a bald assertion. And I don't know what you mean by "intellect" in nature.
The theistic God is like a programmer who is constantly rewriting sections of code. That rewriting ought to be detectable, Any effect in the physical universe ought to be measurable. If it does not have a measurable effect, then God existing is no different from God not existing as far as the physical universe is concerned.
The number of versions of something conceived beforehand does not make it more or less likely that the next version is any more or less likely to exist. It 100% depends on the defintion. This also overlooks the commonalities in many different variations of God. One of those commonalities for instance is an eternal consciousness, not Christianity or Islam.
A hundred people claim to have been abducted by aliens, and you investigate each one and find no evidence to support their story and in many cases evidence that contradicts their story. Should you take the hundred-and-first person's claim just as seriously as the first?
Commonalities between religions are easily explained by commonalities between the human brains that invented them.
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@Fallaneze
It does not follow that an event occurring, or having a beginning, implies a choice.
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@Fallaneze
It may be true that humans have an ingrained propensity to make up supernatural explanations. A supernatural explanation of what though? The Big Bang represents the expansion of all space-time and energy in the universe from a zero-dimensional point - a point where all of the natural laws known today, including physics and the law of conservation of mass were completely broken down according to Hawking. This actually indicates a non-natural (AKA supernatural) explanation.
You are attempting to justify the "God of the gaps" fallacy, where gaps in scientific knowledge are interpreted as evidence for God or the supernatural.
Known laws of physics breaking down does not imply the supernatural. It merely implies unknown laws of physics.
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@Fallaneze
It isn't a false dilemma because it is either true that the Big Bang occurred by chance or it is not true that the Big Bang occurred by chance.
Not occurring by chance does not necessarily mean freewill. Perhaps some as yet unknown physical law made the Big Bang inevitable.
Since natural explanations lead to an infinite chain of events with quantifiable beginnings, the only recourse is to say that we don't understand how it happened. That may be true, but it doesn't address the logic in my argument.
It addresses the unstated assumption in your argument, namely that we have a full enough understanding of causality and time and the Big Bang to make sweeping statements about what is not possible when it comes to the origin of the universe. We don't.
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@3RU7AL
Good point. Perhaps the afterlife will consist of oscillating between heaven and hell every few eons.
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@Fallaneze
Lack of evidence, when something should have left evidence, is certainly evidence of a lack of that something.
The number of different versions of God shows that humans have an ingrained propensity to invent supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. That propensity, along with the fact that no supernatural explanation has ever been convincingly demonstrated, is enough to make any supernatural claim immediately suspect.
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@Fallaneze
Even though we cannot re-create the Big Bang, most of the evidence for the Big Bang is reproducible. Red shifts, for instance, or the microwave background radiation, or effects of high-energy particle collisions.
It is a mistake to make a distinction between nature and God. If God exists, then God is an integral part of nature. Saying that God is somehow "beyond" nature strikes me as just an attempt to render God untestable and unobservable, and thus unfalsifiable. There is no good reason to assume that God, if He exists, is not subject to empirical inquiry the same as the rest of nature.
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@Fallaneze
You've set up a false dilemma. I'll go with a third option, that we don't yet fully understand causality, or time, or how the universe came into being.If the Big Bang wasn't brought into existence by free will, then there must be an infinite regress of preceding causes that led to up to the Big Bang.
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@Fallaneze
Is there a non-zero chance that, once you reach heaven, you can misbehave enough to be kicked out?
If so, then because heaven is eternal, everyone will eventually be kicked out.
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@Fallaneze
The strongest argument for atheism is the lack of evidence for theistic claims and the overwhelming evidence that gods are inventions of Man.
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@Fallaneze
What is your definition of "testable evidence"?
To be testable, evidence must be reproducible under controlled conditions.
To be evidence for God, there must be no naturalistic explanation that is compatible with the evidence.
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@Fallaneze
First, if you intend this as an argument for the existence of God, you are committing an appeal to consequences fallacy.
As for your assertions, I wouldn't say that evolution has no goals. The goals are survival and reproduction. Therefore the purpose of internal organs is to further those goals.
As for life itself having no purpose without God, I assume you find this undesirable. I'll offer another perspective. Which is preferable, having your life's purpose dictated by an outside agent, or being free to decide your own purpose?
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@keithprosser
I'll grant that life appears to be exceedingly rare in our universe, so rare that f things had been slightly different it might never have occurred at all in our local neighborhood. But in the entire universe? We have know way of knowing. Even when the odds of life occurring on a single planet are extremely low, given the numbers involved--a billion trillion stars over 14 billion years--it is not inconceivable that life developing somewhere in the universe is a near certainty, even if the universe was tuned differently.
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@Fallaneze
Again, the universe is not fine-tuned to us, we are fine-tuned to the universe.
Calculating the odds of a random universe being tuned just like ours is akin to dealing 52 cards and saying that the odds of that particular ordering of 52 cards is so low that it can't be due to chance.
Saying that the vast majority of possible tunings would not produce life is just as much speculation as saying that other tunings might produce life. The fact is, we simply don't know what other tunings are possible or what those universes might be like.
Then, too, there is the anthropic principle. Any universe that gives rise to conscious creatures must necessarily have conditions to support those conscious creatures. So of course we find ourselves in a universe able to support conscious creatures. It could not be any other way, no matter how low the odds.
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@Fallaneze
I'm not asserting that the fine-tuning of the universe is due to happenstance.. It's not necessarily a choice between design and happenstance. For instance, it may be that laws of physics we don't yet understand dictate that the physical constants of the universe can be no different than what they are. If that is the case, then neither happenstance nor design need apply.
The puddle analogy is apt because we see countless examples of puddles adjusting to holes, never the other way around, just as we see countless examples of life adapting to different environments. For all we know, if the universe were tuned differently, some kind of life of which we cannot conceive might still flourish.
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@Fallaneze
Yes, we agree for the most part on the definitions of theism and deism.
My point was that the arguments you listed (assuming one accepts them as sound) only get you as far as deism. While they are compatible with theism, they don't help you with any particular theistic claim.. In other words, even if the conclusion that God exists is true, it tells you nothing about the specific attributes or nature of that God, or whether the particular claims of any religion are true.
The fine-tuning argument is refuted by the simple observation that it has things backwards. The universe did not form to fit life. Life formed to fit the universe. The fine-tuning argument is an example of puddle thinking. A puddle thinks, because the hole it finds itself in fits it so perfectly, that hole must have been made just for that puddle.
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@Fallaneze
Your definition of theism isn't really theism, it's deism. All the arguments you listed are just arguments in favor of deism. None are very convincing, and have standard refutations.
Even if it is rational to believe that a God exists (deism), it is an irrational leap to go from there and say that this God takes an interest in what we do or does things like answer prayers or provides a way to have life after death (theism).
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@Grugore
No, I disbelieve, pure and simple.
Is it really that difficult to accept that some people do not believe as you do?
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@Grugore
Being an atheist, I have all the proof I need.
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@Grugore
If scripture says there is no such thing as an atheist, then scripture is wrong.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
For one thing, a baby inside a mother is making demands on the mother's health and and body that a baby outside is not.
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@Castin
I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did.
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@drafterman
Put me down for a no.
If a mod feels like knowing the source of a report might bias them, you could always give each mod the option of masking the source.
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Imagine what discovery of large gold deposits on Mars would do to spur space exploration.
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@ethang5
Your argument that ambiogenesis has never been observed and is therefore impossible is such a textbook example of an argument from ignorance that it is used as an example of that logical fallacy on this webpage.
"Example #2:
To this very day (at the time of this writing), science has been unable to create life from non-life; therefore, life must be a result of divine intervention.
Explanation: Ignoring the false dilemma, the fact that we have not found a way to create life from non-life is not evidence that there is no way to create life from non-life, nor is it evidence that we will some day be able to; it is just evidence that we do not know how to do it. Confusing ignorance with impossibility (or possibility) is fallacious."
When your argument is used as an example of a logical fallacy, you may want to reconsider your argument.
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@ethang5
My post was not addressed to you. I've found you to be the type of evolutionist that will attack the man when you cannot attack his message. So rather than address the question at hand, you will gurgle nonsense about how much I don't know evolution.
The question at hand was how a single mutation can spread through a population. That is the question I addressed, and keep addressing, because you keep getting it wrong.
Your contention that a mutation in a single parent is inherited by only 25% of offspring is factually, demonstrably untrue. The simplest of Punnet squares shows the true proportion to be 50%. Whether or not the mutation results in a recessive trait is irrelevant.
Your entire argument that mutations cannot spread through a population is based on getting this fact wrong. The fact that you namecall and accuse anyone who calls you out for getting it wrong of "prancing and preening about how much they know science" and dishonesty says much about your own intellectual honesty.
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@ethang5
But it remains true that abiogenesis has no evidence whatsoever in its favor. So the question stands. Why is it considered?
It is considered to be the most likely of three possibilities.
1. Life has always been present on Earth. (This must necessarily include during the formation of the Solar System from a gaseous cloud).
2. Life came to Earth from elsewhere.
3. Life on Earth came from lifelessness.
Your argument is that 3 is implausible because lifelessness has never been observed to produce life. But by that reasoning, 1 and 2 are equally implausible. Live has never been observed in gaseous clouds in space, nor anywhere else besides Earth.
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@ethang5
Wait Darwin, tell us exactly how that one mutation propagated in the gene pool. The actual mechanism, not some sweeping generality pre-assuming evolution is correct, thus assuming its conclusion in its premise.
I already explained this to you iin detail earlier in this thread.
No, it's your basic lack of understanding that one parent with a mutation passes that mutation to half its offspring.Is it my grammar?
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@SamStevens
I gave a very similar explanation to ethang5 earlier in this thread, but it didn't take. It turns out he has a fundamental misunderstanding of Mendelian inheritance.
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@PGA2.0
I see Godwin's law is alive and well.
The fact that only humans can be produced from an egg and sperm only means that a fertilized egg is a potential human. Only humans can be produced from a sperm cell. Does that mean a sperm is a human being?
As for what science says, I could cite you just as many papers that say the road to being a human being is gradual, and does not occur suddenly at a single point in time.
And if conception is the point at which a unique human being appears, how do you deal with zygote fission? A zygote can split into twins up to nine days after fertilization. Clearly neither twin is the original human being. Has the original human being died, and two new ones come into being? It presents a problem for those who say a unique person begins at conception.
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