Goddidit Vs Naturedidit

[Hakurei Reimu]

Drew is not bright enough to figure out that the premise of the universal design argument folds back upon and destroys itself. He's dead set on this little intuition of his that he doesn't realize that these same principles require God to bootstrap himself into existence. Indeed, you can substitute anything in the place for God in this statement and come up with the same conundrum. No matter what the ultimate root of existence is, it's required to bootstrap itself into existence. So maybe the fault lies, not with the specific thing we propose as the root of existence, but the form that we're putting it into here. It simply doesn't work, and no amount of argumentation or rhetoric will make it work.

[Drew_2017]

How did we get 81 pages from this silly premise?

If you or anyone else could actually prove what you believe on faith this website wouldn't exist. If the evidence in favor of your belief were equivalent to evidence the earth is round and not flat as some fanatical zealots claim the issue would be settled. Not everyone shares your faith in the power of mindless forces to cause themselves to exist, cause a universe to exist, cause stars, planets and intelligent life to exist all without plan or intent to do so. Some of us are skeptics...

[sdelsolray]

If you or anyone else could actually prove what you believe on faith this website wouldn't exist. If the evidence in favor of your belief were equivalent to evidence the earth is round and not flat as some fanatical zealots claim the issue would be settled. Not everyone shares your faith in the power of mindless forces to cause themselves to exist, cause a universe to exist, cause stars, planets and intelligent life to exist all without plan or intent to do so. Some of us are skeptics...

Note the infantile but clever projection poster Drew uses here.  And this is after he stated to HR:

Hakurei Reimu,


I don't think we're covering any new ground..I'm going to say my piece and you can have the last word.
...

[Hakurei Reimu]

Some of us are skeptics...

That's right, and it ain't you. Because one of the first things you should be skeptical of is your own ideas. You would be clued into the fact that, if the objection of anything "creating itself" had any legs, it would apply to the entirety of existence, including a creator (who, of course, would have to exist to affect a creation). "God", "transcendental" and "supernatural" are all simply a semantic trick to try to avoid the deep philosophical problem with existence. They don't work. They're just theistic buzzwords and incantations to try to make the problem go away without any effort. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

[Drew_2017]

That's right, and it ain't you. Because one of the first things you should be skeptical of is your own ideas. You would be clued into the fact that, if the objection of anything "creating itself" had any legs, it would apply to the entirety of existence, including a creator (who, of course, would have to exist to affect a creation). "God", "transcendental" and "supernatural" are all simply a semantic trick to try to avoid the deep philosophical problem with existence. They don't work. They're just theistic buzzwords and incantations to try to make the problem go away without any effort. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

Wonderful dodge! No response whatsoever just the usual rhetoric.

I am skeptical of my own ideas as I'm skeptical of yours. Unlike the faithful in here I don't state theism as a fact, I don't claim its as in evidence as a round earth and then submit no such comparable evidence in a bait and switch game.

You don't know:

-why or how a universe came into existence
-why there are laws of physics
-why time exists
-why the conditions to create stars, planets, solar systems and ultimately intelligent life obtained.

Barring evidence or knowledge their remains only your undaunted unquestioned faith we owe our existence to mindless naturalistic forces...Amen!

I look forward to your next dodge.
 

[Drew_2017]

Note the infantile but clever projection poster Drew uses here.  And this is after he stated to HR:

You're not that stupid are you? That was in regard to the long discussion we had.

[Hydra009]

You don't know:

-why or how a universe came into existence
-why there are laws of physics
-why time exists
-why the conditions to create stars, planets, solar systems and ultimately intelligent life obtained.

Barring evidence or knowledge their remains only your undaunted unquestioned faith we owe our existence to mindless naturalistic forces...Amen!

Some of that list is at least partially known; see the Big Bang model for how the universe was formed, particle physics (specifically, force carriers and fields) describe why particles often behave in predictable ways, and the Big Bang model and nebular hypothesis for how stars, planets, and solar systems form.  (Just fyi, listing the same basic thing multiple times comes across as rhetorical padding; a failed attempt making a list of "unknowns" appear more intimidating than it really is)

Also, you may be looking at this the wrong way - assuming that there are Whys to be found in the first place.  As the lyrical genius Kid Rock acknowledged in his seminal piece, "This is for the questions that don't have an answer / the midnight glances and the topless dancers".

And finally, yes there are plenty of things that are unknown.  If you think that is a problem for scientists, this problem is much worse for the faithful.  Scientists at least have a method of investigating the unknown.  The faithful do not.

[Hakurei Reimu]

Wonderful dodge! No response whatsoever just the usual rhetoric.

Oh, the irony! "The usual rhetoric" is exactly what you're engaging in.

I am skeptical of my own ideas as I'm skeptical of yours.

Bullshit. My last big honking response to you went through a probability analysis that anyone with a high-school level education could follow, yet you had nothing to say about that. I pointed out repeatedly that if you want to make an improbability argument for a universal creator stick, then you needed to compare one probability with another, yet you had nothing to say about that. I repeatedly pointed out to you that, despite your rhetoric to the contrary, that patterns emerge from seemingly mindless processes â€" that even randomness and chaos have patterns to them, yet you had nothing to say about that. I even pointed out that, as a design, the universe would be a poor design for the purpose you stated, and that I could create a better design for the universe than this creator apparently did, yet you had nothing to say about that. I pointed out repeatedly that the Ikeda-Jefferys theorem reverses the theistic conclusion in a piece of mathematical judo, yet you had nothing to say about that.

Except by whining.

Because if you were skeptical, you would have asked those questions of yourself and have a ready answer for me, or spur you into thinking about those questions upon being pointed out to you, and came back with some sort of answer. You certainly had long enough to think about it. But no. You had no answer for me except the pre-canned answers that I've heard a hundred times before.

Unlike the faithful in here I don't state theism as a fact, I don't claim its as in evidence as a round earth and then submit no such comparable evidence in a bait and switch game.

The only things I've stated as fact are things that I have observed. Like the fact that I have seen pattern emerge from semingly random processes. Like the fact that probability theory gives you the opposite conclusion to the observation of fine-tuning. Like the fact that the problems solved by gravity were problems that are created by gravity in the first place.

You don't know:

-why or how a universe came into existence

"God created it" isn't an answer. You claim a design, yet you do not have the slightest clue how you know that or why the choice of laws in our universe serve that design. It's just a lazy patch over your ignorance.

-why there are laws of physics

"God created them" isn't an answer. It's simply a rhetorical trick to make you think that you've answered it when you haven't, and a lazy patch over your ignorance. There is no mechanism, nor evidence to support it. Any real explanation is going to come from constructing the laws of physics we see from base principles.

-why time exists

"God created it" doesn't answer that question. If there's no time, how can a timeless state change into a timeful state? Time is simply the dimension we measure changes against. Without time, there is no change, and you have not answered this conundrum except by whining about my so-called "faith" instead of presenting a damn solution to that conundrum.

-why the conditions to create stars, planets, solar systems and ultimately intelligent life obtained.

"God made it that way" doesn't answer that question. The reason why you would need gravity to build those stars, planets and solar systems is because otherwise the universe would be too sparse for significant chemistry, but that's a condition caused by gravity itself. Were there no gravity, then just making the universe the required density and chemical composition would be sufficient to produce life, as there would be so much life-experimental volume and have practically ALL of the universe's material on that problem, instead the overwhelming majority of it being locked up in hellish stars, lifeless planets and deep in the earth. It's a much less convoluted solution, and would be preferred by any actual engineer.

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." â€"Antoine de Sait-Exupery

Barring evidence or knowledge their remains only your undaunted unquestioned faith we owe our existence to mindless naturalistic forces...Amen!

I look forward to your next dodge.

You would be more convincing if you made any comment about my analysis of one factor in the calculation of the probability of your creator-thing. Yet, you do not comment about it, as if you were... dodging it.

Furthermore, instead of continuing the discussion, you cut it off as soon as I threatened to assign numbers of my own to your improbabilities. Gee, why is that? Could it be that you had a glimmer of self-awareness that you knew I could carry through with my threat and produce an analysis with actual cogency to it, the thing you were completely unable to do? I, who was able to produce a mathematical analysis of the probabilities involved, am not convinced of even the plausability of your hypothesis, and you, who was completely unable to do the same, think that there might be something to it.

The person actually analyzing your hypothesis is calling it bunk, and the person who was resorting to rhetoric and pre-canned replies is calling it a possibility. The person with actual competence in probability theory is not convinced of even the cogency of a probability argument presented by a person who clearly doesn't.

Why this assymetry, Drew?

I know your kind. The kind who is completely full of the brown stuff. And himself, but I'm being redundant. I've encountered other people who accuse me of the same kind of pseudo-religious "faith" that you accuse me of. It didn't stick then and it won't stick now. No skeptical person is going to be convinced by "it's possible because you can't prove it ain't!" and you're not going to be the exception. I know you have nothing to bring to the table except your little toy idea, because if you did, you would have presented it already. But you don't. It's the same ol' Paley's Watch argument dressed up new bling; sorry, bro, underneath the bling is the same old sow's ear. Even your accusation of "blind faith" mirrors your predecessors; it gets old after a while.

The only thing I have faith in is the spirit of humanity to rise to the challenge of the ultimate question and answer it, without bullshit or wishful thinking, and despite the whining of its less intelligent and lazy members with delusions of adequacy.

[Drew_2017]

author=Hydra009 link=topic=11330.msg1181176#msg1181176 date=1498952216]
Some of that list is at least partially known; see the Big Bang model for how the universe was formed, particle physics (specifically, force carriers and fields) describe why particles often behave in predictable ways, and the Big Bang model and nebular hypothesis for how stars, planets, and solar systems form.  (Just fyi, listing the same basic thing multiple times comes across as rhetorical padding; a failed attempt making a list of "unknowns" appear more intimidating than it really is)

My post is in response to a few people in here who continue to state their position as an irrefutable fact that doesn't leave the slightest modicum of room for doubt. They do so by comparing their belief to claims that are irrefutable and stating their belief is the same. Bullshit...they have faith its the same. The fact is the truth (what really happened no matter what anyone thinks) of our existence and the universe isn't known. Big bang cosmology is still strongest horse in the pack and that tells us the universe came into existence from a singularity an entity in which the laws of physics we observe don't exist. That notion isn't popular among atheists or naturalists because it suggests our laws of nature are only a subset of reality which I suspect is true regardless.   

Also, you may be looking at this the wrong way - assuming that there are Whys to be found in the first place.  As the lyrical genius Kid Rock acknowledged in his seminal piece, "This is for the questions that don't have an answer / the midnight glances and the topless dancers".

Absolutely, if indeed we owe our existence to mechanistic forces there is no ultimate why, only a personal agent can possibly provide that.

And finally, yes there are plenty of things that are unknown.  If you think that is a problem for scientists, this problem is much worse for the faithful.  Scientists at least have a method of investigating the unknown.  The faithful do not.

I have no qualms whatever with scientific investigation and I'm hopeful some big ticket questions can be answered. I've stated several times developments that could occur which would change my mind. The faithful here are some of your more zealous atheists whose fact claim far outstrips available knowledge and evidence. Its actually a belief claim. 

[Drew_2017]

author=Hakurei Reimu link=topic=11330.msg1181177#msg1181177 date=1498955724]


Oh, the irony! "The usual rhetoric" is exactly what you're engaging in.

Nope I'm not getting sucked into another long discussion with a notorious windbag.

[Mike Cl]

Nope I'm not getting sucked into another long discussion with a notorious windbag.

Notorious windbag--yourself, of course.  Why does theism and being a blowverater just go together.  Blowin' in the Wind--that's you.

[Drew_2017]

Notorious windbag--yourself, of course.  Why does theism and being a blowverater just go together.  Blowin' in the Wind--that's you.

I bow to HK in that department.

[Mike Cl]

I bow to HK in that department.

You are the template of a blowhard.  That's you.  And a stupid blowhard at that.

[Drew_2017]

You are the template of a blowhard.  That's you.  And a stupid blowhard at that.

Remind me to take offense...

[Mike Cl]

Remind me to take offense...

I don't give a shit what you take.  Just take it out of here.