Goddidit Vs Naturedidit

[Drew_2017]

That's a worrisome change, especially on a planet in a universe that is perfectly balanced by a designer to support the culmination of billions of years of evolution.  Nor is it a slow change, considering 100 years ago we were in the early stages of blowing CO2 into the atmosphere.  I'll guess that a disproportionate percent of that .8 degrees has occurred in the last 10 years, and the next 100 years that number will triple, but then Drew would say 2.4 degrees isn't cause for concern.  Instead of being 50 degrees, it will only be 52.4, and that's so small, you would have to have a thermometer to even detect it. 

Apparently I miscalculated...I thought some atheists would also think the case for global warming was weak and a discussion would ensue with both sides arguing from scientific facts. My bad, I didn't know atheists were in lock step on this issue also. Either that or those who share my opinion are unwilling to say so.

[reasonist]

Personally I like to approach a subject from a rational and sapient point of view and leave the emotional argument to others.
According to the faithful and their book, an omni-everything deity 'created' the entire universe and ultimately us humans in his image. Let's look then at his creation from an anatomical angle.
Let us start with the human eye, which shows anything but 'intelligence' in it's design. It is built upside down and backwards, requiring photons of light to travel through the cornea, lens, aquaeous fluid, blood vessels, ganglion cells, amacrine cells, horizontal cells, and bipolar cells before they reach the light sensitive rods and cones that transduce the light signal into neural impulses - which are then sent to the visual cortex at the back of the brain for processing into meaningful patterns. For optimal vision, this is the worst design possible. If it's true that we are the highest creation achieved by this deity, why then does the Osprey for example have eyes 60 times more powerful and sophisticated than us? Cats, dogs and bats have infinitely superior ears than us, why give 'inferior' species this kind of advantage?  Some nonsensical and completely useless features such as male nipples and our appendix show our lowly origins from billions of years ago, not a design from scratch. Our easily worn out knees, backs and vestigial tails are a clear testament to evolution also. Or take the nether regions where our urinal pathways end up in our reproductive organs. And our sphincter is only an inch away as well. It's like building an entertainment center in the middle of a sewage plant! (Neil DeGrasse Tyson). All this looks like the work of an incompetent yokel, not a omnipotent deity and negates any claim of intelligent design. It's our solipsism that leads to self deception and superstition, from a time where we claimed to have all the answers before we even asked the (scientific) questions.

[trdsf]

All this looks like the work of an incompetent yokel, not a omnipotent deity and negates any claim of intelligent design.

True, although it doesn't rule out design by committee.  :D

[Drew_2017]

Lets define it as global change that will result in significant weather change and melting of caps in 20 years if things aren't changed.

Yes, let's ignore the fact that it's actually defined as the intensification of the already confirmed greenhouse effect, which is caused by the presence of certain gasses in the atmosphere, but let's not let the real definition get in the way of your rhetoric.

Fine we won't define it that way. You don't believe there will be a significant change in the weather or melting of caps in 20 years if things aren't changed or do you?

Hmmm... I don't know about you, but that worries me.

Knowing you're aware of this problem is reassuring because I'm confident you are working on a solution.

[Unbeliever]

sounds like Drew is one of those people that believes God won't let us destroy the earth. guess what, even if we find out that God is real, it's already obvious that God isn't going to lift a finger to keep us from destroying this place.

I guess those folks (and Drew) don't remember the Flood story in their holy book...Or Jeremiah 25:33:

And the slain of the LORD shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.

[Baruch]

Apparently I miscalculated...I thought some atheists would also think the case for global warming was weak and a discussion would ensue with both sides arguing from scientific facts. My bad, I didn't know atheists were in lock step on this issue also. Either that or those who share my opinion are unwilling to say so.

The case for global warming ... is technical, not rhetorical.  Why the rhetorical gambit, as agent provocateur?

Temperature on average is going up, for whatever reason.  And the weather is increasingly unstable as well.  That much is obvious.  The idea that G-d won't permit the destruction of humanity, requires ignoring Noah.  The idea that the only way to save ourselves is to become Sweden and have Hillary as President ... is psychotic.

[Mike Cl]

the only way to save ourselves is to become Sweden and have Hillary as President .

Finally, something we can agree on!!

[Drew_2017]

The case for global warming ... is technical, not rhetorical.  Why the rhetorical gambit, as agent provocateur?

Temperature on average is going up, for whatever reason.  And the weather is increasingly unstable as well.  That much is obvious.  The idea that G-d won't permit the destruction of humanity, requires ignoring Noah.  The idea that the only way to save ourselves is to become Sweden and have Hillary as President ... is psychotic.

I was hoping to see a clash of opinions on what I believed to be a benign topic. It wasn't my intention to be the small minority opinion. I should have left my opinion out of it which probably tainted the water. Who wants to agree with the obnoxious theist?

I don't know how anyone can decide on this issue...a search reveals just as many pro and con positions and each side accuses the other of being mentally unstable. Neither side is lacking in what they call scientific data to back of their point of view. I do know many dire predictions have failed to materialize and the earth throughout history (prior to humans) has been a lot hotter. I also know we are dumping more Co2 in the air than ever before and we have more humans on the planet then in history I assume that must have an effect. 

[Baruch]

Finally, something we can agree on!!

In some parallel universe where "Rhodam" and "Clinton" are Viking names ;-)  Of course in so far as they have English ancestry, that could included the Danelaw in NE England, and the Danish invaders who settled there.  So, is something rotten with the Clintons?

[Mike Cl]

In some parallel universe where "Rhodam" and "Clinton" are Viking names ;-)  Of course in so far as they have English ancestry, that could included the Danelaw in NE England, and the Danish invaders who settled there.  So, is something rotten with the Clintons?

Not to my knowledge.

[Baruch]

I was hoping to see a clash of opinions on what I believed to be a benign topic. It wasn't my intention to be the small minority opinion. I should have left my opinion out of it which probably tainted the water. Who wants to agree with the obnoxious theist?

I don't know how anyone can decide on this issue...a search reveals just as many pro and con positions and each side accuses the other of being mentally unstable. Neither side is lacking in what they call scientific data to back of their point of view. I do know many dire predictions have failed to materialize and the earth throughout history (prior to humans) has been a lot hotter. I also know we are dumping more Co2 in the air than ever before and we have more humans on the planet then in history I assume that must have an effect.

Global warming and its ideological reaction ... isn't benign.  The idea that humankind isn't all powerful ... is disturbing to some.  The idea that humanity might become extinct thru the "tragedy of the commons" rather than warfare ... disturbs others.  The idea that there are too many humans ... is directly personal to every human being.  The idea that directly in Western countries, and indirectly in China and India Western countries are consuming to many natural resources is very hot.  And then that elephant in the room, the misallocation of products and services among humanity, is to die for.

So what will happen in the future?  Things will get hotter or colder.  Science however is a part of human arrogance, even if there are no deities.  Epistemological arrogance.  Whom the gods would destroy, they first make to buy autonomous cars.

The controversy is really about wealth, power and fame.  The trinity of Satan.  The Elite don't want anyone to question the status quo, or where they are taking the status quo.  The problem isn't scientific, it is political.  The technicalities of long term weather prediction, are best left to people who do that full time ... but lets take their predictions as hypotheses, not facts.

[Baruch]

Not to my knowledge.

You forgot the (sarc).  On the other hand, you are a baseball fan, and they are more fanatical than ISIS.

[Mike Cl]

You forgot the (sarc).  On the other hand, you are a baseball fan, and they are more fanatical than ISIS.

Don't forget that I am a Yankees fanatic fan!  I'm still rooting for Mickey Mantle!  And the Yankees did produce THE baseball philosopher--Yogi Berra.  It's not over 'til it's over!  When you come to a fork in the road, take it.  Sound advice!

[Hakurei Reimu]

Hakurei Reimu,

Says the one who doesn't even bother to discover what is known about the universe before shooting his mouth off. You disparage cosmologists the world over and the consensus on cosmology, the field of study devoted to the evolution of the universe including its very beginning.

I do bother to do my homework. I have responded by citing links and articles from regular scientists.

No. You're using your citations and articles as if they're javelins to throw at your opponent. You don't read them to understand what they are saying. You don't try to wrap your head around them and make them your own. You simply idiotically skim through them to see if they can be used as ammunition.

Like the way you tried to bamboozle me with quantum wierdness, completely ignorant of the fact that I studied quantum mechanics in college and am in fact quite familiar with its bizarre implications and the fact that no one can agree on which interpretation is correct, if any.

Like the way you threw a bunch of models for the universal beginning, completely ignorant of the fact that I was quite familiar with them already and more besides. And I dared pointed out that they do not support your notion of a Goddidit. Not, "You're definitely wrong," just, "You're most probably wrong because nowhere does your notion have any support."

So, no. None of your cites are very impressive. They are at best irrelevant.

I've disparaged no one except your propensity to state your beliefs as irrefutable facts.

Prove that I have stated anything as "irrefutable fact." Go back to my messages and post the exact quotes that you think proves that I have done this. I guarantee you will only demonstrate your poor reading comprehention and propensity to take things out of context. In fact, I go back and soften a lot of my language in my messages before posting (been doing it for years), so your accusation that I have ever stated anything as "irrefutable fact" seems very bizzare to me.

And the fact that you are using their articles as ammunition and not for your own understanding is very very much a disparaging of them. They spent years of their lives putting all that together, only for you to use in a silly internet fight with your intellectual betters. You have claimed to stand on the shoulders of giants, but in truth you only stand on their shoelaces. Standing on their shoulders requires you to grasp what they're saying, even in the most broad strokes.

This is shameful behavior on your part. I may be arrogant in the face of people like you, but only because your intellectual sloth makes that arrogance fully justified. I've made a concerted effort to understand what I read. My grades in acedemic courses (both undergraduate and graduate) prove that I don't have my head completely up my ass.

In spite of your admission as to lack of knowledge of how or if the universe came into existence you maintain with a certainty no sentient being was involved.

Because including one doesn't solve any of the problems that it proports to solve, so Occam's razor cleaves it off. I have repeatedly challenged you to explain how anything we see in the universe gives the conclusion of purposeful design, and you have failed to make any of it stick. Did you respond by justifying this claim of yours? Of course not. You never took the hint that even in systems we fully design the workings of, surprising structure still crops up very unexpectedly. When I challenged you to justify why one should think that a transcendent god would even be able to act, you ignored that and went on to post irrelevant models that do not prove what you claim to prove (see below). Instead, you simply either repeat the claim, or berate me for some imagined "dogma" that I'm shipping.

I would think you'd need more knowledge to make that declaration.

No. No, you don't. It's because a creator is not in evidence, the Goddidit hypothesis has an abysmal track record, and Occam's razor deletes him as a necessary part of our understanding. We don't need god to shore up any of the scientific framework we have so far constructed. What we do understand doesn't require god; what we don't understand... we don't understand, so to say that god had any part in it is premature.

Imagine if I said to you laptops were caused by natural forces but I don't actually know how they came into existence or even if they did...perhaps they always existed.

Then I would be able to show you that they did not. I can point to the fact that every laptop is branded, and has a serial number, has a traceable paper trail of sale, delivery, quality inspection, bill of materials, etc., has its ICs stamped with the date of its manufacture, among other observable facts. I can detail the construction and assembly, point to factories that make them, and the materials used, and even designers' names in most cases. The laptop has all the pedigree of something we designed and made.

The natural world being designed and made, by anything? Not so much.

You are comparing apples to orangitangs. Bad analogies are bad.

Do you see how you mix your belief with fact?

No. But I see how you mix your beliefs with fact.

I don't deny its possible the universe exists of itself but you go from a possibility to declaring it a certainty that no external source needed.

Show where I have declared a certainty. PROTIP: Proper exercise of Occam's razer is not declaring a certainty. There's no good reason to believe that an externality to the universe exists, ergo, unless you show otherwise, Occam's razor will delete any attempt to shove god in as an externality that is not required by the evidence.

What if I said its possible we owe the existence of the universe to a Creator then the next sentence I declare a Creator did cause the universe to exist. By the way...do you deny its possible we owe our existence to a Creator? 

It's possible, but unlikely. I've already presented you the Ikeda-Jefferys theorem, which shows that observing the universe obeys naturalistic rules always supports naturalism. I've pointed out that structure shows up at the slightest provocation, not only in nature but also in designed (by us) systems, and are thus not indicative of design. I cannot justify the existence of externalities to the universe that would be in a position to be the cause of same, even a god, so by Occam's razor I must severely downgrade such a possibility. You have yet to show how I am wrong in any of these, so "unlikely" a creator must stand.

I don't have to destroy mere possibilities.

Occam's razor says you do. The possibilities I listed would render your god unnecessary for the creation of the universe. Powerless, too. What use is a god that is powerless to act?

In other words the universe itself may have divine properties of eternally existing and never changing... and again I don't have to destroy your self-serving imagination.

Again, Occam's razor. You have not shown "divine properties" to be necessary for the creation of the universe. "Eternally existing" and "never changing" are meaningless terms in a timeless venue. Things either exist in their paricular state, or they don't exist. An instant is as good as an eternity without time.

The point of me listing these other possibilities is because some of them allude action taking place prior to the big bang which does call into question some of your possibilities.

You haven't done anything of the sort. Each of those models you cited STILL require the universe to be exant all through where things are happening. The universe would still exist through a bounce â€" that's how it gets around the creation problem. The universe would still exist through a primordial hibernatory period â€" again, how it gets around the creation problem. You can't and don't need to create something that already exists, sugarpuff. "The Big Bang" is not necessarily synonymous with "the creation of the universe" â€" indeed, the Big Bang theory explicitly does not cover the beginning of the universe. It stops about a Planck time before where we reckon the past singularity would be, which would be the true beginning of time if it existed. 10e-44 seconds is not even a bee's dick away from the assumed past singularity, but it still does not cover it.

No because like you he can conjure other possibilities and as a scientist he has to propose naturalistic theories. The fact of fine-tuned constants is a reality. The explanation of it (either naturalistic or intentional) isn't a given.

From the article you posted regarding the fine-tuning argument.

As we have pointed out above, others have responded to the claim of "fine-tuning" in several ways. One way has been to point out that this claim is not corroborated by any theoretical understanding about what forms of life might arise in universes with different physical conditions than our own, or even any theoretical understanding about what kinds of universes are possible at all; it is basically a claim founded upon our own ignorance of physics. To those that make this point, the argument is about whether P(F|N) is really small (as Ross claims), or is in fact large. The point (against Ross) is essentially that Ross' crucial assumption is completely without support.

Failed to read the article in its entirety, eh? Little further down:

We have shown that the WAP tends to support N, and cannot undermine it. This observation is independent of whether P(F|N) is small or large, since (as we have seen) the only probabilities that are significant for inference about N are those that are conditioned upon all relevant data at our disposal, including the fact that L is true. Therefore, regardless of the size of P(F|N), valid reasoning shows that observing that F is true cannot decrease the probability that N is true, and may increase it.

It doesn't matter a hoot how "fine-tuned" the universe is absent consideration of life, the observation that life does exist and it exists in a universe that allows for it completely wrecks the fine-tuning argument. The math does not work for you.

I don't claim the observation of constants in an extremely narrow range is the smoking gun evidence that seals the deal because we can always imagine possible naturalistic solutions. For example without any evidence we can imagine that a completely different configuration may support sentient life. We can imagine this is one of an infinitude of universes with variable conditions which would account for us living in a universe that supports our existence.

"Imagining a naturalistic solution" is not the same as formulating one. We cannot put any numbers on the above possitilities any more than Ross can. Which is their point, ultimately: Ross's notion that life needs to be fine-tuned is his supposition and nothing more. They must remain outside consideration until we can assign sensible numbers. (And the IJ theorem renders this point moot for the question of naturalism.)

By this way of reckoning naturalism is non-falsifiable because we can explain away any condition by conjuring some alternative scenario based only on wishful thinking.

No. You simply don't understand what "non-falsifiability" means. An imagined scenario is no substitute for a theory or even model. Especially if they are forewarded as a counter for a similar argument that is based on just as much supposition, as the responses to Ross.

Nonetheless if we found ourselves in a universe where a wide range of constants and properties would result in planets, stars, galaxies and subsequently life you'd be pounding the desk with that fact.

It would still mean that the universe was acting naturalistically for all intents and purposes. It would be weaker evidence for naturalism, but it would still be evidence for naturalism, because the Ikeda-Jefferys theorem does not depend on life specifically, but any number of natural phenomena (the form of the argument does not change). Find a phenomenon that exists outside that wider range and you would have something to talk about.

Instead the opposite is true so we have to explain it away by invoking alternate explanations (minus evidence). This is where tunnel vision comes in handy. Since we know naturalism is true any possibility that comports with naturalism is valid and has merit because even if that alternate explanation proves to be false we still 'know' that naturalism is true.

Again, you try to disparage the scientists that you claim not to. They have shown that the math doesn't work in your favor. Instead of taking it like a big boy, you whine and complain.

[Hakurei Reimu]

I don't know how anyone can decide on this issue...a search reveals just as many pro and con positions and each side accuses the other of being mentally unstable.

Did you search in an acedemic index in the relevant field? Did you search weighting for citations? How did you categorize "pros" and "cons"?

I'm betting you didn't use any of the above considerations, in which case you are getting anyone who agrees or disagrees with global warming, regardless of qualifications, and who may be getting their 'data' from anywhere, with quality unverified. Looking at the volume of the unfiltered stream of dreck on the internet, I can see why people can be confused.

I do know many dire predictions have failed to materialize and the earth throughout history (prior to humans) has been a lot hotter.

Yes. But the temperature has not changed nearly as fast over geological time as it has in the past century. It leaves precious little time for our plants and farming habits to adjust, including the ones we depend on to feed us. Also, the forms of life that were alive during those hot times are not the same that are alive now.