FOR YOU SCIENCE GUYS
Offline I came across a website www.godandscience.org. Below you will find two of the claims to be found there. Check it out and please tell me what you think. I need to understand what is being claimed and the rebuttal thereof in plain english.
Any assistance would be appreciated.
Thanks all.
Problem with the skeptical worldview
Let me point out one major problem with the skeptical worldview in order to get you to the point of recognizing that not all the data really fits your worldview. The data we are going to examine is the origin of the universe. Before the 20th century, atheists assumed that the universe was eternal. However, beginning with Einstein's theory of general relativity,1 and early observational evidence,2 it became apparent that the universe was expanding. Extrapolating back in time revealed that the universe was merely billions of years old. The data eventually led to the "Big Bang" theory, which is virtually universally accepted by modern day cosmologist.3 Attempts to get around the idea4 that the universe had a beginning3 have all met with observational difficulties.5 The idea that the universe could have gone through an infinite number of births and deaths (the oscillating universe theory) was shown to be false on the basis of the lack of amount of matter within the universe, and the fact that any collapse would have led to a "Big Crunch" instead of another Big Bang.6 So, we have come to realize that the universe first began to exist 13.7 billion years ago. Atheists are left with a dilemma, since their worldview requires that all things that begin to exist must have a cause. So, logic requires the admission that the universe had a cause. Virtually all atheists say that this cause was some natural phenomenon. It is also possible that the cause of the universe was a supernatural intelligence (i.e., God). However, there is no direct observational evidence for either belief. Those who are "strong atheists" (not working out in the gym, but having a belief that no god exists) have just violated one of the main rules of atheism - that all beliefs are based upon observational evidence. So, any atheist who denies the possible existence of God violates his own worldview.
The problem actually gets worse for the atheist. The physical laws of the universe fall within very narrow ranges in order for life (or even matter) to exist, suggesting some level of design (the evidence supporting this statement will be presented in part 2). If true, then the observational evidence actually leans toward the existence of God, contradicting strong atheism. The prospect of finding a naturalistic cause for the origin of the universe is bleak at best, since the laws of physics indicate that we will never be able escape the bounds of our universe to even attempt to look for the cause of the universe.
Part 2: Is God Real? The Evidence for God's Existence
Conclusion 
A skeptic or atheist is governed by two main principles: 1) all beliefs must be supported by observational evidence, and 2) beliefs that contradict observational evidence cannot be tolerated. However, strong atheism states that there is no god, even though observational evidence indicates that the universe has a cause that cannot be detected observationally. So despite the lack of observational evidence for a naturalistic cause for the universe, the strong atheist believes that the universe has a naturalistic cause and that there is no god, contradicting the tenet that all beliefs should be based upon observational evidence. Continued in part 2...
Introduction
Let us look at the origin of life. There are only two possibilities for the existence of life:
- Spontaneous assembly of life from chemicals
- There is a Creator who designed biological systems
If you deny the existence of a Creator, scientific studies demonstrate that you must believe each of the following things about the origin of life:
| Homochirality somehow arose in the sugars and amino acids of prebiotic soups, although there is no mechanism by which this can occur (1) and is, in fact, prohibited by the second law of thermodynamics (law of entropy). (2) | reject the second law of thermodynamics |
| In the absence of enzymes, there is no chemical reaction that produces the sugar ribose (1), the "backbone" of RNA and DNA. | science of the gaps ("promissory materialism" |
| Chemical reactions in prebiotic soups produce other sugars that prevent RNA and DNA replication (1). | discard chemistry data science of the gaps ("promissory materialism" |
| Pyrimidine nucleosides (cytosine and uracil) do not form under prebiotic conditions and only purine (adenine and guanine) nucleosides are found in carbonaceous meteorites (1) (i.e., pyrimidine nucleosides don't form in outer space either). | discard chemistry data science of the gaps ("promissory materialism" |
| Even if a method for formation of pyrimidine nucleosides could be found, the combination of nucleosides with phosphate under prebiotic conditions produces not only nucleotides, but other products which interfere with RNA polymerization and replication (1). | discard chemistry data science of the gaps ("promissory materialism" |
| Purine and pyrimidine nucleotides (nucleosides combined with phosphate groups) do not form under prebiotic conditions (3). | discard chemistry data science of the gaps ("promissory materialism" |
| Neither RNA nor DNA can be synthesized in the absence of enzymes. In theory, an RNA replicase could exist and code for its own replication. The first synthesized RNA replicase was four times longer than any RNA that could form spontaneously (4). In addition, it was able to replicate only 16 base pairs at most, so it couldn't even replicate itself (5). | science of the gaps ("promissory materialism" |
| Enzymes cannot be synthesized in the absence of RNA and ribosomes. | science of the gaps ("promissory materialism" |
| Nucleosides and amino acids cannot form in the presence of oxygen, which is now known to have been present on the earth for at least four billion years (6), although life arose at least ~3.5 billion years ago (7). | discard geological data discard chemistry data |
| Adenine synthesis requires unreasonable HCN concentrations. Adenine deaminates with a half-life of 80 years (at 37°C, pH 7). Therefore, adenine would never accumulate in any kind of "prebiotic soup." The adenine- uracil interaction is weak and nonspecific, and, therefore, would never be expected to function in any specific recognition scheme under the chaotic conditions of a "prebiotic soup." (8) | discard chemistry data |
| Cytosine has never been found in any meteorites nor is it produced in electric spark discharge experiments using simulated "early earth atmosphere." All possible intermediates suffer severe problems (9). Cytosine deaminates with an estimated half-life of 340 years, so would not be expected to accumulate over time. Ultraviolet light on the early earth would quickly convert cytosine to its photohydrate and cyclobutane photodimers (which rapidly deaminate) (10). | discard geological data discard chemistry data |
| Mixture of amino acids the Murchison meteorite show that there are many classes of prebiotic substances that would disrupt the necessary structural regularity of any RNA-like replicator (11). Metabolic replicators suffer from a lack of an ability to evolve, since they do not mutate (12). | discard chemistry data |
| The most common abiogenesis theories claim that life arose at hydrothermal vents in the ocean. However, recent studies show that polymerization of the molecules necessary for cell membrane assembly cannot occur in salt water (13). Other studies show that the early oceans were at least twice as salty as they are now (14) | Life arose in freshwater ponds (even though the earth had very little land mass), using some unknown mechanism. |
Comparison of the dates of meteor impacts on the moon, Mercury, and Mars indicate that at least 30 catastrophic meteor impacts must have occurred on the earth from 3.8 to 3.5 billion years ago (15). These impacts were of such large size that the energy released would have vaporized the entirety of the earth's oceans (16), destroying all life. | Life spontaneously arose by chance at least 30 separate times, each within a period of ~10 million years |
| Complex bacterial life (oxygenic photosynthesis) had appeared by 3.7 billion years ago (17), leaving virtually no time for prebiotics to have evolved into the first life forms. | discard evidence |
New theories
New theories, such as assembly of biomolecules on mineral surfaces, are constantly being proposed to attempt to get around the problems associated with the spontaneous origin of life. However, even if you put purified chemicals together (which can't be synthesized prebiotically), you can get polymers only up to 50 mer (obviously not enough for life) (4). Therefore, none of these theories has been able to get around the fundamental chemical problems required for life to have begun on the Earth. Some quotes from evolutionists are cited below:
"It's a very long leap from [mineral] surface chemistry to a living cell." Norman Pace (evolutionary biologist, University of California, Berkeley). (18)
"On theoretical grounds, however, it [mineral clay synthesis] seems implausible. Structural irregularities in clay that were complicated enough to set the stage for the emergence of RNA probably would not be amenable to accurate self-replication." (Leslie Orgel)
'There is now overwhelmingly strong evidence, both statistical and paleontological, that life could not have been started on Earth by a series of random chemical reactions.... There simply was not enough time... to get life going." Niles Eldridge (paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History). (19)
"There is no agreement on the extent to which metabolism could develop independently of a genetic material. In my opinion, there is no basis in known chemistry for the belief that long sequences of reactions can organize spontaneously -- and every reason to believe that they cannot. The problem of achieving sufficient specificity, whether in aqueous solution or on the surface of a mineral, is so severe that the chance of closing a cycle of reactions as complex as the reverse citric acid cycle, for example, is negligible." Leslie Orgel, 1998 (The Salk Institute for Biological Studies). (20)
Prebiotic chemistry would produce a wealth of biomolecules from non living precursors. But the wealth soon became overwhelming, with the "prebiotic soups" having the chemical complexity of asphalt (useful, perhaps, for paving roads but not particularly promising as a wellspring for life). Classical prebiotic chemistry not only failed to constrain the contents of the prebiotic soup, but also raised a new paradox: How could life (or any organized chemical process) emerge from such a mess? Searches of quadrillions of randomly generated RNA sequences have failed to yield a spontaneous RNA replicator. Steven A. Benner, 1999 (professor of Chemistry at the University of Florida). (21)
Even origin of life researchers are now admitting that getting the basic building blocks for an RNA world is virtually impossible:
G. F. Joyce and L. E. Orgel lead us into the RNA world with a description of the difficulties in achieving the direct synthesis of nucleosides and nucleotides from prebiotic precursors and conclude that the de novo appearance of oligonucleotides on primitive Earth amounts to a "near miracle" W. Keller, 1999 (22).
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A few preliminary notes:
God is not an ultimate explanation.
Since it is a basic fallacy to attempt to explain any mystery with a bigger mystery.
And we are definitely making progress in establishing plausible pathways for RNA to emerge, so the origin of life is NOT a fundamental problem, although it requires some imagination and clever detective work about ancient environments.
Seems a lot of cherry-picking aimed at painting a false picture of the state of modern research in these areas.
Skimming thru that enormous post had me in permanent face-palm mode.
No time right now to deconstruct that pile of nonsense, but I will try to add comments as I can.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Not a science guy here, but Bob is one of the best to explain this stuff. That certainly is quite the wall of text & it appears to be from the get go its the wool in sheep's clothing, like Intelligent Design is really a bunch of creationist pretending they are not.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics is a real tell. The website talking origins is really a great place to debunk creation scientist.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo.html
I have never heard that oxygen has been on the earth for 4 billion years. What would have produced it? Perhaps an invisible, eternal sky daddy?
I tracked their link to the Astrobiology.nasa.gov link (I am skeptical-Is that a legitimate link anyone?)
http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/articles/life-under-bombardment/
Looks like it is 2 billion years there to me. The science and god guys are obvious trying to point to everything was here at once. They have given up on the 6000 years it seems. Religions always come kicking and screaming into the modern world. They have a long laundry list of prior things they didn't want to let go of, the earth is the center of the universe (good metaphor), the earth doesn't move, the earth is flat, evolution is a lie - then they split evolution into two with micro and macro and say macro is a lie, etc).
Don't know what they mean that life arose in fresh water ponds. I can't tell is that is what they believe or are assuming evolutionist believe. But that doesn't make sense to me. I would think life had to begin in salt water, but could be wrong.
Will have to leave it to others to do more dissections.
## edit ## cleaning up some grammar. the nazis made me do it.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
What is not needed as a cause, regardless of what we don't know about the universe is a magical non material cognition with super powers.
The theist is desperate so they try to retrofit science to prop up their myth. The bible was written in an age of scientific ignorance. It is not a science textbook.
Non material invisible super friends with magical super powers are mere human fantasy. No amount of bastardizing science will change that.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Sure.
Number 1, you won't get the most up to date science from creationists, either in biology, cosmology, particle physics or from theoretical physicists.
They're often still stuck talking Einstein. There's been much discovered, added and tested since then.
New particles are being found all the time, and the most recent one they believe they've found is the Neutral-Xi-sub-b.
There's no problem with the methodological naturalists worldview. Skeptics hate being wrong. That's why they test their claims and theories to be absolutely sure they accurately model reality.
The Large Hadron Collider is called the 'Most Important Machine In The World', and is also believed to be the largest machine ever created by man (aka: Skeptics) and demonstrates the committment to gaining accurate knowledge and building accurate models of reality.
Before 'skeptics' the church taught that the bats were birds and that rabbits chewed on cud.
I doubt theists really want to go 'tit for tat' with modern science.
No. That's the theist worldview. It's known as the Cosmological Argument, or the Kalam Cosmological Argument.
The evidence points to a rapid inflation from a singularity. There's no evidence beyond that, only speculation.
No.
But there's no evidence that the Big Bang was something other than 'natural'.
Incorrect.
It is only 'possible' to the extent that people 'imagine' it's possible. That doesn't make it actually possible.
No, it doesn't actually. The most current scientific evidence only strengthens the atheist worldview.
So does winning the lottery and getting a hole in one.
Odds against and never a proof than something extraordinary won't happen.
No.
Not at all. The Large Hadron Collider was designed to create the energy levels present at the time of the Big Bang, to see how particles react under those conditions.
Patently false.
Over 10,000 engineers and physicists from over 85 countries around the world collaborated for decades to build the Large Hadron Collider to conduct tests to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of particle physics and cosmology that were built on gaps in our knowledge that was filled with smaller colliders.
No. This statement needs to address newer evidence.
There is evidence that meteorites have been (and still are) peppering the planets in the universe with projectiles that may have contained/may contain biological life forms capable of resisting extremely high temperatures and freeze and thaw cycles, and spawned the 'life' here on earth.
It may very well be imagined that in some possible world that God created beings in his own image on some other planet, that don't resemble us at all, and that we are in fact nothing more than a more evolved mammal (animal).
That is certainly 'imaginable', and would really ruin the theology that 'man' isn't among the poor food chain of 'animals' without a 'soul'.
Theists only lack imagination when it doesn't directly benefit them.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
RedneF makes excellent points about the apparent theistic criticism of an atheistic worldview. For what it is worth, I am submitting an article from 2010 by Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak http://telicthoughts.com/the-current-state-of-abiogenesis-research/. It covers many of the points mentioned above that indicate abiogenesis was impossible. In a nutshell it addresses the problems of:
Homochirality (a trait found in all the building blocks of life, these molecules possess the same configuration around the chiral center, or central atom. it is not understood at the moment if this has a purpose, but it is a phenomenon that must be addressed. Some of the solutions mentioned are irradiated ore, natural preference for homochirality (or spontaneous absolute assymetric synthesis), and in fact extraterrestrial (meteorite) influence. As for as I can find, none of these is considered to be the strongest solution. However, if there are possibilities (and some of these are somewhat beyond my capacity to fully explain) then that does not rule out natural explanation. As for the second law of thermodynamics in homochirality, in The Cause of Chirality Consesus (http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/cCellular reproductioncb/2008/00000002/00000002/art00005) it can be proposed that it is a consequence of increasing entropy related to evolving systems. To state that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is broken by homochirality is an attempt to make naturalists feel ridiculous, when this is potentially evidence for the earliest forms of biological evolution.)
Nucleic acids arising prebiotically (it is possible when the conditions are met (which are complex) in a solution with a pH of 6.5. The key according the Szostak is the simplicity of the earliest live cells. Szostak states these cells are self replicating, and self building, Further, self replication of primitive nuceic acids can occur in the laboratory if nucleotides are supplied externally (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19734203) to membrane vesicles. He concludes in his abstract that membranes are not a barrier to the fomation of these self replicating cells. Also In Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins makes the point that we have 1,000,000,000 years to play with in order for these very primitive cells to emerge which simply and voraciously replicate themselves. When the complexity of this process (which is profound but entirely possible) is compared to apparent complexity of God that is all powerful, one sees it is far more likely life evolved from the prebiotic "soup" than this God ever existed.)
Cellular Reproduction (Szostak's answer is basically Montmorillonite clay, where catylization occurs with fatty acids derived from meteorites. In the clay they grow by being influenced by highly charged molecules (kinetic activity I assume from volcanic discharge), and their membranes form long skinny bubbles and finally seperate into two new cells. Once again, life did not just appear on Earth. One must accept the possibility of interstellar influence and be open-minded. Theists would rather focus on the enormous improbability and assumed contradictions in order to substantiate the neccessity of a God. If God is a neccessity, then religion follows, etc.
Finally, in Szostak's last point, Darwinism is free to take its course and complexity emerges. If modern science can achieve such things in the last fifty years, why is it so difficult to imagine nature achieving even greater ends in one billion? Also, what place in science does God have other than the ultimate nullification? God-science is clearly an oxymoron, and neither belong in the same sentence unless its a philosophical discussion.
Thanks guys, specially redneF, for your trouble.
I'm currently working through the testimony of Dr. Padian in Kitzmiller vs Dover.
Excellent!
Is there a website for that or are you reading a book?
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Glad you liked it. There's so much more that can be posted about creationist bunk.
This is a great site for debunking creationists http://www.talkorigins.org/
Here's a short video that debunks the 'irreducible complexity' canard that the ID scammers tried to use to prove that certain complex biological systems (like the eye, flagellum) were too complex to have evolved from simpler systems, and were claimed to be the 'signature' of a designer. This was proven a fallacy using Behe's own example of a mousetrap.
If you're interested in Kitzmiller vs Dover, you might enjoy this video from Eugenie C. Scott, who is executive director at the National Center for Science Education, who fight these creationists in court.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
Ex-minister:
Um, if you are referring to my post (which I know is dense) I have listed in it the articles I read. Everything else I used to address the subject I got from wikipedia (an amazing resource as I'm sure you know) and my O-chem textbook. Abiogenesis is a really complicated subject, so you will probably have to go back and forth to understand some of the concepts (unless of course you are a biochemist or chemical engineer or whatnot).
I think redneF makes the most neccessary points though. I only wanted to show how the article in essence is propagada.
Let me point out the fundamental fallacy of creationism in particular and religion in general. When it comes to debating ambiguous events such as the universe's origin, it's not a Scientific definite answer versus a Religious definite answer. It's not a your answer is incorrect while mine is correct. All that the skeptical worldview is proposing is, "we don't know", but here are a few options that have a good probability of having occurred. In the religious view being outright wrong is somehow superior to being uncertain.
For example let's talk about the universe prior to Hubble's observational implications being understood. If a skeptic and a religious person had a debate, the skeptic would claim that considering all the empirical data, the universe is PROBABLY constant. A religious person would claim that god created everything.
A true skeptic would allow for his/her position to be wrong, also allow for degrees of certainty relative to any knowledge. A religious person is just just throwing a silly claim in the equation and than claiming that it is DEFINITELY the answer.
The issue is between reasonable people that allow for degrees of PROBABILITY and people that claim to know DEFINITELY without any evidence.
The article is littered with fallacies and inaccuracies too many to list.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
If your question is for me.... I found it at the "talkorigins" site, subsection "faqs" and "dover".
I actually realized that I wasted your time, all the answers are out there!
Anyway, Prof. Padian's testimony is really good and comprehensively debunks the ID's propositions.
By the way, the slides he mentions in his testimony are not at talkorigins but can be found on Berkeley's evolution page.
1: There are plenty of events without cause going on all around us. For example, radioactive decay. This is a random process. We know more or less why it happens and the statistics invovled, but the actual event of decay occurs at a random time and is about as 'uncaused' as one can get without becoming nonsensical. Quantum fluctuations are another set of 'uncaused' events.
2: Mathematically speaking, having a lower bound on the parameter "time" does not imply having a minimum. Think of, say, a real number line. If the history of the universe is akin to the interval (0 , 13 billion], then we find that there is a lower bound on the time coordinate without there actually being a minimum. It is mathematically possible to have a lower limit on time without having an "earliest" event (and thus without having a first cause).
3. A lack of evidence where evidence would be expected is evidence of a lack. Every time someone prays and their prayers go unanswered, that's evidence against any god who is supposed to be interested in answering prayers.
4. I have never heard of needing a narrow range of physical laws for matter to exist. Maybe complex matter like stars or something, but matter itself in unspecified form doesn't seem like it needs special laws. Furthermore, most attempts to extend physics beyond the standard model involve a reduction in the number of free parameters, which in turn means a reduction in the number of possible sets of physical parameters, thus making physics that leads to life significantly less improbable. Also, the theists fail to consider alternative natural explanatory candidates such as universe evolution, where stable universes produce black holes which produce new universes with similar but slightly different physics, eventually evolving ever-more stable universes (more stability = more black holes = more offspring). This is admittedly highly speculative, yet it is more grounded than "God did it," because we actually have reasons to suspect that black holes exist.
5. Where do the theists get the idea that the cause cannot be detected observationally? Even if this were true, wouldn't it mean that if God were the first cause then God can not be detected observationally, and thus the theists' position is at least as lacking in evidence as the atheists'?
6. Theists need to stop making false dichotomies. There are more than two possibilities for the origin of life. To demonstrate a few alternatives: Life from meteors, which ultimately means spontaneous formation, but elsewhere with a better environment and potentially more time; Life sucked in through a worm hole from another universe with physics better suited for life and then transported to Earth via meteor; Or life simply willing itself into existence (hey, it makes about as much sense as most gods).
7. Wait a minute, didn't the theists just spend a whole lot of time arguing that the universe was finely tuned to support life? If that's the case, then why is it surprising that life came about without further divine intervention? The theists can't have it both ways. If the cosmos is fine tuned, then we should expect life to arise naturally. If life needs divine intervention to come about, then clearly the universe is not fine tuned to the development of life. The two arguments presented conflict with one another!
8. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of a closed system always increases. But the local environment in which life would have formed is not a closed system. Local decreases in entropy are perfectly consistent with the 2nd law, which only requires global increase of entropy. If I lose 10 points of entropy here and gain 1000 over there, I'm consistent with 2nd law while also generating a local low-entropy region where life can take root.
I don't know enough about biology to address the table, but I hope the above helps.
Questions for Theists:
http://silverskeptic.blogspot.com/2011/03/consistent-standards.html
I'm a bit of a lurker. Every now and then I will come out of my cave with a flurry of activity. Then the Ph.D. program calls and I must fall back to the shadows.
Yes, FM this was what I was looking for "the testimony of Dr. Padian in Kitzmiller vs Dover".
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover.html
thanks.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Oh and FMStereo it is not wasting my time or anyone else's. There is a lot of BS out there and I find it very helpful to have this group dissect it. I have learned far more this way. Someone will explain it in away I get it or sometimes it takes multiple explanations for it to click. Post your questions freely.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
I somehow managed to keep reading that garbage up to the moment it misapplied entropy, that ironically happening simultaneously with the first actual use of the term in the article.
The first mistake the article made was jumping from the fact that we don't know exactly what the big bang was or what caused it, if anything; to postulating that our lack of knowledge on a cause somehow implies a single cause, and names that cause an uncaused entity of divine proportions.
The reality is that if everything must have a cause, then even god must have a cause.
And the further reality is that it could have been 2 things happening at the same time or subsequently in a specific order which caused the universe. Or 3. Or 10. Or a billion. Or even nothing, if the sum of the universe equals 0.
That we don't know the cause means that we can't limit the cause in an attempt to find it. Science doesn't work as quickly and efficiently (if at all) if you incorporate bias into your hypothesis.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
The second mistake was in attacking strong atheism whilst ignoring strong theism, which suffers the same flaw. This was actually two mistakes in one. The second half of the error is that by ignoring strong theism as equally guilty, the article proves beyond question its bias, and by extension its lack of credibility.
It also failed to acknowledge that even a god CAN be refuted if its attributes are incompatible with existence in even the slightest fashion. That the potential existence of a being which matches sufficiently with varied descriptions of deities throughout history to fit the term "god" is possible enough to decry as irrational any attempt to claim knowledge that there is no god does NOT mean that a specific description of a god cannot be rationally discarded as untrue and ridiculous.
And then it misapplied entropy, and I stopped reading.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Actually, I'm going to make a revision. The FIRST mistake was in presuming there was such thing as a skeptical "worldview". The second was in implying there was a flaw with the skeptical "worldview", and then failing to identify what either the flaw or the worldview was in the first place. And it accomplished all of this with the opening title.
In short, it broke apart just getting out of the starting gate, and lay at the starting line until carried away by medics who pronounced it D.O.A.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.