The New Atheist Crusaders and their quest for the Unholy Grail
Offline Hey all. It's been a while since I've been on. I appologise, I've been busy.
The title of this forum is the title of a book I just finished reading. It's a catchy title, so I figured it'd be a good way to grab someone's attention on here. The book is written by Becky Garrison.
If her name doesn't sound familiar, that's fine, it shouldn't. So why am I wasting your time telling you about this book? Well, I'm glad you asked. This is a book written by a True Christian. HUH? For all of you who have discussed with me in the past, you understand what I'm talking about and for those of you who haven't you can research my blogs. Caposkia is my name.
Anyway, It's written from the viewpoint of how a true Christian feels about of course the atheists in the world today, but more importantly for you, how she feels about Christians in the world.
This is for all of you arguing with me about how Christians have to be black and white. How you have to follow a religion and there's nothing outside of religion etc. She touches on all of this. I truly think you'll enjoy reading this book and I would like to hear from those of you who have read it if anyone. If not, I"ll wait till someone finishes it. It's not a very long book.
When I first came onto this site, I wanted to discuss directly with those who were involved in the infamous television debate that RRS was involved in about the existence of God with Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. They didn't have time and the other non-believers I came across were too opinionated to involve themselves in a conversation that made any progress. Instead I got into other debates which for the most part were a lot of fun, but I digress.
Becky mentions this debate as well in her book at the end. This is for all of you on here I've talked to who would not believe me or had other personal issues with the fact that my opinion didn't flow with their idea of a Christian. I will breifly say that I hold her viewpoint when she says that if she was at that debate, she would have "crawled out of that church in shame. "
Simply put, we both agree that both sides put forth deplorable excuses for their side and did not defend their side succesfully. I know I know, many of you will disagree and say that RRS did disprove the existance of God in that debate, but enough with the opinions, I'm saying the other side did just as good of a job proving God. This debate is a poor excuse to not follow Christ and this book talks about those types of Christians.
This book should clarify many misunderstandings of how True Christians are and I hope bring light to a new understanding of our following.
It is written differently than most books, but is an informational peice and uses a lot of researched information. It does focus on the "New Atheists" and is not a book preaching to the masses. As said, it is from the point of view of a True Christian.
enjoy, let me know your thoughts. I would also request, please be respectful in your responses. I'm here to have mature discussions with people.
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Scientifically the unknowns and illogicals of The Big Bang theory (e.g. how some scientific laws would have to have been broken in order for it to happen as theorized) seem to get explained.. The complexity of DNA is more logical and the fact that there aren't more errors in its replication makes more sense if there was a creator behind it in my opinion. The efficiency of the universe in the way that energy is neither created nor destroyed makes more sense. it's a smart design. The complexity of consciousness is comprehendable spiritually (your consciousness is spiritual) doesn't explain it, but clarifies it's possibility. Signalless communication makes no sense scientifically and only makes sense with the possibility of another means of communication e.g. metaphysical or spiritual.
That's just the science part. Beyond that, so many times people ask why. I'm not saying all the answers will come, but many why's would be answered with the rule of a God behind it. Unknown reasons, though not understood would be accepted as possible. I could go on.
Be it that we are physical and have concentrated on studying the physical and non-theism requires nothing outside the physical that makes a lot of sense.
Which is I think why Einstein supported that perspective. First things first though, we'd have to agree on the plausibility of a metaphysical existence before discussing the likelihood of either. a panentheism can't exist if metaphysics is false.
I don't see a universal corruption or corruption for that matter. I think that is Christology that is built upon a Fall that requires it and is therefore false. All I see is a gradual evolution. The couple is actuallly just the Mother r the Mitochondrial Eve some 200,000 year ago from which all humans share the same mitochondria. ( from East Africa). There were humans before that This lineage became the dominate genetic strain. Consciousness is simply a physical process. Information is not a menatal process but a physical one which gets exploited by mental processes. But information is all of the universe. Communication is between two entities and idea of signal requires the idea of purpose and/or intent.
There are no scientific laws broken of which i know for the big bang!!!! What are the illogicals of the BIg Bang? DNA starts off so simple that it is not DNA. And before DNA there was RNA. It is the evolution of DNA that is its complexity as it presently exists. The complexification of DNA was a naturally occurring event. I do not think it takes us looking out side of existence. There is not a lot of drift in DNA replication( errors). It varies more by sexual reproduction as DNA is combined.
http://www.theophoretos.hostmatrix.org/1/thermhch6d222.html
http://livinglifewithoutanet.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/dna-is-not-a-code/
"DNA is not a code. Ok, yes it is… sort of.
There’s been a rather tired argument making its way around the theist blogosphere of late, arguing that DNA is a code, and codes are designed things. The very fact of it being a code proves that there must have been someone who designed the code.
As usual, this argument comes down to using words improperly. A code, by the strictest definition, is in fact something designed by intelligent beings. It is a system of symbols that either arbitrarily or by some system represent various things. The alphabet I’m using to write this blog is a code. There’s nothing about the individual letters that have any inherent meaning. They don’t do anything in and of themselves. By agreement between multiple humans, we have a legend, or a key, which most of us learned in grammar school. By using this legend, we can look at anything in the code “English” and through substitution, come to the knowledge of the concepts symbolized by the various letters.
This is the traditional idea of a code, and it is what theists think they mean when they argue that DNA is a code. The thing is, DNA is not that kind of a code. DNA is a a polymer, which is composed of individual chemical units called nucleotides. There are four types of these nucleotides, and we humans have decided to call them adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. These names are not entirely arbitrary, but in the end, there’s nothing magical about them. We could call them Blob, Clob, Dob, and Emu, and they’d still be the same. Our language — the code we humans use to communicate — is just a way for us to give each other information and keep things separate in our own minds.
The nucleotides in DNA are often said to be the “blueprints” or “code” which define a sequence of messenger RNA which in turn defines at least one protein. In a sense, these proteins are the building blocks of life, and DNA is the “code” which determines the qualities of the life that will be built.
The problem with the theist argument, however, is that the DNA code is not arbitrary, and it does not rely at all on the agreement of sentient beings. In fact, it is exactly the same in nature as any other dynamic chemical process. When you see an explosion on TV, you’re watching a chemical reaction that was controlled by the same kind of “code.” Crystals grow based on such a code. Stars give off light and energy from the same kind of code.
All DNA is, to the chagrin of creationists, is a very, very complicated organic molecule that can react in a staggeringly large number of ways with other organic molecules. Unlike an explosion or a crystal, which can be described mathematically with a few simple formulas, the process of building a living thing is several orders of magnitude more complicated. It takes perhaps 10 billion bits to convey all the necessary information needed to build a human, and the process is never really finished until the human dies, so we’re talking about a very, very long process by comparison with an explosion, and billions more unique steps than the formation of a crystal.
Yet, it’s the same process. This molecule, when in the presence of that molecule, will bond and make this new molecule. It’s just chemistry.
The thing is, we humans recognize the complexity of the chemical process we call life, and we notice that it is not completely dissimilar from the process by which we build a skyscraper or a watch. We have a set of instructions, and we refer back to them throughout the whole process of putting materials together in very specific ways, until we have a finished product. We like to argue that messenger RNA is “referring to the instructions” to figure out which protein to build in the same way, but it’s not. Neither DNA nor RNA is sentient. They are both just doing what chemicals do. DNA is more akin to a catalyst than a set of instructions. That is, the DNA stays essentially the same throughout the building process, but it is facilitating chemical reactions the whole time it is part of a living thing.
So, here is the ultimate problem with this particular theist argument. DNA is not an arbitrary set of symbols that “stand for” something else that will be interpreted through some kind of a legend. It is a set of chemicals which are nonthinking, and have no choice but to do what they do, in the same way that a crystal has no choice but to grow when in the presence of the appropriate aqueous solution. DNA is just a very, very, very complicated molecule that happens to be capable of facilitating incredibly complex sets of chemical reactions.
Sure, it seems magical that something as simple as four little nucleotides could be responsible for all the diverse life on the planet, but our sense of wonder at the versatility of carbon shouldn’t woo us into the false belief that incredible versatility is equivalent to design. DNA is not a “code” in the normal sense of the word. We call it a code because doing so gives us an easy way to think of the process by which a strand of DNA is responsible for the building of a living thing.
That’s it. When we look at a particular sequence of nucleotides, we can recognize that the chemical reaction they facilitate will produce a certain protein. This is no different from looking at a few grams of sodium or potassium and recognizing that in the presence of water, they will react in very specific ways to produce a violent exothermic reaction. If DNA is a code, then so is every other molecule in the universe. It’s just the consistency of the laws of nature. This, in the presence of that, will do the other.
So no, DNA is not a code. It is analogous to a code in enough ways that it makes sense for us to refer to things like the “genetic code,” but in the end, we’re just not talking about the kind of code that would make the theist argument valid. Sorry, theists, but you fail on this one, too."
I do not see anything intelligent in the laws of thermodynamics. That would simply be the case of any limited system. What happens the energy is neither created or destroyed since it IS ALL THERE IS. What happens is that energy or information becomes less and less assessable ( entropy) and so the energy becomes less usable until it becomes a flat timespace and then it big bangs again.
Einstein did not really beleive ina pantheism or a panentheism. His language was metaphorical something like the force ( Star Wars) is what we'd use today. Panentheism does not require a metaphysic. Consciousness is a physical phenomenon. Show me a working metaphysic. I have a friend who is one of the top Christian philosophers in the USA and he admits though he is a Christian that there is no known working metaphysic. I certainly have found none. If you got one I sure would love to see it.
If there is no physical evidence then show me what metaphysical evidence looks like so that when you show me metaphysical evidence I can see it. I really do not understand what metaphysical evidence would be. help me out here.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whip cream."--Frank Zappa
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