You respond to a theist who will be coming on the show soon...
Offline We accepted his request. We also alerted him that we're posting this thread, and will alert him to it....
YOU RESPOND:
FROM: Dave M
Hello All
Your website and your efforts are very interesting. I've even viewed some
of the video clips from blasphemychallnege.com, and I have some questions
for you. First off, many folks who adhere to these views repeat the
mantra that they've come to their conclusions via logic and reason. However, I've not been able to find on your site, or any other similar
site for that matter, any explanation of the origin of the universe. You
see, the big bang theory is predominant among many atheists. A stable
singularity the size of a baseball that contained all the matter and
energy in the known universe that suddely exploded into what we see today.
Physics proved that objects in motion will stay in motion unless acted
upon by an outside force, and objects at rest will remian at rest unless
acted upon by an outside force. Can you answer the question of What force
acted on the singularity that caused the Big Bang? This would be most
helpful in your debates.Also, many who adhere to your philosophy would also adhere to the fact
that we are all here by chance. Science has proven that all of the
information contained in our own DNA would fill the Grand Canyon forty
times over with books of information. Thats incredible considering that
it happened by chance. It would be like dropping the pieces of a scrabble
board on the floor and getting the first sentence of War and Peace, very
unlikey.In conclusion I would like to say that yes indeed I am a Christian, but I
used to study Evolution, and I will admit that I used to share the same
views as you. I also saw on your website that you have a radio show. I
would very much like to challennge anyone at your organization to an
on-air debate so that I can prove that your ideas are flawed.Let me know,
Dave
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But at some point, based on all data collected, whether it concerns the origin of the universe, or the origin of life, a determination regarding reliability must be made. What will science say about the probabilities of these things occuring? What will people conclude from the data that shows how finely tuned the universe really is?
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
You are wrong (again) on every count. Natural selection, proceeding in gradual steps over millions of years, has been shown mathematically and through the fossil record to be more than powerful enough to create modern complex organisms. The barrier to your understanding is an inability to really visualize MILLIONS of years. Don't feel bad, there's no one who can.
What we see in the fossil record is evolution. When we dig down a certain depth, we find horse skeletons that are subtly different from modern horses. When we go deeper, the skeletons become steadily more different, until,at a depth that was laid down millions of years ago, we find creatures that are completely unlike horses, yet connected to the next creature in the chain by a huge number of similar features. There can be no doubt that this creature is a link in the chain that leads to modern horses, yet is a completely different species.
Darwin never expressed any doubt, anywhere, that natural selection and evolution were responsible for every feature of every living thing we see today. If you try to say or imply otherwise, you are lying.
At the end of the day, Darwin came up with a theory that explains how all living things got the way they are. His theory predicted that there was some mechanism by which living things could change from one generation to the next, and that prediction was borne out by the discovery of DNA. Evolution is fact.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
Don't think so. What scientists do is dig up parts and pieces of whole organisms and make outraggeous inferences about how that creature lived and interacted with its surroundings. Its a greater leap of faith than what you claim Christians engage in. There is a significant lack of transitional species found in the fossil record, and most of the assumptions we conclude from the ones we have is merely conjecture.
At the end of the day, we will still need to asses the data to determine if the complexity of our world happened by chance, or by design.
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
You still do not comprehend how science works. Scientific laws and principles are descriptive, not prescriptive. The fundamental constants are not fine tuned. There is no inherent meaning to them. They are simply the numbers that are used to effectively model the behavior of the universe. Nature does not act as we wish it to; on the contrary, we make "laws" based on what we observe.
An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.
You are displaying yourself to be incredibly anti-scientific. Scientists don't just make shit up, and if they do, they are discredited and reprimanded. Who the hell made you an authority on what is and what is not sufficient in the scientific realm?
1. You're really not getting this whole "evolution" thing, are you? There is a great deal of chance involved in evolution, but the primary mechanism - natural selection - is not random. I want you to describe how you imagine evolution to proceed to see if your understanding is correct.
2. Complexity is not an inherent property of anything. It simply describes out difficulty in comprehending some things. Thus, this cannot be a measure of design. Even if there was a way to objectively quantify complexity, the point at which something must have been designed would be arbitrary.
3. It is impossible to deduce design by merely observing nature. Let's say you find a stuffed rabbit out in the desert. You can deduce it was designed since you know where/how it was made and its function. Furthermore, you can speak with a worker at the factory if you do not know how it works. Now, is it possible to go to a "universe-factory" and talk to god, asking for him to explain how he builds worlds? Of course not. Can you deduce the function of the universe? I'd say that you couldn't, but that won't stop you from posting religious fairy tales.
An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.
Same old excuse. You call the words of others 'jibber jabber" and you declare that we don't want to discuss the issues...
The reality is that we are all discussing the issues, and that the real answers go over your head.
That's not an apology. In fact, you're tossing insults, and then blaming me for taking them as insults!
Please do yourself a favor and stop lying to yourself, because the rest of us can see through you.
The reality is that you've made a lot of comments, and every time your comments are refuted, you run from the refutation without even bothering to try to respond.
Yet you continue to post anyway.
That means you're overwhelmed.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
Yet you don't even know what his conclusions are. You've proven time and time again that you don't know what you're talking about. I'll show you yet again.
Again, you don't know enough about it to argue for or against it. Previously you called it 'random'. Then you asked for an explanation of what it is!
Stop embarrassing yourself. You don't know what you're talking about.
You don't know what they are.
No, he didn't. Here's what he actually said:
Here's what you ignorant folk quote:
To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. - Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, 1st Ed., p. 186.
Now here's the part they cut out. Here's what you don't know about:
Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound.
You need to stop talking about things you clearly, obviously, know nothing about.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
I'm just sick and tired of reading your inane comments. You don't have a fucking clue as to how paleontology works. They do not make 'outrageous inferences" - these inferences only appear outrageous to you because you're utterly ignorant to how it works.
You're like a pygmy saying that a lighter must be magic, because you can't figure out how fire could come from such a small metal box. Just like the ignorant pygmy, you explain away anything that you can't grasp as 'magic'.
You don't have any idea, whatsoever, of what you are talking about.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
I want the board to notice that this guy challenged me to show where he said that evolution was random... I then demonstrated precisely where he said so.... He then went on to ignore it, and then insist that he never said it anyway.
Yet here he is, on page four, yet again referring to 'chance'.
He's corrected over and over, and yet he's not even able to see where he makes the error, let alone correct it.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
I challenge you to offer a better explaination for anything found in the fossil record than the current explanation in the scientific literature. Don't dodge, don't prevaricate, go ahead and try to tear just one theory down. I double dog dare you. If you need time to prepare your statement, let us know how long you want.
The fact that you will fail in this (and probably not even try) is proof that scientists offer the BEST explanations for fossil evidence which can therefore be accepted with the LEAST amount of inference and speculation.
You are shifting your ground now away from evolution to the origin of the world. Evolution makes no claims about the origins of life. As with your Big Bang comments, you are too ignorant even of the theory you are criticizing to make a coherent argument.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
I wasn't sure whether he was referring to life (i.e. the complexity of our world) or the origin of life (if the complexity of our world happened), or the origin of the planet for that matter.... Glad you've covered the other angle!
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
I know one thing, you guys are getting all woked up because you can't counter the complexity issue! Period.
I do know what evolution is. Its change over time. And the fossil record does not support it no matter how many outrageous inferences evolutionary biologists make. WHERE ARE THE ABUNDANT TRANSISTIONAL FORMS IN THE FOSSIL RECORD TODANGST?
Thas't what I know.
As for why I'm a Theist:
Well for starters, I do take into consideration all that science has to offer in attempting to explain the phenomena that is our Universe. I do accept the Hot Big Bang model as to how our universe began and is now expanding. Even if we can empirically explain the existence of that all encompassing singularity that started it all, I doubt we will ever be able to explain how that singularity came into existence. It had to come into being somehow.
So it is at this point that I believe in a power above all powers that exists in our universe. This power was there before the existence of the singularity, and will exist after all of the matter, which is in our universe, ceases to exist. This power has to exist outside of our universe, but is also intricately involved in our universe. This power is beyond human comprehension. It is beyond anything we could ever possibly imagine.
This power is obviously what I refer to as God.
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
I'm not making an error. See that's where you're wrong. Anyone who disagrees with you is always in 'error', or 'ignorant'. Do you realize how pompus and arrogant you sound when you write that stuff?
And that's right, I keep referring to chance because if its not chance its choice.
Either our univerese decided by itself to create itself, or something created it.
Life decide by itself to create itself, or something created it.
And don't cuss at me, it hurts my Christian ears.
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
yes, you are. I demonstrated why, and you just ignored it.
Again:
Here:
Ahem, yes, you are:
This is equating evolution with randomness.
Please stop your lying. I've not just asserted it, you were wrong, I have demonstrated it.You implied that the process was random.
I'm not just naysaying you, and igoring your responses. That's what you are doing.
Do you realize how you project your feelings of inferioritry when you say this? I sound arrogant to you, because you're wrong a hell of a lot, and it bothers you.
Now you admit to the error.
It's not just 'chance'
You really don't have any idea of what you're talking about.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
I pretty much give up. This guy obviously understands nothing about logic or science, and refuses to take facts into consideration. I can't wait for this show...
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
And you take that claim on faith, even when evidence to the contrary presents itself. I understand, I used to do that myself.
Please stop projecting your issues on to me. I am not angry at all, I'm not upset at all.
More projections.
He did it to himself. Hopefully when he comes back he can follow the rules, plenty of other theists seem to be able to.
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No, it's just that you don't know what you're talking about.
Here:
and here:
http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/dikikababy/
and here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
This includes the following:
PART I has FISHES TO FIRST MAMMALS & BIRDS:
1. Introduction:
1. Types of transitions
2. Why are there gaps?
3. Predictions of creationism & evolution
4. What's in this FAQ
5. Timescale
2. Transitions from primitive fish to sharks, skates, rays
3. Transitions from primitive fish to bony fish
4. Transition from fishes to first amphibians
5. Transitions among amphibians
6. Transition from amphibians to first reptiles
7. Transitions among reptiles
8. Transition from reptiles to first mammals (long)
9. Transition from reptiles to first birds
PART 2 has transitions among mammals (starting with primates), including numerous species-to-species transitions, discussion, and references. If you're particularly interested in humans, skip to the primate section of part 2, and also look up the fossil hominid FAQ.
1. Overview of the Cenozoic
2. Primates
3. Bats
4. Carnivores
5. Rodents
6. Lagomorphs (rabbits & hares)
7. Condylarths (first hoofed animals)
8. Cetaceans (whales & dolphins)
9. Perissodactyls (horses, rhinos, tapirs)
10. Elephants
11. Sirenians (dugongs & manatees)
12. Artiodactyls (pigs, hippos, deer, giraffes, cows, etc.)
13. Species transitions from other miscellaneous mammal groups
14. Conclusion:
* A bit of historical background
* The major features of the fossil record
* Good models & bad models: which theories match the data best?
* The main point.
15. References
Ask Yellow five for more.
But you really don't care. You prefer to spout off from your ignorance.
You really don't have any idea, at all, of what you're talking about. And it shows. Stop embarrassing yourself.
which is basically nothing
You don't know much of anything about science, you are fundamentally ignorant of every topic you discuss.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
And in the post after...
You essentially called me a liar that I wasn't Christian. You said I'm angry, which I'm not. You said I'm upset, which I'm not. You called EVERYONE here a child throwing a temper tantrum, and now you're lying again about the fact that you didn't insult us.
It's ok we can take the insults, just understand that lying about the act of not insulting us is just as insulting to our intelligence as any other lie you've thrown out.
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I have addressed the complexity issue already:
2. Complexity is not an inherent property of anything. It simply describes out difficulty in comprehending some things. Thus, this cannot be a measure of design. Even if there was a way to objectively quantify complexity, the point at which something must have been designed would be arbitrary.
An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.
Here's that ignorance Todangst spoke of. Darwin didn't admit that the probability was too high and too extreme that natural selection couldn't occur. In fact it was quite the opposite, Darwin admitted that the probability was so extreme that he understood why you would have a hard time believing it (yet it DID occur). He basically prophesied your inability to grasp it, admitting how hard it would be to grasp, yet remaining consistent that no matter how hard it was to grasp, natural selection is bounds more probable than "god did it."
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Projection. Notice exclamation point after claiming it is us who is getting worked up.
Please become a Patron of Brian Sapient
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Sapient, Insidium Profundis, the rest... this guy doesn't even have the common courtesy to respond to anything.... everyone here has had to repeat themselves.....
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
I'm sure glad you give up Shizzle. All I heard out of you was profanity and you work third shift.
But thatnks anyway for the intellectual wizardry.
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
Dude, you're gonna be the guest of honor at bukkake party if you go on the show....
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
DMI are you still willing to go on the show?
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Magical thinking, being wrong and refusing to be shaken from it when faced with rational thought. I once believed in Santa Claus but outgrew it. I once believed in the Bible and I outgrew that too. I think that when you let go of the emotional attachments you have for your God Delusion you'll grow up too.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca
126 replies? Why does this guy (dimclock) get so much attention? He hasn't brought any intellectual argument for creationism, yet he has been able to keep others repeating what they have already said over and over. He really isn't going to comprehend any of the efforts put forth thus far. A huge waste of time, IMO. But not to be misunderstood, I do appreciate the efforts and have learned some things from the posts.
Yes I have. With regard to the origin of the universe, I have asserted that no matter how many billionths of seconds you go back, you will eventually get to that stable singularity which you will never have any explanation for. It's existence is purely outside of our natural world, therfore its supernatural.
Don't project your inability to comprehend on to me!
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
What evidence do you have that it's outside our natural world? This is another god of the gaps argument: "We don't know, therefore God did it".
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca
I'll explain that when I come on the show, and no it's not a god of the gaps argument, its a very simple concept to grasp.
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
How is the singularity outside the natural world? Singularities are natural objects that can be described and predicted with current physics.
The time before the singularity existed (if it's even valid to refer to such a time) is unknown. That means we have no information about it and, as far as we know, it could be the domain of pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters and god. However we don't know that, and neither do you, dmiclock. I agree that the unknown is the same as the supernatural - a nullity in reality populated only by the contents of our imaginations. If you want to put god there, go crazy, but don't be surprised when other people don't buy into your fantasy.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
So believing in God is magical thinking, but believing that the universe.. just 'poof' came from nowhere isn't?
Really!
Nice plug for Richard's new book. Do you guys get a cut each time you metion it?
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
First of all, singularities are theoretical objects that can be predicted with current physics.
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
No, the universe didn't come from nothing. Matter, in some form, had to be eternal. The universe as we know it is not eternal.
While it is true that I never actually believed, I'm pretty sure a lot of the members here were once believers. You don't know them personally, yet you claim they weren't Christians.
Thai food is good, but it doesn't answer all the cosmological questions.
Actually, it is mostly curry and local spices. But magic it is!
Right. Which makes them natural objects that are described by science. Not supernatural. Not god.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
If you believe in prayer, you believe in magical thinking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking
"Magical thinking is a term used by some scholars to describe non-scientific causal reasoning (ie superstition). James George Frazer and Bronislaw K. Malinowski said that magic is more like science than religion, and that societies with magical beliefs often had separate religious beliefs and practices. Like science, magic is concerned with causal relations, but unlike science confuses correlation with causation. For example, someone may believe a shirt is lucky if he had won a bowling competition in it. He will continue to wear the shirt to bowling competitions, and though he continues to win some and lose some, he will chalk up every win to his lucky shirt."
On the universe issue. No, I and other scientist don't believe that the universe just "poof" popped into existence. Prehaps if you'd learn about science from a science source you'd know more about it. It appears that many theist learn what they think is science from a fundy that knows nothing about science, but talks about it anyway.
Yes, really.
No. Do you get paid a royality everytime you present us with a link to a theist website?
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca
Is this the sort of behavior that free thinking - philosophical intellectuals engage in? Does it bother you that this word is even in your lexicon? Although, I would expect as much from atheists, don't want a sticky thing like God taking all the fun away.
I thank the Lord that I had to look that word up.
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
How does it appear that way to you? This sounds to me like another way of saying, "If you don't agree with our interpretation of the data, then you're ignorant."
I never pointed anyone to a theist website.
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
This is not about intrepreting the data. It's about mistating fundimental concepts of science issues like evolution, the laws of thermodynamics, the big bang , etc. For example, you seem to believe that science believes that "poof" the universe popped into existence is part of the Big Bang Theory.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. - Seneca
This is what bothers me. You think because I'm a theist that 1. I don't understand how science works, and 2. I'm a right wing fundy. I only have an issue when science makes outrageous leaps based on limited data. I'm simply saying that we need to be real about the results. Evolution is an area where I think they embelish the data. Evolutionary Biologist are always mudding up the waters with outrageous conclusions. Like coming to the conclusion that I don't drink coffee because you didn't see any in my pantry.
The fact that there is 'Life' indicates to me that there is a purpose for it.
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
Where was that again?
See this is where you get annoying. Todangst already addressed this and you still don't see.
Wow. I like how you employ todangst's comments at you to me- assuming I am one that is beneath your argument. You come off like a total hard-head with no ability to comprehend simple logic. 1+1=2. Nothing magical about it. I'm not even going to bother with a hothead like you anymore because you are just here to antagonize and not have a real conversation/debate. (Great avatar to represent yourself, btw).
Who are you? What have you done to Todangst?
*Is confused now*
No, I don't believe that 'science belives' that. I understand that Big Bang only descibes events after the initial event, I understand that we see strong morpholigical evidence for evolution, but this whoe universe is tremendously fine tuned, fine tuned to a degree that I believe is beyond natural phenomena.
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
I'm not sure how I gave you the impression that I'm a Hot Head. I enjoy posting on this site and have enjoyed, for the most part, many of the comments and arguments.
My refusal to entertain an infinite number of theoretical regressions like membranes colliding, or quantum vacuums that attempt to descibe how all of this came to be should not be concluded as an inability to comprehend simple logic. I simply don't agree.
The fine tuning speaks for itself. Cosmological constant, DNA, photosynthesis, etc...
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
Ummmm... This is about the only real response left for dmi..
http://www.outpimp.com/?x=481616894
:
:
or this:
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/youare.php
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
That's it Sapient, I'm done. You asked a few posts back if I still wanted to be on the show. I am a man of my word and at that time the answer was still yes. Now however I must decline. Posts like this one, and the one from Todansgt remove any of the credibility your organization has. I wonder if a guy like Richard Dawkins would appreciate the behavior of some of his loyal followers? Probably not.
You see, at the end of the day this will be your contribution to society, this will be your mark on mankind and nobody will ever take you seriously:
-------------> www.outpimp.com
At it speaks volumes.
I have nothing against you, you treated me fair and allowed me to post. For that I thank you. I did enjoy posting and have learned alot about atheism and what they believe. I still hold to my belief that evidence for God's existence lies in the fine tuning and complexity of the entire system which is beyond anything that any natural phenomena can account for.
I also think you have good website here, good luck in all you do, and may God Bless You.
All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of His covenant.
I just had to mention a thing or two:
Actually Woolsey Teller covered this pretty well in his book The Atheism of Astronomy.
"Our idea of "order" is necessarily derived from the existing conditions, whatever these happen to be; and no matter what arrangement might prevail, we would be sure to observe "order." It is in the nature of the case impossible for a thing, or even a group of things, not to bear relationship to all other things, and whatever relationship exists constitutes the "established order....If the sun revolved around the earth, instead of the earth around the sun, or if the earth were a disk spinning like a cart-wheel through space, instead of a globe rotating on its axis, we would recognize this as the "established order" of motion, even though it were the precise opposite of what we observe now. In brief, any combination of conditions or circumstances in which we might find ourselves would appear "orderly" to our perception, because it is the existing conditions which establish the "order."
Wow, and talk about not having a sense of humor.
Do any of the regulars think either Todangst or I did anything wrong?
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
I recall replying to the complexity/fine-tuning argument earlier, yet my points were not addressed.
MattShizzle, the idea is to kill them with kindness (slaughter them with safety?), not to blatantly offend them with something (which is quite irrelevant to the discussion at hand anyway).
An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.