Science vs God - a debate...a conversation

[MrMarbles]

Have to agree with Zhukov and Bully on this. You can easily witness human behavior and actions, are they controlled by god? How? Second of all, evolutin has been proven thorugh and through.

I was also wondering. If god made us, and love us, why did he create hell? Why make us imperfect then challenge us to be perfect? Why create a punishment for acts he has developed us to do?

 

[ajwps]

We readily accept that a fully formed and functional human being can arise from a few cells within the span of a generation.

We do? Exactly HOW does a fully formed functional human being arise from a few cells in approximately 9 months? Does that miracle occur out of pure choas or random events happening millions upon trillions of times a day? What a merry coincidence.

Why is it so difficult then, to accept that such has occurred of the span of billions of years?

EXACTLY. The odds of that occurring in the span of 20 billion (to the power of 2000) total universe time spans from the Big Bang would not be enough for one functioning mitochondria to form from random particles cascading into place? Do you know the answer? That is a fact....

As for the formation of amino acids, experiments in the 60's and 70's proved that they do form readily under laboratory conditions simulating earth's primordial environment.

Not really DNA but amino acid type material. 1n 1953, a University of Chicago graduate student named Stanley Miller working in Harold Urey's lab flipped a switch sending electric current through a chamber containing a combination of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water. The experiment yielded organic compounds including amino acids, the building blocks of life, and catapulted a field of study known as exobiology into the headlines. But did that mean amino acids were to produce life in any time span?

Some folks point to the spontaneous organizing behavior of crystals, polymers, or autocatalytic reactions. Some researchers see as more significant the spontaneous formation of organic molecules, such as amino acids or the development of proteinoid microspheres.

Yet all of this fails to explain the organizational issue. No one, not ever, has reproduced in chemistry (or through any other physical means) a spontaneous-launching organizational process of the sort that that will: perpetually develop adaptive systems, build one hierarcally system on top of another, and with each new system support the survivability of the overall system without failing at any point along the process.

Nope there remains no proof that life is formed by random chance. Sorry....

 

[Bullypulpit]

We do? Exactly HOW does a fully formed functional human being arise from a few cells in approximately 9 months? Does that miracle occur out of pure choas or random events happening millions upon trillions of times a day? What a merry coincidence.

You didn't read very carefully...A generation is 25 years...You know from conception to birth to adulthood...Pay attention.

EXACTLY. The odds of that occurring in the span of 20 billion (to the power of 2000) total universe time spans from the Big Bang would not be enough for one functioning mitochondria to form from random particles cascading into place? Do you know the answer? That is a fact....

Your supporting evidence..?

Not really DNA but amino acid type material. 1n 1953, a University of Chicago graduate student named Stanley Miller working in Harold Urey's lab flipped a switch sending electric current through a chamber containing a combination of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water. The experiment yielded organic compounds including amino acids, the building blocks of life, and catapulted a field of study known as exobiology into the headlines. But did that mean amino acids were to produce life in any time span?

Some folks point to the spontaneous organizing behavior of crystals, polymers, or autocatalytic reactions. Some researchers see as more significant the spontaneous formation of organic molecules, such as amino acids or the development of proteinoid microspheres.

Yet all of this fails to explain the organizational issue. No one, not ever, has reproduced in chemistry (or through any other physical means) a spontaneous-launching organizational process of the sort that that will: perpetually develop adaptive systems, build one hierarcally system on top of another, and with each new system support the survivability of the overall system without failing at any point along the process.

Nope there remains no proof that life is formed by random chance. Sorry....

Given the billions of years this little speck of rock we call earth has been around, it is both possible, and probable, that life arose without any divine intervention. Now, where is your proof of such divine intervention?

Granted, the events we are discussing took place billions of years ago, and are thus unavailable to human experience. However, there is far more evidence supporting the natural development and evolution of life on this world than there is for some supreme being stirring the primordial soup of Earth's early environment with her little toe.

 

[5stringJeff]

We readily accept that a fully formed and functional human being can arise from a few cells within the span of a generation. Why is it so difficult then, to accept that such has occurred of the span of billions of years?

As for the formation of amino acids, experiments in the 60's and 70's proved that they do form readily under laboratory conditions simulating earth's primordial environment.

The Miller experiment has been shown to be irrelevant. Miller's simulation of the early Earth's environment was loaded with chemicals that would automatically give Miller the results he was looking for. Virtually all scientists today discredit Miller's experiment.

And even if Miller's experiment was valid, amino acids do not automatically create life. You still have the problem of combining amino acids in a meaningful way, enclosing them in some sort of membrane, not to mention DNA and/or RNA, which is an extremely complex molecule - and is also the molecule that gives 'orders' to cellular proteins.

There is no way that RNA or DNA could have formed spontaneously, even with billions of years to do so. You would have a better chance of escaping Earth's gravity just by jumping.

 

[dmp]

You would have a better chance of escaping Earth's
gravity just by jumping.

What if I was in orbit - in the Space Shuttle...and jumped away from it...I 'could' jump free from the gravitational pull of the earth I supppose.

 

[5stringJeff]

What if I was in orbit - in the Space Shuttle...and jumped away from it...I 'could' jump free from the gravitational pull of the earth I supppose.

 

[dmp]

I love you!

Thanks man...likewise....

 

[Zhukov]

Sorry but the student was speaking in metaphors and not in rigid concrete scientific evidence.

You are completely wrong.

"Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?"

The student's voice betrays him and cracks. "Yes, professor. I do."

The old man shakes his head sadly. "Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you seen Him?"

"No, sir. I've never seen Him."

"Then tell us if you've ever heard your Jesus?"

"No, sir. I have not."

"Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelled your Jesus ... in fact, do you have any sensory perception of your God whatsoever?"

Is the professor speaking metaphorically? No. That is the whole point.

The Christian points towards his elderly, crumbling tutor. "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain...felt the professor's brain, touched or smelled the professor's brain?" No one appears to have done so.

The Christian shakes his head sadly. "It appears no-one here has had any sensory perception of the professor's brain whatsoever. Well, according to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says the professor has no brain."

What is the student doing here? He is using the Professor's own logic to come to the conclusion that the Professor has no brain. He is not speaking metaphorically.

As it is in fact possible to physically see, smell, taste, touch, and hear (let's say your squishing two moist cortex convolutions together) the Professor's brain, the student's conclusion is flawed, and you are wrong.

It would have been far better if the student had asked if the Professor had a wife or any children. Then, given an affirmative, to ask whether or not he loved them. Finally, explaining to the Professor that in the abscene of the ability to see, smell, taste, touch, or hear that love, the Professor did in fact not love his family because love does not exist.

No you misread my post. I said that all fossil evidence appeared during the 10 million year Cambrian period. Not how long ago the Cambrian period existed until today.

My mistake.



Finally, your comments about what reality is, the nature of atomic nuclei, the apparent gap in the fossil record, and everything else, are completely irrelevant to the nature of the original post, and my comments concerning it.

 

[ajwps]

You didn't read very carefully...A generation is 25 years...You know from conception to birth to adulthood...Pay attention.

Oh I ready your post carefully. You originally said that a "few cells form a fully formed and functional human being can arise from a few cells within the span of a generation."

What makes you think that a new born baby is neither fully formed nor a functional human being? Why make an irrelevant statement about a generation? A human is also fully formed and functional at 85 years of age if they are alive. What are you thinking about?

Your supporting evidence..?

The supporting evidence comes from Michael Behe, PhD Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University from his book "Darwin's Black Box." The research and reasoning have been worked out by many in the scientific community and is much too complex to present it here in cogent way that could be understood.

Given the billions of years this little speck of rock we call earth has been around, it is both possible, and probable, that life arose without any divine intervention. Now, where is your proof of such divine intervention?

I stated before that there is no pro or con proof of any divine intervention for creation. The question can be reveresed, can you produce proof or evidence that creation was from random or choatic chance events over tens of billions of perceived earth years? Remember "time" has now been proved to be relative to ones point of perception. In other words, one earth year can be equivalent to 3 million years on a planet with a siginficant increased gravitional field or a slowing of time the closer to the speed of light.

The verdict is still out....

Granted, the events we are discussing took place billions of years ago, and are thus unavailable to human experience. However, there is far more evidence supporting the natural development and evolution of life on this world than there is for some supreme being stirring the primordial soup of Earth's early environment with her little toe.

Again produce such supporting evidence that natural (whatever natural means) development and or evolution of life is valid?

Who made nature or natural events? Is a natural event an inevitble random chance? Sorry, but with no supporting proof of evolution, modern step up formation of things becomes just another theory.

Here's one for your theory of evolution from Associated Press today:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2694637

July 21, 2004, 11:15PM

Monkey takes walk on the human side
Associated Press

JERUSALEM - A 5-year-old monkey at an Israeli zoo has started walking on its hind legs only — aping humans — after a near-death experience, a zoo veterinarian said Wednesday.

Natasha, a black macaque at the Safari Park near Tel Aviv, began walking exclusively on her hind legs after a stomach ailment nearly killed her, zookeepers said.

Monkeys usually alternate between upright movement and walking on all fours.

Two weeks ago, Natasha and three other monkeys were diagnosed with severe stomach flu. Natasha's condition stabilized after treatment. When she was released from a clinic, she began walking upright. One possible explanation is brain damage from the illness, veterinarian Igal Horowitz said.

 

[5stringJeff]

Thanks man...likewise....

AHEM...

(uncomfortable pause)

 

[dmp]

AHEM...

(uncomfortable pause)

C'mon..admit it. or just lie to me...either way.

 

[5stringJeff]

Can I pull your hair too?

 

[ajwps]

You are completely wrong. Is the professor speaking metaphorically? No. That is the whole point.

Zhukov I said the student was speaking in biblical metaphors not the professor. I said the professor was speaking in what he understood to be concrete scientific realities.

I said:

Sorry but the student was speaking in metaphors and not in rigid concrete scientific evidence.

Your reply:

Is the professor speaking metaphorically? No. That is the whole point.

What is the student doing here? He is using the Professor's own logic to come to the conclusion that the Professor has no brain. He is not speaking metaphorically.

Really? What do you think speaking in a metaphor or allegory means? The student used the professor's own rigid logic to allude to a lack of proof of the professor's brain. No one doubts that to have life functions, one must have a brain, but that is only an assumption of logical thinking.

As it is in fact possible to physically see, smell, taste, touch, and hear (let's say your squishing two moist cortex convolutions together) the Professor's brain, the student's conclusion is flawed, and you are wrong.

I'm not certain of your meaning here. In fact the ability to see, smell, taste, touch or hear are only basic perceptions that we assume as our reality. You are using concrete thinking that what you see is what you get. I submit that this is not the case.

Have you ever seen a holographic image in the middle of a room? You can look at this 3D image from all sides and you will see it from it sides, from its top, from its bottom. The image can be made to move and look like animation is occuring but in reality it ain't there.

It would have been far better if the student had asked if the Professor had a wife or any children. Then, given an affirmative, to ask whether or not he loved them. Finally, explaining to the Professor that in the abscene of the ability to see, smell, taste, touch, or hear that love, the Professor did in fact not love his family because love does not exist.

Does love really exist in your opinion or is it only a perception that our 'brain' experiences in some form of imagined reality? You are trying to compare abstractions like love or feelings which in fact have no solid reality.

My mistake.

Accepted.

Finally, your comments about what reality is, the nature of atomic nuclei, the apparent gap in the fossil record, and everything else, are completely irrelevant to the nature of the original post, and my comments concerning it.

Why? The professor and the student were talking about reality, either solid fixed science today or what can be an abstraction or perception. It is my position that universal realities are based in fact on whether you have FAITH that your real world exists in something that is completely unknown. What is consciousness or awareness?

No I believe my response was on point.

 

[Zhukov]

Once again I find mysellf confronted by what appears to be intentional obtuseness.

The student is showing how the professors thinking is flawed, and that is all, but his final example is crap.

The student used the professor's own rigid logic to allude to a lack of proof of the professor's brain.

And what did I say?

That's not 'speaking metaphorically'. I'm really not sure why you think that it is.

The point was to prove how we shouldn't rely on classifying only things we can physically sense as 'real'. Well, unfortunately for the student's argument, a brain is something we can physically sense.

The professor and the student were talking about reality, either solid fixed science today or what can be an abstraction or perception. It is my position....

See that? Let me show you again:

It is my position

I'm not interested in your position. I commented on the orginal post, and I get your position? Your position is irrelevant. I didn't respond to the original post to get your position, and I'm not interested in arguing with you about what you think reality is.

 

[ajwps]

Once again I find mysellf confronted by what appears to be intentional obtuseness.

Testy are we?

And I again find myself running into obvious inflexible and intransigent views relating to the professor and the students apposing positions. There are obviously no other interpretations than what appears to be exchanged between the two.

The student is showing how the professors thinking is flawed, and that is all, but his final example is crap.

This statement of yours is a perfect example of one who wears blinders and seeing neither to the right nor the left in this interchanage.

And what did I say? That's not 'speaking metaphorically'. I'm really not sure why you think that it is.

Why should I be surprised? The student's analogy was the following:

The Christian points towards his elderly, crumbling tutor. "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain...felt the professor's brain, touched or smelled the professor's brain?" No one appears to have done so.

The Christian shakes his head sadly. "It appears no-one here has had any sensory perception of the professor's brain whatsoever. Well, according to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says the professor has no brain."

The student did not say the professor had no brain, but that allegorically speaking no one had 'heard, felt, touched or smelled' the professor's brain. Ergo no scientific proof of the professor's brain being present just as there is no proof of an invisible and unable watchmaker. But that the only way to verify the brain is by exposing it to our 'senses' of reality in order to validate its presence. The same goes for the obvious fact that nothing can be proved to have occurred by pure chance or out of chaos in any length of time without taking reality down to its more basic constituents. This is what I tried to do but you have out-of-hand dismissed as irrelevant. Both the professor's brain and faith in a Creator have to be taken as pure beliefs until they are both proven to our satisfaction as to what we assume exists.

The point was to prove how we shouldn't rely on classifying only things we can physically sense as 'real'. Well, unfortunately for the student's argument, a brain is something we can physically sense.

Concrete thinking again? To take your agruement a little further and out of the realm of rigid thinking, we can physically sense this question as to what EXACTLY is the brain's ability to see, hear, feel or touch? Do you think that physical senses as we know them can't be fooled? Have you ever seen a magician place an object in one of your hands which you close and mysteriously appear to switch to the other closed hand? Until you know how this trick is done, your senses of touch, feeling, hearing are put at odds with your fixed reality of the order of things.

See that? Let me show you again: I'm not interested in your position. I commented on the orginal post, and I get your position? Your position is irrelevant. I didn't respond to the original post to get your position, and I'm not interested in arguing with you about what you think reality is.

You say my position is irrelevant but you want to respond to the original statements by the two fictionalized professor and student. You are interested in only what you consider to be an obvious flaw in the student's statement.

Well I could respond that your obstinate fixed rigid view of the conversation is irrelevant as you do not care what the actual intent of the student's statement which, like the magicians trick, is neither a flawed nor a fixed reality view of what appears to be evident.

Your typical of the observer who sees a large tree but misses not only the individual leaves but also the life functions in the tree that allows it to continue as a growing living entity.

Loosen up and try to understand more than what you can hold in your visible hand....

 

[dilloduck]

I wouldn't treat the Z-man as if he were an Arab ,AJ. He's wiser than you think!

 

[ajwps]

I wouldn't treat the Z-man as if he were an Arab ,AJ. He's wiser than you think!

Do you think I treat Zhukov like a terrorist murderer?

I never disputed that he is a wise man but when two people see things differently, there is good reason for discussion and opinion. Especially on a line like this.

You must see that I am very one-sided and only can discuss Arabs or Muslims. Very definite lack of insight on your part.

 

[dilloduck]

Do you think I treat Zhukov like a terrorist murderer?

I never disputed that he is a wise man but when two people see things differently, there is good reason for discussion and opinion. Especially on a line like this.

You must see that I am very one-sided and only can discuss Arabs or Muslims. Very definite lack of insight on your part.

My mistake--I should have stayed out of your debate with the z-man.
It takes no insight whatsoever to figure out you hate muslims and arabs. You censor your OWN articles if something even remotely positive is said about them.

 

[Comrade]

Pointing back to the original text, why is the precept that Evil as the absence of Good any more valid than Good being the absense of Evil.


I've seen a much simpler form of this obviously creative writing endevour involve this false assumption.

The logicial argument following the students claim should have been the professor questioning why photons as light resemble good more than evil.

In the classroom, a real matter would be the discussion of why exactly the reverse could not be true, that Evil itself exists and Good in fact is the lack of Evil. And therefore Satan exists while God does not.

You just can't address the validity of faith in such a logical venue.

 

[ajwps]

My mistake--I should have stayed out of your debate with the z-man.
It takes no insight whatsoever to figure out you hate muslims and arabs. You censor your OWN articles if something even remotely positive is said about them.

It takes no insight whatsoever to figure out you hate the Jewish people and Israel specifically. I censored nothing as I posted the link to the whole site. I find that you are NEVER guilty of censoring the authorship and reliability of those sites you link or copy from.