Why the Eternal Creative Source of All Our Universe is Intelligent

[JimBowie1958]

I often play MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, etc, and in these games there are various endeavors that the game designers place to keep people on a sort of tredmill of activity to keep their interests.

In LOTRO, crafting is a fairly complex facet of the game and going out to gather resources takes quite a bit of time. Rocky nodes bearing ores, fallen branches containing useful wood, and other things useful in crafting endeavors appear all over the wilderness and you have to find them.

Now if these resources appeared in a purely random way, then there is no use to trying to figure out a pattern in which they appear, nor a frequency. Some games just use randomness to do this sort of thing. LOTRO does not. That I can deduce a pattern and it saves me time as I search for crafting resources.

So randmoness does not produce a pattern while a designed pattern of spawning does and it isnt that difficult to see these patterns though proving them scientifically would seem a waste of time.

We know that something exists outside of our known universe that gave birth to our universe in the Big Bang. We dont know from that if this was the act of an intelligent Being or the random result of interdimensional membranes according to M Theory or maybe something else.

But the patterns that we see in Nature and its Laws are so full of purposeful design that it implies an intellligent force behind it. This is the very basis on which our concept of science depends.

 

[newpolitics]

I often play MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, etc, and in these games there are various endeavors that the game designers place to keep people on a sort of tredmill of activity to keep their interests.

In LOTRO, crafting is a fairly complex facet of the game and going out to gather resources takes quite a bit of time. Rocky nodes bearing ores, fallen branches containing useful wood, and other things useful in crafting endeavors appear all over the wilderness and you have to find them.

Now if these resources appeared in a purely random way, then there is no use to trying to figure out a pattern in which they appear, nor a frequency. Some games just use randomness to do this sort of thing. LOTRO does not. That I can deduce a pattern and it saves me time as I search for crafting resources.

So randmoness does not produce a pattern while a designed pattern of spawning does and it isnt that difficult to see these patterns though proving them scientifically would seem a waste of time.

We know that something exists outside of our known universe that gave birth to our universe in the Big Bang. We dont know from that if this was the act of an intelligent Being or the random result of interdimensional membranes according to M Theory or maybe something else.

But the patterns that we see in Nature and its Laws are so full of purposeful design that it implies an intellligent force behind it. This is the very basis on which our concept of science depends.

Randomness does not produce a pattern? What about snowflakes? There is no designer for snowflakes, yet everything about them suggests "design" even though we understand exactly how they are made. Not only that, but they are all unique. Surely, there must be a creator- nope, it is just the "randomness" of nature which consists of a few fundamental forces, matter, and the right conditions. Fractals are ever-present in nature.

No one KNOWS that anything exists outside this universe. You are simply assuming this because you find it to be intuitive. Reality is not intuitive beyond the scales of our normal observation, going into either the macro-universe or the micro-univeres. Quantum Mechanics and Relativity are not intuitive. As far as the big bang and a first cause argument: Causation is temporal. Time did not exist before the big bang, therefore, causation did not exist (necessarily). Therefore, there did not need to be a cause, no matter how un-intuitive that may seem to us as humans. Point is, don't make claims unless you have evidence, which you, nor, anyone else does. If you do, it is just an argument from ignorance.

You find design in everything, simply because, you already believe in a designer. That is it. To anyone else who doesn't already believe, there is no design in anything. Therefore, it is simply confirmation bias on your part. Other than that, you did good. Oh wait, there's nothing left...

 

[JimBowie1958]

I often play MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, etc, and in these games there are various endeavors that the game designers place to keep people on a sort of tredmill of activity to keep their interests.

In LOTRO, crafting is a fairly complex facet of the game and going out to gather resources takes quite a bit of time. Rocky nodes bearing ores, fallen branches containing useful wood, and other things useful in crafting endeavors appear all over the wilderness and you have to find them.

Now if these resources appeared in a purely random way, then there is no use to trying to figure out a pattern in which they appear, nor a frequency. Some games just use randomness to do this sort of thing. LOTRO does not. That I can deduce a pattern and it saves me time as I search for crafting resources.

So randmoness does not produce a pattern while a designed pattern of spawning does and it isnt that difficult to see these patterns though proving them scientifically would seem a waste of time.

We know that something exists outside of our known universe that gave birth to our universe in the Big Bang. We dont know from that if this was the act of an intelligent Being or the random result of interdimensional membranes according to M Theory or maybe something else.

But the patterns that we see in Nature and its Laws are so full of purposeful design that it implies an intellligent force behind it. This is the very basis on which our concept of science depends.

Randomness does not produce a pattern? What about snowflakes?

No, the pattern is due to the chemical design of water molecules, lol.

There is no designer for snowflakes, yet everything about them suggests "design" even though we understand exactly how they are made.

Understanding how something is made does not disprove a design.

Not only that, but they are all unique. Surely, there must be a creator- nope, it is just the "randomness" of nature which consists of a few fundamental forces, matter, and the right conditions. Fractals are ever-present in nature.

And fractals are not random either. Fractal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

No one KNOWS that anything exists outside this universe.

Yes, we do. You cant get something from nothing on the scale we see in our universe. This general principle is valid though there are some quantum appearances of what seems to be matter from random variations, but then again, it just as quickly randomly disappears too.

You are simply assuming this because you find it to be intuitive.

Yes, in the same way that 2+2 is intuitively true. We evolved these understandings of Nature and there is no reason to disregard them outside of the lab. While it is not scientific, most truths we operate on daily are not based on science.

Reality is not intuitive beyond the scales of our normal observation, going into either the macro-universe or the micro-univeres. Quantum Mechanics and Relativity are not intuitive.

Things can be intuitive to some people and not the to vast majority.

The Theory of Relativity was intuitive to Einstein and he deduced almost all of it from basic observations using logic. It seems unintuitive to you because it is different from what you are used to. Were it entirely unintuitive then Einstein couldnt have deduced Relativity as it was only confirmed over the many decades since he published it. IF its 'weirdness' was not at all intuitive he could not have come up with the theory, lol.

As far as the big bang and a first cause argument: Causation is temporal. Time did not exist before the big bang, therefore, causation did not exist (necessarily). Therefore, there did not need to be a cause, no matter how un-intuitive that may seem to us as humans.

Causation in our known universe came into existance at the instant the Big Bang began, but that does not mean there was not some form of time in existance outside of our universe. Thus your derived conclusion that time is unnecesary is unsupported by any evidence, and in fact is ridiculous. Something changed that caused the Big Bang, and that is obvious, though you might like to pretend otherwise, for some reason.

Point is, don't make claims unless you have evidence, which you, nor, anyone else does. If you do, it is just an argument from ignorance.

I do have evidence, the Big Bang, the way time works, the way causality works.

All you have is a blind willfullness to deny things that are obviously true.

You find design in everything, simply because, you already believe in a designer. That is it. To anyone else who doesn't already believe, there is no design in anything.

I see no design in truly random numbers. I see no design in the appearance of raindrops on a sidewalk. But a snowflake is not like that, nor are other things that show a pattern and design.

Therefore, it is simply confirmation bias on your part. Other than that, you did good. Oh wait, there's nothing left...

No, the confirmation bias is on your part. You dont see the design involved in fractals, for example, because you dont wish to. You think that the organization of a snowflake is random.

You have conditioned yourself to ignore the obvious for whatever reason.

But willful blindness on your part does not equate to 'nothing left' on my part.

But lets put your view to the test: show me a fractal that has no design to it. That is a simple thing to do if fractals are not designed.

ROFLMAO.

 

[newpolitics]

I often play MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, etc, and in these games there are various endeavors that the game designers place to keep people on a sort of tredmill of activity to keep their interests.

In LOTRO, crafting is a fairly complex facet of the game and going out to gather resources takes quite a bit of time. Rocky nodes bearing ores, fallen branches containing useful wood, and other things useful in crafting endeavors appear all over the wilderness and you have to find them.

Now if these resources appeared in a purely random way, then there is no use to trying to figure out a pattern in which they appear, nor a frequency. Some games just use randomness to do this sort of thing. LOTRO does not. That I can deduce a pattern and it saves me time as I search for crafting resources.

So randmoness does not produce a pattern while a designed pattern of spawning does and it isnt that difficult to see these patterns though proving them scientifically would seem a waste of time.

We know that something exists outside of our known universe that gave birth to our universe in the Big Bang. We dont know from that if this was the act of an intelligent Being or the random result of interdimensional membranes according to M Theory or maybe something else.

But the patterns that we see in Nature and its Laws are so full of purposeful design that it implies an intellligent force behind it. This is the very basis on which our concept of science depends.

Randomness does not produce a pattern? What about snowflakes?

No, the pattern is due to the chemical design of water molecules, lol.




Understanding how something is made does not disprove a design.




And fractals are not random either. Fractal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Yes, we do. You cant get something from nothing on the scale we see in our universe. This general principle is valid though there are some quantum appearances of what seems to be matter from random variations, but then again, it just as quickly randomly disappears too.



Yes, in the same way that 2+2 is intuitively true. We evolved these understandings of Nature and there is no reason to disregard them outside of the lab. While it is not scientific, most truths we operate on daily are not based on science.




Things can be intuitive to some people and not the to vast majority.

The Theory of Relativity was intuitive to Einstein and he deduced almost all of it from basic observations using logic. It seems unintuitive to you because it is different from what you are used to. Were it entirely unintuitive then Einstein couldnt have deduced Relativity as it was only confirmed over the many decades since he published it. IF its 'weirdness' was not at all intuitive he could not have come up with the theory, lol.




Causation in our known universe came into existance at the instant the Big Bang began, but that does not mean there was not some form of time in existance outside of our universe. Thus your derived conclusion that time is unnecesary is unsupported by any evidence, and in fact is ridiculous. Something changed that caused the Big Bang, and that is obvious, though you might like to pretend otherwise, for some reason.



I do have evidence, the Big Bang, the way time works, the way causality works.

All you have is a blind willfullness to deny things that are obviously true.

You find design in everything, simply because, you already believe in a designer. That is it. To anyone else who doesn't already believe, there is no design in anything.

I see no design in truly random numbers. I see no design in the appearance of raindrops on a sidewalk. But a snowflake is not like that, nor are other things that show a pattern and design.

Therefore, it is simply confirmation bias on your part. Other than that, you did good. Oh wait, there's nothing left...

No, the confirmation bias is on your part. You dont see the design involved in fractals, for example, because you dont wish to. You think that the organization of a snowflake is random.

You have conditioned yourself to ignore the obvious for whatever reason.

But willful blindness on your part does not equate to 'nothing left' on my part.

But lets put your view to the test: show me a fractal that has no design to it. That is a simple thing to do if fractals are not designed.

ROFLMAO.

You demonstrated my point for me. Thanks. Your right, it isn't "randomness" that produces snowflakes, so why do you assert that it is "randomness" that would produce life? Randomness is just a placeholder for theists who want to demote probabilistically determined processes in a naturalistic universe. Randomness doesn't exist in a universe with four fundamental forces acting on matter in the way you wish it to mean, so neither can it apply to abiognesis, evolution, or the existence of the laws themselves. You have refuted your own argument here. As for your responses the cosmological components of this discussion, you just ignored what I said and reasserted your premises without refuting my own position. Stop being convinced that you are right. You are not. You can not establish any knowledge about what happened before the big bang, so stop pretending to have it. It's just the usual arrogance on the part of theists to posit intuition as evidence. There isn't a single syllogism that establishes god or a first cause. We are left in total ignorance as to what caused our universe, or if there even needs to be a cause, so it is useless to make knowledge claims. You don't know a damn thing. To say the universe can't come from nothing is a claim you can't make.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Where is your fractal that is not designed? You said there is such a thing, so where is it?

You demonstrated my point for me. Thanks.

Lol, you failed on every point, but *I* somehow proved your point? ROFLMAO

Your right, it isn't "randomness" that produces snowflakes, so why do you assert that it is "randomness" that would produce life?

I never asserted anything about the origin of life here. Why cant you stay focused on the topic?

Randomness is just a placeholder for theists who want to demote probabilistically determined processes in a naturalistic universe.

No, it isnt. There is genuine randomness, for example the result of a 2d6 roll through a box of redirecting panels is entirely random and a proper tool for generating random numbers for a one use code pad, for example.

It is interesting that you have made such a simple and apparent false assertion, a habit you seem to be unable to break such as your ludicrous claim that fractals are not designed.

Randomness doesn't exist in a universe with four fundamental forces acting on matter in the way you wish it to mean, so neither can it apply to abiognesis, evolution, or the existence of the laws themselves.

Of course random processes can be found, though you are a denier on the topic, and that proves nothing at all except that you can choose to be very irrational.

You have refuted your own argument here.

Lol, not hardly.

As for your responses the cosmological components of this discussion, you just ignored what I said and reasserted your premises without refuting my own position.

Your assertions have been refuted in detail. Any lurker can read the thread and decide for themselves, but you have nothing but obviously flawed rhetorical claims.

Stop being convinced that you are right. You are not.

I am not always right, but then again no one is among mortal men.

But it is absurd for you to make a blank statement that I am wrong when you cant even grasp the things I am asserting.

You can not establish any knowledge about what happened before the big bang, so stop pretending to have it.

It is no pretense. We know how causal events require time to occur. We know that matter and energy, while they can change form, they do not simply appear in vast quantities or similarly vanish. Your assertions are completely contrary to the most basic physics.

It's just the usual arrogance on the part of theists to posit intuition as evidence.

Ah, now you have to paint me as one of them to make a case? That sort of cheap rhetorical nonsense is the standard fare of a lost argument.

There isn't a single syllogism that establishes god or a first cause.

Of course there is which is why pagans have been converting to theism for thousands of years now ever since Socrates.

We are left in total ignorance as to what caused our universe, or if there even needs to be a cause, so it is useless to make knowledge claims.

You are in willfull ignorance and you erroneously project your ignorance onto the rest of humanity.

You don't know a damn thing.

Again, you cannot know what I do and do not know. Your assertion is absurd and false on its face.

To say the universe can't come from nothing is a claim you can't make.

I did make it, and it is a fact of science that matter/energy cannot simply appear and disappear outside of very minute quantum variations that appear and disappear constantly.

While you fetch up that undesigned fractal, the record stands; you have nothing but simplistic denial common to that of any juvenile in a play ground.

 

[Greenbeard]

But the patterns that we see in Nature and its Laws are so full of purposeful design that it implies an intellligent force behind it. This is the very basis on which our concept of science depends.

What would a pattern that is not "full of purposeful design" look like to you? Or is "the patterns ...are so full of purposeful design" just a tautological statement?

 

[JimBowie1958]

But the patterns that we see in Nature and its Laws are so full of purposeful design that it implies an intellligent force behind it. This is the very basis on which our concept of science depends.

What would a pattern that is not "full of purposeful design" look like to you? Or is "the patterns ...are so full of purposeful design" just a tautological statement?

Random rain drops can, by chance, form a subjective pattern that has no design to it.

There are a number of random process that evade even the butterfly pattern of chaos theory, as I understand it, though most randomness has a pattern to it if you analyze its data, again, as I understand it.

This is a list of various ways of recognising patterns:
Pattern recognition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But some things simply have no recognisable pattern, such as a set of null values, for example.

Design can have a purpose, or not, but I think most does, unless you define design as always having a purpose, which seems unnecesary to me.

 

[Greenbeard]

Design can have a purpose, or not, but I think most does, unless you define design as always having a purpose, which seems unnecesary to me.

You're using a lot of different words but I'm not sure what significance you're attaching to them: pattern, design, purpose, etc.

There are rules in place in the universe, certainly I agree with that. The rules--the laws of physics--produce predictable, recurring outcomes, which I assume are the patterns you refer to. Indeed, it's those patterns that allow us to deduce the rules in the first place.

But what does it mean for those rules to demonstrate purpose (which, if I understand you correctly, is what you take to imply the involvement of an "intelligent force")? Suppose different regions of the universe obey different physical laws and that ultimately there is a multitude--maybe even an infinite variety--of different rules in effect in different places. Does that weaken the argument for purpose behind the existence of such laws or would it just imply different purposes at work in different regions?

I've always found the teleological argument for god(s) to be the most interesting one, but it's always struck me as having an anthropomorphic bias or a sort of logical leap of analogy that never struck me as being obviously valid.

 

[newpolitics]

Where is your fractal that is not designed? You said there is such a thing, so where is it?

You demonstrated my point for me. Thanks.

Lol, you failed on every point, but *I* somehow proved your point? ROFLMAO

Your right, it isn't "randomness" that produces snowflakes, so why do you assert that it is "randomness" that would produce life?

I never asserted anything about the origin of life here. Why cant you stay focused on the topic?




No, it isnt. There is genuine randomness, for example the result of a 2d6 roll through a box of redirecting panels is entirely random and a proper tool for generating random numbers for a one use code pad, for example.

It is interesting that you have made such a simple and apparent false assertion, a habit you seem to be unable to break such as your ludicrous claim that fractals are not designed.



Of course random processes can be found, though you are a denier on the topic, and that proves nothing at all except that you can choose to be very irrational.



Lol, not hardly.



Your assertions have been refuted in detail. Any lurker can read the thread and decide for themselves, but you have nothing but obviously flawed rhetorical claims.



I am not always right, but then again no one is among mortal men.

But it is absurd for you to make a blank statement that I am wrong when you cant even grasp the things I am asserting.



It is no pretense. We know how causal events require time to occur. We know that matter and energy, while they can change form, they do not simply appear in vast quantities or similarly vanish. Your assertions are completely contrary to the most basic physics.



Ah, now you have to paint me as one of them to make a case? That sort of cheap rhetorical nonsense is the standard fare of a lost argument.



Of course there is which is why pagans have been converting to theism for thousands of years now ever since Socrates.




You are in willfull ignorance and you erroneously project your ignorance onto the rest of humanity.

You don't know a damn thing.

Again, you cannot know what I do and do not know. Your assertion is absurd and false on its face.

To say the universe can't come from nothing is a claim you can't make.

I did make it, and it is a fact of science that matter/energy cannot simply appear and disappear outside of very minute quantum variations that appear and disappear constantly.

While you fetch up that undesigned fractal, the record stands; you have nothing but simplistic denial common to that of any juvenile in a play ground.

Let me spell it out for you: you can not make unsubstantiated claims and pretend they mean anything, until you can back them up with EVIDENCE, which you don't have, because your position is predicated on faith.

How are fractals designed??? They are the product of natural forces, numbnuts. They are no more designed than is a mountain, due to tectonic forces, or a cloud, due to condensation. We understand the NATURAL forces behind a snowflake, and although it appears designed, we know it wasn't because we can fully account for its formation.

Inside the universe, we observe certain "laws" and consistencies with respect to the behavior of matter and energy, however we are talking about a realm before time, matter, energy, and CAUSATION. Any attempt to use inductive logic to infer what caused the universe is committing the composition fallacy. You CAN NOT make any conclusions about how this universe came into being, because we are simply ignorant to it. Hence, you are making an argument from ignorance, as well. You are ripe with logical fallacy.

 

[tonystewart1]

I often play MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, etc, and in these games there are various endeavors that the game designers place to keep people on a sort of tredmill of activity to keep their interests.

In LOTRO, crafting is a fairly complex facet of the game and going out to gather resources takes quite a bit of time. Rocky nodes bearing ores, fallen branches containing useful wood, and other things useful in crafting endeavors appear all over the wilderness and you have to find them.

Now if these resources appeared in a purely random way, then there is no use to trying to figure out a pattern in which they appear, nor a frequency. Some games just use randomness to do this sort of thing. LOTRO does not. That I can deduce a pattern and it saves me time as I search for crafting resources.

So randmoness does not produce a pattern while a designed pattern of spawning does and it isnt that difficult to see these patterns though proving them scientifically would seem a waste of time.

We know that something exists outside of our known universe that gave birth to our universe in the Big Bang. We dont know from that if this was the act of an intelligent Being or the random result of interdimensional membranes according to M Theory or maybe something else.

But the patterns that we see in Nature and its Laws are so full of purposeful design that it implies an intellligent force behind it. This is the very basis on which our concept of science depends.

If your belief is that God created the world then the only proof you need to provide is Gensis. Its abour faith and you can not argue faith logically. Faith precludes logic. I beileve that God created the world but why waste your time trying to prove an intelegent designer when the belief in one is a matter of faith.

 

[newpolitics]

I often play MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, etc, and in these games there are various endeavors that the game designers place to keep people on a sort of tredmill of activity to keep their interests.

In LOTRO, crafting is a fairly complex facet of the game and going out to gather resources takes quite a bit of time. Rocky nodes bearing ores, fallen branches containing useful wood, and other things useful in crafting endeavors appear all over the wilderness and you have to find them.

Now if these resources appeared in a purely random way, then there is no use to trying to figure out a pattern in which they appear, nor a frequency. Some games just use randomness to do this sort of thing. LOTRO does not. That I can deduce a pattern and it saves me time as I search for crafting resources.

So randmoness does not produce a pattern while a designed pattern of spawning does and it isnt that difficult to see these patterns though proving them scientifically would seem a waste of time.

We know that something exists outside of our known universe that gave birth to our universe in the Big Bang. We dont know from that if this was the act of an intelligent Being or the random result of interdimensional membranes according to M Theory or maybe something else.

But the patterns that we see in Nature and its Laws are so full of purposeful design that it implies an intellligent force behind it. This is the very basis on which our concept of science depends.

If your belief is that God created the world then the only proof you need to provide is Gensis. Its abour faith and you can not argue faith logically. Faith precludes logic. I beileve that God created the world but why waste your time trying to prove an intelegent designer when the belief in one is a matter of faith.

Whoa... intellectual honesty. That's something I haven't seen in a while. Thank you.

 

[tonystewart1]

I often play MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, etc, and in these games there are various endeavors that the game designers place to keep people on a sort of tredmill of activity to keep their interests.

In LOTRO, crafting is a fairly complex facet of the game and going out to gather resources takes quite a bit of time. Rocky nodes bearing ores, fallen branches containing useful wood, and other things useful in crafting endeavors appear all over the wilderness and you have to find them.

Now if these resources appeared in a purely random way, then there is no use to trying to figure out a pattern in which they appear, nor a frequency. Some games just use randomness to do this sort of thing. LOTRO does not. That I can deduce a pattern and it saves me time as I search for crafting resources.

So randmoness does not produce a pattern while a designed pattern of spawning does and it isnt that difficult to see these patterns though proving them scientifically would seem a waste of time.

We know that something exists outside of our known universe that gave birth to our universe in the Big Bang. We dont know from that if this was the act of an intelligent Being or the random result of interdimensional membranes according to M Theory or maybe something else.

But the patterns that we see in Nature and its Laws are so full of purposeful design that it implies an intellligent force behind it. This is the very basis on which our concept of science depends.

If your belief is that God created the world then the only proof you need to provide is Gensis. Its abour faith and you can not argue faith logically. Faith precludes logic. I beileve that God created the world but why waste your time trying to prove an intelegent designer when the belief in one is a matter of faith.

Whoa... intellectual honesty. That's something I haven't seen in a while. Thank you.

It has been my feeling that people who try to PROVE this or that about God are really trying to convince themselves. Those of us that believe have no need to prove it.

 

[newpolitics]

If your belief is that God created the world then the only proof you need to provide is Gensis. Its abour faith and you can not argue faith logically. Faith precludes logic. I beileve that God created the world but why waste your time trying to prove an intelegent designer when the belief in one is a matter of faith.

Whoa... intellectual honesty. That's something I haven't seen in a while. Thank you.

It has been my feeling that people who try to PROVE this or that about God are really trying to convince themselves. Those of us that believe have no need to prove it.

Very amazing that you have come to this realization, and I believe your conclusions are profoundly true.

 

[tonystewart1]

Whoa... intellectual honesty. That's something I haven't seen in a while. Thank you.

It has been my feeling that people who try to PROVE this or that about God are really trying to convince themselves. Those of us that believe have no need to prove it.

Very amazing that you have come to this realization, and I believe your conclusions are profoundly true.

My faith is mine. It is a private matter between me and God. People who scream and hollar to get themselves noticed proving God are not doing the will of the Father. They are doing thier own will. The bible does not force us to make people convert or even beileve. It does force us to live our lives as Jesus did. Helping those who cant help themselves and being an example of Gods love.

 

[newpolitics]

It has been my feeling that people who try to PROVE this or that about God are really trying to convince themselves. Those of us that believe have no need to prove it.

Very amazing that you have come to this realization, and I believe your conclusions are profoundly true.

My faith is mine. It is a private matter between me and God. People who scream and hollar to get themselves noticed proving God are not doing the will of the Father. They are doing thier own will. The bible does not force us to make people convert or even beileve. It does force us to live our lives as Jesus did. Helping those who cant help themselves and being an example of Gods love.

What sort of christian do you call yourself? Are you a calvinist? I ask because I have met some online who don't proselytize either and neither try to represent god for him.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Design can have a purpose, or not, but I think most does, unless you define design as always having a purpose, which seems unnecesary to me.

You're using a lot of different words but I'm not sure what significance you're attaching to them: pattern, design, purpose, etc.

pattern - (wikipedia) from the French patron ('template'), is a type of theme of recurring events or objects, sometimes referred to as elements of a set of objects. The elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner.

purpose - same as the word intent, i.e. establishing a process with a beneficient outcome; a gravel sifting process segregates gravel into useful amounts of similar size and shape, while swinging magnets in a string that clack against each other is designed but has no real purpose other than amusement.

design - (wikipedia) - (noun) a specification of an object, manifested by an agent, intended to accomplish goals, in a particular environment, using a set of primitive components, satisfying a set of requirements, subject to constraints

Benford's Law would be an example of undesigned patterns.

There are rules in place in the universe, certainly I agree with that. The rules--the laws of physics--produce predictable, recurring outcomes, which I assume are the patterns you refer to. Indeed, it's those patterns that allow us to deduce the rules in the first place.

Agreed, but always there has been a rational doubt that what we are modeling is not so much laws that exist independently of human perception or knowlege, but we are instead modeling how we can think of what occurs around us instead. In a sense, science might be all in our heads, according to this hyperskeptical view.

But to prove their case I think such skeptics have to show a case where phenomena in the universe cannot be explained with science in any n atural way, and the Big Bang may be such a case, as it implies things that we cannot know or prove from inside this universe. M Theory suggests how things could operate outside out universe and prior to the Big Bang, as I understand it, but how is this all that different from theological or philisophical speculation sine it invovles unnatural objects and presuppositions?

But what does it mean for those rules to demonstrate purpose (which, if I understand you correctly, is what you take to imply the involvement of an "intelligent force")?

That there is benefit to life's existance for the law to be the way it is. Of course, this is a departure from science just a bit and delves into some philosophy and/or theology to determine if there is a distinctive purpose to something. While we all might agree that there might be purpose to the distance of the Earth from the Sun, there might not be much of a consensus with regard to burning coal. Again, this is not science in and of itself, but only a human oriented interpretation of some of the impact of the science.

I hope that all this made sense to you; I do try, but alot of times I use a word or phrase that has a meaning that has become kind of peculiar to my thinking, and not a commonly understood meaning, and in addition, at times I fail to remember what is a common understanding and what is not. I apologise if I have done that to you here.

Suppose different regions of the universe obey different physical laws and that ultimately there is a multitude--maybe even an infinite variety--of different rules in effect in different places. Does that weaken the argument for purpose behind the existence of such laws or would it just imply different purposes at work in different regions?

I think this is the case. Our conception of the laws of nature are based on a very small data set, compareed to the vast universe, so it would not surprise me at all if many of the constants that we have might not be different elsewhere. And no, given the definition I am using for the idea of purpose, it would not be an issue at all, at lest not that I can see at this moment. Perhaps if you see a difficulty you might explain it to me. I would like to straighten out any kinks in my perceptions of things.

I've always found the teleological argument for god(s) to be the most interesting one, but it's always struck me as having an anthropomorphic bias or a sort of logical leap of analogy that never struck me as being obviously valid.

Yes, it is not science to engage in speculation about the implications of science in terms of its impact on humanity as it perceives itself, struggles to exist or finds meaning in nature.

 

[JimBowie1958]

I often play MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, etc, and in these games there are various endeavors that the game designers place to keep people on a sort of tredmill of activity to keep their interests.

In LOTRO, crafting is a fairly complex facet of the game and going out to gather resources takes quite a bit of time. Rocky nodes bearing ores, fallen branches containing useful wood, and other things useful in crafting endeavors appear all over the wilderness and you have to find them.

Now if these resources appeared in a purely random way, then there is no use to trying to figure out a pattern in which they appear, nor a frequency. Some games just use randomness to do this sort of thing. LOTRO does not. That I can deduce a pattern and it saves me time as I search for crafting resources.

So randmoness does not produce a pattern while a designed pattern of spawning does and it isnt that difficult to see these patterns though proving them scientifically would seem a waste of time.

We know that something exists outside of our known universe that gave birth to our universe in the Big Bang. We dont know from that if this was the act of an intelligent Being or the random result of interdimensional membranes according to M Theory or maybe something else.

But the patterns that we see in Nature and its Laws are so full of purposeful design that it implies an intellligent force behind it. This is the very basis on which our concept of science depends.

If your belief is that God created the world then the only proof you need to provide is Gensis. Its abour faith and you can not argue faith logically. Faith precludes logic. I beileve that God created the world but why waste your time trying to prove an intelegent designer when the belief in one is a matter of faith.

Well, I disagree and take comofort from the agreement of greatmen like Thomas Aquinas and Plato who used reason and logic to discover a great many things about God and His Will for us that preceded the moral evolution or even the existance of the chhurch.

Faith is not constrained to logic, but it does use it, and logic can be used to describe almost everything about faith. But faith is a set of conclusions derived from many sources, while logic is a method to best use the data points from those sources.

 

[newpolitics]

I often play MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, etc, and in these games there are various endeavors that the game designers place to keep people on a sort of tredmill of activity to keep their interests.

In LOTRO, crafting is a fairly complex facet of the game and going out to gather resources takes quite a bit of time. Rocky nodes bearing ores, fallen branches containing useful wood, and other things useful in crafting endeavors appear all over the wilderness and you have to find them.

Now if these resources appeared in a purely random way, then there is no use to trying to figure out a pattern in which they appear, nor a frequency. Some games just use randomness to do this sort of thing. LOTRO does not. That I can deduce a pattern and it saves me time as I search for crafting resources.

So randmoness does not produce a pattern while a designed pattern of spawning does and it isnt that difficult to see these patterns though proving them scientifically would seem a waste of time.

We know that something exists outside of our known universe that gave birth to our universe in the Big Bang. We dont know from that if this was the act of an intelligent Being or the random result of interdimensional membranes according to M Theory or maybe something else.

But the patterns that we see in Nature and its Laws are so full of purposeful design that it implies an intellligent force behind it. This is the very basis on which our concept of science depends.

If your belief is that God created the world then the only proof you need to provide is Gensis. Its abour faith and you can not argue faith logically. Faith precludes logic. I beileve that God created the world but why waste your time trying to prove an intelegent designer when the belief in one is a matter of faith.

Well, I disagree and take comofort from the agreement of greatmen like Thomas Aquinas and Plato who used reason and logic to discover a great many things about God and His Will for us that preceded the moral evolution or even the existance of the chhurch.

Faith is not constrained to logic, but it does use it, and logic can be used to describe almost everything about faith. But faith is a set of conclusions derived from many sources, while logic is a method to best use the data points from those sources.

Plato was a greek, which was a polytheistic culture, so your appeal to Plato to vindicate your polytheism is laughable. I imagine you looked at his writing and see "god" written in singular form, and assume a monotheistic belief system. If anything, he held polytheistic monolatrism, where he accepted the pantheon of gods, but only ascribed to one, which is equivalent to early Israelites' faith in Yahweh (a war god) and evidenced by the bible. Perhaps you should learn something about Plato before you simply quote mine him.

 

[JimBowie1958]

To Let me spell it out for you: you can not make unsubstantiated claims and pretend they mean anything, until you can back them up with EVIDENCE, which you don't have, because your position is predicated on faith.

That is nonsense, and I have to point out that you gave no evidence for your assertions.

The problem is in your use of the word evidence. To someone who believes in Voodoo the way a bird lands on a tree limb might be evidence of something. You have not defined what you mean by evidence, in fact, you dont bother to much explain anything at all, but instead you keep repeating aphorisms like the above as though they are just obviously true. They are not obviously true and I suspect I totally disagree with you definition of the word and can show plenty of examples from daily life that show your assertion to be vapid. But since you havent done so I can only guess at what you really mean, but I dont do straw men if I can help it.

How are fractals designed??? They are the product of natural forces, numbnuts. They are no more designed than is a mountain, due to tectonic forces, or a cloud, due to condensation.

But these are not fractals, they only resemble fractals. Show me a fractal that has not been designed.

We understand the NATURAL forces behind a snowflake, and although it appears designed, we know it wasn't because we can fully account for its formation.

How do you know that? Suppose the Matrix world view and that everything we think we see and experience is all part of some vast computerized virtual world. You could look at snowflakes and think that they are not designed, but they would be because those who wrote the code for the snowflakes designed it. You assume that there is no design or Designer, and try to push the idea that this is an example of naturally occuring order that is not designed. But you cannot possibly know that, since it is not established that there is not a Designer, which you would have to do first prior to being able to rationally use snowflakes as an example of undesigned order of any kind.

In every case where we know of a designed thing or process occuring and know if someone designed it or not without any doubt or speculation involved, in every such case it is a case of someone designing that process. So you have no statistical basis at all of assuming there is no design to a snowflake, not at all.

Inside the universe, we observe certain "laws" and consistencies with respect to the behavior of matter and energy, however we are talking about a realm before time, matter, energy, and CAUSATION. Any attempt to use inductive logic to infer what caused the universe is committing the composition fallacy. You CAN NOT make any conclusions about how this universe came into being, because we are simply ignorant to it.

From a strict scientific approach, sure, you are no doubt right, but not all of our knowlege comes from science. Much comes from mathematics, for example, and much comes from philosophy and theology, though I doubt you subscribe to much of the latter, lol.

We know from our observations of things in this universe that all events have a cause, and for you to insist that the Big Bang had no cause of any kind is simply absurd. All the examples we know of show cause and for you to insist that there is no cause with the Big Bang is contrary to all we know about how things work. Therefore it is more rational to think of how this event occured prior to the universe existing rather than to assume that there could have been no cause at all.

Perhaps this is why some of the greatest mathematical and scientific minds of our generation have been working on theories to explain how the Big Bang began?

Shouldnt you do them all the favor of telling them that they are engaging inirrational pursuits? lol

Hence, you are making an argument from ignorance, as well. You are ripe with logical fallacy.

Nope, not at all, and unlike you I do bother to provide some facts and reason to support my assertions and dont make assertions that are plainly unsupported by anything at all.

You seem to think you are an Oracle of Truth or something, that you think because you say a thing is true, that it is therefore true, but that really isnt how reality works, bubba.

 

[JimBowie1958]

If your belief is that God created the world then the only proof you need to provide is Gensis. Its abour faith and you can not argue faith logically. Faith precludes logic. I beileve that God created the world but why waste your time trying to prove an intelegent designer when the belief in one is a matter of faith.

Well, I disagree and take comofort from the agreement of greatmen like Thomas Aquinas and Plato who used reason and logic to discover a great many things about God and His Will for us that preceded the moral evolution or even the existance of the chhurch.

Faith is not constrained to logic, but it does use it, and logic can be used to describe almost everything about faith. But faith is a set of conclusions derived from many sources, while logic is a method to best use the data points from those sources.

Plato was a greek, which was a polytheistic culture, so your appeal to Plato to vindicate your polytheism is laughable.

That you think a persons culture defines there specific personal beliefs is even more ludicrous.

I imagine you looked at his writing and see "god" written in singular form, and assume a monotheistic belief system. If anything, he held polytheistic monolatrism, where he accepted the pantheon of gods, but only ascribed to one, which is equivalent to early Israelites' faith in Yahweh (a war god) and evidenced by the bible.

Monotheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The One" (Τὸ Ἕ&#957 is a concept that arises in Platonism, although the writings of Plato himself are still cast in polytheistic terminology. The Euthyphro dilemma, for example, is formulated as "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" But Plato prefigures monotheism by looking for the absolute Truth, as in the allegory of the cave, and the absolute Good, as in the Form of the Good. Later, Hellenistic religion, including Hellenistic Judaism, and especially Neoplatonism, formulate monotheism explicitly.

The development of pure (philosophical) monotheism is a product of the Late Antiquity. During the 2nd to 3rd centuries, early Christianity was just one of several competing religious movements advocating monotheism.

A number of oracles of Apollo from Didyma and Clarus, the so-called "theological oracles", dated to the 2nd and 3rd century CE, proclaim that there is only one highest god, of whom the gods of polytheistic religions are mere manifestations or servants.[62] Similarly, the cult of Dionysus as practiced in Cyprus seems to have developed into strict monotheism by the 4th century; together with Mithraism and other sects the cult formed an instance of "pagan monotheism" in direct competition with Early Christianity during Late Antiquity.

lol

Perhaps you should learn something about Plato before you simply quote mine him.

Again, you seem to think that you can define what is true by simply asserting what you prefer to believe. The Reality that exists around you does not work like that, roflmao.