>> In alt.religion.christian lsend...@
hotmail.com wrote:
>>> Which has no thinking cap. Â It would require God to be placed in
>>> a test tube which would only evidence that, after all, he is no
>>> god at all.
>>
>> Nope. Â There is no such requirement. Â There are an infinite number of
>> other tests.
>>
> There are NO tests. How can the finite test the Infinite-Personal
> other
> than to test His patience for lack of belief?
So it is your position that no objective proof exists of any god? If so,
I find your view refreshing.
>> Â By definition, GOD transcends. Â He is totally
>>> incomprehensible to the finite mind. Â He must disclose and
>>> reveal Himself if we are to have any sure knowledge of Him.
>>
>> If you define him in that manner, you will never know if he is real or
>> ficticious.
> No, you make a standard error. Just because He is outside of our
> medium of experience, does not mean that when He does break into
> time and history to reveal Himself, that that revelation has to be
> exhaustive. Revelation can be absolutely true despite being finite.
Good point. I see what you are saying.
>>Â And it seems obvious that many other people have many
>> definitions that are very different from yours.
> No they don't. They may have other "gods" but all men have
> known that there is an Absolute, Infinite God which hold them
> accountable for their deeds.
NO. "All men" do not know this. Indeed, Iwould argue that no man "knows"
this. Many seem to believe it, but that is not knowledge.
All men know this but not all
> men admit to it or have made themselves callous to that
> reality over time.
How can you know the innermost thoughts of "all men"? Surely you
must admit that you were hyperbolic here.
>>
> Ah! But you confuse rationalism with being rational. Pure
> rationalism
> is a non-reality. In truth, however, reason underlies all faith while
> an
> activity of faith underlies all knowledge. Think it through. For
> reason
> in its final analysis rests on authority which is beyond itself.
Nope. Reason rests on facts, and based upon mere authority, assertions
are suspect, and not proven facts.
And whether "pure rationalism" (whatever that means) exists or not, all
other (insignificantly impure?) forms of rationalism certaily doexist, and
they work quite will to deduce formerly unknown facts.
> Belief/
> faith is the primary condition of reason - not reason being the
> ultimate basis for faith.
You have to go into more detail. I don't know what you are saying here.
> None of the great thinkers talk this way any more. This is
> easily evidenced by some of the published comments of
> Sir Fredric Hoyle who no longer accepts the big bang
> theory nor the standard, strictly atheistic model of
> evolution. The complexity of a single gene has led him and
> other to state that there simply isn't enough time in the
> universe for probability being the causality of this complex
> yet ordered universe.
I have not read Hoyle. Did he use computers to geerate the billions of
years worth of data? I don't know much about this stuff, but haven't
there been mutating algorithms which evidence that there was plenty of
time for single-celled creatures to become complex?
And do you really mean "none of the great thinkers"? Or is hoyle
an exception to the rule?
Though he doesn't go so far as to
> declare, "God," he does now concede that there has to
> be "god" in the equation. Leon Ledderman, an atheistic
> Jew, and yet another Nobel laureate, had to concede to
> there being some kind of "God Particle," that being the
> title of his book.
These are interesting hypotheses. Have they been proven, or are they mere
proposed explanations? Are these hypothesis accepted generally? Or are
they among the thousands of unproven ideas floating around in cosmological
circles?
> It's not that there is no evidence, rather its not being able to
> see the forest for all those blasted trees.
Wait a minute. How does this square with your prior assertion that "there
is no test"?
The whole of modern
> science is founded upon the principle that HE is there. The
> problem of unity/diversity, of "where did the order come from"
> and "why is man different from non-man" are never adequately
> answered outside of the Judaeo-Christian faith.
Ummm....they are not adequetely answered inside the Judeo-Muslim-Xtin
faith either. The explanation of an intelligent designer succumbs to
infinite regress, unless saved by "God has no designer".
> The problem with modern epistimology is that it beats to
> death the Answer to overwhelming questions of "how" and
> "why" without having anything to put in its place. Is it
> any wonder that we've had two world wars and third on
> its way?
You ascribe acause/affect relationship where none exist.
Is it any wonder that we have such a moral
> dilemma in the West where we have been telling children
> from birth that they are descended from animals and that
> there is no accountability to an all knowing, all powerful
> God?
This is an appeal to consequences, which carries no weight when searching
for truth. Yes, kids might be more "moral" if we lie to them. After all,
that is how we get thim to go to bed on Xmass Eve. But most people think
that telling the truth is an important virtue, and will tell the truth to
their kids. They believe in God; they have faith. They do not
intentionally lie to their kids to avoid bad consequences.
Is it any wonder when these same kids walk into
> their schools on Hitler's birthday wearing Natural Selection
> t-shirts to blast away without any thought of eternal
> accountability?
Again, it may be usefull to have fairy tales of eternal accountability.
But many folks seek truth, and not good outcomes. They let the chips fall
where they may.
> Is it any wonder, after Eisenhower mandated that evolution
> be taught in public schools that teenage pregnancy, drug
> abuse, date rape and even murder have escalated the
> further away society get from its Christian origins?
You posit a cause/effectt relationship here, with no evidence other than
correlation.
>> That is the teleological arguement. Â It is well known and well
developed. Â
>> And it does not stand up to scrutiny. Â Look it up.
>>
> Well I give you this much, at least you have some education in
> the argument. As for it not standing up to scrutiny, the fact is that
> it does not stand alone, as you should well know.
I once had a conversation with my teenager about UFO evidence. I said
"they have lots and lots and lots of evidence. Any single piece of
evidence you examine is pretty unconvincing as proof. Generally each one
is crap. But do you know what you get when you put all of that evidence
into a big pile?"
His guess was "A convincing arguement"?
And I told him: "No. When you take crap and put it in a big pile, all
you get is a big pile of crap."
If the teleological arguement is crap, it must be discarded. It cannot be
combined with other similarly unconvincing stuff and amount to more than
the sum of its parts.
That is fundemental.
Take another example. Say someone hears from his friend that his wife is
fooling around. He may well discount the story. But what if he hears it
from 3 different people? Might he then believe it? Yes!
But if those 3 heard it from the same source, it explains why there is a
big pile of hearsay. Again: A big pile of defective arguements is
unconvincing.
And beyond that
> it certainly holds upto scrutiny better than anything else.
Infinite regress does NOT stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever. And if you
calim that the teleological arguement is te strongest singe piece of
evidence you have, then you had better give up on evidence and use faith.
The
> error bars of evolutionary science are always overlooked or at the
> very least minimized if not trivialized.
I do not take any position on "evolutionary science". And even if it were
pure, unmitigated bunk, that would provide no evidence whatsoever for your
assertion of the reality of the Judeo-Muslim-xtin god.
The arguement you are currenlty making is a form of "I will go with my
best guess. Evolution has problems, so that leaves the only other
explanation that I can think of". Indeed, Evolution may be bunk, but
that does nothing to prove your assertions. After all, there are
hundreds, if not thousands of creation myths floating around. You could
prove all of them to be bunk, but tat does nothing whatsoever to bolster
your assertion that your beliefs are reality.
Look up in Nature News
> the article, "Deflating inflation" or go to
space.com and read
> Moskowitz in "New View: Universe Suddenly Twice as Bright."
> The errors within the presumptions of modern science are
> staggering.
Maybe so. But that does nothing to bolster your arguement.
>>
>>> Science is base upon an orderliness to the universe
>>> and yet modern science presuppositionally denies
>>> the source of that order.
>>
>> It does nothing of the kind. Â Instead, it proceeds with as few
>> presuppositions as possible. Â If you need to lie to make your point, maybe
>> your point has no basis?
>>
> If there was no presupposition of order,
I meant that science does not "presuppositionally deny the source of that
order".
there would be no
> reason to expect reasonable answers. This is epistemology 101.
> The unreality, thus unreliability, of modern science in admitting
> that it has no basis for presupposing order in the first place,
> let alone even having a mythology as to its origin, makes it
> philosophically absurd.
C'mon. You are argueing that all of science is absurd? You don't rally
mean that, do you?
What about the order found through experiments? The confirmation of
hypotheses that every science student performs in their lab classes? Does
this not indicate, with no presupposition, that some amount of order
exists?
It is totally inconsistent with itself.
> Putting the cookies on the lower shelf, it is hypocritcal in the
> extreme. It is the new priesthood where none are allowed
> to question it. It alone is the final authoritative. It's a
> faith based religion folks.
Faith based religions do not perform experiments and discard theories.
That is the nature of faith. It is opposite of the methods of science.
Science considers hypotheses, and designs experiments which indicate
whether the hypothesis seems to agree with reality. Those which are
defective are reorked.
Faith admits no such refinement.
>>
>>> Not ONE star has ever been recorded being born.
>>
>> I think that this statement is mistaken. Â And even if it were true, what
>> would that prove?
>>
> No it is not mistaken. It proves that there is NO
> evidence for one of the fundamentals of modern science
There is lots and lots and lots of evidence. The one piece you mention is
not exclusive, nor is it even necessary. We are going with our best
guesses, subject to refinement or outright rejection, based upon evidence,
and not faith. That is how science works.
and
> it's uniformitarian presuppositionalism because there is no
> evidence for stellar/planetary evolution. There isn't one
> shred of evidence for cosmic, chemical, stellar, organic,
> or macro evolution. It's all taken on "faith."
This is not true. There's mounds of eidence.
Up above, you were honest, wen you admitted that the teleological
arguement was bunk. Why have you changed?
>>
>>> If the universe is, indeed, as
>>> old as non-Creator believing modern science cries,
>>> then there should be millions of them even
>>
>> I think that the number is billions, and that we have identified many
>> star-forming areas in the universe.
> Not one. Why are you commenting on a subject that
> you are obviously not studied in?
Because I do a lot of reading. That is why I qualified it with "I think"
rather than stating my memories as if they were facts.
So it is your position that we have not identified even one single
star-forming area?
Besides, how would
> you differentiate between "star-forming" from the simple
> answer that the light from that star has only reached
> us? Why do you presuppose that it "evolved!" ? Do
> you not see your development of thought processes?
I make no such presuppositions. I read articles and think "that
sounds reasonable. I wonder if this viewpoint will be upheld by future
experiments?".
String theory, for example, is a rich theoretical field. But experimental
evidence is scant. I read about it, understand it as best I can, and I
try to keep an open, sceptical attitude towards its assertions.
This is what I try to do with all assertions of fact. And from whatI hae
seen, the jewish/mustlim/xtin explanations for reality fall apart if
examined closely. For example, what you consider the best evidence, the
teleological arguement, falls apart.
> curiosity for me. Take a look at the May issue of
> Astrophysical Journal Letters where astronomers
> are now reporting that they have found tightly
> compact galaxies at "redshift 2.3" which corresponds
> to 1/5th the assumed age of the cosmos.
Fascinating. And the fact that such findings were reported in a serious
jounal pretty much kills your view that science is faith based. If the
experimetsare confirmed as accurate, then basic chunks of many theories
will need to be examined and reworked to fit the facts. That is NOT the
methodof a faith-based system of belief. It is the oppoiste; one changes
one's beliefs to fit facts.
>>> lunar landing rover calculated there to be many feet
>>> of cosmic dust on the surface of the moon as
>>> "billions and billions of years" would naturally
>>> accumulate.
>>
>> Who's theory is that? Â Is it yours?
> Maybe you're not old enough to remember the event and
> how public NASA was about all this stuff and how studied
> even the general public was by reading articles in LOOK or
> LIFE magazines in the 60's.
I looked into this after I read your stuff. In fact, there was no worry
about the lunar lander sinking, because the unmanned landers did not sink.
And there are many explanations for the density of the moon. Tisisa
perfect example of science getting it wrong, and correcting theory to fit
the facts.
> You should also look at one of Howard Hughes major
> investments- the Glomar Explorer. It was built on the "hard
> scientific fact" the universe was "billions and billions of
> years old" and the fact that when space dust concentrates
> in sea water, it produces nickel. So he built this ship on
> that premise only never to find any nickel deposits in
> the oceans. What he did with the ship after that is another
> very interesting story.
Does this incident prove conclusiely that the unierse is NOT billions of
years old? Or merely that a detail concerning nickel was a mistake?
Science is continually throwing away disproven theories.
>>> The many and the one. Â Unity within the diversity.
>>> There is NO answer for it except in the Triunity
>>> Godhead.
>>
>> This is an arguement from ignorance. Â You can only think of one
>> explanation, but that gives no assurance that you are correct.
> I think after 20+ years of tinkering in philosophy, I might know
> a little bit about this.
Yes. You might know a little bit. But to contend that your study makes
your arguement from ignorance reliable is bunk.
>>In the old
>> days, they thought that the night air caused disease. It was the only
>> explanation that they could think of, and seemed correct, due to their
>> ignorance of microbes. But we now know more than we did then, and we have
>> come to better conclusions. Â
>>
> And this is a common defensive ploy. Obviously we are not
> omniscient. In point of fact, we know NOTHING exhaustively.
So you don't know if the Bible is the inerrant word of God? Do you really
mean that?
Thus
> we come full circle back to the subject of incomprehensibility and
> the basic questions of "knowing" as studied in epistemology.
Of course. At heart, I am a Sceptic (with a capital "S"). In my head,
however, I ignore that.
>>
>> You conclude that there is "NO answer except", but that is a slim reed to
>> grasp. You rely upon your ignorance to prove that you are correct. Â You
>> might be correct, but your evidence is as weak as it gets.
>>
> One would think that if there were an alternative, it would be
> loudly and repeatedly indoctrinated in every school in the land.
> But the silence as to this point is both deafening and determining.
And it proves exactly nothing.
> The space/mass(energy)/time continuum. Have you given it
> much thought?
I am currently reading "Einstein's Universe". Ihae read similar
laymen's guides in the past.
Space cannot exist outside of time while
> presupposing mass. Mass requires space to exist in and
> a time of existence. Time is calculated in relationship to
> both space and time. It is a triunity. Does it prove the
> Trinity? No. However, it is one of those wonderful
> evidences of the nature of the Designer/Creator.
Ummm.... that is no evidence whatsoever. C'mon.
--
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so
certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
-- Bertrand Russel
