Mageth

yes it does.

No, it doesn't.

#1. you personally BELIEVE it is the best hypothesis. YOu have no basis to make an objective claim that it IS the best.

Yes I do. There are no hypotheses that I consider more probable. I've determined the others as much less probable, leaving abiogenesis as the best hypothesis. Abiogenesis is the best hypothesis we have at this time to explain the evidence. No faith required; just reason.

If God does not exist, then of course it is the best hypothesis, because it is the only one.

Not true. There are other possible hypotheses; an infinite number, no doubt. I may not know them all, but they exist. It's possible that some other hypothesis will be made that supplants current hypotheses on abiogenisis.

#2. if you believe it to be true (you accept the hypothesis) then you have faith once again.

False. I don't believe it to be true. I accept it as the most probable hypothesis, the hypothesis that best explains the evidence. I make no other truth claims for it.

#3. don't fret about having faith. its normal. when you set your alarm clock you have faith that:

That's not faith; that's a reasonable expectation based on past, empirical experience and tangible evidence. Contrast that to faith in god; that's faith in a belief in spite of a lack of experience or tangible evidence.

now, we have empirical data that the following things regularly happen every single day:

Correct; my expectation that my alarm clock will go off has a certain amount of probability built into it. I know such things can happen due to past experience. Faith still not required.

despite the certainty that you will die...and the likelihood there will be automobilie accidents in your vincinity, and the fact that all of those things happen on a daily basis to people....you still make plans to be at your 8:00am office meeting. FAITH.

No, not faith. Expectation, with a certain amount of probability built in due to generally unpredictable factors, and based on prior experience, that I will make the meeting.

i dont care if it worked for you 1000 times in the past....the FACT is that it does not work for everyone because those 7 elements happen continuously so because of the fact that those 7 elements are always happening, you have FAITH they wont happen to you.

No, I don't have faith they won't happen to me. I know based on prior experience that they can happen to me; thus, I may adjust my behavior accordingly to lower the probability that I might miss the meeting. If it's a critical meeting, I might set two alarm clocks, one on wall power and one on fresh batteries, and leave extra-early to lower the probability that something "unexpected" but known from past experience to be possible might happen.

again, don't worry about it....we live by faith, i know its hard to admit as an atheist, but you do.

Well, thanks for telling me how I live. But I don't live eacj dau by faith as you described it.

And you fail to note the difference between what you're describing (reasonable expectation based on past experience) and the kind of faith that we're really dealing with - faith in the unknown and the unknowable, faith in the intangible, faith in something without supporting evidence and experience, i.e. god.

I don't require faith in abiogenesis any more than I require "faith" in my alarm clock because there is evidence for abiogenesis; the fact that life exists on earth, for one. There are tangible hypotheses for abiogenesis that I can examine and assign probabilities to. As I said, I consider abiogenesis the most probable hypothesis to account for life on earth. That's not a matter of faith; it's examining the hypothesis and the evidence and reaching a probabilistic conclusion.

as for evolution....it is faith based. if you accept the theory (which I believe you do)...then you take it on faith.

Evolution is not "faith-based", and I emphatically do not accept the theory of evolution on faith. For one, there's two things here: evolution and the theory of evolution. Evolution (descent with modification from a common ancestor) is backed by so much evidence that I accept it as a fact - absolutely no faith required. The theories of evolution, while still not considered fact are backed by so much evidence, and fit the evidence so well, that I accept them with a high level of confidence. If someone proposes a better theory, I'll reconsider my acceptance of evolutionary theory. Again, it's not faith; it's a rational conclusion based on examination of tangible evidence.

To equate my accepting evolution (with the mountain of evidence behind it) as the best explanation for the life we see around us with a high degree of confidence to faith in a god (with zero evidence) would be ludicrous. They're two different animals

well obviously complexity arises from a fertilized egg (for example) but this is deterministic. any deterministic process with informational input can have such an effect. random processes, however, do not have a propensity to increase in complexity.

Again with the "random process" claim. I do not claim that random processes increased in complexity. Indeed, if something is a process it by definition is not "random". Physical laws and self-organizing principles guided the rise of complexity from less complex systems.

you need to demonstrate this. when you say "complexity can arise from less complex systems" this is vague because it does not state anything about randomness or determinism with the input of information.

You seem a bit bipolar with the randomness/determinism thing. Truth lies somewhere in between. Our universe is obviously not totally random or totally deterministic. There's a bit of randomness here and there and a bit of determinism here and there. For complexity to arise, in our universe anyway, seems to require or use a bit of both.

If you want a demonstration of complexity arising from less complex systems, I'd suggest you do a little reading on your own. Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea and Stuart Kaufman's At Home in the Universe are as good of places as any to start.

Other than that, study how snowflakes are formed. A bit of randomness with a bit of determinism.

you seem to be leaning that life originated through determinism...then you waiver back....i get the sense you are waffling. which is it? If both, then describe how they work together.

I haven't been wavering. There's a bit of both; I've never said otherwise. Look out your window to see how they work together; it's all around us. You even gave something of an example with your alarm clock analogy. Traffic flow is another trivial example; streets, traffic control signs and signals, and laws are rather deterministic; the input of cars, the driving conditions, and the actions of drivers are rather random, though not totally random. Together, they form traffic, with all of its complexities.

tribalbeeyatch

One of the more entertaining quotes to come out of this thread has to be the one above. Imagine if you will what a "double blind test" of this sort would necessarily entail. Yes, that's right, we would need a room full of people whose religious status the tester didn't know (single blind), but additionally, those people would have to be ignorant of their own religious status (double blind).

Godot

Your elsewhere detection powers need a new set of batteries, mate. I have deterministic "faith" that your random ability will be vindicated in the future.

sourdough

maybe so BUT could you identify which ones of these people are man and which are women
http://www.b3ta.com/femaleorshemale/#

Mageth

Gawd, I'd forgotten about that tongue-in-cheek prediction. But I'm a bit puzzled how this thread hasn't been relegated to "Elsewhere" as of yet.

xian

yes it does

that you consider.....= subjective = you believe = faith

you've determined = subjective = you believe = faith

Intelligent Design. There are no hypotheses that I consider more probable. I've determined the others as much less probable, leaving intelligent design as the best hypothesis. Intelligent Design is the best hypothesis we have at this time to explain the evidence.


"No faith required; just reason. "
lol, nice to know that you have all the objective answers to probability. If something is more probable then something else, then you therefore have extra knowledge about the whole system....which of course, would make you a god. I have lack of belief that you are a deity.


infinite amount? Uhhh...sorry but there is only 4:

life in the universe began to exist and was caused
--->a) intelligent cause
--->b) non-intelligent cause
life in the universe began to exist and effected itself uncaused
life in the universe has always existed infinitely in the past

what others?


your dancing. you believe it...deep down you do. I know this. you don't have to admit it.
abiogenesis= the theory that life can arise spontaneously from non-life molecules under proper conditions.

i will now share with you a belief I have: I believe that you believe abiogenesis is true. I believe that you are not certain of it, but that you put confidence in it. Nothing you will tell me will change this belief I have. Belief does not require certainty...it only requires conviction. and that you have....without a doubt.

of course it's faith. you are not Webster. The word "faith" has a definition, of which you actually live by.


of course it is. alarm clocks fail. the probability is 100% that they fail on a regular basis. you will die: probability 100%. In fact, every day that goes by where you wake up in the morning increases the likelihood that you will not wake up the next morning. the simple act of setting your alarm clock against the 100% certain knowledge that you WILL die is an act of faith in itself. You have no idea the probability that you will be alive tomorrow. YOu have no idea if it is in your favor or not. You cannot put a number on it. You just plain and simply believe that you will. For every person that dies today (about 1 person per minute)...there is a good chance the majority of them used some retarded form of your logic to conclude that they would still be alive tomorrow. For every atheist that died today (appx 1 per 9 minutes) he /she probably had some contorted logic that concluded "I have no faith that I will be alive tomorrow....no belief at all! It is an inevitable logical conclusion!".....yet they are now D E A D

everytime you get into a car and tell someone you will be at such and such place at time X, you have faith in a MYRIAD of conditions outside of your control.

lol, it is so funny. I just added a new identification criteria on how to identify an atheist in a crowd- "i have no faith in anything!!" lol

this is what it is all about- atheism = "I AM IN CONTROL!"
ha ha! I got news for you: (and this will not be pleasent, but I'm here to comfort you).

You are a finite, limited, dependent being. Weak, frail, fully helpless and dependent upon countless things beyond your control from your supply of food...to the very air you breathe...to the planet you live on....to the viruses your body fights off....

you live by faith

but that doesn't mean you need to admit it, or like it.

Spaz

I got 12 out of 16

Amaranth

Ahhh...the sweet smell of equivocation in the evening.

Mageth

infinite amount? Uhhh...sorry but there is only 4:

In any given situation, there are an infinite number of possible hypotheses available for testing. Look it up.

life in the universe began to exist and was caused
--->a) intelligent cause
--->b) non-intelligent cause
life in the universe began to exist and effected itself uncaused
life in the universe has always existed infinitely in the past

You're changing the problem. My original statement was "Nor does it require faith to accept abiogenesis as the best available hypothesis for how life arose on earth." You're talking about life in the universe.

And within your four categories there are an infinite number of possible hypotheses to account for life on earth.

One only has to look at the number of creation stories man has come up with over the centuries for examples of possible hypotheses in the intelligent and non-intelligent caused categories. And I could spin off new ones all day long and never exhaust the possible hypotheses.

You claimed that abiogenesis was the only hypothesis available for life on earth if god didn't exist. There are many possible, possibly an infinite number, of abiogenic hypotheses that may be considered. In addition, there are countless other possible explanations for life on earth; alien seeding is one. Alien seeding from somewhere in this universe and alien seeding from a universe outside our universe makes that one into two. Spontaneous generation (e.g. maggots from rotting flesh, which people used to believe) is three.

Mageth

As far as the faith bit, Amaranth got it correct.

But it really doesn't matter how you label my reasons for accepting abiogenesis as the best hypothesis available. The hypothesis stands or falls on its own merits. If the best you can do is holler "You believe it on faith!", I'm not too worried about you being able to come up with a better hypothesis.

The rest of your post just increases my "faith" that you are here to troll and for little else.