Jack the Bodiless

Ed:
What are these alleged properties that indicate the Christian Triune God, now that we have established that it's quite possible for Allah to produce a Universe containing multiple entities?
The unity isn't uniform, or there wouldn't be anything within it. Even illusions are really illusions, they partake of reality. In Hinduism, the apparent complexity of the Universe may mask an underlying unity, but the appearance of complexity is still there, just as the appearance of complexity is obviously real in the physical Universe despite everything consisting of a handful of different types of particle and only three forces at work between them (strong, electroweak, gravitational: physicists are still trying to reduce these still further).
I thinkit would save everyone a great deal of time and frustration if, rather than trying to reply to every person here as if the others hadn't said anything, you try to follow the flow of the debate and address the issues. It should not be necessary for me to reply to this, because another poster has already done so. Here is what turtonm has already said:
So this issue has already been addressed, and the claim that the Bible does not include "childishly exaggerated events" is refuted. I could also add much of the Old Testament: the parting of the Red Sea, just about everything relating to the Great Flood, and so on.
Pasteur's principle is nothing more than the common-sense observation that complex organisms (and a bacterium is a relatively complex organism) don't just pop out of thin air. It simply does not address the formation of self-replicating molecules in the primordial soup. It isn't some sort of "anti-abiogenesis law".
Define "true will". Even dogs have a "moral conscience", it's a characteristic of social animals. For that matter, define "abstract" thought.
As you failed to establish any requirement for a personal God to produce anything whatsoever, this claim remains void. Again, you're not following the issues.

HRG

This is only one facet of "quantum behavior" and no less governed by the basic indeterminacy of physics at the quantum scale than the examples I gave.

That we don't see direct evidence of virtual H-2/anti-H-2 etc. pairs is quite understandable: at the energies necessary to create those pairs (some Giga-eV), any molecule would be torn to shreds since their binding energies are a few eV (electronvolts).

Regards,
HRG.

Synaesthesia

Ed,
Ed, specific counter-examples have been proffered to refute the claim that all genetic changes are deleterious. Are you trying to be disingenuous or are you merely not reading the thread?

Secondly, as was explained at length to you without acknowledgement, there IS no gene controlling size. It’s not a matter of waiting for a size 15 mutation to come up. Many, many other characteristics have to fall into place to larger or smaller animals to survive.


RW,

Naturally if it were indeed true that it has been “demonstrated” that DNA must have been deliberately designed, the controversy between the design and naturalistic development of life is irrelevant. This is not the case, yet again you are putting forward evidence that simply does not exist.

DNA, and every biologist worth their salt can tell you this, is not a precursor to life. It developed in consort with the other machinery that living things possess today. Before DNA there was some manner of hereditary mechanism, not DNA. Existing DNA is most clearly NOT required for mutation (self-replicating molecules that have been found can indeed mutate) and survival (chemical evolution operates partly because those molecules which are most stable).

If Jim scratches his name into a tree trunk, when the tree falls a year later and kills a bear Jim cannot be charged with poaching. Why?

The difficulty with your position is that computers do a great deal that they were not designed to do. In fact, when it comes to large collections of networks such as the internet, we don’t even know what these computer systems DO. A very, very large portion of what computer do are unintended emergent effects.

For example, Conway’s game of life consists of a matrix of square “cells” each of which can be “on” or “off”. There are three rules applied to each cell in each “moment” of time: 1. If three adjacent cells are on, turn on. 2. If two are on, stay in present state, whatever it many be. 3. If any other number of cells are on, turn off.

From these simple rules, complex interactions of shapes can be produced. The matrix tends to produce a number of stable shapes that oscillate in place or glide from one place to another. The very important thing to remember is that in no sense are these shapes designed. They are the emergent product of a simple set of rules interacting on a large scale. Intelligence is not required to produce such order-generating systems, chemical and biological evolution are compelling counterexamples.

The claim you are making is that intelligence IS a form of magic, this is pure vitalism. The claim that organized complexity requires inteligence is simply false: things like chemical evolution occurs in nature, self-replicating molecules can also form with or without human intervention given the right chemical environment. That humans can easily provide such an environment is besides the point. That we can dig holes in the ground does not mean craters are the result of ID.

Never heard of a computer virus?

The principles of self-replicating autonomatons is, in fact, a major field of research. Indeed, the first rudiments of physical implementations of self-replicating machinery are already being tested. Really fascinating stuff.

[ January 19, 2002: Message edited by: Synaesthesia ]</p>

lpetrich

Ed, you have NEVER described those differences in detail. In fact, I've pointed out how Jesus Christ's biography strongly follows a "Mythic Hero" profile assembled from the life of various other legendary figures. By comparison, Mohammed and Charles Darwin are much worse fits.

That is a reasonable generalization for PRESENT-DAY CONDITIONS. However, in the absence of life, it is expected that an abundace of prebiotic chemistry to flourish, allowing some organism to get started. The reason that such chemistry does not flourish on the present-day Earth is because it has a tendency to get eaten by existing Earth microbes, many of which have no trouble living off of simple organic molecules. IIRC, Charles Darwin had pointed out that difficulty long ago.

So I don't see the point of screaming that life cannot come from non-life. And even if the ancestor of all present-day Earth life had been introduced from outside, it does not falsify the Earth's great age or its abundance of geological evolution.

rainbow walking

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Datheron:
[QB]RW,



I'm saying that nature's propensity is indeed to be produce simple algorithms. You are correct in stating that intelligence has produced AI - however, by what degree of intelligence is required for such a thing? Is it possible, instead of having a period of tens of thousands of years to produce intelligence (humans making AI), that over billions of years nature has produced intelligence?

rw: Hi Dat,
If we're talking possibilities I agree, anything is possible. The real question: "is it probable?" Aren't you just swapping one designer for another? How is it that "nature" causes electrons to behave in a specific manner?

Dat: Furthermore, it begs the question of exactly why we are, in fact, so flawed and stupid.

rw: I beg your pardon?

Dat: If our flawed existence managed to produce a simulation of intelligence within a matter of thousands of years (actually, if we talk about the age of computing, it would be around 40 years, but let's give the benefit of the doubt and take the entirety of human history into account),

rw: Surely this is a negation of your previous claim that we are so flawed and stupid...?

Dat: exactly how or why would an omniscent being take 15 billion years to create us?

rw: Maybe it's a sign that He isn't equipped with all these omni's everyone keeps pinning on Him?

On the other hand if God is reproducing progeny then we could say the gestation period is quite a bit longer than anyone anticipated.

rainbow walking

Syn: Naturally if it were indeed true that it has been “demonstrated” that DNA must have been deliberately designed, the controversy between the design and naturalistic development of life is irrelevant. This is not the case, yet again you are putting forward evidence that simply does not exist.

Rw: I am only pointing out the great gulf that lies between proving life arose naturally and where we are now in establishing that proof.

Syn: DNA, and every biologist worth their salt can tell you this, is not a precursor to life. It developed in consort with the other machinery that living things possess today. Before DNA there was some manner of hereditary mechanism, not DNA. Existing DNA is most clearly NOT required for mutation (self-replicating molecules that have been found can indeed mutate) and survival (chemical evolution operates partly because those molecules which are most stable).

Rw: The very few molecules that have been discovered to self replicate comprise less that 2% of the codification necessary to arrive at even a simple DNA strand. And the by-products produced are highly toxic such that polymerization results have not been favorable.

Syn: If Jim scratches his name into a tree trunk, when the tree falls a year later and kills a bear Jim cannot be charged with poaching. Why?

Rw: Because Jim wasn’t trying to duplicate a complex process the way computer scientists have intentionally designed programs to learn.

Syn: The difficulty with your position is that computers do a great deal that they were not designed to do. In fact, when it comes to large collections of networks such as the internet, we don’t even know what these computer systems DO. A very, very large portion of what computer do are unintended emergent effects.

Rw: How is this a difficulty for me? The fact that you must acknowledge their “design” seems to be more of a difficulty for you than any aberrative behavior a computer might perform during the process of data crunching.

Syn: For example, Conway’s game of life consists of a matrix of square “cells” each of which can be “on” or “off”. There are three rules applied to each cell in each “moment” of time: 1. If three adjacent cells are on, turn on. 2. If two are on, stay in present state, whatever it many be. 3. If any other number of cells are on, turn off.

From these simple rules, complex interactions of shapes can be produced. The matrix tends to produce a number of stable shapes that oscillate in place or glide from one place to another. The very important thing to remember is that in no sense are these shapes designed. They are the emergent product of a simple set of rules interacting on a large scale. Intelligence is not required to produce such order-generating systems, chemical and biological evolution are compelling counterexamples.

Rw: I don’t see how you can say in no sense are these shapes designed. The results require a computer and a program DESIGNED by Conway that incorporates rules and mathematics.

Syn: The claim you are making is that intelligence IS a form of magic, this is pure vitalism. The claim that organized complexity requires inteligence is simply false: things like chemical evolution occurs in nature, self-replicating molecules can also form with or without human intervention given the right chemical environment. That humans can easily provide such an environment is besides the point. That we can dig holes in the ground does not mean craters are the result of ID.

Rw: How is your privileging “nature” as the vital architect of life any less magical? A few, (very few) molecular replications only points to the fact that particle physics has some splaining to do which it generally tries to do incorporating quantum attributes to electrons. I hold that nature itself is a product of design. Whatever you postulate has occurred naturally only begs the question of the origins of nature itself and why it behaves in such a way as to promote the complex essence of life.

Syn: Never heard of a computer virus?

Rw: A computer virus is AI replication? Something that disables the functionality of a working system is hardly what I’d call “intelligent”.

Syn: The principles of self-replicating autonomatons is, in fact, a major field of research. Indeed, the first rudiments of physical implementations of self-replicating machinery are already being tested. Really fascinating stuff.

Rw: Can you provide some links? I’d be interested in reading about this.

Datheron

RW,

How am I swapping any designers? I'm placing the fact that nature has a tendency, over billions of years, to produce an intelligent species is what some would call "brute fact", other axiomic. Would it make sense if I asked you what causes God to act in a good manner?

Us, as imperfect beings, have been able to in part replicate intelligence that operates on a much faster and higher level than most of us really can. We are ruled by emotion, by desire, swayed by petty things as revenge. Our physical bodies are pathetic, and we blow each other up over some of the stupidest things. Hardly a prize creation for a "very intelligent" God.

Intelligence is measured on many levels, by many different things. Suppose a student aces his test, but still fails the class. Is this a sign of intelligence, or that the test was too easy?

The omni's do stem from theists, after all, but I'll take it into note that you don't agree with them.

Then again, assuming that God is smarter than us, 15 billion vs. 40 years isn't exactly what one would be proud of.

Yea, I can just see it now:

God: Eeeergh.
Cosmic Doctor: Push, push!
God: Arrrrgh.
Cosmic Doctor: Don't worry, the bleeding's natural.

And thus the Milky Way was born.

But the truth of the matter is, we don't know either way. Once again, we're hitting a brick wall of ignorance - we have no idea what it takes to create intelligent life, or even life in general. I find it rather arrogant that theists automatically conclude that life and/or intelligent life is impossible without some designer, when it's evident that scientific theories predict such evolutionary periods to be millions of years in length, and we have been observing for perhaps a few hundred years.

Ed

I am not sure exactly what you mean, but the reason they said that was probably because they were so certain that his death was justified. I am sure you have heard people say similar things when they are doing something they believe is right but are questioned by others that the action may not be right.

Quote:

lp: Also, John makes Jesus Christ stay in Jerusalem much longer than the Synoptic writers do; and in John, JC's temple temper tantrum does not provoke the Jewish authorities the way it does in the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).

You will have to provide some specific verses as far as your first comment goes. And given that none of the gospels is written in chronological order. There is evidence that Christ cleansed the temple twice, probably the second one led to the provocation.

Quote:

Ed: No, it looks more like Josephus, Cornelius Tacitus, Lucian of Samosata, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Thallus, Phelogon, amd Mara Bar-Serapion. lp: Most of which are ambiguous, secondhand, or controversial. Josephus's reference is often thought to be a forgery.

The only one that is ambiguous is bar Serapion, and yet given that no other known person who claimed to be king of the Jews was formally executed it strongly points to Jesus. Josephus' reference to Jesus and his half brother James has never been considered a forgery or controversial. And in the more controversial passage, only the references to him as Christ and his resurrection have been considered later insertions.

Quote:

lp: Mara bar Serapion does not refer to JC explicitly, just to "the Jews' wise king". Pliny the Younger and Lucian of Samosata had learned about JC from his followers. Etc.

See above about bar Serapion. And I admitted that they were secondhand but they are independent.

Quote:

lp: And I wonder if Ed enjoyed reading those references -- some of them view early Christianity as some sort of bizarre cult.

I did enjoy reading them because they made my point and they are evidence of the fulfillment of Christ's prediction that his follwers would be hated by the rest of the world.

Quote:

Ed: The apostle Paul. And there is archaeological evidence of the church that Christ founded. lp: Paul had nearly zero interest in the putative historical Jesus Christ. Which has led some to conclude that JC was a myth; see <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.com

" target="_blank">http://www.jesuspuzzle.com[/b][/quote]</a>

Huh? You're kidding right? Paul stated that his preaching was meaningless if Christ had not historically risen from the dead. He didnt spend much of his letters reviewing Christ's life on earth because it would have been redundant with the gospels already definitely circulating verbally and probably parts were also circulating in written form.

Quote:

lp: Such evidence does not prove anything about JC; does the existence of mosques indicate that there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is his prophet?

It does if it is in combination with other evidence. And in Christ's case there is other evidence.

Quote:

[Me on how the Universe may not have had a "real" beginning...] Ed: Well you are going against most cosmologists, most cosmologists believe that the universe had a definite beginning. lp: Why don't you study their views directly? The mainstream view is that the Big Bang can be traced back to a quantum-gravity era, from which we cannot proceed any further with any confidence.

Of course they are not going to proceed any further because they will branded as that horror of horrors, a theist!

Quote:

Ed: No, given that the term "heavens and earth" in hebrew means "everything that physically exists", ... lp: Says who??? To me, when it says "heavens and earth", it means simply "heavens and earth" unless there is good reason to think otherwise, such as a context that suggests some metaphorical meaning. But there is no such context.

Huh? For the ancient hebrews everything that physically existed WAS the heavens and the earth. I dont see how it could be any plainer.

Quote:

LP: There is a story of someone in Genesis making some solid-color cattle give birth to spotted and striped cattle by showing them sticks with striped painted on. Ed: That was a supernatural event not a lesson in genetics. lp: How is that supposed to be the case?

From the context, why do you think his father in law got so angry? If it was just an ordinary genetic occurence it would not have alarmed him.

Quote:

Ed: See my earlier post about the sequence of life's development and the flood. Actually according to the great linguist Noam Chomsky there is evidence of one original language that later diversified fitting what the scriptures teach. lp: Noam Chomsky claims that there is some deep structure in human language, and that we are genetically predisposed to use this structure. This hypothesis says absolutely nothing about some supposed common origin. I do think that there is reason to believe that our species' ancestral population had had a single language, but that does not confirm the Tower of Babel story of the origin of different languages. What happened is that this original population split up as it spread, and different populations changed their languages in different directions -- something that's been abundantly observed in historical times.

It confirms the basic outline of the theory of language. I.e. that all languages come from a single source. This is contrary to many earlier theories about language.

This is the end of part I of my response.

lpetrich

If so, then they would have said "Good riddance!!!"

I shouldn't have to summarize the Bible for you. And how were the Gospels not written in chronological order? Chronological order the default order for storytelling everywhere that I know of, with departures explicitly indicated, as in flashbacks.

And it's curious that Jesus Christ is never described as having had two temple temper tantrums -- only one.

Here's a word-for-word quote about that "wise king" from the Mara bar Serapion letter:

What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise king? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea; the Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good; he lived on in the teaching of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise king die for good; he lived on in the teaching which he had given.

This seems more like a moralistic fable than real history; Pythagoras was never executed by his fellow citizens of Samos, and that "wise king" could easily have been someone other than JC. For more, see <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1995/4/4mara95.html" target="_blank">this critical discussion</a>

Ed must only be familiar with the Josh McDowell genre of apologetics; among serious scholars, those passages are much more controversial.

Some "prediction" (sarcasm).

Earl Doherty has done a good job of exposing the absurdity of that position in his book "The Jesus Puzzle"; according to him, it was a heavenly Christ that had lived and died, in the fashion of a deity in a pagan mystery cult. Also, the Gospels have been the favorite "source" on Jesus Christ ever since they were written; Paul's ignoring them suggest that they had never been in existence when he wrote, and very likely that a historical Jesus Christ, if any, had been far from the JC of the Gospels.

The same can be said of Islam; what's the difference?

How so? There are much better reasons, such as having to explain where a Universe-designer being had come from. According to the Argument from Design, such as being would have had to be designed.

And the most one can cough out of the the Big Bang is some kind of very distant deist god. Not one who inspires sacred books and answers prayers.

Genesis 30: Jacob accepts employment caring for Laban's cattle and sheep and goats, distinguished by being solid-colored; Jacob gets to keep all the spotted and streaked ones that appear in the flock. So Jacob decided on a trick to breed some ones that he could keep; he shows some of Laban's cattle some striped sticks when their offspring are getting conceived. Those cattle have a lot of spotted and streaked offspring, which Jacob keeps for himself, as per the deal.

This story is a classic bit of pre-Mendelian folklore called "maternal impressions"; it is not treated as anything miraculous, because maternal impressions are generally not considered miraculous.

WHAT earlier theories???

GunnerJ

Wow... we somehow got back to the original topic!