Peppered Moths DON'T prove evolution

Kettlewell's peppered moth experiment was critically flawed. The flaws
were the following:

1) Peppered moths are nocturnal, so their coloration makes no
difference in if they will be eatten while active or not.
2) Peppered moths rest on the underside of high tree branches, a place
where they are very unlikely to be eatten by any predator.
3) The photographed moths were released during the daytime, which
caused the disoriented moths to land on the nearest tree, thus giving a
false impression that they did so under natural conditions.

A recent review of Kettlewell's experiment concluded "there is little
persuasive evidence, in the form of rigorous and replicated observations
and experiments, to support this explanation at the present time"
(Sargent et al. 1998, p. 318).

Spider wrote:
“Peppered Moths DON'T prove evolution”

Whoever claimed that they did?

And look who’s talking about requiring PROOF for things? Can you prove
that Adam was created from dust? Can you prove that Eve was created
from his rib? Can you prove that Moses parted the waters? Can you
prove that Jesus was born of a virgin? Can you prove that Jesus rose
from the dead? Can you prove that Noah even existed?

You are obviously a man who doesn’t even care about ‘proof’ at all. Why
you even bother to speak of the word is beyond me.

Abracadabra,

I take the scriptures as faith, so I don't need proof. You have a lot
of hate in you. You run on and on about how much love you have, I have
yet to see it.

You mentioned peppered moths as proof of evolution and then you get your
panties in a bunch when I blow your precious proof of evolution out of
the water. You need to chill out a little. Just admit that you take
evolution entirely at faith, because there is no scientific evidence.
I'm a man of faith, I won't judge you for that. It's just when people
take evolution at faith and claim that science supports it that I feel I
have to speak up.

Abra, I think you mean to say you "realized" (came to the conclusion)
that it (Christianity) was "wrong" for YOU.

THE ONE WITH ROCKS IN THIEER HEAD ARE THE ONES THAT HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE IN
GODS GRACE AND POWER JESUS PROVE TO ME TIME AFTER TIME HOW REAL HE
TRUELY IS MY BOOK OF POETRY BELONGS TO HIM ACTUALL EVOLUTION IS SATAN'S
TOOL TO GET PEOPLE TO NOT BELIEVE IN JESUS THEY DO NOT CO-EXIST TOGETHER
SORRY BUT EVOLUTION IS NOT REAL THE BIBLE AND JESUS ARE REAL THANKS

THIER SORRY IT WAS A TYPO

Spider wrote:
“You run on and on about how much love you have, I have yet to see it.”

I don’t ever recall telling anyone how much love I have.

Spider wrote:
“You mentioned peppered moths as proof of evolution and then you get
your panties in a bunch when I blow your precious proof of evolution out
of the water.”

I did not mention peppered moths as ‘proof’ of anything. In fact, I
have made absolutely no effort or attempt to ‘prove’ evolution in this
thread at all. I don’t feel any need to prove evolution. It’s already
a well established fact in its own right. I personally don’t care
whether anyone believes it or not. It seriously doesn’t matter me.

PROVEN BY WHO THE BIBLE BEEN ROUND OVER 2000 YEARS NOW REVOLUTION MAYBE
200 OR LESS YEARS SO WHICH ONE IS TRUTH THE ONE THAT STAND AGAINST TIME

Abracadabra:

As I have said from the beginning, I am arguing with strict naturalism.
This is the belief that nothing exists except for matter, time, space,
and energy.

A direct consequence of this belief is that matter must have therefore
always existed. Since every effect must have a cause, nothing could
"start" to exist if there wasn't a previous cause to initiate its
"starting." Thus, a strict naturalist must believe that matter, time,
space, and energy have always existed... or else they would not exist
now. From this you can quickly resolve the issues I mentioned earlier in
the thread about how atheism then cannot be a trusted line of thinking
because if only time, space, matter, and energy exist, then no thinking
can possibly lead to "truth" and hence, human thinking would be no
different than human sneezing.

Under this line of thinking (and only this line) am I claiming that
every event is either the necessary product of forced motions of
particles or else it is the random by product of these motions of
particles.

If you believe there are external forces acting on the universe, then
you do not have to believe that only random processes or totally
compelled processes are at work. You are free to believe that "chosen"
or "intelligent" processes are at work (this is in fact exactly what I
believe and what it appears that you believe only in a different way).
These intelligent forces are exactly the pre-requisite for the
information we see encoded in DNA.

Thus, a belief in an external causal agent (God) is required for the
understanding of the information stored in DNA. You and I agree at this
point. Everything past this then becomes a matter of philosophy and not
science.

For instance, no evolutionary biologist will ever agree with you that
God made particles. If they adopt the uniformitarian line of thinking of
Lyell (which they are dogmatically taught in school) then they will say
that you can never admit a "God" into the picture. Instead they will say
that the big bang is responsible for the existence of all particles and
that the big bang itself was the first (and only truly random) quantum
fluctuation. They usually follow this up by saying that it's useless to
speculate on whatever existed before that.

Thus, you also do not have science on your side. You cannot demonstrate
that the first particles were created by God and then the entire course
of history went according to the laws of physics with only a few
interventions from God (miracles). Thus, this line of thinking is not at
all part of strict naturalism. I would call it a very interesting
mixture of naturalism and religion. But, it does not fit the hypotheses
that I was trying to argue with.

I do, however, have some philosophical reasons for believing (at least)
that Christianity and your beliefs are not compatible. The creation and
attitude depicted in the Bible is focused solely on life. For me to
believe that this Biblical description really refers to a process that
too billions of years to complete and relied solely on mutation and
death to accomplish its progress is ridiculous. If that is the route God
used to make his creation, then he is nothing like the God in the Bible.

Since I do not believe in evolution from the information arguments I
have been making (and many others) I have no problem to reconcile there.
Philosophically, the Christian doctrine is the only one that hold up
under repeated scrutiny. It is the only set of theology that does not
violate the logic we used to govern our daily lives. For these reasons,
I adopt it.

In summary, I just want to make it clear that you are not talking about
strict naturalism (atheism) while I am. If you admit an incalculable
power (God) then you have left the realm of atheism and you would be
saying that evolution is a miracle just like turning water into wine. I
cannot scientifically rule that out, but philosophically I do not find
it convincing. I find it very interesting and I am glad to see you have
thought deeply about this and wish you luck along your path to learning
more about what you believe. However, I see no scientific reason to
believe in evolution, and therefore I can rule it out for myself even
before asking any other religious question.

I hope this clears up some of the confusion that was appearing in some
of the earlier posts. My very small sphere of interest on this topic is
merely the argument against a strictly atheistic (naturalism) view of
the history of the universe.

why is everything someone doesnt understand or believe ,Satan?Please
stop yelling and get a grip.I'm trying to read the intelligent debate
between ely and abra.

Abracadabra wrote:

I did not mention peppered moths as ‘proof’ of anything. In fact, I
have made absolutely no effort or attempt to ‘prove’ evolution in this
thread at all. I don’t feel any need to prove evolution. It’s already
a well established fact in its own right. I personally don’t care
whether anyone believes it or not. It seriously doesn’t matter me.

====================================================================================
SpiderCMB replied:

I just went back and re-read what you wrote, so I want to apologize. I
guess I saw you mention moths and I assumed you were talking about
Kettlewell's pepper moths. Once again, sorry about the
misunderstanding.

Also,

About the peppered moths.

This particular incident is a classic misuse of bad and very subjective
data. The sample of moths that was used for this study was hilariously
mis-calssified. What happened was that a team of scientists went out to
this small patch of forest and counted the number of white moths vs. the
number of peppered (black) moths they could see on the trees. Then,
after a factory was built nearby, they waited several years and decided
to go back to see if the soot from the factory had any effect of the
colors of the moths. They reported back that nearly all the moths were
now peppered (black) and concluded (very incorrectly) that this was
evidence of natural selection.

What they don't tell you in the text book is that in that initial
observation of white vs. black moths, they only observed about 5% of the
total being white in the first place. When they came back later they
only found 2 white moths overall. All that this says is that the
particular forest area that they studied was a poor choice for comparing
white vs. black moths since hardly any white moths lived there in the
first place.

I had to take 3 college level evolutionary biology courses before a
professor (who is an evolutionist) finally pointed out that the moth
example is a very bad one that was horribly misused by the media.

Thus, not only does the moth story not prove evolution (which is not
possible) but it also does not even act as evidence for evolution. It
merely illustrates how poorly this kind of data is used and the urgent
need for people to start questioning what is written in textbooks.


Some other very blatant misuses of data in the case of evolution are:

Lucy, the "primitive" human set of bones found in Africa.
Archeopteryx, the supposed missing link among birds.
All fossil evidence
All icecore evidence
All radiometric dating evidence

Let me give just a brief description of why I feel this way in each
case.

1. Lucy, the primitive human bone set,
These bones were found scattered over a 2 mile radius. They found the
leg bones extremely far from the rest of the bones, and the total set
amounts to less than 40% of a completed skeleton. In addition, it is
obvious from the skeleton that Lucy did not walk upright. The
archeologist who discovered the bone set found the set of bones exactly
2 weeks before his grant money was set to run out and as a result became
one of the most famous archeologists of his time (Donald Johanson).

2.Archaeopteryx, which was reported as an important missing link among
birds, was discovered in Germany in the mid 1800s. National Geographic
did a huge story on this fossil in the 90s, and then later had to
retract its story when leading paleontologists came out with a new
report about it saying that archaeopteryx was nothing but a different
kind of bird that is extinct.

3. All fossil evidence.
You cannot demonstrate that any animal that was fossilized ever had any
offspring. Thus, we cannot possibly know whether or not they passed on
any genetic traits. We also cannot know whether it was probable that
they did or did not reproduce. Thus, whatever animals that are
fossilized cannot be used to determine what animals were like in the
distant past. A fossil merely shows us that ONE animal that died at some
point. Aside from some minor details about biomechanics, it cannot tell
you any more information than that. I think the flood offers a much
better account for fossils that paleontology.

4.Icecore evidence and tree-ring evidence.
Often you hear people say that icecores and tree rings show just how old
things are. This is completely untrue. For instance, it is an often
believed myth that trees will have one ring for every years that they
grow. Trees have been observed to form between 1 and 10 rings in a
single year. Heat and insect population are factors that control tree
ring formation, and since we can't know those details about the distant
past, we cannot claim that very old trees have exactly X number rings
because they are X years old. The exact same thing is true of ice vs.
snow density patterns in ice cores. These do not form in a predictable
way each year. Some years the ice vs. snow density pattern can vary from
between 6 to 12 rotations. Scientists often just assume that you'll get
2 rotations per year. Thus they get grossly inaccurate age results.

4. Radiometric dating
This one is very easy to dispute. To believe radiometric dating requires
that you first believe that unstable atomic compounds have been decaying
at the same rate as we now observe. Since decay rates depend on many
external conditions, which we cannot know about the past, we can easily
argue that these things decay differently now than they used to decay.
In addition, any radiometric measurement made that claims to talk about
time periods older than 30,000 years will have such an enormous margin
of error that to believe it would be ridiculous. Since only C-14 can be
used to date things 30,000 years or younger, we can reduce the entire
argument about radiometric dating down to C-14. Since C-14 follows
differential decay rates proportional to how much of it is in the
atmosphere, we can very easily see that since we do not know how much
C-14 has been present on the earth in the past, we cannot intelligently
talk about decay rates in the past, and hence cannot use C-14 to date
things older than about 7-10 thousand years.

These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the details they
leave out of chool textbooks for fear of encouraging "religious"
discussion about origins.

Before I begin, I’d just like to mention that I am personally not
concerned with precisely which species begat the next the chain of
evolution. That precise information is totally irrelevant to the
obvious fact that fossil records clearly show that life on Earth began
many millions of years ago and has progressively become increasingly
complex up to the present day. Any arguments against evolution that are
based on our incomplete knowledge of precisely which species begat the
next species is totally irrelevant. Any such arguments do not in any
way imply that evolution did not occur, all they imply is that we don’t
have a precise record of every single solitary step. But that’s totally
unnecessary to the recognition that evolution actually did occur. All
that amounts to is feeble nit-picking arguments by people who would
rather not believe it. I really wish such people would simply just say
that they don’t believe it and leave it at that.

Elyspears wrote:
“I hope this clears up some of the confusion that was appearing in some
of the earlier posts. My very small sphere of interest on this topic is
merely the argument against a strictly atheistic (naturalism) view of
the history of the universe.”

Atheism versus Naturalism:

I don’t see atheism and naturalism as being the same thing. I see the
universe as god. That’s not the same as atheism yet it still places god
as being nature. Moreover, in this view of things I am not separate
from god because I too am this universe. Therefore I am one with god
always, as is every other thing in the universe.

Internal versus External God:

In my view of god, the universe itself is the mystical supreme
intelligence which we are all part of.

The other view would be that of an external God. I capitalize this
external God because it is necessarily an egotistical God in that it is
a distinct and separate entity from all life in the universe. It is
external to the universe.

This immediately presents me with a logical problem. If God is a
completely separate entity in its own right. Then what are we?
Obviously we must also be completely separate entities in our own right.
We certainly can’t claim to be part of the separate God, because to do
that would require that we aren’t separate. (i.e. we’d need to revert
back to my view of god as being an inseparable god)

Trying to separate us from god doesn’t seem to work very well. We just
end up with a more difficult problem than we had in the beginning.
Moreover, we have no reason to believe that this would be the case.
(i.e. apply Occam’s Razor and ask why we should make the problem more
complicated than required?)

On the Problem of Eternal Intelligence:

The thrust your arguments against atheism rely solely on the argument
that if there was no intelligence, or ‘code’, in the beginning, then
intelligence could never have come into being. So you claim that there
must be an eternal God that provides this intelligence.

Well, your argument isn’t done. If you claim that intelligence could
not arise from non-intelligence, then how did your original eternal God
come by its intelligence?

If your answer is simply to state on faith that God always existed, then
why not just say that the universe always existed? What do you need to
invent a separate God? (i.e. apply Occam’s Razor again) After all, if
your going to argue this logically then you should use logic. If you’re
going to just state it on faith, then why claim to have a ‘logical
proof’ to begin with?

There’s simply no logical reason that you need to invent a new entity
when you already have a perfectly good universe to assume always
existed.

On the Quantum Fluctuation that Caused the Big Bang:

I’m not sure where you stand on the Big Bang theory. Much like
evolution, the Big Bang has overwhelming observational evidence to
support that it actually occurred. However, scientists will readily
admit that they have no confirmed explanation that describes how or why
it Banged. There are many theories in the works however.

String theorists have propose a theory of colliding membranes in higher
dimensions. However, those theories are extremely speculative and
totally unsupported by any scientific evidence.

There are also theories in QFT (Quantum Field Theory) that suggest a
model of an inflationary universe that was caused by random quantum
fluctuations. These quantum fluctuations are explained by the
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the Higgs field. The Higgs field
(or particle) has not yet been experimentally detected and is purely
theoretical at this point. Although this theory has some mathematical
merit, I am not convinced of it myself.

Another theory for how the Big Bang got started comes from LQG (Loop
Quantum Gravity). This theory is actually quite intriguing. This
theory basically begins with Quantum Field Theory but then it goes on to
explain how Spacetime arises naturally from the quantum fields. It
produces a background-independent geometry that is in total agreement
with General Relativity. It is a quite eloquent theory. Scientists
are currently attempting to integrate LQC with yet another theory called
DSR (Doubly Special Relativity). DSR is simply Special Relativity with
the additional postulate that the Planck Length must also be held
constant for all observers. In other words, not only is the speed of
light constant, but the smallest possible quanta of energy is also
constant. It’s a beautiful theory which does not get much publicity due
to the overshadowing popularity of String Theory.

In any case, Loop Quantum Gravity is basically a geometric theory that
is based on quantum fields that naturally give rise to the fabric of
spacetime. Mathematically it solves the problem of the singularity at
the center of black holes. It does this geometrically by describing a
‘bounce’ where the fabric of spacetime bounces into a higher dimension.
The theory suggests that the singularities of black holes are actually
giving rise to new universes in these higher dimensions. In other
words, the quantum fields pass through the singularity in black holes
and give rise to a new fabric of spacetime in a dimension which is
mathematically on a different plane than our own. This suggests that
the big bang of our universe may well have been caused by a black hole
in another universe.

What Does This Have To Do With God?

Well, it has to do with answering your concerns about an how
intelligence can arise from nothing. If Loop Quantum Gravity is correct
then the universe did not start with the Big Bang. This doesn’t negate
the Big Bang it simply says that the Big Bang was caused by a another
preexisting universe. That universe was caused by a preexisting
universe, and so on forever. In other words, the universe itself is
infinite and had no beginning. Information, or intelligence (code) is
passed from one universe to the next via the singularities in black
holes.

The point being that if your logic says is that something had to always
exist then why not the universe itself? Why can’t the universe just be
god? Why do you need to drag in an external God?

You have absolutely no logical reason to require that. You logical
arguments do not require that god be an external entity.

For me the universe is god. Whatever must be true about god must be
true about the universe, and vice versa. This is where I’m coming from.
I’m not an atheist. I simply believe that the universe is god, and I
don’t believe that you can ever disprove that idea.

If you can produce a prove why the universe itself cannot be god I’ll be
glad to hear it. However, it seems to me that by supposing that God is
separate from the universe you are only making things more complicated
rather than less complicated.

What Are You Trying To Prove?

Are you trying to prove that there must be a god, and that god must be
separate from us?

Or are you simply searching for truth?

If you are searching for truth you should assume that you don’t know the
answer and just follow wherever the logic leads you.

If you have already decided what you’d like the truth to be and you are
merely trying to build a logical proof of that, all I can say is GOOD
LUCK!

As a scientist I follow where truth leads. I don’t try to twist the
truth into what I’d like it to be.

I don’t favor evolution. Its evidence is undeniable. I don’t favor the
Big Bang. Its evidence undeniable.

I just accept the truth. I don’t try to tell the universe how to
behave.

a poster stated...

PROVEN BY WHO THE BIBLE BEEN ROUND OVER 2000 YEARS NOW REVOLUTION MAYBE
200 OR LESS YEARS SO WHICH ONE IS TRUTH THE ONE THAT STAND AGAINST TIME
________________________________________________________________

The world was flat for 4000 years...

We have only thought it was not for 300 years.

New thoughts are allways ridiculed when new. Wonder why no one learns
from history. How many times has history shown us that blind adherence
to dogma is wrong.

AdventureBegins,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
-----------------------------------------------------------
It is conjectured that the first person to have advocated a spherical
shape of the Earth was Pythagoras (6th century BC), but this idea is not
supported by the fact that most presocratic Pythagoreans considered the
world to be flat.[2] Eratosthenes, however, had already determined that
the earth was a sphere and calculated its rough circumference by the
third century B.C. [3]

By the time of Pliny the Elder in the 1st century, the Earth's spherical
shape was generally acknowledged among the learned in the western world.
Ptolemy derived his maps from a curved globe and developed the system of
latitude, longitude, and climes. His writings remained the basis of
European astronomy throughout the Middle Ages, although Late Antiquity
and the Early Middle Ages (ca. 3rd to 7th centuries) saw occasional
arguments in favor of a flat Earth.

The modern misconception that people of the Middle Ages believed that
the Earth was flat first entered the popular imagination in the
nineteenth century, thanks largely to the publication of Washington
Irving's fantasy The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus in 1828.
-----------------------------------------------------------

I was not speaking of specific individuals... Lots of people new it was
not.

But the fact was that it was generally accepted to be flat by the
majority of the inhabitants.

I could have come up with a better one to show how dogmatic the human
race can be. History is full of 'accepted' ideaoligies that have later
been proven to be incorrect in light of advances in science or the human
condition. History is also full of groups and peoples that have refused
to accept (sometimes to the point of violence, wichhunts, stake burning
and even genocide) change even in the face of overwhelming information
to the contrary.

Abracadabra:

I don't see how you can reconcile your beliefs about an eternal ambient
god-like "force" with your obvious skill and knowledge of science.

First I would like to note that nowhere in your argument did you
challenge any of the claims or evidence that I brought up. You merely
assterted, without support, that evidence for the big bang and evolution
are undeniable. This is merely dogma. You would harshly criticize any
religious person who claimed that the evidence for Christianity (for
example) is undeniable, saying that the evidence "from where you're
sitting" does not give you the same picture.

What I am saying is that in order for intelligence (i.e. discernable
code contrasted against non-code) to exist, there must be a causal agent
that has caused it to exist or else it must have always existed. This
realization prevents atheism from being a meaningful philosophy. I think
we both agree on that.

You ask how it is that I explain where the intelligence or the
information contained in God came from. Be careful, though, in reading
my argument. I said that every effect has a cause. That does not mean
that every thing has a cause. Some thing clearly must exist in its own
right. Some thing must be self-existant.

You claim that this "thing" that is self-existant is the sum total of
matter, time, space, and energy and the structure that enables these
four to function with each other.

I claim that this self existant "thing" is an external God who has
chosen to reveal himself in particular ways throughout history.

Your claim cannot be substantiated for the following reasons. If the
universe itself were self-existant, then we must believe that the
intelligence and coded information therein is also self-existant. This
is because such information cannot arise from non-information. Thus, to
claim that the sum total of material in the universe is self-existant is
to claim that intelligence itself (i.e. information) is self-existant.

But clearly the understanding of the universe demonstrates that it
always tends to move from a more organized state (less entropy) to a
more chaotic state (less entropy). The laws of thermodynamics tell us
that entropy never increases within any closed system. Your belief that
the universe is self-existant is the equivalent of saying that the
universe is a closed system. Hence, the total entropy within the
universe must always be increasing and it will continue to increase
until the universe reaches a heat death where all matter is uniformly
distributed throughout all space and all matter is resting at the same
temperature. This is the epitome of non-information. This obviously
raises the problem, if the universe is self-existant and the encoded
information therein is self-existant, then why is it irreversibly
required to diminish forever until their is none left?

You will not find a physicist who testifies to anything else in the
course of the universe. Entropy always increases, and this is undeniably
true under your contention that all that exists in the universe and its
contents. One cannot simply view "God" as being the equivalent of the
"life force" of the ambient space of the universe, and you are certainly
a disjoint creature from God himself. If your beliefs were true, then I
would have to accept the fact that all life will die and that in the
future no life (and thus no "god-life-force") will exist anywhere. But
you said at the outset that this "god-like-force" was self-existant. If
it is self-existant, yet it cannot prevent its own non-existence, then
it is entirely contradictory and I do not believe in it.

Even further, you yourself mention the big bang. That would immediately
mean that the universe has only existed for a finite amount of time and
hence is not self-existant. How can you believe that the ambient
universe is a "god-like" self-existant force, but also believe that it
"started" to exist 14 billion years ago? That too is entirely
contradictory.

The only explanation is that there is an external causal agent, wholly
separated from the universe, that caused to universe to start existing.
My very limited brain is certainly not capable of comprehending such a
creator, except in the small ways that he makes himself known to me. And
just because I cannot explain every detail about him does not mean he is
not responsible for creation. I agree that we should apply Occam's razor
to our reasoning (i.e. be skeptical). In fact, that is exactly what I am
doing. Applying Occam's razor to your argument that the ambient universe
is a "god-like-force" quickly shows that such an ambient universe cannot
be self-existant because it cannot perpetuate its own existence (as
demonstrated by the increasing entropy dictated by the laws of
thermodynamics). So again, applying Occam's razor leads me to believe
that an external causal agent (God) is not only probable, but strictly
necessary in order to explain the existence of the universe.

You raised the metaphysical question about how can God have created the
universe yet still be a wholly separate being than it is. I don't
necessarily believe you are articulating the problem correctly. I
believe that I am wholly separate from God, but that I cannot sustain my
own existence. Without an external God sustaining existence, I would
cease to exist. Thus, I am wholly dependent on God. Yet he is not at all
dependent on me. So the dependence goes only one way.

Just as a mother can birth a child that is wholly separate from her, God
begat a creation wholly separate from him. And just as the mother's
survival does not depend on the baby's, so God's existence does not
depend on the existence of his creation.

Again, I would just like to point out that many evolutionists say the
same things which you do, though most of them would not agree with your
religious feelings toward the ambient universe (perhaps Sagan is the
only one who would agree with you).

You make blanket statements such as "the evidence for evolution is
undeniable" but then do not attempt to explain why it is undeniable. In
fact, science prohibits ALL ideas that are undeniable. A theory is only
a scientific theory if it is possible to disagree with it. Saying that
evolution is undeniable is the same as saying it is a dogma, which it
is.

Evolution is a religious belief no different from any others. In that
sense I respect it and find it interesting, but it is by no means
compelling and least of all is it scientifically compelling.

One final note,

in response to the LQG theory you mentioned.

If the intelligence present in the universe can only be explained via an
infinitely recursive sequence of previous universes that no one can
possibly observe, how is that idea different from any religious belief?

If you can't observe them, they fall outside the real of science. Thus,
LQG is a religious idea. I'm open to debates about different religious
ideas, but I am arguing that science precludes evolution and gradualism
from being believed, and hence atheism cannot be a logically
self-consistent set of beliefs either.

Your particular set of beliefs is sefl-consistent, I just happen to
disagree with the philosophical reasons you have for believing it. I
also can't see how you can reconcile your beliefs with the modern
theories of evolution and the big bang.

Also,

I misspoke about entropy above. I meant to say that entropy always
increases in a closed system. I typed that it never increases, which is
silly given the context of the post.

Elyspears wrote:
“You merely assterted, without support, that evidence for the big bang
and evolution are undeniable. This is merely dogma. You would harshly
criticize any religious person who claimed that the evidence for
Christianity (for example) is undeniable, saying that the evidence "from
where you're sitting" does not give you the same picture.”

It’s not merely dogma to me. I’ve done the actual experiments in the
laboratory. I have questioned everything intensely I accept nothing
without proof. And in many cases I’ve done the experience myself in
college laboratories and industrial laboratories. To say that my life’s
experience is mere dogma is a joke beyond hilarious. You won’t find a
greater skeptic them me. My professors used to hate to see me coming
because they knew I was going to have the most difficult questions for
them. And in fact, many times they couldn’t even answer them and I had
to go find the answers elsewhere. I believe NOTHING on faith.

Elyspears wrote:
“Even further, you yourself mention the big bang. That would immediately
mean that the universe has only existed for a finite amount of time and
hence is not self-existant.”

You obviously didn’t read, or you missed the point of Loop Quantum
Gravity.

In any case I can see that I was correct. You are 21 years old and you
have all the answers already.

You have already concluded what you want to the truth to be and all you
are going to do now, and for the rest of your life, is simply deny
anything that conflicts with what you have decided you’d like the truth
to be.

I fully understand your mindset. I see a lot of that going around.

Obviously we have nothing more to talk about. You are right and I am
wrong. Clearly. That’s the only truth that you will ever accept.

You haven’t given any decent arguments for anything that you’ve claimed.
All you have stated is that there must be an external intelligent God
because YOU can’t explain otherwise.

The only thing you fail to be realizing is that you can’t explain the
external God either. So you’re no further ahead than you were before
you began. All you did was prove that you can’t explain anything.

All you are doing is pushing the problem aside and saying, “I can’t
solve it so there must be a God who can”