Any attempt to place a decision maker into the scheme of nature is ultimately a god of the gaps argument.

For Bill O'Reilly the tides are unexplainable, he used this as an argument for god, and design, its all just to perfect he says.

Once upon a time most people would have agreed with Bill, and had other natural facts that they also saw as too perfect to not have a supreme decider involved with.

Some of the greatest minds such as Newton believed god was involved to keep the orbits of the planets going, why you ask, becuase he couldn't explain them, he created advanced maths to determine the orbits and it was off . . only a god could tweak the orbits to keep them going he thought. It was at the ends of his knowledge, so god did it.

But we have explanations for the tides, and now we have explanations of the orbits of planets all of which do not require a decision maker at any part of the process.

Well then just push back the decision makers influence to a more reduced scale, something further back on the path of causation!

So now god has made his decisions in the fundamental physics, by setting the weight of the electron, the neutron, the quark.

What happens when we determine why these various particles have the weights they have?

Or what happens if we never know? Does that really mean god was responsible? What about every other thing we thought we saw design within and were wrong about before?

This shows us that our common sense understandings of what design looks like is just not adequate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HooeZrC76s0
^ this guy can say it far more eloquently than I can!

"But we have explanations for the tides, and now we have explanations of the orbits of planets all of which do not require a decision maker at any part of the process. "


says who? so you have explanations for the tides and orbits, what does that have to do with whether there was a 'decision maker'?


our understanding is not adequate period,, in my opinion

the day someone 'accidentally' creates a system the 'works' together with the complexity and detail of the universe and all its creatures

Ill be convinced that belief in an intelligent designer is not reasonable or possible or probable


until then,, nah, Man cant explain and wont explain how the machine all works together so well,, no matter how well they explain the 'details' of its parts

You want us to recreate reality in order to convince you it didn't need to be created? Or just didn't need a supreme being to create it?

Do you realize how unreasonable that approach is?
Do your realize that nothing else in life that you accept requires that standard of evidence?

The reality is that you have made up your mind independent of any evidence for a designer, and thus no level of evidence will ever be enough to convince you otherwise.

You cannot reason someone out of a belief they did not arrive at through reason.
ie, you do not really want an explanation. If all of reality was explained you would find a place to hide god. That is fact.

Well, I remember reading a SciFi short story... I believe it was by Asimov, or in one of his anthologies... it was about Moses, sitting down to write the book of Genesis, that God had just unbusomed (is that correct in this context?) to him... he starts dictating it to Aaron, who was about to write it down. He starts like "4 Billion years ago...", where Aaron stops and asks him if he knew what papyrus cost... and that they had exactly enough for seven days, not for 4 billion years...

You want us to recreate reality in order to convince you it didn't need to be created?


NO. I Want a 'system' (not simply 'reality) to

'accidentally' occur again (not be 'created')


Do your realize that nothing else in life that you accept requires that standard of evidence?

Yes, do you realize nothing else in life that
you accept requires whatever 'standard of evidence'
you require to believe in 'intelligent' design?


The reality is that you have made up your mind independent of any evidence for a designer, and thus no level of evidence will ever be enough to convince you otherwise.



the feeling is mutual

You cannot reason someone out of a belief they did not arrive at through reason.

my reason is as valid as anyone elses. I dont believe I
magically appeared, I can see my mom and dad and realize
(along with biology) where I physically came from, but the
atoms did not magically produce me through an accident. I can apply that same logic to conclude that the universe was most likely not just a random 'accident' either.

it's supposed to be the big dinosaurs eat the little ones but God sent a rock down from heaven to kill the big and little ones.

I'm trying to follow your thinking. "The atoms did not magically produce me through an accident." This sounds like you're saying an accident is magic. You must not mean that, though. Accidents are just accidents. Magic is impossible. We know accidents happen all the time.

I actually believe that you (and I and everyone) did get produced through an accident. Not by atoms directly, but by the chance meeting of a particular sperm with a particular egg. If you think of accidents as always being unwanted, then I suppose you wouldn't be happy with this scenario. But I don't look at them that way.

And I apply the same logic to conclude that in fact the universe is a random "accident."

Logic is only a tool. It doesn't prove anything. Behind the logic is always an assumption. Yours is that this level of randomness is impossible, unacceptable. Mine is that the level of causality you imagine is impossible and unacceptable. Those two sides of the argument haven't been settled for thousands of years, so I bet we're not going to do it either.

In theory, I half agree with you. In my opinion if the thing we live in was designed, then the designer was -- sorry to use this expression -- a moron. Maybe not a complete moron, but certainly not all that intelligent -- we can see many, many parts of the design that was not intelligent.

I could, in theory, agree if we subbed the word "ingelligent" with "average or slightly below average intelligence" design.

except that I dont think sex is usually an accidental occurrence

we can prevent creation of life by refraining from sex, so it is a controlled occurrence,, in my opinion

a much different standard than a random series of consequences which created thousands of seperate species of life cohabitating together in one system,,,

I do agree with brava though, that minglers arent going to find the answer (at least not one they can actually prove or show has been proven)

Bravalady: Accidents

I believe there are no accidents. But I agree that man, in his limited knowlege, is righteous in having created a word that means "I couldn't have predicted that; it's not random, but to me it seems random coz there is no way I can see all the factors that caused this event to happen."

Much like a mathematician said, "It's a miracle anything has happened, because the chances or the probabilities of anything to happen is so low." I wanted to laugh in his face. In his "probable" things to happen his expected results are compared to his actual results. His expected results were what he, as a human, could expect. THAT is miniscule. His theory was false, because instead of recognizing man's miniscule ability to predict, he rode on the little probability that the real things happening have very little to do with what we can predict.

It's not that things are in a constant flux of unpredictable probabilities; it's that things are in a straight line unchangeable set of flow, and it seems to us that the world is changeable, only because we are too small-minded (literally) to see what's going to happen next in the world. (Joke: Oppose that, and that'd be small minded (figuratively).)

Well... the theory works. It is a system that works. Much like the theoretcal system of God as a creator works.

The question that is big is this: which would you rather believe, or believe in?

There is an even bigger question than that: which of the two is applicable to the world we live in?

A lot of people reject the God-gap systems, calling that too simplistic, whereas the same people believe in Occam's razor. I think the theory of God as a Creator is the perfect example of an application for occam's razor: Hey, this is so becase God made it so. End of argument, once you accept the theory of God as a Creator. And the same nine-word sentence satisfies all questions. How much more Occammish can you get? I would say, none.

People who believe in Occam's Razor are also off, therefore. A theory is more believable not if it is simpler of two equally plausable ones, but if it has more predictive applications. Christianity's predictive applications, inasmuch as they apply to life, are mostly false; see Book of Job, see the second coming of Messiah, see Revelations. Christianity's predictive applications, as far as being totally right on, apply to the afterlife, of which we can gather no experiential evidence.

Whats there to dispute we evolved and now our brains have given us the capability to believe in what we want fiction creationism(intelligent design) or the truth(evolution).Because of evolution this is possible.

Evolution is a mass in motion.

A mass at rest tends to remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside source.

Evolution would not be a mass in motion.

Without the Acts of God.
Unless science can accurately measure such an act.

I will hold to God.

There can be many othr outside sources for changing momentum, inertia, to get up from rest and move.

Some:

- the changing of the ozone layer above the earth
- the amount of UV hittign or not hitting earth due to this change, creating an acceleration in mutations.

- the hitting of Earth by a huge meteorite, making conditions unlivable for some species

- the depletion of some food resource, due to over-grazig or over-hunting

- the emergence of new species that accelerate the emergence of yet more new species

--------

True, you can say these are all Godsents. But I say they are not.

You could say it was God who sent the rock to earth. You could say God ordered or made the ozone layer holes. I say not God.

This is the fundamental problem. Whatever can be explained by science or by evolution, can be explained by the God Gap. "God willed it this way, that's how it happened." This is a tough argument to argue against, once you accept God as a creator. It can be applied to absolutely all and every situation.

Since DNA-level mutations are the basis for evolutionary changes in species, we can predict that a large amount of X rays can cause a to us random mutation.

The God Gap theory says nothing on that. God and the creationists deny this, since everything that moves does so because God wills it. (See your post I quoted.)


So... you can't tell when the next mutation will happen.

I can't tell much either... but I can say with assurance that in case of a nuclear holocaust, there will be an explosive increase in new forms of life species on Earth.

Yours says nothing... mine says something... let's go and try it out.

The thread is called Creation vs Evolution. That is comparing apples to oranges. Creation is a theory of how life was created. Evolution is a theory of how the complexity of life increased. Two totally different things. What's next, a thread called Volvo vs Chocolate Cake?

Perhaps with God in the picture a 'nuclear holocast' need not happen? (just to prove a theory).

In you many words you stated several things which happen when 'evolution' is in motion.

I merely stated that God set it in Motion. (the rest were attributes you added to my statement).

As evolution is still occuring I must deduce that God is not yet done creating.(a mass in motion continues to remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside source).

Brava, I love your posts.


With regard to 'randomness' and 'causality' - I do want to point out that these arguments have gone on for thousands of years only because we, as a species, lacked a coherent and accurate understanding of the truth. I think within a few generations we will no longer be debating these points, and that all intelligent people with an interest in learning will easily come to the same conclusions.

the problem with that is that new species are being discovered constantly,, so whatever conclusions we may come to about todays mysteries will be replaced with new mysteries,, and we will be no closer to truly explaining the complex and cooperative workings of the Universe and all the life within it,,,