"being ignorant...idiot...are you dense...idiot...abject retardation...dumbasss..."
Yeah, who ever would have guessed the discussion would have devolved into this so quickly.
I just wanted to pause for a moment and recall your recent statement saying you respond to me like this because of my aggressive tone or what not. that's pretty funny stuff.
What is your definition of "explain"?
You've proven to be capable of web surfing, so try dictionary.com. Please try to be gentle with the dictionary once you discover it doesn't carry only one scientific definition.
These first cause arguments apply equally to God. Where did God come from? Why does God exist instead of not existing?
You fail to understand the difference. The universe we know has a beginning so we have to deal with the problem of what caused it. God may or may not have a beginning. First thing's first. Find the cause of the Big Bang. Naturalism hasn't even come close.
I'm familiar with non-overlapping magisteria. There's no reason to think that it's true. Evidence is evidence.
Of course not, Stephen Jay Gould must be a complete idiot. The simple fact is your understanding of reality is extremely limited, which explains your deficiency as well as Dawkins'.
I'm not saying that naturalism will definitely be able to explain our existence.
I didn't say you said that... sigh.
I'm saying that "God" is not an explanation unless and until we get a firmer grip on God's characteristics.
Again, you're not dealing with the fact that you're approaching this in a strictly scientific manner which is not always called for in ascertaining truths. One doesn't need to know its characteristics to reasonably conclude an intelligent force is the cause of something.
If you were walking on the moon and found piles of moon rocks organized according to prime numbers, you would reasonably conclude that something intelligent was behind it, right? I mean you're not gong to just assume they were organized by natural forces, just because you can't seem to determine the mass, height, smell of this source. No. You would assume something intelligent caused it.
Such is the case with the universe. For those willing to perceive it, it bears the signature of intelligence. For those who have their brains in the straightjacket of naturalism, they'll never accept it and wll probably keep pounding away with these sophomoric arguments demanding evidence. Maybe one day you'll break out of your little Dawkins mold and expand your mind (and no, not drugs). Until then, I don't even see what the point is n arguing with you. Yo admt you cannot disprove God, and I admit I cnnot prove God. So why can't you just leave it at that? Bigotry, and I understand that its all the rage for kids your age.
Kevin, how can you claim to know Dawkins' motivation when you STILL haven't read his explanation for what he said? You really ought to stop high-fiving yourself for being ignorant.
I have read it. I read it shortly after he posted it. Bu nothing he says changes the fact that he is willng to consider panspermis a possibilty. I never said he accepted it as a fact, so stop tearing up the straw for once and try to get back on track. Or don't.
Dawkins has nowhere excluded God. Dawkins is saying that "Organized complexity cannot just spontaneously happen. That, for goodness sake, is the creationists' whole point, when they bang on about eyes and bacterial flagella!" If you had read the article I posted, you would know that. But you'd rather learn of Dawkins' opinions from Ben Stein instead of the source himself. Suit yourself.
I can probably come up with some citations if you need. This is why I was hoping to do this in Brasil. I've got tons of ridiculous comments this idiot has made, and yes, he excludes God. I haven't relied on Ben Stein for a thing. In case you didn't notice, that was Richard Dawkins in the interview. It wasn't Ben Stein talking to a mirror.
Hey dip****, those intercessory prayer studies were created by theists.
And they are being misused by an atheist who is clearly out of his element. It doesn't matter who did them. The fact is there is no reasonable expectation that the results would have produced what you or anyone else thought.
I'M NOT USING THIS EXPERIMENT TO DISPROVE YOUR THEISM, idiot. I'm using it to combat your drooling-idiot assertion that the scientific method excludes God.
It is difficult to believe you're completely unaware of how fallacious your reasoning is.
Think this through. By your logic, if scientists fail in an experiment that tries to link religion and science, then science must therefore exclude God. This is silly reasoning. We both know that in any other context you'd call an experiment by religious people, idiotic. But since it failed, you consider it conclusive. Amazing.
The scientific method excludes God because the scientific method is based on the assumption of materialism/naturalism. Scientists today can freely admit this, even if you can't. I have in the past cited Richard Lewontin, who explicated this point rather eloquently. Maye you weren't paying attention then either, so here it is again:
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
Forgive us if we just assume this well respected Harvard biologist knows more about modern science than you do. I know it might be a great leap, but it is one I'm willing to take.
No, if God is apart from the Universe, then it's still true that if evidence for God were obtained, then God would immediately become part of the natural world.
No, he would simply become its cause. If I build a fish tank does that mean I'm part of it?
If that's what the judge said, then he got it wrong. However, I don't trust your characterization of what the judge said, because the odds are very good that you learned it secondhand from Ben Stein.
His exact words were "Methodological naturalism is a 'ground rule' of science today." This is what I said. I can assure you Ben Stein was nowhere in the vicinity, and as far as I know the citation exists nowhere in his materials. But hey, you're probably rght. What does this crazy judge know anyhow? He was only educated on the matter by the NAS. For that matter, what does Lewontin and Gould know? They're amateurs compared to your expertise in *cough*
political*cough* science.
It is not the case that we understand nothing about them. You are like a false statement generator.
Really? So what do we know about String Theory when we don't even know strings exist? I watched a Nova special on the subject twice .In fact, I downloaded the entire three hour series (Our Elegant Universe), and I can assure you "strings" have not been identified. We just heard a lot about how cool it would be if they did. And what do we know about multiverses, when we don't even know they exist? Either your mouth is getting ahead of your brain again, or you simply don't know what you're talking about.
"If the moon were made of green cheese, would you eat it?" Seriously, what the hell are you talking about? This would in no way falsify God.
Yeah, try dodging significant points by claming ignorance. The fact is there are certain characteristics of the universe that lead theists to be theists. IF these characteristics were not what they are, then there would be no reason to be theist. Thus, hypothetically, if the Universe were shown to be infinite, then, as Hawking stated, there would be no need for a creator. Likewise, if the universe's laws were not mathematically tied together, if the universe turned out to be 100 billon years old instead of 15 billion, then all of the evidences for theism would crumble. So yes, it is possible that God is falsifiable in that sense. At least
my concept of God anyway.
Why does lightning form? Because it purposes to do so. No electricity needed!
Abject retardation
I agree. Let's go pound the guy who made that argument.
Do you know what the word "predicated" means?
Yes, I read your statement too quickly and missed that.
I'm saying that we understand the basic principles of chemistry that we think underlie RNA abiogenesis. DUMBASSSSSSSSS.
So? The God hypothesis is also predicated on stuff we already know. That doesn't make it science now does it? Of course not. There will always be elements of mystery in any hypothesis. The difference is, methodological naturalism precludes the "divine foot" from entering. ystery is acceptable so long as the explanations are based strictly on naturalism.
What do you mean by "life"? We've been creating organic molecules in the lab for decades now.
And zero living cells. Again, creating an organic molecule is not even considered the first step to creating life. It would be like falling out of your bed, and then claiming you've made a first step towards Pluto. Again, I don't think you fully appreciate the complexity of even the simplest cell.
The RNA world hypothesis is an explanation, God -- at least at this point in time -- is not.
God is an explanation, and is in fact a stronger explanation given the broader picture you refuse to observe. But something tells me we'll continue to disagree.
I've really gotta get back to the other stuff... This was a waste of time, as usual.