Let's go over this again, shall we, about chances--

[Brian2]

Everything in nature is natural, with nature (reality) being the collection of objects and processes existing in time and space and interacting with one another. Anything that does that is a part of nature. Everything that cannot can be considered nonexistent, like Sagan's dragon.

How do you know that we have no spirit that acts in and with us?

These reports aren't reliable. Also, the experiences have been reproduced with cortical stimulation:

Out‐of‐body experience and autoscopy of neurological origin | Brain | Oxford Academic (oup.com)
Out-of-Body Experiences Tested in Lab (webmd.com)

https://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20070823/out-of-body-experiences-tested-in-lab

I don't see how neurological experiments can tell us how people in NDE can report things that they have seen and heard and which can be verified.

You probably see wisdom there. I see a problem. I'm a seeing-is-believing guy, an empiricist. What you wrote is believing-is-seeing, and it's not a good way to determine what is true about the world. If one can somehow convince himself that a god exists, that's what he'll see.

It's called a faith-based confirmation bias. It acts like a demon at the portal of consciousness prescreening what will get through and be visible, and what will be rejected as wrong or impossible based on the faith-based presupposition. This is observer bias. Researchers go to great lengths to neutralize it in therapeutic trials by blinding both the clinician and the patient as to whether the treatment being evaluated or placebo was given.

The Talk.Origins Archive Post of the Month: February 2002 (talkorigins.org) is a link to a description of this phenomenon by a YEC who became a geologist, which converted him to OEC. He reports how he experienced this phenomenon and how he tunneled out of his faith-based confirmation bias, which he describes using the literary device of a demon controlling what he could see.

Critical thinking (reasoning) is designed to prevent this and is in fact the opposite of it. One is trained to evaluate evidence dispassionately and go where the application of reason to that evidence takes one.

Think about what you're asking. If the only way to believe something is to convince oneself it's true before seeking evidence, then it isn't true. Correct ideas do not require that you believe them first to see that.

Also, it should be self-evident that faith is not a path to truth. A path to truth limits one to correct ideas only and weeds out incorrect ones. Empiricism is the only method that accomplishes this. Faith has no mechanism for separating wrong ideas from correct ones, and there are many more untrue things than true. For example, whatever your age is, there is only one number that is correct and dozens that aren't.

If someone convinces themselves that empiricism is the way to find God without faith that is how he will seek God. So belief in a false way can lead to failure, in this case failure due to God not being detectable empirically, just detected through what He does or has done. This requires an opening of our eyes to seeing what God has done in order to find God. This means seeing empiricism as a way to test the physical universe but not to test, find God.
Believing correct ideas means we need to look in the right place and use the right tools. Initially it's a case of being open to things other than empiricism for seeing what God has done.
Faith is as much a path to truth as empirical science, where many wrong paths are taken before the right one is found.

Yes, I know. I am not willing to believe more than what the quantity and quality of available evidence supports. It's the only method I have to prevent accumulating wrong beliefs. My sincere seeking is for sound conclusions, and that requires critical analysis. If gods can be determined to exist empirically, then we can know they exist. If not, we must remain agnostic.

You have chosen to remain agnostic and empiricism.

 

[shunyadragon]

You're not a geneticist professionally, are you? It wouldn't much matter,

Well . . . ah, in college I had courses in genetics, and organic chemistry, and I know how to cite and understand references in the scientific literature concerning genetics,

with your explanations at this point, having read so many of your incomplete and prejudicial answers. Your explanations have been lacking as to the in's and out's of paleontology. If I took a class with you as the teacher, I'd get out of that class if I could, or else endure it and give you the answers you want to hear in order to pass the class.

No response and meaningless rambling. My responses are complete and specific. You have no background in science, and all your posts are only based on a religious agenda. You could not take a course on Paleontology until you reach the graduate level in Geology as I have, I taught the laboratory part of classes in Geology and Soil Science.

 

[shunyadragon]

I know that science has to keep plodding on in the naturalistic methodology to see if it can come up with a natural explanation for life.
I don't need an in depth knowledge of the sciences involved to have an overview of what is happening and a pov about it.

A positive attitude toward science is needed and not an in-depth knowledge of science. The high school level of science is sufficient. Reader's Digest knowledge of science does not work when the above bold reflects your extreme bias against science. If you read my posts I specifically described how science works concerning the knowledge of our physical existence and its limits. It is very specific and simple.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

How do you know that we have no spirit that acts in and with us?

The same way that I "know" that we aren't being remote controlled by extra-dimensional undetectable aliens playing their extra-dimensional equivalent of an Xbox.

If someone convinces themselves that empiricism is the way to find God without faith that is how he will seek God. So belief in a false way can lead to failure, in this case failure due to God not being detectable empirically, just detected through what He does or has done.

That is contradicting.
How can you know if this supposed god did, or does, anything at all if you can't detect any kind of manifestation thereof?

How for example, would you differentiate such actions from humans being remote controlled by extra-dimensional aliens?

This requires an opening of our eyes to seeing what God has done in order to find God.

That would put you back in the empirical land.

Believing correct ideas means we need to look in the right place and use the right tools

I'm hearing a lot from you that the "empirical tool" is the "wrong tool", but you are very silent about what then supposedly is the "right tool".

Initially it's a case of being open to things other than empiricism for seeing what God has done.
Faith is as much a path to truth as empirical science, where many wrong paths are taken before the right one is found.

How does the "faith" methodology work?
And can you demonstrate the reliability of this supposed methodology?

I have a feeling that the same methodology can also make you conclude that humans are being remote controlled by extra-dimensional undetectable aliens.

You have chosen to remain agnostic and empiricism.

I have chosen to use methods of inquiry that are capable of actually yielding reliable answers.

 

[shunyadragon]

How do you know that we have no spirit that acts in and with us?

How do you 'know' that we have a spirit that acts in and with us? In reality no one knows either way. It's a mute argument.

I don't see how neurological experiments can tell us how people in NDE can report things that they have seen and heard and which can be verified.

Neurological experiments simply demonstrate a natural explanation for what many claim is spiritual or supernatural.

If someone convinces themselves that empiricism is the way to find God without faith that is how he will seek God. So belief in a false way can lead to failure, in this case failure due to God not being detectable. empirically, just detected through what He does or has done. This requires an opening of our eyes to seeing what God has done in order to find God. This means seeing empiricism as a way to test the physical universe but not to test, find God.

Again we cannot 'see' what God has done. One believes what he 'sees' what God has done.

Believing correct ideas means we need to look in the right place and use the right tools. Initially it's a case of being open to things other than empiricism for seeing what God has done.
Faith is as much a path to truth as empirical science, where many wrong paths are taken before the right one is found.

Science does not claim to be a path to any sort of 'truth.' Science deals only with the progressive knowledge of our physical existence. No truth involved here. Claims of truth or a path to truth is a subjective argument from a religious perspective and again a mute argument.

 

[Brian2]

The Bible is an ancient text without science. The events and prophecy are so subjective that the interpretations of scripture have been wrong hundreds of times at least in Christian history.

The only thing that is objectively 'seen' in nature is the processes based on Natural Laws and natural processes. Subjective claims of religious beliefs cannot be 'seen' in nature, is just subjective claims, which are highly variable from different religious and very fallible human perspectives

We look at the prophecies and the events that fulfilled them. That shows us that they were true prophecies and their interpretations.
We look at nature and see the work of God if we have eyes to see it. It is subjective.

Terrible lack of understanding of the basics of science. There is no evidence that anything takes place 'accidentally; in nature. By the 'objectively verifiable evidence has determined that all cause and effect outcomes in nature are determined by Natural Laws and natural processes. Odds or chance play no role in the outcome of all-cause and effect events in nature. The only thing found to be random is the timing of the event within the limitations of Natural Laws and natural processes.
I made this very clear early in the thread from the scientific and math perspective. You apparently missed it. I can provide good references concerning the role of probability, odds, and chance in science if it would be helpful. I have addressed this issue in a number of threads in the past,

Since you say you are a Baha'i you seem to be saying that you believe the Bible stories of creation where God said "Let there be......." to be a matter of the timing of God and the actual creation was going to automatically get to those points naturally without any input from God. Something like a deistic God even though the God of the Bible and Baha'i is not deistic.
So nothing is by chance because it all was planned from the beginning by God. Something like that anyway.
That is a good way to bring science and religion into alignment but imo if we just look at science, without any religious input, everything is ultimately by chance. If we claim that nothing is by chance, that is not what science tells us. This earth is by chance and the laws of physics are by chance and it is chance that we are in a perfect place for life to develop and survive etc etc.

The certainty of religious belief including God cannot be objectively verified, A witness to this is the many variables conflicting religious beliefs from the fallible human perspective. ALL claiming their belief is the one true belief.

That sounds right.

It has been objectively determined that the abiogenesis and evolution of life are based on Natural Laws, natural processes, and the right environment.

Virtually 95%+ of ALL scientists in scientific fields related to evolution and abiogenesis support these scientific conclusions regardless of their religious beliefs. This includes Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostics, and atheist scientists.

95% is an argument from popularity.
BUT of course going by objective evidence (evidence that science can use) life no doubt looks like it is chemically and physically determined with no God or spiritual input at all.
However the very fact that many of those scientists are Christian, Jewish, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindu does tell us that these people can divide up their lives and that the objective evidence in science, that empiricism, the stuff that science can use, does not determine their belief that God was involved and that life is ultimately spiritual in nature.

 

[shunyadragon]

We look at the prophecies and the events that fulfilled them. That shows us that they were true prophecies and their interpretations.
We look at nature and see the work of God if we have eyes to see it. It is subjective.

Yes, it is subjective as we see it. 'We' believe here reflects the fallible human perspective of many conflicting religious beliefs. I have objections to using 'We see' or 'We look' and consider it the more subjective I believe. The collective 'We' is more limited considering the fact that there is a wide disagreement of what we see concerning subjective claims.

Creation reflects the natural attributes of God, but from the human perspective we cannot conclude objectively that 'We see; the nature of our physical existence as a Creation of God. Many may believe so, but not a collective 'We' without qualifications.

Since you say you are a Baha'i you seem to be saying that you believe the Bible stories of creation where God said "Let there be......." to be a matter of the timing of God and the actual creation was going to automatically get to those points naturally without any input from God. Something like a deistic God even though the God of the Bible and Baha'i is not deistic.

Your reach for false straws and make statements I DID NOT MAKE concerning my beliefs. I believe in God as the 'Source of all existence, I believe in a universal God and not one defined by any one ancient religion which is a contradiction of a 'Source' some call God. God is unknowable from the fallible human perspective that is reflected in the claims of any one religion or the various conflicting divisions,

Creation occurred and is continuing in the ever-evolving and changing nature of our existence far beyond the vision of any one ancient religion

So nothing is by chance because it all was planned from the beginning by God. Something like that anyway.

No, nothing by chance as I described is the scientific determination of the nature of our physical existence WITHOUT any religious claims one way or another. By the evidence, ALL the outcomes of the cause-and-effect events in nature are caused by Natural Laws and natural processes and not CHANCE. There is no evidence that they occur by chance. There is absolutely no evidence that our existence was planned by an anthropomorphic engineering God.

95% is an argument from popularity.

No, it is simply a fact that almost all scientists regardless of belief accept science as science without one religious agenda or another,

[/quote] BUT of course going by objective evidence (evidence that science can use) life no doubt looks like it is chemically and physically determined with no God or spiritual input at all. [/quote]

'Looks like?' is not a good perspective. Simply science cannot make this determination one way or the other,

 

[Subduction Zone]

You're the one who want to test Genesis so you should come up with tests.
I have tested the flood and found it to be acceptable scientifically and with a reinterpretation of the story with an alternative translation. For some reason you don't agree that what science has found can possibly be the flood of the Bible, I guess it is the alternative translation and interpretation that you don't like.
Reinterpretation has been fairly easy for theologians over the years when science has discovered things nobody had thought would be how the Bible should be interpreted before that. Science helps in our interpretation of the Bible in some instances,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, then we find that science and the Bible do match after a period of initial conflict.
(The more ancient idea of a flood about 7500 years ago at the end of the ice age I think has maybe more promise than the flood of 3000 BC)
I have tested the creation story and found that it sort of lines up with what science has found out also.
I have tested the patriarchal story and found that it lines up with the era of the time it is set in.
From there I have tested the Israel in Egypt story and Exodus story and found them to be compatible with what archaeology has found.

I already did. But then you moved the goal posts. You readopted the burden of proof. Remember how I wared you about giving it up?

If you want to claim that it is factual the burden of proof is now upon you. As written it is fiction. When it comes to the Noah and his magic boat story to make it not self refuting you have to dilute it to the point that there was no need for an Ark.

So, one more time, what is your version of the fairy tale?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes that is correct, all we know now in science points to life having always existed. But of course we know that life in the universe began so that points to another type of life that has always existed.

No, it does not. There are times in the Earth's history that science points towards a definite lack of life on Earth. And yes, we do know that life began somehow so there was an "abiogenesis" event. Either life arose naturally. We were planted by aliens. Or life was magically poofed into existence. One of these concepts is supported by evidence.

If science did not succeed in replicating the start of life then it is not real science,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, it is pseudo science. It is making an educated guess about what might have happened. It is making an educated guess, predicated on the presumption that life can come from chemistry and physics.
Even if it succeeded it shows nothing about how life did begin on earth.
But as it is we don't know even if you say that we are not far from knowing. We also don't know about any other life in the universe even if probability suggest there is. That also is predicated on the naturalistic methodology being true and God being needed being false.
These boundaries of where science is at is where science is claiming things for nature that God has said that He did.

Okay so you so you do not even know what science is. No wonder that you are so confused. Would you like to go over the basics of science? We can do that. And remember, you want to put down scientists but you believe in magic. You are in no place to criticize others.

 

[Venni_Vetti_Vecci]

All of them.

Oh, really? Have you ever observed any reptile-to-bird transformation in nature?

If yes, explain.

No.
That is what it shows to educated paleontologists who actually have the proper qualifications to study those things.

Those paleontologists have never observe macroevolution, either.

What your willfully ignorant & religiously inspired opinion is of fossils, is as useful as a bike is to a snake.

My observation of canines produce canines is not an opinion..it is a fact that has nothing to do with religion.

He didn't say there aren't.
He was talking about people of your particular religious flavor. Theists who hold to religious dogma's to whom those dogma's supercede rationality and evidence.

Or, atheists who hold to science-fiction even at the risk of losing rational credibility.

Exactly. This is literally a confirmation of what I just said concerning religious dogma's.
You are literally acknowledging here that your religious belief rules out evolution.

Nonsense. I rule out evolution because of the lack of evidence for it, and the plethora of evidence against it.

It's not evidence that rules it out. It's not the science that rules it out.
It's your dogmatic a priori religious belief that does.

Its abiogensis and the SLOT that does.

Aka "heads I win, tails you lose".

2 quotes above, you said something different.
There, you said that what you read in the christian bible (= your faith) rules out evolution.

No, I said the Bible confirms what I observe, test, and predict in nature.

 

[Jose Fly]

You have not backed up your accusations (assertions) except to say that's what you think and what other people think as if I should believe what you say and about what other people think and promulgate as theories put forth by those who you say, know more than I do, as if I should believe them because you say they know more about the subject. lol. You back it up with nothing but your opinion. That's ok. .Now why should I believe you? Because you believe others who you say know more than I do?

What in the world? You're not making any sense at all.

 

[Jose Fly]

Chimps are chimps and not humans. I hope that helps to recognize the significance of the difference (gap) of DNA from chimpanzees and humans. Understand better now? Either there is a significant difference by DNA or there is not. Either DNA accounts for the difference or it does not. If you don't see a significant difference between chimpanzees and humans or you do not. So it's in the eyes of the beholder to determine if the differences between chimpanzees and humans are significant. Maybe you do think they are; maybe you don't.

Um....are you thinking that you're the first person to realize that "chimps are chimps and humans are humans"? Do you think no biologist in the world has ever known that?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Well we know God is there by what He does.

We know that nature is there, not gods.

Prophecy and scientific predictions are two entirely different things.

They are different in that scientific prophesies are more specific and correct, that is, they are useful knowledge. Biblical prophecy is so vague that people claim any event they like as its fulfillment. You can't do that with scientific prophecy. Also, biblical prophecy is never useful. A useful prophecy is something like, "Bob will be here in fifteen minutes." I can make choices now based in that knowledge that will lead to desired outcomes. Perhaps I don't want to see Bob. I can use that prophecy, if correct, to avoid an encounter with Bob. Likewise with scientific prophecy, but not biblical prophecy. Also, despite their prophecies being better than biblical prophecy, scientists don't claim that their prophecies imply divine prescience.

Prophecy from God is never wrong. That is one way you can know if it is from God or not.

As far as I can tell, there is almost nothing foretold in the Bible that suggests that a god was involved. It predicts that there will be wars and earthquakes, and that many people will reject the Bible as of divine providence. There are failed prophecies in the Bible, but that's only possible to identify when the prophecy is specific.

Symmetry breaking seems to be just one force after another without any data storage. DNA would be different in that respect.

Both appear to be nature employing natural processes. I don't know what you mean by data storage, but the particles and forces "remember" how to interact according to those initial breaks in symmetry. DNA is made of those particles passively obeying those forces. The nuclei of atoms are quarks held together by one of those forces and surrounded by electrons which interact with the nuclei and with one another to form atoms and molecules and do chemistry.

What would be the role of intelligence in any of that? Symmetry breaking and particle and force generation appear to be blind processes unless you want to make a fine-tuning claim, although that can be rebutted. Intelligence is not needed to account for the complexity of DNA until it can be ruled out that nature couldn't have done it. Rule that out, and it leaves only intelligent design. Until then it not only remains a viable hypothesis, but it's also the preferred one according to Occam's principle of parsimony. It only requires unconscious nature to exist. Supernatural explanations require that an unseen reality exists, and that it contain unseen intelligent entities. We don't add elements to the scientific narrative that add complexity but no extra explanatory power

Yes and because of the data storage and use involved and because of the coding involved in the system that is evidence for an intelligent agent, even if we can't detect that agent with our senses.

The ID people, who are creationists, disagreed, which is why they sought not complexity, but irreducible and specified complexity. The understood that blind, natural systems can become quite complex without intelligent supervision, and didn't bother to offer that as evidence of an intelligent designer.

Evidence for an intelligent designer is something that makes naturalistic explanations less likely. Irreducible complexity in a living thing would meet that criterion, since such a thing shouldn't exist without intelligent design. Blind evolution can't fashion irreducibly complex organisms. The complexity of a DNA molecule does not do that.

I would not say that believers are more stupid or think less critically than atheists

If you believe by faith, you are not thinking critically.

there is a difference between seeing the evidence of DNA and making a leap of reason to a designer and seeing it and making a leap of reason to "it happened by chance".

Science has done neither. And we don't make leaps of reason. Reasoning is a series of connected steps that conform to the laws of reason thus avoiding logical fallacy and invalid conclusions. Leap is a metaphor here that refers to getting to a conclusion without taking the necessary steps, which always produces fallacy (non sequitur). Reason proceeds in steps to its destination. Leaping (or jumping) to conclusions is not reason.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

the non empirical evidence points to a designer

Non-empirical evidence is an oxymoron. If you have evidence, you acquired it empirically, that is, through the experience of the senses.

That all in the universe could have happened without the theistic God has not been shown

Correct, but it doesn't need to be shown.

occam's razor should have cut out the natural answer and gone with a creator.

That's backwards. See above.

Yes Christianity with it's rational God who probably made a universe that could be understood, and not Thales led to the West being more advanced scientifically than the East.

That's already been rebutted. Thales is the father of scientific speculation. Unfortunately, it was often without empiric support, as when Aristotle proclaimed that heavier object fall faster than lighter ones. But sometimes it was science, as when Thales successfully predicted an eclipse. That couldn't have been done without observation, induction (a general rule), and then deduction (a specific incident).

And there is nothing rational about that deity as described. It is not a model for reason, and there are no words praising reason attributed to it. How reasonable is it to create a race of reasoning creatures and then punish them for using it? How reasonable is it to give them free will when that would lead to their demise? How reasonable is it to torture souls? How reasonable was it to drown the planet for a design error and then repopulate the world with the same sinful breeding stack? How reasonable is it to unleash a supervillain on the earth?

It is probably harder to be someone of faith than to just throw it all out and live life according to what we want to do.

Difficulty is not the standard for living virtuously, which is actually quite easy once one identifies the virtues and makes them habits of thought and behavior. It's the failed life that is difficult.

There is no virtue in being saddled with unrealisitic demands that make life harder for nothing in return.

And of course we prefer to do what we want over what others want. Only the ones who love us have our best interest at heart, and that alone doesn't make their advice good. The rest would exploit us. There is no virtue in submitting to religious dicta. It's people that want you to do that that say otherwise, but that is self-serving. They're the ones that teach believers to think that autonomy is rebellion, that God prefers that they uncritically imbibe dogma to reasoning, that pleasure is sin, and the like. Meekness is praised. Obedience is praised. "Keeping the faith" in the face of events that challenge its dicta is praised. This is all intended to get you to do what they want, not what you want, and so, what you want and you wanting it are both demeaned.

These boundaries of where science is at is where science is claiming things for nature that God has said that He did.

Science makes no claims for nature not justified empirically. Those are the claims of theists, often creationists, usually relatively scientifically uneducated, who don't actually listen to what science has to say.

The perimeter of knowledge is exactly where gods step in. Neil DeGrasse Tyson wrote a nice piece on the topic (and delivered a talk on YouTube), referring to great scientific minds in the past, whose science is god-free until they encounter something unaccounted for by existing science. Only then do they invoke divine intervention. Newton was an excellent example. Theism doesn't appear in his Principia until the end of his scientific celestial mechanics exposition to keep the orbits of the planets stable. Newtons math predicted that planets like earth ought to be thrown out of the solar system or into the sun by the gravitation of other planets like Jupiter, and the hand of God was needed to periodically make course corrections to the orbits. LaPlace came along about a century later with the math needed to show that the solar system is stable, and God lost one more job.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Life without a body has been life always.

OK, if incorporeal mind meets your definition of life, then God, if He exists, is life that didn't come from other life. That was the argument that rebutted you claim that life always comes from existing life.

It is however dishonest to say that science knows how something evolved when it is guess.

Science has made no false or dishonest claims. It sounds like you get your understanding of what science is and does from creationism apologists. If you get directly from scientific sources, you never see science guessing and calling it fact. Science's position on how we and all other life evolved is in the theory of evolution. Genomes mutate and are subject to natural selection. That's how unicellular life eventually evolved into humankind. If you're referring to specific pathways such as from the last common man-chimp ancestor to man, they are incomplete, and science acknowledges that. There is nothing dishonest there except the apologetics you're repeating that make false claims about science.

Best if science does not make claims that is knows when it does not.

Agreed. And it doesn't. You're listening to the apologists, not the scientists.

God just is and probably just does what He does as a reaction without the need to think.

You've just described nature.

You can't have it both ways. Is the universe too complicated to exist without an intelligent designer? Then unthinking reactions won't do. Will unthinking reactions do? Then a god is not needed.

that is as deep as I can go on the whole thing of time and what is possible outside of time. If we have not experienced it, it is hard to know what is possible or impossible to do there.

Nothing is possible outside of time, not action, not thought without action, and not existing without either thought or action. Of course we haven't experienced being out of time. Experience occurs in time.

I suppose most creation stories are guesses,,,,,,,,,,,,,, maybe to tell the kids, and so it gets passed on when the kids grow up and were not told that dad was just making stuff up around the fire. The Bible of course is different The Bible has evidence of being true.

The only creation story that is different is the scientific one. It's the one derived and confirmed empirically. The evidence is that the Bible is replete with errors and is the work of ancient man.

How do you know that we have no spirit that acts in and with us?

If by that you mean something akin to an eternal soul, we don't know that it doesn't exist. But as I mentioned elsewhere, that kind of thing seems to mean more to you than me. You seem to be more interested in what hasn't been ruled out. I'm more interested in what has been ruled in.

Believing correct ideas means we need to look in the right place and use the right tools.

I suspect that your definition of correct isn't mine. By correct, I mean demonstrably correct, which is why I say that all correct ideas are decided empirically. This means that the only correct tools for ferreting out true ideas from false ideas and not-even-wrong (metaphysical, unfalsifiable) ideas are the senses and the power of reason.

Faith is as much a path to truth as empirical science

Then you are also using a different definition of truth than I do. Truth for me is the quality that only facts possess, facts being words that accurately map some portion of reality and allow one to predict outcomes.

By a path to truth, I mean a method that reliably takes one to correct conclusions, our desired destination. Faith doesn't have a method. It cannot distinguish between correct ideas and wrong or useless answers. By faith, any of those three can be believed. With empiricism, we avoid acquiring false and unfalsifiable beliefs. We shouldn't call a method that allows one to believe wrong ideas as easily as correct ones a path to truth.

 

[Venni_Vetti_Vecci]

Nope, sorry that's not how this works.

Empty assertions are worthless.

I said that I saw X (posters using "Quantum Mechanics" of the Gaps reasoning).

You said that you've yet to see X.

You are asking me for proof that I saw X.

Ok, well I'd like proof that you've never saw X.

Go ahead, provide proof that you've never saw X because after all, empty assertions are worthless, aren't they?

If I post "the moon is made of cheese", does that establish that the moon is made of cheese?

No, just like if you said the moon isn't made of cheese does not establish that the moon isn't made of cheese..

That, followed by the fact that you are drawing a false equivalency because such an analogy has no equivalence to me making a general statement about my personal experience on this forum.

You can't be serious. You honestly think declaring up front that it is impossible for any data to contradict one's religious beliefs = "following the evidence wherever it leads"?

You really think that?

Yeah, because you cant contradict or rebuttal the actual truth.

So? Are you arguing that because you're all human beings, that makes you just as qualified to speak about fossils as professional paleontologists?

Just because someone is a professional paleontologist doesn't make them above scrutiny.

Citation please.

For?

We see populations evolve all the time. Every new trait, ability, genetic sequence, and species we've seen arise has done so via evolution.

Have we seen any reptile-to-bird kind of evolving all the time (or any time)?

No, we haven't.

So when paleontologists look at the fossil record and see traits and species appearing, it's reasonable to conclude that they came about via evolution.

Yet, you do not have one complete transitional fossil record, do you?

No, you don't.

So it is reasonable to conclude that all of the fossils that are discovered are the remains of full, in-it's-final-and-only-form, organisms.

And we found that because of the Cambrian explosion, which is a slap in the face of the this phantom, one hundred million year fossil record that evolutionists accept by faith and put all of their hopes and dreams into so much.

It's no different than geologists concluding that certain types of ash they find came from volcanoes (because we see volcanoes producing those kinds of ash today).

The moon is made of cheese.

.........

 

[Brian2]

A lot of things do that without intelligence.

I'm not saying that DNA has intelligence, but if information is coded into DNA then that seems to suggest an intelligence to initially set up a system of information coding.

 

[Brian2]

Of course. If religion is wrong shouldn't science correct it? For example Flat Earth beliefs recently made a bit of a comeback. Many of them were Christians that believed that because they read the Bible literally. The authors of the Bible probably thought that the Earth is flat, it is shown in their writings. Is it wrong to use the scientific method to show that those beliefs are wrong?

Sure that is fine to correct that idea.
But I wasn't thinking of such thing that aren't just a product of methodological naturalism.
I was thinking more of stuff like saying that life is chemistry and physics only. But then again science may not have made this claim, it might be just a claim that atheists make about science or the way science is reported to the general public.
I have heard it said that all the evidence points to life being chemistry and physics but that is not true since science knows that all life we have come across has come from previously existing life,,,,,,,,,, so the claim of chemistry and physics only is a naturalistic methodology claim and so is a religious faith claim, changing the methodology into a philosophy, either of science or of the one making that claim.

 

[Brian2]

It does nothing of the sort.

What would you call it if Genetic coding does not communicate information?

 

[Brian2]

That says it all, doesn't it?

The alternative translation is legitimate. If you think that the flood story can only mean one world wide flood covering all the high mountains in the world, that says it all.