I mean this conversation is between you and me, not your video and me. Feel free to use anything in the video that you think is relevant. What you might think is relevant isn't for me to say.
(And am I right? It says nothing about alternatives to First Causes?)
How does watching a video, which I gave you, and which misses nothing I haven't already addressed. and moreover, clarifies, and emphasizes what I said - considering that your questions are repetitive, even though I answered and tried to explain, invalidate a conversation between two people?
I also gave you a chance to ask if there is anything it misses. That way I could probably determine the "missing link" - what it is you are really not getting.
So I have an idea.
But this all relates to the question why you think evolution is incapable of producing a biological machine.
Are you asking me why I don't believe in magic.
Give me the mechanism you have in mind, so that I can give a detailed answer.
And to which the argument from incredulity is a very common answer, which is why I mentioned it and hoped you had a better reason than that.
A question which remains central to our discussion ─ and one which I hope you'll now address.
The question of beginnings doesn't necessitate a first cause.
I don't think the argument that something doesn't necessitate something means that the one making that argument knows of an observed alternative.
Like, I can say living does not necessitate eating spinach, and broccoli, or anything green.
I could also make the argument, it is not necessary for us to eat... just expect to die.
So which one are you proposing... There is no need for a first cause, because we observed an alternative. Or simply because we don't need one?
I don't mean simply that quantum mechanics postulates utterly countless instances of physical events taking place every second which are uncaused in the classical sense, so are described in statistical terms
I don't mean simply that words like 'self-existent' are incoherent, though of course they are. I don't mean simply that if God existed before creation then creation wasn't ex nihilo, though that would have to be the case, and the question of where God came from would still be at large.
I also mean that if time is a property of mass-energy, if time is within mass-energy rather than mass-energy being within time, in short if time exists because mass-energy exists, then there's no problem with beginnings, and so no need for a first cause.
I believe something similar, but not in scientific terms.
Man knows about energy, but I don't believe all energy - that is, in its various forms - is known to man.
So what the Bible refers to as "spirit" is indeed outside of time, and, if you will, "time exists as a property of this "form of energy" if you will (I am speaking in human terms). God - the spirit - is the beginning. It is out of him (not nothing) that all things came... including consciousness, intellect / intelligence, and all other forms of spirit, or energy, if you prefer.
This is my belief, based not on my own ideas, but what is written in the Bible.
I believe this is above man's limited understanding, and no matter how long or hard he searches, he will never find it out. Never in a Gazillion years.
(Ecclesiastes 3:11) . . .He has even put eternity in their heart; yet mankind will never find out the work that the true God has made from start to finish.
It's true that we don't yet have a complete description of the path from chemistry to biochemistry to self-replicating cells; however, we've come a lot further than you may suspect, and progress is steady. I expect to live long enough to see it.
Once we have a self-replicating cell, evolution does the rest, and the theory of evolution explains evolution.
Well, I hope you do live long enough to see the end. I have that hope too.
I expect man will progress his theories very rapidly to support his ideas, and establish them... even to the point where he may even declare TOE (the theory of everything). However, in my younger days, I recall when we used to try to build the tallest house, with a pack of cards. We didn't like to see them fall, but they did, and often when they did, they all lay scattered out flat on the ground.
We still remember the Titanic.
The Bible says... Why, now there is nothing that they may have in mind to do that will be unattainable for them. (Genesis 11:6)
So yes. Man will build up his "Empire of ideas", no doubt, but many still won't be impressed. As the saying goes, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall
.
A big difference between your view and mine is that science acknowledges that there are questions out there about the origins of life, and is actively working on them. Whereas (if we imagine a real God) no one knows how God created life, or the universe, and no one who thinks [he] did is working on the problem.
Biochemistry isn't magic. Evolution isn't magic.
But 'Let there be light, and there was light' is magic. Creating the world and the fish, birds, plants, animals and humans in seven days is magic. If not, tell me how it was done.
That does not sound very reasonable to me.
What is the difference between (a) a scientists growing bacteria, with the "raw materials", (b) the raw materials building themselves into a bacteria, and (c) an intelligent designer creating the raw materials for building the bacteria, and then taking the time to build it in a controlled way?
You may have seen a man had half his face mutilated or burnt off. Five years later, you see the same man with his whole face. Just because you did not see the time it took, and the "materials" - the grafts - the surgeons used to reconstruct the man's face, you are not going to exclaim, "Magic."
Just because you did not see the intelligent designer create his designs, does not mean it was magic.
The question does not make sense. It doesn't take a rocket genius to understand that a form of life higher than any intelligence on earth would be greater at any task - whether that be constructing an ear, eye, tongue, or the smallest cell, packed with a strands of information, that when unwound, would stretch 3 meters in length.
Testimony to the creator's awesome ability.
So now you tell me, where did all that information originate? How do you answer?
You said you had a method of answering the question 'What's true in reality?' that's superior to scientific method, and I don't recall your answering that at any point. But rather than just repeat whatever it was you said, give me an example. How does your method approach, say, the questions, What is dark matter? What is dark energy? A simple, clear illustration of the approach will illuminate all.
One: you've yet to tell me how to distinguish my keyboard from God; and yet I suspect my keyboard (as such) wasn't even present at the Big Bang. Two: A first cause is not a requirement (see above).
In Hebrews 6:18 Paul doesn't claim God can't lie. He stipulates only that there are two things God hasn't lied about.
I don't speak Hebrew ─ I don't speak any semitic languages ─ but Isaiah 45:7 (to which I referred above) has God saying that he creates what Strong transliterates as ra'. Ra' appears 663 times in the Tanakh, adds Strong, and the KJV (which he's using) renders that as 'evil' on 442 occasions including Isaiah 45:7 (and as 'wicked' and 'wickedness' on another 84).
Of course it says the earth is flat. I gave you chapter and verse. How can the earth have four corners, how can the Tempter show Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth from a high mountain ─ and all the other examples ─ but above all, why would anyone think that the writers in biblical times would have a clue about modern cosmology?
So since I don't want to waste my time going over things I already did, watch the video.
Also, believe whatever you wish to believe, but please don't ask me about things I already pointed out to you, are erroneous misinterpretations of Bible verses. Believe them if you want to.
To show you just how unreasonable it is to do so though, I will point you to one refutation.
Four corners of the earth
