What is your best evidence for a god?

TagliatelliMonster · Oct 22, 2020

mikkel_the_dane said:
Okay, so is there a subjective reality?

Sure. It's called "opinion"

Heyo · Oct 22, 2020

leroy said:
Well what about the typical arguments promoted by apologetics?

I think the fine tuning of the universe is the best.... Have you analyzed the argument?.... What problems do you see?

Fine tuning is indeed one of the better arguments. It only has two weaknesses:
1. It isn't conclusive. There are several other possible explanations. So it hints at the possibility of a god but doesn't prove it.
2. It only leads to a deos, not a theos. Something made the physical constants so that a long living, complex universe could exit. No reason to assume that that something still exists, no reason to worship.

TagliatelliMonster · Oct 22, 2020

MNoBody said:
if you only wish to be rude, please refrain from talking with me....

You call it being "rude", I call it being honest.
It's not an insult. What you said on the topic was a completely misrepresentation of reality. Clearly you have very false idea in your head of what you believe evolution etc is all about.

So, it's a misrepresentation rooted in ignorance.

That's not an insult. I'm ignorant about lots of things and when I display that ignorance, I don't feel insulted when people point it out. In fact, I rejoice in it as it is an opportunity to learn.

See, I prefer to have a correct understanding of the subjects I speak about. So if I'm wrong about something, I actually WANT people to point it out.

odd how the atheist crowd typically wants only to run others down....

Odd how you feel insulted when someone points out to you that you are in error.

certainly not all some of you guys are level headed, the rest just wish to pick fights and make rude remarks.

You call it "picking a fight", I call it "doing you a favor" and giving you an opportunity to learn.
To me, that's a good thing.

Oh well........

TagliatelliMonster · Oct 22, 2020

MNoBody said:
and your opinion means what to me, nothing, but thanks for sharing that absurdity.

Good for you that you don't care about opinions.

But do you care about holding accurate beliefs?
Because if you did, then you'ld grab this opportunity to learn and correct your mistakes, instead of whining about being "insulted".

TagliatelliMonster · Oct 22, 2020

mikkel_the_dane said:
Well, where do you think the universe came from if you think that? Or what do you think, the universe is?

1. we don't know where the universe came from. that includes physicists (and theists)

2. the topic was "life", not the universe

TagliatelliMonster · Oct 22, 2020

Hockeycowboy said:
No, sorry. You’re just repeating what you’ve heard, not what you know.

No.

The evolutionary process demonstrably, verifiably, leads to functional systems.
We have observed this in the wild and in the lab.
We also see it happen in software modules employing genetic algoritms to evolve and optimize functional systems.

You should do your research.

Evolution provides nothing of the sort....
To @TagliatelliMonster , also;

“The emergence of qualitatively distinct new structures or patterns (e.g., turtle shells, beetle horns, butterfly color patterns, plant flowers) is one of the most fascinating aspects of organismal evolution. How such novel, complex traits have originated and evolved remains one of the most important yet challenging problems of evolutionary biology. It is widely assumed that novel structures or patterns arise by co-option or rewiring of pre-existing developmental programs. Numerous empirical studies in the past two decades have provided correlational evidence supporting this premise. However, we still know virtually nothing about the specific genetic changes that trigger such co-option or developmental rewiring, how the genetic changes translate to novel structures or patterns (i.e., the developmental pre-settings required to produce the novel phenotype), and how the novel phenotypes rise in frequency in natural habitats (i.e., the evolutionary process).“

Genetics, Development, and Evolution of Phenotypic Novelty | Yuan Laboratory: Genetics, Development, and Evolution

Now, this is candid and genuine science.

But what you two are promoting as fact, is only supposition.

Did you also read the rest of that article?

The problem it talks about is not about IF novel structure evolve. It is about HOW it genetically occurs. Later in the article, it gives a specific example of a study, where the HOW is being studied and the "if" is without question.

It says:

To exploit this rare opportunity of a recently evolved novel morphological trait,...

So the very article you posted, directly contradicts the point you are trying to make.

TagliatelliMonster · Oct 22, 2020

Hockeycowboy said:
You know, ignoring the facts, isn’t ignorance...it’s another word.

As the part you quoted says, there are “major obstacles.”
It just supports my point.

It doesn't.

You are quoting it to make the point that we don't know IF such structures evolve.
But the article talks about HOW such structures evolve. That such structures DO evolve, is not doubted and it in fact gives an example of a study where it is KNOWN that novel morphological traits evolved. And the study is about HOW it happened. That it happened, is beyond question.

So no, it does not support your point. At all.

leroy · Oct 22, 2020

Hockeycowboy said:
You know, ignoring the facts, isn’t ignorance...it’s another word.

As the part you quoted says, there are “major obstacles.”
It just supports my point.

@Hockeycowboy

This is what the current scientific consensus says

1 variation and natural selection occurs

2 the evidence strongly suggests that we share a common ancestor with other sepecies and probably all life has a common ancestor..... There is room for reasonable doubt, but this room is very small

3 we dont know if random variation and natural selection can account for all (or most) of the diversity and complexity of life, many other mechanism have been proposed in the literature, and at this point we simply don't know and we lack a proven explanation for the diverity and complexity of life.

These are the facts, and the current status of the scientific community.... labeling these as "major obstacles" its subjective it all depends on what you whant to call a major obstacle.

TagliatelliMonster · Oct 22, 2020

Hockeycowboy said:
That evolution works only with what it’s got.

Who is claiming otherwise?

It can select a mutation making an animal’s fur - or a bird’s feathers - thicker or thinner. Or a bird’s beak, longer or shorter.

But it has never been demonstrated that it can develop new genes to create those feathers or fur. Or a beak.

The above link to the UConn article admitted that.

Nothing in that article says anything like that.

Again, you are confusing the IF with the HOW.
The article is about the HOW. Not about the IF.
You are claiming it is about the IF. You are wrong about that.

ratiocinator · Oct 22, 2020

leroy said:
I think the fine tuning of the universe is the best.... Have you analyzed the argument?.... What problems do you see?

First, we have no context in which to judge if the universe is "fine tuned". Secondly, a god doesn't actually answer the "problem". No matter how improbable you think a universe like ours is to exist, the rules of probability alone mean that it must be more probable than a universe like this existing and it being created by your favourite god.

mikkel_the_dane · Oct 22, 2020

Brookhousek said:
I personally don’t feel I have sufficient evidence to warrant belief in a god and I am genuinely interested to discuss what has convinced people that there is such a being.

As a skeptic there is no proof, truth, evidence and what not possible for what the world really is, other than you exist(solipsism). That there is no evidence for a creator God, but that is no different than, there is no evidence for what reality really is as independent of the experiences in your mind.

Now I can explain how come, I believe in God. I can't explain consciousness in naturalistic terms as for the hard problem. And for this: Philosophy of science - Wikipedia To me they, the axiomatic assumptions, are acts of faith. So to me God is that universe, but I have no strong proof/evidence/truth for it.
So to me God is the belief in this universe and I have faith in that.

We can nitpick the finer points of knowledge, justification and all that. But in short they end as a form of epistemological and methodological solipsism and methodological naturalism is a variant of that.

leroy · Oct 22, 2020

ratiocinator said:
First, we have no context in which to judge if the universe is "fine tuned". Secondly, a god doesn't actually answer the "problem". No matter how improbable you think a universe like ours is to exist, the rules of probability alone mean that it must be more probable than a universe like this existing and it being created by your favourite god.

Really and how did you measure the probabilities?

1 the probability that an intelligent designer exists + the probability that he is responsible for the FT of the universe

VS

2 The probability of having all these values and constants by chance

How did you determined that 2 is more probable than 1?

ratiocinator · Oct 22, 2020

leroy said:
Really and how did you measure the probabilities?

My main point is that you can't because we have no idea of the context, so, for example, we don't know if there is any "chance" at all in the values of the constants and we don't know if our "universe" is all there is or if there is a bigger context.

However, if you add a guess (that the universe was created by a god), then you must reduce the probability because you've added the guess. We have "the universe exists with these characteristics" versus "the universe exists with these characteristics and was created by (a specific) god". The second is a subset of the first, so the probability must be less.

Of course, "the universe exists with these characteristics" actually has a probability of 1 because we observe it.

wellwisher · Oct 22, 2020

The best evidence for God is connected to a foundation law of science. The Second Law of Thermodynamics; a law in science is higher than a theory, states that the entropy of the universe has to increase. While an increase in entropy absorbs energy.

What this means is the universe is losing useable energy, since energy is being absorbed by entropy, which itself has to increase over time. The net result is there is an ever increasing dead pool of energy, that is conserved by the universe; energy conservation, but is not net reusable by the material universe, due to the second law.

This dead pool is similar to energy that is in the form of memories of previous states of entropy. The growing dead pool is the basis for the flow of time in one direction; to the future. The future has less useable energy, than the past, so the past cannot be fully reproduced accept as a lingering recorded memory; ghosts of the past.

In the limit, the second law will be fully expressed and the universe will run out of useable energy. The dead pool will be full of the memories; states, of previous ages; Eternal Consciousness.

leroy · Oct 22, 2020

If you

Heyo said:
Fine tuning is indeed one of the better arguments. It only has two weaknesses:
1. It isn't conclusive. There are several other possible explanations. So it hints at the possibility of a god but doesn't prove it.

Sure, there are other possible explanations, but my suggestion is that intelligent design is the best explanation, … do you have any other explanation in mind? Why do you think that explanation you have in mind is better than design?

2. It only leads to a deos, not a theos. Something made the physical constants so that a long living, complex universe could exit. No reason to assume that that something still exists, no reason to worship.

Sure, the argument doesn’t lead to my own favorite God, but it does narrow the alternatives….. and I would suggest that there are other independent arguments that narrow it down even more, such that “Christian God” becomes the best explanation.

That is like saying “well transitional fossils do lead to universal common ancestry, but not to evolution by natural selection”…. But I would assume that you would have additional arguments that make NS more plausible than other “theories” (Lamarckism for example)

Heyo · Oct 22, 2020

ratiocinator said:
First, we have no context in which to judge if the universe is "fine tuned".

Actually, there is.
The term "fine(ly) tuned" or "fine tuning problem" comes from physics not from apologetics. Meant is the unsatisfying fact that we have to measure the natural constants. It would be much more beautiful if we could derive them.
Maybe we can some day but currently there is no theory to do that.

leroy · Oct 22, 2020

wellwisher said:
The best evidence for God is connected to a foundation law of science. The Second Law of Thermodynamics; a law in science is higher than a theory, states that the entropy of the universe has to increase. While an increase in entropy absorbs energy.

What this means is the universe is losing useable energy, since energy is being absorbed by entropy, which itself has to increase over time. The net result is there is an ever increasing dead pool of energy, that is conserved by the universe; energy conservation, but is not net reusable by the material universe, due to the second law.

This dead pool is similar to energy that is in the form of memories of previous states of entropy. The growing dead pool is the basis for the flow of time in one direction; to the future. The future has less useable energy, than the past, so the past cannot be fully reproduced accept as a lingering recorded memory; ghosts of the past.

In the limit, the second law will be fully expressed and the universe will run out of useable energy. The dead pool will be full of the memories; states, of previous ages; Eternal Consciousness.

Yes that is also a good argument for God………….naturalists are forced to deny ether the first law or the second law of thermodynamics…….. ether energy was created or entropy was reversed

viole · Oct 22, 2020

nPeace said:
When we say the mind of God, we don't think physical. Hence, it doesn't make sense to me, to think in physical terms about God.
Actually, when I think of energy, I don't compare it to God.
So I can easily see why a beginning of all things which would be based on the real thing - the designer requires no designer.

Maybe you don't see that, but our minds aren't the same. They have different connections.
Maybe some are unplugged from the true mind, making it hard for them to get the true message.

You are begging the question that the mind is not reducible to physics. I mean, it is not difficult to prove anything, including the existence of the spiritual realm, by making unsubstantiated assumptions.

and as you say, our minds, whatever “our” means in this context, have different connections. Physical connections.

why the designer devised such a complicated machine, with 100 billions cells connected in the most complicated way, when the mind can live without it, is probably the biggest dilemma for anything believing in souls, and conscious experiences outside the brain. I would say that if that is design, it would fall more into the SD category, rather than in the ID one.

and to single out an uncreated created begs the question, again. I could equally say that the universe, or the multiverse, or anything that exists, are a brute fact that do not deserve further explanations.

ciao

- viole

viole · Oct 22, 2020

mikkel_the_dane said:
Well, that is infinite regress. That is an old one as per Agrippa's Trilemma.

And there is nothing logically wrong with infinite regress.

Why people believe that an argument is wrong if it leads to infinite regress is a mystery to me, since there are no known logical defeaters that make infinite regress impossible.

Ciao

- viole

mikkel_the_dane · Oct 22, 2020

viole said:
And there is nothing logically wrong with infinite regress.

Why people believe that an argument is wrong if it leads to infinite regress is a mystery to me, since there are no known logical defeaters that make infinite regress impossible.

Ciao

- viole

Please read about Agrippa's Trilemma.

What is your best evidence for a god?

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