Evidence for a Creator God Who Likes Creating Things

thomas t said:

the principle of parsimony needs to be applied to competing hypotheses to explain a phenomenon, as I see it.
according to you.
(Yeah I left it out last time).
I don't think I have to prove God first to see evidence for a supernatural being intenting variety.
Oh yes, @HonestJoe , at this point I'll leave it open if it's a God or just some higher power, thank you for pointing that out.
The next step would be to try to find out which one it might be.

bolded mine.
If you don't like "prediction", take "fact" instead and put it in the place of where I said "prediction".
This makes you feel better, I think.
There are many facts that count as evidence.
If someone in court says "I saw him the day the victim was murdered"... is that falsifiable? I mean after the witness spoke? No. It happened already and it lies in the past.
But it's still evidence in court.
It does not lose its status as evidence, once the witness ended their testimony.

I think that's the analogy that we need here.

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Would explain the principle of parsimony to those of us that do not understand it?

thomas t said:

In my opinion there exists great evidence for a Creator God who loves creating things:
the great variety of life and landscapes on earth.
Landscapes keep changing and life can be found in all its forms.

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There exists not a single landscape on earth that is not explainable by geological sciences. So how do all these landscapes that are known to arise from natural geological principles be evidence of a creator? The variety itself is also explainable from the same natural laws. It stems from the fractional seperation that occured as the earth cooled from its initial molten state and also due to the radiative heating that keeps earth geologically active.

sayak83 said:

There exists not a single landscape on earth that is not explainable by geological sciences. So how do all these landscapes that are known to arise from natural geological principles be evidence of a creator? The variety itself is also explainable from the same natural laws. It stems from the fractional seperation that occured as the earth cooled from its initial molten state and also due to the radiative heating that keeps earth geologically active.

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Geological sciences can indeed explain landscaping formed by natural processes, however genetic science can't explain any natural process why there is indeed a mark of intelligence left in our genetic code as evident by how the numeric and semantic message of 037 appears in our genetic code. Each codon relates to 3 other particular codons having the same particular type of initial nucleobase and sequential nucleobase subsequently then followed by a different ending nucleobase. Half of these 4 set of codon groups ( whole family codons ) each code for the same particular amino acid. The other half of those 4 set of codon groups ( split codons ) don't code for the same amino acid. So then, in the case of whole family codons, there are 37 amino acid peptide chain nucleons for each relevant nucleobase determinant of how a particular amino acid gets coded. Start codons express 0 at the beginning of 37 Hence, the meaningful numeric and semantic message of 037 gets unambiguously and factually conveyed to us descendants of our cosmic ancestor(s) with our genetic code invented by a superior intelligence beyond that of anybody presently bound to Earth.

Dear RF comrade, what is your conclusion?

thomas t said:

Oh yes, @HonestJoe , at this point I'll leave it open if it's a God or just some higher power, thank you for pointing that out.

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I don't believe you. You meant the specific God you believe in when you first posted and you mean the specific God you believe in now. If you don't have enough confidence in the validity of your hypothesis to stick to it, why should anyone else?

thomas t said:

In my opinion there exists great evidence for a Creator God who loves creating things:
the great variety of life and landscapes on earth.
Landscapes keep changing and life can be found in all its forms.

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more than this, the landscape needs lots of pr-requests to be established. soil with nutrients, water supply, adequate temperature, fertilizers (chemicals and biological). hence righteous meticulous astronomy stemming from sun and planets movement with no single error. Who is behind all this? who is maintaining this system. Humans invent things like cars, planes ships and lots of sophisticated things but these items can not last for ever. they decay and perish. But the solar system can not. God maintains it.

taste buds lol

Baroodi said:

more than this, the landscape needs lots of pr-requests to be established. soil with nutrients, water supply, adequate temperature, fertilizers (chemicals and biological). hence righteous meticulous astronomy stemming from sun and planets movement with no single error. Who is behind all this? who is maintaining this system. Humans invent things like cars, planes ships and lots of sophisticated things but these items can not last for ever. they decay and perish. But the solar system can not. God maintains it.

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Gravity maintains the orbits of the planets. No god need apply. Nutrients etc. arise naturally. Life has adapted to the planet as it is. The planet was not formed for life.

KenS said:

Well, I'm glad that you are here to help be my overseer to judge my critical thinking.

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I did not post my previous response as a joke. I am more than happy to coach you on your critical thinking. Anytime.

Dan From Smithville said:

I have no idea what spiritual state historical prophets achieved. Nothing that can be tested to support your claim.

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I dont claim anything only say what i have understood from the practice.
You dont have to believe me if that is difficult for you.

thomas t said:

I just was going to say that these two don't have to rule each other out. No less and no more than that. I don't want to go any further here...

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You don't want to go any further then just making the bare assertions? You don't wish to actually go in on justifying those assertions and properly explaining them? What a surprise.

Well. Now we are debating the quality of the evidence, it seems. I agree: once the piece of evidence can support a multitude of things it is not the strongest evidence.
No, here I am making the first step back at square one. Is or isn't there evidence at all? this is what I'm talking about here.

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I think I explained it clear enough.
The road being wet is evidence that it got wet. It's not evidence of HOW it got wet.

When asking the question "how did the road get wet?" then the road being wet is NOT evidence. It's instead the given fact that requires explanation. The "how" question requires more data and can't be derived from the mere given fact alone.

So no, the road being wet, in and of itself, is NOT evidence of HOW it got wet.
It's instead, the very data that requires explanation.

A testimonial is evidence in court, even if there is better evidence than that.

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1. we're talking about science, not court cases. different standards apply.

2. no, when empirical evidence contradicts testimony, the empirical evidence wins every single time.

Because data doesn't lie. But humans do. They can also be mistaken. But data is what it is.

See
The Legal Concept of Evidence > Notes (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

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Now look up the scientific concept of evidence, which is what is relevant here.

It can (be parsimonious).

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It can not, as it requires LOADS of extra-ordinary assumptions without a single shred of evidence.

At this stage of the debate, I'll just leave it open, which higher power that was that potentially brought that variety we're talking about. The second step would be counting out candidates.... but this is not what I am after in this post....

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This is the point. What you are calling "candidates" aren't candidates at all.
Your "god" is just as much a "candidate" for variety of landscapes as extra-dimensional peeing pixies are "candidates" for a wet road.

some minutes ago, I was answering @ratiocinator . She or he explains that a falsifiable prediction counts as evidence in science.
If someone asks you "Has it rained?"... and I tell you "I think it rained. Let's examine the road: I predict it is wet!" then it is a falsifiable prediction. Once you find the road wet, it is evidence for the claim that it rained.
This is not what I said.
This is what your colleague just finished explaining. I took ratiociantors explanation of evidence.... and applied it to the wet road... and you see: it worked!
Even if as a next step you could reply that you want to examinate the trees first before believing my hypothesis....

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The prediction must point exclusively to the hypothesis.
A road being wet, without further information, does not do that.

The point. You keep missing it.

thomas t said:

This evidence for the dragon thing actually is falsifiable. You could just stop losing your socks...
Look: I don't care about dragons, though.

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And we don't care about gods. Now what?

but I didn't ascribe variety to the God I am talking about.
I say a higher force that likes creating variety, that's all.

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You have to provide evidence that there is such a thing as this "higher force" in the first place before you can ascribe the existence of variety to it.

Look, the variety on earth can also count as falsifiable then, I think.
Very much in the way the content of the testimonial can be falsified as you say...
All the variety on earth could (theoretically) fade away in a minute.

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1. that would not disprove unfalsifiable claims. You could just continue making bare claims and say that your "higher force" changed his mind and no longer fancies variety

2. there already is a perfectly reasonable and demonstrable explanation. it's geological activity.

3. unfalsifiable claims, like undetectable "higher forces", are infinite in number

Suave said:

Geological sciences can indeed explain landscaping formed by natural processes, however genetic science can't explain any natural process why there is indeed a mark of intelligence left in our genetic code as evident by how the numeric and semantic message of 037 appears in our genetic code. Each codon relates to 3 other particular codons having the same particular type of initial nucleobase and sequential nucleobase subsequently then followed by a different ending nucleobase. Half of these 4 set of codon groups ( whole family codons ) each code for the same particular amino acid. The other half of those 4 set of codon groups ( split codons ) don't code for the same amino acid. So then, in the case of whole family codons, there are 37 amino acid peptide chain nucleons for each relevant nucleobase determinant of how a particular amino acid gets coded. Start codons express 0 at the beginning of 37 Hence, the meaningful numeric and semantic message of 037 gets unambiguously and factually conveyed to us descendants of our cosmic ancestor(s) with our genetic code invented by a superior intelligence beyond that of anybody presently bound to Earth.

Dear RF comrade, what is your conclusion?

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My conclusion is that you are grasping at straws and inventing "problems" where there aren't any.

ratiocinator said:

I just can't believe that you're being serious with this - it's so obviously a non-starter.

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I don't understand you reaction here.

ratiocinator said:

To falsify a case in court, it's not that the previous evidence vanishes, it's that new evidence comes along that calls it into question.

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I didn't say that the previous evidence would vanish if the variety on earth will vanish in a second.
Make a video tape of all the variety that is on earth now... this video will be the evidence then.
Let me change the analogy then:
A person's DNA is found on the weapon used to kill someone.
So: if you say this is falsifiable, I will say that variety on earth is also falsifiable. (see reply to come)
If you say that that DNA on the weapon is not falsifiable... I say that you don't need to complain about the (purported) lack of falsifiability concerning the variety on earth when I say it's evidence, ok?

ratiocinator said:

In investigating explanations of the physical world, in order for you idea to have any credibility, it must tell us something about the world that we don't already know, or at least provide some set of observations that would render it false.

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But once the DNA on the weapon is discovered, what is there you don't know?
The variety on earth is the same type of evidence as the DNA on the weapon, I think.
The one thing is as readily discovered as the other.

sayak83 said:

There exists not a single landscape on earth that is not explainable by geological sciences. So how do all these landscapes that are known to arise from natural geological principles be evidence of a creator? The variety itself is also explainable from the same natural laws. It stems from the fractional seperation that occured as the earth cooled from its initial molten state and also due to the radiative heating that keeps earth geologically active.

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The landscape on the moon doesn't offer much variety.
Since you only find this variety on earth means that geology in and of itself is not enough to explain the variety on earth.

HonestJoe said:

I don't believe you. You meant the specific God you believe in when you first posted and you mean the specific God you believe in now.

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Let me clarify:
as I started the thread, I instinctively wrote God.
But in the course of the debate, it became apparent that things get easier when I start with the proposition of at least some higher force. So this is the point I am after for my argumentation now.

thomas t said:

I don't understand you reaction here.

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Clearly. I think you should perhaps brush up on logical and critical thinking. Here is a free, downloadable book: Critical Thinking (pdf).

thomas t said:

A person's DNA is found on the weapon used to kill someone.
So: if you say this is falsifiable, I will say that variety on earth is also falsifiable. (see reply to come)
If you say that that DNA on the weapon is not falsifiable... I say that you don't need to complain about the (purported) lack of falsifiability concerning the variety on earth when I say it's evidence, ok?
...
But once the DNA on the weapon is discovered, what is there you don't know?
The variety on earth is the same type of evidence as the DNA on the weapon, I think.
The one thing is as readily discovered as the other.

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This isn't a great analogy because investigation of the world (science) isn't the same as law, but... The DNA is an observation (like variety), from which you may formulate a hypothesis that the suspect was guilty of murder. However, that hypothesis is still falsifiable because some other evidence might prove that the suspect was elsewhere at the time of death (so the DNA must have got there by some other means or at some other time).

Your idea of variety being evidence for a creator that likes creating variety is many orders of magnitude sillier because it's totally arbitrary. I could, for example, look at all the disease and natural disasters in the world and say they're evidence for a cruel and evil creator that enjoys suffering. It's every bit as 'good' an 'argument' as yours.

TagliatelliMonster said:

You don't want to go any further then just making the bare assertions?

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no, you said I contradicted myself.
I replied by saying that your two scenarios don't necessarily have to rule each other out.
If you say they do, the onus is on you.

TagliatelliMonster said:

You don't wish to actually go in on justifying those assertions and properly explaining them? What a surprise.

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it depends whom the onus is on, I think.

TagliatelliMonster said:

I think I explained it clear enough.
The road being wet is evidence that it got wet. It's not evidence of HOW it got wet.

When asking the question "how did the road get wet?" then the road being wet is NOT evidence. It's instead the given fact that requires explanation. The "how" question requires more data and can't be derived from the mere given fact alone.

So no, the road being wet, in and of itself, is NOT evidence of HOW it got wet.
It's instead, the very data that requires explanation.

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+

TagliatelliMonster said:

The prediction must point exclusively to the hypothesis.
A road being wet, without further information, does not do that.

The point. You keep missing it.

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That's a positive claim about the concept of evidence.
So now, back it up by a scientific source and I believe you. If you can't I will dismiss your claim as unsupported guesswork.

TagliatelliMonster said:

It can not, as it requires LOADS of extra-ordinary assumptions without a single shred of evidence.

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according to you.

TagliatelliMonster said:

This is the point. What you are calling "candidates" aren't candidates at all.
Your "god" is just as much a "candidate" for variety of landscapes as extra-dimensional peeing pixies are "candidates" for a wet road.

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at this point of the debate, all I am propsing is that some higher power is responsible for it.
Deciding which one it is would be another step.

Atheists do not believe in any higher force so I am starting with this proposing there is some higher force, which one it ever may be (which I want to leave open at this point).

TagliatelliMonster said:

3. unfalsifiable claims, like undetectable "higher forces", are infinite in number

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see above.

TagliatelliMonster said:

You have to provide evidence that there is such a thing as this "higher force" in the first place before you can ascribe the existence of variety to it.

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I ascribed the quality to them that they like to create.
That's different.
Are you saying I must provide evidence of the existence of a higher force in the first place before ascribing any qualities to it?
I don't agree.
I simply say "some sort of higher force that likes creating" and provide the evidence for this claim.
That's totally fine, I think.

TagliatelliMonster said:

1. that would not disprove unfalsifiable claims. You could just continue making bare claims and say that your "higher force" changed his mind and no longer fancies variety

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my claim made in this thread isn't bare though, it's all about reasonable evidence, I think.

TagliatelliMonster said:

2. there already is a perfectly reasonable and demonstrable explanation. it's geological activity.

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see post here Evidence for a Creator God Who Likes Creating Things

ratiocinator said:

This isn't a great analogy because investigation of the world (science) isn't the same as law, but... The DNA is an observation (like variety), from which you may formulate a hypothesis that the suspect was guilty of murder. However, that hypothesis is still falsifiable because some other evidence might prove that the suspect was elsewhere at the time of death (so the DNA must have got there by some other means or at some other time).

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yes of course.
But it's still evidence.
By the way atheists often use the analogy to juridicial proceedings. That's why I made the comparison in the first place.
See for instance 35 k likes....

ratiocinator said:

Your idea of variety being evidence for a creator that likes creating variety is many orders of magnitude sillier because it's totally arbitrary. I could, for example, look at all the disease and natural disasters in the world and say they're evidence for a cruel and evil creator that enjoys suffering. It's every bit as 'good' an 'argument' as yours.

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It's not silly. It's not arbitrary.
If you want to open up a claim in favor of another supernatural entity... go ahead.
In this case, there are two claims.

thomas t said:

It's not silly. It's not arbitrary.

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I'm afraid it is. All you've done is pointed at a raw fact in the world that is consistent with your favoured story about it (a creator who likes creating variety). The judicial analogy would be more like claiming that person X is dead is evidence that person Y killed them. X being dead is undoubtedly consistent with the story, but you haven't even shown that X was killed by somebody, let alone person Y. Similarly, you haven't shown that the world was deliberately created by any sort of being, let alone one that specifically likes variety.

thomas t said:

If you want to open up a claim in favor of another supernatural entity... go ahead.
In this case, there are two claims.

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Two claims that contradict each other. If you can use the same argument to reach contradictory conclusions, then that's a very good sign that it's a very bad argument.

thomas t said:

the variety of landscapes is the evidence, as I see it. There is no necessity for landscapes in itself to have a great abundance of different forms.

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Is this also evidence?