The battle of evolution vs creationism

[Iti oj]

Need evidence.....can't believe.....
this is how you will fail.

if that is enough to fail, then i would willing fail then submit.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

How about posting something that demonstrates an understanding of evolution?

I can only speak on what I've seen, and so far, all I've seen is animals producing what they are, not what they aren't. Until there is an exception to this, why should I believe otherwise?

 

[Parsimony]

Necessary truths are not truths that can be possibly false..a necessary truth cannot FAIL to be true...

What makes omnipotence a necessary truth?

 

[Revoltingest]

I can only speak on what I've seen, and so far, all I've seen is animals producing what they are, not what they aren't. Until there is an exception to this, why should I believe otherwise?

You shouldn't believe otherwise. The way evolution functions, all offspring are the same as their parents....almost genetically identical. But over thousands of generations, the great many "almosts" can add up to significant differences.

 

[johnhanks]

I can only speak on what I've seen...

And you are very careful indeed not to see anything that challenges your beliefs.

 

[ArtieE]

No offense, but the above post is irrelevant. Notice I am using analogies of events (mainly). I already know and even predicted that you people will come at me with all of this abstract stuff involving time. So I will use events in time instead of time itself. And there could not have been an infinite number of EVENTS which lead to your birth. So the problem of infinite regression is not negated.

So you didn't understand the quote at all did you. Here is the most important part of the quote:

"To avoid regress, we must recognize that time exists atemporally."

If you don't recognize that time exists atemporally, you don't recognize the Theory of Relativity either and simply don't want to avoid regress. So be it.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

As Dr. Craig said, in the Hawking-Hartle model, the universe does BEGIN, it just doesn't begin at a singularity point.

Right; and it does not begin as the result of any "transcendent cause". In other words, your dichotomy of past-eternal universe vs. transcendent cause is a false dilemma, as there are other possibilities.

Craig has already destroyed this model...it is old news.

Whether the model is accurate is not relevant- the point is merely that such a thing is possible, despite your dichotomy. Of course, Craig, a layman in physics, cannot "destroy" any viable scientific model- your adoration for Craig is bordering on the delusional; even Craig would admit this. Besides, he doesn't really try to "destroy" the model, he just keeps insisting on his misguided and self-serving application of the PSR, further showing how far out of his element he is, and simply says that there is no sufficient reason in the Hawking-Hartle proposal. Unfortunately, the PSR is a piece of philosophical dogma, not a credible scientific theorem or hypothesis, and no scientist alive would ever reject a model on the basis of it.

Then you should have been able to adequately answere my question.

Already done. Your "problem" does not exist, and I pointed out why. You may not like the answer, but you were given one, and you've yet to provide any rebuttal.

Look, if it can't happen in a thought experiment, it can't happen in reality.

Lol, really? Why not?

Hilbert's Hotel can never exist in reality, because if it did, those same absurdities would exist in reality, and absurdities are things that can't exist

No. Absurdities, in our present context, are things that are weird- this is Craig's "semantic word game" again; Hilbert's Hotel is weird (and there are also some serious problems with the nature of the thought experiment- he is using a hotel, a finite object, and attempting to apply infinity to it; well of course this has bizarre consequences- DUH! ). But then, QM is weird, and QM is true- being "absurd" in the sense of being weird or counter-intuitive does not mean something cannot be true.

I want quotes. Neither him nor anyone has ever responded in such a way that made me say "ohhhh, actual infinites CAN exist after all!!!"

Well of course you never said that; you're ideologically and religiously committed to this line of argument come what may- we both know full well that there is no possible set of circumstances such that you would EVER admit that any of these terrible, fallacious arguments you're reproducing are just bad arguments.

Ok, of what year?

I already know you are unable to answer the question.

It isn't a serious question.

Go back to the drawing board...look at the options, and understand why theism is more plausible naturalism.

Theism isn't even in the running- there is no competition, because theism is not an explanation. IF explanations are propositional AND IF explanations are answers to questions AND IF mysteries beg questions rather than answer them AND IF X is the greatest mystery (i.e. theos/God), then X does not explain why anything occurs and is metaphysically vacuous.

Or, as Sean Carroll recently put it in his recent debate in which he absolutely shreds Craig- theism is not well-defined, it can only provide arbitrary post hoc explanations, which are not real explanations.

 

[ArtieE]

You shouldn't believe otherwise. The way evolution functions, all offspring are the same as their parents....almost genetically identical. But over thousands of generations, the great many "almosts" can add up to significant differences.

I think Call means that if the DNA of the offspring of a cat changes a little bit and the DNA of their offspring also changes a little bit and the DNA of their offspring also changes a little bit it doesn't matter if we talk about 10 generations or if we after thousands of generations only have 50% of the original DNA of the original cat left. It would still be a cat.

 

[Revoltingest]

I think Call means that if the DNA of the offspring of a cat changes a little bit and the DNA of their offspring also changes a little bit and the DNA of their offspring also changes a little bit it doesn't matter if we talk about 10 generations or if we after a thousand generations only have 50% of the original DNA of the original cat left. It would still be a cat.

A 50% change in DNA would be an enormous difference.
Chimps & humans share 95% (98% by some counts) DNA.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

What makes omnipotence a necessary truth?

Because you can't get the attribute of omnipotence from contingent conditions. It isn't something that you can FAIL to have at one time, but have at another time. It isn't something that can be gained. You either have it, or you don't have it...and if you don't have it, there are no contingent circumstances which will allow you to have it...so if you don't have it, then you will never have it.

So if God is omnipotence, that attribute is necessary.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

A 50% change in DNA would be an enormous difference.
Chimps & humans share 95% (98% by some counts) DNA.

Common designer.

 

[ArtieE]

A 50% change in DNA would be an enormous difference.
Chimps & humans share 95% (98% by some counts) DNA.

I know. Just wanted to make the point.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

So you didn't understand the quote at all did you. Here is the most important part of the quote:

"To avoid regress, we must recognize that time exists atemporally."

If you don't recognize that time exists atemporally, you don't recognize the Theory of Relativity either and simply don't want to avoid regress. So be it.

The infinity argument is independent of how you view time, Artie. I could care less about whatever wacky theory you or anyone else have about spacetime. That is completely irrelevant. The argument is based on the impossibility of infinity being traversed, or collected.

If there is no first cause, then there is an infinite chain of cause-effect relations...and for you to reach the point of birth there had to be an infinite number of prior occurences to reach your birth...so for your birth to come to past, infinity had to be traversed...which is completely absurd.

Once again, the concept of time has nothing to do with the argument. You can keep trying to drive that point home all you want, but until you can tell me how you would reach the point of birth from an infinitely long change of prior events...then spare me of the irrelevant stuff.

 

[ArtieE]

Common designer.

And since none of us has the exact same DNA this designer also designed the DNA of each of us. Unless you can tell us exactly how much difference there would have to be between DNA for the DNA to be individually designed.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Right; and it does not begin as the result of any "transcendent cause".

Right, it does not because as the result of any transcendent cause, but then you are stuck with infinity...because whatever natural cause you can throw out there would itself be the product of a cause, and alllllll the way back to infinity past.

I keep telling you people, the infinity problem isn't going ANYWHERE.

In other words, your dichotomy of past-eternal universe vs. transcendent cause is a false dilemma, as there are other possibilities.

No there isnt. If our universe is an effect from any natural entity, then that natural entity is itself part of a prior universe...so there is still a past-eternal concept going on here.

Whether the model is accurate is not relevant- the point is merely that such a thing is possible, despite your dichotomy.

It isn't possible based on philosophical problems.

Of course, Craig, a layman in physics, cannot "destroy" any viable scientific model- your adoration for Craig is bordering on the delusional; even Craig would admit this.

Craig has debated physicists from Victor Stenger, to Lawrence Krauss, to Sean Carroll. He destroyed them all, IMO.

Already done. Your "problem" does not exist, and I pointed out why. You may not like the answer, but you were given one, and you've yet to provide any rebuttal.

Your answer was the 14th of May. I don't know how to rebuttal such nonsense.

Lol, really? Why not?

If something cannot happen in a thought analogy, but it can happen in reality, then it should be able to happen in a thought analogy.

Show give me an example of how you can reach a point that is infinitely long distance away.

 

[Parsimony]

Because you can't get the attribute of omnipotence from contingent conditions. It isn't something that you can FAIL to have at one time, but have at another time. It isn't something that can be gained. You either have it, or you don't have it...and if you don't have it, there are no contingent circumstances which will allow you to have it...so if you don't have it, then you will never have it.

Which could just as easily mean that no being could ever have it.

So if God is omnipotence, that attribute is necessary.

Take note how you put an "if" in front of God. That still indicates uncertainty because one cannot know for sure if God is omnipotent.

 

[ArtieE]

If there is no first cause, then there is an infinite chain of cause-effect relations...and for you to reach the point of birth there had to be an infinite number of prior occurences to reach your birth...so for your birth to come to past, infinity had to be traversed...which is completely absurd.

Once again, the concept of time has nothing to do with the argument.

How can you say "prior occurences to reach your birth" if "the concept of time has nothing to do with the argument"? If there is no time there are no cause-effect relations either to "traverse". If you don't mean "reach the point of birth" in time whatever do you mean?

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Which could just as easily mean that no being could ever have it.

No because once it is established (and it is) that it is POSSIBLE for a being to have omnipotence, then it follows that there is such a being which DOES have it...because the truth value of a proposition cannot be POSSIBILY necessarily true, but ACTUALLY false (caps for emphasis, not yelling).

Take note how you put an "if" in front of God. That still indicates uncertainty because one cannot know for sure if God is omnipotent.

I believe with all my heart and soul that Christian theism is true. But with the arguement I like to start off neutral ground, by saying "I don't know whether God exists, BUT IF GOD DOES EXIST....X, Y, and Z".

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

How can you say "prior occurences to reach your birth" if "the concept of time has nothing to do with the argument"? If there is no time there are no cause-effect relations either to "traverse".

Obviously time is a factor, but I am not using descriptions of time as a focal point of the argument. The events in time also have to be infinite, so I can focus on the events in time and simply make my case as to why there couldn't have been an infinite number of events preceding any event X.

 

[Parsimony]

No because once it is established (and it is) that it is POSSIBLE for a being to have omnipotence, then it follows that there is such a being which DOES have it...because the truth value of a proposition cannot be POSSIBILY necessarily true, but ACTUALLY false (caps for emphasis, not yelling).

How do you know omnipotence is possible? It only might be possible. It might also be impossible. You have to get past the "might" before you can proceed further with the argument.

The existence of unicorns might also possibly be a necessarily truth.

I believe with all my heart and soul that Christian theism is true. But with the arguement I like to start off neutral ground, by saying "I don't know whether God exists, BUT IF GOD DOES EXIST....X, Y, and Z".

It's still a belief then, not a proof.