Do you understand those on the other side?

[Jose Fly]

As I've pointed out many times (probably too many times), I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian environment. I was taught young-earth creationism from an early age, was told prayer and reading the Bible were the answer to most of life's problems and questions, and witnessed all sorts of "interesting" things such as speaking in tongues, faith healing, end times predictions, etc.

Yet despite being completely immersed in this culture, I can't recall a time in my life when I ever believed any of it. However, unlike some of my peers at the time I didn't really find it boring. In fact, I found a lot of it to be rather fascinating because.....very little of it made any sense to me. I just could not understand the people, their beliefs, their way of thinking, or much of anything that I saw and heard. When I saw them anointing with oil someone who had the flu and later saw the virus spread (of course), I could not understand what they were thinking. When I saw them make all sorts of failed predictions about the Soviet Union and the end times, yet never even acknowledge their errors while continuing to make more predictions, I was baffled. Speaking in tongues was of particular interest to me because it really made no sense to me.

In the years that I've been debating creationists it's the same thing. When I see them say "no transitional fossils" or "no new genetic information" only to ignore examples of those things when they're presented, I can't relate to that way of thinking at all. When I see them demand evidence for things only to ignore it after it's provided, I can't relate. When I see them quote mine a scientific paper and after someone points it out they completely ignore it, I can't relate.

Now to be clear, I think I "understand" some of what's behind these behaviors (i.e., the psychological factors), but what I don't understand is how the people engaging in them seem to be completely oblivious to it all. What goes on in their mind when they demand "show me the evidence", ignore everything that's provided in response, and then come back later and make the same demand all over again? Are they so blinded by the need to maintain their beliefs that they literally block out all memories of it? Again....I just don't get it.

So the point of discussion for this thread is....how about you? For the "evolutionists", can you relate to the creationists' way of thinking and behaviors? For the creationists, are there behaviors from the other side that baffle you, and you just don't understand? Do you look at folks like me and think to yourselves, "I just cannot relate to his way of thinking?"

Or is it just me?

[We_Are_VENOM]

How are the internal ograns (or "body systems") of a human low entropy?

When you pop open the hood of a car, and observe all of the contents inside the hood...what do you observe?

Various parts, each part with a specific purpose...each with a specific function...all for the greater good of ensuring that the car runs smooth, as it was designed to do?

The parts, the configuration, the function(s), the purpose.

This is low entropy...low disorder. There is structure, purpose, functionality, intent.

Now..

When you cut open the human midsection (of any living mammal, reptile, sea creature), what do you observe?

You observe pretty much the SAME thing in the human body that you observe with the car...different parts...same concept.

I repeat..(in the human body)..

"Various parts, each part with a specific purpose...each with a specific function...all for the greater good of ensuring that the car runs smooth, as it was designed to do?

The parts, the configuration, the function(s), the purpose.

This is low entropy...low disorder. There is structure, purpose, functionality, intent."

Nothing was random about it. Nothing was chaotic about it. It was all ordered. All structured. All configured.

Low entropy.

Mindless, blind, and random processes don't give you that.

Snowflakes forming from H2O molecules (or any other crystal structure formation is analogous) is the result of unordered H2O molecules combining to form a lower entropy structure so the snowflake itself is more "ordered", but the net entropy of the system has increased (due to the heat released during the snowflake crystalization).

The crystalized structures come from disorder, and most importantly, there is NO FUNCTION OR PURPOSE.

Entropy is not the same is ordered.

It is.

Low entropy = low to zero disorder

High entropy = high disorder

If you have a 1000 piece puzzle and you throw the pieces in the air, that is high entropy. It is chaos, random. The pieces are chaotically falling randomly falling to the ground.

But if you throw the pieces in the air and all of the pieces fall perfectly in to place, making the complete puzzle, that is low entropy.

If the universe began to exist with a singularity, (a single point at which all of the space, time, energy, and matter came from)....the low entropy had to have been there as an initial condition, from the very moment of the expansion...otherwise, there would be no cosmic evolution, chemical evolution, organic evolution, and lastly, microevolution.

Now, analogous to the puzzle pieces, if the pieces were to fall to the ground perfectly in place, that would mean that the low entropy conditions would have to have already been fine-tuned before the pieces were thrown in the air (by a fine-tuner; intelligent person), otherwise, the landing of the pieces would be chaotic.

It is a measure of how many microstates correspond to a given macrostate for a system.

Bogus definitions tend to lead readers astray, and is counterproductive to learning.

How about this one..

"Entropy is a scientific concept as well as a measurable physical property that is mostcommonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy

Human organs don't represent low entropy.

The entire cosmic system requires low entropy.

And evolution is not a random process. It has inputs from the environment, predator/prey mix, availability of food sources and mates, sexual selection, etc. in addition to mutations and how they propogate and other genetic processes. It may be blind in that there is no predetermined goal, and mindless as no mind is involved, but it certainly isn't a random process. If you think it is, that may be why you don't appreciate or understand how it led to the diversity of life that we have on Earth.

Until you can demonstrate how life could have evolved naturally from nonliving material (without intelligent design), you do not have an adequate theory of evolution.

BTW, no charge for the lesson.

I am doing God's work on here.

[William]

[Replying to We_Are_VENOM in post #241]

Mindless, blind, and random processes don't give you that.

Just out of interest.

Q: Can you give any example of what is a mindless, blind, and random process?

[We_Are_VENOM]

Q: Can you give any example of what is a mindless, blind, and random process?

Sure. Mother Nature.

She is mindless. She is blind. She is random.

[JoeyKnothead]

Until you can demonstrate how life could have evolved naturally from nonliving material (without intelligent design), you do not have an adequate theory of evolution.

Do you contend that atoms are living?

[William]

Q: Can you give any example of what is a mindless, blind, and random process?

Sure. Mother Nature.

She is mindless. She is blind. She is random.

Are you sure about that? I mean - you sound like you are sure, but it may just be your opinion sounding off.

Do you have any evidential examples to support your assertions here, about Mother Nature?

[We_Are_VENOM]

[Replying to William in post #245]

Not falling down this rabbit hole. If you disagree with me here, lets just leave it at that.

[William]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #244]

Do you contend that atoms are living?

I myself contend that they may well be. Mother Nature provides us with the evidence that there is an intelligence involved. Just how deep does that intelligence go is unknown, but it is not necessarily impossible that it permeates even deeper than atoms...being a Higgs Boson would be entirely different to being a human...being the entire Quantum Field would be an interesting experience...

We do not know much about consciousness - hardly our own - certainly no one else's and we can barely imagine what it would be like to be anything other than human...although since when has that ever prevented us from giving it a go?

[William]

[Replying to We_Are_VENOM in post #246]

Not falling down this rabbit hole.

Too late for that. Here is the extent of Mother Nature as we currently comprehend.



You are already IN "The Rabbit Hole"...

So - one best not give opinion about the state of Mother Nature - since one has no idea really ... and to even contemplate such requires 'going someplace one would rather not go'...

[We_Are_VENOM]

[Replying to We_Are_VENOM in post #246]

Not falling down this rabbit hole.

Too late for that. Here is the extent of Mother Nature as we currently comprehend.



You are already IN "The Rabbit Hole"...

So - one best not give opinion about the state of Mother Nature - since one has no idea really ... and to even contemplate such requires 'going someplace one would rather not go'...

Gen 1.

All of that you see in the picture is covered in the first chapter. But anyways, if you are implying that Mother Nature has a mind and vision....then I tip my hat to you.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to We_Are_VENOM in post #241]

Mindless, blind, and random processes don't give you that.

Since evolution isn't random, it does not fall into this category of process. So it would be very much in the running for "giving you that."

It is.

Low entropy = low to zero disorder

High entropy = high disorder

There is far more to entropy than this simple high school level analogy. Here is an explanation:

https://www.science20.com/train_thought ... rder-75081

Bogus definitions tend to lead readers astray, and is counterproductive to learning.

Boltzmann is rolling over in his grave. Take any statistical mechanics class and see what the definition of entropy is from that perspective (or see the link above, or the Wikipedia link you provided which also has the microstate/macrostate definition).

Until you can demonstrate how life could have evolved naturally from nonliving material (without intelligent design), you do not have an adequate theory of evolution.

BTW, no charge for the lesson.

I am doing God's work on here.

I was referring to evolution, not origin of life (which is a different subject entirely that evolution has nothing to say about, or any dependence on). No charge for that lesson, and correction of a common mistake made by anti-evolutionists who for some reason think the two are related.

On your next employee review with the big guy, ask him why he's holding back on the rain and winter snow we need here in the southwest and Rockies to keep the Colorado river flowing into the reservoirs. That would be doing God's work (if you can get some results ... the Utah governor asking everyone to pray for rain doesn't seem to be doing the trick).