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?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to We_Are_VENOM in post #606]

Again, is there any specific post that you've made towards me that you'd like me to address in a new thread I am creating on this topic?

I think the bones of contention in this thread were:

WAV: The Penrose 10^10^123 number does represent the probability of a universe permitting life to arise by mere chance, so one can conclude that the probability is so low as to be "impossible", therefore a god being must be responsible.

DNG: The Penrose 10^10^123 number relates to the (as he put it) "precision" or fine tuning of the initial conditions of the Big Bang in order for that event to have produced a universe identical to the one we have in every way, across the entire universe. It has no relationship to a probability that life might develop from mere chance, because he allows for at least two scenarios where other Big Bang initial conditions could create other universes with life:

1) They result in a a galaxy identical to ours (so with life, and everything else), but are different elsewhere in some way.

2) Other types of life might develop that are different from ours (or even the same), even without a duplicate Milky Way.

He makes no arguments for what fraction of the 10^10^123 possible Big Bang initial conditions (and subsequent universes) the above two scenarios might represent, so it is not possible to estimate, just from the Penrose chapter (or video), a probability for the appearance of life by mere chance.

DNG: A better starting point for discussing the probably that life might arise by natural means (eg. abiogenesis) is to start 4.6 billion years ago at Earth's formation, and consider what materials were available, what external inputs existed (sunlight and solar wind, asteroid and comet impacts, etc.), what environmental processes were active (volcanoes, lightning, oceans, rivers and ponds, wind, etc.), what the atmosphere composition and conditions (pressure and temperature) were, and what chemicals all of the prior items could result in the production of. Then ask what the probability of an abiogenesis event might be given what we do know about the above.

WAV: The details of how the universe came into existence are relevant to the probability that life developed on Earth billions of years later (at least I think you suggested that).

But fire away on a new thread for whatever you'd like to debate ... probability of abiogenesis, more defence of Penrose's number, Big Bang initial conditions, etc.

[JoeyKnothead]

The answer depends on how you define truth Joey, since you don't seem to know what you mean, we are at an impasse, yet you keep asking the same question over and over, here consider this quote (supposedly from Einstein, but I don't think it is)

As I'm unaware of what your answer is, or may be, we must rely on you to determine what "type" of truth applies to your heretofore nonanswer.

~ "The definition of a fool is someone who does the same thing over and over again expecting different results" ~

The liar lies, and the preacher preaches.
- JoeyKnothead.

I think the data herein firmly supports the conclusion that some, to many proponents of "Truth(tm)"...

DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE WORD MEANS!

[Inquirer]

Joey, a past event has also not occurred too, why are you excluding the times that it didn't occur?

Cause a past event that has not occurred is, by definition, not an event.

It rained yesterday here, so the probability of it raining was 1? really? despite the fact it did not rain each day of the preceding 4 months?

I'm not confident I can believe you when you say it rained in your parts. I'd need more confirmation other'n just you saying it did.

Probability is nothing to do with whether some event will or will not occur, it is about how many times it will occur given how many times it could have occurred.

And when it has occurred, that probability is 1.

But no worries, you are not the only person here I've had to explain this kind of thing to. There are quite a few atheists who argue that the probability of God existing is very small, I've heard Dawkins say that too, it betrays a huge misunderstanding about what probability means, but such is the world of pop-science.

When I argue the probability of a god existing being "very small", then we can fuss on that.

Otherwise, I didn't order the red herring.

As you wish, I can lead a mule to water as the saying goes, have it your way, I won't be wasting my time with you any more.

[JoeyKnothead]

As you wish, I can lead a mule to water as the saying goes, have it your way, I won't be wasting my time with you any more.

You'll not be the first to've given up on trying to refute my arguments.

Now if I could just get the pretty thing to do the same...

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #611]

This doesn't help you, whatever is meant by "profound" is immaterial, the conservation laws are assumptions based on past observations, they cannot be proven true, they are axiomatic.

Biogenesis is also based on past observations, and is an assumption, but is not genuinely axiomatic. Biogenesis may be axiomatic to religious people who want to believe that life is the result of a creator, but not axiomatic to a large number of people who don't believe that gods even exist (for lack of any evidence) and so consider abiogenesis a perfectly viable explanation (ie. biogenesis is not the only option, so is not self evident).

The so-called "Law of Biogenesis" came along long after Bastian coined the word biogenesis, and apparently was coined by creationists as a claim that life can ONLY come from life, and that abiogenesis is impossible. Adding "Law of" in front fools some people.

I have the following text in an old file and don't know where it came from so I can't provide a reference (I probably saved it for a prior post on this website long ago), but it nicely sums up my view on it:

"Biogenesis has no hypothesis as to why life cannot arise from non-life forms. To the contrary there are a number of ideas as to how that might occur. For example, there is no known chemical reason why life cannot rise from non-living matter because we can describe all of the atoms in a life form. Moreover, there is a rather glaring conflicting fact…Life is here. In order for the law of biogenesis to even begin to be any form of scientific principle, it must demonstrate unequivocally that life did not arise from non-living matter and explain why that can never happen. There has been no effort to scientifically develop or prove such a scenario. This so-called law is simply a creationist claim poorly clothed in science language intended to fool the gullible."

[Inquirer]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #611]

This doesn't help you, whatever is meant by "profound" is immaterial, the conservation laws are assumptions based on past observations, they cannot be proven true, they are axiomatic.

Biogenesis is also based on past observations, and is an assumption, but is not genuinely axiomatic. Biogenesis may be axiomatic to religious people who want to believe that life is the result of a creator, but not axiomatic to a large number of people who don't believe that gods even exist (for lack of any evidence) and so consider abiogenesis a perfectly viable explanation (ie. biogenesis is not the only option, so is not self evident).

The so-called "Law of Biogenesis" came along long after Bastian coined the word biogenesis, and apparently was coined by creationists as a claim that life can ONLY come from life, and that abiogenesis is impossible. Adding "Law of" in front fools some people.

I have the following text in an old file and don't know where it came from so I can't provide a reference (I probably saved it for a prior post on this website long ago), but it nicely sums up my view on it:

"Biogenesis has no hypothesis as to why life cannot arise from non-life forms. To the contrary there are a number of ideas as to how that might occur. For example, there is no known chemical reason why life cannot rise from non-living matter because we can describe all of the atoms in a life form. Moreover, there is a rather glaring conflicting fact…Life is here. In order for the law of biogenesis to even begin to be any form of scientific principle, it must demonstrate unequivocally that life did not arise from non-living matter and explain why that can never happen. There has been no effort to scientifically develop or prove such a scenario. This so-called law is simply a creationist claim poorly clothed in science language intended to fool the gullible."

Well fair enough, "axiomatic" does imply a context I suppose. I wouldn't use emotive terms like "religious people" though, I mean "creationist" I'll accept in the sense that John Lennox and other academics, mathematicians, scientists and theorists are creationists, I consider myself akin to these kinds of thinkers, some of the greatest minds in the history of science were creationists and just like their gender, skin color, country of origin, this had no bearing on the caliber of their contributions to our understanding of nature.

But the laws of physics (which in a mathematical sense define the conservation laws) are used in an axiomatic sense but really they are not defined in that way, they are - just like biogenesis - inferred from observations, no exceptions are known or demonstrable in the sense of scientifically demonstrable, it seems to be an invariant.

Yes, I think you are right as to the origin of the term, but that's neither here nor there, how it arose doesn't have a bearing on whether its true or not.

From my standpoint any claim that biogenesis is not true requires exactly the same scientific support as a claim that mass or charge being always conserved, is not true.

There's zero scientific, repeatable, evidence that mass is not conserved, charge is not conserved or life can be attributed to something not living.

Yes, the quote you have about biogenesis is true but speculation about it is just speculation, we could speculate about charge not really being conserved or speculate that there are umpteen multiverses but that's speculation, metaphysics not science, not science as (some) atheistic evolutionists like to remind us all about.

I just do not see why insisting charge is conserved, charge cannot arise where there was no charge, spin cannot arise where there was no spin is all fine and dandy but the claim life is "conserved" that life cannot arise where there was no life, is regarded with such hostility when empirically there is no difference.

From my standpoint as a scientist myself, the emotional nature that some exhibit about abiogenesis being inevitable, beyond reasonable doubt and so on, seems just as "religious" as those who claim the earth and life were all created six thousand years ago. Any fool can speculate! show me the evidence!

[brunumb]

Lets not forget the foundations of science here, specifically the well tested law of biogenesis, its as well established as the conservation laws.

Precisely what is this well-tested law of biogenesis?

[Never mind. Arrived late. Issue well covered by others earlier]

[brunumb]

As I've said before, the odds of something occurring, that has occurred, is 1.

A six has been known to occur when a dice has been thrown, therefore (according to Joey's reasoning) the probability of a six being thrown is 1.

Yet as most of us are aware, it is in fact 1/6 Joey, will you be retracting your claim now?

Your arguments really seem to gravitate toward straw men built on equivocation.

By Joey's logic, if I threw a 6, then the odds that I threw a 6 are 1. The prior probability of having thrown a 6 is 1 in 6. The probability that I throw a 6 next time is 1 in 6. This is one of those cases where I would have expected you to know that and I'm not sure if it's more polite to assume that you did or didn't.

While Christian apologetics is rife with such equivocation, both intentional and not, please stop doing it when you're aware of it.

When someone answers a straightforward question with "Yyhh Tghli Tbui nttgjh Uhhu" then it becomes hard to expect the sort of standards you suggest.

[Inquirer]

Lets not forget the foundations of science here, specifically the well tested law of biogenesis, its as well established as the conservation laws.

Precisely what is this well-tested law of biogenesis?

Do the research, I mean you have WWW (World Wide Web) which I never had as a youngster, researching was shoe leather for me, walking to libraries, walking to lectures, physical effort, today its a breeze!

(Although, you'll get umpteen answers, pick your personal favorite).

[Inquirer]

As I've said before, the odds of something occurring, that has occurred, is 1.

A six has been known to occur when a dice has been thrown, therefore (according to Joey's reasoning) the probability of a six being thrown is 1.

Yet as most of us are aware, it is in fact 1/6 Joey, will you be retracting your claim now?

Your arguments really seem to gravitate toward straw men built on equivocation.

By Joey's logic, if I threw a 6, then the odds that I threw a 6 are 1. The prior probability of having thrown a 6 is 1 in 6. The probability that I throw a 6 next time is 1 in 6. This is one of those cases where I would have expected you to know that and I'm not sure if it's more polite to assume that you did or didn't.

While Christian apologetics is rife with such equivocation, both intentional and not, please stop doing it when you're aware of it.

Fine, align yourself with Joey's bullet proof analysis if that pleases you.

If you conclude that doing a single experiment proves 100% that the the result you get is always the result you'll get then don't let me spoil the fun. If I drop my a cigarette in a pub and it lands vertically stable, filter on ground, solid (this actually happened) then conclude that the probability of that is 1, do you think I'd be right?

I thought we were in the "Science and Religion" section, my mistake, this must be the "Pseudoscience and Religion" section.