Good reason

[nobspeople]

In a different thread (listed below), when discussing, in part, if the bible is true, TRANSPONDER said " It is a well known argument that asserting what is in the Bible is true because it is in the Bible is a fallacy. A Lawyer would know that a witness statement is not going to be accepted as true just because he or she has said it. Nor of course rejected without good reason."

The above bolded section caused me to think (not claiming this is TRANSPNDER's assertion): is there good reason to think the bible isn't true?

For discussion: Is there good reason (define what is 'good reason' to you) to think the bible is or is not true*?

*TRUE here being used as 'legitimate, real word of God which was written by men, inspired by God' - this would assume everything written in it is true and agreed upon by God - in other words, nothing written is personal opinion of the writer.



Reference viewtopic.php?f=8&t=38540&start=10

[We_Are_VENOM]

Simple. Rudimentary nervous systems evolved into more centralized and organized ganglia, which eventually evolved into brains as more complexity in muscle movements and coordination was necessary, along with being able to respond to threats, find food, care for young, and all of that kind of thing. Animals became more complex and a higher degree of control over the various body parts drove (natural selection) the development of more complex brains, and higher levels of consciousness.

I just can't get myself to believe that mindless/blind processes can create sentient beings with vision.

Sorry, charlie, I ain't buying it. That is not how the nature works, as far as I can tell.

What animal living today would you pick as being the simplest that possesses "consciousness." Where do you draw the line on what that entails?

Great question. Worms, probably? I don't know, as I haven't put much thought into it..but an interesting thing to ponder.

Or, more steps in the process, if the steps are at a (very) roughly fixed rate, requires more time to reach a certain level of change. Macro changes require more steps, so generally take longer. But it is counting generations that is important, not absolute time.

Yeah but see, the concept of evolution (macro) is so absurd to me, that I do not believe that it occurred suddenly (in decades) or gradually (over millions of years).

Adding on millions of years doesn't help the theory, in my opinion.

Whether suddenly or gradually, both are equally absurd.

What? I had to Google that argument and found descriptions that referred to it as the Theistic argument from intentionality. There's nothing theistic about consciousness being an emergent property of a working brain.

That is the point, doc. According to the argument, consciousness is not an emergent property of the brain; that is the point.

Just acceptance that a huge number of neurons coupled to memory and complex interactions between different areas of the brain can produce this overall thing we call consciousness.

Bypassing questions of "where did the neurons, memory, and complex interactions come from", lets just focus on thoughts....which goes back to the argument from intentionality.

When I think of an apple, what about my brain is the apple? It isn't the neurons, it isn't the electrons. Yet, an apple is clearly visible inside my brain.

How can anything inside my brain be about something completely independent of it? Or, emotions like sadness and happiness...there is nothing inside your "brain" that is happy or sad.

The neurons aren't sad. The electrons aren't sad. The brain matter isn't sad. Yet, you are sad.

There is an invisible entity inside of us that these emotions correspond to...and I think this is undeniable when you think about it.

This invisible entity is the soul/spirit, which only makes sense considering, on the Christian view, God has always been identified as a spirit (an unembodied mind) who experiences emotions.

And in all seriousness, to sum it all up...the point is; there is something special about you (us). You are more than just a huge chunk of matter. You have a soul, which is the real "you".

What other components in a human body could possibly cause consciousness?

Nothing, which is why I appeal to divine intervention, which has more explanatory power, in my opinion.

Why does it apparently vanish when we die, and where does it go in that case?

When you die, your consciousness (soul) leaves your body and you are subjected to God...and where you (your soul) go depends on whether or not you've found favor with God during your earthly life.

Jesus told the thief on the cross where the thief will be after the theft died (Luke 24:33). Which harmonizes with Paul said in 2 Corin 5:8; "to be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord".

Now of course, this is all Christian propaganda to unbelievers, but I can only answer from that perspective, because I represent the KINGDOM.

High entropy routinely results in local organized complexity when the whole system is considered. Crystals (eg. snowflakes) are ordered structures but their formation gives off heat to the environment which increases the entropy of the overall system. Our tiny little planet and the life forms on it are part of a much larger system that has energy going in and out constantly.

I see your point, but we are talking about irreducible complexity..

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

I am rolling with Behe on this one.

Just like I can't see an encyclopedia assembling itself (naturally) as a resort of an explosion in a printing factor...I can't see sentient life originating from nonliving material if it all started from a Big Bang.

This goes against everything I observe in nature, and I ain't buying it.

Where did he say this? I wasn't aware then he'd penned his thoughts directly but only through claimed inspirations by certain humans (ie. second hand).

Well, you are asking "where", and all I can do is point to the Bible. Now, I'm sure that won't suit your fancy, but it is there, nevertheless.

We have enough to constrain the big-picture puzzle (preponderance of the evidence). It really is impressive taken as a whole.

Just like you can interpret the Bible and have it understood as any way you like...you can do the same thing with fossils.

Sure ... certain dinosaurs evolved wings (became birds), insects evolved wings, bats (mammals) evolved wings, some birds still have wings but can't fly (ostrich and others). But natural selection won't drive evolution towards wings unless there is some survival/reproduction need for that path. Look at a bat skeleton:

https://www.dkfindout.com/us/animals-an ... nside-bat/

I can't bang with it.

Can you honestly look at that and not see the similarity to other mammal skeletal structures (including humans)? Wings are basically just arms that have adapted to serve another function, along with all of the other changes needed to make a flying animal. Humans don't need to fly (now anyway), so there is no reason evolution would waste effort on such a thing.

So why did birds need to fly? Let me guess, to escape predation? So why don't all of the other prey animals evolve wings then?

And then the fact that evolutionists make it seem as if nature is a thinking process...do you think evolution could care less about whether an animal gets eaten or not? No, it doesn't.

You make it seem as if evolution thinks "man, these wingless birds are taking a beating out in the wild, lets go ahead and have them evolve wings so they can better escape predators".

Of course, this is where you say "but that isn't what I am saying"....well, that is what you seem to be implying.

[We_Are_VENOM]

There's been a lot of posting since I was here last. I just noted a couple of things.

The Cambrian 'explosion' is over a very long time (I recall 2 billion years but don't quote me) and was not a sudden appearance of all species or anything like that, but a proliferation of sea life starting with sponges and ending with the appearance of the first fish.

The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation[1] was an event approximately 541 million years ago in the Cambrian period when practically all major animal phyla started appearing in the fossil record.

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

Hmmmm.

'time of the gaps' is hardly it. There is evidence for a geologically long time and a gradual evolution.

I repeat...

The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation[1] was an event approximately 541 million years ago in the Cambrian period when practically all major animal phyla started appearing in the fossil record.

Hmmmm.

God of the gaps is popping 'God' into anything that is unexplained.

And "time of the gaps" is when naturalists use a duration of time (usually millions of years) to justify why certain things that they believe occur in nature has yet to be observed.

"Why don't we observe this in nature?"

"Because it takes hundreds of millions years to occur".

"Oh, that explains it. Well, lets go have a beer."

LOL.

Now, your point appears to accept the argument for evolution of life -forms from the genetic basis.

And you base that this is my stance, on what?

That's a whole lot added to the pot. But you revert to the 'how did life start' question. It's a different apologetic.

But important. If you don't believe in God, first you have to explain how life originated from nonliving material...because that is a premise that just may be false....and if it is false, then you've got no viable theory for evolution, and perhaps you need to consider the God hypothesis.

Accepting (it appears) evolution but saying that God had to start the basics.

It started with God, and it ends with God.

There is no evidence to support that, only a gap that God is used to fill.

For those that accept God as the plausible, most explanatory hypothesis, there is PLENTY of evidence to support it.

But there is evidence that life started in the sea or water, at least. There is no life on land until after the Cambrian explosion. And that just plants. Life is about 90% water -based. Insects were water based until the Silurian to Carboniferous period., so the fossil record tells us. In between Cambrian and Silurian was Devonian - the time of the fishes.

Sure, according to your religion. According my religion, God created the heavens, the earth, the creatures, and mankind.

And he did it in 6 days, too.

But genetics is based on DNA and all that needs is a mix of biochemicals in water and a complex molecule to self -replicate. There's the start of 'Life'. It is at least a theoretical explanation. A god just 'does it'. And, as usual, it still has to be proves which god it is.

"There's the start of "Life".

Sure, if it was that simple, you should be able to go in a lab and get some "life".

But you can't, can't you? It isn't that simple, is it?

Kind of reminds me of a one liner by the late, great, comedian Mitch Hedberg (one of my favorite comedians of all time, RIP)..

"They say the recipe for Sprite is lemon and lime. I tried to make it at home. There's more to it than that.”.

LOL.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to We_Are_VENOM in post #191]

Yeah but see, the concept of evolution (macro) is so absurd to me, that I do not believe that it occurred suddenly (in decades) or gradually (over millions of years).

Perfect example of unadulterated incredulity.

Bypassing questions of "where did the neurons, memory, and complex interactions come from" ...

Why bypass that? Simple nerve systems organized into ganglia which organized into ever more complex brains (leaving out a great deal of detail of course). Human brains are the result of a whole of lot of evolutionary development, starting with simple worm brains.

When I think of an apple, what about my brain is the apple? It isn't the neurons, it isn't the electrons. Yet, an apple is clearly visible inside my brain.

There was a long thread here some time ago on mental images and what they are, how they are produced, etc. People in the camp of "concsiousness is an emergent property of a brain" (the camp I'm in) see this as nothing but a perception created by the interactions of the various functioning items with a brain (neurons, memory, etc.). Vision is a perception created by the visual cortex operating on electrical signals from the optic nerve, which originate when light enters the lens of the eye, lands on the retina and is ultimately converted into electrical signals.

Sound is a similar perception created from pressure waves that enter the ear canal and ultimately are converted to electrical signals that the brain processes to produce the perception of sound. You can close your eyes and imagine an apple, and "see" one, because you know what an apple is and you've seen one before. If I ask you to image a rolangabyte what mental image do you get? Probably none, because I just made up that word. When you recall an event of the past and "see" images related to it, these come from memory where they are stored (or partially stored and reconstructed via additional stored information ... in a crude analogy to a compressed image file). There is no need to invoke divine activity to explain consciousness even if we don't know all the mechanistic details of how it works yet.

The neurons aren't sad. The electrons aren't sad. The brain matter isn't sad. Yet, you are sad.

My car's pistons can't move down the road by themselves, the axles can't move down the road by themselves, but when the pistons are assembled into an engine with all of its other parts, and the axles are connected to wheels, and a transmission is connected to the engine and the axles via the appropriate mechanisms, and the car is completed, it can move down the road. Nothing about the individual components can function like a car itself, yet when assembled into a proper system the whole thing can do what the parts can't. The brain is a very complex biological system made of many parts that work together to create consciousness, thoughts, etc. I don't see what is so unbelievable about that scenario.

And in all seriousness, to sum it all up...the point is; there is something special about you (us). You are more than just a huge chunk of matter. You have a soul, which is the real "you".

Does my "soul" weigh 21 grams?

Just like I can't see an encyclopedia assembling itself (naturally) as a resort of an explosion in a printing factor...I can't see sentient life originating from nonliving material if it all started from a Big Bang.

A huge amount of time (billions of years) passed between a "Big Bang" event and the formation of our solar system. Life may have originated elsewhere before Earth came along, but just considering life on Earth the mechanism of the Big Bang, or however the universe first came into existence, is irrelevant. We know our solar system formed some 4.6 billion years ago, and life appeared on this planet within roughly the first billion years. Any Big Bang event was billions of years in the past as far as life originating here.

So why did birds need to fly? Let me guess, to escape predation? So why don't all of the other prey animals evolve wings then?

The same reason not every animal developed tusks, or venom (had to throw that one in), or scales, or 8 arms. Lots of animals can fly (birds, a mammal called a bat, insects, those giant roaches called Palmetto Bugs) and they can do it with just 2 wings (modern birds), 4 wings (dragonflys), and there are pseudo-flyers like flying squirrels and flying fish who take advantage of the ability to glide for some distance to escape predators (fish) or to get to another tree (squirrels) whether escaping a predator, or not.

And then the fact that evolutionists make it seem as if nature is a thinking process...do you think evolution could care less about whether an animal gets eaten or not? No, it doesn't.

Of course it doesn't. But if an animal has a mutation or combination of them that creates a beneficial change that helps it outsurvive and outreproduce others in its population, then it will create more offspring with those modifications and the beneficial changes will spread and can become fixed in the population as a "standard feature", simple because they are beneficial in terms of survival and therefore reproduction. There is no thinking involved ... the driving force is natural selection. If flying was not beneficial, it would have died out and never became a feature.

[brunumb]

No, because again, the information on turtle heads was already there, but there was a mishap somewhere in the process.

Where is the scientific evidence that backs up that assertion? By the way, that doesn't represent the long term changes in DNA that lead to completely new species. It is changes in DNA that ultimately lead to new features and new species. Viruses are known to insert parts of their DNA into that of other organisms and that can lead to significant changes in subsequent offspring.

[brunumb]

"Over the course of millions of years..."

Time of the Gaps.

Another Claytons response. When you can't argue against the facts, deny the facts. When you can't argue against a theory, construct a strawman of the theory and attack that instead.

[brunumb]

I just can't get myself to believe that mindless/blind processes can create sentient beings with vision.

But an invisible, magical being making everything out of nothing then molding a lump of dirt into a man and breathing into it to make it alive, no problem. Too funny.

[brunumb]

I don't know, as I haven't put much thought into it..but an interesting thing to ponder.

I think I'm beginning to see the problem.

[We_Are_VENOM]

But an invisible, magical being making everything out of nothing then molding a lump of dirt into a man and breathing into it to make it alive, no problem.

Pretty much, yeah. Amazing, isn't it?

Too funny.

On judgment day, smiles will turn into frowns.

[We_Are_VENOM]

Where is the scientific evidence that backs up that assertion?

It is in the same place where you find the reptile/bird stuff.

By the way, that doesn't represent the long term changes in DNA that lead to completely new species.

New species does not entail new genus.

It is changes in DNA that ultimately lead to new features and new species.

Can you observe these changes or is this more appealing to time of the gaps?

Viruses are known to insert parts of their DNA into that of other organisms and that can lead to significant changes in subsequent offspring.

Well if it can be observed, it is science.

[brunumb]

But an invisible, magical being making everything out of nothing then molding a lump of dirt into a man and breathing into it to make it alive, no problem.

Pretty much, yeah. Amazing, isn't it?

Too funny.

On judgment day, smiles will turn into frowns.

Right on cue. When you've got nothing, resort to the empty threats from an imaginary being.
<sigh>