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Posted on 01/11/2012 8:47:11 PM PST by SeekAndFind
This guy is getting paid to preach his faith, not teach science.
SeekAndFind: “He seems to be attributing creative powers to emergence, without any evidence nor cause-and-effect relationship.”
If anything, the cause-and-effect relationships between everything that exists seems to lend strength to the notion that the universe itself had a cause, doesn’t it? It still comes down to faith, but which is easier to believe?
Well, it certainly defies the cause-and-effect relationships that govern everything we know in this universe. Look around. Everything has a cause. Yet, this guy thinks the universe itself had no cause? We can't prove either way, but creationism seems more plausible than what this guy is postulating.
That is at least plausible. Look at a chaotic explosion and you'll find at least some orderly patterns within it. It's the argument that if you put a near infinite number of chimps on typewriters or put one chimp on a typewriter for a near infinite period of time, sooner or later one of Shakespeare's plays would be typed. If you had that play in your hands, you might very well think it was typed intentionally, but it was entirely random. You couldn't even prove randomness or intention with statistical analysis, because that play could have been the first thing typed (highly improbable but not impossible) or produced after billions upon billions of years of typing.
What drivel. Something from nothing? No excitement in wondering how God created it all? Nothing is worth exploring nor left to discover if there is a Creator? He makes no sense.
A guy walks into the Dalai Lama’s pizza shop and asks, “Can you make me one with everything?”
If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around, does it make a noise?
If there is no life, is there time?
If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around, does it make a noise?
If there is no life, is there time?
What is the thing called that contains all the universes?
Really? This is has to be most ignorant, unscientific comment I've heard of late - a straw man.
What inquisitive mind hasn't taken apart a bike, a radio, a car engine, a hard-drive, or studied the heart, brain or rock strata - just to see how it was made? Are only evos curious?
Anyone - please name one serious Creationist that has stated that studying nature is a waste of time "since we already know how it got here"...
Agreed.
I often wonder what the next few seconds must have looked like after “Let there be light!”.
Something akin to a “big bang” - followed by a light show perhaps?
The problem is that such arguments rely on actual infinity and properties of the random distribution which may or may not hold.
The universe, while large, is finite, and of finite age. Arguments that ordered arrangements must arise in random (or arbitrary) structures of sufficient size are the domain of a part of mathematics called Ramsey theory. It turns out that the sizes of structures needed to guarantee ordered arrangements of even simple sorts can be staggeringly large (look up “Graham’s problem” and “Graham’s number” for an example). It is not at all clear that the old “the universe is so old and so big that life would have to arise just by chance” argument is actually valid.
"billions upon billions of years of typing." there has not been enough time for all the chips to fall into place to have the diversity of animal, flora, and insects that this world holds.
I heard a theory that possible microbial life came here from a comet or asteroid. Well if that was true then the moon should have more life than any place since it has so many pock marks from asteroids hitting.
I promised myself I’d avoid “Evo v. Crevo” threads, but perhaps it might be helpful to note that just because we live on a planet where there are seasons, where life is created in surplus and is weeded by competition for survival - that is no absolute proof that the rest of the universe is the same.
I agree with you, but the problem is it cannot be proved conclusively. While throwing ink in the air to produce a perfect copy of the Mona Lisa is very, very improbable, it’s not impossible. It could also happen on the first try. If we’re talking about our own creation rather than ink and the Mona Lisa, the perfect circumstances would have to exist, or we wouldn’t exist. That’s why we’d be located the proper distance from the sun on a planet with the right amount of water, etc.
Of course, I’m a creationist. Not knowing the math myself, I think the probability of us occuring is very, very low—far, far lower than your Mona Lisa example. I find it much easier to believe in a Creator—a cause for our effect. I also find Christ’s teachings to be the best explanation for what I see around me. Therefore, I’m a Christian. I can’t prove Christ was right. That’s where the faith comes in.
No it couldnt. The complexity of the image precludes this. This is why ‘infinity’ is cited in such arguments; something incalculably large is needed to lend plausibility to an argument that damn well needs the crutch. Calculating back from infinity is as ridiculous as calculating infinity.
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