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Leyden and Teixeira: Political “Civil War” Coming Because of Global Warming
| April 11, 2018 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently tweeted that Peter Leyden’s and Ruy Teixeira’s article, “The Great Lesson of California in America’s New Civil War,” is a “Great read.” The article both urges and forecasts a blue-state takeover of America where our current political divide gives way to a Democrat dominion. This new “Civil War” is to begin this year and, like the last one will have an economic cause. Unfortunately, the thinking of Leyden and Teixeira is steeped in scientific ignorance which drives their thesis. Read more
167 Responses to Leyden and Teixeira: Political “Civil War” Coming Because of Global Warming
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Civil war may indeed be forthcoming in the United States. It certainly seems like we are in the early stages of such a conflict. Hatred between the two rival tribes (reds and blues) is very real, and seemingly unreconcilable without a clear winner arising through large scale violence.
A few inconvenient facts for our Atheistic chicken little global warming alarmists:
First off Global warming is not unprecedented
Moreover, CO2 does not directly correlate to temperature
Moreover, CO2 levels for optimal plant growth are actually much higher than they presently are
And to top all that off, Atheists have no explanation for why the climate on Earth has remained ‘surprising stable’ for billions of years in the first place
The following articles highlight just how ‘special’ Earth’s case turns out to be:
Moreover, besides having the just right conditions to enable long term plate tectonics, and a magnetic field, which is a necessary condition for advanced human life, solar systems which are able to maintain a proper ‘goldilocks’ orbit for billions of years for any planet like earth are much rarer than was previously thought:
Comparisons to other solar systems that have now been made bares out just how special the Earth’s stable solar system actually is:
In particular, the atmospheres, and chemical compositions, of exoplanets are turning out to be far more diverse than was expected:
In the following articles, Michael Denton and Eric Metaxus gives us a glimpse at just how special Earth’s atmosphere actually is:
In the following articles and video, Michael Denton further reflects on just how extraordinary the chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere is for human life:
Indeed, the earth and humans in particular are now shown to have far more significance in this universe than atheists had ever presupposed that we would have:
Moreover as was mentioned previously, although other atmospheres on other planets are quite different from Earth’s atmosphere, (in fact all other planets that we know about, with substantial atmospheres, all have opaque atmospheres which do not allow sunlight to penetrate to their surfaces), It is important to note just how fine-tuned our atmosphere for visible light to penetrate it.
Thus in conclusion, the atheist’s assumption for a stable climate that is optimal for life is actually a hidden Theistic assumption on his part. On Atheism there simply is no reason to presuppose that the climate should have been ‘surprisingly stable’ for life for all these billions of years, or to presuppose that the climate will remain ‘surprisingly stable’ for any extended period of time hereafter.
Only on Theism is the assumption of a stable climate warranted:
What about Christian chicken little global warming alarmists?
Bob O’Hara as to:
You are right. History is replete with people who have called themselves Christians and who have championed Atheistic positions. Darwin himself was not trained in advanced math, or in any other field that would be conducive to the founding of a new field of science, but was trained in liberal Christian theology. And almost immediately the liberal Christians of his day backed Darwin’s pseudo-theory whilst the conservative ‘scientific’ Christians shunned his theory as being unscientific.
In fact, Darwin’s book, instead of being based on any math or experimentation, is replete with (bad) theological argumentation.
To this day, Darwinian theory is dependent on (bad) theological argumentation.
The Biologos organization, i,e “Theistic Evolution”, itself is a modern day example of severely compromised Christian theology masquerading as real science.
Thus when we see present day liberal Christians jumping on the pseudoscience of AGW it should not be all that surprising.
Of course, my position would be to question whether anyone can truly be a Christian whilst championing atheistic positions which are based on (bad) liberal theology.
Of course, it is not for me to to judge who is and who is not a Christian, but I certainly would not feel comfortable with such hypocrisy of logic in my own way of thinking.
Verse:
As to ‘evil fruit’:
The problem is there are some Really Stupid Global Warming Believers that are capable of some really stupid behaviors based on their weather fantasies.
Andrew
Strange that they have to fudge with the data in order to see any global warming.
I wonder if some of the flaming a/mat progs who comment on this site would join an actual Army of Global Warming Blockheads if a recruiter came to their door or sent them an email to click and join. 😉
Andrew
ba77 @ 7 – I’m now curious to know what AGW is an atheistic position. Are you saying that God would stop the world from warming? And if one could demonstrate that mankind was affecting the global climate, would that be a demonstration of the non-existence of God?
From post 5 which Bob (and weave) apparently did not bother to read:
Also of note, It seems that the data for supposed Global warming has been massaged so as to arrive at a predetermined conclusion:
And let’s not forget the infamous ‘hide the decline’ hockey stick:
“Scientists” who massage data are not worthy of being called scientists,,, (that criticism applies to Darwinists also)
bs77 – Now could you answer my question? I wasn’t asking about geologic time.
If God has been keeping the climate stable, how do you explain the ice ages?
And why do you presuppose that God should not want ice ages?
That is a Theological argument, based on your limited knowledge, as to what you think God should and should not do. May I suggest that God has a reason for ice ages that you just might not be aware of???
After all He is omniscient and you are, well I hate to break it to you, but you are just little ole finite Bob no matter how highly you may think of yourself.
In the following video, around the 35 minute mark, Hugh Ross covers ice ages, as well as many other factors, that were necessary to produce a habitat that is suitable for a technology advanced civilization to exist on earth:
Of related note is this article:
AGW is an atheistic thing because only atheists are gullible enough to believe it. 😛
But I digress- AGW is real because humans have adjusted the data that makes it come to life. Leave the data alone and it all looks like natural variation.
AGW is also related to atheism because they both inflate the human ego with I Know Everythingism.
C02 vs Temp will only ever be a statistical correlation, yet it’s assumed in certain Smarter Than Thou circles that C02 forces the temp.
This is beyond a simple error. This is Group A trying to get over on Group B an a global scale.
Andrew
Err, you were the one who was claiming to know the mind of God by saying that he had kept the climate stable. I was just pointing out that is isn’t so stable.
The argument that ice ages happened, therefore there is no God does have some appeal, but alas not much validity.
Bob, what are you talking about now? Where did bornagain77 claim to know the mind of God by saying that he had kept the climate stable?
“I was just pointing out that it isn’t so stable.”
And I was just pointing out that there are good reasons for the ice ages, (part of the terraforming of the earth to make a suitable habitat for advanced human civilization), and I also just pointed out that, on atheism, there is no reason to presuppose the earth’s climate to have been, as the researchers themselves admit, ‘surprisingly stable’ to allow life to exist on it for 4 billion years.
The multiple factors that allow life to exist on earth within this universe are literally balanced within a knife’s edge limit of tolerance of the variance allowed for the climate so that life may continue to exist on earth.
That the climate of earth varies within that knife’s edge limit for tolerance, without ever going over that tolerance for what is allowed for life to continue to exist on earth, for 4 billion years no less, is nothing short of miraculous.
Moreover, photosynthetic life appearing on earth as soon as water appeared on earth 4 billion years ago, is something else that should have caused great ‘surprise’ for the atheist. But alas, like everything else, atheists basically ignored the Theistic implications and said, “life spontaneously originating must be easy since it appeared so quickly on the primordial earth”.,,, Funny that no one can ever seem to catch life ‘spontaneously originating’ now. 🙂
My main point, none of this is expected on atheistic presuppositions whereas Theists would expect as such.
Take away from it what you will, but, as a Christian Theist, I am more than comforted by what the science reveals.
“… while liberal Anglicans strongly supported Darwin’s natural selection as an instrument of God’s design.”
To be fair to the liberal Anglicans, natural selection IS an instrument of God’s design.
In a fallen and still falling world, it preserves a species, stabilising it around its norms, eliminating the outliers.
It is one of life’s wonderful ironies that natural selection would prevent evolution occurring, were evolution possible.
TWSYF @ 1,
As long as we are so entertained and distracted by Hollywood and the media, I’m not sure we’re up for a civil war…wars aren’t fun, and we Americans are all about having fun these days…sadly.
What specific pieces of terraforming were needed? And what evidence is there that this is what God, specifically, intended?
(of course, if by “advanced civilisation” you mean Norway, then you might have a point. :-))
as to:
The ‘good reasons’ for the ice ages were already listed,,,
Might I also suggest that you read Hugh Ross’s fairly recent book,,
,,, and also read this pdf for a more complete list of ‘terraforming’ features,,
On atheism, as you yourself tried to imply, there simply should have been no good reasons for God allowing ice ages.
I merely pointed out that you were wrong in what you were trying to imply.
If you read Dr. Ross’s book or go though Dr. Ross’s pdf list you will find many more ‘amazing coincidences upon amazing coincidences’ that ‘just so happened’ to be beneficial for humans.
Might I ask you a honest question? At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces? Or is that simply a question that you will never ask yourself? i.e. Is it simply a matter that there is no amount of scientific evidence that will ever make you change your mind? If so, that is called dogmatism not honest inquiry.
Wow. That’s some list. I don’t understand why, if an ice age was so necessary, civilisation developed in an area that was little affected by glaciation. The plains of the Levant aren’t glacial.
Bob (and weave) O’Hara, you didn’t answer the honest question I asked, but tried to, once again, dodge the main issue with essentially a non-point,, so again,,
If not any of the evidence that Ross and Metaxas listed for a habitable planet, well then advances in quantum biology reveal that your very own material body, and how it developed from a single cell to the trillions upon trillions of cells that is now your material body, is not the result of ‘random forces’?
And advances in quantum mechanics also now reveal that your very own mind is not the result of natural laws but is integral to quantum mechanics at a very foundational level
So again, At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces? Or is that simply a question that you will never ask yourself? i.e. Is it simply a matter that there is no amount of scientific evidence that will ever make you change your mind?
bs77 – I see. So it’s a non-point that the argument for the importance of ice ages on civilisation makes no sense at all?
The “Glaciers therefore God” argument looks absurd. That does not necessarily mean that it is absurd, but if you’re seriously going to advance it as an argument, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for you to actually defend it, rather than try to change the subject.
So, once again, if an ice age was so necessary for civilisation, why did it develop in an area that was little affected by glaciation?
Funny, it is a ‘non-point’ precisely because it is a ‘non-point’. i.e. you are making up your own criteria so as to dodge what constitutes a valid point. You stated:
Yet the word ‘plains’ is mentioned in the first three points that Dr. Ross named:
Do you have a reading comprehension issue? Or did you just completely ignore the article that I have cited twice now because of what can be termed ‘willful blindness’ on your part?
Perhaps you think farming is possible without the necessary nutrients that were supplied by the erosion processes of glaciation on the nutrient bearing rocks, (or perhaps you think the necessary nutrients ‘randomly’ appeared out of nowhere), or perhaps you think that farming can occur without an adequate supply of water,,, but, if so, I know many farmers, around where I live, that would certainly like to give you an education on how many factors it takes to successfully farm.
And again, it is also a ‘non-point’ because of the fact that it is clearly you using your usual tactic of ‘bobbing and weaving’ so as to avoid the meatier issue that is now on the table. Namely, At what point is it fair (for you the atheist) to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces?
Or is that simply a question that you will never ask yourself? i.e. Is it simply a matter that there is no amount of scientific evidence that will ever make you change your mind?
And if you will never allow any scientific evidence to ever change your mind, then what is the point of me, or anybody else on UD, trying to pretend that you are anything other than insincere?
ba77 – Actually, farming is possible without erosion from glaciers: rivers do the job nicely. Look at the Nile, for example. Or the area around the Tigris and Euphrates. Or, in North America, look at the Mississippi. Or the Murray-Darling in Australia. Liquid water erodes, and this provides nutrients that are washed downstream. Seriously, read up about the Nile and its annual floods.
Yes, Bob, the earth was intelligently designed and rivers are part of that. Do you have a point?
Glaciers bring water where there aren’t rivers.
Read “The Privileged Planet”
Bob you made an unsubstantiated claim that ‘farming is possible without erosion from glaciers’.
You claim liquid water by itself can erode the rocks just fine.
You do realize that it is the freezing and expansion of water that breaks up nutrient bearing rocks into suitable farming land do you not? Liquid water by itself will certainly not do just fine.
And you do realize that the grinding, pulverizing, action of glaciers on the nutrient bearing rocks of entire mountains is also a necessary part of this process for providing land areas that are rich in nutrients that can host plant life.
Ross goes into much more detail of ice ages throughout the entire history of earth and how they have, crucially, enabled habitats suitable for plant life.
I, again. suggest you watch the video and read the books and links I have provided.
You arguments are, basically, based on ‘self-assured’ ignorance.
And again, you, in typical ‘bob and weave’ fashion, failed to answer the much more important questions that are now on the table:
At what point is it fair (for you the atheist) to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces?
Or is that simply a question that you will never ask yourself? i.e. Is it simply a matter that there is no amount of scientific evidence that will ever make you change your mind?
And if you will never allow any scientific evidence to ever change your mind, then what is the point of me, or anybody else on UD, trying to pretend that you are anything other than insincere?
It’s not just me who claims that. People who study rivers do too. It’s how the Grand Canyon was formed, for example. Most of the valleys in the UK were also formed by rivers, not glaciers.
Necessary? Really? So what glaciers were there in Australia? And how come the Nile Delta is so fertile? Or the Congo basin?
Both of my parents taught geography, so I literally learned this stuff at their knee.
Bob:
Question-begging
So water rushing over nutrient rich sedimentary rocks in the Grand Canyon and UK and then creating valleys out of sedimentary rocks tells us how those nutrient rich sedimentary rocks were formed in the first place? Really???
Where did the nutrient rich sedimentary rock come from in the first place?
Your claim is that liquid water can do the trick all by itself. Without freezing and expansion and glacial erosion. You are wrong!
A little science 101 for you:
as to:
So what glaciers were there in Australia?
Apparently you still think that nutrient rich farmland can appear out of nowhere when you go on to state:
Again, nutrient rich soil just does not ‘randomly’ and magically appear out of nowhere.,,, read the material provided.
as to:
If your parents taught you that nutrient rich sedimentary soils can be created from mountains, boulders and rocks by liquid water alone, then you can file that teaching in with what they taught you about Santa Clause.
Moreover, as an atheist, Water is certainly not your friend
You are losing the argument, Bob…again. But keep trying.
And there you have it, optimal nutrients created humans! 🙂
But then again, a person such as Michael Denton, who holds a anthropocentric view, would beg to differ, And would say that it is further evidence that the cosmos, and earth in particular, are and were designed specifically with humans in Mind..
@34-
(1) If that’s what you think, then you don’t see what’s actually happening
(2) In any case, it’s curious that you frame the exchange in terms of winning/losing
Bob is relegated to being an imp, that is how Bob is losing
You tell him LarTanner! Atheists never ‘win or lose’ a scientific argument. They just ignore any and all countervailing scientific evidence. Which, given the pseudoscientific nature of Darwinism, ignoring any and all falsifying evidence is pretty much the core doctrine to their theory. 🙂
Since falsifiability/testability (Popper) is considered the gold standard by which to judge whether a theory is scientific or not, I want to delve a little more into falsifiability/testability.
The main reason that Darwinism fails the falsification/testability criteria for science is because there is no known ‘law of evolution’ within the universe for mathematicians to ever build a rigorously testable mathematical model upon.
As Ernst Mayr himself conceded, “In biology, as several other people have shown, and I totally agree with them, there are no natural laws in biology corresponding to the natural laws of the physical sciences.”
In the following article, Roger Highfield makes much the same observation as Ernst Mayr and states, ,,, Whatever the case, those universal truths—’laws’—that physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology.
Professor Murray Eden of MIT, in a paper entitled “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory” stated that “the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.”
In fact, not only is there no ‘law of evolution’ within the known physical universe for Darwinists to build a realistic mathematical model upon, the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, a law with great mathematical explanatory power in science, almost directly contradicts the primary Darwinian claim that greater and greater levels of functional complexity can easily be had and/or ‘naturally selected’ for over long periods of time. Indeed, entropy’s main claim is that, over long periods of time, everything in the universe will decay into simpler and simpler states until what is termed thermodynamic equilibrium is finally reached.
And whereas Darwinian evolution has no known law of nature to appeal to so as to establish itself as a proper, testable, science, Intelligent Design does not suffer from such a disconnect from physical reality. In other words, Intelligent Design can appeal directly to ‘the laws of conservation of information’ (Dembski, Marks, etc..) in order to establish itself as a proper, testable, and rigorous science.
Moreover, both of Charles Darwin’s ‘vague’, i.e. ‘un-mathematical’, criteria that he set forth for falsification of his theory have been met by Behe, Axe, and by Meyer. And yet, unsurprisingly, Darwinists STILL refused to accept those empirical falsifications of their theory.
But to go further in falsifying Darwinism, since Darwinism is based on reductive materialism then Darwinism makes some very specific predictions. And those specific predictions, that are based on the reductive materialistic framework that undergirds Darwinian thought, have now been experimentally falsified.
First off, Darwinists hold that the particular form that any organism may take is reducible to the material particulars of that organism. In particular, Darwinists now hold that mutations to DNA are the primary means by which ‘transformation of forms’, i.e. macro-evolution, occurs. This ‘prediction’ inherent to the reductive materialism of Darwinism has now been shown to be false by several lines of evidence.
Moreover, the failure of reductive materialism to be able to explain the basic form of any particular organism occurs at a very low level. Much lower than DNA itself.
In the following article entitled ‘Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable’, which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remark that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, The researchers further commented that their findings challenge the reductionists’ point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
To state what should be glaringly obvious, since the reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian evolution can never explain how any particular organism might achieve its basic form, then neo-Darwinian speculations for how one type of organism might transform into another type of organism are based on pure fantasy and have no discernible experimental basis in reality. In fact, such speculations, as the preceding article highlights, are now proved to be false and Darwinism is therefore now falsified.
Another specific prediction of the reductive materialistic framework that undergirds Darwinian thought is that the information in life is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. (Darwinists use to claim that the information in life was merely a ‘metaphor’, and that life was just basically ‘complicated chemistry’ but now, since information is found to be so integral to life, Darwinists now mainly claim that information is ’emergent’ from a material basis.)
Yet immaterial information is now shown to be its own distinct physical entity that is separate from matter and energy.
A distinct immaterial entity that has, of all things, a ‘thermodynamic content’
The coup de grace for demonstrating that immaterial information is its own distinct physical entity, separate from matter and energy, is Quantum Teleportation:
In fact, quantum information, of which classical information is a subset, is now found in molecular biology in every DNA, protein, etc,, molecule of life.
Quantum information simply is not reducible to materialistic explanations. Period! As the following article states, “entangled objects (i.e. material particles) do not cause each other to behave the way they do.
Thus Darwinism is now experimentally falsified in its claim that information is ’emergent’ from a material basis.
Another, somewhat esoteric, falsification of the reductive materialistic framework of Darwinian evolution comes from the nature of mathematics itself.
Although it is almost universally acknowledged that mathematics exists in some transcendent “Platonic” realm, and although every purported theory of science requires verification from mathematics, and experimentation, in order to be considered scientific in the first place, the reductive materialism that Darwinian evolution is based upon denies the existence of anything beyond the material realm.
Therefore, besides Darwinian evolution already being shown to be mathematically impossible (Sanford, Dembski, Marks, Axe, Behe, Durston etc.. etc..), Darwinian evolution is falsified as being a scientific theory since it denies the very reality of the one thing it most needs, i.e. mathematics, in order to be considered scientific in the first place.
Another somewhat esoteric falsification of Darwinian evolution comes from population genetics itself.
Donald Hoffman has shown, through numerous computer simulations of Darwinian evolution, that if Darwinian evolution were in fact true then ALL of our observations of reality would be illusory.
Yet, reliable observation is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific method.
Thus, since Darwinian evolution denies ‘reliable observation’, which is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific method itself, then Darwinian evolution can never be based upon the scientific method and is therefore falsified once again in its claim that it is a scientific theory.
Moreover, completely contrary to what Hoffman found for Darwinian theory, it turns out that accurate perception, i.e. conscious observation, far from being unreliable and illusory, is experimentally found to be far more integral to reality, i.e. far more reliable of reality, than the mathematics of population genetics predicted. In the following experiment, it was found that reality doesn’t exist without an observer.
Apparently science itself could care less if atheists are forced to believe, because of the mathematics of population genetics, that their observations of reality are illusory!
Therefore, Darwinian evolution is falsified once again since observation of reality is experimentally found to be far more reliable of reality than the mathematics of population genetics predicted.
As Richard Feynman stated:
Besides conscious observation becoming illusory and unreliable if Darwinian evolution were true, many other things also become illusory too. Things that normal people resolutely hold to be concrete and real, such as ‘personhood’ and morality.
Thus, the final somewhat esoteric falsification of Darwinian evolution is the fact that Darwinists have lost any coherent basis for defining reality and are, in fact, adrift in a world of illusions and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab onto.
BA77,
That’s a wonderful melange of extracted quotes, all pretty much unrelated, from different fields. Wonderful conspirorizing. It all must sound rapturous from the pulpit.
Can you stick to one field and present data? This might be a welcome change.
As far as emulating California, let’s not.
“Why is liberal California the poverty capital of America?”
http://www.latimes.com/opinion.....story.html
LarTanner, instead of falsely accusing me of “Wonderful conspirorizing” that ‘must sound rapturous from the pulpit’ perhaps you might want to actually put forth a testable ‘mathematical’ theory of Darwinian evolution that can be potentially falsified by experimentation. You know like, for instance, Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity and err, Intelligent Design have rigorously testable, and potentially falsifiable, theories??
It is one thing to falsely attack a man with ad hominem, it is quite another to actually defend the vacuous theory of Darwinian evolution that is, by all rights, more properly classified as an unfalsifiable pseudoscience rather than a real science.
But then again, when stuck in the position of trying to defend the scientifically indefensible, I guess attacking the man instead of the science is all you really got left isn’t it??? 🙂
You then stated:
I have already presented data, primarily from Hugh Ross, that falsified Bob’s contention that liquid water alone was sufficient to provide nutrients to the plains. He refused to either read the links and/or watch the video, or to acknowledge the falsification of his claim.
I then posted a link, from Darwinian researchers no less, that more clearly falsified Bob’s claim for a longer periods of time. A study that also found that “we are at the top of a cycle, the best conditions (for nutrient dispersal) you can imagine. That is why humans evolved. We are in a phase of collision and rifting, and still feeling the effects of India colliding with Asia to create the Himalayas.”:
Surely you guys don’t think fellow Darwinists are biased do you?
Moreover, not only was Bob’s claim falsified, but a very anthropocentric friendly condition of ‘we are at the top of a cycle,, the best conditions you can imagine’ for nutrient dispersal was also found.
A finding that fits VERY well into Dr. Ross’s overriding Thesis.
You guys may, once again, refuse to accept falsification (what else is new with Darwinists?), but I am more than satisfied that the unbiased reader will clearly see who is being forthright with the evidence and who is, basically, blowing smoke.
Environmentalist nuts have proven almost as dangerous as atheist nuts. Of course, there’s a lot of overlap with the two.
I must say, this has been freaking hilarious. Watching bs77 trying to claim that glaciers are necessary for eroding rock into soil. In spite of the thousands of papers suggesting otherwise.
True, glaciers have been and continue to be important. But to suggest that water can’t do this in the absence of glaciers is just monumentally stupid. I live in Canada. Igneous rock. Acted on by water, flowing, freezing, thawing and flowing again can do wonders. Add to this the action of lichens and mosses, plant roots, and animal shit, and you end up with very fertile soil. And not a glacier within a thousand miles.
Allan Keith,
So you also claim that liquid water alone, minus freezing and expansion and Glaciation, is sufficient in and of itself to provide the necessary nutrient rich soil for life in a timely geologic fashion. (I never claimed that liquid water cannot provide some negligible amount of erosion to rocks and boulders).
Moreover, you claimed to have ‘thousands of papers’ that can prove this point that freezing and expansion and glaciation, are for all intents and purposes, from what Bob (and now you) claim, is negligible.
Really??? Thousands of peer reviewed papers that prove freezing and expansion and glaciation, are for all intents and purposes negligible???
“Thousands of papers”????
REALLY???? Are you serious and are you a betting man???
Okie Dokie, I’ll bite, please show me your “Thousands of (peer reviewed) papers” that prove freezing and expansion and glaciation, are, for all intents and purposes, negligible as to providing necessary nutrients in a timely manner (‘timely’ manner geologically speaking of course.)
I’ve already listed my peer reviewed paper that shows mountain building, erosion, nutrient cycle, and life, are tightly correlated.
Could you answer a personal question before you go looking for those ‘thousands of peer reviewed papers’ that disprove my point’? Are you on drugs, perhaps hallucinogenics??
Here is another article from Hugh Ross that people can read while they wait on you to produce your ‘thousands of papers’ that prove my point wrong:
Bs77,
Wait. Hold the buses. Who said anything about ignoring freezing and thawing cycles? Freezing and thawing are great ways to break up rock. Surely you are not equating this simple physical phenomenon with glaciation?
as to this Cambrian claim from my previous paper,
Is this associated ice age:
AK, if you are going to defend a point with ‘thousands of papers’, it is good to know exactly what you are trying to defend,,, see post 31
How are you coming on those “thousands of papers?”
ba77 @ 33 –
No, that’s not what I was arguing, but if you want to take that line, then go ahead. Sedimentary rocks pre-date the last ice age.
That piece you link to kindly explains
So at best you get part of the Murray river watershed, but nothing from the Darling.
So the only glaciers in Africa were in the Atlas mountains and on Kilimanjaro. Neither of which are part of the catchment areas of the Congo or Nile, so can’t explain the geography of those two rivers.
So, um, try again?
ba77 @ 47 – Hm. So, the Cambrian explosiuon was the result of increased weathering? This happened after the “snowball earth” ice age. In other words weathering was higher when there were fewer glaciers.
Bob, as you claimed in post 28 and 31, you are basically claiming that liquid water, all by its lonesome, can explain how the nutrients that are essential for life came to be in the soils. You are wrong. The nutrients necessary for life are coming from the weathering of newly uplifted mountains. While the ‘universal solvent’ of liquid water, as well as wind blown dust, can explain the worldwide dispersal of the nutrients that are essential for life in a timely manner, liquid water and wind, by themselves, cannot explain how the mountains are weathered in a timely manner, geologically speaking, in the first place.
water cycle
https://water.usgs.gov/edu/graphics/watercycle-usgs-poster.jpg
You need freezing and expansion and glaciation.,,, Frankly, It is beyond me why anyone would try to argue otherwise. (But then again, your nick name is ‘bob and weave’ 🙂 )
Without freezing and expansion and glaciation the newly uplifted mountains will obviously weather much less slowly than they do with freezing and expansion and glaciation.
The nutrients necessary for life will, obviously, stay locked up in the mountains much longer than they normally would otherwise. And I would argue that such a retardation of the timing in the weathering of newly uplifted mountains would have catastrophic effects on the ability of earth to host life.
The papers I have thus far cited back up this basic point up, Hugh Ross has many more papers listed in chapter 15 of his book “Improbable Planet” that further back up this basic point.
Whereas you have, thus far, listed no paper to back up your position. But have only stated your personal opinion ‘learned at your parents knee’ as if that is authoritative.
Which is OK, I guess, in so far as that goes since they taught geology, but hardly authoritative as to establishing your rather bizarre claim that liquid water by itself can erode the rocks just fine without the need for freezing and expansion and glaciation.
To establish that claim you need much more than just your personal opinion (no matter how highly you may think of it yourself). You need peer-reviewed scientific evidence!
Not to worry though Bob, Allan is to the rescue and has promised to produce ‘thousands of papers’ that will help you prove your rather bizarre point.,,, 🙂
Personally, I would not hold my breath waiting for those ‘thousands of papers’.
ba77 – if glaciation is so necessary for nutrients, can you have another go at explaining why the Congo and Nile basins are so fertile, if they haven’t had any glaciers in their catchments?
As for papers, this stuff is so basic I think it’s in the undergraduate textbooks.
Since you do not see fit to produce any papers backing up your bizarre claim, i.e. that the ‘ice cycle’ in unnecessary for nutrient release from newly uplifted mountains, it is pointless to continue is it not?
Which is fine by me, as I am more than satisfied that I have made my point, whereas you, basically, are left believing that life enabling nutrients appear out of nowhere,,, i.e. since you deny that the timely weathering of newly uplifted mountains by the ‘ice cycle’ is necessary as to explaining how the life enabling nutrients in the biosphere arrived..
One of us believes in magic Bob, and it ain’t me.
OK, so you’re not going to defend your theory, then. I guess the criticism that there are fertile river basins that are not fed by glaciers, even though your theory is that glaciers are necessary for fertile soils, might have some validity if you can’t easily refute it.
Tropical soils are notoriously thin and poor in nutrients. In some parts of the Amazon River Basin, white, sandy soils are found, which have evolved through erosion over hundreds of millions of years. And yet, although these soils have lost their mineral content and fertility, rich rainforests grow on them.
In rainforests, some of the highest trees on the planet shoot to the sky. Dead plants and animals quickly decompose and their organic matter is utilized by other organisms.
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_d.....inforests/
Glacial Geology
Regardless of whether the landscape was produced by T2 or T3 events, all of the late Wisconsin deposits, and especially the tills, produce extremely fertile soils,,,
https://igws.indiana.edu/MarionCounty/GlacialGeology.cfm
picture:
https://igws.indiana.edu/images/marioncounty/Fig1BGlacialGeoTimeline.jpg
Again, life enabling nutrients are coming from newly uplifted mountains. While the ‘universal solvent’ of liquid water, as well as wind blown dust, can explain the worldwide dispersal of the nutrients that are essential for life in a timely manner, liquid water and wind, by themselves, cannot explain how the mountains are weathered in a timely manner, geologically speaking, in the first place. You need the ‘ice cycle’. To argue is otherwise is just plain wrong. (and bizarre.)
water cycle
https://water.usgs.gov/edu/graphics/watercycle-usgs-poster.jpg
Melting snow and heavy summer rain within the Ethiopian Mountains sent the torrent of water causing the banks on the River Nile in Egypt to overflow in this flat desert land. And this is why the Nile flooded.
https://africa-facts.org/nile-river-facts/
The Nile is notable for being incredibly fertile, because of the sediment that’s washed down the river (all without the help of any glaciers: it’s because of monsoon rains) so you might want to try a different argument.
Bob, to be clear, your claim is that liquid water (post 28 and 31), all by its lonesome, can supply the necessary nutrients for ‘nutrient rich’ soil. Whereas my claim is that the entire ‘ice cycle’, i.e. freezing, expansion and glaciation, is necessary to produce the necessary nutrients from mountains.
You further claimed that tropically situated ‘river basins’ prove your point that the ice cycle (and glaciation in particular) are not necessary for nutrient rich soils.
Yet, as pointed out, “Tropical soils are notoriously thin and poor in nutrients. In some parts of the Amazon River Basin, white, sandy soils are found, which have evolved through erosion over hundreds of millions of years. And yet, although these soils have lost their mineral content and fertility, rich rainforests grow on them”.
Moreover, as was also shown, the Nile river basin receives a large part of its nutrients from “Melting snow and heavy summer rain within the Ethiopian Mountains”.
Again your claim (post 28 and 31) is that liquid water, all by its lonesome, can do the trick, and yet ‘melting snow’ is found to be integral to Nile flooding. This is not what you need to try to prove your point.
What you need to prove your ‘liquid water alone’ point beyond any doubt, is that you would have to find a tropical river basin with nutrient rich soil that has been supplied completely, throughout its entire history, with liquid water with no help from snow runoff and/or glaciation from mountains.
Good luck with that wild goose chase.
Even the Tigris and Euphrates river system of the ‘fertile crescent’ is fed by run off starting in the Taurus Mountains. Taurus mountains have glaciers and snow (ice cycles) year round:
Bottom line, the richest nutrient rich soils in the world are found in places where glaciation events have been fairly recent, whereas tropical regions are, to repeat, “Tropical soils are notoriously thin and poor in nutrients.”
whereas on the other hand recent glaciation events ‘produce extremely fertile soils’:
In fact, I live at the base of the ‘glaciation debris fields’ which provide the head waters for the Mississippi river,
Bottom line, your parents duped you if they told you that the ‘ice cycle’ and/or glaciation was unimportant for essential nutrient dispersal throughout the biosphere.
ba77 – once more you are failing to defend your contention that glaciers are necessary for fertile soils. The best you can come up with is “melting snow”, which ignore a couple of points. In order of importance: (1) snow (melted or otherwise) is not the same as a glacier. (2) melting makes snow liquid, and it is the liquid that flows and erodes.
I know glaciers can provide fertile soils – I used to live in Denmark, which is basically outwash from Norway and Sweden. But that doesn’t mean that all fertile soils are the results of glaciers.
Of somewhat related note, it is interesting to note the catastrophic worldwide ‘superflood’ events that accompanied the end of the last ice age:
Bob, you claimed liquid water by itself (post 28 and 31) can do the trick, That is why I asked you this specifically in post 30:
And in 31 you indeed held it to be the case that you were claiming liquid water, by itself, will do the trick.:
Yet now, when you are shown that liquid water by itself can not explain how nutrient rich soils are created, you want to recover part of the ‘ice cycle’, i.e. freezing and expansion, into your thesis.
You gave that part up in post 31.
And I certainly never would have spent all this time debunking your claim if you had originally claimed the ‘freezing and expansion’ part of the ‘ice cycle’ as part your ‘liquid water alone’ thesis. Indeed, freezing and expansion is just as, if not more, important than the grinding and pulverizing provided by glaciers. And both of those events together i.e. freezing, expansion and glaciation, I would hold, provide the best nutrient rich soils.
It is disingenuous of you to now want to backtrack on what you originally claimed in 28 and 31.
But then again, in you trying to do so you, once again, show everyone exactly why ‘bob and weave’ is such an appropriately earned nickname.
Moreover, you still have not attempted to answer the question asked to you at the end of post 30.
Snowball earth.
ba77 – you’re still not defending your claim – that the ice ages were necessary for fertile soils, because of glaciers. Yes, ice can and does break down rock, but so does water (both directly and by abrasion when it carries rock and sand). You haven’t actually shown that water isn’t enough, just claimed that “[t]ropical soils are notoriously thin and poor in nutrients” whilst only linking to something about the Amazon. That’s not the only part of the world with tropical soils, and you repeatedly ignore the Nile, which historically has been fertile because of all the sediment that’s washed down it, without the help of any glaciers at all.
Whatever Bob (and weave). I’ll let post 61 stand on its own merits.
Might I suggest that you ask Allen for some of his ‘thousands of papers’ so as to back up some of your claims?
I’m not nearly as impressed with your personal opinion as you seem to be.
Bob- what if glaciers carved out the
Nile river basin and that allowed the water to flow?
You said something about Australia being free from the effect of glaciers,,,
Yet, glaciation has occurred in Australia at Snowy Mountains
And the Snowy Mountains, unsurprisingly, form the headwaters of the Murray-Darling in Australia
And yet the rest of the land in Australia that do not have access to the nutrients that were released by the initial glaciation and subsequent ‘freezing and expansion’ of snow and ice on Snowy Mountains have a ‘uniquely high proportion of nutrient-poor soils’
All is not lost for you Bob, I found that Volcanic soils do offer you somewhat of a reprieve from the ‘ice cycle’ monopoly on nutrients:
Myself, I prefer ‘ice cycles’ to volcanic eruptions 🙂
ET @ 65 – then is would be a very different shape. Glaciers leave a distinctly different signature in the rocks: U-shaped valleys, morraines etc.
bs77 @ 66 – read my 49. I gave you part of the Murray-Darling basin, but of course only part, because only part of it is fed from the Snowy Mountains.
well Bob, I’m pretty happy with the state of evidence as it now sits for Australia, especially the ‘uniquely high proportion of nutrient-poor soils’ part.
I simply don’t see you ever providing any robust evidence for your position without having to appeal to ‘ice cycles’ of some type, freezing and expansion, which you already conceded to my position at post 31.
In fact, as far as the evidence now sits, I donated you your best evidential card thus far, i..e volcanic eruptions.
And even then the nutrients did not appear out of nowhere but were delivered from the earth’s mantle. Which is a point of evidence which actually backs my overall thesis that nutrients have to be replenished from the erosion of new mountain ranges.
And again, I encourage readers to read Dr Ross’s book “Improbable Planet” (Chpt. 15) for a more thorough treatment of the ‘fine-tuned’ ice age issue.
Dr. Ross, in his usual meticulous manner, reveals a far tighter correspondence that I have been unable to successfully communicate thus far.
ba77 – so you’ve retreated from your claim that glaciers are necessary for fertile soils, then? You’re down to “ice cycles”.
Well Bob, The name “Snowy Mountains” itself does not help your ‘liquid water alone’ thesis.
and to repeat 61,,,
you claimed liquid water by itself (post 28 and 31) can do the trick, That is why I asked you this specifically in post 30:
And in 31 you indeed held it to be the case that you were claiming liquid water, by itself, will do the trick.:
Yet now, when you are shown that liquid water by itself can not explain how nutrient rich soils are created, you want to recover part of the ‘ice cycle’, i.e. freezing and expansion, into your thesis.
You gave that part up in post 31.
And I certainly never would have spent all this time debunking your claim if you had originally claimed the ‘freezing and expansion’ part of the ‘ice cycle’ as part your ‘liquid water alone’ thesis. Indeed, freezing and expansion is just as, if not more, important than the grinding and pulverizing provided by glaciers. And both of those events together i.e. freezing, expansion and glaciation, I would hold, provide the best nutrient rich soils.
It is disingenuous of you to now want to backtrack on what you originally claimed in 28 and 31.
But then again, in you trying to do so you, once again, show everyone exactly why ‘bob and weave’ is such an appropriately earned nickname.
Glacial Blessings Flow
Earth’s Icy Past Has Yielded Bountiful Food & Beauty
by Hugh Ross
http://www.salvomag.com/new/ar.....s-flow.php
*Subscription required
Bob, slightly off topic,,, if you remember your history right, Newton, Leibniz (and Laplace) had a disagreement about God’s role in creation. Newton was supposedly chastised by Leibniz (and Laplace) for invoking “God of the gaps”:
Yet that whole story turns out to be ‘Whig history’:
Here is an interesting article about the Newton-Leibniz-Laplace controversy that shows the ‘God of the gaps’ controversy is not nearly as cut and dried as some atheists have tried to make it out to be:
As to “Making it right the first time”, I hold that Newton, Leibniz and Laplace would be very pleased by what modern science has now revealed about the wisdom and power of God as to “Making it right the first time”:
from post 3
That Bob, is what you call “Making it right the first time”
BA77 everywhere: Well done. Thank you for your tireless efforts against the a/mat trolls. I share many of your comments with friends and family. You are being read more than you probably realize. Your efforts are making a difference!
ba77 – Perhaps you’ve forgotten, but I was asking you about your claim that ice ages were necessary for human civilisation, because of the effects of glaciers. But you still haven’t explained why the Nile, for example, is so fertile even though glaciers don’t affect it. The nearest it gets to glaciation is melted snow.
So what gives? Are glaciers necessary for civilisation because they are the only way soils can be fertile? In which case, how do you explain the fertility of the Nile basin?
Why aren’t you willing to provide an explanation? Why don’t you want to back up your thesis?
Bob O’H,
And how does he explain the fertile soil on Hawaii or many of the Caribbean islands?
Allan Keith, I already conceded volcanic soils to Bob at the bottom of post 66. In fact, I was the one who pointed that ‘reprieve’ for Bob’s thesis out to Bob (and weave).
As to how the Nile basic receives nutrients from (fairly recent) past glaciation events (and from present snow run off from freezing. expansion, melting of snow and ice):
And, unsurprisingly, other places in African that do not have access to the nutrients provided by past (fairly recent) glaciation events and present snow runoff are found to suffer from nutrient deficiencies
ba77 @ 76 – we’ve been through this before. See my post @ 49 about glaciers in Africa. A quick precis: None of them were acting on the Nile watershed. And snow is not the same as a glacier.
BA77,
The normal freeze-thaw cycles of temperate zones is a far cry from glaciation. Plant roots, lichens and burrowing animals are also a huge cause of rock breakdown and soil formation which proceeds without the need of glaciers.
So evidence of glaciation in East Africa is NOT evidence of glaciation in East Africa? Okie Dokie, got cha. Takes a while to catch on to this Atheistic and/or Darwinian reasoning. 🙂 ,,, Up is down, black is white, and evidence is not evidence.,,, Is that about right???
Moreover, as we can see from this following graph,,,
,,, which was taken from this site,,,
And as we can also see from this following graph,,,
,,, which was taken from this site,,,
,,, from those two graphs we can see that there have been repeated glaciation events over the past 450,000 years with the temperature then (uncharacteristically) stabilizing for the past 9000 years or so.
Thus, as Dr. Ross points out at about the 35 minute mark in this following video,,,
Such repeated glaciation events over 450,000 years with the temperature then (uncharacteristically) stabilizing for the past 9000 years or so certainly makes it seem that God was preparing a suitable, nutrient rich, habitat for a large population of humans.
Moreover, I would hold that God, in His infinite wisdom, foresaw all this preparation for humans in advance when he “Made it right the first time” in regards to Him creating the Solar system (post 72).
Take from it what you will but seeing that Atheists have no clue why the climate of the Earth (post 5) should have been ‘surprisingly stable’ for life for all these billions of years in the first place, or any reason why the climate should be ‘uncharacteristically stable’ for humans right now or for any extended period of time hereafter, (Global Warming fiasco).
Then clearly, only on Theism is the assumption of a stable climate warranted:
I’ve never said that there wasn’t glaciation in East Africa. What I’ve been saying is that it didn’t impact the watershed of the Nile. None of the rest of your comment addresses this issue, so seems a bit of a waste of time.
‘What I’ve been saying is that it didn’t impact the watershed of the Nile.’
and yet:
What we’ve got here is a,,,
The Nile doesn’t cover the entire planet. The point is where there aren’t any rivers glaciation did the job. Even the Nile has a very limited reach.
It’s all part of the intelligent design of the planet
Hmmm ET, in case you haven’t noticed, he is not right in his claim that glaciation ‘didn’t impact the watershed of the Nile’
ET, in case you haven’t noticed. none of those links actually show that the Nile is affected: he needs to show that the areas that were glaciated are in the Nile’s watershed. Being somewhat close isn’t enough. It’s like saying that I was responsible for Lady Diana’s death because I was on the continent at the time (I was drinking in Giessen that evening).
And this even flatly contradicts ba77’s claim that glaciers are necessary:
Too funny,,, I show that the Ethiopian Mountains were heavily impacted by glaciation,,,,
,,, and also show that Melting snow and heavy summer rain runoff from the Ethiopian Mountains are the reason why the Nile flood plain is so fertile,,,
And yet, in the mind of a Darwinian atheist, all that evidence counts for naught.
,,, I have a name for a new disease.
D.C.D.D.
,,, also known as Darwinian Cognitive Dissonance Disorder. The disease is characterized mainly by temporary acute blindness of any evidence that is presented that might suggest Design, and the disease is further exasperated by the complete loss of rationality if any discussion of the evidence for Design takes place.
With rare exceptions of remission, the disease appears to be incurable. 🙂
bs77 – but the parts that were affected by glaciation don’t affect the Nile – those waters flow east, not north.
And once more, SNOW IS NOT THE SAME THING AS GLACIERS. So stop bringing that up as if it somehow help you. It does precisely the opposite – it explains the seasonal flooding that made the Nile valley so fertile without having to resort to ice ages.
I guess the DSM 6 won’t be put together for about a decade, so you’ve got a bit of time to persuade psychiatrists to adopt a new condition of “not accepting what ba77 thinks”.
“but the parts that were affected by glaciation don’t affect the Nile – those waters flow east, not north.”
As usual, you cite no evidence for that claim:
Thus, Bob (and weave) is shown to be completely disingenuous to the evidence in hand once again.
I seriously think that atheists, when they forsake God, begin to drift further and further into mental illness.
This is not just idle talk either. I have good reason to suspect this to be the case:
Bob:
Snowball Earth. The entire planet was glaciated and affected.
Again ET, as is usual for atheists, he is making a false claim with no support.
bs77 @ 88 – You’re not providing any evidence, other than (1) there were glaciers in present-day Ethiopia (irrelevant, unless they are in the Niles’s watershed), and (2) the fertility from the Nile comes from snow & rainfall (very relevant, and also undermines your argument).
You have been advancing the theory that glaciers are necessary for soil fertility, but you have repeatedly not provided the evidence. I’ve told you repeatedly what you need to show, but you’ve failed to do it, and indeed the evidence you have shown undermines your argument.
Is there any chance that you could actually ask for the evidence I’m asking for? I have asked for something specific, but you don’t seem to be able to show it. Go on, try doing some research to directly provide the evidence. If you can’t find it, then perhaps consider Ross’ thesis to be falsified. Either way, it’ll be more rewarding than resorting to insult.
Bob, I am quite satisfied that the unbiased reader will see you for the bald-faced liar that you are.
Glaciation (to my surprise) was integral to eroding the volcanic outcrops of the Ethiopian mountains.
Moreover, I was originally satisfied to concede to you that glaciation may have played a somewhat negligible role in creating nutrient rich soils in tropical regions, and was not going to push the issue any further, but in post 28 and 30 and 31 you went further than that and said liquid water by itself, minus the freezing and expansion of ice, can do the trick of providing nutrient rich soils. That was a bridge too far. When shown to be wrong on that score, you then tried to disingenuously recover freezing and expansion of water, i.e. ice and snow, into your thesis. Sorry, you can’t do that about face of what you had already conceded to my position.
Moreover, in digging deeper into the evidence, I found, to repeat, Glaciation (to my surprise) was integral to eroding the volcanic outcrops of the Ethiopian mountains, and providing the Nile with nutrient rich ‘black silt’ (post 86 and 88).
The conversation of 28, 30, 31, and papers of 86, 88, are there for all to see, and again, I am quite satisfied that the unbiased reader will see you for the bald-faced liar that you are.
Dr. Ross’s thesis has only gotten far stronger, not weaker, as more evidence has come to light.
Of footnote, It is not an insult to question your sanity when I have very good reason for doing so.
You may not like it, and may not want to seek out help for your mental illness, but on top of much peer review showing that atheists suffer mentally when they forsake God, my personal association with you also backs up my hunch on your mental condition.
You have done little to alleviate my concerns about your mental health.
Bs77, sad that you have to resort to calling someone a liar and question their sanity, and suggest mental illness, to bolster your viewpoint.
Bob O’H has quite rightly stated that water alone is quite capable of moving fertile soil (Nile delta, Mississippi) and that it alone can erode rock and release trapped nutrients (Grand Canyon and many not so grand canyons: and volcanic islands). It was you that brought snow and ice into the discussion, not Bob O’H. And you equated it to how glaciers act with respect to the production of fertile soils, which is categorically wrong. All glaciers do is pulverize rock.
Water and lichens and mosses and the freeze-thaw cycle and bacteria and caribou crap are all capable of producing fertile soil directly on bedrock without any glaciation. Hot springs (and cold ones) can release nutrients from rock and make them available for plant growth. The plant roots create crevaces in solid rock providing openings for water infiltration. Repeated freezing and thawing of these water infiltration is very good at breaking down rock and making more nutrients available. All of this without a glacier.
well Allan Keith, I’m not ‘resorting’ to anything. I am calling the facts as I see them. Bob made a specific claim that was shown to be false and in direct contradiction to the evidence that was presented. I don’t know where you are from but that is called being a bald-faced liar where I am from.
And given Bob’s, and now your’s I might add, history of being completely disingenuous to the evidence presented for Design, and given much peer-review that clearly indicates atheists suffer mentally (and physically) when they forsake God (as already referenced), then I am well justified in questioning the sanity of all atheists (not just Bob’s and your’s) sanity when they pull such shenanigans.
Moreover, the insanity inherent to the atheistic worldview goes much much deeper that just these superficial disingenuous discussions of atheists here on UD:
,,, it is no wonder that atheists suffer mentally and physically from such an insane worldview!,,,
+++++++++++++++
Once again, Freeze thaw cycle was conceded to me (post 28, 30 and 31), You and Bob can’t have it for your ‘liquid water alone’ thesis. In fact, the concession at 28, 30 and 31 by Bob is exactly the reason why I even challenged Bob on tropical regions in the first place. (Moreover, The evidence against Bob’s position has only gotten much worse from what I originally thought it would be)
As to your claim that lichens, mosses and bacteria can produce nutrient rich soil,,, well lichens, mosses and bacteria, have fairly limited ability to break up rocks into useful soils compared to the freeze-thaw cycle and glaciation. Moreover, they transform already existent nutrients into useful minerals,, but are dependent on nutrients in order to live in the first place. In fact the transformation of preexistant material into useful minerals can be quite spectacular in some cases. (Hazen)
Caribou crap is ‘recycled nutrients’ for crying out loud. (But seeing as your post is complete BS, I can see why you would bring Caribou crap up in the first place)
The fertility of Volcanic islands is an issue that I first brought up and conceded already to Bob,,, (Moreover, it is found that the historic Ethiopian glaciers radically transformed the Volcanic outcrops of the Ethiopian highlands which then supply nutrients to the Nile).
All in all, your attempted rebuttal, as is usual for atheists, is all bluff and bluster.
I seriously don’t see how you guys can personally tolerate being so pathetic!
BA77 @ 94: “… the insanity inherent to the atheistic worldview goes much much deeper than just these superficial disingenuous discussions of atheists here on UD.”
True indeed. These trolling a/mats are deluded to the point of lunacy.
To further back up Dr. Ross’s primary claim that glaciation was necessary to provide the nutrient rich soils that can sustain a large population of humans.
And here are Dr. Ross’s claims again:
Truth Will Set You Free,
Yes, you are right. The situation is truly unfortunate and sad. And all for what?
Even in this life, the benefits of believing far outweigh non-belief:
So just pragmatically, even in this life there simply is no coherent reason to so staunchly and stubbornly (and I might add dishonestly) cling to disbelief in the face of all contrary evidence.
Throw in the afterlife and the consequences become far, far, worse.
As Pascal made clear in his infamous wager,,,
,,, the pragmatic eternal benefits for betting on God far outweigh the eternal risks for betting against God.
And remember, Pascal made that infamous argument from pragmatism long before modern science revealed the reality of a higher heavenly dimension and of a hellish dimension,,,
,,, and also made the argument long before modern science discovered quantum biology which now gives us a firm ‘scientific’ basis for believing in an eternal soul that is capable of living past the death of the material body.
Indeed, Christianity itself, specifically the resurrection of Jesus Christ from death, finds a place at the head of the dinner table of modern science in that Jesus Christ’s resurrection from death provides an empirically backed reconciliation of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the much sought after ‘theory of everything’.
Thus, whist Pascal’s wager could have been argued to be a probability of 50/50 for the atheist and/or agnostic back in Pascal’s day, and therefore a extremely ‘pragmatic’ bet for the atheist and/or agnostic to make even then, today the 50/50 probability is simply shown to be non-existent for the atheist and/or agnostic. As far as our best science today can tell us, Pascal’s wager is a sure thing, and not a 50/50 chance!
If the atheist and/or agnostic has even one ounce of sanity left in his being, he should ‘pragmatically’ bet his life on God. And/or pray to God that he finds the willingness to bet his life on God.
Music and Verse:
ba77 @ 92 –
Moreover, I was originally satisfied to concede to you that glaciation may have played a somewhat negligible role in creating nutrient rich soils in tropical regions,
Thank you for finally acknowledging this. I guess you now see that this falsifies Ross’ thesis (if we’re going to get all Popperian about this). But then you write this:
But provide no evidence that the glaciation affects the Nile. Yes, some of the waters of the Nile come from the Ethiopian mountains. But not all of the water in the Ethiopian mountains flow into the Nile. Just like not all water that falls on the Rockies flows into the Pacific.
Bob you state:
Actually, Dr Ross’s thesis is that repeated glaciation was necessary to provide the nutrient rich soils of the plains in order for large populations of humans to exist.
That evidence is supplied in post 96.
The tropical regions, due to generally poor soil conditions, are unable to support the large populations of humans that we now have today.
Dr. Ross’s thesis is doing quite fine.
You then repeat your bald faced lie
And yet in post 86 and 88 evidence was presented of the Ethiopian Mountains being ‘extensively glaciated’ so much so that the “landscape as we see it today is the lava outpourings much modified by over 20 million years of erosion by water, wind and ice.”. And we also have evidence in 86 and 88 that the Blue Nile contributes about 85% to the flow of the Nile River, and further evidence that “Melting snow and heavy summer rain within the Ethiopian Mountains sent the torrent of water causing the banks on the River Nile in Egypt to overflow in this flat desert land.”
Thus, to my surprise, glaciation was found to play a key role in the tropical region of the Nile also in so far as providing nutrient rich soils.
And even then the Nile region could hardly be expected to feed the large human population on Earth today. For that, as Dr. Ross pointed out, the repeated glaciation of the northern latitudes was required in order to provide large swaths of nutrient rich soils for the plains (post 96)’
To repeat, Dr. Ross’s claim is doing very well, whereas your claim, despite your repeated lying and trying to shift the goal posts, is far worse than what I had originally expected.
bs77 – you’re just not getting it, are you? Just because the Ethiopian mountains had glaciers doesn’t mean they feed into the Nile.
Look at the Rockie mountains, for example. Some of the water that falls on them flows east, to end up in the Gulf of Mexico (e.g. via the Mississippi). Some flows west, into the Pacific. So you can’t simply say that there is water on the Rockies, therefore it flows into the Mississippi.
We have exactly the same thing with the Nile. Just because there are glaciers in the Ethiopian mountains doesn’t mean that the water from them flows into the Nile. Some water from those mountains flows east, into the Indian ocean.
Thus, it is not enough to establish that glaciers affected the Ethiopian mountains. You also have to show that they affected the parts of the mountain range that feeds the Nile. You haven’t (yet) made that connection.
Yes I have made the connection,,,, post 88.
I certainly would not have called you a bald faced liar and questioned your sanity unless I had made the connection.
Further connections:
ba77 @ 101 – no you haven’t. You are getting closer, though.
Yes I have,, repeatedly now. I’m not dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s for you. You made the claim. Do your own homework.,,, Hint some of the mountains that feed the Blue Nile are listed in the first link. You can even find the studies for glaciation in different mountains from that link and from the previous link.
Anyways, my point was made that you were lying waay back when it was revealed that the entire Ethiopian range was ‘extensively glaciated’.
After that fact, IMHO you were and are just being a jerk in demanding further detail from me for an unsubstantiated claim that you made in the first place.
It is not on to me to prove YOUR claim. Only to disprove it. And that is done to my satisfaction.
I could personally care less if you want to hold on to lies.
It is not like there is much I can do about that anyway.
ba77 – yes, you do need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. You made the claim that glaciers are necessary for fertile soils – you need to back it up.
Of course, it’s so much easier to tell people that they are insane/liars/jerks etc.
No I don’t need to.
Moreover, I did not call people insane.
I, for the good reason that your worldview is in fact barking mad insane, called You and Allan and all other atheists insane for believing it.
I called YOU specifically a liar for, well, blatantly lying in the face of presented evidence, and then called you a jerk for being overly anally retentive on a point that is already made from at least two different angles now. And moreover, is a point I could care less if you personally accept or not.
I am more than satisfied that the unbiased reader can clearly see who is being fair with the evidence and who is being severely disingenuous with it (i.e being a jerk in common parlance)
ba77 @ 106 – wow. Just wow. You are now saying that Allan and I are not people.
I guess we’re done here.
No Bob, atheists themselves (al least those who are honest with their materialism) claim they are not people but are merely neuronal illusions.
I just took them up on their claim. i.e. Atheists are not ‘persons’ according to the materialistic premises of Darwinian evolution! 🙂
If you are going to be offended at anything, then be righteously offended at your very own worldview that forces you to believe, if you are honest, such insane nonsense.
But then again, you have an issue with honesty don’t you!
You guys are just overgrown fetuses. How dare you imagine you are people.
Andrew
BS77,
Christians themselves (at least those who are honest with their faith) claim that homosexuals should be castrated. Therefore, all christians must believe that homosexuals should be castrated. What gives you the right to force castration on homosexuals?
See, it is easy to tell others how they must think. It is much harder, and more mature, to accept that others honestly believe what they say and provide logic, reason and evidence to counter their opinions. It is the latter that I see lacking in your irrational hatred of atheists. All I see is an attempt to caricaturize atheists/materialists and thereby justify disregarding anything they have to say.
Your argument here with Bob O’H is a prime example. You are disagreeing with Bob O’H over whether or not fertile soil requires glaciation. How his lack of faith or his materialism plays into this I fail to see. Both sides of the argument are materialist arguments. Either glaciation, a purely physical/material process, is required for the production of fertile soil or it is not.
Allan,
Invariably, a/mats arrive with bluster and leave having said very little which could be considered meaningful or helpful.
Andrew
ba77 writes,
I call bull. A few people have made the remark about neuronal illusions. However many others see the situation differently. And this business about “honest with themselves” is all bull: who are you to tell someone that you know better, and more honestly, what they think than they do themselves? You may disagree with them – that’s fine – but the “honest with themselves” bit is arrogant bs.
</rant>
And I now read 110 by Allan: much nicer way to say what I was trying to say.
Allan Keith states:
Really??? Please provide the exact verse from Jesus where he said to castrate homosexuals. ,,,, There was a fake meme going around that said that Billy Graham said that but, as usual from atheistic attacks on Christians, it was found to be a lie that was without merit.
Lesson? Don’t believe everything you read on the internet Allan!,, (especially when an atheist says it about Christianity!)
As to Atheistic Materialists denying the reality of their own personhood, well that follows directly from the premises of materialism itself.
Either matter is primary and mind is derivative, or else Mind is primary and matter is derivative.
Simply put, as a materialist you forsake the entire concept of ‘personhood’.
If you want to claim that you are a real person with real moral duties and responsibilities (i.e. with real free will), then you must adopt Theism as a coherent anchor for your worldview.
The option of being a real person with real moral duties and responsibilities (i.e. with real free will) is simply unavailable to you on your materialistic premises.
You then claimed that I ‘irrationally’ hate atheists. You are imagining things once again. Like you imagining that you are a real person.
There are no atheists to hate! They don’t exist! 🙂
Moreover, since atheists deny free will they forsake rationality altogether.
Then ever thing an atheist does must ultimately be based on the ‘irrational’ randomness of colliding atoms.
Thus what I actually hate is I hate the actions of ‘irrational’ automatons who think they really exist as real persons. I do not hate the irrational automatons themselves.
A few notes:
Due to advances in quantum mechanics, the argument for God from consciousness can now be framed like this:
Verse:
Materialism plays a role because it can’t even account for the matter and energy of the universe, let alone this planet and fertile soil.
jdk:
So what? You don’t seem to be ware of anything.
Without Intelligent Design what, besides sheer dumb luck, do you have to explain the existence of neurons? Let’s see who is being honest here, Jack.
AK @ 110: Homosexuality is indeed considered a sin, a perversion, and a form of sexual immorality in the Bible. But nowhere have I found a passage calling for castration of homosexuals. Can you cite one?
Also, if a/mats were honest they would admit that in an a/mat world there is nothing objectively wrong with murder, robbery, conquest, slavery, forced prostitution, etc.
Allan is probably wrong about the Bible calling for castration of homosexuals, I think.
However, I think the general point is valid: a whole group of people can’t be held responsible for every position held by every member of that group. More realistically, for instance, some Christians object to all forms of contraception. Are all Christians who don’t object “not being honest with themselves”, or are these just disagreements among people who share some, but not all beliefs?
ba write,
Once again, as usual, ba assumes that his definition of something (in this case, “real person”) is the definitive correct definition, and includes in his definition the very conclusions he wishes to assume follow from that definition.
This is circular reasoning that insulates him completely from from having a rational discussion with someone who holds a different view.
TWSYF
I never said that it was in the bible. I was just using BS77’s own rationale for claiming that atheists believe that people are neuronal illusions. He bases this on what a few atheists have said and stupidly extrapolates this to all atheists. I assure you that I have heard several christians say that homosexuals should be castrated. By BS77 logic, this means that all christians must believe this. Or do you disagree with BS77?
TWSYF,
I don’t believe that they are objectively wrong. But that is a different discussion.
BA77,
It’s right next to the exact verse where Jesus said that homosexuality was a sin. 🙂
Good point, Allan: I mistakenly assumed that you were invoking the Bible, rather than just the beliefs of a subset of Christians. My bad.
jdk, I assume nothing. I let the premises of materialism itself dictate what follows.
The premises of materialism itself dictate that consciousness and/or mind is derivative from matter.
How might material particles go about generating the self awareness of consciousness nobody has a clue and is referred to as the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness.
Atheists, although not having any clue, much less experimental evidence, how consciousness may arise from matter, take it as an act of supreme blind faith that matter must somehow generate consciousness.
Whereas the Christian Theist does not suffer from such embarrassing disconnect with experimental evidence.
The Christian Theist can reference, as already mentioned in post 114, numerous lines of evidence from quantum mechanics which strongly indicate that Consciousness must precede material reality.
Here is one of my favorite experiments supporting the Christian Theist’s position that Mind must precede material reality. The “Wheeler Delayed Choice” experiment that was done with atoms instead of photons.
In regards to the preceding experiment, in the following article Margaret Wertheim notes that consciousness is only a problem for modern day materialists and that consciousness never was a problem for Medieval philosophy. (A predominately Christian philosophy in Medieval Europe which, I might add, gave rise to modern science in the first place)
As to the fact that materialism itself entails that personhood is an illusion, can you scientifically prove to me that you really are a real person and are not just a zombie going through the motions of being a real person?
If you can’t experimentally prove to me scientifically that you really are self aware, then exactly how am I to know with 100% assurance that really are a real person and are not just a zombie going through the motions of personhood?
You see jdk, I know for 100% fact that I really do exist as a real person, but there is no way for you to ever scientifically prove to me that you really exist as a real person and that you are not just a ‘philosophical zombie’ going through the motions of being a real person!
Such as it is with the atheist’s refusal to ever accept any evidence for the personhood of God.
As Alvin Plantinga pointed out years ago in “God and Other Minds”, “the evidence for God is just as good as the evidence for other minds; and conversely, if there isn’t any evidence for God, then there is also no evidence that other minds exist,,,”
BS77,
Can you?
jdk:
So bornagain77 is an evolutionist?
That is what evos do every day
Allan:
I can assure everyone that Allan Keith is a pathological liar that will say anything.
Allan:
Yes, he can. Just not to you and yours because you don’t know anything
as to post 125:
It is a problem for materialism not Theism. Theism starts out with the presupposition that the immaterial Mind of God is real and that our individual immaterial minds are real as well. Only under materialism is the reality of immaterial mind questioned.
The ‘philosophical zombie’ problem highlights this distinction between the two philosophies rather well.
Moreover, to even suggest consciousness could be an illusion (as many leading materialistic philosophers do) requires the immaterial mind to first contemplate the fact that it could be an illusion.
i.e. For what does the illusion occur?
As Descartes pointed out, he could doubt everything else existed except for the fact that he was there to do the doubting in the first place.
i.e. “I think therefore I am”
Simply put, consciousness is the required presupposition of all other presuppositions.
And again, unlike materialists, it is not like the Christian Theist does not have abundant evidence for his belief that Mind is primary and matter is derivative
It is interesting to note that the atheists here on UD fight tooth and nail against the materialistic belief, (stated by many leading atheistic philosophers no less), that they are merely neuronal illusions. But, on the other hand, they have no problem whatsoever swallowing hook, line, and sinker all the many other ‘illusory’ consequences of their materialistic worldview.,
,, to repeat,,,
Thus, Darwinists have lost any coherent basis for reality and are, in fact, adrift in a world of illusions and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab onto.
It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science than Atheistic Materialism has turned out to be.
BA77, so the answer to my question is no. You could have said it in far fewer words.
AK, you do realize that to scientifically prove the genesis of consciousness from matter is to scientifically validate materialism and to scientifically falsify Theism don’t you???
Or has that little detail escaped your attention in you zeal to find some sort of ‘gotcha’ moment against the precepts of Christianity?
Pathetic!
BA77,
Finally, something we can agree on
Of related note to Theism being falsifiable,,,
There you go AK, prove the genesis of consciousness from matter and you will have falsified Theism and proven that materialism is ‘talking about reality’ instead of talking about neuronal illusions!
And of related note to Materialism and/or Darwinian evolution being basically unfalsifiable (at least in the minds of Darwinists)
Wading into discussion with ba …
Let start with this. ba writes at 130.
First, I find it interesting that disagreeing with ba is seen by him as “fighting tooth and nail”. I’ll let others think about whatever psychological explanations for that there might be.
More importantly, as we have tried to point out to ba, although he does not respond, the fact that there are some famous people who have made statements about “neuronal illusions” does not mean that every one with the same general philosophical position as those people has to agree with what those famous people have said, or are obligated to defend them.
However, ba’s standard response to other views is to merely quote those same people over and over again, which is not an argument.
=========
ba writes at 124,
We discussed this recently in a post by Barry. I think there was agreement that no one can be sure that everyone else isn’t a zombie, but that is no more a useful position than Last Thursdayism or solipsism (both of which are incapable of being refuted), and that it is much more reasonable to assume that other people are like us and have internal conscious experiences just as we do.
So, ba, I know for a 100% fact that my own conscious experience is real, but you can’t possible prove, scientifically or otherwise, that you are not a “philosophical zombie” going through the outward motions of saying you believe in God. You have absolutely no privileged position in regards to this silly issue.
========
In 124 he also writes,
I find that a completely uncompelling argument. There is a tremendous amount of empirical evidence that other people are very much like me in their biological existence, and so the most reasonable assumption is that they also have internal experiences like I do, especially since they all claim, for what that’s worth, that they do have such experiences, and their descriptions of those experiences are much like mine. As stated above, this can’t be “scientifically proven”, but no one doubts it.
On the other hand, God is an idea that some people have, but there is no common empirical experience of God (one that all people easily and voluntarily describe as they do their own consciousness), no common conception of God, and no process by which to investigate which ideas of God might be “true.”
Plantinga’s assertion that “the evidence for God is just as good as the evidence for other minds”, is extremely faulty for all practical purposes, and philosophically empty: if we have no way to know that other people might not be zombies, are we justified in likewise concluding that God might also be a zombie?
========
In 123, ba again refers to David Chalmers and the hard problem of consciousness, and links to a video of Chalmers discussing this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5DfnIjZPGw.
I have twice pointed out to ba, and again he has never responded, that there is a hard problem for theism as well as materialism:
1) In materialism, the problem is how do the material activities of the nervous system give rise to consciousness.
2) For dualisms in general, and theism in general, the hard problem is how does the immaterial mind interact with the physical world to cause it to be different without manifesting any noticeable deviations from what appear as natural processes. More concretely, when I think about moving my arm, how does that thought “touch” the material brain to set off the cascade of biological actions that are necessary for my arm to move.
3. In the video, Chalmers says he himself favors a position that is perhaps close to my own position: that of panpsychism. This is not a materialist position, but neither is it a theistic “mind of God” position. The idea is that consciousness, at some elemental level, is a fundamental aspect of the universe, in a way analogous to that of energy and matter; and that just as elementary particles can coalesce into larger integrated bodies (stars, tornadoes, human beings), elementary consciousness coalesces into an integrated whole in a human being.
I assure you this view also has hard problems, but I mention it for two reasons. First, because it is an alternative to ba’s dichotomous position that either mind precedes matter or matter precedes mind: panpsychism is a position where consciousness and “matter” are complementary duals, each of whose functioning depends on the concomitant existence of the other.
The second reason I mention it is because, since ba is so fond of quoting people like Coyne et al, as if that made a difference, he might fully quote Chalmers sometime as thinking panpsychism is worth consideration.
========
Last issue: quantum mechanics (QM)
ba is fond of invoking QM as conclusive evidence for God. I am a reasonably well educated person about QM, at the popular science level. I understand, or at least know about, (although I know no one can say they really “understand” QM) the double split experiment, the delayed choice experiments, quantum entanglement, etc. I have no idea to what extent ba really knows about QM beyond the level I do, or whether he mostly has a large collection of quotes about QM that he has collected to support his theism.
First, I don’t think QM necessarily supports theism, or even necessarily “refutes” materialism. QM has taught us that the material world is vastly different than the old Newtonian worldview, based on our macro-experience, of substantial “things (matter) subject to forces, and possessing, somehow “energy”. The material world, at it’s core, is a ineffable probablistic primal underlayment that manifests itself as matter, energy, and force at the macro level. This itself doesn’t refute materialism: it just changes our understanding of the physical world (and perhaps necessitates a different term.)
I understand that one of the mysteries of QM is the role of an observer, and that some physicist/philosphers (Wheeler, for instance) believe that QM is evidence for the primacy of mind. However, there are other interpretations, with no definitive consensus: this is another hard problem.
However, it seems to me reasonable that QM could easily fit into a panpsychism metaphysics, where consciousness exists, in a panpsychic sense, in every quantum event, as part of whatever underlies the transition into matter and energy, and thus human consciousness is a manifestation of this underlying panpsychic consciousness as it condenses in the human brain. Chalmers mentions this in the video ba posted as the hard problem of panpsychism, although he doesn’t mention QM. And Roger Penrose has made suggestions about consciousness being an effect of QM.
These are all just speculations: no one has any idea how to investigate them, and they may lie outside our ability to empirically investigate.
But my main point is that they don’t inevitably, conclusively, or even necessarily support the idea of a theistic God (much less the Christian one).
========
Final note to ba. If you decide to respond, I am interesting to see if you could do so without all your standards quotes from other people. I have made a lot of specific points, and perhaps those are ones that you, personally, could respond to. Just a thought.
Jdk,
That’s like voluntarily wading into four feet of manure. Very fertile ground, but it takes days to get that stink of shit off you. 🙂
Hi Allan, and hmmm. Back at 110 you made a nice response to ba77. However, I think 136 is not so good: I certainly didn’t intend for my first comment to be derogatory like that. I was thinking more about the length of his posts and their reliance on recycled quotes from people that aren’t involved in the discussion, and that I was going to take the time to scan through his posts and address a number of issues.
BS77,
What makes you think that I am trying to falsify theism?
But, using your own logic, if mind from matter is derivative, mind from designer is also derivative. One is derived from matter and the other is derived from design. Therefore, by your own argument, theists are also neuronal illusions. Don’t blame me for taking your premise to its logical conclusion. And, being an illusion, your opinions are worth no more than those of your average schizophrenic or hallucinogenic drug addict.
Jdk@137, I agree. I sometimes go for the sarcastic response over the more nuanced one. And I apologize for that. But I couldn’t resist equating BA77’s scroll ball killing comments with deep piles of manure. There may be fertile ground in them, but does anyone really want to sift through piles of dung to get to the rare gem? Damn, was that sarcasm again? I really have to work on that. Maybe a 12 step program. 🙂
jdk at 135,
1. again, the concept of ‘neuronal illusions’ is a direct result of materialistic premises. I assume nothing but take materialistic premises to their logical end, (i.e. if materialism is true atheists are neuronal illusions and are not persons). Having leading materialistic philosophers honestly agree with me on the direct implications of their materialistic philosophy is merely icing on the cake.
2. jdk, you dismiss the ‘philosophical zombie’ argument with a wave of your hand but fail to see that the philosophical zombie’ argument underscores the fact that materialistic premises do indeed lead to the conclusion that people do not really exist but are merely ‘neuronal illusions’. Only under Theism, as Alvin Plantinga pointed out in “God and Other Minds”, are we justified in believing that, not only our own, but other minds are real and that they exist.
3. You claim that,,
Unsurprisingly, you are wrong once again in your claim. God, like the belief in other people’s minds, is a ‘properly basic belief’ which all people, including atheists, share.
And in confirmation of Plantinga’s argument that belief in God is a properly basic belief, studies now establish that the design inference is ‘knee jerk’ inference that is built into everyone, especially including atheists, and that atheists have to mentally suppress their very own design inference!
It is not that Atheists do not see purpose and/or Design in nature, it is that Atheists, for whatever severely misguided reason, live in denial of the purpose and/or Design that they themselves see in nature.
I hold the preceding studies to be confirming evidence for Romans1:19-20
You go on to state that the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness is also hard for Theism. (I’m glad I wasn’t drinking coffee when I read that because I would have spit it out laughing.)
Unlike the evidence-free claims from materialists that matter can give rise to conscious experience, there is abundant evidence that the immaterial mind does indeed interact with the material brain.
ba77 @ 140 –
It might help if you spelled out what you think those material premises are. I certainly son’t see how the logic flows from my own materialistic premises, but I might be missing something.
You go on, in 135, to try to defend panpsychism. Ironically, you fail to notice that your appeal to panpsychism, directly after claiming the hard problem of consciousness was a hard problem for Theism to, underscores the fact that the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness is, in fact, a irreconcilably hard problem for materialism (and thus directly undermines the argument you had just made). (Atheists definitely need lessons on basic logic, but then again, it is impossible to logically defend a worldview that is insane in its premises)
But anyways, despite all your bluff and bluster about understanding Quantum Mechanics, and how you believe that quantum mechanics is not really that much of a problem for materialism (which is a laughable claim), the fact of the matter is that quantum mechanics, beside undermining materialistic claims, undermines panpsychic claims as well. Panpsychism basically holds that consciousness is co-terminus with material reality on some (il-defined) level. Whereas quantum mechanics strongly indicates, from multiple lines of experimental evidence, that consciousness must precede material reality.
Only Theism makes the claim that consciousness, (i.e. the Mind of God), precedes material reality.
Verse:
As to AK at 138:
And there you have it folks,,, the shining, self-refuting, logic of atheists for all to see.
According to AK’s logic, my mind being created by the Mind of God means that my mind must be an illusion. 🙂
And again, for what exactly is this ‘illusion of mind’ occurring?
Of related note,,, as to further establishing exactly what is real and what is illusory, in the following study, materialistic researchers who had a bias against Near Death Experiences being real, set out to prove that they were ‘false memories’, (i.e. illusions), by setting up a clever questionnaire that could differentiate which memories a person had were real and which memories a person had were merely imaginary.
They did not expect the results they got: to quote the headline ‘Afterlife’ feels ‘even more real than real”
Exactly how is it possible for something to become even ‘more real than real’ in a NDE unless the infinite Mind of God truly is the basis for all reality, and this material reality we presently live in, as is claimed in Christianity, really is just a shadow of the heavenly paradise that awaits us after death?
And since Christianity has ALWAYS claimed that the infinite Mind of God sustains all of material reality in its continued existence,,,
,,, then on Christianity this ‘more real than real’ finding is expected whereas, once again, materialism is found to be at a complete loss to explain why this should happen.
BO’H (et al):
Let’s put JBS Haldane on the table.
Yes, THAT JBS Haldane:
The rhetorical pretence that materialism reducing mind to delusion is not a serious issue fails.
Fails in a context where it has been raised any number of times here at UD and elsewhere, which makes me suspicious of the onward use of the oh it’s these dubious IDiots style of argument.
Let me be blunt: if you are unwilling to acknowledge a serious issue, in pursuit of imagined rhetorical advantages, evo mat advocates and fellow travellers, you are failing duties of care to truth.
KF
PS: Pearcey and Gray:
Serving evolutionary success rather than truth (= accurate perception/description of reality as it is) is another way to say, grand delusion. Self-referentially incoherent grand delusion on mindedness.
PPS: Alex Rosenberg, Atheist’s guide to reality
This one is pretty direct.
PPPS: More,
******
Evolutionary materialistic scientism is necessarily self referentially incoherent and self falsifying by way of absurdity of undermining reason itself. Insofar as its fellow travellers seek to fit in with it and go with the flow, they too become absurd. Where, too, estimates of the age of the earth, sol system, galaxy, observed cosmos and world of life or even questions on common descent and mechanisms for such have little or nothing to do with this.
We are also free to examine the very significant question as to whether the world of life and the cosmos as a whole bear in them traces from the past of origins that per inductive investigation can be deemed strong signs of design. Where, functionally specific complex organisation and associated information and the evident fine tuning of the cosmos from big bang singularity forward that places the world at a locally deeply isolated operating point that enables C-chemistry cell based aqueous medium life are key focal cases.
As to the existence of God, the mere fact of responsible rational freedom on our part in a world such as we contemplate is sufficient to point to a necessary being root of the cosmos, and to demand a ground of reality that is sufficient to also found moral government by the force of ought.
There is but one serious candidate for such an IS that also grounds OUGHT: the inherently good Creator God, a necessary and maximally great being, worthy of ultimate loyalty and the reasonable responsible service of doing the good in accord with our nature.
And, again, that is independent of the age of the cosmos.
P^4S: Ruse and Wilson — and I here emphasise the moral side of the delusion. But the mere fact that reasoning is governed by duty to truth, justice, prudence and more suffices to show there are no handy firewalls to confine the delusions that follow from evolutionary materialism:
jdk:
Back up, Jack. With materialism you need to account for the matter and energy of the universe and you cannot. All materialism has to explain anything is sheer dumb luck
And speaking of global warming-> thanks for the 5 month winter.
I ended my post at 135 by writing,
Looks like ba can’t do this. I don’t understand the appeal of copy-and-pasting from a library of quotes, but it is not a productive means of discussion.
I will now wade back out.
jdk:
Where?
In re JDK, 135:
BA77, 140:
I observe again, JDK, 151:
Per fair comment, JDK here has set up and knocked over a strawman caricature; in the process, failing to respond to a core point as I highlighted from BA77. And in particular it is entirely legitimate in argument to cite an expewrt or key representative making a key point — especially a telling admission against interest.
The issue on the table (as J B S Haldane long since pointed out) is the dynamics of computation vs the substance of meaningful, ground and consequent reasoning. Where, a computational substrate is inherently a mechanical, cause-effect dynamical system with some stochastic factors also. Certain environmental or internal structures and contingent variables trigger dynamic-stochastic, cause-effect processes in a chain, yielding an output state or sequence of states. This holds for digital machines, it holds for analogue ones, it holds for so-called neural networks. I most recently discussed this here at UD in connexion with memristors (and memtransistors).
The direct consequence of this, is that we have mechanical and/or statistical processes at work with no necessary connexion to meaning, truth, prudence, moral considerations and values, etc. Computation simply is not the same sort of thing as rational contemplation. Categorically distinct.
So, we may freely challenge evolutionary materialists and fellow travellers, not only to account for the organisation, information, GIGO challenge and the like in the wetware processors in our bodies but also to bridge to reason, insightful inference made per ground and consequent and/or inductive framing of well grounded inferences.
Emergence or the like are nowhere near good enough. And in particular, running in circles from matter is all to somehow mind transcends matter to achieve contemplative, truth knowing morally governed rationality and back to somehow the latter must have emerged from the former is just that: circular argument. Indeed, Haldane’s point obtains with double-force — and take this as an endorsement of a point that I hold to be here aptly addressed and expressed in a few powerful, telling words . . . not a mere empty appeal to authority:
This is an argument and issue I have addressed here at UD for 12 years, and beyond in my own right for over thirty years since I saw how evolutionary materialist scientism is self referentially self-falsifying.
Here is Reppert, in a point which I also endorse:
That is the point some leading advocates of evolutionary materialism and fellow travellers see and have no serious answer to.
Now, JDK goes on to:
Translated, the whole world is minded, presumably from wavicles and spacetime itself on up. So, whose mind lies at the root of reality?
That does not sit very well with JDK’s onward:
We all experience mind, which points to Mind as its root, indeed the pantheistic panpsychism in your above directly leads there.
The Zombie issue of course is that once you lock us down to matter and computation, you have locked in a vast array of problems linked to its self-contradiction. Zombification leads to we are zombies, delusional software riding on a neural network of dubious origin unrelated to truth, logic or duty to same. GIGO obtains and shreds the whole.
Self-refutation.
A better start is to realise we cannot be in grand delusion though we may have specific errors. Then, we can reason to: matter cannot ground mind, this implies Mind at the root of reality. With, moral government indicating the same in that root.
We are at a world framed by the inherently good creator God, a necessary, maximally great being, worthy of loyalty and the responsible, reasonable service of doing the good in accord with our evident nature.
KF
kairosfocus @ 144
Why?
Argument from incredulity much?
The claim that materialism reduces mind to delusion fails.
kairosfocus @ 145
And, as we have pointed out a number of times before, Pearcey’s argument only stands if truth-tracking and survival-tracking are different. If one maps exactly to the other or they at least mostly overlap then her argument falls as there is no contradiction.
kairosfocus @ 146
Rosenberg doesn’t speak for all atheists, certainly not for this a/mat.
Seversky, you are not addressing cogently the dynamical issues at stake, on computational substrates and processing of signals or rather variables. Computation is a blindly mechanical process, with the intelligence external to the raw mechanical and stochastic behaviour of elements as they act on signals, such that organisation, signal structures and scaling etc are key to useful results. And, so that GIGO rules. At least JDK has posited consciousness as part of core reality so that all things are to some extent conscious. Pause to reflect on Reppert especially. KF
I didn’t posit “consciousness as part of core reality” if by that you mean endorse that idea. I mentioned it primarily because Chalmers, who ba invoked concerned the hard problem of consciousness, tends to lean towards panpsychism as a favored metaphysic. My main point is that there are a variety of metaphysics that have some type of hard problem with consciousness.
Also, panpsychism claims that matter and mind are inextricably entangled, so the idea of a Cosmic disembodied mind, as in theism, is not compatible with, or implied by, panpsychism.
Note, JDK, 135:
I started from there and began a response. More should follow when I have time and energy. It’s budget season here.
For the moment, I just highlight that consciousness is an aspect of personhood, mindedness, and if consciousness pervades space and time and matter, then we are looking at a cosmic, foundational mind; never mind attempts to imagine a sort of lego-brick assembly of higher mindedness.
Other issues follow from here on out.
KF
kf writes,
If you listen to Chalmers, his idea is not that a unified consciousness pervades space and time, but that, yes indeed, consciousness in little bits (quanta, if you like, although he doesn’t use that word) exists as a part of each fundamental physical particle. And, yes, he envisions these quanta of consciousness aggregating into a larger whole in a mind in a way analogous to elementary particles aggregating into physical objects.
JDK,
we are about to embark on a phil discussion, if you want to go down this line.
A few sketchy initial thoughts.
A good place to begin is to ask what it means to be conscious — self-aware, but to have a self, a distinct unit of identity.
Then try to assemble a larger conscious self like we are by bringing together a cloud of conscious components.
The emergence issue lurks, we are back at poof-magic.
And BTW, above I did not suggest that Chalmers-/JDK- style pan-psychism asserts that one unified consciousness pervades space, time, matter, energy but that the phenomenon is attached to that which is a component of same. Perhaps, my wording was not very clear.
I can add, though, that if there is a “natural” emergence by accumulation, then one would have to have a pretty good reason to explain how conscious entities would not fuse to a unified grand consciousness. And if they don’t cohere and unite, then emergence is dead, back to square one.
So, which is it?
We can try to restrict the scope of fundamentally conscious elementary “particles” but then that comes back to we have a partly mental, partly purely mechanical world. That seems to be where Chalmers has gone. As for JDK, the border between the two persons is fuzzy; unexplained.
So, do we really want to run down yet another abstruse rabbit-trail?
KF
jdk @160
What Chalmers fails to understand is that consciousness cannot be a composite. A simple example illustrates the problem:
Take a sentence of a dozen words, and take 12 men and tell to each one word. Then stand the men in a row or jam them in a bunch, and let each think of his word as intently as he wills; nowhere will there be a consciousness of the whole sentence.
In order to support his erroneous belief in composite consciousness Chalmers refers to scientific evidence:
He doesn’t reference his claim, but here at UD we all know what it is about (Sperry and Gazzaniga). And we also know that Chalmer’s claim is bogus.
As a preface to some thoughts on panpsychism, kf writes,
Well, obviously, kf, you can choose to discuss this or not. However, given that the discussion is about the metaphysics of how might consciousness be a part of the universe, discussing panpsychism in this regard is no more (or no less) a rabbit hole than discussing a universal mind such as God. Many people consider all metaphysics a useless rabbit hole, but I like thinking about it despite my thoughts about the nature of that enterprise.
However, I appreciate your few sketchy thoughts.
You write,
Not under panpsychism. In panpsychism, some elemental form of consciousness (or whatever better word might describe this additional component), exists as co-equal, concomitant aspect of every elemental particle. We would not say, however, that every such particle is self-aware, or has a sense of self. It is only when those particles aggregate in (as far as we know) a living being does awareness of an integrated whole organism start to appear (although we also don’t know at what level of animal that starts to happen, and what gradations of awareness there might be.)
Also, of course, we have no idea how this might happen: that is the hard problem that Chalmers identifies for panpsychism, but he also identifies hard problems for materialism and mind/matter dualisms such as theism.
In theism, consciousness does imply a self, because theism posits a integrated universal mind as opposed to the decentralized quantamized model of panpsychism.
So your “good place to start” is a starting point for theism, but not a good general place to start that includes the alternative hypothesis of panpsychism
You write,
The first phrase is true, but it is just as true of the physical world: the things of the physical world emerge from the elementary particles. I don’t think anyone thinks that the creation of the elements inside stars is “poof magic”, even though those elements emerge from interactions of the elementary particles.
You write,
I appreciate the clarification. I think we are clear, are we not, that panpsychism is about something else (consciousness or some more elemental precursor), but not about any cosmic unified disembodied mind.
You write,
No, because, since consciousness is concomitant with matter, conscious entities would not “fuse into” one without the associated matter fusing so as to act as an integrated organism, and that doesn’t happen.
Yes, panpsychism is a philosophy where the world is partly mental/partly physical. However, it is not a dualistic philosophy like theism: the mental and the physical exist simultaneously and in a complementary fashion. It is not possible for them to exist separately.
And last, you write,
I don’t understand this sentence, unless it is referring back to a “unified grand consciousness”, which I think I have explained is not possible in panpsychism.
What about ‘energy?’ Does that contain “some elemental form of consciousness” as well?
What then is the status of consciousness at the time of the Big Bang, when there were no elemental particles?
If consciousness is cumulative, does it follow that large organisms (like the whale) are more aware then relatively small ones (like us)?
One problem with panpsychism is its limited explanatory power wrt life and cosmos. Sure, it is an attempt to explain human consciousness, but it cannot explain the involvement of consciousness in the coming into existence of life itself let alone the (fine-tuned) universe.
So, panpsychism needs life in order to explain self-aware experience. Again, from this it follows that there can be no conscious intelligent designer of life.
Therefore it seems illogical to me that atheist Thomas Nagel arrives at panpsychism. First he argues that it is (very) unlikely that life came about by blind Darwinian processes, and next he suggests that panpsychism can hold some ‘design-like-alternative’? However if one needs life in order to have a self-aware intelligent designer, then what good is panpsychism as an explanation for life?
JDK,
I spoke in the context of recent complaints emanating from the penumbra of skeptics, that UD is highlighting more of philosophical rather than scientific issues. My own view is the two are inextricably intertwined especially where origins and fundamental issues are involved.
With budget season here at peak for now, I will for the moment just give outline remarks. (After all, I have an underlying intent to take back up the AI issue, which is also key background.)
In this case, panpsychism in effect implies that consciousness/ mindedness is an integral aspect of a material world, perhaps as magnetism is present with particles and space, interacting and accumulating into all sorts of phenomena. And indeed the concept of mind as a field of influence is a longstanding concept in psychology.
The issues I have outlined instantly obtain, and tell decisively.
If space-time and matter-energy entities are associated with a mind-field so to speak, then we already have a universal mind inextricably intertwined with a physical world. Panpsychism becomes a type of pantheism or the variant, panentheism. This then moves the discussion to pantheism and its close relatives. On which, we find the issue that the problem of the one and the many, unity and diversity including the issue of good vs evils, becomes decisive. As backdrop, the logic of being is such that were there ever utter nothing, such having no causal powers, that would forever obtain; that a world is, implies that SOMETHING always was. On the above, this then leads straight to eternal mind.
Where also, the nature of mindedness and consciousness is that such is inherently unified, inherently volitional and free entity. This, is on pain of undermining responsible, rational freedom and rendering argument useless, as forces that are essentially material would drive the result on cause-effect bonds, not lead through insightful reason and ground-consequent inference or the like. Mind has to be sufficiently independent to be free and sufficiently capable of interaction with the material to account for our own responsible, rational freedom. Or else we are immediately in self-referential absurdity that renders discussion pointless.
The alternative, and that seems to be where Chalmers is, is that some entities are minded, others are not. This then leads to the point that mind is now distinct from the physical cosmos, radically undermining the force of panpsychism.
I should add that the dualism and dichotomy of theism have been greatly exaggerated. Exaggerated to the point where there is a needless debate over how could mind or spirit ever interact with the mechanical-stochastic world of physical entities. BTW, this rather reminds me of some debates in macroeconomics, especially where the rational, free agent and his/her expectations become important.
The theistic vision is, and has always been that the world is the free creation of God, and so matter is undergirded and sustained by mind. In speaking to the Athenians at Mars Hill c. 50 AD, Paul cited a pagan poet, that we are his offspring, and again, that in him we live and move and have our being. Likewise, here is a spokesman for the school of Paul, writing to the Hebrews:
So, eternal mind is on the table, and its sustaining of all things is on the table.
The need to address the one and the many, providing coherent unity that has room for diversity including that moral diversity we describe on good vs evil, and giving our own mindedness with responsible rational freedom due significance, is now on the table.
That complex balance puts Christian, trinitarian theism on the table as the option to beat. Probe Ministries, long ago now, put the point thusly:
A note for reflection, for now, just to keep a stall open in the marketplace of worldviews level ideas.
Focus is elsewhere, given the budget season.
KF
Seversky:
The claim that materialism can account for the mind fails