Humanist philosopher James Croft goes after Steve Meyer’s Return of God Hypothesis

_{Denyse O'Leary

June 23, 2021

Books of interest, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, theism

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But in an interesting, traditional way (no Cancel Culture, no weirdness, no hysterics):

James Croft is with the Humanist Community at Harvard:

It was sponsored by the group Christian Heritage in Cambridge, England. The conversation is very genial but Dr. Croft offers a strong and aggressive critique about the nature of abductive inferences, and more. His three main points are what he calls the “Background Knowledge Problem,” the “Fallacy of Suppressed Evidence,” and that, as he sees it, the “Totality of Evidence Favors Naturalism.” I would say Meyer responds to these handily. But it was helpful to see him do so.
Croft is charming as an interlocutor, and he did his homework. He even read Steve’s Cambridge PhD thesis. He absorbed the case that Meyer makes in Return of the God Hypothesis and while accepting the science (just for the sake of argument!), he doesn’t concede the philosophy, even as he speaks its language.
David Klinghoffer, “A Philosopher Takes on Meyer’s God Hypothesis” at Evolution News and Science Today

Comments

AD @75, I'm not sure why you posted all of that. Okay, the Bible was written by a supernatural agency. Let's say it was written by the Christian God. How does any of that explain the non-Christian NDEs? How does that address your refusal to address the non-Christian NDES? Looks like you are just avoiding the evidence in question by pointing at other evidence for some argument not even being made, as far as I can tell.William J Murray_{July 3, 2021
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Seversky spake: "I’m happy to look a the evidence but what I’ve seen to far just isn’t very persuasive." That's because you don't want to be persuaded. You won't be. Once you have epoxied yourself to the materialist creed, you won't be persuaded otherwise. Even when you're beaten over the head with the evidence of design. ID doesn't get you to the Christian God. But Charles, whom I wish was still posting here, has intricately laid out the case for the Bible being supernatural in origin with a 400 reply dismantling of all critics over the prophecy in Daniel 9 regarding the precise time of Christ's arrival on earth, nearly 500 years before it happened. That should give you an explanation of who. A very important link to be made. You'd likely counter that he had to have been mistaken somewhere. It's all people like you have. WJM: Do I want Christianity to be true? Absolutely. There. I admitted my preference too. Does that inform my evidence? Of course. But I work hard to mitigate that, and when people like Charles, and NT Wright dive deep into scripture, what they mine is treasure. Charles makes a great case that the Bible is unlike any other work on Earth. A story 1500 years in the making, with 64 books and 40 authors that all tell one story. If that doesn't scream supernatural, along with all the other predictive prophecy, nothing else does. https://uncommondescent.com/atheism/fft-charles-unmasks-the-anti-id-trollish-tactic-of-attacking-god-christian-values-and-worldview-themes/AnimatedDust_{July 1, 2021
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The drawing of heads is hard to find, here it is https://academichelp.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/frontpiece.jpgkairosfocus_{July 1, 2021
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Sandy, we often perceive radical self-contradictions due to flaws in our own concepts. Riddle me dis, riddle me dat, guess me dis riddle and per'aps not -- a children's game from my homeland -- Is there a single point on earth that is due North of London, UK, Kingston, Jamaica and Tokyo, Japan? At first, it seems impossible, but then go get a globe. The North Pole is due north of every point on the Earth's surface, save itself. We use it in navigation but fail to understand its force. Our flat maps mislead us, being local and approximate. As for the core theistic concept, that God is the inherently good, utterly wise creator, a necessary and maximally great being worthy of loyalty and the reasonable, responsible service of doing the good that accords with our manifest nature, is admittedly philosophically and by extension theologically loaded. It requires high level concepts aplenty that are not now part of our mental furniture, even for PhD's. Sometimes, including PhD's in theology, ironically. It is unsurprising that people perceive contradictions and difficulties that others they may ask cannot cogently, concisely resolve. I point to the microcosm-holographic-facets principle: there are wholes that are so tightly integrated that every facet is informed/influenced by the others and affects the others in turn. This is directly relevant to God's attributes, where maximal being entails that these are present to maximum compossible degree. And, on long study, this worldviews, root of reality picture is drawn out not only in systematics but in serious study of the Bible, I recall here Paul in Rom speaking of God as just and justifier of one who believes in the incarnate, crucified, risen Son. A pivot of gospel theology. And there is much more. But, again, UD is not the right context for long, drawn out exchanges on theology, those who wish to explore such should go to places like Craig's Reasonable Faith, etc, where highly qualified people have drawn out these issues on considerable research. Even extensive amateur efforts such as Tektonics dot org, may help. KFkairosfocus_{July 1, 2021
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AS78: >>I’m a naturalist and therefore believe that the brain in the mind of one in the same so you were disembodied mind means nothing>> If this is representative summary, it is a fail. Computational substrates, inherently, are incapable of rational, responsible freedom. This man is self-referentially self-defeating and in a way that provokes fundamental discredit. After this sort of fail, there is no recovery. Compare, Crick:
. . . that "You", your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons." This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.
The late Philip Johnson has aptly replied that Sir Francis should have therefore been willing to preface his works thusly: "I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." Johnson then acidly commented: “[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” [Reason in the Balance, 1995.] Likewise, notice Haldane, decades before Crick reduced himself to absurdity:
"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain [–> taking in DNA, epigenetics and matters of computer organisation, programming and dynamic-stochastic processes] I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. Cf. here on (and esp here) on the self-refutation by self-falsifying self referential incoherence and on linked amorality.]
Similarly, appeals to potty training, class conditioning, operant conditioning etc are all likewise personally self-referential and absurd. Sawing off the branch on which we all must sit is sawing off the branch on which one is sitting. Zip, zip, zip . . . CRAACK! In short, it is at least arguable that self-referential absurdity is the dagger pointing to the heart of evolutionary materialistic models of mind and its origin. For, there is a very good reason we are cautioned about how easily self-referential statements can become self-refuting, like a snake attacking and swallowing itself tail-first. Any human scheme of thought that undermines responsible [thus, morally governed] rational freedom undermines itself fatally. We thus see inadvertent, inherent self-falsification of evolutionary materialism. But, “inadvertent” counts: it can be hard to recognise and acknowledge the logically fatal nature of the result. Of course, that subjective challenge does not change the objective result: self-referential incoherence and irretrievable self-falsification. KFkairosfocus_{July 1, 2021
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I also became aware that there are inconsistencies, discrepancies and even outright contradictions in Christian belief that I could not ignore.
False.
I was raised as a Christian.
False.Sandy_{June 30, 2021
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seversky:
I’m happy to look a the evidence but what I’ve seen to far just isn’t very persuasive.
And yet you cannot provide a better explanation, based on science, for our existence. You can't even provide an explanation, based on science, for our existence. You are a hypocrite.ET_{June 30, 2021
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seversky:
When people turn to science for an explanation of something they want to know how it happened. Claiming it was the work of a god or some other sort of supreme intellect is not that sort of explanation.
Actually, it is. Once you have determined that it was intelligently designed you know quite a bit. For one you know nature didn't do it. For another ot tells you there was a purpose and intent at play. Then we get to work to figure out the rest.
It’s a claim about ‘who’ not an explanation of ‘how’.
It's both.
We can’t rule that out as a possibility but we can explain the how of a lot of things by natural causes, like COVID-19 being caused by a virus.
And we know that the virus was intelligently engineered.
Why would such an advanced designer use a genetic system that is prone to damage by random mutations?
Many reasons. For one sickness is an impetus for research. For another, nothing is perfect. It is beyond stupid desperation to think that something that was intelligently designed had to be perfectly designed.
It’s estimated that 99% of the species of living things that have ever existed on Earth have gone extinct.
That estimate is based on the untestable assumption of universal common descent via gradual changes.
Doesn’t that indicate a wasteful and even incompetent designer?
No, it indicates that you are just a question-begging troll.
Are you even interested in how it was done?
Yes, but unfortunately, for now, you and your ilk are in the way. Archaeologists can't even determine how many artifacts were made. And living organisms are by far more advanced than artifacts. But if it helps people can picture lab technicians genetically engineering the hardware of organisms while others toil away at getting the BIOS loaded.ET_{June 30, 2021
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I’m happy to look a the evidence but what I’ve seen to far just isn’t very persuasive.
Are you talking about Darwin and all the enhancements to his ideas? I was listening to a lecture the other day that included the rationale for why Biology can only be understood in terms of evolution. Evolution was defined as 1) genes are inheritable. 2) There are mutations/variations in the genes that are passed on 3) Natural selection affects which of these new genes become dominant in the species. All non controversial and accepted by ID. But none of the above can explain anything ID finds not very convincing. So are you actually objecting to the conclusions of bureaucratic science as ID does? Based on good science?jerry_{June 30, 2021
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AnimatedDust/55
As for Seversky, that’s precisely what I am alleging, though not through clairvoyance. I think most atheists are of the Thomas Nagel variety. They don’t WANT there to be a god, “I don’t want the universe to be like that.” Plain and simple. And I think that’s based on a profound misunderstanding of what the Bible actually says, though admittedly I don’t have all the answers either.
I was raised as a Christian. I believed the teachings of Christianity without question. I was as certain of the existence of God as I was of the existence of the Sun, I taught smaller children about the Bible in Sunday School. Over time, however, I became interested in what science could tell us about this Universe and found that Christianity didn't have such answers. I also became aware that there are inconsistencies, discrepancies and even outright contradictions in Christian belief that I could not ignore. I also found that a lot of Christians simply didn't want to know about them, I think because they found that the benefits of the faith greatly outweighed any questions about its foundations, which is fair enough.
I don’t think Seversky has made the slightest attempt to objectively work through BA’s argument from special relativity, or any of his thousands of other rock solid evidentiary examples.
The problem is that on at least two occasions I took the time and trouble to work through the papers, articles and press releases from which BA77 takes his quotes and found that they don't always say what he claims. I would suggest you do the same and look at his source material and see if you agree with his interpretations.
I don’t have to be a mind reader to correctly infer that. When daily facing the discussions and evidence presented here, the obstinate resistance is so thick you can cut it with a knife, and I am just pointing that out.
I'm happy to look a the evidence but what I've seen to far just isn't very persuasive.Seversky_{June 30, 2021
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Are you even interested in how it was done?
C'mon, man. You are not really interested in how. You are interested in finding something to dispute the obvious that you can cling to. You even bring up the faulty design argument. That's real desperation. I wrote this sarcastic account of this approach several years ago. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/complex-specified-information-you-be-the-judge/#comment-305339 It's the same old dodge. It is actually an admission of weakness. Here is what I wrote over 12 years ago. ------------
Mark Frank and Adel, you people are just too good to be true. Next they will be accusing us of having planted you people here. Yes, I make sarcastic remarks because absurdity deserves it. If I hear one more person wanting to know what FSCI is, I will scream. I explained it to my niece in 4th grade and she understood it and thought it was neat. But she is really a bright kid. Someone actually wants the laboratory techniques used 3.8 billion years ago. You talk about bizarre. I say a thousand as hyperbole and Mark in all seriousness says there is probably only a dozen. Mark wants the actual technique used a few billion years ago. Mark, I got word from the designer a few weeks ago and he said the original lab and blue prints were subducted under what was to become the African plate 3.4 billion years ago but by then they were mostly rubble anyway. The original cells were relatively simple but still very complex. Subsequent plants/labs went the same way and unfortunately all holograph videos of it are now in hyper space and haven’t been looked at for at least 3 million years. So to answer one of your questions, no further work has been done for quite awhile and the designer expects future work to be done by the latest design itself. The designer travels via hyper space between his home and our area of the universe when it is necessary. The designer said the techniques used were much more sophisticated than anything dreamed of by current synthetic biologist crowd but in a couple million years they may get up to speed and understand how it was actually done. The designer said it is actually a lot more difficult than people think especially since this was a new technique and he had to invent the DNA/RNA/protein process from scratch but amazingly they had the right chemical properties. His comment was “Thank God for that” or else he doesn’t think he wouldn’t have been able to do it. It took him about 200,000 of our years just experimenting with amino acid combinations to get usable proteins. He said it will be easier for current scientists since they will have a template to work off... Your comments and Mark Frank’s comment and those by others here help us immensely. We really appreciate how easy you guys make our job convincing others about the logic and facts behind our position.
DaveScot who was the person running the website at the. time said he would use viral vectors. Aside: Is Seversky actually arguing for ID? Not just one performed by the Judeo/Christian God. Welcome to the ID community, Seversky!jerry_{June 30, 2021
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William J Murray/54
I don’t mean to speak for Sevesky, but … C’mon, man.
Thanks, WJM, your comments are greatly appreciated.Seversky_{June 30, 2021
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AnimatedDust/51
Your inference isn’t to the best explanation. It’s intentionally ignoring the best explanation. The inference to the best explanation is what you’ve been willfully ignoring for YEARS here.
When people turn to science for an explanation of something they want to know how it happened. Claiming it was the work of a god or some other sort of supreme intellect is not that sort of explanation. It's a claim about 'who' not an explanation of 'how'.
That a super-intellect outside this time and space continuum is responsible for the most advanced designed living systems and complexity we observe around us.
We can't rule that out as a possibility but we can explain the how of a lot of things by natural causes, like COVID-19 being caused by a virus.
If genomes were designed, then how they change over time isn’t unguided natural processes. Everything is being done according to highly specific executions of intentionally coded instructions. That’s anything but blind happenstance.
Why would such an advanced designer use a genetic system that is prone to damage by random mutations? It's estimated that 99% of the species of living things that have ever existed on Earth have gone extinct. Doesn't that indicate a wasteful and even incompetent designer?
My comment at 50 is particularly applicable to you. You’ve been inundated daily with evidence, scads of it, by BA77, KF, Charles (Does he still post here?) that Jesus Christ is the correct theory of everything.
Jesus Christ is not a theory of anything. Again, it's a claim about 'who' not an explanation of 'how'. Are you even interested in how it was done?
What will you say at that hour to the face of the God you’ve denied for most of your adult life, right before your choice is eternally granted to you?
If that ever happens, I have a lot of questions I would like answered.
I didn’t have enough evidence?
Not what I would consider sufficient evidence but I'm open to anything better.Seversky_{June 30, 2021
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It's okay, AD. I won't hold it against you. In fact, I totally advocate believing what you want to believe despite any evidence to the contrary. That's what I do; I'm just honest enough to admit it.William J Murray_{June 30, 2021
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AnimatedDust Certainly possible, WJM. I am hoping BA will weigh in here, too.
:))) Do you really believe a single word of WJM? His logic is broken but you said he make sense . What in the world...Sandy_{June 29, 2021
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AD said:
Certainly possible, WJM. I am hoping BA will weigh in here, too.
Why wait for BA77? Are you unwilling to examine the evidence and reach your own conclusions? Or, are you going to ignore it so you can believe what you want to believe? From: http://www.horizonresearch.org/near-death/intro-to-the-nde-phenomena/religion-culture-and-near-death-experiences/
In one study carried out in 1985, the experiences of 16 Asian Indians had been compared with those of Americans and it had been found that the Indians had often encountered Yamraj, the Hindu king of the dead, while the Americans had not. .... In this study the researchers had examined the visions of approximately 440 terminally ill American and Indian patients as described to their doctors and nurses. The most common feature, which occurred in 91 per cent of cases, was seeing deceased relatives. In 140 cases there were reports of seeing religious figures, usually described as an angel or God. Where these were specifically identified, they were always described according to the person’s religious beliefs: no Hindu reported seeing Jesus, and no Christian a Hindu deity.
BA77's entire argument is not that non-Christian NDEs do not occur; his argument is that they do occur because his argument is that Christian NDE's are "better" than non-Christian NDEs. If there are only Christian afterlife locations and beings, how is it that non-Christians can have entirely non-Christian NDEs? Are you going to do what you claim Seversky does and either deny the evidence, or apply a double-standard to it?William J Murray_{June 29, 2021
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Certainly possible, WJM. I am hoping BA will weigh in here, too.AnimatedDust_{June 29, 2021
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AD said:
I don’t know about how many non-Christians have non-Christian NDE experiences, ..
Also AD:
I don’t think Seversky has made the slightest attempt to objectively work through BA’s argument from special relativity, ..
Perhaps it is evidence you don't want to think about or "work through." Perhaps you want Christianity to be true, and so are unwilling to process the evidence the very person you cite, BA77, brought to the table. Did you fail to read BA77's argument about how Christian NDEs were "better" than non-Christian NDEs? You said that you don't know 'how many" non-Christian NDEs there have been reported in the literature, but if you read BA77's argument, and the evidence I provided, you know there are many. What is your or BA77's argument about why non-Christians experience non-Christian afterlife locations? Or, like you and BA77 and others often accuse Seversky, are you applying a double-standard to the NDE evidence?William J Murray_{June 29, 2021
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peer reviewed studies on NDEs.
...Then I beg you, father,’ he said, ‘send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also end up in this place of torment.’ But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let your brothers listen to them.’ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone is sent to them from the dead, they will repent.’ Then Abraham said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”...Sandy_{June 28, 2021
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Sandy @56, couldn't disagree more. Veridical experiences are a thing, and there are now, perish the thought, (pun intended) peer reviewed studies on NDEs. What they say when they come back is remarkably consistent, and similar, as BA has overwhelmingly reported. Contrary to your preferences, what people report when their hearts and brains no longer function is quite the big deal.AnimatedDust_{June 28, 2021
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I don’t know about how many non-Christians have non-Christian NDE experiences, but I have seen a bunch of atheist/Islam/pantheistic people have Christian NDEs, including hell experiences.
NDE is something banal that happens to all humans when soul disconnect from body, except some live to tell the experience while majority not. It's like hit your finger with a hammer..and something common happens, no matter your beliefs. Shakespeare would have written a book about his pain but a common guy wouldn't even tell to his wife. Same experience. NDE is absolutely irrelevant :)))Sandy_{June 28, 2021
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I don't know about how many non-Christians have non-Christian NDE experiences, but I have seen a bunch of atheist/Islam/pantheistic people have Christian NDEs, including hell experiences. As for Seversky, that's precisely what I am alleging, though not through clairvoyance. I think most atheists are of the Thomas Nagel variety. They don't WANT there to be a god, "I don't want the universe to be like that." Plain and simple. And I think that's based on a profound misunderstanding of what the Bible actually says, though admittedly I don't have all the answers either. I don't think Seversky has made the slightest attempt to objectively work through BA's argument from special relativity, or any of his thousands of other rock solid evidentiary examples. I don't have to be a mind reader to correctly infer that. When daily facing the discussions and evidence presented here, the obstinate resistance is so thick you can cut it with a knife, and I am just pointing that out.AnimatedDust_{June 28, 2021
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AD said:
That presumably includes scenes where you were presented with convincing evidence, and made the conscious decision to deny it. Invisible to us, but not to the creator who loved you before time began.
I don't mean to speak for Sevesky, but ... C'mon, man. BA77's general relativity and quantum physics arguments are convincing .... to whom? Does Seversky count himself as someone who understands those things enough to even grasp what BA77 is saying? I suggest that most people do not; not from lack of intelligence, but from a lack of devoting enough time and attention and effort into that information to gain a passable understanding. Most people have lives to attend to that demand most of their time. Second, what does it mean to say that Seversky "consciously made the decision" to deny the evidence? Are you saying Seversky is sitting at home, reading BA77's (or UB's) posts and thinking to himself, "wow, he proved that point beyond all reasonable doubt ... but, I'm just going to deny it because i don't want to believe it?" Do you really think that's what is going on at Seversky's end? C'mon man. Unless we're just going to uncharitably assume that everyone who disagrees with us is being deliberately trollish, I think we safely assume that Seversky is unconvinced. Which brings us to: "convincing evidence?" Convincing ... to whom? "Convincing" is in in the mind of the person reading the argument. Are you a mind reader too? It seems to me that there's a lot of that going on around here. Further, as I've said, BA77 (IMO) has made a good, sound argument that the path into the Christian heaven goes through Jesus Christ. However, his NDE argument left an unanswered question, which he refused to address: why is it that non-Christians have non-Christian NDEs? How is that possible, if Christianity represents the only available conditions that can be experienced in the afterlife? Although his argument that a Christian heaven exists , and that there is a specific path to it, is good, as yet there has been offered no "convincing argument" that the Christian afterlife location(s) are the only available ones. In fact, the same evidence BA77 uses to support the existence of the Christian heaven directly contradicts the proposition that only Christian afterlife locations exist.William J Murray_{June 28, 2021
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I’m watching a course on the development of human behavior and the lecturer maintains that human behavior/all biology is only understandable in terms of evolution. In other words the party line. He then describes evolution as micro evolution. Namely, traits are inheritable, there is variation that works on genes and natural selection will affect what genes/alleles become dominant. ID does not disagree with any of this. The issue is what precedes this process and how did it come about? This is avoided. This is the bait and switch that is continually used to justify natural mechanisms as the source for all of life. But as we all know there are exponential levels of difficulty between simple micro evolution which is modern day genetics and the origin of complex systems of life. If one is to be honest in this discussion, then one has to admit to these extreme differences in difficulty. But they are not admitted. They prefer to use the bait and switch technique to say trivial accepted processes are the be all and end all. I have often said the most interesting issue is not the science but the lies/diversions people tell in order to justify a position that had no justification.jerry_{June 28, 2021
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@ AnimatedDust I’m using talk to text, it’s terrible, often I’m in the middle of doing something when I’m writing these so I use it to speed it up For this I apologize, I’m also pretty lazy, and I hate dealing with texting on my phone But I am sorry about thatAaronS1978_{June 27, 2021
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Seversky @ 45: "Only human intelligence has been shown to be capable of generating huge amounts of information but we’re pretty sure we did not design the genome. So either it was designed by some alien intelligence or it arose through naturalistic processes. At this time, we have no evidence of the existence of some alien intelligence that could have done it so we are left with nature as the better candidate cause." Your inference isn't to the best explanation. It's intentionally ignoring the best explanation. The inference to the best explanation is what you've been willfully ignoring for YEARS here. That a super-intellect outside this time and space continuum is responsible for the most advanced designed living systems and complexity we observe around us. If genomes were designed, then how they change over time isn't unguided natural processes. Everything is being done according to highly specific executions of intentionally coded instructions. That's anything but blind happenstance. My comment at 50 is particularly applicable to you. You've been inundated daily with evidence, scads of it, by BA77, KF, Charles (Does he still post here?) that Jesus Christ is the correct theory of everything. I know you won't consider that seriously until after you die, but by then you won't have the luxury of continuing in your ostensibly comfortable lifestyle, enjoying the gifts of this loving Creator you daily deny. That's why you are repeatedly getting gently pummeled with the most obvious truths, to all but those whose hearts are intentionally closed to the truth. Why do you remain? Something is keeping you engaged. What will it take for you to seriously consider the weight of these overwhelming evidential arguments put forth, with an open heart and mind? I, for one, want you to be able to enter into the joy of your Lord. You're routinely civil, and always keep your cool. There's evidence when you die that your entire life and all your thoughts will be played back for you. That presumably includes scenes where you were presented with convincing evidence, and made the conscious decision to deny it. Invisible to us, but not to the creator who loved you before time began. What will you say at that hour to the face of the God you've denied for most of your adult life, right before your choice is eternally granted to you? I didn't have enough evidence? Quo est Veritas? Time you garnered the courage to face The Truth, and The Way, and The Life, and to discover the joy of living in harmony with the lover of your soul. After all, your incessant resistance isn't likely due to your comprehensive and complete scholarship of the ancient texts, but more on a misunderstanding driven by the lack of serious scholarship your preference became, largely by the current cultural moment, and your homage to it. Aim at Heaven, and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth (what you're currently devoting a huge amount of time to,) and you get neither. --LewisAnimatedDust_{June 27, 2021
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Mo @ 6: Why would you only treat God as subjective and illusory? That's not going to be the case any longer after you take your last breath. Why not consider the possibility that an objective God is a possible, no PROBABLE reality, given the scads of evidence for him, and that what's objectively true about the universe cares not a whit for the mental concoctions of subjective preference that tends to muck up and forestall having to make that conclusion for so many. "Every knee shall bow, and tongue confess..." does not just apply to the faithful. It's a statement of fact that the day is coming when those who believe, AND those who don't believe will have to utter what is unquestionably true. And those who've spent their lives trying to wish that fact away will have an eternity to live with the ugly fact that all the wishing of a lifetime matters not, in the face of The Truth. I can see why wailing and gnashing of teeth is such an apt description for so many, for whom their fantasies will have come crashing down in that moment. You won't be able to say you didn't have enough evidence. Especially for those who hang out in a place like this. Think about the meaning of this phrase too: And their foolish hearts were darkened... Time to stop playing tiddlywinks with the most important questions in the world, and grow up. "When I was a child, I did childish things. When I became a man, I left those childish things behind me." Is it not time for abandoning childish things like the clinging to notions that fly in the face of the overwhelming evidence that beats us over the head with our own senses, yet we refuse to acknowledge? High time, indeed.AnimatedDust_{June 27, 2021
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@AAronS1978, you make lots of good points, but also clearly don't bother to proofread your work. You have 20 minutes to do so. Please make avail of that time.AnimatedDust_{June 27, 2021
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seversky:
Yes, “Naturalistic explanations” – plural. Science is willing to try out any number of different explanations to try and find the best one.
That is a lie as long as the word "naturalistic" remains before "explanations".
We don’t just plug in our preferred god and say ‘There! Done and dusted!’
Nice strawman. You and yours just make stuff up.
Genomes contain huge amounts of information.
And there isn't any evidence that "naturalistic processes" didit. You lose.
We know genomes can be changed over time by naturalistic process
Question begging. Too bad for you genomes do not determine biological form.
Only human intelligence has been shown to be capable of generating huge amounts of information but we’re pretty sure we did not design the genome.
So obviously we infer it was some other intelligent agency. There isn't any evidence that nature didit. There isn't even a way to test the claim that nature didit. So Hitchens applies and we dismiss the claim. Look, opponents of ID have ALL of the power to refute it. Yet they CANNOT. Their desperation is very entertaining, though.ET_{June 26, 2021
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So either it was designed by some alien intelligence or it arose through naturalistic processes.
Aliens are Christians. Problem solved.
who created the creator
Creator is uncreated. Problem solved.
importing a supernatural or metaphysical unobservable, unmeasurable entity as the “designer” or cause of natural phenomena explains nothing.
:)) Atheists have no logic. If we find an UFO and we don't see aliens around that means UFO appeared by some naturalistic processes . Right? Right!Sandy_{June 26, 2021
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