Battle Talk ~ Battle Royale VII

[RogerB]

shima said:

The process for which you STILL haven't proven that it doesn't exist.

So Christians must prove that God exists and that it's impossible for life to spontaneously evolve? Heaven forbid an atheist exert a little effort and prove the contrary.

 

[RogerB]

I can't "know" an infinite being. Why is this so hard for you to grasp? For me to "know" God would require that I be omniscient. Are you asking me would I like to be omniscient, so I could know God? If so, the answer is "no". I think omniscience would be horrible. When everything is known, and nothing is unknown, what point would there be to living?

How utterly silly. I know God. What does that make me? HINT: a Christian.

 

[shima]

Scrimshaw
>>There is not a culture on the planet that believes "murder" is morally "right".<<

This is very definitely incorrect.

The Aztecs, for example, sacrificed hundreds of prisoners to their gods. They committed murder to do so, but thought it obviously "right" to do so.

The Romans, for example, thought that it was "right" for one gladiator to murder another. Both were fighting for their own survival at the cost of another, so its not the moral of the gladiator himself. It is the moral of the Roman society that it is "right" for a gladiator to murder another IF the other gladiator didn't put up enough resistance.

The US, for example, thinks it is "right" to murder those people which it considders an extreme threat to its society. Sure, there are some procedures precursing his execution, but if found guilty of several particular crimes he will be murdered.

RogerB:
>>So Christians must prove that God exists and that it's impossible for life to spontaneously evolve? Heaven forbid an atheist exert a little effort and prove the contrary.<<

If you want to INFER from a lack of "natural explanations" that God exists, then you must prove that there is NO natural mechanism that can explain the origin of the cell. Only THEN can you INFER that life was started because it was designed. When it IS possible for natural mechanism to produce a cell, you can no longer "prove" that the first cell was designed, because there are other possibilities.

 

[August]

Eireann wrote:
<There's a difference between proving something can't be done, and proving something doesn't
exist. >

That's true, but I gave examples of both. You can't trisect an angle exactly with a finite number of simple operations, and there does not exist a positive number that is closest to zero.

<Something as elusive as the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven by simple
mathematics.>

True, but my criticism is of the all-inclusive statement that you can't prove a negative.

<To use your mathematical examples: these don't serve as absolute and irrefutable
proof that such things cannot be done or that such a number does not exist. They serve only
as proofs that no one thus far has managed to find a way to trisect an angle with the conditions
presented, and that no one thus far has managed to conclude that the set of possible positive
real numbers is finite. It doesn't mean conclusively that they aren't finite, only that no one has
been able to wrap their brains around the idea that they possibly could be finite at some point.>

That is where you are absolutely wrong. You shouldn't discuss logic if you don't understand it. The first proof is too long and complex to reproduce here, but the second is almost obvious. Proof by contradiction: suppose there is a positive number that is closest to zero. Call it N. N/2 is also a positive number, but is closer to zero than N. Therefore the hypothesis is wrong. Q.E.D.

 

[PureX]

Originally posted by RogerB
How utterly silly. I know God. What does that make me? HINT: a Christian.

You imagine a God, and then you imagine that God is causing and manipulating the circumstances of your existence, and that through these manipulations you are experiencing the manipulator, and thus that you "know God". But your knowledge (experience) is based only on the pretense that the God you imagine to be real, is real, and on nothing else.

 

[shima]

>>True, but my criticism is of the all-inclusive statement that you can't prove a negative.<<

It only goes for mathematics which rely on several assumptions to span the "reality" in which mathematics apply their rules. It does NOT go for anything that conforms to this reality rather than their own.

 

[RogerB]

Originally posted by PureX
You imagine a God, and then you imagine that God is causing and manipulating the circumstances of your existence, and that through these manipulations you are experiencing the manipulator, and thus that you "know God". But your knowledge (experience) is based only on the pretense that the God you imagine to be real, is real, and on nothing else.

Falling deeper and deeper into unknown territory, PureX tries to explain Roger's life experiences. PureX must have graduated along with Eireann from the What I Speak Becomes Truth School of Conceited People With Big Heads.

 

[RogerB]

shima,

If you want to INFER from a lack of natural explanations that God does not exist, then you must prove that there is a natural mechanism that can explain the origin of the cell. Only THEN can you INFER that life was not started by design. It is impossible for natural mechanism to produce a cell and you cannot prove that the first cell was not designed because there are no other proven possibilities.

 

[tenkeeper]

threads

threads

We're all kin in our hunger Rog, but all separate in our beds.

 

[sawrie]

...

 

[RogerB]

From Eireann's web site:

In December of 2001, with the aid of three fellow students (at least one of whom you will become familiar with as you peruse this website), I founded the Earth-Affirmative Religions & Theologies Club (E.A.R.T.H. Club) at UMSL. We are an organization dedicated to bringing earth religions into the light of day on our predominantly Christian campus. We are the first organization of our kind at UMSL, and we have been surprisingly met with a lot of support from the student body and administration. I see this as evidence that Wicca and Paganism are starting to gain the public acceptance that we have sought for so long. Though we still have a lot further yet to go - especially in the face of opposition from various fundamentalist groups - by the grace and will of the Goddess, our religion is persevering and growing by leaps and bounds!

:shocked:

 

[LightSon]

Originally posted by sawrie
Zakath you said: "Perhaps you should take the hint. Perhaps no one wants to debate your pseudo-intellectual matrix knockoff philosophical hoo-haw."

I will assume that means I don't care about the truth.

What is true? whatever can be proven as a fact.

Can the physical universe be proven as a fact?

The answer is not only can it not be, but it hasn't been. I will now venture to say it actually does not exist outside of consciousness.

You see consciousness is provable: in fact, it is the only provable fact known to us.

We are conscious: although we say that we are conscious of the physical, and will absolutly declare its existance: if you were dreaming, you who also sware, in that dream; it was reality.

You have all the same senses in dreams, as you do out of them: and so what you see, feel, taste, touch, and smell something this absolutly proves nothing. If being conscious of something makes it reality then dreams are real.

Now here is the only provable, and I will declare real; fact: we are conscious. And nothing actually exists outside of consciousness. Since it is impossible to to agrue against this, and I again will declare it is absolute fact; I will now state: all that you see actually is a universe of collective conscious beings subjected to the same "state" of reality. As well I will also state that: it is, and will always be impossible to prove the existance of the physical universe: as it is not real.

God is the beginning of all that is, and is conscious of all that we are now conscious of, and infinate amounts more that we are not conscious of. It is impossible for a 3 dimentional object to create an object that does not have dimentions. Thus it is impossible for the physical to create consciousness.

Just as you cannot have something from nothing, so also you cannot have nothing from something. If you argue that I am wrong, prove your arguement, scientifically.

The only possible provable conclussion to this reality is as I have clearly stated: thus it is reality.

To say it is not, without proving it to not be the only possible conclussion, does not make you right: only the sceptical, non faith bearring; individual that you have always been.

If I am wrong prove it.

You haven't been reading Descartes by any chance?
Sorry. I'm having trouble understanding this. Stop hogging the bong. Gimme a good torque on that and I'll give it another read.

 

[Brenda]

Originally posted by PureX
I can't "know" an infinite being. Why is this so hard for you to grasp? For me to "know" God would require that I be omniscient. Are you asking me would I like to be omniscient, so I could know God? If so, the answer is "no". I think omniscience would be horrible. When everything is known, and nothing is unknown, what point would there be to living?

Omniscience may be required to fully know God, but why can't we know him in part? An analogy might be your dog. Surely a dog is not smart enough to understand everything you are about, but it can learn simple tricks from your cues and knows that you are the one who feeds it, plays with it, walks it... it remembers your smell, etc.

Many believe that God has revealed himself to us in creation and in scripture. Surely he hasn't revealed everything about himself, but he has attempted to reveal some part of himself that we can understand in a way that we can understand it.

Just curious what your response to that argument would be.

 

[JanowJ]

Re: Re: Murder is subjective?

Re: Re: Murder is subjective?

Originally posted by Zakath
......

All the reply this one is worth.

Zakath,
Is that your way of saying: I am wrong, I'm just chicken to admit it?
Also, I'm just wondering: based on your belief, under what authority is it absolutely wrong for some one to kill you and your family? Or, is it only "wrong" for you because it would be an inconvience to you and your family?

 

[JanowJ]

Re: Re: Murder is subjective?

Re: Re: Murder is subjective?

Originally posted by Eireann
Like many of your fellows on here, you seem to be laboring under the fallacy that "wrong" and "absolutely wrong" are the same thing.

My question for you is the same as that to Zakath: under what authority do you say that it would be wrong for me to do that? And, just out of curiosity: what is the difference between "wrong" and "absolutely wrong?"

 

[August]

Knight, I can't find my previous post, so I'll try again.
Eireann wrote:

<There's a difference between proving something can't be done, and proving something doesn't
exist.>

True, but I gave an example of each. There does not exist a positive number that is closest to zero.

<Something as elusive as the existe
nce of God cannot be proven or disproven by simple
mathematics.>

If math is so simple, why don't grasp its basic elements?
My criticism is of the all-inclusive statement that a negative cannot be proved. Some can and some cannot.

<No amount of theorems will conclusively demonstrate that there is no space in
the universe where God does or could exist.

The understanding of humans, while vast and impressive, is still very limited in the bigger scope
of things.>

That just demonstrates that you never understood my argument.

<To use your mathematical examples: these don't serve as absolute and irrefutable
proof that such things cannot be done or that such a number does not exist. They serve only
as proofs that no one thus far has managed to find a way to trisect an angle with the conditions
presented, and that no one thus far has managed to conclude that the set of possible positive
real numbers is finite. >

That is where you are absolutely wrong. I said the proofs are rigorous, and they are. The first is long and complex, but the second is almost obvious. Proof by contradiction: Suppose there were a positive number closest to zero. Call it N. Then one-half N is also a positive number, and it is closer to zero. Therefore the hypothesis must be false. QED.

<Can you say with ABSOLUTE
certainty (which would require omniscience on your part) that God won't at some point in the
future decide to change the laws of physics so that what you just proposed could occur?>

Did you really think about that before you wrote it? What good does it do to speculate about fantasies? This debate is about what exists now. Not whether God may exist in the future, or what might happen later.
Aparently you don't understand the difference between math and physics. Outside of math, the only way that you can prove something to someone else is to both agree on a set of hypotheses, both accept accept the rules of logic, and then proceed from the hypotheses logically to the conclusion.
For example, if you agree that the laws of thrmodynamic applies today, then it immdediately follows that there does not exist a closed thermodynamic system in which the entropy decreases. (A negative.)

 

[Scrimshaw]

Originally posted by shima
Your arguement was from INDUCTION. Therefore, for that arguement to work, you have to prove that there is NO natural mechanism that creates cells.

No I don't because that would be proving a negative! I am not required to prove a negative. If you positively claim that a natural mechansim that creates cells EXISTS, then it is YOUR obligation to prove it. Until then, induction leads to the belief that no such natural process exists.


>>Okay, and what does that have to do with the origin of cells? <<

A lot ofcourse. Untill we can track the individual movements of the molecular components, we're probably not going to find out why they apparently don't react.

But you are assuming that movements of the molecular components have anything to do with how a cell could theoretically pop into existence fully-formed out of biotic chemcials. Movements of molecular components have little or nothing to do with something as complex and integrated as the creation of a fully-formed cell.


>>We have had microscopes, laboratories, and all the resources necessary for the study of biochemistry/cellular biology for many decades, and all we have discovered is how much more complex, and irrudicibly sophisticated cells are than what we first thought.<<

The cell is complex, but not irreducibly complex.

Really? Then explain how a cell or pre-cell could theoretically survive without all of it's basic components.


>>What process? Do you mean the process that doesn't exist?<<

The process for which you STILL haven't proven that it doesn't exist.

I am not required to prove a negative. If you positively claim such a natural process exists, then it is your job to prove it.


>>That lack of understanding has nothing to do with the evolution of cells, and why that evolution has never been re-created in a laboratory, even when given all the same resources and conditions that would have existed on the primortial earth....and intelligent scientists manipulating the process to boot!!<<

I think that understanding the quantummechanical properties is very important, since they determine how the molecules interact whith eachother. If we don't know it, we cannot predict how exactly those molecules should be forming.

You're argument on this point is totally elastic. It could be stretched to support nearly ANY make-believe idea. For example, I could say alchemy is real, we just can't prove it because we "don't have enough understanding about quantum mechanical properities and molecular interaction".


>>That matters little if the specific natural process you speak of doesn't exist, or is powerless to create a cell.<<

Since noone has been able to prove that natural mechanisms are unable to form a cell, your point is rather moot.

No, you got it bass-ackwards. Since no one has been able to prove to any degree that natural processes are ABLE to create a cell, my point is perfectly valid.


>>We are not talking about "inventing" a new lifeform. <<

Yes, we are. We want to assemble a CELL from simple components. Should we succeed, that lifeform then IMMEDIATELY has to compete with all kinds of bacteria for survival. Those bacteria have had a several billion year headstart on evolution.

Erm, a cell in a not a new lifeform. Cells are well-known lifeforms that already exist. You body is made up of trillions of them. We wouldn't be inventing a new cell either, we'd be following the blueprints of cells that already exist. It would be like cloning, except starting from scratch. Furthermore, scientists could create the cell in a sterile habitat where no other bactierium exist, so your sqawk about bacterial competition is moot.


>>We are talking about re-creating a lifeform that already exist on this planet. <<

No, we're not. We're talking about creating a cell in the way we think cells looked like several billion years ago. Ofcourse, the cell still exists TODAY, but with several billion years of evolution it is likely that it has changed somewhat since then.

The simplest forms of cellular life are irreducibly complex. Therefore, there is no way they could have been any different billions of years ago. If a cell is not irreducibly complex, then all you have to do is explain how the interdependence of it's subsystems are not really "interdependent", OR, prove that there is such a thing as a pre-cell lifeform. If you can't accomplish either of those tasks, then your claim that the cell is not irreducibly complex is akin to a hair dryer.......It's good for nothing but "hot air".

 

[Scrimshaw]

>>There is not a culture on the planet that believes "murder" is morally "right".<<

Originally posted by shima
This is very definitely incorrect.

The Aztecs, for example, sacrificed hundreds of prisoners to their gods. They committed murder to do so, but thought it obviously "right" to do so.

Then it wasn't "murder" to them, because murder means "unlawful killing". If they had religious laws that required human sacrifice, then it wouldn't be "murder" by THEIR definition. Remember, my argument is NOT this -

"There has never existed a society that did NOT believe it was morally wrong to KILL."

My argument is this -

"There has never existed a society that did NOT believe it was morally wrong to MURDER."

My argument is regarding what would be considered "murder" (unlawful killing) by each culture's perspective. There has never existed a culture that did not have an opposition against some kind of UNLAWFUL or IMMORAL killing. Case in point - while the Aztecs believed it was morally acceptable to kill prisoners, they did not believed it was morally acceptable to kill the Aztec chieftain, his wives, or other Aztecs! (Unless ordered by a god, in which case the killing would have been "lawful", not "murder")

The Romans, for example, thought that it was "right" for one gladiator to murder another. Both were fighting for their own survival at the cost of another, so its not the moral of the gladiator himself. It is the moral of the Roman society that it is "right" for a gladiator to murder another IF the other gladiator didn't put up enough resistance.

Apparently you don't understand my argument, or the definition of murder. To die in combat is not "murder" because under Roman law, gladiators dying in combat was not "unlawful", and therefore was not "murder". Again, my argument is that every society has had some form of "unlawful" killing. Under Roman law, it was unlawful to kill another Roman citizen. You'd be charged with murder. So both your Aztec and Roman examples fail to be "exceptions" that would undercut my argument, thus, my argument remains unscathed.

 

[cheeezywheeezy]

proving a negative

proving a negative

Scrimshaw, you said...

" No I don't because that would be proving a negative! I am not required to prove a negative. If you positively claim that a natural mechansim that creates cells EXISTS, then it is YOUR obligation to prove it. Until then, induction leads to the belief that no such natural process exists."

*what is wrong with trying to prove a negative? It is an acceptable method of proof.

*it is similar to proving that something "isn't". It is done in mathematics all the time.

 

[Stratnerd]

Until then, induction leads to the belief that no such natural process exists.

at what point do you decide that a natural explanation doesn't exist?
i think you might be better off just saying something isn't known since induction can be misleading. and with the origin of life, neither theory can really be tested, particularly the supernatural explanation.

but where does induction lead if you look at some simple observation - the geological record, for the most part, shows increasing dissimilarity with increasing temporal distances such that the further back in the past you go the less similar organisms are to modern forms with fewer and fewer taxa being represented (i.e., mammals disappear, then dinosaurs, then reptiles, then amphibians). you can always claim that the dates are wrong but it doesn't change the sequence and if the dates are right, then this process occurs over millions and millions of years.

how a cell could theoretically pop into existence fully-formed out of biotic chemcials.

why even suggest that's how it happened - I don't think anyone has.

Movements of molecular components have little or nothing to do with something as complex and integrated as the creation of a fully-formed cell.

and probably why nobody has proposed it "popping" into being.

I am not required to prove a negative. If you positively claim such a natural process exists, then it is your job to prove it.

well if something isn't natural then isn't it supernatural by implication?

The simplest forms of cellular life are irreducibly complex. Therefore, there is no way they could have been any different billions of years ago.

why? nobody, except you, suggests that cells popped into existence as is