Sorry if I sound like a late-comer, but I've been on-and-off for a few days, and unable to keep up with the speed of these discussions. So rather than trying to locate where i left off, I'll just start again.
Zakath's response to Enyart is almost exactly what I would have written. I already pointed out that Enyart's first post was merely an argument from ignorance (Bob can't explain "X", therefore, God must have done it...). Several others agree with me. Except one person, who alleges that Enyart is being "inductive". Induction is not presuming a conclusion without proof, which is what Enyart did. Induction is when you take a series of facts, then figure out how they are related, and then conclude new facts accurately based on observations. For example, if A + B = C, and we know that c=5, through induction, we can conclude that b=5. That is induction. What Bob did was say "I cannot explain A, B, or C, therefore, God did it." -- NOT INDUCTION!
Zakath also pointed out what I already alluded to -- there are plenty of theories about the origin of life and the universe. Just because no single theory seems to be THE SMOKING GUN, doesn't mean that all of those theories are useless. 500 years ago, people just like Bob Enyart were trying to tell Galileo that Coppernicus's heliocentric universe was impossible, because the Bible and Ptolomey told us everything we needed to know. Bob Enyart is repeating the types of arguments that the church made back then -- all scientists are wrong, and the Bible is right.
Unfortunately, all Bob (And the old Roman Catholic Church) can do is assert. He offers no scientific proof -- just blind assertions. Most importantly, I know how Bob will respond to Zakath. He will likely blow off all of the material that Zakath produced from scientists, and start a new branch of discussion.
I think I should try answering Bob's questions myself, for discussion here, as I represent the atheist point of view, myself.
(1) Does Truth Exist
Yes and No. We need to discuss just what truth is. Truth is a value judgement. When someone makes a statement that is "correct", "not false", or "very accurate in describing the facts", we call that truth. Truth is NOT an entity. You cannot pick up a bucket of truth, or mail truth to someone. Truth is nothing more than our description of facts that prove true.
(2) does absolute moral right and wrong exist
Obviously not -- not even for Christians. Virtually every "absolute" law in the Bible has exceptions to it. Against abortion or infanticide? Just read the parts of the Bible where God tells the Hebrews to murder women and children, and especially to cut open pregnant women to spill their unborn infants onto the rocks. If there is an absolute right and wrong, it is not described in the Bible. Right and wrong are CONDITIONAL and DETERMINED BY SOCIETY. I have yet to see anyone prove otherwise.
Thus my third question is multiple choice:
a) Do you believe the natural universe has existed forever exerting work and burning as a perpetual motion machine; or,
b) Has the universe created itself, so to speak, i.e., come into existence apart from a supernatural creator; or,
c) Was it created by an external source outside of the natural universe, i.e., a supernatural Creator; or,
d) Is there some other conceivable account for its origins?
My answer is "e) NONE OF THE ABOVE." Although the current evidence suggests an extremely old universe with a "big bang" event some 15-20 billion years in the past (or 12-15, depending on which theories prove true) , we have no way of peering far enough into the past to see beyond the big bang. The current evidence is all inconclusive. Any one of the theories that Bob provides in his multiple choices could be correct, but the way Bob wrote them falls short of describing what scientists actualyl say about the issue. I would point to Hawking for all questions about the origin of the universe. But it's all tentative. I do not rest my entire philosophy on whether or not the universe came into being one way or the other. Such questions are diversionary, in my opinion. If we stick with strictly scientific models of the universe, NONE OF THEM WILL POINT TO THE SUPERNATURAL.
Which leads me to my last point -- Science cannot do anything with the supernatural, except tell us when a supernatural explanation for a natural phenomena is either unneccesary or untrue. There is no "scientific proof" of the supernatural. There is only scientific proof of the falsity of supernatural explanations. If science cannot adequately explain a given phenomena, it is foolish to presume the supernatural explanation, because historically, supernatural explanations have tended to be disproven when more scientific knowledge is found.
) non-threatening environment.
