Deep Sight:

Richard Dawkins

The following article is from Free Inquiry MagazineVolume 18, Number 3.

Much of what people do is done in the name of God. Irishmen blow each other up in his name. Arabs blow themselves up in his name. Imams and ayatollahs oppress women in his name. Celibate popes and priests mess up people's sex lives in his name. Jewish shohets cut live animals' throats in his name.

It is noteworthy that the write-up itself states that these were done in the “name” of God, and not “by God.”

That is an important distinction, and already in itself conveys the reality of manipulation by human beings which has nothing whatever to do with God.

What point are you trying to make here? Are you and Dawkins not saying the same thing that religion is man made?

Deep Sight:

Dawkins; The achievements of religion in past history - bloody crusades, torturing inquisitions, mass-murdering conquistadors, culture-destroying missionaries, legally enforced resistance to each new piece of scientific truth until the last possible moment - are even more impressive.

Here the writer himself states – “the achievements of religion in past history”. . . .if he could read at all, he would recognize that that in itself speaks volumes – for as he himself knows and believes – religion is a creation of man and not any “god” or “gods”. It is thus silly and contradictory to set up a refutation of the existence of God based on religions that were set up by men in deference to Gods that do not exist.

Dawkins is not saying that because religious people do bad things, God doesnt exist. You chose such interpretation. This quote is from the introduction of the article. A preface on some of the terrifying things done in the name of this great god.

You twist Dawkins words then claim that he is doing poor philosophy.

Deep Sight:

Dawkins We now know that the order and apparent purposefulness of the living world has come about through an entirely different process, a process that works without the need for any designer and one that is a consequence of basically very simple laws of physics. This is the process of evolution by natural selection, discovered by Charles Darwin and, independently, by Alfred Russel Wallace.

This is so starkly devoid of reasoning or depth, I would be astonished, if not already acquainted with the shallow quality of the mind of Richard Dawkins. I state this for –


1. It is well known that the theory of evolution addresses the development of living things and says nothing about the development of the universe and support systems for such living things.


2. The question therefore remains the source or cause of the entire super-system.


3. The basic laws of cause and effect state most clearly that you cannot have effects without causes. This is corroborated within the standard laws of motion. The fact thus remains that it remains ridiculous to commence an argument seeking to render a creator non-existent, from the point of view of living things only, when the super-question remains the existence of all things – living and non living – and the articulated source of all things. To frame the question the timelessly simple philosophical fashion – why something instead of nothing?


4. Even as an argument built up from the point of view of living things, it is very well documented from the experiments of the French Scientist Louis Pasteur and several others that life is known to emerge from pre-existing life. It is thus a staggering claim from Dawkins to state that science now confirms that the wonders of life may emerge through odd  chance in a pre-biotic soup. As it happens, he does not even address this necessary commencement and the irredeemable riddle contained therein at all: he simply


    a. Assumes the existence of things already


    b. Avoids the question of the first instance of generation of living things and


    c. Commences his discussion with a full fledged biological evolutionary process already magically in place –


And thereby assumes that this suffices to obviate the requirement for an initial causative factor going beyond the scenario that he has ridiculously commenced with. 

First of all, Dawkins doesnt say "evolution disproves the exiostence of God". You hang your whole rebuttal on a comment he never made. I dont know how you got there from the Dawkins quote you put there. Dawkins is simply saying that the process of evolution is expalined without the need for a god.

2) Begging the question, why assume a cause not causes? A source not sources? Why are the polytheists wrong? Afterall, from human experience most esxtensively designed and orderly mass produced creations are manufactured by more than one person- eg iphone

3) If evrything has a cause, we are left with an infinite regreess. Saying that there is a creator will raise the question "what created the creator". Cause and effect do not happen beyond time. If the big bang is the beginning of time, how can one have cause and effect prior to the big bang.

4) life comes from pre-existing life? Does this mean that your deist god is just another lifeform? But wait, he doesnt have matter or occupies space or is regulated by time, how can he be living?

Your criticism of Dawkins here makes no sense. Evolution starts from the existence of life already not pre-life.

Deep Sight:

Dawkins; For instance, it is theoretically possible for an eye to spring into being, in a single lucky step, from nothing: from bare skin, let's say. It is theoretically possible in the sense that a recipe could be written out in the form of a large number of mutations. If all these mutations happened simultaneously, a complete eye could, indeed, spring from nothing. But although it is theoretically possible, it is in practice inconceivable.

I was actually going to continue responding to the rest of the write-up, but the quote above has stopped me in my tracks. It takes the all time award for grand st.upidity.


Just read it. This fellow ends his own comments by alluding to the very same inconceivability of the emergence of the eye which Darwin himself noted.


Ridiculous, plain ridiculous. The painful thing is just how many shallow minds read this c.rap and feel on top of the world in their ill-considered atheistic world-view on account of this baloney.

All you have done is to abuse Dawkins with big words and poor philosophy.

Dawkins is simply saying that in theory an eye can spring from sheer chance but not practically. The Odds are 1 to a gazillion but that is impossible in reality. Very simple.

The overall point is that sheer chance can not explain life/evolution. He was saying that there is a series of chance and other mechanisms to put things in place not just sheer chance alone because that is highly improbable





All you have done is show your poor philosophy and hatred for Dawkins,.

Here is the full article




The Improbability of God

by Richard Dawkins

The following article is from Free Inquiry MagazineVolume 18, Number 3.

Much of what people do is done in the name of God. Irishmen blow each other up in his name. Arabs blow themselves up in his name. Imams and ayatollahs oppress women in his name. Celibate popes and priests mess up people's sex lives in his name. Jewish shohets cut live animals' throats in his name. The achievements of religion in past history - bloody crusades, torturing inquisitions, mass-murdering conquistadors, culture-destroying missionaries, legally enforced resistance to each new piece of scientific truth until the last possible moment - are even more impressive. And what has it all been in aid of? I believe it is becoming increasingly clear that the answer is absolutely nothing at all. There is no reason for believing that any sort of gods exist and quite good reason for believing that they do not exist and never have. It has all been a gigantic waste of time and a waste of life. It would be a joke of cosmic proportions if it weren't so tragic.

Why do people believe in God? For most people the answer is still some version of the ancient Argument from Design. We look about us at the beauty and intricacy of the world - at the aerodynamic sweep of a swallow's wing, at the delicacy of flowers and of the butterflies that fertilize them, through a microscope at the teeming life in every drop of pond water, through a telescope at the crown of a giant redwood tree. We reflect on the electronic complexity and optical perfection of our own eyes that do the looking. If we have any imagination, these things drive us to a sense of awe and reverence. Moreover, we cannot fail to be struck by the obvious resemblance of living organs to the carefully planned designs of human engineers. The argument was most famously expressed in the watchmaker analogy of the eighteenth-century priest William Paley. Even if you didn't know what a watch was, the obviously designed character of its cogs and springs and of how they mesh together for a purpose would force you to conclude "that the watch must have had a maker: that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use." If this is true of a comparatively simple watch, how much the more so is it true of the eye, ear, kidney, elbow joint, brain? These beautiful, complex, intricate, and obviously purpose-built structures must have had their own designer, their own watchmaker - God.
So ran Paley's argument, and it is an argument that nearly all thoughtful and sensitive people discover for themselves at some stage in their childhood.

Throughout most of history it must have seemed utterly convincing, self-evidently true. And yet, as the result of one of the most astonishing intellectual revolutions in history, we now know that it is wrong, or at least superfluous. We now know that the order and apparent purposefulness of the living world has come about through an entirely different process, a process that works without the need for any designer and one that is a consequence of basically very simple laws of physics. This is the process of evolution by natural selection, discovered by Charles Darwin and, independently, by Alfred Russel Wallace.

What do all objects that look as if they must have had a designer have in common? The answer is statistical improbability.

If we find a transparent pebble washed into the shape
of a crude lens by the sea, we do not conclude that it must have been designed by an optician: the unaided laws of physics are capable of achieving this result; it is not too improbable to have just "happened." But if we find an elaborate compound lens, carefully corrected against spherical and chromatic aberration, coated against glare, and with "Carl Zeiss" engraved on the rim, we know that it could not have just happened by chance. If you take all the atoms of such a compound lens and throw them together at random under the jostling influence of the ordinary laws of physics in nature, it is theoretically possible that, by sheer luck, the atoms would just happen to fall into the pattern of a Zeiss compound lens, and even that the atoms round the rim should happen to fall in such a way that the name Carl Zeiss is etched out. But the number of other ways in which the atoms could, with equal likelihood, have fallen, is so hugely, vastly, immeasurably greater that we can completely discount the chance hypothesis. Chance is out of the question as an explanation.

This is not a circular argument, by the way. It might seem to be circular because, it could be said, any particular arrangement of atoms is, with hindsight, very improbable. As has been said before, when a ball lands on a particular blade of grass on the golf course, it would be foolish to exclaim: "Out of all the billions of blades of grass that it could have fallen on, the ball actually fell on this one. How amazingly, miraculously improbable!" The fallacy here, of course, is that the ball had to land somewhere. We can only stand amazed at the improbability of the actual event if we specify it a priori: for example, if a blindfolded man spins himself round on the tee, hits the ball at random, and achieves a hole in one. That would be truly amazing, because the target destination of the ball is specified in advance.

Of all the trillions of different ways of putting together the atoms of a telescope, only a minority would actually work in some useful way. Only a tiny minority would have Carl Zeiss engraved on them, or, indeed, any recognizable words of any human language. The same goes for the parts of a watch: of all the billions of possible ways of putting them together, only a tiny minority will tell the time or do anything useful. And of course the same goes, a fortiori, for the parts of a living body. Of all the trillions of trillions of ways of putting together the parts of a body, only an infinitesimal minority would live, seek food, eat, and reproduce. True, there are many different ways of being alive - at least ten million different ways if we count the number of distinct species alive today - but, however many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead!

We can safely conclude that living bodies are billions of times too complicated - too statistically improbable - to have come into being by sheer chance. How, then, did they come into being?

The answer is that chance enters into the story, but not a single, monolithic act of chance. Instead, a whole series of tiny chance steps, each one small enough to be a believable product of its predecessor, occurred one after the other in sequence. [/b]These small steps of chance are caused by genetic mutations, random changes - mistakes really - in the genetic material. They give rise to changes in the existing bodily structure. Most of these changes are deleterious and lead to death. [b]A minority of them turn out to be slight improvements, leading to increased survival and reproduction. By this process of natural selection, those random changes that turn out to be beneficial eventually spread through the species and become the norm. The stage is
now set for the next small change in the evolutionary process. After, say, a thousand of these small changes in series, each change providing the basis for the next, the end result has become, by a process of accumulation, far too complex to have come about in a single act of chance.

For instance, it is theoretically possible for an eye to spring into being, in a single lucky step, from nothing: from bare skin, let's say. It is theoretically possible in the sense that a recipe could be written out in the form of a large number of mutations. If all these mutations happened simultaneously, a complete eye could, indeed, spring from nothing. But although it is theoretically possible, it is in practice inconceivable. The quantity of luck involved is much too large. The "correct" recipe involves changes in a huge number of genes simultaneously. The correct recipe is one particular combination of changes out of trillions of equally probable combinations of chances. We can certainly rule out such a miraculous coincidence. But it is perfectly plausible that the modern eye could have sprung from something almost the same as the modern eye but not quite: a very slightly less elaborate eye. By the same argument, this slightly less elaborate eye sprang from a slightly less elaborate eye still, and so on. If you assume a sufficiently large number of sufficiently small differences between each evolutionary stage and its predecessor, you are bound to be able to derive a full, complex, working eye from bare skin. How many intermediate stages are we allowed to postulate? That depends on how much time we have to play with. Has there been enough time for eyes to evolve by little steps from nothing?

The fossils tell us that life has been evolving on Earth for more than 3,000 million years. It is almost impossible for the human mind to grasp such an immensity of time. We, naturally and mercifully, tend to see our own expected lifetime as a fairly long time, but we can't expect to live even one century. It is 2,000 years since Jesus lived, a time span long enough to blur the distinction between history and myth. Can you imagine a million such periods laid end to end? Suppose we wanted to write the whole history on a single long scroll. If we crammed all of Common Era history into one metre of scroll, how long would the pre-Common Era part of the scroll, back to the start of evolution, be? The answer is that the pre-Common Era part of the scroll would stretch from Milan to Moscow. Think of the implications of this for the quantity of evolutionary change that can be accommodated. All the domestic breeds of dogs - Pekingeses, poodles, spaniels, Saint Bernards, and Chihuahuas - have come from wolves in a time span measured in hundreds or at the most thousands of years: no more than two meters along the road from Milan to Moscow. Think of the quantity of change involved in going from a wolf to a Pekingese; now multiply that quantity of change by a million. When you look at it like that, it becomes easy to believe that an eye could have evolved from no eye by small degrees.

It remains necessary to satisfy ourselves that every one of the intermediates on the evolutionary route, say from bare skin to a modern eye, would have been favored by natural selection; would have been an improvement over its predecessor in the sequence or at least would have survived. It is no good proving to ourselves that there is theoretically a chain of almost perceptibly different intermediates leading to an eye if many of those intermediates would have died. It is sometimes argued that the parts of an eye have to be all there together or the eye won't work at all.
Half an eye, the argument runs, is no better than no eye at all. You can't fly with half a wing; you can't hear with half an ear. Therefore there can't have been a series of step-by-step intermediates leading up to a modern eye, wing, or ear.
This type of argument is so naive that one can only wonder at the subconscious motives for wanting to believe it. It is obviously not true that half an eye is useless. Cataract sufferers who have had their lenses surgically removed cannot see very well without glasses, but they are still much better off than people with no eyes at all. Without a lens you can't focus a detailed image, but you can avoid bumping into obstacles and you could detect the looming shadow of a predator.

As for the argument that you can't fly with only half a wing, it is disproved by large numbers of very successful gliding animals, including mammals of many different kinds, lizards, frogs, snakes, and squids. Many different kinds of tree-dwelling animals have flaps of skin between their joints that really are fractional wings. If you fall out of a tree, any skin flap or flattening of the body that increases your surface area can save your life. And, however small or large your flaps may be, there must always be a critical height such that, if you fall from a tree of that height, your life would have been saved by just a little bit more surface area. Then, when your descendants have evolved that extra surface area, their lives would be saved by just a bit more still if they fell from trees of a slightly greater height. And so on by insensibly graded steps until, hundreds of generations later, we arrive at full wings.

Eyes and wings cannot spring into existence in a single step. That would be like having the almost infinite luck to hit upon the combination number that opens a large bank vault. But if you spun the dials of the lock at random, and every time you got a little bit closer to the lucky number the vault door creaked open another chink, you would soon have the door open! Essentially, that is the secret of how evolution by natural selection achieves what once seemed impossible. Things that cannot plausibly be derived from very different predecessors can plausibly be derived from only slightly different predecessors. Provided only that there is a sufficiently long series of such slightly different predecessors, you can derive anything from anything else.

Evolution, then, is theoretically capable of doing the job that, once upon a time, seemed to be the prerogative of God. But is there any evidence that evolution actually has happened? The answer is yes; the evidence is overwhelming. Millions of fossils are found in exactly the places and at exactly the depths that we should expect if evolution had happened. Not a single fossil has ever been found in any place where the evolution theory would not have expected it, although this could very easily have happened: a fossil mammal in rocks so old that fishes have not yet arrived, for instance, would be enough to disprove the evolution theory.

The patterns of distribution of living animals and plants on the continents and islands of the world is exactly what would be expected if they had evolved from common ancestors by slow, gradual degrees. The patterns of resemblance among animals and plants is exactly what we should expect if some were close cousins, and others more distant cousins to each other. The fact that the genetic code is the same in all living creatures overwhelmingly suggests that all are descended from one single ancestor. The evidence for evolution is so compelling that the only way to save the creation theory is to assume
that God deliberately planted enormous quantities of evidence to make it look as if evolution had happened. In other words, the fossils, the geographical distribution of animals, and so on, are all one gigantic confidence trick.

Does anybody want to worship a God capable of such trickery? It is surely far more reverent, as well as more scientifically sensible, to take the evidence at face value. All living creatures are cousins of one another, descended from one remote ancestor that lived more than 3,000 million years ago.

The Argument from Design, then, has been destroyed as a reason for believing in a God. Are there any other arguments? Some people believe in God because of what appears to them to be an inner revelation. Such revelations are not always edifying but they undoubtedly feel real to the individual concerned. Many inhabitants of lunatic asylums have an unshakable inner faith that they are Napoleon or, indeed, God himself. There is no doubting the power of such convictions for those that have them, but this is no reason for the rest of us to believe them. Indeed, since such beliefs are mutually contradictory, we can't believe them all.

There is a little more that needs to be said. Evolution by natural selection explains a lot, but it couldn't start from nothing. It couldn't have started until there was some kind of rudimentary reproduction and heredity. Modern heredity is based on the DNA code, which is itself too complicated to have sprung spontaneously into being by a single act of chance. This seems to mean that there must have been some earlier hereditary system, now disappeared, which was simple enough to have arisen by chance and the laws of chemistry and which provided the medium in which a primitive form of cumulative natural selection could get started. DNA was a later product of this earlier cumulative selection.
Before this original kind of natural selection, there was a period when complex chemical compounds were built up from simpler ones and before that a period when the chemical elements were built up from simpler elements, following the well-understood laws of physics. Before that, everything was ultimately built up from pure hydrogen in the immediate aftermath of the big bang, which initiated the universe.

There is a temptation to argue that, although God may not be needed to explain the evolution of complex order once the universe, with its fundamental laws of physics, had begun, we do need a God to explain the origin of all things. This idea doesn't leave God with very much to do: just set off the big bang, then sit back and wait for everything to happen. The physical chemist Peter Atkins, in his beautifully written book The Creation, postulates a lazy God who strove to do as little as possible in order to initiate everything. Atkins explains how each step in the history of the universe followed, by simple physical law, from its predecessor. He thus pares down the amount of work that the lazy creator would need to do and eventually concludes that he would in fact have needed to do nothing at all!
The details of the early phase of the universe belong to the realm of physics, whereas I am a biologist, more concerned with the later phases of the evolution of complexity. For me, the important point is that, even if the physicist needs to postulate an irreducible minimum that had to be present in the beginning, in order for the universe to get started, that irreducible minimum is certainly extremely simple. By definition, explanations that build on simple premises are more plausible and more satisfying than explanations that have to postulate complex and statistically improbable beginnings. And you can't get
much more complex than an Almighty God!

Now that wasn't so hard, was it?

I will be here to respond exhaustively later in the evening. I'm in an office now, waiting for a meeting.

Cheers.

Deep Sight:
Now that wasn't so hard, was it?

I will be here to respond exhaustively later in the evening. I'm in an office now, waiting for a meeting.

Cheers.

Save 10% of your salary for me

Alright Macdaddy.

The fundamentals of the arguments are actually as I have stated here in the other thread to thehomer. I know very well that this will still breeze by you, but for starters, since the topic is the same, I post what I have just posted to thehomer in the other thread.

If you have any comments (which you should not) i will address them in the morning. I am off to cook and eat pasta now.

thehomer:

What you're supposed to show is Dawkins saying that the theory of evolution disproves God not that it doesn't need a God. Don't start dancing and vomiting lots of words, just demonstrate your claim for once.

Let me lay this matter to rest: and in doing so I certainly will not permit you to change the pith of the discourse. I really do not know what fancy gymnastics you think you are deploying when you state that we are to show Dawkins saying that the theory of evolution disproves God and not that it doesn't need God. In the first place there is minimal difference between both statements. In the second and more important case, the second statement is that which I advanced as his position: which is definitely the case as quotes below shall show. Nevertheless I must highlight the fact that the one statement implies the other, especially given the overall gamut of his arguments.

Now please for the last time settle down and understand the sequence of this matter properly. Dawkins' works under reference have been directed at disproving the existence of God. Now in so doing, he devolves into the theory of evolution for large parts of the article under reference to show that God is not needed for living things as we know them to exist. He goes so far as to adduce proof and arguments for the theory. In the first place, I might ask straightway what he was doing that for if not to disprove the existence of God - his stated mission anyway?

CLEAR POINT NUMBER ONE: God's existence is a question that arises from the philosophical conundrum: why something instead of nothing. It thus is a question that faces the very existence of the universe itself, and the commencement of life. Given that the theory of Evolution does not address either of these questions, then it follows that the theory of evolution cannot be held up as a reference point for disproving the existence of God in the first place. Simple.

Now the question which I will now put to rest is whether Dawkins does in fact hold up the theory of Evolution in disproof of the existence of God. I believe that this is the question that you have repeated here ad infinitum, ad nauseum, and which logicboy has asked as well. I have ignored the question because it seems to me that it could only be asked by persons who have not read the article under question, and particularly have not followed the overall gamut of Dawkin's arguments in all his works. The emphatic answer to that question is Yes, he does indeed hold up the theory of Evolution in disproof of the existence of God.

And as I have shown you above, and in my penultimate post, it is rationally and clearly philosophically mis-footed, to even set out the theory of evolution in disproof of the existence of God. But Richard Dawkins does this.

And here is the quote you have been waiting for:

Evolution, then, is theoretically capable of doing the job that, once upon a time, seemed to be the prerogative of God.

Yes, the foregoing is Dawkins-speak, straight from the same article I referred you to, but which you sir, have been too blind to read. And in the event that there is any doubt about his meaning, he launches immediately after that statement into long passages seeking to prove and substantiate evolution (hardly necessary in light of the core questions). At all events, by this statement it is apparent that he says that the theory of evolution effectively dispenses with the requirement for a creator. And the painful point that you yet fail to appreciate is simply as I said earlier: the theory of evolution does not, has never, and was not meant to ever touch on the questions apposite to the existence of God - namely the commencement of the universe and the commencement of life. It is thus benumbing for the good professor to argue it as a factor that shows that evolution is doing the job that "once upon a time was the prerogative of God."

The prerogative of God rather has always been argued as the factor that caused things to come to exist. Evolution does not address how things came to exist. It addresses how things grow and change. As such it is completely irrelevant in the question of the existence of God.

This is why I have set out that which I have set out to you; and it is simple and self evident to see.

POINT NUMBER TWO: Now I should go further to state that when people start out on such a badly mis-footed line of reasoning as I have shown above, they inevitably end up in deeply twisted contradictory conundrums. For that is exactly what happens to le professeur in his article: as he is forced to immediately acknowledge that evolution could not have commenced from nothing. He is forced to recognize that which I argue to you is and always has been the real root of the matter - namely how anything came to exist in the first place. In doing this, le professeur begins to trace backwards the existence of things and ends up with a plaintive plea that he is not a physicist but a biologist, and as such is not concerned with the core of the matter - the beginnings of the universe!

Now this is just a simple way of saying and admitting exactly what I have argued: namely - that evolution does not and cannot disprove the existence of God (whereas Dawkins wrote that "Evolution, then, is theoretically capable of doing the job that, once upon a time, seemed to be the prerogative of God" ) - and then turns around to effectively admit that his area of expertise, biology, cannot address the question - but that the question must be addressed by physicists!

Hear him in the same article -

The details of the early phase of the universe belong to the realm of physics, whereas I am a biologist, more concerned with the later phases of the evolution of complexity. For me, the important point is that, even if the physicist needs to postulate an irreducible minimum that had to be present in the beginning, in order for the universe to get started, that irreducible minimum is certainly extremely simple.

Of course the foregoing to the the nuanced mind clearly elucidates everything that I am saying in this respect: namely that whereas Dawkins has advanced Evolution as a factor that dispenses with the existence of God, he, at the conclusion, is forced to admit that his arguments in fact have no place whatsoever with respect to the God question. That in fact, it is the physicists cosmological question that properly addresses the argument. For which the fellow says this is not his area of expertise! What the f/uck then, was he busy writing epistles on evolution about, for which he concludes that the functions of God are therewith "theoretically" obviated?

I can only end this little intervention with one of his last lines where he states that if there is a cause, it will have to be irreducibly simple. My friend, God is not argued to be complex. God is actually that very irreducibly simple element that is the core of all existence.

Deepsight,


You are a foolish waste of time. So in reality, you had nothing against Dawkins only a strawman to set up your failed points. You claimed that he was saying that evolution disproves the existence of God. You must be a crazy liar.


Secondly, after reading your link, copying and editing your comment, copying the orignal article and then replying it in a very strategic and eligible way, you then lazily copy and paste your meaningless reply to another person in another thread. You couldnt even pay me the respect of putting forward a real reply to my own dissection of your link. Lazy, disrespectful and dubious.

Foolish waste of time. Empty barrel

MacDaddy01: Deepsight,


You are a foolish waste of time. So in reality, you had nothing against Dawkins only a strawman to set up your failed points. You claimed that he was saying that evolution disproves the existence of God. You must be a crazy liar.


Secondly, after reading your link, copying and editing your comment, copying the orignal article and then replying it in a very strategic and eligible way, you then lazily copy and paste your meaningless reply to another person in another thread. You couldnt even pay me the respect of putting forward a real reply to my own dissection of your link. Lazy, disrespectful and dubious.

Foolish waste of time. Empty barrel

Lol, Sir logicboy, it seems you get upset once something is not written specially for you. No need to throw a tantrum. As you may note, the topic I was addressing with thehomer and this topic are exactly the same. Indeed it is your fault that we have repetitions, as we could of course have addressed this same topic in the first thread I posted the link.

Seriously, you do not expect me to go about typing again the exact same argument everywhere just to please you? The points are on all fours and the issue exactly the same. Be reasonable.

Having said that, I already told you I would be back this morning. Having written all that last night I was tired. Rest assured I have a lot more to say on this. So later.

NB: It is however discouraging that you see no reason in that which I set up above. This is against the rules. Remember we agreed to a set of rules for this thread - namely point and counter point. Your response above is just your usual "no evidence!" and "debunked!" style. Let me ask you to kindly keep to the rules. You must specifically set out your counter-points if you want me to take this discussion seriously.

Deep Sight:

Lol, Sir logicboy, it seems you get upset once something is not written specially for you. No need to throw a tantrum. As you may note, the topic I was addressing with thehomer and this topic are exactly the same. Indeed it is your fault that we have repetitions, as we could of course have addressed this same topic in the first thread I posted the link.

Seriously, you do not expect me to go about typing again the exact same argument everywhere just to please you? The points are on all fours and the issue exactly the same. Be reasonable.

Having said that, I already told you I would be back this morning. Having written all that last night I was tired. Rest assured I have a lot more to say on this. So later.

Shut up. I dont want to hear it.


You have nothing. Just keep shut. Waste of time

MacDaddy01:


Shut up. I dont want to hear it.


You have nothing. Just keep shut. Waste of time

I added this this to my post above -

NB: It is however discouraging that you see no reason in that which I set up above. This is against the rules. Remember we agreed to a set of rules for this thread - namely point and counter point. Your response above is just your usual "no evidence!" and "debunked!" style. Let me ask you to kindly keep to the rules. You must specifically set out your counter-points if you want me to take this discussion seriously.

Be a man of honour. Remember we agreed on rules for this thread.

You are reverting to your old ways.

Deep Sight:

I added this this to my post above -

NB: It is however discouraging that you see no reason in that which I set up above. This is against the rules. Remember we agreed to a set of rules for this thread - namely point and counter point. Your response above is just your usual "no evidence!" and "debunked!" style. Let me ask you to kindly keep to the rules. You must specifically set out your counter-points if you want me to take this discussion seriously.

Be a man of honour. Remember we agreed on rules for this thread.

You are reverting to your old ways.

After breaking your own rules and disrespecting me with your copy and paste nonsense?


mtchwew

MacDaddy01:


After breaking your own rules and disrespecting me with your copy and paste nonsense?


mtchwew

What on earth is wrong with you? Don't you realize you have a problem? How can you talk about copy and paste when I am reproducing my own words written on same subject just a few minutes ago? Do you expect that when you and thehomer ask me the exact same question in different threads I must write two different epistles? By the way if you bothered to read what I wrote up there (which you clearly did not) then you would realize it was addressed to the concerns of both you and thehomer.

Now secondly you ought to realize that this your attention-desperation disorder is getting waaaaay out of hand. For heavens sake you crave so much attention that you want me to dedicate myself to you exclusively and write only in response to you and you alone. That is not possible: and even if it were, you have not merited it yet with the sort of response you give. Stop being such an attention freak. That up there is not "copy and paste" - it is my own words written last night in response to the same question from two people - yourself and thehomer.

Now: please confirm that you will keep to the rules as we go forward: it will be a tragedy if as I proceed i only get the sort of responses that we agreed are not permitted. It should be point and counter-point. Let me assure you that if you do not keep to this rule, I certainly have better things to do and will not bother further.

Deep Sight:

What on earth is wrong with you? Don't you realize you have a problem? How can you talk about copy and paste when I am reproducing my own words written on same subject just a few minutes ago? Do you expect that when you and thehomer ask me the exact same question in different threads I must write two different epistles? By the way if you bothered to read what I wrote up there (which you clearly did not) then you would realize it was addressed to the concerns of both you and thehomer.

Now secondly you ought to realize that this your attention-desperation disorder is getting waaaaay out of hand. For heavens sake you crave so much attention that you want me to dedicate myself to you exclusively and write only in response to you and you alone. That is not possible: and even if it were, you have not merited it yet with the sort of response you give. Stop being such an attention freak. That up there is not "copy and paste" - it is my own words written last night in response to the same question from two people - yourself and thehomer.

Now: please confirm that you will keep to the rules as we go forward: it will be a tragedy if as I proceed i only get the sort of responses that we agreed are not permitted. It should be point and counter-point. Let me assure you that if you do not keep to this rule, I certainly have better things to do and will not bother further.

Goodbye. There is no going forward. You bore me with your anonyism

MacDaddy01:


Goodbye. There is no going forward. You bore me with your anonyism

You are disrespecting the rules: and by the way I am not finished yet.

Deep Sight:

You are disrespecting the rules: and by the way I am not finished yet.

You're not finished? Seriously, what more do you have to say?

deepsight, you are a great philosopher, however, if god exist, let him speak for himself. god is a person, evolution is not so people can speak for it, you do not qualify to speak for god, he is greater than even you can comprehend. remember the story of gideon in the bible when he destroyed some idols and the owners wanted to kill him but his father asked them to let the idol fight for himself if he is powerful. so if god exist, let him speak, if he wont, then you keep quiet.

poopli: deepsight, you are a great philosopher, however, if god exist, let him speak for himself. god is a person, evolution is not so people can speak for it, you do not qualify to speak for god, he is greater than even you can comprehend. remember the story of gideon in the bible when he destroyed some idols and the owners wanted to kill him but his father asked them to let the idol fight for himself if he is powerful. so if god exist, let him speak, if he wont, then you keep quiet.

I hear you; however, I am not speaking for God.

God speaks everyday in everything that happens around us, to the earth, and to the entire universe and creation.

I am engaging in an academic discussion only, because I enjoy doing so.

I am not seeking to change logicboy - nothing I say here will change his atheistic views - nor does it matter. If he needs to change those views, he will over time, and it will come from within him, and not from any argument on nairaland. As regards his core character, as far as I can see, he seems inclined to normal and good morality, so I am not on any crusade to save him in that regard either.

MacDaddy01:




You're not finished? Seriously, what more do you have to say?

According to the rules, I have counter-points to make to your points in the OP, in addition to what I have already written. I also have a lot to say on Dawkins works and arguments generally, so I will take this thread as the opportunity to do so. I am making some pasta right now. Be right back.

Deep Sight:

I hear you; however, I am not speaking for God.

God speaks everyday in everything that happens around us, to the earth, and to the entire universe and creation.

I am engaging in an academic discussion only, because I enjoy doing so.

I am not seeking to change logicboy - nothing I say here will change his atheistic views - nor does it matter. If he needs to change those views, he will over time, and it will come from within him, and not from any argument on nairaland. As regards his core character, as far as I can see, he seems inclined to normal and good morality, so I am not on any crusade to save him in that regard either.

you are making the same mistake ooman makes, I have been following him, he seem scientific but I never saw you engage him.
you and ooman have same mindset with different views. you both dont know when to let go and so you make blunders. this thread is a trap, let it go.

by the way, are u a christian because brokoto is still struggling to tell me where he belongs after denying xtianity.

poopli:

you are making the same mistake ooman makes, I have been following him, he seem scientific but I never saw you engage him.
you and ooman have same mindset with different views. you both dont know when to let go and so you make blunders. this thread is a trap, let it go.

A trap? Now that's funny. Regardless, I enjoy such things and i'm happy to fall into such traps. Believe me, I would not be here if I did not want to discuss the subject just for its own worth. There is no prize to win and no punishment to be had. Allow me my quality family time with logicboy, my favorite nairalander.

by the way, are u a christian because brokoto is still struggling to tell me where he belongs after denying xtianity.

If by Christian, you mean one who believes in the teaching of christ on love and morals, then yes, why not. But if by christian, you mean a denominational christian who goes to church and believes in Jesus as lord and saviour, as God, as son of God, and believes in his death as redemption, in the bible as inerrant truth, etc, then no, I am not a christian. I am, for all considered purposes, Deist in belief.

Deep Sight:

A trap? Now that's funny. Regardless, I enjoy such things and i'm happy to fall into such traps. Believe me, I would not be here if I did not want to discuss the subject just for its own worth. There is no prize to win and no punishment to be had. Allow me my quality family time with logicboy, my favorite nairalander.



If by Christian, you mean one who believes in the teaching of christ on love and morals, then yes, why not. But if by christian, you mean a denominational christian who goes to church and believes in Jesus as lord and saviour, as God, as son of God, and believes in his death as redemption, in the bible as inerrant truth, etc, then no, I am not a christian. I am, for all considered purposes, Deist in belief.

deepsight DEEPSIGHT DEEPSIGHT. how many times did I call you? you have denied salvation, your lot is in hell.

JUST JOKING, AM AN AGNOSTIC TOO.

tell me your field of study

you know atheists, deists, agnostic, I think we all have one thing in common and that is we all realize that it is impossible for an intelligence to be ever present in all natural processes.

here is one question for you: as a deist, you believe that a god started everything and left and since then nature has self coordinate to produce everything we see. here is why I remain an agnostic and this is the question no one has answered: if nature can self coordinate, why cant it self originate?

ooman says everything came from energy, why can't that be TRUE.?

why would an intelligence start what he wouldn't finish?

poopli:

deepsight DEEPSIGHT DEEPSIGHT. how many times did I call you?

Three times, but I am highly offended that you did not put the first mention in capital letters. You have to be very careful. I am a terrible potentate and may exact revenge.

you have denied salvation, your lot is in hell.

If there are strippers in hell, then lets go there.

JUST JOKING, AM AN AGNOSTIC TOO.

O, I see.

tell me your field of study

I am a lawyer. Ten years now, and have mostly worked in telecommunications multinationals as legal adviser.

you know atheists, deists, agnostic, I think we all have one thing in common and that is we all realize that it is impossible for an intelligence to be ever present in all natural processes.

Insightful and probing question. However I would say that the overall thrust of existential reality renders a cause necessary. Now, mark you, when you say "intelligence" you have to be careful. Does God need to be intelligent in the human sense?

If my doG is not intelligent in the human sense, why should a specie as different as a transcendent creator be intelligent in the human sense. Why could God not be the embodiment of infinity, simple?

here is one question for you: as a deist, you believe that a god started everything and left and since then nature has self coordinate to produce everything we see. here is why I remain an agnostic and this is the question no one has answered: if nature can self coordinate, why cant it self originate?

Because it is finite and demonstrably had a beginning. Anything that had a beginning evidentially had a cause. And no effect can be its own cause.

ooman says everything came from energy, why can't that be TRUE.?

That is in fact true, God is the sum of all eternal energy.

why would an intelligence start what he wouldn't finish?

Will you be there in the end, (and there will be no end) to say that the work is not finished?

The work is finished in the existence of natural laws.

Attune yourself to them and you will be fine.

.

sorry for the name.

actually, there will be strippers in hell, so is Michael Jackson among many others. hell will be much more lively than heaven.

am a field biologist, my work is to camera nature in zoos and national parks and send it to nature tvs or publish them so am also with media.

in my studies, I have learnt that intelligence or god or conscious entity is not the sole cause of events. except if you believe in the gaia hypothesis : it says that the earth is a conscious body.
I have learnt that non living events like sun, rain, wind etc normally lead to effects that affects life. what if such non living event was the first cause.? the cause of the universe

let me illustrate: in the seregetti desert, rain hardly fall. however, there was a night that was so cool that rain fell. the next day, we set out to see how it will affect desert animal lives. we were lucky to experience a burning bird nest. why and how could this be possible? after much studies on surrounding nests, we discovered that the bird nest absorbed rain water, the surface water dried up in the heat of the day, but the water underneath the nest were dropping slowly, because of this, the dropping water concentrated the sun's heat and rays, as the sun shines brightly and redirected them to the dry leaves of the nest which caused fire that burned many nests.

now the point of my story is that there was sun, fire, water, nests, birds yet this affected each other in a well coordinated manner without being that a separate god was playing a game. there are also numerous events like this that happen that when you think a god must have been involved, you later find that its because the living and the non living world are connected.
I think (though not crtain, which is why am an agnistic) that the first cause is a NON LIVING cause. if you agree with this, we can call it even, if no, you would have to prove the first cause is a living cause.

by saying god is the sun of all energy, you are saying everything has god in them, since everything has energy in them. you are also saying the universe and everything in it collectively is the GOD that people worship. if that is right, always watch your back, xtians and muslims may punch you for blasphemy.

by saying "Will you be there in the end, (and there will be no end) to say that the work is not finished?" are you saying that the universe as a whole will exist forever?

poopli: sorry for the name.

actually, there will be strippers in hell, so is Michael Jackson among many others. hell will be much more lively than heaven.

am a field biologist, my work is to camera nature in zoos and national parks and send it to nature tvs or publish them so am also with media.

in my studies, I have learnt that intelligence or god or conscious entity is not the sole cause of events. except if you believe in the gaia hypothesis : it says that the earth is a conscious body.
I have learnt that non living events like sun, rain, wind etc normally lead to effects that affects life. what if such non living event was the first cause.? the cause of the universe

let me illustrate: in the seregetti desert, rain hardly fall. however, there was a night that was so cool that rain fell. the next day, we set out to see how it will affect desert animal lives. we were lucky to experience a burning bird nest. why and how could this be possible? after much studies on surrounding nests, we discovered that the bird nest absorbed rain water, the surface water dried up in the heat of the day, but the water underneath the nest were dropping slowly, because of this, the dropping water concentrated the sun's heat and rays, as the sun shines brightly and redirected them to the dry leaves of the nest which caused fire that burned many nests.

now the point of my story is that there was sun, fire, water, nests, birds yet this affected each other in a well coordinated manner without being that a separate god was playing a game. there are also numerous events like this that happen that when you think a god must have been involved, you later find that its because the living and the non living world are connected.
I think (though not crtain, which is why am an agnistic) that the first cause is a NON LIVING cause. if you agree with this, we can call it even, if no, you would have to prove the first cause is a living cause.

by saying god is the sun of all energy, you are saying everything has god in them, since everything has energy in them. you are also saying the universe and everything in it collectively is the GOD that people worship. if that is right, always watch your back, xtians and muslims may punch you for blasphemy.

by saying "Will you be there in the end, (and there will be no end) to say that the work is not finished?" are you saying that the universe as a whole will exist forever?

Detailed response later; but for now, please note that when you refer to sun, sind, rain, etc, you are referring to phenomena that already exist. The question is why and how did these phenomena come to exist at all? Why something instead of nothing?

Deep Sight:

Detailed response later; but for now, please note that when you refer to sun, sind, rain, etc, you are referring to phenomena that already exist. The question is why and how did these phenomena come to exist at all? Why something instead of nothing?

I will wait for your detailed response before presenting my own opinion of why something instead of nothing.