₦airaland Forum

plaetton:
Correction:
I have never ever quoted Dawkins. I held my views long before i heard of the man, I certainly do not draw any kind of inspiration from him or any other.
Any elementary school child should know how snow crystals are formed. that is common and accepted knowledge. If on the other hand, someone makes the claim that Frosty The Snowman created the snow cyrstals, then the burden of proof should rest on the claimant.
Like I pointed out earlier, athiest should not have to waste their energy trying to prove the non-exixtence of god,no. They should simply ask"where is the creator?". That is the athiest's burden of proof.
let me give a personal story to illustrate this point.
I used to tell my child, when he was aged 4, that I could turn into a lion. Naturally, he believed it so much  that he went to school and spread the news to his friends. Everyday, his friends would debate this with him and he would always come home to ask me if I could really turn into a lion . I would say ,yes ofcourse. After a while, he started demanding that I turn into a lion to show him. Poor thing, he needed proof to face his face friends . I told him I could not turn into a lion in his presence because I would  have to swallow him if I did(.LoL), and he would back off. But as time went on ,he demanded for more proof ,and one point ,did not mind the possiblity of being swallowed by a lion. He needed proof from me. He needed to see in order to believe.
Under this scenario, I cannot imagine shifting the burden of proof to him to show that I cannot turn inot a lion. The fact that he has not seen it happen to date is all the proof he needs.
Not so?

This is a very bad and misleading example because the everyday experience of people does not lend them to see or believe in humans turning into lions.

On the other hand, the everyday exeperience of people does confirm that the things about us have causes. The laws of motion confirm this. Also our everyday exeperience lends us to doubt that startlingly complex things 9such as the human brain) may grow by themselves just unaided. We derive this understanding because we are witnesses ourselves to the painstaking thinking required to develop purpose built mechanisms ourselves. This is why the average common-sensical human being will not believe that something like the brain - which far exceeds anything designed by man - is undesigned.

Thus in summary, your turning into a lion does not lend itself to our common experience, but our common experience does lend us to believe that complex-purpose oriented elements are designed.

Where this is our common collective perception, it falls to the person who asserts the contrary to prove same.

Martian:
We don't doubt scientists when they make claims because they end up using the knowledge they gleam from research in practical ways.
In a logical and rational world, when somebody makes a claim, they don't tell other people to disprove them, they present evidence and explain how they came to that conclusion.
The recent neutrino experiment is an example. They made a claim and proceeded to explain how the experiments were done and are currently repeating them.
They didn't say, "neutrinos are faster than light" and then say the burden on proof is on the rest of us while refusing to offer evidence.
If anyone says an intelligent creator exists, then the burden of proof lies with the person.
I can't claim that there are 10 intelligent designers and ask someone else to disprove them. I have to prove that they exist.

It is actually within the common intuitive and logical sensing of mankind that things as we know them have causes. This is very basic and obvious within the laws of motion. It is also within the common understanding of mankind that startlingly advanced things, such as the human brain (a super computer far exceeding the capabilities of the most advanced purpose built super computers made by man) - do not grow into existence by themselves. They evince hallmarks of delibreate design, and for this reason the default position should indeed be to lean towards the obvious fact that such things are caused and designed.

Leaning in the other direction - namely that such a thing is not caused or designed - would certainly shift the burden of proof unto him who says so.

For by default, it appears designed.

thehomer:
Firstly, what idea of God is being referred to?

We can only assume the very basic notion of God which ranks as common denominator to virtually all notions: namely - an intelligent creator of all that exists.

Even if what we take to be life was designed, this doesn't mean that what we would generally consider to be a God did this designing. e.g if what we know as life here was designed by aliens somewhere else in the galaxy, we wouldn't call such beings Gods.

It is safe to say that the idea being referred to within the context of theistic / atheistic discourses of this nature is that god or that element considered to be the ultimate cause of ALL existence.

Secondly, what does he mean by "the improbable complexity of life"? What should be kept in mind is that improbable things occur all the time given a lot of time and space and that what we're looking at right now "life" may be considered a "finished" product in this sense.
To help in illustration, what is the probability that one should exist? Consider the necessary variables such as the presence of one's parents, the timing of their meeting, the number of gametes released, their grand parents and such situations going up 20 generations, then the probabilities of certain technologies being available when they became available etc. One can see that the final probability value is improbable.

There are no problems with this. One can set out to prove that an improbable event does actually occur, or actually occured. The simple point being made is that once it is accepted as improbable, then the burden rests with he who asserts it to be the case.

Thirdly, has this God done anything else since then?

This is not relevant to this discussion.

To simplify the premises -

Let's use Richard Dawkins' position to illustrate the point.

Argument One -

Premise One -
~ Burden of Proof properly shifts to the party advancing a notion that appears improbable

Premise Two -
~ Richard Dawkins accedes to the improbability of complex life forms arising from chance

Conclusion --->
Given that Dawkins admits the improbability of the complexity of living forms, the Burden of Proof for showing that they did arise through a non-guided process is thus properly shifted to him.

__________________________________

I realize that it may be said that Dawkins refers to natural selection and not pure chance per se. However, this is a frivolous and thoughless point to make, because -

1. Natural Selection at all events is inchoate as a theory regarding the development of species given that it does not account for the origin of species - here again in the very oirigin of species, chance is relied upon.

2. Dawkins himself argues for chance by speaking of "lucky mutations" (See his comments on the development of the eye)

3. Natural Selection involves many elements of chance

Given the foregoing, the argument from natural selection cannot escape the question of chance. It only attempts to build a scenario within which chance may appear to be more probable.

Thus, when we then consider that Dawkins had himself stated chance to be an improbable factor in light of the complexity of living forms and further given that the burden of proof shifts to he who advances an improbability, then it logically follows that the burden of proof shifts to Dawkings.

This is quite a simple process of thought development.

Martian:
This Dawkins quote is often used as support for intelligent design while the person using the quote conveniently omits the rest of the paragraph.

Absolutely not! I provided the link to the full article - and in that thread I extensively laid out my problems with the very obviously shallow write-up.

Besides this, you seem to have missed the core point. I have not set out to debate the existence of God in this thread. I have debated that all too often already. I am strictly and only setting out to revisit the question of Burden of Proof - no more, no less.

Now, with regard to that question the cardinal point is that the burden (and you can research this point if you please) properly should shift where the position being advanced by the denying party prima facie appears improbable. Now indeed, that very improbability is admitted by Dawkins - which is exactly why he then goes ahead to write extensively seeking to rebutt the existence of an intelligent creator.

He would not have to write a single word if indeed there was no burden upon him - and that burden arose from
the improbable complexity of living forms - which he accedes to.

every argument in favor of an intelligent designer is nothing but philosophical wishful thinking made up by theistic folks who can't fathom a universe and human life without a ultimate cause.

. . . .That is because it is only natural to believe that things as we know them generally have causes - - - or does science teach otherwise?

plaetton:
@Deedsight:
I am trying to figure out what is meant by improbable complexity.

What is meant by improbable complexity? O, that comes straight from your own reverred Richard Dawkins. He wrote -

"We can safely conclude that living bodies are billions of times too complicated - too statistically improbable - to have come into being by sheer chance" ~ Richard Dawkins

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-758572.0.html

I am not here on this thread to argue the existence of God. I am here to discuss where the burden of proof should lie - with due regard to the concept of burden of proof. If something seems improbable, then does the burden not shift to he who asserts that seeming improbability?

As such, if this mere water crystal - prima facie - appears as something which is unlikely to be arrived at by blind chance - then the burden of proving that it actually does arrive in such a blind process then shifts to the man who asserts it to be so.

I have traditionally agreed with the Atheistic argument that the burden of proof (of the existence of God) rests on the Theist. This has been based on my understanding of the concept of burden of proof: namely that the burden rests on he who makes a positive assertion and not on he who makes a negative assertion. In summary, anyway.

However sometime ago, when i advanced this notion to my younger brother he contested it fiercely. He stated (i paraphrase) that in view of the improbable complexity of life forms, there exists every reason to suppose by default that an intelligent creator exists, and that the burden to disprove that, (since life forms seem to evince the contrary) should rest on the atheist.

I found this argument compelling because I am aware (in law) that the burden of proof is by no means static. In legal proceedings for example, the burden of proof is said to shift when on the face of the facts presented, the assertion sought to be proved by the person advancing the positive assertion appears more probable than the denial being advanced by the counter-party.

I am wondering if the improbable complexity of living forms (admitted even by the most irrascible atheists, such as Richard Dawkins) is not sufficient to shift the burden of proof over to he who thereon denies the existence of an intelligent creator.

Both doctrines are VERY repugnant indeed. Salvation by tithes is simply a non-starter. However the idea that mere faith (such as in an individual or a ritual) can accomplish salvation is very dangerous indeed: and forms the core of my problem with the teaching of ritualistic redemption via a Roman style execution.

Honestly i wonder at these things. What beats me the most is that one religion wil cite similar things in the lore of another religion to ridicule it - but can never see the fact that their own religion contains similar and even more bizzarre lore.

The notion that anyone's sins are borne or excused by anyone else is a very dangerous notion which leads many to lose sight of the all important spiritual law of personal responsibility.

wirinet:
Deep sight my old friend, how you dey? Hope you are doing fine.

The universe is predicted on probabilities. On the microscopic world the laws of probabilities reign supreme. You cannot be certain of anything or any event. You can only be certain of the probability of an event happening.

The universe forbids nothingness, to achieve a state of nothingness, you would need to go outside the known universe. Even in a vacuum you have what is called quantum fluctuations, which allows energy to pop in and out of existence.

Hi Old pal. Not sure you got my meaning. The universe itself is an already existent thing. The core question is what triggered its existence. It is said to have started to expand from a point - a singularity. Why and how did this happen. Why did the singularity exist in the first place. I believe these are the questions that go to the meat of the matter, as you cannot have probabilities in a non-existent state. What accounts for existent states?

wirinet:
Numo86, you got everything missed and messed up. I know it is due to mental conditioning, it is impossible to reason outside what you have been indoctrinated with since you are a toddler.

Since you find the word chance uncomfortable, then change it to probability, it should make more sense. So we can now say you came to the world as a result of probability. The probability of you coming into the world can be put at 1billion to one, but when you consider that an expulsion can release up to 10million Spermatozoa in a single session, then your parents only need a few sessions to achieve that probability. Same with life, even if the probability of life evolving out of non organic materials is 1billion to one, it has had over 4billion years of trial and error.

Everything you perceive as design today is just a state of temporary equilibrium. It will change tomorrow and new equilibriums(designs) would arise, like patterns on a sand dune.

How can you believe we came from dust and will return to dust. We have nothing in common with earth dust which is mainly composed of silicon, we are carbon based and have no silicon in out bodies. And when we die it is bacteria,worms and insects that would consume our bodies(if you are not cremated) and recycled to be used by other living things.
If you are talkng of star dust or star gasses, I would understand.

You are making a presumption of already existent things. Only already existent things could interact with probabilities. Nothingness contains no probabilities. The core question should be directed towards the conundrum of nothingness. Why something instead of nothing? That is the meat of the matter.

Thanks for your answers, Tbaba.

Do you regard sharia punishments such as amputation in cases of theft, stoning in cases of adultery, etc to be humane punishments? Do you not think that these are rather archaiaic punishments which ought to have been since phased out? Do you think it is ideal for modern societies to adhere strictly to codes of punishments set out by very ancient traditions?

I do insist on the term Gender Apartheid in Saudi Arabia. And there is a wealth of overwhelming evidence for that. Surely you cannot wave aside all the evidence for that and seek to deny the overwhelming pointers of severe discrimination against women which stem from Islamic injunctions.

How does a woman divorce her husband. Are divorce rights saved for men alone?

^^^ True that.

Egbon - ofcourse i do not imagine he is discussing naira and kobo. I merely skimmed through the post, eys caught a point of interest - which interest was on this portion quoted below and its relationship to the prior thread on money -

What is the deceitfulness inherent in riches?  Money is used to represent value, but there is always a danger, as with all representations,  that in so doing it actually starts to distort value too. There comes a point when we are so focused on maximising monetary profits that we lose sight of our objective of creating real tangible value.  Instead economic activity becomes a series of slight of hand techniques.   This has become more and more evident lately.

Everyone can be interested in an aspect of a discourse. There truly was no reason for the sudden assumptions and vituperations of yourself and your co traveller. That is obvious. You guys need to calm down.

But no worries! Have a great day!

^ Sorry Egbon. For me it's just very telling and very sad - very emblematic of an unfortunate mindset. Just got before my PC now and so I will source the link I had in mind and when you read it, you will see exactly why this is just so comical.

Here it is -

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-696891.32.html

Please, Egbon, I beg you in the name of the almighty God - take a moment and look at the link!

The discussion there took a very technical macro-economic bent with some emphasis on money as a tool of economic transaction in the modern world - vis-a-vis its real or phantom value. Alot was discussed about banking and finance, usury, money supply, etc etc. The discussion to this very interesting tangent from the OP which had initially been about Islamic Banking.

I thought it was a very very interesting discourse and I dearly wanted to contribute therein but left off for personal reasons. Now there are allusions in parts of the OP here which i only skimmed over, to one of the issues in the other thread to wit: the phantom value of money.

So this is the entire reason that I made my remark - namely that Pastor was discussing this money issue again. Period. It was my intention to make a few remarks with reference to the prior discussion as the thread developed.

As you may see - my comment thus did not even have anything to do with religion!

You can thus understand how terribly terribly strange it is when one person comes in and then castigates me for "speaking against" the OP! And then brings Joe Agbaje into it! And another scurries off to produce a thread discussing Jesus' paternity! And begins to declare one an id.iot! It's mind boggling!

Jesus!

This is exactly why I said that this is a clear case of obsessive paranoia.

I have only bothered to lay this out because I hope it would help you guys slow down on the crucify Deep Sight Train. . . for sometimes, like in this instance, you jump headfirst into something that you know nothing off and speak terribly off tangent! Which is very sad indeed~!

Idiocy? Na wah o.

Well, Nuc, just FYI the 'money subject' i was referring to is the allusion to the phantom value of money in the OP. . . This is a subject that was debated extensively between Pastor AIO and NLMediator i think. On a phone now, so cant source the link.

The discussion dwelled heavily of the technicality and question of value of money as a means of exchange. As such, my reference has nothing to do with your thoughts in that regard. It is thus more than curious that that alone would suffice to ressurect Joagbaje, as well as render the Paternity of Jesus relevant here? I would say this resembles obsessive paranoid behaviour.

Enigma:
^ Well, a claim that maybe the "biological father" of Jesus Christ is a Roman soldier who "quaffed Mary" is supported by mentioned in Wikipedia ---- so that proves it then.  https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-802388.0.html#msg9546224

Proves what exactly? My brother, i would have thought you would be tired of your allergy for me after a season.

In that topic the OP asked for the biological father of Jesus and i pointed him towards some suggestions that have been made, to the effect that it may have been a Roman Soldier. i am glad you were kind enough to note that i said *perhaps*. . .as there is certainly no proof of this. I am however aware of some other writings that make this claim.

You do know all too well that I do not believe in the virgin birth, but if my use of the term *quaff* was offensive, i do apologize for that.

Oh dear. I see folks, you are yet to leave ur hyper sensitivity on all things DS! I have not even read the OP. I merely noticed that AIO has discussed this a number of times. Nothin more, and i certainly don't see any wrong in his discourses and views in that regard.

So calm down?

Here's my question. Does the Islamic endorsement of polygamy reflect an ideal human family principle?

What accounts for the lamentable discrimination against women (gender apartheid) in predominantly Islamic Countries (particularly Saudi Arabia).

Martian:
If you people insist on an "uncaused cause", why can't the universe we know exists be that uncaused cause?

Because uncaused things cannot be material, given that material things are mutable, but i expect that to fly over your head.

Platteon will appear to reject any views, no matter how logically advanced, that are Theistic.

Ha. You are back on this money subject again.

^^^ Whilst you lazily have nothing to say about the sound argument contained in the OP.

Perhaps it was a Roman Soldier called Panthera that quaffed Mary,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiberius_Iulius_Abdes_Pantera

^^ Word. I have told you before that you should write.

@ nwankwo, Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I Disagree, but, I have too much respect for you to debate this sonship thing any further. How you dey? Great, i hope!

Very well articulated.

Richard Dawkins, it is widely known, is an air-head.

plaetton:
The notion of an uncaused cause or creator or god creating the universe is one that has been hotly debated on this forum and else where. If you or others subscribe to this notion, then you are, by default, agreeing that the creator must exist outside of the universe in order to create it.
So if one cannot envision an existence outside the universe, then one cannot postulate the existence of a creator of the universe.

We can, and we must envision the existence of elements outside the universe: the observable fact of the universe's continuing expansion begs the question - i[b]nto what is the universe expanding. [/b]

That in itself creates a an irrefutable case for the notion that things do exist outside the universe, even if we are as yet unable to define or observe them.

plaetton:
Difficult to comprehend but not entirely silly. Time travel would present many paradoxes. For example, if you were to travel back in time and kill your grandfather before he sired your father,then how would you have existed to be able to go back in time to kill him?

Have a peek here at Justcool's brilliant take -

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-364727.0.html

One can probably see into the past because light contains pictures, but changing past events would be impossible.

The notion of a creator who created himself is also a paradox. Do you consider it silly?

God is not said to have created itself. God is said to be a self-existent element. This means that God is intangible, immutable, necessary as opposed to contingent, and uncreated.

Outside of the universe, space would be a vacuum, there would be no frame of reference for time, and therefore time would not exist. Consciousness uses the universe to give frames of reference to time . Since time and the universe are intertwined, there is only one time and that is the duration of consciousness.

Perception of time is not time.

The old saying - "Perception is reality" should read more precisely - "Perception is cognitive reality"

Aside from this, your statement that - "there is only one time and that is the duration of consciousness" - contains a lamentable inference that nothing - no time - and thus no universe - could have existed before conscious creatures. That, of course, is both logically and scientifically untenable.

Pastor AIO:
I think that Deep Sight sees 'the universe' as the contents of Space and Time, so space and time themselves are not a part of the universe (according to his definition of the universe).

This is a somewhat correct take of my view.

Deep Sight, abeg no vex for me, I know that our last exchanges were a teeny weeny bit strained. I take the blame, I was much too touchy. Let's kiss and make up .

Lol, no worries there mate. If I offended you in anyway you have my apologies.

^

What do we mean when we say that something is self-existent? We mean that by its nature it inherently exists. "Existing" is core to what it is. It could not but exist because its very nature is existent. Accordingly such a thing does not "come into" existence, nor does it cease to exist, because existence is inherent to the principle of what it is.

Now let us understand this carefully. A self-existent thing is so because the core principle, the very principle of what it is, is inherently existent. So it is what it is for that reason. Since it is what it is, it is not something that can change. It just is. Constant. A constant and non-ceasing reality.

This is why we say that a self-existent thing is immutable. Its existence is predicated on a principle that is inherently existent and could not but exist and accordingly it cannot but be that principle. Thus it cannot be or become something else because inherently it is that principle. We thus understand that some-thing that self-exists cannot change.

Matter and Energy as we observe them in the physical are changeable. Thus they are not self-existent things

I may further indicate that there is a deeper, more subtle reason why it is obvious that self-existent things are non-physical. Without being wordy, and selecting my words very carefully let me simply say that a self-existent thing being something that cannot be created, thus cannot be something of form and mass. I hope this resonates within your mind.

And so a self-existent thing can not have a form or physical mass as it is an intangible and neceesary, non-contingent reality.

An example of a self-existent thing is eternity. Eternity is eternity. No birth or death of physical universes could circumscribe eternity. It is just there: a constant: eternity. It is not to be confused with the finite time that we use our indicators to measure. Eternity is just a constant. It could neither change nor be created. It is simply the constant vacuum into which things are interpolated.

Every self-existent thing that one may discern is a great key and a great help to understand what God is. Because God is the sum of intangible self-existent realities. The sum of all self-existent law.