₦airaland Forum

SNCOQ3:
reference it.

We had a conversation in the a series of connecting replies and responses; and at the culmination where you find yourself stuck in a contradiction, you ask for proof! How ridiculous!

SNCOQ3:
Proof?

In our prior posts.

@pastorolut

So you think there is only value system.

SNCOQ3:
In the light of sound logic --


Empty rhetoric.
Unless you have a superior argument against the kalam cosmological argument, their is no contradiction.

And how neatly your argument falls apart.

elobyobi:
I'm just here to get likes for Jesus.
But seriously I believe the Holy Spirit is the Master of common sense. That being said, atheists will always fall short of the passmark on the morality meter.
Likes fo r Jesus, people!

Possibly Christian morality because it is unconvincing to us.

SNCOQ3:
No contradiction.
It follows that: If their is an Uncaused Cause, a Prime Mover; then their is an Undesigned Designer.

In the light of your own words --

If it works like a machine, it is a machine until proven otherwise.
If it exhibits balance, symmetry, pattern, coordination in its operation, it is design until proven otherwise.


That is to say: something that is designed to design can not be said to be a design because it designs.
You can as well say that factory robots are not designs because they design car doors, chassis and engines.
Funny.

There is a contradiction, because the Logos/superphysical/supernatural law is the constraint that effects design and following the above quote, the fact Logos exhibits that, implies itself is a subject of design. And you further say this design is uncaused.

PastorOluT:
U still dont get do u? Where did d value system (right n acceptable) comes from?

I can easily say from the person making the value judgment. Based on his own uniquely evolved concepts of right and wrong, and his r her experience

SNCOQ3:
If it works like a machine, it is a machine until proven otherwise.
If it exhibits balance, symmetry, pattern, coordination in its operation, it is design until proven otherwise.


That is to say: something that is designed to design can not be said to be a design because it designs.
You can as well say that factory robots are not designs because they design car doors, chassis and engines.
Funny.


Yea, but be mindful of the context in which I use 'constraint' : It was was a reaction to someone who was saying that physical laws is not design but constrain. and my argument is, what is designed to constrain is a design.

The Universe consists of three constituents: spacetime, forms of energy, including electromagnetic radiation and matter, and the physical laws that relate them. The Universe also encompasses all of life, all of history... -Wikipedia

First, a Law that transcends this universe cannot be described as 'overarching physical laws' but a superphysical or supernatural law.

The "constraint" necessary for the design of the universe is the Logos and the universe is a Rhema- Spoken Words from the Logos

Following your arguments that constraint is key to design and such constraints are designs themselves, aren't you confounded with the contradiction that Logos is itself designed?!

But if a moral system which abhors suffering, is created; we will be prohibiting progress itself. Because most endeavors of progress require some measure of suffering. Probably the suffering you are speaking about is meaningless suffering which no one can really comprehend.

basille:
Heaven on Earth. A better world.

But that is pinned on the hope others reciprocate. Nonetheless it is a starting point.

basille:


Forget karma, let's stick to our individual beliefs. How about empathy?

Where does empathy lead us to? Heaven or earth?

basille:
I believe the answer to the bold is Karma and Empathy.

Karma is largely a Buddhist concept. Buddhism is an atheistic religion, however Karma hardly is relevant since it works within the cycle of life and death. It integrates an idea of afterlife which most secularists have rejected as part and parcel of a spiritual religion.

Material investment for spiritual benefits.

Idrismusty97:
Common sense will tell you not to steal or murder. And if you go out of the norms to commit these acts the long arms of the law will always catch up with you. Besides you wouldn't want to raise up your kids as a thief or murderer would you? We don't need a god or religion for morality, the world is changing. We are entering into a new era...Most irreligious countries are usually the most peaceful. E.g Denmark, Japan, Iceland etc

Are you aware of Communism in East Europe?

If you are, you would know those Communists have in the past stolen and murdered, however under a different legal/moral order. They uprooted the bourgeois system which preserved the wealth of the bourgeois and replaced it with theirs. It then appears that social justice must involve some stealing and murdering with consequences tolerable to the masses. So stealing and murdering are not bad in themselves but in the consequences they are tied to.

Things are not really black and white.

Since God does not exist, at least in our minds, I believe we atheists have a wild freedom. I am careful not to use to free will because that has it own crazy baggage.

In absence of an all seeing authority, we find ourselves being our own guides and authorities. The weakness of our will represents laxer restraints. What guidelines are necessary to create our own unique morality? What does our morality aim for, since morality is a means to a goal? Greater civilization? Excellent individuals? etc

The first problem is perception. Whatever reality we perceive, develops first of all as a mental image and construct. What is problematic is going beyond perception to identify whether universals are real in themselves and the integrity of our perception.

KingEbukasBlog:
No . The design (natural not man-made but if man made design then yes ) is responsible for the physical laws . It depends on what you see as a design though . Remember , science basically is the study of nature . These laws were gotten from repeated observations for a long time. Nature has always been present , while science just studies it to predict , to ascertain , to verify etc .

Miracles , the use of Supernatural powers , defies the laws of nature e.g crippled walking , blind seeing , etc

This definition I gave is man made because the defiance suggests the introduction of the non present . We as humans see miracles as some sort of supernatural intervention because of the alteration but does God see it that way , is he actually doing away with these parameters? ( I hope you are seeing the point I'm making) . Even the bible says the grace of God is always with us, blessings , favour , divine protection and health etc (things you see as supernatural ) are always with us, so how do they manifest in our lives ?


So @ bolded , its just your human perception of what the supernatural is that's why you said that .

This is sad

KingEbukasBlog:
Na wa oo ! The questions you ask though , man has god-like abilities e.g creation . Now ask yourself those questions as regards to man's abilities to create and what parameters he sets before you throw them at someone .

But if you had read my posts carefully, you would see that was my point all along. The parameters and in my words, the physical laws are responsible for the design. And for an omnipotent being such as God, he can easily do away with these parameters. Just in the case of miracles.

But these are individual achievements! And such individual progress does not have a bearing on the condition of the Yoruba people.

@Uyi Iredia,

Now that you think parameters are pivotal in creating designs, why would God necessarily create these parameters?

UyiIredia:
Any design must work within a given set of parameters.

So why did you find it strange when I was saying physical laws set parameters/constraints and do not have a direct causal link? Was it deceptive?

UyiIredia:
Once again, the links I posted make nonsense of your claims of bad design. Furthermore, there's no way God could work around such constraints, these constraints are pre-requisites for design. For example, the physical laws of the natural world God made which are necessary for life to exist but would constrain the design of living things.

One thing I say is that perfection is a state of mind. One wonders what a perfect design would have to be like.

Why did God create these constraints?

Boss13:
I believe the Kenyan President said it rightly and he does speak for various African leaders. Africa has more pertinent issues than Gay rights. Africa need to deal with poverty, social infrastructure, power, corruption, security and its various economies before we can begin to consider less pertinent issues such as who to love or not.
.

Whilst there are more important and higher priority issues, lets first of all criminalize and devote efforts to burn the homosexuals and then shift to education, security etc

Lets say slavery is an integral part of any culture like the antebellum South in the US or Brazil, would it be justifiable to force the abolition of slavery on them?

I remember a passage in the book of Job that rain falls on both the good and evil, in fact Job himself despite being righteous could not divert the flood of misfortune on his way because God decreed it.

I don't think doing good has the immediate effect of earning good fortune. The wealthiest and happiest men are not the best men.

Sad the OP is not proud of his true heritage and is compelled to steal another people's. The paradox of attacking the so called Caucasian race is that the influence of their colonization of the OP's mind to the point he finds no joy in his own but in Caucasian God's chosen people.

UyiIredia:
No, it's being deceptive. The fact is that there are similarities between human designs and living things. The fact is that some human designs are biological.

But you dont allow thehomer argument that complex systems analogous with human designs and despite found in natural are naturally caused.

UyiIredia:
Movement and support.

As thehomer pointed out, such function in whales are redundant.

This is about the best evidence and the reasoning behind it. If similarity is all you can point to then your case is weak. I don't know if native applications are faster, my point is that Java is deployed across multiple devices is an example of common design.

If you want to remain wilfully ignorant feel free. In the meantime, it's clear you did not read the articles I posted since they make nonsense of the rubbish up there. Any designer, God inclusive, has to design a system with certain parameters which are constraints: this doesn't make God less perfect or powerful no more than the laws of logic do.

So you consider design within the framework of constraints as well? A framework which in your own words have no immediate causal link.

Good. If consciousness is neither one of them it's clear that the chemical processes in the brain aren't sufficient to account for consciousness, since as anyone knows chemical reactions usually limited to producing chemical compounds
and a release/use of energy.

If chemical processes are limited to producing chemical compounds, why is there an added result of intoxication affecting human senses and consciousness? Your statement is clearly untrue and a result of lazy research. For you to make a misguided conclusions of a hotly debated topic as consciousness with lazy arguments. You earlier admitted the brain had a pivotal role in consciousness, this statement contradicts it.

I made my point earlier. Complex and specific information require minds. We don't know of natural processes making them. I described CSI initially.

Data passing through a mind or a processor become information. 7 to my mind is a number, and the sum of 4 and 3. It is also an odd number. If squared, would result to 49. The mind creates a context for which data is read. But I did not create the number 7, the data is independent but lent to interpretation by the mind, which creates the context. It is deceptive to portray information standing on its own in nature.

MrAnony1:
If that is the case, then you haven't answered my question in any meaningful sense.

This was my question: What reasons do you have that convinced you that the universe is not designed despite the fact that it appears designed to you?

I say a design is inspired by a designer. The designer being an intelligent force working to bring out a creation it worked out in mind, into fruition. I identify humans as such of this force. So a design goes with a designer. As I have earlier said in this thread, we extrapolate human creativity with the Universe and conclude the Universe is analogous with creations of humans, therefore the Universe has a designer. I think otherwise, that there is an overarching structure which we ignore when making the extrapolation. I am intent on dwelling on that structure. And consequences of that structure give rise to the appearance of designs. You might ask, whether the structure was ultimately responsible for human design which is true, but for the sake of the discussion and convenience, I tie design to designer. And an entity that looks like a design would be said to have the appearance of a design.

First of, to say that because we don't know what design constraints the physical laws have shows that the universe isn't designed is absurd mainly because design constraints are not a necessary component of design rather they are external things that inspire amendments to an already conceptualized design.

Please expatiate with examples.

Secondly, even if I was to assume (though I am not) that the fact that we don't know the design constraints of physical laws shows that it is undesigned, the fact still remains (and you admit this fact) that fishes, trees, planets, galaxies, supernovas e.t.c. appear designed and equally have the universe as their platform and the physical laws as their constraints just like human designed things such as aeroplanes, houses, oil rigs e.t.c.
So seeing that they both appear designed, they both operate on the same platform and they both have the same physical constraints, what then specifically is this distinction that should make us believe that one category is designed while the other isn't?

davodyguy:
This is so not true to say the least.

Have asked from the Japanese why they chose the design for Honda and Toyota?
Have you heard of the word conceptualisation?
Have you heard of creativity?
What about inspiration?

I compose songs and my lyrics are from my inner minds and not my environment.

So many designers would say, I just decided to make this shirt this way

Whilst not saying environmental impacts makes not contribution to a design, I'm saying not in all cases. Creativity can be inborn

Lets say, you imagine a mass of iron to move faster than light, wouldn't that work out perfectly in your mind? of course it will. Now, in reality, can you make a mass of iron move faster than light? Why? The reason is a result of physical laws, which dictate how the Universe works. So any imagination and your creativity, have to be manifested in conformity with the physical laws. Think about thermodynamics and the perpetual machine. Or relativity. Or motion.

SNCOQ3:
Now, lets evaluate my comment in successive order:

Space-time: an environment for physical laws to operate.
Physical laws: environment for objects to exist and operate within space-time.
Therefore: Space-time and physical laws constitute an environment for objects to exist and operate.

But don't physical laws determine how spacetime operates and interacts with matter? Do the intricacies of the triangle or causality vanish outside the sphere of spacetime? Can a tangible entity such as spacetime confine the operations of an intangible entity such as physical laws?

Objects are design.
The environment is designed to support objects.
Therefore: the objects and the environment is design.

Your logic is sits well with itself however, you are making an assertion that the objects influence the environment rather than the other way round. If you said the environment supports the objects, rather than the environment is designed to support objects, we wouldn't come to the conclusion that the environment is designed.

The environment and the objects constitutes the Universe: (The Universe is all of time and space and its contents. The Universe includes planets, stars, galaxies, the contents of intergalactic space, the smallest subatomic ... - wikipedia)

The Universe is a design.
The Universe is in motion.
The Universe has a beginning.

By logical implication, Designer, Engineer, Architect, Prime Mover, Intelligence, Uncaused Cause must suffice.

But upon what was the Universe created on? God's head?

SNCOQ3:
You are describing the purpose of physical laws not defining what it is. We are in agreement on what it does.

The point is: physical laws create and sustain balance and symmetry on objects because balance and symmetry are intrinsical to physical laws; therefore physical laws falls under the category of design. (I have mentioned before that balance and symmetry are properties of design.)

-- forgive my verbosity, just trying to clarify things --

Now, physical laws are simply the forces of nature with balance and symmetry causing constraint - DESIGN.

It seems we are on the same path except where you try to imply that the intrinsic properties of physical laws make physical laws themselves a design. That will be a convolution of reasoning. Since physical laws function as a source of design to objects etc, they themselves can not be said to be designs.

So if any designer including God, intends to make a creation, he must abide to the structure, symmetry and balance provided by physical laws. Again, I agree with you that physical laws act as a constraint.

This forces of nature interact with one another- upsetting the balance and symmetry in space-time in a controlled fashion causing vibrations hence motion - ENGINEERING.
(vibration is a result of forces trying to regain balance consequently generating waves - this is fundamental to physics).

Think of physical laws as invisible self-regulating machine sustaining the universe.

I think physical laws not only as self regulating but foundational. I wouldn't want to equivocate forces of nature with physical laws, because the interaction between the particular forces of nature you talk about, are themselves ordered and governed by the overarching physical laws.

The platform was created to be a platform for 'who' to stand on the same way a fine artist must create a canvas to paint is mona lisa on.

If you read my slightly long post on physical laws, I said we often extrapolate from human creativity and conclude the Universe itself, is not dissimilar from other human creations but I further said a prerequisite was our understanding of physical laws. If you really understand me, you would know I do not presume that all things are created. Now for you to suggest that the platform is created, is entirely unappealing to me. Of course the analogy of the artist and his canvas is apt but not to be taken literally but limited to its expository purpose. Yet contained in every act of creativity, a platform is required. Especially when the question is asked, upon what platform was the Universe created.

I have to be free from the constraint of this earthly body to understand life without physical laws. As long as I am constrained, I can only apply the law of displacement, that is: to replace the laws of physics with my virtual laws in my imagination.

Yes in your imagination, but such imagination is expressed in the constraint of design.

The environment and the objects constitutes the Universe: (The Universe is all of time and space and its contents. The Universe includes planets, stars, galaxies, the contents of intergalactic space, the smallest subatomic ... - wikipedia)

The Universe is a design.
The Universe is in motion.
The Universe has a beginning.

By logical implication, Designer, Engineer, Architect, Prime Mover, Intelligence, Uncaused Cause must suffice.

Since you believe the Universe constitutes the environment as well and both are created, what then are the constraints necessary for design?