₦airaland Forum

OLAADEGBU:
@mazaje, toneyb and ilosiwaju,

"And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." -- 1 Cor. 15:14

If Jesus Christ didn't rise from the dead, the the Scriptures is a fraud and any hope of resurrection is therefore in vain. However, God has given us irrefutable evidence in His Word to strengthen our faith in His promises which are historical, scientific, medical, archaelogical and prophetic evidence. Many intelligent "atheists" have taken up this challenge and put their skills and research abilities to find out the truth and they were not dissapointed.

Are you back peddling? You said that the empty tomb of Jesus still exist and I asked you to show me where it is. Does it not exist any more?

Deep Sight:
Perhaps i may assist.

It appears to me that the analogy of splitting a brain may have certain problems: and more importantly it has a number of holes through which the escapist materialist may seek to divert attention and ask endless questions.

Let us rather come up with a different analogy:

Again, it is the year 2097, and mankind has discovered a way to make mechanical brains - in much the same way as mechanical parts are made nowadays for hearts, glands, ears or limbs.

Thus Tom's natural brain is defective or has a terrible tumor, or cancer. . .

We take out all the information in the natural brain and transfer it into the mechanical brain - a computer which will be implanted into his head in place of the brain.

Questions –

1. Where was Tom during the period of transfer of information?

a. In the original brain

b. In the machine

c. In between

i. He was not in the original brain as it is being discarded

ii. He is not yet in the machine, as it is just being “filled” with the information

iii. If he is in between, the materialist worldview collapses instantly – as it is thereby shown that the man may exist without a physical brain. . .

2. Let us ask: what if that information is stored for a while on a micro-chip, prior to being placed in the new mechanical brain?

a. Is Tom in the Micro-Chip

b. Is the Micro-Chip Tom

c. Where is Tom?

3. Since it is asserted by the materialist that “the brain is the man” – now that the brain has been replaced by a mechanical computer (or a micro-chip), can we also with equally-footed logic assert that “the computer is the man”[/i] or “the micro-chip IS THE MAN?”

4. If the information passed from the brain to the computer is what defines TOM the man, then clearly that information itself is TOM – Not the brain, and not the computer – but the information. Accordingly and automatically it follows that the materialist assertion that the man is the brain must fail as the man can now exist without the brain. Rather the information stored within the brain is now what is more important, and is transferred to a computer or a microchip which can perform the function of the discarded brain? Once this is accepted, as it per force must be, then it has been incontrovertibly shown that the brain is not the man but that it holds something else which defines the man – and which may be transferred outside the brain!

5. If that information can be transferred outside the brain, then there is no reason to suppose that it cannot be transferred to another brain for example in the form of a baby. . . thus. . .reincarnation?

Se.xy stuff. . .Puristic materialism is a joke. . .

Are you basing your entire conclusion on a hypothetical scenario?

Here is this interesting article that was posted by Bindex some time ago when a similar discussion about the soul was on.

This is a very interesting piece about the "soul" that i found online. There is nothing like the soul that exist in the human body everything begins and ends with the brain. All thoughts and actions are controlled by the brain.

It is a common belief among theists (of many religions) that when you die, your soul exits your body and continues on its journey (to Heaven, Hell, or where-ever).
Many people also believe that the soul is the "real you" - your Id in a perfect world. This line of thinking leads people to believe that, for example, when a baby dies it's "real" self will live on, not as a baby but as an adult mind. This makes sense, otherwise all babies that die and go to heaven would still be babies there, which wouldn't be much use, really - knowing practically nothing and not being able to communicate or interact with other souls except by screaming and crying. It seems that no matter what state of development you were in at the moment of death, be it a helpless infant, a severely mentally handicapped person, or an eighty-year old with advanced Alzheimer's Disease, up in heaven you magically acquire all the mental faculties and knowledge you would have had as person in the prime of mental health.

The soul, apparently, must be somehow separate from the brain. There are a number of gaping flaws in this idea (as is often the case with religious pseudo-science). The most obvious one is this: If a person has a major physical change to their brain (due to injury, surgery, disease or oxygen starvation), it will often bring about a major change to their personality. Many people who suffer accidents that cause brain injury also undergo a personality change. It used to be common practice to lobotomise (surgically remove the frontal lobes of the brain) dangerously violent people as this brought about a dramatic change in their personality - they became much more subdued and docile.

There have been several cases where a person went into hospital for an operation, something went tragically wrong, perhaps with the anaesthetic, and the person suffered massive brain-damage as a result. Healthy, thinking, reasoning person before the operation, and a vegetable afterwards. What happened to the soul? Did the material drugs damage the immaterial soul?

Sometimes a baby is starved of oxygen during birth, and suffers irreparable brain-damage because of this. Is this evidence that God, for some reason, installs a "damaged" soul into the baby, coincidentally at the same time that the baby's brain is being starved, or is it evidence that your mental state is inextricably related to the physical state of your brain?

This begs the question: how can a change to a person's physical being have such a large effect on that person's non-physical being - their soul / personality?

Maybe the brain is just the soul's connection to the physical world? That is, the soul floats along inside our heads and use the brain the drive all the various muscles etc. that express the soul's desires and feelings. In that case, why do we have such a large brain? Mice and other small mammals get along quite well with a brain the size of a pea, so why can't humans? A mouse has a similar set of bodily organs and muscles to a human. Many dinosaurs had large bodies and tiny brains, so a big brain is not required to move big muscles. Why do we, with our average-sized body, have such a disproportionately large brain? Does a complex soul require a large brain to connect it to the physical world, or is our intelligence due to the hundreds of trillions of neural connections inside our heads?

Are memories stored in the brain or the soul? Some people partially lose their memory when their brain is injured. This implies that the brain stores memories, in which case how does your soul remember anything after brain-death? Does it take a copy of your memories and store them somewhere? If so, why can't it do this before death, giving us all perfect memories throughout our lives? What happens to those memories that are forgotten or lost? Does the soul somehow retrieve them so that you have a complete memory of every single second of your life, or does it only get those things that your conscious mind can normally remember?

If the brain is the soul's connector, why do other animals have brains at all? Do they have small, simple souls? Many religions teach that only humans have souls, and yet many animals are able to express their desires and feelings quite adequately (ask any cat-owner at feeding time). If a soulless animal can obviously express happiness or fear, is this caused purely by its brain or by some sort of mini-soul acting via the brain? If animals have some sort of soul, do they go to Heaven when they die, or is their existence simply extinguished (just as if their personality was indeed caused by the brain)?

If the brain is simply a link-point for the soul, then how can drugs affect the state of the soul? If you take some mind-altering drugs, the chemical balance in your brain will be altered, but how can chemicals have any effect on the immaterial soul floating along with the brain? How do antidepressant drugs stop a nonphysical soul from feeling depressed? Why do souls need sleep? Why does your soul cease to be aware while your brain slumbers? The answer is quite simple, and not to the liking of theists. Your personality is a direct product of that physical organ in your head, your brain. If your brain is altered, your personality (your "soul" is altered. When your brain dies, your soul dies with it.

Nothing else makes sense and, as usual, the theistic explanations only raise more problems than they solve.

Link

viaro:
Hehehe. . did you believe it when you were told that in school? I don't know; but from what you had tried to argue, it does not appear you trusted what you were told. .  only to repeat it here!

Personally I would have preferred to see such calculus from the perspective of biologist.

That is something I cannot help you . .  until you provide me the basis for calculus in Hebrews!   I am serious, because as soon as you provide the foundation for a Hebraic calculus, we can get talking!

Calculus is calculus, the same parameters used in calculating how improbable it is for life to have evolved through abiogenesis is the same parameters that should be applied when showing how birds came into existence fully formed by the words of an unknown and unseen deity that can not be detected at all. Claims alone will not help the theistic supernaturalist because until he provideds some empirical evidence for his extra ordinary claims his cliams are as usless and as meaningless and the abiogenesis hypothesis he is discrediting and trying to show that it impossible.

Well, that's true, toneyb my man. . . that's so true, because I don't think that the question of the ORIGIN of life is one that rests on "evolution", not even the type of evolution of life on its own by chance! If you know how to compute the probability of anything in nature that points to the ORIGIN of life completely on its own by chance (both by calculus, fractals, and/or both probability and improbability theories), let's talk. I could spare some few more minutes online before dinner calls.

@ vairo

Are these really "anomalies" or are they just some of the many myths that abound in ancient civilization.

The sun standing still or moving round the earth, stars fighting along humans, talking donkeys and snakes, a person living inside a fish for 3 days, stars falling into the earth, the sun going down at noon, dead people raising from the dead and walking all over the streets, rivers opening when a stick is thrown into them, sticks magically changing into snakes, burning bush etc.

Why do such "anomalies" exist only in the pages of scriptures and pages of other books? According to the Islamic "anomalies" Mohammed was said to divide the moon into two and commanding it to bow down to him, he is even said to have made a tree cry.

What do you make of all these myths and virtual reality "anomalies" that exist only on pages of books and are never recorded in reality?

viaro:
You're a comedian! If you ever saw basic calculus, would you know what to do with it? Borrowing chants from one another does not help the atheistic naturalist advance any single step beyond where he is! Bro. . what's happening to you? Point is that you cannot divorce mathematics from biology - that is why your 'repetition' which I quoted in post #68 was not an argument at all.

Of course I know that mathematics is science, In fact back in high school were told that mathematics is the mother of all sciences. The probability to help the theistic super naturalist in showing that all the birds sprang into existence using words of the Hebrew language is what I am REALLY interested in seeing. . You can not use probability calculus to say that life can not evolve naturally on its own by chance and refuse to use probability calculus to show how life can evolve using words of Hebrew in my opinion.

Are we really alone in the universe? I don't think so.

viaro:
Do you understand basic calculus if you ever saw one? If you did, you would not be making the sort of illation you did earlier between biology, chemistry and the mathematician.

The probability calculus of bird springing into existence by the Hebrew language from some alleged outside force that is alleged to be immaterial is WHAT? I am really interested in seeing that calculus, Since the guy insisted that probability calculus shows how improbable it is for life to evolve by chance, I will like to see the probability calculus that shows how probable it is for all birds to spring up into existence by the alleged magical Hebrew declaration of an outside immaterial deity. I will love to see that probability calculus.

viaro:
And toneyb, this one is not quite an argument at all -

You cannot divorce Mathematics from science - any branch of science for that matter; and to do so is intellectually suicidal, not to talk of intellectually dishonest. The complex systems in biological sciences (such as the intricacies of the genome) is one reason why biologists cannot escape Mathematics.

The problem of biology majors entering any modern biology study without a mathematical foundation has become even more serious as to be highlighted in many science education policies. One example of such concerns can be seen in this abstract:

[list]A major challenge exists for many college biology departments. How can their majors take all the necessary biology courses, as well as complete the mathematical requirements for their degree in a timely manner? This is especially challenging at community colleges, when students entering the biology program often lack a precalculus level of mathematics training. As part of an NSF grant, we looked at ways to make mathematics more relevant and accessible to biology majors at the precalculus level. However, to be even more effective at reaching incoming biology students, we realized that we needed to begin at the Algebra II level. As we did in our NSF Grant, we are developing a Scientific Method Approach to teaching mathematics, and are closely tying it to concepts studied in their introductory biology courses, The intent is to take students at the beginning algebra level and enable them to learn the necessary mathematics, without having to delay their progress in their major. The approach is to tie the mathematics to their biology lab course, via the scientific method, and give them all the prerequisite mathematical skills when they need them, but at the same time give them a coherent introduction/presentation of the mathematics as well. The general philosophy on how to do this, as well as some specific examples will be presented and discussed.[/list]

The point is that current biological researches must by necessity involve Mathematics, or any so-called research that is bereft of mathematic foundations tends to pseudoscience, no matter how loudly or widely such 'researches' are applauded. It is for this reason that a biologist today should not think he's in a world of his own where other scientists (such as chemists, physicists, astronomists, mathematicians, etc.) are to be held as strangers. In brief, science today tends more towards a holistic systems approach, rather than a reductionist one.

His mathematical Probability calculus of birds magically springing into life using words of the Hebrew language from some outside force that is alleged to be immaterial is what? I will really love to see that probability calculus.

noetic16:
but since Jesus rose, would it not be logical that the tomb was reused?

Did you read the OP? This is what it says.

Garry T. Ansdell (D.D.) made a case out of this when he stated that "The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is evidential:

* the empty tomb still exists,

Does the empty tomb still exist? If it does WHERE IS IT?

JeSoul:
So he can put you into a nice, cute little box and tie a red bow on top . Right Toney?

Happy new year to you

beneli:
@Mazaje and tonyb,
You know why i doubt that you would? It’s because that’s the way we are. Most of us like to hold on, as strongly as possible, to whatever it is that confirms our world views; and would deny, even at the risk of coming across as dogmatic, those things that contradict our beliefs. Both deists and atheists are guilty.

Actually I am not a person that is opposed to any kind of evidence, If you follow my post you will see that all I ask for is objective evidence for postulations.

The statistical improbability-or probability-depending on which side you break your boiled egg from- of abiogenesis happening would make more sense if life had already been created out of dust in a laboratory environment and the questions now was about the probability of this event being able to happen in nature, as a random event. That’s when all this would make sense to me. But life has not been brewed in laboratory conditions out of dust-or nonorganic matter. No matter how much scientists try to modulate and regulate laboratory conditions to enable them to try out new improved versions of the Miller-Urey experiment, in nature or in the laboratory, dust has only yielded dust. Life breeds life. Life out of dust would be a supernatural event.

And has any supernatural event ever been detected? Has any supernatural entity ever been detected giving life to non living things?

Statistics and probability are within the remits of mathematics.  Emile Borel, who gave the disputed probability figures that i mentioned, was a mathematician and a renowned one at that. In addition to the much debated law (which i will admit is merely a  ‘suggestion’, as some websites say, and not a mathematical ‘law’ per se), Mr Borel had a lot of other things named after him, so i doubt he was the charlatan that is being insinuated here.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Borel

Let me repeat what I said earlier,  How reliable as sources for knowledge in biology or Chemistry is the opinion of a Mathematician? For biological or Chemical questions, I'd rely on the overwhelming consensus of professional biologists over a couple of mathematicians and an electrical engineer.

Now on to what the renowned atheist, Richard Dawkins did or did not say. 

Mazaje, if the link that i gave does not lead to a ‘creationist website’ would you accept that Mr Dawkins said those words? Well, the link actually is from the Telegraph. Here’s what it says; ‘It is true, Dawkins responds, that the probability of life having arisen by chance is as vanishingly small as the likelihood of a Jumbo Jet having being constructed by a hurricane sweeping through a scrap yard. But how much more improbable is the idea of an intelligent designer capable of taking all that scrap and turning it into a 747? After all, that intelligent designer, a far more complex entity than a Jumbo Jet, had himself somehow to be created’. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3655792/I-dont-believe-in-Richard-Dawkins.html

Now that you have put the whole quote in context, I agree and I also believe that Mazaje will agree that he made those comments. The entire quote in context is quite different from the part that you pasted earlier.

I wonder where the renowned biologist and atheists got it from that an ‘intelligent designer’ ‘had himself somehow to be created’? Is that his mental block?  Perhaps he got it from his prejudiced rich imaginations of what an ‘intelligent designer’ can or cannot be. The same place that he got the assumption that those who believe in God must be deluded. I vote that the esteemed professor is not competent to make such a statement. He should leave the aspect of what God should be able to do or not do to philosophers, and let Psychiatrists decide whether that belief constitutes a delusion or not,

I believe that he is just trying to say that if the theist believes that un-caused existence can be possible(God), What then is wrong when the atheist believes that the universe is un-caused?  

But let’s be honest with ourselves here. Does it really matter what Mr Dawkins said or did not say? Does it really matter if abiogenesis is mathematically improbable or not? To be honest, it doesn’t to me. The materialist scientist does not want to believe that anything supernatural is divine in origin. For them it must be a coincidence in spite of all odds of such a coincidence not happening; if it is not a coincidence, then it has to be an unexplained phenomenon on the brinks of being understood by ‘science’.  That’s their world view. It leaves no room for an Intelligent ‘designer’ greater than man.

How can we objectively get to know or meet this intelligent designer? If this intelligent designer exist then where is he? Are you one of the theist that believe that god is every where? I can not see him here. Because sceince does not have the knowledge for now does not mean that we should ascribe anything that we want which are mostly non evidential to unknown phenomena, Mazaje said it best when he came up with this analogy, Here is what he said I one of his post on this thread,  "A better example lets assume that nobody really understands gravity or can provide substantial evidence for it. If I tell you that it exists because some invisible vacuum demons hidden in the Earth that cannot be experienced or seen by mere mortals put it there, What will you say? The fact that you cannot disprove that hypothesis, nor replace it with a better one, doesn't make it right at all. It makes it highly speculative at best, and more likely, just a convenient fiction. This my friend is the same with the God did it hypothesis. . . .It explains nothing beside the fact that it is only the default position of I don't know by the proponent of the god hypothesis as my man toneyb has said on another thread. . . . ."

For the deist, the supernatural is an act of the divine: be it what happened at the dawn of time when out of nothing, the wonders of creation were born; be it the transformation of a human being whose existence had been so violated by the tragedies of living, that she loses the ‘humanity’ to love and trust again, until an act of kindness nudges her back on the path of believing in humanity again; be it a barren woman who suddenly finds herself pregnant. The deist believes that God works through man and through nature. He can intervene ‘naturally’ or ‘supernaturally’.

Has any supernatural force ever been objectively detected? The way the god hypothesis has been structured makes it possible for some of its claims to be objectively detected, For example we are told that god intervenes in the world, such a supernatural intervention can be objectively detected if the hypothesis is true by why are we yet to objectively detect any supernatural intervention any where? How does god supernaturally intervene in the planet earth for instance?

God does not need man to tell Him how to intervene in the affairs of man. He can show Himself in the little things-some of which can be explained away by science; He can also show himself through the big things, like in giving life to dust; a phenomenon which others may just dismiss as coincidence.

But let’s agree that it’s about what we want to believe or not believe in. It’s not about the ‘science’-or lack of science-behind our belief systems.

Beneli are you a Christian or a deist?

OLAADEGBU:
A better question would be: Did anyone find the bones of Jesus Christ were it was buried, and if not why not?

Mazaje asked a sımple question which is where is the said tomb of Jesus? You will first of all have to provide the allege tomb for people to go and see if there are no bones there, So where is the allege tomb? Does it exist? If it does then where is it?

Even those that are highly placed are doing this kind of nonsense. Nigerians do not need all the unfortunate news at this point in time. The report quickly interjected the news of the terrorist that was caught in its closing statement.

beneli:
I have been trying to look up on the possible evidence people would have for believing that life can emerge from dust.

Even the genesis hypothesis says that Man was created from dust of the ground as some one has already pointed out.

There is however evidence against living organisms randomly evolving out of dust, whether it is stardust or earthbound dust mixed with water to form an 'organic' soup. This evidence can be found in one of the tools of the scientific process itself-the probability of such an event happening.

The probability of life randomly coming into existence by magic words uttered by some unknown, unseen, untested deity that only the heart feels his or her presence is what exactly? What is that probability that life came into existence by some  unknown and undetected outside force who is said to breath into the nostrils of a man made out of clay or speak the birds into existence? The probability of birds magically springing into existence using words is what exactly?

In the days when it was thought that the universe has always been there, the idea of abiogenesis could be defended by the fact that dust had literarily all the time in the world to go through an infinity of random relationships, of which one would spark off the process of complex life evolving. Unfortunately, we did not have all the ‘time’ in the world for this to happen.

But we have the time for life to magically spring into existence using words?

We now believe that the universe is time-limited and as such even Richard Dawkins, one of the atheist’s messiahs, admits that "the probability of life having arisen by chance is as vanishingly small as the likelihood of a Jumbo Jet having being constructed by a hurricane sweeping through a scrap yard."(2)

Like mazaje I will also like to see credible sources that which shows that Dawkins really made such comments.

Let’s look at this probability thing a little closer. How low a probability do mathematicians believe makes an event essentially impossible? The French Mathematician Émile Borel has estimated 10 (raised to the power minus 50); and William Dembski , a research professor in philosophy and mathematician has calculated a lower limit of 10 (raised to the power minus 150), based on the number of elementary particles in the universe and the age of the universe (3).

The probability of abiogenesis is far, far less! Murray Eden of Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculated a probability of ~10 (to the power minus 313) to spontaneously bring polypeptide sequences together into functional proteins (4). Simple self-sustaining life requires ~1,500-2,000 gene products, and Sir Fred Hoyle-English astronomer, known for his contributions in stellar nucleosynthesis, estimated a probability of ~10(raised to the power minus 40,000) to obtain 2,000 enzymes in a random trial! (5).

What do we have here? What we have here is mathematician, a philosopher/mathematician, and, according to a quick google search, an electrical engineer. How reliable are they as sources for knowledge in biology or Chemistry? For biological or Chemical questions, I'd rely on the overwhelming consensus of professional biologists over a couple of mathematicians and an electrical engineer.

The summary is that abiogenesis is not only unproven, it is mathematically impossible!

Abiogenesis is not mathematically possible but magic is mathematically possible eh? Where is the probability calculus that shows that magical words created the birds of the sky? WHERE IS THAT PROBABILITY CALCULUS? How has the magic of creation according to the genesis hypothesis ever been proven? As far as I know that hypothesis is also UNPROVEN.

noetic15:
for the first time in a long time. . . .Tudor is making sensible posts without insults. . .  . . may we continue to see this AMEN!!! 

. Happy new year Noetic.

beneli:
You are right.

Modern 'science', especially, the one that tries to talk about the 'nature' of the universe is beginning to acknowledge that there may be more to matter than meets the eye! My stance still remains. When science starts to talk about extracorporeal and extratemporal dimensions, they are encroaching into the field of metaphysics and spirituality. These new developments are quite interesting, to say the least!

I Agree too, but so far with regards to scientific study and investigations into extra corporeal and extratemporal dimensions nothing concrete or conclusive has been provided to demonstrate that these dimensions exist scientifically in about a period of 130 years.

James Randi and Darren Brown are the men!!!

@ Beneli Your write up is quite interesting.

beneli:
So in our arguments on this topic, let’s admit that our positions have very little to do with science. It's about what we want to believe in-our individual life philosophies!

I thought you were the one that brought up the idea that science seems to favor your views? In your discussion with Mazaje on another thread, weren't you the person that was talking about modern discoveries in science supporting your position until mazaje called you out on it?

viaro:
@tonyeb, howdy?

I dey Bro.

Your latest reply seems to still be asserting things without explaining anything. We all could do that same thing: make assertions, explain nothing, and expect applause at the end of it all. The reason I think that is what's showing up in your post is these examples:

I was just giving my opinion and not trying to explain the scientific process, I don't owe any body any explanation for my assertions If we are to go but that then I will also turn the table on your and begin to show you how you have made assertions that also explain nothing and expect applause at the end of the day but I am not really interested in all these running around.

. . then please show us how; because this next line seems to be the excuse behind which many assertions like yours are hidden:

How do you read stuffs? From dictionary.com. Can means: to have the possibility. My assertion is that modern science can explain all those phenomena I talked about. It seems you like taking a single sentence out of a whole narrative dwell on it build mountains and mountains of your own(As some on has pointed out), and then present it as if that is the entire arguments that's was presented. There is nothing hidden in anything is said. My assertion remains, Modern science can explain the existence of all the phenomena that I talked about without the need for any deities.

I understand that science as a progressive endeavour is capable of making many more discoveries. But we have to understand that 'science' has its limitations and seeks to answer questions of 'what' much more than questions of 'how' and 'why'. It does not mean we never ask 'why' or 'how' questions in seeking small details; but it means that when the proper questions of 'how' and 'why' are presented, science often leads us back to 'what'. This is one reason among many that helps us to both appreciate the limitations of current scientific thinking and the paradigms of philosophies of science, so that we can carefully weigh what anyone is asserting about what modern science 'can' do.

All these philosophical talk about science is personally meaningless to me because, Science is constantly progressing that it has limitations today does not mean it will not over come them tomorrow. Are you trying to say categorically that modern science can never know or does not have the possibility of explaining the origin of the universe or living things? Is that your position?

There really is no reason to flag the excuse of a future prediction of what modern science 'can' do, because we are at the cutting edge of understanding how modern scientific endeavours work, even to the extent that there's this talk today about the 'Theory of Everything' (ToE) or a 'Grand Unified Theory' (GUT) - which are attempts to fully explain and link together all known physical phenomena. The point here is this: although we're already thinking of such theories, how would such be able to 'explain' the true ORIGIN of anything that exists? How would such help towards explaining how matter came into existence in the first place?

Are you asserting that modern science due to its limitations does not have the ability to explain the origin of the Universe? A simple yes or no will suffice.

These are no small questions to play with; and for someone to assert that modern science 'can' explain the origin (that is, the true ORIGIN) of living things, such a thinker should be able to demonstrate HOW it 'can' do so in simple terms. To just make the assertion and excuse it under a future prediction of what science can do is to belittle science itself.

Now I believe you are trying to play games here, I said science can explain the origin of those phenomena without the need for deities, You on the other hand are now trying to stress  or talk about the true Origin. I never talked about anything being true origin of anything,You are the one talking about true origin of things, What do you mean by true? There is nothing like true in science is there? And as far as I know there is nothing like truth in science. Scientific explanations are what they are and there is nothing like[i] true[/i] scientific explanation for anything. Let's take gravity for instance all we have is scientific explanations for what it is, There is nothing like the true theory of gravity or true origin of gravity or true explanation for gravity. Science can explain the origin of the universe, Its doesn't have to be true, Scientific proofs, unlike logical proofs, do not establish their conclusions beyond any possibility of doubt. But they are proofs nonetheless. Talking about science explaining the true origin of the universe is a misstatement in my view, Because science can not explain the true origin of the universe, science can only provide reasonable explanation for that. You don't hear about words like[i] true[/i] in science, you only hear about laws, hypothesis, theories that offer explanation to phenomena and I have never heard scientist talking about them explaining the true nature of anything.

That kind of statement is borrowed - it was not made because you know how science is able to do so; but just because you might have heard some making such statements does not give anything more to the point.

I agree that I do not know how science is able to do so but that does not mean that science can not explain the origins of the universe without the need for deities, Are you asserting that modern science can never explain the origin of the universes without the need for deities?

noetic15:
I am not the owner of heaven or hell, . neither do I preside over the judgement of men. . . .as such I CANNOT tell.

Neotic and his endless escapism

Deepsight, I will like for you to explain to me in details how your god created the universe and all living thing, And how I can know that your god(oneness of infinity) alone created the universe and not Yahweh, Allah, Or Vishnu.

Deep Sight:
^^^ Escapism, Toney.

I did not say God by Default.

YOU stated that science "CAN" explain the origin of the universe.

I positively assert that it cannot.

I still maintain that modern science can explain the origin of the Universe, That it hasn't doesn't mean it can not, 1000 years ago we really didn't know what the stars are or that the cell is the basic unit of life. 

In case you missed it, this is my reason again -

This is not a reason at all but, You are simply begging the question.

Deal with that. I hope you can absorb it intoto.

Instead you descend into contradictions. . .in one breath you say that science can explain everything, in another breath you say that science does not have the answers for every query. . .

Sure science does not have the answers presently because science is progressive and is always progressing. I say it can because as it progresses it can find concrete explanations.

And NO: do not foist that “God by default” thing on me:me of adopting “God by default.” I have labored too hard on this forum setting up my objective arguments for the existence of God for anybody to accuse me of adopting “God by default.”

Sorry my friend you have NEVER set ANY objective argument for the existence of any god beside special pleading and incoherent and contradictory explanation. All you have done is steal from various world views when you feel they will help your case, One minute you are a pantheist and claim that everything we see around is god, the next minute you say that god is the prime mover, nest you steal from the Judeo-Christians world view and their claims. You even assert that the garden of Eden did not exist on earth but in another sentence you say that Adam and Eve are Jewish mythologies.  . You are VERY confused my friend.

Deep Sight:
Please Toney, if Modern Science "CAN" explain it, then just go ahead and explain it so that we shut up completely? ? ? ?

Modern science CANNOT EXPLAIN IT.

The reason is simple:

Since the origin by natural implication rests before (i.e: precedes) the universe and since we cannot move beyond a singularity, then any analysis (i.e: science) based on physical laws within this universe cannot apprehend the realities preceding it as such must per force be said to rest in a preceding dimension absolutely unknown to this dimension.

Indeed this is the very postulation that agnostics re-characterize to assert that God (if existent) must be absolutely unknowable.

Science thus cannot explain the origin. Not now. . .and not ever.

A FEW POINTERS, though, may be found in philosophical reasoning.

This is typical of the "God by default" argument. If God didn't make the universe, then you turn the table and ask another person to tell you how it happened. If the person can't, then you assume your argument wins" This is not compelling logic for an answer to anything. The fact that science doesn't have an answer for a particular query doesn't mean that anything you make up is acceptable by default. I don't know how it happened. I don't think the "how" is important since no-one seems to have an answer. I said science can explain means it can not that it has.

What has your god hypothesis explained? NOTHING at all. God is just your default position for "I don't know".

viaro:
Oh, sorry, tonyeb. You know what you've done? You just managed again to make us go 'deep sight' on you!

O

kay, jokes apart, let me re-consider and show you why we still feel that the argument in both your posts are almost the same.

First, evolution does not deal with ORIGIN of living things (as in your initial post), even though it attempts to 'explain' the evolution of species. The 'origin' of species is just simply a non-starter because philosophers of science note that Darwinists (back and front of Darwin) have not even tried to show the 'ORIGIN' of species in the first place. The phrase just caught on without careful thinking.

Where did I suggest that evolution deals with the origin of living things? How do you read things, I said Evolution tries to explain how organisms evolved to their present state over time, Why are you trying to build a mountain over what I did not say? . Stop playing a deepsight on me

Second, abiogenesis cannot explain the ORIGIN of life. This is not to deny that some have made attempts to offer this 'explanation', but has anyone even come close to the idea of 'can explain'?

Abiogenesis tries to explain the origin of life was what I said, why are you playing a deepsight on me my friend?

Third, I'm not so sure that the Big Bang model 'explains' the 'ORIGIN' of the Universe. I think that many more cosmologists are shying away from the idea of 'origin' of the Universe and rather lean towards the evolution of the Universe. The BB is not the 'ORIGIN' of the Universe but is an attempt to describe the 'beginning' of our known universe as far back as we can trace by Plank time. Back of Plank time and what happened before the BB is still an enigma to scientists of all disciplines (as far as I can tell).

How is this different from what i said which is that the BB tries to explain the origin of the universe?

It is for these reasons that it seems quite a leap of faith to postulate that modern science 'can' explain all these things, especially with reference to what is truly considered 'origins'. At best, we are looking at all sorts of postulations (perhaps 'conjectures' more aptly); but if one were to consider the limitations of 'science', it then becomes easy to see that perhaps it is quite ambitious to reckon that modern science (for whatever it is worth) 'can' explain all of these phenomena.

I still insist that modern science can explain this things without the need for invoking any deities or supernatural entities. The problem is that if we discard the scientific process and explanation we will still discover that the supernatural claims have explained NOTHING about the origins of anything because they can not explain anything about the origin of anything beside ordinary claims and counter claims.

viaro:
@tonyeb, while there are some salient points you put forward summarily, you must have spoilt everything with the claim about modern science:

That is not true (and I don't think anyone should attack you for that, though). Where has modern science tried to 'explain' -
             *  the origin of the universe?
             *  the origin of living things?
Where? By who? Many times when atheist naturalist make such statements, they immediately make an about-face and place disclaimers that they are not dealing with 'origins'.

The thing is that people often make these kinds of statements without having carefully thought about the implications and weight of such statements - it only reveals that the speaker has left the domain of science and is tending to atheistic materialism and naturalism.

Viaro hehehe, Are you also playing a deepsight on me? . Did you see where I put the "can" qualifier? I did not say that mordern science has explained, I said it can explain., I believe was careful enough and I phased my statement correctly. It wasn't a forceful and general statement of declaration, I said modern science can explain these things without the need for a god. The big bang model tries to explain the origin of the universe, Abiogenesis tries to explain the origin of life, Evolution tries to explain how organisms evolved to their present state over time, all these scientific explanations do not require a god no?

Deep Sight:
The bolded in red is a major and absolute LIE.

You are FULLY aware that "modern science" HAS NOT explained the origin of the universe.

Is it not intriguing that the Atheist assaults the Theist with the question: "Where did God come from?"

Failing entirely to realize that this question applies just as poignantly to his atheistic dogma: to wit: "Where did matter come from?"

How do you read statements? Here is what I said.

toneyb:
Modern science, however can explain all of these phenomena without postulating the existence of a God.

How do you read stuffs? Did you not see the "can" qualifier in my statement? I did NOT say that modern science has explained every thing I said it CAN explain without the need for god or gods.

This is what is called lying for Jesus because the story can be found on snopes.com( http://www.snopes.com/glurge/buried.asp) and unfortulanely snopes says the story is false.

viaro:
Muslims who condemn the whole of Christianity are even far more idiotic. How can you condemn the Biblical faiths from which Islam draws heavily?

beneli:
My problem is when 'atheists' attack me for my faith and claim that 'reason' and 'science' demands that God does not exist. My response is a post like this to show to them that they absolutely do not know that God does NOT exist. Who told them that he does not exist?! It's not science; it's not philosophy; it's not even archeology!

The same can be said of theist who call atheist fools for not accepting their non evidential assumptions and hypothesis. Science does not even deal or try to address the god question in any way. Science only shows that the "god did it "hypothesis is epistemically unnecessary and it is not required to explain anything. Science has had to prove it self so why should the god did it hypothesis not prove itself too? Scientific proofs, unlike logical proofs, do not establish their conclusions beyond any possibility of doubt. But they are proofs nonetheless, for they establish their conclusions beyond a reasonable doubt and that is all that is needed to justify them. Science has shown, however, that the phenomena can be explained without invoking supernatural entities. By demonstrating that these supernatural entities are not needed to explain anything, science then makes them unnecessary and show that they are not needed to explain anything.

The God hypothesis is a theoretical entity that is postulated by theists to explain various phenomena, such as the origin of the universe, the design of the universe, and the origin of living things. Modern science, however can explain all of these phenomena without postulating the existence of a God. By demonstrating that God is not needed to explain anything, science has proven that there is no reason to believe in the existence of God it does not disprove the existence of any God or Gods but just show that it is not necessary to believe in the God hypothesis. Scientists prefer natural explanations to supernatural ones, not because of any metaphysical bias on their part, but because natural explanations produce more understanding than supernatural ones. As Plato realized, to say that "God did it" is not to explain anything, but simply to offer an excuse for not having an explanation.

Scientists contrive formulas to describe the laws we see. The laws of nature as we see them may be a necessary consequence of a universe. They need not be created in my opinion.

beneli:
@tonyb,

I didn't come up with the whole entropy thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy

In case you missed it, it was the law of entropy i was on about there. The entropy thing is articulated in the second law of thermodynamics, which says something along the lines that in a 'closed system' (for example the 'universe') chaos increases! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics. Another way of putting it, is that in a closed system, things go from a state of higher organisation to a state of lowest organisation. I am too lazy to google. It's all there at the click of your mouse!

Seriously though, the understanding-from a scientific point of view-is that the universe, as a 'closed system', should be answerable to the laws of thermodynamics but from the very beginning something interfered with the 'natural' processes of entropy!

Unless of course, as some suggest, the 'universe' is no longer a closed system, which would be giving creationists like myself more guns for our arsenal!

Mazaje has explained why I believe your blanket statement that the universe is a closed system is not completely correct since closed systems apply only to finite systems of which going by the big bang model the universe is not finite. But your arguments still holds water in the sense that the universe as a whole is increasing in entropy. The state the universe was in before the Inflationary Epoch was much lower in entropy than now according to scientist. The universe as a whole is headed towards what they call a Heat Death, unless the Big Rip gets us first, in perfect accordance with thermodynamics according to scientist.

But if you are talking about the Earth, then it is very clear that the Earth is NOT a closed system. There's a source of energy that feeds in to the Earth system. Just take a look around (during the day, preferably) and the source of that energy should be obvious. And, no, it isn't supernatural.