by prologos 43 Replies latest forum tech-support
"Belief in a creator (not God) is high among engineers, technicians."
Not my case. I am an Engineer, I know a few, and must of us are atheists. As a matter of fact, in collage, we have some sort of "pledge" at the entrance of the department describing what is light and openly mocking Genesis 1:3. Take care, Ismael
"Engineers who've never taken high-level biology coursework are the WORST, since they assume that biology follows the same rules of mechanical engineering. They fail to consider that their world-view is biased by seeing everything about them as a product of design, esp if they don't understand that the rules for non-living inorganic matter are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from living (carbon-based) matter." Adam I don't know if I got this right, but its the other way around. But we develop solutions for technical problems. With the heat of hell, we could design and built a climate control system and turn hell into a paradise. We don't see everything as a product of design. But we know that we can make any design better and more efficient. Take care, Ismael
JGNAT: Is there something disreputable about appealing to authority ?
it seems to be done all the time: see the all links from all the posters. J.Kepler's laws were ahead of Copernicus, Galileio and Newton, are still valid and used to calculate orbits of small bodies. As a believer he was disfellowshipped and given a choice probably would be on JWN today.
I read some where that somewhere that belief in a Creator (not God) is higher among engineers then clergymen.
Adam: Imagine a ueber plumber coming up with a system that repairs itself, No wrenches need to throw in even (like in Flood, Babe stories)
A system where PB (lead) for Plumb bulbs & Roman plumbing is automatically cooked up in exploding stars,
Where the plumber never has to show up, does not depend on the payment for the bill he presents.
The O razor for some cuts easier to have a creator play hide and seek than
the idea that the ALL came from an off- balance oscillation in an zero sum energy
potential of virtual particles in the non-eternal nothingness of non-space in non-time.
complete with working laws and
our cosmos is only one in Trillions,
the lucky one for carbon/water based life.
"JGNAT: Is there something disreputable about appealing to authority ?" With all due respect, yes. Is a flow in your cognitive process and is a logical fallacy. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority Ismael
What if biological evolution was caused by diverse environment changes together with a mixing of chemically elements.
Why would there still need to be a God to create all of these components ?
What is a god ?
From the known hundreds of millions of years of biological evolution of earth's proprietary species
and the involvement with a god creator as the source of this Creation there is no evidence to show an engaging
involvement by this Creator toward mankind.
Here's the logical flaw in "appeal to authority". An outrageous claim is made and to defend it, the speaker says, "It must be true, because Dawkins/Aristotle/Einstein said so." The claim must above all be defensible on its own merits. It could be that Dawkins/Aristotle/Einstein was pressured by forces we were unaware, made a conclusion based on erroneous evidence, or was influenced by the cultural forces of his day.
The biggest logical problem with god "fine tuning" any of his creations (aka intervention) is that it implies that it wasn't made perfect to begin with. If it wasn't made perfect to begin with than god is not perfect nor is he almighty.
Adam I have seen CLOSET believers in a CLOSET creator among very accomplished engineers, why not among bio-chemists?
Imagine this scenario:
Sometimes in the past on this planet, and surely in the Universe were the exact conditions, substances to start the spark of Life ex nil. How else could it have happened? so:
have astromers look at distant* exo-planet systems to look for such conditions. If found, replicate them in the laboratory, not impossible, look at CERN.
collect Nobel price.
* more than 6000 light years distant, before the creation process shut down. Tongue firmly in cheek.
The list of believers in a creator ist long, the list of CLOSET believers longer, but that does not prove the existence of a maker, but makes believers a little more believable.
Occam's razor seems dull when you need to invent a trillion universes model to just get one proto bacterium to start living.
prologos said-
JGNAT: Is there something disreputable about appealing to authority?
I'm not JGNAT, but NO, there's nothing INHERENTLY wrong with A2A arguments, and that's why it's labelled as POTENTIALLY-fallacious.
If someone uses an A2A claim, then a "caution" flag gets thrown up, and it's important to then check out the credentials/rep/claims of the cited authority to make sure the other is representing their claims correctly, and that the authority IS in fact a recognized authority in their field, and not just a "minority opinion" of a crackpot working at the fringe in the field of endeavor.
Obviously we HAVE to rely on the opinion of experts, esp in subjects in which we are unfamiliar, but it's important to make sure the A2A is valid, and hence less-likely to be fallacious....
Adam: Imagine a ueber plumber coming up with a system that repairs itself, No wrenches need to throw in even (like in Flood, Babe stories)
A system where PB (lead) for Plumb bulbs & Roman plumbing is automatically cooked up in exploding stars, Where the plumber never has to show up, does not depend on the payment for the bill he presents. The O razor for some cuts easier to have a creator play hide and seek than the idea that the ALL came from an off- balance oscillation in an zero sum energy potential of virtual particles in the non-eternal nothingness of non-space in non-time. complete with working laws and our cosmos is only one in Trillions, the lucky one for carbon/water based life.
OK, I imagined that. And?
Cute and clever "what if?" scenarios are fun and all, but they doesn't substitute for an actual argument, and doesn't mean it's true. In fact, its actually a fallacious form of reasoning itself, AKA "style over substance".
Adam
Occam's razor seems dull when you need to invent a trillion universes model to just get one proto bacterium to start living.
I just don't think there's enough information for us to actually say whether a creator is more or less likely than an accidental multiverse.
How complex is the situation that would be needed for our universe to happen accidentally? Perhaps it stems from a really simple chain of events, like a fractal drawing uses a simple iterative algorithm to create an infinitely complex shape.
Or perhaps God is not as complicated as we think. Atheists typically claim that belief in a God is less simple than belief in a chance universe, but they have absolutely no basis for this assertion. It's been suggested by some that we will create God ourselves by the time this universe ends, and time will wrap back around to the Big Bang that we create at that time. While this may seem to violate causality, I don't think it can be ruled out simply because it defies common sense. Science has taught us many strange things that we wouldn't have imagined possible.
