22 questions from creationists to evolutionists, taken from the Nye/Ham debate

by adamah 44 Replies latest social current

• 

  adamah

  Oubliette said- What exactly is your reason for posting here?

  Your question earns a question in return, Oubliette

  Aren't you the ex-elder who harasses JWN posters by sending rage-driven and profanity-filled PMs, thus attempting to drive off anyone who dares challenge your massive ego and cherished beliefs?

  Sorry to see you haven't made much head-way learning respect for the personal boundaries and opinions of others, and you haven't yet managed to get a handle on impulse-control... Old nasty habits die hard.

  Ozbrad said- If man came from dirt why is there still dirt?

  LOL! Kudos, as that's a superior response vs my 'European vs American' thing (I've got to remember that one, as that's funny).

  Zound said (in response to #10. I believe in the Big Bang theory... God said it and BANG it happened!)

  Oh... Nevermind.

  Sure, that works as a reponse, since she made a statement and didn't ask a question; that, or an image of Jesus slapping his forehead, or asking her if trite expressions such as that explain why Bible's shortest verse says, "Jesus Wept").

  JeffT, Outlaw, excellent work! You both earn a gold .

  JWFacts, thanks for that link, if only the people who really need to read it would....

  These are some pretty basic concepts (FAQs) to wrap one's head around, and as Phizzy indicated, it's likely intentional ignorance, due to a lack of exactly what Nye was pushing for: basic literacy in the principles of science, NOT to be a scientist, but to be an educated citizen (I just HOPE that women who said a theory was "only a guess" wrote her question BEFORE the debate, since IIRC, Nye explained that point during the debate).

  We're also dealing with a disinformation campaign, since believers hear this kind of stuff perpetuated by pastors, ministers, etc from the pulpit every Sunday, propagating their ignorance to others.

  Pelican said- How does matter arise from nothing?

  I dunno if you've read Lawrence Krauss' stuff, but he's a physicist from ASU who has tackled the issue (caveat being that physicists use a different definition of 'nothing' vs laypeople).

  Main response for me personally would be, why should we accept the presupposition that NOTHING could even exist, in the first place?

  See what I'm getting at? In my mind, that's a questionable assumption to make, esp since we KNOW that matter and energy are interconvertible (the basis for nuclear reactions, and the basis of E=mc 2 ).

  Even though I'm not a theoretical physicist (which wouldn't help, anyway, since many are honest and able to say, "we just don't know, since there's many competing hypotheses out there right now, with none proven to be probable over the others"), I have seen plenty of OTHER lines of evidence to realize "God Dun It!" is only a 'God of the Gaps' argument. So it's making a HUGE leap from an honest "we currently just don't know" to claiming to have "the answer" isn't going to work for me, since NO ONE can produce sufficient evidence to justify their claiming to know.

  Adam
• 

  Jon Preston

  Interesting thread
• 

  cofty

  Problem is, science cannot answer how nothing gave rise to something. How does matter arise from nothing? Science cannot answer that which is why most atheists prefer to jump over that question by using straw man arguments. - Pelican

  Perhaps you could get a copy of "A Universe From Nothing" by Laurence Krauss and see for yourself the progress that science is making on that question.

  Inventing eternal deities isn't an answer. "We don't know yet" is.
• 

  Vidiot

  Phizzy - "The problem with believers I used to think was that they simply had faith, and that was enough for them. Therefore they were free to ignore rational thinking and evidence. But this shows that is not so, their Faith is so very weak that they have to try to step in to the realms of Rational Thinking and of Evidence... The real problem with believers is that they do not LISTEN! And they are patently unread/uneducated."

  Ignoring rational thinking and evidence in favor of preexisting belief (even unsubstantiated preexisting belief) is called "confirmation bias" and it's something all humans can be prone to. The trick is being aware that, as a human, one can be prone to it that helps one overcome it, IMO.

  In some cases, yes, the quest to give Creationism a scientific veneer (something that's been going on for a while, now) can very likely be triggered by a sense of dwindling faith, as a way of holding on to the beliefs one was comfortable with in the face of increasing arguments and/or evidence of their fallacy. It often feels very much like the belief system in question is "under siege".

  However, that may be a generalization.

  More significant reasons can be found in the details of fundamentalist Christianity's core theology; specifically the concept of "original sin" and its connection to the "ransom sacrifice", as viewed through the lens of general conservatism.

  A foundational axiom of a conservative worldview is that humanity is inherently and irrecovably flawed, and since in Christian theology, God is assumed to be perfect ('cause He's God, duh) and therefore any aspect of His creation must also be therefore perfect, something must have happened to cause humanity to become so broken. The Genesis creation narrative provides that framework, and with Jesus' death to balance the scale of cosmic justice, the hope of fixing the problem. However, becasue of that, the whole thing only really works if Genesis is viewed as literal history (not allegory).

  In addition, the Millenialist hope of a post-apocalyptic utopia (not a concept limited to JWs, BTW), is often predicated on the idea that the Garden of Eden was to serve as a template for it; if there was no literal Eden, then it calls into question the literalness of a Paradise Earth.

  So you see, not matter how scientific Creationists would like to try and present their arguments against evolution, the real problem is that if evolution is true, then the Genesis creation story simply can't be literal history.

  And Christian fundamentalist ideology simply cannot accept that; virtually everything in that belief system is directly or indirectly anchored to that assumption.
• 

  adamah

  Pelican, so when you ask how matter can arise from nothing, I'd say, how do you know 'nothing' is a valid concept which is reasonable to accept, in the first place?

  You and I have NO prior experience with 'nothingness', so why assume it could even exist, or had to exist at some point in time?

  And of course, if God exists and created all of this "stuff" we see around us, is not God considered 'something'?

  (The usual counter is to claim God exists only as "pure energy", but energy is SOMETHING. And aside from Spock's famous "pure energy" line, it's a bogus sci-fi concept, since there's NO EXAMPLES of energy existing apart from matter; instead, energy is defined as movement OF matter, electrons in their excited states elevated within orbitals, ect.)

  Here's a group of scientists trying to see if they can agree on what the concept of "nothing" actually means to them:

  http://www.livescience.com/28132-what-is-nothing-physicists-debate.html

  As the article says, is "nothing" a vacuum of matter and energy, as in deep, dark outer space? Clearly not, since the space itself constitutes SOMETHING, and the distance between "somethings" (i.e. the matter that exists elsewhere) defines the space of "nothingless".

  The article concludes:

  "We humans have a real revulsion for nothing, for a void," Seife said. "For us nothingness represents something that we're afraid of, disorder, a breaking of the rules."

  Even those words reveal an abhorrence for the concept of nothingness, since note the presence of the word, 'disorder': that's not a valid concept to use to describe 'nothingness', since disorder implies a deviation away from the ordered and arranged state of matter.

  I'd say 'God of the gaps' thinking is actually more true than some suspect, where ancient men were not only uncomfortable with the fear of death, Gods also served as a purpose to address the unfathomable concept of nothingness, even upping the ante by blending in the suggestion God existed for an eternity (another mind-boggling concept).

  Such fantabulous claims actually become MORE believable to many believers, the bigger and more incomprehensible they get: it turns out that humans won't as readily believe a small claim, but will accept a whopper, preferring the absolutely incredible and impossible over the merely improbable. It's the old weakness that people who can't be dazzled by brilliance are often baffled by BS, and stupified nonetheless.

  This is what is happens when a JW says, "It's just too incredible that many writers could write the Bible over 1,000 years and it all fits together , so the Bible MUST be the inspired word of God!".

  Of course, they're ignoring the HUGE continuity errors and inconsistencies found in the Bible, thus suppressing the disconfirmatory proof they claim doesn't exist (a human tendency of seeing only what we WANT to see, thanks to the power of cognitive biases and wearing 'rose-colored glasses').
• 

  simon17

  #11 is actually a good question... I am annoyed when people discussing the origins of life say something like "perhaps life was seeded by a more advanced civilization". For all intents and purposes that does as little to explain the origin of life as god does (and perhaps even less so)
• 

  cofty

  simon17 - Astrobiology does nothing for me either. It hs been proposed to offer a possible solution to the amount of time available for the transition from geo-chemistry to bio-chemistry. It also opens up almost limitless numbers of environment sfor abiogenesis.

  While it can't be discounted - and there is some encouragement for it in some meteorites - personally I am excited by the progress in abiogenesis that looks for all the answers on earth.
• 

  PelicanBeach

  Below is a quote from the Wikipedia article, "A Universe From Nothing" by Laurence Krauss:

  "Samantha Nelson for The A.V. Club gave A Universe from Nothing a B grade, she writes "as bizarre as the spontaneous creation and destruction of particles might seem, Krauss argues that there’s scientific proof of the phenomenon, which makes it better than any creation myth." [ 3 ] Michael Brooks for New Scientist writes "Krauss will be preaching only to the converted. That said, we should be happy to be preached to so intelligently. The same can't be said about the Dawkins afterword, which is both superfluous and silly." [ 4 ] David Albert for The New York Times criticizes the book for failing to live up to its title, and criticizes Krauss for dismissing concerns about his use of the term nothing to refer to a quantum vacuum instead of a "philosopher’s or theologian’s idealized 'nothing'" (i.e. instead of having the meaning "not anything"). [ 5 ]"

  Redefining what "nothing" means in order to force a belief is quite a religious exercise. Something (redefining a term to fit their theology) which believers are accused of doing and have done. This is evidence that atheism, for some, is a belief that, like the belief in God, causes the holder to go to whatever lengths necessary to prove their belief even to stretching the truth and redefining commonly understood terms. Yes, "nothing" MUST be redefined because if it is not then the whole house of cards stands on...wait for it...Nothing!

  As defined in the Wikipedia article, Vacuum State: "In quantum field theory, the vacuum state (also called the vacuum) is the quantum state with the lowest possible energy."

  Again, where did this "lowest possible energy" come from? Or are we talking eternal existence here? Really?! Interesting.
• 

  cofty

  Pelican , even if Krauss' book has no merit - and how would you know if you haven't read it - it is ridiculous to insert theism into the gap of cosmic origins.

  Biological evolution is a fact. There is lots still to be discovered but as an explanation for the diversity of life on earth it is a done deal. Every living thing evolved from a common ancestor through unguided processes including natural selection.

  We know how eukaryotic cells evolved by a symbiosis between prokaryotic cells.

  We know a lot about how complex life forms arose and about the origins of sexual reproduction. A great deal is known about how life conquered the land and the air.

  The transition from geochemistry to biochemistry is a work in progress but I have not the slightest doubt it will be resolved. We may never be able to show for a certainty how it happened on earth but it is only a matter of time before it will be shown how it could have happened through a natural unguided process.

  So all that leaves is "what caused the big bang"? It too is a work in progress.
• 

  PelicanBeach

  Cofty,

  "...it is ridiculous to insert theism into the gap of cosmic origins."

  I've made two posts on this thread. On the first I said I learned something from Bill Nye. On neither post did I "insert theism into the gap of cosmic origins," I kept my remarks limited to the Big Bang theory and its dificiencies.