Creationist Should Dismiss Genesis Quickly

by Coded Logic 116 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Caedes

  The energy/ mass mixture sum of the universe was present in the void BEFORE the big bang

  This is utterly meaningless since nobody has any evidence of what was 'before' the big bang. Even if there was a 'before' the big bang (nobody has any evidence for there even being a before either) there isn't a scientist on the planet who can prove it so please stop spouting this stuff as if you understand it and as if it is a scientific fact, it is at best conjecture and hypothesis.

  There is no 'void' that the universe expands into, I've told you this before. There isn't anything 'outside' the universe, the universe is everything.

  This does NOT imply that more energy is created, as you wrote, it is already there, and becomes evident, seen in action, as the universe expands. The expansion of the universe does not dilute the energy sum of the universe.

  So are you claiming that you have some deep insight as to why we don't need dark energy to make the maths work in our current understanding of the universe? If so I would think that professor Hawking would love to hear your thoughts on the subject.
• 

  Caedes

  New thoughts and new ways of thinking can change the distrabution of the dendrites

  Now you're just being difficult.

  Facts just always get in the way don't they, incidently if you want to go back to your computer analogy, that also gets more complex. The computer equivalent of writing new neural pathways is writing information to the hard-drive. A hard drive full of data is more complex than one without any data.
• 

  Coded Logic

  then there is not necessarily a significant difference in complexity between a creator+universe and a universe alone.

  I'm not sure why you're not getting this. Perhaps putting your premises into formal logical terms will explain it better for you

  . . .

  P1: Our universe (x) is complex

  P2: A creator (y) would have some kind of complexity

  C: Our universe plus a creator would be more complex than our universe alone (x+y>x)

  . . .

  Let's try another version (remember these premises are your statments):

  . . .

  P1: Complexity requires a creator

  P2: Creators are complex

  C: All creators require a creator (infinite digression)

  . . .

  These conclusions follow from your premises. And it's not hard to see why adding a creator only makes the problem worse. It doesn't by any stretch of the imagination solve the problem of where our universe came from.
• 

  Apognophos

  A hard drive full of data is more complex than one without any data.

  No it isn't. Data is alignment of magnetic particles. The particles are always there, representing some kind of information, regardless of how much of its space is occupied by coherent "data" stored there deliberately by humans. Likewise, the human brain has a set amount of storage and processing capacity. When it is occupied with thought, there is more activity through its pathways, but its physical complexity does not change (I think it should be obvious why changes to the brain over time are not relevant to this discussion).

  P1: Our universe (x) is complex

  P2: A creator (y) would have some kind of complexity

  C: Our universe plus a creator would be more complex than our universe alone

  I have been trying to imply for a while now that the creator could have the universe contained in his own mind, but I guess I should have been more explicit.

  Ultimately, the only thing we know for sure is that we don't know how we can be here. "Something from nothing" is still totally absurd when one really contemplates it. That's not to say that we can't exist for an absurd reason, but it is simply impossible to understand, and it is disingenuous to point to something like a lecture by Krauss and act as if it explains anything at all. So we're here because of fluctuations caused by nothing in a field of nothing?

  Believing that an intelligent being came into existence on its own, and then made us, is also absurd. But is it more absurd than the idea that a self-making universe produced intelligent beings who can in turn create things? Either way you are looking at intelligence forming from nothing.

  We can't pretend that we have enough information to say which is more likely because we know too little about the fundamental cause of the self-ordering properties in the universe, how many universes there have been besides this one, and through what sort of process intelligence could develop besides the way it happened on Earth. Thus we cannot confidently apply Occam's Razor to this whole situation.
• 

  Caedes

  So we're here because of fluctuations caused by nothing in a field of nothing?

  That is a lot more likely than we're here because an infinitely powerful creator caused fluctuations in a field of nothing.

  Do you know how to use google? I suggest starting here if you want to start doing some research into how wrong you are.

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

  The whole point is that the number of unkowns in the natural universe is the same for the theist and the atheist so Occam's razor can be used to settle the problem.
• 

  Apognophos

  My whole point is that, given the current amount of unknowns that we are all looking at, the relative likelihood of a creator vs. a self-making universe cannot be appraised. Also, lose the condescending attitude.
• 

  prologos

  The pre- and outside- the- universe conditions (or inside a black hole) are not the same as in our world.

  Applying the cause & effect paradigm of the razor to the trans-big-bang situation is not valid.

  The buck stops here, where time stands still, or there is no movement through time.
• 

  hooberus

  Caedes said:

  If you cannot understand how adding a powerful creator god adds a hugely additional level of complexity to the natural universe then I don't know I can help you. We are not talking about maths we are talking about the concept. Of course any god sufficiently powerful to create universes has to be more complex than it's creation.

  By complex do you mean composed of "many parts" (Dawkins type definition)

  If so, What is the evidence that a supernatural God must be composed of "parts"???
• 

  hooberus

  Apognophos said:

  Believing that an intelligent being came into existence on its own, and then made us, is also absurd. But is it more absurd than the idea that a self-making universe produced intelligent beings who can in turn create things? Either way you are looking at intelligence forming from nothing.

  We can't pretend that we have enough information to say which is more likely . . .

  Why would those necessarily be the only options?
• 

  Apognophos

  I also suggested on the last page that there might be more options we can't conceive of yet: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/287553/2/Creationist-Should-Dismiss-Genesis-Quickly#5137293