atheism = self defeating.
first may we define our terms.
the word atheism comes literally from the greek, alpha the negative and theos [for god], therefore “negative god” or there is no god.
Caedes
Atheism is not a statement that there is no god, it is a statement that no theist has provided empirical evidence of a god or gods. Since your definition is flawed then so is the rest of your OP.
When discussing worldviews Atheism comes up unique. It seems that many want to be under the umbrella of Atheism but do not agree on its definition. Atheism is affirming the nonexistence of deity.
atheism = self defeating.
first may we define our terms.
the word atheism comes literally from the greek, alpha the negative and theos [for god], therefore “negative god” or there is no god.
Anony Mous
Again, you have no idea what you're talking about. You quote: "they should not invoke unknown or exotic causes" and then ask why you're not allowed to use the same argument to propose a divine entity. Divine intervention is exactly the definition of "unknown or exotic causes".
I am evoking intelligence not deity. But I do believe following the evidence to its conclusion.
We know pretty well how life started and developed and between the 1950's have replicated various requirements of it in the lab without requiring unknown or exotic causes. Yes, we can create all the prerequisites for life (including self-replicating enzymes, the components of DNA) in the lab, when exactly life forms or chemical components become "life" is a difficult question and given recent developments I am pretty sure we will be able to make start developing single cell organisms in the next few decades. We even have a pretty good model of how the Universe started - at no point does any of it require divine intervention, it's just stuff that happens all the time in the Universe.
Notice all that took place under the guidance and supervision of intelligence.
And if you think salts and snow flakes aren't complex, again, you have no idea.
I am referring to information capacity to structure.
2 peter 1 = deity of christ.
2 pe.
1:1 simon peter, a bondservant and apostle of jesus christ, .
To Earnest
Thankyou for addressing the OP
Granville Sharp's rule states that when you have
two nouns, which are not proper names (such as Cephas, or Paul, or Timothy),
which are describing a person, and the two nouns are connected by the word
"and," and the first noun has the article ("the") while the
second does not, *both nouns are referring to the same person*. In our texts,
this is demonstrated by the words "God" and "Savior" at
Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1. "God" has the article, it is followed by
the word for "and," and the word "Savior" does not have the
article. Hence, both nouns are being applied to the same person, Jesus Christ.
2 peter 1 = deity of christ.
2 pe.
1:1 simon peter, a bondservant and apostle of jesus christ, .
cofty
You said you would not hesitate to obey god's orders to commit mass killing of women and infants. You think that infanticide is a moral good as long as you can convince yourself that it is god's will. Never lecture an atheist about morality again.
Really, what was the stipulation in the question? ‘If I was in Joshua’s army’. Any other time the answer would be no. Nice try, BTW that stunt you tried to pull, proves character.
But for the reader.
Since we are using the account in the Bible let’s keep it within the parameters of Christianity. God offers everyone eternal life. This come with some conditions, believe certain things, and live a life accordingly. Very simple. That a sounds like a great deal. I live life accordingly for approx. 70 years and my reward is eternal bliss. Now the flip side. If I offend God there a punishment. The Canaanites were not innocent. They were a vile people who practiced some of the lowest form of immorality. (Lev. 18:25). God waited patiently for hundreds of years [Gen 15:16] but the Canaanites did not repent. When judgement fell God like a surgeon amputated the cancer. At this time Israel was unique. Never before or after has there been a theocracy, Israel was ruled and directed by God, and God’s extermination was a direct command from God. Israel as a theocracy was an instrument of judgment in the hands of God.
There is a difference between murder and justifiable killing. If I was in Joshua’s army it is justifiable. If tomorrow I hear a voice that tells me to kill, it would be murder.
You make God out to be this beast by taking verses in isolation. But let’s look at the whole picture. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah clearly demonstrates that God would save a whole city for ten righteous people (Gen. 18:22f.). In that incident, when God could not find ten righteous people, He took the four or five righteous ones out of the place so as not to destroy them with the wicked (Gen. 19:15). On another occasion God saved some thirty-two thousand people who were morally pure (Num. 31:35). Another notable example is Rahab, whom God saved because she believed ( Heb. 11:31). And in the Gospels Jesus who is God sacrifices Himself taking our place, taking upon Himself the punishment that we justly deserve.
Let’s talk about morality, since you seem to consider yourself such a moral atheist. Tell me what side of the abortion issue do you take? Since you detest the killing of children in the Biblical accounts, do you detest the murder of innocent children that could survive outside of the womb if they were allowed to be born vs aborted?
The problem the atheist has here is that any moral denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind. Human life is special, it has intrinsic value. But on the atheistic view there does not seem to be anything about Homo sapiens that make this statement objectively true. Since every individual passes out of existence when they die, what ultimate value can life have? Mankind is thus no more significant that swarm of mosquitoes or a barnyard of pigs, for their end is all the same. When the lion kills he does not commit murder, why then do the Homo sapiens commit murder?
Notice you are using Christian values that are not supported by an atheistic worldview in order to denounce Christianity.
mathematically measuring evolution.. when judging relationships in terms of morphological characteristics we will always be bound by the subjective.
morphologically one cannot exactly measure the distance between two organisms strictly in mathematical terms.
using the standard method of taxonomy we cannot quantify the difference between a horse and a mouse, or know which is closer mouse to cat, or mouse to fish.
Caedes
Using the standard method of taxonomy we cannot quantify the difference between a horse and a mouse, or know which is closer mouse to cat, or mouse to fish. 1) Whilst I would agree that it is not mathematical, morphological characteristics were used extensively in compiling taxonomic trees (In fact that is precisely the meaning of taxonomy) which have incidently, broadly coincided with more modern phylogenetic trees. A human may ‘look’ more complex than a frog but how much more in quantitative terms cannot be determined by morphology.
Compare Rhodospirillum rubrum [bacteria] and Eucaryotic organisms. Percentage of difference.
Horse 64%, Pigeon 64%, Tuna 65%, Silk worm 65%, Wheat 66%, Yeast 69%
It does not take much pondering to notice that Cytochrome C in each creature did not come close to evolving as the creature did. Do you really thing that it quantifiably a horse can only be 5% different that yeast, or the difference between pigeon and tuna is 1%.
The problem you have is that this is a really good example of evidence of common ancestry. If evolution is true then the existence of cytochrome C in ‘higher forms’ is the result from evolving from a common ancestor.
That statement would be true if the statement was complete. Cytochrome C is a good example of common ancestry, if the proportion of difference between creatures is close to the proportion of difference between the cytochrome C in each.
No sequence or group of can be designated as intermediate with respect to the other group. They are equally isolated from the members of other groups.
The problem you have here is that every creature that we have record of disappearing, disappeared as it appeared on the fossil record. No transitions. What does the evolutionist say. They are all transition species. Following your logic everything is a transitional species.
This is simply not correct, for example humans and chimps share more or less identical DNA sequences coding for cytochrome C.
Let’s talk about chimp to man. Evolutionist say that the difference between man and chimp is 1.5 %. Does not seem much. What we need to find out is how much is much. When we hear that there is a 1 ½ % difference between man and chimp it seems not to be much. But we must take into account what 1 ½% exactly means. If there are three billion base pairs in a human 1 ½% calculates to 45 million base pairs or 15 million codons. It is estimated that it would take 10X10 to 21 power mutations to get five condons to mutate in the right order. One and half percent does not look like much but when analyzed, it becomes overwhelming evidence against man ever evolving from a chimp.
Firstly it is important to object to the use of 'higher forms', from an evolutionary viewpoint we are not a 'higher form'. You also seem to misunderstand hierarchy, there isn't an evolutionary 'hierarchy', there is a taxonomic heirarchy but that goes the wrong way for your point. Presumably because you are viewing evolution with a theistic bias to assume that humans are some sort of pinnacle of evolution.
Seem to be going against ‘evolution by natural selection’, and ‘survival of the fittest.’
No, we are more closely related to fish than lampreys, you have to go much further back along the evolutionary tree to find a common ancestor between us and lampreys than to find one between us and fish. Again you have no source for your figures above.
No I have a source = cytochrome c. You use it in an attempt to prove common ancestry, why can I not use it? What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.
Comparing a carp, we have the following percentage of difference.
Horse 13%, rabbit 13%, chicken 14%, turtle 13% and bullfrog 13%.
7) Again you have no source for this data? Because you are admitting that sequences for cytochrome C vary in your examples and then claiming that they are all equidistant to fish cytochrome C. By what measure are they equidistant if they vary? I suspect that your data is not from a scientific study since it disagrees with every thing I have read on the subject and doesn't appear to be internally consistant.
Where I got the data I am not 100% sure, it was a long time ago, probably 3 presidents ago. Some suggested it was 'Evolution: A theory in crisis' written in 1985 by M.J. Denton. I searched for the book and did not find it, but I am pretty sure it is the book. As to the Denton’s research and results, no one is doubting it.
8) This is because you assume that evolution is a process with a destination and that there is a hierarchy. They are an intermediate species in as much as they have shared features with two major orders and it is not clear which they are more closely related to.
What are these intermediate species to? A better life form? Are we evolving up? Down? Or across? You are the first evolutionist who seems to disagree that over time we are improving.
9) They are intermediate forms found, be honest and admit that you have decided to discount the examples given to fit your biases.
All the supposed intermediate fossils disappeared as they appeared. There is nothing that an evolutionist can point to in order to show the different stages of lizard to bird. It is all speculation with a dash of imagination.
10) You have not disproven evolution, there are lots of different ways to code for Cytochrome C ( a huge number10^93)
Someone actually measured that?
Given the huge number of ways of coding this protein you would expect it to be radically different in different species if we weren't related.
Again it is not radically different. I would expect radical cytochrome c difference between a carp and horse to a carp and a bullfrog. But they are both 13%.
This isn't what we see and you haven't provided any evidence to prove that what you are claiming is true.
The data in the post is real. No one argues the numbers, they all seem to argue the interpretation.
mathematically measuring evolution.. when judging relationships in terms of morphological characteristics we will always be bound by the subjective.
morphologically one cannot exactly measure the distance between two organisms strictly in mathematical terms.
using the standard method of taxonomy we cannot quantify the difference between a horse and a mouse, or know which is closer mouse to cat, or mouse to fish.
To cofty
The amino acid sequence and the nucleotide sequence of cytochrome c beautifully confirms and refines the tree of life. What a strange topic for a creationist to raise. I can only assume it is an attempt to poison the well with one of the best examples of evidence for common ancestry.
Notice nothing scientific in the above text. All opinion.
BTW that is a nice tree. Again any interpretation is subjective, How can measure anything using the tree?
mathematically measuring evolution.. when judging relationships in terms of morphological characteristics we will always be bound by the subjective.
morphologically one cannot exactly measure the distance between two organisms strictly in mathematical terms.
using the standard method of taxonomy we cannot quantify the difference between a horse and a mouse, or know which is closer mouse to cat, or mouse to fish.
To Coded logic.
Thank you for that information. Please notice that at the end of the day all you have is a bird with unique features. It had 100% of the modern features necessary for flight. Plus Pedopenna was already on the scene when Archeopteryx appeared. We can go back and forth arguing Comparative Anatomy and never get anywhere, Comparative Anatomy is too subjective. I rather discuss what is measurable.
mathematically measuring evolution.. when judging relationships in terms of morphological characteristics we will always be bound by the subjective.
morphologically one cannot exactly measure the distance between two organisms strictly in mathematical terms.
using the standard method of taxonomy we cannot quantify the difference between a horse and a mouse, or know which is closer mouse to cat, or mouse to fish.
To Rainbow troll
Why? By your own admission, cytochrome c does not support the theory of evolution any more than the Bible. Why are other genes and fossils of no importance in testing the theory of evolution while cytochrome c is the deal breaker? Is it because it's the only criteria that slightly favors the creationists?
Why cytochrome c? It is a simple hemoprotein about one hundred amino acids long and found in almost all living things. It is a common denominator than can be used to measure. If evolution is true, and we evolved from a single cell ancestor then the degree of difference the creatures have today should be proportion to the difference in their cytochrome c. But that is not what we find, to even close. My OP does not support evolution but it does support the idea that all living creatures appeared on the earth in the same form as they are now, minus micro evolution within their own kind.
Cytochrome c is a protein with a finite number of nucleotide sequences available to it if it is to remain functioning. The evidence you cited in your original OP only proves that it was able to recombine in similar sequences even in creatures which are evolutionary very distant from each other. Wow, what are the odds huh? Eyes are much more complicated structures than single proteins and yet they appear independently in creatures as distinct as vertebrates and invertebrates.
You are comparing an eye to a hemoprotein. They are different levels of organization. You are comparing apples to oranges.
Compare Rhodospirillum rubrum [bacteria] and Eucaryotic organisms. Percentage of difference.
Horse 64%, Pigeon 64%, Tuna 65%, Silk worm 65%, Wheat 66%, Yeast 69%
Let’s follow your theory to and see if it holds. As the horse, pigeon, tuna, silkworm, wheat, and yeast evolved over millions of years, with an unknown amount of transition life forms, taking multiple paths of along the evolutionary tree ie , flight, terrestrial, water, insect, and plant. Somehow all on its own, with no intelligence to guide it, cytochrome c manage to evolve, maintain form and function, within a 5% variance? We call that a miracle.
atheism = self defeating.
first may we define our terms.
the word atheism comes literally from the greek, alpha the negative and theos [for god], therefore “negative god” or there is no god.
To Anony Mous
You are wrong in assuming that the only way of creating information is by intelligence,
Darwin read “Principles of Geology” by Charles Lyell, whose central methodological principle was. ‘To explain the former changes of the earth’s surface, by reference to causes now in operation.’ According to Lyell, our present experience of cause and effect should guide our reasoning about the causes of past events. Lyell argued that when historical scientist are seeking to explain events in the past, they should not invoke unknown or exotic causes, the effects of which we do not know, instead, they should cite causes that are known from our uniform experience to have the power to produce the effect in question.
I am using the same methodological principle that is being used by the Evolutionist. Why am I being denied the same privilege?
In “Reconstructing the Past” – Elliot Sober stated that if historical scientist can discover an effect for which there is only one know cause, when the effect is discovered the action of the cause can be inferred with great confidence. Sober’s suggests that if scientists can discover an effect for which there is only one plausible cause, they can infer the presence or action of that cause in the past with great confidence.
X is necessary to the occurrence of Y = Y exist + Therefore, X existed.
This argument is logically and valid. A past cause or event can be established from an affect alone.
Scribes are the only known cause of linguistic inscriptions; therefore any tablets containing ancient script can infer scribal activity. Wide spread of volcanic ash will infer a past eruption. Where a particular past cause is known to be necessary to produce a subsequent effect, the occurrence of ‘the effect is taken as sufficient to establish the occurrence of the cause.” The only known cause of information is intelligence.
as a matter of fact, no new information has ever been created by an intelligent being. The net information in the Universe is zero - nothing - our Universe exists without any source of information or any producer of particles.
Webster defines information as ‘the attribute inherent in and communicated by alternative sequences or arrangements of something that produces specific effects.’ A block of binary code in a software program is information. DNA contains alternative sequences of nucleotide bases that produce a specific effect; therefore DNA contains information. DNA sequences are improbable and specifically arranged to perform, this is functional information similar to CAD – CAM.
To your point about biology: All living things communicate and reproduce using some form of information and we don't consider trees or frogs intelligent. Now, if frogs and trees can reproduce all by themselves without requiring any intelligence, why is it so hard to understand that cells can reproduce without intervention using DNA - you seem to accept that? Or that RNA can reproduce by itself - since you accept DNA (from single-cell bacteria to whales) reproduces, you have to accept RNA (viruses) are also able to reproduce without divine intervention? And since it's been proven and you accept ribonucleotides to structure and thus form RNA and "reproduce" without any divine intervention, we have gotten to the end of the 'chain' without yet requiring an explanation.
Note I am discussing the origin of the information not the ability to reproduce it.
This is where biology ends and chemistry begins. You probably have no problem accepting sugars and crystals forming without divine intervention right, you can see it happening in nature, when it snows. Or that certain chemical elements can form without divine intervention, you know being created in stars and in the earth's crust or when heated or exposed (rust) - there is no god required to make your car rust right? So where exactly do you need to insert a divine intervention (intelligent design) for life when all parts of "life" are clearly done all the time in nature without it?
Order {Redundancy} = ABCABCABCABC = NaCl NaCl NaCl NaCl [ Salt crystal]
HHOHHOHHOHHOHHO [snow flake]
{Mere} complexity. = alzntzxbct = random polypeptide or polymers
{Specified] Complexity = To be or not to be. = Functional DNA and proteins. [specified and complex information that performs a function].
Note the only molecules that are found anywhere in nature that exhibit such specified complexity and information is the gene expression system and the cell’s machinery. Everything else is redundant order or mere complexity. Living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity.
atheism = self defeating.
first may we define our terms.
the word atheism comes literally from the greek, alpha the negative and theos [for god], therefore “negative god” or there is no god.
To Saethydd
Valid question, the problem is you think you already have the answer. My answer is that we don't know... yet, but we have developed a number of plausible theories almost none of which would necessarily contradict each other. Here is a link if you actually care to learn about the leading theories.
You see, a scientist can't just invoke God because something seems to have no other explanation. If they did that, then we would still be woefully ignorant about... everything in the natural world. So many things that have been attributed to being directly controlled by God (Or depending on the time and culture gods, demons, ghosts, tree spirits etc.) have been shown to have natural explanations. That will very probably be the case with this issue as well.
Now if you want to keep shoving God back into the gaps of scientific knowledge feel free to do so, but you should know that in that case, your God is nothing more than an ever receding front being pushed backward farther and farther every year, and it's gonna take a lot more than a vague appeal to incredulity to stop that.
Darwin read “Principles of Geology” by Charles Lyell, whose central methodological principle was. ‘To explain the former changes of the earth’s surface, by reference to causes now in operation.’ According to Lyell, our present experience of cause and effect should guide our reasoning about the causes of past events. Lyell argued that when historical scientist are seeking to explain events in the past, they should not invoke unknown or exotic causes, the effects of which we do not know, instead, they should cite causes that are known from our uniform experience to have the power to produce the effect in question.
I am using the same methodological principle that is being used by the Evolutionist. Why am I being denied the same privilege?
In “Reconstructing the Past” – Elliot Sober stated that if historical scientist can discover an effect for which there is only one know cause, when the effect is discovered the action of the cause can be inferred great confidence. Sober’s suggests that if scientists can discover an effect for which there is only one plausible cause, they can infer the presence or action of that cause in the past with great confidence.
X is necessary to the occurrence of Y = Y exist + Therefore, X existed.
This argument is logically and valid. A past cause or event can be established from an affect alone.
Scribes are the only known cause of linguistic inscriptions; therefore any tablets containing ancient script can infer scribal activity. Wide spread of volcanic ash will infer a past eruption. Where a particular past cause is known to be necessary to produce a subsequent effect, the occurrence of ‘the effect is taken as sufficient to establish the occurrence of the cause.” The only known cause of information is intelligence.
