OP, you are making comparisons that are nonsensical. As has been noted, you cannot draw an analogy among inanimate rocks and progenitive tigers. With that kind of grossly oversimplified misconception of basic precepts and facts, you are not going to get anywhere in this argument, and it is really not worth anybody’s time to argue with you.
If you are interested in a popular and half-decent argument in favor of ID, look into the argument from the fine-tuning of physical parameters. But keep in mind that that argument doesn’t prove a damn thing, and theists who have spent their lives studying these things openly admit as much.
Or would like to stay out of physics and instead look to biology? Alright then. I have put this question to many people before. It is specifically designed to counter the Judeo-Christian creation myth, so if that isn’t what you’re pushing here, then ignore it. Here goes: You are challenged to make your case for your weltanschauung alongside Richard Dawkins, who is going to be making the case for his. You will be answering the question, “What is the biological origin of man?” An audience of the most intelligent and impartial people on earth will hear you both out and then make its decision accordingly. Dawkins goes first, and his answers are abiogenesis and evolution. He spends a week analyzing studies, parading physical evidence, making his arguments. There are a number of books you can read in order to absorb the gist of what Dawkins’ presentation would actually look and sound like, but he’s doing it all–the entire case for evolution, every piece of evidence, start to finish.
Your turn. Your answer is this: Man was created from mud by god. (Note that this is exactly the parallel to Dawkins’ account of man’s origin.) You clear your throat and you begin to offer positive evidence of your claim–to prove that the audience should ignore the week-long parade of evidence and studies they’ve just encountered in Dawkins’ presentation. What, exactly, do you say? What is your specific, positive evidence for the claim that man exists because god fashioned him from clay and breathed life into him?
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
What is your specific, positive evidence for the claim that man exists because god fashioned him from clay and breathed life into him?[/quote]
‘…men should behave according to an absolute moral standard, one that transcends logic. What’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong. The difference between good and bad and between right and wrong are givens, not arguments subject to discussion or justification, and a man should know the difference.’ - Nitobe Inazo Bushido: The Soul of Japan
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
What is your specific, positive evidence for the claim that man exists because god fashioned him from clay and breathed life into him?[/quote]
‘…men should behave according to an absolute moral standard, one that transcends logic. What’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong. The difference between good and bad and between right and wrong are givens, not arguments subject to discussion or justification, and a man should know the difference.’ - Nitobe Inazo Bushido: The Soul of Japan[/quote]
That kind of thing doesn’t fly in this kind of discussion.
We are talking about what we can discover or reason to be, and what we can discover and reason not to be. Old Nitobe’s mushy and meaningless tautologies don’t carry water across that particular desert.
To put this differently, these discussions tend to follow a predictable pattern:
A discussion of theism/atheism begins in evidentiary and logical terms. As with the present case, this is often initiated by a theist.
The case for Judeo-Christian theism is subjected to evidentiary and logical scrutiny.
Judeo-Christian theism is (groundlessly) claimed to be exempt from evidentiary and logical scrutiny.
Once the criticisms become sharp and precise, an answer like the one you’ve given becomes inevitable. Now, I wouldn’t want to profess to believe something which stands on a foundation of such mealy quicksand. But if I did, and I knew that I was always going to end up with step 3, I’d avoid step 1.
By the way, there is no possible universe in which “man was made from dust by the God of the Judeo-Christian Bible” is included among the “whats right is right and people should just know it” category (not any more than any other creation myth, anyway), so the quote doesn’t even apply in a narrow sense.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, there is no possible universe in which “man was made from dust by the God of the Judeo-Christian Bible” is included among the “whats right is right and people should just know it” category (not any more than any other creation myth, anyway), so the quote doesn’t even apply in a narrow sense.
[/quote]
I’m not trying to prove anything one way or another. What you believe is your business and I don’t ridicule you for it. People like Dawkins and Hitchens thrive on ridiculing people to flatter their own pathetic egos.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, there is no possible universe in which “man was made from dust by the God of the Judeo-Christian Bible” is included among the “whats right is right and people should just know it” category (not any more than any other creation myth, anyway), so the quote doesn’t even apply in a narrow sense.
[/quote]
I’m not trying to prove anything one way or another. What you believe is your business and I don’t ridicule you for it. People like Dawkins and Hitchens thrive on ridiculing people to flatter their own pathetic egos.[/quote]
I agree with you with regard to Dawkins and Hitchens (though I admire their intellects, and I’d say it’s more about cold hard cash than ego). I’m not intending to ridicule or insult anyone–just engaging in debate.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
People like Dawkins and Hitchens thrive on ridiculing people to flatter their own pathetic egos.[/quote]
So they are like your typical PWI poster.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
By the way, there is no possible universe in which “man was made from dust by the God of the Judeo-Christian Bible” is included among the “whats right is right and people should just know it” category (not any more than any other creation myth, anyway), so the quote doesn’t even apply in a narrow sense.
[/quote]
I’m not trying to prove anything one way or another. What you believe is your business and I don’t ridicule you for it. People like Dawkins and Hitchens thrive on ridiculing people to flatter their own pathetic egos.[/quote]
I agree with you with regard to Dawkins and Hitchens (though I admire their intellects, and I’d say it’s more about cold hard cash than ego). I’m not intending to ridicule or insult anyone–just engaging in debate.[/quote]
I wasn’t suggesting you were. However there are some posters who do.
Hitchens would’ve been a good trial lawyer. He was skilled in pleading his case. But if you look at any of his personal beliefs he was very far from wise: a Trotskyist, an anti-Semite and a fanatical ideologue.
Hitchens would’ve been a good trial lawyer. He was skilled in pleading his case.[/quote]
Indeed he would have. He was ridiculously eloquent and erudite, and his power of recall was difficult to match in debate.
Yes, many of his beliefs were silly. I remember Martin Amis wrote that Hitchens chose his beliefs in a far more childish manner than most people realized: He just felt something in his gut, and that was it. Of course, he was well-read enough to then back up his visceral and somewhat arbitrary contention with logical support, whatever that contention might be.
As for these specifics, though, hadn’t he been converted fairly totally to a capitalist by the end? Perhaps a somewhat left-of-center one, but certainly a capitalist.
And as for antisemitism, I think that changed pretty starkly too, especially when he came to really hate Islam. I recall a piece that was very critical of “The Israel Lobby.” He went so far as to imply that the authors were themselves antisemites.
Yes, many of his beliefs were silly. I remember Martin Amis wrote that Hitchens chose his beliefs in a far more childish manner than most people realized: He just felt something in his gut, and that was it. Of course, he was well-read enough to then back up his visceral and somewhat arbitrary contention with logical support, whatever that contention might be.
As for these specifics, though, hadn’t he been converted fairly totally to a capitalist by the end? Perhaps a somewhat left-of-center one, but certainly a capitalist.
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He remained a Marxist till his death by his own admission. His only change was in terms of foreign policy - supporting the Iraq war and the so called neo-cons.
[quote]
And as for antisemitism, I think that changed pretty starkly too, especially when he came to really hate Islam. I recall a piece that was very critical of “The Israel Lobby.” He went so far as to imply that the authors were themselves antisemites.[/quote]
No he remained pathologically anti-Semitic. He even went so far as to blame Judaism for the existence of Islamic fundamentalists. Here’s a good article about it:
[quote]espenl wrote:
By claiming intelligent design for everything we can’t prove today, we risk missing out on a lot of knowledge in the long run. [/quote]
That’s not what the intelligent design theory posits at all. It’s actually a mathematical calculation.
No he remained pathologically anti-Semitic. He even went so far as to blame Judaism for the existence of Islamic fundamentalists. Here’s a good article about it:
There a many problems with that essay. I’ll be back later to address it.
[quote]RATTLEHEAD wrote:
How is it proof of ‘Intelligent Design’?
[/quote]
It doesn’t.
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I agree it doesn’t. What gives intelligent design theories probability is the tremendous mathematical improbability of accident. However, the only viable counter claim to it, is the many worlds hypothesis, which I don’t believe is a strong objection in the end. Yes, it’s mathematically possible, in that a model can be created in which it could maybe possibly happen, but there is not a single solitary shred of evidence of any chance of actuality. Science requires evidence. Further, it’s the mathematical probability is much smaller than that of intelligent design.
It of course helps if one understands what the intelligent design theory actually is claiming, versus most ad hoc bro-philosophy interpretations of it.
However, the Cambrian explosion is no more a slam dunk for Intelligent Design then any other event in the universe. [/quote]
So you consider multi-worlds improbable based on an infinitely small chance of our universe happening by accident, of which there is no proof- but accept intelligent design over it when there is no objective scientific proof of god either?
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The multi-worlds hypothesis is highly improbable. It’s not what I consider.
If you could prove God scientifically, it would actually weaken the case for God’s existence. Science is not in the business of studying God. That branch of knowledge is called theology. Science observes and tests physical phenomena, for which there is none in the many worlds hypothesis. There is far less evidence of for muti-worlds hypothesis then there is for the existence of God, for which you have the 5 general deductive arguments and their many branches.
If you are looking at probably alone, God is infinitely more likely than ‘many worlds’ because there is no evidence for it deductively or inductively. It’s only a mathematical possibility and a small one at that.
[quote]RATTLEHEAD wrote:
How is it proof of ‘Intelligent Design’?
[/quote]
It doesn’t.
[/quote]
I agree it doesn’t. What gives intelligent design theories probability is the tremendous mathematical improbability of accident. However, the only viable counter claim to it, is the many worlds hypothesis, which I don’t believe is a strong objection in the end. Yes, it’s mathematically possible, in that a model can be created in which it could maybe possibly happen, but there is not a single solitary shred of evidence of any chance of actuality. Science requires evidence. Further, it’s the mathematical probability is much smaller than that of intelligent design.
It of course helps if one understands what the intelligent design theory actually is claiming, versus most ad hoc bro-philosophy interpretations of it.
However, the Cambrian explosion is no more a slam dunk for Intelligent Design then any other event in the universe. [/quote]
The questions are these:
What are the odds that things–the particulars of physical constants and parameters, the happenstances of evolutionary history–turned out so well for us, without “god?”
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Most calculations I have seen put the odds at 1 in 4 x 10^17 chance of happening accident.
Well the fact that you’re dealing with an act of will by a sentient being that either did, or did not create ‘it’, your odds are 50/50. Of course this is holding the variable of God’s existence in the positive.
Well clearly the latter.
[quote]
The problem is that a probability can be ascribed to neither 1 nor 2, and you will never prove that either is more likely–much less more true–than the other.[/quote]
The problem is deeper than that actually and there are several ways to look at it.
God exists and created existence
God does not exist and there is no existence.
God does not exist, but there is existence ex nihilo.
[quote]RATTLEHEAD wrote:
How is it proof of ‘Intelligent Design’?
[/quote]
It doesn’t.
[/quote]
I agree it doesn’t. What gives intelligent design theories probability is the tremendous mathematical improbability of accident. However, the only viable counter claim to it, is the many worlds hypothesis, which I don’t believe is a strong objection in the end. Yes, it’s mathematically possible, in that a model can be created in which it could maybe possibly happen, but there is not a single solitary shred of evidence of any chance of actuality. Science requires evidence. Further, it’s the mathematical probability is much smaller than that of intelligent design.
It of course helps if one understands what the intelligent design theory actually is claiming, versus most ad hoc bro-philosophy interpretations of it.
However, the Cambrian explosion is no more a slam dunk for Intelligent Design then any other event in the universe. [/quote]
The many worlds hypothesis did not arise out of a need to explain evolution. It arose out of fundamental physics.
[/quote]
