Iconoclastic Atheist Turns To Belief In God

[Professor_X]

[quote]pushharder wrote:
apbt55 wrote:
…The helical structure of DNA actually contradicts it’s own thermodynamic properties as it unfolds for translation or transcription, don’t remember exactly but believe it has to do with the heat capacities of helix-to-coil transitions. There are alot of hidden gems in the DNA structure and transfer of gentic material that completely confound the idea of speciation through evolutionary theroy, but you will never here this in a highschool.

“Human DNA contains more organized information than the Encyclopedia Britannica. If the full text of the encyclopedia were to arrive in computer code from outer space, most people would regard this as proof of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. But when seen in nature, it is explained as the workings of random forces.”

George Sim Johnston

Einstein said, “God does not play dice.” He was right. God plays scrabble.

Philip Gold

[/quote]

Nice

[Aragorn]

[quote]Professor X wrote:
bumpage[/quote]

why, X? Why?

[Cockney_Blue]

[quote]bamit wrote:
Boscobarbell wrote:
rainjack wrote:
Right Side Up wrote:

It seems to me that the athiests are trying really hard to marginalize the theists with absurd examples, all the while pushing the idea that we are abnormal compared to them. That we are not as enlightened.

Man, this get better and better, doesn’t it? What could be more “absurd” than the virgin-born carpenter’s son who claims to be the Son of God, makes fish multiply, heals the sick, allows mortal man to kill him and then rises from the dead? Do you not get it that, to an atheist, this tale is about as wacky and unbelievable as it gets (my Pink Bunnyrabbit is downright normal, by comparison!).

And, just for edification’s sake, how about showing me where you were called “abnormal,” or that you were not as “enlightened.” In re-reading these posts, the only thing I can see is that atheists disagree with your belief and raised questions about it. You claimed in a previous post how rock-solid your faith is, but you and others (Prof X) seem awful precious about absorbing conflicting views.

Boscobarbell,
Do you think the account of Jesus?s life is a little odd? This is what has convinced me that Christianity is the truth. What human beings would have ever come up with such a story? Man made stories are much more interesting, and not nearly as odd. I mean what man would think to say that our savior died on a cross. Men would not think this up, so I believe that it must have happened. I also believe that Jesus rose form the dead because if he would not have Christianity would have died with him. These men must have seen something that turned them form modern everyday people, to martyred apostles. I do not think that they would have willingly gave there lives as they did if they had not seen something.

May God Bless You

[/quote]

So the Gospels must be true because they are still believed today.

By the same argument, the Talmud must be true because it is still believed today.

The Rig Veda must be true because it is still believed today.

Each religion has it’s martyrs

[Cockney_Blue]

[quote]apbt55 wrote:
mertdawg wrote:
First, I’m a born theist and christian who came to ask questions. I remain theist and christian. I still ask questions.
Second, I am a public school science teacher. My father is an orthodox christian theological scholar and priest.

Intelligent design is unnecessary. In a way it it a tautology because how ever the universe functioned to get us here, it was the only way it could have happened so it was really a matter of deductive reasoning: Find the universe that looks exactly like ours, pick it out and voila you have our universe. The problem people have in understanding this was the push of science toward laws starting with Newton, and a moving away from a universe of events (which is the foundation of quantum physics).

Trying to prove God by using intelligent design does not work. Our universe can not be proved to be any less likely than any other universe. Intelligent design theory is what I would call the “Lottery delusion” Whoever wins the lottery thinks they are lucky, but no laws of probability are violated. Also, “creation science” is anti-science. It is anti logic and those who study and believe it are perverting the rationalism that God gave them. I know a man who got a master’s degree in creation science. To me, that’s like getting a degree in irrationalism or daoist medatation. Creation science began as an attempt by some fundamentalist Christians to say “two can play at that game” as a response to irrationalism and some reasonable bias among scientists (mostly biologists).

I’m going to read through the whole thread to do justice here, but a few points:

1. 99% of Christians on earth belong to a denomonation that does not officially reject biological evolution. (And thats actually to the nearest percent).

2. The first text of Mark’s Gospel did have an abrupt ending that sounded a bit contrived. That’s because they wrote on scrolls and they ran out of room!

3. Mark’s gospel was dictated by Peter. The gospels were put together not so that Christians would never forget the facts, but specifically so that they would have a book to read from (That paralleled the Jewish Synogogue readings) in their sacred services

4. I have had biblical literalists tell me that the bible is 100% literally accurate, except for 1 interesting line: “My flesh is TRULY MEAT and my blood is TRULY DRINK” Thats supposed to be a figure of speech.

5. I read about an American protestant theologian who went to Bethlehem on a “pilgrimmage.” When he got there, he went to the cave where it was believed that Jesus was born and pronounced “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son” The people around him asked him “why did you come all the way over here to tell us about our hometown boy?”

MO: Biblical literalism is a drowning man’s life preserver when he has no lifeline, no connection to 2 centuries of religious tradition guided by God. It’s not a life line. It IS better than nothing.

MO: Most parents who are anti-evolution don’t want it taught in school because they are afraid that their kids will believe it!

Resurrection

I am a biblical literalist. In the bible it kind of points that out that scripture is “God-Breathed”. And where does it say that the flesh and blood are actually flesh and blood, I believe the original hebrew actually translates as a symbolic gesture in remeberance of the flesh and blood. May be wrong but that is what I was tought in a religious studies course, at a jesuit institute none the less.

I am also an analytical scientist by trade. I would argue that evolution is nothing more than a philosphy, constantly being shown faulty with advances in technology.

Sorry but I don’t support the idea of teaching children philosphy as science. either creation or evolution.

and funny you bring up quantum mechanics, The helical structure of DNA actually contradicts it’s own thermodynamic properties as it unfolds for translation or transcription, don’t remember exactly but believe it has to do with the heat capacities of helix-to-coil transitions. There are alot of hidden gems in the DNA structure and transfer of gentic material that completely confound the idea of speciation through evolutionary theroy, but you will never here this in a highschool.

[/quote]

Evolution is not a philosophy and DNA doesn’t contradict its own thermodynamic properties.

There are a number of hidden gems in the DNA structure and transfer of genetic material that completely support the fact of speciation through evolution, you will hear lots of this through high school, undergraduate genetics studies and beyond.

[Cockney_Blue]

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
…There are a number of hidden gems in the DNA structure and transfer of genetic material that completely support the fact of speciation through evolution…

Whiff.

You need to go back to the dugout and ask for the batboy job. You absolutely do not know what you’re talking about here.

…you will here lots of this through high school, undergraduate genetics studies and beyond.

The problem is it isn’t supported by the facts.[/quote]

And from what position of knowledge are you talking on this subject?

I studied genetics as part of my degree, admitedly it was a few years ago and was not the main focus of my degree but the evidence is there.

By the way, I will not accept God told me or it is in the Bible as evidence

[Cockney_Blue]

By the way Push, if you could go back and edit the here/hear typo in your quote of my post it would be appreciated. It is kind of undermining my attempts to appear erudite on this thread.

[belligerent]

The human body isn’t complex. Complexity is a relative term. We percieve life as being complex in relation to other things, like telephones and computers. But comparisons are irrelevant in the physical universe. The human body is just one of innumerable different phenomena that are capable of existing in the physical world. It evolved the way that it did because that was the only way that it was possible for it to evolve. It did not come about randomly; it filled a niche.

[DrSkeptix]

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
…There are a number of hidden gems in the DNA structure and transfer of genetic material that completely support the fact of speciation through evolution…

Whiff.

You need to go back to the dugout and ask for the batboy job. You absolutely do not know what you’re talking about here.

…you will here lots of this through high school, undergraduate genetics studies and beyond.

The problem is it isn’t supported by the facts.[/quote]

Oooh! A challenge!

Cytochrome c.

[Sloth]

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
By the way Push, if you could go back and edit the here/hear typo in your quote of my post it would be appreciated. It is kind of undermining my attempts to appear erudite on this thread.[/quote]

Lol. Ok, that’s funny.

[DrSkeptix]

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
…There are a number of hidden gems in the DNA structure and transfer of genetic material that completely support the fact of speciation through evolution…

Whiff.

You need to go back to the dugout and ask for the batboy job. You absolutely do not know what you’re talking about here.

…you will here lots of this through high school, undergraduate genetics studies and beyond.

The problem is it isn’t supported by the facts.

Oooh! A challenge!

Cytochrome c.[/quote]

No takers?
How about the bacterial flagellum?
Or the eye?

[Aragorn]

Back on topic, the newfound (as of 2004) belief of this former iconic atheist should be evidence enough that there is still an active philosophical – and RATIONAL – debate out there and that alone should suffice to show intelligent thinkers out there that they should probably not revile and mock the rationality of a theistic or even Judeo-Christian worldview. Regardless of the particular reasons for this mans conversion to theism, it should illustrate the point that active honest intellectuals are still actively grappling with these questions and changing positions on them.

It won’t, of course, as the internet youtube aged posters and flying spaghetti monster keyboard warriors will still toss out vitriol and mockery like yesterdays garbage. But it should. You can disagree with something while still being respectful.

As for evolution, I’m so done with all that. I don’t really ever want to talk about that debate again.

[DrSkeptix]

[quote]pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
…There are a number of hidden gems in the DNA structure and transfer of genetic material that completely support the fact of speciation through evolution…

Whiff.

You need to go back to the dugout and ask for the batboy job. You absolutely do not know what you’re talking about here.

…you will here lots of this through high school, undergraduate genetics studies and beyond.

The problem is it isn’t supported by the facts.

Oooh! A challenge!

Cytochrome c.

No takers?
How about the bacterial flagellum?
Or the eye?

The flagellum in itself is about as fascinatingly complex and well ordered that it defies any conjecture whatsoever that it could ever have developed randomly. It would have been virtually impossible.[/quote]

Friend Push, I can’t believe you took the bait!

First, just two rules: 1. Occam’s razor. 2. Biologic theory may not be verifiable but it must be falsifiable. If you do not accept at least these two rules, you cannot discuss biologic science.

The flagellum, the eye, even my example of cytochrome c–all these are examples of anti-evolutions of the “watch on the heath” fallacy. (Watchmaker analogy - Wikipedia) If one encouters a watch in the field, who but an intelligent designer could have created it. It has “irreducible complexity;” of what good is any of its parts without the total, and it can have no viable precedents. But we know that this is not true of the watch, which has more than a thousand years of precedents, and it is not true of evolutionary biology.

In the case of the bacterial flagellum, how could all its parts simply congregate and be active, since no one part would be of use without the others. There could be no evolution from simpler forms.
But this is not so. The conjecture is sensible: CB200.1: Bacterial flagella and Irreducibly Complexity

We know the bacterial precendent: poison injecting mechanism of other bacteria. There are just nine sequential changes required to evolve from one form to another, and each one can be achieved by a single DNA point mutation, and each one leaves a viable organism.

This is not virtually impossible. I observe DNA mutations every day at work.

Is this explanation verifiable? Perhaps each intermediate form can be found, perhaps not. But not finding an intermediate form does not mean that no such form ever existed.
Is this explanation falsifiable? Yes. You could try to prove that the genetic changes are disallowed in nature. But so far as we know…

(Similar analyses of the evolutions of the eye and cytochrome c have been proposed, and are not falsified yet.)

Note, too, the last sentence of the cited index:
“Eubacterial flagella, archebacterial flagella, and cilia use entirely different designs for the same function. That is to be expected if they evolved separately, but it makes no sense if they were the work of the same designer.”

Now the Designer may move in mysterious ways, Its wonders to perform, but biologic theory, by Occam’s razor, disallows Its multiple magical interventions.

So, with respect, Friend Push, and even Friend Aragorn if he is reading, the wonder here is that we are given brains that can encompass these concepts, and to give credit to the Designer, we should all use those brains to further understanding and not defeat it.

[DrSkeptix]

[quote]pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
…There are a number of hidden gems in the DNA structure and transfer of genetic material that completely support the fact of speciation through evolution…

Whiff.

You need to go back to the dugout and ask for the batboy job. You absolutely do not know what you’re talking about here.

…you will here lots of this through high school, undergraduate genetics studies and beyond.

The problem is it isn’t supported by the facts.

Oooh! A challenge!

Cytochrome c.

No takers?
How about the bacterial flagellum?
Or the eye?

The flagellum in itself is about as fascinatingly complex and well ordered that it defies any conjecture whatsoever that it could ever have developed randomly. It would have been virtually impossible.

Friend Push, I can’t believe you took the bait!

First, just two rules: 1. Occam’s razor. 2. Biologic theory may not be verifiable but it must be falsifiable. If you do not accept at least these two rules, you cannot discuss biologic science.

The flagellum, the eye, even my example of cytochrome c–all these are examples of anti-evolutions of the “watch on the heath” fallacy. (Watchmaker analogy - Wikipedia) If one encouters a watch in the field, who but an intelligent designer could have created it. It has “irreducible complexity;” of what good is any of its parts without the total, and it can have no viable precedents. But we know that this is not true of the watch, which has more than a thousand years of precedents, and it is not true of evolutionary biology.

In the case of the bacterial flagellum, how could all its parts simply congregate and be active, since no one part would be of use without the others. There could be no evolution from simpler forms.
But this is not so. The conjecture is sensible: CB200.1: Bacterial flagella and Irreducibly Complexity

We know the bacterial precendent: poison injecting mechanism of other bacteria. There are just nine sequential changes required to evolve from one form to another, and each one can be achieved by a single DNA point mutation, and each one leaves a viable organism.

This is not virtually impossible. I observe DNA mutations every day at work.

Is this explanation verifiable? Perhaps each intermediate form can be found, perhaps not. But not finding an intermediate form does not mean that no such form ever existed.
Is this explanation falsifiable? Yes. You could try to prove that the genetic changes are disallowed in nature. But so far as we know…

(Similar analyses of the evolutions of the eye and cytochrome c have been proposed, and are not falsified yet.)

Note, too, the last sentence of the cited index:
“Eubacterial flagella, archebacterial flagella, and cilia use entirely different designs for the same function. That is to be expected if they evolved separately, but it makes no sense if they were the work of the same designer.”

Now the Designer may move in mysterious ways, Its wonders to perform, but biologic theory, by Occam’s razor, disallows Its multiple magical interventions.

So, with respect, Friend Push, and even Friend Aragorn if he is reading, the wonder here is that we are given brains that can encompass these concepts, and to give credit to the Designer, we should all use those brains to further understanding and not defeat it.

Friend Skeptix, the bait may have been taken but you can’t land the fish. In regards to bacterial flagellum you would do well to read some of the works of Dr. Michael Behe, PHD. He received a chemistry degree with honors from Drexel U. and a doctorate in biochemistry at the the U. of Penn. After post-doctorate research at Penn and the National Institutes of Health, he joined the U. of Lehigh as professor.

Lehigh is no west Texas junior college. Its array of laboratories include the Complex Carbohydrate Research Lab, the Core Chromatography/Electrophoresis Lab, the Molecular Microbiology Research Lab, the Neuroendocrinology Lab, the Core DNA Lab, and the Virology Lab among others.

He has also served on the Molecular Biochemistry Review Panel of the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at the National Science Foundation as well as a prolific author of books and numerous articles in scientific journals as well as lecturer at dozens of prestigious institutions such as the Mayo Clinic, Yale, Carnegie-Mellon, the U of Aberdeen, Temple, Colgate, Notre Dame, and Princeton.

He is a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution and other professional organizations.

Now I went to all the trouble to impress you with this guy’s credentials to make a point, of course. He is no layman Pushharder yapping about biochemistry on a weight lifting website.

So when he talks about the world’s most efficient motor, the bacterial flagellum, saying,

“The flagellum is irreducibly complex…”

and when asked, “Has anyone been able to propose a step-by-step evolutionary explanation of of how a gradual process could have yielded a flagellum?”…

and he answers, “In a word - no. For most irreducibly complex systems, the best you get is a sort of hand-waving, cartoonish explanation, but certainly nothing that approaches being realistic…”

…THEN, I, Push Winchester Harder, sit up and take notice.

Others with an objective intellect might well do likewise.

[/quote]

Yes, and Prof Behe, the authority to whom you appeal, was mistaken, and is mistaken. He poses the fallacious “argument from incredulity.” CA100: Argument from incredulity
The citation of Matzke contradicts him very effectively; there is a plausible and testable step by step evolutionary explanation. Neither he nor Behe can prove a negative, but the conjecture is very plausible. CB200.1: Bacterial flagella and Irreducibly Complexity
Read the citation for details.

And by the way, Dr. Behe, who is commonly summoned up as some type of ultimate authority, was soundly refuted in a court of law on exactly these points. (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District). He is not exactly the strongest reed upon which to lean.

Appeals to authority are not useful without data. My passing acquaintance with Pauling, Szent-Georgy, Berg, Kornberg (the father–the son was a hermit) and Lederberg are not useful except as name-dropping to get the chicks.

But what do I know? i am just an objective and impartial observer.

[Cockney_Blue]

[quote]pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
…There are a number of hidden gems in the DNA structure and transfer of genetic material that completely support the fact of speciation through evolution…

Whiff.

You need to go back to the dugout and ask for the batboy job. You absolutely do not know what you’re talking about here.

…you will here lots of this through high school, undergraduate genetics studies and beyond.

The problem is it isn’t supported by the facts.

Oooh! A challenge!

Cytochrome c.

No takers?
How about the bacterial flagellum?
Or the eye?

The flagellum in itself is about as fascinatingly complex and well ordered that it defies any conjecture whatsoever that it could ever have developed randomly. It would have been virtually impossible.

Friend Push, I can’t believe you took the bait!

First, just two rules: 1. Occam’s razor. 2. Biologic theory may not be verifiable but it must be falsifiable. If you do not accept at least these two rules, you cannot discuss biologic science.

The flagellum, the eye, even my example of cytochrome c–all these are examples of anti-evolutions of the “watch on the heath” fallacy. (Watchmaker analogy - Wikipedia) If one encouters a watch in the field, who but an intelligent designer could have created it. It has “irreducible complexity;” of what good is any of its parts without the total, and it can have no viable precedents. But we know that this is not true of the watch, which has more than a thousand years of precedents, and it is not true of evolutionary biology.

In the case of the bacterial flagellum, how could all its parts simply congregate and be active, since no one part would be of use without the others. There could be no evolution from simpler forms.
But this is not so. The conjecture is sensible: CB200.1: Bacterial flagella and Irreducibly Complexity

We know the bacterial precendent: poison injecting mechanism of other bacteria. There are just nine sequential changes required to evolve from one form to another, and each one can be achieved by a single DNA point mutation, and each one leaves a viable organism.

This is not virtually impossible. I observe DNA mutations every day at work.

Is this explanation verifiable? Perhaps each intermediate form can be found, perhaps not. But not finding an intermediate form does not mean that no such form ever existed.
Is this explanation falsifiable? Yes. You could try to prove that the genetic changes are disallowed in nature. But so far as we know…

(Similar analyses of the evolutions of the eye and cytochrome c have been proposed, and are not falsified yet.)

Note, too, the last sentence of the cited index:
“Eubacterial flagella, archebacterial flagella, and cilia use entirely different designs for the same function. That is to be expected if they evolved separately, but it makes no sense if they were the work of the same designer.”

Now the Designer may move in mysterious ways, Its wonders to perform, but biologic theory, by Occam’s razor, disallows Its multiple magical interventions.

So, with respect, Friend Push, and even Friend Aragorn if he is reading, the wonder here is that we are given brains that can encompass these concepts, and to give credit to the Designer, we should all use those brains to further understanding and not defeat it.

Friend Skeptix, the bait may have been taken but you can’t land the fish. In regards to bacterial flagellum you would do well to read some of the works of Dr. Michael Behe, PHD. He received a chemistry degree with honors from Drexel U. and a doctorate in biochemistry at the the U. of Penn. After post-doctorate research at Penn and the National Institutes of Health, he joined the U. of Lehigh as professor.

Lehigh is no west Texas junior college. Its array of laboratories include the Complex Carbohydrate Research Lab, the Core Chromatography/Electrophoresis Lab, the Molecular Microbiology Research Lab, the Neuroendocrinology Lab, the Core DNA Lab, and the Virology Lab among others.

He has also served on the Molecular Biochemistry Review Panel of the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at the National Science Foundation as well as a prolific author of books and numerous articles in scientific journals as well as lecturer at dozens of prestigious institutions such as the Mayo Clinic, Yale, Carnegie-Mellon, the U of Aberdeen, Temple, Colgate, Notre Dame, and Princeton.

He is a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution and other professional organizations.

Now I went to all the trouble to impress you with this guy’s credentials to make a point, of course. He is no layman Pushharder yapping about biochemistry on a weight lifting website.

So when he talks about the world’s most efficient motor, the bacterial flagellum, saying,

“The flagellum is irreducibly complex…”

and when asked, “Has anyone been able to propose a step-by-step evolutionary explanation of of how a gradual process could have yielded a flagellum?”…

and he answers, “In a word - no. For most irreducibly complex systems, the best you get is a sort of hand-waving, cartoonish explanation, but certainly nothing that approaches being realistic…”

…THEN, I, Push Winchester Harder, sit up and take notice.

Others with an objective intellect might well do likewise.
[/quote]

Push, I have an Honours degree in Chemistry from Manchester University (one of the finest research universities in the world) I am also a member of the Royal Society of Chemists and numerous other professional bodies. A number of my classmates had far more impressive credentials than I and went on to take PHDs. Of them, there were several who I wouldn’t trust to operate light switches unaided.

My point I guess is that it is not just the letters after the name but what is coming out of the guys mouth. Yes there are numerous wonderous solutions in nature. None of them are proof of anything more than variations and lots, and lots, and lots of time.

The problem that most people have with evolution is that it is really difficult to conceptualise quite how much time we are talking about. That is why animals with a short life cycle and computer models are so useful in showing that any solution can be found through the basic concepts of evolution.

The real strong evidence for evolution as far as I see it is not how perfectly we are designed but actually how badly. There are a number of parts of the design of human beings (and other animals) that only make sense if you have stepwise evolution. The solution to a problem at a given time was limited by the previous steps in the chain.

If you were setting out to design us from scratch, you would make a number of improvements on the model.