Another Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[Elminster_Amaur]

Just some things I'd like to add:

Here, I've got some odds that make it even less likely: What are the odds of someone going around, performing an assload of miracles, and even rising from the dead... and it not being recorded outside of Christian religious texts? Hmm... perhaps they are... zero?

Have you ever thought that the reason for this is - perhaps - simply because all of the recordings of these events became absorbed into Christian religious texts? Because I'm pretty sure that if a new religion were to form around, say, 9/11, all recorded evidence of 9/11 would be collected by the adherents of the religion, and turned into religious texts/videos. I'm sure you won't see my point, but others will, and most will see why the point you brought up was completely moot, and not worth arguing the next time.

This is how understanding evolves, see. You take a hypothesis, and you prove it correct through testing, and until it proves false, it stands. I'm absolutely certain that all Star Wars material, canon or otherwise, is considered religious text by the "Jedi" religious sect, and I must assume that this is the way that all religions behave upon formation.

Yes, modern cells can't be created suddenly. But there is more that can self-replicate other than enzymes - ribozymes. Jeez, it took three and a half seconds on wikipedia to find that.

I have learned not to argue with Sith on matters of Physics. I would not argue with a Judge on matters of law. You should probably not argue with Swordchucks on this matter. Pick your battles by your strengths, not your opponent's strength.

Furthermore, probability is not a guarantee. Just because there's a one in a trillion chance of something happening does not mean that if you try it a trillion times it'll happen, because there's a one in a trillion chance of it happening each time you try.

Well, to be fair, over an infinite amount of time, anything that is not impossible will happen an infinite number of times. Probability only implies frequency of events occurring.

I think everyone is missing the point here though. It's not, "how did we get here?" It's "what do we do since we are here?"

[I_Like_Swordchucks]

Originally Posted by Serenity

Perhaps you should consider a little concept called "reasonable doubt" versus "unreasonable doubt". It's, you know, that thing that allows humans to act vaguely like there's an objective reality.

Except that you can only say whats reasonable to doubt given what you know. I may know different things than you, making it a lot less reasonable for me to doubt it.

Lets pretend you know 10% of everything there is to know (which is giving you a phenomenal amount of credit). Who are you to say what the probability of something is, when the probability of you being right is only 1 out of 10? Isn't it possible there is some knowledge out there that exists in that 90% you don't know? Yeah, there is.

If you were only saw black-white, you would never perceive color. That would, by your rationale, give you reason to doubt that color exists. You'd be wrong, but there would be no way to prove to you that color exists since you are unable to perceive it.

Now lets imagine that there is this gut feeling or emotion that gives people a reasonable certainty on the existence of God. Simply because you don't perceive that feeling doesn't mean its not there, as it exists outside of that 10% you know. However it might not be outside of the 10% I know, making it a lot more reasonable for me to believe in God.

This isn't to say I'm right, or your right, its to say we all know so little that we can't make any claims based off of anything except your own feelings and knowledge.

Yes, modern cells can't be created suddenly. But there is more that can self-replicate other than enzymes - ribozymes. Jeez, it took three and a half seconds on wikipedia to find that.

That would be a lot more impressive if ribozymes weren't defined as RNA-based enzymes, and are every bit as complex as protein based enzymes.

You see, you aren't getting the fact that life is more complicated than 'repeating hydrocarbons'. Lets put it this way: the simplest life forms have:

Genetic material coming from either RNA or DNA
Enzymes, receptors, structural material in the form of proteins.
Ribosomes forming from a combination of RNA and protein.
A cell membrane consisting of lipids and protein.
Usually a cell wall or outer cell layer consisting of polysaccharides.

A bit more complicated than hydrocarbons? Each one of these things are several thousand molecules combined together. You were basically arguing the existence of the Empire State building using the existence of a pebble. Most of these compounds have NEVER been created outside of the use of other enzymes, organic materials, etc. Even synthetic macro-organics have only come from the use of enzymes taken from other organisms. Its inconceivable, and in defiance to the nature of physics, to think that this could have formed from the elements without some sort of catalyst.

So in response to your first sarcastic 'sounds so impossible'.... yeah, it does.

Let me rephrase that for you, just in case I was previously unclear: Why does no one besides the Bible mention this, for example?

You're messing up cause and effect. The Bible is a compilation of documents relating to Jesus. Its not a single book... its several books. Its not there because its in the Bible, its in the Bible because its there.

Basically everything is "possible" (there are some few things that are, by definition, impossible - round squares, cubical spheres, omnipotent beings who want me to know of their existence and nature now, et cetera).

Oh. Witty. Yet, very much not.

[Serenity]

Originally Posted by Elminster_Amaur

Just some things I'd like to add:
Have you ever thought that the reason for this is - perhaps - simply because all of the recordings of these events became absorbed into Christian religious texts? Because I'm pretty sure that if a new religion were to form around, say, 9/11, all recorded evidence of 9/11 would be collected by the adherents of the religion, and turned into religious texts/videos. I'm sure you won't see my point, but others will, and most will see why the point you brought up was completely moot, and not worth arguing the next time.

I see your point. But it's false. If there was to be a religion formed around 9/11, then they wouldn't adopt every single recording or note as religious. There would be much information which was not considered religious - do UFO religions count every account of a person being abducted as a sacred account? Of course not, and not just because most of them are probably wrong, but because they consider them to be just people telling a true story. A tale of Jesus' life and times is all well and good, but where are the Roman documents telling that on X day, all sorts of crazy stuff happened, like stuff being magically broken and holy men rising from the dead?

There's more recordings of 9/11 than just explanations of the events leading up to and out of them, so where are the similar recordings of Jesus' miracles and passing and ressurection?

Originally Posted by Elminster_Amaur

This is how understanding evolves, see. You take a hypothesis, and you prove it correct through testing, and until it proves false, it stands.

Indeed. The only problem is that some hypothesis are pointless, either because they are so vague that they give no predictions, or because they are so incorrect that they give no valid predictions (without huge adjustments to allow their false theories to maybe happen - like accusing all scientists of being liars).

Originally Posted by Elminster_Amaur

I'm absolutely certain that all Star Wars material, canon or otherwise, is considered religious text by the "Jedi" religious sect, and I must assume that this is the way that all religions behave upon formation.

What are you talking about? Everything that happens in Star Wars is part of the Jedi sacred texts? Come on. Of course not. Only the sacred writings of the founders of the

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

Except that you can only say whats reasonable to doubt given what you know. I may know different things than you, making it a lot less reasonable for me to doubt it.

Lets pretend you know 10% of everything there is to know (which is giving you a phenomenal amount of credit). Who are you to say what the probability of something is, when the probability of you being right is only 1 out of 10? Isn't it possible there is some knowledge out there that exists in that 90% you don't know? Yeah, there is.

Please stop playing "everyone's an Agnostic", it's quite annoying. Thank you.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

If you were only saw black-white, you would never perceive color. That would, by your rationale, give you reason to doubt that color exists. You'd be wrong, but there would be no way to prove to you that color exists since you are unable to perceive it.

There are lots of things I can't see right now that I know exist. Almost all of the electromagnetic spectrum is invisible to me, but I know that radio waves exist. If I saw in black and white but knew that the spectrum included different colors, I would say that there is color.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

Now lets imagine that there is this gut feeling or emotion that gives people a reasonable certainty on the existence of God. Simply because you don't perceive that feeling doesn't mean its not there, as it exists outside of that 10% you know.

So you're saying I can't perceive God? That's strange, considering God is supposed to be omnipotent.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

However it might not be outside of the 10% I know, making it a lot more reasonable for me to believe in God.This isn't to say I'm right, or your right, its to say we all know so little that we can't make any claims based off of anything except your own feelings and knowledge.

Except that Christians seem to not back up their claims with anything beyond their feelings, never supplying this knowledge which supposedly proves the existence of God.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

You see, you aren't getting the fact that life is more complicated than 'repeating hydrocarbons'.

No, you aren't getting it. It doesn't need to be more complicated than self-replicating hydrocarbons because once you have those it can just self-replicate it's way, gradually and luckily improving itself right into the modern day cell.

[Elminster_Amaur]

What are you talking about? Everything that happens in Star Wars is part of the Jedi sacred texts? Come on. Of course not. Only the sacred writings of the founders of the

I was referring to the cult in real life that calls themselves Jedi. Y'know, the ones who based their entire religion on all the Star Wars novels/movies/comics/games they could get their hands on.

Except that Christians seem to not back up their claims with anything beyond their feelings, never supplying this knowledge which supposedly proves the existence of God.

I'm going to say this before I start on your statement: I'm not a Christian. I don't consider myself one, nor have I since I became disillusioned with the religion years ago. However, your argument is trite and wrong. First off, the same thing could be said about Atheists, if what you say is true. However, you have to realize that not everything in this Universe can be directly observed through the five senses that Western science places so much faith in, at least until we attain powerful enough instruments to aid in the observation. Experiential knowledge is far more important than theoretical knowledge in fields such as theology. Arguing over theory simply means that you have no direct experience. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is something beyond this world, because I have direct experience of it, and can return to that experience every day, if I so wish. Sure, I've not received a satori yet, but I'm certain that when I'm ready to experience it, I will. Until then, I'm satisfied with the knowingness that I already have, because it tells me that my current direction is, for the most part, correct.

If the ONLY reason that you are arguing all of this is due to your above quoted point, then you should stop right here. Atheists are certain of their position, and for them it may be the correct path in life. However, I have never seen scientific evidence that Life can evolve from that which has never had Life. In fact, the only reason that such a theory ever came about was observation of maggots "evolving" from old meat. But once people realized that there were actually tiny eggs, the idea had sunk in, and people have been desperately trying to prove it since.

See, as far as I'm concerned, until the Law that states that Life can only come from other forms of Life is proved incorrect in any instance, using our current definition of life, Intelligent Design is the only viable option. Whether it's the Christian God or not is irrelevant. All our current scientific knowledge has proven time and again that Life cannot be spontaneously created from the non-organic, so it must have originated from a Living Creator.

If someone can show me even a simple single cell forming in a laboratory without the use of organic materials taken from either a living thing or replicated from one, then I will concede your point. Until then: "you sir, are also black." -Kettle back to the Pot.

[Sithdarth]

Which is nice except there's no solid evidence of life having thrived beyond the bacterial level anywhere but Earth.

Exactly therefore we can drawn any conclusions at all about anything relating to life outside of earth. We can't say life is highly improbable because we have no information about its actual probability. We can't say earth like planets are improbable because we have no information about the actual probability of one forming. All we can do is say a lot of things need to go right but that does not immediately equal a low probability.

However, since we've had this argument before, I'll again note that there's no evidence that life can be supported in a non-Earthlike environment as we've never officially seen it happen ever. Furthermore, probability is not a guarantee. Just because there's a one in a trillion chance of something happening does not mean that if you try it a trillion times it'll happen, because there's a one in a trillion chance of it happening each time you try.

Again we don't actually have any information on these probabilities so talking about them is meaningless. However, even though probability is not a guarantee doesn't resolve the main problem with your statement. That is you are looking at an effect and extrapolating back to its cause at which point it makes absolutely no sense to talk about the probability of that effect given the cause. Rather you could but you'd have to use Bayes' theorem which is quite different than standard probability and behaves in different ways.

You're arguing against highly improbable and wholly unproven deistic creation with highly improbable and wholly unproven infinite universe postulation? More power to ya.

Actually I don't really need to do that I just didn't feel like lecturing about Bayes' Theorem and how our existence now has a direct effect on the probability that our universe would have been right to support our existence in the first place. It seems strange but it correctly describes a lot of things. In fact a lot of quantum mechanics seems to work according to Bayes' theorem. That is there are a lot of experimental effects that are best described through Bayes' theorem.

[I_Like_Swordchucks]

Originally Posted by Serenity

Please stop playing "everyone's an Agnostic", it's quite annoying. Thank you.

Agnosticism and atheism and the like are beliefs. I've said nothing about beliefs, I've been talking about knowledge. I have no doubt you believe there is no God, but I do think its unlikely you actually know one way or the other. An atheist would have to be ridiculously arrogant to say anything about knowing the nature of the universe. He can believe things about the nature of the universe, but belief is not knowledge.

Get your definitions right, please. Thank you.

There are lots of things I can't see right now that I know exist. Almost all of the electromagnetic spectrum is invisible to me, but I know that radio waves exist. If I saw in black and white but knew that the spectrum included different colors, I would say that there is color.

You're assuming that the information as in that portion of the universe you know. You can't assume that. What if you saw in black and white and DIDN'T know that the spectrum included different colors? Does make colors exist any less? As with anything else, your entire belief system is based solely upon what you know (who's isn't?), but you're missing the point that an intelligent person acknowledges the facts that he/she may be wrong simply because he doesn't know everything.

So you're saying I can't perceive God? That's strange, considering God is supposed to be omnipotent.

What does God being omnipotent have to do with your shortcomings?

Except that Christians seem to not back up their claims with anything beyond their feelings, never supplying this knowledge which supposedly proves the existence of God.

Have I ever said anything about proving the existence of God? I'm pretty sure I've been going on this whole time talking about how none of this can be proven. However, it is possible to have experiences and feelings that make it seem a lot more probable that God exists.

This isn't meant to serve as evidence to you, but I honestly couldn't care less about that. However its perfectly fine as evidence to me, because I know what I feel and what I experience. While this may not convince you, and its not intended to, its perfectly fine as rationale to support my own beliefs.

No, you aren't getting it. It doesn't need to be more complicated than self-replicating hydrocarbons because once you have those it can just self-replicate it's way, gradually and luckily improving itself right into the modern day cell.

Except that there aren't self-replicating hydrocarbons that do that without life already existing in the first place. You can argue a complexity using a simplicity that doesn't exist. The simplest life form is a bacterium (some would argue a virus, but a virus likely came later as a virus requires a bacterium or better to work). Bacteria are significantly more complicated than self-replicating hydrocarbons. If it was as simple as you say, we'd have done it already.

I mean, we can split atoms, clone things, completely modify an organism's genome... yet we can't create life from scratch. What does that tell you?

You should get your biology at a better place than Wikipedia if you're going to use non-existent things to win an argument.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Elminster_Amaur

See, as far as I'm concerned, until the Law that states that Life can only come from other forms of Life is proved incorrect in any instance, using our current definition of life, Intelligent Design is the only viable option. Whether it's the Christian God or not is irrelevant. All our current scientific knowledge has proven time and again that Life cannot be spontaneously created from the non-organic, so it must have originated from a Living Creator.

...Then where did the living creator come from?

[Serenity]

Originally Posted by Elminster_Amaur

I was referring to the cult in real life that calls themselves Jedi. Y'know, the ones who based their entire religion on all the Star Wars novels/movies/comics/games they could get their hands on.

I'm going to say this before I start on your statement: I'm not a Christian. I don't consider myself one, nor have I since I became disillusioned with the religion years ago. However, your argument is trite and wrong. First off, the same thing could be said about Atheists, if what you say is true.

No, atheists have this simple evidence for the nonexistence of deities: there is none for the existence of them.

Originally Posted by Elminster_Amaur

However, I have never seen scientific evidence that Life can evolve from that which has never had Life. In fact, the only reason that such a theory ever came about was observation of maggots "evolving" from old meat. But once people realized that there were actually tiny eggs, the idea had sunk in, and people have been desperately trying to prove it since.

Your beliefs date back the idea of vis vitalis, that organic compounds only come from other organic compounds, which is also a dead theory. Hmm.

Originally Posted by Elminster_Amaur

See, as far as I'm concerned, until the Law that states that Life can only come from other forms of Life is proved incorrect in any instance, using our current definition of life, Intelligent Design is the only viable option.

Amino adenosine triacid ester was artificially created, and can self-replicate, and even some variants of it are capable of self-replication.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

You're assuming that the information as in that portion of the universe you know. You can't assume that. What if you saw in black and white and DIDN'T know that the spectrum included different colors? Does make colors exist any less? As with anything else, your entire belief system is based solely upon what you know (who's isn't?), but you're missing the point that an intelligent person acknowledges the facts that he/she may be wrong simply because he doesn't know everything.

How do you know I don't know everything? You don't know everything.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

What does God being omnipotent have to do with your shortcomings?

My shortcomings to observe the existence of an omnipotent being who wants me to know of his existence? It's not my shortcoming that's preventing me from knowing about this God bloke's existence - it's his.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

Have I ever said anything about proving the existence of God? I'm pretty sure I've been going on this whole time talking about how none of this can be proven. However, it is possible to have experiences and feelings that make it seem a lot more probable that God exists.

This isn't meant to serve as evidence to you, but I honestly couldn't care less about that. However its perfectly fine as evidence to me, because I know what I feel and what I experience. While this may not convince you, and its not intended to, its perfectly fine as rationale to support my own beliefs.

There are people out there who experience and feel that the Illuminati is secretly watching them. Do you understand that feeling something isn't actually evidence?

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

Except that there aren't self-replicating hydrocarbons that do that without life already existing in the first place. You can argue a complexity using a simplicity that doesn't exist. The simplest life form is a bacterium (some would argue a virus, but a virus likely came later as a virus requires a bacterium or better to work). Bacteria are significantly more complicated than self-replicating hydrocarbons. If it was as simple as you say, we'd have done it already.

We have. Amino adenosine triacid ester.

[Sithdarth]

I caution everyone that drawing negative conclusions from lack of evidence or from inconclusive evidence is just as bad as drawing positive conclusions. If you don't have enough good evidence don't go drawing conclusions.

[Serenity]

Originally Posted by Sithdarth

I caution everyone that drawing negative conclusions from lack of evidence or from inconclusive evidence is just as bad as drawing positive conclusions. If you don't have enough good evidence don't go drawing conclusions.

Hey, dude, there's a teapot at the precise median point between the orbit of Mars and Earth that is so small that it cannot be perceived by our instruments.

You can't disprove it, so you can't draw any conclusions.