Foundational Falshoods of Creationism

[Blake]

As far as I'm concerned Chinook has been checking assholes. Blake getting destroyed. Nothing new, tbh.

lol you believe in magic

[pgardn]

Reaction to Chinook post:

Ok I have a somewhat better understanding of where you lie. We basically believe the same thing about the word random.

And I have a different view of what is knowable.

I don't believe human beings, evolved 100,000 years for a life on Earth and thus equipped with a set of senses that act and influence a nervous system set up for life on Earth, will ever understand everything. The machines follow our rules, our logic. We are too specialized for a particular environment. All of our understanding is based on incomplete models and metaphors and are in constant flux. We just refine the same stuff imo. We get closer to good descriptions for what we have access to.

We pretend math takes us into a different realm. We use the math now heavily in physics to make models and then we hunt for some experiment to test the model. Science is very powerful, but limited. Individuals that work outside of science and reason (math and logic), get further off course when answering questions that science can model imo.

Thats how I see it.

[pgardn]

And I am not a philosophy guy.
But I think about how we think.

The input we receive is filtered, altered, ignored... Brains are strange devices set for our Earth.

[Chinook]

But you're going to call me out for not being precise?

Then let's be precise. "Watchmaker" is the classic term for the analogy:



I'm not sure why you're bogging yourself in such petty details regardless. "watch" "clock" who gives a .

It's a false analogy either way.

You still got it wrong. Paley is talking about intelligent design.

The watchmaker analogy or watchmaker argument is a teleological argument. By way of an analogy, the argument states that design implies a designer. The analogy has played a prominent role in natural theology and the "argument from design," where it was used to support arguments for the existence of God and for the intelligent design of the universe.

Not the same thing as the clockmaker theory:

Franklin introduced the idea of the clockmaker theory which explained his new beliefs very well. This was the idea that God was like a clockmaker. God creates the universe, like the clockmaker makes the clock, and winds it up so to speak. But once it is completed, the clockmaker no longer has any interaction with the clock, just as God has no further interaction with human nature.

The reason I've been calling you out for your diction is that it's leading to you getting confused in almost every post. That's a big deal in a philosophical discussion. We're talking about two different concepts here, one we both agree is a false analogy and one on which we disagree. It does nothing for the discussion for you to constantly concatenate the two.

[Chinook]

Reaction to Chinook post:

Ok I have a somewhat better understanding of where you lie. We basically believe the same thing about the word random.

And I have a different view of what is knowable.

I don't believe human beings, evolved 100,000 years for a life on Earth and thus equipped with a set of senses that act and influence a nervous system set up for life on Earth, will ever understand everything. The machines follow our rules, our logic. We are too specialized for a particular environment. All of our understanding is based on incomplete models and metaphors and are in constant flux. We just refine the same stuff imo. We get closer to good descriptions for what we have access to.

We pretend math takes us into a different realm. We use the math now heavily in physics to make models and then we hunt for some experiment to test the model. Science is very powerful, but limited. Individuals that work outside of science and reason (math and logic), get further off course when answering questions that science can model imo.

Thats how I see it.

I see nothing wrong with that way of thinking, so long as it doesn't hinder us trying to figure everything out.

[Chinook]

As you can tell from his latest post, blake has no intention of debating or discussing.
His sole intention is to troll, that is all he ever does on here.
I am surprised you got DMC to debate because all he usually does is troll too.
It is what it is, we are used to it.

DMC and I have a lot of edifying conversations. He's quite a smart person, if his posts are any indication. He's confident in his views and often dismisses arguments that he considers to be unworthy of serious discussion, but he and I have never had that sort of issue. I've learned quite a bit from this thread, honestly.

[Chinook]

Again it is very telling that some of us can respect diverse opinions like the way chinook and others feel and believe even though we might not agree with them, yet so many others on here seem to find it offensive and try to ridicule, or feel so threatened that they they have to pick holes in people's beliefs or opinions.
Chinook certainly destroyed DMC even though I doubt that was his intention, and it goes without saying he made mincemeat of blake's trolling.

Weren't you the one saying that this was just a discussion and not a contest? I didn't "destroy" anybody. DMC and I pretty much got our views out there. We can both see that neither one is an idiot, and so we can agree to disagree in peace.

[RD2191]

Weren't you the one saying that this was just a discussion and not a contest? I didn't "destroy" anybody. DMC and I pretty much got our views out there. We can both see that neither one is an idiot, and so we can agree to disagree in peace.

Not true. DMC believes he is better than you. He also thinks you're stupid. You are obviously a very well educated man but if you can't see that then you still have a lot of learning to do.

[pgardn]

I have read about his incompleteness theorem (ironically enough in a writing class). I understand his point that not everything can be put into formal logic, that a system of reasoning cannot systematize itself. I haven't read his work directly, however, which is why I'm hesitant to say I actually know about his work with any conviction.

As far as libraries go, I think you might be a little behind on the times, no offense. I know at least in my case, I don't really have many physical books anymore. The ones I had to buy for classes were pretty much sold off once the classes ended, since a hundred dollars means a ton more to a college student than toting around reminders of all the late-night study sessions you had to pull. Even my entertainment books are often in digital form, whether those are E-books or audiobooks. There are times that I really wish that I had kept my textbooks. But I was a kid who traveled across the country to go to college. No way was it feasible for me to hold on to them.

I have not read it directly either. If I did, I would not understand it. Just the implications as described by others.

I like paper. I like writing notes, dogearing, and putting my own paper in. I can pick the book up and know what I'm looking for by thickness and folding along with paper stickin out. Not as comfy with ebooks yet, but will get there. Only read history and fiction on ebooks.

I guess just les and thoughts that impact people the most in those books. A representative quote that summarizes something that encompasses a big idea. That's what I'd like to see.

[DMC]

?

Probably the first one. I don't believe the prime mover exists in this universe.

Then in this universe you are atheist. If we introduce hypothetical realms where anything goes, we could all believe different than we do now. In this universe, which is all we know to exist, you don't believe a god exists. That's atheist most likely but at least agnostic.

I'm not sure you and I agree. If you believe evolution is a fact, but simultaneously acknowledge that it might not be a fact, then you have a logical quandary on your hands. So you have to weaken one of those two statements. You can either abandon the qualifier of potentially being wrong (essentially what you're saying I have to do to be like "real" theists) or you have to accept that you only believe that you are following the path of best guesses. If you take the former path, then you can never have any mental flexibility, and you thusly cannot be a scientist. If I do not accept the existence of god the prime mover as undeniable truth, it's because I am not illogical. It's not because I have a shaky grasp on what belief means.

I don't necessarily believe evolution is a fact. I accept that it is a fact because the implications don't necessarily affect me. I have only read about it, I haven't gone out and done my own research. I do know what the ToE states, and I do know it's intentionally misrepresented here and among many theists as humans from monkeys.

I don't call myself an evolutionist simply because I allow that the Theory of Evolution might be true. I won't stand up to defend it in a debate because it's not that important to me.

It's not that you have a shaky grasp on belief, it's that you equivocate your belief (which is a notion) with the belief of theists (which is a conviction). I showed you the definition for theist, and none of them indicate that the theist allows for the possibility of a god. The atheist doesn't allow for the possibility of a god, meaning "god did it" isn't in their tool bag at all so they cannot use it, but the agnostic reserves judgement. He won't say god did it, but he won't say god did not do it. You seem more agnostic leaning toward theism than theist.

Indeed, but not through the scientific method.

So then what about god? Is god falsifiable?

Of course you can hop off the chain once it reaches the end. As I said, we'll all get to eternity eventually. It's just that strong atheists have no idea what to do once they get there. Essentially, it's going to end up being a statement like, "There has always been _____ ." eventually. That's the only way to get off the chain. The difference is that some folks will finish the phrase by saying, "something", while others will finish by saying, "nothing." There's no way around that unless you want to propose that your favorite turtle is legitimate starting place with no justification whatsoever.

You do the same with a god. It's more plausible to say "something has always existed" than to say "a supernatural presence that we know nothing about has always existed in another realm we know nothing about"

Both try to provide an answer instead of "I don't know", but there is simply no discovery after you allow a supernatural cause. Anything after that becomes just another event that the supernatural god caused. What discovery could be made if we allow that a god created the universe? How can we ever disprove it? Even if we could capture light from the beginning of time, we couldn't disprove the claim that a god did it. If you have the answer, you have to provide at least some plausibility for it. If you can say "was always" then you haven't exhausted the possibilities. Eternity with matter and energy is at least an answer, unlike eternity with a supernatural being in a supernatural world. I don't lean on it as if it's the right answer, but it's more plausible than a god, and if one day we discover that matter has a finite shelf life, we will have to abandon that remote possibility. What will we discover so that you abandon the god answer?

We pretty much agree here, save for one thing: If you think my argument has a problem with "time without time," you can't possibly think that that doesn't destroy any empirical pursuit toward a prime mover. We're talking about our whole universe being the effect here. No matter how far we go, we're still going to be in that effect shadow.

We cannot refer to time as having a beginning then refer to time before that. It's nonsensical and weighs down the conversation. I don't subscribe to the kalam cosmological argument because I see no reason to think a god is the cause of existence even if the universe has a cause, and I've not seen a good argument put forth by anyone to justify that premise.

There are other paths to take. Even if we do not consider the BB to be the beginning of time, it is the beginning of our universe (based on the current model). That doesn't mean big bounce isn't true, or that the universe isn't waxing and waning. If time is eternal then perhaps it's just the human mind that needs a starting point.

On one hand, the answer to that may very well be that there isn't a change from any perspective but our own. If the universe was inevitably going to change (which one has to believe to accept the causal chain), then it hasn't really changed at all

Anyway, from a certain standpoint, you're correct that the argument is just pushed back another step. But from a physical standpoint, it's not a clear. Essentially, everything we know about the universe is based on concepts which most physicists agree didn't really exist until some time after the Bang occurred. That's why no one has any idea how it started, or what exactly was going on before. So I wouldn't be as keen as you seem to be to bring up paradoxes when we don't even know if it was a paradox at all.

For sake of argument, and based on your reasoning for needing a god to fill the void for prime mover, the need for a previous event is indeed just pushing it back on step and does nothing to clear the table. It is a paradox based on how you are rationalizing it. If we can use a magical trump card, then everyone is right regardless of their reasoning since the rules don't apply inside that trump card slot.

Hawking's assertion that existence is cyclical by itself does absolutely no work. It instead relies on the unstated assumption that such a cycle has always been around. But that only does marginal work. It's just another turtle. It's just where he's willing to plant his flag and call it a day, where he can leave it so he can die with a clear conscience.

You don't seem keen on the "meanwhile the god answer requires much more work..." part though. Compared to "god did it", Hawking went down with jacks and timbers.

It's not easy. It's reasonable. It makes sense, and despite what you say, it doesn't prevent one from trying to understand how any of it works. I never got that extension that some people make. It's not like finding out someone built a computer all the sudden means you don't try to figure out how it works. The fact that you believe something was created can only improve the possibility of being able to find out how it works.

It should not come before understanding. No answer needs to be created before understanding of how it works. Putting god there skips over an eternity of discovery to arrive at a conclusion that can never be tested. If you don't feel like you need an answer right now, you can easily avoid it.

The claim that something has thusofar been undisputed is not the same as the claim that something is indisputable. If it's wrong, it's wrong. There's just never been a reason to doubt such a claim.

"It was perfectly reasonable to assume that all things had to be made. That assumption is still a strong one, one that is still undisputed. " -Chinook

The argument from contingency has been disputed for a long time.

"I can illustrate what seems to me your fallacy. Every man who exists has a mother, and it seems to me your argument is that therefore the human race must have a mother, but obviously the human race hasn't a mother -- that's a different logical sphere." - Bertrand Russell (1948)

The god theory doesn't fail because it's unfalsifiable. That just means that science should ignore it. I've never claimed that science shouldn't do so, which is why I believe that it's not a big deal whether people believe in the existence of god or not. It's one of those things that's either true or false, and the answer has no effect on people. We're discussing it because we want to, not because our intellectual salvation depends on it.

It cannot be false based on being non-falsifiability. That too is a paradox. It means it should be ignored. Science is what we use to understand the world around us. It's not a separate en y. I know you know this so I don't understand why you refer to it as if it is.

The claim fails because you cannot prove it, and because you cannot prove it I cannot disprove it. There is therefore no reason to consider it to be true, even for argument's sake.

We've both accepted the logic that led me to my statement. We know the universe is expanding, and the definition you quoted clearly as a universe contains its own spacetime and matter. So the only thing to conclude is that a new universe would create its own space and that we would keep ours; otherwise, they'd be just one big universe.

But the universe is all matter and energy. How can you have another all matter and energy? All is all. It's another paradox.

[xmas1997]

DMC and I have a lot of edifying conversations. He's quite a smart person, if his posts are any indication. He's confident in his views and often dismisses arguments, but he and I have never had that sort of issue. I've learned quite a bit from this thread, honestly.

That is what we all, or most of us anyway, who possess open but critical thinking minds can hope to achieve IMHO.
You never know where insight and clarification will come from.
I have nothing against DMC personally, I recognize his intelligence, that is, when he isn't trolling, and only when he attacks me first do I respond in kind.
If you get a chance, I recommend you engage in a discussion with SBM sometime too, he has much to offer, that is, when he isn't busy making fun of the trolls on here.

[xmas1997]

Weren't you the one saying that this was just a discussion and not a contest? I didn't "destroy" anybody. DMC and I pretty much got our views out there. We can both see that neither one is an idiot, and so we can agree to disagree in peace.

Yea, it was me, but I was saying this statement as an admonishment of the trolls who were trolling you.

[xmas1997]

Not true. DMC believes he is better than you. He also thinks you're stupid. You are obviously a very well educated man but if you can't see that then you still have a lot of learning to do.

I didn't realize this about DMC until he started trying to attack me in an emotional manner instead of using reason and civility.

It came as quite a surprise actually.

After which I began responding back somewhat the same as he was doing to me.

And then I was informed he was trolling, and it became pretty clear.

[Chinook]

Then in this universe you are atheist. If we introduce hypothetical realms where anything goes, we could all believe different than we do now. In this universe, which is all we know to exist, you don't believe a god exists. That's atheist most likely but at least agnostic.

Again, I love the attempt to introduce the concept or relative atheism. I can believe god exists, but if he doesn't exist in this universe, then I don't believe he exists at all. That's an error in formal logical.

I don't necessarily believe evolution is a fact. I accept that it is a fact because the implications don't necessarily affect me. I have only read about it, I haven't gone out and done my own research. I do know what the ToE states, and I do know it's intentionally misrepresented here and among many theists as humans from monkeys.

I don't call myself an evolutionist simply because I allow that the Theory of Evolution might be true. I won't stand up to defend it in a debate because it's not that important to me.

Coulda sworn you didn't have this distinction a couple of cycles ago. I'm glad you're coming around to my way of thinking in that regard.

It's not that you have a shaky grasp on belief, it's that you equivocate your belief (which is a notion) with the belief of theists (which is a conviction). I showed you the definition for theist, and none of them indicate that the theist allows for the possibility of a god. The atheist doesn't allow for the possibility of a god, meaning "god did it" isn't in their tool bag at all so they cannot use it, but the agnostic reserves judgement. He won't say god did it, but he won't say god did not do it. You seem more agnostic leaning toward theism than theist.

I don't believe there's really a continuum here. You either believe in god's existence or you don't. I think if you took all agnostics and interviewed them, you could put them into one of the two principle categories.

So then what about god? Is god falsifiable?

Nope. Only verifiable (theoretically). We agreed on that.

You do the same with a god. It's more plausible to say "something has always existed" than to say "a supernatural presence that we know nothing about has always existed in another realm we know nothing about"

Both try to provide an answer instead of "I don't know", but there is simply no discovery after you allow a supernatural cause. Anything after that becomes just another event that the supernatural god caused. What discovery could be made if we allow that a god created the universe? How can we ever disprove it? Even if we could capture light from the beginning of time, we couldn't disprove the claim that a god did it. If you have the answer, you have to provide at least some plausibility for it. If you can say "was always" then you haven't exhausted the possibilities. Eternity with matter and energy is at least an answer, unlike eternity with a supernatural being in a supernatural world. I don't lean on it as if it's the right answer, but it's more plausible than a god, and if one day we discover that matter has a finite shelf life, we will have to abandon that remote possibility. What will we discover so that you abandon the god answer?

Surprisingly enough, it's not. Something that existed for eternity is still bound by proximate mechanisms. An intelligence at least has the chance to not be.

You can keep acting like theism prevents science all you want, but it's just not true. Too many great thinkers have been theists for that assertion to really hold weight. Darwin believed god created the world, and still saw the need to figure out how life evolved. Descartes is pretty much the father or modern epistemology, and his second action on those lines was to create a proof for god's existence (a faulty one). Mendel (father of genetics) was a priest. Newton was a cultist. It just goes on and on.

As for your last question, we'd have to find an effect that doesn't logically need a cause.

We cannot refer to time as having a beginning then refer to time before that. It's nonsensical and weighs down the conversation. I don't subscribe to the kalam cosmological argument because I see no reason to think a god is the cause of existence even if the universe has a cause, and I've not seen a good argument put forth by anyone to justify that premise.

There are other paths to take. Even if we do not consider the BB to be the beginning of time, it is the beginning of our universe (based on the current model). That doesn't mean big bounce isn't true, or that the universe isn't waxing and waning. If time is eternal then perhaps it's just the human mind that needs a starting point.

For sake of argument, and based on your reasoning for needing a god to fill the void for prime mover, the need for a previous event is indeed just pushing it back on step and does nothing to clear the table. It is a paradox based on how you are rationalizing it. If we can use a magical trump card, then everyone is right regardless of their reasoning since the rules don't apply inside that trump card slot.

Of course we can if we stop being self-centered. Time as an innate property of our universe's existence began ... whenever. Let's just say the Big Bang for now. But if our universe was set into motion (which is theoretically possible to do ourselves, according to some scientists), then its creation as preceded by a different event, which can be understood just fine without fear of paradox. It's only when one is dead-set on us being the only existence that it's a logical issue. Essentially, it may well be as you said, and that the paradox is only due to our understanding of time.

You don't seem keen on the "meanwhile the god answer requires much more work..." part though. Compared to "god did it", Hawking went down with jacks and timbers.

Hawking did nothing. He just created another turtle. A poorly constructed one at that. Love the Big John reference, though.

It should not come before understanding. No answer needs to be created before understanding of how it works. Putting god there skips over an eternity of discovery to arrive at a conclusion that can never be tested. If you don't feel like you need an answer right now, you can easily avoid it.

Yeah, because the view totally prevented people from testing things... Again, this is and always has been a poor extension.

"It was perfectly reasonable to assume that all things had to be made. That assumption is still a strong one, one that is still undisputed. " -Chinook

The argument from contingency has been disputed for a long time.

"I can illustrate what seems to me your fallacy. Every man who exists has a mother, and it seems to me your argument is that therefore the human race must have a mother, but obviously the human race hasn't a mother -- that's a different logical sphere." - Bertrand Russell (1948)

I'm quotable now. I've reached the big stage.

Shame on Russell for making such an egregiously bad example. All that does is demonstrate that he had a poor understanding of proximate mechanisms. And anyway, the human race DID have a mother. The first creature who could be called a true sapien certainly did have one. Russell was clearly from the pre-evolutionary school of thought.

It cannot be false based on being non-falsifiability. That too is a paradox. It means it should be ignored. Science is what we use to understand the world around us. It's not a separate en y. I know you know this so I don't understand why you refer to it as if it is.

The claim fails because you cannot prove it, and because you cannot prove it I cannot disprove it. There is therefore no reason to consider it to be true, even for argument's sake.

Can you falsify "two plus two equals four"? Can you even think about how you would go about it?

But the universe is all matter and energy. How can you have another all matter and energy? All is all. It's another paradox.

Not really. We have a pretty good understanding of what our universe actually is from a physical sense. No need to act like a self-centered framing really ties up anything.

[DMC]

I didn't realize this about DMC until he started trying to attack me in an emotional manner instead of using reason and civility.

It came as quite a surprise actually.

After which I began responding back somewhat the same as he was doing to me.

And then I was informed he was trolling, and it became pretty clear.

The truth is I probably give you more credit than you deserve by considering you a troll. The alternative is to consider you an idiot.

[pgardn]

Pgardns footnotes to some of DMCs stuff.

I don't necessarily believe evolution is a fact. I accept that it is a fact because the implications don't necessarily affect me. I have only read about it, I haven't gone out and done my own research. I do know what the ToE states, and I do know it's intentionally misrepresented here and among many theists as humans from monkeys.

This disingenuous portrayal is very annoying and repe ive. And it is worth noting that some people will go to extremes to avoid having their worldview disturbed. I understand this, but it's intellectually lazy to use the same droning whatever seems disgusting-----> human.

And evolution makes sense across so many fields in the study of life. This is why it's so widely accepted... errr in most places.


So then what about god? Is god falsifiable?

No. Not the God presented by most on this board and most religions.

You do the same with a god. It's more plausible to say "something has always existed" than to say "a supernatural presence that we know nothing about has always existed in another realm we know nothing about"

Always existed implies time is finite (unlike the math idea) to me which seems strange. But I personally see nothing wrong with this idea. It's more palatable. But this idea really rattles the internal organs of some. When scientist say the Big Bang occurred. They are not necessarily implying that something occurred before, because before does not make sense.

Both try to provide an answer instead of "I don't know", but there is simply no discovery after you allow a supernatural cause.

It's lazy, I'm afraid to look...When dealing with questions that science has a shot at.



There are other paths to take. Even if we do not consider the BB to be the beginning of time, it is the beginning of our universe (based on the current model). That doesn't mean big bounce isn't true, or that the universe isn't waxing and waning. If time is eternal then perhaps it's just the human mind that needs a starting point.
Starting point implies an event, then if events cease, time does to. People really don't like this idea of finite events thus finite time. They must have a before time. But it does not fit the definition to even ask this. Time is a human construct. It's a very useful idea when things actually occur. And I have been repe ive here.


But the universe is all matter and energy. How can you have another all matter and energy? All is all. It's another paradox.


This goes with the conservation laws which have been very helpful in our understanding of the physical world.

[pgardn]

Oh yes, I'm not into classifying different types of belief systems.
I'm just mindful of what people need v. what we actually find out and interpret about our universe.

[xmas1997]

The truth is I probably give you more credit than you deserve by considering you a troll. The alternative is to consider you an idiot.

I rest my case. ^ What you meant to say was, if you knew the truth, then you would never resorted to an emotional statement in the first place that were false, accusatory, and insulting.
If you act like an ignorant asshole, that reflects on you, not me.
I am always willing to give the benefit of the doubt, I have no personal investment in this, rather I am just responding back as to what is throw my way.
And even then, I hold no grudge, nor ever meant offense.
The truth is you started this emotional , not me, as verified in the posts.
Thus we can stop any time you choose to act like a mature and reasonable adult.

[silverblk mystix]

I rest my case. ^ What you meant to say was, if you knew the truth, then you would never resorted to an emotional statement in the first place that were false, accusatory, and insulting.
If you act like an ignorant asshole, that reflects on you, not me.
I am always willing to give the benefit of the doubt, I have no personal investment in this, rather I am just responding back as to what is throw my way.
And even then, I hold no grudge, nor ever meant offense.
The truth is you started this emotional , not me, as verified in the posts.
Thus we can stop any time you choose to act like a mature and reasonable adult.

I would instead offer this;

Invite DMC to the gtg.

If DMC goes - I go.

This will tell you everything you need to know about DMC.

[DMC]

Again, I love the attempt to introduce the concept or relative atheism. I can believe god exists, but if he doesn't exist in this universe, then I don't believe he exists at all. That's an error in formal logical.

It's not whether or not he exists in this universe. It's whether or not you believe a god exists in this universe. You said you don't. How do you define "universe"? Doesn't the "uni" part mean anything?

Coulda sworn you didn't have this distinction a couple of cycles ago. I'm glad you're coming around to my way of thinking in that regard.

I consider evolution a fact, but the ToE I haven't researched well enough to have a real opinion on it, however I do believe in the process of scientific testing and there are thousands of scientists out there who would love to debunk that theory. I don't have a belief in scientific theories. I acknowledge them for what they are, even the theory of gravity, but I do feel confident that gravity exists.

I wouldn't be moved much to learn it's wrong.

I don't believe there's really a continuum here. You either believe in god's existence or you don't. I think if you took all agnostics and interviewed them, you could put them into one of the two principle categories.

You mean to say you believe something exists and you're labeling it "god", but it doesn't exist in the world we know. Is it the Christian God? Or is any being advanced enough to operate between realms good enough to consider a god? Again, why god?

You basically did with agnostics what I did with your claim of theism... you dismissed it by saying they really don't feel that way.

Nope. Only verifiable (theoretically). We agreed on that.

We did? How is something verifiable theoretically? Aren't you just changing "falsifiable" into "verifiable" and don't they basically mean the same things?

ver·i·fy verb \ˈver-ə-ˌfī\
: to prove, show, find out, or state that (something) is true or correct

Unless you mean "state that something is true or correct" then you're referring to the same thing as being falsifiable. How is a god theoretically verifiable?

Surprisingly enough, it's not. Something that existed for eternity is still bound by proximate mechanisms. An intelligence at least has the chance to not be.

How do you know that something bound by eternity (whatever that means) is bound by proximate mechanisms? How do you know an intelligence has the chance to not be? How are you differentiating between intelligence and other things? Is a bug an intelligence? Is a human? Do either of us have a chance to not be bound by proximate mechanisms?

These seem like things you want me to accept as a priori truths but they aren't.

You can keep acting like theism prevents science all you want, but it's just not true. Too many great thinkers have been theists for that assertion to really hold weight. Darwin believed god created the world, and still saw the need to figure out how life evolved. Descartes is pretty much the father or modern epistemology, and his second action on those lines was to create a proof for god's existence (a faulty one). Mendel (father of genetics) was a priest. Newton was a cultist. It just goes on and on.

Historically theists scientists have been shunned by other theists for their discoveries. The theists you mention are the forefathers of atheism, for the most part. What did Darwin get for making the claims he made, what did he get for his Origin of Species, from the other theists? Let's not revise history here. Deists have tip toed on the edges of belief, seemingly in fear of being labeled atheist in days when it would have been career suicide. Even today a professed atheist would likely not win the presidential race.

As for your last question, we'd have to find an effect that doesn't logically need a cause.

That's circular reasoning, as the term "effect" implies "cause". Is god an effect? Whatever makes god not an effect in your mind, apply that to non-god like matter and energy.

Of course we can if we stop being self-centered. Time as an innate property of our universe's existence began ... whenever. Let's just say the Big Bang for now. But if our universe was set into motion (which is theoretically possible to do ourselves, according to some scientists), then its creation as preceded by a different event, which can be understood just fine without fear of paradox. It's only when one is dead-set on us being the only existence that it's a logical issue. Essentially, it may well be as you said, and that the paradox is only due to our understanding of time.

Not so much as understanding of time, but understanding of the paradox created by applying time based things before time has started. It's not my problem, you're the one doing it. If you want to imply that time is nebulous, then do away with "beginning of time", and if you want to imply that time can having a beginning, then do away with "before the beginning of time". Before implies time, and unless you can show me an instance where the term "before" doesn't imply time, I'll probably maintain that stance. I know it can be used as a spatial reference "the road before you get to the interstate", but it is still implying time.

Hawking did nothing. He just created another turtle. A poorly constructed one at that. Love the Big John reference, though.

An uncaused prime mover is the only turtle in this conversation. It seems to be floating in space.

Yeah, because the view totally prevented people from testing things... Again, this is and always has been a poor extension.

You cannot test the view. When you presuppose the answer, you're always looking for the proof of that answer. So you're out there and you're looking for things this god created. You cannot be looking to validate your view, because it's not testable. If you presuppose a big bounce, for example, you could look at things around you and you might conclude "nope, not bouncing" but you cannot look and say "nope, no god" because it would be the picture of a cow eating grass thing... what? No grass? Cow must have eaten it... what? no cow? After he ate the grass he left, why stick around if there's no grass?

Here's the pic btw





So yeah.

I'm quotable now. I've reached the big stage.

I needed to keep things in context.

Shame on Russell for making such an egregiously bad example. All that does is demonstrate that he had a poor understanding of proximate mechanisms. And anyway, the human race DID have a mother. The first creature who could be called a true sapien certainly did have one. Russell was clearly from the pre-evolutionary school of thought.

It demonstrates that you were wrong, that it has been disputed. So now both Bertrand Russell and Stephen Hawking are lazy with poor understanding of their respective fields of expertise. I'm not one to use argument from authority, but let's not go down that road.

Do you think there was a first creature who could be called a true sapien? Do you not think it becomes a bit nebulous for a few thousand years? What if there were twins?

Can you falsify "two plus two equals four"? Can you even think about how you would go about it?

My grade school teacher did it all the time with a red ink pen.

Not really. We have a pretty good understanding of what our universe actually is from a physical sense. No need to act like a self-centered framing really ties up anything.

3000 years ago, probably could have gotten the same perspective from a nomad wondering around in the desert, that he has a good understanding of the world around him.

[xmas1997]

I would instead offer this;

Invite DMC to the gtg.

If DMC goes - I go.

This will tell you everything you need to know about DMC.

Of course he is invited, everyone who wants to go is. There is no reason I can think of to exclude anyone.

[DMC]

I rest my case. ^ What you meant to say was, if you knew the truth, then you would never resorted to an emotional statement in the first place that were false, accusatory, and insulting.
If you act like an ignorant asshole, that reflects on you, not me.
I am always willing to give the benefit of the doubt, I have no personal investment in this, rather I am just responding back as to what is throw my way.
And even then, I hold no grudge, nor ever meant offense.
The truth is you started this emotional , not me, as verified in the posts.
Thus we can stop any time you choose to act like a mature and reasonable adult.

You should make another pass, see how many fish you pick up.

[xmas1997]

You should make another pass, see how many fish you pick up.

This was pretty explanatory the first time, for a reasonable and intelligent person.
Are you implying you're not?

[DMC]

This was pretty explanatory the first time, for a reasonable and intelligent person.
Are you implying you're not?

Don't keep going for the same fish every time when you know they aren't going to bite when they see your leader. Switch to fluorocarbon, something from Seagar, 100lb class. I'd do a Bimini twist just in case you get a smoker.

[xmas1997]

Don't keep going for the same fish every time when you know they aren't going to bite when they see your leader. Switch to fluorocarbon, something from Seagar, 100lb class. I'd do a Bimini twist just in case you get a smoker.

You're certain of this?