please give this a critique ...
Offline CAN YOU READ THIS AND CRITIQUE IT?
i know it has some problems with clarity at points
the question of whether or not God exists is extremely important. It has more ramifications that flow from the answer than any other question. This is a large question and I will not be able to go into much details as I would like; for example, I will not be able to talk much about the internal witness of conscience or the way the Holy Spirit communicates with a person's heart. Not that I think my opponent would find those argument compelling, naturally, but they are still very important.
I want to immediately speak of the fact of dependency. Everything that exists that we know of began to exist at a certain time. Since there was a time when that thing was not, this means its existence is not actually necessary because things existed already before that thing. For example, I didn't have to exist, the Universe could function naturally without me. In fact, my coming into existence was dependent upon my mom and dad and likewise they with their parents and all the way back. So, if everything is dependent upon its existence on something that came before it, how did anything get here at all? Somewhere the mere fact of existence demands an utterly independent being, whose existence is not contingent upon anything else. We call this being God.
Another way to think of this is that nothing is actually a pure "being". Technically, we are humans becoming, not human beings. What this means is we are never the same – everything about us is always changing in every way. Another way to phrase this fact is that we exist but our essence is not existence. Somewhere along the line, we need a being who is not becoming but rather pure being. This being's essence would have to be existence itself – hence, the
Covenant name for the God of the Bible – "I AM".
The upshot of this argument is that it is impossible to have an infinite series of contingent beings. The mere fact of finite beings demands that there be an Ultimate Infinite Being. Many atheists have not dealt with this type of sublime argumentation before and may find it confusing at first. But I assure you that it gets at the root problem – that of the essence of existence.
Now let us move to cause and effect. Everything that begins to exist must have a cause. But we can not have a never-ending series of causes. Looking backwards, this would be a non-stop series of regressions. This can't work because you can't add anything to infinity. For example, what is one plus infinity? It's still infinity! So for the effect of existence, there must be a first cause – but this first cause must be an uncaused first cause and we call this cause God.
Well, ok, but how do we know He's a personal being? Because he created personal beings with personality! How do we know He is immaterial and non-physical? Because He created everything before there was anything physical so He must be outside of that realm. Besides, for Him to be infinite, He can not be physical because physical dimensions are by their very definition limiting. He can't be stuck in time, as it were, because He existed before there was time so He is therefore outside of time. Same thing with natural laws; He existed before them so He is not limited by them. Now we see we can not only know that God is but even some of what He is like. This is called general revelation. We must look to special revelation for the rest of our information. If we had time, we could see how Jesus Christ is the Source for special revelation and that is why He is called the Logos in Greek.
We must move quickly, though, to one more witness – the witness of creation. The biggest indicators that behind the Creation lie an Intelligent Designer are the facts of specified complexity and irreducible complexity.
Specified complexity does not just mean things in our world are so complex we can't figure them out so we just say GOD DID IT but rather specified complexity alludes to the fact that we see things working in concert with each other in Creation – whole biological systems utterly interdependent upon each other in a mass of highly intricate symbiotic relationships. The operation of these systems, especially the information contained within them, gives evidence to a Supremely rational and logical Being who has designed things with other things in mind. Pure chance and coincidence can not account for highly tailored mechanisms that work specifically in conjunction within the framework of a labyrinth of life. It just takes too much faith in luck to believe that!
On irreducible complexity, a term coined by biochemicist Michael Behe, my time is winding down so I am going to quickly mention that there are living things that can not be explained by any step-by-step gradual process but rather all the components must be working properly at the outset for them to work at all. This is evidence for information content, and information must come from a mind. In other words, who wrote the instruction manual for life? Who drew up the blueprint plans for protein and electron transport, blood clotting, closed circular DNA, telomeres, photosynthesis, and bacterial flagellum? And these are all just things that take place at the molecular level of biology!
I am going to briefly mention the fine-tuning aspect to the Universe. To explain the precise level at which our universe operates, scientists refer to what hey call "cosmic constants". Examples include: the rate of expansion of the universe, the value of the weak and strong nuclear forces, the balance of matter and antimatter, which is estimated to be fine-tuned down to 1 part in 10 billion! Picture a series of knobs that have to be turned just right to create the parameters within which life can exist. Outside of those knobs being exact, no life can exist. A space shuttle is the perfect analogy. To account for this fine-tuning, scientists realize there is something they call the "anthropic principle". Former Cambridge physicist Paul Davies, who is now at ASU, explains this in "God and the New Physics": "It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe … has been rather carefully though out"
Thank you.
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Sorry, not much of a reply, BUT all god creation of idol worship is retarded stupid separatism, simply because there is ZERO evidence that all is not ONE, as even thermodynamics science LAW has show. Religion is all make believe hocus pocus bull shit .... Selling Snake Oil shit .... all of it.
Atheism Books.
It's full of conventional errors! What are you writing it for?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
You've robbed god of everything we use to define existence. No mass, no energy, no location.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
I've actually written about all of these things before. I should introduce myself. I am a cell biologist. In other words, I study cellular and molecular biology. I can tell you precisely how molecular and evolutionary biology are integrated and how we are able to perfectly explain the various molecular and cellular structures of life. These are small pieces of things I have written on the site. Obviously I cannot give you an entire overview of the matter unless you, by coincidence, have spent the last 10 years studying developmental, molecular, evolutionary, and microbiology.
First you should read this:
Biology and Thermodynamics
Then this:
Chemical Evolution
And this too:
Molecular Evolution Lecture Section I Part iv) An Introduction to Evolutionary Principles
And this:
Molecular Evolution Lecture Section IV Part iv) The Rise of Eukaryota: The evolution of electron transport and symbiosis
And this:
Molecular Evolution Lecture Section IV Part iii) Evolutionary Developmental Biology and Genetic Circuits
And this:
Molecular Evolution Lecture Section I Part v) Proteomics and Protein Control
And this:
Molecular Evolution Lecture Section III Part iii) Development of Multicellular Animals Along the Ventrodorsal Axis
And this:
Molecular Evolution Lecture Section IV Part i) Non-Classical Genetics
I assure you I am not just link throwing. These are all my own writings, and I have the slight edge of qualification. I hope you read all of them because the answers are contained therein.
The principles articulated within these pieces should be sufficient to convince you that all biological life on this planet is essentially constructed from the same modular, repeating genetic structures and that selection pressure applied to homologous modules formed via mutational processes is the basis of phenotypic divergence across all life on the planet, and furthermore that the formation of biological life and its various structures from these modular, repeating, selectable, genetic units that form and duplicate and diverge during evolutionary processes is sufficient and necessary to explain every feature of biological life we encounter, including those things which have interlocking dependency, or as you call it, irreducible complexity.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
so far so good
thanks ya'll i really appreciate it
but can you please give me specifics?
even just one or two sentences would be great
thanks!
Umm, okay Vocab, sorta like this .... The most stupid un godly shit I have ever heard comes from the religious idol worshiping separatists, as I ask them, WTF isn't god, as god meaning all connectedness? Traditional theists just make shit up .... Why they do it is obvious and sadly dumb.
Atheism Books.
Well, I think it would be difficult to get more specific than what I gave you, but I suppose that it was an unfairly large amount of reading to ask.
The basic points, compressed enormously, that I made in the series of pieces above are as follows:
· We tend to think of biological life as diverse and different. But any biologist worth his salt will tell you that all life on Earth is basically the same. There is little to suggest any form of originality in terms of the history of life on Earth. What we instead see is structures being selected which are formed by exaptation and combinatorial control. The process of evolution is conservative by nature. Old functions are cobbled and recombined and tweaked slightly to make new ones. Thus, In molecular genetic terms (and in terms of comparative anatomy) all features of biological life, across the various taxa, exhibit the properties of modularity. There are, for example, in eukaryotic organisms, distinct modular genetic circuits which are basic units f oevolutionary pressure (although smaller units still can be selected). Across all life, not just divided between prokaryota and eukaryota, can be viewed in this way.
·
· The history of life on Earth in terms of the duplication and divergence of nucleic acid sequences responsible for giving organisms various phenotypic properties can be understood in terms of the formation of new genetic structures from the copying and cobbling and shuffling of old ones.
· Any feature of biology life which exhibits interlocking properties or forms of symbiosis or cooperation can be understood in terms of co-evolutionary processes. The principle behind co-evolution is that individual modular innovations at a molecular level are not receptacles which have stand-alone selection pressure applied, but are affected directly by the selection pressure applied to other modules. This is the basis of cooperative and interlocking mechanisms and forms of symbiosis. The simplest examples are those where the homologous duplication of genes to form homologies and paralogies result in relaxed selection pressure upon both copies. A more complex example involves the symbiotic relationship between mitochondria and eukaryotic organisms. The original progenitors of prokaryotic symbiotes were stand alone aerobic organisms whose symbiosis with eukaryota was advantageous for both parties. As selection pressure on the mitochondrial genome was relaxed, more and more of it became embedded in the nuclear genome. As a result, the mitochondria could no longer survive without the eukaryote and vice-versa, resulting in the situation of symbiosis.
· In terms of multicellular organisms, the complex networks of inter-cellular signaling and the differentiation pathways exhibited by multicellular structures can be understood in terms of the modular genetic circuits whose duplication, divergence and reshuffling constitute the major pathway of evolution in multicellular organisms. This can only be understood in the context of developmental biology, the arm of biology which studies the developmental pathways which replicate, differentiate and positition cells in constructing an organism from a zygote.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Again, what are you writing this for, and what kind of comments are you searching for? I can tell you that it's full of logical fallacies and long debunked arguments. Thus, if you want us to critique you on the content, then I would suggest that you just scrub the whole essay.
On the other hand, if you're simply asking us to edit your article for spelling, punctuation, grammatical errors, etc, then I'll be happy to correct it as well as I can.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Ok. Here are several very specific critiques.
First, I hope you understand the basics of critical thinking and logic. The most important thing for you to understand is that the only argument that has any value at all is one that is valid and has true premises. I mention that because it's crucial for you to grasp this concept so that you can see that unless your arguments are all both valid and true, we must stop exactly at the point where you are either presenting an invalid argument or an untrue premise. The rest of the argument, no matter how compelling, has absolutely zero trustworthiness.
We need to clarify several things about "necessary."
You're using the word "necessary" vaguely. When you say "that thing was not necessary" you are not providing another piece of the puzzle. Necessary for what? If you mean that something which has not always existed is not necessary for the universe to exist, you have several problems. First, according to the law of conservation of matter/energy, all that exists has always existed, albeit in different forms, and will continue to exist, even if the universe reaches a state of heat death. You have alluded to this in your first paragraph. It is quite true that the universe would exist if you had never been born, but what you're about to do is improperly extend the concept of cause/effect to a place it doesn't belong. Anyway...
Second, nothing in the universe is strictly necessary for the universe to exist. Again, you've alluded to this, but you're about to go haywire with it. In theory, if the universe was nothing but space/time, with no matter/energy, it would still be a "universe" by the broadest of definitions, although there would be no humans to pose the question, so this whole thing is something of an exercise in pedantry.
Third, "necessary" means something more specific than most people normally intend. When S is necessary for X, we are saying that for X to exist as defined, S must also exist as defined. Bear in mind that this is not necessarily a cause/effect relationship. Consider that for me to be able to type this response, I must have a typewriter keyboard. A keyboard is necessary if I am to type. Without it, typing is impossible. However -- my typewriter did not cause me to type. It is necessary, but it is not the cause.
Ok. You've just done something invalid. First, you gave the example of your parents causing you to come into existence. Then, you've made several leaps. First, you've asserted (without justification) that all things which exist are caused. First, your parents are two biological organisms in a huge universe. You can't leap from them to a whole class of things. That's the reverse of how deduction works. In deduction, we say:
All men are mortal (We start with the whole class of things)
Socrates is a man (Then we take a specific part of that class)
Therefore, Socrates is mortal (Then we make the certain conclusion.)
What you did is something like this:
My parents (and likewise, all parents) are the cause of my existence (and likewise, all humans' existence) (You've taken a specific part of a class)
Therefore, all things have a cause (Now you've jumped to a conclusion about all things in the class)
This is akin to the following argument:
All cats have fur
Therefore, all animals have fur.
See how silly it is when you look at it that way? So, right at the get-go, you have no particular reason for believing that all things have a cause. All you can say is that to the best of your observation, everything that exists was caused to exist by something. That's fine, but in terms of everything that exists, you've seen precious little. This isn't to say that everything doesn't have a cause. Maybe it does. The point is, it doesn't have to by the logic of your argument.
There is another assumption in your argument, that being the certainty that all that exists is not eternal. The Big Bang was most certainly the beginning of the universe in this form, but there's no particular reason to assume that the Big Bang suddenly occurred despite there having been absolutely nothing in existence before it! Think about it. The Big Bang was a huge fucking explosion. Don't huge fucking explosions usually need something to blow up from? What makes you think the Big Bang just happened from nothing? Doesn't it make sense that before the BB, there was something which caused it to occur?
Modern cosmology looks at the Big Bang not as a creation event, but rather a transition event. That is, before the universe existed in its present state, everything that existed was in some other kind of state. Unfortunately, as we get close to the Big Bang, it becomes impossible to do much more than make educated guesses about what might have existed before. It could be that certainty of Pre-Big-Bang existence may be impossible for humans. Nevertheless, our knowledge or lack thereof has no bearing on what it was.
(There's also no reason to just make something up because we don't have an answer.)
Here's the worst error. You assert that all things require a cause, right? Anything that exists has a cause. Period. That's the way things are, and there's no getting around it. Then, giving yourself a case of olympic whiplash, you assert that this can only mean that something did NOT have a cause!?!
Where's the logic in that? If everything has a cause, then God has a cause. If God has a cause, then why bother talking about it? It's just another in a long series of causes and effects.
If God does not have a cause, then by definition, all that exists does not need a cause. If that is the case, then your very justification for invoking God disappears!
What you've done is create a circular argument whereby God justifies himself. This sounds good in sermons, but there's no logic in it. It's really compelling to say with a loud, strong voice: "God is his own justification." Sounds really awesome, actually. Makes you feel like you're on the right team. You've got the answers. Lots of confidence. Unfortunately, there are only one class of things that are their own justification, and they are called axioms. Axioms are things that must be true because there is no alternative.
Here's the easiest one. I exist. Existence is axiomatic because awareness of existence cannot exist without existing awareness. In other words, there is no way for me to contemplate my existence without me being a thing that exists. There simply is no alternative. The only two choices are existence or nonexistence. There is no middle ground and cannot be. See how it works? There is no concept for a middle ground between existing and not existing because it's an off/on switch, not a continuum of degrees.
So, we have to ask ourself, is God axiomatic? If it is, then fine. It can justify itself. If not, then it requires justification outside of itself to have epistemological validity. So, can I think of an alternative to God existing? Of course I can! God not existing! That's it. God is not axiomatic.
If you're having trouble with this, consider that every human that has ever lived (excluding severely brain damaged ones) has been aware of its own existence. It's unavoidable. Consciousness is self evident. However, every human that has ever lived has NOT been aware of the concept of a god. If even one person has ever lived and died without ever being aware of the concept of God, then god is not self evident even in this simple way. Before you say that every culture has had god belief, be very very careful. First, you have no proof of that. Humans have been around for a LONG time, and we don't know much at all about their religious beliefs before they figured out how to draw. Second, the concepts of God or Gods that humans have had have been so radically different across cultures that it's impossible to call them the same thing. The monotheist creator of the universe concept is very recent, and was localized in North Africa and the Middle East for the first couple thousand years of its existence.
So, god cannot be its own justification, and you've invalidated your own argument by contradicting it. If God is causeless, then why couldn't the universe itself be causeless? You've already claimed that causeless things exist. Furthermore, why couldn't the universe be eternal, with the Big Bang being simply a transition event between two states? Finally, you never even established cause/effect as universal because you used logic ass backwards. I don't know enough about quantum mechanics to explain it, but my understanding is that some scientists think that there are things which happen on a quantum level that are essentially random, or cause-less. I'll let the physicists try to explain that, but the point is, it's not given that cause-effect is the only kind of relationship in the universe whereby things can come into existence.
In other words, your theory has a lot of holes.
Huh?
Gibberish. What is "essence"? We gave up the idea of protoplasm a long time ago. Life is a process. It's not a thing, it's a process. Specifically, it is the process of replicators replicating. [Edit: Obviously, I'm speaking of protoplasm in the Huxley sense, as the "essence of life," not the catchall for "that which resides inside the plasma membrane.]
Actually, no. That's your conclusion, but it's unsupported.
No, it doesn't.
Let's talk about infinite for a minute. Do you know what zero is? Nothing, right? Well, can you point to it? Can you show me nothing? Obviously not. That's because nothing is a concept, not a physical existence. Without someone to conceive of zero, zero doesn't exist. Sure, patches of space with no matter certainly exist, but if I look at a cube of space that is completely void of matter/energy, I can say, "That thing is a cube of space completely void of matter/energy. It is a thing. It exists. It's not zero. It is exactly one empty cube.
Infinite is the same kind of thing. It doesn't really exist. It is a classification that we use in mathematics. There is no such thing as infinite matter or energy, and though there are technically an infinite number of numbers, there is no existing thing of which there are an infinite number of units.
This may be a little hard to grasp at first, but here's the bottom line. People perceive reality imperfectly. One of our severest limitations is that we can only discuss one perspective at a time. For this reason, we must have classes of words which convey the meaning of a particular perspective at a given instant. Our lack of complete communication doesn't affect material reality, per se. It simply allows us to communicate precise meanings within a given set of parameters. "Infinite" and "zero" are simply conceptual designations for useful tools in calculations. They don't correspond to matter/energy/space/time in any way other than our conceptualization of them.
Again:
1. Is God causeless? If so, then this statement is false. If this statement is false, then it is an invalid justification for invoking God.
2. Is God caused? If so, then why mention him?
3. Your proof for the universality of cause/effect is invalid.
I propose another theory:
God used to exist. Before the Big Bang, it existed as part of space/time/matter/energy, and was the whole of it. One day, it realized that it was very selfish to hog all of existence to itself. Determined to atone for the error of selfishness, it devised a plan whereby all of existence would be completely on its own, but would have every chance in the universe to become whatever it could be, based only on laws of nature which would easily allow for the abiogenesis of life on earthlike planets, of which there might be trillions, if all went well.
The only problem was that to accomplish this act of penance, God must cease to exist. In the ultimate sacrifice in the history of the universe, God ended its own life, and the result was The Big Bang. Since then, the universe has been acting completely in accordance with the natural laws that God preordained before its own destruction. Nothing can stop these laws from working, for that is the will of God, and nothing that any of us, as just an infintessimally small part of what used to be god, can do will ever alter God's will.
So... is my story less likely than yours? To me, it seems perfectly plausible, and I can use exactly the same arguments you've used thusfar to justify it. The universe needs a cause? Ok. I invented one, called it god, and then plausibly proposed that it killed itself in the creation of the universe. No reason to think that it couldn't happen.
deludedgod has provided you everything you need to know why this is false. I won't belabor the point.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
hey you guys are great - most of these responses are perfect ... you pointed out several problems that will really help!
Not that it will change the answers in any way, but out of curiosity, are you a theist trying to figure out how to avoid errors in proving god, or are you an atheist trying to figure out how to better refute these arguments?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Good point Hamby. That is what I have been wondering as well.
At first Vocab, I thought you might just be putting together a first year college paper and needed some input.
If you are a theist out to fortify you're arguments, then be very careful who you present them to. It would not take too long to turn you on your head my friend if you truly do not understand the underlying logic behind these arguments.
And people wonder why I get so irate with theists! this is the same shit. fallacy after fallacy. Next he's going to claim The Flood was real and men walked with Dinosaurs.
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
Isaac Asimov
It sounds like he's a theist trying to figure-out what common rebuttals are, so he can try to arm himself against them.
Attempting to mask the effort by asking for a 'critique' was the most transparent bullshit cover I've seen in a while.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Could be... could be...
In any case, I already mentioned that it hardly matters what his motivations are. That's the cool thing about having valid arguments. If he's got his protractor and Super-Buddy-Jesus Decoder Ring®, more power to him. I've already said in as many words that I will defend these arguments against anybody in the world, and I meant it. (It's actually really easy to defend them, in principle. You just sit back and drink some coffee while your opponent fails to refute them.)
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I would agree, Hamby, except that the more I discourse with people, the more I learn that - in reality - all that most people actually want is a flashy and flowery illustration of how their perspective is the right one. Frankly, it is very easy for any creationist to look at what's been said by a more knowledgeable person anywhere, and either 'refute it' with logical fallacies or quote-mine to distort a message (Hi, Expelled!)
I'm coming to understand why Dawkins refuses to make appearances with creationists.
That's not to say that I'm poo-pooing the efforts made here to point-out the errors in the argument, just that I find it irritating to know that the likely motivation of these moraler-than-thou assholes is simply to find semantics loopholes they can use to justify their delusions rather than enrich their understanding.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Yeah Kevin and ME GOD doesn't debate idol worship, as nor does buddha Pat Condell.
Here's his latest rant, 3 days ago,
Welcome to Saudi Britain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox2-Wun2dIg
Atheism Books.