Following up on my last post I’d like to suggest another video from Leah Libresco that perhaps should be required viewing here.
Not only is it relevant to every conversation we have here but it is related to Turing Tests something that I find fascinating and important for “my Game” if I ever get around to it.
Here is a link for the corresponding Ideological Turing Test
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/ideological-turing-test-contest
What do you think? Should we come up with some questions surrounding Intelligent Design?
peace
Not designed by Bob Ross is not the same thing as not designed.
peace
Then you’re not thinking very hard or very critically. There is nothing logical preventing you from being in an illusion or simulation that presents you with a compelling reason to believe in a god that does not actually exist, either outside the illusion or in it. That’s the whole point of such illusions; there’s no way for the person stuck within the illusion to know a) that they are in an illusion and b) to assess the validity of the contents of the illusion.
So the illusion you exist in is absolutely consistent and yet, does not actually include any god at all.
The very fact that you have to question beg to infer your god and further, that you have to presuppose your god by fiat as opposed to effect demonstrates (to me at least) that there is no way any world could possibly be consistent if it included your god. Of that I am 100% certain.
Sure it is.
If a “happy accident” was not designed by Bob Ross, and it was not designed by anyone else, then it is not designed period.
And yet, you might look at it and say “Someone made a great design decision here.”. And you would be wrong.
Robin,
What if the evolution hypothesis turns out to be wrong?
How in the world would one “demonstrate” that this is a world in which God (or anything else) does not exist? That instance of burden tennis is a serve into the bottom of the net.
Your question indicates you really don’t understand science that well.
There are aspects of our understanding of the relationship between organisms that CAN’T BE WRONG even, I might add, if we are wrong about some aspects oft evolutionary theory.
Let’s take a classic example: Newton’s Theory of Gravity and Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. General Relativity is an incredible theory, particularly given it’s level of accuracy across incredible distances. It presents a much more accurate picture of how space behaves and how objects in space are influenced. It pretty much squashes Newton’s Theory of Gravity. AND YET, Newton’s Theory and his math is perfectly adequate for landing humans on the moon.
So your question is rather meaningless. Even if some aspects of evolutionary theory (say the mechanics themselves) turn out to be wrong, the principles of evolution are still a fact and the relationship of birds would still hold. It’s not like humans are going to wake up tomorrow and find that every birds species is more closely related to each other than they are to jellyfish. So, my inferences to the bird anomaly are inherently enhanced by evolutionary theory and provide an ability to relate behaviors and adaptations across species.
And even if all of the above were not the case, ID would still offer nothing to enhance one’s understanding of objects in the world and universe.
Robin,
If you were doing research to try to figure out the mechanisms that were involved in cells creating blood vessels that resulted in metastasized tumors if you were believing the mechanism you were looking at was the result of random changes followed by function you would have no reference point to figure this out except by experiment.
If you took the view of the design hypothesis you might look at other cellular activities and see study the mechanisms and then make a hypothesis that the cellular blood vessel forming mechanism may be similar. If the design hypothesis is wrong this will be a waste of time. Turns out it is not 🙂
Design doesn’t lead to an inference of similarity. Why would it? Once again, you are assuming things about supposed designers that are not actually in evidence based on your understanding of human design. So the fact is, looking at other physiological systems is is likely a waste of time under a design paradigm. Worse still, even if there is a similarity, you can’t be sure that the underlying reasons for the similarity are related because…wait for it…you know nothing about the designer(s), nothing about said designer’s(‘) methodologies and resources, and nothing about said design’s(‘) constraints. Nobody with any real desire to understand physiology and come up with treatments for illnesses would ever adopt a design hypothesis. It’s just vacuous.
But even more importantly, actual researches, doctors, and scientists already know that biology doesn’t work the way you describe, so no one would even begin to entertain what you are proposing.
Ironically, evolutionary theory does provide a rationale for investigating how biological systems evolved to develop cancers in the first place and thus how cancers evolve to dodge treatment and our immune systems, and thus have a starting point for mapping out ways to help our own immune systems keep up. Happily, this has been actually fruitful in our developing ability to fight cancer. To wit:
http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2016/03/03/new-immunotherapy-discovery-could-give-treatments-the-precision-they-need/
Your other examples were a bit confusing but this is interesting . So to be clear, when Bob messes up when painting his design is modified to incorporate it? And that makes it a lesser design mechanism, pseudo?
It’s pretty easy to demonstrate that square circles do not exist in this world.
But if that sort of this is too hard I would be happy with a demonstration of a world where God’s existence was not necessary.
peace
By pseudo design I mean attributing design to someone other than the designer. Bob Ross did not design his accidents. So the error would be attributing them to him.
The same thing happens when we infer design in the product of an AI when the credit really belongs with the programmer.
peace
Who said it was not designed by anyone else?
No you would be right. You would only be wrong if you thought Bob Ross did it.
Peace
Is nobody game to try the ID Turing Test?
Well sure…by the definitions of “square” and “circle” (which are man-made, btw, but I digress…)
However, no god(s) exists in this world by definition. Some gods may be said to exist in this world by presupposition and question begging, but that isn’t the same thing. Similarly, there are a number of people who believe that god(s) exist in this world based on faith, but again that isn’t the same thing either.
Seriously, how would you go about demonstrating that some god(s) did not exist in this world without resorting to fiat? I’m just curious.
In the illusion world you are stuck in. You only think that some god is necessary because the illusion is set up to give you that impression, but the fact is no god is actually necessary and there’s no way for you get outside the illusion to know one way or the other.
You know I am.
Please
please
please
I can demonstrate that Allah for example does not exist by simply showing how a being with his particular characteristics is impossible in this world.
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
So my suggestion is an OP where anonymous submissions are published for folks to decide on whether they are from ID proponents or skeptics.
I’m happy to post an OP and invite submissions via private message or email and I will add them to the OP. I hope I can be trusted to keep submissions anonymous until Barry and others have taken their best shot at working out who is real and who is fake. In the absence of any further feedback, I guess I’ll just run it up the flag-pole.
Have at it. What characteristics make Allah impossible in this world and, more importantly, what characteristics make Allah impossible in the illusion you inhabit (that, of course, is giving you the impression that Allah is impossible based on some characteristics, but that’s part of the illusion, so there’s really no way for you to establish it’s true).
Remember: no fiats…no special pleading…no begging the question.
ETA: Here, I’ll make this a little easier. Here are the 99 attributes of Allah based upon the various terms that are used to refer to Him. Feel free to demonstrate the ones that are impossible:
http://www.islamicity.com/forum/printer_friendly_posts.asp?TID=3882
It’s really pretty simple. The Quran tells Christians to judge it’s message by the Bible.
quote:
And let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed – then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient.
Sura 5:47
end quote:
The Bible repeatedly says that Jesus is God’s son. (Mark 1:1 for starters)
The Quran repeatedly says that Allah has no son. (Sura 9:30 for starters)
The two statements are clearly contradictory just like a square circle
Therefore Allah represented as God in the Quran can not exist in this world.
peace
*Sigh*…That’s a fail. Your dismissal of Allah is simply question begging to say nothing of avoiding the actual challenge. The specific challenge is to demonstrate Allah is impossible based on Allah’s characteristics. Whether some description contradicts some bible passage is irrelevant. It would be just as easy to point to the Quran and say that your god is impossible by the same logic, but that would be just as question begging. And then there’s the whole problem of no god(s) actually existing in the illusion you’re trapped in, so really you have no foundation on which to make any valid claims about any gods. But I digress…
*Shakes head*. A very sad attempt…
C’mon Fifth…you can do better than that. Stick to actual characteristics of Allah. What makes Him impossible?
Personally I say your god is impossible simply because no life could exist if there really was an entity that had power over life and all physics. If the latter is true (omnipotence), then the moment such a god defied any physical law, matter and space-time would collapse and life would cease. That’s a demonstration of an impossibility based on a characteristic.
Go ahead…give it a try.
Again
Allah has two contradictory characteristics
He is a father
and
He is not a father
Just like a square circle. And just like a square circle his existence is impossible in our world.
Challenge met.
So omnipotence is incompatible with the existence of matter and space-time? You will need to unpack that one a little bit. Why do you think this is so and what do you mean by deification of physical laws?
peace
Well, if you see teleology in Bob Ross’s happy accidents( I don’t), please give me an example of an accident in which you would NOT see teleology.
I think I have made it abundantly clear that I believe that God is absolutely sovereign.
There are no accidents period. There are things where the teleology is more apparent and things where it is less apparent.
There also some things that are designed by creatures and only indirectly by the creator
What interests me is not whether some things in nature are designed but whether there is an objective way to infer design in general when it’s not so apparent. I have no idea if there is but it’s an interesting question.
peace
Let me see if I understand you. Suppose I took a cup full of one color of paint in one hand, and another color in the other hand, and threw them in the air to have the paint splash onto the ground.
You are saying that the pattern that results was directly intended by God?
Why would he bother?
Depends on what you mean by directly. But yes
when you are omnipotent and omniscient and sovereign it’s no bother
peace
I think you may need to read for accuracy on Islam there FMM; there is no reference to Allah being “Father” in any text. Where did you get the idea Allah had the characteristic “Father”?
Except that there’s no evidence for this “Father” characteristic you are ascribing to Allah. Methinks you are wrong.
Maybe. If you can show where you got the idea that Allah is called “Father” somewhere. Having some expertise on the subject, I’m confident you’re not going to be successful, but I’m open to surprises…
Given Special Relativity, quantum fields, and Dirac’s Equation, yeah.
Pretty simple really: Dirac’s equation establishes symmetry between the spin-mass of particles. Special Relativity establishes that since causes can’t take place before their associated events, light is not only a constant, but creates a time dilation as objects approach the speed of light. Those characteristics of our universe, coupled with quantum state collapse, the moment an entity attempted to interact with any aspect of the universe that violated a physical law, momentum of those particles in that particular state would be altered and would cause a collapse. Symmetry would then cause a related collapse and since there’s no way said entity to can interact with said system before the outcome of his interaction (the effects of Its actions cannot occur faster than the speed of light), there’s no way such an entity can overcome Its own influence on the the systems. Thus the quantum wave would collapse and in such a situation, life could not exist within the boundaries of that system.
I suppose one could try to argue that perhaps said entity only violates physical laws in non-life supporting parts the universe (or perhaps outside the universe), but not only would that be question begging, it would pretty much nix any interactions anywhere near Earth, so I don’t see that as a viable approach. Furthermore, since quantum symmetry does not appear to have any particular range limitations, it’s pretty much moot anyway.
once again, the Quran commands that Christians judge by what is written in the Bible (the gospel) and the Bible clearly and repeatedly says that God is a father.
On the other hand the Quran itself and Islam in general clearly and repeatedly says that God is not a father.
Those two notions contradict irreconcilably. Just as a square circle.
This is not a peripheral side issue but it strikes to the very core of who Allah is.
peace
By definition the Christian God will never violate a physical law.
Laws are just an expression of his nature and he can’t violate his own nature
If you see something that appears to be a violation it only means that you don’t fully understand the law in question.
Glad we cleared that one up.
What else you got?
peace
Judge yes; redefine no. You can judge the details stories of the Quran and acts of Allah based on the moral principlesfound in the bible. There’s no authorization to ascribe characteristics described in the bible to Allah however. Allah does not contradict anything based on the characteristics ascribed to Him. Thus far you have failed the challenge.
Which is hardly and logical contradiction. That you happen to believe that some god is a father doesn’t make it true. And further, that you happen to hold a biased view that the bible is a default position and all other views a thus judged by it as the standard creates a biased conflict of interest. The fact is, there’s no more authority for the bible than the Quran.
Begging the question again. You’re attempting to judge Allah on characteristics that are not ascribed to Him.
Not really. It’s simply a demonstration that you can’t neutrally access Allah based on the characteristics ascribed to Him. That the characteristics that define Allah mean that He is not identical to your god does not make Allah either logically impossible nor does it make Him incompatible with this world.
That Allah is incompatible with your particular religious beliefs isn’t much of an argument since as noted, it’s simply question begging and goes back to my previous comment of declaring truth by fiat. If that’s all you are going to do, then your position is not only weak but simply not credible.
You really need to try harder with this challenge
Haha. The Quran is wrong because it conflicts with the Bible. Awesome.
Not a very omnipotent god then, but ok. So no walking on water, no creating bread and fish from thin air, no raising people from the dead, no wine from water, and so forth. I’m good with that.
Fair enough. I doubt most Christians (or the majority of monotheists for that matter) would agree with you on this point of limitation, but whatever…
LOL! No…that’s really not the case. A claim of “raising a person from the dead” does not leave a lot of wiggle room for misinterpretation or misunderstanding. Unless you are going to go all wishy-washy and try to argue that…well…maybe…you know…the person might have seemed dead by standards at the time, but…err…well…umm…they weren’t modern doctors and…well…umm…maybe it was just a brief cardiac episode that…uh…kind of…
No. Raising a person from the dead violates several laws of thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, biology, chemistry, and more. So if you’re saying that your god can’t by its nature violate the laws of this universe, then it ain’t raising any living thing from death. Period.
*Chuckle*. Yeah…I’m not holding my breath…
Wait for it…
FWIW, I got into this issue of miracles v. natural laws when I discussed McKinnon’s interesting paper on that subject here:
omnipotence does not mean you can do the impossible
no it only means that things like that are not violations of natural law properly understood.
It simply means that you mistakenly believe that resurrection is necessarily a violation of natural law.
It’s not, given the appropriate extraordinary conditions resurrection is a perfectly natural and predictable occurrence .
peace
No disrespect to The Rev. Paley, but the quote you cite is 207 years old. We have learned a lot since then. Age does not make it wrong; being overtaken by events would.
I agree that ID is an updated form of Paley’s argument, but it is updated. These days, the only way to determine if something is “a purposefully arranged set of parts” is to first determine if it was designed. The logic does not work back-wards.
Howard Berg’s off-the-cuff remarks are not evidence of anything.
I haven’t had a chance to read your posting about Hume and Paley yet.
sean s.
Agreed and agreed.
sean s.
No.
once again
The Quran tells Christians to judge by the Bible. So Islam affirms both.
1) the Bible (God is a Father)
and
2) The Quran (God is not a Father)
Allah can’t exist because he is contradiction like a square circle.
peace
Again this is what the Quran says
quote:
And let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed – then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient.
end quote:
Sura 5:47
Nothing about “moral principles” and “details of stories” It’s talking about revelation.
And It clearly commands Christians to judge by the revelation in the Bible
peace
Once again, your understanding of the instruction is just plain erroneous. Judging does not mean redefining. You can judge the moral instruction and implication of the Quran by biblical standards all you want; the moment you declare by fiat that the biblical claims are true and the Quran is false, you’re simply begging the question, never mind failing at reading comprehension 101.
I’m not redefining
In fact I’m doing just the opposite.
I’m letting the two contradictory definitions stand on their own. Thus illustrating the contradiction
peace
I’m not doing that.
I assuming (with the Quran) that both claims are true. If they are both true then Allah can’t exist
peace
I don’t note nearly the same interest in resolving this apparent contradiction that you and your buds have exhibited in resolving about a thousand other apparent contradictions in the Bible that have been brought to your attention.
I wonder why?
For someone so assured and arrogant about his scriptural and religious knowledge, you can be really obtuse and prone to beginner’s mistakes. Seriously…you’re simply going to hold to that magic verse and ignore all other context? I’m so disappointed in you…
Sura 5:44
Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light. The prophets who submitted [to Allah ] judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis and scholars by that with which they were entrusted of the Scripture of Allah , and they were witnesses thereto. So do not fear the people but fear Me, and do not exchange My verses for a small price. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed – then it is those who are the disbelievers.
Sura 5:46
And We sent, following in their footsteps, Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the Torah; and We gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light and confirming that which preceded it of the Torah as guidance and instruction for the righteous.
Sura 5.48
And We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], the Book in truth, confirming that which preceded it of the Scripture and as a criterion over it. So judge between them by what Allah has revealed and do not follow their inclinations away from what has come to you of the truth. To each of you We prescribed a law and a method. Had Allah willed, He would have made you one nation [united in religion], but [He intended] to test you in what He has given you; so race to [all that is] good. To Allah is your return all together, and He will [then] inform you concerning that over which you used to differ.
So what is the passage actually referring to? Oh! The Torah! So, once again, no…you’re wrong. The instruction is quite clear: you can judge the law by either work. Period. Your approach is simply erroneous as noted.
No, you were trying to say that Allah is both Father and Not a Father; that would be redefining Allah based on your understanding of the bible. That’s not what the Quran authorizes.
There’s no contradiction whatsoever. The Quran says nothing about Allah being Father and there’s no authority to compare the god of the bible with Allah.
Then your argument for any contradiction is invalid.
You’ll have to explain this. What “both claims are true” are we assuming? And how do both claims being true somehow mean Allah can’t exist as opposed to your Christian God not existing?
again
1) God is a father
2) God is not a father
In Christianity (as judged only by the Bible) both claims are not true…….
In Islam (as judged by the Bible and the Quran) both claims are true……..
How hard is it?
peace
There’s nothing in the Quran from that indicates anything about Allah being “Father” as shown. The passage you keep referring to does not provide anyway to arrive at that supposed contradiction. Thus far your argument doesn’t work.
Yep. Quite so.
FALSE. In Islam, there is no God the Father. The passage you keep citing does not provide any contradiction on that point.
Apparently, you are having a lot of difficulty with it.
If “father” is just a metaphor or a parable, then the two claims are not in conflict: God is a “father” but not actually a father. Or vice-versa.
sean s.
Christians seem to have interest in resolving apparent contradictions (many of them pretty freaking blatant) only when they seem to threaten their own views. Unsurprisingly, they don’t spend much effort on Muslim issues.
You know what…fine. Let’s go with your reading of Sura 5:47. What the heck.
But HEY…what’s this…? Seems that your god then is EVIIIL!
Jeremiah 20:7
7 You deceived me, LORD, and I was deceived ; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me.
So your god is a liar, huh? Geez…makes pretty much everything in the bible suspect, even the bit about God being the Father. Wow…so there’s probably no contradiction at all. Fancy that…
I mean, if your just going to cherry-pick a single verse, dismissing all context and other verses that clarify, well…that pretty much establishes precedent for reading any religious text any ol’ way anyone wants to. Not sure that train is going to take you where you really want to go…
Yeah. fmm has been shilling for a satanic deity for some time now. His own thug-god.
sean s.