Thank you... but considering you have more than 16,000 posts on here, I would say that your word alone is enough for me.
Funny, I have the exact opposite experience.
I suppose I get your point...
LOL, Well if I am shouting, you can bet it is important. I will be saying something like "FIRE!" or "WATCH OUT!" anyway it was not my intention to shout, so... enough said.
That does not invalidate free will.
Just to be clear... I agree completely,
I believe in free will, that is just a matter of common sense.
But it is important to note that our free will is always in a sense, limited.
But with that said, whatever our circumstance, we will always have some limited set of choices, assuming we are cognizant.
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Yes so would I....
Complexity does not necessarily imply design.
Not at all. We reject the idea of intelligent design because it it superfluous, and it is not supported by evidence.
Yes but the Universe as a construct, has myriad connotations of design that go far beyond mere complexity... The most striking example I can think of being the DNA sequence itself.
To say that the idea of intelligent design is superflous?..... well that is a broad and sweeping statement that needs some clarification, please explain.
I am not the only scientist whose study of the natural world has led me to the conclusion that there is some intelligent cohesive design to the universe, in fact, there are many scientists, more famous and accomplished than myself, who have drawn similar conclusions. The following is a very short list of a few quotes by some of them...
Jim Holt "I was reminded of this a few months ago when I saw a survey in the journal Nature. It revealed that 40% of American physicists, biologists and mathematicians believe in God.."(1)
In fact the percentage of scientists who believe in God is much greater than the percentage of scientists who believe that God does not exist. The majority of scientists are in fact, agnostic, and this is very different from Atheist.
The Atheist Says: God Does not Exist.
The Agnostic Says: I do not know if God Exists.
Fred Hoyle (British astrophysicist): "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." (2)
George Ellis (British astrophysicist): "Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word 'miraculous' without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word." (3)
Paul Davies (British astrophysicist): "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming". (4)
Paul Davies: "The laws [of physics] ... seem to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design... The universe must have a purpose". (5)
Alan Sandage (winner of the Crawford prize in astronomy): "I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing." (6)
John O'Keefe (astronomer at NASA): "We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures.. .. If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in." (7)
George Greenstein (astronomer): "As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency - or, rather, Agency - must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?" (8)
Arthur Eddington (astrophysicist): "The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory." (9)
Arno Penzias (Nobel prize in physics): "Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say 'supernatural') plan." (10)
Roger Penrose (mathematician and author): "I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance." (11)
Tony Rothman (physicist): "When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it's very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it." (12)
Vera Kistiakowsky (MIT physicist): "The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine." (13)
Robert Jastrow (self-proclaimed agnostic): "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." (14)
Stephen Hawking (British astrophysicist): "Then we shall… be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God." (15)
Frank Tipler (Professor of Mathematical Physics): "When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics." (16) Note: Tipler since has actually converted to Christianity, hence his latest book, The Physics Of Christianity.
Alexander Polyakov (Soviet mathematician): "We know that nature is described by the best of all possible mathematics because God created it."(17)
Ed Harrison (cosmologist): "Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God – the design argument of Paley – updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one.... Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument." (18)
Edward Milne (British cosmologist): "As to the cause of the Universe, in context of expansion, that is left for the reader to insert, but our picture is incomplete without Him [God]." (19)
Barry Parker (cosmologist): "Who created these laws? There is no question but that a God will always be needed." (20)
Drs. Zehavi, and Dekel (cosmologists): "This type of universe, however, seems to require a degree of fine tuning of the initial conditions that is in apparent conflict with 'common wisdom'." (21)
Arthur L. Schawlow (Professor of Physics at Stanford University, 1981 Nobel Prize in physics): "It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious. . . . I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life." (22)
Henry "Fritz" Schaefer (Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia): "The significance and joy in my science comes in those occasional moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, 'So that's how God did it.' My goal is to understand a little corner of God's plan." (23)
Wernher von Braun (Pioneer rocket engineer) "I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science." (24)
Carl Woese (microbiologist from the University of Illinois) "Life in Universe - rare or unique? I walk both sides of that street. One day I can say that given the 100 billion stars in our galaxy and the 100 billion or more galaxies, there have to be some planets that formed and evolved in ways very, very like the Earth has, and so would contain microbial life at least. There are other days when I say that the anthropic principal, which makes this universe a special one out of an uncountably large number of universes, may not apply only to that aspect of nature we define in the realm of physics, but may extend to chemistry and biology. In that case life on Earth could be entirely unique." (25)
There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind Antony Flew (Professor of Philosophy, former atheist, author, and debater) "It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design." (26)
Bibliography:
1 Jim Holt. 1997. Science Resurrects God. The Wall Street Journal (December 24, 1997), Dow Jones & Co., Inc.
2 Hoyle, F. 1982. The Universe: Past and Present Reflections. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics: 20:16.
3 Ellis, G.F.R. 1993. The Anthropic Principle: Laws and Environments. The Anthropic Principle, F. Bertola and U.Curi, ed. New York, Cambridge University Press, p. 30.
4 Davies, P. 1988. The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability To Order the Universe. New York: Simon and Schuster, p.203.
5 Davies, P. 1984. Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), p. 243.
6 Willford, J.N. March 12, 1991. Sizing up the Cosmos: An Astronomers Quest. New York Times, p. B9.
7 Heeren, F. 1995. Show Me God. Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 200.
8 Greenstein, G. 1988. The Symbiotic Universe. New York: William Morrow, p.27.
9 Heeren, F. 1995. Show Me God. Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 233.
10 Margenau, H and R.A. Varghese, ed. 1992. Cosmos, Bios, and Theos. La Salle, IL, Open Court, p. 83.
11 Penrose, R. 1992. A Brief History of Time (movie). Burbank, CA, Paramount Pictures, Inc.
12 Casti, J.L. 1989. Paradigms Lost. New York, Avon Books, p.482-483.
13 Margenau, H and R.A. Varghese, ed. 1992. Cosmos, Bios, and Theos. La Salle, IL, Open Court, p. 52.
14 Jastrow, R. 1978. God and the Astronomers. New York, W.W. Norton, p. 116.
15 Hawking, S. 1988. A Brief History of Time. p. 175.
16 Tipler, F.J. 1994. The Physics Of Immortality. New York, Doubleday, Preface.
17 Gannes, S. October 13, 1986. Fortune. p. 57
18 Harrison, E. 1985. Masks of the Universe. New York, Collier Books, Macmillan, pp. 252, 263.
19 Heeren, F. 1995. Show Me God. Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 166-167.
20 Heeren, F. 1995. Show Me God. Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 223.
21 Zehavi, I, and A. Dekel. 1999. Evidence for a positive cosmological constant from flows of galaxies and distant supernovae Nature 401: 252-254.
22 Margenau, H. and R. A. Varghese, eds. Cosmos, Bios, Theos: Scientists Reflect on Science, God, and the Origins of the Universe, Life, and Homo Sapiens (Open Court Pub. Co., La Salle, IL, 1992).
23 Sheler, J. L. and J.M. Schrof, "The Creation", U.S. News & World Report (December 23, 1991):56-64.
24 McIver, T. 1986. Ancient Tales and Space-Age Myths of Creationist Evangelism. The Skeptical Inquirer 10:258-276.
25 Mullen, L. 2001. The Three Domains of Life from SpaceDaily.com
26 Atheist Becomes Theist: Exclusive Interview with Former Atheist Antony Flew at Biola University (PDF version).
Those are two different issues. We reject Christianity because it has no evidence, and the Bible is inconsistent and self-contradictory and we reject Intelligent Design for the reasons mentioned above.
Well I am not making an argument in favor of Christianity, on the contrary, what I am saying is that many Athiests use Christianity and the Bible, in an attempt to prove that God Does not exist.
My point is: Whether the Bible is true or false has little bearing on the existence or non existence of God.
No. It is the rational null-hypothesis of everything: As long as there is no evidence for the existence of something, there is no reason to assume it exists.
Well you see the Null Hypothesis is not an argument in favor of Atheism, it truly favors agnosticism, and this is precisely why I would say Atheism is just as unscientific as Theism.
Because from a scientific perspective we could also use the same arguement to conclude that :
As long as there is no evidence for the non-existence of something, there is no reason to assume it does not exist.
So we see that the Null Hypothesis unequivocally favors Agnosticism.
Oh, be my guest. I don't care which you call it.
I will state again, just to be clear, there is a huge difference between the Agnostic and the Atheist.
The Atheist Says: God Does not Exist.
The Agnostic Says: I do not know if God Exists.
To say that God Does not exist requires a leap of faith.
whereas saying simply:
I do not know, does not.
Yes. Thank you.
Nonsense. You cannot prove a negative. It is perfectly scientific to asume that something that lacks evidence does not exist.
You cannot prove a negative, true enough, however it is not scientific to assume that something which lacks evidence does not exist, it is patently unscientific to make such an assumption.
Again I would refer you to the Null Hypothesis. It is patently unscientific to assume that something does not exist, just because the evidence to support it has not been discovered yet. This common misconception has lead to the supression of new knowledge in every field of science, and thwarted all progress in science.
How about this: A supernatural being, believed by some to exist.
Hans
Is this a definition of Good? I am afraid I do not understand.
Well anyway, thank you for the intelligent discourse...
It is a pleasure.
