How many theists really believe?

Hard to say. I mean, what does it mean to really believe? Even when theists don’t really believe, some will say that’s proof of whatever they are trying to believe in. It’s circular logic.

In the bible it say’s if you have three or more people praying than it will come true…. I think It is that the third person will tell others that you need help and it comes true.

This theist hopes to be changed by prayer, not to change God.

Excellent question. Every rebuttal I have to offer only has internal and not external validity, so I won’t bother. But it is an excellent point I’ve never considered.
I think by and large people have a colossal failure of imagination.
Also the reason I don’t insist others believe the same as me is because most often it seems like people use the beliefs, especially the conversions, of others to prop up their beliefs against doubt. But I have the type of mind that relishes thinking about the simultinaity of mutually exclusive options, so doubts are an aperitif for me.
But I think most people crave certainty, and praying for miracles is a good way yo face a major crisis of faith, which everyone reasonably avoids.

Other people’s opinion of why I pray or what I pray for is of no concern to me. I have also discovered that on Fluther at least, even a documented answer to prayer is met with skepticism (or derision), so much so, that it is totally discounted, such as it didn’t happen, or it was made up, etc. We have a verse in the Bible about people like that, but if I quoted it here, a lot of people would be insulted, so I won’t.

There are theists of many sorts. I can’t say why other people pray, but as a Christian this is why I pray: I pray because my Bible says it’s important to, because I know it works, and I pray that God would be glorified in a situation.

“Theists pray for safety, but not that the damage of a natural disaster be reversed” Personally, I am not particularly concerned about my own safety, but I am concerned that God would guide me and prepare me for whatever plans he has for my future. I know that God’s judgment is inevitable, but I pray that it would be surgical rather than destructive. As bad as Katrina was, how do you know that the effects of that hurricane aren’t less than they would have been if we had not prayed? You don’t!

“Theists don’t pray that someone who has lost a leg grow a new one, or that a loved one who just died of cardiac arrest be resurrected. Why? Such miracles should be a piece of cake for a God who is omnipotent and capable of speaking the entire Universe into existence in one big poof” I pray for these things, and many more and I have seen miracles as a result (bones put back together, etc). I also pray for the resurrection of dead people (if it would glorify God but I haven’t seen that yet). But as I said before, even though the miracles I have seen were documented, it wouldn’t be enough for the people here. For one thing, the miracles that happened to me were so long ago, I couldn’t find the medical records, so it doesn’t matter anyway.

On a previous question we got into this a bit, and I said I’d post my experiences with answered prayer, but I couldn’t find it again when I was ready to write it up…Sorry about that.

Theist believe. It’s in the definition of the word. What they believe is an endless question because if you asked 1000 of them what “God” was, or anything else Theism entails, you will get 1000 different answers.
Agnostics are a bit different. They question the existence of “God,” drawing all of the final conclusions that Atheists do but refuse to draw the final ultimate Atheistic conclusion, holding out hope that “God” might yet exist in some form, some manner, or some universe or dimension.

I think that a lot of ‘theists’ have a great many doubts, and this is why they attend church, because to them – there is safety in numbers. I think a lot of theists need the reinforcement of other ‘believers’ (it is a method of “us against the world”). The Baptists are against the Methodists & the Pentecostals & the Presbyterians & the Catholics… but let each one of theses sects be treated as ‘unchristian’ & they will all join together to bash whomever made the accusation.

<—- Doesn’t pray for what I want from G.

<—- Prays for what G wants from me.

Please don’t suppose that the G I believe in is the same G that you deny.

Lurve you @RealEyesRealizeRealLies

If I’m not a theist how can I even answer this? And is it really any skin off my ass what a theist believes or doesn’t believe?

“never pray for anything they know can’t happen in the natural world”

Why ask God a stupid question? He’s not going to stop the sun or cancel gravity because I ask… That’s just silly. Anyway, people mourn because loss is sad. Yes, Christians believe that their saved loved ones are in a better place but at the same time it’s rough to see someone go.

People are people, ya know? We are not perfect and we make mistakes. It’s how we handle those mistakes that determine what kind of person we are. That goes for everyone.

Popcorn! Hot Dogs! Git ‘em while they’re hot! Front row seats only a DOLLAH!!!

No kidding @Espiritus_Corvus. Next sequel to the sequel to the sequel to the sequel!

@Espiritus_Corvus God=Don King? You may be on to something.
in this corner you have ETpro, and in this corner you have realeyesrealizereallies

What I want to know is how many atheists really disbelieve. For no matter how you look at it, the fact that any one of us came into existence is an absolute miracle.

We really shouldn’t be here at all.

Something else than what you believe.

Some of them just sort of assume there is a God, because things don’t make sense to them without a god.

Some of them are convinced that they know the real truth, and take it as some kind of psychological assault unless everybody agrees that they are right and know the truth. Just look at those atheists who demand everybody agree there is no god. Same psychological impulses.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – Many actual Agnostics think that they are Atheists. Many simply do not understand the definitions. The fact that we are here is no miracle, only a fact of life. Maybe we shouldn’t be here, but here we are.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought – It’s not psychological to be an Atheist, only scientific. I, for one, do not demand that others see my Atheist views as fact. I agree that this doesn’t apply to all Atheists, or theists. I merely present the evidence for the consideration of others, if they dare to consider an alternate POV.

@kritiper “The fact that we are here is no miracle, only a fact of life.”

Actually, if the non living universe created us, then our existence would be a fact of non life. We already know that life begets life. That’s no secret. But to discover that non life could beget life would be a fact of non life… another cosmological constant to add alongside laws of relativity and gravity. I haven’t seen that one written into a universal law as of yet. I don’t expect to see it anytime soon.

The idea that anything inanimate could be responsible for creating something animated… to me, that is a miracle more profound than any biblical story. Especially when science has never demonstrated such a thing. Atheists literally expect theists to believe in something with no more evidence than what they already believe in. I would suggest they have even less evidence.

@kritiper I understand. It does not bother you at all that people feel you may be wrong. You know the facts, even though you are 2% of the population, or whatever. In fact, most Aethists never talk about how they know the one true set of facts, and quietly let others believe whatever they want to believe without argument.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – If what you say were true, then by what miracle was the creator created? Again, if what you say was true, “life begets life.”

The creator I believe in is not bound by the same laws of cause and effect. So let’s be sure we’re talking about the same creator. Because I don’t believe in a creator that is within our physical reality. If that’s what you’re arguing against, then you argue with the wrong theist. I don’t believe in that being any more than you do.

You cannot suppose that a being outside of our dimension is bound to the same laws of our dimension. Multiverse theory makes it clear that other universes would not necessarily have the same laws as ours.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought – I don’t think your numbers add up. Most college educated people do not believe in Theism because their education has taught them otherwise. This would make Atheists number more than 2%. If Atheists want to talk about “one true set of facts” they only have to consult the facts of science and the universe, and the laws of Physics.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – That is not science. It is fantasy at best.

Multiverse theory was developed by theoretical physicists… read scientists. Since when did it become fantasy? I personally do not believe in it. But there are some pretty smart fellas who developed M-Theory.

Asking what created the creator is no better than asking what created the big bang. Science demands that we consider a first uncaused cause. Both atheists and theists mostly only consider those that fit their world view.

http://www.atheistscholar.org/atheistpsychologies/atheistdemographics.aspx

Aethiest website. Most favorable to Aestheticism site I could find. Says of American population “4.6% say they do not believe in anything beyond the physical world”. So, I was wrong. In America, almost 5% don’t believe in anything other than the physical world. I am not going to look it up, but I thought 30% of Americans had some college, and 25% or so have a degree.

Top chums like Carl Sagan have been demonstrating 4th Dimension Concepts for a very long time now. Things don’t operate the same there. Many are demonstrating dimensions far beyond the 4th. What physical constraints would anyone put upon a creator being that navigated these dimension easier than humans navigate Wallmart?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – Here’s something for you to think about. In my opinion, the “Big Bang” was not the beginning of matter and substance in the universe, only the possible beginning of the universe as it exists today. (The universe and all in it have always existed.) How many “Big Bangs” preceded this most recent one?

I guess however many times the Architect decided upon…

I mean, if you’re going to call M-Theory a non science fantasy, but then follow up with your own personal opinion… then let’s just take this conversation Hollywood.

“How many “Big Bangs” preceded this most recent one?”

That question only pushes the answer back further. It doesn’t address the requirement for a first uncaused cause.

And if anyone claims that is evidence for eternity (not infinity), then you just answered your own question about the requirements for G to have been created.

@ETpro ”“Strangely, though, atheist funerals are generally more joyous than those of theists who claim to believe death is the path to eternal perfection and bliss.

Have you ever been to a pentecostal funeral in Arkansas? The blue grass bands play all day and the banquet puts the thanksgiving turkey to shame. It’s a real party man, especially when the local moonshiners show up.

Hallelujah!

Oh come on give it a break. Can you beat this dead horse anymore? Get a life.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – So who or what created the creator? The laws of Physics explain that there are certain laws and principals that exist in all of space time, not just here where we are. How does “God” and his (or her) creator work/exist/come-to-be outside of these laws? It just doesn’t make sense, real and scientific-wise. Some scientists must still be Agnostics (as I suspect you are) even though they are very well educated. Einstein was religious (Jewish), so they aren’t perfect. They delve in theory and speculation, not absolute fact-by-evidence.
And your last comment about “the requirements for G to have been created” is just nonsensical theist propaganda. If people want to believe, they will find a way and an argument to prove a “God” exists. You accept his existence without ever understanding his needed creation or explanation of that creation. To put it in simple terms, can “God” exist in the reality of what he is supposed to be, what his powers are supposed to be, his invisibility, timelessness, and all of the other hokum that goes with it? No, he cannot.
It is so very simple.

@Adirondackwannabe I think fluther maintains a separate server just for @ETpro‘s and @RealEyesRealizeRealLies exchanges

@kritiper “So who or what created the creator?”

Did you not read my previous comments about extra dimension, infinities, eternities, multiverse…? The Creator doesn’t need a Creator. It does not abide by Hawking’s or Dawkins’ reality handbook.

@kritiper “your last comment about “the requirements for G to have been created” is just nonsensical theist propaganda.”

Uh… if you want an infinite amount of big bangs, that suggests eternity. If you believe in eternity, then you have paved the way for an eternal creator to exist. Can’t have it both ways friend. I’m just playing by your rules.

@kritiper “You accept his existence without ever understanding his needed creation or explanation of that creation.”

I don’t accept the existence of a creator. I acknowledge the existence of a creator because science demands it of me. To reject the necessity for a creator would be to reject science… real science that isn’t crippled by atheistic dogma.

@kritiper “To put it in simple terms, can “God” exist in the reality of what he is supposed to be, what his powers are supposed to be, his invisibility, timelessness, and all of the other hokum that goes with it?”

To put it simple, I’ve already provided you with a newbie starter kit video where Mr. Rogers Carl Sagan demonstrates exactly what you ask.

Since this thread is simply a theist-vs-atheist debate, I might as well throw in my observations, which I believe to be quasi-non-partisan:

No matter what the answer is, be it yes or no, I will find eventually find out. That day will be the day of my death, and either I will experience the afterlife or I won’t. Someday, I will know the answer.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – I wasn’t seeking your approval or explanation, merely stating my views on why I can’t believe in any “God.”
I don’t need it both ways. The endless universe has always existed, without any god or creator. It didn’t need one to just be.
I think my dogma can stand toe-to-toe with yours. To feel the need for a creator rejects science, yours and mine.
When you have thought about the subject for as long as I have, newbie, maybe we can talk again.

@PhiNotPi – I have heard that one before! What a hoot! If there is no “God” and no “hereafter” you won’t know it after death because your existence, awareness, and thought processes will have ended. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

@PhiNotPi I just log into these things lately so I can hear Atheists talk like Taliban true believers, without irony. I will knock it off if it causes you extra clean up.

@kritiper You’re funny man. If you weren’t seeking explanation, then why did you ask so many questions? I suggest you stop “thinking” about the subject, and actually start studying the subject. Then you’d have knowledge instead of opinions.

So you believe in eternity. That’s cool. By default, your belief establishes an eternal state for a creator to exist within as well. Therefor, we should not be hearing any more questions from you about who created the creator.

@kritiper Yes, I am well aware of that. You seem argumentative/sarcastic (“what a hoot!”) in your reply, care to explain?

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought I’ve asked for other moderator’s opinions. Nothing moderated yet.

Not only argumentative/sarcastic, but @kritiper is also accusatory, insulting and filled with double talk.

@kritiper “Many actual Agnostics think that they are Atheists.”

Accuses agnostics of thinking they are something that they are not? Huh?

@kritiper “I merely present the evidence for the consideration of others…”

Hah OMG funny. You haven’t presented shit other than your opinion. Please point to evidence that you’ve presented… haahaa fucking funny man.

@kritiper “That is not science. It is fantasy at best.”

Accuses theoretical physicists of not being scientists but instead entertaining fantasy.

@kritiper “The fact that we are here is no miracle, only a fact of life. Maybe we shouldn’t be here, but here we are.”

Double speak. On one hand, it’s no miracle. On the other hand, we’re here when maybe we shouldn’t be. Uhh… That’s called a miracle… Specifically because there is no fact of life that states non life can beget life.

@kritiper “Some scientists must still be Agnostics (as I suspect you are) even though they are very well educated.”

Entertaining unwarranted suspicions about those you speak with? What on earth gives you cause to suspect I’m agnostic? And really, has it ever occurred to you that the “very well educated” might be theist or agnostic because they are very well educated?

@kritiper “Einstein was religious (Jewish), so they aren’t perfect.”

Did you really just make a connection between religious Jews and imperfection? History tells us nothing good can come of that.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies please don’t quote me (“argumentative/sarcastic”) when you aren’t even talking about the same thing that I was. I am getting dragged into this mess further than I wanted.

Didn’t quote you.

It’s still an obvious reference to my post.

Heh… I think I went a little beyond your post friend. And yes, when speaking of argumentative sarcasm accusing insulting double speak, it’s all rather related.

@PhiNotPi – Sorry. I find that your comment didn’t seem well thought out, like another like opinion I saw once. No offense intended.

@kritiper Thank you for the clarification.

I just LOVE rhetorical questions! There to make people think, never to insult.

Oh my! 36 responses before I even get here. I can’t try to tackle all so I will liberally hand out Great Answer clicks to each who took any sort of sincere stab and answering or clarifying the question.

@kritiper The real definition of Agnostic is a person who claims that it is impossible to know whether there is or isn’t a god. It’s a portmanteau of two Greek Words, “a”, meaning not just as it does in a-theist, and “gnostic” meaning knowledge or to know. Theists believe there is a god. A-theists don’t believe there is a god. It’s very, very possible to say “I don’t believe that.” without saying “I know that is false.”

There are two separate kinds of atheists. There are those who claim to know with certainty that there is no god of any kind (hard atheism), and there are those who just say that unless I am shown sufficient evidence, I will not believe there is a god (soft, weak or agnostic atheism). I’d love to find a study of world or American atheists showing how the percentages shake out?

For the record, I am the later sort. I can follow the strong atheist’s appeals to logic but they appear directed mainly at the Abrahamic God, and I completely agree that a god of such massive logical contradictions has a vanishingly small probability of existence. But I see no logical argument to rule out Einstein’s watchmaker god, the giver of natural laws that run the Universe. For that matter, the Universe itself might be one massively parallel quantum supercomputer. How many subatomic particles are there in the Universe? At the moment of the Big Bang, would they not have all been quantum entangled?

@snowberry Prayer may make you feel better, I am happy for you. And if what you pray for is good, and it sometimes comes to pass after you pray, I am even happier for you. The existence of a God outside spacetime and undetectable with any means known to man or ever knowable by man is a special pleading. It is outside the realm of science. But whether prayer influences earthly events is well within the realm of science. That can be tested. It has been tested in controlled, double-blind studies where people after major surgery had their recovery rates and numbers of complications monitored. Some were told they had a large congregation regularly praying for them, and they actually did. Some were told that, and they actually did not have any such prayer group. Some were not told about prayer, but actually did have a prayer group praying for their speedy recovery. And some were not told and there was no secret prayer group. In every case where this experiment has been run, the results have shown no correlation with prayer and healthcare outcomes, or a negative correlation. By negative correlation, I mean that those thinking they were being prayed for, whether they were or were not, recovered at an equally slower rate than the control groups; and suffered more complications than the controls. The researchers can only speculate that some form of reverse placebo effect is at work. When told that a large group of people are praying for them, people often fear that their condition must be very serious.

@ETpro “How many subatomic particles are there in the Universe?”

Apparently, not nearly as many of potential synaptic connections that are in your brain.

Which might explain this.

@ETpro If that’s what you think, and it makes you “feel better”, good for you. Actually, such a “study” sounds ridiculous from beginning to end.

Regardless, have a good night. I’ll keep praying for you, anyway.

@ETpro
To start off, I didn’t read all 36 37 responses, so I hope I don’t repeat anyone anywhere.

It’s an omnipotent god, but that doesn’t mean that he’s going to make earth perfect and just like heaven. According to the bible, humans destroyed it. If they asked God to perform all of these miracles, that would basically give humans deifying powers.
Regarding the funeral thing, what funeral did you go to?
Catholic funerals are not sad. I guess they’re solemn, as most Masses are. To quote a hymn you’ll probably always hear at funerals (called “Be Not Afraid” by J.M. Talbot), “Be not afraid; I go before you always. Come, follow me and I will give you rest.” After the Mass people celebrate by eating or something. In fact, the funeral itself is called a celebration.
But hey, why are you calling a religious person out for having emotions? That seems shallow. Fine, a Catholic person believes they’ll see loved ones in heaven, but they’re still spending time away from them while in this mortal state. A lot can be accomplished on earth, and seeing someone depart from it is saddening. For Christians, the point of earth is to know, love, and serve God.
By the way, you’re definition of theists are so precise. You can’t really speak as if everyone is like that.

@ETpro I suppose my definition of “agnostic” differs from what the real, true definition is, but it is my definition based on what I have observed from agnostics in general, two of them being very intelligent individuals. More of a general, overall thing.
I see your point about Einstein’s watchmaker god, but my POV is very simple. If “God,” of any type, can’t exist in this universe, in this dimension, in this place and time where I can see, feel, or experience his or her being without question as to who and what it is, then that being cannot exist anywhere, in any place, at any time, or under any circumstance, FOR ANY REASON. To believe in that existence would also, in my lowly opinion, also preclude the existence of the tooth fairy, Casper the friendly ghost, spooks, vampires, (a real) Santa Claus, etc., etc., etc.
It’s just what I find realistic and, for me especially, believable. Sorta like “If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.”
Not trying to be a pain here, just sayin’. I respect your opinions!

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I know better than to even get into debate about all your special pleadings and your customized definitions of common English words. It’s pointless for us both. But I will say that you do not know what god or gods I deny. There are a few I can rule out. There could be an apple god that will, if I extend my hand and type “apple” magically drop and apple in my hand. I have tested. The apple god does not exist. I am a strong atheist when it comes to the apple god. I am nearly that with regards to Poseidon. I do not believe that Poseidon causes tidal waves. I expect you don’t believe that either. I do not believe that Ra pulls the sun across the sky each day in a horse-drawn chariot. You are probably a Ra atheist as well. But I do not categorically deny all gods. I just don’t choose to believe in something I have no evidence to support.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies This is the sort of nonsense that dissuades discussion with you. Potential connections are not connections. The brain works on actual synaptic connections. The human brain has about 100 trillion synapses (10^14). The known Universe has something on the order of “10^78 to 10^82 atoms”;http://www.universetoday.com/36302/atoms-in-the-universe/. And quantum entanglement isn’t at the atomic level, it’s at the subatomic level.

I can only answer for myself. I don’t pray for love ones to come back to life or limbs to grow back because I will only pray that God’s will, will be granted. As for people crying at a funeral it is only natural if you loved that person and you feel they will be missed in you earthly life. I believed very much and still do that my father is in heaven. I still miss him.

Yes, I did cry when he died. Only because I felt God gave us a very short time together. I would not pray for things to be different, because than there is a good possibility that my life would’ve turned out very different.

Like flowers in a field, we each have a role to play in determining the next seasons crop. We take nutrients from the ground and grow and we fertilize and leave seeds for the next season. Sometimes there are weeds that will choke the flowers next to it but sometimes those flowers leave enough nutrients behind for other flowers.

I will say that I was once trapped on the island of Guam when a category 5 hurricane was headed straight to Guam. My kids where in Japan with a friend and my husband was with me.

I was scared and prayed that God would make the hurricane disappear or dodge the island. I also prayed that if it was not his plan to save us that he would watch over my children and see to it that they would be ok and that he would give them the strength to survive an thrive. The hurricane did something that I’ve never seen before. It took a U turn. Do I believe my prayer did it? No. But I believe it wasn’t my time as it wasn’t the time for hundreds of people on the island. God’s will was for the island to be spared.

“This is the sort of nonsense that dissuades discussion with you.”

What? The cosmic synapses? I was just sharing a fun fact. And I was very careful to include the word “potential”. It certainly isn’t nonsense. It’s true. But it was intended as levity, not as some argument I was attempting to make. Tell me it’s not interesting.

And really ET, what special pleadings and custom definitions are you speaking of? That Sir is quite an accusation. I’m very interested in getting that list.

We’ve established long ago that I don’t believe in any mythical gods which have no evidence to support claims about them. Not believing in them doesn’t make me an atheist because they were never gods to begin with. Would you hold up a tomato, claim it as God, and accuse me of being an atheist because I saw no evidence to support the claim?

@dxs “According to the bible, humans destroyed it.” Yeah, and an omniscient being never saw that coming. But it gets worse, Here’s a plethora of scripture saying that God predestined each of us to do what we do. How could that not be the case if God is both omniscient and omnipotent? And yet this supposedly “loving” god holds us guilty of executing his plan, and is so pissed off we did it, even though we couldn’t help it, that he condemns us to eternal torture. And I am supposed to believe that God is love. The Abrahamic god is the most evil form of thought police ever devised by the minds of men.

I suggest folks read the comments at the bottom of your Atheist Bible study link ET.

[mod says] Just popping in to remind everyone not to make things personal. Please remember to disagree without being disagreeable. Thanks!

My response, number 63, is not an answer to the question, but a response to the other 62 responses/answers.

By @ETpro‘s definition, I am an agnostic. If a God exist, I do not know what qualities this God has. Humans have sought to understand the origin of creation since they developed the cognitive skills to ask the question. It seems apparent to me that all current conceptions of a God or Gods are far from what God could or would actually be.

Most notions of God are based upon what people think people are; that is, God is a glorified version of man (usually a male). Any being that is capable of creating the cosmos could not have the intellectual and emotional limitations that we have. Therefore, in terms of their beliefs I am an atheist. However, since I am not ready to presume that our Universe either came from nothing or that it has an infinite existence, I am open to the possibility of a creator.

Whether this possible creator can hear and/or respond to an act of prayer is less important the effect that prayer or religious rituals have upon one’s thinking. One’s beliefs direct the growth and connections of neurons in their brain, regardless of their validity. Performing “magnetic healing” (theosophical, not the use of magnets) or simply invoking a higher power to provide a cure requires that one care about those who are suffering. I believe that awareness of and caring about suffering enhances one’s spiritual connection; in Hinduism, as per Bhagwad Geeta, “The goal of the Human being is to unite the Aatma (soul) with the Paramaatma (The Complete Supreme Reality or Divinity).”

Once again couldn’t sleep at night. Been thinking about this.
I take it that the most important thing in life is free will. A god that answered prayers like a butler a bell would destroy our free will. We would be prisoners to the bible, because otherwise we would risk angering that jealous god that manifests in a way no one can argue with.
Also, if we could pray away death, what would our lives amount to? @Seek_Kolinahr is struggling with her response right now, so I’ll provide the Star Trek reference. There was an episode of DS9 where people trapped on a moon couldn’t die. So they turned it into valhalla, where they fought each other to death every night, only to be revived the next morning. Is that what we would turn into if we could pray away death?

I’ve never known @Seek to “struggle” with a response @drhat77.

I am a strong atheist in regards to the tomato god.

Regarding the question it’s quite simple, there’s a standard attitude toward prayer these days. One simply prays for what they would like to happen, augments it with some form of ‘thy will be done’, and anything that follows is either god’s will, or not and he knows better.

Which of course raises the question, ‘Why bother praying at all?’ I mean, if god is just going to do what he’s already planned, what difference does it make?

This is where they cry back to Genesis chapter 18, at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham pled for the cities, ‘if there are a hundred righteous men, will you spare the city for their sake?’

Abraham, having gotten the nod from god, then continues. Fifty? Twenty? Ten? Sure, god says. I’ll stay my hand for ten.

Pastors use this all the time to argue for the power of prayer. If Abraham had just kept going… maybe those thousands of people wouldn’t have been killed with fire. God has a plan, but the truly faithful can change his mind! He loves us that much!

Of course what Abraham didn’t know, was that there was only one ‘righteous’ man in Sodom.

Since god was omnipotent and all, one can assume he did know this, and also knew that Abraham would be satisfied with settling on a wager of ten, and was just yanking his chain the entire time.

God’s a jerk.

No struggle, sweetie, it’s just hard to type quickly and accurately on a mobile that doesn’t seem to know half my vocabulary.

immature believers see prayer as a request line. Prayer is about communication and relationship.
I have a son who only contacts me when he wants something. t’s hurtful and makes me feel used. I assume God doesn’t like it either when the only time people talk to him is to ask him for something.

I want to add in my two cents on faith, mustard seeds, and mountain excavation, but I’ll really need a keyboard for that. Maybe later.

I have a proposition/question for atheists… within this topic.

Consider for a moment, that all religions may be primitive human attempts to describe recognition of the same intelligent agent that exists beyond them. The descriptions come from a time that modern humans cannot even associate with, so their ways of society seem extreme harsh by our standards. They do not have scientific terminologies to describe the agent, and to make things worse, the descriptions become corrupted over ages, even used as tools to control masses.

Setting all that aside in the perspective that it came from, what about a modern interpretation of a supreme being? What of someone who comes to know a creator being beyond all the dogma that the religulostremists and hard atheists use to justify their positions with?

I get the impression many times, that these discussion/arguments are not so much about debating the validity of a creator, but actually debating the validity of ancient religions. There is a vast chasm between religion and a creator. But many seem to equate the two.

So me for instance… I’ve rejected the dogma of religion as irrelevant. It doesn’t matter. It’s noise on the line preventing me from actually knowing the true creator being. No one can claim the Creator I know is responsible for contradictions in any religious text. So what will you accuse it of? How will you argue against it scientifically when I base my belief in such a being by scientific standards? I don’t know what it is. I don’t know anything about it beyond the small bits of interaction that I’ve enjoyed with it. I will not foist my own dogmas upon it. I will let it come to you on your terms, not mine. But I cannot deny it. Science demands that I acknowledge it. What possible problem could anyone have with me seeking communion with it?

@real I take no issue with the type of theism that states ‘there’s summat out there that I cannot explain, and for brevity’s sake I’ll call it God’.

I don’t do it myself, nor will I. However, this ‘Einsteinian’ belief is ultimately harmless, as long as one treats it to the rest of the world as a belief and not a fact.

That is, you can feel that your cosmic superbeing lives in the sixth dimension and we all exist in a single atom of its eyestalk, but there is no particularly good reason for anyone else to believe it.

…and if I’m completely honest, claiming you have had personal contact with a powerful, multidimensional being that no one else knows about sounds more than a little crazy.

Sure, I get that. Though I would reject “Einsteinian” belief, extra dimensional, and eyestalk atoms as dogma. The being I know interacts with me. Einstein’s didn’t. And no one should misunderstand me when I speak of extra dimensions. That is not to suggest the Creator “dwells” within those realms. It is merely supportive precedent revealing realities unlike our own. They are not imaginary, unless you consider Carl Sagan a fictional writer. These eternities and extra dimensionality are from science. They set precedent for the possibility of an uncaused creator unbound from physical laws.

The eyestalk link was pure fun. But amazing to me nonetheless. I cannot wave it away with a simple, “that’s neat”.

“A little crazy”… well, perhaps I should thank you for that. No shortage of great thinkers who’ve been accused of the same or worse. A very thin thread sits between insanity and genius. It so happens that the greatest minds I’m aware of arrive at similar conclusions.

I just think there is a pretty big leap between ‘there’s neat stuff we don’t yet understand’ and ‘my unique experience was direct contact with god’.

That’s why I try to avoid the G word. It comes with so much baggage that discussion is often tainted from the beginning. You’ll hear me say Proto Mind, or Original Autor, or Creator more than I say G.

But we gotta name it something right? The moment I share my name for it with anyone is the moment I foist my dogmas upon it. Chances are if it ever comes to you, you’ll call it something different than I.

“Stuff we don’t understand”… I don’t claim to understand it. I simply acknowledge it. And the science that supports it is not a unique experience to me. Though my personal interactions with it definitely are.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – Ancient man created the notion of a supreme being in an attempt to to explain the unexplainable. Why did the sun rise in the east and set in the west after traversing the sky? Why does the moon change it’s face? Why does the weather get warm and cold? And so on. So you see, back then it wasn’t about science. It was about curiosity. It was easier to explain things away to some “god” rather than trying to fathom the whole futuristic scientific astrophysicist angle.

“Cry back to Genesis?” Is it possible to be a Christian, believe in God and yet not “cry back to Genesis” or praise Jesus, or pray at all?

I think yes. I believe in God, I am a Christian, but not a born-again Christian. I rarely if ever attend church, I rarely if ever pray, and I know very little about what’s in the Bible (other than “in the beginning,” “revelations” which I learned at a movie, and the Book of Job which I learned about in college philosophy class). Please don’t paint all theists and Christians with the same brush. If all atheists are painted with the same brush, that’s not me. In my “real life” this is NEVER a topic that is brought up, not at work, not with friends, not with family. I barely know my family’s religious beliefs and I only know the religious beliefs of coworkers when there’s a death or a marriage and we talk about ceremonies.

I am constantly on these threads asking if we can all get along. I don’t see why variations on the “theist” question keep popping up over and over and over again.

I assure you @kritiper, the theists of old were not just explaining nature away to justify a G. Many of them believed they had a personal relationship with that being which helped them navigate their relationship with society.

BTW… The sun doesn’t rise and set. The earth moves around it. Weather doesn’t get warm or cold. People do.

I always find it funny when people act as of ancient people were idiots.
I’ve been to Egypt and seen their legacy. They were brilliant.
I think about the basic knowledge we have lost in the last two or three generations. If thrust into their world we would die of disease or starvation because we don’t have the knowledge to survive.
Athiest or theist, I bet the one who stayed kosher during a zombie appocilypse would have a better chance of survival if everything else was equal.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – Ancient people believed that the earth was flat and that the heavens moved around it. It doesn’t matter what it does or doesn’t do now. What mattered when “gods” were invented was what they experienced and thought of it then.

@kritiper “Ancient people believed that the earth was flat and that the heavens moved around it.”

That’s not a religious ignorance. That’s an ancient human ignorance in general. I’ve been over this recently in another thread. The atheist handbook likes to tout scriptures that they say promote a flat earth teaching. But every one of those scriptures is referencing some degree of dream or metaphorical vision, and should not be taken as literal teaching.

Atheists will cherry pick scripture to fit their cause. But their hypocrisy is telling, because on one hand they blast young earth creationists for being too literal… but then commit the same error when cherry picking scripture to fit an argument.

@jca if you don’t pray, then obviously my entire post doesn’t apply to you, and there’s no reason you should be offended by it.

I did not cherry pick anything. I merely shared one of the many lessons I was taught during my own religious years.

@Bill1939 Being truly agnostic seems to me to require making a series of unfounded assumptions. First, it assumes that the probability for the existence of a god is 50%. As in a coin flip, there are only 2 possible answers, heads or tails (or in the deity question, exists or doesn’t exist). And till the coin comes down, we can’t know which we will get but we know the odds are 50/50 (assuming it’s not a trick coin toss). We can actually flip a coin and get an answer. Until we can test for god, so we can never get an answer; so we are stuck at a 50% probability. Personally, I would place the probability for a god far lower than that.

Second, since an agnostic states that not only do we not know, we can not know; agnosticism requires that we rule out any possibility that science will someday provide us the answer of how the universe began, and how abiogenesis occurs by completely natural mechanisms, and the god of the gaps will have no remaining gaps to fill. Conversely, if there is a creator god powerful and intelligent enough to poof the entire universe into existence, shouldn’t such a being be able to prove her existence to us if she someday should choose to do so? True agnosticism requires taking an awful lot on faith, because there is no evidence to support those suppositions.

I do understand your comment about the effect of prayer on those who pray. If it makes them feel better and less uncertain about the future, I suppose that’s OK. As Richard Dawkins has noted, “If something is comforting, that’s great, but it doesn’t make it true. There are people who sincerely seem to think that because something is consoling or comforting that therefore it’s got to be true. That just isn’t logical.” He went on to note an analogy that Steven Pinker first stated, “If you’re being chased by a tiger, it may comfort you to believe it’s a rabbit. But it is a tiger and it’s going to eat you.”

@drhat77 I assure you I did not post this question with the intent of giving you or anyone else insomnia. :-)

With that disclaimer out of the way, I’d like to challenge you to think a bit about your reliance on free will. Our own @nikipedia is a neuroscientist and my understand of her understanding is that our feeling of free will is an illusion that’s an emergent phenomenon of the human brain. She’s not alone in that opinion. Lots of neuroscientists are conducting ongoing studies that are increasingly pointing in this direction. Someday, science will answer that question. What if the answer is no? What if our thoughts are entirely deterministic?

The Bible is quite clear on the issue. God not only knows everything we will do in our lives, he preordained it to be so; and we have absolutely no free will. Furthermore, the same god insists that when we sin we have free will and will be held accountable for it. See. clear as most biblical things are. Just pick the chapter and verse you like.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I’m quite comfortable with the notion that there could be a supreme intelligence. But it is obvious that being, it real, does not intervene in cause and effect.

@DWW25921 wrote early in this discussion that Christians don’t pray for legs to regenerate because you cannot ask God to set aside his own natural laws. He used the example of the sun standing still. But the very book that posits this god he believes in says the exact opposite. Joshua 10:12–13 says:
12 On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel:

Lots of neuroscientists, “Sun, stand still over Gibeon,
     and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.”
13 So the sun stood still,
     and the moon stopped,
     till the nation avenged itself on its enemies,
as it is written in the Book of Jashar.

The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I don’t believe that happened. I also see no evidence—nor has any scientist since the Age of Reason dawned produced any credible evidence—that any deity intervenes in cause and effect. I can’t know what you experienced internally as communion with a deity, but I do know that people all over this Earth have claimed the same from time immemorial and the things they report they learned are in direct conflict with one another. Logic dictates they can’t all be reporting reality. I also know how compelling dreams, waking dreams, sleep paralysis, delusions, voices in the head and such can be. Please don’t take that as my suggesting that you are delusional or crazy. I am not saying that. What I am saying is that our brains are capable of fabricating things that only we experience as reality, but to us they as real as the roads we drive on. So such anecdotal evidence is not credible scientific evidence that can be tested and falsified or proved true by others.

As to what the ancients used God for, there are warehouses full of evidence gathered by anthropologists, archeologists, historians, and geologists all testifying that the ancients did use God or gods as the explanation for everything they did not understand. To state otherwise without proof does not seem reasonable.

I’m tired of explaining it to people who can’t grasp the ungraspable concept of God.

You’ll notice I rarely share personal experiences I’ve had with the Overmind. Not for the reasons anyone would think though. It might be tempting to believe I don’t share because I would get caught up in needing to prove something, or defend something… or suffer through countless rejections from those who have not experienced the same. That’s not the reason I don’t share.

The reason I don’t share is because my experience was for me… not you, nor anyone else. It would be like trying to convey a great vacation. Even with pictures to prove it happened, anyone who didn’t go along with me just wouldn’t get it completely as I got it. And even if we went together, chances are we wouldn’t come away with the exact same perception about it. How then may I share experiences that were never meant for others?

You couldn’t fully share your experiences with me either. At least not to the degree that I would associate with it equally as you do.

I’m really tempted to share. So tempted. But it would serve no purpose.

In addition… From my personal experiences, though it’s not important that I share them with others, what is important is that I walk away from those events as a better person having learned something about myself and my relationship to reality. That knowledge, which could not have come in any other way, is useless if not applied to my daily life. Much of it is in direct opposition to traditional religious teaching. But if I study the event, it often fits perfectly within the realm of ancient wisdom.

Get that. Ancient wisdom is not the same as traditional religious teaching. I feel religion most often butchers the ancient wisdom, bastardizing it to fit a particular dogma or secret agenda. That doesn’t make the wisdom bad. That only makes men who crave power by any means bad.

@KNOWITALL -Thank you for not trying to explain the graspability of God. The majority of my childhood was spent in the grasp so I sure as heck don’t need any more.

@kritiper If you were told and turn your back, that’s all you, no need for me to waste my time.

@ETpro, you wrote “Being truly agnostic seems to me to require making a series of unfounded assumptions. First, it assumes that the probability for the existence of a god is 50%.”

Depending on how one defines the term, the probability of “God” existing ranges from zero to one-hundred percent, at least for me.

“Second, since an agnostic states that not only do we not know, we can not know; agnosticism requires that we rule out any possibility that science will someday provide us the answer of how the universe began…”

Assuming future scientists do answer the question, their understanding would not necessarily preclude the possibility of God’s existence, whether the cosmos had a beginning or has always existed.

Even if some day the mechanisms that led to the birth of stars and the subsequent evolution of energy and matter to the autogenesis of sentient life are fully understood, they would not prove God unnecessary or impossible. Your assumption seems to be that all concepts of God exist within gaps in understanding. Such future knowledge will create cognitive dissonance for many of the traditional systems of belief that will require the denial either of reality or of their notion of a Creator—as they do now. However for some, and I would like to hope I would be among them, belief in a spiritual reality suffusing existence will be affirmed, not shaken by an intellectual grasp of creation. I think that wisdom is more than knowledge and that to fully comprehend creation understanding will have to go beyond a mechanical, Aristotelian perspective of reality.

“I do understand your comment about the effect of prayer on those who pray.”

Brain imaging studies have shown that the act of praying by those who believe in prayer produces brain activity different from those produce by other mental acts or that act of those who do not believe. Also, mental activities have been shown to produce growth in neurons, synapses, the production of neurotransmitters, and increased and/or changed connections of neurons. Prayer or religious rituals have an effect upon one’s thinking and feeling, and that such activities “rewire” one’s brain.

I believe that our perception of reality is a mental recreation and that one’s consciousness exists within an individual’s mental universe. To some degree a correlation exists between what is actual and what one conceives, between what is real and what is illusion. However, at this time correspondence is limited, more so for some than others. Sensations, thoughts and emotions are products of waves of neurological activity that somehow are experienced as a cohesive totality moment by moment. Though the process is biomechanical, and usually all but chaotic, the complexity of neurons and their interconnections produces the experience of a unique reality.

@Bill1939 Understanding origins, if that understanding proves to be natural and not supernatural; would prove god unnecessary, but not non-existent. However, if a god exists yet without ever doing anything, or controlling anything; and that being chooses to remain undetectable and outside spacetime, why should I even care about such a being?

Do you all know that another Jelly has left for good, yesterday, because she got angered from one of the religious questions? Yet they persist. Ironically it was a question put out their to try to point out the irony of the constant arguing, but nobody seems to have comprehended the goal of the person who asked it.

SMH (if you don’t know, that means “shaking my head”)

@jca I don’t think she left because “she got angered from one of the religious questions”. I think she left because some people don’t understand that it’s not ok to post everything you know about someone’s personal life every time you have an argument with them about something. But she is the only person who can say for sure why she left. Please don’t use her to advance your own agenda.

@glacial: If you read what I have always written on these posts, you will see that “my agenda” has always been and continues to be “can’t we all just get along?” I repeatedly say that. Very few times will you actually hear me talk about my religion and I am rarely, if ever, defensive about it (other than saying I’m actually not very religious at all). I said, on another question yesterday, that Fluther is not going to change any opinions on religion. So when you go talking about my agenda, it’s not clear what agenda you are referring to, but read my posts and stop accusing me of things you know nothing of.

@jca You do always say “Can’t we all get along?” You always say that. But what you actually ask us to do is stop talking about religion. Stop asking questions of each other. That is what I mean by an agenda.

I feel that people can, as @augustlan repeatedly says, disagree without being disagreeable. We should talk to each other without abusing each other. Our response to disagreeable-ness should not be for everyone to shut up.

@glacial: OK, keep talking about religion.

@glacial @jca What happened between Seek and I is our deal and ours to work out, but anyone can clearly read each of our posts and see what happened. I’ve apologized on fb twice, offered to discuss it, which is all I can do, so I’m satisfied that the ball is in her court with how she wants to proceed.

My ‘agenda’ is to be me, as openly and honestly as possible. I feel like many people here are non-theists and feel it’s okay to be insulting and mocking of my very personal belief system. Hurt goes two ways and no one’s is more important than another’s. This needs to be a safe place for all of us to be who and what we are, and those who don’t make it a safe place are subject to get hurt like the rest of us.

Live and let live, it’s not that difficult.

I’ve often expressed frustration with Christian apologists in debates when they refuse to engage in actual debate of issues, but keep returning to the same fallacies and circular reasoning again and again. Here is a Muslim apologist debating in the same way. Now it’s a 2:11 hr debate in total, but you only have to listen to a few minutes of the debate to realize that the Muslim, who goes first, is arguing from deeply flawed premises and is relying on circular logic. If you want to listen to the entirety of the debate, you will find that no matter how often these flawed points of logic are pointed out to the Muslim cleric, he simply keeps returning to them. I suspect that when it’s someone representing a faith other than Christianity who is relying on flawed premises, you will be able to pick it up in a way that eludes you when your own belief system is challenged.

I’d just point out that only by constantly challenging belief systems has man gotten from a flat Earth with the Sun, the planets and stars orbiting it and disease caused by demonic possession and witches’ spells to an actual understanding of the heliocentric solar system, germ theory, and antibiotics to treat disease. It’s often disturbing to have our belief systems challenged, but it’s the only doorway to constantly bringing our beliefs closer in line with reality.

@ETpro “Bullying is persistent unwelcome behaviour…”

Debate is agreed upon by both parties of their own free will.

I don’t debate my beliefs. My beliefs are what they are, and they’re not up for debate.

@KNOWITALL Bullying is also against the terms of use of Fluther. I’m not sure whether you are referring to one or both of the participants in the link I posted, or to someone here who you feel is bullying you. If it’s the later, flag it and the moderators will deal with the bully. Of course, it’s also possible to claim that when anyone questions a statement you make or points out a flaw in your logic, that’s bullying. It is not unless it is done in an abusive manner.

@jca You’re certainly have the right to decide that, but it does substantially lessen the likelihood that, if you hold a belief that is in fact false, you’ll ever learn of the error.

@ETpro it’s not necessarily faulty logic. It’s a different axiomatic set. When compared to the axioms you hold, the axioms of theist in organized religion seems large, unweildly, internally inconsistant, and perhaps oppressive. But people operating of of differnt axioms will never come to the same conclusions, especially if their logic is sound.

@ETpro: If it’s my belief in God that you are referring to, whether or not it’s faulty won’t be known until the day I die. No debate on Fluther will prove it or disprove it.

@ETpro I feel sorry for the Muslim. Crouse is a jerk and a bully.

@jca No, I was referring to beliefs in general. I agree that at the moment we can’t either prove or disprove the existence of a god or gods. But I suspect you would agree that we can, with a high level of confidence, dismiss some claims men have made regarding deities. For instance, I expect that you and I and most of us on Fluther would be relatively atheistic regarding Poseidon actually creating all tidal waves, or Ra being responsible for moving the sun across the sky in a horse-drawn chariot. Bearing in mind that man has proposed thousands of creator deities, all of them mutually exclusive, wouldn’t you agree that some claims for a deity are less credible than others?

@KNOWITALL I thought Dr. Krauss was the more gentlemanly of the two, and the Muslim claiming that there are no honor killings, they don’t behead people for apostasy, blasphemy is completely tolerated under Sharia law was blatant lying. Of course, the audience loved it because they were predominantly Muslim.

Here’s another debate, this one between Lawrence Krauss and a Young Earth Creationist. Links are part one, two and three and each is around 11 to 15 minutes long. The creationist relies on the same sort of distortions of quotes, appeals to authority, circular logic and such that the Muslim employed, but he’s using it to prove, scientifically, he claims, that the Universe is only 6,000 years old, and that almost all scientists agree with that claim.

The playbook is pretty standard. Both these men went into their quest for knowledge convinced they already knew ALL the answers from their favorite ancient book; and all they concerned themselves with in searching was in finding ways to prove their preconceived notion right. Any logical fallacy, appeal to authority, circular reasoning, selective use of data and such that gave them the answer they were looking for, they adopted. That’s the exact opposite of the scientific method.

@ETpro Really?! Wow, we are worlds apart on that one.

@ETpro, I am certain that eventually, via the evolution of our or some alien intelligence’s understanding, the origin of the cosmos will prove to be natural (albeit requiring dimensions greater than the familiar four, or not). I see no reason for you or anyone to care about a supernatural being. I also see no reason for anyone to care whether others care about one. Belief is only relevant to the believers.

A problem with thinking about a creator is that it requires accepting the duality of creator/creation. To my way of thinking, they are one and the same. Recently a Fluther provided a link to an image of clusters of neurons and galaxies that suggests the possibility that our solar system might be little more than an atom of a molecule within a cosmic neurotransmitter. Silly, perhaps, but if so, then we could be a necessary, though insignificant, part of a thought passing through a cosmic consciousness.

I am less inclined to believe in a supernatural being than I am a spiritual field that permeates existence. I imagine that the orientation of an individual’s consciousness within this field determines whether one’s choices are primarily self serving or directed toward serving others. Free will, existing within the space of one’s mental universe, is derived from the thoughts and feelings that are less focused upon one’s desires, their wants and felt needs, than the recognition of the needs of others. The desire to mitigate others’ sufferings does not arise from one’s animal nature, but from their search for the transcendency of love. Perhaps this can be accomplished without having a belief in God, but for many such a belief, even if it is purely fiction, is a starting place for their search.

@KNOWITALL I’m not at all surprised.

@Bill1939 I’m not certain we’ll ever understand the origin or eternal nature of the Universe, but I agree the probability that we or some alien intelligence will is extremely high. In fact, being as out Universe is almost 13.75 billion years old with the first planets forming about 12.8 billion years ago; and given that our own solar system is just 4.55 billion years old; other habitable planets may have had more than an 8 billion year head start on us. There is a very good chance there are life forms out that far advanced over us.

Regarding the interesting graphic comparing an neural network and galactic cluster, @RealEyesRealizeRealLies posted that. It’s classic pseudoscience suggesting somehow that correlation equals causation, which it does not. There are fundamental laws of fractal mathematics that govern the growth of complex structures in this Universe. The affect how galaxies are formatted, how galactic clusters are formatted, and how neural networks are formatted. But I could easily search around and find a graphic of pond scum or a mold culture governed by the same fractal math, and therefore reflecting the same sort of pattern. I should certainly hope that that would not lead us to conclude that pond scum and mold cultures are among the greatest intelligences in the Universe.

I agree that a spiritual or super-intelligent field that is the Universe itself seems more plausible than the idea of a supernatural, eternal being existing outside spacetime. But despite how real and compelling it feels, free will may well prove to be an illusion. We may be entirely deterministic creatures. And whether we are or are not, animals display traits of altruism. Serving others is not a trait confined to humans alone. It is common among social species being more likely the more intelligent the species is. It’s also sometime seen among solitary animals and even happens cross species. We all know humans feel compassion for other species and often work for their benefit, but we aren’t the only lifeforms on Earth that do so.

@Bill1939 – You make a good point about whether people care or not and whose business it might or might not be. It’s all of those wasted resources spent while do that believing that really gets my goat.

@ETpro, I agree that we are not the only animals that exhibit compassion, and this suggests that an aspect of biological nature creates the ability for emotions and empathy in many creatures. Some may be capable of conceiving a creator and might even ‘pray’ to it.

It has only been in recent years that science has been willing to consider animals other than human to have the intelligence to reach this level of self and other-consciousness. My statement that ”[t]he desire to mitigate others’ sufferings does not arise from one’s animal nature” reflects an unconscious emotional bias that intellectually I reject and regret having said it.

I believe that “fractal mathematics” “govern the growth of complex structures” and that it exists at micro and macro scales, and I agree that it is unlikely that pond scum has an intelligence equivalent to ours, much less superior. However, I do not see how I might have suggested that the similarity in the images that @RealEyesRealizeRealLies provided was a correlation or causation. My fanciful conjecture should not be taken literally.

If we are “entirely deterministic creatures” then the tenants of some traditional religions that claim our lives are preordained would be true. However, I would rather believe otherwise.

@Bill1939 You underestimate human ability to take fanciful conjecture literally. :-)

I’d rather believe I have free will as well. And if I were to learn that, by knowing at an incredibly fine granularity, all the initial conditions one could predict what I was going to think or do next, so long as I didn’t have access to the prediction calculator, it wouldn’t change how I function. If I did have access to the calculator, I’d set about decompiling it’s instruction set so I could reclaim my free will. Ha! That out to fry the determinist’s noodle.

I think only fundamentalists have no doubt whatsoever.

@mattbrowne That’s kind of what ‘faith-based religion’ means lol

@ETpro, on the same page as your link was this one that seems to make the issue of free will versus determinism moot. It is an hour long, but worth watching

¤

@Bill1939 I will watch it, but even without doing so, I agree it is moot. The utterly stochastic nature of quantum mechanics and the number of initial conditions that would have to be calculated seem to me to make it so.

@Bill1939 & @RealEyesRealizeRealLies Thanks for the links. In return, check out the fractal behavior recorded in this TED Talk by Swiss artist and photographer, Fabian Oefner. More things that show brain-like structure but probably are not sentient. They are, however, fascinating, beautiful and thought provoking.

Thank you. Will check it out. Though I’m no stranger to fractals. They play a huge roll in my code rap. Fractal patterns are often mistaken as codified information. Many speak of each synonymously. However, the reality is that fractals and code are practically polar opposites.

Dawkins is fond of accusing theists of claiming fractal patterns are “apparent design” in the universe. I agree with him completely on that point. Fractal patterns do not qualify as any form of design. But by the very same standards, I accuse the church of Dawkins of claiming “apparent information” within fractals. There is no code or information within a fractal. Therefor no information can be communicated to humans. The universe does not speak.

Fun that Fabian is an artist photographer… like me :)...

I’m working on my own art photo project which illustrates exactly what I’m talking about in the previous post. The subject is code & chaos… illustrated by pavement and spray paint. The pavement is laid down much the same as the universe. It’s completely random with no design beyond the intention of laying it down. But no one predetermined the position of each rock. It’s easy to recognize genuine code that’s been laid atop it from an author desiring to communicate intentions to others. In this case, an engineer was authoring his thoughts to his work crew. It just so happens that the pavement looks like galaxy star clusters.

Sample 1

Sample2

Sample2

These are three of dozens. It’s an art show I’m working on specifically to address the issue of comparing genuine information with the apparent information Dawkins and physicists are so fond of conjuring up out of nothing.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Those are fascinating images. But if we can set aside quibbling about what word to use for the underlying constants to produce the apparent structure of the “Life, the universe and everything.” then it’s the underlying constants physicists are interested in understanding, and that’s all they mean when they talk about information. If you think Dawkins is guilty of a special pleading for some grand designer, you have read him as backwards as is humanly possible.

No sorry. I don’t think Dawkins is pleading for a grand designer at all. In fact, as you say, that is backwards to his beliefs.

My point is genuine vs apparent information. How do we know? Dawkins makes a big deal out of that suggesting Paleys watch could have happened by chance. But I’ve undone him. It’s quite simple to figure Paleys watch is an artifact of sentient creation. Not by looking at it as Dawkins does. But by acknowledging the code that instructed its build before it existed. If we don’t have a code, then we don’t have genuine information. It’s “apparent information” no more valid than any other physical constant. But when we do have a code, then we have genuine information, and must infer sentient authorship.

Allowing physics to hijack the word is every bit as erroneous as allowing creationists into the science class. Let’s play fair now.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies The watch is a metaphor. No evolutionary biologist in their right mind ever suggested watches evolved by natural processes. Just as creationists use the watch as a metaphor to compare to the exquisite design of an eagle’s eye or a human’s brain, Dawkins is using it to show how things of exquisite design arise over deep time from entirely deterministic processes. The evidence for natural selection now is as powerful as that for the law of gravity. Yes, there are subtitles like Relativity that modify Newtonian Physics a tiny, tiny bit. But even those have been factored in, and the results become ever more predictive. To deny all that evidence just because you want something else to be true is to turn back the clock to a day when witches flying on their brooms darkened the sky just before sunset and they were the sole cause of disease and crop failures.

We’ve danced around this special pleading of the words code and information long enough now. I tire of the dance. I would just ask that you tell me what new understandings, what things that actually work, your special definitions have produced. You are up against competitors like an understanding of the motion of the planets, the trajectory of projectiles, rocket science, radio, television, cell phones, GPS, X-rays, MRI, the germ theory, antibiotics, resistant germs, etc. If your special understanding of the word “code” and the word “information” lead to way more than those misguided physicists, biologists and medical researchers have given us, then let’s here about all the revelations. What has it predicted that actually worked?

@ETpro “If your special understanding… What has it predicted that actually worked?”

I’m glad you asked. First, it’s not my personal “special understanding”. I adhere to principles and definitions set forth by Purlwitz, Burks and Waterman who wrote the formal definition of code. I adhere to the definition of information set forth by UNC School of Information and Library Sciences. All of which adhere to Claude Shannon’s Information Theory… Which as you may know, is responsible for everything computerized in the modern era. That’s what’s “worked” for one_.

Nothing techno in your modern life would be possible without Norbert Weiner’s Cybernetics, who specifically states that information is NOT energy or matter.

Nothing in genetics would be possible without Hubert Yockey working with Gamov (a Russian Linguist), which recognized DNA as a genuine code representing genuine information. Were it left to Francis and Crick, we’d still think DNA was just another fractal pattern.

So really ET… I’m well supported with the definitions I adhere to. It’s not mine friend. I just acknowledge those great minds who did define it properly, and set the world on the proper path for advancement in the fields they are responsible for. And they are responsible for practically every modern convenience.

So think about the irony here. There are scientists who know absolutely nothing about information theory. And they first called DNA a pattern. And now others want to name any old observable phenomenon as information. So what was true information, was rejected. And what is not information… is now promoted as information. Rather silly and sad to see scientists willingly disrespect the information sciences so boldly… ignorantly. Pathetic actually.

Watch your TedTalks vid again with the photographer Fabien. When he does the smoke in the bottle routine… He doesn’t say “information”. He says “phenomenon”… because that’s what it is. Information wasn’t created until he photographed and described the phenomenon. Physicists would do well to follow Fabien’s good example.

I think you got lost defending your special understanding, and forgot to explain what it has accomplished.

Hi Seek… I thought my references to Weiner cybernetics and Yockey genetics was clear.

Your microwave oven wouldn’t work without cybernetics. Neither your computer or anything else modern electronic.

Nothing modern genetics would be possible either. No GMO and no stem cell research… nothing.

Encryption services from Credit Cards to thumb print iPhone I.D. wouldn’t be possible without Claude Shannon protocols adhering to Purlwitz Burk and Waterman formal code definitions. You couldn’t even get your email without it. Fluther uses it on their sign in.

These things, and everything else in our modern lives are made possible by recognizing and acknowledging genuine code that represents genuine information. They wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Physics is crippling itself by not doing the same. They should have a talk with SETI who uses these same principles to search for a genuine signal amongst the cosmic noise. What physics errantly calls information is noise on the line for SETI. Jupiter is just a big ball of noise hindering communication with our extraterrestrial friends on Zeneble Ganoobi.

And honestly, that’s twice now I’ve been accused of having a “special” definition. How is it special when I adhere to the same definitions and protocols that run the world today? Physics is the only discipline that suffers a completely different definition of information than all other sciences that I know of. It seems like physics has the special def.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Every once in a while, I dip in and try to figure out what you’re talking about regarding “code”. What I’ve come away with is this:

You believe that “genuine” code has a sentient programmer.
Therefore DNA must either have had a programmer, or it cannot rightly be called “genuine” code.
You think DNA is a “genuine” code, and therefore see it as proof of a god.

Do I have this right? Because if so, I think it is really a semantic argument. I see no problem with saying that DNA is “not genuine code”. It still continues to function, regardless of what it is called. Its existence is still not proof of a god.

Hi glacial. I’‘m not the one who recognized DNA as a code. Hubert Yockey was. He mapped the DNA/RNA transcription process directly from Claude Shannon Information Theory.

Nothing else in nature satisfies the Yockey/Shannon protocols. So this is not about my personal beliefs. It’s about acknowledging the science that runs our daily modern lives.

I do not claim this proves a God. I claim it proves sentient authorship. That could be anything from an extraterrestrial, or an agent within our earth sphere that we are unaware of. I don’t know what it is. But I must acknowledge its presence. All codes have authors. No exceptions. And DNA is not some little code. It’s extremely advanced beyond what our best human codes are just now beginning to discover, as a Quaternary package unzipped (yes DNA is literally a zip file) to Binary, and translated to Trinary before protein manufacture.

Believe me… I’m not the one who came up with that. You can read all about it in Yockey’s book Information Theory, Evolution, and The Origin of Life…

“Information, transcription, translation, code, redundancy, synonymous, messenger, editing, and proofreading are all appropriate terms in biology. They take their meaning from information theory (Shannon, 1948) and are not synonyms, metaphors, or analogies.”—
(Hubert P. Yockey, Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life, Cambridge University Press, 2005)—_

DNA was not defined as a code. It was discovered to be one. Bioinformatics allows genetics to proceed in progress.

If you’re interested in comparing the Yockey vs Shannon protocols, here they are.

Shannon protocols.

Yockey Protocols

These are the protocols that run every communication known to man. They are the same regardless if we are discussing on fluther, or sending smoke signals, or entering a key code to get entry to our apartment, or DNA/RNA transcription.

@glacial “Therefore DNA must either have had a programmer, or it cannot rightly be called “genuine” code.”

No. That’s not what I’m suggesting. But I’m glad you laid that out because I can see how one might believe that’s what I’m suggesting. Not at all.

DNA is not a code because it has a sentient author.

DNA is a code because it fulfills Perlwitz Burks and Watermans formal definition of code. It is the smoking gun which demands that we infer sentient authorship.

Read more here from Yockey’s book.

Understand something here. Look at both Yockey and Shannon protocols… The first step is “MESSAGE”. If anyone claims the dumb mute universe can author messages, then science has been dumped on its head with more fundamentalist materialism than any religion ever suffered. That’s just wrong, and should not be taught in science class.

I see what you’re saying… I just don’t see that DNA must necessarily have had an author. I understand that you’re claiming it must have had an author, because a handful of guys I’ve never heard of have defined “code” and “information” in a specific manner. I just don’t see why they have the final word on this subject, nor have you convinced me that they have a good argument for it. You’re giving me an appeal to authority – but no actual argument.

Understand, that as far as I know, all of those “guys” are atheists. All scientific terminologies are defined in “specific manners”... or at least they should be. Beware of those which are not, like how physics has reduced the word information as synonymous with observable phenomenon, abandoning all formal definitions.

@glacial “I just don’t see why they have the final word on this subject…”

Heh, well, without a final word on what words actually mean, nothing could be accomplished. Certainly nothing in the modern digital era. Those blokes are highly respected and you have their research and definitions to thank for every modern convenience.

There really isn’t an argument to be made. Since humans have unlimited precedent which supports sentient authorship of code. There is no other consideration. We don’t find books in the dumpster with their covers ripped away and claim the book wrote itself. We don’t do that because science has never demonstrated a mechanism which can account for that. Saying it is one thing. But demonstrating the mechanism which allows dumb mute cosmos to author messages is something that’s never been demonstrated. Thus there is no reason to believe in such a thing anymore than one would believe in a ghost.

The onus is on the one who suggests the dumb cosmos can author.

“The onus is on the one who suggests the dumb cosmos can author.”

Well, obviously this is where we disagree. You are proposing that DNA must have an author – I don’t see why this would be necessary, and (speaking as a biologist) it seems a pretty fantastical assertion to me. Generally speaking, the person with the fantastical assertion is the one who bears the burden of proving it. I’m not saying I expect you to do that, but you seem to have a lot to say around the subject of codes and authorship, without actually saying why you think it’s true.

Even if I take your word that the dudes you cited are “to thank for every modern convenience”, this doesn’t mean they have any special understanding about whether DNA can arise with or without an author. Perhaps they are wonderful technicians, but poor philosophers. Perhaps they are brilliant philosophers, but wrong on this topic. Regardless, you haven’t shown me what the argument is, beyond simply saying that it must be so. It’s not convincing.

@glacial Can you point to any code that was authored by chaos? And if so, can you demonstrate the mechanism responsible? And if so, are you prepared to admit the dumb cosmos can author code which represents meaningful information? Are you prepared to admit the dumb cosmos can speak?

DNA is meaningful. Forensics will confirm that after your next crime spree.

“A goal for the future would be to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself and how it utilizes this knowledge in a “thoughtful” manner when challenged”.
Barbara McClintock, Pulitzer Prize Recipient.

We already have infinite examples that demonstrate code requires authorship. It’s the only known mechanism. Sure, there could be a black swan out there somewhere. But no one has any reason to believe in such a thing until demonstrated.

The required sentient authorship of code is predictable, repeatable, and falsifiable upon the discovery of another mechanism. So until science does that, then we must attribute the authorship of all codes to a sentient agent. Refusing to do so is like believing in unsupportable myth and folklore.

@glacial ”...the person with the fantastical assertion is the one who bears the burden of proving it…”—

So prove another mechanism which can author code besides sentient agent. That is the fantastical assertion. The sentient authorship is accepted and demonstrated ad infinitum every day for tens of thousands of years. Nothing need be proven there.

Nucleotide = Character
Codon = Letter
Gene = Word
Operon = Sentence
Regulon = Paragraph
Chromosome = Chapter

Do you believe the posited author of this code is currently in communication with members of the human species? And if so, what data do you have to support that?

Thanks @Seek_Kolinahr I was just about to stop following this Q and then you dragged me back in.

I answered that earlier about half way up the thread here… here… and here.

You have mentioned a past personal experience that you have categorically refused to discuss in detail, and hypothesized about the experiences of people living thousands of years ago.

I will restate the question-

Do you believe the posited author is currently in communication with the human species, and if so what data do you have to support that hypothesis?

Sorry I can’t speak for all humans. Doubtful I can answer for you, as you and I are both members of the species.

My mother prefers phone calls. My father prefers letters. My child prefers texting. I prefer email.

Point being, that if some overmind is communicating with humans, I can only be aware of how it communicates with me, and I with it. I have no idea how it would communicate with you, or you with it. Terrence McKenna suggests it communicates through psilocybin mushrooms. I haven’t tried that route yet.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Sorry to have been away from this while it spun on. I’ll just reinsert myself here, and state that lots of people from the ancients forward and in every land have claimed to communicate with some supreme intelligence, but these claims are undermined by the fact that they go on to tell us what the creator being says, and the claims form one group and its specific time are in direct contradiction to the claims of the next. They cannot contradict one another, and in many cases deny the existence on one another, and all be one honest broker or even 3,000 logically consistent beings. Yet the epiphany experiences of those who advocated for Zeus are every bit as genuinely felt as those who claim it’s Thor, or Brahman or Yahweh,,.

Chemists have already grown long strand molecules that self replicate in test tubes. We also find the building blocks of life floating around in space, where they appear to be shaped by entirely natural processes. It is entirely possible that DNA was forged by natural processes and quibbling about how some scientist defined code as different from information does nothing to disprove that. You are making a claim that DNA had to have an intelligent designer. We look out there, and there is no intelligent designer to be found. So theists simply place him outside spacetime and make him eternal and uncreated. That’s special pleading. Such a being is far harder to imagine than DNA arising from natural processes, since whether you want to call is code, schmode or information, order arises out of chaos by entirely natural processes all the time.

I will say this for you, though. Like most dedicated apologists for theism, you really believe.

No doubt… I am a believer, and an apologist for theism. Though I’m just as likely to cut down fundamentalist theists as I am to expose questionable scientific method.

I can’t speak upon anyone else’s God. I cannot share mine with anyone. Not that I wouldn’t if I could. But I literally cannot explain it. I cannot speak it. And you wouldn’t get it if I did. I can only exhibit how it manifests in my life on a daily basis. I’ll give you a clue though… The G I know doesn’t mind me having a drink, or dancing, or gambling, or poking fun at priests and religions. The only thing my G has a problem with is lying to myself and others. There are many ways to lie. Sometimes we don’t even know we’re doing it.

Self replication is not life. Building blocks are not life. But combine those phenomenon with information, and you might get life out of them.

I have to commend you all for having such a polite and respectful conversation on a topic that often gets out of hand and leaves participants angry. Would that we could all do that on any topic. Congratulations.

@Sunny2 We certainly could do that on any topic. And while we are discussing it, thank you @RealEyesRealizeRealLies for calmly and politely answering questions about your beliefs. I, for one, find them very interesting, even if I do not agree with you.

ET and I, and Rarebear have been discussing this topic for over five years now on fluther. We’ve gotten past a lot of the BS. I actually consider them friends, and have had many private conversations with both about our hobbies, carriers and interests. Rarebear and I go back a few years earlier debating this topic on another forum. And I think Seek has been in on this for a few years now. But actually, even at the beginning, I don’t think we ever gave one another much trouble. That’s not to say we don’t have sensitive BS meters that we fire off at others who make outlandish claims without having applied critical thinking to their belief system. We all do that… and should. But regardless of agreement, or disagreement, I think we are all able to at least respect someone else’s view as long as they have put due effort into critically developing it.

This one topic, and its variants, over the years, may have made fluther one of the most well balanced sites on the web for discussing origins. I debate on other forums. But the best discussions are always here. It should occur to anyone that some of us may be using fluther as a practice matt to sharpen the debate wit in other more official arenas.

Ok sorry, but back on topic I have some serious issues that cannot be dismissed.

First…

To those who believe the universe has somehow spoken, accidentally, and continues to do so by listening to itself and authoring more codified information to evolve the double helix… Do you not find it interesting that 1st John says… “1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… 14. and the Word was made flesh.”?

Same goes for Bhartrihari’s Sphota Theory of Lanuage where ”...cognition and language at an ultimate level are ontologically identical concepts that refer to one supreme reality, Brahman.”

This is my creator being folks. It is a pure linguistic entity.

If I told you that a rock spoke to me, would you think me mad? I assume you would based upon years of conversation. But you literally ask me to believe that rocks can speak. You wouldn’t believe that one rock said hello to me. But you suggest that I believe that if enough rocks get together that they can author a basic primitive half million letter DNA chain as a transmitter and construct an RNA receiver mechanism… along with all the communication protocols necessary including redundancy, error correction, noise reduction filters, and a quaternary code which speaks to a trinary code… and is so advanced that it can evolve itself into higher degrees of complexity based upon reaction to external pressures, to the point we can argue discuss the issue here with one another.

That’s far beyond “hello world”. The moment you require me to accept such a notion is the very moment that I must accept ancient myth and folklore of talking trees and whispering streams… babbling brooks and burning bushing that instruct Moses to go postal on the Egyptians. That’s what you’re ultimately suggesting… and every one of those messages is far simpler than that.

My linguistic creator being does not require physical agent to exist. It does however use physical mediums to be known and communicated to physical beings. That’s a requirement of ours, for we cannot communicate meaning without a physical medium to express that meaning upon.

Do you know about Platonic forms? A chair is more than the physical item that you sit upon. There is an essence of chair-ness which envelopes all chairs. No chair may manifest without the essence of chair-ness to physically manifest it upon. I call it the spirit of the chair. And when I say spirit, I’m talking synonymously as a Platonic form… and synonymously as a thought. Yes, thoughts and spirits are identical agents labelled by different disciplines. Minds and souls are identical agents labelled by different disciplines. Minds consist of many thoughts. Souls consist of many spirits. Same thing. No one has ever seen or touched either.

My linguistic creator being is the overmind. It does not suffer physical constraints. Call it God if you wish. I only use that term out of convenience or sarcasm. The subjective meaning of “God” is so loaded with preconditioned dogma that I try to avoid it altogether. That word does not convey what I have come to know and understand. I don’t actually believe any word can do that.

Heh… when I say “you” in the above post, I’m literally speaking to the Platonic Form of atheists. I’m not speaking to any one individual atheists. I’m speaking to the “spirit of atheism” (haha you heard it here first folks LOL).

I’ve been having these conversations with the Spirit of Atheism for decades. We’re old friends. It speaks through individual atheists. It always says the same thing no matter who it speaks through. It’s nowhere near the indecisive pussy that the Spirit of Agnosticism is. The Spirit of Atheism has some teeth. And that’s a good thing.

That should give you a clue as to how the overmind speaks to me. Don’t blame me for listening to it through you.

I’m Aristotelian, actually. The platonic ideal thing doesn’t really jive with me.

^ ; ) at you Seek.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – Yes, you do think a lot more into it than it requires. But, to each his (or her) own.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Your link to Bhartrihari’s philosophy may answer your own question about why John would write, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” and follow it with “And the Word was made flesh…” That idea had been extant in the ancient world for over 700 years when John wrote his verses.

But let’s look at the entirety of John 1:14. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” John isn’t saying that the Word was made flash with Adam, and certainly not with the first prokaryotes. God apparently didn’t bother to tell John there had even been prokaryotes, or that the Earth was over 6000 years old.

I remind you yet again, as an agnostic atheist. I am not saying a deity does not exist. I am not saying I worship rocks. I’m simply saying that your common-sense understanding of the world was forged on the savannas of Africa millions of years ago, when making it to 40 meant you were super old and the major threats were hippopotamuses, lions, hyenas and crocodiles. You and I evolved to make judgments fast, make causal connections fast, recognize perceived patterns fast (right or wrong in that recognition), and cling to conclusions once reached. We evolved with common sense that actually is nonsensical in the Universe we live in; making our Universe quite nonsensical to our common sense. And yet we attempt to apply our common sense to the understanding of all existence.

It may be that there is a guiding intelligence behind the development of the Universe, and it may be there is not. Our 35-year-lifespan understanding is not up to understanding what can and cannot happen in 13.8 billion years. I’m just not going to believe any claim till I have evidence for it. And how a handful of scientists chose to define the word “code” is not evidence.

Evidence?
Well, I guess that’s the crux of our disagreement. For when I see “I love Jill” etched into the side of a tree, I consider that code as evidence of a sentient author. I consider all codes as evidence of a sentient author, for that is the only scientifically demonstrable mechanism which can provide such a thing. Certainly nothing to do with faith.

A handful of scientists?
Would you deny the convenience of our modern lives are attributable to those I promote? Rejecting the implications of their work, and how they define the terminologies they use to describe their work… that is also a rejection of every information science that we enjoy today. Can’t just pick one part to reject.

Savannas of Africa?
Here’s the short version of Terrence McKenna’s rap on how that happened. Only ten minutes, but there are hours long talks on this other places. Basically, our primate ancestors may have been the first schedule one drug abusers with psilocybin mushrooms, whereupon with the proper dose, the monkey comes to hear for the first time… the voice of the aeon. I’m not ready to accept this completely yet. But his argument is compelling. Trust me, there is more to this than this ten minute presentation. I’ll leave your own curiosity to dig up more if you’re so inclined.

Lastly, it’s no secret that Christ is commonly referred to as the second Adam. And I wasn’t offering it as any proof. Simply sharing an interesting cohesion between ancient wisdom and modern knowledge.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies “Can’t just pick one part to reject.”

Why ever not? Must a person be 100% correct, in everything they say, for anything they say or do to be considered valuable? There’s a cliche named for this (throwing the baby out with the bathwater), and for good reason: we don’t usually do it.

We do tend to hold religious texts up to that sort of scrutiny, because we’re told that the author is eternally omniscient, omnipotent, and good. However, we don’t hold humans to those same standards. Humans screw up sometimes.

“Must a person be 100% correct, in everything they say…?”

No not at all. But one should not cherry pick to fit an argument. There must be genuine reasons to reject the fathers of information theory and bioinformatics… other than just not liking certain implications of their contributions. If their contributions have failed us in some way, then isolate the failure and reject or replace. But if their contributions have served perfectly well enough to have no challenges whatsoever, then let the truth of science lead where it may… regardless where it leads.

“We do tend to hold religious texts up to that sort of scrutiny, because we’re told that the author is eternally omniscient, omnipotent, and good.”

Like that… cherry picking a double standard to fit an argument. Some atheists argue against any being that is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent… outside space and time, claiming it must have physical attributes detectable by human instrumentation. Yet others use the same eternal, omniscient, omnipotent characteristics to hold it to a higher standard than human wisdom and understanding. Which is it?

Perhaps you’ve never heard me state that I do not believe in the supernatural. Others here have known me to say that. And it’s true. I don’t believe in the supernatural any more than the most ardent hard marxists materialist atheist ever did.

IF there is a creator, or a God… THEN it is perfectly natural for their to be a creator or God. Nothing supernatural about that at all. Unless of course, as you say, science should “be 100% correct, in everything they say”. I didn’t mean that as a cheap shot. My point is that it would do absolutely no harm whatsoever for science to consider the possibility of a original creator proto author seriously, and pursue investigation of it with all the scientific vigor that SETI uses to search for extraterrestrial life that may or may not be supremely more advanced than humans.

I’d bet most atheists could envision (imagine) an alien life form that is so far advanced beyond human understanding that we may not even be capable of relating to it. But we wouldn’t claim it had magical powers. We’d just accept it and know they had a better handle on controlling reality than we do. They would understand reality better than we do. That’s not so far fetched. They might even explain to us and we still couldn’t understand because of our own limitations. Why would investigation of a creator being be any less imaginable?

Here’s another little 6 minute vid on the mushroom by Terrence McKenna. He describes exactly such a being so advanced that we can’t even see it beneath our own feet. Very interesting concepts.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies “There must be genuine reasons to reject the fathers of information theory and bioinformatics.”

Again, this is nothing but an appeal to authority. I have no reason to believe or even suspect that these people are infallible.

“IF there is a creator, or a God… THEN it is perfectly natural for their to be a creator or God. Nothing supernatural about that at all. Unless of course, as you say, science should “be 100% correct, in everything they say”. I didn’t mean that as a cheap shot. ”

I would never claim that “science should be 100% correct, in everything they say”. Firstly, “science” does not equal “scientists”. Scientists are human beings; science is a process. Scientists make mistakes, they get things wrong, they find small parts of larger pictures, and sometimes misinterpret them. Their findings are peer-reviewed, and through that process, a very large part of the bad work is thrown away. Through lack of citation by others who do better (or even just current) work, a large part of what’s left of the bad work is thrown away. The rest eventually gets replaced by what we agree is good science. This is not a clean process. This is not a perfect process. Over much time, people who work in a scientific field reach a general consensus about certain things, while other things continue to be worked out. In this way, we make progress.

Neither “scientists” nor “science” are 100% correct. You don’t need to take a cheap shot to say this. But we do work towards a consensus about what is known and not known. We’ve learned a hell of a lot. That consensus is a powerful thing, much, much more powerful than people who talk about “controversy” on topics like climate change and evolution realize. There is no controversy on these topics, not in the way that deniers like to think.

You have a very vivid imagination, and perhaps one day some of the things you imagine will be shown to be true. But nothing you have said here even points towards a means of showing that it is true. And that’s what science requires. Until you can show it, or even devise a method by which it might be shown, this is all just pleasant talk.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I’d chime in, but @glacial has said what I would say. I remain ready to be convinced, but have not seen anything convincing.

Wait a sec… My references to information theory and bioinformatics consensus is an appeal to authority? But when you say “we do work towards a consensus about what is known and not known”… that’s not?

I don’t believe my references are an appeal to authority. None of them have made any statements about origins whatsoever. That’s the model every appeal to authority fallacy must follow. They haven’t spoken on origins.

What have I said that deserves the label of “vivid imagination”? Not that I’m complaining… the same was said of Da Vinci and many others. The fact that I acknowledge what science has discovered doesn’t mean my imagination is vivid.

Ok @ETpro and @glacial… You want convincing? What evidence convinced you that code can arise without an author? I have countless billions examples every day that confirm it is created by sentient authors. That’s what convinced me. So what convinces you that code doesn’t need sentient authorship? And how do you untwist the paradox that demands the mute cosmos has said something… a six billion letter meaningful sentence… individual for every person who’s ever lived?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies “But when you say “we do work towards a consensus about what is known and not known”… that’s not [an appeal to authority]?”

No, it’s not. I’m just describing the process of how science works. If I were to make a statement about a specific finding that came out of that process, you would expect me to be able to provide citations to lead you back to the original work that led to that consensus.

” None of them have made any statements about origins whatsoever… They haven’t spoken on origins.”

I must have misunderstood you, then. Why have you repeatedly brought up these people who defined “code” and “information”, if not to say that they claimed DNA must have had an author?

“What have I said that deserves the label of “vivid imagination”? Not that I’m complaining… the same was said of Da Vinci and many others.”

I find many of your ideas, and your descriptions of them, to be evidence of a vivid imagination. I was complimenting you – indeed, it takes a creative mind to be an excellent scientist. Creativity is a thing to be admired in any field, I think.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Yes, an appeal to authority. You have named a tiny group of scientists who were, indisputably, responsible for seminal work. But that does not mean everything they ever said was true. Look at Linus Pauling and his claims to the benefits of poisonous doses of vitamin C.

Yes, code i see today comes from an author. But you and I have been observing the Universe for 1 Year / 230,000,000 years of its existence, at most. Neither of us knows from our current observations what is and is not possible.

Have either one of you found any contradictions to Yockey quote:
“Information, transcription, translation, code, redundancy, synonymous, messenger, editing, and proofreading are all appropriate terms in biology. They take their meaning from information theory (Shannon, 1948) and are not synonyms, metaphors, or analogies.”
(Hubert P. Yockey, Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life, Cambridge University Press, 2005)

Have either one of you found any challenges to Perlwitz Burks and Waterman formal definition of code?

Has anyone ever claimed Yockey or Shannon protocols were wrong?
Is there anyone in the world using different protocols?

For the subject at hand, none of them are claiming that DNA is sentient authored. That’s my claim based upon evidence that has nothing to do with Yockey, Shannon, PBW, Weiner… An appeal to authority requires that they support my conclusions. I’ve never heard them say anything close to that. My claim is built upon combining their individual contributions, not their approval of my conclusion.

ET “Neither of us knows from our current observations what is and is not possible.”

No doubt. And I’ve heard you recently say (to the effect of) there could possibly be a creator… i’m not quoting you directly. But you have no reason to believe in one until you have reason to believe in one. Fine… you don’t accept my reasons. I can appreciate that.

You’ve also heard me in the past say that I do not deny the possibility of a black swan for code to have arisen by chance somehow. But like you, I have no reason to believe such a thing until I have a reason to believe such a thing.

I’ll leave it at that and bid you both a grateful farewell. Always a pleasure. I’ll only answer back if you have any questions or challenges. I think it’s obvious where the soft line is drawn between us.

Tips hat to @glacial and @ETpro!

Wow! Some can really expound on a subject!
And I stand by my earlier stated definition of what an Agnostic truly is, and I have upgraded it. (“An Agnostic is a semi-Theist who draws all of the same primary conclusions as an Atheist about the existence or non existence of “God” but refuses to draw a final conclusion about that existence.” This is in addition to the standard definition.)
When I first found out about the Big Bang Theory, I was a Catholic in the 8th grade and was dumfounded by what my science teacher was trying to tell us. And who then was telling the truth about science, the universe, and “God?” I needed an answer! But I didn’t want a “maybe.” It had to be black or white, yes or no.
For many years I did consider myself an “agnostic” but it required a certain amount of faith in the religion I had been taught to believe in, that I was now trying to understand as possibly being connected somehow to scientific fact. The inconsistency of the two possibilities was too much of a stretch to be true! So the only option I had left was full-blown Atheism. I needed a yes or no answer and now I had one.
To be really rational, Agnostics can’t claim to be logical scientists on one hand, and believe in the Sugar Plum Fairy on the other. (It takes a lot of faith to be Agnostic!) You can’t have it both ways!
People who believe in God and ghosts are rational. People who believe in God but not ghosts are not. Atheists are rational. Agnostics are not. If there is a God and I don’t believe, what harm can be done? So I might have to change my mind. What Atheist wouldn’t change if the one true God was drug out before said Atheist and was proven to be who he said he was? (Rhetorical questions.)
If a Theist wants to believe, believe! (Just be consistent!)
Same for Atheists.
Agnostics? Make up your mind! Will it be yes or no?? (Again, rhetorical.) Be bold! Be daring! PICK ONE!

I will continue to inform those who question my belief system, of lack of one, because the person doing the asking may be like I was when I went looking for answers. Then they can make up their own minds about where the real truths are.

@kritiper “People who believe in God and ghosts are rational. People who believe in God but not ghosts are not.” Oh no, lol

@KNOWITALL – 76% of people believe in God but only 30% believe in ghosts.

@kritiper Real hard-nosed agnosticism is saying there is about a 50/50 probability of God existing and it is impossible for science or man to ever know whether there is or is not a God. That’s actually about as faith-based a belief system as a human being can adopt. Most atheists do not reject the possibility of a creator god, they just withhold belief till evidence persuades them such a being exists.

“A” in “a“theist means NOT. Theist means believer in a god or gods. I am not a believer in god/s does not mean that I have an absolute conviction that I can feel in my entrails that there is no possibility any god exists. It simply means I am not persuaded.

I am an atheist just as I am an a-bigfootist. I have no proof there is no species fitting the definition of bigfoot. There may be. But I have no proof there is such a species, and lots of reasons to be skeptical, so till evidence comes along persuading me to the contrary, I am an a-bigfootist.

@KNOWITALL It’s rare we agree on a thread like this, but I’m having trouble getting my head around that claim as well. @kritiper If we are talking about the Christian God, Jesus seems to have ruled out the possibility of ghosts. When speaking of the dead he said, in Luke 16:26: “26—And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.”

My problem would be with the portion of Christians who DO believe in ghosts other than the Holy Ghost. But then the same Bible is, in its consistent inconsistencies, full of stories of unclean spirits among mankind and even commandeering an occasional unfortunate. They had no understanding other than ghostly or demonic possession to explain schizophrenia. So ghosts were impossible, but commonly encountered and even cast out by Jesus at the time the Christian myths were written.

@kritiper 30% of people are sincere in their beliefs. 76% lie like a lazy coon dog on a summer’s day.

So approximately six percent are sincere liars?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies and @KNOWITALL- Info was found in “THE WEEK” (The best of the U.S. and International Media, exact date unknown.). Actually, numbers I remembered were a bit off from the note I made on the article. 30% believe in ghosts, 85% believe in God. My Bad. (www.theweek.com)
@ETpro – What you mention about Agnostics is true enough. I find no fault in that if it works for them. But for me, that agnostic “answer” was not good enough, too incomplete, too “unknowable.”
I realize the exact definition of Atheist and how it pertains to me may be questionable. I do not believe in any god, in any way, shape or form. It is just too impossible, too fantastic, too unbelievable to have any possibility of being true. Maybe there is a different word that could use to describe myself that I’m missing.
As for Agnostics, I consider them all to be, as the late Eugen Weber, UCLA , put it in one of his “The Western Tradition” PBS episodes, “philosophical hair splitters” that IMO shouldn’t allow themselves into the debate of whether there is or is not a god since they “don’t know.”
As the person I am, Atheist or otherwise, I can and will make the honest assumption that I can be comfortable with, since that is of the most importance to myself and any other interested seekers of truth that might wish to know this point-of-view.

@kritiper I too got hung up on the unknowable claim. It the issue is unknowable, just exactly how do they know that? There are some pretty severe logic problems with that stance. But perhaps more informatively, just about every great scientist of the past who has deemed themselves prepared to predict what science can never prove has turned out to be wildly wrong. That doesn’t disprove the next such claimant’s assertion, but it certainly casts serious doubts on the assertion’s validity. In the absence of definitive proof, I reject a priori claims. Put them on the back burner and see if they ever boil over.

I think what really gets me about Agnostics is that some (if not all) get too hung up on what they don’t know and forget what they do know. Like “Gee, if I can’t know, why should I keep trying to know? I’ll just forget everything and tell others that they can’t know anything either. And they oughtn’t DARE use their brains to draw a logical conclusion based on what they know or what they think they know!”
Anyone of any POV surely must understand, as I do, that there are things that are unknown, and there will always be these unknowns. Sometimes you have to take a chance. The dice have been rolled! I have chosen to use my brains to bridge the gap, to grasp the most likely truth between the known and unknown.