Evolution versus Creationism

[BasketCase]

I doubt that the majority, at least, of anti-Iraq war protesters were complete noninterventionists who believed that any stuff that interferes in other people's business (like the police system, or even the hospital system (why you are giving that medicine to him? It's his business if he's gonna die without it, not ours!)) is morally wrong. I think that, althrough they were opposed to the war before it, and, therefore, before any repercussions had a chance to begin, they had the brains to predict some of the repercussions.

You just answered your own conundrum with that part I boldfaced.

You're wondering why God doesn't wipe all suffering from our lives? Maybe it's because He knows what the repercussions would be if He did?

One of the more common themes in sci-fi stories (particularly time travel) is that you shouldn't mess around with history because it does long-term damage. That British time traveller who flies around in a phone booth that's larger on the inside than on the outside? You don't see him running around stopping World War II or trying to prevent the evil Daleks from ever being created, because the outcomes from those interventions are even worse than doing nothing. World of Warcraft has this one screwball quest where some superpowerful entity messes with time and prevents the First War between the orcs and humans from ever happening--the result is that both orcs and humans go extinct because the lack of war makes them too weak to defeat a future foe much, much worse than each other (the point of the quest is to prevent the superpowerful entity from interfering in the timeline to begin with). And one of my favorites is a story about an alien race that tries to destroy humanity by going far into Earth's past and crashing an asteroid into the planet to destroy all life upon it. Guess what--those aliens went back in time 65 million years, and the asteroid they smacked our planet with turned out to be the one that CAUSED the human race to come into being in the first place! They tried to wipe us out, and their plan backfired completely.

Seriously, dude, get out of that cancer-causing sun, sit down and read some science fiction.


(The truth is out there..... .....what--bad joke? )

 

[Smidlee]

Don't forget lotteries are designed to have a winner since without them a lottery would eventually fail.

 

[Lone Wolf]

You're wondering why God doesn't wipe all suffering from our lives? Maybe it's because He knows what the repercussions would be if He did?

That's just the old "Mystery card" argument - "God works in mysterious ways" and "we humans can't judge God's actions as Evil because He might know some Good consequences we don't". The flaw in that argument is that it can be used to support not only a Good god whose seemingly evil actions are for the greater Good, but also an Evil god whose seemingly good actions are for the greater Evil.

 

[Flying Pig]

Agreed, 100%. What is the difference between the two statements below, in terms of what we see on this end?

• God, who is omnipotent and who acts in ways that we can't understand, runs the universe
• The universe is run by physics at random

 

[GoodGame]

Agreed, 100%. What is the difference between the two statements below, in terms of what we see on this end?

• God, who is omnipotent and who acts in ways that we can't understand, runs the universe
• The universe is run by physics at random

Well, plainly: we don't see a god, but we do see the physics.
To say that there is a god, and the physics is its action is essentially a hypothesis.
The poser has to prove it if they want journal time.

 

[Perfection]

Creationists seem to love to make huge estimates about the probability of life arising or the probability of the universe being equipped for life. Errors in their argument aside I don't see that as a fruitful argument. It is pretty much an accepted fact that beyond the observable universe space and matter extends perhaps infinitely; an an infinite universe with the same laws as ours no matter what the probability is, we'd show up.

Additionally we do not know, and quite possibly can not know what lies beyond our universe, so if universes with laws that allow for intelligent life are exceedingly rare, it might just be that there are infinite to pick from.

So no matter what the probability is, I do not see the need to posit some sort of God to make it happen.

 

[Flying Pig]

Jut camp out here and hope that Eran doesn't come along - many people do not agree that God is omnoipotent. For example, who thinks that God could make a square circle?

 

[peter grimes]

...who thinks that God could make a square circle?

This reminds me of something that really blew my mind when I first came across it. I apologize for the Off-Topic-ness

The old statement that the interior angles of a circle add up to 180 degrees is what we all learned in elementary geometry. But then you go down the hall to History class, and your teacher goes on and on about why calculating Longitude was such an important problem that there was an arms race amongst different political groups to come up with a practical solution... wherein we learn that 2 lines of longitude intersect the equator at 90 degrees, yet form a triangle when they intersect with eachother at the pole. Yikes! I triangle with more than 180 subtended! But it's OK, because it's non-euclidean. 3 dimensions, wrapped around an oblate spheroid - life goes on.

Likewise, is there a type of geometry in which it is possible to square a circle with nothing but dividers and a straightedge?

 

[Flying Pig]

Taxicab: the science of plooting Taxi routes. Assuming that all cities are vbuilt in squares with roads on the perimeter, a square two moves in any direction is also a circle, since a circle is a shpe in which all points on the outside are equidistant from the centre.

 

[peter grimes]

That's not at all what I understood the problem of squaring the circle to be.

I thought it had to do with generating a square of an equal area to a given circle using nothing but a compass, straightedge, and pencil. In other words, given a circle of area pi(r^2), draft a square with sides L=r.

There exists a method that gets you very close - several decimal points out - but it's not exact. And the reason it can't ever be exact is because pi is the way it is...

Sort of an odd comment from a strict evolutionist!

 

[Flying Pig]

Oh - well anyway, on a flat plane of paper it can't be done by definition, so God can't do it.

 

[Perfection]

sure God can, God can take an infinite number of steps.

 

[BasketCase]

That's just the old "Mystery card" argument - "God works in mysterious ways" and "we humans can't judge God's actions as Evil because He might know some Good consequences we don't". The flaw in that argument is that it can be used to support not only a Good god whose seemingly evil actions are for the greater Good, but also an Evil god whose seemingly good actions are for the greater Evil.

So what? We're only interested in the motives of a kind and loving God. If an argument can be used to support either a good God or an evil God, then it can still be used on behalf of a good God.

Good God, man.

The whole point of the hypothetical exercises I posted in here is this: we can figure out God's motives for doing things simply by looking at our own motives for doing the very same things. After all, as the scripture goes, God created us in His image. Which means He is a reflection of us. I personally don't believe in the Good Book, but that's what the book says, and just because I'm an atheist is no reason I can't run with it and see where it ends up.

So, why does God ignore human suffering? Well, why do YOU ignore human suffering? At those times and places when you can actually do something about human suffering, I mean. I know there have been times in your life when you could do something to help a person in need, but chose not to (that holds true for everybody who reads this). Answer that, and you've answered the same question for God. Many of you who read this will come up with different answers, and that's not a problem. There are several morally acceptable reasons to ignore or permit suffering.


Oh, and by the way--the answer is no: anti-war activists did not "have the brains" to predict the repercussions of Iraq War #2 (you chose your words very badly, in my opinion). Most of their predictions turned out to be wrong. Anti-war activists always predict the worst, and if you predict the same result every time something happens, eventually you're going to be right purely by chance. That's not a prediction. It's luck. Anti-war activists protest wars out of fear of what might happen. They never give any hope that the results of war might be better than doing nothing (as is the case with Iraq). Yes, this is off-topic, but you're the one who opened the door--giving me the right to walk through it.

 

[Lone Wolf]

So what? We're only interested in the motives of a kind and loving God. If an argument can be used to support either a good God or an evil God, then it can still be used on behalf of a good God.

No. If an argument can be used to support two opposite (incompatible) positions with the same degree of sucess, then that argument is meaningless.

So, why does God ignore human suffering? Well, why do YOU ignore human suffering? At those times and places when you can actually do something about human suffering, I mean.

Because I'm not perfect. But isn't God supposed to be perfect?

Oh, and by the way--the answer is no: anti-war activists did not "have the brains" to predict the repercussions of Iraq War #2 (you chose your words very badly, in my opinion).

Ok, doesn't change the fact that they did it because of the supposed repercussions, not just of some bizzare non-interventionism, like you seemed to imply.

 

[sanabas]

It works for the lottery becsue there is one combination that they pick, and one that you do, and 16 million in total. Then if you pick 17000000 you are more likely to win it than not, but OK it's not certain.

The pigeon-hole principle actually says that if there are 16 million possible combinations, and you sell 17 million (or even 16000001) tickets, then at least two people will have the same combination. It says nothing at all about guaranteeing somebody wins. That's just simple probability, if the chance of not winning with a ticket is x (15999999/16000000 in your example), then the chance of not winning with n tickets (17000000) is x^n, or about 35%. That doesn't quite apply for something like a lottery, it applies to buying one ticket for 17 million consecutive lotteries, but the concept is similar.

The whole point of the hypothetical exercises I posted in here is this: we can figure out God's motives for doing things simply by looking at our own motives for doing the very same things. After all, as the scripture goes, God created us in His image. Which means He is a reflection of us. I personally don't believe in the Good Book, but that's what the book says, and just because I'm an atheist is no reason I can't run with it and see where it ends up

So, why does God ignore human suffering? Well, why do YOU ignore human suffering? At those times and places when you can actually do something about human suffering, I mean. I know there have been times in your life when you could do something to help a person in need, but chose not to (that holds true for everybody who reads this). Answer that, and you've answered the same question for God. Many of you who read this will come up with different answers, and that's not a problem. There are several morally acceptable reasons to ignore or permit suffering.

That would be fine if god hadn't just created us in his image, but had actually made us with a similar level of ability/knowledge/etc, so that god had the same handicaps to taking action as we do when it comes to resources, future outcomes, etc. Why I ignore human suffering is because I'm not omnipotent, so I only have limited resources to fix things with, and need to prioritise which ones I attempt, because I'm not omnibenevolent, and so I'm going to prioritise the stuff that helps me more, and because I'm not omniscient, which means there may be all sorts of consequences that actually hurt me, put me in a worse situation which I then can't fix. None of those reasons apply if I am omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent.

I personally don't believe in what the book says either, and part of that is because when I do run it and see where it ends up, I run into insoluble contradictions, a lot of which result from god being omnipotent and omniscient. One other way to remove the contradictions is to say that god has a dedicated policy of not interfering, but if you run that and see where it ends up, you discover that prayer is completely meaningless for anything other than reassuring yourself, that god doesn't actually need to be worshipped, and that all the miracles contained in the bible couldn't have happened, because god doesn't actually interfere.

 

[JonathanStrange]

Darwin for me, too, though opposition to a concept often forces its defenders to clarify any hazy or weak reasoning.

 

[Perfection]

At this point I don't think Creationists help at that. They've outlived their usefulness.

 

[Flying Pig]

The pigeon-hole principle actually says that if there are 16 million possible combinations, and you sell 17 million (or even 16000001) tickets, then at least two people will have the same combination. It says nothing at all about guaranteeing somebody wins. That's just simple probability, if the chance of not winning with a ticket is x (15999999/16000000 in your example), then the chance of not winning with n tickets (17000000) is x^n, or about 35%. That doesn't quite apply for something like a lottery, it applies to buying one ticket for 17 million consecutive lotteries, but the concept is similar.

My mistake

 

[BasketCase]

No. If an argument can be used to support two opposite positions with the same degree of sucess, then that argument is meaningless.

Why do some anti-war activists oppose war? Because of the possible repercussions. And I'm pretty sure you wouldn't consider anti-war activists evil. I don't. Anti-war activists are not evil, they're just misguided.

Now answer me this: why do we have laws--and jails for people who break said laws? Primarily to scare selfish people away from breaking the law. Therefore: why do many potential lawbreakers obey the law? Because of the possible repercussions.

There ya have it, Wolfey. The same argument supports two opposite positions (Good and Evil) perfectly.

Well, why do YOU ignore human suffering???

Because I'm not perfect. But isn't God supposed to be perfect?

No. He just appears to be, from our limited viewpoint. As the old "immovable object vs unstoppable force" reductio ad absurdum goes, there's no such thing as an omnipotent God.

The problem there is that the descriptions of God as perfect and all-powerful were written by people. Nothing personal.

 

[GoodGame]

Why do some anti-war activists oppose war? Because of the possible repercussions. And I'm pretty sure you wouldn't consider anti-war activists evil. I don't. Anti-war activists are not evil, they're just misguided.

Now answer me this: why do we have laws--and jails for people who break said laws? Primarily to scare selfish people away from breaking the law. Therefore: why do many potential lawbreakers obey the law? Because of the possible repercussions.

There ya have it, Wolfey. The same argument supports two opposite positions (Good and Evil) perfectly.

He was saying that it was meaningless. I think it'd better to say that such an arguement wouldn't be convincing to the otherside. Which would hold. E.g. to say "because of the possible repercussions" to both peoples, wouldn't convince the other side to switch positions, which in that context would make the arguement 'meaningless' or at least unconvincing. To tell a warhawk 'because of the repercussions' wouldn't convince them to become a peace-dove, if they felt there were repercussions that supported being a warhawk.