Proving Thor Exist: Reason why the proofs of God fail.

by bohm 52 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  zombie dub

  Why, then, must God (or some other intelligent source) a priori be ruled out as the source of the order we measure in the universe -- the complex informational coding of DNA, the gravitational laws of Newton / Einstein, the orderliness of the elements in the periodic table, and the like?

  These can easily be explained:

  Gravity, physical laws etc - they have to work as they do otherwise the universe couldnt have come into existence, if gravity was a different value the big bang would never have materialised into anything. Why assume there is one universe? There have likely been multiple universes, most failing, ours works because the variables were correct. So by defination, they just work, else it wouldnt be here.

  DNA evolved very slowly over time, nothing miraculous about it. No more miraculous than the technology we have today which also evolved (albeit near-infititely quicker than natural technology)
• 

  PSacramento

  The computer simulation view was discussed and has been used as an exmaple by soem theists to help expalin God, VOx Day is an example and being a games programmer, he makes a very interessting case in his book, the irrational athiest.
• 

  PSacramento

  So by defination, they just work, else it wouldnt be here.

  That is probably the biggest hole in science right now and one that the vast majority of scientists acknowledge and don't feel comfortabel with, hense the various theories trying to justifie it be more than "it just is".

  As we know in nature, NOTHING "just is".
• 

  donny

  I am agnostic as I cannot conclusively prove God or Gods exist, but I am convinced that if there are such beings, they do not interact with mortals. The logic I find difficult is the following, mainly at step #3.

  1. Living organisms are quite complex and could not have just evolved

  2. Therefore something must have created them.

  3. That creator has to be Jehovah/Yahweh/Jesus and he preserved his communications in the books we call the Bible.

  Even if one believes that something made everything we see around us, why does that seem to always lead to a particular Middle Eastern diety?

  If a creator did make all of this, he/she/it surely would have a higher way of thinking and communicatiing than what we see laid out in the old and new testatments.
• 

  hooberus

  These can easily be explained:

  Gravity, physical laws etc - they have to work as they do otherwise the universe couldnt have come into existence, if gravity was a different value the big bang would never have materialised into anything.

  So by defination, they just work, else it wouldnt be here.

  The Book "The Biotic Message" demosntrates why reasoning like the above is not a scientific explanation. The author refers to it as "the tautological anthropic principal".

  Its somewhat similar to the saying "the universe has observable highly improbable features, because if it didn't it wouldn't exist, (and we wouldn't be to here observe the highly improbable features)." -It doesn't explain why it has the hightly improbable features to begin with.

  "Why assume there is one universe? There have likely been multiple universes, most failing, ours works because the variables were correct.

  As ReMine sows this is an explanation (as opposed to the tautological formulation), however it not testable, hense not science according to evolutionists standard.

  http://saintpaulscience.com/contents.htm

  "Shows the anthropic principle is not testable, and so not science by evolutionists' own criterion. It reveals an illusion involving a three-shell game ruse, much like is later revealed for natural selection."
• 

  bohm

  hooberus:

  Its somewhat similar to the saying "the universe has observable highly improbable features, because if it didn't it wouldn't exist, (and we wouldn't be to here observe the highly improbable features)." -It doesn't explain why it has the hightly improbable features to begin with.

  I agree at least in principle, "we exist, therefore these features must have a natural cause" is not a valid deduction.

  HOWEVER read my original post. For this to be evidence for God, one must argue why "god did it" produce a good explanation for these features, as with the case of Thor i would argue the theistic explanations is extremely poor.

  "Why assume there is one universe? There have likely been multiple universes, most failing, ours works because the variables were correct.

  As ReMine sows this is an explanation (as opposed to the tautological formulation), however it not testable, hense not science according to evolutionists standard.

  Lets say you have a theory and from that theory 10 things follow. Now you go out and test if you see these things in nature, and you find that 9 of the 10 predictions are actually true. The 10th prediction is that an infinite number of universes exist... in that case, would multiverses not be established scientifically?

  It is often said (but it is false) that multiverses are introduced to fix fine tuning problems, but thats not the case. they are introduced as a consequence of other theories which explain current observations and make testable, falsifiable predictions about your universe. while doing so they happend to say interesting things about fine-tuning.
• 

  hooberus

  HOWEVER read my original post. For this to be evidence for God, one must argue why "god did it" produce a good explanation for these features, as with the case of Thor i would argue the theistic explanations is extremely poor.

  What is "extremely poor" is the analogy between your Thor existence "arguments", and modern properly writtten theistic arguments. Your first Thor thunder argument is weak to begin with, as little evidence is given (unlike for example a theistsic fine-tuning, or orign of life argument, which use things like probabilities), and it was likely later falsified (unlike theistsic arguments which have not been, despite attempts).
• 

  bohm

  i have teh crazy busies, but mark my word, i will be back tomorrow-ish :-).
• 

  Mad Sweeney

  I'm just skimming this stuff so I could well be misunderstanding. Is hooberus saying that Thor has been disproved but a more general "God" has not been?

  To me it doesn't matter what has been DISproved. Burden of proof is on the assertion of existence. No proof of God, therefore no god. The rest is all just a big semantic time-wasting game. Want to prove there is a God, find him and wake him up. You're not going to do that talking in circles for hours on end.
• 

  bohm

  juhuuu time off! :-).

  What is "extremely poor" is the analogy between your Thor existence "arguments", and modern properly writtten theistic arguments.

  well, thats my point, the theistic arguments are not very sofisticated at all. but do provide me with some of those properly written ones so we can discuss those.

  Your first Thor thunder argument is weak to begin with, as little evidence is given [ofcourse its weak! its wrong!] (unlike [uh-oh] for example a theistsic fine-tuning, or orign of life argument, which use things like probabilities), and it was likely later falsified (unlike theistsic arguments which have not been, despite attempts).

  First off there is a huge scrapheap of debunked theistic arguments, your simply just wrong there. If i may take one example you have given yourself, any argument against abiogenesis which rely on probabilities is wrong (google hoyles fallacy). If you want a more historical example, take basically the huge group of arguments which make reference to the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

  Now, lets take the fine-tuning argument (which i would argue is no mystery anymore). Since its your argument, exactly what things have god fine-tuned and how do you know they are fine-tuned?

  more in line with the opening post, how again does God offer a superior explanation than Thor did to lightning? Does god-fine-tuned-the-universe (GFTU) have any explanatory scope? is GFTU a particular simple explanation? does GFTU have to introduce a lot of auxcillary things which seemingly contradict our observations of the world (angels, intelligence with no brain, timeless being which deside to do things, etc) to make the explanation work? Does GFTU run into other problems (problem of evil, hiddenness, etc.)?

  If you claim GFTU is superior to "Thor make lightning", i wonder what criteria you use...