The ultimate proof of Biblical creation and God

[slowpoke55]

Tinky,

Comfort's argument is a variation of Paley's Watchmaker argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy

The watchmaker analogy consists of the comparison of some natural phenomenon to a watch. Typically, the analogy is presented as a prelude to the teleological argument and is generally presented as:

• The complex inner workings of a watch necessitate an intelligent designer.
  
• As with a watch, the complexity of X (a particular organ or organism, the structure of the solar system, life, the universe, anything complex) necessitates a designer.
  

In this presentation, the watch analogy (step 1) does not function as a premise to an argument — rather it functions as a rhetorical device and a preamble. Its purpose is to establish the plausibility of the general premise: you can tell, simply by looking at something, whether or not it was the product of intelligent design. In most formulations of the argument, the characteristic that indicates intelligent design is left implicit. In some formulations, the characteristic is orderliness or complexity (which is a form of order). In other cases it is clearly being designed for a purpose, where clearly is usually left undefined.

The argument conflates the difference between the complexity that arises from living organisms that are able to reproduce themselves (and as such may change to become more complex over time) and the complexity of inanimate objects, unable to pass on any reproductive changes (such as the multitude of parts manufactured in a watch). The comparison breaks down because of this important distinction.^[1]. In his argument, William Paley describes being on a deserted island.You presume no intelligent being has been there but you find a watch. As you look at the tiny cogs and springs, you get an idea of the watch. A watch cannot design and manufacture itself. It has to have a creator. A watchmaker. Our watchmaker, or world maker is God.

[Tinky]

What does that have to do with infinite regress?

Anyway, it's pretty simple. If you came upon your name written out with seashells on a beach, you'd know instinctively that an intelligence created it. Yet the atheist can look upon the massive amounts of information in the DNA of even a simple cell, or the magnificent complexity of the universe, and claim that it "just happened" all by itself. Sorry, but that's just ridiculous.

Edited October 23, 2012 by Tinky

[Tinky]

Hi Tinky...your argument seems to be that anything that appears to have some degree of organization must be intentionally made by some entity.

Yes. But not in the sense of say, ripple patterns in sand on a beach created by water and wind, or a snowflake created by the same type of processes. I'm speaking about the creation of a universe or biological life. But even still, something as simple as your name spelled out in seashells is enough proof of an intelligence behind it.

While there may not be any problem with having infinite regress

There's a big problem with it. Infinite regress is scientifically impossible, which makes the rest of your argument moot.

Further, if an entity is eternal or timeless then by your logic, such an entity must still have been created due to its design characteristics.

That is ludicrous. You're claiming that because God is eternal, then He must be designed. Being eternal simply means being outside of the dimension of time. You're attempting to place God into the physical, and keep Him there. Being the creator of the universe, He can affect His creation in any way He chooses without being bound by the physical laws He created. If God were constrained by His creation, He wouldn't be it's master, and thus not be God.

[MorningGlory]

I think Ray Comfort said it best when he stated that a painting must have a painter, a building must have a builder, and creation must have a creator.

You might want to re-think that line of reasoning...for one, it leads to an infinite regress: if everything has to have a creator, then a creator must have a creator, recurse as needed.

Wrong; the Creator is infinite, no beginning and no end. He is not subject to our 'logic' nor to His natural laws.

[Guest HisG]

Then that clarifies it - you did pretend to be a creationist when you were not a creationist and then you came clean. Was your "case for creationism" convincing?

I didn't switch anyone, which rarely happens anyway, but you could tell I threw them for a loop. I think I presented creationism well; I remember one of the atheists commented on how well I argued for creationism. At one point the site's residential biologist (evolutionist) had to correct the evolutionist's rebuttals to one of my arguments as my argument utilized correct evolutionary thought while theirs didn't. I'm sure that made an impression on some.

Hey Dee - where have you been hiding? Thanks for the additional insight. Are you now what you present yourself to be on this board or are you still experimenting?

Spot on!

How does one trust you D-9?

That's the downer of pretending to be someone you are not.

[Guest HisG]

The teaching to forgive is Christian yes, correct Viole : )

Discernment is something I pray for a lot - to be discerning in matters.

I can forgive and I can also be discerning : )

[Guest HisG]

Anyway, I'm going to move on from it now - everyone deserves a second chance.

[slowpoke55]

By it's practitioners is the key element here... He's taking about his view of the New Atheists...

Why don’t you actually read what Ruse wrote? Those “practitioners” of evolution promoted evolution as a “secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity” IN THE BEGINNING, ie., the beginning of the Darwinian myth of the 19^th century and in the beginning there were only “old atheists”—the new hacks were not even born.

What you grossly miss is that our traits are inherited…

But inherited traits hardly prove man-chimp common ancestry. You remain very confused. Where is your science?

What you have to show, instead of an appeal to authority quotemine, is how the methods that are used to discover life's past are different than the methods used to discover the universe's past, the methods to discover quantum mechanics, or any scientific endeavor.

LOL – can you actually tell us what you think you might be trying to say here?

You really have selected reading don't you, i.e. Morton's Demon.

[MorningGlory]

I think Ray Comfort said it best when he stated that a painting must have a painter, a building must have a builder, and creation must have a creator.

You might want to re-think that line of reasoning...for one, it leads to an infinite regress: if everything has to have a creator, then a creator must have a creator, recurse as needed.

Wrong; the Creator is infinite, no beginning and no end. He is not subject to our 'logic' nor to His natural laws.

Hey, MG...then why attempt to use logic to argue for the Creator?

What do you mean?

[Tinky]

But as David Hume, I seem to remember, in essence said, you can't necessarily assume that you can generalize from things we know are human-made to things we find in the natural world.

Of course we can know - it's called common sense. An example would be that if you were standing in a desert in Egypt, and all of a sudden a great wind started blowing, and the wind exposed the head of a sphinx, you would know by simple common sense that the action of the wind, even in the past, didn't carve that sphinx. You would know instinctively that an intelligence was behind it's creation.

Why would infinite regression be "scientifically impossible?" And if it is, then that's bad for your argument, I'm afraid.

These reasons come immediately to mind:

1. The idea of a universe birthing our universe, and a universe birthing the universe before it, into infinity, has absolutely no scientific evidence backing it. The theory of multi-universes remains nothing but fantasy.

2. The second law of thermodynamics proves that our own universe is not eternal. In fact, it is heading toward heat death.

3. Our own universe is not birthing another universe. Again, there is zero evidence for it. And frankly, if it were, it would be an argument against infinite regress.

4. You would need an infinite amount of energy to support an infinite regress. Again, the second law of thermodynamics destroys that idea (i.e., "heat death").

Now, you may say that the laws of physics we observe here may not apply in another universe, but the proof of that would be yours to provide.

5. You can't have an infinite if you add any additions to it. (see #3). Meaning, our own universe would not have had a beginning - but, of course, it did have a beginning (Big Bang).

6. And from all I've read, the consensus among physicists is that our universe has an actual end, or a "wall."

If such is the case, then would not a being that can intentionally create complex things be complex? If so, then that being by your logic must have been made

No.

God is not bound by our/such natural order. He supersedes the natural. As it's creator, He must, or He would not "be" God. Again, if God were in any way subjected to the physical laws He created that govern our universe, He would not be the master of His own creation.

Let me add that man has created computers that can calculate far faster than our own brains are capable of. Does that mean, being more complex in that regard, computers are man's master? No. Without programming from man, they are useless. If God were bound by the same laws of complexity we are, we would be on par with God. And so again, He would thus not be God.