A Challenge For You Atheist Apologetics

[artsylady]

Also, how did 2 apes pass along genes to their offspring that they themselves did not possess?

It's possible for two parents, both with brown eyes, to have a blue eyed child, as long as that information is in their geneology a few generations back. I think it gets lost if it's recessive for 4 generations or something like that. I know this information will eventually get lost from the dna eventually if it's not passed down.

But obviously there is no information in an ape's dna to produce wings and never will be there and the evolutionists have a huge problem trying to prove using science, how this kind of thing actually happens. It's based on assumptions, speculations and imaginations but no real proof exists.

[Guest His_Love_Slave]

  At the Science Museum in Rotherham (I think) they have a big exhibit on ALife. Artifically created life. Namely sets of robots.

Their showpiece consists on an enclosure that has halogen lights placed directly above it. And 2 sets of different robots, the Predators and the Prey.

The Prey have solar cells on the top of them, and feed off the halogen lights. The Prey have a plug thats goes into a socket in the Prey. When attached they drain the Prey's battery, thus making them "dead".

They haven't been taught these things by another one. Just a simple set of instructions. Like "light = good" for the Prey, and "Electricity = good" for the Peadators.

Last time I went, the professor in charge of it was excited as they where beginning to display behaviour like herds and preadators attacking together. Totally self taught.

Also whilst at university I attended lectures on ALife, where the professor giving the lecture powered up several "spider" like robots, with a series of legs it could move. It began with no instructions on how to use the legs, but within seconds it had figured out to power the motors in the correct order to move around.

You may wonder what my point is. Well if you take some time out and actually read up about Alife and robotics you'll be shocked at what it can do.

This doesn't even sound logical to me. Obviously, those who believe that robots can "learn" things all by themselves, are gullible enough to believe anything. Where is the proof that peices of metal, plastic, and energy, have the intellect to learn anything? They don't, it's all programmed by the creators of these machines. I call them machines because that's practically what they are.

[TempestTossed]

It was not my intention to hurt your feelings. I do have a bone to pick with this statement though. You insist on saying things that are way off the mark and slanderous about creationists but you get upset when I point it out. You accuse people of faith of believing in magic. That is incredibly demeaning. You have been really insulting toward me and others on this board. If you don't want people to criticize you then don't be ugly with them. I have been really nice about it actually. I'm very careful about making sure I don't personally attack the person; just their views and/or statements.

Thanks a lot! I appreciate it. In return, I'll stop using the word "magic" when talking about God or creaion or ID or whatnot.

I checked your Nature posts. I got the general idea and I've found some comprehensive responses. I'm going to use links because I would have to nearly reproduce the persons work if I were to post it here.

http://informationcentre.tripod.com/abiogenesis.html

http://www.trueorigin.org/originoflife.asp

http://www.trueorigin.org/hydrothermal.asp

http://www.trueorigin.org/abio.asp

That's great. Generally, creationists rebut the examples of the self-replicating molecules by saying that such molecules had to be syntehsized and are not found in nature. That is true, but it doesn't defeat the point that the synthesis of such molecules gives positive evidence that it is possible that such molecules could have arisen through natural processes. If scientists can make them, then it seems to me that a diversely-chemicalled sunlit planet could make them given only a little time with almost no problem at all. There are a bunch more case-specific arguments that creationists use, but since abiogenesis is such a hypothetical and distant part of biology, it is hard for me to imagine what could possibly shoot down the whole idea, kinda like Intelligent Design. It seems to me that all the evidence that is needed is a slight possibility that abiogenesis could happen, and that possibility is provided by synthesis of self-replicating molecules. Then it doesn't matter if the possibility is somewhat small, because in the eyes of science it will be more likely than a supernatural agent.

I'm sorry to use a post as aggressive as TrueOrigin but it's one of the places that addresses this issue. When they talk about evolutionists they are not talking about you; keep that in mind. They are talking about the flaws in the arguments of evolutionary biology and then the evolutionists acting as they've proven their point and they declare victory. Then when creationists criticize they get called lairs and ignorant ect. The sensitivity comes from specific and repeated experience with the evolutionary biology community. Here is a link to demonstrate my point.

http://www.rsternberg.net/

Please give that an attentive read. You'll be shocked about what happened.

I know about the circus with Dr. Richard von Sternberg, but I am not shocked. It is hard for me to trust members of the Discovery Institute. Unlike normal scientists, they have a political agenda that motivates all of their doings that they try to keep hidden ("Wedge Strategy"). Getting academic articles published is part of that agenda. Since Sternberg's article was removed upon peer-review, he cried persecution and acted like a martyr. I don't know how truthful he is with his claims that he was discriminated against for his religion or whatever. Maybe he is honest or maybe he isn't. I just don't take his word for it, because he belongs to the Discovery Institute and his supervisor had an entirely different story about the whole thing, which he posted on Panda's Thumb (here).

[TempestTossed]

You've just let the cat out of the bag, because you've shown that your goal has nothing at all to do with truth, but everything to do with "proving God doesn't exist". Its sort of wierd, but most of my "science" classes that I can remeber from as early as grade school were obssessed with that task. None has ever succeeded.

I gave up trying to prove that God doesn't exist a long time ago. Nobody can ever prove that God or any other supernatural entities don't exist. That is what supernaturalism is all about. The best that any atheist can ever do is model the universe and show that there is no necessity for God, and that model is well on its way to being completed. Even that would not show that God does not exist. You went to the wrong science classes. Science deals with nature, and it isn't even supposed to touch the question of God.

No human being has ever observed a self assembing, self replicating, or self organizing system, that can be proven to have an origin other than a pre-existing intelligence. As a matter of fact, other than life itself the only such systems that are known are of human origin; designed by intelligent beings.

i.e.

A traffic system is self organizing. However, it was designed by an intelligent being and is partly composed of intelligent beings.

I challenge you to show such a system and PROVE that no intelligence was behind its origins.

I would point to all life on Earth as fulfilling such requirements, but I can't prove that intelligence was not behind it. I can't prove that a supernatural entity didn't just pull it out of his top hat. I have no examples besides Earthly life, and that is a point for you, congratulations. Edited October 3, 2005 by TempestTossed

[Guest ThomasIsUnderrated]

Also whilst at university I attended lectures on ALife, where the professor giving the lecture powered up several "spider" like robots, with a series of legs it could move. It began with no instructions on how to use the legs, but within seconds it had figured out to power the motors in the correct order to move around.

But they were created and programmed by an "intelligent being" to be able to "learn" by T&E and accomplish a certain objective, so what exactly is your point?

Edited October 6, 2005 by ThomasIsUnderrated

[nebula]

I gave up trying to prove that God doesn't exist a long time ago.

[nebula]

Does not the theory of Relativity, one of the keystone theories of modern and post modern physics, doesn't the first postulate state that its impossible to prove that any object is at absolute rest? But that it can be said to be at rest in its own reference frame? Therefore, from within the earth's reference frame, which all of us are in, the earth is actually at rest, just as you observe, and everything else orbits the earth, just as you observe when you look out your window. Relativity therefore shows that it is no more favorable to say the earth orbits the sun and rotates, than to say the sun orbits the earth and the earth is at rest in its own refrence frame.

Atheists are fond of trying to fool christians into overlooking this fact, but anyone who understand's Relativity knows this. Further, the earth IS the center of our observable universe, even according to properly applied relativistic principles.

WSB - That was brilliant!!

[TempestTossed]

Does not the theory of Relativity, one of the keystone theories of modern and post modern physics, doesn't the first postulate state that its impossible to prove that any object is at absolute rest? But that it can be said to be at rest in its own reference frame? Therefore, from within the earth's reference frame, which all of us are in, the earth is actually at rest, just as you observe, and everything else orbits the earth, just as you observe when you look out your window. Relativity therefore shows that it is no more favorable to say the earth orbits the sun and rotates, than to say the sun orbits the earth and the earth is at rest in its own refrence frame.

Atheists are fond of trying to fool christians into overlooking this fact, but anyone who understand's Relativity knows this. Further, the earth IS the center of our observable universe, even according to properly applied relativistic principles.

I have never heard that angle. The geocentric model actually does not make sense according to the theory of special relativity. The first postulate of the theory states, "The laws of physics are the same for all observers in inertial frames." But the Earth is not an inertial frame. Inertial frames are that which are not accelerated by external forces. The Sun is applying gravitational force on the Earth and causing the Earth to accelerate in an elliptical orbit. The Sun is in an approximate free fall and would count as an inertial frame in the vicinity of the planets.

We think of the Earth orbiting the Sun instead of the Sun orbiting the Earth primarily because that is the most sensible way to make sense of the solar system. Regardless of which model we use, each of the planets and asteroids have their elliptical center point on the Sun. The Sun has a greater gravitational say in the matter. In a geocentric model where the Sun disappears, all relations to the planets are lost. But in a heliocentric model without the Earth, the Sun simply doesn't care and travels as it did with the Earth. It really does make better sense with the heliocentric model. If you assume that the Bible gives a geocentric model, that would be like saying that the protons and neutrons orbit an electron. Not even with Newton's or Einstein's relativity principles can you get away with that. But you can forgive the Bible for having a geocentric model since everyone thought the Earth to be center of the universe at the time, and we still use geocentric language such as "sunrise" and "sunset" despite our modern knowledge.

Lastly, according to modern physics, there is no center of the universe, so it would be meaningless, if not false, to say that the Earth is the center. I might even call it nonsense since the Earth is orbiting the Sun which is orbiting the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Edited October 6, 2005 by TempestTossed

[nebula]

Tempest - you missed my questions.

[TempestTossed]

WhySoBlind, I am not attempting to compete with you, and I don't want it to turn into that. You may correct me, but please don't get condescending. You may know more than me about relativity and physics, but that doesn't matter. You at first made your argument from the first postulate of special relativity, but I suppose you mean general relativity instead, because your argument does not involve inertial frames. Please try not to conflate the two. If we talking about general relativity, then your argument does hold, at least in a mathematical sense. I was incorrect in that sense, because, yes, you can validly say that the nucleus of an atom orbits an electron if you wanted to, only it wouldn't be a useful reference frame for studying atoms.

Anything can be chosen to be at rest. Sure, the Earth can be chosen to be at rest with respect to the Sun and planets using the general principle of relativity. However, it would not quite follow, as you stated previously, "from within the earth's reference frame, which all of us are in, the earth is actually at rest, just as you observe, and everything else orbits the earth." Only the Sun, Moon, and human satellites would orbit the Earth in a geocentric model, and the rest of the planets would still have their elliptical foci on the Sun. You can say that the Earth is at rest, but it wouldn't be a useful reference frame for understanding the solar system, nor would it be true that the Earth is at the center in any geometrical sense.