#4: Is intelligent design a viable argument for the existence of God?

[Heavenly Spoon]

The universe is not perfect, out the millions and billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, each with a lot of planets orbiting them, there is at least one planet suitable for life like this. I don't call that "perfect", and neither should you.

And morals have NOTHING to do with the validity of your believes, I've said this before.
The money spent on war is way too big, I'll admit that, but the government SHOULD have nothing to do with religion, so I have no idea what you're getting at.

I'll find you the quotes in the Qu'ran some other time, I don't have the time ATM. But give me one good reason why a book written by a man 1400 years ago, who had little to no scientific knowledge, would be more believable than, say, "The Hobbit".
A book is nothing without evidence backing it up, and the Qu'ran, as well as the Bible, has none. If you love science so much, you should see how believing in these kinds of books conflicts with the scientific method on so many levels.

I don't have much time, all I can say is: READ. You're repeating old and already largely debunked arguments, and ignoring all of my arguments, and I mean ALL. I don't think you're even watching most of the vids, only the funny ones.

 

[Ka$h Money]

LOL you think I am just watching the funny videos??? Gosh you crack me up.


Democracy: Wasn't you the one to bring it up? I forget but it had a meaning

I bet you, you can't find that quote XD

I don't believe the Quran is writtin by man. If it was, can he have 'imagined' everything up? Could he have predicted many things if he was uneducated? Everyone of those ages had little scientific knowledge, yet if you can find me that quote then you are right


Finally I say you READ, I am not going around your arguments. I am the only one on this thread who is actually opposing you since everyone else seems to be scared.

Maybe they have warmed up to the idea of evolution. Yet I won't unless I can see evolution and the big bang.

I just wish they could fix that thing that emulates the big bang which will give me evidence

 

[afstandopleren]

Finally I say you READ, I am not going around your arguments. I am the only one on this thread who is actually opposing you since everyone else seems to be scared.

Did it ever occur to you that people might actually agree with large parts Spoon has written, and therefor didn't have much to argue?

Just for everyone's information, Darwin himself said before he died that it was just a theory, not a fact so STOP TREATING IT LIKE A FRICKING FACT!

 

[Ka$h Money]

Well afs if you read under that you can see I did think of that lol. Everyone treats it as a fact. Nothing is real. Everything is a theory or hypothesis on rendered phenomenon. It isn't a fact if the law is not followed.

Say when you throw an apple it goes up. Then we have to re-write the laws of gravity and physics lol

That is what he meant

 

[afstandopleren]

X_X missed that. Sorry.

Tho I do hope you realize that the same can be said for God. =/ The only evidence of it's 'supposed' existence is a book that people worship and because the book says so, God exists. The way I see it, Religion and science have the same flaw: People buy the given facts even if they can't grasp it or don't know anything about it. (Why are most people so damn gullible?)

 

[Ka$h Money]

Well the same can't be said as sceince can't give us a theory then maybe there is a diety. If science can't explain something fully in this day and age then you know something is wrong

 

[Limitless]

Finally I say you READ, I am not going around your arguments. I am the only one on this thread who is actually opposing you since everyone else seems to be scared.

Did it ever occur to you that people might actually agree with large parts Spoon has written, and therefor didn't have much to argue?

Just for everyone's information, Darwin himself said before he died that it was just a theory, not a fact so STOP TREATING IT LIKE A FRICKING FACT!

Tone the caps and language down a bit.

By the way, natural selection and evolution are actually proven through scientific data. However, the act of everything being created by evolution is a whole different story. Yet, it is blatantly obviously that species "evolve" over time.

X_X missed that. Sorry.

Tho I do hope you realize that the same can be said for God. =/ The only evidence of it's 'supposed' existence is a book that people worship and because the book says so, God exists. The way I see it, Religion and science have the same flaw: People buy the given facts even if they can't grasp it or don't know anything about it. (Why are most people so darn gullible?)

The same reverse argument could be said for your rebuttal. The living fact of numerous religions aiming towards the same central idea (one powerful being) kind of sums up my thoughts toward the situation. Then again, when you think about all the variables, who created the person who created everything, who created that person, etc., it gets all confusing.

Let's also all remember that the best way to formulate an opinion to "beat" an opposing argument is by debating with strong facts and ideas. The method of swearing or yelling in no way makes you look smarter or any higher than the other person.

 

[Juliacoolo]

X_X missed that. Sorry.

Tho I do hope you realize that the same can be said for God. =/ The only evidence of it's 'supposed' existence is a book that people worship and because the book says so, God exists. The way I see it, Religion and science have the same flaw: People buy the given facts even if they can't grasp it or don't know anything about it. (Why are most people so darn gullible?)

It's not just a book. Even ancient civilizations had "god" even without books. The concept of god is also logical. Something had to create stuff, and normal things can't, so whats left, some kind of supreme figure.

 

[afstandopleren]

Just because something or someone had to create stuff, doesn't mean it has to be a God. (Look, you are assigning it again.)

---

Finally I say you READ, I am not going around your arguments. I am the only one on this thread who is actually opposing you since everyone else seems to be scared.

Did it ever occur to you that people might actually agree with large parts Spoon has written, and therefor didn't have much to argue?

Just for everyone's information, Darwin himself said before he died that it was just a theory, not a fact so STOP TREATING IT LIKE A FRICKING FACT!

Tone the caps and language down a bit.

By the way, natural selection and evolution are actually proven through scientific data. However, the act of everything being created by evolution is a whole different story. Yet, it is blatantly obviously that species "evolve" over time.

X_X missed that. Sorry.

Tho I do hope you realize that the same can be said for God. =/ The only evidence of it's 'supposed' existence is a book that people worship and because the book says so, God exists. The way I see it, Religion and science have the same flaw: People buy the given facts even if they can't grasp it or don't know anything about it. (Why are most people so darn gullible?)

The same reverse argument could be said for your rebuttal. The living fact of numerous religions aiming towards the same central idea (one powerful being) kind of sums up my thoughts toward the situation. Then again, when you think about all the variables, who created the person who created everything, who created that person, etc., it gets all confusing.

Let's also all remember that the best way to formulate an opinion to "beat" an opposing argument is by debating with strong facts and ideas. The method of swearing or yelling in no way makes you look smarter or any higher than the other person.

1. Where did I swear?
2. Ok, I'll stop the yelling I did in just that post. >_>
3. Despite it not being able to be much of a coincidence, why did older religions have multiple Gods and newer religions just 1? I am sure that this religious 'evolution' had to sprout from 1 person's idea. That person might just as well be human as it has been capable of being put to words and be carried over generations.
4. Has anyone got any idea how religion itself started? I bet it was an idea...Wait, isn't that with science too but with a different approach?
5. Oh yeah, Limitless is correct, I am SOOOOO way higher and smarter then every1 of you! >_> Thank you for the huge amount of obvious. -.-

 

[Noob Sandwich]

Infinity is a rational number. Even though we can't grasp it, it is still possible by all means. Seriously can you put up some proper stuff up about God. Im sorry to say this but it was a failed attempt.

@ Noob sandwich, That doesn't really make sense what you said about God? I pray to God as he listens to my prayers. I by no means am hopeless and have been to jail to have hope in a deity. I simply believe in it as you pray you reap the rewards.

Also isn't some of science a figment of someones imagination. We can't see something there but we know it is I.e Gravity, oxygen etc


Finally, if you had read throught the 19 pages properly you wouldve understood the muslim point of view regarding Heaven.

If you are not addressing that because it has been a while since I said and don't remember who replied and so on, then I am sorry

You need to calm down because all I said is that your post REMINDED me of something else, and I in no way implied that you have ever been to jail.

Also, I just remembered something I wanted to say earlier about something someone said earlier in the thread about praying to god and having your prayers granted. This cannot be a viable argument for the existence of god in my opinion because think about all the times that people probably prayed to god and their prayers were not fulfilled (the Holocaust comes to mind).

 

[DarthPika]

Just a quick post to let everyone know that, yes, I have a post coming eventually. I've been kind of busy with RL stuff lately.

 

[Pokequaza]

Say when you throw an apple it goes up. Then we have to re-write the laws of gravity and physics lol

When you throw an apple, gravity isn't the only force... ._. Ever had a bit of Physics? Even I (with only 3 years of physics) can tell there're other forces going on when you throw an apple up, your arm is one of them, it gives the apple speed and point where to go... the friction of air plays also (a very small) role, and gravity which always pulls the apple down to Earth... (possible more forces, don't know them)

Well the same can't be said as sceince can't give us a theory then maybe there is a diety. If science can't explain something fully in this day and age then you know something is wrong

Science can't?! Well srry for you, but if we don't have the right knowledge, machines and such we can't explain, we can find out what a possible theory is, but then it's rejected by everyone believing in a book called the bible... and btw religion can't explain either, science has given us way way more than religion ever did, exept a few fancy stories, a book where the story are in and a invisible figure called god, who created everything and has to know everything... -_-'

It's not just a book. Even ancient civilizations had "god" even without books. The concept of god is also logical. Something had to create stuff, and normal things can't, so whats left, some kind of supreme figure.

Uhmm.. no... it's not just a book, it's a book with some fairy tales... Those 'ancient' civilizations had a god with the same meaning of now... to explain the unknown... just too lazy to search it out, so god did it! How do stars appear? By an explosion? No of course not, explosions kill and destruct things, so god must have craeted them!... and those 'ancient' civilizations had a 'god' without books, but without any knowledge of science too...

Just a quick post to let everyone know that, yes, I have a post coming eventually. I've been kind of busy with RL stuff lately.

well, i can't wait

 

[Heavenly Spoon]

The 1st religions were based on spirits, spirits of the woods, spirits of lightning, spirits of rain, spirits of death. And these give you a very simple example of the purpose of a religion. These "spirits" were meant to explain how the Earth worked without actually having to find out. The people at the time had no idea what lava was, how it formed, and how it erupted out of a volcano, so they came up with a "volcano god" which would answer all these questions. The idea that you can influence the behaviour of this volcano god, by, say, sacrifice, was also pretty sweet, as people could go on with their lives instead of being afraid. Of course, when the volcano did erupt, without the need of any god, they all just died out of ignorance.

When civilisations started to grow, religion was still polytheistic (although there was a very short period in time in Egypt where there actually was a monotheistic religion), but more vague, and more focussed on life and death. But as science started to grow, most of the gods became obsolete. Especially in ancient Greece, their Gods were nothing but things which gave them hope and nice bedtime stories. This went on until Judaism arose. This was a pretty nifty idea, instead of having to come up with multiple Gods, only to admit that most of the don't exist later on, you move to one God, who doesn't do anything directly, but who omnipotently guides everything. This, of course, would be way harder to disprove, and eventually monotheism completely took over. It actually moved civilisation back compared to ancient Greece, where people were a lot less religious.

Now, however, science has become so very advanced that the need of a God to explain all your questions just becomes obsolete. And just like how polytheism disappeared in favour of monotheism, monotheism will disappear in favour of science. You're on the losing side when it comes to evolution of the number of religious people. Imagination can't stand its ground against rationality.

I don't have a Qur'an on me ATM, and I don't trust most translations. But if you could either link me to a site which, according to you, has a decent translation, I'd happily point out the flaws there.
But if you read through it, the book states on numerous occasions that the sun orbits the moon (although vaguely most of the time), and also states things like homosexuality not being observable in nature (which it is).

And yes, kash, someone could have imagined stuff like that. It wasn't that hard anyway, Muhammad's book was based on the Bible, which was based on the Torah.
You underestimate the human imagination, humans have written a lot of very original and imaginative books over the years.

afstandopleren, Darwin called it "just a theory" because that's what it was at the time, but the theory has been confirmed by so many scientific discoveries over the last 150 years, it's as much of a scientific fact as gravity or electricity by now.

Juliacoolo, if you would be so kind to educate yourself about abiogenisis, the big bang theory (and formation of galaxies, stars and planets with that) and the theory of evolution, you would know how life could have started without a creator. Why would you need a creator when a perfectly natural process can create something as well, and has been observed and/or backed up by evidence?
In one of my earliest posts in this thread, I link to a playlist which explains how everything from the creation of the universe up until the existence of humans can be explained by rationality and science, and without the need of a deity.

 

[afstandopleren]

I think the Giants say that the whole evolution has to be checked more. We only know so little of what is being held back in terms of information. Just the fact that very tall humans existed should be enough to completely knock over the whole Darwin thing imho. I also think science isn't everything unless I didn't make that clear in some other post in this thread about how senseless science can be as it continuous to proof itself wrong with new discoveries.

 

[Heavenly Spoon]

Science can't disprove itself as it's under constant re-evaluation, if something were to prove an aspect of the generally accepted science to be flawed (or completely wrong, in the extreme case), they would try to find out why, and correct the mistake (and not deny the existence of this evidence and lie to themselves *cough*, there might of course be some who will (the original proposer of the theory, for example, who wants to keep his spot in the textbooks, but the general majority of the scientists should be unbiased about this, and would therefore accept this evidence). Science reflects reality, if science would be wrong, reality would be wrong. The only thing science can be is incomplete. Theories however can be proven wrong, but this has not been the case with evolution for over 150 years now (the exact opposite has happened, BTW, it only gained more and more evidence), so the odds of that happening are pretty small.
What you're criticising as a fault in science (not giving an absolute truth) is part of the scientific process, nothing is ever a 100% fact, nothing should be blindly accepted, but there's a point where one can say "okay, we have enough evidence now, we're 99% sure this is true, let's move on until new evidence arises", and this is the exact case with evolution, it has been confirmed so many times, doubting it without providing substantial evidence would be silly.

Also, giants existing is not against evolution per se, as we do not know the exact nature of hormones and DNA just yet. But being this tall would obviously not be an advantage, feeding yourself, for example, would be very hard. Natural selection should obviously make sure that these people won't live long enough.

Anyhow, I think I have a vid discussing how skeletons of this size can not have the same relative width of bones as us, as they would just be crushed by the weight. I'll go find it.

About your giants, though:
http://kedarsoman.wordpress.com/2007/05/16/hoax-giant-skeleton-found-in-india/
http://www.rationalistinternational.net/article/20041001_en.html
(Saving stuff for last like this is always fun )
One simple google would've found you this in less than a minute, you're really not trying...

Seriously, be a bit more sceptical about whatever you're presenting, you're so very sceptical about the scientific method, but not at all about stuff like this, which is an obvious hoax?

 

[afstandopleren]

*Looks at the first given link* You might want to take a better look at the whole process of removing the skeleton from the pic. That whole thing is a facade itself The whole photo shop thing is done by a noob. I think I could do a better job at photo shopping and I am a complete noob at that too. You know that there will always be people trying to proof something wrong for whatever reason.

*looks at second link and sighs* Somehow, this last photo from some computer graphic nerd school thingy does not convince me as they look a little of (but that might just be me), but it does a better job at trying to proof it all wrong

Also being big not being an advantage, can you tell me how those skeletons got that big and in perfect shape without the right kind and amount of food available?

 

[Ka$h Money]

Oh man more to read

@ Pokequaza, I was actually telling afs the how a theory is created as it seemed he didn't know. If you want to give us a science lesson then post in the science thread. I think I know the other forces but I am explicitly talking about gravity as an example.

@ Heavenly spoon,

Well good like on your adventure to find something which I don't think is there. I don't have any sources but since you know I thought you could tell me. I am open to new theories, as I am not one of those people, who just looks at everything at face value

Also about the homosexuality thing, I haven't read up about that as I don't really care about gay or lesbians. I understand that it isn't a natural thing as from my point of view, there is Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.

BTW I am not prejudice or discriminant to homosexuals, I don't mind what you do as it is your choice and free will.

It is hard to believe that someone who couldn't read or write, as he didn't have an education, could still have written a book and then made good estimations on today's climate.

 

[Heavenly Spoon]

afstandopleren, I added a 2nd link, which was also linked to in the 1st link, which shows the picture the newspaper one was based on. Also, just read the text. How can you not be sceptical about this? The newspapers would have been FULL, and I mean FULL of this. People love things like this. No way would this only appear in a small article in an Indian newspaper.

Predictions about today's climate? Gimme.
As I said before, it's all very vague and poetic, give me the passage you're referring to and I can probably interpret it in at least 20 different ways. Also, please give the context, because ripping stuff out of context is just silly.

If homosexuality is not natural, how come it is observed in nature very frequently? You're giving evidence of this based on your book. You can't give evidence for your book out of your book...

 

[afstandopleren]

Science can't disprove itself as it's under constant re-evaluation, if something were to prove an aspect of the generally accepted science to be flawed (or completely wrong, in the extreme case), they would try to find out why, and correct the mistake (and not deny the existence of this evidence and lie to themselves *cough*, there might of course be some who will (the original proposer of the theory, for example, who wants to keep his spot in the textbooks, but the general majority of the scientists should be unbiased about this, and would therefore accept this evidence). Science reflects reality, if science would be wrong, reality would be wrong. The only thing science can be is incomplete. Theories however can be proven wrong, but this has not been the case with evolution for over 150 years now (the exact opposite has happened, BTW, it only gained more and more evidence), so the odds of that happening are pretty small.
What you're criticising as a fault in science (not giving an absolute truth) is part of the scientific process, nothing is ever a 100% fact, nothing should be blindly accepted, but there's a point where one can say "okay, we have enough evidence now, we're 99% sure this is true, let's move on until new evidence arises", and this is the exact case with evolution, it has been confirmed so many times, doubting it without providing substantial evidence would be silly.

Even things under constant re-evaluation can be wrong. Humans tend to be imperfect y'know? And a person's paradigm does not help always help comprehend what is going on and what's actually real and true or not but being open minded helps. I guess i could use the whole Earth-Is-Flat as an example, but that would not convince you probably as you seem to have faith in science not letting you down. And if I know 1 thing, then it is that you can't change how someone looks at the world.

Also, wouldn't the accumulated knowledge be kinda useless if nothing is ever a 100% sure/fact? >_>

 

[Heavenly Spoon]

Well, science has brought us medicine, space travel, electricity, I think this knowledge can be quite useful, yes.

Even if we don't observe the world as it is, science allows us to find out how the world we do observe works, which makes it useful in that way. Discovering the flaws of the human brain is a science in itself, and a very interesting one at that. But as I said before, even if everything is all fake, at least science allows us to find out how this fake world works, religion doesn't, and therefore gets us nowhere in this fake world.

You can also just sit on a chair all day and figure that the chair you're sitting on might as well be fake anyway, so what would the point in getting up be? But that would be even more useless than figuring out how a fake world works, right?

Also, where did your giants go? Do you believe it's a hoax now? Or am I being too rational here?