Creation is a Scientific Fact

Originally posted by melatonin
But Einstein wasn't a deist.

He made some noises about Spinoza's god in the 1920s and 30s and later (1950s) said he was an agnostic.

Spinoza's god is basically similar to pantheism, nature is god, god is nature. Which, IMO, is just non-theism for those not wanting to scare theists.

S'pose atheists could use him like theists use Flew. Not much different really. However, I don't think Einstein was suffering anomia and memory problems when he became an agnostic.

Where do you get this crap mel,, There was a recent letter written and verified by a family on (believe it or not) antiques road show, who had a letter written by Einstien and it was pretty damn clear he believed in God.

Ill see if I can find that I just saw it about two weeks ago

S'pose atheists could use him like theists use Flew.

yeah I had seen several of alberts letters saying he hated that about both atheists and christians using him in a tug o war.

sad


- Con

[edit on 7-7-2008 by Conspiriology]

Originally posted by Conspiriology
yeah I had seen several of alberts letters saying he hated that about both atheists and christians using him in a tug o war.

sad

I think it is actually something we can agree on.

Even if he was an atheist or theist, it would essentially mean very little.

As for Einstein and his agnosticism:

My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.

linky
Albert Einstein in a letter to M. Berkowitz, October 25, 1950; Einstein Archive 59-215; from Alice Calaprice, ed., The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 216.

Earlier he did state he took Spinoza's position.

[I answered another post of yours in an edit earlier]

[edit on 7-7-2008 by melatonin]

Originally posted by painkiller

Okay, can you please elaborate on the evidence you believe supports/connects a creator mechanism of existence being a Christian God. Now it's fine that you believe since Christianity follows the one true God- he must also be the creator God, but that is not really evidence.
I do agree with you that using astronomy and constructing possible models of universe beginnings we can leave the door open for an unknown spark, or many sparks, or deterministic action outside the scope of everything we can currently measure and foresee.

But I have to remind you there is a big difference between how the universe was created the resulting radiation/mass pressure war that ensued and lead to star formation- and the chance factor of how the Solar System was created, and namely how life on Earth evolved.

You have to start somewhere. Until recently creation itself was denied. Now science has changed that. A creation event is the scientific consensus and creation deniers are the fringe outcast’s of pseudo science. The Bible was vindicated after centuries of eternal universe fantasies. I find that to be a compelling argument toward theism.

Changing the classical theistic argument "God created life on Earth" to "God created the universe, which/then (in)directly created life on Earth" has problems, because it implies- at the mathematical level- complete determinism, meaning whilst we may have free will- the universe and everything in it, including the spin state of particles, the past and future evolution of stars, galaxies, nebulae, clusters- is already determined. But we as humans can affect things around us, and change them- so the problem is pretty simple- either we have no free will, or God inbuilt the universe to react in a certain way to all our actions so no true randomness exists, meaning we don't really have any free will anyway, since at the 'God' level, it's always possible for him to predict what will happen.
But he can do that since he's God.

God can be sovereign yet allow free will. He allows sin and evil. He wants us to choose him over the flesh and the world. You can see you child making a mistake and allow it to occur so that they will learn from it.

Do you see how there is a break in logic here? It's hard to use a rational argument against God, since he can simply invalidate it by being God- hithero any irrational argument for God can be rationalized by invoking that God is God.

Break in logic? What is logic? Consider this: if there is no creator God , then your brain is the product of random mutations and chance – your thoughts are just chemical reactions, why would you ever believe that your thinking is capable of determining truth? And where did logic come from? So yes you are correct! There is no rational argument against God.

But evidence is not belief, you can turn evidence into a belief but not a belief into evidence. Please do not think I am trying to offend you or test your faith in the slightest. You are free to believe as you wish, but not as free to interpret and extrapolate data to fit that belief- since here you begin trying to justify something you should not be trying to justify at all.

Belief is evidenced based. Why wouldn’t you justify what you believe? That’s pretty silly to say that.

...all have graves where they are buried. Jesus Christ does not. That's evidence. There were many first hand witnesses - that's evidence.

Sorry not evidence.

Yes it is. It is negative evidence against the divinity of the ones with graves and it is supporting circumstantial evidence to the Biblical resurrection account.

If parts of the Bible are true does this mean all of it is true?

No… but every bit of supporting evidence serves to build up the believer’s faith.

Oh? Do you really think this (fulfilled prophecy)is plausible?

It’s not only plausible it’s a matter of record. It’s the slam dunk for Biblical Christianity. I’m going to make a video on fulfilled prophecies next I think. Israel and the Jews is a perfect example. The reformation of Israel was prophesied. The deniers claim it is a Christian manipulation. But that is so stupid- in that Hitler could have beaten the allies… the outcome of WW2 was no political manipulation. Major fulfillment of a 1000s of year old Biblical prophecy. Slam dunk.

I'm sorry but using divisive rhetoric merely reinforces a long standing point.

The crux of the issue (no pun intended) is this-

Common sense dictates that the Bible is a collection of allegories to help people live their lives in a good honest way, cherish each other, love God.

Most people where I live (USA) believe the Bible. So that is the "common" sense. In fact you are arguing against common sense.

Taking any other view, such as 'there is only one true creator God' or the 'us versus them' mentality just creates problems for the entire world. What happens when everyone has converted to Christianity, and you no longer think you have to defend your beliefs? Heaven-on-Earth like a switch?

There is most assuredly and "us" and a "them". Do you deny evil?

You need to read the Bible.

Inbuilt inside all religions is dissent. If everyone was good and righteous there would be no sinners, no hell- so trying to convert others, even spreading your message is ultimately doomed- since you know at the coming of the Rapture not all are saved

No inbuilt in humanity is sin. That causes dissent against God. And to the ones you do reach who convert and are saved from Hell it will be extremely significant - so it is not a doomed proposition to them at all.

I am extremely grateful for the seminary student Dennis Till who led me to Christ from my agnosticism. He sacrificed his time- he came by my house every Thursday for months and went through the Bible with me. I even started out thinking that I would destroy his faith - he ended up leading me to Christ. He went on to be a missionary in a Muslim country that kills missionaries by beheading and has led many to Christ there as well.

It is spiritual warfare and all is not as it seems. I hope you wake up to that truth. I sincerely do.



[edit on 7/7/2008 by Bigwhammy]

Originally posted by melatonin

Originally posted by Conspiriology
yeah I had seen several of alberts letters saying he hated that about both atheists and christians using him in a tug o war.

sad

I think it is actually something we can agree on.

Even if he was an atheist or theist, it would essentially mean very little.

As for Einstein and his agnosticism:

My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.

linky
Albert Einstein in a letter to M. Berkowitz, October 25, 1950; Einstein Archive 59-215; from Alice Calaprice, ed., The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 216.

Earlier he did state he took Spinoza's position.

[I answered another post of yours in an edit earlier]

[edit on 7-7-2008 by melatonin]

Yeah I had read that too, I am reading this now

www.spaceandmotion.com...

Interesting stuff

- Con

Con, do you understand there is a difference between Spinozan natural pantheism and deism?

I'm just a tad confused by another post of yours. Just when I think we are dancing the fandango, you appear to go all breakdance on me by doing a turtle.

[edit on 7-7-2008 by melatonin]

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
reply to post by bigbert81

 

And I wonder, did you even bother to read my last post? Yes, I did hear Dr. Lennox describe the 'red coin' thing, and him admitting to a 'chance', especially when it's not known how many 'chances' are given in any period of time (I have a 1 in 10 chance of picking the right number, but I get 100 tries every day), does by no means make it 'impossible', as you would like your viewers to believe.

Its was 1 in 10 ^40 it is called statistically absurd or statistically impossible.

How many times? Canard city... Creation only happens once.

Are you actually arguing 1 in 10^40 is something likely to occur?

Actually BigWhammy, if we look at a thought experiment we can see that it is not impossible at all to have a probablility of 10^40 come true.

Say we have 10^40 choices for an arbitrary experiment. What would be the possibility of having one of those choices come up? It would be 10^40 (something you called 'statistically impossible'). Now the probablilty of picking ANY one of those is exactly 10^40, thus making it 'statistically impossible' for any one of those 10^40 choices to be chosen.

Now we must choose one. If we choose one, then we have just done something that was 'statistically impossible'. Since the probability of picking any single one of those choices was 1 in 10^40, we just managed to pick something that only had a 1 in 10^40 chance of being chosen. Not so hard is it?

reply to post by Mantys


A good real-world example is to deal out a full pack of shuffled cards.

The order you got was a probability of something like 1 in 10^67. If we take two different packs of cards, shuffle and deal it becomes something like 10^166.

Could never happen you know, it's apparently impossible. Calculating probabilities after the fact is pretty silly. You need to specify the outcome before hand, you also need to know all the variables and bounds/problem space.

We just can't calculate such figures for events we have minimal understand about, and so it's just an argument from big numbers. Then you need to specify beforehand, even then, as shown with the cards, some outcome (even at wild odds) is certain.

What creationists do is comparable to making an attempt to calculate the a priori probability of the card event above (without really knowing how many cards, decks, suits etc), then act all shocked and think magic must have been involved.

[edit on 7-7-2008 by melatonin]

Q: If you believe in a creation event. Guess what that makes you?
A: A creationist.

Big Bang = creation event

Einstein eventually did believe in a creation event. Begrudgingly at first, but he conceded to the idea. Relativity is one the the founding principles of the Big Bang Cosmology.

Albert Einstein's reaction to the consequences of his own general theory of relativity appear to acknowledge the threat of an encounter with God. Through the equations of general relativity, we can trace the origin of the universe backward in time to some sort of a beginning. However, before publishing his cosmological inferences, Einstein introduced a cosmological constant, a "fudge factor," to yield a static model for the universe. Einstein later considered this to be the greatest blunder of his scientific career.

Einstein ultimately gave grudging acceptance to what he called "the necessity for a beginning" and eventually to "the presence of a superior reasoning power." But he never did accept the reality of a personal God.

Why such resistance to the idea of a definite beginning of the universe? It goes right back to that first argument, the cosmological argument: (a) Everything that begins to exist must have a cause; (b) If the universe began to exist, then (c) the universe must have a cause. You can see the direction in which this argument is flowing--a direction of discomfort to some physicists.

www.leaderu.com...

General Relativity has to date passed every experimental test devised for it, making it one the best verified theories in Physics. Surprisingly it is has proven to be quite useful to Creation Science and it actually supports some aspects of Biblical teaching
creationwiki.org...

So if you are not a creationist then throw out general relativity.

Wow I guess that makes non-creationists psuedoscientists...

reply to post by Mantys



OMG I hope your not serious.

Yes but your analogy is an absurdity, If any one of them is correct the odds are 100% of a correct pick.

In Lennox's example only one specific pick is acceptable - which is next to impossible to do by chance.

1 out of 10^40 =/= any one of 10^40

sorry really dumb argument

Boooooooo


[edit on 7/7/2008 by Bigwhammy]

reply to post by Bigwhammy


What I am saying is that one of these events DOES happen, and the probability of that event happening (opposed to one of the other events) is EXACTLY 1 in 10^40. Therefore no matter what event happened its probability was 1 in 10^40.

reply to post by Mantys


So what is your point then? Of course it can happen because it did. But common sense dictates with such impossible odds it didn't occur by accident. Because that is the specific one that supports life. It's not just any old random figure. That's Dr. Lennox's point. And nothing you have said changes it. But not only that - the gravitational constant is only one in a long list of precisely tuned variables.

# The nuclear weak force is 1028 times the strength of gravity. Had the weak force been slightly weaker, all the hydrogen in the universe would have been turned to helium (making water impossible, for example).

# A stronger nuclear strong force (by as little as 2 percent) would have prevented the formation of protons--yielding a universe without atoms. Decreasing it by 5 percent would have given us a universe without stars.

# If the difference in mass between a proton and a neutron were not exactly as it is--roughly twice the mass of an electron--then all neutrons would have become protons or vice versa. Say good-bye to chemistry as we know it--and to life.

# The very nature of water--so vital to life--is something of a mystery (a point noticed by one of the forerunners of anthropic reasoning in the nineteenth century, Harvard biologist Lawrence Henderson). Unique amongst the molecules, water is lighter in its solid than liquid form: Ice floats. If it did not, the oceans would freeze from the bottom up and earth would now be covered with solid ice. This property in turn is traceable to the unique properties of the hydrogen atom.

# The synthesis of carbon--the vital core of all organic molecules--on a significant scale involves what scientists view as an astonishing coincidence in the ratio of the strong force to electromagnetism. This ratio makes it possible for carbon-12 to reach an excited state of exactly 7.65 MeV at the temperature typical of the centre of stars, which creates a resonance involving helium-4, beryllium-8, and carbon-12--allowing the necessary binding to take place during a tiny window of opportunity 10-17 seconds long.

Taken from God the Evidence by Patrick Glynn

ourworld.compuserve.com...

When you put the odds of all of these long shots occurring together to support life - it is overwhelming evidence for design.



[edit on 7/7/2008 by Bigwhammy]

reply to post by Bigwhammy


I absolutely agree with you that it is a long shot, but what I was trying to show was that having a probability of 1 in 10^40 is nowhere near impossible. Probability is a funny thing, you could have an outcome that is 1 in 10^437282374 come up 5 times in a row, but then you could have a coin flip come up heads 5 times in a row. Sure one was more probable, but they both occured.

reply to post by Bigwhammy


Common sense does not have anything to do with randomness. Acts that are truly random (or what we have not found equations for yet) do not abide by common sense. It is like trying to explain why god made the universe- the reason would have nothing to do with common sense.

And you also know what they say about common sense: Common sense is not that common (GW Bush is president isn't he?)

reply to post by Mantys


I still say it's damn near impossible... LOL but I see what you mean. It's when you stack all of those constants together with those long odds for each and then you realize that they all have to occur simultaneously for life that the argument starts to hit home. I believe that's what cracked the Atheist philosopher Antony Flew who was the premier atheist philosopher of the 1970s and 80s. Not as an argument form authority... it's just that he's not a gullible man and it convinced him in spite of his embarrassment.

I have a question for you since you seem to know a little about statistics etc. there's a certain point like 1^20 or whatever I forgot that is the line for what they consider officially statistically absurd or statically impossible,.

I've googled it but failed to find the figure. Do you happen to know where the line is?

I'm betting it occurs before 1 in 10^40... I could be wrong. I would like to know where the cut off is.

As Anonymous posted:

I could go on and on but in summary you have provided food for thought but definately not proof of God.

Also the improbability argument is silly to me for several reasons, the main one being that life doesn't necessarily have to be life as we know it Jim.

---

I couldn't agree more.. The fat grey-haired retard talking about 1in 10 to the 51st - like he should know.. Hey perhaps Earth is the 1 in 10 to the 51st planet that is capable of supporting life.. Like anon says, this video just throws out some laws of physics and claims everything else is fact.. Einstein was looking for the equation for God.. You think a man as brilliant as he, could have just said ah screw-it (whatever Einstein would say) I have enough hypotheticals here that I can just throw it all in the waste paper basket and proclaim there is a God - that's not to say that he or I or anyone else doesn't believe that this all had to be created by some supreme intelligence, but if you are going to say, Ayyy! this here is scientific fact that there is a God... No. Sorry.. You see that is what Einstein was trying to prove via mathematics and science.

I can't say that I know what the line is, but I do understand what they mean by the statistical impossibility. 10^20 is a reduculously large probability to overcome, but it certainly can be done. For all we know the universe could have had billions of 'years' (time outside of the universe is non-sensical) to run an infinite number of scenarios to get that 1 in 10^40 possibility.

If we think in the idea that there were, lets say 10^100000 times to get the 'desired' result then we would have to say that the probability is now significantly in the favour of hitting that 1 in 10^40 result.

It just depends on the way you look at it.

reply to post by Chilled1


yeah, but don't tell the creationists, their heads might explode...

# The nuclear weak force is 1028 times the strength of gravity. Had the weak force been slightly weaker, all the hydrogen in the universe would have been turned to helium (making water impossible, for example).

A Universe Without Weak Interactions
Authors: Roni Harnik, Graham D. Kribs, Gilad Perez
(Submitted on 4 Apr 2006)
Abstract: A universe without weak interactions is constructed that undergoes big-bang nucleosynthesis, matter domination, structure formation, and star formation. The stars in this universe are able to burn for billions of years, synthesize elements up to iron, and undergo supernova explosions, dispersing heavy elements into the interstellar medium. These definitive claims are supported by a detailed analysis where this hypothetical "Weakless Universe" is matched to our Universe by simultaneously adjusting Standard Model and cosmological parameters. For instance, chemistry and nuclear physics are essentially unchanged. The apparent habitability of the Weakless Universe suggests that the anthropic principle does not determine the scale of electroweak breaking, or even require that it be smaller than the Planck scale, so long as technically natural parameters may be suitably adjusted. Whether the multi-parameter adjustment is realized or probable is dependent on the ultraviolet completion, such as the string landscape. Considering a similar analysis for the cosmological constant, however, we argue that no adjustments of other parameters are able to allow the cosmological constant to raise up even remotely close to the Planck scale while obtaining macroscopic structure. The fine-tuning problems associated with the electroweak breaking scale and the cosmological constant therefore appear to be qualitatively different from the perspective of obtaining a habitable universe.

arxiv.org...

The argument basically comes down to that this particular environmental state is the only one capable of supporting intelligence. This is really really improbable, look I have big numbers from an after the fact a priori calculation of something I don't really understand that well! Therefore it requires an intelligence to fine-tune it. The fine-tuning intelligence does not live in the fine-tuned universe.

I note 3 assertions, a claim of faith, and a contradiction.

Heh.

[edit on 7-7-2008 by melatonin]

reply to post by Chilled1


Retard huh? ....nice

I guess Richard Dawkins must be brain dead since a retard defeated Dawkins in a scored debate on the God Delusion Book. He also holds a chair at Oxford where dickie works too. pwned

Dr. John Lennox is a Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy and Chaplain at Green College Oxford and Senior Fellow of the Whitefield Institute in Oxford.

He studied at Cambridge University, from which he holds the degrees of M.A. and Ph.D. and was subsequently Reader in Pure Mathematics at the University of Wales, where he was awarded the DSc degree. Dr. Lennox has been a Senior Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Universities of Wuerzburg and Freiburg in Germany and a visiting professor at Universities of Vienna, Alberta and Bar Ilan. He has lectured in many universities abroad, including in the former Soviet Union (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Kiev, Minsk, etc.) as an invitee of the Academy of Sciences. He has published over 70 articles on Algebra (Group Theory) and co-authored one major research monograph. He is currently writing a further major research monograph for Oxford University Press and lectures in the Mathematical Institute of Oxford University.

As Senior Fellow of the Whitefield Institute, Dr. Lennox is interested in the frontier areas of Science, Philosophy, and Theology and has lectured on Christian apologetics (particularly on the Science-Religion debate) in many universities and Academies of Science. He has also written articles on such topics for the secular press, particularly in Russia. He is co-author of a number of books including the forthcoming God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?, Christianity: Opium or Truth?, Key Biblical Concepts, The Bible and Moral Education, and The Definition of Christianity, each of which has been published in a number of languages.

www.ttf.org...

Eat crow.






[edit on 7/7/2008 by Bigwhammy]

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
I'm betting it occurs before 1 in 10^40... I could be wrong. I would like to know where the cut off is.

Yeah, amazingly you are wrong.

Dembski uses a UPB of 10^150. However, if I deal out two packs of random cards, the probability of the order I produce breaks it. Shocking, I know. I thought the universe was going to implode when I did it the first time.

Indeed, there is no real threshold for the probability of a specific event we can just write off as impossible for random processes.

[edit on 7-7-2008 by melatonin]

reply to post by Mantys

For all we know the universe could have had billions of 'years' (time outside of the universe is non-sensical) to run an infinite number of scenarios to get that 1 in 10^40 possibility.

hahahah I love this! So how did it know when it hit the right one?

Intelligence?

ooops.. you stepped in that one. :shk:

And if the universe were not yet created there could be no ratios of anything. It all happened at once it what the evidence says. And with micro seconds the laws of physics we have today were in effect.

The point I've made few times that keeps being ignored is that it's not just the crazy odds for one of these constants occurring but the cumulative odds of all of those outlandish probabilities occurring simultaneously from an explosion - to specifically support carbon based life.

Sure take one in isolation like I see a few atheist apologists here doing and you can argue it could have happened randomly. (but even that is very unlikely) But so what if 1 happened randomly? It's actually a list longer than the few I've shown here... put 5 or 6 of them together and it's overwhelming that it was no accident.