1. Once again, it always baffles me religious people get a deer in a headlights look whenever you ask "Who created God?" If you want to try
to get into the field of Science, you can't have an answer be "He poofed from nothing."
It's an argument as old as philosophy and science itself. You have two choices: 1)An infinite regress; 2)an un-caused cause (a non-contingent one
most likely perhaps even necessarily.) The universe isn't infinitely old... so there goes your infinite regress.
2. Everything did not come from nothing. The Big Bang(Which has nothing to do with Evolution) was a rapid growth of space time from a
singularity. What caused the initial expansion of space time? We're not sure. But to say it came from nothing is BS.
Time and space began at the BigBang. Logic dictates that there is no such thing as before time and no there
there (aka, space) for
something to be... ergo
nothing. {
Theoretical physicist Paul
Davies [note: he's not a creationist]: "
Well, I didn't promise to provide the answers to life, the universe, and everything, but I have
at least given a plausible answer to the question I started out with: What happened before the big bang? The answer is: Nothing." Perhaps you
have a new model, but until then, that's what we know (what the math/model dictates)... there's a reason this was such a big deal when the BB model
was first proposed. Between the singularity math, philosophical argument and fine-tuning of the constants it is an interesting issue which favors
(imho) the strong anthropological argument. All you've proposed (e.g., "we're not sure") is an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy. Unless you
were going somewhere else here, in which case, I'll be happy to listen and discuss what you've got.
3. False Dichotomy between God and the current state of the Universe as the only two possible explanations of the Universe.
I didn't watch the video; I'm not a fan of young earthers. Perhaps you could clarify this?
4. And here we go with Venom misunderstanding Einstein's famous E=MC^2 or Energy=Mass*Speed of Light^2. The amount of energy released during
the Big Bang may well have been infinite, we just don't know. So yes, there is a change .
"[T]here is an infinite amount of matter in the Universe" is false as is the 'infinite amount of energy released during the BB.' Perhaps you
could elaborate here as well?
5. You can very well believe an infinite being always existed Shawn. Give us some proof besides a 2000 year old book and we'll look into
it.
The philosophical argument for a non-contingent First Mover is logically sound (e.g., Aquinas and Aristotle, etc.) On what grounds (philosophy,
science or logic) do you prefer the infinite regress?
6. A common quote mine from Darwin about the formation of the eye. Then throws out a strawman argument about removing parts of your eye. No
Venom, what he means is, a creature that gains a light receptive patch of cells is useful to know if its night or day, and so on and so forth until
the final formation of the current human eye.
As an Intelligent Design argument (which your thread title suggests this is about, but so far has been about Biblical creationism instead) the
progression of 'ocular evolution,' if you will, is evidence of foresight or a telic evolution as opposed to a purposeless one (i.e., Dawkins' Blind
Watchmaker thesis.) Your speculation as regards a
possible pathway is not scientific. Similar to the ID one that you don't like, both in
form and presentation, neither present a testable/falsifiable hypothesis. The ID 'argument' is just a telling of the data or lack-there-of. So far
as an argument wrt creationism goes, I'm not sure how your speculation is any different than the
de novo argument is. Interestingly, the
fact that eyes developed separately in disparate lineages (
e.g.,
convergent evolution) suggests a plan from the beginning (aka,
de novo). There are many examples in the 'tree of life' of convergent
evolution which evidence the idea of a front-loading of information or the idea that evolution/life unfolds according to a plan. So there's
some evidence (as a start) for you to consider ala the watchmatcker -vs- blind watchmaker argument. What is your opinion?
7. For his argument that God could have potentially designed the Earth to look old and mess with us, I consult my avatar, Bill Hicks, btw there
are some NSFW parts
Does he really argue that God made the Earth to look old just to mess with us? You've objected to the strawman fallacy several times, therefore,
I'm sure that's not what you did here... so, yes... that's silly. One of several reasons I stay away from YECs (and evangelical atheists for what
that's/their worth.) I stayed away from the old-vs-young Earth stuff because I have no issue with the consensus opinion on it but wrt what you said
he said:
3. "The Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago from a bunch of asteroid's colliding together" A lie and straw man argument."
While not sophisticated, it is neither a lie or a straw-man. Earth is theorized to have formed from the initial accretion disk (i.e.,
The Nebular Hypothesis) in such a way as to be comparable (given a charitable reading.)
It's a bit more involved than "asteroids colliding together" to be sure, but the point is (more-or-less) the same... for debate's sake. Unless
you were going somewhere else with your refutation of his claims and just haven't gotten around to making your point yet.
I just wanted to touch on these points... I'll read the rest of your thread and see if I can contribute anywhere else. And, if worse comes to worse,
I may just watch the video... though I don't look forward to it. Hopefully we can just keep this 'in-house.'
For the record: I'd be interested in any ideas, comments, or refutations/arguments you have wrt to what I've written so far. I'm no ideologue and
don't feel any need for these things to be true or false in order to keep my faith... so, provided it stays civil (which is rare) I'd enjoy
discussing these issues further. If not, have a good one, and I'll see ya around the boards another time.
Regards.
(edit)closed a tag; spelling
[edit on 22-11-2008 by Rren]
shockin huh? 
so thats a bonus too 
) 
