There is no science...

[1over137]

1) Correct, they brought an idea. Without a shred of evidence. Blind faith is, obviously, not an issue when an idea fits a naturalistic worldview.

Can you please now summarize for me the evidence for God?

2) Still, that idea doesn't explain how those aliens came to be in the first place. If they could travel galaxies and create life, they'd obviously be a much more advanced civilization than us, so... Their evolution would also need "assistance" like ours, which only creates an endless chain of causes, with an assumption that the laws of physics and chemistry are the same throughout the Universe, which is undoubtedly true.

I only want to make a small comment. How do you know that it is undoubtedly true that the laws of physics and chemistry are the same throughout the Universe?

[MarcusOfLycia]

First of all, I'm curious how your two sentences-

"Social evolution tries to address that" and "Have I said somewhere that I trust evolution?" work together. They seem contradictory to me.

They may seem contradictory, but in my opinion are not. The first sentence is of an informative character, it only says that there is a social evolution theory that tries to address the stuff you mentioned. You don not know me so you cannot say what I trust and do not trust in. Next time, when you ask me the question "Why do you trust in ..." ask me the question "Do you trust in ..." first.

So... you don't believe in evolution as the means that got the world to where it is today, but you also don't believe God did it? What method -do- you embrace then? Based on everything you said, it was fairly implicit you were defending a viewpoint - so if you weren't, then why are you taking it personally? It seems like a complete diversion from the whole point of this thread.

Second, a lot of my questions were not answered - saying 'social evolution tries to address that' doesn't really do any of those questions justice. I've encountered very few people who think evolution (of any kind) tries to give meaning to human existence - people who embrace it as part of their worldview would much more likely say they think evolution simply explains a process.

I am sorry, but I can't provide you with more answers at the moment. I would have to do more research to tell you what people working in that field has achieved so far. My sentence was only of an informative character and the 'social evolution' is the keyword to look up.
I agree that evolution addresses the process of evolution.

Saying things like "I agree that evolution addresses the process of evolution" is a great thing to say if you want to tell me that 1. You don't really respect what I'm saying, 2. You don't really care or understand what I'm saying. It's a little immature. Back to the point, if you are going to respond to huge criticisms with points you don't fully understand (as you admit when you say you'd have to do 'more research'), why not just admit you don't know an answer instead?

You keep asking for definitive lists and evidences for God's existence, but you don't ever claim a single alternative viewpoint or provide any evidence. It's getting a little old, especially when you get offended when we associate the viewpoints you are trying to defend with the viewpoints you actually hold.

There are plenty of 'gaps' in our knowledge, but that hasn't seemed to change your mind. We have, for instance, no idea how life began in a scientific way. We are missing vast swaths of 'inter-species' fossils. The more we learn the more we realize we don't understand. If 'gaps' would be something that would help you see contradiction, then you should have plenty to go on.

Some people brought an idea that aliens effected our evolution.

Lets try your method:

Can you please now summarize for me the evidence for [these aliens]?

Or better yet, can you please explain how these aliens came about?

1) Correct, they brought an idea. Without a shred of evidence. Blind faith is, obviously, not an issue when an idea fits a naturalistic worldview.

Can you please now summarize for me the evidence for God?

You've had plenty of chances to read some of the evidence. What evidence do -you- have to support whatever worldview -you- hold.

2) Still, that idea doesn't explain how those aliens came to be in the first place. If they could travel galaxies and create life, they'd obviously be a much more advanced civilization than us, so... Their evolution would also need "assistance" like ours, which only creates an endless chain of causes, with an assumption that the laws of physics and chemistry are the same throughout the Universe, which is undoubtedly true.

I only want to make a small comment. How do you know that it is undoubtedly true that the laws of physics and chemistry are the same throughout the Universe?

How do you know they are always consistent throughout time? If you don't think they are, how can you be sure that what was true five minutes ago is true now? Do you have any trust in any scientific progress that humanity has ever made, since it might be negated over space and time? How do you know how to interpret data, knowing that it may be influenced by this? In another thread, we actually had to defend that 2 + 2 always equals 4! I hope you aren't going down that route, too.

Again, that's why I'm curious as to what your worldview is. You seem to require a level of evidence for Christianity that far surpasses what anyone expects to prove anything, but then you don't seem to trust in things like physical and chemical law that would allow evidence for ANY worldview to have any actual value.

[Hamilton]

Im late to the topic, but there were some interesting discussions on time travel earlier on, so Id like to add a lighthearted thought.

We do have the ability to view the past..no machine required.

Anytime you wish to engage in time travel, just look up at the sky, or a Hubble photo album. Nothing that you see is currently in the state in which it appears. All occurred at a time in the past.

That supernova that is 3 million light years away..you are observing it no differently then if you were there observing at a safe distance in real time 3 million years ago.

Fun thought.

I also venture if you were to ride in a space shuttle in the direction of a particular star, you will be able to travel 'back in time' relative to those on earth, as you will be seeing photons prior to them, while on the same clock. Unfortunately, as you will be unable to report back to them faster than the speed of light, they will still see those photons before your report makes it in, negating your 'time travel' advantage. So its all in vain I imagine, except for the viewer.

If your too busy working toward your future at night to look at the stars, just look at the sun..what your observing happened there 8 minutes ago.

[Hamilton]

Im late to the topic, but there were some interesting discussions on time travel earlier on, so Id like to add a lighthearted thought.

We do have the ability to view the past..no machine required.

Anytime you wish to engage in time travel, just look up at the sky, or a Hubble photo album. Nothing that you see is currently in the state in which it appears. All occurred at a time in the past.

That supernova that is 3 million light years away..you are observing it no differently then if you were there observing at a safe distance in real time 3 million years ago.

Fun thought.

I also venture if you were to ride in a space shuttle in the direction of a particular star, you will be able to travel 'back in time' relative to those on earth, as you will be seeing photons prior to them, while on the same clock. Unfortunately, as you will be unable to report back to them faster than the speed of light, they will still see those photons before your report makes it in, negating your 'time travel' advantage. So its all in vain I imagine, except for the viewer.

If your too busy working toward your future at night to look at the stars, just look at the sun..what your observing happened there 8 minutes ago.

[SnowDrops]

Re Nr.3: No matter how hard we try it's impossible to prove that robots have consciousness, feelings or free will, true preferences, etc. because we programmed them to act a certain way, therefore:

1) All their actions will be fully deterministic, which makes it hard to believe they could really dislike or like anything.
2) We made them act a certain way and express themselves a certain way, therefore, even if they do not actually feel anything they will properly respond to inputs we might give them (see also: John Searles' Chinese room experiment).

We can also demonstrate the futility of discovering what they actually think or feel by bringing up another problem: Knowing whether or not people see different colors the same way. Think about it: Can you possibly disprove that what you see as orange, someone else sees as purple, but since we learn colors by seeing them, they also recognize that thing as being orange? No, you can't, because you only have one way of identifying colors and no possibility of testing it.

As for developing intelligent robots, the most powerful supercomputers in the world today have in reality about as much processing power as a bumblebee . People often think of computers as being smart, when in fact computers are simply machines - they take inputs and react to them. That is all they can ever do. Computers such as we have, or for that matter any computer, no matter how powerful, as long as it is based on such things as Boolean logic and mathematical algorithms is not capable of creativity, emotion or sentient thought.

I think, in fact, that this is evidence for a soul, because essentially, the brain is also an organic machine and materialistic accounts of thought fail to account for the aforementioned things in the same way.


Btw, 1over, "Please summarize the evidence for God" is not a valid statement. There are those sort of "summaries", but they take up whole websites, not single posts in a forum.

[Murray]

Just adding to a post on the first page.


We, right now, are in the present, their is no future, and futuristic time travel is possible only in slowing time, which you are actually just waiting say 2000 years in a 2 minute time span and you could never return to your old "present" because you can only travel backwards to parallel universes in which the activity has already happened.

Einstein’s law proves time travel to the past, you honestly can see the past, but cannot not alter it to change the present (grandfather effect) because you would be seeing the same event, but through a parallel universe.

So I do agree that we could one day see the past, and I know it sounds very trippy, but if you were to ask most people with doctorates in any form of physical science, they would tell you it is possible.

The reason no person from he future reaches us is because right now we are at a so called "absolute present", thus no future exists, and if we did travel to the future using Einstein’s law, we would actually travel to the new absolute future and could never revisit the past absolute future.

[1over137]

Btw, 1over, "Please summarize the evidence for God" is not a valid statement. There are those sort of "summaries", but they take up whole websites, not single posts in a forum.

This thread was the first thread I got involved in and I have to admit that my start was not very clever one.

If the summary takes up the whole website then people could post some links. Well, no need anymore. I can look for evidence at this godandscience.org website. (Maybe, if you want, you can tell me what is your favourite website.)

Best,
Hana

[SnowDrops]

Btw, 1over, "Please summarize the evidence for God" is not a valid statement. There are those sort of "summaries", but they take up whole websites, not single posts in a forum.

This thread was the first thread I got involved in and I have to admit that my start was not very clever one.

If the summary takes up the whole website then people could post some links. Well, no need anymore. I can look for evidence at this godandscience.org website. (Maybe, if you want, you can tell me what is your favourite website.)

Best,
Hana

This site is good as far as scientific arguments (in physics and biology) and I would also suggest visiting William Lane Craig's website (reasonablefaith.org) or watching some of his debates. His debate with Herb Silvermann covers most of the "regular" arguments from both sides, so it's a nice introduction.