Faith continually challenged

[Phi]

Hi all,

I just wanted to say "hi" and that I have been coming to this site for at least 2-3 years and greatly enjoy it. You guys provide a lot of great information and have helped through the challenges that I face when dealing with my faith and tough times. So I figured it was time to create a account and post some questions I was hoping you all could help me with:

BTW, i'm not an expert on religion, science, evolution, ID, etc... So please ignore some of my "stupid" questions...I'm also a very logical type of thinker (my profession makes me this way), so I may ask questions that seem like I'm trying to argue, but in reality i'm just trying to answer questions that may arise from your answers...

Any thoughts on this guys remarks to faith/religion:

http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Fun-Fact ... s-20120618

Also, does anyone here ever struggle with their faith? Have moments of despair? I know when I do, I turn to this site or some videos of John Lennox, etc... Or am I alone here? How do you keep your faith strong with "what seems like" science is closing in on?

Thanks for your time!

[Byblos]

Hi all,

I just wanted to say "hi" and that I have been coming to this site for at least 2-3 years and greatly enjoy it. You guys provide a lot of great information and have helped through the challenges that I face when dealing with my faith and tough times. So I figured it was time to create a account and post some questions I was hoping you all could help me with:

BTW, i'm not an expert on religion, science, evolution, ID, etc... So please ignore some of my "stupid" questions...I'm also a very logical type of thinker (my profession makes me this way), so I may ask questions that seem like I'm trying to argue, but in reality i'm just trying to answer questions that may arise from your answers...

Any thoughts on this guys remarks to faith/religion:

http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Fun-Fact ... s-20120618

Also, does anyone here ever struggle with their faith? Have moments of despair? I know when I do, I turn to this site or some videos of John Lennox, etc... Or am I alone here? How do you keep your faith strong with "what seems like" science is closing in on?

Thanks for your time!

Hi Phi and welcome to the forum (after all this time). Please post something in the "introduce yourself" thread so everyone knows a little about you.

First, there is no such thing as stupid questions when it comes to your faith. When in doubt, ask.

A logical person by profession, hmm, let me guess, either computer programming or law?

As for doubt, you are not alone. In fact if you do a search you will see at any point of time there is always an active topic on the subject. Doubt in and of itself is not the issue. The issue is who do you put your trust in, yourself, or Christ? (it's a rhetorical question of course). When we look inwardly in our fallen state, we are full of doubt. That is why the Gospel tells us to put our trust in Christ, if we trust in him it wouldn't matter whether or not we have doubt, we know we can be assured of God's promise.

[Silvertusk]

Welcome to the site Phi.

Lets look at that article

WHY DOES SOMETHING EXIST INSTEAD OF NOTHING?
In a quantum vacuum virtual matter-antimatter particle pairs form from nothing. While most of these matter-antimatter particles form charge parity violation shows that more matter survived than antimatter and formed the universe.

So, even if you want to start lying about the second law of thermodynamics it is physically possible to get free energy. Do you know what? Prove it to me the universe doesn’t work that way with mathematics and physics. Submit your proposal to Nature.

Well straight away - the quantum vaccuum is not nothing - and they always try and pull that trick. The Quantum Vacuum is certainly something - with properties and "Energy". They are downright misleading people when they talk about "Nothing"

LOOK AT DNA YOU CAN’T GET INFORMATION FROM RANDOM CHANCE
Getting information isn’t the big deal. Every chunk of rock contains information. Tree rings are information. Overlapping ripples on a mostly still liquid are interference patterns and are information! There is so much information that some computer scientists think it’s a fundamental force.

You think DNA is awesome? Pfft! The evolution of genetics shows that spontaneous accumulation of sophisticated chemical technology can develop without the interference of an intelligent designer.

This is not information. This is data - information has some context and semantics applied to it and this requires an intelligence

The rest of the article is just typical atheist ignorance, arrogance and rudeness and can be completely ignored. I see straw men everywhere.

The evolutions parts don't concern me as I don't have a problem with evolution.

Silvertusk,

[bippy123]

Hello Phi, I agree with silvertusk. What that article is proposing isn't information.
Perry Marshall has a great site on this specific topic. In fact he took right into the mouth of the lion, when went on the biggest atheist forum and challenged them on this. In the end he even had them agreeing with him.
http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/solve/

The Origin of Information: How to Solve It
 
Cosmic Fingerprints has issued a challenge to the scientific community:
“Show an example of Information that doesn’t come from a mind. All you need is one.”
“Information” is defined as digital communication between an encoder and a decoder, using agreed upon symbols. To date, no one has shown an example of a naturally occurring encoding / decoding system, i.e. one that has demonstrably come into existence without a designer.
Cosmic Fingerprints will freely acknowledge and publicize the first person who can solve this. To solve this problem would not merely provide an interesting object of philosophical discussion or score debate points for atheists. It would demonstrate that codes are not necessarily designed.

[bippy123]

Also Phi, you should take a look at the first cause argument and why God as the necessary uncaused cause must logically exist. Peter Kreeft explains it in a very simple manner.
http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/first-cause.htm

Phi, your not the first person that had doubt (trust me on this), and you won't be the last.
I know from experience, but God guided you here a reason. Your in good company here my friend
God bless

[Phi]

Hi Phi and welcome to the forum (after all this time). Please post something in the "introduce yourself" thread so everyone knows a little about you.

First, there is no such thing as stupid questions when it comes to your faith. When in doubt, ask.

A logical person by profession, hmm, let me guess, either computer programming or law?

As for doubt, you are not alone. In fact if you do a search you will see at any point of time there is always an active topic on the subject. Doubt in and of itself is not the issue. The issue is who do you put your trust in, yourself, or Christ? (it's a rhetorical question of course). When we look inwardly in our fallen state, we are full of doubt. That is why the Gospel tells us to put our trust in Christ, if we trust in him it wouldn't matter whether or not we have doubt, we know we can be assured of God's promise.

Thanks for reply Byblos

You nailed it, computer programmer (used to be, now I manage the team, so my skills aren't as good as they used to be , hah!)

Welcome to the site Phi.

Lets look at that article

WHY DOES SOMETHING EXIST INSTEAD OF NOTHING?
In a quantum vacuum virtual matter-antimatter particle pairs form from nothing. While most of these matter-antimatter particles form charge parity violation shows that more matter survived than antimatter and formed the universe.

So, even if you want to start lying about the second law of thermodynamics it is physically possible to get free energy. Do you know what? Prove it to me the universe doesn’t work that way with mathematics and physics. Submit your proposal to Nature.

Well straight away - the quantum vaccuum is not nothing - and they always try and pull that trick. The Quantum Vacuum is certainly something - with properties and "Energy". They are downright misleading people when they talk about "Nothing"

LOOK AT DNA YOU CAN’T GET INFORMATION FROM RANDOM CHANCE
Getting information isn’t the big deal. Every chunk of rock contains information. Tree rings are information. Overlapping ripples on a mostly still liquid are interference patterns and are information! There is so much information that some computer scientists think it’s a fundamental force.

You think DNA is awesome? Pfft! The evolution of genetics shows that spontaneous accumulation of sophisticated chemical technology can develop without the interference of an intelligent designer.

This is not information. This is data - information has some context and semantics applied to it and this requires an intelligence

The rest of the article is just typical atheist ignorance, arrogance and rudeness and can be completely ignored. I see straw men everywhere.

The evolutions parts don't concern me as I don't have a problem with evolution.

Silvertusk,

Yeah that was my thinking on the "quantum vacuum", its still something rather than nothing.

And Bibby - I'll definitely checkout those links you posted, thank you!

[Byblos]

A logical person by profession, hmm, let me guess, either computer programming or law?

Thanks for reply Byblos

You nailed it, computer programmer (used to be, now I manage the team, so my skills aren't as good as they used to be , hah!)

It takes one to know one.

[bippy123]

Hi Phi and welcome to the forum (after all this time). Please post something in the "introduce yourself" thread so everyone knows a little about you.

First, there is no such thing as stupid questions when it comes to your faith. When in doubt, ask.

A logical person by profession, hmm, let me guess, either computer programming or law?

As for doubt, you are not alone. In fact if you do a search you will see at any point of time there is always an active topic on the subject. Doubt in and of itself is not the issue. The issue is who do you put your trust in, yourself, or Christ? (it's a rhetorical question of course). When we look inwardly in our fallen state, we are full of doubt. That is why the Gospel tells us to put our trust in Christ, if we trust in him it wouldn't matter whether or not we have doubt, we know we can be assured of God's promise.

Thanks for reply Byblos

You nailed it, computer programmer (used to be, now I manage the team, so my skills aren't as good as they used to be , hah!)

Welcome to the site Phi.

Lets look at that article

WHY DOES SOMETHING EXIST INSTEAD OF NOTHING?
In a quantum vacuum virtual matter-antimatter particle pairs form from nothing. While most of these matter-antimatter particles form charge parity violation shows that more matter survived than antimatter and formed the universe.

So, even if you want to start lying about the second law of thermodynamics it is physically possible to get free energy. Do you know what? Prove it to me the universe doesn’t work that way with mathematics and physics. Submit your proposal to Nature.

Well straight away - the quantum vaccuum is not nothing - and they always try and pull that trick. The Quantum Vacuum is certainly something - with properties and "Energy". They are downright misleading people when they talk about "Nothing"

LOOK AT DNA YOU CAN’T GET INFORMATION FROM RANDOM CHANCE
Getting information isn’t the big deal. Every chunk of rock contains information. Tree rings are information. Overlapping ripples on a mostly still liquid are interference patterns and are information! There is so much information that some computer scientists think it’s a fundamental force.

You think DNA is awesome? Pfft! The evolution of genetics shows that spontaneous accumulation of sophisticated chemical technology can develop without the interference of an intelligent designer.

This is not information. This is data - information has some context and semantics applied to it and this requires an intelligence

The rest of the article is just typical atheist ignorance, arrogance and rudeness and can be completely ignored. I see straw men everywhere.

The evolutions parts don't concern me as I don't have a problem with evolution.

Silvertusk,

Yeah that was my thinking on the "quantum vacuum", its still something rather than nothing.

And Bibby - I'll definitely checkout those links you posted, thank you!

Awesome Phi, Your very welcome. Wow 2 computer programmers here. Then Perry Marshalls site is right up your alley as it also compares DNA with a computer program and we all know that the windows program didnt just writes itself

[PaulSacramento]

No one has all the answers, except God.
Any religion that says they do is trying to sell you something that you shouldn't buy.
Our faith is tested all the time.
The thing is to understand WHO you have faith in and WHY.
Things get pretty easy after that..; )

[Beanybag]

Fellow computer scientist here as well, hello! :]

Hello Phi, I agree with silvertusk. What that article is proposing isn't information.
Perry Marshall has a great site on this specific topic. In fact he took right into the mouth of the lion, when went on the biggest atheist forum and challenged them on this. In the end he even had them agreeing with him.
http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/solve/

The Origin of Information: How to Solve It
 
Cosmic Fingerprints has issued a challenge to the scientific community:
“Show an example of Information that doesn’t come from a mind. All you need is one.”
“Information” is defined as digital communication between an encoder and a decoder, using agreed upon symbols. To date, no one has shown an example of a naturally occurring encoding / decoding system, i.e. one that has demonstrably come into existence without a designer.
Cosmic Fingerprints will freely acknowledge and publicize the first person who can solve this. To solve this problem would not merely provide an interesting object of philosophical discussion or score debate points for atheists. It would demonstrate that codes are not necessarily designed.

While you may find their concept of information inconsistent, I'd say the theory that "all information is of a mind" is an argument from ignorance (imcomplete). It may very well be the case, but I don't find it necessarily to be the case as of yet - I wonder if it is even a decidable problem.

I'd say the example an atheist might provide in contradiction to your assertion that all information is of a mind would be the hypothesis of abiogenesis - while it is not necessarily a fully supported scientific theory, it does have some supporting evidence. There are repeatable experiments which can create conditions that can produce self-replicating molecules (RNA) - which would seem to create information from a non-mind. Whether or not this is true (or whether or not it is god's mind that creates this information) is a outstanding mystery and hard to define - indeed, what is the definition of a mind itself? One might wonder if your definition of information as the product of a mind is not tautological (therefore logically impossible that information would be producible from a non-mind). I wouldn't be so quick to jump to the conclusion that NO information can be naturally occurring, however. Definitions and fine tuning of concepts are needed.

[bippy123]

Beany, Its not an argument from ignorance, its an argument from experience . We have never seen a language (code) arise by chance, and the odds shown below make it rediculous to even suppose of a way to even bring it about without an intelligent mind being involved. The odds of abiogenesis are almost zero, which puts it into the category of a miracle:)
http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/miracle-of-life.htm

So, I'm going to look at this "miracle of life" one more time...

Could life evolve randomly from inorganic matter? Not according to mathematicians.



In the last 30 years a number of prominent scientists have attempted to calculate the odds that a free-living, single-celled organism, such as a bacterium, might result by the chance combining of pre-existent building blocks. Harold Morowitz calculated the odds as one chance in 10100,000,000,000. Sir Fred Hoyle calculated the odds of only the proteins of an amoebae arising by chance as one chance in 1040,000.

...the odds calculated by Morowitz and Hoyle are staggering. The odds led Fred Hoyle to state that the probability of spontaneous generation 'is about the same as the probability that a tornado sweeping through a junk yard could assemble a Boeing 747 from the contents therein.' Mathematicians tell us that any event with an improbability greater than one chance in 1050 is in the realm of metaphysics -- i.e. a miracle.1
Harold Marowitz, an atheist physicist, created mathematical models by imagining broths of living bacteria that were superheated until all the complex chemicals were broken down into basic building blocks. After cooling the mixtures, Marowitz used physics calculations to conclude that the odds of a single bacterium reassembling by chance is one in 10100,000,000,000. 2 Wow! How can I grasp such a large statistic? Well, it's more likely that I would win the state lottery every week for a million years by purchasing just one ticket each week.

In response to the probabilities calculated by Marowitz, Robert Shapiro, author of Origins - A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, wrote:


The improbability involved in generating even one bacterium is so large that it reduces all considerations of time and space to nothingness. Given such odds, the time until the black holes evaporate and the space to the ends of the universe would make no difference at all. If we were to wait, we would truly be waiting for a miracle.3
Sir Fred Hoyle compared the probability of life arising by chance to lining up 1050 (ten with fifty zeros after it) blind people, giving each one a scrambled Rubik's Cube, and finding that they all solve the cube at the same moment.

Regarding the origin of life, Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in biology for his work with the DNA molecule, stated in 1982:


An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. 4

[bippy123]

No one has all the answers, except God.
Any religion that says they do is trying to sell you something that you shouldn't buy.
Our faith is tested all the time.
The thing is to understand WHO you have faith in and WHY.
Things get pretty easy after that..; )

Amen Paul

[Beanybag]

Beany, Its not an argument from ignorance, its an argument from experience . We have never seen a language (code) arise by chance, and the odds shown below make it rediculous to even suppose of a way to even bring it about without an intelligent mind being involved. The odds of abiogenesis are almost zero, which puts it into the category of a miracle:)

But not impossible, thus, to assert it with logical certainty would be an argument from ignorance - at this time, it is only a supported hypothesis (from your view). And I'm not sure why it puts it in the category of a miracle. Are all unlikely events that occur necessarily miracles? I think to do so is a misapplication of probability theory.

I should also point out that this is a continually developing field in science and the odds calculated might not be so precise as you may believe (indeed, I wonder who has all the knowledge to put together such a rigid calculation of the probability of this event). Morowitz himself was a physicist, I should point out, and not a biologist or chemist, or remotely an expert on the conditions in which abiogenesis might have occurred. I have some concerns with the lack of support and citation of references in that article myself, it doesn't strike me as very scientific or authoritative.

I'm not trying to preclude god from this equation, or place god in the realm of deism, but just to say that god's interference or hand in this matter might not be as well understood as we think. Is that too far fetched? I don't think necessarily that abiogenesis and theism must be in conflict! I think it is best to leave this event as a mystery to be discovered as we learn more. I appreciate Paul's response in this case. Thanks for the reply. :]

[Phi]

So I have a question about odds of life forming, fine tuning, etc...

If the odds of complex life forming (like us) is 1:10^37th power (or something along those lines), one would think a grand designer would be involved to guide it or set it in motion.

However (this is where I ask questions based on answers others have given), then what are the odds of Silvertusk saying the phrase, "wow, I like a cheese sandwich with garlic and pickles" when he is exactly 39 1/2 days until his 31st birthday (down to the second).

The odds would be extremely high and almost improbable but yet it still happened at that exact second (thus defying the odds). Could this be the case with our existence and universe?

The reason behind my question, is something like this happened to me about 19 years ago. I was questioning Gods existence while my parents were driving down the road and I said to myself, "God if you can hear me, give me a reason to put my seatbelt on"

And sure enough that exact second a car in the oncoming lane swerved over and almost hit us........I promptly put my seatbelt on.

But what are the odds the ONLY time in my life I think that statement and that car swerved over? To this day I still struggle with that. Was it a sign from the big guy? Or did I just beat the odds of statistics? I mean what if someone said Phi's Mom, "At exactly 12 years, 3 months, 2 week, Tuesday, 45 Minutes and 32 seconds old your future son will think this thought and a car will swerve and almost hit you guys" The odds would be statistically high yet it still happened....

Hopefully that makes sense, sorry if it doesn't.

BTW.......I think of that story every time I get in a car

[Beanybag]

However (this is where I ask questions based on answers others have given), then what are the odds of Silvertusk saying the phrase, "wow, I like a cheese sandwich with garlic and pickles" when he is exactly 39 1/2 days until his 31st birthday (down to the second).

Very interesting point - the distinction you are trying to make is: Are the conditions considered necessary or incidental? If the odds of life forming under the exact conditions are low, does that matter? Clearly we are interested in the necessary conditions for the event, not the exact conditions. It might be that the chances of an event occurring exactly as they did are low, but what about the chances for any such event given a realistic probability space? I think the example they gave earlier was trying to argue for the necessary conditions but I say this is impossible, for we don't know what the necessary conditions are since we don't as of yet know how they formed! All this talk of probability is therefore just guesswork and speculation.