Why won't God just appear and end this debate?

[achilles12604]

This quesiton has been posed in various ways on this forum since I arrived. Welshboy is the most recent to ask so I am making it a thread. I hope it isn't one already.

Here is my own ideas about why God choses not to directly appear and cause everyone to believe in him.

If God does exist then he is a force of unimaginable power and magisty.

Human's, especially those who reject the supernatural, have a tendency to think they know everything about everything around them. This grants them the ability to reject God. They can freely reject God and any ideas of God because they feel safe doing so.

Now lets say God did appear or do something which would make his existence undeniable to a reasonable person. Now this same person could easily feel compelled to obey and follow God out of nothing but fear of him.

This is not what Christian theology teaches. God wants people to WANT to come to him. Just as every human wants someone to want them, so to with God. It isn't a NEED per se, but then it isn't a NEED for people either. But is certainly does allow the person to experience many things that they otherwise would have never been able to feel.

Question: Is my logic consistent? Have I created and logical fallacies in this line of reasoning?

[wrekk]

So the "misguided scientists" come up short on plausible creation theories of humanity, but yet seem to do so many other things really well. Like say ... building computers, creating vast networks, the internet, php coding, etc.

So you're comfortable with science facilitating things that enhance our lives, but just don't let them attempt to explain our origins. Is that it? Is this area off limits to science?

Who says it's off limits? Let them go for it. And if they do succeed in creating life in a test tube just remember one thing: it was by intelligent design!

And it'll be great to have actual "real" people to talk to about it, too.

So by that logic and line of reasoning, that if and when these people do accomplish this, will they possibly succeed in the development of that life where God failed? Or will they just create the life in that test tube and just walk away from it? Never to be in contact or communication with it again...

[Easyrider]

So the "misguided scientists" come up short on plausible creation theories of humanity, but yet seem to do so many other things really well. Like say ... building computers, creating vast networks, the internet, php coding, etc.

So you're comfortable with science facilitating things that enhance our lives, but just don't let them attempt to explain our origins. Is that it? Is this area off limits to science?

Who says it's off limits? Let them go for it. And if they do succeed in creating life in a test tube just remember one thing: it was by intelligent design!

And it'll be great to have actual "real" people to talk to about it, too.

So by that logic and line of reasoning, that if and when these people do accomplish this, will they possibly succeed in the development of that life where God failed?

God failed? Where?

Or will they just create the life in that test tube and just walk away from it? Never to be in contact or communication with it again...

I'll think they'll continue. They desperately want their Utopian dream. I seriously doubt they'll find it that way, though, because man as a creator is imperfect, and thus his creations will likely reflect that in some way.

[jjg]

hey! Wha..?

Who's been using my account?

[MrWhy]

All that is required is the spontaneous generation of a self-replicating molecule. Once that is in place, natural selection can get to work in the development. We know from regular organic chemistry that extremely complex molecules (including Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins) can come about naturally.

Also consider that there may have been up to a billion years with many billions of molecules distributed across the planet. Even if the advent of this self-replicating molecule was incredibly improbable (say 10 billion to one against), with that many molecules around and over that time, for it to happen once becomes a virtual certainty. And it only had to happen once.

For Abiogenesis to be a plausible argument for god, you have to defend the idea that "life from non-life" is impossible.

So far, scientists have been woefully failing to induce abiogenesis even under the most favorable conditions, even introducing all the theorized building blocks needed. The single cell is incredibly complex. For instance, what builds first, the protoplasm or the cell walls needed to contain the protoplasm?

On science’s attempts to explain / justify abiogenesis:

“There isn’t any doubt that science, for the moment at least, is at a dead end. The optimism of the 1950’s is gone. The mood at the 1999 international conference on origin of life was described as grim – full of frustration, pessimism, and desperation. Nobody pretends that any alternative provides a reasonable path of how life went unguided from simple chemicals to proteins to basic life forms."

Quote by Walter L. Bradley, Ph.d., who received his B.S. in Engineering Science and his Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of Texas in Austin. He taught as an Assistant and Associate Professor of Metallurgical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines before assuming a position as Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU) in 1976. Dr. Bradley, also served as Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University and as Director of the Polymer Technology Center at TAMU. He currently serves as Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor University. http://www.leaderu.com/offices/bradley/ ... igned.html

Klaus Dose, the biochemist who’s considered one of the foremost experts in this area, summed up the situation pretty well”:

“More than thirty years of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principle theories and experiments in the field have either ended in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.”

I'll bet Bradley is an active Christian scientist apologist. Not someone who is going to look very long for evidence that diminishes his god concept. An example of how religious addiction can shackle an otherwise effective mind. If abiogenesis is too complex for any natural process, then attributing it to an infinitely more complex creator god is strange reasoning that explains complex unknown mystery A with a far more complex unknown mystery B.

Our thinking is stuck in the assumption that any complex process or system must be created by something more complex. This heirarchy of creation is what we see in all things made by humans. Many assume intelligent design of life because it's the only way they know for making a functional machine. However, given enough time, simple processes that keep adding and modifying functions can produce complexity. To open our minds for this possibility we have to invert the common complexity creation order we are used to, and recognize that simple processes can create complexity. In looking backwards at the evolution of natural (not human) things we see progressively simplier objects. Logically, creation regression is more likely to end (start?) with something simple rather than something complex. The creator god idea is far from simple.

If you look back two centuries there's a longer list of "god did it" things people thought would never be explained. The list get shorter every century, but the answers are usually found by people who are looking.

[Goat]

All that is required is the spontaneous generation of a self-replicating molecule. Once that is in place, natural selection can get to work in the development. We know from regular organic chemistry that extremely complex molecules (including Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins) can come about naturally.

Also consider that there may have been up to a billion years with many billions of molecules distributed across the planet. Even if the advent of this self-replicating molecule was incredibly improbable (say 10 billion to one against), with that many molecules around and over that time, for it to happen once becomes a virtual certainty. And it only had to happen once.

For Abiogenesis to be a plausible argument for god, you have to defend the idea that "life from non-life" is impossible.

So far, scientists have been woefully failing to induce abiogenesis even under the most favorable conditions, even introducing all the theorized building blocks needed. The single cell is incredibly complex. For instance, what builds first, the protoplasm or the cell walls needed to contain the protoplasm?

On science’s attempts to explain / justify abiogenesis:

“There isn’t any doubt that science, for the moment at least, is at a dead end. The optimism of the 1950’s is gone. The mood at the 1999 international conference on origin of life was described as grim – full of frustration, pessimism, and desperation. Nobody pretends that any alternative provides a reasonable path of how life went unguided from simple chemicals to proteins to basic life forms."

Quote by Walter L. Bradley, Ph.d., who received his B.S. in Engineering Science and his Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of Texas in Austin. He taught as an Assistant and Associate Professor of Metallurgical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines before assuming a position as Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU) in 1976. Dr. Bradley, also served as Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University and as Director of the Polymer Technology Center at TAMU. He currently serves as Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor University. http://www.leaderu.com/offices/bradley/ ... igned.html

Klaus Dose, the biochemist who’s considered one of the foremost experts in this area, summed up the situation pretty well”:

“More than thirty years of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principle theories and experiments in the field have either ended in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.”

I'll bet Bradley is an active Christian scientist apologist. Not someone who is going to look very long for evidence that diminishes his god concept. An example of how religious addiction can shackle an otherwise effective mind. If abiogenesis is too complex for any natural process, then attributing it to an infinitely more complex creator god is strange reasoning that explains complex unknown mystery A with a far more complex unknown mystery B.

Our thinking is stuck in the assumption that any complex process or system must be created by something more complex. This heirarchy of creation is what we see in all things made by humans. Many assume intelligent design of life because it's the only way they know for making a functional machine. However, given enough time, simple processes that keep adding and modifying functions can produce complexity. To open our minds for this possibility we have to invert the common complexity creation order we are used to, and recognize that simple processes can create complexity. In looking backwards at the evolution of natural (not human) things we see progressively simplier objects. Logically, creation regression is more likely to end (start?) with something simple rather than something complex. The creator god idea is far from simple.

If you look back two centuries there's a longer list of "god did it" things people thought would never be explained. The list get shorter every century, but the answers are usually found by people who are looking.

One thing I noticed, when it comes to scientists that are into 'I.D.' and all that nonsense, there are a heck of a lot more engineeers that phsysics or biologists.

That is just their mind set. THey can't see beyond that.

[Easyrider]

I'll bet Bradley is an active Christian scientist apologist. Not someone who is going to look very long for evidence that diminishes his god concept.

Well, secular scientists are hardly going to seriously consider a God hypothesis. They are secular apologists for the most part. Bradley and others provide alternative views which should also be considered.

An example of how religious addiction can shackle an otherwise effective mind. If abiogenesis is too complex for any natural process, then attributing it to an infinitely more complex creator god is strange reasoning that explains complex unknown mystery A with a far more complex unknown mystery B.

Isn't the secular mind less shackled if they can consider both complex answers?

Many assume intelligent design of life because it's the only way they know for making a functional machine. However, given enough time, simple processes that keep adding and modifying functions can produce complexity.

That's the theory. So far with abiogenesis it hasn't borne out. Time itself is not a magical component that introduces more complex systems. There has to be something else. What would that be?

[jjg]

McCoullough, if God was a 34 year old from israel, why couldn't he be a 38 year old from Canada?

We're a good country.

[MrWhy]

I'll bet Bradley is an active Christian scientist apologist. Not someone who is going to look very long for evidence that diminishes his god concept.

Well, secular scientists are hardly going to seriously consider a God hypothesis. They are secular apologists for the most part. Bradley and others provide alternative views which should also be considered.

I would consider "god did it" as the popular view and natural processes as the alternate. Being born in the US makes it highly probable that you start out with the popular view.

An example of how religious addiction can shackle an otherwise effective mind. If abiogenesis is too complex for any natural process, then attributing it to an infinitely more complex creator god is strange reasoning that explains complex unknown mystery A with a far more complex unknown mystery B.

Isn't the secular mind less shackled if they can consider both complex answers?

Most start with GDI, and what's to consider with that view. It's a predetermined conclusion that most of us are fed at an early age. No self determination or research was involved.

Many assume intelligent design of life because it's the only way they know for making a functional machine. However, given enough time, simple processes that keep adding and modifying functions can produce complexity.

That's the theory. So far with abiogenesis it hasn't borne out. Time itself is not a magical component that introduces more complex systems. There has to be something else. What would that be?

1. A dividing or replication mechanism that's not perfect and makes mistakes.
2. Various environmental influences that allows much that works, and kills most that does not.

[Easyrider]

1. A dividing or replication mechanism that's not perfect and makes mistakes.

I still don't see how added "information" is then incorporated to produce more complex systems. If this vehicle worked then it should also produce a less complex species originating from the host.

[Goat]

1. A dividing or replication mechanism that's not perfect and makes mistakes.

I still don't see how added "information" is then incorporated to produce more complex systems. If this vehicle worked then it should also produce a less complex species originating from the host.

It has. Consider, for example, the hook worm.

Or, for that matter, the 'loss' of information in cave dwelling species where eyes become vestigial.