How is there reality without God?

[EarthScienceguy]

Neils Bohr
"No Phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon." Or another way to say this is that a tree does not fall in a forest unless it is observed.

The only way for there to be an objective reality is if God is the constant observer everywhere.

Physicist John Archibald Wheeler: "It is wrong to think of the past as 'already existing' in all detail. The 'past' is theory. The past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present."

God is everywhere so He can observe everywhere and produce objective reality.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to OneWay in post #50]

If you are not here to debate then why are you here?
This is a debate forum.

Yes it is, and this is a debate topic within the debate section. This is where the debating happens. Have you got anything other than "can you prove it"?

[OneWay]

[Replying to OneWay in post #50]

If you are not here to debate then why are you here?
This is a debate forum.

Yes it is, and this is a debate topic within the debate section. This is where the debating happens. Have you got anything other than "can you prove it"?

What else is there in debate?

[Purple Knight]

Physicist John Archibald Wheeler: "It is wrong to think of the past as 'already existing' in all detail. The 'past' is theory. The past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present."

I'm not uncomfortable with this reality. As long as I'm observing something, it looks objective, and it won't change in front of my eyeballs then as far as I'm concerned, it is objective. It functions as objective. If things are in flux when nobody is looking then so be it; I'm not looking so it doesn't affect me.

If I have a cat that is a G3 or G4 out of an original I bought, maybe that original never existed. But either way she's not here anymore.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to OneWay in post #52]

What else is there in debate?

The putting forth of opposing arguments. Responding with "can you prove it" gets nowhere because I could respond with "can you disprove it", and nothing is accomplished.

I claim that the age of the Earth is 4.7 billion years because of meteorite dating (for which I provided a link containing many dozens of examples ... in an article written by a creationist organization of all things), zircon rock dating, and other evidence. This is all well documented science, and you can easily read the article I linked for its references if you want the original science papers, do some Googling, read textbooks, etc., (ie. study the subject). Or, you can offer up an opposing argument as to why the Earth is NOT 4.7 billion years old. That is what debating is all about ... not just asking "can you prove it" for any claim that is made.

[OneWay]

[Replying to OneWay in post #52]

What else is there in debate?

I claim that the age of the Earth is 4.7 billion years because of meteorite dating

I will help you, so as you would be correct in a discussion.

It is my unproven opinion, that the age of the Earth is 4.7 billion years because of meteorite dating.

This would make your statement legitimate in any discussion.
But it would not work on me in a debate.

[JoeyKnothead]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #0]

Evolution's been observed, so is established fact. Now, as to how such processes play out, that's fair game.

No it is not.

Evolution can be observed in the change of alleles in offspring. It's these changes that helps drive evolution.

No one has been doing a million years of study. Not even a 1,000-year study. The closest thing is a 30-year-old Ecoli experiment at Michigan State. And that experiment has shown that there is not enough time for evolution to take place. Therefore making it impossible.

See above. Evolution begins with a change in alleles, which has been observed. Beyond that, we can see how offspring ain't identical to either parent, and these changes, combined with environment, are the drivers of evolution.

If that's accepted, you still haven't shown you know what lies beyond, regarding your claims of a god, and logic not holding.

All cosmologists are making the claims not me.

As you present their claims as arguments for your own, we should expect you to present support (or retractions) for em.

Are you making the case that there is nothing that lies beyond this universe?

I'm making the case that where one claims, in debate, to know what lies beyond the universe, or properties thereof, they should be expected to show they speak truth.

Now that would break not only the laws of physics but also the law of the principle of sufficient reason (everything must have a reason or a cause).

So you claim the laws of physics hafta apply beyond the universe, but not the laws of logic?

The argument you are making is breaking the very laws of logic that you say you hold. "Everything must have a reason or a cause." So logically this universe must have a cause for its existence.

If everything must have a reason or a cause, what reason or a cause created the reason or a cause, that created the reason or a cause of the universe?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to OneWay in post #55]

It is my unproven opinion, that the age of the Earth is 4.7 billion years because of meteorite dating.

That is not an opposing argument. You seem to be missing the point of what a debate is. I pointed to meteorite dating as a large collection of scientific measurements made over several decades on hundreds of samples by different research groups using a wide range of isotopes, all of which produce incredibly consistent results. It is not my unproven opinion that these results indicate that our solar system and its planets formed around 4.7 billion years ago. The results of the dating measurements show that. It is not anyone's opinion.

But it would not work on me in a debate.

That's irrelevant, because you're not debating. To participate in a debate you have to present an opposing argument as to why the radiometric dating is wrong, or an argument as to why it is correct but does not show that the age of the Earth is 4.7 billion years. You've presented no opposing arguments of any kind, so you are not participating in a debate.

[Jose Fly]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #0]

Evolution's been observed, so is established fact. Now, as to how such processes play out, that's fair game.

No it is not. No one has been doing a million years of study. Not even a 1,000-year study. The closest thing is a 30-year-old Ecoli experiment at Michigan State. And that experiment has shown that there is not enough time for evolution to take place. Therefore making it impossible.

Wow. Now that's some denialism! As Barbarian likes to point out, even young-earth creationist organizations acknowledge that evolution occurs, sometimes to the level of taxonomic families (they need it to happen to make their "Noah took representatives of 'kinds'" story work).

So to see you actually say that no population has ever evolved, ever....well, that puts you in a very unique and tiny class of denialists.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #46]

The "belief" as you put it is based entirely on the results of science. Science not only supports it, but it is also the entire basis of it.

But it has been shown that matter and energy cannot be the cause of the universe because they both need space and constants of nature to exist. If there is no universe then there is no space for matter and energy to exist and there is no reason for the constants of nature. So no, your belief that matter and energy created the universe is not supported by science.

What do you mean by "seen"? Of course no person as lived long enough to physically observe, for example, fish evolve to amphibians because (a) no humans existed when that happened, and (b) it took far, far longer than any human lifetime ... even if you include the ridiculous stories in Genesisof 900+ year old people. Evolution is a formal scientific theory, and rightfully so, because there are enough observations and enough evidence to confirm it. When someone can debunk the overwhelming evidence, it will fail to be accepted. Until then, it remains the best explanation we have for how life diversified on this planet.

That is exactly what I mean by seen or observe. There could not have been enough observations because you just said that no one observed it. No one observed evolution you cannot observe history. The only long-term experiment evolution experiment only produced 12 mutations in 30 years and 70,000 generations. That is not fast enough for evolution to happen.

I don't doubt that some preacher named Jesus was walking around the Middle East 2000 years ago, and that he upset the Romans and was crucified. But the claim that he "rose from the dead" is just an unconfirmed story. To use your own line of argument, who saw this actually happen to confirm it? The empty tomb story, and claims people saw him after the crucification, are not confirmed by anything but hearsay in one holy book. Why it is any more valid than the story of Muhammad taking a night trip to heaven aboard a winged horse-like creature called Buraq, or stories in other holy books.

Paul said that he saw the risen Jesus. Christianity also started in the same city where Jesus was crucified how is that the case, if anyone should know if He was not crucified and rose again, would be those in Jerusalem. No, one else saw Muhammad taking that night trip. No one even said that they saw Muhammad taking that night trip. No one said that they saw the angel that gave Muhammad the Karan also.

The fossil record is evidence ... and fossils can be dated whether you believe it not. They are observations. I do believe it, and the fossil record (among many other observations, genetic support, etc.) proves evolution. I expect your main opposition to it is that it shows humans evolved from a great ape ancestor, that humans aren't anything special in the grand scheme of things, and these contradict religious beliefs based on the bible stories.

It does not prove evolution because it has not been observed. Again why would you believe these researchers and not cosmologists? Because you like what these are saying and you do not like what cosmologists are saying.

[Jose Fly]

The only long-term experiment evolution experiment only produced 12 mutations in 30 years and 70,000 generations.

That's incorrect and you were corrected on it before, yet here you are repeating the error. That means the question now becomes, is this because you forgot or because you just don't care?