Do you understand those on the other side?

[Jose Fly]

As I've pointed out many times (probably too many times), I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian environment. I was taught young-earth creationism from an early age, was told prayer and reading the Bible were the answer to most of life's problems and questions, and witnessed all sorts of "interesting" things such as speaking in tongues, faith healing, end times predictions, etc.

Yet despite being completely immersed in this culture, I can't recall a time in my life when I ever believed any of it. However, unlike some of my peers at the time I didn't really find it boring. In fact, I found a lot of it to be rather fascinating because.....very little of it made any sense to me. I just could not understand the people, their beliefs, their way of thinking, or much of anything that I saw and heard. When I saw them anointing with oil someone who had the flu and later saw the virus spread (of course), I could not understand what they were thinking. When I saw them make all sorts of failed predictions about the Soviet Union and the end times, yet never even acknowledge their errors while continuing to make more predictions, I was baffled. Speaking in tongues was of particular interest to me because it really made no sense to me.

In the years that I've been debating creationists it's the same thing. When I see them say "no transitional fossils" or "no new genetic information" only to ignore examples of those things when they're presented, I can't relate to that way of thinking at all. When I see them demand evidence for things only to ignore it after it's provided, I can't relate. When I see them quote mine a scientific paper and after someone points it out they completely ignore it, I can't relate.

Now to be clear, I think I "understand" some of what's behind these behaviors (i.e., the psychological factors), but what I don't understand is how the people engaging in them seem to be completely oblivious to it all. What goes on in their mind when they demand "show me the evidence", ignore everything that's provided in response, and then come back later and make the same demand all over again? Are they so blinded by the need to maintain their beliefs that they literally block out all memories of it? Again....I just don't get it.

So the point of discussion for this thread is....how about you? For the "evolutionists", can you relate to the creationists' way of thinking and behaviors? For the creationists, are there behaviors from the other side that baffle you, and you just don't understand? Do you look at folks like me and think to yourselves, "I just cannot relate to his way of thinking?"

Or is it just me?

[brunumb]

Lets not forget the foundations of science here, specifically the well tested law of biogenesis, its as well established as the conservation laws.

Precisely what is this well-tested law of biogenesis?

Do the research, I mean you have WWW (World Wide Web) which I never had as a youngster, researching was shoe leather for me, walking to libraries, walking to lectures, physical effort, today its a breeze!

(Although, you'll get umpteen answers, pick your personal favorite).

The Claytons way of saying "I don't really know but it sounded good at the time". If you can't specifically define the terms you are going to throw out there, don't use them.

[Inquirer]

Lets not forget the foundations of science here, specifically the well tested law of biogenesis, its as well established as the conservation laws.

Precisely what is this well-tested law of biogenesis?

Do the research, I mean you have WWW (World Wide Web) which I never had as a youngster, researching was shoe leather for me, walking to libraries, walking to lectures, physical effort, today its a breeze!

(Although, you'll get umpteen answers, pick your personal favorite).

The Claytons way of saying "I don't really know but it sounded good at the time". If you can't specifically define the terms you are going to throw out there, don't use them.

If the terminology used in a scientific discussion is unfamiliar to you, then brush up on the science, am I being unfair? Would you seriously expect anything other than ridicule if you attended a lecture on advanced analog RF systems and insisted the teacher define voltage? define frequency? define hysteresis?

Are you really telling me that you've not yet looked up "Law of biogenesis" in a search engine yet? I mean really? we'd be well past this stage if you had.

[JoeyKnothead]

If you conclude that doing a single experiment proves 100% that the the result you get is always the result you'll get then don't let me spoil the fun.

You're either deliberately misrepresenting my argument, or fail to understand...

If I drop my a cigarette in a pub and it lands vertically stable, filter on ground, solid (this actually happened) then conclude that the probability of that is 1, do you think I'd be right?

Yes. The probability of your cigarette landing upright, when upright it has landed, is 1.

I thought we were in the "Science and Religion" section, my mistake, this must be the "Pseudoscience and Religion" section.

Naw, Pseudoscience and Religion is here.

[JoeyKnothead]

Clarity edit...

If the terminology used in a scientific discussion is unfamiliar to you, then brush up on the science, am I being unfair? Would you seriously expect anything other than ridicule if you attended a lecture on advanced analog RF systems and insisted the teacher define voltage? define frequency? define hysteresis?

That's rich coming from someone who demands I define what "truth" means before he can muster up an answer.

Do you think the resurrection of Christ described in the New Testament is truth?

[We_Are_VENOM]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #621]

I do apologize, Doc.

I know I asked on a couple occasions for you tell me what you wanted to address (from prior posts on this thread).

I would now rather for you to just BRING ALL THE SMOKE TO THIS THREAD..

viewtopic.php?t=39524

Sorry for the wasted time...if you want me to address post #621, then bring it to the new thread.

[Difflugia]

If I drop my a cigarette in a pub and it lands vertically stable, filter on ground, solid (this actually happened) then conclude that the probability of that is 1, do you think I'd be right?

Of it happening again? No.

But if you're looking at it and claim that it can't have happened because the prior probability is so low, then you'd also be wrong.[/quote]

If you're looking at it, the probability that it in fact happened is 1 (well, minus the probability that you're hallucinating).

"The probability of that" is ambiguous enough on its own that it could have (at least) three different meanings. It's clear from your context that you intend "the probability of that" to mean either the prior probability or the probability of it happening again. It's clear from Joey's context that he meant the probability that it, in fact, happened. That alone doesn't make Joey's overall point correct, but it does make your rebuttal incorrect, or at least incomplete.

[JoeyKnothead]

...
That alone doesn't make Joey's overall point correct, but it does make your rebuttal incorrect, or at least incomplete.

Please school me.

I'm always happy to learn me something new, and will, if reluctantly, retract when convinced of my error (which I'm confident you can do in short order).

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #636]

It's clear from your context that you intend "the probability of that" to mean either the prior probability or the probability of it happening again. It's clear from Joey's context that he meant the probability that it, in fact, happened.

Yes ... this seems simple. If the question is, what is the probability that the cigarette will land (and remain) vertical before the drop is made, it would be some small number because of the shape of a cigarette and the physics of it falling and landing that way, and remaining stable. But if the question asked after the drop was made is ... what is the probability that the drop just made resulted in a vertical cigarette it would be 1, because that is in fact what happened. Am I missing something?

[William]

Rude Person: The answer depends on how you define truth Joey, since you don't seem to know what you mean, we are at an impasse, yet you keep asking the same question over and over, here consider this quote (supposedly from Einstein, but I don't think it is)
~ "The definition of a fool is someone who does the same thing over and over again expecting different results" ~

I will stand up and say that Joey has been - for me - an inspiration and honest guy making honest attempts at being honest.

Joey has not reported that he gets in behind the mule since he got in behind the mule, and this is largely to do with his capacity to learn from past blunders.

I feel embarrassed that he would be subtly referred to as foolish by Rude Person, but then remember that Rude Person tries it on with anyone who does not agree with him...I being one of those Rude Person has targeted, and Rude Person been warned by admin moderators to cease and desist in the so doing of.

To the point where I don't even want to acknowledge Rude Person but do want to continue to acknowledge JK as someone I would feel privileged to share a campfire with...Me and my pretty thing, he and his...

Now when it comes to pretty things - sure...we may do the same thing over and over again expecting different results, but that is a foolishness we can happily live with.

"Don't feed the trolls" is advice re lesser things than pretty...

Just saying, and having said....

[Difflugia]

Please school me.

I'm always happy to learn me something new, and will, if reluctantly, retract when convinced of my error (which I'm confident you can do in short order).

I didn't say it wasn't correct, either, just that Inquirer's argument is fallacious such that it has no bearing on your correctness.

For what it's worth, your argument is a bit incomplete, too. "We won the universe lottery," or the anthropic principle, is possible, but not very satisfying because it lacks explanatory power. Penrose points out that the calculated odds are actually worse than the quantum state of the universe spontaneously and randomly assembling itself into the universe that we know and love.

The solution is to figure out why that number's wrong by finding an unless. The "odds of the universe" are 1 in 10¹⁰¹²³ unless" we're missing something. We_Are_VENOM's unless is Jesus. There's no support for why it must be Jesus, so we can pretty much lump it in with everything else made up, like space Nazis, purple people eaters, and magic hot dogs. Most likely, the unless comes down to "one of our premises is wrong."

The teleological argument link references Roger Penrose's book The Emperor's New Mind, so let's start there. The book is available for checkout at Internet Archive. The discussion that arrives at the 10¹⁰¹²³ number is at the end of chapter 7 and is called "How special was the Big Bang?" In a nutshell, Penrose writes that the ratio of possible low entropy universes "like ours" is 1 in 10¹⁰¹²³ high entropy universes, so those are the odds unless there is something that constrains the entropy value of the early universe. He posits that this constraint is quantum gravity, but at the time he wrote the book, nobody had completely developed a theory of quantum gravity. And in creationist apologetics, any incomplete theory is no better than m̶a̶g̶i̶c̶ ̶h̶o̶t̶ ̶d̶o̶g̶s Jesus.

In 2010, Penrose wrote a book called Cycles of Time, also available for checkout at Internet Archive. This book describes a theory that he developed called Conformal Cyclic Cosmology in which universes with a positive cosmological constant, instead of "crunching" as he originally postulated, expanded to heat death. CCC creates a mathematical model of how this expanded state results in singularities from which new Big Bangs arise, creating low-entropy universes.

So, for apologists to be right, they need three things:

1. Penrose was right about the first thing.
2. Penrose was wrong about the second thing.
3. Jesus can create low-entropy universes.

We_Are_VENOM would never let anyone get away with the totally real taxicab fallacy by combining 1 and 2, so even if they could somehow demonstrate number 3, they're still dead in the water.