I don't need links to other religion's creation myths. I know about those already. But I'd like a link to your metaphysical gobblygook. I'm tentatively (really tenaciously) labeling it as gobblygook until such time as you can provide a link or title of a referenced work I can read that explores your POV. If you're on a one man crusade to pass off your singular warpish viewpoint, I'll have to pass. I don't do the Jim Jones, Rev Moon, David Koresh swoon gig. Put up or shut up. 'cause you really need to appeal to authority here. Don't worry, it won't be considered a fallacy in this circumstance because you'll be using it not to prove validity but as a more studious proxy which we can all examine with some hope of congruency. And the link bet'not be some AOL or Geocities group thing. Strike gold with a ".org."
You can start with reading and fully understanding all the Vedic literature in the original Sanskrit... That should keep you busy for many lifetimes...
zTroll: >The simplest explanation (Occam's razor) is that these laws >that govern behavior in the natural world, which are >intelligent enough to produce the entire world, produce >intelligence itself as seen in the world, are a product of >some programming, that of course is intelligent and by >design. Unfortunately, your "simplest explanation" becomes obscenely complicated when one looks beyond the end of their nose to the logical question... "who designed the programmer?". Once this question is applied, ID is no longer the Occam's choice. JB
Do you know who designed the programming that makes ET work? Not at all required to know a programmer to observe programming, not at all necessary to know a designer to observe that something appears designed. In the absence of knowing if there is or is not a programmer, then what is the likelihood that there is no programmer? Easier, and more logical to assume a programmer for something that is programmed, which of course the natural world is. I don't think you find anyone on either side that thinks that either ID or non ID is not a programming based process. Since I have never seen a computer program come out of a non programming function, I conclude ET is programmed by a programmer, and as life and nature also follow hard and fast rules, it is also more likely that there is a program running. If you want to meet the programmer of the universe, then seek HIM. One other point, don't know if this is beyond your comprehension, but an eternal program still programs what follows... Evolutionary theory is 100% about programming, just that evolutionary theory believes the programming came from nowhere, which is illogical based on all known observations of programming...
Bullshi... I mean, bullshido. Nah, I mean bullshit. Yeah. definitely. You f*cked up again. That the third time. 3 strikes and you're ignored. That's like a muslim trying to deny some of the many anti-semetic and violent scriptures by saying you need to read the Koran in arabic in order to fully understand. Meh. Special knowledge defense. Blow it out your ass.
you know damn well it is not only a philosophical debate. The fine tuning of the cosmological constant has caused nobel prize winners to acknowledge the argument for design is real. You gave us some of the quotes yourself.
No, it has caused you to say, nobel prize winners acknowledge the argument for design is real. Anyway, tt is Intelligent design being discussed here. If you want to argue design, the world is full of design by natural process going on all around. So why would you want to make it all artificial by inserting a Creator into everything. The argument for intelligent design is at best philosophical . It is not science, nor is it a scientific one.
stu get your quote and explain it sentence by sentence as I have done for you. You know damn well the meaning of the quote is that since string theory has speculated there are billions of universes if you accept that speculation as real you do not have to conclude that the fine tunings of our universe point to design.
These are not even the best arguments. Besides the BBC video, the scientific establishment's most prestigious journals, and its most famous physicists and cosmologists, have all gone on record as recognizing the objective truth of the fine-tuning. The August '97 issue of "Science" (the most prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal in the United States) featured an article entitled "Science and God: A Warming Trend?" Here is an excerpt: The fact that the universe exhibits many features that foster organic life -- such as precisely those physical constants that result in planets and long-lived stars -- also has led some scientists to speculate that some divine influence may be present. In his best-selling book, "A Brief History of Time", Stephen Hawking (perhaps the world's most famous cosmologist) refers to the phenomenon as "remarkable." "The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers (i.e. the constants of physics) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life". "For example," Hawking writes, "if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, stars would have been unable to burn hydrogen and helium, or else they would not have exploded. It seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of values for the numbers (for the constants) that would allow for development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty." Hawking then goes on to say that he can appreciate taking this as possible evidence of "a divine purpose in Creation and the choice of the laws of science (by God)" (ibid. p. 125). Dr. Gerald Schroeder, author of "Genesis and the Big Bang" and "The Science of Life" was formerly with the M.I.T. physics department. He adds the following examples: 1) Professor Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in high energy physics (a field of science that deals with the very early universe), writing in the journal "Scientific American", reflects on how surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values. Although Weinberg is a self-described agnostic, he cannot but be astounded by the extent of the fine-tuning. He goes on to describe how a beryllium isotope having the minuscule half life of 0.0000000000000001 seconds must find and absorb a helium nucleus in that split of time before decaying. This occurs only because of a totally unexpected, exquisitely precise, energy match between the two nuclei. If this did not occur there would be none of the heavier elements. No carbon, no nitrogen, no life. Our universe would be composed of hydrogen and helium. But this is not the end of Professor Weinberg's wonder at our well-tuned universe. He continues: One constant does seem to require an incredible fine-tuning -- The existence of life of any kind seems to require a cancellation between different contributions to the vacuum energy, accurate to about 120 decimal places. This means that if the energies of the Big Bang were, in arbitrary units, not: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000, but instead: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000001, there would be no life of any sort in the entire universe because as Weinberg states: the universe either would go through a complete cycle of expansion and contraction before life could arise, or would expand so rapidly that no galaxies or stars could form. 2) Michael Turner, the widely quoted astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and Fermilab, describes the fine-tuning of the universe with a simile: The precision is as if one could throw a dart across the entire universe and hit a bulls eye one millimeter in diameter on the other side. 3) Roger Penrose, the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, discovers that the likelihood of the universe having usable energy (low entropy) at the creation is even more astounding, namely, an accuracy of one part out of ten to the power of ten to the power of 123. This is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even write the number down in full, in our ordinary denary (power of ten) notation: it would be one followed by ten to the power of 123 successive zeros! (That is a million billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion zeros.) Penrose continues, Even if we were to write a zero on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the entire universe -- and we could throw in all the other particles as well for good measure -- we should fall far short of writing down the figure needed. The precision needed to set the universe on its course is to be in no way inferior to all that extraordinary precision that we have already become accustomed to in the superb dynamical equations (Newton's, Maxwell's, Einstein's) which govern the behavior of things from moment to moment. Cosmologists debate whether the space-time continuum is finite or infinite, bounded or unbounded. In all scenarios, the fine-tuning remains the same. It is appropriate to complete this section on "fine tuning" with the eloquent words of Professor John Wheeler: To my mind, there must be at the bottom of it all, not an utterly simple equation, but an utterly simple IDEA. And to me that idea, when we finally discover it, will be so compelling, and so inevitable, so beautiful, we will all say to each other, "How could it have ever been otherwise?" http://www.geraldschroeder.com/tuning.html ----------------------------------------------- Did you note the second quote from Hawking. Hawking then goes on to say that he can appreciate taking this as possible evidence of "a divine purpose in Creation and the choice of the laws of science (by God)" (ibid. p. 125). Possilble evidence of God. That is not philosophical it is one of the best minds of the word saying you could take these facts as possible evidence of God. Now do you have evidence of no God?