666...the Devils Moving Average

I think you answered quite well.

Here is where the big light bulb should go off in your head:

By allowing you to know only ONE more additional hidden
variable, you gave me WILDY different answers for
the odds ranging from ZERO to 100% probable.

Isn't that interesting?

Yet, when calculating the odds of life, and NOT knowing ALL
the variables, and not even knowing what percentage of
the variables you are aware of, you CLAIM to know that
the probability of life is very low.

Your 1000 shots while standing in a firing range, and all
your other similar analogies completely FAIL because of this.
What if there was another unknown variable in your analogy?
For example...what if the distance between the shooters and
the executee is 1 trillion light years??? NOW what is the
probability of being hit by 1000 shots? ZERO. Bullets cant
travel 1 trillion light years :D


A SINGLE unknown variable could make life HIGHLY probably.
What you have been posting all this time is the equivalent
of a peg board with 1 trillion+ holes in it, but you have
NO idea how many pegs are in the bag, or what color they are.
You may have all kinds of missing variables, only ONE of which
can DRASTICALLY change the odds, as you have proven with
your WILDLY different answers.

Yet you CLAIM a low probability, even going as far as
saying its impossible if any of the variables you DO have
are changed just a little bit.


So now I ask you, WHAT is the probability of life in the universe
when you DONT know all the variables ( No of pegs, color of pegs, dimension of the peg board, etc?) ?


ANSWER: You have NO idea. You are incapable of calculating the odds. Period.
You CANT answer the question without knowing how many pegs
are in the bag, and what colors they are.
The data required to calculate probabilities is not sufficient.

Your house of statistical cards has collapsed.


peace

axeman




Quote from ShoeshineBoy:



Okay, here's my guess. (The little guy is watching a video, so I've got a couple minutes.) Hope I understand you question.

1) 0
2) 0
3) 1.0
4) Very close to 0
5) Very close to 1

All right, let me know how I did. Just don't ask me to calculate it if there are 5,000 red in the bag. :D
More...
 
"If you truly had been a theist even a moderately knowledgable one then you would know that this is exactly the case."

Dont even challenge my theism.
Your assertion is based on false assumptions.
1) Your assuming I was christian ( which I was, so this doesn't matter, but its still a bad assumption, I may be following a non-christian bible)

2) More importantly, your assuming im interpreting Genesis
the SAME WAY as you, which is a total JOKE, because I cant
even find two PRIESTS that will agree on everything in the bible.
It's just too damn ambiguous.


"The original design probably didn't have these flaws that were required after the fall. Don't forget death entered earth at that time in theory. Your whole argument seems to be that you know better than God and desire to become as God which started the whole problem in the first place."

My whole argument seems to be that I know better than god?
Because I can point out obvious claims? Are you serious?
You have it backwards. I dont think a perfect designer
EVEN EXISTS **BECAUSE** of all the obvious flaws I can
find in nature. How can I know better than a fairy tale??


" It is extrememly silly to deny God say He doesn't exist and then blame Him for everything bad in the universe. "

Im NOT blaming him for everything bad in the universe.
Im saying that its silly to believe in an omniscient, omnipotent
god could exist that creates so many bad designs, which
is exactly what the creationists claim.
But reality contradicts such a notion.


"It also quite ridiculous to point to a complex organism and say I could have designed a better organism. That is the heigth of conceit and that is what started this whole mess to begin with. "

Fallacy: Poisoning the well. Conceit has nothing to do with my argument.
I could be completely conceited and still have the stronger position.

"Refer to Darkhorses' last few posts about who considers themselves to be the center of the universe. That is exactly what I am saying but from a different angle."

Darkhorses post are irrelevant.
If you want to claim that we cannot argue about god from
a human perspective because if god exists, then our
perspective does not matter, then we are simply arguing about
a fictional universe we dont exist in. So who cares.

What is the point in giving the theists poetic license, HYPOTHETICALLY,
to define a god any way they wish, which they THEN cant
prove even exists? Wasted time.

Prove god exists FIRST, and then it is worth debating his attributes and morality.
Debating his attributes first is jumping the gun. We might as well
debate the attributes of three headed unicorns. Why dont we
do that instead? :D

I occasionally like to poke at some of the obvious flaws in
many of the silly notions surrounding god, like omniscience
and omnipotence and benevolence, but if you want to get
technical, why even bother? Why discuss FICTION?
Give us a proof FIRST, and then we can SERIOUSLY
discuss his attributes. Until then...its just hot fairy tale air.




peace

axeman
 
"What kind of person believes in love? Is it irrational and illogical to believe in love?"

Nope. Whats your point?


"Show me a proof of love based on scientific measurements, then we can talk about what love is, or what God is. "

Thats easy. Give me your precise definition of love, and
I will give you objective measurements.

"You cannot prove love exists beyond an acceptance and agreement of the concept of love. "

What a silly statement.
This translates to:

You cannot prove love exists beyond the definition of love.
Well duh. :D


"Even if I talk about my experiences of love, and someone else talks about their experiences of love, are they the same experiences? "

No... so what? Are they suddenly not measureable?


"You can show me someone's actions, but you can never prove their intent, as intent can never be measured by scientific measures. Love is in the intent, not in the actions. Actions follow intent, not the reverse."

Ever hear of polling? :D

Excuse me sir... are you in love?
Again... it depends on your definition of love.


"Consequently, no one can know with certainty on the basis of perception that they are loved, they can only guess at someone's intentions behind actions....or they can faith that they are loved."

Nonsense. Given an objective definition, it is pretty easy
to determine if someone loves you.


"However, we all know what love is, what loves feels like, etc. Children know what love is, even animals know what love is."

Nonsense. Very few people can agree on what love is.
Does the wife of a husband who is a wife beater, who CLAIMS
she loves her husband, really love her husband?

Some would say yes. Some would say no.
Some beaten wives may say yes, some no.

Again.... without a good definition, it's too fuzzy of a term
to determine anything.

"How do we know? Via the tool that knows and understands love, the human heart."

Bullshit. Can you think of ANY scenarios where someone
feels love in their heart, when its obviously NOT love?
Of course you can.

"That you either have failed with, or never practiced using tools beyond the intellect is of course your choice, and like the fox who concluded sour grapes because of his failure, you can stand in judgment of the heart's reality on the basis of your intellectual perspective and sensory input alone.

It is however, unreasonable in my opinion, and illogical to apply the same tools to knowing love or knowing God that one applies to that which can be measured with the intellect and senses, and vice versa."

Yes...in YOUR OPINION. Which is why you cant prove anything.


"It is a choice what tools to use. Both are available. "

But both are NOT as effective.


"If we saw a man licking a CD in order to hear the music, we would think him mad."

But wait a sec!!! What if he BELIEVED IN HIS HEART that this
was the right approach??? :D
I agree....those heart guys are mad :)


"If we saw a man touching fruit with his hand to see what it smelled like, we would think him mad.
If we saw a man stick a flower in his mouth to see the color, we would think him mad.

Wrong tools for the job."

We can easily determine WHY it's a bad idea to use your
sense of touch to determine color, based on its failure rate
to do so.

We can also draw the same conclusion when we observe
peoples choices based on what they "feel in their heart".
"But I LOVE him" proclaims the beaten wife.
If she used her HEAD instead, to determine love, she wouldnt
BE in such a mess, now would she?

I can give NUMEROUS examples of WHY the heart is a terrible
choice to determine when you "love" someone.

How about the mother who proclaimed she LOVED her children
so much she had to kill them???
Yeah... great tool for determining love there. NOT!

"Those who have used the tools that are designed to know love, and know God report their experiences. Those unwilling, incapable, or having failed with their own experimentations.....they have little choice but to follow the fox's sour grapes conclusion. "

Silly wabbit.... god is for kids :D


peace

axeman
 
Quote from axeman:

Thats easy. Give me your precise definition of love, and
I will give you objective measurements.

Precise definition? You don't have one?

Oh well. As used in my previous comments, love would be the feelings someone has for another person, those feelings such that their intention would be to always act in a manner that they believe is in the best interest of the object of their love. Example would be the love of a mother for a child.


"No... so what? Are they suddenly not measurable?"

Show me the instrument to measure amounts of love.

"Nonsense. Given an objective definition, it is pretty easy
to determine if someone loves you."

Definition given above. How would you know based on the actions alone which are measurable what the inner intention and real motivation of the one who appears to be loving another really are? They could be acting. We see actors on the screen all the time acting very loving, but in fact they are not expressing love.


"Nonsense. Very few people can agree on what love is.
Does the wife of a husband who is a wife beater, who CLAIMS
she loves her husband, really love her husband?"

You are defining love as the action, I am not. The action can be faked, inner intention is real. The husband may love the wife, and believe in his heart that beating the wife is in her best interest. His intention can be good and pure. All can agree that love is the sincere intention behind the action.


"Yes...in YOUR OPINION. Which is why you cant prove anything."

On an intellectual level, one cannot know they are loved truly by another. In practical fact, love is known by faith and the tool of the human heart. This is why it is so common for human beings to be torn between their heart and mind. Were humans devoid of that aspect of their personality that knows via faith and the heart, we would all be Vulcans.


"But both are NOT as effective."

Apples and oranges. The sense of hearing is of little value applied to one who tastes wine for a living. Different tools, different jobs.

I would never suggest one apply faith to material problems that are within the field of the intellect, nor do I suggest using the intellect to fields that are outside the intellect.

"We can easily determine WHY it's a bad idea to use your
sense of touch to determine color, based on its failure rate
to do so.

We can also draw the same conclusion when we observe
peoples choices based on what they "feel in their heart".
"But I LOVE him" proclaims the beaten wife.
If she used her HEAD instead, to determine love, she wouldn't
BE in such a mess, now would she?"

You have a measurable rate of failure, as we have a method to define failure and success. There is no objective method of measuring whether or not someone sincerely loves you, or if God loves you in any objective manner, they are not knowable via the intellect and its set of objective criteria.

The wife may very well love the man sincerely. If she truly loves the man, if she truly wants what is best for the man over her own needs, then she is happy in whatever the man does to her if it pleases the man.

"I can give NUMEROUS examples of WHY the heart is a terrible
choice to determine when you "love" someone."

You can make value judgments of that I have no doubt. You can attempt to apply your intellect and sense of reason to love, but that is as useful as applying the intellect to art.

"How about the mother who proclaimed she LOVED her children
so much she had to kill them???"

She could very well have loved them and been mentally delusional due to a chemical imbalance that clouded her mind, but not her feelings. This is not a discussion on how people should express love, but rather how they know they love and are loved.


"Silly wabbit.... god is for kids"

Condescension is the typical approach of those who think their intellect superior in all areas of life, and think their intellect superior to other people in the areas that are within the realm of the intellect.
More...
 
Quote from axeman:

I think you answered quite well.

You have NO idea. You are incapable of calculating the odds. Period.
You CANT answer the question without knowing how many pegs
are in the bag, and what colors they are.
The data required to calculate probabilities is not sufficient.

Your house of statistical cards has collapsed.
More...

It's an interesting example and I get your point: you cannot calculate exact odds in any of these cases. But it is your conclusion that I strongly disagree with.

You are doing the same old argument: you are saying we cannot calculate exact odds so we can't "prove" God. Again and again, I agree. And I don't think anyone anywhere disputes that. I'm not trying to say I can prove God stochastically.

But by any standard the numbers show that these are ultra low probability events.

Besides, your example does not represent the current astronomical situation nor the Origin of Life situation. Science basically knows what is in the bag and what is on the board.

Take the Origin of Life. Scientists know they have to start with amino acids and end up with something that looks like RNA or DNA. There's not enough hidden to make this calculation so difficult that you can't estimate the probabilites are astronomically low.

You could take a Cray computer and Monte Carlo it if you wanted to. But nobody is going to bother because everyone knows the odds are so infinitesimal!
 
So now I ask you, WHAT is the probability of life in the universe
when you DONT know all the variables ( No of pegs, color of pegs, dimension of the peg board, etc?) ?


ANSWER: You have NO idea. You are incapable of calculating the odds. Period.
You CANT answer the question without knowing how many pegs
are in the bag, and what colors they are.
The data required to calculate probabilities is not sufficient.

Your house of statistical cards has collapsed.


peace

axeman
_____________________________________________

Please apply this same argument to knowing the giraffe birth is a defect or the bus accidents Gods fault conclusions you draw.
You simply do not know all the variables and yet draw a one sided conclusion. Or the same could be said of any design flaw in nature.

To nearly quote you "Your house of drawing conclusions has collapsed".
 
Quote from axeman:

Silly wabbit.... god is for kids :D

peace
axeman
More...

This is so biased and untrue. I cannot believe you still say things like this. China’s famed astrophysicism Fang Li Zhi wrote, “A question that has always been considered a topic of metaphysics or theology, the creation of the universe, has now become an area of active research.”

Do you see that the she said the “C word”?

George Ellis, famed colleague of Stephen Hawking, wrote, “Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it difficult not to use the word miraculous.”

Now, who am I supposed to believe? You, who says that ideas about God are silly, or two of the globe’s premier astrophysicists?
 
I have done my homework and shown you dozens of examples of premier scientists that are considering Intelligent Design and even creationism as a valid option.

Yet you still mock such ideas as silly and fabled. I can only say that you are trivializing some of the best minds on the planet with such juvenile remarks - not to mention every Jew, deist and Christian on the board.
 
Do you really think that your mathematical and scientific knowledge is so superior that you need to make such disparaging remarks? I'm just not seeing it...
 
Quote from axeman:

Calling creationism science is blasphemy :D
It is no such thing.
It does not follow scientific principles.

More...
I know you were saying that tongue in cheek, but I think you feel there's an element of truth to this. There has never been a time in academia in recent history when alternative cosmologies have been so prevalent.

This is what I can't get you guys to realize: the scientific evidence has been so difficult for materialists that there numbers have decreased dramatically since the glory days of the 50's and 60's.

I think that because a belief in a personal God is low, you are assuming that materialism is still in power. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Consider what Robert Griffiths wrote, who won the Heinemann prize in mathematical physics: "If we need an atheist for a debate, I go to the philosophy department. the physics department isn't much use."

Do you see what he is saying? Materialism is for the philosophy departments - not the science departments.

(And, yes, I recognize that you say you're not a true atheist. But what I am saying still applies.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top