Abracadabra:

As I have said from the beginning, I am arguing with strict naturalism.
This is the belief that nothing exists except for matter, time, space,
and energy.

A direct consequence of this belief is that matter must have therefore
always existed. Since every effect must have a cause, nothing could
"start" to exist if there wasn't a previous cause to initiate its
"starting." Thus, a strict naturalist must believe that matter, time,
space, and energy have always existed... or else they would not exist
now. From this you can quickly resolve the issues I mentioned earlier in
the thread about how atheism then cannot be a trusted line of thinking
because if only time, space, matter, and energy exist, then no thinking
can possibly lead to "truth" and hence, human thinking would be no
different than human sneezing.

Under this line of thinking (and only this line) am I claiming that
every event is either the necessary product of forced motions of
particles or else it is the random by product of these motions of
particles.

If you believe there are external forces acting on the universe, then
you do not have to believe that only random processes or totally
compelled processes are at work. You are free to believe that "chosen"
or "intelligent" processes are at work (this is in fact exactly what I
believe and what it appears that you believe only in a different way).
These intelligent forces are exactly the pre-requisite for the
information we see encoded in DNA.

Thus, a belief in an external causal agent (God) is required for the
understanding of the information stored in DNA. You and I agree at this
point. Everything past this then becomes a matter of philosophy and not
science.

For instance, no evolutionary biologist will ever agree with you that
God made particles. If they adopt the uniformitarian line of thinking of
Lyell (which they are dogmatically taught in school) then they will say
that you can never admit a "God" into the picture. Instead they will say
that the big bang is responsible for the existence of all particles and
that the big bang itself was the first (and only truly random) quantum
fluctuation. They usually follow this up by saying that it's useless to
speculate on whatever existed before that.

Thus, you also do not have science on your side. You cannot demonstrate
that the first particles were created by God and then the entire course
of history went according to the laws of physics with only a few
interventions from God (miracles). Thus, this line of thinking is not at
all part of strict naturalism. I would call it a very interesting
mixture of naturalism and religion. But, it does not fit the hypotheses
that I was trying to argue with.

I do, however, have some philosophical reasons for believing (at least)
that Christianity and your beliefs are not compatible. The creation and
attitude depicted in the Bible is focused solely on life. For me to
believe that this Biblical description really refers to a process that
too billions of years to complete and relied solely on mutation and
death to accomplish its progress is ridiculous. If that is the route God
used to make his creation, then he is nothing like the God in the Bible.

Since I do not believe in evolution from the information arguments I
have been making (and many others) I have no problem to reconcile there.
Philosophically, the Christian doctrine is the only one that hold up
under repeated scrutiny. It is the only set of theology that does not
violate the logic we used to govern our daily lives. For these reasons,
I adopt it.

In summary, I just want to make it clear that you are not talking about
strict naturalism (atheism) while I am. If you admit an incalculable
power (God) then you have left the realm of atheism and you would be
saying that evolution is a miracle just like turning water into wine. I
cannot scientifically rule that out, but philosophically I do not find
it convincing. I find it very interesting and I am glad to see you have
thought deeply about this and wish you luck along your path to learning
more about what you believe. However, I see no scientific reason to
believe in evolution, and therefore I can rule it out for myself even
before asking any other religious question.

I hope this clears up some of the confusion that was appearing in some
of the earlier posts. My very small sphere of interest on this topic is
merely the argument against a strictly atheistic (naturalism) view of
the history of the universe.

Redykeulous:

There is no hominid on Earth right now that is sufficiently close to
humans such as to allow interbreeding. To believe this was true in the
distant past requires a belief in evolutionary principles which I
disagree with. For me, this is not an issue. I don't think the various
hominid species evolved from one ancestral hominid. If, however, I am
wrong about it, then you could in fact be right.

In fact, one of the most prominent and widely accepted accounts of the
variety of human races ties in with this subject. In evolutionary
thinking, it is believed that between 7 and 9 million years ago there
was a large population of primates living in central Africa (like Chad,
Congo, etc). For some unknown reason, there appears to have been a
geographical rift in this population and a large subgroup was forced to
move north toward the desert area near Morocco, etc. The other group was
deflected east towards the grasslands (Somalia and south). The Moroccan
group developed into Middle Eastern humans, while the Somalian group
developed into other more advanced primates (chimps, etc). Thus, at some
point in those 7 million years, cross breeding could have occured
between the two segregated populations.

However, I want to note once again that I don't accept accounts like
these as valid. You cannot use genetics to determine that kind of
description about the past. If you could, the margin of error on a 7
million year old calculation would be so hilariously high that no one in
their right mind would trust it anyway. The people who came up with that
description are using very subjective methods of science not based on
hard observation or computation.



Abracadabra:

Perhaps the most compelling and obvious way in which biochemistry
conflicts with evolutionary principles is this:

“Cells would have no reason to develop regulatory mechanisms before the
appearance of a new catalyst… but the appearance of an unregulated new
catalyst would be like a genetic disease to the organism.”
-Michael Behe, Ph.D. Biochemistry, Darwin’s Black Box p. 159

In genetics, any random point mutation (a mutation ocurring at a base
pair, which changes a C to a G for example) cannot possibly be
beneficial unless all necessary regulatory processes develop and evolve
at exactly the same time as the point mutation itself.

In primitive cells, the process by which initiation factors use the
Shine-Delgarno box at the front of a strand of DNA in order to recognize
how it starts, for example, would be extremely deadly to the cell if it
were not for the immense and ridiculously complex regulation of this
initiation factor that takes place. Just within primitive cells,
Archeans, which do not have highly complex intertwined systems level
bioprocesses... even there, if it were not for the literally thousands
of necessary enzymes all reacting at exactly the right time, in exactly
the right sequence, and with exactly the right amount of chemical, then
the initiation of the reading of a strand of DNA could not take place
without killing the cell. This does not even get into the processes of
translation and formation of the protein coded by the DNA. I'm only
talking about the first 10 nanoseconds of the process. In just that
short bit of time, literally thousands of separate specific chemical
reactions take place in the most fragile of fashions to produce exactly
what is needed for the ribosome to find the exact start codon. If any
one of these pieces did not function properly, then no start codons will
be found and the cell will die.

How then could any one piece of this 1000 piece puzzle have evolved
since the entire puzzle is simultaneously required for the cell's
survival? Just as Behe points out in the quote above, to develop new
cellular abilities, but not the 1000s of enzymes needed to regulate
their action, is much more live posion than evolution. New cellular
developments are genetic diseases if they are not regulated. So the only
alternative is to believe every single piece of the 1000 piece puzzle
evolved at exactly the same time. Clearly that is ridiculous. That's
like winning the lottery every single day for 10000000 years in a row.

If you want to believe in that (obviously unfounded) claim (that all
developments occur simultaneously with all of their regulatory
processes) then you are welcome to it. But biochemistry and mathematics
preclude that from being a serious option.

More generally, at every level of life we see this amazing intertwining
property. Think about human systems. Without a fully functional
circulatory system, you could not have an immune system. But without a
fully functioning immune system, you can't possibly stay alive long
enough to develop a circulatory system. Not to mention a nervous system,
etc. Thus, it would be impossible to pinpoint or explain how such
systems could possibly have separately evolved. Which appeared first? If
you say they were both always there, that is the same as saying that
humans have always existed, etc. Clearly the circulatory system had to
have an origin, because some animals do not have circulatory systems.
But without immune systems, you can't describe the origin of the
circulatory system, and vice versa.

This type of complexity is called irreducible. That has been a buzzword
in this debate for about 10 years or so, and I feel that no evolutionist
(like Dawkins, Gould, etc) has ever offered a halfway decent argument
against irreducible complexity.

What's even more amazing is that when you step back and look at
ecological systems, you see the same irreducible complexity. The way
that plant life interacts with animal life, how ants depend on other
bugs but some birds depend on ants, etc. To take away one species is to
completely disorient all other species in the ecosystem. It's the same
thing that goes on inside your body, even inside every cell. It is an
amazingly irreducible complexity that severely weakens the evolutionary
argument.

I must admit I am really no expert on these topics though. My main area
of study is mathematics. In particular I like to study information
theory, coding theory, and topics in applied mathematics and physics.
The coding theory and information theory is a whole new area in which
this idea of information entropy is being used to characterize naturally
occuring codes. It very clearly exposes the flaw in evolution because,
as I was saying earlier, you cannot derive code from non-code. The very
essence of intelligence is that it posses code with which it can
recognize and create code itself. If there were ever a time when no such
intelligence existed, then it would not exist now.

TwilightsTwin:

The argument from DNA is a very dangerous one. Genetic sequencing is a
superficial way of comparing relatedness. It is just as superficial as
saying that a bat and a bird should be closely related because they both
have wings. There has been no attempt by mainstream biologists to
incorporate algebraic coding theory into genetic sequencing. As a
result, these biologists are going nuts over something that is
completely unfounded. The simple mathematical idea of information
entropy prevents a code from being generated by non-code. It would be
impossible to "interpret" DNA (i.e. RNA translation, ribosome
manipulation, all of the electron-motive force found in photosynthesis,
and DNA, etc). All of that would be absurdly impossible unless you
recognize the insane degree of coded information contained therein. This
information, mathematically speaking, cannot be the result of
non-information.

This is what frustrates me so much. So many people think that just
because this is written in some text book somewhere that it's true.
Think for yourself! Don't be spoonfed inadequate descriptions of the
complexity of life. There are, mathematically speaking, not enough
probabilistic resources for evolution to be scientifically tenable.
Whether biologists agree or disagree, this is a mathematical problem
that has to be studied and resolved mathematically. It's all about the
teleonomy present in the genetic code. Coding theory clearly explains
that this phenomenon cannot be rationally attributed to random processes
alone.

In short, a textbook does not solve this problem. You've got to think
for yourself. If a religious person told you that Jonah survived being
swallowed by a whale merely because it was written in the Bible, you'd
be right in being skeptical. Likewise, you should be skeptical of
anything written in a science textbook.

This thread is awesome. I totally don't believe in evolution and I
think it is encouraging to see others who don't as well. I talked a
little bit about why in another thread yesterday. It's in this religion
category too, titled "tell me about your beliefs" or something like
that. Check it out if you're interested.

Some excellent physical chemists who disagree with evolution are Michael
Behe (Lehigh University) and A.E. Wilder-Smith (Oxford, University of
Illinois, and University of Geneva). A good mathematician on the topic
is William Dembski. They all have some excellent books if you are
interested in the actual science behind this debate. Look for "Darwin's
Black Box" by Behe, "The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution" by
Wilder-Smith, or "Randomness by Design" by Dembski (an essay).

I am actually working on a thesis for the philosophy department at my
school about evolution. I am a mathematics major with a minor in applied
bio and philosophy of science. I think it is important for people to
take the philosophy of science more seriously. Some excellent
philosophers on the topic are Kant, Hume, Pascal, and Leibniz.

Most people don't know the history of evolutionary and old-earth
thinking. You should look into some books by an old English geologist
Charles Lyell. He is the one who convinced Darwin that the Earth was
old. Only after this fact did Darwin attempt a cohesive explanation
about the formation of species. What's more is the Darwin had no access
to the knowledge we now have of cellular development and chemistry, each
of which contradicts evolutionary theory in a number of ways.

Lyell was a champion of a line of thought called uniformitarianism. It
basically says that since we observe things changing slowly and
gradually now, they must have always changed this way. This is applied
to geology when making the geologic column (Jurassic, Cretaceous period,
etc), it is also applied when modeling radioactive decay, applied when
using genetic sequencing to determine relatedness of species. Yet modern
society has not investigated the merits or problems of this
uniformitarian line of thought. There is no "evidence" that thinking
this way leads to right conclusions. Science can't provide that kind of
evidence.

Anyway, at the risk of being much too long winded, I'll stop. I would
encourage anyone thinking about evolution to look into the books and
sources named above. There's a lot more work their to be done than most
scientists (who happen to have a particular religious agenda) want you
to believe.

I live pretty close to Indy and all I ever hear about are the dang
Colts. You should seriously see the Indianapolis newspaper. Every day
there are like 42 pages of Colts coverage. It's insane.

I also have to deal with the Colts at the beginning of the school year
each year. They hold their training camp at my college and they suck all
the resources. We can't use the weight room, the track, the pool, the
intramural fields. It just sucks.

Anyway, that's all irrelevant. I think the Colts will not win again.
They only have an offense. Teams will figure out how to shut them down.
But more importantly.... who care what the Colts do? They are the
Yankees of football. I hope they lose every game.

one idea that i think people like a lot (depending on location and
company style) is if you have a bunch of western food and hold a chili
cook off.

this way, some people will bring food, so you don't have to do all the
work, and the other dudes you work with can have a good time too by
trying to make chili.

i'm sure you can find ideas for some easy to make western style food,
which most people usually like anyway. make sure to have mild stuff
though for people who may not.

A slammin’ of the door and I sat on the floor of the stony cold cell.
A man dark and tan with his hat in his hand said: “Son, what’re you in
for?”

I gulped as I stood and tried to look good while my brain clicked and
buzzed.
I was thinkin’ of a lie to tell this guy when he said “I’m Arthur C.
Wood.”

I couldn’t believe my ears cause after all these years the man whose
books I’d read
Was standing right there with his wavy brown hair: He was behind bars
just like me.

And I tell you this story not for personal glory but so that you can
pass it on.
Arthur C. Wood, that righteous dude, was a sizzling pamphleteer.

He could light a fire in men with only his pen and this is what he said:
“You gotta share this Earth: its your place of birth, and you gotta
believe in the goodness of man.

Without a doubt, you see, the world’s about to be a much tougher place
to live
And we need kind dudes to distribute food or to get water running where
it used to sit still.

But more than that we need some real cool cats to decide that we can all
be free.
So take up the cause and embrace these Laws and let’s see what we can
create.

For, I’m mighty sure that there must be a cure for this crazy disease
called hate.”

Now back to the tale of how I landed in jail with this groovy,
forward-thinkin’ dude.
I was holding a sign that said “We need to re-align and fix what’s wrong
in the world”

When an angry man with a gun in his hand said “Boy, you got somethin’ to
prove?”
I saw his badge shine and decided it was time to cause a little bit of a
stir.

I said “Maybe I do and what’s it to you. I plan to make a spark.
I’ll start a fire in here and within a year we’ll have peace and step
outta the dark.”

Well this badge-wearing man, he didn’t understand and he slapped some
cuffs on me.
He said “Boy, you’re going downtown till you get back on the ground with
your crazy ideas.”

In that prison room I told my tune of how the cops took me away.
I was happy to see that Arthur was pleased by my courage and my
strength.

He said: “It makes me blue that a man like you gets put away
For havin’ ideals and makin’ appeals to the rulers of the land.

But it makes me proud that you can say out loud that you want to see a
change.
I’ve seen men twice your size cower and hide when it came time for such
a test.

Now listen my son, cause what you have done is greater than you might
believe.
You see, I’m an old man now, and well, I don’t know how, but I have lost
my faith.

But hearin’ that story of your transcendental glory has revived me fresh
and new.
It’s thanks to you that I can continue to spread my needed news.

Now listen here, man, I wanna shake your hand cause you mean so much to
me.”

All of this Arthur spoke like some jovial bloke who’d just returned from
war.
He thrust out his hand with the silent demand that I should thrust mine
out too.

When I reached for the shake, Arthur said, “For goodness sakes, boy,
you’ve only got one!”
He spoke of my arm, the unseen harm that he hadn’t noticed before.

You see, I was born with only one and most folks run when they realize
I’m “differently abled.”
But Arthur, my man, reached out his other hand and laid it on my
shoulder.

“You’re a real special fella, with guts like Magellan, a courage and
strength to spare.
You’ve helped your brothers and you’ve kept from others the contempt
that they have shown you.
Now it’s crystal clear that standing right here we have a hero
extraordinaire.
You’ve done more with one hand, as I understand, than most men do with
two.”

At the end of this plea, the jailman jangled his key and said “Son,
you’re free to go.”
I walked out the door completely unsure about the fate of Arthur C.
Wood.

But ever since that day I feel proud to say that I have but a single
arm.
And I know my pain is not in vain thanks to Arthur. C. Wood.

It's interesting that you bring up quantum mechanics, because that is
actually what I am studying in school.

I would encourage you to read the paper "Randomness by Design" by the
Baylor mathematician William Dembski. It outlines a lot of my own
thoughts on randomness.

The state of quantum mechanics is in a mild degree of disarray right now
over just these exact issues. Think about Roger Penrose's book "The
Emporer's New Mind" vs. the writings of Max Weber and Heisenburg.
There's not a clear cut viewing of this stuff and I think the main
problem is that people seem to think that "chance" is a tangible
external force that causes action to take place.

The nature of chance is not a causal nature, and thus quantum mechanics
cannot produce conclusions to its own problems. Logic requires that
every effect have a cause, whether it is observable or not. Quantum
mechanics merely explains that we cannot always see the cause. Logic
still demands that there is one. I find that this does not cause much
trouble for religious people because they have been saying there are
unseen causes all along.

But for atheism this presents exactly the logical problems I was
mentioning earlier. Either everything has a determinable cause or the
first thing had no such cause and thus nothing (ultimately) has a cause.
Therefore, I still think my premises are valid. If the way we observe
the macroscale today doesn't seem to be totally random or totally
deterministic, that is completely irrelevant. Logic, which is
pre-emptive to even physics or observation, demands that such
deterministic causes do exist. Naturalism says that they do exist as
well. Which leads to the contradiction I was speaking of before.

So again, even from a quantum mechanical point of view, everything is
either (in principle) deterministic, or it is totally random. Just
because we can't observe its cause does not mean it is random. I think
the above mentioned article by Dembski provides a much more rigorous
response, so again I really encourage you to look into it (I found it
for free online about 2 months ago... it's about 30 pages, not too
long).

Thanks for you post. Most people I talk with cannot even begin to
discuss this subject at this level. I really appreciate having someone
to try my ideas out on.

And now I am getting some chinese food.

Redykeulous and invisible:

The initial post says that we are to post replies outlining our beliefs.
One of my personal beliefs is that atheism is illogical. No one is
required to accept the validity of logic. I do not try to demean those
who choose to reject the usual sense of logic. All I am saying is that
atheism is not self-consistent. Perhaps many atheists do not care about
being self-consistent... whatever. That's immaterial to me. I was merely
outlining my belief that the rules of classical and mathematical logic
preclude atheism from being true. You're welcome to disagree with me and
I do not fault you or criticize you for doing so. I was merely trying to
expose my particular set of beliefs to the JSH readers, which was the
purpose of the thread.

Since you brought it up, however, I would like to provide a very brief
explanation of my point of view. I probably won't reply to any posts you
make in response to this one, merely because I don't like using forum
space for arguments. You're welcome to instant message me if you'd like
to take up the discussion further, but arguing about religion over IM is
rarely effective... the simple transmission of ideas just isn't able to
take place. Anyway, here's my claim:

If strict naturalism is true, meaning that the entire material universe
has always existed (perhaps in different states) and no God or external
force exists which can act upon it positively, then I claim that atheism
has no basis for being believed.

If the strict brand of naturalism that I just described is true, then it
must be the case that every physical event is the byproduct of random
interactions bewteen particles. Thus, the existence of solar systems,
nebulae, star formations, planets, etc, are all merely the random
byproducts of particle interactions. Logically, then, our own solar
system is the product of random particle interactions, hence the planet
Earth is the product of random particle interactions.

Then surely life on earth is (ultimately) the product of random particle
interactions, and hence human beings are also random products of
particles. If that's the case, then every human thought is the byproduct
of particle interactions (brain chemistry).

The grand result: every thought is ultimately the accidental byproduct
of accidental particle interactions. Or else it is the necessary by
product of particle interactions progressing according to an unalterable
course governed solely by the laws of physics which force the particle
interactions.

In case one, every human thought is an accident. Thus, this very post is
an accident and every category of human religious thought has been an
accident. Since there is no reason to believe one accident can give a
correct account of all the other accidents, this case effectively says
that human knowledge is such that it cannot differentiate between what
is true and what is the subjective result of random particle
interactions. Hence, you cannot claim that your thoughts about atheism
are themselves valid (because they, like every other thought, are mere
accidental byproducts).

In case two, one is claiming that every thought is a required thought.
Essentially this says that if one were given enough data about the
universe, one could calculate every single thing that is about to happen
(including every thought). This obviously precludes free will from
existing. Now, it might be the case that free will does not exist, but I
think most thinking people realize that it's absurd to claim that free
will does not exist. But, this does not supply any evidence that it does
exist.

The problem with case two is that it also makes arguing for or against
atheism (or any set of beliefs for that matter) ridiculously irrelevant.
Case two is saying that people who believe abortion is wrong, for
example, only do so because their brain chemistry requires them to. And
if ever they were to change their mind about it, that would also be due
solely to brain chemistry. Case two says that all atheists are atheists
because they have no free will to be non-atheists... and all
non-atheists cannot help but to be non-atheists. If that is the case
(which it may be) then it is still absurd to argue that atheism is true,
because the arguing process is a compelled process, the listening
process is also compelled and therefore you can't fault anyone for
believing as they do.

To summarize,

a belief in atheism requires one of the following two cases:

1. everything is the random byproduct of particle reactions
2. everything is the required byproduct of particle reactions.

Case one makes all human thought untrustworthy (which it clearly is not
untrustworthy, or else we would not use science).

Case two makes all arguments irrelevant. If they are irrelevant, that's
fine, but no atheist has ever made an argument that all arguments are
irrelevant (nor could they).

This is why I feel that atheism is illogical... but again, no one is
forced to accept logic in the traditional sense. That's an axiom that I
(along with every scientist alive) am taking for granted. If you want to
argue about logic, go ahead, but since I am taking it as an axiom you'll
have to find someone else to argue with about it.

Thanks for your post, though. I always want to be clear that I'm not
trying to qualify others' beliefs as 'right' or 'wrong.' I am just
making observations about them and how they interplay with mathematical
logic.

how large is the crowd that you'll be feeding?

today I had 13 jolly rancher jelly beans for dinner. i'm sure someone
can top that.

sounds interesting, what's it about...?

this is a ridiculous bill. almost as ridiculous as the patriot act. i
can't believe how american's are just sitting their while congress is
passing such flagrantly wrong legislation.

they keep doing it all under the guise of national security too, which
is a huge sham.

for example, i recently had to get my passport. inside every passport
now is an RFID radio chip. these things are passively powered, meaning
any geek (myself included) with the right equipment can read your
passport information if he stands close enough to the customs counter at
the airport.

to boot, the chips cannot be used for ID purposes, and you still must
present the full paper passport at the customs desk. Thus, the chips
serve no pupose at all. Even more, the 9/11 terrorists had fully
acceptable and correct passports because prior to the event they had
done nothing wrong. So even if the chips had existed 10 years ago, they
would have not done any good in preventing 9/11.

i think stuff like this is completely illegal. it's just another way for
the NSA to spy on you, yet most people could care less.

what are some books that you've read recently that you think deserve
mentioning?

Anyone read anything by Haruki Murakami or Noam Chomsky?

you've got to go there... what else is life for, if not for going there.

that's a very good question.

I used to think having the same religious beliefs was very important,
but after some bad relationships, I kind of value having diversity of
beliefs. It gives you something non-trivial to argue about and it
enables you to learn things from your significant other.

Also, I think there are 6 billion different religions on the planet, so
it's impossible to find someone who matches you at every point.

That gives me an interesting picture...

Dude,

I totally agree. One of my good friends is in the Peace Corps and he
loves it. As soon as I can, I am going to do it also. You have to give
up materialistic living and be willing to change cultural habits and
learn a new language, but the experience is priceless. Rather than
wasting your time in the US, accumulating junk all your life, get out
there and do something (especially while you are young). Help people,
see the world, learn cool crap. Have experiences! Most people just float
along, and it's commendable that you're even considering this. I say do
it!

i usually start out with:

"oh my god, are you a robot!?"


for some reason it doesn't seem to work.