Creationism Logical or Illogical?

[Biochemist]

I agree completely. Agnosticism is the only sensible, and I might say scientific, position to take. If I was one of those in whom you sensed animation, this was based on my distaste for those taking an absolute position based on no, or contested, evidence.

Actually, you were one of several, but I didn't intend to pick on anyone in particular.

 

"Sensible" is another good word. I agree that agnosticism is scientific, but "sensible" is in the mind of the beholder.

 

Personally, I have noticed that my tender little ego gets bruised (sometimes) when someone offers that Christianity is irrational or stupid. I occasionally get drawn into a discussion because (essentially) somone called me stupid.

 

I personnally think (not believe, but think) that theistic arguments are both strong and logical. They are not scientific methodological arguments. I don't discredit the logical aruments on the other side. I just don't agree. In most cases, I believe things about God because I think things about God. The reverse is occasionally true as well, but the logical argument is foundationally based on thinking, not belief.

[Biochemist]

Biochemist: On this thread, I dont think that anyone has contended that there is no creator, all they have done is point out that Questor has provided neither evidence nor argument that would independently, ie without an established belief, indicate the existence of a creator or a process of creation by intelligent design. There is no need for a person who believes in creation to accept Questor's "reasons" as indicative of creation by design.

Thanks for the claricification, Q.

 

This is an interesting position. I am pretty sure that, by definition, if you believe in a Creator, you are obligated to believe in design of the universe. I would not go so far as to contend that the design view has to be consistent with the issues as articulated by Behe (the biochemist that launched the "intelligent design" debate). But I think if you accept a Creator, you accept design of some sort (e.g., you would accpet that the Creator established laws of nature, for example).

 

Thoughts?

[Tormod]

{Tormod, I want to officially and clearly go on record that I am not specifically accusing questor of being a Troll.} :)

 

[Decree of the Office of the Notarius Hypographicus]

Pyrotex is not specifically accusing questor of being a Troll.

[/Decree of the Office of the Notarius Hypographicus]

[Pyrotex]

...I am pretty sure that, by definition, if you believe in a Creator, you are obligated to believe in design of the universe....Thoughts?

Yes, I have some thoughts.

There is no necessity for a "creator" to have sentience or purpose.

A housefly "creates" a maggot by laying an egg.

Trees "create" forests by propogating themselves.

The examples are endless.

One could just as logically argue that the "creator" was clueless as to what it was doing -- as that it had some "plan".

Perhaps the "creator" wasn't even alive in any conventional sense. There is certainly no pressing reason to assume so. It could have been some kind of natural process having something to do with black holes or _________ [fill in the blank].

Perhaps the "creator" was alive but died after, or during, the creation. Like female octopi who die shortly after giving birth.

Perhaps universes just pop up like mushrooms throughout the vastness of the pan-dimensional Cosmos.

Perhaps they all have the same "laws" because only our kind of universe lasts more than a few nanoseconds.

Perhaps universes have random sets of "laws"--only those with our laws are able to produce sentient life.

Perhaps ALL universes have sentient life, no matter how random, chaotic or oppressive the "laws" are--it's just totally different sentient life.

Perhaps this is the ONLY universe, and it is somehow its own creator, and we're damned lucky to have the "laws" we got.

 

If you are going to speculate about a "creator", why not get "creative"? There is certainly nothing constraining you.

[Biochemist]

Yes, I have some thoughts.

There is no necessity for a "creator" to have sentience or purpose.

A housefly "creates" a maggot by laying an egg...

Gotcha. This is an unusual usage of "creator", but I understand you position. You use "creator" to mean causative agent.

[Tormod]

I agree completely. Agnosticism is the only sensible, and I might say scientific, position to take. If I was one of those in whom you sensed animation, this was based on my distaste for those taking an absolute position based on no, or contested, evidence.

 

I would like to point out that this is a forced kind of logic. As I stated in another thread, there is no reason to choose agnosticism just because there is no proof for the non-existence of a god. Nothing is telling us that god/non-god is a fundamental property of this universe, apart from the belief many people have in their god(s).

 

We can take a broader look at things. Science teaches us that nothing in our universe is singular, even if it may be unique. I am me, and only I can be me. Yet there are billions of human beings. We live on Earth, and there may well be only one Earth. But there may be billions (and countless trillions) of Earth-like planets. This also goes for stars, glaxies, clusters.

 

We know there is one universe. And here is the problem. We do not know *yet* whether there are more than one universe. We know certain properties of our universe are surprisingly finely tuned, and that without these properties (or lets say, if these properties had different values) we would not be around to say so. But *every* empirical evidence we have ever collected, shows us that *nothing* is singular. So the most reasonable assumption to take is NOT that god either exists of does not exist, but that our universe is one of countless universes, in a countless infinity. That view is *more* likely than the view that our universe is the only one, even if we only have one sample.

 

We have countless examples of how one sample made wrong assumptions - the geocentric universe is one model.

 

Thus, the god-created universe is as unlikely as the geocentric universe. There is no reason to believe that our universe was created by anyone. We can, however, assume that our universe was born by the same process that causes every other universe, and that this is a natural process. Since the values in our universe are so finely tuned, we can safely assume that they are *not* finely tuned in an infinitude of universes, but in some they will be. No god is needed for this tuning, it is a natural by-product of a huge amount of naturally evolving universes.

 

We can equally well state that logically, a no-god universe is the most likely of all possible universes, therefore we inhabit one.

 

This does not in any way constitute a proof that our universe is not the only one, but it does constitute a rational argument as to why we do not have to assume that it was or was not created by a god.

 

This is, by the way, known as the "weak anthropic principle".

[questor]

Biochemist, you are well spoken and possessed of wisdom. it is indeed remarkable how some posters on this thread have become incensed, insulting,

and eager to resort to unearned epithets because of a simple question about one's reason for occupying a certain position.

[questor]

Tormod, an interesting idea:

''We know there is one universe. And here is the problem. We do not know *yet* whether there are more than one universe. We know certain properties of our universe are surprisingly finely tuned, and that without these properties (or lets say, if these properties had different values) we would not be around to say so. But *every* empirical evidence we have ever collected, shows us that *nothing* is singular. So the most reasonable assumption to take is NOT that god either exists of does not exist, but that our universe is one of countless universes, in a countless infinity. That view is *more* likely than the view that our universe is the only one, even if we only have one sample.''

do you not consider gravity,light, time, life and thought singular? is there any proof that there are other universes extant? are these things you mention fact or supposition? and is there some strong scientific reason for

believing in them?

[Biochemist]

I would like to point out that this is a forced kind of logic....We know there is one universe. And here is the problem. We do not know *yet* whether there are more than one universe....There is no reason to believe that our universe was created by anyone....

Hmmm.

 

1) We seem to always fall into some interesting semantics here. First, we use "universe" in two separate frameworks. The most common definition is "all that is known or unknown". By that definition, there is only one, no matter what we discover. If you want to segment the universe into iterations of the one that we observe, that is fair usage, but does not really make the existence of a creator any less likely.

 

2) There are many reasons to believe that our universe is created. This is an objective observation. Most humans percieve "reasons". That is probably why most humans are theists. You can discount all of the reasons. You can (correctly) assert that none of them are based on the scientific method. But it is disingenuous to suggest there are no reasons.

 

The strongest reasons are pretty soft ones, but their pervasive nature is probably why this "god stuff" just does not die out. People "feel" a "need" for "purpose" in their lives. People "love" their children, and earnestly want what is "best" for them. People act altuistically to "help" others.

 

People get educated, start making money, feel independent and ignore the tug of purpose. They have a life crisis, and suddenly God becomes pretty important. How many times have you heard this story?

 

These nearly ubiquitous drives in the human species are so pervasive and so powerful that almost everyone is impacted by them. You can certainly disagree with the merit of the argument, but it is not reasonable to suggest there is "no reason" to believe that god exists.

[Biochemist]

Biochemist, you are well spoken and possessed of wisdom.

I appreciate the kind words.

[Biochemist]

...This does not in any way constitute a proof that our universe is not the only one, but it does constitute a rational argument as to why we do not have to assume that it was or was not created by a god.

 

This is, by the way, known as the "weak anthropic principle".

By the way, I agree this is a rational argument. I don't agree with it, but it is, in my humble opinion, rational.

[Tormod]

1) We seem to always fall into some interesting semantics here. First, we use "universe" in two separate frameworks. The most common definition is "all that is known or unknown". By that definition, there is only one, no matter what we discover. If you want to segment the universe into iterations of the one that we observe, that is fair usage, but does not really make the existence of a creator any less likely.

 

No, this is not a fair assumption. Current scientific models support a finite universe born out of the big bang. The term "universe" as understood today in modern cosmology is neither finite nor infinite - because there is no evidence for either of these.

 

My point was that the "multiverse" explanation is *equally* valid to a theistic belief, not superior to it. It was a response to Eclogite's post that agnosticism is the only scientifically valid view (which is pure nonsense anyway - nobody can claim superiority in scienctific views).

 

...it is disingenuous to suggest there are no reasons.

 

No, it is not. I acknowledge that there are reasons, but it does not have to be so.

 

And let us not confuse the term "reason to believe" with "reasons for belief", which are two different things. People might *need* to believe out of their own personal situation, but humanity as a whole no more *needs* to believe in a god than it *needs* to travel to other stars.

 

People get educated, start making money, feel independent and ignore the tug of purpose. They have a life crisis, and suddenly God becomes pretty important. How many times have you heard this story?

 

It is irrelevant. How many times have I heard this as a sales pitch for a book, or as an introduction post made here at Hypography or similar forums? Too many to believe them any more.

[Eclogite]

I would like to point out that this is a forced kind of logic. .

Since I was merely expressing an opinion no logic of any kind was involved.

You have presented a logical argument for why you feel my opinion is logically forced. Biochemist has raised some of the points that cause me disquiet in your argument. It seems it may be as forced as you think mine is.

 

The existence of anything suggests a creator. The question of who created the creator suggests that is irrelevant. Regardless, my acceptance of either position - creator; no creator - will be based upon evidence. There is no evidence for either position, only logical arguments constructed from both points of view. So I maintain the only sensible position is to be agnostic. [sensible: based upon an understanding of data provided by the senses i.e. evidence.]

 

[i am familiar with the work of Barrow and Tippler, although my copy of The [i]Anthropic Cosmological Principle [/i]suffered from being dropped in the bath. Perhaps the fine tuning of the Universe for life is not quite as good as it could have been - that would certainly suggest no creator. And bread tends to fall on the buttered side. Of course a creationist could argue that the creator simply has a sense of humour. And so we go. Round in circles.]

[Tormod]

do you not consider gravity,light, time, life and thought singular? is there any proof that there are other universes extant? are these things you mention fact or supposition? and is there some strong scientific reason for believing in them?

 

You are comparing apples and oranges.

 

Light is something that exists. It is a word which describes emissions in a particular band in the electromagnetic spectrum. As such it is a scientific fact, and a verifiable property of matter (we can measure how well they absorb light, for example). Light is not singular. It is only one expression of electromagnetism. Electromagnetism is only one of the fundamental forces in our universe.

 

Gravity, another fundamental force, is not well understood, and no, I don't think there is anything singular to it. In epkyrotic (membrane universe) cosmology, gravity permeates our universe from a different brane (aka a different universe). This is not a fact, but a far fetched theory. But why should gravity be unique to our universe? I think it's more reasonable to assume that gravity is a natural property of any universe that is similar to ours.

 

Time is a property of our universe and no, it is not singular. If anything, Einstein, Dirac, Heisenberg, Gödel et al showed us that time is NOT singular at all, but that there may be many rivers of time flowing in the universe - in several directions.

 

How can life be singular? We know millions of species. We know many life forms. The only thing we don't know yet is whether there is life elsewhere than here on Earth. But consider this: the ratio of carbon to silicon in the observable universe is 10:1. Why then is life on Earth carbon-based when the Earth is mostly silicon? Because carbon binds more easily in chemical reactions. Thus it is likely that life is abundant in our universe. Like the geocentric universe was a misinterpretation, so I believe the life-exists-only-on-a-single-planet idea is based on biased assumptions that we are special.

 

Thought is perhaps the least singular thing of these. In our minds thoughts flow all the time. You probably have hundres of thoughts while you read this sentence, but you are aware only of a few of them. This is true for every single human being, and also every other sentient creature. And just like there are different ways to think, thinking is done differently by different creatures.

 

As for "is there any proof that there are other universes extant", please read my post again.

 

(And yes, some scientists claim that they have proof of this. I do not accept their proof yet).

[Tormod]

The existence of anything suggests a creator.

 

This has been dealt with before in this thread and the logical conclusion was that existence does not necessitate creation, neither intended nor accidental. I agree with that conclusion.

 

The question of who created the creator suggests that is irrelevant. Regardless, my acceptance of either position - creator; no creator - will be based upon evidence. There is no evidence for either position, only logical arguments constructed from both points of view. So I maintain the only sensible position is to be agnostic. [sensible: based upon an understanding of data provided by the senses i.e. evidence.]

 

I maintain that this is flawed logic. You are using *words* of logic to dictate what I can and cannot have a sensible position on. I have stated a third position and it is logically sound.

 

I would also like to add:

Scientific evidence tells me that the notion of god is very young, perhaps countable in millennia. However, the universe existed billions of years before human beings came about. Religion is something we created, and god is a part of that creation. Thus what has been designed is religion, and it was designed by us. We are a fine design created by the process known as evolution, which is a nasty designer with a horribly low efficiency. Why, for example, did it take a couple of billion years to design something that could evolve into human beings? I dare say it was because we are not the pinnacle of creation, nor the end product of it. We are just blind luck. Although "luck" might not be the first thing that comes to mind when we think about humanity's behaviour. :hihi:

 

[i am familiar with the work of Barrow and Tippler, although my copy of The [i]Anthropic Cosmological Principle [/i]suffered from being dropped in the bath.

 

You can have mine. It's a boring tome. I recommend Sir Martin Rees' "Just Six Numbers", which is a thousand times more readable and a hundred times funnier.

 

And bread tends to fall on the buttered side.

 

As for that, I just finished the book "Why does toast always land butter-side down?" by Richard Robinson. It turns out there is a scientific explanation for that as well.

[Biochemist]

But *every* empirical evidence we have ever collected, shows us that *nothing* is singular. So the most reasonable assumption to take is NOT that god either exists of does not exist, but that our universe is one of countless universes, in a countless infinity.

For reference.

...My point was that the "multiverse" explanation is *equally* valid to a theistic belief, not superior to it.

I am a little confused how a multiverse perspective has any bearing on the singularity of a creator. That is, one could hold to a multiverse view (or not) whether (or not) one held to a creator view. How is this a sequitur?

And let us not confuse the term "reason to believe" with "reasons for belief", which are two different things. People might *need* to believe out of their own personal situation, but humanity as a whole no more *needs* to believe in a god than it *needs* to travel to other stars.

Yes, but my point was that the pure ubiquity of the feeling is itself informative. Folks that lose their sense of purpose typically get depressed. We regard depression as a clinical pathology to be treated. If everyone on the planet felt a drive to travel to the stars, that would indeed be significant. They don't. The desire to leave the planet is a very small minority. In contrast, the desire to find purpose is so broadly held as to be nearly part-and-parcel with the species.

 

The pervasive nature of a commonly held belief, particularly when it is trans cultural, is highly informative and highly indicative.

 

I think (not believe, think) humanity as a whole does need to believe in God. Many individuals do not at any point in time. That some do not does not disprove the thesis. People are able to starve themselves to prove a political point (for example). That does not mean that they do not need food.

[Tormod]

I am a little confused how a multiverse perspective has any bearing on the singularity of a creator.

 

I have never said anything about the singularity of a creator. I have not presented any argument which needed a creator.

 

That is, one could hold to a multiverse view (or not) whether (or not) one held to a creator view. How is this a sequitur?

 

It just goes to show that if you're religious, then agnosticism is the only alternative, because it is unfathomable that the argument is flawed. No matter how many levels of universes we can figure out, there will always be room for a creator outside the last level).

 

However, if we assume that our universe is one of many that were born out of a natural process (which is what the weak anthopic principle says, basically), then our universe is not likely to be a "special" universe in any way. It also must be one in a (possibly infinite) series of universes, none of which are special. In this world view there is no *need* for a creator. It doesn't matter how much anyone wants there to be one. It is wholly rational to imagine a universe without a creator.

 

That was my point. Fair and square.

 

And, knowing me, you know that I am not going to say that believing in any god is a stupid thing. I am just defending my right not to be classified by anyone as something I am not (ie, agnostic).

 

If everyone on the planet felt a drive to travel to the stars, that would indeed be significant. They don't. The desire to leave the planet is a very small minority. In contrast, the desire to find purpose is so broadly held as to be nearly part-and-parcel with the species.

 

Excellent point. Now take it further.

 

1) Can we foresee a future where people *will* think it natural to travel to the stars?

 

2) Has any of the current religions been a majority religion for more than, say, three thousand years? What about the 140,000 years or so prior to that?

 

The history of religion is not one of the single world creator, but that of many, many gods who had a multitude of tasks. The current situation with three major religions fighting over whether the saviour has come or whether he was merely a prophet is a symptom not of people's need for religion, but for observance of ritual.

 

I do think ritual - and the sense of belonging to a greater whole - is a natural thing in people, as in many (perhaps all) animals. That it is manifest as a faith in a creator does not make the religion in itself more reasonable.

 

The pervasive nature of a commonly held belief, particularly when it is trans cultural, is highly informative and highly indicative.

 

Indicative of what, apart from the ritual thing I stated above?

 

I think (not believe, think) humanity as a whole does need to believe in God. Many individuals do not at any point in time. That some do not does not disprove the thesis. People are able to starve themselves to prove a political point (for example). That does not mean that they do not need food.

 

I can only turn this around: That many do, is not proof that there is a creator. Nor is it reason to claim that I as a person need to believe that there is one, or is none.