PASSAMAN POST #666. BBV 10 COMMANDMENTS

[Passaman]

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Amazing how something so amazingly complex as even the simplest molecule is accepted as having no designer. No one looks at an airplane and assumes that a whirlwind went through a junkyard. My watch is fairly complex and no one thinks it just happened after millions of years. But the wrist upon which it sits is almost inifinitely more complex, yet we're willing to blindly accept it as the residue of mutations and adaptations.

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You're referring to the design argument, put forth perhaps most eloquently by William Paley in "Natural Theology" (the longer title is "Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature) (1802).

Paley invokes a traveler who finds a wristwatch in a grassy heath. Observing the complexity of its construction, the traveler must accept that it had some intelligent creator.

But natural processes can too, create, and create things intricately complex. What separates the watch, is that "its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose."

Further, Paley writes that if the watches were in some way able to replicate themselves, we would not be any less confident of their creation as a result of an intelligent being but would rather serve as a testament to the intelligence of the creator. This replication would not be the line function of the watches, but merely an entrenched method of self-preservation for this "species" of watches.

So, therefore, to continue the analogy, this design argument requires that if humans had been designed, they have been designed for a specific purpose. I can see no other purpose that humans have other than self-preservation. If there is an express purpose to our existence, shouldn't that have been made a little more clear to us?

A Christian might postulate that there is an express purpose to human existence, and that is to praise the creator. This seems ridiculous to me for reasons that I'll go into if you argue on this point.

The other simple issue is, a designer must be more intelligent and complex than his creation. I think this is logical and a Christian will not argue against the intelligence of the alleged designer. But if this is true, does this not require a creator more intelligent and complex than the original creator? And so on?

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Very well put. But at some point it has to break down. For instance, even if you are a complete atheist, you still have to agree, logically, that at some point there was something before the Big Bang. And even if the Big Bang was simply the latest in the line of infinite Big Bangs (which Stephen Hawkings states is not true...he believes in the creation of time itself) then one still must believe in eternity, not only forwards, but backwards. Therefore, all humans must accept things on face value that our brains will not allow us to reason out. The universe is expanding (stipulated). Into what is it expanding? What's on the other side of the universe? So, to say that God has always existed and is not the result of intelligent design himself is totally illogical, granted. But if he was designed, then who designed him, etc? If there is no designer, then what existed before the Big Bang, or infinite, rebounding Big Bangs?

HELPFUL: Read "The Creator and the Cosmos" by Cal Tech Cosmologist Dr. Hugh Ross.

[Limesparks]

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Very well put. But at some point it has to break down. For instance, even if you are a complete atheist, you still have to agree, logically, that at some point there was something before the Big Bang.

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nope

asking whats 'before' the big bang is like asking whats north of the north pole

aint nothin

[T-God]

I feel that the origin of the universe debate is silly. Noone is close to proving the others wrong.

I still think that alot of people are (justifiably) arguing againt the Christian majority in this thread while Passaman seems like a generally nice guy.

You're giving up the moral high ground if you forget this [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Passaman]

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Very well put. But at some point it has to break down. For instance, even if you are a complete atheist, you still have to agree, logically, that at some point there was something before the Big Bang.

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nope

asking whats 'before' the big bang is like asking whats north of the north pole

aint nothin

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But that "nothing" has to be something. Even nothing is something, amirite? Picture the "nothing" previous to the Big Bang. Did the nothing have paramaters and borders? Was it black, white....what? The Big Bang originated, if I remember right, from a tiny, tiny particle that was infinitely dense. Where did that come from? Where was it sitting? Was it hanging somewhere, and if so, where? What was before that? Did time exist before the Big Bang? When the Big Bang happened, the particles blew out into the aforementioned "nothing", therefore, it had to exist as something.

[T-God]

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Very well put. But at some point it has to break down. For instance, even if you are a complete atheist, you still have to agree, logically, that at some point there was something before the Big Bang.

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nope

asking whats 'before' the big bang is like asking whats north of the north pole

aint nothin

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man it didn't just happen out of nothing. makes no sense

[manbearpig]

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Amazing how something so amazingly complex as even the simplest molecule is accepted as having no designer. No one looks at an airplane and assumes that a whirlwind went through a junkyard. My watch is fairly complex and no one thinks it just happened after millions of years. But the wrist upon which it sits is almost inifinitely more complex, yet we're willing to blindly accept it as the residue of mutations and adaptations.

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See, here is the thing. A lot of people think the Christian God or the Muslim God or whatever is made up, while at the same time completely being open to the possibility that there is a higher power of sorts.

The issue is that organized religions have the arrogance to think that they each have the one single correct answer. That this "higher power" cares about their group enough to grant them eternal life. That is where the disconnect is.

[Limesparks]

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Very well put. But at some point it has to break down. For instance, even if you are a complete atheist, you still have to agree, logically, that at some point there was something before the Big Bang.

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nope

asking whats 'before' the big bang is like asking whats north of the north pole

aint nothin

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man it didn't just happen out of nothing. makes no sense

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shouldnt u be mspainting

[RiverFenix]

I voted Yes!

[The Man Mulcahey]

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most notably recently in the last two months or so when some newcomers tried to trainwreck BBV and BBV4L

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Hi!

oh, and:
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f the haters passaman, I liked it

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[Passaman]

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Amazing how something so amazingly complex as even the simplest molecule is accepted as having no designer. No one looks at an airplane and assumes that a whirlwind went through a junkyard. My watch is fairly complex and no one thinks it just happened after millions of years. But the wrist upon which it sits is almost inifinitely more complex, yet we're willing to blindly accept it as the residue of mutations and adaptations.

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See, here is the thing. A lot of people think the Christian God or the Muslim God or whatever is made up, while at the same time completely being open to the possibility that there is a higher power of sorts.

The issue is that organized religions have the arrogance to think that they each have the one single correct answer. That this "higher power" cares about their group enough to grant them eternal life. That is where the disconnect is.

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How perfectly Post-Modern of you. (note: that was what we like to call a 'joke.' There was no belittling nor patronizing of any sort implied nor intended)