| OooSnap said: To me these are strong supporting evidence for the existence of God. 1. The Existence of the DNA CODE "a. All languages, codes, protocols and encoding / decoding mechanisms that we know the origin of come from a mind - there are no known exceptions b. DNA is a language, a code, a protocol, and an encoding / decoding mechanism c. Therefore DNA came from a mind. WRONG. You are arguing from a faulty assumption, that because human created codes come from intelligent minds (sort of), so must all other codes. bDNA, on the other hand, represents a complete plan for a living organism. DNA is an encoding / decoding mechanism that contains code, or language, representing the organism. DNA is not merely a molecule with a pattern; it is a code, a language, and an information storage mechanism." The book Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life is written by Hubert Yockey, the foremost living specialist in bioinformatics. The publisher is Cambridge University press. Yockey rigorously demonstrates that the coding process in DNA is identical to the coding process and mathematical definitions used in Electrical Engineering. This is not subjective, it is not debatable or even controversial. It is a brute fact: “Information, transcription, translation, code, redundancy, synonymous, messenger, editing, and proofreading are all appropriate terms in biology. They take their meaning from information theory (Shannon, 1948) and are not synonyms, metaphors, or analogies.” (Hubert P. Yockey, Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life, Cambridge University Press, 2005) 2. The Existence of Objective Moral Standards Relativism leads to absurd conclusions which undermine its credibility. For example, moral relativism impedes our ability to think critically and rationally about moral and ethical issues. If there is no absolute moral law then there is no basis for making moral judgments or decisions. Would we say that Mother Teresa is no more or less virtuous than Adolf Hitler? If there is no absolute moral standard, how can we call Hitler and the Nazi atrocities absolutely wrong? Is genocide relatively wrong or absolutely wrong? Pure moral relativism has always been an easily refuted and fallible philosophy. Moral relativity in its purest form would virtually condone all behavior no matter how many rights are violated or the resulting consequences. It continues to thrive because it’s the easy way out. If man is the measure of all things, including morality, then he has no one to whom he is accountable and he can do whatever he likes. The philosophy of moral relativism is simply modern man’s meager attempt to justify his immoral behavior. But if this is God's world, a personal universe, then we do have reason to believe in absolute moral principles. For one thing, as Immanuel Kant pointed out, we need an omnipotent God to enforce moral standards, to make sure that everyone is properly rewarded and punished. Moral standards without moral sanctions don't mean much. More important, we should consider the very nature of moral obligation. We cannot be obligated to atoms, or gravity, or evolution, or time, or chance; we can be obligated only to persons. The belief in the existence of an objective morality must imply the existence of God because someone higher than us must have supplied this universal standard. If a person cannot acknowledge the existence of a higher universal standard, then he cannot actually have objective morality. His reference point cannot really be any more valid than that of Hitler or Stalin and he cannot appeal to a higher or better standard to argue otherwise. In the end, anybody supposing the existence of objective morality must mentally acknowledge the existence of God's standard, if not God himself. Faulty Assumption #2 - There is proof of objective morality. There isn't. And whatever sense of morality you look at is through the human prism. If one were to view morality as a derivation ofnatural behaviors that benefit a species, then it is likely that 1) humans would overall tend to share some similar moral codes, but that 2) those moral behaviors would not necessarily be true of other species. If we look at "lower" species with social groups they exhibit very different social rules than ours. If you do not wish to include them, then you are trying to gauge universal morality from a single species with a single origin (something both theologians and scientists agree upon). There is simply not enough pudding to find proof. 3. The Existence of Rationality As leading Darwinist mathematician-biologist J.B.S. Haldane realised, "If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." That is, materialism applied to the mind undermines the validity of all reasoning, including one's own, since if our theories are the products of chemical reactions, how can we know whether they are true? Darwin himself expressed his "horrid doubt" that the reasoning of a mind that was the result of chance could not be trusted upon. Thus materialistic science destroys its own base, since scientists must be able to trust the conclusions of their reasoning, but if man's mind was evolved wholly by natural selection for survival value, then all scientific theories, including evolution, would be untrustworthy. Materialists must therefore implicitly exempt themselves from materialism in order to make their arguments for materialism. "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has always been developed from the mind of lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" And in fact we do know that the mind is an untrustworthy thing. Moreover, this is an argument from ignorance - because one cannot fathom how the mind works, that there must not be a materialistic cause behind it. Again, this is not evidence. 4. The Existence of Consciousess/Mind Yes, something most people take for granted. How is it that we are aware of ourselves as autonomous individuals? Who or what is the the observer, the "I", that resides within each of our minds and does the actual perceiving? How is it possible that we can "step back" and examine our own mental functioning with a brain made up of neurons, even though no individual neuron possesses such an ability? Materialism holds that everything in our universe is made from physical materials including the human mind or brain and that spiritual attributes do not exist in the universe. This concept holds that our mind and brain are one and the same. Materialist philosophy can never explain the source of human consciousness, i.e. the qualitative experiences that belong to the human soul. For the materialist philosophy, matter is the only thing that exists. Qualities belonging to the soul of a human being, such as consciousness, can never be explained in the materialistic concept, for consciousness is inherently subjective. One aspect of consciousness is 'qualia'. Gary R. Habermas and J.P.Moreland argue against physicalism from the qualia of imagined sensory images. Qualia is the subjective feel or texture of conscious experience: "Picture a pink elephant in your mind. Now close your eyes and look at the image. In your mind, you will see a pink property. . . There will be no pink elephant outside you, but there will be a pink image of one in your mind. However, there will be no pink entity in your brain; no neurophysiologist could open your brain and see a pink entity while you are having the sense image. The sensory event has a property – pink – that no brain event has. Therefore, they cannot be identical." To put this another way, the subjective feel of mental experiences such as the feeling of pain, the hearing of sound or the taste of chocolate seems very different from anything that is purely physical: It is clear we are conscious (well, at least I know I am). We are conscious of ourselves, as well as the world around us. But what is consciousness? Could it just be a complex physical state of the brain? Again I would say no. Consider the following argument from philosopher Thomas Nagel: "It is not a far stretch at all to suppose that bats are conscious. Suppose someone had perfect physiological knowledge of bats. It would follow, then, that if consciousness were merely a complex physical state, then that person would know exactly what it would be like to be a bat. However, it seems clear that all the knowledge in the world about bats could not tell someone what it is like to be a bat." The reason is that while physiological facts are objective -- i.e. they are accessible to anyone, what it is like to be a bat is purely subjective and can only be known by the bat who is that bat. Our consciousness is not something accessible to anyone but ourselves. But if we were merely a complex physical structure, surely it would be accessible to anyone with enough knowledge. But it is not. Hence, this is evidence that the mind is not physical. Another problem with materialism is that we have Freedom. It's one of humanity's highest virtues. It seems clear from our awareness of our choices that we are free to move our wills in any way we choose. We can choose to have chocolate ice cream, or to have vanilla instead, and such a choice seems quite undetermined. At least we'd like to think so. But all physical states are determined by other physical states, governed by physical laws. If our minds are simply physical states, then we are not free. All of our decisions are determined. Once again, an argument from ignorance. Because we cannot understand consciousness, we never will, and it must be God's doing. EVen the bat argument is faulty - no one understand the total physicality of any organism (single or group), and thus there is no way to put this statement to the test. 5. The Existence of the Universe a. Everything which has a beginning has a cause. b. The universe has a beginning. c. Therefore the universe has a cause. The universe requires a cause because it had a beginning, as will be shown below. God, unlike the universe, had no beginning, so doesn't need a cause. In addition, Einstein's general relativity, which has much experimental support, shows that time is linked to matter and space. So time itself would have begun along with matter and space. "In 1946, George Gamow, a Russian-born scientist, proposed that the primeval fireball, the "big bang," was an intense concentration of pure energy. It was the source of all the matter that now exists in the universe. The theory predicts that all the galaxies in the universe should be rushing away from each other at high speeds as a result of that initial big bang. A dictionary definition of the hot big bang theory is "the entire physical universe, all the matter and energy and even the four dimensions of time and space, burst forth from a state of infinite or near infinite density, temperature, and pressure." "The 1965 observation of the microwave background radiation by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson from the Bell Telephone laboratories convinced most scientists of the validity of the big bang theory. Further observations reported in 1992 have moved the big bang theory from a consensus view to the nearly unanimous view among cosmologists: there was an origin to the universe approximately 15 billion years ago. "About the 1992 observations, which were from the COBE (the NASA satellite Cosmic Background Explorer), there was a story on the front page of virtually every newspaper in the world. The thing that the London Times, New York Times, etc. seemed to pick up on was a statement by George Smoot, the team leader from the Lawrence-Berkeley Laboratory. He said, "It's like looking at God." Obviously, this captured the public's attention." "A somewhat more sober assessment of the findings was given by Frederick Burnham, a science-historian. He said, "These findings, now available, make the idea that God created the universe a more respectable hypothesis today than at any time in the last 100 years."" Another faulty assumption. Who says everything that has a beginning has a cause? And who says the Universe has a true beginning? One theory that has long been floated has been the universe has alternated between big bang and big crunch, in which case it is onlythe universe as we know it that has a comprehensible beginning, but itcould in fact be just the latest stage in an endless cycle. 6. The Universe is fine-tuned delicately "The universe is also incredibly finely well tuned. According to a growing number of scientists, the laws and constants of nature are so "finely-tuned," and so many "coincidences" have occurred to allow for the possibility of life, the universe must have come into existence through intentional planning and intelligence. In fact, this "fine-tuning" is so pronounced, and the "coincidences" are so numerous, many scientists have come to espouse "The Anthropic Principle," which contends that the universe was brought into existence intentionally for the sake of producing mankind. For example, the value of the gravitational “constant” tells us the strength of gravity, the force that keeps us from floating off into the sky. This is an actual observed mathematical quality of gravity, similar to pi as a measure of the circumference of a circle. It’s hard-core science fact, as reliable as the chemical formula for producing glue or plastics." "Dr. Paul Davies, noted author and professor of theoretical physics at Adelaide University: "The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural 'constants' were off even slightly. You see," Davies adds, "even if you dismiss man as a chance happening, the fact remains that the universe seems unreasonably suited to the existence of life -- almost contrived -- you might say a 'put-up job.'"" "When Sir Fred Hoyle was researching how carbon came to be, in the "blast-furnaces" of the stars, his calculations indicated that it is very difficult to explain how the stars generated the necessary quantity of carbon upon which life on earth depends. Hoyle found that there were numerous "fortunate" one-time occurrences which seemed to indicate that puposeful "adjustments" had been made in the laws of physics and chemistry in order to produce the necessary carbon." Hoyle sums up his findings as follows: "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintendent has monkeyed with the physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars." Adds Dr. David D. Deutch: "If anyone claims not to be surprised by the special features that the universe has, he is hiding his head in the sand. These special features ARE surprising and unlikely." "The universe is also incredibly finely well tuned. For example, the value of the gravitational “constant” tells us the strength of gravity, the force that keeps us from floating off into the sky. This is an actual observed mathematical quality of gravity, similar to pi as a measure of the circumference of a circle. It’s hard-core science fact, as reliable as the chemical formula for producing glue or plastics." "If the gravitational constant were infinitesimally different one way or the other, the force of gravity would be much lesser or much greater, with bad consequences for the evolution of stars and planets. Greater gravity would have prevented cosmic expansion and the formation of stars, putting a halt to life’s evolution. A lesser force would have dissipated the energy from the initial formation of the universe. Planets and stars could not have developed. " "If gravity were slightly different, we simply would not be here asking questions about it or trying to overcome that gravity every time we take off in a plane. Instead, it happens that the force of gravity is just right. " "Physics shows that all the basic phenomena of nature and the laws that govern them have particular constants or ratios associated with them -- the gravitational constant, the electric charge, the mass of the electron, Planck’s constant from quantum mechanics, and others. " "The actual mathematical values of these constants and ratios are arbitrary. The laws would still operate if the constants and ratios had other numbers, yet the resulting interactions between them would be radically different, and the final outcome would be a different universe, probably minus its sentient life." |
The last is one of the biggest bits of hooey pseudoscientists try to put forth. The universe is the way it is because it is that way. If it were not it would be different, and we - or any other form of life - would look at it and marvel how THAT was so perfect and fine tuned, and could not be anyother way. As to the physical laws, the laws do not define the universe but describe it, and if all the universe arises, as it appears, from a few simple phenomena, then it makes sense that the complexity that results from their interactions would be able to be reduced to a few simple laws.
As for life, this universe is incredibly HOSTILE to life according to current evidence. Life as we know it can exist in less than .000000001% of the universe. Not exactly welcoming us with open arms. If God did create the univere, I'd get the feeling he was trying to keep us out.
Lastly, I want to point out that EVERYTHING in your post, even those things not in quotes, was cut and pasted from other websites. What does the Lord think of plagarism?
