A masterclass in "avoid answering the question, at all costs", Dan S de Merengue. Congratulations.

Your words were, exactly: "this is why I am happy to defend the Biblical account of origins."

I am simply pointing out that so far, you have done nothing of the sort.

>>You are making caricatures of what I am saying.<<

What I understand by the phrase "the Biblical account of origins" is that the universe was created in six days by someone described in the Bible as "God".

If that is a "caricature" of what you are saying, then you need to be a lot clearer in stating your views. Because your protests that you are being misquoted or misunderstood are very, very thin.

>>I never said ‘it was God wot dunnit’<<

If you support the Biblical account as being factual, then indeed you must also believe that it was God who made it happen. Because that's what the Bible says.

>>2nd misquote: << what evidence are you using to support your belief that "God made the universe in six days". Your answer is "because I believe that he did". This was the first time you’ve asked this specific question. Without giving me a chance to answer, you supplied an answer for me, putting words in my mouth.<<

You have a different answer, perhaps? There is none apparent from any of your posts so far. But if you have one, let's hear it.

>>3rd misquote: <<It wasn't I who made the assertion "I can prove the origins of the universe".>> Well, it certainly wasn’t I who said that. If I remember saying something close to this statement, it was, “Not that we can ever prove our faith through science<<

Round we go.

Your words were, exactly: "this is why I am happy to defend the Biblical account of origins."

I am simply pointing out that so far, you have done nothing of the sort.

Incidentally...

>>Look at Paley’s watch, found washed up on a beach.<<

Paley's watch was found on a heath, not on a beach.

Even your red herring arguments lack precision.

It's amazing how this thread has evolved and mutated. While I'm in favour of purging State schools of RI and all religious affiliation, like many others I'm a strong advocate of philosophy (including, vitally, political philosophy, of which most people are ignorant and prejudice suffices).
However, while philosophy would be a marvellous antidote to religious closed-mindedness, it would also serve to counter fundamentalist materialism: put simply, the view that both consciousness and the world are entirely reducible to materialistic terms and origins.
The inconvenient truth is that despite the predominance of this view, not only is there no very compelling evidence for reductionist materialism, there are compelling objections to it, the enigma of consciousness leading. Functionalism of one kind or another http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_(philosophy_of_mind) has been the most popular form of materialism, but it rests on the foregone conclusion that a materialist explanation of some kind “must” be out there, and it fails to account, for instance, for the problem of “qualia”, or qualitative discrimination: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary's_room
Daniel Dennett is among those in the link who argue against “ineffable” qualia, but he illustrates the problem with dogmatic Materialism (or naturalism/physicalism, which are similar); they’re all negative, eliminative rather than positive or evidence-based arguments.
“…materialism seems to be one of those unfortunate intellectual bandwagons … on par with logical; behaviourism, phenomenalism, the insistence that all philosophical issues pertain to language, and so many other views that were once widely held and now seem merely foolish. Such a comparison is misleading in one important respect, however: it understates the fervency with which materialist views are held. In this respect, materialism often more closely resembles a religious conviction … defenses of materialism and especially replies to objections often have a distinctively scholastic or theological flavour” (Bonjour 2010).
The author goes on to argue that “intrinsic intentionality” is, so far, irreducible, and that “there is no reason at all to think that a merely material state could have this characteristic. But how intrinsic intentionality in particular can be explained and accounted for is something about which, if I am right, we know almost nothing”

Dan MERENGUE defends Noah's Ark, by challenging others about their expertise in marine engineering.

He didn't read previous marine engineering posted for him, so here it is again: (perhaps Dan can declare his engineering expertise, and offer his calculations, mmmm ?)

_____
Ogg, Monday, 16 May 2011 3:38:04 PM

Whut?

People still defending Noah's Ark?

Creationism believes the ark size is: 450’ long, 75’ wide, 45’ high.
Assume rectangular in shape, giving 42.2 thousand long tons in total displacement, but real displacement assumes one third is above water, so becoming 28 thousand long tons.

Packing density inside the ark could not be as dense as water, for safety clearance between the carnivores etc; further, the weight of the ark reduces real capacity to about 20 thousand long tons.

It is alleged that the Bible instructs Noah to take on board 2 pairs of each species of unclean animal, and 7 pairs of each species of clean animal. The largest dinosaur, the Brachiosaurus, weighed in at about 100 tons, did not have a split hoof, and chewed the cud, so 7 pairs of these were required. Tyrannosaurus Rex weighed about 40 tons, ate meat, so 2 pairs of these were required.

Adding up only the top 30 heavyweights out of 500 odd species of dinosaur, we obtain a total of about 13 thousand long tons.

But, including gorillas, orangutans, pandas, bears, bison, gnus, giraffes, elephants, camels, kangaroos, hippopotami, rhinoroceri, makes the total come to 30 thousand long tons, ie 150% of the capacity of the ark.

Now add the food.
Assume herbivores ate one tenth of their weight per day for 375 days. adding 1.2 million long tons, the total being 56 times the carrying capacity of the ark.

This is the 'kind' of illogic that creationists foolishly attempt to defend.

_____
Summary of calculations
Ark = 450’ X 75’ X 45’ = 1.52E6 cu ft
= 94.6E6 lb !water weighs 62.3 lb/cu ft
= 42.4 E3 long tons = 42.9 metric tonnes !1 ton =2240 lb
= 28.6 E3 tonnes displacement !1 long ton = 1.01605 tonnes

Squeers,

Wow, that's terrific, but clear as mud to me. Excuse my ignorance, but what does all that mean?

I agree Salty,

for Squeers to allege that account 'X" is quite deficient in giving adequate account of "consciousness" ...

Squeers must have an evidential list of deficiencies in 'X' that s/he can supply for us to read, and perhaps may even be able to offer a superior account 'Y' of consciousness,

We all would be pleased if Squeers could oblige us in that interesting theoretical offering.

As a putative expert, a list of his/her refereed papers in this difficult area would be interesting too to purview too.

Ogg:

"As a putative expert, a list of his/her refereed papers in this difficult area would be interesting too to purview too".

Not an expert, just an enthusiast and "genuine" sceptic. My information for my post is derived from the first two essays in this book: http://tiny.cc/e82tx

Your supercilious tone (including the rude way you refer to me in the third person and transcribe what I've said into reductionist terms) implicitly illustrates the kind of dismissive dogmatism Bonjour talks about. Like it or not, materialist explanations are premised on scientistic prejudice rather than evidence. Of course I'm not saying we therefore should resort to supernaturalism, but that we should beware of "all" preconceptions.

Saltpetre,
As I've said, I'm not an expert on this, and since it is specialised I find it very difficult myself, i.e. it requires a lot of effort to understand. I tried to put the gist of what I wanted to communicate as simply as I could (including accessible links), for anyone who might be interested in testing their assumptions, on either side of the debate, or pursuing this specific topic.

My own view is that for practical social/worldly purposes we need a realist philosophy that's reflexively amenable to the idealistic dimension of our material lives and natures.