AJ Philips

I have never read such crap in all my life. No wonder evolutionist must keep changing their stories.

Vanilla and CJ

Thank you for your posts regarding Foxy's perplexing belief in ID. I too respect her and hope that she takes the time in investigate evolution further. Foxy, most of our knowledge of medicine, botany, biology, agronomics, genetics etc, have at their foundation our understanding of evolution. We simply wouldn't have the level of technology that we use today without this knowledge.

AJPhilips, thank you the time you put into your post, while it is clearly wasted on the likes of Runner, there are many others interested in learning about the natural world and your posts give hope to many that those who wilfully disregard knowledge are few and those who find wonder in the universe around us are legion.

An excellent place to start is here:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/1998/04/23/2119397.htm?site=science&topic=ancient

The Ptolemic model was largely wrong, yet it did give us the idea of circle, to be read, as orbits. Similarly, the BB theory will have flaws, to corrected by science. It called progress.

Creationists are in the same position as were the Jesuits whom believed in the crystal spheres when the for time advanced Chinese astronomers tried unsuccessfully to explain a more accurate system to them.

An Emperical God need to be explained. Why do we need God for a creation; cause and effect are note required. Time is a produced dimension.

The universe[s] happened.

Even if one accepts Intelligent Design. Where, designis intelligent, like the shape of a soap bubble. Why not forces determing an optimal shape? Why god(s).

Creation: Why not proto-physics and physics?

What is the "conceptual model of God"? Why is god necessary for the phenomena we observe? Not any of this meaningles "there billions of stars and look at a pretty lake" explanation; rather, architectual or conceptual explanations for God's existence, please

While looking through conservapedia and getting steadily more uneasy at how stupid some people really can be, I actually managed to come across a gem of a discussion.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_vs._Pastafarianism

Under 'why Atheism is ridiculous' a very good point is made. (I see it as an argument in favour of agnosticism, but no doubt that is shaped by my own secular views).

Essentially, the argument is this: god is a label. If we define 'everything' as god, then god must exist because everything exists by its own definition.

So it really depends what you call god. A poster replied on the conservapedia website, that this proposition was ludicrous, because it could just as easily prove the existence of Thor or Marduk.

As I see it, it's the ritualistic nature of god and religion that cannot be proved, coupled with the concept of an intelligent creator, or 'interventionist' god.

It's all about perspective. That's all we have here - our various ways of labelling existence.
That's why I prefer to stick with things that do exist - things I know can be proven one way or another.
Or, put more simply, things that don't rely on faith. I may not know the precise engineering behind an elevator, but I'll use one because I know that there are people who do know such things, and such things can be learnt from an engineering course.

The same cannot be said of the knowledge of a divine creator - particularly knowing the nature of such a creator.
Nobody can know such a thing, to believe otherwise is wishful thinking. Provided such wishful thinking is harmless, then faith can be something of a bulwark against adversity. When it is used as a sledgehammer for dictating moral superiority however, then I've no patience for it whatsoever.

Thanks for the compliment, Fractelle.

Ever since I decided to scrutinise Creationism, rather than believe it simply because that's what I was brought up to believe, I have been passionate about revealing it to be the nonsense that it is. Especially when you have Creationists brainwashing innocent children and teaching them not to think... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D8AeiAamjY.

Thank you too, Runner.

Your disagreement is confirmation that what I said was right (Although, re-reading it now, I could have worded some of it better).

Saying that something is “crap”, doesn't make it so.

Can you give any reasons as to why any of what I said was “crap”?

Good Morning,

I had left this thread - but I'm back briefly.

I wasn't going to respond to Vanilla's post questioning the one I gave on Sunday 18th May 2008. However, I feel that I do owe an explanation to those of you that were kind enough to come to my defence - especially you Oliver.

I admit that I took the "easy option" that Sunday - being extremely tired. I should have acknowledged the website.

"Mea Culpa," I apologise - red-faced.

Anyway, I'll sum up the traditional arguments for the existence of God:
The ontological argument, formulated by St. Anselm and later restated by Rene Descartes, that the gradations of perfection evident in the material world imply an absolute perfection, which is God.

The cosmological argument of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas that, inasmuch as every effect in the material world has a cause and an infinite regression of finite causes is inconceivable, the chain of cause and effect must ultimately extend back to a First Cause, which is God.

The teleological argument proceeding from the order and arrangement in the universe, which postulate the existence of an intelligence and power as the fountainhead of order.

And, the moral argument of Immanuel Kant, which holds that the moral law inherent in human nature implies an external Lawgiver, which is God.

Kant later claimed to have refuted not only these traditional arguments but also their antitheses; he became the founder of modern agnosticism.

Anyway -I feel that, as I said earlier - I've pretty much exhausted this topic and really don't want to go on with any further discussion.
Except to say that on a personal level, when I listen to the magnificent voice of the soprano Maria Cecilia Bartoli, or watch a
DVD of the famous Russian violinist Maxim Vengerov - I know in my heart that there is a God.