Now to start this off, I have but one request: I will respect you as an individual and as a human being as long as you will give me the same respect. Too many times have I debated over this topic in the past with atheists, and not to be bias but, most times in the PC world of today if you believe in theism or creationism you instantly become ridiculed for being an unintelligent imbecile. I took debate all four years of high school, throughout all of undergrad at KU, and I'm currently enrolled in Stanford for a double major in Law and Spanish. Now I have no degree directly in science but in no means am I unintelligent. I have studied this subject personally and have done my own research and have attended many seminars on the subject so I do know what I am talking about the subject. I do not want this to turn into a flame war of mind numbing mudslinging and dehumanizing of a person of an opposing view. So again I ask that this remains simply an intelligent debate over the topic.
Note:I wrote this all in Word then cut/pasted onto AG so if any format problems occur I apologize up front and I will try to edit and fix them as they arise.
Alright now for the exciting stuff. So here is the case.
How do you explain the beginning of a universe without intelligent design?
Alright now let me lay the foundation and boundaries for this case. 1. The most important out of all of these is what the case entitles. This is not a debate on if an INTELLIGENT DESIGNER exists at all (because there are plenty of threads on the forums that encompass this debate) , but how the universe came about in the first place WITHOUT intelligent design. 2. This being said it entitles that a world that was created by intelligent design is the status quo. Whether you believe it or not for the purposes of this debate it will remain the status quo making the defense against this case: the negative, and leaving the affirmative challengers with the burden of evidence. 3. If evidence is claimed be sure to back it up not using sole opinion and analytics to prove your point. (i.e. "Evidence proves that this happened!!" ....what evidence are you citing?) 4. Neither side can claim FIAT in any fashion. It either happens or it doesn't. 5. Keep it clean. 6. **IMPORTANT** To all mods reading this, as I said this is not a debate on rather or not an intelligent designer exists or not so this is not a repeat thread, rather a thread that is from a different point of view so please do not lock this thread for that purpose. Also I am aware (from a few years ago) that a majority of the mods are atheists and again I please ask that you do not use your power to make the debate unfair and you work with me to keep it on the right track as to not let it just become a giant hate flame war. I know mods in the past have, well to be blunt, have been flat out rude when it comes to topics like this which in turns creates an atmosphere for unintelligent debates. So let's just keep this one on the right path.
Alright now on to the second part of the resolution: To fully win this debate the following answers must be answered with compelling evidence or at least a substantial amount of them. I have made a wide scope of logical questions to be answered and I don't find a single one of them ridiculous even if you disagree they still must be negated.
1. Explain how some eternal random chance of quantum physics which would have to schematically predate time itself randomly burst forth such a force to create a start to everything out of nothing 2. How did we get something out of nothing 3. How did we get the carbon to form to start the building blocks of life 4. How did earth randomly become the only suitable place for a human being to live and how did it become so perfectly adapted to an orbit around a G2V superstar that would freeze us into an ice age if we were simply 1 or 2 light years further away or burn us to death if we were simply 1 or 2 light years closer. 5. How did the random chance of Earth being the only sustainable place for life occur, and if 6 billion years or more have passed why haven't we seen the same occurrence in other planets or at least the start of it? 6. How do you explain the beginning of time itself? 7. When, where, and how did the laws of the universe form and come about? (gravity, inertia, etc.) 8. Where did the matter come from to make life? How did life come to form from dead matter to living matter. 9. How did the matter get so perfectly organized and where did the energy come from to organize it? 10. What did the first cell capable of sexual reproduction reproduce? Since it would be asexual reproduction how do several single cell organisms develop into something completely different? 11. Why would any plant or animal want to reproduce more of its kind since this would only make more mouths to feed and decrease the chances of survival according to Darwin's theory of natural selection. 12. Does the individual animal or plant have a drive to survive, or the species in whole? How is this explained? 13. Natural selection only works with the genetic information available and tends only to keep a species stable. How would you explain the increasing complexity in the genetic code that must have occurred if evolution were true? 14. When, where, why, and how did single-celled plants and animals become multi-celled? Where are the two-and three- celled intermediates? Where has the REAL missing link been found and not already disproven? Wouldn't there have to be several hundreds of missing links for each species to develop (from fish to amphibians, amphibians to reptiles, reptiles to birds or simians) and if there are so many that wouldn't it be simple to find at least a few? 15. When did eyes or ears evolve and from what did they evolve from?
Satirical humor might seem funny to you such as "Oh you are very smart aren't you! I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster/Invisible Pink Unicorn/Cold fire-breathing Garage Dragon too! It makes just as much sense as your invisible God! You're unintelligent and ignorant and I can't debate with someone as stupid and crazy as you because you believe differently than I do and I am significantly smarter than you." But the truth of the matter is; it's very offensive to me and I believe all the other Christians or theist on these forums that have to endure troll comments like this. I have not insulted you (maybe my views have) but I have not made fun of you or ridiculed you for your beliefs or commented on your intelligence. I hold myself to be a respectable man, and I won't stoop to the level of insulting a person for their beliefs. I am judging no one for their beliefs and I agree that every single individual is entitled to their own opinions and it does not make them any more unintelligible than me for believing something different. So making a remark about being a Pastatarian or challenging my intelligence is just rude and uncalled for and I hope no one will go to such lengths as being unprofessional over a complex debate.
As I am completely aware (being a Christian over the years) the biggest thing creationists are antagonized for is their "blind faith" for their religion of "gaps". I agree that I have much faith in God as a supernatural being that I cannot see who created everything we see today, but the evidence is purely in statistics and although this debate is not encompassing that directly; it's leading to my next point. That what it is that amazes me the most is the total denunciation of faith by the scientific community when they so do it themselves. How so? The fact that they try to just take it a step further past a divine creator, and look at the beginning of time an unanswerable question that just has to be assumed as a theorem. That alone, takes a great deal of faith to believe in something that honestly can't be proven or any logical argument would lead to an infinite loop that is really just not rational either. The argument will presumably take a turn to who created a creator which is not the main focus of this debate but to make this clear. The reason there is no need for a creator of the creator then the reason the creation needs a creator is like this example: Leonardo Da Vinci created the Mona Lisa in 1519. Yet according to this same exact theory, who created Da Vinci? So "let's just take it a step further and say" that the Mona Lisa created itself out of nothing. Whereas actually if we DO have evidence of design then it doesn't matter where did that object come from. Since we know that the Mona Lisa painting is designed and likewise we can't avoid the design inference by asking who made the painting. Similarly *IF* we can show that universe has design then you can't escape the inference by asking "Who made the designer?". Thus "who made god" may be a good counter to the cosmological argument but not so a good in the case of design arguments. Thus as stands a world created by intelligent design will remain the status quo for the entirety of this debate.
The main problem I see with the argument on the earth being *so perfect* for us is assuming that the Earth was made for us or designed for us - it's an argument based on the presumption that there was a creator. Really, the Earth wasn't perfect for *us,* it just so happened that one of the billions of planets in our Universe had a suitable environment for carbon-based life to emerge, and therefore it did. We were shaped by our environment - our environment wasn't shaped for us. That's all I wanna weigh in on for now, but I'll hit some other points laterz >_>
There are have already been some very strong, well thought-out responses to this thread. And while I appreciate the nature of such a debate, the questions posed and the posited scenario both serve to sandbag the atheist/scientific position.
My objections to the topic are as follows:
1) Many of the questions asked simply can't be understood within the language of any branch of scientific study. - For example, criticism of the Big Bang Theory that rests on what happened before the Big Bang is really no criticism at all. The theory deals with the formation of the universe, not the creation of it. The simple fact is that our current understanding of causation cannot adequately explain even the first few nanoseconds of our universe's existence. And to ask about causes that stand outside our current universe and its laws is nonsense. That's not to say it's not a legitimate question - I'm just saying that with the language of theoretical physics, this question can't be properly assessed in the first place.
2) Asking questions like these, even if they did fit within the axioms of some theory of theoretical physics, is simply inappropriate given the members of this community. If there are any theoretical physicists among our members, I would imagine they have very little time to post enough material to adequately answer these topics. And I doubt that many of the rest of us possess the background knowledge necessary to understand these explanations.
3) But most importantly is the sandbagging. By establishing that ID is the status quo and challenging that directly isn't fair game, the OP has taken away a valid and valuable means to supporting one side of a debate. If I can show that ID arguments are invalid, then I can, through disjunctive syllogism, argue directly for non-ID positions (assuming the posited dichotomy is not a false one).
In short, we're being forced to answer questions that none of us are qualified to answer. Thus our answers are more than likely oversimplified, and we are certainly in no position to defend these highly complex theories.
I agree on the fact that theoretical physicists can effectively explain each of these questions. They can also probably give the details as to why the answer is an answer. However. They are theoretical physicists, explaining phenomenon that is theoretical. There can always be shadows of doubt if there is conflicting evidence. There are quite a few theories and hypotheses that suggests how X came to be and why X is as it is. But do we really need a professional theoretical physicist to answer these questions? Sure, some of them like questions 1 and 6 can be explained in a number of different ways, so there can be no definitive answer for them. But look at the rest. Out of 15 questions, it seems (to me) that nearly 10 of them have been effectively answered. It is the theoretical questions with no definitive answer that must be explained by a professional.
Ah well a 10/15 isn't, well, 100% is it? I hope you realize that, which of course I assume you do.
Sure, we cannot answer all of these questions. Even the best minds in the world do not know the answers to some of them simply because they are beyond the current scope of our understanding. However in every instance which we CAN effectively answer the question posed we have shown a very natural explanation with no need or place for an intelligent, ethereal being as a causation. I would say that if every question which can be answered is answered concisely without divine intervention as a method then the odds of divine being the answer for the others is highly implausible.
I find it humorous that atheists always get these "challenges" to explain things like evolution (which MUST occur no matter what, unless you can disprove either the premises or the logical steps of the following
It takes MUCH longer than 6,000 years for a molten earth-sized rock to cool. However, that the Earth would be more than 6,000 years old is in direct conflict with what the Bible says. Therefore, either the Bible was wrong, or the Earth was never molten.
A logical series of steps justifying evolution (taken from Faceless Individuals, but I didn't get a refutation there): 1. Within a particular species, there exists genetic variation. (Evolution can only occur if there are differences within populations) 2. The genetic variation within a species affects organisms' abilities to survive and produce fertile offspring (this is an evolutionary advantage or disadvantage, depending on whether this trait promotes or hinders an organism's survival). 3. There is a mode of inheritance - the offspring of that organism will have traits that they inherited from the parent(s). 4. Therefore, the evolutionary advantage or disadvantage (described in 2.) will be passed on in the generations. 5. Over time, this will lead to the advantageous traits becoming more common and the disadvantageous traits becoming more uncommon or dying out.
Given that it is PROVEN that life has been around for more than long enough for evolution to occur, then your arguments against it are useless. Thus any questions that you may have directly concerning evolution's mechanism are settled.
You could just as easily turn around 11 by saying that well, if more mouths to feed is truly a detriment to a species' survival, then why did God create it in the first place? This is the one that is most blatantly wrong, as the amount of food available and a species' standard of living is dependent upon the output of the species as a whole, which is directly proportional to the amount of individuals in the species.
15 - Eyes and ears are the product of increased perception. It is evolutionarily beneficial to have increased perception of one's environment, and over the years, eyes and ears would develop as ways to perceive the environment. Clearly, these enhance an organism's ability to react to external stimuli.
Sure, we cannot answer all of these questions. Even the best minds in the world do not know the answers to some of them simply because they are beyond the current scope of our understanding.
I guess I was thinking of the challenge more linguistically. Take the question of: what caused the big bang? You're absolutely right that this is beyond the scope of our current understanding. My thought was that this question is even beyond the scope of our being able to ask it. The very idea of "before" the big bang seems like a contradiction given our definition of causation. I then thought that this change in linguistic reference would entail a new field of study, like causation physics. Anyway, I was trying to motivate the conclusion that these (supposedly) scientific-style arguments offer no real criticism of, say, theoretical physics. These questions are beyond the scope, not only of our understanding, but the set of meaningful statements within our current dialogue.
It takes MUCH longer than 6,000 years for a molten earth-sized rock to cool. However, that the Earth would be more than 6,000 years old is in direct conflict with what the Bible says. Therefore, either the Bible was wrong, or the Earth was never molten.
Actually you can double that number without conflict depending on how the first 7 days are interpreted. But even 12-13 thousand years is still to short of time.
I still have to wonder why we should have to add a deity when the explanations work just fine without one? It's a bit like being able to arrive at 4 this way 2+2=4 then someone saying you have to also have x1 to reach the answer 4 like this 1x2+2=4. If we don't need the extra part of the equation to arrive at our answer then why include it?
To add to that Mage, is that with our understanding of the universe post-Big Bang is that either God IS the natural course of events since then, or he exists in a manner outside of, and thus does not influence, our universe. We already know how much energy and mass there is in the universe, and God isn't a part of that.
A question, do you all think that religion and science and co-exist? With the big bag theory, evidence supports it, but how did that one tiny atom get there?
A question, do you all think that religion and science and co-exist? With the big bag theory, evidence supports it, but how did that one tiny atom get there? *can co-exist
sorry for x2 post
Nope. Science goes against believing in things that can't be proven.Lets say you find out how a sand dune was formed, by wind, why would you have to go a step further and say the wind was formed by a dragon? Or using wind as an example, since it is formed by different pressure and temperature why state that that was caused by Jesus's laser beams? You must find proof first, you can't just make **** up in science.
