The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Please don't get me wrong about one thing:
I'm absolutely sure evolutionists are VERY smart guys and their theories are equally smart. And that they're putting forth all effort with self-sacrificing spirit to work it out and prove their theories and there's a lot of genius in all these efforts.

To this I say: human brain is an absolutely remarkable creation! We don't even use 50% of its potential (they speak about some 10%, no?), nor have a certain idea of what that potential could be. Just every now and then some freaks show up demonstrating "superhuman" abilities in various areas.

So to me it rather looks like a "terribly misused design" than a "poor" one. A "locked up" design with great potential, rather than a "poor one". And there is much intelligence in all that, an intelligence which we only admit to as we come to understand it. Just as soon as science discovers some mechanisms it didn't know before, it finds them to be amazingly used in living creatures.

Now the knowledge we've already derived from the world around us has made us humans as powerful as never before. And this is the knowledge we've OBSERVED in the world around us, it is not what we INVENTED watching the world around us. Neither have we learned it through gradual evolution from generation to generation.

So tell me, HOW CAN WE, basing on the knowledge derived from the things around us, judge these very things to be of "poor design"??? Is there ANY logic in it? Would this not immediately mean that our knowledge is also "poor quality" as it is based on analysing things of "poor design"?
So you see this thing once again: it looks very truth-like at the first glance, but when carefully analysed it stops making much sense. And it works this way in many many other scientific-looking assumptions.
So I don't deny science at all, just I insist on a more careful and fair analysis.

Originally Posted by reed9 Take the eye for example. We clearly have a good knowledge of optics and how to build lenses. The eye, from our engineering standpoint, is backwards and inefficient. That makes sense in the context of evolution. In the context of an all-powerful all-knowing God designing it, there's some explaining to do. The answer I've most often heard is that we shouldn't think of it as God's engineering project, but more like a work of art, or people just chalk it up to God's ineffable nature. Which isn't an answer. If your goal is to try and understand the universe, taking that position is shutting off the door to inquiry and understanding. It's throwing up your hands and saying, "God works in mysterious ways" and then walking away from the question, ie, it's a complete affront to reason, intelligence, curiosity, and wonder.

I must agree these arguments you're referring to are equally ignorant and unsatisfying. Legacy of false religion which has been fooling people for centuries, but whose wild teachings wouldn't stand the scrutiny of common sense. Well its fall has long been predicted, too (see Revelation and the "Great harlot" there).

God's ways ARE "mysterious" to us as long as we don't understand them , yet they're far from being inexplicable, as the Bible itself admits to man's being created "in the image of God".

And human eye is NOT a failure to apply God's FULL power and knowledge. It just fits the human body it was designed for, nothing else! You have eagle's eye to compare, which is perfectly fit for what eagle was designed for. In case of humans, what they have is ENOUGH.

Then again, we can extend our natural abilities by tools we invent with the power of our intelligence. Isn't that amazing? Don't you appreciate the very idea?
I don't know what our existence would have been if there was nothing to invent, nothing to study, nowhere to show our amazing abilities.

And God is in complete control of his abilities. He's not like some very powerful man who, when seeing a huge stone, can't help but show everyone that he can indeed lift this stone with one hand.
So he can foresee the future, but he doesn't misuse this ability to make human life ALL predicted in advance. He can see whatever men are doing or even thinking at every given moment, but he's not spying on us for all that(unlike what the Big Brother is trying to do).

Originally Posted by kostya Please don't get me wrong about one thing: To this I say: human brain is an absolutely remarkable creation! We don't even use 50% of its potential (they speak about some 10%, no?), nor have a certain idea of what that potential could be. Just every now and then some freaks show up demonstrating "superhuman" abilities in various areas.

They do talk about that, but they're wrong.

Now the knowledge we've already derived from the world around us has made us humans as powerful as never before. And this is the knowledge we've OBSERVED in the world around us, it is not what we INVENTED watching the world around us. Neither have we learned it through gradual evolution from generation to generation.

Really? Is math invented or discovered? You're getting into a complex area in the philosophy of science and theories of knowledge. (Also more here.) Empiricism plays a critical role in the sciences, no doubt, but there is disagreement about whether it can be the only criteria for choosing between scientific theories.

So tell me, HOW CAN WE, basing on the knowledge derived from the things around us, judge these very things to be of "poor design"??? Is there ANY logic in it? Would this not immediately mean that our knowledge is also "poor quality" as it is based on analysing things of "poor design"? So you see this thing once again: it looks very truth-like at the first glance, but when carefully analysed it stops making much sense. And it works this way in many many other scientific-looking assumptions. So I don't deny science at all, just I insist on a more careful and fair analysis.

Yes, it is logical. Human brains are faulty, we are subject to all manner of cognitive biases that have been well examined. The whole edifice of science is an effort to counteract these biases and problems with human cognition. In essence, your argument boils down to, "gee, I thought about evolution and it didn't make sense to me and my religion says it ain't so, so it must not be true." It is the exact opposite of science and it wholly neglects the problems with human cognition which you are also subject to.

The body exists in the physical world and has to overcome various "engineering" challenges to function. It has to deal with gravity and forces. To the extent that we in our machines have also had to deal with these engineering questions, we can comment on how life manages it. Many times the solutions that life has evolved are brilliant and we can learn from them, in some cases, not so brilliant. Evolution only needs to get something to good enough and it can only work with what has come before. Structures get co-opted for other purposes and it can be inefficient if you compare it to an ideal design from scratch. The circuitous looping path of the vans deferens for another example. If you were to design it from scratch, there's no conceivable reason for it to take the path it does.

Evolution is probably the most successful theory in science, outside of physics. Your insistence on "a more careful and fair analysis" has happened and continues to happen. To think that scientists and philosophers are somehow just ignorant of these questions is to ignore centuries of philosophical thought, and more than a century of research into evolution itself.

Originally Posted by reed9 I just can't help myself... How do you how much there is to understand in order to even assign a number like this?

In fact, 50% was a very generous admission on my part, I thought you'd appreciate it. And of course, this is MY estimation, just as everyone else's could be different.

And how do YOU estimate the amount of what it is yet to be learned about human body and brain? For how much would you count the knowledge we've not even come close to of what LIFE POWER is?
They know about DNA, even DNA CODE and all that. But do they know WHAT makes it all work??? Can they take a body of a creature that just died and revivify it? Or a creature just killed and make it alive again by applying their knowledge of what life is?

Now I moderately estimate such knowledge as 50% of what there is to learn. And that allowing that there is nothing more to learn about human body in addition to what's already known (which is wrong, of course).

Want to verify my estimation? OK. Try to sell to somebody a piece of dead hardware without being able to make it work again nor telling what tasks it's supposed to perform. How much will you get for it, except for the price of the metal in its structure?
I'm afraid, in that case such knowledge can add 100, 200, or even 1000% to the price of the elements, eh?
This is the way I make my estimations and I'll appreciate if you show me where they are unfair.

Ah! and don't forget: going too deep into detail can make you miss the WHOLE picture .

Originally Posted by kostya And human eye is NOT a failure to apply God's FULL power and knowledge. It just fits the human body it was designed for, nothing else! You have eagle's eye to compare, which is perfectly fit for what eagle was designed for. In case of humans, what they have is ENOUGH.

How do you define "enough"? Or more to the point, how would God? Enough in the context of evolution means on average it doesn't reduce our chances of reproduction, and any better wouldn't be worth the tradeoff of extra resources devoted to the adaptation in question.

What would God's idea of enough be? That it makes us "fit" for the environment we were in, perhaps? And that still doesn't account for why the eye is designed as it is.

Originally Posted by kostya In fact, 50% was a very generous admission on my part, I thought you'd appreciate it. And of course, this is MY estimation, just as everyone else's could be different. And how do YOU estimate the amount of what it is yet to be learned about human body and brain? For how much would you count the knowledge we've not even come close to of what LIFE POWER is?

I don't make an estimation. I haven't a clue. What I say is that we clearly have enough knowledge to do things like heart transplants and sequence genes. So it would be pretty astounding if what we think we know turns out to be totally wrong. That it works is the ultimate testament to our knowledge.

Originally Posted by reed9 Really? Is math invented or discovered?

I think it is partly "invented" and partly "discovered". I can't deny the people who spent their lives on it the honour of inventing those abstract models that are used to describe things in the language called "math". And quite successfully, too, as the numerous applications do work.

Yet one cannot deny, too, that what they describe using this language they invented, is what they "discover" in the world around them using the abilities that are inside them. None of these were "invented" by any human.

Originally Posted by kostya You didn't get it, man. The Bible is something that I can read myself in various languages and translations. When you can do the same about the sources you're talking about, then we'll be equal to discuss these matters. So far it is with you like repeating other people's gossip without being able to test and prove it.

Wow. Talk about not getting it. You do realize Plutarch has been translated to English, don't you? As well as practically everything else related to the study of ancient religions?

I mean, if you're going to be intellectually lazy, fine. But don't pretend the material isn't out there and easily accessible.

Originally Posted by kostya And since when has the Bible ceased to be a historical-cultural document? Or, what other such documents of such value about Jewish life are found?

Are you trying to make a point here, or have you forgotten what we were talking about in the first place?

Originally Posted by kostya It's just all about religion: there are "deist" religions, then there are "atheist" religions. In both cases folks are judging about something they haven't seen.

Ye gods. Apparently you don't know what the words "atheist" and "religion" even mean. No wonder your arguments have been so awful.

Originally Posted by bluegospel Where have I said humans are a machine? Adam was created by God who breathed his own breath into him, giving him life, with the senses that attend life.

Semiconductors/hydraulics versus self-replicating cells, you're playing semantics games here, because whether you make a building out of brick or out of steel, you've still made a building.

Sure, your god can engineer self-healing systems (though those same systems often kill their hosts, so it's not like it's a very fault-tolerant design), but humans can engineer these senses you're so fond of with abilities far beyond those God designed. Name me an animal that can see the entire spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet, see clearly in the brightest day and darkest night, and can range from the widest angles to microscopic detail. Our human results are also far superior in durability and strength than your god's are. If your god were really so loving, why didn't he use superior materials and blend the benefits of organics into the benefits of robotics? If he was a truly awesome engineer, we'd have been born cyborgs.

So until we figure out artificial intelligence, in the engineering contest between man and god, it's a push.

Originally Posted by bluegospel The members of your body are controlled variously: your heart for example, is controlled by your brain, through your nerves, without an apparent element of will. Yet if you will to stand to your feet, your will controls your body's members through the brain and nerves.

Conscious or unconscious, the brain is still in control, so thanks for conceding the point. "Soul" has no part in it.

Originally Posted by bluegospel That's not the point. Besides that would hurt.

Then apparently you've conceded that point, as well. Again, "soul" need not apply.

Originally Posted by kostya And besides, I'm not sure how humans are in position to speak of "poor design" of something they don't yet even 50% understand. Life "works" for millions of years, the same species remain the same species (as fossils show), mutations are corrected, genetic code does its work so that life forms still exist and are still functional. Humans are known to survive in hardest circumstances (as they were put throughout human history). What works of equal effectiveness are humans known to have produced, that I could accept their ability to even judge whether life is "poor design" or not??? And you, reed9, would you refer as to "experts" to them whose qualities are SO unequal to the issue in question? Where is your SCIENTIFIC approach ?

Please stop showing off how little you understand biology, you're not impressing anyone with it. Every statement of fact you've made in this post is categorically wrong. Fossils show species changes, the term "corrected" is meaningless in the context of mutations, and genetic code has had tons of documented changes already, and we've only recently learned how to map it.

Heck, this was news just last week... humans had sex with Neanderthals, the human genome changed, and we picked up some advantageous immune system functions as a result. Did God just leave these out of the original recipe for Adam by mistake? http://www.todayonline.com/Science/E...-mans-immunity

Originally Posted by kostya To this I say: human brain is an absolutely remarkable creation! We don't even use 50% of its potential (they speak about some 10%, no?), nor have a certain idea of what that potential could be. Just every now and then some freaks show up demonstrating "superhuman" abilities in various areas.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...rcent-of-brain

"Though an alluring idea, the '10 percent myth' is so wrong it is almost laughable"

Originally Posted by SL00b Apparently you don't know what the words "atheist" and "religion" even mean.

Do you, though?
Religion is the body of one's beliefs, as is not so difficult to define. Atheism absolutely qualifies as such, as they only "believe" there is no God, and that despite vast evidence to the contrary. Since both are but "beliefs", there is no difference among them as to the quality.
It's fine you rule atheism out from "religions", but that's only you.

So who's "intellectually lazy" as in using "ready" definitions without trying to understand what these actually imply ?