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QUOTE:-The fact is that sooner or later, despite the atheist's faith that science will one day reveal all, we come up against the complete blockage of not knowing how it all began. The Big Bang is the current favourite, and in answer to the question what went bang, some say nothing and some say something, but nobody knows and nobody can know. That does not, of course, invalidate the Big Bang theory, so why should the same "don't know" invalidate the design theory?-Brilliant. Love to see the arrogance and ignorance of atheists challenged so successfully and succinctly.-I like asking atheists how they KNOW there's no designer...where's the spaceship they used for searching the entire universe, how do they know they didn't just simply overlook him, etc. -Even better: Also ask them how they think they KNOW anything, when their brain wasn't at all designed for the purpose of thinking or knowing--and watch the stammering and squirming begin. Fun for all ages!

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That does not, of course, invalidate the Big Bang theory, so why should the same "don't know" invalidate the design theory?
> 
> Brilliant. Love to see the arrogance and ignorance of atheists challenged so successfully and succinctly.-Quote from my post of 18 hours ago: "Still, cosmologists have plenty of other big questions to keep them busy. If the universe owes its origins to quantum theory, then quantum theory must have existed before the universe. So the next question is surely: where did the laws of quantum theory come from? 'We do not know,' admits Vilenkin. 'I consider that an entirely different question." When it comes to the beginning of the universe, in many ways we're still at the beginning.'"-There must be a lawgiver! Only nothing comes from nothing.
> 
> Even better: Also ask them how they think they KNOW anything, when their brain wasn't at all designed for the purpose of thinking or knowing--and watch the stammering and squirming begin. Fun for all ages!-Ask why our brain has consciousness and the great apes don't. Chance did not make that happen.

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DAVID: Quote from my post of 18 hours ago: "Still, cosmologists have plenty of other big questions to keep them busy. If the universe owes its origins to quantum theory, then quantum theory must have existed before the universe. So the next question is surely: where did the laws of quantum theory come from? 'We do not know,' admits Vilenkin. 'I consider that an entirely different question." When it comes to the beginning of the universe, in many ways we're still at the beginning.'" 
There must be a lawgiver! Only nothing comes from nothing.-I'm not at all sure about the logic here. It is humans who derive theories from what they perceive as realities, and quantum theory throws up all kinds of problems about the nature of reality. The very suggestion that the universe might owe its origin to quantum theory seems to me like saying that it owes its origin to something we simply do not understand. That "first cause" something may be your law-giving God, or it may be an impersonal Nature which acts unconsciously with a mixture of the predictable (natural laws, which humans are able to work out) and the unpredictable (quantum randomness). Either of these first causes must have been there forever, since "nothing comes from nothing", and so there cannot have been a beginning. -(NB That does not invalidate the Big Bang theory. It does invalidate the claim that nothing preceded the Big Bang, if it happened.)

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> (NB That does not invalidate the Big Bang theory. It does invalidate the claim that nothing preceded the Big Bang, if it happened.)-The Big Bang is the best theory we have to fit the expansion of the universe. And all the subsequent discoveries such as the CMB fit the theory beautifully. Of course, if you are not there to witness it, it must remain theory. No one ever gets absolute truth. Even science requires faith if it is to advance our knowledge.

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hyjyljyj: QUOTE:
The fact is that sooner or later, despite the atheist's faith that science will one day reveal all, we come up against the complete blockage of not knowing how it all began. The Big Bang is the current favourite, and in answer to the question what went bang, some say nothing and some say something, but nobody knows and nobody can know. That does not, of course, invalidate the Big Bang theory, so why should the same "don't know" invalidate the design theory?-Brilliant. Love to see the arrogance and ignorance of atheists challenged so successfully and succinctly.-Welcome to the forum. I can't remember the context of the above (it always helps if you give the reference), though it sounds very much like one of my own responses to an atheist argument, but the agnostic in me has to point out that the converse is also true. Since nobody knows and nobody can know, it seems to me as blinkered to insist on the truth of the design theory as it is to insist on the truth of the chance theory. -Hyjyljyj: I like asking atheists how they KNOW there's no designer...where's the spaceship they used for searching the entire universe, how do they know they didn't just simply overlook him, etc. 
Even better: Also ask them how they think they KNOW anything, when their brain wasn't at all designed for the purpose of thinking or knowing--and watch the stammering and squirming begin. Fun for all ages!-Whether our brain was designed or simply evolved, I'm a bit surprised to hear that thinking is not part of its purpose. But I agree with you 100% that none of us KNOW anything with regard to these fundamental questions. The most we can aspire to is belief, and since we are all equally ignorant, I find intolerance of other people's beliefs just as shocking in theists as in atheists. In fact, it's often surprising and rewarding to see how much rationality we can find in other people's beliefs once we open our minds to their arguments.
 
Thank you for joining in our discussions. I hope you'll tell us more about your own beliefs.

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Sorry, I thought the Category being called The atheist delusion constituted reference. It's on the page after "Intro" called page 1.-Quote: "Since nobody knows and nobody can know, it seems to me as blinkered to insist on the truth of the design theory as it is to insist on the truth of the chance theory."-Assumption 1: Nobody knows.
T/F: As nearly 100% true as possible to determine. Although somebody MIGHT know without telling us, all the arguments of those who have claimed to know in the past and present--both theist and atheist--have been unsatisfying to say the least, expecting us to just take it on "faith", which I define as belief without knowledge.-Assumption 2: Nobody can know.
T/F: Uncertain. I remain agnostic on that epistemological point, since we don't really KNOW with any degree of certainty--we believe based on observation but don't KNOW--whether someone else CAN know, either now or in the future. We can't look inside their brain. Logically, if we stipulate for the purpose of discussion that the word "God" has some agreed-upon meaning, and if there were this so-called supernatural, personal God who is omnipotent, he (for lack of a better pronoun) COULD by definition prepare this or that person's or persons' mind to handle seeing him and then reveal himself to them, and then that person or persons would know definitively. But that could very well occur without our knowing about it, so we would remain agnostic. Also, right now, BEFORE any so-called "revelation" has occurred, it COULD be possible for someone to know there's a personal God--their mind could be prepared to receieve that knowledge--without their (or our) knowing that it's ready to receive it. (I think it highly unlikely, but not categorically impossible.) Then once he revealed himself, that would also have invalidated Assumption 1.-If there was an Assumption 3, that there was an insistence on the truth of the design theory in my original post, then that would be false and indeed a blinkered approach. I do look around and perceive what looks to be inescapable, undeniable evidence of design by direct observation, as remarked by Einstein, Paine, et al., but that does not rise to the level of proof, so I do not insist on the truth of the design theory; I merely find it almost infinitely more plausible than the idea that random chance is responsible. Even a single virus with no nucleus is comprised of an intricate chain of proteins that needed to be assembled in a certain exact order from amino acids that were also assembled in a certain exact order to function properly, via the actions of other proteins called enzymes, each of which is also so complicated that it defies the imagination WORSE, more ABSURDLY, to assume it came about by happenstance than to posit a designer. Occam's Razor seems to slice right through the argument for random chance. -Even more convincing, for me, is the phenomenon of consciousness: where that could have ever come from except from other consciousness, is a question no committed atheist has ever approached answering cogently or satisfactorily, IMHO. Inorganic, dead matter just suddenly jumping up and becoming organic matter, then suddenly acquiring out of thin air the quality we call "life", then haphazardly leaping forth and becoming AWARE of itself, just seems a more ridiculous fairy tale, requiring more profound faith in the unknowable, than anything found in the Bible.-Therefore it seems reasonable that every single person who ever lived or ever will live is actually agnostic about the origins of life and the universe, whether they acknowledge it or not. -Thinking is certainly one of the brain's purposes to which we put it (if we're thinkers, that is); my query to the hypothetical atheist was that since it was not specifically DESIGNED for any specific purpose, but rather just accidentally showed up by pure chance, how can you trust the accuracy or veracity of anything it comes up with? It would be like spilling your milk and trusting that the shape of the spill represented an accurate map of London, then following that "map" to attempt to get someplace. You will no doubt recognize this example from C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. While I am of no religious faith whatsoever and certainly not a Christian (I was raised Catholic but never believed an ounce of it after about age 13), and reject Lewis's arguments for irrational faith, I do reserve the right to use certain cogent arguments in discussions with atheists to shake up their own rigid belief system.

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Thank you for your comprehensive reply. Sorry I didn't recognize the quote, but it's six years since I wrote the brief guide, and I assumed you were referring to something written on the forum.
 
hyjyljyj: Assumption 1: Nobody knows.
[...] all the arguments of those who have claimed to know in the past and present--both theist and atheist--have been unsatisfying to say the least, expecting us to just take it on "faith", which I define as belief without knowledge.-I agree 100%.-Hyjyljyj: Assumption 2: Nobody can know.
I remain agnostic on that epistemological point, since we don't really KNOW with any degree of certainty--we believe based on observation but don't KNOW--whether someone else CAN know, either now or in the future. We can't look inside their brain.-I don't think it's a matter of looking inside their brain ... as you say, lots of people (of totally different faiths) sincerely believe that they DO know ... but of finding information universally acknowledged as being objectively true. This could only happen if, as you say later, God actually existed and revealed himself, but he would have to reveal himself to us all if subjective belief were to become objective knowledge.-I shan't repeat what you say about the origin of life and the nature of consciousness, because again I agree with you 100%. This is an argument that makes atheism impossible for me. The problem of course is the alternative: belief in any kind of eternal and universal self-aware intelligence, let alone in a personal, loving father figure, seems as irrational to me as belief in chance assembling the mechanisms you have described. You rightly in my view apply Occam's razor to the chance argument, and I find myself forced to do the same with the designer argument. If we can't believe that our own life and intelligence could arise through chance, how can we believe in an un-designed creator who would have to be infinitely more powerful and more intelligent than his creations (bearing in mind that he can create at least one universe). Too complex by far. David ... our resident theist ... falls back on Aquinas's "first cause" argument, but for me that is an intellectual cop-out: the divine version is no more and no less unlikely than a "first cause" energy that is unselfconscious but in its zillions of movements and variations through eternity and infinity has come up with a chance combination that gave rise to us.
 
You finish by saying: "I do reserve the right to use certain cogent arguments in discussions with atheists to shake up their own rigid belief system." You will probably have gathered that I wrote the brief guide, and started this forum, initially because I was so appalled by the arrogance and sheer irrationality that led Dawkins to talk of The God Delusion. Of course not all atheists are as deluded as he is about their own faith, just as not all theists turn into murderous fundamentalists. -I get the feeling from your post that you and I are sitting together on what David calls the picket fence, and I warmly welcome your company. (I sometimes get lonely up here!) I'd also like to echo David's comments under "Climate change" ... it's a pleasure to read your well argued posts. But as I look out of my study window at cold, wet Somerset (England), I do envy you your Florida sunshine.

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I believe much of my inability to choke down the Almighty Random Chance argument, and why Occam's Razor seems to have been made specifically for it, arises from my background in the sciences, chiefly chemistry, physics and human biology. (Amazingly I read somewhere that 89% of scientists self-identify as atheists; that would amuse the early pioneers of the discipline, whose discoveries were fueled by a burning desire to plumb the mind of the "creator" and learn his laws.) Really, the number of bizarre "coincidences" we are being asked to believe are happening simultaneously in one tiny little micro-speck of a place (planet Earth) purely by chance is so unbelievably enormous that it is, if Michael Corey is even close to being on target, essentially "indistinguishable from a miracle" even if it IS by chance: "The odds for the spontaneous appearance of the first living cell have been conservatively calculated to be approximately 1 in 10 to the 78,436th, a number so vast that it is trillions of times greater than the total number of vibrations experienced by all the subatomic particles in the universe from the beginning of time until the present" (M. Corey, Back to Darwin). Corey may be a Christian, but still. The mind reels. But proteins couldn't form spontaneously; they have to be assembled step by step because the amount energy required to synthesize them is so great that if it were applied all at once, it would destroy the entire system. They would need random chance to keep providing just the right amount of energy at just the right time in each step. Over and over, billions of times, without a mistake, or no proteins, no cell, and no organism. As the famous bloke once said, "Not bloody likely."-Physics insists that entropy is the natural way, that chaos and not order is what eventually pervades any system. Physical systems at least in the observable universe simply do not increase their net inherent heat on their own; something has to ADD the heat energy to them. Every micro-step of organization requires the input of heat. For random chance to produce such an obvious system of order as we observe in our world--and here we need not even introduce the question of design to see the order in, say, a collection of gelatinous goo growing into the shape of an animal and so flagrantly violating the law of entropy as to create its own HEAT and hold it within its skin, even if the air temperature is cold, when the laws of physics tell us unequivocally that all that heat wants to do is dissipate into space. For that level of organization to occur by chance, again and again, in countless different arrays, for hundreds of millions of years without stopping is, again IMHO, simply not conceivable as being a chance event as much as one that was designed somehow, in some manner I don't know or even need to know in order to successfully function as one of those homeothermic animals. -This may sound like escapism, but really it's looking back & forth at two diametrically opposed options (is there a third? More?) and just picking the one that least violates one's innate sense of reason and logic. IMHO, postulating an uncaused, invisible, uncreated, infinite cause as a creator because nothing can create itself is far from an easy cop-out of a conundrum; as Darwin spoke of "the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man...as the result of blind chance", it feels like the only possible explanation left when the alternative seems not even remotely reasonable. Neither one does. What a pickle.

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hy: if Michael Corey is even close to being on target, essentially "indistinguishable from a miracle" even if it IS by chance: "The odds for the spontaneous appearance of the first living cell have been conservatively calculated to be approximately 1 in 10 to the 78,436th, a number so vast that it is trillions of times greater than the total number of vibrations experienced by all the subatomic particles in the universe from the beginning of time until the present" (M. Corey, Back to Darwin). ..... As the famous bloke once said, "Not bloody likely."-Michael Denton uses the number 10^2,000 for his odds against it but Harold Morowitz is well beyond your quote at 10^100 billion! Both great biologists.-
> hy: countless different arrays, for hundreds of millions of years without stopping is, again IMHO, simply not conceivable as being a chance event as much as one that was designed somehow, in some manner I don't know or even need to know in order to successfully function as one of those homeothermic animals. -You are presenting information that sounds just like me. The atheist approach as you well know is to point to one little itty-bitty step at a time (Dawkins especially)with natural selection waving its wonderful wand. After all entropy is solved. The never ending energy from the sun solves all.:>))
> 
> hy:This may sound like escapism, but really it's looking back & forth at two diametrically opposed options (is there a third? More?) and just picking the one that least violates one's innate sense of reason and logic. IMHO, postulating an uncaused, invisible, uncreated, infinite cause as a creator because nothing can create itself is far from an easy cop-out of a conundrum; as Darwin spoke of "the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man...as the result of blind chance", it feels like the only possible explanation left when the alternative seems not even remotely reasonable. Neither one does. What a pickle.-I'm still with Aristotle and St. Thomas: Something has to be eternal. Causation is still causation. And chance cannot work. You are asking for a third way. So does Raymond Tallis in Aping Mankind, 2011 his brilliant atheistic commentary, but there is no third way as far as I can analyse. There is only chance or design with a background of 'something' eternal.I don't think, and Tallis agrees, that an inorganic universe can invent consciousness. He just doesn't want to take my next step. Consciousness is what has been eternal. After all the universe is just energy in several material forms, all starting with a quantum mechanical background. Consciousness is at a quantum level; there is no other way to look at it, and I can quote a whole number of 'expert' scientists on the subject, probably starting with David Bohm.

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"Consciousness is at a quantum level; there is no other way to look at it, and I can quote a whole number of 'expert' scientists on the subject, probably starting with David Bohm."-Well, I am (and presumably, the referenced expert scientists are also) glad that it is indeed a whole number; imagine what kind of fractured theories a fraction of a scientist might come up with! >:^D) -Seriously though, I am unable to conceive of consciousness (or anything else) at a quantum level, because I don't really have an understanding of quantum mechanics. I studied classical physics and not the theoretical variety. It's my own limitation and not your being wrong about it; although in truth I almost wish you were, if there indeed is no other way to conceive of it, because that leaves me with no way to conceive of it at all. Except to say that I join those who cannot find a way to force themselves to believe in an inorganic universe suddenly sprouting consciousness. It just simply HAD to come from other consciousness; there's nothing else to make it out of.-As to atheists in general and the smug champion of them all, Richard Dawkins, it is surprising that anyone of scholarly repute actually thinks he can prove a negative. There is simply no way to prove the non-existence of a deity using the senses, if for no other reason than that the description of deities usually includes lack of any sort of physical substance to experience with the senses. So he tries to prove it instead using logic, which falls apart as soon as arises the problem of consciousness, the bane of all atheists to explain away. The most you can say is you didn't prove the existence of a deity, and therefore don't really know if it exists or not, assuming "it" has any sort of sensible definition at all.-Conveniently the most any theist can [accurately] say is they also didn't prove the existence of a deity, putting everyone on a level playing field called agnosticism

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> As to atheists in general and the smug champion of them all, Richard Dawkins, it is surprising that anyone of scholarly repute actually thinks he can prove a negative.- 
> Conveniently the most any theist can [accurately] say is they also didn't prove the existence of a deity, putting everyone on a level playing field called agnosticism-You are right. There is no proof of anything. In my case, I think there is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. But then again, I follow Mortimer J. Adler. I think it is a 50/50 proposition. Either choice or design. By the evidence design wins. That means a background of intelligence. Your third way to to join dhw on his picket fence. No choice, no decision, which I find very unsatisfying. Of course that is my preference. I want to make a preference. Design wins, by far. Chance is far and away not likely.

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This is another brilliant post with which I can only agree wholeheartedly. Your scientific background is something you share with David, and your arguments against chance (as opposed to arguments for a designer) ... like his own ... seem to me to be utterly convincing. In your response to David, on the subject of consciousness, again your argument chimes in with his: "I join those who cannot find a way to force themselves to believe in an inorganic universe sprouting consciousness. It just simply HAD to come from other consciousness; there's nothing else to make it out of." But if consciousness can only be made out of other consciousness, we are forced to ask what the "other consciousness" came from. That is why David goes back to Aristotle and Aquinas and the concept of a first cause, i.e. what you call "an uncaused, invisible, uncreated, infinite cause". (I would add "eternal", since a first cause could not have had a beginning.) And indeed that is not "an easy cop-out", because if you can believe in that, you may as well believe in a chance-caused human consciousness: indeed neither seems "even remotely reasonable". It is a pickle, but why must we decide now? To me, it's like the media filling their pages and screens with forecasts about tomorrow, as if no-one can wait till tomorrow. Some religions do of course demand an instant decision, but we do not need religion to teach us how to behave in this life (as a humanist, I reject many of its various teachings as thoroughly inhumane), and even though there's no denying that religion brings comfort to many and in some cases also encourages people to follow the same principles as humanists, that is no evidence of truth. So the only relevance a decision has to us non-believers (agnostics) - I would call atheists disbelievers - is to what may happen in an afterlife. 
 
Is there an afterlife? We've discussed the evidence in great detail on this forum (especially Near Death and Out of Body experiences), and I remain open-minded. I am, however, not desperate to find out! I shall know soon enough anyway if there is one, and of course if there isn't, my dreamless and eternal sleep is hardly going to bother me. No chance of knowing the absolute truth in this life, and just a possibility of finding out afterwards, so what's the pressure? The "third way" is to sit on the picket fence.-Why continue the quest, then? Well, we have had some amazingly fruitful discussions, and in my case, even though I remain as ignorant as before about all the fundamental questions, I have learned an enormous amount about our universe and our human world from folk like David, BBella, Matt, Tony and others, and that is an education and a pleasure in itself. I hope you will enjoy the same experience, both giving and receiving.

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Thanks again for your words of support, dhw. Thanks also for providing a nice, concise verbal distinction between agnostics as non-believers and atheists as disbelievers. I'll use that one from now on, I'm sure.-Isn't it amusing how atheists--with 100% unanimity, which is something exceedingly rare--do not "get" that their smug certainty is every single bit as smug, and every bit as unsupported by any objective reality, as the certainty they rail against religionists for? It just makes me laugh, how rigidly and closed-mindedly they cling to their faith in random chance as all-knowing creator and how categorically they reject mystery as a normal part of human life. They just can't handle the concept of "we do not possess the mental or intellectual capacity to know certain things and probably never will", but people like Albert Einstein could. I refer to him a lot just because he is such an icon of superintelligence whom no one can claim to supersede in that area...and also because there are still far too many out there who simply assume he remained a Jew (spiritually speaking) his entire life. By most accounts he rejected Judaism out of hand at age 12. He rejoiced in the quest to understand what tip of the universal iceberg he could with his "finite brain" as he called it, while simultaneously rejoicing in the mystery of the parts he could never grasp, which he freely admitted was the vast majority of it. Atheists, by contrast, are smug enough to believe (a) they've almost got the whole thing figured out, and (b) atheist scientists will eventually figure out the small remaining bit and that it required no god or gods whatsoever. -I still keep going back to the sheer, unbridled brilliance of the observation that these scientists are so infinitely absurd as to believe that, once they DO figure out a way, without cloning, to deliberately create a replica of a human being that has consciousness (or even just a single cell, I might add), THAT is the thing that will, somehow, finally "prove" that they themselves DIDN'T need a deliberate designer! It is pure absurdity in its crystalline state.-There's just no other word for that insight than brilliant.

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hy: but people like Albert Einstein could. I refer to him a lot just because he is such an icon of superintelligence whom no one can claim to supersede in that area...and also because there are still far too many out there who simply assume he remained a Jew (spiritually speaking) his entire life. By most accounts he rejected Judaism out of hand at age 12. He rejoiced in the quest to understand what tip of the universal iceberg he could with his "finite brain" as he called it, while simultaneously rejoicing in the mystery of the parts he could never grasp, which he freely admitted was the vast majority of it. -Einstein ended up as agnostic. My email signature contains an important kernel of his philosophy:-"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our ownâa God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in Nature." And: " Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." -He remained Jewish otherwise and was asked to become President of Israel when that nation was formed. That offer makes no sense to me and he logically refused the honor.

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"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our ownâa God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in Nature." And: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."-Thanks for those, David--I've greatly appreciated and often repeated those quotes from Einstein ever since I learned of them in early 2000. -Not to nitpick the greatest genius the world has ever known but to be more accurate, one would have to acknowledge that, while religion without science is indeed blind, science without religion isn't necessarily lame, since one can certainly operate in a wholly legitimate, scientific manner without needing to resort to any religion whatsoever. One can instead simply say with complete integrity that science does not know how life began and may in fact never possess the tools with which to know it. Positing then the possibility of an intelligent designer/creator can be done in the complete absence of religion, which I might loosely define as the result of man's having artificially divided (or, one might say, 'hacked up') spirituality into warring factions based on rigid dogma and propaganda, to suit his craving for control of his environment. -Notwithstanding the aforementioned, we can accept and appreciate, of course, Einstein's usage of the term in the selected quote under poetic license.

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hy: Positing then the possibility of an intelligent designer/creator can be done in the complete absence of religion, which I might loosely define as the result of man's having artificially divided (or, one might say, 'hacked up') spirituality into warring factions based on rigid dogma and propaganda, to suit his craving for control of his environment. 
> 
> Notwithstanding the aforementioned, we can accept and appreciate, of course, Einstein's usage of the term in the selected quote under poetic license.-I made my decision there was a designer just from the particle physics, standard model of cosmology material that developed in the mid-20th Century. Then began looking at life and evolution and that clinched the decision. As folks here know, I was agnostic after medical school. Took the kids to Temple to give them something, but thought the litergy proved nothing, and never got anything emotional from it. What I have studied gives me the meat of the issue.-And the KJV of the OT is a translation joke. Which makes me feel somewhat sorry for the fundamentalists who soak it up. Ancient Hebrew is six times removed. It had 2-3,000 words with 10,000 total using prefixes and suffixes. Create the universe in six days? "Yom" means any interval of time, from split second to eons! But I'm sure you know all this.

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David: "And the KJV of the OT is a translation joke. Which makes me feel somewhat sorry for the fundamentalists who soak it up. Ancient Hebrew is six times removed. It had 2-3,000 words with 10,000 total using prefixes and suffixes. Create the universe in six days? "Yom" means any interval of time, from split second to eons! But I'm sure you know all this."-NOW I do! -I mean, the first two sentences are axiomatic, but otherwise thanks for the education.-Want an ironic laugh? At age 13 in my first month of Catholic high school the communications instructor had the whole class of about 40 sit in a circle, then gave one of them a single sentence to whisper word for word to his neighbor, and so on around the circle, just to illustrate how comically it would be mutilated by miscommunication, both deliberate and accidental, by the time it got back to the first student. The result was a hilarious mangling of the original sentence (which was "There is no reverse gear on a motorcycle") into something completely unrelated. None of the original words remained, as I recall.-I took it as a poignant object lesson from the (non-priest) teacher--probably unintentional, but perhaps not--of how you'd be totally crazy to swallow a fricken word of the so-called "good" book without a great deal of cold, intellectual analysis. Amazing that the Jesuit priests running the school allowed the exercise. (Maybe they didn't know--they were agnostic!)

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Play Trap the Atheist (The atheist delusion)

While trying hard to avoid sounding pompous and appearing to be Mr. Know All, I am concerned that my views may be wrongly assumed to be so because of my strength of feeling. I urge that you understand that what I write is always based on the simplest application of known physical laws - nothing else. Although now aged, I have no academic training, education or qualifications whatever. Enough of me, I think.

I have read a few of these postings but will refer directly to only the first shown in the long, long list!
‘The Atheist Delusion’ – which I assume is a reference to Dawkins book - it is, nonetheless, well named. Unfortunately, it is the author who is deluded! To forestall endless contradictions readers may otherwise post, I will define what I understand atheism is – and is not.

Atheism is an ideology that accepts that what we call Nature has generated everything – bar artefacts – purely by the unassisted use of known natural resources. Neither God nor Super-Intelligence being needed. The one exception to what are, for me incontrovertible facts, is the conundrum that is life. The religious will claim it as inconvertible evidence of God’s will, but ...claims, mine or yours, don’t cut it!

It is to be expected that atheists will challenge any ideology that encompasses or implies that any work of Nature is, in whatever measure, engaged or supervised by a God. This opposition comes also from non-atheists, so is not per se a property of atheism.

QUOTE:
"The fact is that sooner or later, despite the atheist's faith that science will one day reveal all, we come up against the complete blockage of not knowing how it all began. The Big Bang is the current favourite, and in answer to the question what went bang, some say nothing and some say something, but nobody knows and nobody can know. That does not, of course, invalidate the Big Bang theory, so why should the same "don't know" invalidate the design theory? Brilliant. Love to see the arrogance and ignorance of atheists challenged so successfully and succinctly."

Cosmology is a prime example, but alternative views on the workings of the Universe are a personal choice and have little, beyond what I have already said, to do with atheism per se. I do not think the above ‘Quote’can be so meritoriously regarded!

What these posts reveal is a failure to understand this important definition (of atheism) and to wrongly presume that these alternative views are evidence of atheism. I know a number of religious people who share, very strongly, those same contrary views. They say that God would never have engaged such in such nonsense when creating his beautiful Universe! As the Big Bang and its idiotic spin-offs are 100% twaddle, I agree! You might choose to read my comments under the title of “Crazy Cosmology”. You may, of course possibly consider my remarks therein as themselves being crazy!

However, the Big Bang is merely an idea awash in sea populated by ridiculous assumptions, formed on the basis of yet more assumptions, which are proposed, then employed as if they are proven fact: sounds very like a religion to me!

In point of fact, few, if any, scientists actually claim that it is proven. They imply it strongly by the blatant and deliberate misuse of the phrase “Now we know, blah, blah, blah.” Sadly, neither they nor myself actually, definitively, knows.

What I do know, is that this ‘scenario’ is hopelessly flawed.

Presented - as a logical rational scenario - this would be following the necessary and virtually unavoidable path to true knowledge – a subject for discussion entailing logical, normal physics – not some fairyland story telling her an impossibility is employed to verify the behaviour of the characters. The difficulty here is that neither its founding premise nor its ‘spawned’ offspring is founded on proven fact. Thus its basis is quite wrong to start with! This (again) Is not part of atheism, no matter how many atheists believe it.

They claim that their silly ideas are so highly probable that, though presently unprovable, they must be treated as fact or progress will be at a standstill! Quite to the contrary, these ‘ideas’ are instantly replaceable by ideas the rely entirely on known physical law.

I don’t think an explanation of atheism should include a discussion of any scientific subject. It is obvious that atheists are more or less self-programmed to follow a reasoning process that excludes the likelihood of a God’s involvement, but it ends there. Therefore, as DHW suggests, I agree that the Universe is eternal and that it and its component parts have always existed. However, he thinks this does not of itself disprove the Big Bang – here we differ to some degree.

I will post my opinion on these matters elsewhere on this site and posit my solutions for your constructive criticism. These will be under the title “Crazy Cosmology”.

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Thank you for arriving on our website 'reblak'. I, David Turell am the author of The Atheist Delusion; Science IS Finding God. I was invited to write it as an answer to Dawkins' book by dhw, an agnostic, the owner and originator of this site, who offered to edit it. Originally an agnostic myself, I came to believe in God by reading the science of cosmology, particle physics, and by studying the Darwin theory, which for years I had ignored but assumed it had some validity. Darwin played no role in my medical education or practice, but once I studied his assumptions, I realized it was empty except for the theory of common descent. Not the method of descent, but the development of the interrelated bush of life after life had appeared from a common ancestor or set of ancestors, considering archaea and the other family of bacteria.

I look forward to your point of view. What you have written is quite provocative. dhw is about to take a leave of absence to enjoy a family vacation. I don't know if he will reappear or be back in 7-10 days. I'll hold the fort.

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Many thanks for joining us, reblak. We could be in for some interesting discussions! As David has mentioned, I am about to go on holiday, but I hope I shall still have time for one more post tomorrow.

REBLAK: ‘The Atheist Delusion’ – which I assume is a reference to Dawkins book – it is, nonetheless, well named. Unfortunately, it is the author who is deluded! To forestall endless contradictions readers may otherwise post, I will define what I understand atheism is – and is not.

David thought this was a reference to his book, but it refers to the first section of my “brief guide”, and as I have explained in the introduction, it is explicitly a response to Dawkins. As such, it is an attack on the assumptions of an atheist, but (also made explicit) it is not a defence of theism. The whole “guide” attempts to tackle assumptions by both sides, and amounts to a defence of and plea for open-mindedness, so I’d be interested to know in what way I am deluded!

REBLAK: Atheism is an ideology that accepts that what we call Nature has generated everything – bar artefacts – purely by the unassisted use of known natural resources. […] It is to be expected that atheists will challenge any ideology that encompasses or implies that any work of Nature is, in whatever measure, engaged or supervised by a God. This opposition comes also from non-atheists, so is not per se a property of atheism.

As an agnostic, I agree with all of this, except that I wouldn't call atheism an ideology. It is simply the belief that there is no such thing as a god. This need have no bearing on theories relating to the origin of the universe or of life, or indeed on any aspect of life itself, except for the demands that believers think their religion makes on them. In fact, despite the claims of theists and atheists alike, the various theories (other, of course, than those that explicitly rely on God or on chance) can usually be made to fit in with either of these –isms: the theist says “That’s how God did it”, and the atheist says “That’s how it happened, and it didn’t need a god.” The Big Bang and Evolution are prime examples.

QUOTE:
"The fact is that sooner or later, despite the atheist's faith that science will one day reveal all, we come up against the complete blockage of not knowing how it all began. The Big Bang is the current favourite, and in answer to the question what went bang, some say nothing and some say something, but nobody knows and nobody can know. That does not, of course, invalidate the Big Bang theory, so why should the same "don't know" invalidate the design theory? Brilliant. Love to see the arrogance and ignorance of atheists challenged so successfully and succinctly." (dhw's bold)

I think it’s important to note that the comment I have put in bold is yours and not mine, so thank you for the compliment! You go on to attack the Big Bang theory and its “idiotic spin-offs”, and you conclude: “as DHW suggests, I agree that the Universe is eternal and that it and its component parts have always existed. However, he thinks this does not of itself disprove the Big Bang – here we differ to some degree.” I have my own serious doubts about the Big Bang theory (and look forward very much to your reasons for debunking it), but even if it were true, it wouldn’t tell us what existed before such a beginning and, for all we know, there could have been endless big bangs in an infinite and eternal universe. And so I agree with you when, with reference to all the scientists and all the theories, you exclaim: “Sadly, neither they nor myself actually, definitively, knows.” None of us “know”.

REBLAK: I don’t think an explanation of atheism should include a discussion of any scientific subject. It is obvious that atheists are more or less self-programmed to follow a reasoning process that excludes the likelihood of a God’s involvement, but it ends there.

I don’t think atheism needs an explanation at all, once we have agreed on a definition. Our aim is to look for and discuss explanations of life itself, and to this end we consider not only scientific findings and theories but also philosophy (including religion) and personal experiences – in fact anything that might give us new insights into all the great mysteries. You will have seen, however, that there is very rarely any sort of consensus on this forum, which over the years has covered a huge range of theories and beliefs, but I myself - still sitting on my agnostic fence - have found the discussions enriching and rewarding, and I hope you will find the same!

REBLAK: I will post my opinion on these matters elsewhere on this site and posit my solutions for your constructive criticism. These will be under the title “Crazy Cosmology”.

I’ll be here tomorrow, but will then have to catch up on my return. (Details tomorrow.) David will hold the fort, but you should know that he and I hardly ever agree! Once again thank you for joining us, and I’m looking forward very much to reading your views on “crazy cosmology”.

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dhw:David thought this was a reference to his book, but it refers to the first section of my “brief guide”, and as I have explained in the introduction, it is explicitly a response to Dawkins. As such, it is an attack on the assumptions of an atheist, but (also made explicit) it is not a defence of theism. The whole “guide” attempts to tackle assumptions by both sides, and amounts to a defence of and plea for open-mindedness, so I’d be interested to know in what way I am deluded!

I stand corrected

dhw: I’ll be here tomorrow, but will then have to catch up on my return. (Details tomorrow.) David will hold the fort, but you should know that he and I hardly ever agree! Once again thank you for joining us, and I’m looking forward very much to reading your views on “crazy cosmology”.

You should realize I've changed lots of your positions on Darwin.

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Crazy Cosmology
At all times, when considering people's behaviour, it pays to be aware of the pervasive influence of superstition on even scientific thinking. Many scientists are, at least, semi-religious so it can account for ideas that seem to have no rational foundation.

I recognise that the inheritance by the Royal Society of Newton’s hotly pursued religiosity during his 24-year reign as President has played an important and ongoing part in subtly influencing official attitudes so that they favour a measure of religious thinking. The appointment of atheist Sir Fred Hoyle as both President and Astronomer Royal was bitterly resented by its leading figures.

Key for fantasist cosmology is that redshift be treated as a measure of the speed of light. Using this theory (i.e. an unproven assumption), some 20th-century astronomers believed redshifted light they saw was direct evidence that distant stars and galaxies were racing out into deep space at what are incredible speeds. This was a reasonable possibility in the absence of actual proof of the nature of distant redshifted light.

In 1935, American astronomer Edwin Hubble, addressing the Royal Society, made the following comment: “ But with regard to relativistic cosmology in its present form, and the observations now available, the conclusion can be stated quite simply. Two pictures of the universe are sharply drawn. Observations, at the moment, seem to favour one picture, but they do not rule out the other. We seem to face, as once before in the days of Copernicus, a choice between a small, finite universe, and a universe indefinitely large plus a new principle of nature.” (My emphasis).

A small, finite Universe is what the Big Bang is about. The other is Hoyle’s infinite 'Steady State' theory (no expansion!). Hubble called for research into these’possibilities’ but, none was undertaken! Poor Hubble. His carefully explained state of uncertainty about redshift was completely ignored by ‘establishment’ astronomers and publicly hailed as an absolute proof that redshift was definitely a measure of speed, analogically much as when sound changes its ‘note’ as it recedes (the Doppler effect).

This exclusive property of redshift was disproved in favour of a new principle of Nature, by Halton Arp, a leading astronomer who was a 20-year employee at the Palomar Telescope and protégé of Edwin Hubble. By showing that redshift was associated not with speed but with the formation of two newer galaxies that are in fairly close mutual proximity, it was a clear contradiction of the official NASA doctrine.

NASA was enraged at his ‘presumption’ and so pressured his employer that he was fired from his prestigious role at the Palomar Telescope. Seeking work, he was blackballed and effectively hounded out of the USA! He was finally engaged by the Planck Institute in Germany. A wretched and disgraceful demagoguery to sustain what is only an idea! The single critical assumption - that spawns many others - is that 'redshift' proves that the Universe is expanding at fantastic speed. This has long been a matter of heated dispute.

In this context, I fully acknowledge that in general, until proof is available, rational assumptions provide the only routes available to researchers, but, rational means that existing physical laws are not altered to accommodate speculative variation. Therefore, any newly suggested law cannot contradict already scientifically proven law, but it may reveal aspects hitherto unsuspected.

It is in flouting this rule that establishment cosmology has erred so significantly. You simply cannot (reasonably) announce that ‘now we know’ that these ‘rules’ exist simply because they seem necessary to support your theory. What you must do – consistently – is make it clear that what you propose is not yet confirmed as fact.

At the outset of the 20th century, it was thought that the Milky Way was the entire Universe. Then in 1925 came Edwin Hubble.

He (officially) delivered the news of a truer reality. Dozens of galaxies millions of light-years away were verified and the Universe proper was discovered. It seemed to many observers that distant stars were seen as receding at colossal speed. This, interpreted as indicative of very high-speed recession, led to the belief that the Universe must originally have been much smaller.

This redshift ‘idea’ has never been proved, simply employed as if it had been.

Hubble (in 1935) had been unable to say quite what redshift indicated and postulated that it either represented very high speeds OR some new principle of cosmological physics. See Halton Arp!

I feel I should here remind you that unspoken Royal Society ideology defends and honours a religious bent in its outlook. This heritage has left a (perhaps unconscious) need to allow for some external influence guiding its 'official' outlook, such as: "There must be some sort of guiding intelligence somewhere in the Universe."

There is and I have found it! See my post on ‘Evolution’.

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reblak Crazy Cosmology

The appointment of atheist Sir Fred Hoyle as both President and Astronomer Royal was bitterly resented by its leading figures.

It was my impression that Hoyle was more of an agnostic by he end of his life, considering his 747 made from a junkyard comment.

reblak: This exclusive property of redshift was disproved in favour of a new principle of Nature, by Halton Arp, a leading astronomer who was a 20-year employee at the Palomar Telescope and protégé of Edwin Hubble. By showing that redshift was associated not with speed but with the formation of two newer galaxies that are in fairly close mutual proximity, it was a clear contradiction of the official NASA doctrine.

NASA was enraged at his ‘presumption’ and so pressured his employer that he was fired from his prestigious role at the Palomar Telescope. Seeking work, he was blackballed and effectively hounded out of the USA! He was finally engaged by the Planck Institute in Germany. A wretched and disgraceful demagoguery to sustain what is only an idea! The single critical assumption - that spawns many others - is that 'redshift' proves that the Universe is expanding at fantastic speed. This has long been a matter of heated dispute.

I have no background in cosmology or astronomy, but have followed the crowd with books and articles I've read. I know the super nova research on expansion of the universe. I find that Arp is heatedly disputed:

http://galacticinteractions.scientopia.org/2011/01/14/one-of-astronomys-pet-crackpot-th...

"Su Min Tang and Shuang Nan Zhang did a careful statistical analysis of SDSS data to look for the effects of periodic redshifts in quasars, and for correlations between quasars and galaxies. In other words, they took the predictions of Arp and his followers seriously, at least for purposes of performing the analysis. I've already stated the result above: no effects observed. Here is one of their "money" plots, Figure 7 from that paper:

"The circles here are the data from the sky survey. The various lines are the results of simulations, with the error bars on the lines showing the scatter in the simulations. The solid line is the only one that's consistent with the data throughout the whole range. The various dashed lines are simulations that would result of quasars were ejected from galaxies at various different velocities.

"Reference to Arp's work is also part of the larger net-crank alternate astronomy theory, "plasma cosmology" (and the even more cranky, if that were possible, "electric universe" notion, as well as modern day followers of Velikovsky). That this lynchpin has been completely debunked should hopefully help you conclude that plasma cosmology isn't anything that should be taken seriously."

Comment: I'll stick with the crowd.

reblak: It is in flouting this rule that establishment cosmology has erred so significantly. You simply cannot (reasonably) announce that ‘now we know’ that these ‘rules’ exist simply because they seem necessary to support your theory. What you must do – consistently – is make it clear that what you propose is not yet confirmed as fact.

In flouting rules of evidence to proclaim the a multiverse must exist to explain fine tuning is something is one of the biggest examples of your point.

reblak: This redshift ‘idea’ has never been proved, simply employed as if it had been.

Like the Doppler effect, it seems reasonable to me.

reblak: I feel I should here remind you that unspoken Royal Society ideology defends and honours a religious bent in its outlook. This heritage has left a (perhaps unconscious) need to allow for some external influence guiding its 'official' outlook, such as: "There must be some sort of guiding intelligence somewhere in the Universe."

There is and I have found it! See my post on ‘Evolution’.

I've given an opinion today. I agree there is no way chance is possibl the cause for the origin of life, and can expand on the biochemical problems if you wish. It definitely requires design, and must have a designer.

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