There's probably no God...

[GrahamB]

I don't want anybody filling my void, thanks.

[Dmitri]

Thing is, man is a worshiping creature. If he does not worship God, he is certain to worship something else.

That must be true, because I totally worship tiramisu and, occasionally, some other select foods.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

I bow down to the soft pink moist and fleshy folds of fine pussy.

Hey, may as well get into something good and tangible. heh heh

[Dmitri]

I bow down to the soft pink moist and fleshy folds of fine pussy.

Hey, may as well get into something good and tangible. heh heh

[Darth Rock&Roll]

so true, so true.

lol

[Doc Stier]

One question which inevitably comes up in a discussion of this nature is what is the origin of God? If God created matter/energy, and designed the systems that have propelled matter into its present arrangement, who or what accomplished that for God? Why is it any less reasonable to believe that God has always been than it is to say that matter has always been?

All scientific evidence supports the fact that there was a beginning, and that the beginning was caused. It seems logical to me that the initial cause of time, space, and energy has to be pre-existent....outside of time, space, and energy. Thus, the nature of the primordial cause cannot be in the three-dimensional physical world in which we live, but must be outside of it to have created it.

Every time there is a discussion on this topic, someone will inevitably say "Well, all right, perhaps there is some evidence for God's existence, but if there is a God, a loving and merciful God, how do you explain the problems of suffering and death and all the tragedies that happen to people? Why is it that these things occur?" These are reasonable questions for which there must be a reasonable answer, and an answer that is as consistent with God's existence as it is in opposition to God's existence.

There are some, for example, who suggest to us that pain is something that should not occur if there is a God. And yet, physical pain and other types of pain are absolutely necessary for our survival. Pain serves to protect us and helps enable us to survive in the environment in which we live.

The Scriptures say that when man was put upon the earth he was told to be fruitful, to replenish the earth, to subdue it. His primary responsibility upon the earth, however, was to take care of the earth, to make sure that the earth was properly nurtured and properly supervised. The essence of that command still exists, and some would say that much of the suffering and tragedy mankind experiences is because this responsibility has been increasingly ignored or abandoned. Collective human suffering is thereby generated when we fail to heed the warnings of nature, and thus reap the consequences.

This is witnessed in the widespread concern of people everywhere today regarding issues such as air and water pollution, the chemical toxicity of food additives and drugs, the potential negative impact of global warming, the rapid extinction of plant and animal species, the accelerating global devastation of natural resources, and so forth.

Additionally, the vast majority of human pain and suffering seems to be directly connected to personal perceptions of what constitutes pain and pleasure, and the resultant mental attachments to self-sabotaging thoughts, negative emotions, potentially self-destructive behavior patterns, poor dietary practices, chemical addictions, and a whole host of other negative lifestyle choices which are all too common among so many people today. These are all choices that are freely made by each individual, and cannot be blamed on anything or anyone else. "As a man thinks, so shall he be". "What you see (in your own mind) is what you get". "What goes around, comes around." Simply stated, these all come down to "You order...your choice, of course....and you pay." Cause and effect, or karma, is a bitch, isn't it?

While some examples of human pain and suffering are apparently inexplicable at present, logic would suggest these are the result of unknown causes which are yet to be understood, but eventually will be in the due course of time.

Doc

[qiphlow]

mu.

thanks for the LOL!

[Doc Stier]

No Bullshit in this discussion!

Doc

[Interloper]

Wow! A steer doing a flying side kick. I've never seen a Kung Fu Kow before.

[Doc Stier]

Wow! A steer doing a flying side kick. I've never seen a Kung Fu Kow before.

Interloper:

You're obviously not a country boy. If you look at the photo more closely, assuming that you know what to look for, you can clearly see that it ain't a steer, and certainly not a cow.

That's over 2,000 lbs. of 100% U.S. Grade A Bull, Bubba.

Doc

[Dmitri]

Wow! A steer doing a flying side kick. I've never seen a Kung Fu Kow before.

Please don't tell me you haven't seen this movie!!

[Doc Stier]

Getting back on topic, we know that design necessitates a designer. In fact, in accordance with this fundamental axiom, design detection methodology is a prerequisite in many fields of human endeavor, including archaeology, anthropology, forensics, criminal jurisprudence, copyright law, patent law, reverse engineering, crypto analysis, random number generation, and SETI. And how do we recognize intelligent design? In general, we find "specified complexity" to be a reliable indicator of the presence of intelligent design. Chance can explain complexity alone but not specification -- a random sequence of letters is complex but not specified (it's meaningless). A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified (it's meaningful). We can't have a Shakespearean sonnet without Shakespeare. (William A. Dembski, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities)

Through the microscope, we observe the E. coli bacterial flagellum. The bacterial flagellum is what propels E. coli bacteria through its microscopic world. It consists of about 40 individual protein parts including a stator, rotor, drive-shaft, U-joint, and propeller. It's a microscopic outboard motor! The individual parts come into focus when magnified 50,000 times (using electron micrographs). And even though these microscopic outboard motors run at an incredible 100,000 rpm, they can stop on a microscopic dime. It takes only a quarter turn for them to stop, shift directions and start spinning 100,000 rpm in the opposite direction! The flagellar motor has two gears (forward and reverse), is water-cooled, and is hardwired into a signal transduction (sensory mechanism) so that it receives feedback from its environment.

When we apply the general principles of detecting specified complexity to biologic systems (living creatures), we find it reasonable to infer the presence intelligent design. Take, for example, the bacterial flagellum's stator, rotor, drive-shaft, U-joint, and propeller. It is not convenient that we've given these parts these names - that's truly their function. If you were to find a stator, rotor, drive-shaft, U-joint, or propeller in any vehicle, machine, toy or model, you would recognize them as the product of an intelligent source. No one would expect an outboard motor -- much less one as incredible as the flagellar motor -- to be the product of a chance assemblage of parts. Motors are the product of intelligent design.

Furthermore, the E. coli bacterial flagellum simply could not have evolved gradually over time. The bacterial flagellum is an "irreducibly complex" system. An irreducibly complex system is one composed of multiple parts, all of which are necessary for the system to function. If you remove any one part, the entire system will fail to function. Every individual part is integral. There is absolutely no naturalistic, gradual, evolutionary explanation for the bacterial flagellum. (Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box)

The bacterial flagellum (not to mention the irreducibly complex molecular machines responsible for the flagellum's assembly) is just one example of the specified complexity that pervades the microscopic biological world. Molecular biologist Michael Denton wrote, "Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machinery built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world." (Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis)

[Chris Fleming]

Ziggy Marley said it best: