Creation "science" and a Bible-based morality

[excreationist]

....The notion of being assigned a meaning is the ultimate in meaninglessness. If a creator determines your purpose while creating you, that means you're no better than a tool in some fellow's shed.

I think that is a similar concept to "destiny"....

 

[abaddon]

....The notion of being assigned a meaning is the ultimate in meaninglessness. If a creator determines your purpose while creating you, that means you're no better than a tool in some fellow's shed.

I think that is a similar concept to "destiny"....

It's a lame concept in any case.

If I tell you your purpose in life then you do not actually have a purpose in life - not from my Say-So.

It doesn't matter if God is "superior", that does not enable him to assign purposes to humans. He can proclaim "I made you to worship me", but that's just his POV.

It'd be entirely different for a tool like a screwdriver - it has no say in it. But we humans are self-aware beings so we can't avoid having a say in it.

Some people feel it's too stressful having their own say in it. So they try to live in bad faith. "Bad faith" means to be an inauthentic person for not living up to the inescapable fact that it's your choice how you'll live.

In the novel, Frankenstein's creature met his creator face-to-face and learned what that creator's purpose was in creating him. And after learning about it, he still had to figure out what he wanted in life for himself and to pursue it.

We don't know any creator, like Frankenstein's "creature" did. But even if we did, it'd be the same situation.

---

I think that I saw mention of "purpose in life" somewhere recently in this thread. Probably in connection with the "superior" god being able to make all the rules. But this same basic point applies to the alleged rule-making of the creator. The alleged creator can't determine morality for us either.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Of course there will be counter arguments. They won’t be particularly good. A lot of emotion, manipulation, and finally accusation. Then, his ultimate answer in the gap... we just can’t explain it (AiG’s BS) yet.

What is annoying is you are tossing Ham BS up against the wall to see what ‘sticks’ as a third person and not getting involved in the conversation... apparently.

My intention was to share the castle analogy that I find interesting.

That was 258 posts ago.

And that it is saying that fundamentalists need a strong foundation with creationism rather that evolution.

No. They just need to say they have a strong foundation. Kind of like saying they built their house on rock... without ever digging into the ground.

People didn't like that sometimes I didn't respond to some arguments but that is due to me not intending to fully defend Ken Ham.

Yeah, but the problem is you keep referring to Ham. So at some point you need to accept that people here (and most other places where education is not scorned, don't find Ham persuasive.

Me trying to explain myself might not be helping....

No, it is you insistence to keep up your Deviled Eggs with Ham Advocate position (yes, that was very forced).

 

[excreationist]

.....If I tell you your purpose in life then you do not actually have a purpose in life - not from my Say-So....

I disagree and so would Christians. What if you were born to be a king? I'd say you were given a meaningful purpose....

 

[excreationist]

....Yeah, but the problem is you keep referring to Ham. So at some point you need to accept that people here (and most other places where education is not scorned, don't find Ham persuasive.....

Yes and more than that, it might be impossible to ever convince them that Ham has persuasive arguments (though some Christians could find him persuasive).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The persuasiveness of an argument << than its validity. Ham has made a career out of making invalid arguments persuasive.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

.....If I tell you your purpose in life then you do not actually have a purpose in life - not from my Say-So....

I disagree and so would Christians. What if you were born to be a king? I'd say you were given a meaningful purpose....

So your premise is that life as a king is more meaningful, purposeful than life as a non-king?

How are creators given meaning and purpose?

How is life as an anaerobic bacterium hundreds of millions of years ago less meaningful than life as a king today?

 

[atrib]

....Yeah, but the problem is you keep referring to Ham. So at some point you need to accept that people here (and most other places where education is not scorned, don't find Ham persuasive.....

Yes and more than that, it might be impossible to ever convince them that Ham has persuasive arguments (though some Christians could find him persuasive).

Why do you keep citing the arguments Ham makes? Do you find them persuasive? If yes, say so, and explain why. That would lead to a discussion about the argument. However, if you state the argument and then back away by saying "It's what Ham says and I don't necessarily agree", this does not go anywhere since Ham isn't here to defend his ideas.

Second, if you understand why Ham's arguments would not be persuasive to skeptics, i.e. you understand why Ham's arguments are flawed, why is it even necessary to bring them up? Are you looking for help from skeptics to convince you that Ham is wrong? Then just say so.

 

[atrib]

.....If I tell you your purpose in life then you do not actually have a purpose in life - not from my Say-So....

I disagree and so would Christians. What if you were born to be a king? I'd say you were given a meaningful purpose....

Why would the role of a king be more meaningful than the role of a soldier or a common man in this hypothetical theatrical performance that God is staging? The outcomes are known to God, and we are merely automatons programmed to carry out our preordained tasks. What does God get out of this exercise? What do we get out of this exercise?

 

[excreationist]

....How is life as an anaerobic bacterium hundreds of millions of years ago less meaningful than life as a king today?

I'm having trouble thinking up a persuasive response even though intuitively it seems to be very flawed statement. Other's peoples' recent posts are also very difficult to respond to in a satisfactory way. So I think I will retire from this thread. You all win.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Beating Ken Ham is like an NFL team thrashing a Pee Wee football team. Nothing to brag about, but thanks for not listening to a single post asking what you thought.

 

[excreationist]

Beating Ken Ham is like an NFL team thrashing a Pee Wee football team. Nothing to brag about, but thanks for not listening to a single post asking what you thought.

Here are examples of what I personally think. Many were in response to people asking what I thought....

From post #19

ideologyhunter: Do you really want to suggest a god of genocide and chattel slavery as an avatar of morality?​

Me: I think it's a test to see if the believer truly believes that God is the basis of morality or not.​

Post #21:

I think abuse done in the name of God is a test to see whether the person thinks it wasn't actually God’s will or whether they will rationalize it as being just and loving.​

Post #45

I think most of the things in the Bible never happened. I think Genesis 1 is poetry​

I believe external intelligent forces exist. I don't think I can really know anything about them... as the Bible says "Satan can appear as an angel of light" (I find it a relevant concept)​

Post #52

I think it is significant for emperors to declare themselves to be a god​

Post #59

I don't believe that most of the Bible is historical or scientific and a lot isn't moral

​

Post #62

I think hubris was a central issue. [with my mental illness issue]​

Post #90

I think there isn't strong evidence for the simulation so that it is more immersive.​

Post #97

I think that's why I became an atheist after giving up YEC.
​

Post #102

Though for some reason I think scientists tend to be less likely to believe in the supernatural....​

Post #112

"I think ALL evidence of God and the paranormal can be explained by skeptics as coincidence, delusion, or hallucinations"​

Post #140

I think that there were no jumps in evolution - that it seems perfectly naturalistic....
​

Maybe you are talking about what I think about Ken Ham...

Post #243

I just thought his castle analogy, etc, was interesting
​

In post #59 I said that I think a lot of the Bible isn't moral so I obviously disagree with Ken Ham's view that in all of the Bible God's actions and commands are completely moral.

More thoughts about morality:
Post #45

atrib: How do you define morality?​

Me: Well I'm a fan of Kohlbergs stages of moral development.​

I don't think moralities are necessarily right or wrong (objectively). People might say genocide is objectively wrong but then some Christians would say that if God commands it then it is moral - perhaps so that they don't risk missing out on paradise and being sent to hell... my opinion could be called relativistic morality and Ken Ham is strongly against that in principle.

 

[Bomb#20]

Yeah, I get that. I didn't mean the Sims could figure out the actual code; I meant they could figure out some hypothetical code that if it had been the actual code would have led to the events they observe.

How could they be sure there was any code? I mean theists would usually believe the universe is physical and God interacts without the need for computer code....

They couldn't be sure. But this is science we're talking about -- science deals in probabilities and best currently known explanations, not in certainties. The Sims' smoking gun for computer code, to the extent there is one, would be that the world they can sense does everything in discrete steps. So their laws of physics are all implementable on a computer. Similarly, the smoking gun for our world not being a simulation, to the extent there is one, is that our best guesses at laws of physics are a bunch of differential equations that don't work right unless time and space are continuous. To get that right on a computer would take an infinite amount of calculation. Of course this is mere circumstantial evidence; it could be undermined any time if some clever physicist ever comes up with a theory with discrete spacetime that matches observation as well as the Standard Model does. But it's better than nothing.

 

[Learner]

....How is life as an anaerobic bacterium hundreds of millions of years ago less meaningful than life as a king today?

I'm having trouble thinking up a persuasive response even though intuitively it seems to be very flawed statement. Other's peoples' recent posts are also very difficult to respond to in a satisfactory way. So I think I will retire from this thread. You all win.

Keeping this up in an advocate role, after many pages of posts, you've kept to the discussion quite well at least..1 rep.

Remember ... science and scientists don't do morality. Bible v science etc., which obviously can be approached from two different angles.

Usual missing element is EQ i.e. Emotional Quotent i.e. Emotional Intelligence. The bible IOWs reads differently with meanings, recognised on the level of emotions (meant to be, imo), obviously different from science. Funny enough, atheists used to (or still do) argue that theists believe because of the feeling fuzzy and warm inside ( I know you have a different perspective to the bible). I agree here to the fuzzy wuzzy feelings, to some extent lol.

 

[excreationist]

....The Sims' smoking gun for computer code, to the extent there is one, would be that the world they can sense does everything in discrete steps. So their laws of physics are all implementable on a computer.

I thought that the movements of the characters would be interpolated to about 60 frames per second... they don't have the ability to capture a video of that and slow it down.... I don't think they'd be able to determine what the framerate is.

Similarly, the smoking gun for our world not being a simulation, to the extent there is one, is that our best guesses at laws of physics are a bunch of differential equations that don't work right unless time and space are continuous. To get that right on a computer would take an infinite amount of calculation....

If it is truly completely continuous then it seems the "Achilles and the tortoise" paradox could apply....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes#Achilles_and_the_tortoise
Discrete time and space solves this paradox. I thought the Planck time and length means that time and space are discrete (quantized?). I think the simulation I think I'm in would just give the impression of things like the Sun being made up of 10⁵⁷ atoms without having to have them all being continually explicitly simulated.... so it shows what we expect to see without necessarily being calculated in the way it gives the impression of... e.g. it could seem that there was a Big Bang with infinite density without having to simulate that in a simplistic brute force way. I think AI techniques like machine learning physics simulations could be used.

 

[DBT]

If a Super Civilization exists and is able to simulate a Universe, they may be able to create what we would call an actual Universe, QM, probability wave/particles, gravity, stars, planets, gallaxies...the whole shebang. How would we know?

 

[excreationist]

If a Super Civilization exists and is able to simulate a Universe, they may be able to create what we would call an actual Universe, QM, probability wave/particles, gravity, stars, planets, gallaxies...the whole shebang. How would we know?

I don't think we could know because I think the point is to be indistinguishable from reality (to skeptics) but it seems it is possible we are in a simulation.

 

[steve_bank]

It's a misunderstanding of both what the supernatural is as well as natural/science. Whatever can be detected is science. So if science would be able to detect anything supernatural, it would stop being supernatural. It would just be natural. By definition, supernatural is something that cannot exist. This is by the definition theologists themselves formulated. A force that doesn't interact with anything in the natural world can just be ignored, by both scientists and religious people.

Would you consider the concept of a poltergeist to be supernatural? They apparently can interact with the natural world....

More like delusions and 'mass hysteria'. Consider the radio broadcast of War Of The Worlds. People thought the fake news reoports of alien inversion was true. People called police claiming they saw ETs and smelled poison gas.

I knew a Christian who believed in faith healing. He recited many examples but never saw it himself.

In the 70s-80s there were numerous controlled experiments to try and demonstrate the paranormal, all failed. In the 09s I took a psych class Alternate States Of Awareness. The instructor ran an experiment. He held up a series of envelopes with a symbol inside and we had to deduce each one. We knew what the symbols looked like.

The result, statistically random choices. 10 symbols a correct choice 1 in 10 times. Yu can do the experiment yourself.


The so called paranormal is human imagination fed by interpretation of experience and conditioning. How many peole do yiu think believe vampires may actually exists?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If a Super Civilization exists and is able to simulate a Universe, they may be able to create what we would call an actual Universe, QM, probability wave/particles, gravity, stars, planets, gallaxies...the whole shebang. How would we know?

I don't think we could know because I think the point is to be indistinguishable from reality (to skeptics) but it seems it is possible we are in a simulation.

Can tell we are in a simulation or can’t tell... both evidence for simulation.

 

[abaddon]

I don't think we could know because I think the point is to be indistinguishable from reality (to skeptics) but it seems it is possible we are in a simulation.

You add "(to skeptics)" in parentheses. So I wonder, how is it different for believers than for skeptics? Isn't it simply that they want to believe, regardless how irrational it is to believe merely because "it's possible"?

The way you talk about how the appearances fool the skeptics, it sounds like there's something that disadvantages skeptics. If it's that they don't follow an irrational impulse to believe, on the lame basis that "it is possible", then that's their advantage.