Does God Exist?

Yeah. I'd just like to point out that what you just cited is adaptation, not evolution. Otherwise if we say that adaptation is the evolutionary process, then anyone who goes to a gym is in an evolutionary transitional stage because their muscles are growing so that they can lift more.
Evolution would be, say, a canary becoming an eagle so that it wouldn't get eaten by the eagles. Proof for evolution would be a case of species transformation. Even just one case would give it some sort of basis.

 

 

 

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No these are examples happening over generations and generations, not to one specific oraganism but a group of organisms. When a organism adapts, that is specific to that individual oragnism in it's lifetime. Lifting weights doesn't change your genetic code. I am talking about actual changes in their genes. My examples may not show an enite species changing into another but in an isolated area that group changes over time, not enough to become another species, but they did change noticeably and if given more time they cold evolve further.

 

 

 

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I just wanted to say this.

I read somewhere that a group of mathmeticians got together and they did statistics on a bunch of these theories and there probability of happening.

From what I understand, the probability of life being created WITHOUT a God, is equal to filling the entire universe with blind men with a rubix cube, and having them all solve it simultaneously.

I don't know about you guys but the chances of life ever having started without a God is practically ZERO.

You can argue and debate all you want over this but in my opinion God exists.

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Well, just out of curiosity, could you put the link to the theory that you mentioned? I am not that interested in disecting that theory now, but who knows in the future? It could be a Sunday morning and I might have nothing else better to do... hehe....

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But logically, then now we should not have lifeforms grouped into the classifications that they are in. there would be mass confusion, and everything would be still evolving. It's too much to assume that they would all evolve at the exact same rate, so how come we don't see transitional lifeforms running around?

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Humans have, for the most part, removed themselves from evolution. I am not saying they don't change, but we have sort of removed ourselves from natural selection, which is one engine of evolution.
Our classifications have changed and we are still adding new species to our list. They have just found some new species recently. Even so, most classifications aren't evolving at rapid rates. It would take a very long time for most groups to evovle noticeably. Also, the classification "species" still allows for some differences with in it. Small differences don't completely remove an organism from the classification. Things are still evolving, but it takes a long time for this to happen. species like bacteria are much more rapid in the process because they reproduce at much faster rates. I never said that they all evolve at the same rate. The changes mainly take place in a place with certain conditions. Like I said, the Incas, lived high up in the mountains for a very long time, so eventually there hearts and and lungs became larger because they were in that very specific environment. So those who were born with larger heats and lungs, were suited to live in those conditions and those who didn't, were less likelly to live.

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Does God exist?

I am a Christian and if this thread had been started in the religion section, I would have said yes God exists and I would have pointed out some classical proofs such as in Aristotle's Metaphysics and Charles Sanders Pierce's "Negelected Argument for the Existence of God". However, this thread was started in the Science section and I am a physicist as well as a Christian. As a scientist I must say that God is not objectively observable and therefore within the framework of a scientific discussion, God does not exist.

The sciences test theories by making objective observations. Physics in particular simply describes the mathematical relationships between measurable quantities. Can we set up circumstances where objective observations of God can be made? Is there anything about God which is measurable?

Ok, lets step outside of science now and dive into that lost topic of philosophy called metaphysics, which is defined as the study of the nature of reality. So in metaphysics we can ask the question, do things which are not objectively observable exist? Are they real? It is said that God is spirit, and the interesting thing about this, in this discussion, is that everything decribed as a spirit or as spiritual shares this characteristic of not being objectively observable or measurable. I find this contrast quite significant. On the one hand we have things described in physics which must be objectively observable and measurable, and on the other hand we have spiritual things which are apparently not objectively observable or measurable.

So this suggest the metaphysical question of whether there could be an aspect of reality which lacks this characteristic of being objectively observable. But this is directly related to scientific question. Is the description of the world by science complete? Interestingly enough this is a question that has been answered in physics without such a answer even being sought. In quantum physics it was found that the best description of behavior of the elementary particles of which everything is composed was a probabalistic one. Einstein and others found this unacceptable and proposed that quantum physics was mere incomplete and that there must be hidden variables of which we are not yet aware which are the cause of these apparently random results of measurement. John Stewart Bell derived and inequality which must be obeyed if the following assumptions were to hold:

1) That the results of a quantum measurement are determined by unknown variables. (determinism)

2) Causality is restricted to the speed of light according to the special and general theories of relativity. (locality)

3) A measurement cannot produce more than one result at a time, fore there is a reality apart from observation. (realism or counterfactual definiteness)

The failure of Bell's inequality means that one or more of these premises must fail. The vast majority accepts the failure of #1 in the Copenhagen interpretation. A small group however accepts the failure of #3 in Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation. None of the physics community really accepts the failure of #2, for that would bring almost all of modern physics tumbling down, implying all the logical contradictions of time travel and more. There are a few who play around with the idea of non-locality and David Bohm's interpretation to see if anything fruitful comes of it, but success in invalidating #2 is really unthinkable. Some have explored something called decoherence which promises some advances in the area of measurement theory but it is impossible that it can change the fundamental issues.

The fact of the matter is that no matter how stubbornly determinists resist the failure of number 1, numbers 2 and 3 are established features of the physics world view and the physics community will not abandon them even if they have to accept that physics is not a complete description of reality. So putting all three premises together produces a clear message and that message is not the failure of determinism but only the failure of determinism if you insist on thinking that the physical description of reality, which consists only of measurable quantities and the mathematical relationships between them, is a complete description of reality.





But God is not an acceptable scientific explanation for anything. God is not observable or measurable in any way and so, as far as science is concerned, unknowable. But that which is unknowable cannot be an explanation for anything. Evolution is a scientific theory and it is a good scientific theory for it describes a process that is observable and has been observed. "Creation science" is religiously motivated rhetoric, because no matter what "scientific" studies are done in its name it searches for evidence to support its theory (as lawyers and salesment do) rather than seeking to test the theory with observations (as scientists do). But Creationism is something else entirely because it talks about a God who is a spirit and therefore outside the ream of scientific discussion, and since the physical world view is not a complete one, the truth of the theory of evolution does not invalidate Creationism.

Creationists are simply asking the wrong questions. Instead of asking whether evolution is correct they should be asking whether evolution is the whole story. But Christians can only ask such a question if they give up on the mythology of a world created by magic in seven days and a first man and woman created by necromancy as an animated golem of dust and a reanimation of someones body part.

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But what creation and evolution differ on is in who was behind it, and in the process. Creation argues that man was created fully formed, and was brought to life from dust. Evolution argues that man evolved, and originated by himself from dust. Basically, gave himself life. Since spontaneous generation has been proven false, that adds the same "mythology" aura of magic to the evolutionary process, as "in the beginning of the big bang", life formed from dust.

And why would we have removed ourselves from evolution, if it makes us get better? Why did we all of a sudden decide that we were perfectly fine, and didn't need anything else? Why aren't secretaries evolving a third hand to type with? What about the amazon indians, who live in the jungle. wouldn't a tail be an asset? why haven't they started growing one? And just because we discover new species, doesn't mean that they weren't there before. we just never found them. Because if evolving was such a lengthy process, it's inconcievable that say, 200 years ago we didn't see them because they weren't there, and that 200 years later, they've all of a sudden evolved into this new species. why aren't there any transitional forms of it? even if they were the weaker ones, and got killed off, where are their bones? My point is, if they are evolving, there should be lots of halfway-there animals. Or at least remains of them.

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Humans have removed themselves from the evolution only in the classical sense, of indidual organisms competing with one another for survival. This however is a natural stage in the development of life on this planet. Numerous times before, like in the development of multicelular organisms, individuals band together in communities, protecting the weaker members, to initiate a new stage in evolutionary development. The protection of individuals by the community create a new source of variation of the individual and you get a specialization of the roles of the individual in the community which make communal techniques or "technology" possible. Evolution then becomes evolution of the community.



NO! Scientists merely describe an observable physical process. Because of the failures of Bell's inequality scientists cannot rule out the involvement of non-observable causes, but because science is restricted to observable causes only, they cannot discuss this possibility either.



Endless are the disagreements of Christians about the details of their faith and the interpretations of the Bible. The only consensus among Christians about creation is that God is ultimately responsible for the existence of life and all the living creatures on this planet. Christians inform their interpretations of the Bible by the input of science all the time. For example, it is well know that the composition of the human body is not consistent with the compostion of dust, therefore many Christians interpret the word "dust" to mean matter. Other Christians, understanding the theory of evolution, likewise make this their interpretation of the word, "formed". It is clear that the story in Genesis is not, in any way shape or form, intended to be a scientific text, but a religious text for the purpose of pointing out the role God in our existence. Genesis is obviously not a "Creation for dummies" book telling us how God created everything, but only a story written in praise of God telling us that God created everything. Just because the Bible does not mention God creating the uncountable galaxies that fill the sky above us does not mean that God did not create them, don't you think? Just because the Bible does not mention the Grand Canyon, the elements of the periodic chart, or the earth's magnetic fields, does not mean that God did not create them either.



NO! Evolution only describes a process of how the genetic code of a population of living organisms can change over time. Living things have the capacity to learn. They can learn new ways to live, which includes both how they behave and their actual physical structure, for evolution describes a learning process that stores the information of successful biological form in the genetic code. But learning does not occur in a vacuum and the fact that living things learn does not mean that there is no teacher. There is a difference between the theory of evolution and the atheists who uses evolution as their philosophy to explain the origin of living things. The atheists have such good propaganda going that they have convinced half of Christianity that they have science on their side, misleading these Christians to reject the validty of science.

The debate between evolutionary atheists and creationists is like the following argument about of the origin of tomatoes in a grocery store. The atheist says that these tomatoes are a product of chance and the natural laws of physics - appearing before us in the store by predictable mathematical laws. The creationist says that their perfect and uniform roundness is clearly a product of design, and so these tomatoes must be designed and manufactured in factory. Both are obviously nonsense. The tomatoes are the product of tomato plants. They were not designed or manufactured. They grew by themselves and we could make a time laped photophy motion picture to prove it. But what that movie fails to show are the farmers who water and nuture the plant to keep it healthy and growing. Ultimately, the tomatoes are in the grocery store because of the farmers who grew them, but the farmers did not design or manifuacture them. The fact of the matter is that design and manufacture are the process of the creation of dead things not the living, and likewise the role of God in the creation of living must be seen in a similar manner as one who nurtures, cares for, prunes, raises, shepherds, and teaches. This is acually a more suitable creation philosophy for Christianity than the magical creation of Young Earth Creationists which is a philosophy more suitable to Deists who believe that God created the world like a giant (dead) clockworks, set in motion and left it to take care of itself. So I believe instead in a God who is intimately invoved in the lives of his creatures guiding their learning and development according to His plan and desire.



Because evolution is reality not wishful thinking. In stories and myths you can cook up any god, angels and demons your heart desires, but things in real life are not driven by wishes. The fact that there are secretaries, learning skills like typing and word processing, and coping with unique problems like carpal tunnel syndrome, is an example of evolution. Secretaries will evolve to deal with their unique problems not with biological development which is the old technique used in the classical evolution of the individual (far to slow to be of use to secretaries anyway), but with medical technology which is part of the process of the evolutionary development of the community.

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Very nicely said, mitchellmckain. I think before you start replying to Graffiti, maybe you should ask him to define life. After reading his countless posts, I am beginning to think that his definition of life might not involve bacteria and other simpler organisms. After all, maybe all he/she wants to show is that we, humans, cannot just evolved but be created by some higher being, supposedly God. And no one can reasonably satisfy him because the only evidence that someone can produce would be fossils and Graffiti can always insist that the fossils has nothing to do with modern humans.

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