To Sean ( with a little magic show for …

Comment on The Creator of Time by george.

To Sean ( with a little magic show for Wes) and welcome back Erv

“Am I reading you correctly that you have no trouble believing in an intelligent designer God as being responsible for the origin of the universe and for life and its diversity on this planet? – that the empirical evidence that you are able to comprehend seems to reasonably support such a conclusion? – that your only real problem is with the particular God described in the Bible? If that is the case, you aren’t really the agnostic I’ve been led to believe you are… ”

You are not reading me correctly. I question whether this universe and evolving life on this planet is of intelligent design but rather happenstance or chance.

Let’s try a thought experiment to crudely demonstrate my point.

Let’s postulate that I want to throw a baseball 200 feet away through a hole in a vertical plywood sheet with the hole being only a millimeter larger in diameter than the baseball. I know that at the right trajectory the ball will fit through the hole as I have pre -measured it. I know that I can throw a baseball 200 feet and reach the plywood as I have taken experimental throws prior to the experiment. Each attempt will be separately witnessed by people of faith who are unaware of the prior attempts but film each attempt. Each time I throw the ball I prophesize that I will perform a miracle.

What are the chances that I can throw the ball through the hole? infinitesimally small I imagine. But not impossible.

For years I try to throw the ball through the hole, each separately witnessed. At first I miss the plywood all together. Then at last I start to hit the plywood but am no where near the hole. But as time goes on I start to get within 10 feet of the hole, then 5 feet and then I start to hit part of the hole but not cleanly so the ball caroms off the hole at oblique angles. Every time I miss, I thank the witnesses, pay them for their time and have them sign a confidentiality agreement stating that that they will never disclose they have participating in my failed attempt. For the sake of this experiment none of them break the agreement or are aware of or know any of the witnesses of prior or future attempts. ( of course being an idle billionaire with a good arm all of this is possible 🙂

Finally on my 10,000,000 attempt, after decades of trying, I throw the ball through the hole, duly recorded on the cell phones of my three folks of faith. And incredible as it might seem it happens just as the lunar eclipse is occurring. ( Wes’s borrowed klieg lights gleefully light up the scene for the miraculous event. So grateful am I for the loan that I cede him the movie rights so Disney can make an animated movie of the event – “Always let your artistic imagination be your guide”) …

Enjoying the show so far? Wes did you bring the popcorn?

… Now I turn to my folks of faith who have just seen me throw the ball through the hole on the very first try and say, “This was part of God’s design,” and walk away never to be seen by them again.

Lo and behold, my fine folks of faith began to proselytize that they have just seen the designed hand of God at work, duly recorded. No one is ever able to repeat the event and I have become a recluse and never found. The legend spreads and those of the intelligent design/prophecy school(s0 proclaim the event to be evidence of both.

Could this scenario occur under the right circumstances? Unlikely but not impossible given the laws of physics, time, money and staging.

Now I am no God or Devil.. well my wife may not concur with the latter. Oh I know I’m a bit of an ontological rascal – as Wes likes to affectionately call me- but I do have a point with this little thought experiment. On a grand scale let’s replace me with God as the infinite baseball chucker. Each ball represents a potential anthropic universe allowing for intelligent, organic life to develop, albeit under tumultuous circumstances ( watch out for those black holes they can cause a detour in a feller’s cosmic perambulation!). Most times the balls ( potential universes) never make it through the anthropic hole but just bounce off the cosmic plywood. But after eons – Sean and I agree that by definition an omnipotent God/Creator would not be bound by time, space or the physical laws of this universe – our ball on the umpteenth gazillion try comes through the hole (singularity) and begins to expand in Big Bang fashion on the other side of the plywood. Bingo there’s our universe 😉

Of course we as anthropic witnesses after the fact, through the application of scientific reasoning, can only deduce the nature of our universe. The metaverse at this time is only theoretical speculation. But that does not make a fairy tale, rather a concept to explore. The fact that we exist in a finely tuned universe, which is all we can know seems to suggest a pre – ordained design. But what about all the other potential balls and holes in pieces of plywood where life may not be so hospitable and design not intelligible. Does not an omnipotent, omnipresent God have the capacity to create these randomly as well just for his sheer creative joy? Don’t most of us parent more than one child?

Yes Sean, I ponder the theory of the metaverse just as I do the nature of a God that might have created same. Is our unraveling, entropic universe designed or does it just appear to us to be so because we have nothing else to yet compare it to? So many events of Nature in the past were attributed to God(s) due to scientific ignorance. How many more of apparent design will dispelled as we learn more and more about Nature’s cause and effect. For me the cosmic jury remains out and the verdict inconclusive as to a particular, pre-ordained design to this universe. If it was me I would have designed Disney rides all over the cosmos but that’s just me 🙂

Happy Sabbath tomorrow.

george Also Commented

The Creator of Time
Hi Sean

Your real problem of credibility is your double standard of proof. Put your biblical stories of reality to the same degree of circumspection as you put evolution. To really conclude that all the bio diversity that we see in the world today- apart from that that survived in the water- came off an Ark is probably the most unscientific fantastic claim that even all children see as allegory. There is a reason this is not taught as the source of biodiversity in schools Sean. Yet you as a scientist believe it and think it has an evidentiary basis.

Your arguments on design make much more sense because it is certainly arguable that there is a design to the universe based on the anthropiic principle. It is certainly arguable that a designer like God could have designed a universe like ours but also a designerlike God could have designed a cause and effect evolving universe as well. Like Deism I think ID is worthwhile exploring. But I also think science continues to demonstrate mindless cause and effect mechanisms that don’t require design.

You and Behe are focused on irreducible complexity as an underpinning for design – which for you then becomes the stepping stone to biblical creation. Your methodology is apparent to get ‘educated’ minds to buy into a biblically designer God.

You see I don’t mind admitting that there is still much to do when it comes to understanding how physics and biology work. The best minds in the world continue to work, theorize and experiment in these areas. But you dismiss these efforts with a wave of your hand because they fall outside the biblical narrative so they can’t be true. And it is THAT factor Sean that utterly shatters the rational credibilty of
of creation science as an objective endeavour. The boys at the Discovery Institute understood this and have tried to broaden their approach. Deists understood this as well to get away from cultural myth and move towards a more observational basis for understanding the universe. But sadly Sean l, I think you are so entrenched in your biblical paradigm that you cannot see how your double standard of scientific inquiry harms your credibilty as an objective scientist. If I was to cross examine you in a Court of Law I would have a field day on pointing this discrepancy. And believe me, having cross examined many medical experts in forensic matters I do speak from professional experience.

Yes I know I am stating the obvious as many of your fellow ‘progressive’ Adventist colleagues have stayed before, no doubt to no avail. But, without being smug, just as you have encouraged me to look for God, I encourage you to look very deeply within yourself and look for humbly for rational contradiction. Objective humility is the real start to seeking truth.

Cheers


The Creator of Time
Hello Sean

In fairness to you and your readers I feel like we are being redundant on many points and issues. I need to be respectful that this is an Adventist forum that believes and supports YEC not a platform for my agnosticism.

I do appreciate and thank you for the opportunity to lively debate issues.

Respectfully


The Creator of Time
To Lindley

“Theology seems to go amiss whenever we try to rationalise God instead of seeking a relationship with God. Let us start with who God is, who we are and a little of our relationship

God is Love! God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit self-exist in a relationship of love. God has complete knowledge and power, but by His own will and sacred law God is Love.”

Are you not rationalizing God as soon as you opine that God is Love or of
any particular anthropomorphic quality? How do you know your own theology is not amiss in this regard?

To Sean

“Just keep searching honestly without your almost life-long effort to see yourself as above it all as you sit on your fence. ”

Good advice on the honest search. Hopefully I am not too myopic or narcissistic to self delude myself that I am not honestly searching for the truth. Then again, how could I know? Objectively someone else must judge my motives in order that I will not suffer from confirmation bias or worse: hubris, of my own veracity.

‘Above it all’ …. hmm that almost sounds heavenly which an agnostic would have to query 😉 It strikes me that in an objective search for God one should neither yearn too much to find God yet fear too much to do so. As a scientist does that seem like a rational approach to you?

One thing I try to teach young lawyers is not to fall in love nor outright reject their clients’ stories. Rather test the evidence for inconsistencies, look at the clients’ motives and consider how an independent judge would view the credibility of the client/witness. Also be prepared on the evidence presented to argue both sides of the case. One is only ‘above it all’, when one thinks one is indefatigably right! Often that is where lawyers lose cases because they do not see the weakness in their client’s position. Respectfully – although I don’t take offence to your opinion- I hope honest doubt does not make me above it all but rather perpetually questioning it all until it makes sense. I readily self confess to that.

Good night gentlemen


Recent Comments by george

Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
@ Dr. Pitman

How did you make the segue from the creation story to Alexander the Great as historical science? What am I missing here – did someone actually witness the creation story and write about it?

Let’s try to stay inside the ball park on analogies shall we?


Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
“Again, why do you believe that Alexander the Great really did the various things that historians claim he did.”

Who said I did?

History is often recorded by the victors who may well gild the lily. Different historians may say different things about him. Some may have been eye witnesses, some may have not relying on hearsay. Some may have had a bias. Take all history with a grain of salt by considering the sources and margin for error I say.

However you’re not just talking about claims of the Bible, you’re talking about the claims of EGW. Do you have some empirical proof that she actually visited those worlds she described? If so where is your corroborating evidence of any sort? In short is your belief about EGW’s vision of extra terrestial based on any science whatsoever?


Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
@Bob

Have you ever read how much resistance Darwin faced when Origin of Species was first published? Many of the scientific establishment opposed him. In fact I have read that natural selection did not become a centerpiece of modern evolutionary biology until the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Darwin, like Pasteur has stood the test of time, notwithstanding the lack of initial scientific consensus. Who knows, perhaps one day YEC or YLC may ascend to the scientific pantheon? Have to find evidence for 6 day creation and how biodiversity emanated from the Ark though 🙂
Until then, I’m afraid they are just so stories.


Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
Did you notice that you have unilaterally used the analogy of Alexander the Great of which I have never studied or alluded to?

Are you equating EGW’s vision of extra terrestrial life to a battle on earth? Proverbial apples and oranges, but your silence and evasion of the science behind EGW’s vision is deafening.


Science, Methodological Naturalism, and Faith
@ Bob and Sean

Is EGW’s vision scientific? Is it corroborated or falsifiable?

Ask yourselves honestly why you believe in it. If it is because of your faith that is fine, but if it has some scientific, empirical basis, as Dr. Pitman likes to tote, you need to establish that basis. Otherwise it is a ‘just so’ theological story.

Also, I think a couple of my previous comments on this topic never made it out of the cyber editing room. I didn’t think they were offensive so I’m not sure why they were not posted. 🙂