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Jocken

PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 9:37 pm
I plan on posting this research paper in the ED. I thought it would be benificial to have you good people chew on it for a bit. When I do post it, I would appreciate some backup.

THE TELLTALE SIGNS OF GOD'S HANDIWORK

Recently, the widely accepted principle of evolution has become challenged by an outrageous hypothesis. This scientific hypothesis states that existence, specifically life, was not created by random, physical means, but by a divine Designer. Only within the past few years has the idea of divine creation been considered so scientifically. Throughout the scientific community, creationism, also now called Intelligent Design, is gaining speed in mainstream science. This theory (used in the general sense) has sparked the fire of a great controversy: the debate over the origin, progression, and purpose of life. On the one hand, the classic theory of evolution stated that life was created and evolved by completely material chance and has no purpose other than to reproduce itself. On the other hand, the theory of Intelligent Design states that this is extremely improbable and life is far more likely to have been designed by an intelligent Mind. This also implies a greater significance in life.

BASIC COMPLAINTS
Since its beginning, Intelligent Design has been bombarded by a plethora of arguments by the mainstream scientific community. One main complaint is that the concept of a supernatural cause is simply beyond science and, therefore cannot be scientifically investigated. "Furthermore, explanations in terms of supernatural causes cannot be scientifically investigated because they do not operate via physical forces. The God 'hypothesis' is beyond science" ("Intelligent Design" 1). Another assumption sometimes made about ID is that it is simply religion, not science. Many scientists accuse the hypothesis of ID to be nothing more than a way of sneaking religion into science. Both of these complaints don't attack the argument for ID, but merely try to pull the hypothesis out of its scientific context. Also, although it is impossible to definitively prove the existence of God through scientific means, it is very possible to investigate evidence for it. Looking into evidence for ID is in many ways the same as looking into evidence for evolution. Since they happened in the past, we will never be able to prove one way or the other. The theory of evolution will always be a theory because it is impossible to observe, experiment with, or reproduce because of the great amount of time it covers. Beyond these fundamental problems with explaining life, there are piles of evidence that seem to go against the theory of evolution. As well as having many specific problems, trying to prove the origin and course of life has many fundamental problems.

FIRST THINGS FIRST- ORIGINS
An issue that evolution textbooks are rather vague about is the beginning. They are very clear that from the first cells came a long, progressive line leading to life today. But where did those first cells come from? On the molecular level, it is virtually impossible for a complex organic cell to have been formed from inorganic matter by random chance. The molecular structures that make up a cell are immensely complicated. Most involve thousands, millions, and even billions of atoms. All these were allegedly formed randomly. The basic building blocks, nucleic acids and proteins, didn't exist in the early world. Furthermore, there was so much sulfur and other harmful chemicals in the atmosphere that life would have been impossible.
A related paradox that seems to stump material science is the origin of biological information. In general, the problem is the lapse between basic chemicals and long, complex, self-replicating, information-bearing polymers. The very existence of biological information in the form of DNA and RNA testifies to a surreptitious intelligence. It is a logical assumption that information implies intelligence behind it. This can be seen in computer programs, books, instruction manuals, etc. Information is plentiful in biology. "What else can generate information but intelligence?" (Strobel 244). "[Stephen Meyer, PhD:] 'Naturalistic theories that rely solely on matter and energy are not going to be able to account for information. Only intelligence can. I think that realization is going to dawn on more and more people, especially younger scientists who have grown up in the age of information technology'" (Strobel 244).

IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY- BEHE'S MOUSETRAP
Michael Behe, PhD has popularized a criticism of the gradual evolutionary explanation of life with a term he calls irreducible complexity. He has written a book called Darwin's Black Box. He explains a scientific "black box" to be a complex unit to which the inner workings are not understood (Strobel 196). In Darwin's time, scientists had discovered the cell and knew mostly what it did, but they couldn't see the tiny organelles within it because microscope technology had not advanced that far. In other words, Darwin knew nothing of protein synthesis, cellular respiration, DNA replication, etc. Behe states that the enormously complex protein systems within a cell are irreducibly complex. This term means that if one part (individual protein) in the system is altered, the entire system will fail and be of no use as far as natural selection is concerned.
A repeated analogy that Behe makes is to a mousetrap. He compares a complex microbiological protein system to a mousetrap. The basic mousetrap he uses contains five parts: a flat wooden platform to act as a base, a metal hammer, which does the actual job of crushing the little mouse, a spring with extended ends to press against the platform and the hammer when the trap is charged, a sensitive catch that releases when slight pressure is applied, a metal bar that connects to the catch and holds the hammer back when the trap is charged (there are also assorted staples to hold the system together) ("Darwin's Black Box: Irreducible Complexity or Irreproducible Irreducibility?" 1).
The mousetrap, Behe says needs all five parts to operate, only one missing and the system would fail. Behe's mousetrap analogy has been the target of much debate involving the problem of irreducible complexity. Not that it is a bad analogy, on the contrary it portrays the concept quite well; instead Behe's opponents have tried in many ways to prove the mousetrap reducible. They argue that they would be able to build the mousetrap with four of the five parts. They claim the wood floor is unneeded. Does this tear apart the analogy, or prove the concept of irreducible complexity wrong. Neither. Luckily, Behe himself heard of this counter-argument and personally wrote a rebuttal. He had this to say:
That's an interesting reply, but you've just substituted another wooden base for the one you were given. The trap still can't function without a base. Furthermore, you were essentially given a disassembled mousetrap, which you then assembled. All of the parts were pre-adapted to each other by an intelligent agent. The point that has to be addressed is, how do you start with no pieces (at least none specifically designed to be part of a mousetrap), and proceed to a functioning, irreducibly complex trap ("Behe Responds to Postings in Talk Origins Newsgroup" 1)
So Behe's great mousetrap analogy withstands scrutiny, proving the point that the workings of a mousetrap, and implicatively a cell, are irreducibly complex. Now, how exactly does this disprove the concept of gradual evolution? This is how. Evolution uses natural selection acting on random mutation to produce functioning systems. Producing one part of an irreducibly complex system will accomplish nothing; the entire system would need to be there to function. Therefore, natural selection would have no reason to favor the organism with that single part of the system. The only way by those means to come up with a complicated system or structure like a cilia for example would be to have all the right mutations occur at once. The odds against that occurring are astronomical even with billions of years to fall back on, which brings us to the next point.

THE AGE OF EARTH
One issue that seems to repel many educated people from faith is the biblical model for creation. This model says that the universe was created in seven days and the Earth is only 6,000-10,000 years old. Science had clearly proved that the Earth is ≈4.6 billion years old and the universe is far older. Or has it? Many traditional Christians have looked into the matter and have found a striking volume of scientific evidence that contradicts the accepted belief that the Earth is billions of years old.
The best way to start would be with carbon-14 dating; the principle way we date old organic material. From this stems the concept that life started ≈3.5 billion years ago. Few people really understand the difficulty and inaccuracy of c-14 dating. This is partially due to the fact that few people understand how exactly it works. C-14 is a rare, unstable ion of carbon, which is made in the upper atmosphere. Carbon is the backbone of all organic molecules and so c-14 is mixed in with it at a certain concentration. C-14 decomposes at fixed rate, with a half-life of 5,730 years. This forms a graph of exponential decay that can be calculated. C-14 dating samples the concentration of c-14 in a specimen and calculates the age based on what point on the graph it corresponds to. This has some very fundamental problems. Any math major will tell you that it is impossible to graph a continuous decay graph without a primary value. In other words, we don't know the concentration of c-14 in the original specimen. Although the concentration of c-14 in the biosphere has been relatively constant, there is no proof that it doesn't fluctuate. Factors like the intensity of the sun's radiation, the sunspot cycle, volcanic activity, etc. would drastically affect the level of c-14 in the biosphere. The industrial revolution has also changed the concentration by adding lots of carbon-12 into the atmosphere. Another problem is that c-14 dating becomes unreliable after millions of years. On an exponential decay graph, even at hundreds of thousands of years from the starting point, the slightest variation in the calculated concentration could mean a difference of tens of thousands of years. There are also countless examples of the inaccuracy of c-14 dating. For example, the shells of living snails were carbon dated and showed that the snails had died 27,000 years ago. Other specimens have been carbon dated more than once, each time producing a different date varying by thousands of years? ("Subject: Carbon Dating" 1). Even the inventor of the carbon -14 technique didn't intend for it to be used for so much time. "W.F. Libby, inventor of the C-14 dating technique, found that, prior to 1600 B.C., the radiocarbon [carbon-14] dates go wild" ("Dating of Time in Evolution" 2, 3). Concisely put, the entire system of c-14 dating is a dogma that most scientists take for granted, but which should be thoroughly scrutinized.
Another major piece of evidence involving the age of Earth is our magnetic field. Unlike the amount of carbon-14 in the biosphere, the intensity if Earth's magnetic field can be accurately tested. Although the field itself will not tell us, there are geological records of its behavior. Science has found that the Earth's magnetic field affects the development of rocks within the crust so consistently that we have been able to plot a pattern of its activity for over 150 years ("The Earth's Magnetic Field" 1). It has been found that our magnetic field recently has been decaying along, once again, an exponential decay pattern with a half life of 1,400 years ("The Earth's Magnetic Field" 3). Scientists have developed a model for this theorized pattern of activity. In 605 A.D., the field would have been twice as strong as it is today; in 795 B.C., it would have been four times stronger, and so on. The problem that this presents is that it only allows for the Earth to be about 10,000-15,000 years old. Beyond that, the field would be as powerful as a magnetic star, making life as we know it would be impossible ("The Earth's Magnetic Field" 3-4). There is much speculation of this model because we have not seen the entire picture and are trying to make a pattern of a small part.
Recent discoveries have added more weight to Dr. Humphrey's model. The April 5, 1995 edition (Vol. 14) of Science News reported on a Nature article that researchers are finding fresh evidence of extremely-rapid field orientation shifts, as much as six degrees per day? The article quotes one geophysicist as saying "that shows the core to be violently active in terms of the magnetic field" ("The Earth's Magnetic Field" 5).
Interestingly enough, some theologians have attributed a passage in Genesis to account for this activity. "…on that day all the fountains of the deep were broken up…" (Genesis 7:11, New King James Version). Although the field's pattern of activity is still being investigated, it does seem to present a problem to the idea of the Earth being 4.6 billion years old.
The great thing for the idea of Judeo-Christian creationism is that this particular debate does not need to be won. Even if the Earth were 4.6 billion years old, it would not undermine the biblical account of creation. Genesis 1:3-5 (New International Version) asserts: "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day' and the darkness he called 'night.' And there was evening, and there was morning- the first day" (Genesis 1 New International Version). Throughout Genesis 1 the phrase "and there was evening and there was morning, the [first, second, third…] day" is used frequently. This is what seems to make it incompatible with a 4.6 billion-year-old Earth. However, this incompatibility dissipates when the original Hebrew definitions are analyzed (as the original text was in Hebrew). The words for evening, morning, and day have somewhat vague meanings. "Yowm" is the phonetic spelling of the Hebrew word that is translated as "day." It is defined as this: sunrise to sunset; sunset to sunset; a space of time (defined by an associated term); an age; time or period (without any reference to solar days). "Ereb" is the word defined as "evening" and means this: the beginning of darkness; dusk, twilight, or nightfall; closing, ending or completion. Finally, "Bocer" is the word translated as "morning." It means this: the breaking forth of light; dawn, daybreak or morning; dawning, beginning, or origin ("Word Studies in Genesis One by Hugh Ross, Ph. D." 3-4). Using the direct Hebrew definitions, the phase "and there was evening and there was morning, the [first, second, third…] day" could mean a number of things. It could mean something as completely different as "and there was an ending and there was a beginning, the [first, second, third…] age." This vastly different interpretation is entirely compatible with a 4.6 billion-year-old Earth.

THE CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION- BIOLOGY'S BIG BANG
Darwin, at the time he was formulating his theory of evolution, knew of a paleontological inconsistency with his theory. This inconsistency is known as the Cambrian Explosion, which occurred supposedly 540 million years ago (using Old Earth thinking). The paleontological record shows prior to that point life consisted mostly of single-celled prokaryotic and eukaryotic bacteria with the most complex life forms being sponge and jellyfish-like organisms. Then, in a geological instant (5-10 million years), there were phyla-level changes in the Earth's organic life. Within that time period "evolved" all modern-day phyla. At the time, Darwin though this was just due to a lapse in the paleontological record and he was confident it would be filled to show his theory of gradual change. Looking in retrospective, the opposite happened. As more and more fossils of that time were discovered, more and more species were found to have originated within that same time period. Due to the approximative nature of c-14 dating, it is possible that every fossil found within this 5-10 million year range could have originated the same millennium, year or even the same day. This is statistically unlikely, but it does draw attention to just how close these organisms lived, and with no preceding evolutionary relatives either. This paleontological anomaly is possibly the greatest thorn in the side of evolutionary theory. It clearly disproves Darwin's theory of gradual evolution. Scientists have even begun to amend Darwin's original theory to allow for this strange anomaly.

THERE'S MORE OUT THERE
One of the great things about the theory of Intelligent Design is that it can draw from a far broader argument for God that spans many fields of science. To start off, it can be taken into astronomy. In brief, the astronomical evidence lies in the fact that Earth is very improbable. For starters, in the Milky Way, our solar system is in a narrow margin not too close to, or too far from the center. It's also in the arms, which is necessary. It also has all the right elements, some of which are rare in the universe. It is also the right distance from the right kind of star. It has the right thermo-dynamic mechanisms to regulate temperature. The list goes on. The odds of all of these qualities being invested in one planet are inconceivably small.
There is also a good amount of evidence in physics. This evidence has been called anthropic fine-tuning. This evidence is simply a collection of physical constants that are incredibly precise in their values, some to one part in 1E40 or even more. All are necessary for the existence of life. Many are necessary for such basic things as the existence of complex atoms. If the probability of these nearly two-dozen constants all occurring were to be calculated, the denominator would be unimaginably high.
One final field of evidence comes from cosmology. It has been fairly well-determined that the universe began with the so-called Big Bang. Amazingly enough, this discovery has actually worked as evidence for the existence of God, despite being shunned by much of the fundamentalist Christian community. The evidence of the Big Bang is best described in the age-old kalam cosmological argument. The argument follows these simple steps: "(1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence. (2) The universe has a beginning of its existence. Therefore: (3) The universe has a cause of its existence. (4) If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God. Therefore: (5) God exists" ("The Kalam Cosmological Argument" 1). This argument works the way it does because since the universe does have a beginning, something must have caused it. No cause would go against such basic principles as inertia and finite matter. Also such a cause would have been before the universe existed, there is really no other entity that could have caused it other than some sort of God figure. But, why exactly should the cause be a personal being? Some scientists, for example, would argue that even if the universe had a cause, its cause could have natural. This would stay with the scientific assertion that all can be explained naturally. This has two problems. One, what exactly would a natural cause of the universe be? How would it work? Natural causes exist within the universe and therefore could not cause it, since a cause must precede what it causes. If something preceded the universe, then it is not a natural cause simply by definition. One way scientists try to get out of this is by saying the cause have always been in effect. This is the second problem. If the cause of the universe caused it this way, one where did it come from, or why has the universe not always existed? If the cause has always been there, why has the universe not always been there? If it hasn't, where did it come from?

THE KALAM COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT: A SUMMARY
Throughout all of these vastly diverse fields of science are the hallmarks of transcendent intelligence. It is evident through biological information and DNA and through the complexity, improbability and irreducibility of cells. It is also evident in the inadequacy of material explanations, the magnetic field pattern for example. It is quite evident in the paleontological phenomenon of the Cambrian Explosion that seems to fit a seven-day creation than a 3.5-billion-year gradual evolution. The theory of Intelligent Design has some robust evidence in its own field of biology. However, possibly one of its best attributes is the existence of further evidence beyond biology. God has left His subtle hints all over His creation. Only in the last several decades has our knowledge come close to detecting them. The evidence is in our DNA and our cells. It is in the Earth we live on and the universe we live in. It seems the more we learn of life, the more incredibly improbable we find it to be. Future scientific discoveries may help to fully reverse the current trend of atheism in mainstream science. God fulfills His promise: "[Jesus:] 'seek and you will find'" (Luke 11:9 New International Version).

Works Cited:
"Behe Responds to Postings in Talk Origins Newsgroup." arn.org.
"Darwin's Black Box: Irreducible Complexity or Irreproducible Irreducibility?" talkorigins.org 11 December 1996
"Dating of Time in Evolution." pathlights.com.
"Intelligent Design." sdmesa.sdccd.net.
Ramey, Bill. "The Kalam Cosmological Argument: A Summary." religiouseducation.co.uk. 30 March 1998.
"Scientific Evidence for Creation." creationevidence.org. ©1998
Strobel, Lee. The Case for a Creator. Grand Rapids: Zondervan©, 2004.
"The Earth's Magnetic Field." creationevidence.org. ©1995
"The Kalam Cosmological Argument." philosophyofreligion.info. ©2003-2005
"The Kalam Cosmological Argument: A Summary." religiouseducation.co.uk. 30 March 1998
"Word Studies in Genesis One by Hugh Ross, Ph. D." reasons.org. ©1998-2005  
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 9:43 pm
Sinner

Strengthening one's faith is a fine thing. Doing so through misinformation and idiocy is bad.
To my own dismay, I have read a good deal of it. The rest of it I gleaned from various websites.
It is perhaps the literary pinnacle of the stereotypical moronic Christianity that is so hurtful to people with sense.

Most, all actually to my knowlege, of the information predented in The Case for Christ is accurate. It bears the markings of scientific credential. It also has been backed up time and again by testing. There is no misinformation. The Cambrian Explosion exists in secular textbooks. Proteins are created by long strands of DNA. Messing w/ physicl constants would make life impossible. and so on. I would like to see you back your claim up with fact (though I had hoped to avoid this until later).  

Jocken


Tarrou

PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 9:46 pm
Firstly, you seem to have misplaced that post. This thread is about proving God's existence, and you've posted an essay on evolution. Your post belongs here instead.
Secondly, I can't say I'd be interested in backing up your arguments, but it would be nice to have a rather sophisticated creationist argument to deconstruct for a change. It gets boring dealing with Dr. Dino rubbish all the time. No challenge there.  
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