Creationists & Atheists

You're both demonstrably wrong.

1.  Let's start with the elephant in the room, or should we say, the everything in the universe?

There is no reason for anything to exist, or to have ever existed.

No physical matter.

No energy.

No time.

No space.

No abstract realms.

Nothing.

Zip.

Zilch.

Nada.

Honest cosmologists and mathematicians acknowledge this.

That anything exists...

That anything is perceived to exist...

That anything anywhere ever existed to perceive the existence of That Which Can Not Logically Exist...

...is proof of...something...greater than the universe itself.

If the universe in its totality = nature, then by definition anything greater than the universe = super-nature.

2.  There exists in mathematics a thing called Set Theory

[Sidebar to Creationists: "Theory" does not mean what you think it means; the word you want is "hypothesis".]

Set Theory exists and has been proven to everyone's satisfaction.

It works in both the class room and the real world.

A key component of Set Theory is this: Nothing in a set can describe the entire set.

Not even the sum total of all elements in that set.

Let's start off with a basic example: The Set Of All Whole Rational Positive Prime Integers From One To Seven (1, 2, 3, 5, 7)

The number 1 can not describe the other numbers in the set, much less the set itself.  None of the other numbers can describe the set.  All the numbers grouped together can not describe the set.

To describe the set, we must have an even larger set of which The Set Of All Whole Etc. is but a subset.

A subset can only adequately be described by an even larger set.

Human beings are parts of The Universal Set.

We can not -- and never will be able to -- describe the rest of the universe, much less what exists beyond this universe even though we know that mathematics demonstrates there must be something greater that we can not describe.

This is not "there are things man was not meant to know" from bad horror movies.

That phrase implies a moral element, that it is somehow wrong to seek knowledge and truth and understanding.

Nothing could be further from the truth, further from reality.

We can and should actively and continually seek and study and find out and apply what we learn to improve our lives and the lives of others.

But there are somethings that will forever be beyond us.

A fern can not appreciate the musical intricacies of Beethoven's 5th; it has no mechanism with which to perceive sound, much less music.

Mind you, Beethoven's 5th may inspire a human listener to aspirations of beauty, and as a result of those aspirations the human may nurture the fern and so the fern will benefit from the music, but the fern will never "know" this because the fern is incapable of perceiving such knowledge.

To reinforce point #1 above, mathematics and The Set Theory demonstrate that not only must there be something beyond this universe, there can't not be something beyond this universe.

And by definition, this something must be what we humans perceive of as God.

3.  Humans have a very limited, very rudimentary time sense.

We perceive it as happening one moment after another, like dominoes toppling over.

Take a look at this gif.  See how they go over one by one?

That's only our perception, filtered through our instrument.

In reality this gif is a pattern of positive and negative electrons nestled in the physical circuitry of our computers.

What we perceive as a beginning, middle, and end of this action is actually an unchanging pattern.

It's not that the gif doesn't start / end when we choose to look at it...

The gif is always in a perpetual state of beginning / ending / happening simultaneously.

This is like God's time sense.

God has a transcendent nature beyond time and space as we humans comprehend those terms.

God is the eternal cosmic Now of the Buddhists and Hindus.  To God everything is happening all at once simultaneously right now forever.

There is no past / present / future to God.

Interestingly enough, not only is this concept found in ancient Hebrew, Hindu, and Buddhist texts, but later in the teachings of Christ, not to mention being proven as well with modern mathematical theories of relativity and quantum mechanics.

If Hebrews, Hindus, Buddhists, Jesus, Einstein, Hawkins, et al are agreed on this point, I think we can safely take it to the bank.

God always has / always will have an infinite amount of time to focus an infinite amount of attention on the most infinitesimal of details.

To those who wonder how God can devote any attention to their lives:  That is what God does / must do by God's very nature.  God can't not devote an infinite amount of attention to you.

4.  By definition, time as perceived by human beings is meaningless to God.

If you believe God created the world in six 24 hour days approximately 6,000 years ago you are wrong.

Get over it.

The physical universe we perceive is billions of years old from a human time frame.

If you think that somehow diminishes God, you have created a false image of God in your mind.

In a very real sense, Creationism is a form of idol worship.

5.  There is no proof life originated on Earth.

No one, despite many attempts and numerous false proclamations, has demonstrated how life arose from inorganic material.

There are a lot of clever guesses, but no proof.

There is some evidence pointing to a terrestrial origin of life, but there's also evidence that life came to this planet from space.

If life originated in space, there is no way we can determine where / when / how it originated.

It could have happened naturally by random chance, it could have been the deliberate manipulation of little green men.

As a result, it is intellectually dishonest to remove the possibility of Intelligent Design as a possible explanation for the origin of life.

One may discount it, consider it remote, but can not say it is impossible.

There is as much scientific evidence for this being the source of life...

...as this...

...or this.

6.  However life started, once it started evolution through natural selection guided its spread and development.

Human beings evolved from earlier non-human primates.

Creationists, you are wrong.

Get over it.

For those who believe God created human beings, yes, absolutely.  There is some point where the spiritual realm somehow infused / inspired the physical biological one.

There is an Adam and an Eve, not in the literal sense, but of the first real humans, the first beings to have some sense, some glimpse of what lies beyond this universe (even if they weren't capable of adequately articulating that sense).

Don't claim the Genesis account of creation is literally / factually true:  It isn't and the Bible takes pains to explain it isn't.  Do a plain text reading of the first 11 chapters:  The Bible clearly states that all this comes from the memories of a drunken farmer and his dysfunctional family.

A plain text reading tells us to be suspicious of the account of Noah and his family; they are notoriously unreliable narrators, full of self-justification and incapable of keeping their stories straight.  Further, in the very next chapter we are told that language -- all language, any language -- is unreliable and only sows confusion.

The Bible is tipping us off that nothing prior to the story of Abraham is in any way historical. It is a metaphor for aspects of humanity's relationship to God. As such it's "true" but not factual.

Embrace this reality: Everything makes much more sense when you do.

7.  Anyone who denies the miraculous but accepts quantum physics doesn’t know jack about either.

8.  Nobody has all the answers.

If you are a believer, it is blasphemy to claim your intellect is on parity with God's.

If you are a non-believer, you sound even more ridiculously small-minded than the most strident Creationist to claim your intellect has proven nothing can exist greater than what you feel comfortable imagining.

 

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SAVAGE ANGELS -- Update #3

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