How I understand Creationism in a logical way

[Mr Tansill]

Look, let me try as succinctly as possible, because I know how important that is to you, explain my whole thinking from top to bottom in one post. Can I do it? Let's find out.

1. People have many different ideas about how things work. About what is real.
2. How do we determine which is correct? There are many ways, and at least a few different good ways.
3. One good way turns out to be the empirical scientific method: hypothesize, test, replicate results, conclude, repeat.
4. There are other good ways of determining truth too, for example logical deduction, but we won't get into them now.
5. The method of 3., the empirical scientific method, only works if a hypothesis is testable. More precisely: disprovable. If one cannot devise a test to disprove his hypothesis, one is stuck in the hypothesis stage. Hypothesis alone -- a.k.a. bald assertion -- is one method for determining truth, but not (IMHO) a very good one.
6. For many of the elements of the secular origin hypotheses (plural) which have become current and popular the past hundred to two hundred years, no one has yet devised a test to disprove them. *They have never been tested.* Very important. Some of the elements, it is difficult to see how they could be tested. They may not be testable. Thus they are stuck in the rut described in 5.: hypothesis alone. They are thus not technically a part of the method known as the empirical scientific method. They are not part of that truth-seeking project.
7. They are just stories.
8. How do we determine the truth of stories, or bald assertions, if we can't use the empirical scientific method? Hark back to 2. and 4.: there are other ways.
9. One way is to assess probabilities, harnessing what we do know of reality. The less probable a story is, the less likely it is to be true. For example, let's say a murder takes place and Mr. Monk deduces that the killer is 6'5" from a crease in the blinds or something -- a very good lead! Because a very small percentage of people are that tall. Now why assume that is true rather than another possibility that the killer was wearing stilts? Because although few people are 6'5", even fewer go around wearing stilts! It's a possibility, but it's extremely far-fetched.
10. Assessing probabilities cannot positively disprove any possibilities, just as induction cannot prove anything. There are possibilities at every turn of the case; nothing Mr. Monk says is technically airtight. For every one explanation, there are ten other extremely ludicrous ones, such as that advanced aliens came down and did it and then framed someone.
11. Clearly probability assessment is one useful truth-seeking tool. It does not, indeed cannot, ever disprove anything (this is your repeated point, which I have repeatedly agreed with). This inability does not, however, make it completely irrelevant (this is my point, which.... never mind). It serves particularly well for reconstructing the past.
12. In conclusion.... what's the conclusion? I haven't really had one up to now, but every line of reasoning needs a good conclusion. Hmm, lets see, how about: Every method has its weaknesses. Perhaps we can best get at truth by being willing to apply all of them, as best we can, each to the realm and situation to which it is best suited.

Nothing about the above is succinct. I read that, and I placed in bold text, your statements that I think could actually be turned into propositions, and think that distills your argument to the basic points you're making. Can you say if that's what you're getting at? In any case, here's what I got:

1. Empirical scientific statements must be testable.
2. Nothing in the group of "abiogenesis" theories is testable.
3. Therefore it is just a story, the same as any other story. The same as my story.

That is what I get from the above. and I agree with #1, only. Number 2 might be currently true, but they are, in theory and in principle, testable. Same as was the case of Einstein's theory of relativity back in the day. He developed that theory, which then suggested many tests, and even though some of those tests were beyond current scientific instrumentation to test, it was still a testable theory. Here's something else - ANY proposition is testable. Here's the test - just try to make a proposition, and it is immediately possible to state a test of it (in principle).

Coming to your statements above (#9, 10, and 11), I'm glad you are finally stating what I've been trying to point out for some time:

One, that:

Assessing probabilities cannot positively disprove any possibilities

Two, that:

Clearly probability assessment is one useful truth-seeking tool. It does not, indeed cannot, ever disprove anything

These statements DO, however stand in contradistinction to your other previous points that improbability does rule out certain outcomes:

One:

The current proposed models of how DNA, or more promising, RNA, forms are zillions upon zillions of orders of magnitude too improbable to happen. That's how we know the models are wrong and why abiogenesisists are working on it.

So probability has everything to do with it. It usually does.

Two:

It just doesn't work. According to our current understanding, there may not even be any mechanism that *could* work, at all, ever, even giving infinite time to infinite primordial ooze. Going back to Sunny Tuft's bridge game, it would be like getting a hand of 200 King Kandy cards that were alive and self-aware and talked incessantly to you.

1) You can't get a hand of 200 cards in bridge
2) There are no King Kandy cards in a bridge deck, they belong to a different game called Candy Land
3) The artificial intelligence technology that would make the cards self-aware does not exist
4) Talking incessantly is against the rules of bridge

And yes, I did get your original point much earlier, which was that you want to reduce everyone else's description of the universe to a story - this goes back to my post about word abuse and concept massage that seeks to put two things on the same footing which are really qualitatively different.

Here's the truth. Here's the actual bottom line. Can you take it? Can you handle it? No one has an advantage. No metaphysics that *I* can comprehend is going to solve the origin question.

But that is not true. There is nothing in the religious creation story that places it on an equal footing to those "other" stories which are subject to self correction, modification, and replacement from other stories (i.e. science). Religion is Newton rejecting Einstein. Scientific "stories" are descriptions of physical reality which MUST conform to Mathematics and Physics.

I'll share my one truth about truth: It must be self-evident. It must be that I could discover it all by myself, in absence of input from other humans. If the bible is true, I must be able to come to each of its conclusions without someone handing it to me on Sunday morning. No human in a vacuum would ever come to "discover" that Jesus was the one true son of God, etc.

 

[pcosmar]

I'll share my one truth about truth: It must be self-evident..

I like truth. Rare as it is.

For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.…

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

I have watch in my lifetime as science hides truths,, and distorts facts.. and even fabricates "proof".
Perhaps in searching for truth it is not wise to reject truth presented to you.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Nothing about the above is succinct.

Now, now, let's not be a pill!

Anyway, I'm not trying to "reduce" anyone's story to a story. I'm just stating the obvious truth: when it comes to The Ultimate Origin Of Everything, all anyone has is stories. It's not subject to being disproven? Then some other truth-assessment method must be used. You don't like using probability, which is our normal go-to method for reconstructing the past? OK, you've have to come up with something else. Good luck!

Let me know if you come up with something.

For your 1. 2. and 3., no the thought is not limited to the fancy word I introduced you to, but a whole lot of different, not all particularly related, theories across a number of scientific disciplines (geology, biology, astronomy, cosmology, theoretical physics...) telling a number of separate stories relating to different stages or aspects of the Universe's origin. Some are more testable than others. Abiogenesis is actually one of the more testable things. That's why it keeps going "back to the drawing board". Anyway, those are only three of the thoughts I had ("argument"? Maybe in a sense. Not really, though.), the three that yes, you had already addressed before, and I guess the three you like the least. But there were actually 12 sequential thoughts, remember.

As far as "contradistincting" myself: probability cannot "disprove" anything about the past in a legalistic logical sense. In the same way: did you know that my seeing one yellow muffin does not logically prove all muffins are yellow? And because of that logical principle no one has ever proved that gravity pulls everything down at the same rate? Or even that it pulls everything down at all? It's true! And actually, regarding the past the problem is not limited to what we are calling "probability" (which is really just "the attempt to come up with sensible, non-far-fetched explanations for how something might have happened") -- I think actually it is absolutely impossible for *any* approach or method to disprove anything about any past event.

Meanwhile, for those of us in Real Life -- a place where the past *is* reasonably knowable and gravity *does* work -- as opposed to Logical La-La Land, methods of truth-discovery that work and get results have value despite their gross logical failings. Because they're practical! They're successful! Successful at: getting at the truth.

It's the difference between Aristotle and Archimedes. Aristotle is great, don't get me wrong! Logic is great!

But Archimedes would have counted the teeth. (Aristotle famously logically deduced that men have more teeth than women, which is false.)

 

[lilymc]

Mostly because I feel that there is tremendous human suffering in the world. Some people say "oh I prayed really really hard that my child's illness would go away, and it did!" so god must have intervened.... Meaning God altered the laws of the natural universe specifically in YOUR favor. While at the same time, a thousand other children whose parents were also praying for God to spare THEIR children died a horrible death.

I am left with four possible conclusions:

1. God is unable to help these people = incompetent
2. God is unwilling to help these people = indifferent
3. There is a force that somehow set the universe in motion, but is unable to intervene in its affairs. < I am here currently
4. There is no god.

God gave us free will, and the fact that people have abused that free will doesn't mean that God is not good or that God never intervenes.

As others have said, this world is temporary, our time here is short, we are but a vapor as the Bible puts it. The problem is that you're not looking at the bigger picture. This is a fallen world. It's a messed up world. But God is good, and there is so much more that we can't see, and so much that we cannot comprehend with our limited minds.

 

[lilymc]

I've seen that debate and he didn't demolish anything. On the contrary, it was embarrassing to see Harris not even realize how illogical his entire position was.

For starters, you can't even have "good" or "evil" without an external, objective standard of morality. In other words, something that doesn't come from man. In other words, God.

That is why the argument of evil is one of the weakest arguments against the existence of God, as someone else already said earlier in the thread.

 

[wizardwatson]

I've seen that debate and he didn't demolish anything. On the contrary, it was embarrassing to see Harris not even realize how illogical his entire position was.

For starters, you can't even have "good" or "evil" without an external, objective standard of morality. In other words, something that doesn't come from man. In other words, God.

That is why the argument of evil is one of the weakest arguments against the existence of God, as someone else already said earlier in the thread.

God creates evil. If there is no God, the evil is still there, no? At least God has a purpose for it, if there is no God, then what? We're just floating about in hopeless despair.

And you're right, the only reason this atheist can attack is from a moral premise. So what they are really claiming is they understand the God of Abraham and they call him out to judge Him. From what authority? The authority of "goodness"? Who is the standard of "goodness" of "liberty" of "righteousness".

On top of all that this bozo mis-characterizes numerous things.

Hell is eternal.
If you don't "believe" you are going to hell.
Just by "saying you believe" makes you better than a murderer.

Uneducated doofus with a nice haircut and a suit.

 

[r3volution 3.0]

I find it hard to believe that such complexity and order could come from random chaos.
and I see no logical way to try to explain it.. seems an idiotic argument.

The idea that God is necessary to explain order seems to rest on the assumption that order came from chaos (somebody must have created it).

But why couldn't there have just always been order? Perhaps the universe is eternal, and never began at all.

...in which case there is no creation ex nihilo and no need to posit a supernatural creator.

 

[pcosmar]

But why couldn't there have just always been order? Perhaps the universe is eternal, and never began at all.

that would be quite an assumption.
but it would not be science.

 

[r3volution 3.0]

that would be quite an assumption.
but it would not be science.

It's an assumption either way.

There's no proof that the universe either began at some point, or didn't.

One model suggests that the universe goes through an endless cycle of bang - expansion - contraction - bang - expansion - etc.

 

[pcosmar]

It's an assumption either way.

Or Faith,, as in my case.

But the thread title did mention Logic. And I find little logic in the godless arguments I have heard.
Real science being lacking in most.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

https://www.theburningplatform.com/...y-of-transcendent-or-transcendental-evolution

Even so, and perhaps more importantly, can we know with 100% certainty that mankind has evolved at all, or continues to do so, without any “hard-science” proof of macro-evolution? Although many evolutionists still embrace the “soft-science” of body-part studies (homology) and common embryology while at the same time, erroneously applying (same species) “micro-evolution” to justify their belief in Darwin’s 158 year-old theory; it is a fact today, that Darwin’s Disciples are finding themselves overwhelmed by the hard-science of Physics, Molecular Biology, Astrophysics, and Probability Analysis. When considering the modern understanding of concepts like “Irreducible Complexity” it raises the question if, perhaps, Creationism or Intelligent Design may send The Theory of Evolution the way of the dinosaur.