Proof That The Church Loves Irony

[Stargazer]

What is ironic is the Big Bang will probably turn out to be a false theory. This theory has the ring of truth.

 

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html

 

Yeah, that sounds like complete balderdash.  The fact that the Universe is expanding absolutely requires a Big Bang.  Or something like it.

 

Please don't take my Cosmic Background Radiation away from me! 

[MormonFreeThinker]

Yeah, that sounds like complete balderdash.

 

It is not, it is a serious possibility. However, the title is wrong, it should be "Maybe no singularity?"

Edited May 2, 2015 by MormonFreeThinker

[canard78]

How is a belief in God a matter of faith? The evidence that His hand has been active in the lives of millions of people is pretty clear.

Since this is becoming a thread about God and science I'm going to take you up on this.

I hope God exists and I believe he might. If you're suggesting that his existence is demonstrable beyond faith that it is provable scientifically I'd love to see the evidence.

[canard78]

Oh

my

Gosh

Not this again. I know this discussion will remind me of an SNL skit about the girl you wish you did not start a conversation with at a party.

They do not allow direct links so just google this: "snl girl at a party"

Hilarious. Reminds me of this argument.

Rorty's wife was raised LDS and Rorty actually had a home teacher as a result

For a real summary from a real live IMPORTANT ATHEIST philosopher who agrees with Elder Nelson, here you go:

Hooray! Nice to see this gem.

As ever, this video has my heartfelt endorsement. Rather than watch the film/gameshow/soap opera you had planned for this evening, spend an hour watching this instead. Do so with one hand near the pause button and the other with a pen near a pad of paper. You're gonna need to take notes.

[jwhitlock]

Unfortunately for those millions, it isn't exactly clear which God has been active in their lives.

 

Oh, I do disagree.

 

But cynics never do understand such things, do they.

[jwhitlock]

And the evidence of the lack of his hand is also pretty clear. This is not a nice world.

 

Your correct; it's not a nice world in some respects. However, I would suggest that there is more evidence of His hand overall than there isn't.

[jwhitlock]

I did not challenge your premise above. I challenged another one you made and have now dodged.

If you want to discuss your premise above on another thread I would be happy to do so. It seems off topic for this thread.

 

Didn't dodge at all. Simply demonstrated that science is really just another religion that requires faith as part of its searching process.

[jwhitlock]

Since this is becoming a thread about God and science I'm going to take you up on this.

I hope God exists and I believe he might. If you're suggesting that his existence is demonstrable beyond faith that it is provable scientifically I'd love to see the evidence.

 

Start with the concept that all matter tends towards entropy and then look at situations that buck that trend in significant ways. You can also look at the probability for the spontaneous generation of life and think about how that has evolved on this earth.

 

You just have to ask the right questions.

[rodheadlee]

So, although some have claimed that the Big Bang disproves religion, and others have thought that it is proof positive of religion, we now may have to switch to a universe without a beginning?  What will that prove?

That like God, the Universe is eternal.

[Jeanne]

Show me one.

You.,  You, yourself are evidence of his questions by your own reactions to it,  Irate, maybe, but you are open at least to thought for which I value ad admire.

[Sleeper Cell]

Incomplete knowledge is a foregone conclusion when dealing with science. 

In my experience, it is not a forgone conclusion for many non-scientists.  Sometimes I wonder whether more people have blind faith in science than have blind faith in religion.  

[thesometimesaint]

I love this quote from Elder Nelson from a Pew Forum interview:

 

 

 

I would love to start a Kickstarter campaign for a huge sign with that last sentence on it for the entrance of the Life Sciences building at BYU.  It would be awesome for all those teachers and students to have to walk by this everyday:

 

"To think that man evolved from one species to another is, to me, incomprehensible.  Man has always been man. Dogs have always been dogs.  Monkeys have always been monkeys. It’s just the way genetics works.

 

- Elder Russell M. Nelson"

 

To those of us whom understand the science beyond a few irrelevant platitudes. All I can say is the above statement is is absolutely true. No one species morphs into another. But species do come and go. Those that reproduce, their children are slightly different than their parents. So the modern day house dog is just a child of the Gray Wolf.

[canard78]

Start with the concept that all matter tends towards entropy and then look at situations that buck that trend in significant ways. You can also look at the probability for the spontaneous generation of life and think about how that has evolved on this earth.

You just have to ask the right questions.

I'm already aware of those. They certainly encourage and support my hope that there is a God. They certainly don't stand as irrefutable evidence.

[thesometimesaint]

Start with the concept that all matter tends towards entropy and then look at situations that buck that trend in significant ways. You can also look at the probability for the spontaneous generation of life and think about how that has evolved on this earth.

 

You just have to ask the right questions.

 

All energy tends towards entropy. Entropy merely states that in any closed system heat always goes to cold. There is nothing of the natural universe that bucks that trend. Spontaneous generation was disproven long ago. There is no doubt that life has evolved over the last 3.55 billion or so.

[jwhitlock]

All energy tends towards entropy. Entropy merely states that in any closed system heat always goes to cold. There is nothing of the natural universe that bucks that trend. Spontaneous generation was disproven long ago. There is no doubt that life has evolved over the last 3.55 billion or so.

 

So you believe that life began with a Creator.

[Gray]

So tell me exactly when dogs were not dogs?

 

That is a logical contradiction.

 

We define the word "dog" as being.....  a dog.   A dog is not a monkey.   Look up the word in a dictionary, no where is found the other term for either of those words.

 

I agree with evolution, but it is a category error to say that dogs were ever anything other than dogs.

 

Perhaps one could get the names of what are believed to be intermediate species from an expert, but dogs are dogs.

 

And yes, that IS the way genetics works.  A species has a specific (pun) definition in genetics.   If it is not that species, it is not that species.

 

So Elder Nelson was technically correct - the best kind of correct!

[Robert F. Smith]

So tell me exactly when dogs were not dogs?

 

That is a logical contradiction.

 

We define the word "dog" as being.....  a dog.   A dog is not a monkey.   Look up the word in a dictionary, no where is found the other term for either of those words.

 

I agree with evolution, but it is a category error to say that dogs were ever anything other than dogs.

 

Perhaps one could get the names of what are believed to be intermediate species from an expert, but dogs are dogs.

 

And yes, that IS the way genetics works.  A species has a specific (pun) definition in genetics.   If it is not that species, it is not that species.

cinepro quoted doctor Nelson to the effect that "dogs have always been dogs," but it is not clear that either one of them knows that all the canines are closely related and can usually interbreed.  Dogs are basically domesticated wolves, and are characterized by the same sort of polytypism that we see in humans.  What we see in that case is adaptation for canines, as well as for humans.  We don't need evolution to explain the varieties.

 

I have no problem with the anthropologist who argues that evolution was God's method of filling the Earth over the long geologic time that it has been in this solar system -- my best friend makes just that argument -- but I see no real need for that method.  It would be as easy for God to plant the Earth with already extant species from another earth in another solar system, all based on the same DNA sequences.  Which is the nature of the transmission (panspermia) theory of origins, which I consider more compatible with Mormon theology.

[Robert F. Smith]

........................................................................................  

.......................There is no doubt that life has evolved over the last 3.55 billion or so.

This has yet to be proven (demonstrated), although it is a nice theory with many scientific adherents.  My best friend is an evolutionist.

[thesometimesaint]

So you believe that life began with a Creator.

 

Yes. However the exact same arguments that can be/have been used for a Creator can be/have been used against a Creator. IE; If God made life in a different way how would we know it?

Edited May 2, 2015 by thesometimesaint

[CV75]

Luckily, astronomy is a physical science, not a life science.

But a "fulness" is acheived only when the sciences are integrated.

[CV75]

but he also said, “This university is committed to search for truth, and teach the truth,” 

 

What does it teach? Evolution, Macro-Evolution, Death before the Fall, Old Earth 

All in the spirit of searching and teaching and searching more and teaching that and so on (the same dynamic as faith and knowledge).

[cinepro]

So tell me exactly when dogs were not dogs?

 

That is a logical contradiction.

 

We define the word "dog" as being.....  a dog.   A dog is not a monkey.   Look up the word in a dictionary, no where is found the other term for either of those words.

 

I agree with evolution, but it is a category error to say that dogs were ever anything other than dogs.

 

Perhaps one could get the names of what are believed to be intermediate species from an expert, but dogs are dogs.

 

And yes, that IS the way genetics works.  A species has a specific (pun) definition in genetics.   If it is not that species, it is not that species.

 

If that's what Elder Nelson meant, then they should have had him dedicating the Law School, not a science building.

 

But I'm pretty sure he meant exactly what he said.  It's basically the same thing Elder Packer said:

 

No lesson is more manifest in nature than that all living things do as the Lord commanded in the Creation. They reproduce “after their own kind.” (See Moses 2:12, 24.) They follow the pattern of their parentage. Everyone knows that; every four-year-old knows that! A bird will not become an animal nor a fish. A mammal will not beget reptiles, nor “do men gather … figs of thistles.” (Matt. 7:16.)

In the countless billions of opportunities in the reproduction of living things, one kind does not beget another. If a species ever does cross, the offspring cannot reproduce. The pattern for all life is the pattern of the parentage.

This is demonstrated in so many obvious ways, even an ordinary mind should understand it. Surely no one with reverence for God could believe that His children evolved from slime or from reptiles. (Although one can easily imagine that those who accept the theory of evolution don’t show much enthusiasm for genealogical research!) The theory of evolution, and it is a theory, will have an entirely different dimension when the workings of God in creation are fully revealed.

 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1984/10/the-pattern-of-our-parentage?lang=eng

 

[Teancum]

Didn't dodge at all. Simply demonstrated that science is really just another religion that requires faith as part of its searching process.

Really?

You must be blatantly ignorant about the scientific method.

No sense wasting time discussing it any further sense what you just wrote above is utter nonesense.

[cinepro]

So Elder Nelson was technically correct - the best kind of correct!

 

Apologists have long explained any LDS statements against their theory of choice by slicing and dicing the words into pickle relish, as if the person speaking really intended to convey some obscure meaning by pretending to say something different. 

 

As with so many other things, I suspect Elder Nelson used the words he used only because it never occurred to him that someone who speaks English could misunderstand him.  Does anyone really think these are the words of someone who believes the idea (or is open to it) that all animals on Earth (including humans) evolved from a common ancestor?

 

 

Through the ages, some without scriptural understanding have tried to explain our existence by pretentious words such as ex nihilo (out of nothing). Others have deduced that, because of certain similarities between different forms of life, there has been a natural selection of the species, or organic evolution from one form to another. Still others have concluded that man came as a consequence of a “big bang” that resulted in the creation of our planet and life upon it.

 

To me, such theories are unbelievable! Could an explosion in a printing shop produce a dictionary? It’s unthinkable! But it could be argued to be within a remote realm of possibility. Even if that could happen, such a dictionary could certainly not heal its own torn pages, or renew its own worn corners, or reproduce its own subsequent editions!

 

 

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/russell-m-nelson_magnificence-man/

 

Edited May 2, 2015 by cinepro

[jwhitlock]

Really?

You must be blatantly ignorant about the scientific method.

No sense wasting time discussing it any further sense what you just wrote above is utter nonesense.

 

Translation: I can't respond cogently to what you wrote, so I'll instead demean you and dismiss it as utter nonsense. Hopefully I'll get a rep point for it.