I saw OLAADEGU's thread titled the Atheist Logic -https://www.nairaland.com/4059639/atheist-logic

I expected to meet the usual one line argument and then proceeding smileys as replies and no in-depth discussions on the argument raised, that is the usual tradition on OLAADEGBU's threads and one of the reasons i don't comment on them, lacks depth and meaning most often, i do not mean this in an offensive way.

The argument raised on his thread even though over and over has been debated and argued here is still one that can be given a deep consideration on it's merit.

The design argument is valid, the design argument is a cosmological question that we cannot ignore, the design argument is a natural impression. I agree with the logic behind the argument of design, i consider it on the merits of the points and questions it raises.

But it is also natural to think the sun goes around the earth: As a matter of fact this is the most natural thought, the first impression everyone would have on observation from earth.

We experience it everyday, we wake up in the morning, we see the sun rise from the East, makes a journey across the sky and then sink in the western horizon.

Even till today they exist amongst us those who believe that this geocentric impression is the correct one, the earth is stationary, the sun and the moon orbits us.

You wouldn't blame them, their argument have merits, can be attributed to certain observations just as the design argument.

The Geocentric universe was the prevailing cosmological model until the days of Nicolaus Copernicus.

During the trials of Galileo Galilei, an arch bishop rebuked him thus:

" To assert that the sun is the centre of the solar system and not the earth is as erroneous as saying Christ was not born of a virgin"

So just like the design argument, the geocentric argument is an argument of first and natural impression but an apparent impression is not necessarily the true or real impression, it can be naive and wrong just as the geocentric cosmological model.


Galileo Galilei himself was also victim of such first and natural impression, Johannes kepler also was, nobody can be immune to it.

Johanness Kepler after leaving the seminary to pursue a more naturalistic course in science, he was awed by the magnificence of all there is to learn and know. God became more for Kepler, during his days in the seminary he must have repented a thousand times for unseen transgressions against the divine anger.

Afterwards God became more for him than just a transcendent authority seeking incessant retribution, God became the model for universal perfection, a perfection he believed was shown in the Geometry of the cosmos.

He thought the orbits must be perfect circles as this connotes the perfection of God's geometrical abilities. kepler remarked on this.

" Geometry is the model of creation, it co-existed with the mind of God, Geometry provided God with the model for creation, Geometry is God himself."

But when the data based on observation began to enter, the orbits became less circular and more elliptical, Kepler reworked it over and over again but the results consistently was ellipse.

he said at this discovery "The truth of nature which i ignored came by subtle disguise through the backdoor to be accepted, Oh what a foolish bird i have been'

His faith in the geometrical model of creation was shattered; he lost faith in the divine geometer.

I have told this story many times but Kepler - who was in fact regarded by some as the most brilliant mind to have walked this earth second only perhaps to Isaac newton, as a matter of fact Newton's theory of gravity was an expansion of Kepler's theory of planetary orbits [Newton's work was built on the progress of kepler's]

Kepler observed the heavens on many nights, the most many of the times and he noticed moon craters, perfect depressed circles on the surface of the moon, a circle is a geometrical perfection so how could such perfect design come naturally?

Based on what he is used to here on earth, circle can only come from intelligence, such precise perfections cannot be attributed to random accidental and chaotic chance of natural causality.

So his argument was: Such circular structures connoted intelligent beings on the moon and these craters were structures purposely built by this intelligent civilization.

Keplers argument is just as valid as the argument of design, nature lacks what it takes to make such perfect geometry, it can never be as a result of the chaotic chance that rules natural causality.

Or is it?

Turns out Kepler was also wrong, the moon craters were not a result of intelligence as a matter of fact there are as a result of accidental, random, uncharted chaos.

A great rock of intense speed [meteors, asteroids] hitting the surface of the moon would create a local explosion perfectly symmetrical in every direction thus giving rise to perfect circular depressions.

It was not a result of intelligent design as kepler thought, it was starkly the raw opposite.

Such arguments as that of argument of design is logical but comes with a sacrifice, it must first assume a limit to natural causes and effects which kills the depth of it's questions.

A camera is designed, it is a functional complex system, a sand structure on the beach, at least the one OLAADEGBU showed on his thread is designed, it showed intricate patterns to a certain degree therefore as the argument goes, Man or any other organism who are very complex systems must equally be designed – at least this is the idea implied.
That is a logical conclusion I must say, but then the question raised should be;

1. Does complexity mean something must be designed?
2. Does living entities follow the same rules and a camera or sand castle?


These are penitent questions that we must pursue courageously
Like I showed at the beginning of this write up, precise and ordered and even geometrical projections can be without designing touches, can take effect from incessant chaotic causes abound in the cosmos.

So pursuing these questions courageously let us take them one after the other.

DOES COMPLEXITY CONNOTE DESIGN?

This argument just as the first cause argument leads us into a loop, a regression of infinite causalities.
Erosion consistently over a piece of rock will slowly but gradually change the structure of the rock, caves can be formed in this way, it’s a gradual process, progression of tiny effects accumulating into a seeming shouty design.

One may argue since Caves have similarities with houses, at least the basic idea of a house is from a Cave then caves cannot be natural occurring phenomenon’s but rather must have been carved into the rock by something, it must have purposeful designs and not just one of the effects of raging natural causes.
If we consider this argument, every complex system must be designed then what ever answer we derive to answer the question of our own design will lead to an even bigger question.

The natural answer is since everything complex must require design then humans obviously are designed but then again for something to be able to design something as complex as humans such a thing must be equally or even more complex therefore must also have been designed and then it goes into an infinite regression.

The natural answer for this across every culture is of course that God designed us, which leads us to the next question, who designed God and who designed the person that designed God?

If you fill this bracket with the usual answer “God is eternal” as Carl Sagan put it, then we can as well save a step initially and say the universe is eternal and man is an inevitable effect.

If you say God doesn’t require a designer then we might as well save that step and say the universe also does not require one.

And also saying God does not require a designer kills the very implication of this argument because by asserting thus you have shown that something can be complex but not designed (God) therefore complexity does not necessarily mean design so why then do you think natural effects MUST require design?


The second question is;
DOES LIVING ENTITIES FOLLOW SAME LAWS AS INANIMATE ENTITIES?

Let us save ourselves the trouble, the short answer is NO.
The one thing that separates a living cell from non-living things is that living cells have the ability to self arrange and replicate.
Since living cells can self arrange and non-living cells can’t in what way do you judge them under the same set of rules?

Since living cells can self arrange and replicate, it means it does not necessarily require guidance to evolve.
A camera cannot self arrange because it’s constituents lack the ability to therefore must be aided and designed.
I am not saying because living cells can self arrange then they cannot or was not designed, I am only saying Judging living cells with benchmark set by inanimate designs is flawed and inconsistent with truthful approximation.
So before you rush to say: A house is designed, a camera is designed, a sand castle on the beach is designed therefore living beings must have been designed.
Answer to yourself if the fundamental constituents of these subjects are same and follow similar protocols.

Another story I will like to tell is one of my favorites, this is also about Johannes Kepler who I seem to like very much, maybe my life is similar to his or I see the evolution of my worldly views similar to his or simple because we bear same name. [Johannes is latin word for John]
As the story goes, Kepler came home to a plate of Salad his wife made, on the dinning table he asked a question out loud.
If this carrot, lettuce, peas, beans and milk were floating endlessly in eternity, is there a chance that somehow by chance they will all meet and salad is made?
“Yes” his wife replied “But not one as delicious as mine”

So if one agrees that nature is riddled with incessant causes, incessant effects should not be a surprise and we cannot place a lid on what nature can do.

For one to assert the cosmos must be designed in order to function, you must first show what an undersigned cosmos should be like and why?

Like the plate of salad by Keplers wife, we can never truly tell if the accidental salad would be much more delicious.

cc. hopefulLandlord loj dorox please invite others, i don't really know all the usernames that precisely

I hope this gets a good number of views. People need to understand how logic almost always makes the God hypothesis unnecessary.

puddle analogy

This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

CoolUsername:
I hope this gets a good number of views. People need to understand how logic almost always makes the God hypothesis unnecessary.

invite more people lets argue or discuss on it. i would like to hear opposing perspectives on this.

johnydon22:


invite more people lets argue or discuss on it. i would like to hear opposing perspectives on this.

Doctoralien, felixomor

hopefulLandlord:
puddle analogy

This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

The puddle analogy so well describes us, the universe and how we see ourselves and role in it.

i will be writing on the transcendent and fine-tuning arguments soon.

God Bless Olaadegbu for that thread.

felixomor:
God Bless Olaadegbu for that thread.

amen

johnydon22:


amen

And as for you Professor Johnydon,
Its very easy to see how an undesigned cosmos will look like.

Just pick 2 or 3 eggs, some stones and maybe sand and smash them together in the air and watch what happens.
Whatever you see on the ground after the experiment, will look like an undesigned cosmos.

johnydon22:
cc. hopefulLandlord loj dorox please invite others, i don't really know all the usernames that precisely

So you no know my name abi?

You don dey chop money you come forget my name. Chai

Continue

felixomor:

And as for you Professor Johnydon,
Its very easy to see how an undesigned cosmos will look like.

Just pick 2 or 3 eggs, some stones and maybe sand and smash them together in the air and watch what happens.
Whatever you see on the ground after the experiment, will look like an undesigned cosmos.

Really? never thought about that before?

but the cosmos now is like a fried egg or a mashed one?

What if this universe was created that way, God took some cosmic egg and smashed them together and this is the result - would you say God designed the universe or not?

hahn:


So you no know my name abi?

You don dey chop money you come forget my name. Chai

Continue

Haaabbaaa Baba how can your boy forget you sir.. sorry sir na slip of fingers while typing, your boy is loyal

johnydon22:


Haaabbaaa Baba how can your boy forget you sir.. sorry sir na slip of fingers while typing, your boy is loyal

Yes boss

Unfortunately I do not see this argument going anywhere

Our moronic doctor with the sleeping brain is already posting his usual nonsense. The guy whose thread you are replying has never been known to make any sense despite the fact that he only posts one sentence and that butterfly will soon come here with insults and nothing meaningful

Hopefully other people will read and enjoy, as I have, as that is the only benefit I can see coming from the thread

Nice thread Johnny

SIR, ANYTHING THAT HAS A BEGINING MUST HAVE SOMEONE THAT STARTED IT...SCIENTIST HAS PROVED THAT THE WORLD BEGAN FROM FROM SOMEWHERE...YOU AND I CANNOT PROVE THAT GOD AND HIS SON JESUS HAD A BEGINING POINT.

Johnydon22,

The universe is not eternal. Even Stephen Hawking agrees. Moreover, the Kalam argument supports that position.

Since living cells can self arrange and non-living cells can’t in what way do you judge them under the same set of rules? Since living cells can self arrange and replicate, it means it does not necessarily require guidance to evolve.
A camera cannot self arrange because it’s constituents lack
the ability to therefore must be aided and designed. I am not saying because living cells can self arrange then they cannot or was not designed, I am only saying Judging living cells with benchmark set by inanimate designs is flawed and inconsistent with truthful approximation

Are you saying that life evolved?

Very interesting

bloodofthelamb:
SIR, ANYTHING THAT HAS A BEGINING MUST HAVE SOMEONE THAT STARTED IT...SCIENTIST HAS PROVED THAT THE WORLD BEGAN FROM FROM SOMEWHERE...YOU AND I CANNOT PROVE THAT GOD AND HIS SON JESUS HAD A BEGINING POINT.

Or something?

bloodofthelamb:
SIR, ANYTHING THAT HAS A BEGINING MUST HAVE SOMEONE THAT STARTED IT...SCIENTIST HAS PROVED THAT THE WORLD BEGAN FROM FROM SOMEWHERE...

The Big Bang yes but if i recall correctly the Big bang was caused by a singularity (As the scientists also postulated) So yes the Big Bang accounts for the beginning of the universe but not that of the Singularity which might as well be eternal or not.

YOU AND I CANNOT PROVE THAT GOD AND HIS SON JESUS HAD A BEGINING POINT.

Ooh far from that i have no intension of proving that, it would be an even lesser miracle though than you knowing God so well to know he has a son

DoctorAlien:
Johnydon22,

The universe is not eternal. Even Stephen Hawking agrees.

You may want to read Stephen Hawkins book "A brief history of time" he will explain way better than i ever can on his idea on universe and the beginning.

Moreover, the Kalam argument supports that position.

Are you saying that life evolved?

this is not an argument for biological evolution though the implications of biological evolution is that it provided other ways functional complex beings can be without industrial assembly.

though this is not the purpose of the thread rather to treat the culture of false comparisons. This is like this therefore this must also be like that.

hahn:


Yes boss

Unfortunately I do not see this argument going anywhere

it may yet

Our moronic doctor with the sleeping brain is already posting his usual nonsense. The guy whose thread you are replying has never been known to make any sense despite the fact that he only posts one sentence and that butterfly will soon come here with insults and nothing meaningful

Hopefully other people will read and enjoy, as I have, as that is the only benefit I can see coming from the thread

me too

Johnydon22,

I am convinced that the universe had a beginning. That does not depend on whether Hawking and co. agree or not. Nevertheless, here is a lecture by Hawking. In it, he concludes that "the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago."

Of course, Big Bang is nonsense, and I don't believe it.

this is Plato argument. everything that is move must have a mover but the mover those not require a mover because it is the first move and knows himself. what it simply mean is that God does not require a designer because he is the designer.

I had discuss this issue with you before but it seems you are not getting it or you failed to accept. you accept the design is complex but you don't wish to know about the designer but rather who created the designer. isn't this hilarious.


wait, I heard Mr Johndon got pregnant and gave birth . is it a boy or girl?

Can an infinite task ever be done or completed? If, in order to reach a certain end, infinitely many steps had to precede it, could the end ever be reached? Of course not—not even in an infinite time. For an infinite time would be unending, just as the steps would be. In other words, no end would ever be reached. The task would—could—never be completed. But what about the step just before the end? Could that point
ever be reached? Well, if the task is really infinite, then an infinity of steps must also have preceded it. And therefore the step just before the end could also never be reached. But then neither could the step just before that one. In fact, no step in
the sequence could be reached, because an infinity of steps must always have preceded any step; must always have been gone through one by one before it. The problem comes from supposing that an infinite sequence could ever reach, by temporal succession, any point at all.

Cc: Johnydon22

DoctorAlien:
Johnydon22,

I am convinced that the universe had a beginning. That does not depend on whether Hawking and co. agree or not. Nevertheless, here is a lecture by Hawking. In it, he concludes that "the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago."

You may love to read "A brief history of time" by Hawkins he expounded more on the lectures and you will find the ideas touched things more than the lecture. it is better read than explained here.

progressing more on the big bang theory like i replied someone above

" The Big Bang yes but if i recall correctly the Big bang was caused by a singularity (As the scientists also postulated) So yes the Big Bang accounts for the beginning of the universe but not that of the Singularity which might as well be eternal or not."

Of course, Big Bang is nonsense, and I don't believe it.

Well i wouldn't stress this by asking the basis of that conclusion.

In an argument, it is not enough to say "this is like this" you must also show why it is and reasons your conclusions are based on but i am lacking that information right now on your conclusion that the universe had a beginning (I am not arguing that it doesn't though)...

Now if the universe never began, then it always was. If it always was, then it is infinitely old. If it is infinitely old, then an infinite amount of time would have to have elapsed before (say) today. And so an infinite number of days must have been completed—one day succeeding another, one bit of time being added to what went before—in order for the present day to arrive. But this exactly parallels the problem of an infinite task. If the present day has been reached, then the actually infinite sequence of history has reached this present point: in fact, has been completed up to this point—for at any present point the whole past must already have happened. But an infinite sequence of steps could never have reached this present point—or any point before it. So, either the present day has not been reached, or the process of reaching it was not infinite. But obviously the present day has been reached. So the process of reaching it was not infinite. In other words, the universe began to exist.

Johnydon22

CC agentofallah

johnydon22:
You may love to read "A brief history of time" by Hawkins he expounded more on the lectures and you will find the ideas touched things more than the lecture. it is better read than explained here.

Amnotundastanding. In the book, did Hawking explain the statement "the universe, and time itself, had a beginning..." in such a way that it no longer means that the universe and time had a beginning?

vaxx:
this is Plato argument. everything that is move must have a mover but the mover those not require a mover because it is the first move and knows himself.

That argument is self defeating and in modern term can be termed nonsensical just like Aristotle thinking objects in motion stopped moving because they get tired, knowing himself is not a basis for a mover to not be moved. If Plato argued that EVERYTHING that moves must have been moved by something at the same time thinks the Mover does not require to be moved then it fails in it's own game since for the mover to move something it must first move itself. and the argument states "everything" so if the mover can move without being moved then not everything that moves requires to be moved

what it simply mean is that God does not require a designer because he is the designer.

still flawed being a designer does not exempt one from design. man is a designer does this exempt us from design?

I had discuss this issue with you before but it seems you are not getting it or you failed to accept. you accept the design is complex but you don't wish to know about the designer but rather who created the designer. isn't this hilarious.

Jesus christ what ever this means.

wait, I heard Mr Johndon got pregnant and gave birth . is it a boy or girl?

LOL where did you hear that from

DoctorAlien:


Amnotundastanding. In the book, did Hawking explain the statement "the universe, and time itself, had a beginning..." in such a way that it no longer means that the universe and time had a beginning?

the summary is: there are observational implications that suggests a beginning but breaks down at a singularity to solve this he derived what he called "imaginary time"

At imaginary time the universe had a beginning but in real time it doesn't. i guess thats another way of saying "Modern science do not know whether the universe had a beginning or not" even Carl Sagan agreed to it in his book "the cosmos"

just read the damn book bro

Like i told someone above, The big bang proposes a beginning of the universe from a singularity but not the beginning of the singularity.

johnydon22:


the summary is: there are observational implications that suggests a beginning but breaks down at a singularity to solve this he derived what he called "imaginary time"

At imaginary time the universe had a beginning but in real time it doesn't. i guess thats another way of saying "Modern science do not know whether the universe had a beginning or not" even Carl Sagan agreed to it in his book "the cosmos"

just read the damn book bro

Like i told someone above, The big bang proposes a beginning of the universe from a singularity but not the beginning of the singularity.

Imaginary time indeed.

Nothing conclusive can be said about the Singularity. The nature of the Singularity is not even known. In fact, whether it existed or not is pure speculation, just like the whole of the Big Bang theory.