Does God exist?

[Kenneth R.]

all of that was conceded in the example. you've all still failed to explain how such a thing would evolve, considering as i have now stated several times: 1 stick does not make a nest. thus, how would the bird 'know' to bring many? and how to arrange them? if you say it happened over a great deal of time, that might excuse minor differences in the arrangement process, but cannot disprove the point that a nest need be made of many sticks, and that such sticks must be arranged in some manner so as they do not fall apart and do provide shelter. such a thing could not evolve over many generations, as the initial ones would not survive.

clearly i do not base my faith solely on this example, but i find it one that has yet to be refuted.

 

[Mormagil]

as the initial ones would not survive.

Plenty of birds get along just fine with no nests at all.

 

[Lord SteveO]

I can't answer the question about how a bird knew many sticks would make a good nest. I doubt anyone alive can answer that as there is no way to know. There's no way of looking back in time as no fossil bird nest have been found.
However, i still see no reason for this to be an argument for a higher power or "God".
It is simply a question we cannot answer with any certainty.
There are lots of other examples of this in nature they don't give proof to a god or anything, just an area we don't fully know the answers too.
For example, the common barnacle that lives on rocks etc is a crustacean. It looks to most people like it has an opening on it's top and uses feeding tentacles if you look up close. In fact the opening is in a shell and the "tentacles" are it's feet/legs.
Now what made an animal that originally looked like a lobster or crab change into something using its feet to sieve for food? It probably was chance, and happened to be a rather effective means of feeding. It doesn't mean that some god decided to make it do this, just like a bird building a nest is no evidence a god gave it some reason to build one.

 

[Kenneth R.]

Plenty of birds get along just fine with no nests at all.

and those would not need to evolve the use of nests, so that's besides the point.

 

[Kenneth R.]

I can't answer the question about how a bird knew many sticks would make a good nest. I doubt anyone alive can answer that as there is no way to know. There's no way of looking back in time as no fossil bird nest have been found.
However, i still see no reason for this to be an argument for a higher power or "God".
It is simply a question we cannot answer with any certainty.
There are lots of other examples of this in nature they don't give proof to a god or anything, just an area we don't fully know the answers too.
For example, the common barnacle that lives on rocks etc is a crustacean. It looks to most people like it has an opening on it's top and uses feeding tentacles if you look up close. In fact the opening is in a shell and the "tentacles" are it's feet/legs.
Now what made an animal that originally looked like a lobster or crab change into something using its feet to sieve for food? It probably was chance, and happened to be a rather effective means of feeding. It doesn't mean that some god decided to make it do this, just like a bird building a nest is no evidence a god gave it some reason to build one.

thats not the argument i'm making.

the point is, once again: how would it suddenly acquire the necessary information to build a complete and useful nest without previous knowledge, since previous knowledge is not attainable?

 

[Lord SteveO]

I already said i can't answer that. Seems no-one else can either.
But it's no evidence for a god all the same.
I assume that is why you brought it up in the first place?

 

[Iridium]

clearly i do not base my faith solely on this example, but i find it one that has yet to be refuted.

Well, obviously, it happened. I repeat: evolution cannot, and was never meant to predict the exact pathways of minute adaptations that happened millions of years ago. Your case is just an example of something too opaque (thus far) for us to accurately explain. Perhaps someday we will. But it isn't evidence that disputes evolution in any way, since it is not evidence at all.

how would it suddenly acquire the necessary information to build a complete and useful nest without previous knowledge, since previous knowledge is not attainable?

Are you dense, or are you being purposefully obtuse? If the instinct is "build the nest," and birds have an instinctual knowledge of roughly what a nest is (a place where their eggs will be stable), they use their cognitive ability, however minute, to use materials to build the damn thing!

thats not the argument i'm making.

The only argument you're making is a strawman, along with a god of the gaps. First, you take something the evolutionary pathway of which is nearly impossible to decipher, and then you claim that evolution works in terms of a gene coding for a bird to get one stick, and then another coding to get two sticks, etc. Idiotic! Nature is conservative - if there is an instinct that allows birds the use of sticks to make nests, the bird will use that instinct to get one stick, then another stick, then a third stick, until the nest is complete.

Now, please, tell me how this refutes evolution, or if you want to actually get back on topic, how this proves the existence of a god.

 

[Dushan S]

I have noticed that those "Is there a god" arguments are most of the times clashes between judeo-christian tradition and "scientific" view at the universe, and this is very narrow minded way of thinking.

In a lot of religions god is comprehended in a radically different way so it actually does not appears as opposite to scientific concept, and in some way is close to some of the new concepts of the physics.

It is clear that there is no christian god on the heaven in a biblical sense, so this is pointless. And even if there would be reason to talk about it, we should first define what christian god actually is, because there is a clear difference between old testament god that is actually projection of the authority on the forces of the nature, and god of the Christ, that is spiritual, symbolic god of love, acceptance, forgiveness and freedom.

Also, some early christians have had totally different concept of god, and it was understood as a state of mind, in a way. There was no need for a priest in usual sense because every single person was able to work his way to become god-alike, in a way jesus did, so religion was taken as a practical method (similar to the some eastern religions) and not as the system of beliefs based on blind faith.

 

[Lord SteveO]

I have to admit you're right about that. This argument only ever contains the science vs christinan point of view debates and there is never input from the view of other religions.
Maybe if someone can add in to this with some info on how other religions see thier god(s) then it'll be possible to see it without being limited to what is essentially one argument.
A belief in god that takes into account all of what happens in nature without just saying "god did it" sounds far better than what christians preach to us.

 

[Kenneth R.]

I already said i can't answer that. Seems no-one else can either.
But it's no evidence for a god all the same.
I assume that is why you brought it up in the first place?

i brought it up to punch yet another gaping hole in macro-evolution and it seems i succeeded.

 

[Iridium]

i brought it up to punch yet another gaping hole in macro-evolution and it seems i succeeded.

Your idiocy seems to know no bounds. The only thing you've succeeded in is annoying me. Go ahead and reply to my previous post, though.

 

[Lord SteveO]

It didn't really punch a hole in it. Seeing as you've provided no alternative at least not with evidence then it hardly punches a gaping hole. It's simply a question that cannot be answered as of yet. There are a lot of other theories that have far more unanswered questions than evolution does.

 

[Kenneth R.]

It didn't really punch a hole in it. Seeing as you've provided no alternative at least not with evidence then it hardly punches a gaping hole. It's simply a question that cannot be answered as of yet. There are a lot of other theories that have far more unanswered questions than evolution does.

why should i provide an alternative, when those who attack religion provide the non-alternative of atheism? i'm showing just one example of why i do not believe in macro-evolution, no alternative is necessary to disprove it. and as far as i am concerned, no one has yet made a credible challenge to the point of that example.

Your idiocy seems to know no bounds.

Albert Einstein predicted as much, long ago.

 

[Iridium]

Your "example" is either a shitty troll, or just plain idiocy. You commit several logical fallacies, and it's clear that you do not have any understanding of evolution in the first place, so how can you attack it?

Evolution happens gradually, not step-by-step. You're really quite the moron.

 

[Kenneth R.]

Evolution happens gradually, not step-by-step. You're really quite the moron.

congratulations on being the first to get the point. since the example requires 'step by step', it creates an issue with the theory.

 

[Iridium]

Evolution also happens genotypically, not phenotypically (a point you've missed time and again). The observable points of evolution are observable because there is a clear (in only a few myriad cases - most evolution occurs unseen) difference between what was and what is. Still, the number of mutations that occured in order to cause the nest-building instinct probably happened over the course of millenia, or longer. What you see as "step-by-step" (a species going from not building nests to building nests) is the phenotype; what you don't see (the mutations that occur over millenia in order to allow the species to create nests) is genotype! Please tell me that you can grasp this (and the logical conclusion, that the example you presented does not in any way hinder evolution).

I apologize if I seem patronizing, but you have no idea how frustrating it is when something so clear and logical to you is so very opaque to others.