The Big Questions

What is best in life?

Lord Skimper wrote:Was god a visiting alien? Think of the perspective point of view of the people of the time seeing UFO's. Perhaps a stat in the sky or a chariot in the sky that crashes in the desert. Lightning bolts, etc... Magic etc... Giants, Titans and the Nephilim. Just stories or explaining the 'big' beings of the past?

Or an "explanation" that doesn't produce accountability to "The God Who is There." I've wondered if the prophesied fight against the return of Jesus in glory could be produced by propaganda about an alien invasion.

As to E's contention that objective tests for the existence of some God can't exist - this is why many dislike ID work. They dislike the implications, so they ignore information theory's contributions. Example: to make evolution possible you must somehow falsify the 'conservation of information' sub-theory. If anyone knows a discussion of this by any evolutionist, please post a reference so I can read it
:beg:

DDHv wrote:As to E's contention that objective tests for the existence of some God can't exist - this is why many dislike ID work. They dislike the implications, so they ignore information theory's contributions. Example: to make evolution possible you must somehow falsify the 'conservation of information' sub-theory. If anyone knows a discussion of this by any evolutionist, please post a reference so I can read it
:beg:

You are ... misunderstanding the argument.

Put simply: There can be no objective test for the presence or absence of a god because it is impossible to design an experiment that would give one result if god is present and another if he isn't. The scientific method can only work with things that are quantifiable in some shape or form, and the presence of god isn't.

This whole conservation of information thing? I assume you're referring to Dembski's "Conservation of Information in Search: Measuring the Cost of Success" article. Dembski, it has to be said, is the prototypical example of how to be wrong with confidence; see this comprehensive critique of this work.

As we will show, Dembski’s work is riddled with inconsistencies, equivocation, flawed use of mathematics, poor scholarship, and misrepresentation of others’ results. As a result, we believe few if any of Dembski’s conclusions can be sustained

The E wrote:

DDHv wrote:As to E's contention that objective tests for the existence of some God can't exist - this is why many dislike ID work. They dislike the implications, so they ignore information theory's contributions. Example: to make evolution possible you must somehow falsify the 'conservation of information' sub-theory. If anyone knows a discussion of this by any evolutionist, please post a reference so I can read it
:beg:

You are ... misunderstanding the argument.

Put simply: There can be no objective test for the presence or absence of a god because it is impossible to design an experiment that would give one result if god is present and another if he isn't. The scientific method can only work with things that are quantifiable in some shape or form, and the presence of god isn't.

I've only read of one double blind experiment on prayer for healing, but they didn't include information on sample size, etc., so it was flawed. Something on this line, properly set up, would produce quantifiable results. I would think that the prayer journal of George Mueller of Bristol (1805>1898) which covered about six decades and was published annually is either a very great hoax, or else a solid experiment about answered prayer. Also, the "minute of prayer daily" in England before the Dunkirk evacuation could be considered a field experiment, although without adequate controls. IIRC, before the fog, etc. it was expected that roughly 10% of the expeditionary force could be rescued. Probably any shortage of quantification is due to laziness or doctrinaire opposition, rather than lack of available observations

This whole conservation of information thing? I assume you're referring to Dembski's "Conservation of Information in Search: Measuring the Cost of Success" article. Dembski, it has to be said, is the prototypical example of how to be wrong with confidence; see this comprehensive critique of this work.

As we will show, Dembski’s work is riddled with inconsistencies, equivocation, flawed use of mathematics, poor scholarship, and misrepresentation of others’ results. As a result, we believe few if any of Dembski’s conclusions can be sustained

No, I got that from the book about information theory that Cthia suggested, a John Wiley publisher's book. Some of the math of the proofs was over my head - Calculus was the end of my formal math training, although some things were learned later on my own. I'll look up Dembski's article, if I can find it, thanks for mentioning it. Do you have a link to a printed version? I don't like the slow speed needed for videos. Also, I'll be reading contrary articles, as I can find them.

Even with speed reading, it takes too much time to allow reading everything, but it is fun to try

DDHv wrote: I've only read of one double blind experiment on prayer for healing, but they didn't include information on sample size, etc., so it was flawed. Something on this line, properly set up, would produce quantifiable results. I would think that the prayer journal of George Mueller of Bristol (1805>1898) which covered about six decades and was published annually is either a very great hoax, or else a solid experiment about answered prayer. Also, the "minute of prayer daily" in England before the Dunkirk evacuation could be considered a field experiment, although without adequate controls. IIRC, before the fog, etc. it was expected that roughly 10% of the expeditionary force could be rescued. Probably any shortage of quantification is due to laziness or doctrinaire opposition, rather than lack of available observations

Lack of quantifiable observations is exactly the point. Based on that data, we are no closer to answering the question of whether or not prayer has any effect at all, because there's an overwhelming amount of environmental factors at play that might skew the results.

Anecdotally, celebrities are prayed for more often than normal people when they fall seriously ill, yet do not show any statistically significant difference in terms of recovery than patients of comparable age and sex receiving similar levels of care.

The E wrote:Anecdotally, celebrities are prayed for more often than normal people when they fall seriously ill, yet do not show any statistically significant difference in terms of recovery than patients of comparable age and sex receiving similar levels of care.

Ah, but how many are praying for them not to get better? That's a variable you can't ignore.
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Complex questions never have simple answers. Hell, most simple questions don't have simple answers.

DDHv wrote:From: Breakpoint September 2, 1991

What are the right questions? Simple. Things like, What is truth? What is ultimately real? What are we living for?

Is our culture still looking for answers to these questions? If not, what trivial questions are we asking instead?
What methods, if any, are we using to test any answers

No, we answered this already - 42 Now were looking for the question ... (What? someone had to say it! )