I don't need any outer evidence for the existence of God. I have no desire to prove to anyone the existence of what I prefer to call a Supreme Ordering Intelligence. For me, the existence of God has always been self-evident. The journey to an invisible God is also invisible, interior and individual.

Our atheists friends have pointed out multiple times that the burden of proof for the existence of God is on us. I understand their individual predilection to disbelieve in God in the absence of exterior verifiable proof. I have pointed out numerous times, that for God's own reasons, SOI has constructed the universe in a manner that proof of IT'S existence is interior and individual. If God exists, those are the terms we have to deal with. Supreme Ordering Intelligence is not at our beck and call.

Having said that, I will make a few points already made from time to time on Science & Religion.

Scientists can't explain the origin of the universe, the Big Bang beginning, or why entropy (which is directly related to order and information, lower entropy = higher order, to be simple) is much higher now, than then.

Scientists can't explain the origin of life.

That's far enough for now. Atheists say the burden of proof is on us, on theists. I say the burden of proof is on them, to explain the origin of life, how non-living matter becomes living, how non-living matter comes to be able to duplicate itself, as living tissue. Explain it or duplicate it in the laboratory. Until you can do this, I'll stick to my belief that life only comes from life, that order only comes from order, that complexity only comes from a pre-existing ordering intelligence.

People are sent to prison every day on circumstantial evidence, alone.

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"To be considered alive an organism must have enough information content to control its genetic and biochemical processes. ......The dividing line for complexity and information content sufficient to call a structure life appears to be somewhere between a phage (a virus which is a parasite wihin a bacterium, not consider to be life because it can't exist or replicate itself apart from its host bacteria) and a bacterium. Bacteria are single living cells which do not combine to form more complex living systems.

A single-celled bacterium contains millions of atoms and an enormous number of informational structures. Michael Denton describes the complexity:

Molecular biology has shown that even the simplest of all living systems on earth today, bacterial cells, are exceedingly complex objects. Although the tinest bacterial cells are incredibly small, each is in effect a veritable micro-minaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up of altogether one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated that any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world....The recently revealed world of molecular machinery, of cooling systems, of informational molecules, of catalytic devices and feedback control, is in its design and complexity quite unique to living systems and without parallel in the non-living world". (emphasis sdp) 

from: A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization by Dean L. Overman, 1997, pages 33, 34 

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I don't believe that the order, complexity and information content of even a single-celled bacterium, let alone you and me, is the result of chance, no matter how long it might have taken (and that turns out to be a very narrow window anyway, some 130 million years).

I lay the burden of proof on those who believe otherwise. For me, the circumstantial evidence points to the existence of God.

stardustpilgrim  

Feb 14, 2010 -- 10:04AM, Ken wrote:

Feb 14, 2010 -- 9:36AM, stardustpilgrim wrote:

That's far enough for now.

You haven't presented any circumstantial evidence. All you've said is that you don't know how the crime was committed or even that a crime was committed. I hope none of us are so naive as to believe that "science can't explain" is equivalent to "God did it."

You're also brushing aside everything that science can explain about the origins of the universe and the origins of life. That complete explanations are as yet unavailable doesn't mean that nothing can be explained.    

As they say, Rome was not built in a day. I'll be back. I don't like long posts, that's one thing I don't get...........so I try not to inflict them on other people...........

sdpilgrim

Feb 14, 2010 -- 9:36AM, stardustpilgrim wrote:

That's far enough for now. Atheists say the burden of proof is on us, on theists. I say the burden of proof is on them, to explain the origin of life, how non-living matter becomes living, how non-living matter comes to be able to duplicate itself, as living tissue. Explain it or duplicate it in the laboratory. Until you can do this, I'll stick to my belief that life only comes from life, that order only comes from order, that complexity only comes from a pre-existing ordering intelligence.

Setting aside the fact that there has been progress in some of these areas, why does any of this require an explanation?

Given the lack of an explanation, what's accomplished by saying God did it?

Feb 14, 2010 -- 9:36AM, stardustpilgrim wrote:

People are sent to prison every day on circumstantial evidence, alone.

Yes, including innocent people. Some are even sentenced to death. Is this something to encourage?

Feb 14, 2010 -- 10:55AM, stardustpilgrim wrote:

Stephen Hawking has admitted that he "reverse engineered" his theory which resulted in conclusions that the universe didn't begin in a singularity or have a beginning boundary. He saw his desired end and designed his theory around it. This gets him free of the need for a Creator for the singularity. (same source quoted previously, pages 16, 17, his source from Science Spectra, 1996, by Gordon Fraser, The Human Paradox: Stephen Hawking and his work)

As nobody has ever demonstrated that a singularity would need a Creator, the question of whether or not there was a singularity has absolutely no bearing on the question of whether or not there was a Creator.

Feb 14, 2010 -- 12:03PM, Ken wrote:

As nobody has ever demonstrated that a singularity would need a Creator, the question of whether or not there was a singularity has absolutely no bearing on the question of whether or not there was a Creator.

A realisation have to be established that the existence of a personal God can not be proven! Let me try. Mozes says he spoke to God and gave us the ten commandments. Hearsay writes that God spoke to Mozes which is an, by human, altered version of what happened. Mozes get the credit for the introduction of the ten commendments not a personal God.

Another example: Jesus could have said, God is like my father and we are all children of God. Hearsay implies his father was God. Hardly a proof of a personal God. Jesus may have realized to be a product of nature and therefor said what he said. reasonable?

Spinoza comes along and elaborately explains that the meaning of God is actually nature.

I, and a long string of other people agree that a personal God does not exist. We as believers of a non personal God can all agree that thousands of years ago the word God, in many forms, was used already.

Evolution is established as a scientific fact and with that comes the understanding that life on earth is about 4 billion years old. Science predict or calculated that life on earth might still last for another 4 billion years. Faith does play a role in here because shit happens.

All we now need to know how life started not that it did happen. Are you Atheists and Theists really interested in proof of the "how"? You really think you are able to get your head around a process that took 4 billion years to evolve? Good grief, I would not be wasting the rest of my life pondering this problem. Its a Godda..... problem! So, God is the first word used by humanity to express the meaning of nature!