Re: West Virginia creationism

On 5/3/24 11:29 AM, Ron Dean wrote:

John Harshman wrote:

On 5/2/24 4:39 PM, Ron Dean wrote:

John Harshman wrote:

On 5/2/24 7:39 AM, Ron Dean wrote:

Ernest Major wrote:

On 01/05/2024 03:52, Ron Dean wrote:

John Harshman wrote:

On 4/30/24 4:27 AM, Ron Dean wrote:

John Harshman wrote:

On 4/26/24 6:06 PM, Ron Dean wrote:

Ernest Major wrote:

On 26/04/2024 02:31, Ron Dean wrote:

I think due to gradual increasing genetic errors and increase rate of deleterious mutations each generation becomes  less fit than the preceding generation, so in the passing spans of time the genes of a species become less and less incapable of reproduction or species survival. This could account for many of 99%+ of of all species that ever lived that have gone extinct. Of course the dinosaurs became extinct due to a 6 mile diameter meteor striking the Earth. Also changing weather the coming and going of ice ages; as well massive volcano eruptions  accounts for extinction of many species for example in Siberia.

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Are you taking a progressive creationist position, in which your Intelligent Designer is continuously creating species de novo? Or are you claiming that the current 10 million (+/- a lot) species biota is the remnant of a much richer biota of a billion species?
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For your information, the conclusion drawn from the fossil record is that (for multicellular eukaryotes at least) species diversity has been generally increasing over time (though with big setbacks at times of mass extinction).
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I dismissed, Although I do try to respond to questions, challenges and issues. I cannot address every comment that's presented due to time and my present concerns and interest. I'm not so sure of just how important anything I see on TO is to me, right now especially this thread. I never intentionally defended or supported West Virginia Creationism. But rather intelligent design has been my interest for decades.
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To remind you of the context, I've removed the intermediate material. The context is not "West Virginia creationism". The context is the claims you've made about the natural world.
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I think the weakest facets of evolution is what is _not_ known about origins. The most serious is the question is the origin of highly complex information. Except for life, nothing else in the natural world has ever equaled or come close to such information. If the present is key to the past, then there is no exception; highly complex information comes _only_ from a mind. Without information - there is no life.
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You contradict yourself. If nothing except life has ever displayed complex information, the inference would be that highly complex information comes from life, not from "a mind", whatever you might mean by that. Further, all the minds we know of are living beings, and they descend from less complex living beings in the past. It appears, then, that complexity arises from evolution.

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The Cambrian explosion was not just an explosion of 30+/- body plans, but also an explosion of information needed for each body plan. Where did this information come from? No one knows how DNA structure arose which is designed to store information and control development of living organisms. Evolution, of course. The be all and end all explanation.

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How do you know there was an explosion of information?

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Do you know anything regarding Pre- Cambrian genetic information?

Dirrectly, no, as there is no preserved DNA that old. Indirectly, based on fossils and phylogenetics, yes. But, more on point, what do you know?

And what's your alternative source for this information?

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I've very recently concluded, based primarily on the reality of the infusion of genetic information into the planet, where none existed before, there must be a God. I've seen no empirical evidence falsifying the existence of God. So, atheism is a faith.
 Again, you said that only life shows such compleity, which means that life must be the source.

No, that's what you said. But if life is the source of information, God must be living, and therefore containing complex information. Where did *that* complex information come from?

Of course, Pasteur is credited with the evidence demonstrating that life comes only from life. And if the present is the key to the past, then this demonstrates that the first living cell came from earlier life. IE the Living God, who, "breathed the breath of life into man an man became a living soul".
( Don't know the source of this, but I heard this expression numerous times - But I have my suspicions) You can believe or disbelieve, but you have _no_ better explanation!

Of course I have a better explanation. Humans are descended from previous populations of primates, and those from previous populations of mammals, etc. back to the first life. And the source of your quote is Genesis, the bit where God makes Adam. Not based on actual data.

If

minds are the source, minds are living, and so must themselves have a source. Do you see how you have locked yourself into an infinite regression here?

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No, I have not! I personally think there's somethings we are capable of arriving knowledge about, and at there;s some things that is beyond our ability to gain knowledge. For example: today we live in a universe that exist, but our universe_had_ a beginning almost 14KKK years ago. We can observe and know the effect, but not the cause. Who or what caused the universe to begin, or why is beyond any observation or our capacity to know and this is to say nothing regarding the utterly fantastic amount of energy locked within the universe where there was none. Again we have no way to know! OF coerce we can hypothesis and theorize to our heart's content, but our best minds cannot create energy from nothing.

You have just descended into physics, and that's off-topic.

Of course a mind is quite complex. So where did the mind you think is responsible for all that come from? Is it minds all the way down?

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Ever heard the term the eternal God? Guess not!

Yes, that's a way of avoiding the question. But if God can exist without having an intelligent creator, why can't other things exist similarly?