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Skeptical of skeptics

Hey! Did you know, if I draw a square that no matter what size square I draw, all four sides are of equal length?

It's a ****ing miracle, I tell ya.


Must be proof that there is a God!
 
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And, how about that magical triangle. Adding up all three angles always equal 180 degrees. God.

And, just wait until you explore those right angle triangles. Lots of spooky stuff happens. Just ask Pythagoras.
 
devildavid said:
Did you know that math is a human invention?
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Hardly...math has a Designer...

WAS IT DESIGNED?

The Mathematical Ability of Plants
PLANTS use a complex process called photosynthesis to extract energy from sunlight to create food. Studies on certain species have revealed that they perform yet another feat​—they calculate the optimum rate at which to absorb that food overnight.

Consider: By day, plants convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into starch and sugars. During the night, many species consume the starch stored during the day, thus avoiding starvation and maintaining plant productivity, including growth. Moreover, they process the stored starch at just the right rate​—not too quickly and not too slowly—​so that they use about 95 percent of it by dawn, when they start making more.

The findings were based on experiments on a plant of the mustard family called Arabidopsis thaliana. Researchers found that this plant carefully rations its food reserves according to the length of the night, no matter whether 8, 12, or 16 hours remained until dawn. Evidently, the plant divides the amount of starch available by the length of time remaining until dawn, thus determining the optimal rate of consumption.

How do plants ascertain their starch reserves? How do they measure time? And what mechanism enables them to do math? Further research may shed light on these questions.

What do you think? Did the mathematical ability of plants come about by evolution? Or was it designed?

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102015408?q=math&p=par

Was It Designed?

The Hummingbird’s Tongue

● Researchers analyze minute quantities of blood, DNA, and other substances on a glass surface about the size of your hand. In this realm of microfluidics, suction or pumps are used to move the tiny droplets, but these methods tend to be inefficient. Is there a better way to transport liquids on a miniature scale? According to Dr. John Bush of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “nature has already solved these problems.”

Consider: The hummingbird does not waste energy by sucking a flower’s nectar into its mouth. Rather, it takes advantage of the cohesive forces that cause water on a flat surface to bead up and defy gravity. When a hummingbird’s tongue makes contact with nectar, the surface of the liquid forces the bird’s tongue to curl into the shape of a tiny straw, and the nectar is drawn upward. In essence, the hummingbird avoids unnecessary effort by letting the nectar force itself up the “straw” and toward the mouth. During feeding, hummingbirds can refill their tongue with nectar up to 20 times a second!

This “self-assembling siphon” has also been observed in some shorebirds, which drink water in a similar way. Commenting on this ability, Professor Mark Denny of Stanford University, in California, U.S.A., observes: “The combination of engineering, physics, and applied math is just wonderful . . . If you took any engineer or applied mathematician and told them to design a way for a bird to get water from its beak to its mouth, they wouldn’t have thought of this one.”

What do you think? Did the hummingbird’s tiny tongue​—with its ability to collect nectar rapidly and efficiently—​come about by chance? Or was it designed?

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102010369?q=math&p=par
 
calamity said:
Hey! Did you know, if I draw a square that no matter what size square I draw, all four sides are of equal length?

It's a ****ing miracle, I tell ya.


Must be proof that there is a God!
Click to expand...

74d32f3b84933f9d51adc7e4848e6076.jpg
 
devildavid said:
That we evolved to see patterns does not mean the patterns are there. We also see human emotions in non human things, including our made up concepts of gods.
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So according to you we evolved to see patterns that aren't there? Besides yourself, who do you think you're kidding with this materialist claptrap?


Namaste

 
Angel said:
So according to you we evolved to see patterns that aren't there? Besides yourself, who do you think you're kidding with this materialist claptrap?


Namaste
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We see only in part even under optimal human circumstances. ;)
 
Angel said:
"Through a glass darkly," yes?
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Yes. Now I know only in part. But this is probably a blessing.

From Pope's Essay on Man, Epistle I:

Say first, of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of man what see we, but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be known,
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied being peoples ev'ry star,
May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44899/an-essay-on-man-epistle-i
 
calamity said:
The op is about circles and the miracle of a pattern found in them. I pointed out the square and the miracles found within them. Geometry is geometry.

How is that a strawman?
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Because that's not what the OP is about. Read it again.
 
calamity said:
And, how about that magical triangle. Adding up all three angles always equal 180 degrees. God.

And, just wait until you explore those right angle triangles. Lots of spooky stuff happens. Just ask Pythagoras.
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There are conditions where that is not true. Draw a triangle on a ball, and then measure all the angles.
 
Hark, skeptics! The rationality of things point up the rationality of reality.
 
it's just me said:
I am re-reading the Carl Sagan novel "Contact" (the movie is nothing like the book, so don't bother telling me what was in the movie), which raises some interesting questions about the implications of life in the universe.

There are people on this site who will tell you that there is no "proof that God exists". Fine. But if you press them on why they think there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe they will quote odds, biochemistry, experiments, everything but proof. They might say "We know it can happen because it has happened, here". But that's still not proof that it has happened anywhere else. Our explanation is that we were placed here by an intelligence whose ways are as high above ours as we are above ants, and the skeptics demand proof from us, even though the proof for their beliefs doesn't rise to the level that they expect from us.

We know for certain that intelligent life exists one place in the universe: here. At one point in the novel one of the characters states that he distrusts skeptics because they distrust everybody else. I know how he feels.
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I'm as skeptical regarding the odds of us finding our definition of "intelligent life" in the universe as I am of the idea that any of the Gods offered up by theists exists. I do bet we find extraterrestrial "life", but very much I doubt it will be stereotypical SF aliens.
 
<alt>doxygen said:
I'm as skeptical regarding the odds of us finding our definition of "intelligent life" in the universe as I am of the idea that any of the Gods offered up by theists exists. I do bet we find extraterrestrial "life", but very much I doubt it will be stereotypical SF aliens.
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For the record, from everything I have read we are not likely to find life that is anything like us with our limited space travel capabilities. If you read the Sagan book, you remember that their contact was 26 light years away. But, if you read the Sagan book he was suggesting very plainly that he thought there was design in the universe, and Carl Sagan was not just another pretty face.

My point was that the so-called "skeptics" who want to pooh-pooh our beliefs in God while espousing a belief in intelligent life elsewhere in the universe are only replacing one article of faith with another, because one is God and the other is not.
 
it's just me said:
For the record, from everything I have read we are not likely to find life that is anything like us with our limited space travel capabilities. If you read the Sagan book, you remember that their contact was 26 light years away. But, if you read the Sagan book he was suggesting very plainly that he thought there was design in the universe, and Carl Sagan was not just another pretty face.

My point was that the so-called "skeptics" who want to pooh-pooh our beliefs in God while espousing a belief in intelligent life elsewhere in the universe are only replacing one article of faith with another, because one is God and the other is not.
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Yeah, I do get your point. They are very different ideas, but at this stage of our knowledge acquisition they require similar leaps of faith.
 
<alt>doxygen said:
Yeah, I do get your point. They are very different ideas, but at this stage of our knowledge acquisition they require similar leaps of faith.
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I was a huge NASA fan back in the 1960's and a proponent of space exploration, having grown up with Werner Von Braun's ideas about space travel, space stations, moon landings, and the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. The shuttle was a technological triumph but not what I thought was real exploration compared to just going somewhere else. Not long ago I saw the movie "The Martian" and I was astonished at how much it looked like what we would expect Mars to look. I will not live long enough to see a Mars landing, maybe not even a return to the moon. It's disappointing, we were off to such a good start.
 
it's just me said:
I was a huge NASA fan back in the 1960's and a proponent of space exploration, having grown up with Werner Von Braun's ideas about space travel, space stations, moon landings, and the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. The shuttle was a technological triumph but not what I thought was real exploration compared to just going somewhere else. Not long ago I saw the movie "The Martian" and I was astonished at how much it looked like what we would expect Mars to look. I will not live long enough to see a Mars landing, maybe not even a return to the moon. It's disappointing, we were off to such a good start.
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Agreed. I was a little kid when those programs of the 60's took place. It was awe inspiring. I wanted to be involved in that stuff when I got older. I would definitely prefer politicians/government using programs like that to promote national unity as opposed to using wars to force it.

Yes, the Martian was really good.
 
it's just me said:
For the record, from everything I have read we are not likely to find life that is anything like us with our limited space travel capabilities. If you read the Sagan book, you remember that their contact was 26 light years away. But, if you read the Sagan book he was suggesting very plainly that he thought there was design in the universe, and Carl Sagan was not just another pretty face.

My point was that the so-called "skeptics" who want to pooh-pooh our beliefs in God while espousing a belief in intelligent life elsewhere in the universe are only replacing one article of faith with another, because one is God and the other is not.
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Skeptics do not espouse beliefs. The possibility of intelligent life elsewhere is not a belief. The possibility of something that we can never provide evidence for can only be a belief.
 
devildavid said:
Skeptics do not espouse beliefs. The possibility of intelligent life elsewhere is not a belief. The possibility of something that we can never provide evidence for can only be a belief.
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Yeah, just like they don't believe there is no God.
 
devildavid said:
Skeptics do not espouse beliefs. The possibility of intelligent life elsewhere is not a belief. The possibility of something that we can never provide evidence for can only be a belief.
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Ridiculous. You're fixated on "faith" and accordingly talking nonsense about belief in its primary meaning.
 
Angel said:
Ridiculous. You're fixated on "faith" and accordingly talking nonsense about belief in its primary meaning.
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Belief has a primary meaning? And you know it? Sounds like faith to me.
 
it's just me said:
I am re-reading the Carl Sagan novel "Contact" (the movie is nothing like the book, so don't bother telling me what was in the movie), which raises some interesting questions about the implications of life in the universe.

There are people on this site who will tell you that there is no "proof that God exists". Fine. But if you press them on why they think there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe they will quote odds, biochemistry, experiments, everything but proof. They might say "We know it can happen because it has happened, here". But that's still not proof that it has happened anywhere else. Our explanation is that we were placed here by an intelligence whose ways are as high above ours as we are above ants, and the skeptics demand proof from us, even though the proof for their beliefs doesn't rise to the level that they expect from us.

We know for certain that intelligent life exists one place in the universe: here. At one point in the novel one of the characters states that he distrusts skeptics because they distrust everybody else. I know how he feels.
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You are confused.


We don't know if there is any life elsewhere in the universe - but we accept that it is possible
In fact because of the trillions of stars in the observable universe, we think it is more than possible but we could be wrong, we might be alone.


Atheists also accept the possibility that there was a creator ... but there is no evidence for it.
In fact unlike the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe, logic is against the existence of a creator.



And even if there were a creator (or creators) it would be nothing like the supreme being in the collection of fantasy novels you call The Bible.
 
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