NOT Obama, but bring your popcorn.

I find this interesting because it is published in what was widely percieved as an arm of the former Soviet (athiest) State. Now we have the NYT, widely percieved as an arm of the Obama Administration. My how ironic.

Atheism mathematically impossible

The scientific method is used every day in forensic science to determine whether an event in a crime scene was an accident or by design and intention. Mathematical probability is a scientific argument and is frequently used in determining many issues of scientific inquiry.

The scientific method cannot be used to prove events which occurred outside of human observation. No one observed the origin of the universe by either chance or design, but scientific evidence via mathematical probability can be used to support either a chance or design origins for the universe.

If you went to an uninhabited planet and discovered only one thing, a cliff carved with images of persons similar to what we find on Mt. Rushmore, you cannot use the scientific method to prove that these images came about by design or by chance processes of erosion.

Mathematicians have said that any event with odds of 10 to the 50th power or over is impossible even within the entire time frame of the supposed billions of years popularly assigned for the age of the universe.
The odds of an average protein molecule coming into existence by chance is 10 to the 65th power. That's just one protein molecule! Even the simplest cell is composed of millions of them.

Protein molecules are made of smaller molecules known as amino acids. In order for a protein molecule to work the amino acids have to be together in a precise sequence, just like the letters in a sentence. If they are not in the right sequence then the protein molecule won't work.

It has been shown that the basic building blocks of life, such as amino acid molecules, can come into existence by chance, but it has never been shown that these basic building blocks can come together into a sequence by chance to form protein molecules.

Once there is a complete and living cell then the genetic code (or program) and biological mechanisms exist to direct the formation of more cells with their own DNA and protein molecules. The problem is how did DNA, proteins, and life come about when there was no already existing directing code and mechanisms in nature.

It seems that the cell is irreducibly complex. For example, without DNA there can be no RNA, and without RNA there can be no DNA. And without either DNA or RNA there can be no proteins, and without proteins there can be no DNA or RNA. They're all mutually dependent upon each other for existence! It could not have gradually evolved! Evolutionists generally believe that it took one billion years for the first life form or cell to have evolved. That belief, although still taught as gospel in many elementary and secondary schools, cannot be sustained by modern science.

An amazing fact is that there are left-handed and right-handed amino acids. In life all the protein molecules have to be made up of left-handed amino acids as well as be in the right sequence. If a right-handed amino acid gets into the mix the protein won't work.

DNA, the genetic code, also is made up of various smaller molecules (nucleic acids) that have to be together in a precise sequence in order for the DNA to work. There are left-handed and right-handed sugar molecules making-up nucleic acids. In order to get a working DNA molecule the various nucleic acids have to be not only in a precise sequence but they also have to contain only right-handed sugar molecules. If a nucleic acid with a left-handed sugar molecule gets into the mix then the DNA won't work.

The great and well-known British scientist Frederick Hoyle showed that the probability of the simplest form of life coming into being by chance is 10 to the 40,000th power. You don't have to be a theologian to respect such numbers!

In the midst of arguments over evolution and intelligent design, it is amazing how many in society, including the very educated, believe that scientists had already created life in the laboratory. No such thing has ever happened.

All that scientists have done is genetically engineer already existing forms of life in the laboratory, and by doing this scientists have been able to produce new forms of life, but they did not produce these new life forms from non-living matter. Even if scientists ever do produce life from non-living matter it will only be through intelligent design or planning so it still wouldn't help support any theory of life originating by chance or evolution.
If the cell had evolved it would have had to be all at once. A partially evolved cell cannot wait millions of years to become complete because it would be highly unstable and quickly disintegrate in the open environment, especially without the protection of a complete and fully functioning cell membrane.

Natural laws are adequate to explain how the order in life, the universe, and even a microwave oven operates, but mere undirected natural laws cannot fully explain the origin of such order.

What about natural selection? Natural selection cannot produce anything. It can only "select" from what is produced. Furthermore, natural selection can only operate once there is life and not before. Natural selection is a passive process in nature.

Even the recent news of artificial life is not creation of any life. In artificial life, scientists, through intelligent design, build a DNA molecule from "scratch" and then implant that DNA into an already living cell. Genetic engineering and artificial life projects all happen by intelligent design - not by chance. Just ask the scientists behind the projects!

Science cannot prove that we are here by either chance or design, but the scientific evidence can be used to support one or the other.
It is only fair that evidence supporting intelligent design be presented to students alongside of evolutionary theory. No one is being forced to believe in God so there's no real violation of separation of church and state.

But, when all the evidence is presented it should show beyond all reasonable doubt that life didn't originate by chance but by design.
The Institute for Creation Research (www.icr.org) offers excellent articles, books, and resources from Master's or Ph.D degreed scientists showing how true science supports creation.

http://english.pravda.ru/science/mys...095-atheism-1/

[TLAM Strike]

I saw Pravda
...
I

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

I saw Pravda
...
I

Sweet free popcorn

oh yeah, pravda.

If you want a real laugh though, you need to listen to thr voice of Russia.

[Skybird]

In physical sciences "theory" is just a "mind - game" until it is corroborated by empirical facts. A well developed theory not only points to to the "observables" that will corroborate it, but also states (explicitly or implicitly) the conditions under which it can be "falsified". No religion allows for its falsification. Science and religion therefore don't mix. Using principles of the former to consolidate a view within the context of the latter (or vica versa) can lead to only one of two things: poetry or bulls**t. In this case choose your words carefully and hope/pray you're a poet...

Even a theory corroborated by empirical findings, remains to be that: a theory. You nprobably have heasred of what is just called "the black swan" nowadays: that one has never seen a black swan, does neithe rmean that all swasn are white and that no black swans exist. An empirically folunded theory, btw, is just natural - if it is not emporically founded, it more is a hypotheis than a theory. A theory can be a well-founded one, a dominant one, it can be a theory that can explain things more completely or more elegant ("easier"), maybe it even becomes a theoryso influential due to these factors that it lasts for long time and becomes a paradigm that influences how future theories are being formed or searched for. But still it is a theory, and it never is more than this. So-called nature's laws also are a form of theories only, wereason that these theories have a general validity in all nature. But it still is all our mental construction, our way to arrange observations in a way that it makes sense to us.

The real essence of things is hidden behind the veil of Maya. It is like mistaking matter with something "solid" although matter for the most, if not all, is just empty space, like a fast moving propeller gives the visual illusions of being a solid, transparent disc like made of grey glass. We do not discover a final, a real, a one-and-only reality - we invent it by the way we add meaning to it and by the way we approach it and by the way we add our system of ordering phenomenons to it. It is systemtical how we do it, yes. But it still is - our invention. Pragmatic in value and allowing us remarkable technical magic tricks - but still our own mindgame indeed.

Coincidence: today, this interview with a German cosmologist was published, in German. In what he says, the man could be me: http://www.focus.de/wissen/wissensch...id_548936.html

Nope, Atheism is a belief, not a religion. As an atheist you do belief something (namely that there are no gods), but atheism can't be a religion because it has no god.

Atheism is no belief in that being atheistic is the natural state in which we humans, and probbaly all anaimals, are being born. We humans then get fed with an artifical thought, that is describging the ecistence of somethging that before we have not heared of: a deity for example. This then is a belief. That does not make not sharing that belief, another belief. It is the absence of belief, and the returning to or the remaining in a natural state. We also are born naked. And if we do not wear clothes later on, our nakedness by that dpoes not become juist another form of dressing. It remains to be what it is: a natural state, a lack of dressing, an absence of clothes. Nudity is no special form of cloathes. It simply is what it is: nudity.

"Die Realität wird weniger von uns gefunden als vielmehr von uns erfunden." (Paul Watzlawick).

"What we see, never is nature, but only nature that is exposed to our way of asking questions about it." (Werner Heisenberg).

[antikristuseke]

Their argument about the probability of a single protein molecule coming up by chance being so improbable that it might as well be said to be impossible is true ennoguh, but it is irrelevant, because only a moron would claim that only random chance was involved. The rest of the article is the same creationist dribble that has been debunked countless times. Just go to ****ing www.talkorigins.org and learn what real science says about abiogenesis and evolution, which actual cited sources from peer reviewed papers.
As for the source, anything written in Pravda should be taken with either a huge grain of salt or disregarded as complete horse**** form the start, they have about as much credibility as a source of information as Sunday Sport did.

Edit: and what the **** did any of that have to do with atheism in the ****ing first place?

[razark]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

The rest of the article is the same creationist dribble that has been debunked countless times.

Yeah, that.

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

Edit: and what the **** did any of that have to do with atheism in the ****ing first place?

Because there are only two possible answers.
A. atheism
or
B. Goddidit!

Anyone who rejects B. must therefore be one of them evil atheists.

If Christine O'Donnell had dabbled in atheism would any one be laughing?

What about Nancy Pelosi, #3 for the most powerful position in the US? She is Roman Catholic, believing in the literal transmutation of bread and water into the body and blood of Christ, and must take her walking orders from the Pope, who is a former Hitler-Jugend, to be in good standing in her church.

PS VP Joe Biden is also Roman Catholic. It is only Barack Obama who is thought by 24% of the people to be muslim.

[antikristuseke]

eh?

[AngusJS]

Originally Posted by The Third Man

If Christine O'Donnell had dabbled in atheism would any one be laughing?

Huh? And how can you dabble in atheism?

What about Nancy Pelosi, #3 for the most powerful position in the US? She is Roman Catholic, believing in the literal transmutation of bread and water into the body and blood of Christ, and must take her walking orders from the Pope, who is a former Hitler-Jugend, to be in good standing in her church.

PS VP Joe Biden is also Roman Catholic.

Huh?

And how could it be impossible for people to not believe in god, regardless of whatever tired creationist tripe "debunking" abiogenesis says?

Sorry if I confused. If you cannot observe the action directly the theory has no value. Einstien, and all real science depends on this. That which cannot be directly observed is not science,

Whithout direct observation science fails. Thus atheism fails unless it is itsself a religion.

[Skybird]

Creationism did exist at the time of the cold war, yes. What's the surprise? Today, it is rising even more in Polland, Russia, and especially - in the Islamic world. There it has been dressed in slightly different symbols to make it compatible with Islamic commandements and rules, but in principal it is the very same like amongst Christian fundamentlaists. It was copied from them, to be precisely. Some Turkish writer has made a fortune by writing according books and publish them in the Muslim world, but the phenomenon goes far beyond him.

Richard Dawkins makes a distinction between atheism and antitheism, which in ordinary language usually is ignored. The one means the conviction that gods do not exist, the other means to simply not be interested and not caring for whether gods exist or not.

If you are looking at religions precisely, you cannot say that Buddhism is just one religion amongst others - D.T. Suzuki for example would point out that indeed Buddhism and the attitude it teaches, should be seen as the inevitable basis of all true religion (and I agree). For just one simple reason: if you strip it of all folkloristic ballast and institutional distractions and rites and habits (Buddhism was not immune to get distorted by these things like for example Jesus' teachings as well), then what you are left with, is simply this "teaching": "see things yourself, decide yourself, do not believe becausue something is said, is hear-say, is written down on old pergaments, is said by older men. Examine things yourself, your mind, and how it works, the way you perceive the world and experience your life. What is it that is looking through your eyes, and thinks of what it sees as "me" ? " Buddhism, in it's essential form, is the most radical empirism you can get to. In principal, belief and traditonal teachings and books have no room in it. But I admit that many Buddhist schools and traditions and representatives seem to have forgotten that, allowing it to get covered and hidden by rites and rituals like in any other religion, and superstition and earthly interests of influential priest's hierarchies and church-like institutions. But this is not what Buddha has taught. It'S also not what Jesus has taught.

In principal, atheism's sceptical attitude and Buddhism's empirical attitude and the methodology of science all three go very well together. None of these three compares to religious traditions like Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, or to political-religious systems like Islam, or economic-criminal systems like scientology, or purely political systems like facism or forms of democracy.

On the "competition" between science and religions, just this. Responsibly run science will never claim to know the last, the final, the ultimate answers. Science does not produce eternally lasting truths - only temporary theories. It does not explain the WHY of the universe, it focusses on examining and explaining the HOW, and it does so by principles that basically have not changed much since the ancient Greek have brought them up. Religion does not examine neither the WHY nor the HOW - it nevertheless just claims to have the uiltimate and final answer to the question of WHY, in modern days leaving the answer of the HOW to science (sometimes more sometimes less willingly). That's why from a standpoint of mental economy, for people like me believing in religions does not give us anything we think we need. It does nothing for us and does not help us a bit. If we stay within the realm of science, we will not know the WHY, and if we stay within the religions' realms, we still do not know the WHY - we just do not admit it and hide our lacking knowledge behind some arbitrary random fantasy that has not been checked, cannot be checked and never will be checked. But this unavailability of it for analytical examination does not make blind belief a virtue, nor does it turn it into more than what it is: just an arbitrary claim thought out by human minds, designed to take away a bit the horror humans feel in the face of their mortality and the big dark abyss at the end of our life. And what makes us think of it as darkness and an abyss that we fear, is not so much our knowledge about what manifestates that status as "darkness" and "abyss", but right our lack of knowledge about what it is.

Which brings us back, in a way, to the question of WHY.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Richard Dawkins makes a distinction between atheism and antitheism, which in ordinary language usually is ignored. The one means the conviction that gods do not exist, the other means to simply not be interested and not caring for whether gods exist or not.

That is an interesting choice of words. I would think an antitheist would be one who goes out of his way to attempt to prove that there is no god.

As for the bulk of your post, it's a good explanation of the realities of science, and the realities of religion.

[Diopos]

In physical sciences "theory" is just a "mind - game" until it is corroborated by empirical facts. A well developed theory not only points to to the "observables" that will corroborate it, but also states (explicitly or implicitly) the conditions under which it can be "falsified". No religion allows for its falsification. Science and religion therefore don't mix. Using principles of the former to consolidate a view within the context of the latter (or vica versa) can lead to only one of two things: poetry or bulls**t. In this case choose your words carefully and hope/pray you're a poet...


.

[Stealth Hunter]

Originally Posted by Diopos

In physical sciences "theory" is just a "mind - game" until it is corroborated by empirical facts. A well developed theory not only points to to the "observables" that will corroborate it, but also states (explicitly or implicitly) the conditions under which it can be "falsified". No religion allows for its falsification. Science and religion therefore don't mix. Using principles of the former to consolidate a view within the context of the latter (or vica versa) can lead to only one of two things: poetry or bulls**t. In this case choose your words carefully and hope/pray you're a poet...


.

Ultimately it comes down to being:

[Diopos]

In science you are judged by your peers.
In religion by God.
Having "suffered" the first I would easily settle for the second. At least He is forgiving.



.