Dogfight #2: The Homsarmy

Since PZ's getting spammed by the Homsarmy, I might as well get on the battlefield and help out. Not that he needs it. I just feel the need to have some fun, as well as inflict some pain on my brain.

This particular email caught my attention thanks to the sheer thickness of the irony involved.

To: PZ Myers biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.

Mr Meyers, Godless Atheist

And all of your fraternity of Godless Atheists :

I didn't join a frat in college, but I suppose I'll do.

Have you ever heard of Stephen Hawkins? How about the big bang theory, ever hear about that?

I went to a lecture of his. Had to settle for a live feed in another room, since the first room got sold out within 24 hours of the announcement. The Big Bang's quite nifty, and thus far, apparently quite true.

Do you understand it? Do you understand Physics? What part of "Beginning" don't you quite Grasp?

Yup. As for "beginning," I fail to see what that has to do with anything, especially since the Big Bang is arguably evidence that there is no such thing, time being "wrap-around" like the other 9+ dimensions, last time I checked.

Are you aware of Albert Einstein?

Yup. And according to my coolometer, he registered at 500 megaFonzies.

Are you aware of any acknowledged greater minds in the history of the world than these two Gentlemen?

Define "greater." Then we can get to work on building a greatometer.

Ever heard the Joke about a group of Scientists challenging God because they had created life in a test tube? You God gathers his dust to create another man, and the scientists start gathering their dust. God tells the group of scientists, Whoa. Wait a minute fellows, create your own dust!

No. Doesn't strike me as particularly funny, except for the absurd premises it relies on.

I am always amazed at people like you, you firmly and whole heartedly believe that what we know as the universe, came into being by some big whoops of nothing. That absolutely Nothing had anything to do with creation accept some unlimited number of coincidences, and yet you believe that a belief in an intelligent creator somehow endows total stupidity. May God strike me with the Stupidity of Einstein and Hawkins and lots of it.

I'm not a Creationist. I don't believe in creation ex nihilo. I'm very confident in the Big Bang, and M-theory sounds promising, based on my layman knowledge.

Bring on the National Academy Of Science, all of the Non-believers, and evolutionists with their phoney theories which Darwin manufactured and lied about from the beginning. Talk about Faith! If anyone can accept all of the assumptions and maybes taught by these intellectually deprived Godless people of Science, their faith in an accidental whoops creation surpasses most Christian's faith in God.

Evolution and the Big Bang rely on fewer assumptions that Creationism. Science requires only the assumptions any non-solipcist follows. Creationism involves those plus many others, including non-falsifiable ones. Faith is not involved in science.

100 years ago this year, Albert Einstein published three papers that rocked the world. These papers proved the existence of the atom, introduced the theory of relativity, and described quantum mechanics and all of this at age 26.

I'm told it's 101, Mr. Copy & Paste. And indeed, those papers were quite nifty.

His equations for relativity indicated that the universe was expanding. This bothered him, because if it was expanding, it must have had a beginning and a beginner. Since neither of these appealed to him, Einstein introduced a 'fudge factor' that ensured a 'steady state' universe, one that had no beginning or end.

Stop that, that's silly! The expansion of the universe does not imply, much less require a beginning or a beginner. It implied a singularity. Nothing more.

But in 1929, Edwin Hubble showed that the furthest galaxies were fleeing away from each other, just as the Big Bang model predicted. So in 1931, Einstein embraced what would later be known as the Big Bang theory, saying, "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened." He referred to the 'fudge factor' to achieve a steady-state universe as the biggest blunder of his career.

Einstein goofed. At least he later admitted it.

Einstein's theories have been thoroughly proved and verified by experiments and measurements. But there's an even more important implication of Einstein's discovery.

Not only does the universe have a beginning, but time itself, our own dimension of cause and effect, began with the Big Bang.

Time didn't begin with the Big Bang. The Big Bang was an expansion of time and space.

That's right -- time itself does not exist before then. The very line of time begins with that creation event. Matter, energy, time and space were created in an instant by some intelligence existing outside of space and time.

1. That's wrong. "Before" is a meaningless term outside of time. I suppose next, you'll be telling us that the absence of anything north of the north pole proves geocentrism.
2. Non-sequitur. Your "facts" are uncoordinated. Even if time operated as you describe, there's nothing in there that implies, much less proves the existence of an "intelligence."

About this intelligence, Albert Einstein wrote in his book "The World As I See It" that the harmony of natural law "Reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection."

If Einstein said and meant it as you describe, that qualifies as another goof. You won't get me with an argument from authority.

To quote Ann Coulter,---

Cutting you off. She doesn't know anything about evolution or liberalism, or anything she goes on about. If she does, she's one of the world's biggest liars, since she continues to use century-old canards.

The Big Bang theory was totally rejected at first. But those who supported it had predicted that the ignition of the Big Bang would have left behind a 'hot flash' of radiation.

Yup. Strictly speaking, all scientific theories should be tenatively rejected until they get proof. And that's what the Big Bang theorists did: They got evidence. You know, that little thing that evolution has piles and piles of.

If a big black wood stove produces heat that you can feel, then in a similar manner, the Big Bang should produce its own kind of heat that would echo throughout the universe.

Yup. The cosmic microwave background radiation jiggy.

In 1965, without looking for it, two physicists at Bell Labs in New Jersey found it. At first, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were bothered because, while trying to refine the world's most sensitive radio antenna, they couldn't eliminate a bothersome source of noise.They picked up this noise everywhere they pointed the antenna.

Yup.

At first they thought it was bird droppings. The antenna was so sensitive it could pick up the heat of bird droppings (which certainly are warm when they're brand new) but even after cleaning off the antenna, they still picked up this noise.

This noise had actually been predicted in detail by other astronomers, and after a year of checking and re-checking the data, they arrived at a conclusion: The Big Bang theory really was correct.

And scientists all over the world broke out the champaigne. The really good champaigne.

In an interview, Penzias was asked why there was so much resistance to the Big Bang theory.

He said, "Most physicists would rather attempt to describe the universe in ways which require no explanation. And since science can't *explain* anything - it can only *describe* things - that's perfectly sensible. If you have a universe which has always been there, you don't explain it, right?

"Somebody asks you, "Why are all the secretaries in your company are women?" You can say, 'Well, it's always been that way.' That's a way of not having to explain it. So in the same way, theories which don't require explanation tend to be the ones accepted by science, which is perfectly acceptable and the best way to make science work."

But on the older theory that the universe was eternal, he explains: "It turned out to be so ugly that people dismissed it. What we find - the simplest theory - is a creation out of nothing, the appearance out of nothing of the universe."

He needs to work on his method of expression. There was never a nothing for the universe to come from. Until that radiation was found, a steady state universe seemed parsimonious (even though it wasn't, false cosmological constant and all).

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Considering that there's no evidence I'm yet aware of of a "beginning" for time, much less that the Big Bang was this "beginning," I fail to see what this has to do with anything. Especially since God hasn't been established, either.

Penzias and his partner, Robert Wilson, won the Nobel Prize for their discovery of this radiation. The Big Bang theory is now one of the most thoroughly validated theories in all of science.

They deserved it, and that's right: The Big Bang is right up there with evolution.

Remember, Liberal Mythology teaches Darwinism, or Evolution by CHANCE!

You know someone's losing an argument when he makes shit up.

While I admit that I am stupid (less intelligent than Liberals and non-Believers) in my stupidity I choose to believe in an Intelligent Creator,...GOD!

At least he admits it.

In your kitchen cabinet, you probably have a spray bottle with an adjustable nozzle. If you twist the nozzle one way, it sprays a fine mist into the air. You twist the nozzle the other way, it squirts a jet of water in a straight line. You turn that nozzle to the exact position you want so you can wash a mirror, clean up a spill, or whatever.

I was raised by a cup of coffee.

If the universe had expanded a little faster, the matter would have sprayed out into space like fine mist from a water bottle - so fast that a gazillion particles of dust would speed into infinity and never even form a single star.

I'd need to see the math, but that sounds reasonable.

If the universe had expanded just a little slower, the material would have dribbled out like big drops of water, then collapsed back where it came from by the force of gravity.

Also sounds reasonable.

A little too fast, and you get a meaningless spray of fine dust. A little too slow, and the whole universe collapses back into one big black hole.

Get to the point.

The surprising thing is just how narrow the difference is. To strike the perfect balance between too fast and too slow, the force, something that physicists call "the Dark Energy Term" had to be accurate to one part in ten with 120 zeros.

Again, I'd need to see the math, but get to the point. And it'd better not be Texas Sharpshooter.

In their paper "Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant" two atheist scientists from Stanford University stated that the existence of this dark energy term "Would have required a miracle...An external agent, external to space and time, intervened in cosmic history for reasons of its own."

Someone's been dipping into the reification a little too much. I have no philosophical troubles with other membranes or whatever messing with our universe. I'd have to study M-theory more to get something resembling an understanding, though.

Just for comparison, the best human engineering example is the Gravity Wave Telescope, which was built with a precision of accuracy to one part in ten with 23 zeros. The Designer, this "external agent" that created our universe must possess an intellect, knowledge, creativity and power trillions and trillions of times greater than we humans have.

You presume this designer without evidence.

Now a person who doesn't believe in God has to find some way to explain all of this. One of the more common explanations seems to be "There was an infinite number of universes, so it was inevitable that things would have turned out right in at least one of them."

Weird, but not unreasonable, given where physics seems to be going.

Assuming of course that the "Right Universe" is referring to our Universe.

If it wasn't, we wouldn't be here to care about it. Our counterparts in the "right universe" would be.

The "infinite universes" theory is truly an amazing theory. Just think about it, if there is an infinite number of universes, then absolutely everything is not only possible...It's actually happened, or is happening! That to me is even more amazing than a single Universe Theory, but to the Non-believer, this sorta, kinda, maybe says ...... CHANCE, or that there is no intelligent designer we may refer to as GOD!

Did the English-speaking part of your brain experience a stroke?

Some people believe in God with a capital G.

And some folks believe in Chance with a Capital C. This is perfect idiocy, accurate to one part in ten with 120 zeros.

And I agree. Chance isn't that important in the scheme of things. Glad I believe in evolution, and not that idocy.

America, please come back to God, he will accept you and forgive you with open arms. God is certainly aware of how tough it is here, but don't blame God for so many turning to evil. God did not force Eve to accept Satan's temptation. God does not force each of us to accept Satan's plan and not God's plan of Redemption.

"Come back" implies that America left. America was founded as a secular nation. Of course, as the fairy tale goes, God designed Eve, so he knew she would accept temptation, and yet, somehow, it's her fault. And, of course, every bit of evidence supports what this guy's implying is "Satan's Plan" so God, by planting all this evidence all over the universe is at least giving up compelling arguments for an atheistic universe.

Those of us who are Believers in God and his plan of salvation through Messiah Yeshua/Jesus, and those of us who read his word the Holy Bible, know and have heard these words expressed many times:

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

There's a big difference between expressing and proving.

The message contained within these few simple words in John 1:1 are absolute proof of the existence of God the creator of all that there is, was, or ever shall be. People who may have dozens of degrees through education after there names, are themselves proof that God exists simply because of that education.

Someone stop the circular argument, I want to get off.

Skipping ahead...

"Messages, languages and coded information never, ever come from anything else besides a mind. No one has ever produced a single example of a message that did not come from a mind."

Lots of people get hundreds a day. I'm one of the lucky few, probably because I don't give out my email to doinks like this guy.

Nature can create fascinating patterns - snowflakes, sand dunes, crystals, stalagmites and stalagtites. Tornados and turbulence and cloud formations. But non-living things cannot create language. They *cannot* create codes. Rocks cannot think and they cannot talk. And they cannot create information. Not without God's help of course!

Living things can create information, and if all those abiogenesis experiments are any indication, non-living things can indeed become living things. Of course, there are probably lots of abuses of the term "information" here. MarkCC can handle those, if he likes.

It is believed and taught by many that life on planet earth arose naturally from the "primordial soup," the early ocean which produced enzymes and eventually RNA, DNA, and primitive cells.

But there is still a problem with this theory: It fails to answer the question, 'Where did the information come from originally?

Nice of you to change definitions, Humpty Dumpty. Randomness/chance played some of the role in creating information of this type.

Skipping to the end:

As simple as this question is, neither you and certainly not one of your so-called highly educated Godless cohorts are able to explain where the information came from. This riddle is "So simple any child can understand, yet so complex, not one unbeliever or atheist can solve it."

No, it's not simple. You're deluding yourself by ignoring a lot of stuff, and making up other stuff. Come back when you feel like being honest.

So, to summarize this guy's non-arguments, "Science is right! Therefore, science is wrong!" Followed by a LOT of disinformation about information theory.

I need to spend some more quality time with my rednelb to get my brain back to its normal state.