Tower of Babble (a bunch of baseless babble)

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Originally posted by schrafinator:
How do you tell the difference between a system which has been intelligently designed and a natural one?

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Well, I would say it depends on the number of components needed to function. However, there is no point in which the complexity of something DEMANDS design, theoretically. However, the more specified complexity an object has, the more unlikely it is that the system is not designed intelligently. Therefore, once you reach a certain point, it becomes MORE logical to infer design and LESS logical to infer naturalistic process. And I do believe science's goal is to find the most probable way of something occuring, am I correct?In the end though, I suppose to infer design one must use common sense.

Essentially this is an argument by analogy. How about a scientific argument.

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Originally posted by lbhandli:
Essentially this is an argument by analogy. How about a scientific argument.

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Huh? Where did I use an analogy in my definition? If you would point it out I'll try to answer your question.

You created an analogy between those objects that are known to be designed and those objects that aren't known to be designed but are complex.Your ideas rely on assumptions that have no real basis besides a statement of faith. It is a logical fallacy to claim that because some things that are complex are designed all complex things are designed. It is an empirical question that you have not provided empirical evidence for.

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Originally posted by mark24:
Thanks Peter,

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I have a proposal that would prove/disprove the existence of God once & for all. Lets build another tower, with the specific intention of reaching heaven. If God intervenes, then I eat my hat, if he doesn't christianity quietly goes away, OK?

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If God didn't intervene would any christians accept this as evidence of Gods non existence?

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C'mon, I have more to lose, if you're wrong, the bibles a book of stories, if I'm wrong I get cast into the fiery pit.

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Mark

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Great idea, but I think God's agent must have told him he needed
better PR after all that flooding and raining down of fire and
brimstone on cities he didn't like.He became a much more 'non-confrontational' kinda God, very
hands-off.maybe he went to anger management

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Originally posted by Cobra_snake:
Well, I would say it depends on the number of components needed to function. However, there is no point in which the complexity of something DEMANDS design, theoretically. However, the more specified complexity an object has, the more unlikely it is that the system is not designed intelligently. Therefore, once you reach a certain point, it becomes MORE logical to infer design and LESS logical to infer naturalistic process. And I do believe science's goal is to find the most probable way of something occuring, am I correct?

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In the end though, I suppose to infer design one must use common sense.

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Complexity and design are UNRELATED.A lever is a designed tool ... it is NOT complex.A wheel is designed ... it is NOT complex.A frog is ... well it's a frog. It is very complex, but
clearly NOT manufactured (it metamorphoses from a tadpole
that comes from an egg that comes from ... oh ... another
frog).We cannot detect the use of any tool in the construction of
a frog.All of the fundamental operations which allow a frog to exist
and move around are explainable by chemistry and physics, and
these are natural phenomena.Flip the argument and see if it makes any sense.No definitely designed object exhibits any of the characteristics
of living things (except perhaps complexity), therefore
living things are not designed.

This is why HE never destoyed our 'towers', Genesis 11:4 says, "Come let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches the heavens, so tha we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over theface of the whole earth." In other words they wanted to build a stairway to heaven so they could actually be in heaven before they even died and see God (which He forbid to happen, if anyone sees God, they die). "They wanted to make good reputations for themselves (it was a selfish reason also, they were doing it for THEM). Rebellious men undertook a united and godless effort to establish, by a titanic human enterprise, a world renown, by which he would dominate God's creation." (tooken from the footnotes of the Concordia Self-Study Bible) They wanted to be gods themselves, to rule ALL creation.
None of todays skyscraoers were built for that reason. So of course he ain't gonna destroy it.
Yes, the tower of babel was the same height, but the people back then didn't know that heaven can't be reached when you're alive.
And an interesting quote from the CSB, "The word babel is of Akkadian origin and means "gateway to a god"." But "the Hebrew word used here (balal) sounds like 'Babel', the Hebrew word for Babylon and the origin of the English word 'babel.'" So the tower wasn't named that because of the 'fiasco', in lack of a better word, but we got our word from that.------------------
God Bless,
Victoria

Er, godismyfather, what is the independent evidence that a tower of Babel ever existed? Not quotes from the bible or interpolation of its text, independent evidence."The tower of Babel was the same height". Do you want to be more specific? Equivalent of 3 storeys, 10 storeys, 50 storeys, 100 storeys?"but the people back then didn't know that heaven can't be reached when you're alive."
Was it Enoch who was taken to heaven without dying?

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Originally posted by wj:
Was it Enoch who was taken to heaven without dying?

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Na it was Elijah (I think may have been Elisha though) was taken up to heaven in a firey chariot.....

Umm, Godismyfather, didn't it say in the Bible, quite explicitly, that they built their ziggurat to prevent themselves from being "scattered all over the Earth", and that God confounded their languages to limit their accomplishments? Apparently it was expedient for God to interfere with their plans, perhaps their arrogance did play a role...but look what we did in the latter half of the 20th century. We put people on the Moon.

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Originally posted by gene90:
...and that God confounded their languages to limit their accomplishments? Apparently it was expedient for God to interfere with their plans,...

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Oh dear looks like God just voted free will off of the island....

[QUOTE][b]Oh dear looks like God just voted free will off of the island....[/QUOTE][/b]Hah, yes...if we assume that the Bible is literally correct and inerrant throughout. Genesis 11:6 outright says that Godidit to limit the accomplishments of man. Clearly this cannot be the case, because we've done a lot without divine intervention. I think this is another part of the Mesopotamian Creation-myth that fills the earlier part of Genesis and may be partly allegorical or even complete fiction.Oh yes the Tower might have existed, and it might have fallen. God might have made it fall for His reasons. But I find the motive exceptionally unlikely. Maybe the this is a story of a ziggurat that fell a long time ago and killed a lot of people, and religious causes were invoked to "justify" the disaster. Or maybe I'm completely wrong (I try to tread lightly when discussing the motivations of God, but I think that Biblical interpretation is a valid subject of discussion). By the way, how do we know what God was thinking when it happened? (Through the same sources of the Flood story apparently)But G**ismyfather's interpretation is completely inaccurate because the tower was not intended to reach Heaven, it was intended to reach "the heavens" (as in, "stars in the heavens"). Frankly the description of the thing makes it sound like a civic project of strictly cultural significance to me. ("Let us not be scattered", ie, bring unity)

Well it may be interesting to speculate on divine motivation and postulate a real historical event which may have given rise to the story, but does this provide evidence of the historicity of the event? Surely we could do the same thing with the Australian aborigines' rainbow serpent myth - it gives a rationale for the existence of Uluru (Ayer's Rock)

[QUOTE][b]Well it may be interesting to speculate on divine motivation and postulate a real historical event which may have given rise to the story, but does this provide evidence of the historicity of the event?[/QUOTE][/b]No.

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Originally posted by lbhandli:
You created an analogy between those objects that are known to be designed and those objects that aren't known to be designed but are complex.

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Your ideas rely on assumptions that have no real basis besides a statement of faith. It is a logical fallacy to claim that because some things that are complex are designed all complex things are designed. It is an empirical question that you have not provided empirical evidence for.

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I don't believe my post contained an analogy at all...."It is a logical fallacy to claim that because some things that are complex are designed all complex things are designed."I don't think I claimed this. I think I am being VERY fair in this argument. I said, clearly, "Therefore, once you reach a certain point, it becomes MORE logical to infer design and LESS logical to infer naturalistic process." I never ruled out naturalistic processes as a possibility, I mearly stated that the more complex something is, the more likely it was designed. This does not seem to me to be a fallacious argument by any degree. I believe evolutionary biologists would be much more comfortable if life was not so complex, but unfortunately, life is extremely complex. I never claimed that complexity "requires" a designer, I merely stated that there seems to be a breaking point in which it is more likely that something was designed. Whether or not life is "too" complex (the breaking point) is where are opinions differ. I believe life is too complex, you do not.