Do you think less of theists intelligence?

Here is what I actually wrote:

When you say "to me, if something is highly improbable and still takes place it doesn't draw any associations with an intelligent design", well, that part I will not debate. But when you add "to me, that is just a coincidence" you indeed abandon critical, scientific thinking and employ wishful one instead.

You actually made two statements there, not one.

1) to me, if something is highly improbable and still takes place it doesn't draw any associations with an intelligent design

To which I replied with well, that part I will not debate.

But then you went on with:

2) to me, that is just a coincidence

and it is your second statement that I find to be unreasonable.

For instance it is highly improbable that 18 golf balls randomly thrown from the spaceship would land in 18 holes of the size of a golf ball, especially if repeated 500 times in the row.

Now, if we had evidence that 18 objects the size of golf balls indeed landed in 18 golf ball sized holes 500 times in the row and the measure of impact caused by it was indicative that it must have fallen from orbital altitute (don't argue now that the impact would obliterate evidence in such particular case and etc. that's not the point), well we wouldn't then argue that God or Intelligent Designer played golf with us, but it certainly would be beyond reason to suggest that it was a mere coincedence.

There could have been some hidden and unknown to us cause for such (with utmost precision) event to take place, but just because we didn't know what it was doesn't mean we could write it off as a mere coincidence (just as we couldn't write it off as God's doing and claim it was scientifically valid suggestion).

There are degrees of improbabilities and they are not all the same. At certain point it is no longer possible to suggest that something highly improbable taking place is a mere coincedence and that's what I pointed out.

You didn't define to what degree of improbability you accept something to be a coincidence, so I had to assume that by "highly improbable" you meant any degree of improbability higher than just improbable, and it is indeed unreasonable statement to make.

 

Jumbuli, you make one mistake in your argument there.

The wonderful thing about chance, is that it is chance. No matter how small the chance is for something to occur, there is still that chance. If 18 golf balls were thrown from a space ship, and all 18*500 golf balls landed in the holes, however imporbable, is still bound to happen. It may have a chance of 1:500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 but there is still that chance. There is no limit to chance. At 499,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 do we stop saying "Oh this is a result of chance" and start saying "Alright, adding one more to the ratio will cause it to be a result of something we don't understand."

500 Monkeys randomly typing on a keyboard will eventually compile Shakespeare's work, not because there is a force at work we do not understand, but because there is a miniscule chance of it happening.

 

Yeah, I have heard that one, and there is another one, that if the wrench was thrown near infinite times towards the car, eventually the car would get fixed , no matter what part of it was broken (in reality the car would rather quickly be destroyed).

 

If you keep throwing bullshit arguments at me, there is a chance that one of them will be correct.

The chance of the wrench actually fixing something when its hit is so minute that it'd be more probable that you'd fix the car by actually applying the wrench to car!

 

The only bullshit argument (applying the term you used), so far, comes from your side.
And I can tell you, even if thrown infinite times there is no chance it will be correct.

Talk about "random" wrench throwing fixing a car "by chance".
Since you insist "random chance" explanation can be used to write off any happening , why can't a car be fixed by random wrench throwing if we follow your logic?

 

My argument: Chance is always chance
Your argument: Chance is chance, until a certain point, and then it's no longer chance.

Please illustrate why my argument is invalid.

A car can be fixed by randomly throwing a wrench at it. It's just not practical.

Follow these statistics, you can throw a wrench at a car in an attempt to fix with a 1:500 chance or you can open the hood and have a 1:5 chance to fix it by actually using the wrench. Sure, both will work, but the chances favor one.

 

Oh yeah?
And how did you compute the statistics?
Did you actually try to fix cars by throwing a wrench from a distance and have you had a success rate of one fixed car per 500 randomly thrown wrenches? Can I bring few broken cars and watch you actually fix them like that?
If this is true David Copperfield will envy the fortune you can surely make if you invite people from all over to fix their cars and turn it into nationally televised show

 

Made up, for argument's sake. Obviously, throwing a wrench at a car has the POSSIBILITY to fix it, but it is not likely.

 

Of course you made it up, for arguments sake

Surely you are joking, aren't you

 

Instead of being snide can you actually argue?

Nope, it's possible. However unlikely, it is possible.

Imagine, a cylinder is stuck, so you throw the wrench at the car and the force jars the cylinder loose. It was very unlikely that it would happen, but it did.

 

Of course I can, if you stop making things up for the argument's sake.

And I say it is not possible if you have something requiring precision in performance to get the car fixed.

Like replacing spark plugs, for instance.
http://www.ehow.com/video_110_replace-spark-plugs.html

 

The exact numbers were made up, the concept is true. Throwing a wrench is less likely to fix your problem then going under the hood and applying the wrench.

Chance is chance buddy, you never know. There could be a problem with the spark plugs and the force of the chassis being hit by a wrench might fix it. Sure there are specifics that require finesse, but chance is still chance. At no point does chance turn into something we don't understand; which was my whole argument.

 

I don't think that they're less intelligent. I do, however, believe that they're lazier intellectually than non-theists.

 

Hearing gods talk to you is called "being crazy"
Believing in gods and wanting them to talk to you is called "being religious"

 

Chance is chance, for sure, but it doesn't mean you can write off anything as if happened by chance or coincedent.

If you want to make people laugh then keep on insisting that spark plug under the hood of the car can be replaced by randomly throwing a wrench on it from 20 ft away, all you would need to do is just keep throwing it enough number of times.
Good luck with finding believers, I would rather buy that Santa Claus is real.

Anyone with even basic understanding of how to replace a spark plug and what the car is made of will tell you that repeatedly throwing a wrench on it is a sure way to destroy it, and there is no way the spark plug will get replaced even if you could throw wrench on it trillions of times.

The further argument is pointless with you as you discredited yourself by suggesting that just about anything can be written off as if happened by chance, when in fact it is not so.

 

Your opinion is noted.

 

You can read my opinion below and note it too

Chance is chance, for sure, but it doesn't mean you can write off anything as if happened by chance or coincedent.

If you want to make people laugh then keep on insisting that spark plug under the hood of the car can be replaced by randomly throwing a wrench on it from 20 ft away, all you would need to do is just keep throwing it enough number of times.
Good luck with finding believers, I would rather buy that Santa Claus is real.

Anyone with even basic understanding of how to replace a spark plug and what the car is made of will tell you that repeatedly throwing a wrench on it is a sure way to destroy it, and there is no way the spark plug will get replaced even if you could throw wrench on it trillions of times.

The further argument is pointless with you as you discredited yourself by suggesting that just about anything can be written off as if happened by chance, when in fact it is not so.

 

My argument from the beginning, is that at no point, does chance stop being chance, and start being something else.

My argument was never that throwing a wrench at a car is the best way to fix it. In fact, it's quite stupid to do it, I'm only saying that the chance exists, however unlikely.

What my question to you is, if you did throw 18*500 golf balls out of space ship and they all landed in their holes, if you don't write it off as chance, what else can you write it off as?

 

And never did I argue that chance is not a chance.
What I said was that there are degrees of improbabilities and if there is very high degree of improbability of something happening by chance then it is no longer possible to suggest that it is indeed how it must have happened.

If I had in my mind the number, a code consisting of 800 decimal digits, if I wrote it on piece of paper and if you were able to instantly guess what the number was, without ever seeing or knowing anything about it, well it would be extremely improbable that you just guessed it up in random but one could still buy that it was a pure coincidence.
Now, if you were able to repeat that 500 times in the row, in laboratory, then what?
Well, then even the most skeptical of scientific minds would say that it were not by chance and that something beyond random guess was involved there.

It would be highly unreasonable to insist that it was nothing but random guess, even if there was no known evidence or explanation of how you guessed the numbers right.

Of course one could still insist it was a mere coincidence, but no one aware of theory of probability and chance games would take such explanation seriously.

Did I ever say that your argument was about best way to fix a car?

The subject has never been how to best change the spark plug (I guess anyone who has very basic knowledge of car engines knows that already).

The subject was whether it would be possible to change that spark plug by randomly throwing a wrench at it.
You insisted that yes, it could get replaced that way, you only had to throw it enough number of times.

Perhaps, if you woke up tomorrow and saw your car with replaced spark plug and wrench laying next to it, you would think it happened by chance after the wrench fell off the by-flying airplane.

Of course you have a choice of beleiving in any unreasonable explanation.
It's just that I don't buy your theory and no reasonable person would.

As long as it is possible to reasonably accept it, yes.

It just can't and won't happen that way.

 

Hey, man. You can call me lazy or you can call me stupid, but I call you Don Quixote for trying to stay on topic in the midst of so much digression. You deserve a pat on the back, though, for at least trying to get us back on track. But I think you should qualify your statement: "lazier intellectually than some non-theists". (And I'd dispute you on that, too!)