quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Belief in creationism has a very strong correlation with the most dangerous kinds of fundie-ism, the ones that cause people to vote for politicians who want to re-impose laws against adultery and swearing on Sundays.
And there's KOM's thought-universe in a nutshell.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Belief in creationism has a very strong correlation with the most dangerous kinds of fundie-ism, the ones that cause people to vote for politicians who want to re-impose laws against adultery and swearing on Sundays.
You know, there needs to be a better analysis of this sort of statistical statement. I think it's wack.
The correlation is a field overlap. 'wacky fundies' must in nearly all cases be inside the field of creationists. It does not mean that said wacky fundies are easily representative of the majority of people who have creationist viewpoints.
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Considering what I think about even ordinary theism, perhaps you should recalibrate your notion of what I'm likely to consider 'wacky fundie-ism'.
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Well, if you're inclined to think even ordinary theism is to be pilloried daily on your mighty e-sword, then we'll just use for convenience the field of 'people who would make swearing illegal if they could' formerly described as the most dangerous kind of fundie-ism.
You know, for purposes of analyzing the correlation you just did.
Although I would probably posit that the most dangerous kind of fundie-ism is really the kind that causes people to try to blow each other up in violent suicides!
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And I would suggest that all those kinds of fundies are indeed creationists, if of the less-publicised Moslem variety.
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King of Men, I do read other people's posts and respond to other people's arguments--which some people more observant than you have acknowledged. I am reluctant to argue the same arguments with the superficially informed over and over again.
As for my age and actuarial expectations--you impertinent whelp--I am 60, but my mother just had her 86th birthday and still lives at home, so don't expect to be rid of me any time soon.
Orlox, that article you provided a link to makes it sound like evolutionists invented DNA and proudly make it the central argument of their dogma. But in historical fact, evolution was invented when the greatest biological complexity known was the cell, as seen through a microscope, and on that basis, it did not seem like too much of a stretch to think that evolution could take place, changing one kind of cell into one slightly different. Had Darwin known about the enormous data complexity of the DNA encoded in the genome, he never would have considered evolution as being possible.
It still is just as illogical to think that meaningful code of such immense complexity could evolve through the chance operation of random natural processes, but evolutionists have already been committed to their insanity for so long, their minds have been distorted to the point where the most impossible things are assumed to be magically possible.
In truth, evolutionists believe in far greater magic that creationists. Creationists say Yes, life and everything in the universe show great order and ingenious, intricate design, because an Intelligence, God, created everything. Nothing could make more obvious sense. Species show genetic similarities because God used the same genetic blueprint for all earthly creatures and added variations as He willed.
Evolutionists have to believe something even more fantastic, that the universe itself, which is not intelligent, somehow created itself in all its vast ordered complexity, out of nothing (back when "nothing exploded"); and that life came into being, and developed into ever more complex creatures with huge libraries of new meaningful code appearing in their genes relatively suddenly, all assembled by unintelligent, undirected natural processes acting at random.
Evolution depends on beliefs that are so utterly stupid, so patently contrary to what is reasonable and even possible, it is amazing to me that evolutionists haven't damaged themselves to the point that they can no longer tie their shoe laces. Let me say more graciously that otherwise intelligent people have apparently become seriously brainwashed by something that is no more than a passing intellectual fad that has had its day in the sun, and will soon pass into darkness faster than most people think. But once the dominoes start falling, they'll all fall. And people who now are so amazingly gullible will abruptly do an about face, and profess that they always had reservations about evolution themselves, and Michael Behe was always their best buddy.
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quote:In truth, evolutionists believe in far greater magic that creationists. Creationists say Yes, life and everything in the universe show great order and ingenious, intricate design, because an Intelligence, God, created everything.
Except it doesn't show great order or intricate design. If it did, why do creatures that live their entire lives in the water have lungs and not gills? (I'm speaking of whales.)
This is just one example, but I'm curious of the answer you might have. I could mention all the imperfect parts of human anatomy, but I imagine you'll say that these are a result of our fall. (I could be wrong.)
Did the whales, too, fall from grace, forever sentenced to live in the sea but always having to come up for air?
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Evolutionists have to believe something even more fantastic, that the universe itself, which is not intelligent, somehow created itself in all its vast ordered complexity, out of nothing (back when "nothing exploded"); and that life came into being, and developed into ever more complex creatures with huge libraries of new meaningful code appearing in their genes relatively suddenly, all assembled by unintelligent, undirected natural processes acting at random.
I don't think you'll really care, but here's an experiment for you.
Get a Boggle game, and shake up the random letters. See if there are any words spelled out. If not, do it again. I bet you that eventually, through completely random and non-directed chance, a complex sequence of letters that forms a recognizable word will show up.
Did an unseen creator have to nudge those letters into the right order to make a word? No. Chance works exactly that way. Now if you take that word out of the Boggle cubes and shake them up again, eventually you'll have another word.
Keep going and pretty soon every one of those cubes will be used up in words. All that randomness formed into coherent and logical information with no direction, simply the recognition of working order.
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Javert, apart from the silliness of whales falling from grace (although in Romans chapter eight the Apostle Paul did address the "corruption" that has come into all nature so that it "groans and travails" because of man's fall from grace), what have you got against dolphins and whales and seals and other mammals being able to live in the sea? I think the ability of a whale to dive beyond the crush depth of most submarines, and hold its breath for a half hour or more while swimming around and fighting kraken or whatever, is truly, gloriously, wonderful. All that, despite the corruption of nature!
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MightyCow, you are conveniently ignoring all the times you would have intelligence intervening with each shake of the Boggle cubes. You said: "if you take that word out of the Boggle cubes...."
With the genetic code we are not talking about one or two short words now and then. We are talking about meaningful data that is trillions of bits. How long do you think you would have to shake those Boggle cubes to come up with a whole library full of encyclopedias, all the classics of human literature, and all the wasted tomes written to perpetuate the vast con that is evolution?
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See Ron, I think that's where we fundamentally differ (no pun intended).
As always, please correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to see everything as starting perfect and then corrupting. I prefer to see nothing as perfect, but rather the simple growing into the complex.
Oh, and I think whales are great, by the way. And one of the most awesome things about them is that they seem to have evolved from land animals. How cool is that?Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: With the genetic code we are not talking about one or two short words now and then. We are talking about meaningful data that is trillions of bits. How long do you think you would have to shake those Boggle cubes to come up with a whole library full of encyclopedias, all the classics of human literature, and all the wasted tomes written to perpetuate the vast con that is evolution?
quote:In truth, evolutionists believe in far greater magic that creationists. Creationists say Yes, life and everything in the universe show great order and ingenious, intricate design, because an Intelligence, God, created everything.
Except it doesn't show great order or intricate design. If it did, why do creatures that live their entire lives in the water have lungs and not gills? (I'm speaking of whales.)
Because it struck his fancy. Don't *you* think whales are neat? I think I'm sensing some anti-whale sentiments.
You have deemed their way of life a punishment. "Always having to come back up for air" If I were a whale, I'd take severe umbridge from that last statement. Indeed! Look at humans. We are forever cursed with the need to cook all of our meat. Whales can just suck in plankton.
Hmph!
Again, we've hit on my basic problem with creationism. Anything that's wrong with it is because God cannot be put into a box. We have gaping flaws (Third day: plants, fourth day: Sun, a source of heat to sustain all forms of life on Earth) that can only be corrected with 'God made it that way', and if you disagree, and you think that maybe those first verses in Genesis are not meant literally, then you don't believe the Bible.
But if we are going to explain away those ideas in Genesis that contradict universally accepted scientific principles with 'God did it', why bother with the whole science? Why not just say 'God did it', and leave it at that.
Of course, that's my beef with creationism.
Even though I don't agree with creationism in its entirety, I read the article, and I could see a clear bias. Other creationist views that are not quite as, if at all, ridiculous were dismissed rather quickly. I don't have a problem with the writers of the article, though, as they made clear in the beginning they had no new-earth creationists.
And this brings me to another beef -- Why do people really think that the past is the key to unlocking our future? It seems to me (Yes, 'to me'.) that all we've done so far is use scientific advances to unlock the past. What specific advances have been made as the result of studies regarding evolution, or creationism for that matter?
Of course, this opens up a can of worms, because now evolutionists can say 'Well, we could have made advances if it weren't for those wacky-fundies trying to block our way because of religious convictions'. And Creationists can accredit the alleged (By me) lack of progress to the evolutionists continuence to call them 'wacky-fundies'. It hurts their feelings, I think. It's rather unconsiderate (And uncreative, I must say) to call them 'wacky-fundies'.
Also. In repsonce to even earlier posts -- Even if I grew up in life, doubting all scientists, how does that affect my life? I'm taught to question what they say, and not believe it just because they have a PhD. That sounds like a good trait. And believing in creationism does not mean one thinks there's a vast conspiracy. It means one thinks there's a great deal of ignorance and stupidity in modern science with regards to evolution. They're not akin to the same thing.
Other reasons given in the thread with regards to affecting everday life are silly. Whether or not evolution is good or accurate science remains to be seen. There are Flaws. Just as many as creationism (Even with its 'God did it's). Anybody who views evolution as good and accurate is allowed to be of that opinion, but it's just an opinion. Even if the result of an unpenatrable barrier of faith and fundementalism, evolution is an opinion. Not a fact. A theory, not a law. Religious conviction has rendered this 'accurate' science no more than an opinion. If evolution really is as accurate and correct as is made out by some people in this thread, then it will eventually beat out creationism. This museum will be nothing but a minor setback. Perhaps I'm to optimistic. People pointed out to me how science explained away several of the 'flaws' I found with evolution. The answers were all sensible, corteous (For hatrackers), and to the point (Except everybody kept reminiscing about their first year in highschool for some reason.) It is this kind of thing that can combat the alleged ignorance that has sustained creationism for this long -- Not every creationist is hard-headed and stubborn.
And I'm sorry, but nobody is going into the museum and converting. I doubt its existence will make as much impact as some of you seem to think it will. The only people I can see going into the museum are people who want to make fun of the theory, or people that already agree with the theory. Either way, the visit will not impact the daily lives of a significant amount of people, In my most humble opinion. Posts: 438 | Registered: May 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: With the genetic code we are not talking about one or two short words now and then. We are talking about meaningful data that is trillions of bits. How long do you think you would have to shake those Boggle cubes to come up with a whole library full of encyclopedias, all the classics of human literature, and all the wasted tomes written to perpetuate the vast con that is evolution?
14 billion years?
Indeed. And imagine hundreds of millions of Boggles all going at once, and any time one doesn't make a word it dies off, while the ones who do make words keep going.
Not to difficult to imagine then.
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Javert, I think the Platypus is perfect--at least, it perfectly demonstrates God's sense of humor as He deliberately tweaks the noses of evolutionists, who surely have no easy time deciding whether the creature evolved from mammals, reptiles, marsupials, or whatever.
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MightyCow, if the Boggle cubes are going to undergo "natural selection" by dying off when the word combinations are "unsuccessful"(?), then that implies that that the Bobble cubes are alive. So at what point did this happen? And how could it happen without "natural selection" happening, which it couldn't before they had attained Boggle life. (Notice how nobly I am resisting the temptation to make any "Boggle-the-mind" puns.)
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: MightyCow, if the Boggle cubes are going to undergo "natural selection" by dying off when the word combinations are "unsuccessful"(?), then that implies that that the Bobble cubes are alive. So at what point did this happen? And how could it happen without "natural selection" happening, which it couldn't before they had attained Boggle life. (Notice how nobly I am resisting the temptation to make any "Boggle-the-mind" puns.)
Just to be clear, the theory of evolution makes no comment about the origin of life. At least not as far as I've been able to tell. Evolution through natural selection, it seems, is what life does once it exists.
We don't know how, exactly, life began. Anyway, I certainly don't. But not knowing means just that, we don't know. It doesn't mean we will never know, and it doesn't mean we should stop looking for an answer.
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What's life? Is a complex protein which naturally tends to form a specific structure alive? Is an RNA strand alive? Is a virus alive? A bacteria?
Many of the useful segments, which we might not consider life, still have a natural tendency to interact and replicate. Chemical and physical reactions take place all the time without a living creature involved.
A problem only arises if you consider "life" to be a mystical state which cannot arise on its own, instead of a state of complexity which, with enough natural selection of random events, could very well occur.
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Nathan2006, you raise a good point. What good is evolution, if it is really a valid science? Most valid science can be applied in some technological sense.
But there are practical consequences of evolution, and of creation.
One primary consequence of evolution is the inescapable implication that some races of humans are more advanced that others, and that the "superior" breeds have a biological necessity to overcome and replace their inferior competitors. Thus evolution implies racism is virture, in terms of survival value.
In point of fact, the origal title of Darwin's seminal book was: On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
In point of fact, Adolph Hitler cited evolution as the theoretical justification for his racist theories that led to his attempt to wage war to bring the whole world under the subjection of the "master" Aryan race, and also led to the holocaust murder of six million Jews.
Similarly anyone else who has ever advocated genocide or "ethic cleansing" have claimed to believe that had evolution theory supporting and validating their abominations.
In contrast, creationism leads to the conclusion that there is only one race of human beings, who are all descended from one original Man, created by God, who calls them all His sons and daughters. Thus we are all brothers and sisters, and should care for each other because we are family.
Would to God that Adolph Hitler had been taught creationism rather than evolution.
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Probably atomic theory isn't true either, because it's just a THEORY, and because it's used to make nuclear weapons, which frighten me into ignoring it and hoping that it will go away. Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Good point, Javert. We do not know what life is. We have never been able to create it, ourselves. We assume that if a complicated structure becomes complicated enough, at some point it will become alive. (Hence the "Skynet" thesis of the Terminator movies.) But it has never happened. Not yet. We've been saying not yet for over a century.
Of course, there we're talking about something else equally elusive--what constitutes consciousness? Self-awareness?
The truth is that life, consciousness, self-awareness, all aspects of "mind," are spiritual things, as opposed to material things. There is another aspect to reality, a spritual aspect, that does not fit in test tubes, and can not be detected by spectrographs or MRI machines. We have not even begun to pioneer this science. We have no instruments that can detect "spirit," except for our own minds.
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Sorry for the double post, but perhaps Godwin's law was the wrong thing to quote.
"Reductio ad hitlerum" is probably more fitting.
From wikipedia:
quote: The reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy is of the form "Adolf Hitler (or the Nazi party) supported X; therefore X must be evil/undesirable/bad, etc"; or, more rarely, "Adolf Hitler was against X; therefore X must be good, desirable, praiseworthy, etc." This fallacy is often effective due to the near-instant condemnation of anything to do with Hitler or the Nazis.
What is this spirit, such that it's undetectable, unmeasurable, non-material, and yet interacts with our bodies, and presumably the bodies of all thinking things?
Do all living things have spirits, or only some? How do you know which ones? Where do these spirits come from, and how are they attached to a living thing?
Seems like a bunch of unanswerable nonsense to me. How this makes more sense than evolution is a mystery.
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"Why do people really think that the past is the key to unlocking our future? It seems to me (Yes, 'to me'.) that all we've done so far is use scientific advances to unlock the past. What specific advances have been made as the result of studies regarding evolution, or creationism for that matter?"
Well, the past is a useful way to predict the future.
Evolution has been used to predict things that we did not yet know. Those things turned out, sure enough, to be exactly as evolutionary theory predicted.
In addition, when you know how gravity, trajectories, thrust, energy, orbits, etc, all work, through past observation, you can predict what will happen when you do X, Y, or Z. That's what allows NASA to fly me to the moon.
When you know the past well enough, you can predict the future.
And if you can predict the future, you can control it.
That's what we humans are all about. Controlling the world and everything in it. And, most importnatly, creating new things with that control.
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Also, Hitler probably believed the world was round!
Therefore, it's obviously not. Right?
If that sounds silly when talking about that, its' because it is. Just as it's silly to say it about evolution.
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Whats with the creationist tendency to attack the implications of a theory you don't like rather than the truth of it?
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quote:Creationists say Yes, life and everything in the universe show great order and ingenious, intricate design, because an Intelligence, God, created everything. Nothing could make more obvious sense. .... Evolutionists have to believe ... that the universe itself, which is not intelligent, somehow created itself in all its vast ordered complexity, out of nothing...
Whereas Creationists have to believe that God, who is presumably more complicated than the Universe due to His additional intelligence, created Himself? Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Let me say more graciously that otherwise intelligent people have apparently become seriously brainwashed by something that is no more than a passing intellectual fad that has had its day in the sun, and will soon pass into darkness faster than most people think. But once the dominoes start falling, they'll all fall. And people who now are so amazingly gullible will abruptly do an about face, and profess that they always had reservations about evolution themselves, and Michael Behe was always their best buddy.
Hey, let's bet. I'll buy you a new car as soon as the scientists at my university reject evolution.
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Touching what life is, it's worth pointing out that we can create viruses 'from scratch', that is, starting with individual proteins and putting them together with molecular manipulators. We can also create proteins from scratch, that is, starting with individual atoms. As far as I know, nobody has yet put together a virus from atoms - that is, combined these two operations - but the day can't be far off. "No life in the lab" won't look so good when this technique advances to bacteria.
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Javert, you said: "Just to be clear, the theory of evolution makes no comment about the origin of life."
But doesn't evolution depend upon "natural selection?" And doesn't natural selection require life?
TomDavidson, you ask if God created Himself. I would say no, on the basis of John 1:1-3: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made." (NKJV) Note especially that last sentence. If the Word (the Son, evident from verse 14) had a part in creating everything that was created, and apart from Him nothing was created, then that means neither the Word (the Son) nor God (the Father) nor the Holy Spirit, could be created beings.
So what is the alternative? How did God originate? We need to step back one step further, and ask if God began at some point by some means, or always existed. I would have to say the latter, because if God (through the instrumentality of the Word) created everything, then that means God created time itself, too.
This puts us into a difficult area, logically, because we cannot conceive of a time before time. Our minds are built to expect there to be a before and after for everything. But logically, if God created time, then there was never--according to the time we understand--a time when He did not exist. There is no time when He came into being, because there was no time until He created it.
Either God is, or nothing exists. The universe exists because God exists. God created the universe at the same point where He created time, since all the dimensions go together.
Why should God exist? What was God before He created time? Are time and the universe inside of God, like something He imagined and decided to set into motion to run its course?
I certainly do not know the answer to these things, and even if God were to try to tell me, I don't know if I would be able to understand the answer.
But isn't the point moot? What is, is.
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King of Men--promises, promises. Maybe we'll see life created in the lab about the same time we see fusion power providing all our electrical power needs. Scientists have been promising that for the better part of a century, too.
There is no universal acknowledgment that viruses are actually alive, since they must hijack the reproductive machinery of cells in order to propagate. Does anyone think that prions are alive? Current thinking is that they are just deformed proteins, that have a physical effect upon living cells comparable to throwing a monkey-wrench into the works, in such a way that more deformed proteins like itself are produced.
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quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: Also, Hitler probably believed the world was round!
Therefore, it's obviously not. Right?
If that sounds silly when talking about that, its' because it is. Just as it's silly to say it about evolution.
Except that none of his evil policies were influenced by that fact. It makes no sense to talk about Hitler's love of coffee* in this context because it did not influence any of his decisions as far as we know.
*I do not know if Hitler actually drank coffee.
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Ron: Can't you just as easily substitute "Big Bang" or "Super Powerful Aliens" or "Blorgogoth, Swallower of Infinity" where you have God, and everything still follows. If the rules are different, and things can exist without a cause, you can apply that to anything or any state of the universe.
As to whether or not viruses are life, where do you set an arbitrary dividing line as to what is life, and what isn't? If we're able to create something, is it going to become not really life?
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Oh my god. That is probably the biggest load of reducto ad hitlerium I have heard in a long, long time.
quote:Thus evolution implies racism is virture, in terms of survival value.
In point of fact, the origal title of Darwin's seminal book was: On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
1. Race, as used by Darwin, refers to varieties, not to human races. It simply points out that some variations that occur naturally survive in greater numbers. Origin of Species hardly refers to humans at all.
2. Evolution is not racist.
3. When properly understood, evolution refutes racism. Before Darwin, people used typological thinking for living things, considering different plants and animals to be their distinct "kinds." This gave rise to a misleading conception of human races, in which different races are thought of as separate and distinct. Darwinism helps eliminate typological thinking and with it the basis for racism.
Genetic studies show that humans are remarkably homogeneous genetically, so all humans are only one biological race. Evolution does not teach racism; it teaches the very opposite.
Racism is thousands of years older than the theory of evolution, and its prevalence has probably decreased since Darwin's day; certainly slavery is much less now. That is the opposite of what we would expect if evolution promotes racism.
quote:King of Men--promises, promises. Maybe we'll see life created in the lab about the same time we see fusion power providing all our electrical power needs.
What does creating life in a lab have to do with evolutionary theory?
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Then doesn't that apply to the Universe, too? What's the difference between assuming that God has always existed -- and even created Time, meaning that "always" is meaningless in this context -- and assuming that "the Universe" has always existed? Why is one more likely than the other?
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quote:But doesn't evolution depend upon "natural selection?" And doesn't natural selection require life?
Sure, but evolution has nothing to say about where the first life originated. The data tend to suggest that the first life was relatively simple and that all current life descended from one common ancestor, but evolutionary theory does not say anything about where that initial life came from.
There are hypotheses concerning the origin of life, but these hypotheses have not yet provided a mechanism for the development of the first life that has anywhere near the support of the theory of evolution. At this point, we simply don't know. We've got some interesting ideas, but we don't know.
Where evidence is lacking, science is OK with "I don't know", which is somewhat more useful than "Got did it", since the former at least encourages further exploration.
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quote:Javert, apart from the silliness of whales falling from grace
quote: Never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, [...] Hey! What's this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like ... ow ... ound ... round ... ground! That's it! That's a good name - ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me? And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence.
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Phooey! I posted last night and it didn't show up.
I've been experiencing technical difficulties like this for the past week. Only, if I post again, my original post shows up, and now there are 2 posts that say the same thing.
Anyway, all I said in the first one was that Hitler was coo-coo. Creationism would not have helped him. If he was a creationist, he still would have gassed all the people who were mentally impaired because they were the result of the reproduction of people with the 'corrupted' DNA, as opposed to the 'Pure' DNA of Adam and Eve.
And now nobody's talking about it. <Sigh> I thought that last comment was especially insightful, too.
"Where evidence is lacking, science is OK with "I don't know", which is somewhat more useful than "Got did it", since the former at least encourages further exploration."
Silly Matt. It was the statement 'God did it' that started the initial exploration of the theory of creationism. Without that statement, there might never have been creationism. <Gasp> Posts: 438 | Registered: May 2006
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Oh yeah (The edit button is a pain, sorry)!!!
Megabyte, did you really go to the moon? Because that's just awesome! I'm totally reliving my 'I want to be an astronaut when I grow up' days. Posts: 438 | Registered: May 2006
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That's a logical fallacy. Your arguement fails at a fundamental level, Ron.
"But isn't the point moot? What is, is. "
But you refuse to see what is! When we know what is, we can use that mastery to do as God said we should in Genesis.
You would have us believe something that is NOT. What is, is, as you said. And one who denies it lives in fantasy, and denies the Works of God. That would be you, Ron, ignoring what is for what you think should be based on a book whose intention is wholly different than the arrogant beliefs you inflict upon it.
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quote:That's a logical fallacy. Your arguement fails at a fundamental level, Ron.
Logical fallacy? Let's look at it with logic: ---- A "If !A, then B " is logically true.
Rephrased in English: Given A is true, then the statement "If not A, then B" is always a true statement, regardless of what B is.
Substituting values for A and B: "If God does not exist, then the universe does not exist" is a true logical statement if God does exist, but not if God doesn't exist. ---- So, it's not a logical fallacy, but it really just boils down to him asserting that God exists is true, so I'll grant you that it's not a terribly persuasive logical argument.
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Mr.porteito, the thing you are forgetting is that there is no proof the univserse requires God. One using that arguement has not proven that God is necessary for the existence of the universe.
Your statement
""If God does not exist, then the universe does not exist" is a true logical statement if God does exist, but not if God doesn't exist."
assumes beforehand that God is necessary for existence.
In fact, the potential possibilities are greater than those two.
There is, "God existing, no universe existing" "no God existing, no universe existing", "God existing, universe existing", "no God existing, universe existing" and that's only assuming that the God is the Christian God, which is another assumption given here for ease. Should we not assume so, the possibilities grow quite out of hand.
As it is, one using the arguement has not proven that God is a necessary cause of the univserse, that is, they have not proven that without God, a universe cannot be.
If they could give some evidence that without God, the univsere could not be, then and only then would the arguement Ron used above NOT be a logical fallacy, as he stated it.
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