The greatest argument of all time... (moved from "Christians" thread)

2can · 30-01-2009 7:07pm #1

Do you guys really believe that there isn't a higher being (god). Surely if you take a look around yourself and look at the world from a natural view point. Don't look at the man made things, look at the planet earth we found ourselves to be a part of, mountains, lakes, trees etc.
If you look at a new born child. Nothing man made can come close to its perfection. A fully functioning system with unexplicable emotions, personality, conscience etc. Surely this creation alone beggs the question of who and why?
It is my opinion, that Agnostics and whatever else you like to call yourselves are just either in denial or purely ignorant of the greater natural creations that you interact with at every minute of your lives.

I'm interested to hear reactions as I think this is one of the gretest arguements of all time.

Dades · 30-01-2009 7:13pm

2can, I've moved this question from the other thread as it doesn't belong there, but will no doubt generate responses.

30-01-2009 7:20pm

With no offense intended, somebody with your attitude usually knows very little of science or of scientific processes. If you did, you wouldn't ask such a question.

The argument of beauty is, in my opinion anyway, very weak indeed. Once certain aspects of science are understood, things in nature just all seem to click: they certianly don't need a creator to explain them.

And as for being in denial/ignorant. Typically (not in general), it is the religious that are ignorant of the wonders of the physical world around them; from my experience it is usually atheists that are less ignorant, and very much less in denial.

pH · 30-01-2009 7:22pm

AtomicHorror · 30-01-2009 7:44pm

2can wrote: »

If you look at a new born child. Nothing man made can come close to its perfection.

Look close enough and you'll find a whole load of imperfections. Not just in the individual, but in the design itself. It's good enough to survive sure, but there are some really dumb design choices in there, if design it is.

If I had GodPower, I'd start by inverting the kid's retina so he didn't have a blind spot any more. If an octopus can have that advantage, why not a human?

Gordon · 30-01-2009 7:46pm

2can wrote: »

Do you guys really believe that there isn't a higher being (god). Surely if you take a look around yourself and look at the world from a natural view point. Don't look at the man made things, look at the planet earth we found ourselves to be a part of, mountains, lakes, trees etc.

Good to see that you are separating the man-made stuff from the 'god made' stuff, this would prove that you believe that man is not made from god if you believe that man-made stuff is not made from god. A true believer in god would believe that everything god makes is perfect, including man-made stuff.

If you look at a new born child. Nothing man made can come close to its perfection. A fully functioning system with unexplicable emotions, personality, conscience etc. Surely this creation alone beggs the question of who and why?

Who and why what?

New born children are far from 'perfection', they can't survive without the parent and they poop.

Babies are man-made.

30-01-2009 7:51pm

2can wrote: »

If you look at a new born child. Nothing man made can come close to its perfection.

A child is very far from perfection. And, actually, you're wrong. This is a perfect sphere (perfect to within a few atoms of thickness). It's man-made. Therefore, man has made something that is truely perfect.

Galvasean · 30-01-2009 8:01pm

AtomicHorror wrote: »

If I had GodPower, I'd start by inverting the kid's retina so he didn't have a blind spot any more. If an octopus can have that advantage, why not a human?

If the octopus is so great why does he live in an igloo? :pac:

MatthewVII · 30-01-2009 9:17pm

2can wrote: »

If you look at a new born child. Nothing man made can come close to its perfection. A fully functioning system with unexplicable emotions, personality, conscience etc. Surely this creation alone beggs the question of who and why?

Of course a baby isn't man made. It's man and woman made.

As for perfection, let me point out a few things wrong with children -

-Ridiculously weak immune system
-Dangerous passage through birth canal
-Incredibly succeptible to detrimental environmental effects on development
-Neurologically very primitive

Wrong with humans in general

-Tendency to develop arterial plaques
-Tendency to develop arthritis due to erect walking
-General collapse of the woman's hormonal system after menopause and all the problems that brings
-Heritability of genetic defects

To name but a few. Humans are defective organisms just like any other, as flawed and improvable on as any man-made device.

To claim that beauty is definitive evidence of God is to completely blind yourself to what's obvious when you look at it closely.

coffee_cake · 30-01-2009 9:20pm

"Things are pretty therefore god exists"?
Greatest argument of all time? Yeah, sure...

Uh, brian cowen isn't pretty therefore god doesn't exist? Did I get it right?

30-01-2009 9:23pm

bluewolf wrote: »

"Things are pretty therefore god exists"?
Greatest argument of all time? Yeah, sure...

Uh, brian cowen isn't pretty therefore god doesn't exist? Did I get it right?

His mother probably thought he was beautif... No, wait, she probably didn't. Looking at that face after giving birth must of been damn horrible, she probably became an atheist afterwards.

MatthewVII · 30-01-2009 9:27pm

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

His mother probably thought he was beautif... No, wait, she probably didn't. Looking at that face after giving birth must of been damn horrible, she probably became an atheist afterwards.

Oh dear, how did we get from "A face that only a mother could love" to "a face that proves there is no God"?

It does bring up an interesting point though. Christians are all about the beauties of life and how they prove God's existence. I'd like to see them account for things like the Ebola Virus and genital warts in a way that incorporates God's beautiful vision for us, his children.

coffee_cake · 30-01-2009 9:29pm

MatthewVII wrote: »

Oh dear, how did we get from "A face that only a mother could love" to "a face that proves there is no God"?

Eh from my post maybe?

30-01-2009 9:30pm

MatthewVII wrote: »

I'd like to see them account for things like the Ebola Virus and genital warts in a way that incorporates God's beautiful vision for us, his children.

Might be an interesting thread to start over in Christianity? But, from my own experience, the typical answers are that God's ways are beyond us, He has a reason for all etc. etc.

MatthewVII · 30-01-2009 9:32pm

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Might be an interesting thread to start over in Christianity? But, from my own experience, the typical answers are that God's ways are beyond us, He has a reason for all etc. etc.

You're right. There's no point in even trying to understand it, challenge it or wonder about it. That's just the way it is and we have to accept the way God wants things because he knows best.

I sure hope this thread doesn't just continue as a massive pisstake of Christians.

Overblood · 30-01-2009 9:36pm

MatthewVII wrote: »

I'd like to see them account for things like the Ebola Virus and genital warts in a way that incorporates God's beautiful vision for us, his children.

Congrats, you just pwned Christianity!

iamahumbleman · 30-01-2009 9:48pm

2can wrote: »

Do you guys really believe that there isn't a higher being (god). Surely if you take a look around yourself and look at the world from a natural view point. Don't look at the man made things, look at the planet earth we found ourselves to be a part of, mountains, lakes, trees etc.
If you look at a new born child. Nothing man made can come close to its perfection. A fully functioning system with unexplicable emotions, personality, conscience etc. Surely this creation alone beggs the question of who and why?
It is my opinion, that Agnostics and whatever else you like to call yourselves are just either in denial or purely ignorant of the greater natural creations that you interact with at every minute of your lives.

I'm interested to hear reactions as I think this is one of the gretest arguements of all time.

.

philologos · 30-01-2009 9:55pm

So, I assume that this is based on the Argument from Design then?
I could see the argument going this way if we didn't want to leave it to a ridiculing of Christians. I personally would love if atheists could answer me these things:

1. How does Darwinian evolution give lend to the design and the structure of all living things from the trees we see around us to the sophistication of the human being?
2. How does one explain life coming from non-life?
3. How does one explain things such as a) the placement of the earth in a position which is in the correct distance from the sun, and b) the exact chemical composition being present to sustain life?
4. How does one defend that the creation of the earth and what is contained in it (this given the assumption that the earth was indeed created) was a natural process when mathematicians and physicists give the figure in the millions of billions of zeroes which is commonly regarded as mathematical impossibility. The assumption I am making in this is that natural is frequently observable, and the creation quite obviously was not observable nor is it frequently.

Few requests I have for the people answering these questions:
Do not use a get out clause to get out of the question by answering a counter question, if you have any questions for me leave them at the end so that I can address them if I look at the thread later.
I'm seriously interested in the atheist answers to these questions, so please don't dissapoint and give it your best shot

I might read up some stuff on the Argument From Design (teleological) by both theists and atheists and give some thoughts from their writings. When I studied this last semester I focused on the cosmological argument. If we run out of stuff from the Argument from Design, I'd be interested to discuss other arguments such as the ontological (perhaps the poorest argument for God's existence), cosmological and axiological (from morality, already done to death here) arguments.

30-01-2009 10:05pm

God, in my opinion, is a made up character that "owns the world" and was used historically as a logo of law and order.

Back in ye olde days they probably invented this character to keep people in their place so they wouldn't commit crimes and so forth.

Thats my opinion, and I'm sticking with it.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no god. But, it also makes me wonder why Atheists have their own forum... if you don't believe in god... what is there to discuss?

*mooches around atheist forum*

30-01-2009 10:20pm

I'll be happy to have a crack at your questions Jakkass, just give me a while to put them together.

sink · 30-01-2009 10:54pm

Jakkass wrote: »

1. How does Darwinian evolution give lend to the design and the structure of all living things from the trees we see around us to the sophistication of the human being?

2. How does one explain life coming from non-life?

3. How does one explain things such as a) the placement of the earth in a position which is in the correct distance from the sun, and b) the exact chemical composition being present to sustain life?

4. How does one defend that the creation of the earth and what is contained in it (this given the assumption that the earth was indeed created) was a natural process when mathematicians and physicists give the figure in the millions of billions of zeroes which is commonly regarded as mathematical impossibility. The assumption I am making in this is that natural is frequently observable, and the creation quite obviously was not observable nor is it frequently.

The answers to these questions have emergence and infinity at their core. I don't have time to go trough it all but suffice to say that we are a branch on a tree of near infinite scale. Our existence is purely coincidental but at the same stage inevitable.

Goduznt Xzst · 30-01-2009 11:18pm

whenever I see a thread like this I always do a quick check of the Christianity forum, thinking this was put here purposefully to keep the ravenous Atheists busy while they start up threads with titles like "What would you of done to keep yourself busy for 3 days in a fish"

Jakkass wrote: »

1. How does Darwinian evolution give lend to the design and the structure of all living things from the trees we see around us to the sophistication of the human being?
2. How does one explain life coming from non-life?
3. How does one explain things such as a) the placement of the earth in a position which is in the correct distance from the sun, and b) the exact chemical composition being present to sustain life?
4. How does one defend that the creation of the earth and what is contained in it (this given the assumption that the earth was indeed created) was a natural process when mathematicians and physicists give the figure in the millions of billions of zeroes which is commonly regarded as mathematical impossibility. The assumption I am making in this is that natural is frequently observable, and the creation quite obviously was not observable nor is it frequently.

You do know there are answers to these questions right? I'm actually confident that you do and I've a feeling that this is mere baiting to get Atheists to respond so you can copy and paste some dogma you read recently.

Nevertheless, it will be a good thread for fledgling questioning Atheists, coming from religion, to get answers to these fairly common questions.

First off, in answer to your first question, this video, posted by bou in the evolution thread, is a good example of the complexity of human life and our heritage that we understand.

http://www.wimp.com/newinfo

philologos · 30-01-2009 11:25pm

Thank you both, I personally lean to theistic evolution (i.e God guided the evolutionary process), but I would appreciate if you could answer the questions as they stand (instead of dismissing them) so I can ask you further questions to seek a fuller understanding of where you are coming from.

And no Goduznt Xzst, I'm not doing this to bait you at all, I just want to understand as much as possible the position you have.

AtomicHorror · 30-01-2009 11:33pm

Galvasean wrote: »

If the octopus is so great why does he live in an igloo? :pac:

Rubbish! Igloos are typically only used for short-term shelter. :pac:

MatthewVII · 31-01-2009 12:19am

Jakkass wrote: »

1. How does Darwinian evolution give lend to the design and the structure of all living things from the trees we see around us to the sophistication of the human being?

In fairness, if you can't see how something complex can come to exist over time then you don't really understand Darwinian evolution. Things don't come about by design, they come about by what fits and what survives. Different circumstances at any stage of evolution would have resulted in end products far different from what we have now and creationists would still tout their complexity as somehow significant, somehow planned and a paragon of god's great design

Jakkass wrote:

2. How does one explain life coming from non-life?

This has been done to death over in the Creationism thread over in Christianity. We have seen that emulation of conditions in earth's prehistory (can't remember the name of the experiment, maybe someone can remind me) can result in the formation of simple amino acids. There are still a few gaps to fill in but that doesn't mean we should give up and resign it to God

Jakkass wrote:

3. How does one explain things such as a) the placement of the earth in a position which is in the correct distance from the sun, and b) the exact chemical composition being present to sustain life?

You're looking at this from completely the wrong perspective. The reason we are here is because these variables were exactly correct to allow life to begin. We were not "lucky" that this happened, had it not happened we would not exist to feel lucky about it. Billions of planets around the universe did not have these conditions, so life did not begin and hence there are no beings on those planets wondering about their own situations.

Jakkass wrote:

4. How does one defend that the creation of the earth and what is contained in it (this given the assumption that the earth was indeed created) was a natural process when mathematicians and physicists give the figure in the millions of billions of zeroes which is commonly regarded as mathematical impossibility. The assumption I am making in this is that natural is frequently observable, and the creation quite obviously was not observable nor is it frequently.

What happened was an improbability, but by definition all improbabilities are bound to happen over vast periods of time in a seemingly unfathomable amount of space. Again, this improbability only seems improbable if you take the idea that humans only had a chance of appearing in this particular area of the universe, which is an incredibly narrow and unscientific view to take.

How would you, as a Christian, answer the fact that despite claiming to be earth's creator, sustainer, and the greatest force in existence, your concept of God has no appreciable, palpable, or measurable effect on the earth?

31-01-2009 12:19am

Jakkass wrote: »

1. How does Darwinian evolution give lend to the design and the structure of all living things from the trees we see around us to the sophistication of the human being?

I feel that this is some kind of a trap question, because, I'm pretty sure you know that evolution can explain the design and structure of living things; but, I'll give it a crack anyway.

I'm not an evolutionary biologist, or anything remotely similar, so my answers just represent my own personal opinion, and not strictly that of the Theory of Evolution.

Ok, well obviously I can't answer this question on all living things individually, so allow me to broadly generalize.

Design and structure are very closely linked in Darwinian evolution, that should be obvious. The design (and I use the word design carefully) of a living creature will directly influence its structure. Taking survival as the main goal of all life, both design and structure can be explained.

Looking at a particular form of life, say... The Cheetah, we can see that both its design and structure can be explained in terms of survival. It's a very powerful cat: it needs to be, to overpower prey; it's very fast: it has to be, to catch prey, etc. etc.

Now, since there are other cats striving for the same prey that the Cheetah is, any advantage it can get will result in it having a higher chance of surviving, and thus, passing on its genes (including the permutation(s) that gave it a better chance of survival). This process, natural selection, which I'm sure you're aware of, can explain the diversity of life: including the design and structure of various organisms.

Your question is extremely vague, so, it's difficult to give an answer. Perhaps you could specifiy it slightly more, so that the answers that we give can be both more precise and more helpful.

2. How does one explain life coming from non-life?

If I could answer this I'd have a Nobel prize on my bookshelf right this instant. Abiogenesis is a very tricky, and indeed young (in its current form) area of science. Abiogenesis should not be linked to evolution, as the two are completely seperate processes - something that a suprising number of people don't understand. I'm sure you're aware of all of the current theories of abiogenesis: the deep sea vent theory, radioactive beach hypothesis, etc. I doubt you want me to go into detail into the theory of each hypothesis, as information about abiogenesis is readily available on the internet.

I don't think of it as an impossiblity that life emerged from no life: as I've nothing to compare it's level of possibility to. Life may be very, very common - we don't know. If it is common, then there has to be some process which leads to abiogenesis that we currently don't know of. If, on the other hand, we discover somehow that Earth is the only inhabitated world in the entire universe, things will be a lot harder to explain. But until that time, it's impossible to decide on how impossible abiogenesis actually is.

3. How does one explain things such as a) the placement of the earth in a position which is in the correct distance from the sun, and b) the exact chemical composition being present to sustain life?

The two of these questions are very similar, and, the anthropic principle, or an application of it anyway, can explain both of these questions, in my opinion.

If the universe is populated with an "infinite" number of planets, it isn't a very large leap of logic to conclude that perhaps at least one of these planets happened to have the properties that are inducive to life as we know it.

If there are an arbitrarily large number of planets, all in different configurations relative to their star, each with different constituents in their atmospheres; it isn't very difficult to arrive at the conclusion that at least one of these would be nurishing to life. And, since we are here to see that we are alive, we know that at least one planet is inducive to life. That's what makes it very interesting for us: we think that the conditions for life may be very very rare, and perhaps they are: but, if Earth wasn't inducive to life - and some other planet was, the inhabitants of that planet would, no doubt, be thinking the exact same thing.

So, in essence, the vastness of the universe, no doubt, provides all possible configurations for planets and stars - it isn't very difficult to conclude that at least one of these had the right conditions for life (as we know it).

4. How does one defend that the creation of the earth and what is contained in it (this given the assumption that the earth was indeed created) was a natural process when mathematicians and physicists give the figure in the millions of billions of zeroes which is commonly regarded as mathematical impossibility. The assumption I am making in this is that natural is frequently observable, and the creation quite obviously was not observable nor is it frequently.

Perhaps because there may very well be millions of billions of other planets out there, so, again, this question can be answered by the anthropic principle.

The odds of certain things happening are often very, very large. Take, for example, the European lottery. The odds of you winning are slim to nil; but, every week (or at least nearly every week), somebody wins. Now, if they thought that they were the only player, and they knew the odds of them getting the correct numbers, they would claim it as an impossibility that they won. They would probably claim it as an act of some god. But, in fact, millions of others played too - and if anyone of them were in the same position, thinking they were the only one to have played, they would think it was next to impossible to win, too. The fact is that somebody nearly always wins - that's inevitable. So, while the odds may be high, the lottery is always won.

We can apply this to life. While the odds for Earth having the right conditions for life, and indeed, life forming here, are extremely high - life is still here. We don't know how many other planets played the lottery[/quote] - but, it was probably inevitable that at least one planet "won". And, since we are the ones that won, and we don't know of many other planets, we percieve it as impossible, as we claim to know the odds.

philologos · 31-01-2009 12:49am

MatthewVII wrote: »

In fairness, if you can't see how something complex can come to exist over time then you don't really understand Darwinian evolution. Things don't come about by design, they come about by what fits and what survives. Different circumstances at any stage of evolution would have resulted in end products far different from what we have now and creationists would still tout their complexity as somehow significant, somehow planned and a paragon of god's great design

I'm aware of the basics of natural selection, and continuing on this is seriously out of curiosity and I'm not doing this to bait anyone. How can evolution have guaranteed us to be so well matched or so well connected to the universe. Our ears amongst other things are so fit to function if you will to be able to hear signals or to be aware of any threats that many have been around at the emergence of homosapiens and other creatures. How did the evolutionary process reach such a point that we seemed to fit the world like a glove if you will. Again, this is an honest question not to bait anyone. This is what I have a lot of difficulty with in understanding a purely naturalistic explanation of evolution.

I think I've mentioned this before, but Francis Collins in discussing the Human Genome said that it would take 30 years to read the human genome day and night, and if published it would be as high as the Washington Monument, I just think things like this are so incredible. Again, I'd like to leave this open for you all to respond to, I'm more interested in asking questions than leaving rebuttal in this subject.

MatthewVII wrote: »

This has been done to death over in the Creationism thread over in Christianity. We have seen that emulation of conditions in earth's prehistory (can't remember the name of the experiment, maybe someone can remind me) can result in the formation of simple amino acids. There are still a few gaps to fill in but that doesn't mean we should give up and resign it to God

I'm not suggesting that we should throw the towel in in relation to evolutionary biology. As for the Creationism thread, I dare not enter, and I haven't for quite a long time, and I had quite a different view on the subject at the time. As for the experiment that you are discussing, this is mentioned in one of the books I've read on the matter and apparently the chemical climate that they had used in the experiment weren't the same as what chemical climate that NASA suggested that the pre-historic world would have had. If need be I'll look up the reference for you.

MatthewVII wrote: »

You're looking at this from completely the wrong perspective. The reason we are here is because these variables were exactly correct to allow life to begin. We were not "lucky" that this happened, had it not happened we would not exist to feel lucky about it. Billions of planets around the universe did not have these conditions, so life did not begin and hence there are no beings on those planets wondering about their own situations.

I don't think I am. This world is something to be looked at with wonder and with fascination. Irrespective of what you say, I think we are incredibly lucky to be able to live the life we live, and that the world is something that is incredible to have even come into existence. This probability makes winning the lottery look like an every-hour occurrence basically.

I wasn't rather looking for a refutation of the probability, but more a suggestion of how this along with all the other factors could have fallen into place without the guidance of a divine creator?

MatthewVII wrote: »

What happened was an improbability, but by definition all improbabilities are bound to happen over vast periods of time in a seemingly unfathomable amount of space. Again, this improbability only seems improbable if you take the idea that humans only had a chance of appearing in this particular area of the universe, which is an incredibly narrow and unscientific view to take.

Correct me if I am wrong, and I may be displaying a bit of my own ignorance of the subject here, but as I said I'm here to learn a bit. The creation of the cosmos can only happen once though? We aren't going to get a redo on the Big Bang?

MatthewVII wrote: »

How would you, as a Christian, answer the fact that despite claiming to be earth's creator, sustainer, and the greatest force in existence, your concept of God has no appreciable, palpable, or measurable effect on the earth?

Again I really don't understand what you mean. I don't agree with the premise that God hasn't had an appreciable impact on the earth. Just look what the concept of God has done to it's inhabitants.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

I feel that this is some kind of a trap question, because, I'm pretty sure you know that evolution can explain the design and structure of living things; but, I'll give it a crack anyway.

I've already explained that this isn't a trap, and I think it's purely paranoia to excess if a Christian cannot openly ask an atheist some questions about their view of the world.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

I'm not an evolutionary biologist, or anything remotely similar, so my answers just represent my own personal opinion, and not strictly that of the Theory of Evolution.

Granted, I will hold your opinion to a bit of scrutiny however none the less.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Ok, well obviously I can't answer this question on all living things individually, so allow me to broadly generalize.

Of course we wouldn't make it before death anyway if we did due to the vast number of creatures.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Design and structure are very closely linked in Darwinian evolution, that should be obvious. The design (and I use the word design carefully) of a living creature will directly influence its structure. Taking survival as the main goal of all life, both design and structure can be explained.

Yes fair enough, I have a basic idea of natural selection, but see my previous point to MatthewVII concerning how life seems to fit like a glove to the world it lives in, it almost seems like there is an intelligence behind it.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

If I could answer this I'd have a Nobel prize on my bookshelf right this instant. Abiogenesis is a very tricky, and indeed young (in its current form) area of science. Abiogenesis should not be linked to evolution, as the two are completely seperate processes - something that a suprising number of people don't understand. I'm sure you're aware of all of the current theories of abiogenesis: the deep sea vent theory, radioactive beach hypothesis, etc. I doubt you want me to go into detail into the theory of each hypothesis, as information about abiogenesis is readily available on the internet.

Abiogenesis is a prerequisite to evolution occuring as it does though, given that Darwin in an item of correspondence (i'll have to look this up later) suggested that life would have to have the right conditions to form from a primordial soup. We have a situation much like:

x -> Evolution (x is indicated by evolution)

This would seem a lot like evidence by indication that abiogenesis would have had to take place for evolution to form, but the precise details cannot be known.

I won't chuck too much of my own opinions in here, I'm trying to assess what people think of the reasoning at hand so far.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

The two of these questions are very similar, and, the anthropic principle, or an application of it anyway, can explain both of these questions, in my opinion.

I'm not quite well versed on the anthropic principle.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

If the universe is populated with an "infinite" number of planets, it isn't a very large leap of logic to conclude that perhaps at least one of these planets happened to have the properties that are inducive to life as we know it.

That's a rather big if however. How can we know if the universe has an infinite number of planets, or rather how can we determine if there are not a finite amount of planets if space research technology currently holds us back in doing so. It seems what we used to think about the world being flat might well be the case with assumptions like these in a rather great unknown surely?

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

So, in essence, the vastness of the universe, no doubt, provides all possible configurations for planets and stars - it isn't very difficult to conclude that at least one of these had the right conditions for life (as we know it).

That depends on how many planets there are surely, and I don't think it's a fair assumption to say that there are an infinite amount unless we have something to suggest this.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

The odds of certain things happening are often very, very large. Take, for example, the European lottery. The odds of you winning are slim to nil; but, every week (or at least nearly every week), somebody wins. Now, if they thought that they were the only player, and they knew the odds of them getting the correct numbers, they would claim it as an impossibility that they won. They would probably claim it as an act of some god. But, in fact, millions of others played too - and if anyone of them were in the same position, thinking they were the only one to have played, they would think it was next to impossible to win, too. The fact is that somebody nearly always wins - that's inevitable. So, while the odds may be high, the lottery is always won.

As I've said above, the lottery by the odds were are discussing would be an every day occurrence to you.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

We can apply this to life. While the odds for Earth having the right conditions for life, and indeed, life forming here, are extremely high - life is still here. We don't know how many other planets played the lottery

Given the sheer differences in odds, and the lack of information concerning the amount of planets and everything else I don't think this is a safe assumption to make.

Goduznt Xzst · 31-01-2009 12:51am

Jakkass wrote: »

I just want to understand as much as possible the position you have.

So how effectively did the video I linked answer your first question?

philologos · 31-01-2009 12:53am

I haven't watched the video yet, I'm looking for more a dialogue rather than a monologue.

Húrin · 31-01-2009 1:07am

2can wrote: »

Do you guys really believe that there isn't a higher being (god). Surely if you take a look around yourself and look at the world from a natural view point. Don't look at the man made things, look at the planet earth we found ourselves to be a part of, mountains, lakes, trees etc.
If you look at a new born child. Nothing man made can come close to its perfection. A fully functioning system with unexplicable emotions, personality, conscience etc. Surely this creation alone beggs the question of who and why?
It is my opinion, that Agnostics and whatever else you like to call yourselves are just either in denial or purely ignorant of the greater natural creations that you interact with at every minute of your lives.

I'm interested to hear reactions as I think this is one of the gretest arguements of all time.

Apologetics fail.

31-01-2009 1:13am

Jakkass wrote: »

I'm aware of the basics of natural selection, and continuing on this is seriously out of curiosity and I'm not doing this to bait anyone. How can evolution have guaranteed us to be so well matched or so well connected to the universe. Our ears amongst other things are so fit to function if you will to be able to hear signals or to be aware of any threats that many have been around at the emergence of homosapiens and other creatures. How did the evolutionary process reach such a point that we seemed to fit the world like a glove if you will. Again, this is an honest question not to bait anyone. This is what I have a lot of difficulty with in understanding a purely naturalistic explanation of evolution.

Well, the development of the ear isn't that difficult to explain. There wouldn't be much point in having ears that picked up on frequencies that didn't directly affect us.

Think of it this way: an ear is better than no ear. So, an ear lends survival value. Thus, natural selection will refine it further over generations (if it still possesses the same survival value).

As for everything appearing to fit like a glove - That's because everything evolved together. Animals evolved with plants, each lends the other certain amenities - thus, they'll evolve closely linked.

Correct me if I am wrong, and I may be displaying a bit of my own ignorance of the subject here, but as I said I'm here to learn a bit. The creation of the cosmos can only happen once though? We aren't going to get a redo on the Big Bang?

The creation of our current one, yes. But, there's nothing to say that there aren't other universes; or that this universe will end one day to give way to another.

Yes fair enough, I have a basic idea of natural selection, but see my previous point to MatthewVII concerning how life seems to fit like a glove to the world it lives in, it almost seems like there is an intelligence behind it.

That's because every living thing evolved together. Each played a key role in each others lives - so they appear to fit like a glove at this day. But, that took millions of years of natural selections refining powers.

Abiogenesis is a prerequisite to evolution occuring as it does though, given that Darwin in an item of correspondence (i'll have to look this up later) suggested that life would have to have the right conditions to form from a primordial soup. We have a situation much like:

x -> Evolution (x is indicated by evolution)

This would seem a lot like evidence by indication that abiogenesis would have had to take place for evolution to form, but the precise details cannot be known.

I won't chuck too much of my own opinions in here, I'm trying to assess what people think of the reasoning at hand so far.

That's true. But, after that moment, the two became seperate issues. Many people think that the Theory of Evolution is incorrect because it doesn't explain abiogenesis.

That's a rather big if however. How can we know if the universe has an infinite number of planets, or rather how can we determine if there are not a finite amount of planets if space research technology currently holds us back in doing so. It seems what we used to think about the world being flat might well be the case with assumptions like these in a rather great unknown surely?

That depends on how many planets there are surely, and I don't think it's a fair assumption to say that there are an infinite amount unless we have something to suggest this.

Well, I had infinite marked in inverted commas. I didn't mean infinity in it's literal sense, just, as I said in the next passage, some arbitrarily large number.

Well we currently know that there are at least 500 billion galaxies. And there are probably far, far more - they're just outside of our scope. Now, each galaxy can contain ~500 billion stars. It's currently estimated that at an absolute least, 10% of all stars have planets. 10% of 500 billion x 500 billion is 2.5 × 10^22. And thats the lower estimate. Let me put that in perspective; that's:

250000000000000000000000 planets. And people think that Earth is completely unique?

As I've said above, the lottery by the odds were are discussing would be an every day occurrence to you.

Given the sheer differences in odds, and the lack of information concerning the amount of planets and everything else I don't think this is a safe assumption to make.

But, there are a lot more planets playing the life lottery.

The greatest argument of all time... (moved from "Christians" thread)

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