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

2can

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

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

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

AtomicHorror

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

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.

2can

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

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

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.

"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?

bluewolf

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

-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.

MatthewVII

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?

MatthewVII

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

-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

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

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

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.

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*

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

sink

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

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

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

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

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?

Jakkass

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

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

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

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

Húrin

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.

Jakkass

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.

philologos

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

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.

That's interesting, but it doesn't quite explain what I mean. How come we fit so well with the world and it's workings, and how does evolution guarantee that we will fit to the ways of the world? It's just how can one determine if and of itself that every evolutionary move would be positive or even useful in the long run?

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

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.

That's an answer I can accept really given what I've heard about parallel universes, and all the other things they are looking to in physics at the minute.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

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.

So at one point the life on this planet didn't fit the world like a glove as it seems to today?

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

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.

They are interrelated to eachother though. For evolution to have taken place at all abiogenesis must have taken place. Or as I said earlier if we can determine evolution having taken place it suddenly becomes a given that abiogenesis has taken place also. This is more evidence by indication than evidence by proof. We can indicate for abiogenesis but cannot prove it. I find it interesting that this notion is used and applied in science.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

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?

How can we know these things without having explored though. However, to be honest with you, if one is to perceive a divine power as the creator of the universe this might raise more interest in the theist to the divine. The uniqueness of the world isn't an argument that Christians generally make, rather we see that there is a large level of sophistication in our world and we celebrate what we deem to be attributed to said creation and sophistication. It doesn't nullify what has been done on the earth, and it also causes wonder about other planets.

However, I want this to be more about your opinions rather than mine to see if I can grasp any more from you about this type of issue.

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

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

Granted but it's still massively improbable even for the amount of planets you have listed.

Húrin

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

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.

Not a great argument from your POV. AFter all there's nothing to say that there is not a God, and nothing to say that he won't end the universe one day and put another in its place.

ZondaChai

This is what I believe in
At the start of time there was a being of some sort, made of energy or something else we haven't found yet. It caused the big bang or whatever started the universe. Then it moved off to make another universe or maybe have a bit of a lie down. We were left to our own devices, all the forces were created over a huge amount of time, as were galaxies, stars, planets, etc..., a comet crashed into our planet creating life or whatever the current theory is, evolution followed, we followed. I believe in all the laws of physics and logic, but I also believe in god, well maybe not god because that's a stupid Sanskrit word, but I believe in something, a creator. Now I can't prove what I believe in nor do I want to, it is a personal thing between myself and my beliefs. I think it's called blind faith, I can't explain why I believe in it, I just do. Another good thing about my personal faith is that it can't be disproven, unless you were there at the very start, you can never know.


This is what I think about religion
Organized religion is very very stupid, now don't point our my grammical errors because I know that I left out several verys. The basic principals of religion are stupid. Follow the teachings of people and books that knew less then than you do now. Christianity for example teaches that every one has a personal connection to god, yet it requires everyone to gather together for some reason, does it boost the signal?, it's like having the number for somewhere but calling up 11811 anyway, if you do it, your an idiot. If you have a personal connection to god, then you can pray to him on your own, you don't need to join other people. There wouldn't be religion fueled crimes if people kept their personal faith to themselves. If religions followers truly believed in their gods, then they would see all the bad their doing when they form their giant mobs and meet together to do something they could do at home. Most believers don't even believe anyway, they have no choice or it's been beaten into them from a young age. In my opinion the concept of religion or atheism shouldn't even be mentioned to kids until they have the mind to properly grasp it, even then all the flaws should be pointed out, they should be given a big book about what’s wrong and what’s right about religion and then let them make up their own minds. On a different point anyone who denies evolution and says that the earth is five thousand years old should be shown the meaning of everlasting life and left in the cold expanse of space, drifting around for all eternity. Basically if you want to believe in god, then just believe in him and nothing more. I'm sure he doesn't condone all the deaths and crimes that have been attributed to organized religion.

This is what I think about Atheism
This is defined as a lack of belief in a deity. From what I've read your lack of belief is because of logic and your understanding of the universe. You guys think that there can't be a god because everything in the universe can be explained in a normal, unsupernatural way. This is what I have a problem with. The sheer arrogance of atheists. I almost sure we haven't been to every corner of the universe, we haven’t seen every element or natural occurrence. We know as much about the innerworkings of the universe as a fish knows about a shoe. People can only speculate about life on other planets, this life could look very different to us. What if there are creatures that exist as energy, just because you haven't seen them doesn't mean that Bob the plasma person isn’t out their floating around. Take bob a few steps further and you have a being with an IQ higher than Stephen Hawking and JammyDodger combined, the laws of physics don't apply anymore. You can't say that deity's don’t exist, it's impossible, no matter how many times you link good grammar with pseudo scientific facts, you cannot create a strong enough argument to disprove the existence of a god. But by all means keep going, you will fail every time but keep going, just try not to be such dicks when you do.

In conclusion, Religion is stupid, Atheism is stupid, and all of the arguing you guys do here is pointless, timewasting and eventually irrelevant

Jakkass

Jakkass wrote: »

That's interesting, but it doesn't quite explain what I mean. How come we fit so well with the world and it's workings, and how does evolution guarantee that we will fit to the ways of the world? It's just how can one determine if and of itself that every evolutionary move would be positive or even useful in the long run?

It doesn't guarantee anything. Natural selection merely "picks" the genetic mutations which aid in survival at that present time - if the environment changes, then the animal will need to adapt. What helps you survive today might not help you survive in 10,000 years time - and evolution doesn't claim that it does. But natural selection is a dynamic process - it can continue to "meet" new survival challenges: all by variation and mutation.

So at one point the life on this planet didn't fit the world like a glove as it seems to today?

But, it mighn't even fit that well today - it may just appear to. Evolution and natural selection are extremely dynamic processes. Life might have fitted just as well one hundred million years ago - but the Earth would have been vastly different. The life of that time, no doubt, adapted just as well to its environment as we do today.

Another thing to remember is that the environment isn't static. While animals may have adapted perfectly to the Earth of 100 million years ago, they probably wouldn't survive in todays world. The fact of the matter is that both evolution and the environment are dynamic - so there truely is no "golden age" of adaptation: that is to say that there is nothing special about how everything appears to fit like a glove today.

They are interrelated to eachother though. For evolution to have taken place at all abiogenesis must have taken place. Or as I said earlier if we can determine evolution having taken place it suddenly becomes a given that abiogenesis has taken place also. This is more evidence by indication than evidence by proof. We can indicate for abiogenesis but cannot prove it. I find it interesting that this notion is used and applied in science.

Oh I don't disagree with you - they're very closely related. But, many people fail to see that the Theory of Evolution doesn't concern itself with abiogenesis.

How can we know these things without having explored though.

Well, we certainly know about the numbers of galaxies and stars. The 10% figure is just an estimate, from what we know today. We currently know of roughly 330 extrasolar planets: and all found in the last two decades or less. From how frequently distributed these extrasolar stars are, scientists can estimate how frequent stars with planets really are.

And, for ~Sun sized stars - 10% is at the absolute low side of the estimate. Most scientists would guess that it's closer to 50%.

However, to be honest with you, if one is to perceive a divine power as the creator of the universe this might raise more interest in the theist to the divine. The uniqueness of the world isn't an argument that Christians generally make, rather we see that there is a large level of sophistication in our world and we celebrate what we deem to be attributed to said creation and sophistication. It doesn't nullify what has been done on the earth, and it also causes wonder about other planets.

I'm sure it does - I've no doubt about that. But, it also gives both atheists and scientists a lot more to wonder about. For me, it would make a theistic, personal god far less likely (this was the theme of the thread I started in the Christianity forum a few weeks ago).

Granted but it's still massively improbable even for the amount of planets you have listed.

That's true. But that number might be a hundred trillion times bigger. Perhaps there have been 100 trillion universes before us, each with 2.5x10^22 or more stars. We just don't know. But, we shouldn't think that because we're here, it makes life impossible. Even if the odds were almost infinitely high, there may be an almost infinite number of possibilities for life to emerge: we just don't know.

Goduznt Xzst

Jakkass wrote: »

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

Yes, but it will help the dialogue if you at least have a grasp of the basics of evolution and how we know exactly how humans evolved.

Jakkass wrote: »

we seemed to fit the world like a glove if you will.

We don't though, far from it. Humans can't survive at altitude or in water, which covers 70% of the earth. Modern technology and innovation due to our sentiencem has allowed us to live in inhospitable environments, but left to merely our wits we would perish. We fit the environments we evolved into.

Jakkass wrote: »

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.

But is the way we understand the human genome indicative of its overwhelming complexity? Or is it due to the limits of the human cognitive abilities? We can create computers that are far more efficient at understanding this data than the human mind will ever be. I'm sure the kerb on the side of the street looks overwhelming and incredible to an ant, but to us, knowing its size relative to us, find it common place. It is not uncommon to find something incredible because it exceeds the limits of our evolved abilities.

Jakkass wrote: »

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.

It is, and what's more amazing is that we are among a lucky few on this planet that are privileged enough to go to bed warm, not worry about where food will be coming tomorrow and ponder our existence. Many of the people in the world right now are living right on the edge of existence, like many of the other species on this planet struggling, daily, for survival.

Jakkass wrote: »

how this along with all the other factors could have fallen into place without the guidance of a divine creator?

Baby steps basically. Where you to witness every stage of this Universes development you would see its simplicity. Men looked at stonehenge or the Pyramids and wondered how man, in those ages, could of ever done such a thing, because they, without research, only could see the end result which is overwhelming. But if you had been there to see each step in the process, each rock moved or carved and put into place the end result would not be as spectacular.

Jakkass wrote: »

The creation of the cosmos can only happen once though? We aren't going to get a redo on the Big Bang?

We simply don't have enough data to know that. Their are hypothesises such as The Big Bounce or Quantum Foam that may help in our understanding. But as it stands, we know very little about the fate of the universe.

Jakkass wrote: »

Just look what the concept of God has done to it's inhabitants.

I'm not really following you. Are you using the ontological argument for Gods existence? Such as the one put forward by Descartes?
Can I ask you, without the concept of God, how do you imagine this world would be different?

Jakkass wrote: »

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.

Well we do know that some of the closer stars have planets orbiting them. I also think the use of "infinite" was hyperbole for an amount that no human could count in their lifetime. imo there is a finite number of planets in the universe. It is not unreasonable to assume that many billions, if not trillions of planets exist. If you stood under a sycamore tree and looked at its seeds on the ground, it is not unreasonable to assume that the sycamore you see in the distance would also have seeds at its base. Planets are the natural result from the formation of a star, they are not a requisite, but all the conditions are there for them to form.

Húrin

Húrin wrote: »

Not a great argument from your POV. AFter all there's nothing to say that there is not a God, and nothing to say that he won't end the universe one day and put another in its place.

I know that. But, we're not arguing about God.

AtomicHorror

My two cents on couple of the points raised...

Jakkass wrote: »

That's interesting, but it doesn't quite explain what I mean. How come we fit so well with the world and it's workings, and how does evolution guarantee that we will fit to the ways of the world?

Natural selection. The "wrong move" does not survive (or is less likely to), but because of reproduction, chances are good that for any given generation the "right move" will be there and will survive.

Jakkass wrote: »

It's just how can one determine if and of itself that every evolutionary move would be positive or even useful in the long run?

They're not. Evolution is blind. It's not pro-active, but reactive. That which is beneficial is more likely to survive, but the beneficial traits were not planned in any way.

Jakkass wrote: »

So at one point the life on this planet didn't fit the world like a glove as it seems to today?

But it doesn't, when you look at it. Species were going extinct due to other species long before man and his tendency to over-hunt, over-fish and generally pollute the place. Balance, where it exists, is very much temporary.

ZondaChai

ZondaChai wrote: »

This is what I have a problem with. The sheer arrogance of atheists.

You know very little about atheism so. Atheists aren't the ones who claim to have all of the answers.

You can't say that deity's don’t exist, it's impossible, no matter how many times you link good grammar with pseudo scientific facts, you cannot create a strong enough argument to disprove the existence of a god. But by all means keep going, you will fail every time but keep going, just try not to be such dicks when you do.

Can you provide us with a good enough argument to prove that there isn't a green and blue gremlin (green and blue at the same time, no doubt) latched onto your back, eating rice krispies and making square circles? You can't.

ZondaChai

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Can you provide us with a good enough argument to prove that there isn't a green and blue gremlin (green and blue at the same time, no doubt) latched onto your back, eating rice krispies and making square circles? You can't.

What does that mean, I could take a picture, I'm sure that would prove that there is nothing on my back eating cereal of any kind.
What you can't take a picture of is God, another thing you can't take a picture of is the intellectual arrogance at the soul of every athiest.

JimiTime

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

You know very little about atheism so. Atheists aren't the ones who claim to have all of the answers.

Yeah, they just 'know' that everyone else has the wrong answers:D

Zombrex

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?

That basically is Darwinian evolution.

Life, all life, is basically a self-replicating chemical reaction. Any self-replicating system that has the ability to produce copies that are not identical to the original (mutations) and which faces struggle with the environment can and will evolve due to Darwinian evolution. On Earth with life this takes place in the form of chemistry, but you can model this on a computer using anything you like, and the process of Darwinian evolution does not just apply to biological life but to a range of other things.

Any change will be tested against the environment. If the change increases the likelihood that the replication will continue (the fitness) this will be "selected" by the environment. Replicating units with a greater likelihood of replicating will gradually out number those with a less fitness.

Jakkass wrote: »

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

"Life" is simply a human term for what is basically a complex series of chemical reaction.

It is a chemical reaction that meets certain criteria that we classify biological life with, such as self replication, growth, consuming, production of energy etc.

We don't know exactly how the first self-replicating molecules appears and we may never know as it is doubtful there is much evidence that has survived (though there are a number of plausible theories), but it would be wrong to think that there is some magic dividing line between life and non-life.

A self replicating system becomes "life" as soon as it evolves the necessary criteria for us to call it "life". It is really that simple. It is like a snow ball rolling down a hill. At some point that snow ball becomes an avalanche, but really when that happens is up to us and how we classify an avalanche. As far as the snow ball is concerned he is just rolling down a hill getting bigger and bigger.

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?

There are approx 100 billion billion stars in the observable universe. The observable universe may in fact be but a tiny fraction of the size of the actual universe (if various inflation models are correct), so the there could be trillions more.

When you look at it this way the odds that out of all the billions of solar systems in the universe one would have a planet that has the necessary conditions for biological life as we know it are not that unbelievable.

In fact, given that we know conditions would be right if the Earth as quite a bit closer or further away, or a bit bigger, or a bit smaller, it is actually harder to imagine that life as we know it has not developed on other planets in other solar systems.

And that is before you consider that there very well may be other forms life unlike life on Earth.

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.

They don't, that is a creationist myth.

The wild probabilities of say a protein forming randomly are correct but they ignore that evolution doesn't actually say structures such as proteins formed randomly. In fact we know that proteins don't form randomly.

So when Creationists pull out these figures they are engaging in misdirection. The odds of life as we see it in modern age (complex proteins, cells, structures etc) appearing randomly from nothing but atoms are ridiculously large, and the people in Darwin's time understood that which is why Darwinian evolution was so powerful because it explains how complex structure can arise without it all just randomly slotting together.

Jakkass wrote: »

How can evolution have guaranteed us to be so well matched or so well connected to the universe.

Because if we weren't we would have died out a long time ago.

The vast majority of all species that at one time existed are now extinct. Out of each species it is only a few life forms that survive and they survive by evolving. The Earth is constantly changing and constantly trying to kill life. And who knows perhaps we (homo sapiens) won't last that long in evolutionary terms (we have nearly gone extinct a few times already)

Evolution is about adaptation. Your species adapts or it dies out.

Jakkass wrote: »

How did the evolutionary process reach such a point that we seemed to fit the world like a glove if you will.

That is actually a pretty bad example because our ears are in fact far from efficient.

The human ear is often used as an example of why any designer must have been drunk. We have a load of bones in them that would function if designed better, but they are there because our ears evolved from similar systems and these bones carried over from that. We did the best we could with what we had. Our ears are good enough, as anyone who has been mugged by someone sneaking up behind them can testify to. In animals that face greater anger from predators their environment has forced the evolution of much better ears. You could never sneak up behind my dog.

Jakkass wrote: »

This is what I have a lot of difficulty with in understanding a purely naturalistic explanation of evolution.

Equally I think a lot of atheists have a hard time understanding intelligent designers when they look at how many systems of course are just at the good enough level. Why would a god give us not particularly great ears?

When you see things like the human ear, which have bits that appear to have been left over from something else and have been bent and bashed into doing something new, it is hard to imagine any process other than evolution producing this.

It is like those TV programs that take old junk from say a scrap yard and try and make something new out of it. You end up with something that works but that is hobbled together from older bits that were not designed for the function they are now being used for. If they were starting over they would be designed better, but because the Scrap Heap challenge contestants have to use the scrap heap they have to make do with what they have.

That is what life looks like, and it fits evolution perfectly because bits evolve and then slow evolve into other bits, but they do not start a new each time. Evolution makes do with what it has.

Jakkass wrote: »

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.

Yes but what is more incredible is that it took life billions of years to evolve this.

I often think that one of the problems with people accepting evolution is actually that the time scales are too large. The vast majority of people, including myself, can't really comprehend a billion years in any serious sense. We some how loop back around and think that isn't actually that long, because our brains just cannot imagine something going on for a billion years.

When you look at what happens across the globe every single second, literally trillions upon trillions of life forms multiple (you have 100 trillion to 200 trillion individual microbes living inside you alone, not counting the 20 trillion cells you have that divide and multiple), and then multiple this by a billion years! The numbers we are talking about are just crazy! And this would have been what early Earth would have been like. Trillions upon trillions of micro-organisms multiplying every second, spread over billions of years.

With these types of numbers it is hard to imagine some form of complex life not evolving from all that.

Jakkass wrote: »

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?

The size of the universe.

The universe is big. A bit like with the billions of years, billions upon billions of stars is really too much for a human mind to properly grasp. The best we can do is look at it on paper, but to try and visualise 100 billion billion stars (possibly much more) is just not possible.

Think of it this way. If the odds of a planet forming in the universe around a star in the right area to allow for liquid chemicals (too close they turn to gas, to far away they freeze) were 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1 (the odds of you winning the Lottery every week for a year are more likely), it is still guaranteed 100 times in the observable universe.

This is before we consider that the 100 billion billion stars are the stars that exist right now (well at least appear to exist at our point in time).

If we factor in the 13 billion years the universe has been around, and the trillions it has left to go, the odds that a some point in space, at some time in the universe life space, a planet with Earth's properties would form are so likely that it would be hard to imagine it not happening.

But another thing to consider is that even if life is really really unlikely to every appear in the universe at any point in time throughout the trillions of planets and the trillions of years, it could just have been a fluke.

After all the odds of me winning the lottery are 1 in 5 million. But I could still win the lottery. And if I did I wouldn't be looking for a supernatural explanation. Fluke sometimes just happen.

Jakkass wrote: »

The creation of the cosmos can only happen once though? We aren't going to get a redo on the Big Bang?

There are a number of theories in theoretical physics that suggest just that, that the big bang may be something that happens repeatably every few billion trillion years or so.

Now there is little to no observation evidence supporting these, so take all of them with a pinch of salt, but scientists are certainly not ruling out that the big bang may be something that happens more than once.

So say the universe has been expanding and contracting for an infinite amount of time, every few billion trillion years causing a new big bang. You have to multiple the 100 billion billion stars by a trillion years and then by an infinite amount. The odds of life appearing in one of the universes at one point in time around one star, well it becomes guaranteed to happen.

Don't get me wrong, we don't know if the big bang has happened before. Biut if it has and it keeps happening then life becomes even less of an unlikely event.

Jakkass wrote: »

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.

The problem is that is doesn't fit well enough for their to be intelligence behind it, at least not in my opinion. Or the intelligence was doing a bit of a hack job at it, and that would certainly rule out God.

Darwinian evolution adapts replicating units to their environment. We know this, you can run a computer program on your PC that will show you this. We know it does this in life also, dogs are a good example.

Evolution makes a "good enough" stab at this, a bit like the Scap Heap Challenge car or rocket or what ever they are building that day. They can't redesign something from scratch, they make the best stab at it and it either works or it doesn't. It doesn't matter if they make a car with a toilet as an engine cover so long as the car moves.

Evolution is a lot like this. It doesn't matter if you have a load of small bones in your ear if you can hear ok enough to survive. You could certainly have a much better designed ear, but you don't need to.

On the other hand if something was designed from scratch to perform a certain function it really shouldn't look like this. Why would a designer of a car use a toilet as an engine cover if he didn't have to. It shouldn't look like something that used to do something else but has now been adapted to do something different.

Jakkass wrote: »

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

It basically says that it shouldn't be surprising that you are a human living on Earth, because Earth is a planet where humans evolved, so where else would you be.

It is like pondering how odd it is that I support Dublin in the GAA. Why not Cork, or Kerry, or Wexford. The answer of course is that I was born in Dublin. If I had been born in Wexford I would support them. There is no mystery here, unless some supposes that I had to support Dublin no matter what.

Another example is the question why was I born in 1979 rather than 1978 or 1980, or 1329?

But if I had been born in those years I would be wondering why was I born then and not now.

The idea that life ended up on Earth is not a mystery. We ended up on Earth because that is where our form of life could develop.

ZondaChai

ZondaChai wrote: »

What does that mean, I could take a picture, I'm sure that would prove that there is nothing on my back eating cereal of any kind.
What you can't take a picture of is God, another thing you can't take a picture of is the intellectual arrogance at the soul of every athiest.

What if cameras didn't pick him up? I'm sure some forms of brain scans might have a chance of picking up arrogance - you should look into it.

Zombrex

ZondaChai wrote: »

Another good thing about my personal faith is that it can't be disproven, unless you were there at the very start, you can never know

One assumes you weren't at the very start, so how do you know?

Or is that one of my stupid atheist questions

kiffer

Right, it's late at night and I didn't read any thing after Jakkass's question post, I wanted to answer without worrying about what others are saying... just to see how we compare... also it's largely stream of consciousness, and likely riddled with typos, repetitions, errors of memory and so on.

Take from it what you will.

Jakkass wrote: »

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?

This would require a very long answer in order to be satisfactory I would imagine...
Assuming you actually want to know how modern models would handle it and not how Darwin himself would have handled it.
Keeping it simple, as I am not a biologist...
Natural Selection over time selects for different traits depending on circumstance.
Speciation occurs either because one branch of a species gets isolated from another for long enough that they end up physically/genetically incompatible or through sudden speciation due to chromosomal reversal or other such process... (Ref needed, Wallabies!)
Some mutations are neutral in terms of survival, some are detrimental to the individual or the species, some are beneficial.
In times of plenty and easy stability neutral mutations can build up, often along with less damaging of the negative mutations...
When stress returns to the system you can see rapid changes as many mutations which for sometime were neutral now become more polarized...
This allows for the arrival of mutations which on their first appearance might be minor disadvantages ... but when later combined with other mutations may actually become advantageous when combined with other mutations ...
or they might end up worse... and then get cleared out when the stress levels in the system go up again.
These stable periods during which even weaker, disadvantaged creatures can reproduce with out to much trouble could allow for diversity to increase... by allowing a broad range of a type of creature to survive... I think I'm in danger of repeatedly repeating myself here but there is more that can be said to clear this up...
As I said I'm not a biologist but most of what I've said I've pulled together in vague terms from various sources.
I should ideally have references for most of this, and I'm sure I've read articles generally supporting the Safe Stable Period thing.

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

Well... this the point at which scientists often are very willing to say... we don't know... yet.
There are a number of theories but my favorite idea involves feldspar crystals...
Feldspar weathers on contact with water forming various forms of clay... ( )
Clay is a very interesting. It could act as a sort of scaffolding and as catalysts for interesting reactions...

http://www.pnas.org/content/95/26/15173.full

This is a very interesting paper on the topic.
The tiny pits in the weathered feldspar protect and isolate small amounts of basic simple organic (meaning carbon chains not living) molecules...

There are lots of pits...

Parsons et al. 1998 wrote:

...On every mm^2 of weathered feldspar surface, there would have been 10^6 catalytic micro-reactors, open by diffusion to the dynamic reservoir of organic molecules in the primordial soups but protected from the dispersive effects of flow and convection in a fully open system and from ultraviolet radiation. ... Perhaps, in the protected, self-organized environment of the honeycomb, in a few cross-connected reactors out of the 10^18 or so which would occur on a 2.5-km^2 granite outcrop, the complex molecules necessary for the first self-replicating polymer would have assembled.

1000 Billion little chambers acting like proto-cell catalyst/scaffolding on every square metre of shore line.
If the useful zone of this feature was only a metre that straddled the tide line of a 100km long coast.... then there would be 10^17 little proto-cells with lipids and simple organic molecules washing in and out every time the tide turned ... the tide turns twice a day... 365 days a year... for a few million years... in and out of these little cells, with their self organizing crystalline structures acting as a scaffolding and as a catalyst...
100km of coast is nothing, and the tide could easily cover more than a 1 metre range... And of course this may only be one stage or one processing a massive number of different stages and processes, boot strapping life out simple molecules, once you have basic cells or proto-cells, natural selection can come into play more and more...

I don't want to dwell on this too long... it's an area that has lots of interesting ideas but still needs work and I can't give a definitive answer.
Science is not religion ... I can't make up an answer and claim I'm right, answers take time and evidence, and are often not complete.
And there are other hypotheses which may be better... after all that paper is 11 years old...

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?

This one is both very easy and very hard to answer...
We are only here because the Earth is the right distance from the Sol.
If the solar system had formed differently, with no planet in the habitable zone then we wouldn't be here (I guess you could cram a god in here)... however there are many many stars, so many many chances for planets to form in the habitable zone of some stars.


The exact chemical composition for life?
How do you mean?
That's a very broad question...
I think in order to answer it I'd have to touch off an huge swath of things...
I'm not sure how to handle the question...
How detailed an answer would you like?

Also... the overall chemical composition of earth could have been different and still supported 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.

What? Creationist assume it was created (assuming you mean created as a whole planet instantaneously)...
I'm of the understanding that it formed from the accretion disc around the recently formed Sun... which in turn formed from a collapsing gas cloud made up of the gasses and other material ejected from a number of supernova. (Sounds crazy I know, but there is evidence of about 40 different stellar sources of material found in asteroids)

The odds of a planet forming from a rotating cloud of debris around a star are so good that we have 8 of the blighters in the Solar system (the odds of one appearing fully formed in space are insanely high, no scientist thinks this happened)... electrostatic forces pull small clumps of matter together, until those clumps become large enough for gravity to take over and increase the rate at which the protoplanets grow. Once they are large enough the gravity of these weakly bound clumps will pull them into rough spheres...

Over time these rough planetesimals ram in to each other and build up larger and large bodies... bodies in stable orbit positions survive and sweep up the materials around them... close to the sun the sun has pulled in pretty much everything...

Right... so after a while we have a nice little planet; Earth... a ball of random crud... how does this get from a ball of random elements and crud into the differentiated rocks and layers of this planet?
This answer swings back to some of the stuff I would have used in the answer about the chemistry supporting life thing in the last question...

If you grind up loads of rock of different types and mix them together until you have a mix with the average over all composition of the whole Earth (which interestingly is pretty similar to the average composition of asteroids) and then melt it completely and then let it cool slowly (experiments have been carried out, repeatedly) you find that some minerals form first... using up elements which they contain...
This changes the mix of elements remaining.
As the mix changes and the temperature drops different minerals begin to form... using up different elements.

Generally speaking; First to form is Olivine and Feldspar (depending on the amount of Calcium)... last to form is quartz.
In between are a run of different minerals.
Different minerals have different physical properties, feldspar weathers faster than quartz, producing clay for example.

So on Earth we have a big ball of hot molten rock (hot from heat trapped during collisions and from the decay of radioactive elements), it's pumping out gases including water vapour, but mostly Carbon dioxide and sulpher and such... (I'm working off the top of my head here so I'm not sure of the generally accepted gasses and amounts... pretty sure CO2 is at the top of the list)
As the Earth cools it reaches a point where you've got cooling rocks (probably basalt at this stage) moving around on top of the more molten rocks below and then the temp of the atmosphere drops low enough for the water vapor to condense and fall as rain... Rain lands on the hot rock, cooling more rock, thickening the basaltic layer... which probably still looks like the thin layers floating and convecting on lava flows and lakes (as seen on a small scale in modern volcanic situations)... there are a number of processes going on at this stage (and I'm getting lost with out looking things up as much as I should... plus it's like 01:30 and I want to stop...) so I'm just really waffling on abit...
The water weathers and erosion of the rock occurs, different minerals weather/erode at different rates, remelting the weathered rocks produce rocks of different compositions.
Once life is in place it's pretty self sustaining in terms of chemistry,
the mineral aspects of soil come easily from the weathering of rock, feldspars for clays, quartz for sands and so on.

There are a fair few holes in this post, as I said it's largely off the top of my head...
I'd have to read up on fractional crystallization and various processes of igneous differentiation and a few other topics to even begin to make sense...

Right I've spent too long writing this... and I don't really want to spend any time agonizing over what I've written so I'm dumping it into the thread...

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.

I think I may have asked a question in the middle somewhere... it's late and I'm wrecked.

Dades

Man, will the OP be suprised if they ever come back!
This was always going to be a good thread.

ZondaChai

Wicknight wrote: »

One assumes you weren't at the very start, so how do you know?

Or is that one of my stupid atheist questions

Are you asking me that, because the answer was in the sentance right before the one you quoted. I said that nobody can know because nobody was there. I don't have a logical reason for my beliefs, and to be clear there is no logical reasons for my beliefs, but I still believe in them.

Zombrex

ZondaChai wrote: »

Are you asking me that, because the answer was in the sentance right before the one you quoted. I said that nobody can know because nobody was there.

I'm wondering because for someone who wasn't there and doesn't know anything about what the creation of the universe was like you appear to be making some pretty definitive statements about what the creation of the universe was like.

ZondaChai wrote: »

I don't have a logical reason for my beliefs, and to be clear there is no logical reasons for my beliefs, but I still believe in them.

Wonderful. I'm a big supporter of people who choose to believe things that apparently just popped into their head, for no apparent reason. Big up to you man.

Perhaps though it would be wiser to not brandish words such as "stupidity" and "arrogance" towards other people when you yourself hold a belief that you admit you have no reason for holding.

MatthewVII

Jakkass wrote: »

That's interesting, but it doesn't quite explain what I mean. How come we fit so well with the world and it's workings, and how does evolution guarantee that we will fit to the ways of the world? It's just how can one determine if and of itself that every evolutionary move would be positive or even useful in the long run?

Jakkass, you seriously need to learn how evolution works or just stop stubbornly refusing to believe it holds any power if you want to really engage in this argument.

The whole point of evolution is that we develop to better suit our environment (or fit the ways of the world, as you put it). Traits which didn't fit didn't survive.

Things which are positive and useful get selected out and survive longer to pass on to the next generation. This happens ad infinitum over a massive amount of time and leads to highly refined creatures we see today.

If you continue to refuse to accept that this is an extremely robust and logical explanation then this argument is ultimately pointless and proves that the religious can not be swayed even by frank explanations.

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

How come we fit so well with the world and it's workings, and how does evolution guarantee that we will fit to the ways of the world?

Life fits well because some organisms fit better than others owing to random variation, and the ones that fit better tend to have more offspring which themselves fit better than the offspring of organisms that don't fit quite so well. Over time, organisms will come to fit their environments extremely well.

Jakkass wrote: »

It's just how can one determine if and of itself that every evolutionary move would be positive or even useful in the long run?

Evolution doesn't. That's why there's such a lot of badly-designed stuff out there.

pH

robindch wrote: »

Over time, organisms will come to fit their environments extremely well.Evolution doesn't. That's why there's such a lot of badly-designed stuff out there.

What amazes me is that the opposite is also often true. Even in Ireland recently we've seen grey squirrels pretty much replacing reds, and zebra mussels showing there was a large 'hole' in the ecology just waiting to be filled. What I'm saying is that (on a evolutionary timescale) the environment is in constant change, and when you add to it the parallel evolution of predator species and diseases/parasites there is always plenty of opportunity for change.