Present a BETTER explanation for our existence than God

[mirandansa]

It is hard to call it mere coincidence that all the factors to produce conditions for advanced life are directly aligned with the conditions that make it possible to observe the universe. It would take a species as advanced as man to understand and measure the universe,and a galaxy, solar system and planet that is perfectly designed for mankind to develop!

That's like saying the time signature "11:11" is a miracle when you throw a glance at the clock for every one of the 1,440 possible combinations throughout a day.

One of the characteristics i find in many conventional Christian minds is the failure to grasp the actual cosmological scale and context that underlie our existence. Assuming that you are not a geocentrist, your observation still seems too focused on this:

This is not, by far, the only possible combination of "a star & a planet" for a life-sustaining environment we can conceive of. Cap'n Andromeda has already provided you with technical details; i would like to add some more numerical and pictorial references.

This is how our galaxy looks like from within. From the outside, it would look probably like this:

Our galaxy spans 100,000 light-years in diameter (i.e. it takes 100,000 years to get from one end to the other at the speed of light), containing 150 star clusters, 300+ billion stars in total. The largest known galaxies (the ellipticals such as Type-CD and Type-BC galaxies) can have diameters of more than 6,000,000 light-years and are about 100 times massive than ours, containing up to 100,000,000,000,000 (100 trillion) stars.

Out of typically up to 50 galaxies per each, gravity forms galaxy clusters:

Our galaxy group is structured like this:

Out of up to several thousand galaxy clusters per each, larger structures called superclusters have been formed, not by gravity but by the very expansion of the universe (note also how they are not uniformly distributed; wouldn't an "Intelligent Designer" have distributed them uniformly?).

From a yet larger perspective, we detect galaxy filaments, the largest known structure in the universe:

"Mpc/h" stands for "megaparsecs" and the "Hubble constant" (the rate of the expansion of the universe). 1 parsec is about 31 trillion kilometres (19 trillion miles) or about 3.26 light-years. So, the small range drawn in the pic represents 31.25 million times 1 parsec with the parameter reflecting the Hubble constant.

The exact total number of stars in our universe is of course hard to figure out, but it's estimated to be at least 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 1 yotta.

In the following video, Carl Sagan is going to calculate the possible number of civilisations within our Milky Way galaxy alone using the Drake equation (his data may be a bit old, but the overall scale of the result is still closely relevant):



I remind you this is within our Milky Way galaxy alone. How many galaxies are there in the observable part of this universe? At least 170 billion. And this is excluding countless other possible universes, if
1) the Big Crunch scenario is to occur (whereby the natural cosmological creation is to repeat eternally through the cycle of the Big Bang and the Big Crunch)
and/or
2) the multiverse model is true.

Do you now see how your Creationist assumption ludicrously leaves out so many natural possibilities for life in the entire Cosmos?

And just in case you haven't already looked into it: anthropic principle.

 

[Giliell]

Religion: The slight hybriss that the whole universe was made just for you.

 

[AndromedasWake]

That was a very nice post mirandansa. I love this picture. It reminds me of Namibia and how I'm really yearning to go back as soon as I can find a way to fund 3 months off work...

Clearest skies ever. :mrgreen:

EDIT: I also wanted to add that 170 billion is probably quite a conservative minimum estimate for the total number of observable galaxies. The newest surveys seems to suggest that there may be as many as 500 billion to 1 trillion! :shock:

Ground-based observatories today can resolve over 500,000 galaxies in a single square degree and the next generation of space telescopes will go A LOT further.

 

[blood_pardon]

Do you now see how your Creationist assumption ludicrously leaves out so many natural possibilities for life in the entire Cosmos?

Those were some amazing facts and I appreciate this post as a whole. I dont see how all of that provides any evidence at all for "natural life." There is no evidence for abiogenesis whatsoever its simply clinged to by naturlists because its their only hope of providing an explanation apart from God. OK so the universe is big, and it contains alot of matter.....HOW DID LIFE JUST BEGIN? You have nothing.

 

[Dustnite]

Do you now see how your Creationist assumption ludicrously leaves out so many natural possibilities for life in the entire Cosmos?

Those were some amazing facts and I appreciate this post as a whole. I dont see how all of that provides any evidence at all for "natural life." There is no evidence for abiogenesis whatsoever its simply clinged to by naturlists because its their only hope of providing an explanation apart from God. OK so the universe is big, and it contains alot of matter.....HOW DID LIFE JUST BEGIN? You have nothing.

Way to spectacularly miss the whole point of that post...

 

[blood_pardon]

No I see his point: the universe is so immense that its very likely for a planet to exist in which life could exist. The only problem with that is there is NO EVIDENCE whatsoever for life randomly begining. Then for that life to begin to mutate and actually BETTER ITSELF to the point of:

I dont think so. Goddit.

 

[borrofburi]

Do you now see how your Creationist assumption ludicrously leaves out so many natural possibilities for life in the entire Cosmos?

Those were some amazing facts and I appreciate this post as a whole. I dont see how all of that provides any evidence at all for "natural life." There is no evidence for abiogenesis whatsoever its simply clinged to by naturlists because its their only hope of providing an explanation apart from God. OK so the universe is big, and it contains alot of matter.....HOW DID LIFE JUST BEGIN? You have nothing.

As has been noted many many times: not one of us believes everything happened by "chance".

Moreover "goddidit" is not a superior explanation until you show some evidence that god exists.

 

[pjnlsn]

No I see his point: the universe is so immense that its very likely for a planet to exist in which life could exist. The only problem with that is there is NO EVIDENCE whatsoever for life randomly begining. Then for that life to begin to mutate and actually BETTER ITSELF to the point of:

I dont think so. Goddit.

A creationist and/or a theist is one who picks a point in the past, and declares that something happened there. An atheist is one who says that, working backwards in time from the present, that it appears that events followed a certain order.

One has already decided something happened at a certain time in distant past, and the other will have already decided on some level, as this is how our psychology works, but will accept alternate explanations, provided they at least are well defined, and fleshed out.

One declares, the other explains. You must realize that fundamentally it is difficult for one to comment on the other.

 

[blood_pardon]

As has been noted many many times: not one of us believes everything happened by "chance".

You can only speak for yourself and so if it wasnt by "chance" then our existance happened on "purpose." Correct?

Purpose requires intent and intent requires a decision which requires intelligence. Right? Or are you playing syntax games?

 

[TheFlyingBastard]

As has been noted many many times: not one of us believes everything happened by "chance".

You can only speak for yourself

Not really. "They say it happened by chance" is a strawman set up by some asses who love to lie to you to futher their own agenda. Nobody is actually saying that everything happened by chance.

if it wasnt by "chance" then our existance happened on "purpose." Correct?

Let's imagine a stone falling down a gorge. Is the fact that it falls down (as opposed to falling up or falling to the left) chance or purpose?
What about a screw near a magnet? Is it chance or is it purpose that the screw just so happens to stick to the magnet?

 

[borrofburi]

As has been noted many many times: not one of us believes everything happened by "chance".

You can only speak for yourself and so if it wasnt by "chance" then our existance happened on "purpose." Correct?

Purpose requires intent and intent requires a decision which requires intelligence. Right? Or are you playing syntax games?

This is a false dichotomy. I neither say the crystal I have on my desk happened by "chance" nor by some intelligent agent with a "purpose"; rather the crystal is an emergent property of the physical laws of our universe as well as the chemical conditions on our earth that happened to result in slow cooling of silicon. It's not "just chance" that all those molecules perfectly arranged themselves into an ordered crystalline structure, but neither is it "purpose"; it's something we expect to see fairly often understanding that the physical rules of the universe mean that if you heat up certain molecules and cool them slowly, the random scattering of heat energy and thermodynamic entropy maximization will result in a nice ordered crystalline structure.

When apologists say non-believers claim "everything happened by chance", but (especially) then go on to calculate the odds of a DNA molecule forming by "chance" they ignore the chemical reality of our universe in the same way that the flying crystal monsterists ignore the chemical reality of our universe when they say crystals can't form by chance therefore the flying crystal monster exists and is god and that the crystal holy book is the One True Bookâ„¢

...Flying bastard beat me to it and has a more clear analogy anyway...

 

[australopithecus]

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure there is more experimental evidence to at least posit how abiogenesis could happen (nucleotide formation, abundance of organic molecules in the solar system, Urey-Miller...et al) than there is for 'goddidit'. The only thing based on chance in regards to this subject is the probability of a creationist setting up the chance strawman. Which is generally 1:1.

 

[Squawk]

Do you now see how your Creationist assumption ludicrously leaves out so many natural possibilities for life in the entire Cosmos?

Those were some amazing facts and I appreciate this post as a whole. I dont see how all of that provides any evidence at all for "natural life." There is no evidence for abiogenesis whatsoever its simply clinged to by naturlists because its their only hope of providing an explanation apart from God. OK so the universe is big, and it contains alot of matter.....HOW DID LIFE JUST BEGIN? You have nothing.

Oh dear

1. Life exists. True or false?
True of course, so lets move on.

2. Life started. True or false?
Again, true, easy question.

3. Life was started by God. True or false?
Well, we have a problem with this one. We don't know God exists, so lets run the same experiment.

1. God exists. True or false?
No idea (Giving you the benefit of the doubt here, I'll go with no in actuality).

The only thing that we can establish here is that life definitely exists, and therefore it had to start somehow. But, and this is the key, we have precisely zero evidence that God exists. Ergo, we cannot use god as an explanation for life starting. Now, if you can show that God does exist, then you can use God as the explanation for life starting and I'll be inclined to agree with you. Occams razor and all that.

We do know that natural processes exist, we know how matter interacts, we see chemical reactions that occur naturally that form all the elements required for life. We have plausible early earth conditions to allow life to start.

And so, Mr Pardon, tell me about this nothing. Why do you jump to some spurious notion of God when a simple "I don't know" is so much more honest. Why, in an attempt to explain a supposedly highly improbable event, do you hypothesize an infinitely more improbable being and then suppose that you have anything other than a masturbation fantasy?

Oh, and in case you missed it, that was me handing you your arse. Go learn.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

There is no evidence for abiogenesis whatsoever its simply clinged to by naturlists because its their only hope of providing an explanation apart from God. OK so the universe is big, and it contains alot of matter.....HOW DID LIFE JUST BEGIN? You have nothing.

I have already answered this question for Japhia888 on this thread. I will quote it to you since it covers this question.

First off, we both accept abiogenesis because without it we would have an infinite regress. What you have to understand is that abiogenesis is only the study of how life started on earth. Within this study, there are many hypotheses of how life started (i.e. Clay theory, RNA world hypothesis, etc"¦). This means that the idea of a god(s) creating life on earth would also fall into the study of abiogenesis. However, the idea of a god(s) creating life on earth will forever go untested until a mechanism is proposed for how this god(s) started life. After this mechanism is proposed, it can be tested.
Now do you have a mechanism or not? If it is not provided than your idea about a god(s) creating life on earth is unscientific.

 

[blood_pardon]

:x

Let's imagine a stone falling down a gorge. Is the fact that it falls down (as opposed to falling up or falling to the left) chance or purpose?
What about a screw near a magnet? Is it chance or is it purpose that the screw just so happens to stick to the magnet?

This is a false dichotomy. I neither say the crystal I have on my desk happened by "chance" nor by some intelligent agent with a "purpose"; rather the crystal is an emergent property of the physical laws of our universe as well as the chemical conditions on our earth that happened to result in slow cooling of silicon. It's not "just chance" that all those molecules perfectly arranged themselves into an ordered crystalline structure, but neither is it "purpose"; it's something we expect to see fairly often understanding that the physical rules of the universe mean that if you heat up certain molecules and cool them slowly, the random scattering of heat energy and thermodynamic entropy maximization will result in a nice ordered crystalline structure.

When apologists say non-believers claim "everything happened by chance", but (especially) then go on to calculate the odds of a DNA molecule forming by "chance" they ignore the chemical reality of our universe in the same way that the flying crystal monsterists ignore the chemical reality of our universe when they say crystals can't form by chance therefore the flying crystal monster exists and is god and that the crystal holy book is the One True Book

I really dont want to be disrespectful but I have to admit Im having to fight really hard :x

Lets look at some words synonymous to CHANCE: incidental, aimless, unintentional, unplanned, etc...
Now lets look at some antonyms: certain, destined, expected, fixed, foreordained, foreseeable, foreseen, inevitable, predestined, predetermined, predictable, preordained, prescribed, sure; conscious, freewill, knowing, unforced, voluntary, volunteer, willful

Yeah i figured you were going to try and argue over the meaning of words and such. Well I win....but I feel like i lost because im so angry at the stupidity of the above posts....

 

[TheFlyingBastard]

I really dont want to be disrespectful but I have to admit Im having to fight really hard :x

Lets look at some words synonymous to CHANCE: ...
Now lets look at some antonyms: ...

Yeah i figured you were going to try and argue over the meaning of words and such. Well I win....but I feel like i lost because im so angry at the stupidity of the above posts....

The reason we start arguing about the meaning of words is because we've seen a lot of creationist-apologists pull a major equivocation fallacy. What you're getting angry over is not stupidity on our side, just caution over the total and utter ignorance of your fellow apologists.

As borroofbofi said, when apologists say non-believers claim "everything happened by chance", they go on to calculate the odds of a DNA molecule forming by "chance" while ignoring the chemical reality of our universe. So please, do direct your anger and frustration at your fellow apologists next time.

Perhaps it would've been a better move to phrase the dichotomy as "if it wasn't undirected our existence was directed".

 

[australopithecus]

Lets look at some words synonymous to CHANCE: incidental, aimless, unintentional, unplanned, etc...
Now lets look at some antonyms: certain, destined, expected, fixed, foreordained, foreseeable, foreseen, inevitable, predestined, predetermined, predictable, preordained, prescribed, sure; conscious, freewill, knowing, unforced, voluntary, volunteer, willful

Yeah i figured you were going to try and argue over the meaning of words and such. Well I win....but I feel like i lost because im so angry at the stupidity of the above posts....

You feel like you lost becuse you did. There's no point envoking semantics, the premise of your argument is flawed regardless.

 

[TheFlyingBastard]

Either way, I'll take you on your word that when you said "That there is NO EVIDENCE whatsoever for life randomly beginning", you didn't mean to invoke statistical chance.

Perhaps you meant to say:
"There is NO EVIDENCE whatsoever for life beginning without direction."

Which is a bit of a useless statement to begin with because though we don't have the direct evidence, we have plenty of ideas how it could have happened supported by all kinds of natural processes we know about. It certainly is possible "in theory" - it's all there. The question is really what happened on this specific planet.

So to invoke a god in the argument you presented would not only be (1) a direct violation of Occam's Razor and (2) completely unscientific in the first place - it would be (3) utterly redundant as well.

 

[mirandansa]

I dont see how all of that provides any evidence at all for "natural life."

I think you misphrased what you really wanted to say. But just in case, i'll respond to that.

* * *

Life is an object with self-sustaining processes. Natural life is an object which self-sustains without supernatural interventions.

Evidence is any information which indicates the veracity of an idea.

We hold the idea that natural life exists because the information obtained through the observation of the world indicates that the life's self-sustaining processes can be explained in terms of natural laws and not of supernatural aids.

There is umpteen evidence for natural life on this planet. And the purpose of my last post was to show you that our universe is more than sufficiently large to accommodate more than one life-yielding environment, not to prove the self-evident existence of natural life itself.

There is no evidence for abiogenesis whatsoever

Abiogenesis states that self-sustaining processes started from inanimate matter. This view is supported by the observations of simple molecules assembling into more complex RNA molecules. These don't as yet prove abiogenesis, but these serve as the evidence for some necessary components of it. So, to say that "there is no evidence for abiogenesis whatsoever" is a careless exaggeration.

its simply clinged to by naturlists because its their only hope of providing an explanation apart from God.

In reverse: some supernaturalists clinge to Creationism because it's their only hope of providing an explanation apart from natural processes. These are useless assertions that don't advance the discussion.

Naturalism is not specific to non-theists. Theistic naturalism is possible. Some people can embrace both a concept of God and naturalism. And the term "God" doesn't necessarily mean "Creator" in the first place.

Also, the idea that a supernatural intervention was necessary for life to emerge denies negentropy, the negative entropy that brings about order against the disordering positive entropy. But we do actually observe various negentropic processes not only in biosphere but also in information dynamics in general. Order can arise naturally. That alone renders supernatural intervention as unnecessary for the emergence of self-sustaining mechanism.

OK so the universe is big, and it contains alot of matter.....HOW DID LIFE JUST BEGIN? You have nothing.

Right, people want to know the actual natural process of the origin of life with solid proofs. That's why they study it. The field of inquiry is called abiogenesis. But you keep discrediting it with no alternative more plausible. If you want to know the answer, why don't you support them?

 

[Paulhoff]

I find it rather funny how many people thinking that their believing in some so-called god somehow makes them think that they have some deep insight into the universe. That they have somehow superseded all know knowledge of all the sciences, and they have done that without any study at all.

Paul



Yea, real funny