The idea that everything is set up just right for life on earth

[weller2]

If we are nothing more than a make up of chemical compounds, than we are completely determined,

Non-sequitur.

While indeed we are made of chemical compounds, it does not mean that we are reducible to the chemical compounds we are made of. In general, an ensemble is not reducible to the sum of component parts. However, if the ensemble exhibits certains characteristics component parts do not have individually, it does not necessarily mean that the ensemble was designed.

A good example is the Internet. Internet is, essentially, a collection of computers. However, obviously, Internet is not reducile to collection of computers. And while the Internet has been constructed artificially, it’s creators have observed about 1990 that it exhibits behaviors which were neither designed nor intended. After the network was assembled, it started doing things which nobody expected it to do – things which were, in fact, detrimental to its own operation. The phenomenon came to be known as self-synchronization. One of the basic ideas behind the Internet was that computers transmit data at essentially random intervals, so when you have multiple computers, the total traffic will even out. But when the network was run, it has turned out that after some time all computers started transmitting data at the same time – despite the fact that it was not something which they were told to do. In other words, the system went from a chaotic state to an ordered (synchronized) state all by itself and contrary to the wishes of its designers. (The reason this was bad was of course that if all nodes were transmitting at the same time, the links would clog.)

This is something which, according to the creationists, can never happen. In the creationist worldview, going from a disordered state to an ordered state requires intelligent action. But the Internet forgot to ask them for an opinion, and promptly synchronized itself after it reached a certain number of nodes. People scratched their heads, restarted everything and it synchronized itself again. Then people started looking at the problem mathematically and discovered that it had to happen. Self-synchronization was an unavoidable (if unforeseen) consequence of certain initial assumptions made by the designers.

 

[Reepicheep]

Earthly life can be destroyed by (a) a nearby gamma ray burst, (b) Sun going nova, (c) an asteroid impact. Jupiter’s moon Europa is currently believed to have life-supporting conditions below the ice cover, and does not have problems (b) and (c)). If Jupiter (or our entire Solar System) happened to be ejected out of the galactic plane, life on Europa would be safe from (a) also.

Therefore an ideal location for life would be a moon of a gas giant orbiting a hypervelocity star escaping the galaxy.

This demonstrates that Earth is not ideal for suporting life – it is “just” pretty good.

“Currently believed to” is not evidence, just speculation.
Even if Europa has conditions suitable for life, that does not mean conditions as good as those on Earth.
What makes you think Europa would not be affected should the Sun go nova?
What makes you think Europa could never collide with another celestial body? Asteroids are not the only such bodies.
What makes you think Europa does not have/would not have problems that Earth does not have?

 

[Lokadottir]

If you guys were this skeptical about religion, the lot of you would be atheists!

 

[weller2]

“Currently believed to” is not evidence, just speculation.
Even if Europa has conditions suitable for life, that does not mean conditions as good as those on Earth.

What makes you thing Europa would not be affected should the Sun go nova?

It’s too far from the Sun for that to be a problem.

What makes you think Europa could never collide with another celestial body? Asteroids are not the only such bodies.

Asteroid impact on Earth is a problem, because it will throw dust into the air obscuring the Sun and lowering temperature below freezing for several months or years, thus wiping out most of the life. If a similar asteroid impacts Europa’s ice shield, it will simply blow a hole several hundred meters in diameter, which will quickly refreeze before too much water escapes.

What makes you thin Europa does not have/would not have problems that Earth does not have?

It probably has some problems we don’t have, but it also doesn’t have some problems which we have. So if location which does not have problems that we have exists, then we are not at the best possible location.

 

[weller2]

I paused, “But isn’t it correct that a singularity as defined by science is a point at which all the laws of physics break down?”
“That is correct” was the answer.
“Then, technically, your starting point is not scientific either.”

Actually for us, the Big Bang is not the starting point but a regression. We have discovered Bing Bang by observing expansion of the universe and working backwards.

But, I digress. The scientists are at least open that they cannot see beyond the initial singularity, so whatever is out there, they don’t know. In contrast, religious apologists not only claim to know WHAT is beyond the initial singularity, they also claim to know WHO that is personally, WHY He did that, and most importantly, what He thinks about my sex life. There’s only one problem though, because no two religions will agree exactly on their answers, and each of them claims that all others are false…

 

[rossum]

Is anything you say true?

Most things. Some are opinion and I do make errors.

because how can you appeal to truth if you deny it?

I do not deny truth. I deny “ultimate truth”, which is a different animal. I have no problem with conventional truth. The problems arise when conventional truth is reified into absolute, or ultimate, truth.

and if you deny an intelligent creator, than you also deny truth.

And if you deny the intelligent creator of your intelligent creator then… If everything has a cause then your creator needs a cause. If things exist without a cause, then I will stick with an uncaused Multiverse.

If we are nothing more than a make up of chemical compounds, than we are completely determined, it means we are automated, like robots, programmed to think and do as we think and do.

You need to understand more about chaos theory and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. We are not completely determined.

This is why Jesus so famously said “I am the truth.” John 14:6 and "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32

And the truth, or rather the Four Noble Truths, are Suffering, Origin, Cessation and Path. Those four will certainly set you free.

rossum

 

[Lokadottir]

You need to understand more about chaos theory and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. We are not completely determined.

rossum

Yay I was right about it involving chaos theory!
(I feel so proud )

 

[tonyrey]

Science is the best explanation we have available of the STEM universe. Outside that, other explanations are potentially valid.

Are persons potentially explicable by science?

Yes. Science works, and there is evidence to show that it works. Science has been an immense success.

Science works with regard to physical reality but does it work with regard to spiritual development?

 

[josh987654321]

That is literally the most circular argument I’ve ever seen.

It is not a logical fallacy though, it’s completely logical given the argument that we are nothing more than chemical compounds, e.g. no soul.

You seem to think rossum is denying it.

he/she has to deny truth if we are nothing more than chemical compounds, which he/she did in the post below by saying there is no such thing as objective truth (ultimate truth) and that only subjective truth exists, which is just another way of saying truth is a delusion and which means scientific fact is completely subjective and cannot be true.

So I would like to see Richard Dawkins next book following “The God Delusion” with “The Truth Delusion” as it logically follows. But he wont do that because than he debunks his book “The God Delusion.”

The uncomfortable truth is that’s a possibility. (rossum you’re clever do you think chaos theory might apply to human though and behavior?)

If there is no intelligent creator, it’s not simply a possibility, it’s an absolute reality, and you again appeal to truth in order to say it, following your views it means your mind is deceiving you.

Because the if you are a chemical computer you can perform calculations…?

No. Because if you are a computer you do not have free will, you do not have ‘understanding’ or ‘discovering’ your results are based on your programming and hardwiring, it’s all about your software and hardware.

He (or she!) is putting forth hypotheses from data. He (or she) is offering counter theories. I doubt he (or she) is saying that he (or she) is infallible.

In order to claim to be infallible you have to be fallible to begin with, how can you be capable of making mistakes, if everything you think and do is due to your hardware and software? You wouldn’t say a computer was fallible because it gave you the number 7 after entering 2+3 would you?

You would say “I made a mistake in the software” you wouldn’t say “The computer made a mistake in it’s calculations.”

Actually science is the use of hard data to form a theory that fits best to the knowledge we possess. Science changes as it knows more. No one advocating science here is saying they know for sure. They are defending the THEORY the find MOST logical through hard data.

All you are saying is that when I entered 2+3 out came the number 5, so what happenes when someone enters 2+3 and out comes the number 7? how could you be right and they wrong? and yet due to ‘majority rules’ you say that the second person is a lunatic or crazy, if the majority spat out the number 7 from 2+3 you would be saying that the others were launatics or crazy.

C.S. Lewis I believe said it best here -

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts - i.e., Materialism and Astronomy - are mere accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset. C.S. Lewis

The theory that thought is merely a movement in the brain is, in my opinion, nonsense; for if so, that theory itself would be merely a movement, an event among atoms, which may have speed and direction but of which it would be meaningless to use the words ‘true’ or ‘false’. C.S. Lewis

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[josh987654321]

Non-sequitur.

While indeed we are made of chemical compounds, it does not mean that we are reducible to the chemical compounds we are made of. In general, an ensemble is not reducible to the sum of component parts. However, if the ensemble exhibits certains characteristics component parts do not have individually, it does not necessarily mean that the ensemble was designed.

A good example is the Internet. Internet is, essentially, a collection of computers. However, obviously, Internet is not reducile to collection of computers. And while the Internet has been constructed artificially, it’s creators have observed about 1990 that it exhibits behaviors which were neither designed nor intended. After the network was assembled, it started doing things which nobody expected it to do – things which were, in fact, detrimental to its own operation. The phenomenon came to be known as self-synchronization. One of the basic ideas behind the Internet was that computers transmit data at essentially random intervals, so when you have multiple computers, the total traffic will even out. But when the network was run, it has turned out that after some time all computers started transmitting data at the same time – despite the fact that it was not something which they were told to do. In other words, the system went from a chaotic state to an ordered (synchronized) state all by itself and contrary to the wishes of its designers. (The reason this was bad was of course that if all nodes were transmitting at the same time, the links would clog.)

This is something which, according to the creationists, can never happen. In the creationist worldview, going from a disordered state to an ordered state requires intelligent action. But the Internet forgot to ask them for an opinion, and promptly synchronized itself after it reached a certain number of nodes. People scratched their heads, restarted everything and it synchronized itself again. Then people started looking at the problem mathematically and discovered that it had to happen. Self-synchronization was an unavoidable (if unforeseen) consequence of certain initial assumptions made by the designers.

The only reason why you say this can never happen with the creationist, is because you assume God doesn’t have omniscience. The designers of the internet did not have omniscience and could not forsee the complete result of their actions. How can the unexpected results (that we find) occur to the one who created the unexpected results?

Now we enter into the discussion of God’s ominscience, omnipotence and the reality of evil and suffering which is something that should not be brushed over as many skeptics often do, so if you wish to go down that path, please don’t start making assumptions, as they say “It’s better to debate a question before settling it, than to settle a question before debating it.”

I paraphrased a small piece from C.S. Lewis in his book “Mere Christianity” on this subject in the following link if your interested.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11509304&postcount=81

I would also encourage you to read a book called “Jesus among other Gods” by Ravi Zacharias, as it is very good on this subject too.

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[josh987654321]

Actually for us, the Big Bang is not the starting point but a regression. We have discovered Bing Bang by observing expansion of the universe and working backwards.

Yup.

But, I digress. The scientists are at least open that they cannot see beyond the initial singularity, so whatever is out there, they don’t know.

This is where what Jesus said and did comes into it. We can see beyond to an intelligent creator because he has revealed himself to us.

If you ever get a chance “Jesus among other Gods” by Ravi Zacharias is very good.

In contrast, religious apologists not only claim to know WHAT is beyond the initial singularity, they also claim to know WHO that is personally, WHY He did that,

Yup.

and most importantly, what He thinks about my sex life.

It’s interesting that you say that is ‘most importantly’ I would have thought when it comes to a discussion about the existance of an intelligent creator that would be least important.

There’s only one problem though, because no two religions will agree exactly on their answers, and each of them claims that all others are false…

Yup, and division creates indifference, hence why so many are indifferent to religion and don’t bother looking into it. They say “Richard Dawkins makes sense”, than we say “Would you look into Christianity?” they say, “I don’t care or I don’t need to.” or “I already have. (having read a few pages/books from the old testament as if that’s apolagetics).” Did you know there are still people who deny the effects of second hand smoke? perhaps it’s similar to your case about your conscience prying in on your sex life.

There are so many men and women today who are like Pilate, upon having the Truth in front of them, they can only think of saying, ‘And what is truth?’ As Pilate, they refuse to see truth, because they are afraid, because truth makes demands, because truth implies obligations, because truth implies commitment. Once we acknowledge the truth, licing with the status quo becomes much harder.

But as I said in my signature, “People who live in darkness hate the light and won’t come into the light, because it clearly shows what they have done, but remember as the light uncovers our sins, love is also there ready to cover them, so do not be afraid.”

God prefers a loving sinner to a loveless ‘saint’

 

[josh987654321]

Most things. Some are opinion and I do make errors.

How can anything be true?

I do not deny truth. I deny “ultimate truth”, which is a different animal. I have no problem with conventional truth. The problems arise when conventional truth is reified into absolute, or ultimate, truth.

Than that is just another way of saying that ‘truth’ is an illusion in the mind, “The Truth Delusion.”

And if you deny the intelligent creator of your intelligent creator then… If everything has a cause then your creator needs a cause. If things exist without a cause, then I will stick with an uncaused Multiverse.

Everything material needs a cause, and God is not material nor does he need a cause, he is uncaused and infinite.

You need to understand more about chaos theory and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. We are not completely determined.

Without an intelligent creator we are absolutely completely determined. I believe if they try and convince you otherwise than they are only playing mind games, I read somewhere Stephen Hawking also famously said that we are completely determined. And without an intelligent creator, he would be absolutely right.

As C.S. Lewis so well stated -

The theory that thought is merely a movement in the brain is, in my opinion, nonsense; for if so, that theory itself would be merely a movement, an event among atoms, which may have speed and direction but of which it would be meaningless to use the words ‘true’ or ‘false’. C.S. Lewis

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts - i.e., Materialism and Astronomy - are mere accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset. C.S. Lewis

And the truth, or rather the Four Noble Truths, are Suffering, Origin, Cessation and Path. Those four will certainly set you free.

rossum

How can they be true if you deny an intelligent creator?

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[rossum]

Are persons potentially explicable by science?

What do you mean by “person”? What are its components?

Science works with regard to physical reality but does it work with regard to spiritual development?

Agreed. The spiritual in not included in the STEM universe, and science does not deal with it.

rossum

 

[josh987654321]

Does anyone here believe it is reasonable for me to conclude that a dictionary is the product of an explosion of confined ink and paper? e.g. no intelligability behind it? and if not, why use that for an explanation of the universe?

That’s why I believe the intelligent design argument is a strong one.

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[cornbread_r2]

Let’s cut the chase.

Suppose that I gave you a detailed description how the first living organism was actually created…

I think this TED presentation illustrates your point here really well. If someone watches it without audio, they’ll likely think they’re watching something about life forms, but they’d be mistaken. These things aren’t alive, but they sure act like they are.

 

[josh987654321]

Non-sequitur.

It is far from a Non-sequitur.

Adequate determinism is the reason that Stephen Hawking calls Libertarian free will “just an illusion”. Stephen Hawking say’s that Compatibilistic free will (which is deterministic) may be the only kind of “free will” that can exist. This is just another way of saying the very same thing above that “free will” is just an illusion (that we only appear to have free will) and without free will, the result is determinism, and the result of determinism is the illusion/delusion of truth.

So when you reject an intelligent creator, you also reject free will which means you are completely determined (Compatibilistic free will is only another way of saying that we only ‘appear’ to have free will, just like some say “we only appear to be intelligently designed”) which means you also reject truth, which is the very thing you appeal to in order to reject intelligent design (e.g. intelligent creator).

So if there is no God, why do you believe it to be true?

I would like to paraphrase a small bit of John lennox for you.

I believe in God because I believe there is evidence for God, for example, in the very fact that we can do science, we believe that the universe is rationally intelligable. Why does a scientist believe it is rationally intelligable? Atheism tells us that the human mind is the human brain and it’s the end product of a mindless unguided process, why should I believe anything it tells me if thats the case? Whereas theism tells me that there is intelligence behind the universe and behind the human mind which fits perfectly with science. So part of the evidence for God would be the fact that we can do science. But the greatest evidence for God is in the historically verifiable Jesus Christ and his life and teachings.

Infact the rise of science in the 16th and 17th century came about because people expected law and nature, because they believed in the Law giver (God). So science and faith in God fit perfectly together.

So if there is no ‘intelligent design’ than there is also no ‘free will’ and there is also no ‘truth’ so if you wish to use the argument that we only appear to be intelligently designed, than we also only appear to have free will and only appear to know truth.

Thus why Richard Dawkins should bring out a new book called “The Truth Delusion” as it logically follows, but if he does that, than he debunks his book “The God Delusion.”

This is why the ‘intelligent design’ argument, I believe is a strong one.

Please let me know if you don’t follow any part of my argument, because when I first heard this argument from apolgists like Ravi Zacharias and John lennox on the existance of God, it went right over my head.

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[rossum]

How can anything be true?

Non-reified things can be true. The problem is not inherent the thing itself, but in the reification of it. Reification is the problem, not the underlying entity: truth, beauty, evil etc.

Than that is just another way of saying that ‘truth’ is an illusion in the mind, “The Truth Delusion.”

No. The reification is the illusion:

The emptiness of emptiness is the fact that not even emptiness exists ultimately, that it is also dependent, conventional, nominal, and in the end it is just the everydayness of the everyday. Penetrating to the depths of being, we find ourselves back on the surface of things and so discover that there is nothing, after all, beneath those deceptive surfaces. Moreover, what is deceptive about them is simply the fact that we assume ontological depth lurking just beneath.

– Jay Garfield

Everything material needs a cause, and God is not material nor does he need a cause, he is uncaused and infinite.

The material started at the Big Bang (the “M” in STEM stands for “Matter”). Since the Multiverse exists outside the STEM universe then the Mulitverse is also immaterial and so needs no cause.

Without an intelligent creator we are absolutely completely determined.

No. As I said, Heisenberg and chaos theory. Heisenberg inevitably introduces small unmeasurable variations. Chaos theory amplifies some of those small variations into large variations. The butterfly causing a hurricane. Heisenberg provides the butterflies and chaos theory turns some of those butterflies into hurricanes.

How can they be true if you deny an intelligent creator?

Bwahahaha! You think that my own personal beliefs can affect whether statements by a fully enlightened Buddha are true or not? You vastly overestimate my personal impact on the world.

rossum

 

[josh987654321]

.

As John Lennox say’s, Why does a scientist believe the universe is rationally intelligable? Atheism tells us that the human mind is the human brain and it’s the end product of a mindless unguided process, why should I believe anything it tells me if thats the case?

A computer doesn’t ‘discover’ anything, it thinks and does what ever it’s hardwired or programmed to think and do, and it’s results, even if unforseen, are completely determined.

Would you disagree that as Dawkins say’s, we dance to our DNA?

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[ericc]

And your evidence for this assertion is? We already know that vitalism is false, unless you have an experiment that can show a difference between a hydrogen atom inside a living organism and a hydrogen atom outside a living organism.

And your evidence for this assertion is? We already have a great deal of knowledge of the big bang, and we are beginning to gather knowledge about what happened “before” the big bang.

Both abiogenesis and cosmology are open questions in science, where we have a lot of hypotheses and no settled theory yet. As more data is gathered we will be able to eliminate incorrect hypotheses until we have eliminated enough that those remaining can be used to build a theory.

Your points are both classic “God-of-the-gaps”: find a gap in current scientific knowledge and insert God into the gap. The problem you have is that as science narrows the gap, the God you have put there gets smaller and smaller. How small do you want your God to get?

Correct. Abiogenesis is an open problem and is still being worked on. We have made progress, but have not finished the work yet.

Penrose is correct. The Mulitverse is a hypothesis, not yet a theory. We have some observational evidence to support the idea of a Multiverse, but not enough yet. More data is still needed.

Yes they are. That is why they are called “experiments”. The alternative is to build a full-size planet from scratch complete with millions of tons of reactants and a wide variety of changing conditions and then wait for millions of years to see what happens. Scientists work on a much smaller scale to model as accurately as possible the conditions on the young earth.

Experiments are models, not an actual planet. The fact that models are designed is not unknown to science. That a model is designed does not mean that the original, from which the model was derived, is also designed.

Yes, of course they do.

Many experiments were done in a variety of models of early earth environments. For example, the Miller-Urey experiment has been repeated over and over with variations on the constituent chemicals and the energy (name removed by moderator)uts. Those initial conditions are derived from geological information taken from old rocks.

On a planetary scale there are also concentration processes: evaporation of a tidal pool, freezing, and others.

Correct. The earth was far too hot during the Late Heavy Bombardment. Life originated after that finished. The ocean depths are cooler than the surface. The oceans are not all one uniform temperature.

UV is blocked by water. Lower down the water column, UV would not be a factor. Protein survival is not a factor until after proteins arrived on the scene. It is likely that the role currently performed by proteins was initially performed by RNA.

Mmmm soup! Tasty! Early life was almost certainly chemotrophic, and ate organic molecules floating round in their environment. Bacteria eat food, and simple organic compounds are food. Heterotrpohy and Phototrophy evolved later.

I suggest that you claim your Nobel Prize right now. You obviously have a complete and detailed model of how life originated on earth, including a complete and thorough study of the exact timescales and probabilities involved in the process. Such a paper would be hugely in advance of anything other scientists have produced to date.

All you have to do is to show us your calculations of the probabilities, and the data behind your calculations. You have actually done the calculations, haven’t you?

rossum

Yawn!

1.I made the comment
2. You refuted it with the answer “chemistry”
3. I asked for clarification on the “how” and I got nothing.
4. Now you asked me how to support my comment without answering the “how” of your chemistry after so many rounds?

You certainly know how to run rings around your opponent literally.

I can easily support my comment. Empirical evidence. You mix lifeless things together everyday and after millions and millions of times done by millions and millions of people around the world and no one seen any creation of life, it is safe to say the statement is a true statement. For you unfortunately, your answer “chemistry” has no empirical evidence, not a single bit of research has shown what you proclaim is the answer. You dare to ask me to show all kinds of calculations, read all kinds of books and articles, while you think you are exempted from proving your case? Anyway, the record is on show here to highlight your knowledge and that you have failed despite all your knowledge you have exhibited (I am not saying that knowledge is not good, but it does not support your answer), you have not succeeded in supporting your answer.

I am nobody and have no Nobel prize to speak of. Perhaps you have that prize and that is good for you. I am just stating what I thought an obvious everyday fact that lifeless things don’t just become alive by itself even with multiple stimuli. Perhaps in your ivory tower you know something that I don’t but thank goodness what I know today still stands and nothing has changed. If you can proof lifeless things do come alive without an intelligent agent, I will be the first one to root for your Nobel prize.

With that I think we should conclude our discussion here.

 

[tonyrey]

What do you mean by “person”? What are its components? A person is a rational being - with or without a body. Rational beings have no components unless they have a body because:

The spiritual in not included in the STEM universe, and science does not deal with it.