I have started a new thread on fossilising yourself, so that this fascinating conversation can be expanded without fear of an AAH dump.
Athiest's are wrong, God Exists, Science proves it
- Thread starter Elf Grinder 3000
- Start date
As shown in the quote, I am talking about religious people who believe in supernatural gods as the creators of humans and creators of the universe. And if I digress for a moment - I don't actually know of any "religious" people who do not believe in a supernatural creator. If people do claim to be "religious", and yet say they do not believe in a supernatural creator god/God, then they mean something very different by the word "religious" and the word "god/God".
However, everything we have learned from modern science, shows that things happen for perfectly explicable natural reasons, and not for "supernatural reasons". Homo sapiens appeared on Earth as a natural consequence of evolution, not as a supernatural miracle from God. And nor did the stars or the Earth appear in the sky through a supernatural miracle.
And whilst it’s true that out of many millions of people in this world who work in some area of science, some of them still do believe that God made man and made the universe etc. (particularly “scientists” in parts of the USA, apparently), it’s also apparently true that amongst the most elite levels of scientists working directly in core science (physics, maths, chemistry, biology, and directly related fields such as astronomy or genetics) fewer and fewer scientists at that level believe in any literal creator (even in the USA).
NeilC
Graduate Poster
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One thing this does bring up is the folly of scientists making these estimates of probability with nowhere near enough information to do so. I've always thought the Drake Equation was load of baseless tosh
We don't even know how life came about in the first place and cannot really make any useful estimate on it's likelihood elsewhere. We can have a guess based on guessing that what we know might be true, but if that guess proves to be wrong then it proves nothing other than we guessed wrong.
Similarly this notion that the universe can only exist if these forces are "tuned" to a mysteriously fine degree seems pretty risible too. It's not like we actually have clue how the universe came into being.
We don't even know how life came about in the first place and cannot really make any useful estimate on it's likelihood elsewhere. We can have a guess based on guessing that what we know might be true, but if that guess proves to be wrong then it proves nothing other than we guessed wrong.
Similarly this notion that the universe can only exist if these forces are "tuned" to a mysteriously fine degree seems pretty risible too. It's not like we actually have clue how the universe came into being.
Biscuit
Philosopher
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This planet isn't even fine tuned for life. Places we could not live are now habitable and places harmounous with life become inhospitable. Eventually the whole space meatball we ride upon will disappear into the sun and all that fine tuning goes out the window.
Fine-tuning just keeps popping up here.
However, it stopped being a creationist argument when Andrei Linde proposed inflationary theory back in the 80's. And now we've had some confirmation of it from the LHC (via disconfirmation of competing theories), and from BICEP2.
Inflation resulting in a multiverse of different universes quite easily explains prima facie fine-tuning. And if inflation wasn't a competing theory, then a simulated universe would be a better explanation than god did it.
So, nice try WSJ.
However, it stopped being a creationist argument when Andrei Linde proposed inflationary theory back in the 80's. And now we've had some confirmation of it from the LHC (via disconfirmation of competing theories), and from BICEP2.
Inflation resulting in a multiverse of different universes quite easily explains prima facie fine-tuning. And if inflation wasn't a competing theory, then a simulated universe would be a better explanation than god did it.
So, nice try WSJ.
jaydeehess
Penultimate Amazing
Personally, Ill just silently and slowly shake my head in dismay at the ignorance and folly of the theists.
If, in the great improbable, it turns out there is a God, I will accept that I have been wrong and wonder why It didn't live up to its press as a loving, giving entity.
If it is a loving, giving entity. We might be in for an eternity of suffering... just because. Who says god can't be a sadist?
Indeed. Afaik, what theists really mean by "fine tuning" is that they think God created this universe especially to provide the perfect place for humans to live. That is; the creation of human life on Earth was God's intended purpose.
But as we now know, the universe is a very big place. And most of it is lethal as far as human life is concerned.
So, far from being specially fine-tuned to support human life, 99.99...99% of this universe appears to be the very opposite of being hospitable to human life.
Just because we are not yet sure why certain key parameters have the values they now have, and not yet quite sure exactly how our universe came into existence (although cosmological physics does have some very good models and proposals for that, published & explained properly in the research literature), that does not of course mean there is any credibility in theists insisting on an invisible supernatural creator instead.
In any case, as far as homo sapiens are concerned, we now know that we evolved through a chain of quite different and much earlier species. So humans were certainly not created by any God, as people once believed (and as many theists still seem to believe ... even if some of them are employed as "scientists").
Spindrift
Time Person of the Year, 2006
But that's what makes us so special. God made this enormous universe and it's only little ole earth that he blessed with humans.
Elf Grinder 3000
Banned
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The straight forward question is this...
What is the probability that life randomly formed? According to the science in the article it is about 0.0000000000000001%.
and if evolution has not occured randomly, the question is
why do people believe that life was formed randomly. The empiracle evidence says it is not.
I think I can hear atheists quietly clenching their fists in anger.
What is the probability that life randomly formed? According to the science in the article it is about 0.0000000000000001%.
and if evolution has not occured randomly, the question is
why do people believe that life was formed randomly. The empiracle evidence says it is not.
I think I can hear atheists quietly clenching their fists in anger.
Gawdzilla Sama
TImeToSweepTheLeg
♫While my left hook gently weeps.♫
Shalamar
Dark Lord of the JREF
Good thing that no-one says it was formed randomly.
Perhaps you should read up on evolution and abiogenesis. You are rather wrong about your assumptions.
HighRiser
Graduate Poster
Friend, there's nothing to be angry about. The article you cite in the op is as screwed up as a football bat and is simply an opinion-piece. Your apparent dislike of atheists seems to also be planted in the same soil as that article.
I think you are woefully misinformed and uninterested in changing that situation.
I gather your absence of responding to any of the other posters here confirms that you're are not interested in learning the answers to your questions. I was willing to be surprised otherwise...
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I do like the idea that there was fine tuning of physical constants, of star formation, of planet formation, of geology, of chemistry, and of biology over billions of years with only one goal: to make us! This all by an omnipotent being who could have just wished us into existence. Seems unnecessarily complicated to me, but then can we ever understand the mind of God?
Sometimes I find believing in this feel-good scenario a bit harder when I realize that even large parts of our little rocky sphere (the oceans, the poles, etc.) are not fine-tuned to allow for humans to live there. Let alone the huge Universe. And when I consider the fact that bacteria (which have evolved as long as we did) are the vast majority of life on Earth, even in our own bodies. In fact one could legitimately think that the purpose of it all, including the creation of humans, was only to give tuberculous bacteria, the true pinnacle of God's plan, a warm host in which to live. If only tuberculous bacteria wrote a bible!
Sometimes I find believing in this feel-good scenario a bit harder when I realize that even large parts of our little rocky sphere (the oceans, the poles, etc.) are not fine-tuned to allow for humans to live there. Let alone the huge Universe. And when I consider the fact that bacteria (which have evolved as long as we did) are the vast majority of life on Earth, even in our own bodies. In fact one could legitimately think that the purpose of it all, including the creation of humans, was only to give tuberculous bacteria, the true pinnacle of God's plan, a warm host in which to live. If only tuberculous bacteria wrote a bible!
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fishbob
Seasonally Disaffected
About the same as the probability that you will read and comprehend
No, we're shaking our heads in wonderment. How can any education system be THAT bad?
But that's what makes us so special. God made this enormous universe and it's only little ole earth that he blessed with humans.
Ha,
. Yeah, it certainly would be very special. All that trouble to make the rest of the entire universe, and then wait nearly 13.7 billion years, for a random chance to occur (evolution has a random element, and the emergence of modern homo sapiens was afaik by no means certain) on one single planet in orbit around one of trillions upon trillions of different stars ...
... seems a very haphazard and inefficient plan if the purpose was just to make earthly humans. Doesn't seem very "finely tuned" as a deliberate intelligent design
. Though the previous archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in conversation with Richard Dawkins (YouTube) says he thinks that is exactly what happened ... and apparently the Pope and millions of others also agree that it's what God decided to do. Doesn’t seem very likely to me, but then I’m not religious
.How else would it have formed?