What would a designed universe look like?

[A Christian Sceptic]

ACS, the onus is on you -as a believer- to offer up the designed universe of your God. Now, you haven't, but other believers have, so lets pluck a christian world view.

Romans 1:20

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

The unbelievers are without excuse here, because God has clearly made life on Earth to be understood by human comprehension. No "Strange hand of God stuff", no "God works in mysterious ways", just a 'clearly seen' design. One that so clearly has the hand of God in it we have '[no] excuse'

Where does it say any of that bolded stuff you wrote in Romans 1:20 that you quoted?

This made sense in the age of scientific ignorance and especially before Darwin. This is no longer the case.

Let's take the example of life condensed into one hour on a stopwatch. For the first 50 minutes there is nothing but single-celled organisms.

The hand of God makes no sense here. There is no point. Just an incredible amount of time spent on nothingness.

Is there nothingness or were there single-celled organisms?

Why not just create men, and skip this step?

Why do you think man is more important than the single-celled organisms?

Why is the Andromeda Galaxy on its way to smash into the Milky Way, possibly ripping the Earth out of its orbit?

Because the movement of these galaxies are following the laws of motion?

Why black holes, that wish to tear the very fabric of space?

I didn't know black holes could wish. That is a poetic image though. Thanks.

Why has 99% of all life died out?

Is there life that doesn't die?

Why the first couple of billion years in the universe devoted to dancing atoms?

Maybe it was beautiful. It sure appears to still be beautiful.

It serves no purpose to an all-powerful God. For an all-powerful God, it furthers nothing.

I'm not really sure where you get your ideas on what an all-powerful God's purpose should be.

Can you explain why the Christian God would do this?
No, and neither would I, which declares the observation in Romans debunked when it says his hand is 'clearly seen'.

Again - not sure where it says his hand is clearly seen. And even if it did - not sure why that would mean "the universe needs to look like I would want instead however He would want."

At the very least, these few observations (As there are many more. To follow Dr Tyson's words: "The universe wants to kill us") serve to be incompatable with the God described in the Bible.

Again - it's nice poetic image to believe the universe is sentient.

I'm not sure where in the bible it says humans are exempt from the physical laws of the universe.

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

There is obviously no way to know what a designed universe would look like unless we knew something of the designer and its purpose.

Christianity, for example, claims that the universe was created for the benefit of the creatures within it.

What does benefit mean? Can I see the verse so I can look up what you mean? Thanks.

A loom that makes gnarled rugs speaks volumes about the loom maker.

Or the parts of the loom that aren't cooperating.

 

[JoeEllison]

What would a designed universe look like?

What kind of designer?

 

[KingMerv00]

What does benefit mean? Can I see the verse so I can look up what you mean? Thanks.

God is supposed to love us. The universe does not.

Or the parts of the loom that aren't cooperating.

Yea, Indonesia jumped in front of that tsunami.

 

[Gate2501]

Yea, Indonesia jumped in front of that tsunami.

God is a merciless swimming instructor perhaps.

 

[JoeEllison]

If we assume a perfect designer, one of the aspects of that universe would be a 100% lack of a need for any further intervention for that designer, let alone anything resembling religions that exist in THIS universe.

 

[slingblade]

Martha Stewart designer or Queer Eye designers?

A. Tasteful, inexpensive use of found objects and a clear devotion to routine, which produces a harmonious, organized, and stylish universe even your mother will approve,

or

B. A simply fabulous universe that isn't afraid to wear pink, get a manicure once in a while, or use a little product in its hair.

 

[qayak]

But only when viewed from the outside. If you're a cog in a giant clock, you wouldn't be able to tell the time.

Your point would make us just another cog in the universal mechanism whereas any self respecting creationsit knows that the universe was clearly designed FOR us.

 

[Olowkow]

A universe designed by an all knowing and all powerful entity would not contain life forms that beg the designer for help all the time. What would be the point?

In the business of electronic design, we call these "complaints". One tries to minimize them.

 

[Olowkow]

OR....since we are created in god's image...it follows that a designed universe would look like something designed by a man, and it wouldn't be as difficult as it is to figure it out.

 

[westprog]

The nature of a designed universe depends on the motivations and capabilities of the designer. The usual who, why and how involved in the creation of anything.

I would gladly give a better answer if you elaborated a bit on the question. After all, what would a designed universe not look like?

Precisely. We'd need to understand the motivations and requirements of the designer.

It would be extremely difficult to decide from scratch what a designed or undesigned universe should be like, since we only have one example to go on.

What we can say is that if the universe is designed, this is the kind of universe that a designer would like.

 

[GeeMack]

So - anyone?

Anyone who isn't a selfish ingrate would have said something like, "Thanks for the replies."

Sticking your fingers in your ears, closing your eyes and humming loudly is not very impressive.

Yes, a willfully ignorant, selfish ingrate.

So, A Christian Sceptic, what do you think a designed universe would look like? And if you think it would look like the one we currently occupy, given all the obvious flaws that have been pointed out by others in this thread, wouldn't you agree that the designer did a piss-poor job?

 

[KingMerv00]

Or the parts of the loom that aren't cooperating.

Strange, it took me a full hour to get angry at you.

How freaking dare you. Take a look at these "uncooperative parts":

Did God put those bandages on their heads?

Imagine a father doing this to his children. Now imagine me defending him and putting a little smirky emoticon at the end. You are just awful.

 

[JoeEllison]

What we can say is that if the universe is designed, this is the kind of universe that a designer would like.

No, we CAN'T say that, in any way, shape, or form. How did you manage to screw up that badly?(if Scotch is involved, you're forgiven... )

It is both circular, and a non-sequitur. Oops for you, chum.

 

[shadron]

A competent human designer would design with a number of (sometimes conflicting) goals in his mind:

- simplicity
- parsimony
- functionally capable of the requirements (you do have requirements, of course, do you not?)
- low cost
- maintainability
- low overhead
- automatic, if possible
- clean appearance

...and so on. These are predicated because of a number of constraints our world places on doing any design:

- resources
- time
- relatively high cost of human labor
- aesthetics
- marketing (making a buck)
- finessing the taxman

...and also so on. God, as a designer, has no such constraints, except for that pesky free will he may (or may not) have given some of his creations. Do you see why it is difficult to determine how a god would have designed the universe?

It is certain that if he did, the constraints and goals must have been wildly different from those we have.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Where does it say any of that bolded stuff you wrote in Romans 1:20 that you quoted?

Aside from all of it?

Why do you think man is more important than the single-celled organisms?

Because of the bible?

Because the movement of these galaxies are following the laws of motion?

Hang on, I thought God set up these laws? So his desire to have the Andromeda galaxy slam into the Milky Way, perhaps ripping the Earth out of its orbit is part of his plan?

I didn't know black holes could wish. That is a poetic image though. Thanks.

You know what I mean. And you know you dodged the question.

Is there life that doesn't die?

I mean the 99% of all species that have died out.

I'm not really sure where you get your ideas on what an all-powerful God's purpose should be.

The Bible.

Anyone who designed this would be fired.

ACS, I still can't understand why you are not a deist if anything. Your Christian God is simply superfluous.

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

Strange, it took me a full hour to get angry at you.

OK - I looked over all the previous replies.
I was obviously answering in context to all the above replies and yours. Yours was one of the more specific (and serious) but also rather general. Yours was apparently talking about natural disasters.

My comments were meant towards your analogy. Which is why that's all I quoted. You're judging a loom maker by the rugs the loom is making and saying - this loom's end result shows the loom maker to be - fill in the negative adjective. There's alot of parts in this loom. And, unfortunately, some have Free Will to compound the problems. That's the extent of any point I had.

The whole moral of the Fall of Man in the Genesis is about Man not cooperating with God - and thus apparently causing a negative ripple effect outwards into ALL creation. You don't have to believe it to know what it's saying.

How freaking dare you. Take a look at these "uncooperative parts":

Did God put those bandages on their heads?

Imagine a father doing this to his children. Now imagine me defending him and putting a little smirky emoticon at the end. You are just awful.

First off - I don't think that's the smirky emoticon. (Is there a smirky emoticon?) But it was put there to TELL you this was a play on your analogy and take it lightly. (Maybe they should have a Take It With A Grain of Salt emoticon) [I might point out - most of these responses so far have been rather light and often silly replies. Thanks for being one of those who wasn't posting answers like Sandwhich, Pink, etc.]

So to you - if this was a designed universe there would be no natural disasters? Is that the gist of it or what? No need to get pissy and definitely no need to read more into something when it's not there.

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

So - anyone?

Anyone who isn't a selfish ingrate would have said something like, "Thanks for the replies."

Let's look at the responses I received when I posted that shall we?

Lots of 90 degree angles.

- Questionable.

I'd settle for just designing a solar system. I'd have more than one inhabitable planet, no asteroids and plenty of inhabitable moons circling aroung the larger planets without the killer radiation. I'd have more than one intelligent species in the solar system to make things more interesting.

- Serious - although this poster probably meant Habitable instead of Inhabitable.

I think it would depend on the designer.

If it were designed by committee, physics books would probably read more like the IRS code.

- Didn't answer what it would look like. Silly.

It's a daunting task, designing a universe. It would require some super-human effort to foresee all the problems that come with the task.
Gravity, light, what to use for the basic parts, how to make these parts fit together and operate as units, and keep going for a long time or not.
Then considering all the ways things can go wrong. Which of these are negligible and which need to looked at.
Would a consistent series of supernovas be needed to seed the galaxies with new materials, or would that satisfactory as random events?
Just on the macro level, it's something one might spend a day or six thinking on.

- Didn't answer it. Silly.

2 people posted comments about other peoples posts.

Fluffernutter - breakfast, lunch and dinner

- Silly

Pink.

- Silly.

So - only 1 for sure serious answer. The rest are questionable and concluded as being silly.

And I'm being a Selfish Ingrate?

 

[KingMerv00]

The whole moral of the Fall of Man in the Genesis is about Man not cooperating with God - and thus apparently causing a negative ripple effect outwards into ALL creation. You don't have to believe it to know what it's saying.

*Looks at photo*

Those children aren't named "Adam" and "Eve".

Apples cause earthquakes? Is Del Monte run by Dr. No?

So to you - if this was a designed universe there would be no natural disasters? Is that the gist of it or what?

If God were full of infinite love, power, and knowledge...yes.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Ok, so a brief mention of what is not the trait of a designer:

Most planet orbits are unstable.
Less than 3% of a gas cloud makes a star.
Most places kill any trace of life instantly. Be it by radiation, heat or the cold.
Galaxy orbits bring you near supernovas.
Andromeda collision.
One-way universe.

That and how we exhale most of the Oxygen we inhale, and are completely blind to radiation.