What would a designed universe look like?

It seems to me that a designed universe would have no randomness in it, or else what's the point of designing it?
 
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'

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. Why not just create men, and skip this step? Why is the Andromeda Galaxy on its way to smash into the Milky Way, possibly ripping the Earth out of its orbit? Why black holes, that wish to tear the very fabric of space? Why has 99% of all life died out? Why the first couple of billion years in the universe devoted to dancing atoms? It serves no purpose to an all-powerful God. For an all-powerful God, it furthers nothing. 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'. Still thinking "God works in...."? No, because according to God, you have 'no excuse'. If you except all this and still believe, I don't understand why you are not a deist.

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.
 
Last edited:
Noone knows anything. All we do is look at the world and try to make the best guess possible. When standing at a junction of belief I personally go for the path that sports the best sign post, and needs the least complicated road map.

1. Universe is designed -> Who, why and how?
2. Universe is not designed -> How?

I'm sticking with option 2. I might be wrong but I might be right. I'll stick to my path until I stub my toes on evidence that I'm wrong. Guess I'm lazy but it's much easier to assume the universe is not designed and then stumble across evidence to the contrary, then it is to assume it's designed and explain the lack of evidence.
 
RandFan said:
Excellent.

Hundreds of billions of galaxies with 100 billion stars in each galaxy,
Click to expand...

Wo Wo, hold on. There are some with 1 trillion, but I believe the traditional amount is 100 million.

Still cool though.
 
Last edited:
Nothing designed by an intelligent mind, can ever be completely random. I think it's been mathematically proven. Not sure though, I actually learned this from a tv-show.
I think I've learned more while watching Discovery an hour a day, than being in school for seven.

Meh.
 
Cainkane1 said:
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.
Click to expand...
My design would be similar to yours, but I wouldn't have the larger planets at all. Just put a bunch of smaller planets in the Goldilocks zone. Give each one a large stabilizing moon. Make the continents regular concentric rings that circle the globe for some span of latitudes. No rain or rain clouds, fresh-water oceans. All life is capable of photosynthesis, so none has to kill to eat. All injuries are reversible, as the "lizard growing a new tail" gene is universal. Death still exists, but it's really just a re-boot -- when you're tired of living, or feel you've accomplished everything you want to accomplish, you quietly evaporate, and a tiny baby appears in your place, starting fresh, knowing nothing. Gentle breezes, no hurricanes or tornadoes. No earthquakes.

And the sun would be hot-swappable.
 
ACS, I spent a long time posting that response, so I'd appreciate a reply.

ETA: Another idea. We'd poo out our pores in sweet smelling, invisible bursts, not in one hideous, horrific mess that happens to be positioned very close to your sexy area. Then I'd think God loved me!
 
Last edited:
Only one post had a sandwich. Prior to that was this post.

Cainkane1 said:
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.
Click to expand...

THAT would look far more designed. It would be far more parsimonious.
 
You can't say much without knowing something about the designer. About the only thing you can say is that if it was designed, it would have a clear and obvious function. This function would be obvious to any intelligent entity.
 
I think that it would look like an extremely advanced MMORPG, where we are all big shot heros, and lame "NPCs" would man the corner stores and McDonalds so that we could go about our business being awesome.

Wait a minute... Does design suggest god/gods? Or simulation!? Sounds like god is a nerd code monkey to me. He probably needs to get laid.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
To follow Dr Tyson's words: "The universe wants to kill us") serve to be incompatable with the God described in the Bible.
Click to expand...

Which Bible are you looking at? The God in the Christian Bible has a long record of murder with him as the murderer or the one ordering the hit. (Various gods of other religions can be just as bad or worse).
 
There are countless examples of Intelligently Designed universes, many of which are in the form of science fiction novels.

By examining sci/fi novels we might be able deduce some characteristics that would apply to a Designed universe, and see if they apply to ours. Maybe.

For example:
Sci-fi novels tend to have main characters for which the "Universe" was contrived to work around. Are there any such "main characters" in our real Universe?
 
Okay, okay--

In a designed universe, the Earth would be partitioned by acreage into rectangular fields, where humans grow right out of the ground in neat little rows. Periodic rainfalls and bright sun would pass over the fields in regular intervals, and the humans would stretch their arms towards the heavens and sing praises to God, their creator and benefactor who provides for all their basic needs. Every day would be like this, until the end of the growing season when the humans are mature, and God drives his giant thresher over the fields to harvest them all for the feast. Why? Because obviously God designed us in order to EAT us.

Not that this is too different from the system we have now, mind you. Except that God is more subtle.
 
Tricky said:
You can't say much without knowing something about the designer. About the only thing you can say is that if it was designed, it would have a clear and obvious function. This function would be obvious to any intelligent entity.
Click to expand...
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.
 
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. Oddly, the machinery of the universe seems to randomly mangle living creatures on a daily basis. I think it is safe to conclude that if Christianity is correct, God is incompetent or uncaring.

A loom that makes gnarled rugs speaks volumes about the loom maker.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom