Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God

ID does not claim there is a god. Simply an intelligence. How that intelligence manifests itself is a different debate.

 

you can't seem to stop making things up

oh look, more fairy tales, i'm amused at your ignorance-based argument, not angry

what a bunch of malarkey

it's a political ploy

 

What you do agree on is that something had to exist. Is it more likely that the something was infinitely simple, like the universe itself at the big bang, or something infinitely complex, like an intelligent agent capable of creating the universe?

 

I have no idea. Perhaps in whatever universe or dimension the creator exists in, there is a different set of rules. Rules which allowed him to create us.

What I do know is that us coming into existence out of pure miraculous coincidence... is statistically impossible.

 

correct

not correct

 

Infinitely simple? That's a complete misrepresentation of how our universe was created. It had to engage in processes that had to be so incredibly precise that any minute deviation would result in catastrophic failure.

It's far less likely that occured just out of pure "luck" than it is for some sort of intelligence to design it. It's far more reasonable for me to accept that some intelligence whose machinations and origins that we do not understand designed it than it is to believe in simple coincidence.

 

Yes actually it is correct. "Statistically impossible" is also known as "practically impossible".

Mathematicians generally agree that, statistically, any odds beyond 1 in 10^50 have a zero probability of ever happening. This is Borel's law in action which was derived by mathematician Emil Borel.

And the statistical probability of the universe occurring out of coincidence is astronomically higher than 1 x 10^50

 

Uh, no. Minute deviations would have resulted in different universes. SOME universe might be inevitable.

Actually, this is quite false. In fact, today quite a lot of scientific investigation uses evoutionary processes to get results, because intelligent investigators can't do as well.

Consider the kaleidoscope. With each turn of the wheel, we see a unique, fabulously complex picture. I can't believe every one of those countless patterns (all beautiful) could be the result of simple coincidence. So I believe the simplest explanation is that every kaleidoscope has an invisible demon intelligently selecting every pattern. Coincidence is just preposterous!

 

oh look, more irrelevant malarkey, what a joke

 

The odds against any SPECIFIC bridge hand are astronomical. The odds of SOME bridge hand being dealt are very high. Similarly, the odds against OUR universe are astronomical. The odds against any specific universe are astronomical. But the odds against SOME universe? Ah, asking the right question gets better answers, as usual.

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When you start with the right answer which is Not To Be Questioned, what can you do but dream up silly questions that produce the foregone conclusion?

This is your mind on religion.

 

it's not my mind

 

As is yours. Show me the evidence that the universe came into being by chance. There isn't any. So if lack of evidence means that my theory is invalid then by the same definition so is your theory. One side is openminded and leaves the option for many possible variables......the other side is closed minded and immediately discounts any possibility other than their theory. It is the epitome of simplistic and childish thought. Show me the evidence that the universe just sprang into existence by pure chance.

 

get a grip on reality, that's not my assertion

 

Do you have evidences of other universes that function outside of the same parameters of gravity, electromagnetic force and the strong and weak nuclear forces that our universe works within?

If so, let me see it.

No it's not false. Let's just take one example: Those who favor naturalism had long sought to find the simplest explanation for the universe, hoping to avoid any evidence for design. A Big Bang model in which there was just enough matter to equal the critical density to account for a flat universe would have provided that. However, for many years, it has been evident that there is less than half of the amount of matter in the universe to account for a flat universe. A cosmological constant would provide an energy density to make up for the missing matter density, but would require an extreme amount of fine tuning. The supernovae studies demonstrated that there was an energy density to the universe (but did not define the size of this energy density), and the recent Boomerang study demonstrated that this energy density is exactly what one would expect to get a flat universe. How finely tuned must this energy density be to get a flat universe? One part in 10^120 which is:

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Ahhh but if one looks at the kaleidoscope for long enough he will begin to recognize patterns repeating themselves. Given enough time, he will recognize the relative uniformity in the pieces. He will begin to recognize that there is, in fact, a design present and that something with intelligence DID have a hand in it's creation.

 

What fallacious appeal to probability? I mean besides none.

 

And given one hand of bridge... you would be correct. However, there were many THOUSANDS of hands played and they all came up to the same cards being dealt every single time. Now... is it possible that simply happened out of coincidence? Sure. But which is more likely? That it happened out of coincidence or somebody stacked the deck?

 

There isn't any evidence of any intelligent agency either. But there is a great deal of evidence that everything IN the universe happens according to some known laws, rules, and principles, and there remains NO evidence of any intelligent agency. So what seems more likely - that universes come about according to some rules we don't understand, or that some all-powerful sky daddy poofs them up?

This is a misuse of the scientific notion of a theory. In science, a theory is a detailed proposed set of explanations for a related set of observations, ratified by multiple correct predictions. Where there is no evidence, there are no theories. There are only speculations.

There is very little evidence indicating how universes get started. Not even enough to build a supported model. So our best bet at present is to observe that everything else is the contingent result of identifiable rules. This is no guarantee that universes aren't Divinely Ordained (and nothing else is), but that's the way to bet.

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Good point. You go find many thousands of identical universes, and I'll agree something unexpected is happening.

 

This is always fascinating. Toss a pebble high into the air. It will come down to rest in some precise location. What are the odds of it landing exactly there and nowhere else? Infinitesimal. Are we therefore seeing a miracle in action? After all, we just witnessed something absurdly improbable, right? Or is it possible you don't understand the argument?

Not necessarily, but you're right the anthropic principle is a fallacy, just like the puddle concluding its container was fine-tuned to fit it. There could be an infinity of universes, each one containing one or more intelligences concluding that their universe, and ONLY their universe, was specifically Intelligently Designed with them in mind.

 

That's not a comparable analogy. The hands being played are the thousands of statistical improbabilities that CONTINUOUSLY came up in favor of humanity. Maybe you believe thousands of hands came up to the same cards just out of coincidence. But I'm looking for whoever it was that stacked the deck.

 

Do you have evidence that no such universes exist?

False. People have looked for some explanation supportable by observation. Design or not.

Please come back. Your argument is factually false as well as theoretically false. The universe has been shown to be far from flat, and getting less flat at an accelerating rate.

For most kaleidoscopes, this is simply not true. All the patterns will be similar, but they will never repeat.

But isn't the demon explanation a lot simpler? It only requires one demon. How simple do you want?

 

Of course it is. Just because you can't deal with it, doesn't mean it's not comparable. Indeed, the fact that you can't deal with it shows it IS comparable.

WHAT? Humanity has arisen only this once, only recently. When humanity goes extinct, nothing like it will ever arise again.

 

I think you don't understand the argument. The parameters are so precise it's like throwing millions of pebbles in the air and having them land in the same precise configuration. Is it possible? Yes. Probable, no. Now here we are looking at a million pebbles that have all landed in some specific configuration, scratching our heads thinking, "WTF!". Now, with the argument better framed, is it a miracle? Whether yes or no, it at least deserves more attention than a tautology: "The pebbles are that way because that's the way all the pebbles landed".

 

so then you can say the earth will not be struck by a big one, being all predictable and all... their trajectory entropy and effect of travel by other gravitational fields had purpose and was predictable, and you can also predict when earthquakes will happen? I guess Im nuts.