For FS: Evidence of god's existence.

[AtheistArchon]

This is a valid observation and goes to the point I made earlier and was observed by rlj51, namely, that we have missed the step of “Does God exist?”

For me, after examining that question and coming to the conclusion that the evidence best supported a conclusion of “Yes, He does” I then went onto the next step of “Which God?”

If you like, we can backtrack at this point and start at the absolute beginning: “Does God exist?”

- Well yeah. I haven't been convinced that any gods or goddesses exist yet.

Your right. Without showing why I came to the conclusion that God more likely did exist than didn’t, saying that we must judge miracles on their own merit appears as if I started with a conclusion. So I think it is necessary to backtrack and start with “does God exist?” Because this would be rather large I will post it separately.

- Ok. No rush, I'm busy today at work.

[Roy]

Today @ 02:31 PM post located here
FirstSunday33ad:

So I think it is necessary to backtrack and start with “does God exist?” Because this would be rather large I will post it separately.

Yup, that's exactly what I'm looking for.



Roy

[chsalvia]

So I think it is necessary to backtrack and start with “does God exist?” Because this would be rather large I will post it separately.

So now what? Is this thread going to delve into the various philosophical/metaphysical arguments for the existence of God? Are we going to here about the cosmological, teleological, ontological, etc. arguments?

[Roy]

08-29-2003 @ 05:20 PM post located here
rthearle:

So I think it is necessary to backtrack and start with “does God exist?” Because this would be rather large I will post it separately.

Yup, that's exactly what I'm looking for.

I've finished my popcorn and the main feature hasn't even started yet.

Roy

[FirstSunday33ad]

I apologize for taking so long to provide this follow up to my last message. I haven’t been ducking the issue, rather I have had absolutely no free time. As it is, I have put off other important duties to compose this reply. So, I will not be able to defend this post, although I will try to pop in and clarify any points as needed.

This was the logical process I took in determining whether or not God existed.

When I examined the question – probably not exhaustively, the only person I needed to convince was myself – I simply asked what the probability for God’s existence was based on what we know of the Universe and our place within it.

Without a God, I realized that this would mean that everything that is or ever has been arrived by chance. There was no first cause for the Universe, it always “existed” in some form or other, the solar system just happened – by lucky chance – to set itself up in such a way as to be conducive to life and that life itself formed out of non-life by chance and happily survived all the dangers arrayed against it over several billions of years, reacting to each change in its environments with an advance, never a retreat; always becoming ever more sophisticated.

Then the history of the earth, from lucky acquisition of the moon to the timely extinctions that permitted the evolution of a higher stage of life was all the product of chance. As was the longevity of the dinosaurs – suddenly and catastrophically ended by a fortuitous comet – that left behind large quantities of fossil fuel to be readily available for technological advancement. The placement of the stars - the North Star in particular - which proved so invaluable for the intelligent species that made use of them, again happened by lucky chance.

As intelligent life clawed its way to the top of the heap, its laws, codes, morals and beliefs would also simply be the product of chance and environment. For whatever reason, this intelligence set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom and set us on a separate path from our less evolved cousins. Our extremely early adoption of god beliefs was merely an outcropping of this natural intelligence. The persistence of this belief in the face of increased understanding of the natural world was also due to some aspect of our biology.

At this point I was already beginning to have doubts. Probability alone seemed to strongly argue against the conclusion of “No God”. The idea of an eternally existing Universe, even within the parameters of the ‘big bang/big crunch’, mulitverses, parallel universes, etc., was bizarre. It seemed we were simply replacing one “eternal” (God) for another (Material). The Muslim argument that if we lacked a point of beginning we could never arrive at the point we were at, made sense. Because the Universe exists within space/time, we could never move back far enough in time to begin moving forward again. The only way to explain the Universe therefore seemed to involve making special use of some metaphysical argument that removed it from the limitation of space/time – which was just another way of saying “the Universe is God”.

This struck me as a contradiction. If the Universe is a naturally occurring event, then it must be restricted to natural laws. Allowing the possibility of spontaneous generation – or something from nothing – therefore violated this natural order. Spontaneous generation would only be allowable if we gave to the Universe power normally attributed to God. I could not accept this as logical if we were simply doing it as a means of dismissing the possibility of God existing.

I went from beyond the actual start or existence of the Universe to our solar system. The combination of factors required to create an environment conducive to life forming on a planet are significant. From the right size of the sun, the presence of Jovian worlds situated in the correct orbit, the place of the system within the galaxy, etc, all are critical to a planet surviving long enough for life to form. Additionally, the presence of a large moon has been found necessary for the formation of land masses, with the theory being that the absence of such a satellite would result in a water world with little or no dry land mass.

The acquisition of the moon itself was another one of those improbabilities. The most recent theory I have read on its acquisition, was that a larger body collided with a much larger earth 4.25 billion years ago, reducing the size of both objects and capturing the smaller object in Earth’s gravity. This collision is theorized to have also thinned the Earth’s atmosphere, slowed its rotation and played an important part in the creation of the Van Allen belt. Had this collision not occurred in a very precise manner, the Earth today would be lifeless.

Most recently, I have read that the presence of a solar system within a galaxy must be restricted to its rim if there is to be any chance of life forming. Inside of this rim the environment becomes too hostile for life to survive very long. This has served to increase the probability against life forming by chance. Now I admit to being no scientist, so I don’t know how widely held these theories are within the scientific community, however, as far as I have seen, although they certainly have their opponents, they have not been treated as Velikovskian.

Now at this point I moved onto the emergence of life itself. I had accepted that organic from inorganic material was theoretically possible if we start at the sub-molecular level. But the leap from organic material to life seemed quite wide. The short window of opportunity in which abiogenesis could occur on Earth compounded the problem. We know the Earth is 4.55 billion years old and that life first appeared about 3.5 billion years ago. Remove from this period the time it would have taken for the Earth to go from being inhospitable to being able to support life and you have only about 600 million years. Within that time inorganic matter went to bacteria.

I didn’t conclude that this was impossible, but to me, it did suggest that life would have to be almost inevitable in almost any environment (provided you could produce the organic material), to be adequately explained on Earth. It seemed to me that if life was inevitable, then it should be easily repeatable, that is scientists should be able to “create” life within a laboratory setting replicating a “chance” environment and starting with organic material equally “created” by chance from inorganic material. However, the very best scientists have been able to come up with so far are a few protein strains. And abiogenesis is still being vigorously debated. Far from being inevitable, life is still seems more unlikely to form then inevitable.

These observations were bolstered when I read some probability studies on the likelihood of abiogenesis occurring by chance. I have since read the rebuttals to these studies (including the one found at “Talk Origins) but was not convinced by the arguments put forward, which seemed to run more along the lines of “a whole lot of simultaneous tries were taking place” and “one in a gadzillion is still ONE in a gadzillion”. The time window still appeared to create a problem for the “by chance” argument. Further, Michael Behe’s observations on the “irreducible complexity” of molecular life has since added weight to the “not by chance” probability.

The conclusion I drew was that life was not inevitable but rather highly unlikely, so unlikely in fact that its emergence would qualify as a miracle.

Once life did emerge however, the “by chance” argument seemed to get a firmer footing. We have the geologic column and a very convincing argument can be presented showing the gradual evolution of life from the simple to the complex. Although there are problems within this presentation, from the Cambrian explosion to the absence of transitional fossils, these are not damning objections to the theory. However, the fossil evidence used to support human evolution was to me (and still is) extremely suspect as it seemed to rely more on a “it happened there, so it must have happened here” type of reasoning. Having observed reproductions of the fossilized skulls of our supposed ancestors I remained sceptical of some of the reconstructions put forward and of the conclusions that they were hominids. Brain size as a determinate of a higher evolutionary stage or of intellectual capacity isn’t very convincing (Neandertal for example had a larger brain than homo sapiens). Better evidence of human evolution was found in the gradual shift in where the spine met the skull indicating a change from a “knuckle dragger” to an upright walker, but I still couldn’t find convincing evidence that dismissed the possibility that the skulls were in reality those of animals.

And in the end, in every study I have read on evolution, there was always an implied “intelligence” suggested. This may be a limitation humanity has in discussing anything without anthropomorphizing it, but it seemed strange that we find it almost impossible to discuss what occurred “by chance” without acknowledging to some degree, that it has always been very rational. We have yet to find any “hopeful monsters”. This seemed to me to be simply giving God a new name – “evolution”.

Finally, it seemed as if the natural history of the earth was almost “designed” to arrive at a point when humanity would emerge and dominate the planet. No other life form excelled or developed as much as we did in so short a period of time. Within a few million years, humanity supposedly went from being just another animal in the forest to being the conqueror of the planet. So intelligent did we become that nature could no longer contain us; we burst our bonds to the animal kingdom and brought nature itself to heel. Within this very same period absolutely no other animal developed as much as we did. In fact, most just got smaller and weaker; the “giants” perished. We however, got bigger and stronger.

Next, came human social development. As best as we can determine a “god” belief emerged almost as soon as we did. Burial practices of the Neandertal indicate even at this stage a belief in an afterlife existed. The earliest written records of the Sumerian and Egyptian cultures show a high degree of religious sophistication and firmly established beliefs. The epics of Homer, based on much earlier oral myths, discuss in detail such concepts as sin, hell, heaven and divine justice. The creation myths of the Babylonians, Jews and Hindus are dated to almost prehistoric periods. Why humanity felt the need to develop and maintain such religious beliefs has never been satisfactorily explained. Appeals to superstition and ignorance do not stand up to examination. Unthinking simpletons who trembled at things that went “bump in the night” did not wholly populate ancient cultures. Their level of science, art, architecture, philosophy and commerce, reveal a thinking people who questioned, observed and studied the world around them. The emergence of the “priest-kings” lasted only until about the 11th century BCE. After that period the priest lost political influence in society supplanted by the “warrior-kings”. So the explanation that priests maintained religious fiction as a means of controlling their respective societies ceases to explain religion beyond their rule.

Finally, there was the problem of evil. Now most arguments I have heard about this problem are used to counter a belief in God (how could a just God allow so much suffering?) but for me the problem pointed to an opposite conclusion. If there were no God, then why was humanity so senselessly cruel and how is it that we are even able to recognize this behaviour as being cruel? Evil lacked a convincing explanation if there were no God. For, if there were no God, then evil didn’t exist; there is simply “preferred” behaviour and “not preferred” behaviour. But clearly we do not think or act in this way. Certain behaviour is unbelievably cruel and is condemned as “wrong” for reasons that transcend utility. This behaviour and our condemnation of it remain inexplicable if we remove evil from the list of possible answers.

That none of this absolutely proves that God exists is acknowledged, but I was not seeking to absolutely prove God’s existence, I was only trying to determine the probability of God’s existence. Based on the above, therefore, I concluded that it was more probable that there is a God than that there isn’t.

For a short time after this I took the Deist position; that is that God created it all and then left it to run on its own, that He takes no personal interest in His creation. However, I soon abandoned this position as dishonest. Not only did we lack any evidence to support such an opinion, it seemed to me to be just another way of saying that there was no God, since an absent God was no different than a non-existent God. Being that God by simple definition would have to be superior to us in every way, and seeing as we condemn those who “create only to abandon” (deadbeat dads), how could it be conceivable that God would create and then abandon?

It was then that I asked the questions: If there is a God, then what is He like, has He communicated a message to His creation and if so, who has gotten it the best? In other words, “if there is a God, which God?”

[AtheistArchon]

- Okay, let me take a deep breath here: hhhhhhp!

This was the logical process I took in determining whether or not God existed.

When I examined the question – probably not exhaustively, the only person I needed to convince was myself – I simply asked what the probability for God’s existence was based on what we know of the Universe and our place within it.

- Wrong question. We might as well ask what the probability of purple moon men existing is.

- The question should be: "Does god exist?"

Without a God, I realized that this would mean that everything that is or ever has been arrived by chance. There was no first cause for the Universe, it always “existed” in some form or other, the solar system just happened – by lucky chance – to set itself up in such a way as to be conducive to life and that life itself formed out of non-life by chance and happily survived all the dangers arrayed against it over several billions of years, reacting to each change in its environments with an advance, never a retreat; always becoming ever more sophisticated.

Then the history of the earth, from lucky acquisition of the moon to the timely extinctions that permitted the evolution of a higher stage of life was all the product of chance. As was the longevity of the dinosaurs – suddenly and catastrophically ended by a fortuitous comet – that left behind large quantities of fossil fuel to be readily available for technological advancement. The placement of the stars - the North Star in particular - which proved so invaluable for the intelligent species that made use of them, again happened by lucky chance.

- Yep Chsalvia, you were right, it's the teleological argument / anthropic principle. "Look at us, we're so advanced! So complex! Must be an immaterial intelligence."

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument

1. X is very complicated and/or purposeful.
2. The existence of very complex and/or purposeful things is highly improbable, and thus their existence demands an explanation.
3. The only reasonable explanation for the existence of X is that it was designed and created by an intelligent, sentient artificer/designer.
4. X was not designed or created by humans, or any other Earthly being.
5. Therefore, X must have been designed and created by one or more non-human but intelligent and sentient artificer(s).
6. The answer to the question of single versus multiple artificers is assumed to be a single artificer.
7. In particular, X must have been designed and created by God.
8. Therefore God must exist.

- That link also deconstructs the teleological argument well enough to suit my purposes:

Here is a popular proof by contradiction: Suppose that there is an intelligent artificer, by the teleological argument. Then that artificer is surely more complex and purposeful than whatever artifacts inspired the teleological argument, so the first premise is at least as true of the artificer than of the artifact in question. Thus we must conclude that the designer was itself designed. But by what or whom? A yet superior artificer? Obviously this logic leads us on forever. But this is absurd. Therefore our initial supposition, that there is an intelligent artificer, must be incorrect.

- It also completely ignores evolution, by the way. So now I suppose the next thing we do is go on and on about how evolution is a lie told by "anti-christian" scientists because they hate god. =)

Next, came human social development. As best as we can determine a “god” belief emerged almost as soon as we did. Burial practices of the Neandertal indicate even at this stage a belief in an afterlife existed. The earliest written records of the Sumerian and Egyptian cultures show a high degree of religious sophistication and firmly established beliefs. The epics of Homer, based on much earlier oral myths, discuss in detail such concepts as sin, hell, heaven and divine justice. The creation myths of the Babylonians, Jews and Hindus are dated to almost prehistoric periods. Why humanity felt the need to develop and maintain such religious beliefs has never been satisfactorily explained. Appeals to superstition and ignorance do not stand up to examination. Unthinking simpletons who trembled at things that went “bump in the night” did not wholly populate ancient cultures. Their level of science, art, architecture, philosophy and commerce, reveal a thinking people who questioned, observed and studied the world around them. The emergence of the “priest-kings” lasted only until about the 11th century BCE. After that period the priest lost political influence in society supplanted by the “warrior-kings”. So the explanation that priests maintained religious fiction as a means of controlling their respective societies ceases to explain religion beyond their rule.

- Superstitions then, superstitions now. What's the difference?

Finally, there was the problem of evil. Now most arguments I have heard about this problem are used to counter a belief in God (how could a just God allow so much suffering?) but for me the problem pointed to an opposite conclusion. If there were no God, then why was humanity so senselessly cruel and how is it that we are even able to recognize this behaviour as being cruel? Evil lacked a convincing explanation if there were no God. For, if there were no God, then evil didn’t exist; there is simply “preferred” behaviour and “not preferred” behaviour. But clearly we do not think or act in this way. Certain behaviour is unbelievably cruel and is condemned as “wrong” for reasons that transcend utility. This behaviour and our condemnation of it remain inexplicable if we remove evil from the list of possible answers.

- I certainly don't hold these opinions. Morality is variable; what you see as cruel, another sees as merciful. I think you're assuming that the world shares your own moral code, and it clearly doesn't. However, I'm willing to grant that there are actions which most all healthy human beings see as grossly immoral. Interestingly, those actions are most often things like the murder of children, genocide, and so on... things which would have been instinctively designed into our brains by evolutionary processes. Kill your kids? Your species doesn't survive long. Fail to protect your family? Ditto.

That none of this absolutely proves that God exists is acknowledged, but I was not seeking to absolutely prove God’s existence, I was only trying to determine the probability of God’s existence.

- Yes, I know. You presupposed him in the first place, exactly as I predicted.

Based on the above, therefore, I concluded that it was more probable that there is a God than that there isn’t.

- No, you presumed him and then weighed your arguments.

For a short time after this I took the Deist position; that is that God created it all and then left it to run on its own, that He takes no personal interest in His creation. However, I soon abandoned this position as dishonest. Not only did we lack any evidence to support such an opinion,

- How does one lack evidence that god is leaving us alone??

it seemed to me to be just another way of saying that there was no God, since an absent God was no different than a non-existent God.

- That isn't deism, FS. Furthermore, what difference does it make what you'd LIKE to be true? Perhaps god is indeed hands-off. That doesn't make him nonexistent, you just don't like that idea.

Being that God by simple definition would have to be superior to us in every way, and seeing as we condemn those who “create only to abandon” (deadbeat dads), how could it be conceivable that God would create and then abandon?

- Do deists believe this? Perhaps you might want to do some research here.

It was then that I asked the questions: If there is a God, then what is He like, has He communicated a message to His creation and if so, who has gotten it the best? In other words, “if there is a God, which God?”

- Very interesting, but we're not at this point yet really. We've hung ourselves up at the teleological argument.

[FirstSunday33ad]

On lunch, should be studying, but decided to respond, so I hope you appreciate it

- Wrong question. We might as well ask what the probability of purple moon men existing is.

- The question should be: "Does god exist?"

A question that has no answer isn’t a question; it’s an argument.

I knew I could never find out conclusively if God existed or not; all I would ever get was opinion. Therefore, I didn’t even try. I decided that satisfying myself on the probability of God existing or not existing was the only question I could hope to answer. So that is what I looked for; how probable is it that God exists?

As to purple moon men, they may exist, although I doubt it. Based on what we know of the moon and the development of life, it seems more probable that they do not exist than do. But then I never bothered to ask the question or to look for an answer.

- Yep Chsalvia, you were right, it's the teleological argument / anthropic principle. "Look at us, we're so advanced! So complex! Must be an immaterial intelligence."

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument

1. X is very complicated and/or purposeful.
2. The existence of very complex and/or purposeful things is highly improbable, and thus their existence demands an explanation.
3. The only reasonable explanation for the existence of X is that it was designed and created by an intelligent, sentient artificer/designer.
4. X was not designed or created by humans, or any other Earthly being.
5. Therefore, X must have been designed and created by one or more non-human but intelligent and sentient artificer(s).
6. The answer to the question of single versus multiple artificers is assumed to be a single artificer.
7. In particular, X must have been designed and created by God.
8. Therefore God must exist.

Except that isn’t my argument. I am not saying “look at us, blah, blah, blah”. My observation was simply that, absent of a God, everything arrived by chance. Do you disagree?

- It also completely ignores evolution, by the way. So now I suppose the next thing we do is go on and on about how evolution is a lie told by "anti-christian" scientists because they hate god. =)

Since I am not using the teleological argument, who cares if it ignores evolution and since I have not ignored evolution it’s a strawman to mention it.

- Superstitions then, superstitions now. What's the difference?

Simple-minded answers are not convincing.

- I certainly don't hold these opinions. Morality is variable; what you see as cruel, another sees as merciful. I think you're assuming that the world shares your own moral code, and it clearly doesn't. However, I'm willing to grant that there are actions which most all healthy human beings see as grossly immoral. Interestingly, those actions are most often things like the murder of children, genocide, and so on... things which would have been instinctively designed into our brains by evolutionary processes. Kill your kids? Your species doesn't survive long. Fail to protect your family? Ditto.

Weeding out the evasion we find you agree with the sentiment – killing children isn’t just “not preferred” it is “grossly immoral”.

Your explanation as to why it is grossly immoral then – survival of the species – doesn’t wash. People DO kill their children. Children were sacrificed to pagan gods. They have also been used as cannon fodder, sold as slaves, exploited unmercifully. So if it is our evolutionary impulse to protect our children in order to survive as a species, why don’t we do it? But if exploiting our children, as a means of survival is our evolutionary impulse, then why do we declare it “grossly immoral”?

- Yes, I know. You presupposed him in the first place, exactly as I predicted.

No, you started with a conclusion, just as I said you would. I was looking at probability, I did not say “God exists” now can I prove it. You see, you do the very opposite of what you accuse me of doing, you presuppose God doesn’t exist – and surprise, surprise, you find that He doesn’t.

- No, you presumed him and then weighed your arguments.

Same as above.

- How does one lack evidence that god is leaving us alone??

We have no tradition that states that at one time God created the universe then told the first man “you’re on your own”. In other words, the Deist is presupposing God’s non involvement.

- That isn't deism, FS. Furthermore, what difference does it make what you'd LIKE to be true? Perhaps god is indeed hands-off. That doesn't make him nonexistent, you just don't like that idea.

Who cares, the point is still made. An uninvolved God is the same as no God. He may exist, but so what? It’s like your purple moon men; unless they actually affect our lives, what difference does their existence or non-existence make?

- Do deists believe this? Perhaps you might want to do some research here.

How about you save me some time and tell me what Deist believe

- Very interesting, but we're not at this point yet really. We've hung ourselves up at the teleological argument.

You mean YOU have hung yourself up on a teleological argument – an argument I didn’t make. I was basing my conclusion on the probability of Intelligent Design versus By Chance. I concluded probability favoured ID over BC and so decided it was probable that God did exist.

You want to stay back here arguing philosophical niceties, suit yourself. Me? I moved on to “Which God.”

Lunch is over, so I’m gone again

[Roy]

Today @ 04:00 PM post located here
FirstSunday33ad:

I apologize for taking so long to provide this follow up to my last message.

No problem - it must have taken you a long time to compose this lot. Some comments:

This was the logical process I took in determining whether or not God existed.

When I examined the question – probably not exhaustively, the only person I needed to convince was myself – I simply asked what the probability for God’s existence was based on what we know of the Universe and our place within it.

Quick question - when you asked this question, did you have a particular god in mind? Or a particular set of characteristics for a god? It's hard to accept the existence of something if you don't know what it is. In particular, you seem to have decided upon it's singularity and continued existence somehow.

Without a God, I realized that this would mean that everything that is or ever has been arrived by chance. There was no first cause for the Universe, it always “existed” in some form or other, the solar system just happened – by lucky chance – to set itself up in such a way as to be conducive to life and that life itself formed out of non-life by chance and happily survived all the dangers arrayed against it over several billions of years,

The suggestion has been made that simple life may have evolved from organic chemicals more than once, but been wiped out by hostile events on the early earth. If life can evolve, there's nothing stopping it happening repeatedly until either the solar system is sufficiently stable for it to survive, or it manages to reach a sufficiently robust and/or widespread form before being frozen/incinerated/flattened.
Your suggestion that it happened once and was very lucky to survive isn't necessary.

reacting to each change in its environments with an advance, never a retreat; always becoming ever more sophisticated.

Inevitable, in that if you start with a simple system then there's nowhere else to go other than becoming more sophisticated, and also partly false in that many organisms have evolved towards simplification when their complexity was disadvantageous.

Then the history of the earth, from lucky acquisition of the moon to the timely extinctions that permitted the evolution of a higher stage of life was all the product of chance. As was the longevity of the dinosaurs – suddenly and catastrophically ended by a fortuitous comet

Fortuitous for whom? Certainly not for the dinosaurs. So far all you've got is the anthropic fallacy.

– that left behind large quantities of fossil fuel to be readily available for technological advancement.

Actually it didn't - the fossil fuels would have been equally available if the velociraptors had developed technology rather than us.

The placement of the stars - the North Star in particular - which proved so invaluable for the intelligent species that made use of them, again happened by lucky chance.

So what is the chance that there will be a reasonably bright star or constellation near one of the poles? And if it was design, why isn't there
one at the south pole too?

As intelligent life clawed its way to the top of the heap, its laws, codes, morals and beliefs would also simply be the product of chance and environment.

But with some restrictions - anything that reduced the chance of survival would be selected out. Many other animals also have such codes, albeit less sophisticated. How many social creatures have some non-fatal way of settling differences and establishing a pecking order? Almost all.

For whatever reason, this intelligence set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom and set us on a separate path from our less evolved cousins. Our extremely early adoption of god beliefs was merely an outcropping of this natural intelligence. The persistence of this belief in the face of increased understanding of the natural world was also due to some aspect of our biology.

At this point I was already beginning to have doubts. Probability alone seemed to strongly argue against the conclusion of “No God”.

But you haven't come up with a probability. Just a list of things that had to happen in order for you to be able to think about them. Some of which are to some extent inevitable.

The idea of an eternally existing Universe, even within the parameters of the ‘big bang/big crunch’, mulitverses, parallel universes, etc., was bizarre. It seemed we were simply replacing one “eternal” (God) for another (Material). The Muslim argument that if we lacked a point of beginning we could never arrive at the point we were at, made sense. Because the Universe exists within space/time, we could never move back far enough in time to begin moving forward again. The only way to explain the Universe therefore seemed to involve making special use of some metaphysical argument that removed it from the limitation of space/time – which was just another way of saying “the Universe is God”.

Unfortunately for your argument, this universe does not appear to be infinitely old. Your arguing against something other than reality. If you postulate that whatever caused this universe must be rejected for being infinitely old, then you have to reject a god concept for the same reason.

This struck me as a contradiction. If the Universe is a naturally occurring event, then it must be restricted to natural laws. Allowing the possibility of spontaneous generation – or something from nothing – therefore violated this natural order.

But if the universe came from something, this doesn't apply.

Spontaneous generation would only be allowable if we gave to the Universe power normally attributed to God. I could not accept this as logical if we were simply doing it as a means of dismissing the possibility of God existing.

I went from beyond the actual start or existence of the Universe to our solar system. The combination of factors required to create an environment conducive to life forming on a planet are significant. From the right size of the sun, the presence of Jovian worlds situated in the correct orbit, the place of the system within the galaxy, etc, all are critical to a planet surviving long enough for life to form. Additionally, the presence of a large moon has been found necessary for the formation of land masses, with the theory being that the absence of such a satellite would result in a water world with little or no dry land mass.

Anthropic fallacy again. If the earth hadn't been capable of supporting life you wouldn't be here to argue about it. Also, if there turns out to be life in the subglacial waters on Titan, it may be happily philosophising a similar argument about large planets with red spots.

The acquisition of the moon itself was another one of those improbabilities. The most recent theory I have read on its acquisition, was that a larger body collided with a much larger earth 4.25 billion years ago, reducing the size of both objects and capturing the smaller object in Earth’s gravity. This collision is theorized to have also thinned the Earth’s atmosphere, slowed its rotation and played an important part in the creation of the Van Allen belt. Had this collision not occurred in a very precise manner, the Earth today would be lifeless.

Most recently, I have read that the presence of a solar system within a galaxy must be restricted to its rim if there is to be any chance of life forming. Inside of this rim the environment becomes too hostile for life to survive very long. This has served to increase the probability against life forming by chance. Now I admit to being no scientist, so I don’t know how widely held these theories are within the scientific community, however, as far as I have seen, although they certainly have their opponents, they have not been treated as Velikovskian.

Now at this point I moved onto the emergence of life itself. I had accepted that organic from inorganic material was theoretically possible if we start at the sub-molecular level. But the leap from organic material to life seemed quite wide. The short window of opportunity in which abiogenesis could occur on Earth compounded the problem. We know the Earth is 4.55 billion years old and that life first appeared about 3.5 billion years ago. Remove from this period the time it would have taken for the Earth to go from being inhospitable to being able to support life and you have only about 600 million years. Within that time inorganic matter went to bacteria.

I didn’t conclude that this was impossible, but to me, it did suggest that life would have to be almost inevitable in almost any environment (provided you could produce the organic material), to be adequately explained on Earth. It seemed to me that if life was inevitable, then it should be easily repeatable, that is scientists should be able to “create” life within a laboratory setting replicating a “chance” environment and starting with organic material equally “created” by chance from inorganic material. However, the very best scientists have been able to come up with so far are a few protein strains. And abiogenesis is still being vigorously debated. Far from being inevitable, life is still seems more unlikely to form then inevitable.

These observations were bolstered when I read some probability studies on the likelihood of abiogenesis occurring by chance. I have since read the rebuttals to these studies (including the one found at “Talk Origins) but was not convinced by the arguments put forward, which seemed to run more along the lines of “a whole lot of simultaneous tries were taking place” and “one in a gadzillion is still ONE in a gadzillion”.

None of the probability arguments I've ever seen were worth anything - most of them seem to calculate the probability of something that no-one would expect to have happened, e.g. the probability of the simultaneous generation of a modern haemoglobin protein, and none of them seem to take into the account the probability of some form of life appearing - they all concentrate on the probability of this form of life appearing, which is much much smaller and not relevant to the question they're asking.

The time window still appeared to create a problem for the “by chance” argument. Further, Michael Behe’s observations on the “irreducible complexity” of molecular life has since added weight to the “not by chance” probability.

(i) Behe has yet to come up with a valid example of an irreducible complex biological system, (ii) evolution will tend towards irreducible systems anyway as once a system exists it will evolve with all its components present.

The conclusion I drew was that life was not inevitable but rather highly unlikely, so unlikely in fact that its emergence would qualify as a miracle.

But you never actually worked out how unlikely, and apparently never even considered the vastness of the universe or the possibilities of previous universes which didn't develop life.

Without (i) a definition of what you mean by 'God', (ii) actual calculations on the probability you refer to and (iii) something on the anthropic principle, your argument can be summed up as 'I don't think it's likely that God doesn't exist', which isn't convincing at all.

Roy

[AtheistArchon]

You mean YOU have hung yourself up on a teleological argument – an argument I didn’t make. I was basing my conclusion on the probability of Intelligent Design versus By Chance.

- FS, that's what the TA and the AP do. Look at the first three premises:

1. X is very complicated and/or purposeful.
2. The existence of very complex and/or purposeful things is highly improbable, and thus their existence demands an explanation.
3. The only reasonable explanation for the existence of X is that it was designed and created by an intelligent, sentient artificer/designer.

[AtheistArchon]

- To amplify on some of these:

A question that has no answer isn’t a question; it’s an argument.

- You don't believe "Does god exist" has an answer??

Simple-minded answers are not convincing.

- You might call it simpleminded, but I don't think it is. Do you disagree that there were superstitious beliefs in the past?

Weeding out the evasion we find you agree with the sentiment – killing children isn’t just “not preferred” it is “grossly immoral”.

Your explanation as to why it is grossly immoral then – survival of the species – doesn’t wash. People DO kill their children.

- Survival of the species does not depend upon the individual, though. It depends on the group. If you've seen A Beautiful Mind, you might notice that John Nash first put forward the mathematical theory.

- Casting out an individual from a group back when there was a lot of evolutionary stress on our species would have had a much more profound effect than it does now, and of course we do cast these people out in one way or another. The point is that no society in which it was the moral norm to kill children survived... and this is not surprising.

No, you started with a conclusion, just as I said you would. I was looking at probability, I did not say “God exists” now can I prove it. You see, you do the very opposite of what you accuse me of doing, you presuppose God doesn’t exist – and surprise, surprise, you find that He doesn’t.

- You weighed two options: god vs. chance. What gave you the idea that there was the option of god?

We have no tradition that states that at one time God created the universe then told the first man “you’re on your own”. In other words, the Deist is presupposing God’s non involvement.

- Umm, right. They're also presupposing god's existence. So?

Who cares, the point is still made. An uninvolved God is the same as no God. He may exist, but so what? It’s like your purple moon men; unless they actually affect our lives, what difference does their existence or non-existence make?

- Like I said, this isn't deism. All the deists I know believe that god does indeed make an impact upon us... after we die of course. Some even share your belief that he created morals too.

[Losvedir]

Wow... very interesting discussion. I must say, AtheistArchon -- while I have a lot of respect for his postings -- wasn't as convincing as usual to me this time. rthearle on the other hand, I think brought up some valid points. I'm no FS33, but I'll respond to what I can.

"Quick question - when you asked this question, did you have a particular god in mind? Or a particular set of characteristics for a god? It's hard to accept the existence of something if you don't know what it is. In particular, you seem to have decided upon it's singularity and continued existence somehow."

I can't speak for fs33, but to me his argument would work without any preconceived notions about the nature of God. Clearly he's using the terminology of a singular, current God, but really the argument boils down to "is there something out there, or isn't there." fs33 hasn't gotten to the point of differentiating among theological beliefs yet, and his argument while using the words "god" and "is" is equally valid for Native Americans cadre of gods.

"The suggestion has been made that simple life may have evolved from organic chemicals more than once, but been wiped out by hostile events on the early earth. If life can evolve, there's nothing stopping it happening repeatedly until either the solar system is sufficiently stable for it to survive, or it manages to reach a sufficiently robust and/or widespread form before being frozen/incinerated/flattened.
Your suggestion that it happened once and was very lucky to survive isn't necessary."

This is a very good point, and an excellent segue into my thoughts on the anthropic principle:

You can't just go, "well, we're incredibly super complex and the probability of us appearing by chance is very small, so there must be God." You can't offer this as proof, but it is valid evidence. rthearle and AA, you both seem to be suggesting that fs33 is saying that this anthropic evidence PROVES God, which he clearly does not claim, as it clearly does not prove Him. This does not mean it is meaningless. I mean, who knows?, we COULD be products of random coincidence and chance, just as "the watch" (from the wikipedia article linked to above) COULD have been created through a sequence of random events. FS33 argues that the chances of us being here randomly are VERY SLIM, while acknowledging the fact that it IS possible. It's all a matter of weighing probabilities. I don't know a single atheist who doesn't acknowledge the possibility (however slight) of there being a God (or gods). They just believe the probability is greater that there isn't one.

Of course fs33 can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is some Creator of the universe. And it's pretty sketchy believing in some mystical, powerful, creator... but all fs33 is trying to point out is that it is MORE sketchy to think we developed randomly. Which brings me back to why it's a valid point to say that life COULD have developed, but that it adds a whole new element of improbability when you throw in the harsh climate in which it would have to survive. So let's say P(human life randomly evolving) = x and P(human life created) = y. Is x or y greater? That's all this thread is about. You can't prove God exists or doesn't exist.. you can merely show evidence that x > y or vice versa.

So... those are my thoughts, and would that I could express them as clearly as FS33. I hope he will come on soon and clarify your problems, or mine for that matter, too.

[chickenman]

it also depends on how involved your deity is in the creation

if they just put the first lifeform on the earth and let it go from there then that's far more plausible than suggesting the species were all created separately 6000 years ago - given the evidence we have

I lean towards there being a natural explanation for the origin of life because science has continually replaced god/gods as an explanation for every phenomena it has investigated

I see no reason that the trend won't continue and lead to a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life

[Losvedir]

I see no reason that the trend won't continue and lead to a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life

Suppose we figure out how everything works. How'd it all get there? WHY is it? Figuring out how things work in no way disproves a creator of some sort.

[chickenman]

it doesn't disprove a creator, it just means there is even less evidence for a creators existence

[Omega Red]

Today @ 03:32 PM post located here
chickenman:

it doesn't disprove a creator, it just means there is even less evidence for a creators existence

Which suggests a God of the Gaps scenario?