Goddidit Vs Naturedidit

[Hakurei Reimu]

Hakurei Reimu

All you're telling me is your an atheist and that's what you believe even though you state it as fact.

No, you simply refuse to acknowledge the very real problems with the notion that the universe can be created as an entire object.

Is it your belief the universe came into existence uncaused out of nothing?

No. It's more subtle than that. There was no "coming into existence" at all, even uncaused or out of nothing. This question of yours implies the passage of time, whether you acknowledge the fact or not, and such a statement makes no sense without some time outside the universe, a notion that you and your ilk have not done the least which to support. You simply insist that this supertime exists by implication, and I see no reason to suppose that it does.

I don't think anyone has footing to say categorically what or how the universe came into existence.

Yet you insist that this "coming into existence" event occured at all, when you have done nothing to support the foundation that would make this statement meaningful.

I agree there is no material reason to think mindless forces would intentionally or unintentionally cause the conditions and properties necessary for planets, stars and people. The problem is they did! Which is why I suspect design.

Again, this dogged insistence that the existence of structure in the universe is indicative of design. It is something that you repeatedly state, but make no effort to support.

Yes its a property of the laws of physics in spite of the fact by your own admission there is no material reason to suppose that the laws of chemistry were specially formulated for our existence. Yet those very laws not only allow our existence they caused our existence.

More of the same. It's basically a fine tuning argument. That's a problem for you, as I will show later.

I have to question your knowledge because no one knows what those favorable conditions are or how exactly non-living substance turned into living organism. Its supposed if we find an earth like planet with water life will arise but no one knows that.

How long have you been studying abiogenesis? How up are you on the chemistry of early Earth? I'm betting that when you say, "no one knows what those favorable conditions are," you mean that YOU don't know what those favorable conditions are. Well, your ignorance and a dollar will buy you a Hershey's chocolate bar. Your ignorance is not indicative of the state of the science, and science is rapidly closing the holes in abiogenesis where you have smuggled your god.

Of course because you accept the premise that unguided naturalist forces could have caused themselves

No, that's your strawman. I do not suppose that anything "causes itself." Your accusation that my notion of the origin of the universe is any instance of anything "causing itself" is woefully mistaken.

and all else we observe without any plan or intent to do so.

You and your ilk have been trying to find this "plan" and "intent" for centuries and have utterly failed, whereas science has explained much without plan or intent on the part of nature. That's the gulf of difference between the two approaches.

You admit there is no material reason why such forces would care one iota if we existed and yet the conditions that allowed our existence obtained. If the universe was designed to cause life it would explain why the conditions necessary obtained.

Again, you and your fellow theists have tried and failed to find this "design." Yes, if the the laws of the universe were designed to do such a thing, then the universe would contain life. The problem is that the contrapositive is not necessarily true â€" if the universe contains life, then it is not necessarily the case that the universe was designed to support life. All you have ever done is stress the former; you have done nothing to support the latter.

<snip>

Interestingly, Just Six Numbers was written in 1999, before we got used to the idea of "dark energy" as the dominant force in the cosmos. The concept is there, all the same. The strength of this book is that it addresses the single most profound mystery of the universe â€" how is it that we are here to ask these questions? â€" in a neat series of brief chapters, but also gives Rees room to discuss all the associated puzzles of antimatter, quantum effects, cosmic string, magnetic monopoles, cosmic inflation, dark matter, Planck time, mini black holes and so on in the same questioning context.

Drew, I've read Just Six Numbers. I do not remember Rees ever using it as a basis for any form of fine tuning argument. Good thing, too, because all fine tuning arguments are wrong. Paradoxically, the more the universe appears to be fine tuned to support life, the more naturalism is supported.

I won't go into the math, but the general principle is this: suppose you were to find out that the universe isn't fine tuned for life, and in fact that by all rights the universe's laws should disallow life. Then this would be fatal to any naturalistic theory of how the universe works â€" it would be a dead giveaway that something like a God, or faries, or magic, does exist and are in play, because otherwise, life and you wouldn't exist to make the observation. But this is not what we see. We see that the laws of the universe do in fact allow us to exist, and the rules of evidence say that if observing some data undermines naturalism, then observing the reverse of that data cannot undermine naturalism, and may serve to support it. Furthermore, the more fine tuned the universe has to be to support life, the sharper the prediction that naturalism makes, and when those predictions bear out, the more naturalism is supported because of that sharper prediction. Hence, the observation that the universe's laws support life (or any other observed phenomena) cannot undermine naturalism, and the more the universe appears fine tuned to support life (or any other phenomena), the more naturalism is supported by this observation.

Your position is a fine tuning argument. Fine tuning arguments are epistomological nonsense. They don't work. They're wrong philosophically; they're wrong by the rules of evaluating evidence; they are wrong probabilistically. They are WRONG.

Edit: Why was I calling you "Dave"? Corrected, and apologies.

[Drew_2017]

SGOS,

Skepticism is applied to claims that are made, not about things which involve processes that are yet unknown. Until someone attempts explain how natural forces came about, or until I am exposed to such explanations, skepticism doesn't enter the picture. 

The claim of atheists is not or without God just as asexual reproduction means reproduction without sex. The claim of naturalists is even more specific, we owe the existence of the universe and sentient life as a by product of naturalistic forces that didn't intend to create themselves, or the universe or us but did so anyway evidently by sheer happenstance. I won't mock or ridicule the belief, I don't deny some evidence supports it (I made a case myself). However, it is an extraordinary claim worthy of as much skepticism as any extraordinary claim. I'm not complaining that atheists and naturalists are skeptical of theism I just marvel out how they accept the counter claim with open arms minus any conclusive evidence...the proverbial smoking gun. Like if it was discovered this is only one of a multitude of universes with different properties.

I AM skeptical about your comment that atheists claim it's naturalistic all the way down.  I'm not making that claim, and I don't see others jumping in to heartily defend it either.  I'm sure that out of a multitude of people you will find some that do, but there doesn't seem to be an abundance of folks around here that are jumping in claiming knowledge that it's naturalistic forces all the way down.  Your assertion that this is the norm strikes me as oddly bold and rather all inclusive, and I'd like to know how your arrived at that.

I'm not sure how you can avoid 'naturalistic forces all the way down' I believe it was you who wrote that even if we discovered the universe was caused by a Creator known as God that would be noted as a naturalistic phenomena. I don't know of anyone arguing against theism who has expressed the possibility we could be the result of supernatural forces or a Creator...what's left? You're not a closet theist are you?

Here you are getting into and area where skepticism is warranted with sentience and how the mind works, that is if someone ever does explain it.  But here again it's generally understood that our knowledge of how the brain forms thoughts and becomes aware is still an enigma.  We do know some things, like what parts of the brain perform what functions, and that it involves electro chemical reactions and excites combinations of neurons, but it's poorly understood, so it's hard to be skeptical about a lot of information that science doesn't explain.

I'm sure that if you polled the atheists on this board most if not all would say mind and life is a by product of naturalistic forces that didn't intend life or mind to exist. I have met some who go further and suggest our sense of autonomy is an illusion and that we aren't really volitional creatures but I'm skeptical of that claim.

It's not my responsibility to prove to you a claim I'm not making, or to prove to you something I don't claim to know.

So if I ask in your opinion do we owe the existence of the universe and ourselves to naturalistic forces your response is I don't know and there isn't enough evidence to draw a conclusion or have an opinion and the same if we attribute such to a Creator?

[Baruch]

If the specifics you criticized actually occurred and relate to an actual fallacy, preferably one you didn't make up, I am not going to ask you for further clarification, as my past experience has shown that you will be compelled to double down on your enigmatic style and muddy the water (an actual fallacy) even further. 

I don't remember anywhere in this thread where Drew or myself actually concluded that the cause of the universe was determined, or that a cause for the universe even exists in the first place (not sure yet where Drew is on that concept).  And I don't remember any assumptions Drew and I agreed on concerning the qualities of space-time or mass-energy.

If the cause of the universe (if that makes any sense at all) is unknown ... then it isn't theistic or atheistic.  And I totally agree with that.  If is is known (whoever thinks that, not necessarily you nor Drew) then they need to present knowledge, not speculation.  Neither the Bible nor Steven Hawking count.  And if one is serious, then put some cottage cheese in your refrigerator and leave it long enough, and see if you get a Big Bang, a Black Hole, or abiogenesis.  You will get a Nobel if you do.

As far as fine tuning supporting or disproving X ... I don't see that working out for anyone.  My lunch was perfect for me today, I waited 14 billion years to get it (good thing it wasn't cold as in 3.5K cold) ... therefore I must have created the Universe (not a demigod, I am G-d?).

[Ananta Shesha]

well....that is certainly a comfortable thought. At least it isn't asking us to splay ourselves along with an ego maniacal laugh....so I like your version of a creator over the traditional whack-a-doo god. Although, if such a creator exists, it is still pretty obvious it is a disinterested creator in its "creations"...or just the accidental creator...or even the bumbling creator. In either event it does not fit the role of a "god", so I can live with a "creator of stuff".

It could be even funnier: God the infinite being looked around and said "I am That, I am!" The unfortunate side effect of expressing infinite self existence upon an infinite resonant body is the nucleation of infinite other relative self existences. God looked around at the infinite children it just conceived and said...."Uh oh...."

[Hakurei Reimu]

SGOS,

The claim of atheists is not or without God just as asexual reproduction means reproduction without sex. The claim of naturalists is even more specific, we owe the existence of the universe and sentient life as a by product of naturalistic forces that didn't intend to create themselves, or the universe or us but did so anyway evidently by sheer happenstance.

First off, the underlined parts are strawmen. Nobody who knows anything about cosmology or philosophy ever made the claim that naturalistic forces or anything else "create themselves." Furthermore, without a specific set of conditions present in whatever the universe is embedded in, to even suppose that the universe was created at all is jumping the gun. Without some sort of time for that creation to take place in, nobody and nothing can create a universe, including a God â€" without some sort of external time, the universe either exists or it doesn't 'forever.'

After that, what puzzles me is why happenstance is such a deal breaker for you. Sure, if the only thing the universe created were suns suitable for life, with only planets at the right spots to create life, and of composition suitable for life, all with life, and most of that sentient life, then you would have a point. But it doesn't. It creates a large variety of forms from cosmic gas clouds, to eliptical galaxies, to pulsars, to quazars, to stars large and small, active and quescent, to planets large and small, gas giant and rockballs, with compositions of a wide variety. Most of the combinations of these things are ill-suited to you living there. Most places in the solar system will kill you instantly. If the amount of mass in a solar system body controlled where you lived, you would most assuredly die because most of the mass of the solar system is concentrated in the sun, most of the remaining mass is in Jupiter, and the remainder of that mass is distributed into seven planets and a myriad of asteroids and moons, most of which will kill you instantly. Only on one planet will you survive, and most of the volume of that one planet will also kill you dead. Most of Earth's volume is hot rock and molten metals. Most of the remaining volume is filled with thin air (and I do mean thin). Only in the thinnest skin between the atmosphere and the lithosphere do you find the biosphere, the place where life is.

Of that life, most of the life forms on this planet is simple cells and under â€" bacteria, archea, protists, viruses, etc. Of the multicellular life, most of them don't have nervous systems (rotifers, volox colonies, plants, fungi, etc.). Of the animals (with nervous systems), most of them are insects. Out of the 52 thousand someodd cordates on this planet, only one is sentient. Even by cell count, you are more single celled organism than you are sentient being: there are approximately ten times as many bacterial cells in your gut than there are somatic cells in your body, including brain cells.

This is like finding a fleck of iron in a boulder and concluding that the boulder was designed for transportation (like a car is). A car is what I would call well-designed for human transport: each and every component of it in some way contributes to the task of human transportation, from fuel storage to torque transmission to safety to comfort. A boulder is very much not well-designed for human transport, and by the same criteria for well-designed, the universe isn't very well-designed for life, and sentient life even less so.

I won't mock or ridicule the belief, I don't deny some evidence supports it (I made a case myself). However, it is an extraordinary claim worthy of as much skepticism as any extraordinary claim.

Only the strawman form is an extraordinary claim, and I agree. However, the non-strawman form of the claim is not extraordinary. If the universe just exists (which it would have to if there's no time external to it, God or no God), then there's no need to ask how or why it was created because it wasn't. Naturalistic forces aren't really created either; they simply exist because the properties of the universe will dictate how the dynamics play out, and laws are expressions of the regularities of those dynamics. Finally, I've already stated how ill-designed the universe appears to be for life and sentient life. Even in our own solar system there are precious few places we can life unassisted, and of all the life that has ever been on this world, only a vanishingly small fraction of it has ever shown itself to be sentient. If there was a design to this universe, life and sentience is the last thing I would say it was designed to create, given that its presence does not even rise to the level of by-product on the grand scheme of things.

I'm not complaining that atheists and naturalists are skeptical of theism I just marvel out how they accept the counter claim with open arms minus any conclusive evidence...the proverbial smoking gun. Like if it was discovered this is only one of a multitude of universes with different properties.

You've been told many times before why, and it doesn't seem to sink in, so I'm going to tell you YET AGAIN why: whenever the Goddidit hypothesis has been tested, it has never borne fruit. Ever. Whenever we actually figure out how something works, God is always strangely absent. "Goddidit" has always failed whenever a conclusive answer has been found. The only places where you have ever called "Goddidit" a success is in places where there is no definitive answer â€" and because there's no definitive answer, those places can hardly be called successes for "Goddidit" either.

Instead of shelving this explanation until some evidence comes to light that Goddidit, theistic clowns keep doubling, tripling, and quadrupling down on some other, even more outlandish claims in hopes that one will finally stick and good. It gets tiresome after a while. Fucksake, wait until some positive evidence of an exant God before proposing "Goddidit."

I'm not sure how you can avoid 'naturalistic forces all the way down' I believe it was you who wrote that even if we discovered the universe was caused by a Creator known as God that would be noted as a naturalistic phenomena.

Why does it offend you that God himself might be a naturalistic phenomenon? The only way you could object is if you want him to be beyond the perview of science where he could be studied and his natured sussed out once and for all. That would kill all religion and faith stone cold dead, and we can't be having that, can we?

I don't know of anyone arguing against theism who has expressed the possibility we could be the result of supernatural forces or a Creator...what's left? You're not a closet theist are you?

Again, what's the objection to the creator being completely natural were he to exist? You want your magic man that badly?

I'm sure that if you polled the atheists on this board most if not all would say mind and life is a by product of naturalistic forces that didn't intend life or mind to exist. I have met some who go further and suggest our sense of autonomy is an illusion and that we aren't really volitional creatures but I'm skeptical of that claim.

Again, you don't seem to appreciate how little of the universe is alive or sentient, so little that it doesn't even rise to the status of by-product, let alone purpose. It's clear to me that if the laws of the universe are intended for anything, it's to govern the behavior of dark matter in an ever-faster expanding universe, because that's what most of the universe seems to be doing, on which the 'normal matter' of the universe (including life) is a tenuous dusting.

I do agree that we are volational creatures with autonomy. I just don't think that there's any magic involved.

So if I ask in your opinion do we owe the existence of the universe and ourselves to naturalistic forces your response is I don't know and there isn't enough evidence to draw a conclusion or have an opinion and the same if we attribute such to a Creator?

I'll let SGOS answer for himself, but as for me I think the question you ask is not properly asked â€" there's no way to answer it correctly, because it's a loaded question to begin with. I do agree that the naturalistic forces at work in the universe allow our existence, as much as any exploit are allowed by the rules, but that's still a long way from saying that the naturalistic forces were set up for our existence, the same way that no exploit was intended by the designers of a game.

[Drew_2017]

Hakurei Reimu,

Is it your belief the universe came into existence uncaused out of nothing?

No. It's more subtle than that. There was no "coming into existence" at all, even uncaused or out of nothing. This question of yours implies the passage of time, whether you acknowledge the fact or not, and such a statement makes no sense without some time outside the universe, a notion that you and your ilk have not done the least which to support. You simply insist that this supertime exists by implication, and I see no reason to suppose that it does.

I got news for you...you're not making a whole lot of sense either yet you state your counter belief as fact. I didn't come up with big bang theory either neither did I cause the evidence that leads to big bang theory. I grant you the universe and time coming into existence challenges the notion the set of physical laws we are familiar with is all there is.

Yet you insist that this "coming into existence" event occured at all, when you have done nothing to support the foundation that would make this statement meaningful.

I'm not insisting anything. I do a simple Google search 'did the universe come into existence?' The first article I get is from Discover Magazine.

http://discovermagazine.com/2013/september/13-starting-point

What Came Before the Big Bang?

“We have very good evidence that there was a Big Bang, so the universe as we know it almost certainly started some 14 billion years ago. But was that the absolute beginning, or was there something before it?” asks Alexander Vilenkin, a cosmologist at Tufts University near Boston. It seems like the kind of question that can never be truly answered because every time someone proposes a solution, someone else can keep asking the annoying question: What happened before that?

But now Vilenkin says he has convincing evidence in hand: The universe had a distinct beginning â€" though he can’t pinpoint the time. After 35 years of looking backward, he says, he’s found that before our universe there was nothing, nothing at all, not even time itself.

Something From Nothing

A universe with a beginning begs the vexing question: Just how did it begin? Vilenkin’s answer is by no means confirmed, and perhaps never can be, but it’s still the best solution he’s heard so far: Maybe our fantastic, glorious universe spontaneously arose from nothing at all. This heretical statement clashes with common sense, which admittedly fails us when talking about the birth of the universe, an event thought to occur at unfathomably high energies. It also flies in the face of the Roman philosopher Lucretius, who argued more than 2,000 years ago that “nothing can be created from nothing.”

Yet the explanation still leaves a huge mystery unaddressed. Although a universe, in Vilenkin’s scheme, can come from nothing in the sense of there being no space, time or matter, something is in place beforehand â€" namely the laws of physics. Those laws govern the something-from-nothing moment of creation that gives rise to our universe, and they also govern eternal inflation, which takes over in the first nanosecond of time.

That raises some uncomfortable questions: Where did the laws of physics reside before there was a universe to which they could be applied? Do they exist independently of space or time? “It’s a great mystery as to where the laws of physics came from. We don’t even know how to approach it,” Vilenkin admits. “But before inflation came along, we didn’t even know how to approach the questions that inflation later solved. So who knows, maybe we’ll pass this barrier as well.”

The point is this is all very theoretical yet you speak as if you are certain.

Again, this dogged insistence that the existence of structure in the universe is indicative of design. It is something that you repeatedly state, but make no effort to support.

I don't insist its by design I opine its by design. The evidence I offer is the fact of the universes existence, the fact it has laws of nature that allowed for the existence of stars, planets and galaxies and allowed for the existence of sentient beings. You are confident that could happen inadvertently without plan or design I'm skeptical.

How long have you been studying abiogenesis? How up are you on the chemistry of early Earth? I'm betting that when you say, "no one knows what those favorable conditions are," you mean that YOU don't know what those favorable conditions are. Well, your ignorance and a dollar will buy you a Hershey's chocolate bar. Your ignorance is not indicative of the state of the science, and science is rapidly closing the holes in abiogenesis where you have smuggled your god.

Then by now you have caused life to exist by employing those favorable conditions and your name is right up there with Einstein and Newton. I don't have to study abiogenesis I can look it up and see where its at at the moment.

Many approaches to abiogenesis investigate how self-replicating molecules, or their components, came into existence. It is generally thought that current life on Earth is descended from an RNA world,[15] although RNA-based life may not have been the first life to have existed.[16][17] The classic Millerâ€"Urey experiment and similar research demonstrated that most amino acids, the basic chemical constituents of the proteins used in all living organisms, can be synthesized from inorganic compounds under conditions intended to replicate those of the early Earth. Various external sources of energy that may have triggered these reactions have been proposed, including lightning and radiation. Other approaches ("metabolism-first" hypotheses) focus on understanding how catalysis in chemical systems on the early Earth might have provided the precursor molecules necessary for self-replication.[18] Complex organic molecules have been found in the Solar System and in interstellar space, and these molecules may have provided starting material for the development of life on Earth.[19][20][21][22]

The panspermia hypothesis alternatively suggests that microscopic life was distributed to the early Earth by meteoroids, asteroids and other small Solar System bodies and that life may exist throughout the Universe.[23] It is speculated that the biochemistry of life may have begun shortly after the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago, during a habitable epoch when the age of the universe was only 10 to 17 million years.[24][25] The panspermia hypothesis proposes that life originated outside the Earth, not how life came to be.

Does this sound like that have it all wrapped up? You need to inform them of your knowledge because they are struggling.

Drew, I've read Just Six Numbers. I do not remember Rees ever using it as a basis for any form of fine tuning argument. Good thing, too, because all fine tuning arguments are wrong. Paradoxically, the more the universe appears to be fine tuned to support life, the more naturalism is supported.

No actually Rees is an atheist and his conclusion is that this is one of an infinitude of universes as the only naturalistic way he could account for the right properties obtaining apart from design. However, if you read the book you'll know he devoted a chapter to the possibility of design. Why not? 

[Unbeliever]

I've got the book, and have read it, but I'm still not convinced. Is our Creator some scientists from another universe? More likely than some Omni-everything supernatural God thingy.


But still, it's an interesting idea:



New Theory: Universe Created by Intelligent Being

According to a lawyer and science enthusiast in Portland, Oregon, not only is the universe full of life, but some of it may be intelligent beyond our wildest imagination. He also says that collectively as intelligent beings we are entwined in our ultimate destiny: to give birth to another universe.

"Intelligent life is, in essence, the reproductive organ of the cosmos," said James Gardner, the lawyer who moonlights as a scientist. He has pulled together his theoryâ€"called the selfish biocosmâ€"from the disparate fields of physics, biology, biochemistry, astronomy, and cosmology.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/biocosm-the-new-scientific-theory-of-evolution-intelligent-life-is-the-architect-of-the-universe

James N. Gardner’s Selfish Biocosm hypothesis proposes that the remarkable anthropic (life-friendly) qualities that our universe exhibits can be explained as incidental consequences of a cosmic replication cycle in which a cosmologically extended biosphere provides a means for the cosmos to produce one or more baby universes. The cosmos is “selfish” in the same sense that Richard Dawkins proposed that genes are focused on their own replication.

[SGOS]

So if I ask in your opinion do we owe the existence of the universe and ourselves to naturalistic forces your response is I don't know and there isn't enough evidence to draw a conclusion or have an opinion and the same if we attribute such to a Creator?

What we do know is all that we can address at any given time.  So what do we know?  Obviously, such a shitload that it would be absurd to list.  But for all things science has discovered, a god has never been part of any discovery.  Natural things, as far as what we do actually know, appear to operate as if no god is involved. 

Is this the mysterious undetectable hand operating in a way that mimics non existence?  Well, that's heady and all, and those with a philosophical bent might think it deserves an answer.  I just think its a silly question, because it doesn't have an answer, at least not in any practical way, which if you think about it, makes it rather irrelevant.

I'm guessing this doesn't satisfy your wishes, because I think what you are indirectly asking would be, "Is the possible that existence of god's hand in the chaos of the universe might be on equal footing with natural forces that we understand?"  But you didn't actually ask that.  If there is an answer you prefer, you can answer that on your own.  In the end, there is no reason for you to think I absolutely need to give you an opinion before you can come up with your own answer.

[Mike Cl]

It could be even funnier: God the infinite being looked around and said "I am That, I am!" The unfortunate side effect of expressing infinite self existence upon an infinite resonant body is the nucleation of infinite other relative self existences. God looked around at the infinite children it just conceived and said...."Uh oh...."

Another version of a fictional god--more flowery speech maybe, but fictional nonetheless.  And maybe your god said 'Uh oh......' because it created these to go along with the batch of humanity it seems to hate the most--children.

List of childhood diseases and disorders
The term childhood disease refers to disease that is contracted or becomes symptomatic before the age of 18 years old. Many of these diseases can also be contracted by adults.
Some childhood diseases include:
Gonococcal ophthalmia neonatorum
Further information: Neonate infection
ï,·Candida albicans infection
ï,·Candida parapsilosis infection
ï,·Cytomegalovirus infection
ï,·diphtheria
ï,·human coronavirus infection
ï,·respiratory distress syndrome
ï,·measles
ï,·meconium aspiration syndrome
ï,·metapneumovirus (hMPV) infection
ï,·Necrotizing enterocolitis
ï,·Gonorrhea infection of the newborn
ï,·parainfluenza (PIV) infection
ï,·pertussis
ï,·poliomyelitis
ï,·prenatal Listeria
ï,·Group B streptoccus infection
ï,·tetanus
ï,·Ureaplasma urealyticum infection
ï,·respiratory Syncytial Virus infection
ï,·rhinovirus; common cold
Diseases of older children[edit]
ï,·Cold
ï,·AIDS
ï,·Anemia
ï,·Asthma
ï,·Bronchiolitis
ï,·Cancer
ï,·Candidiasis ("Thrush")
ï,·Chagas disease
ï,·Chickenpox
ï,·Croup
ï,·Cystic Fibrosis
ï,·Cytomegalovirus (the virus most frequently transmitted before birth)
ï,·dental caries
ï,·Diabetes (Type 1)
ï,·Diphtheria
ï,·Duchenne muscular dystrophy
ï,·Fifth disease
ï,·Congenital Heart Disease
ï,·Infectious mononucleosis
ï,·Influenza
ï,·Intussusception (medical disorder)
ï,·Juvenile idiopathic arthritis
ï,·Leukemia
ï,·Measles
ï,·Meningitis
ï,·Molluscum contagiosum
ï,·Mumps
ï,·Nephrotic syndrome
ï,·Osgood-Schlatter disease
ï,·Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI)
ï,·Pneumonia
ï,·Polio
ï,·Rheumatic fever
ï,·Rickets
ï,·Roseola
ï,·Rubella
ï,·Sever's disease
ï,·Tetanus
ï,·Tuberculosis
ï,·Volvulus
ï,·Whooping cough
ï,·Hepatitis A
ï,·Fever
ï,·Scarlet fever (Scarletina)
ï,·Lyme Disease
ï,·Xerophthalmia
ï,·Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infections or PANDAS
ï,·PANS

And that is just a survey and far from complete the entire list of your god spreading his love and grace.

[aitm]

But it is apparent by comparing the core sacredbullshit texts of many religions, that they mostly do reference the same a similar though completely different GOD...but they all refer to it as a god...so I got that point.

I could post page upon page of evidence of this, -No you can't.

I used to lie to myself about many things. yeah, I can see how easily that has progressed

[Hakurei Reimu]

Hakurei Reimu,

Is it your belief the universe came into existence uncaused out of nothing?

I got news for you...you're not making a whole lot of sense either yet you state your counter belief as fact.

With this, you have betrayed that you lack even basic understanding of cosmology and philosophy and are not in a position to tell me what makes sense and what doesn't. Your inability to understand what I have said is not indicative of my ability; what I have said is not actually that hard and has been dumbed down as much as I dare. What I have said is perfectly comprehensible, because I have used the same argument in the past and nobody has called me on it. Everyone else knows exactly what I'm talking about.

I didn't come up with big bang theory either neither did I cause the evidence that leads to big bang theory. I grant you the universe and time coming into existence challenges the notion the set of physical laws we are familiar with is all there is.

Again, strawman. Physical laws only apply to things in the universe, not the universe as an entire object. But speculating about how, or indeed if, the universe as an entire object was created is pure speculation. But we can say that, without a time external to the universe, there can be no creation of the universe. Period. Not even by a God. Not even for a purpose. You must establish the existence of this external time before that possibility becomes live.

I'm not insisting anything. I do a simple Google search 'did the universe come into existence?' The first article I get is from Discover Magazine.

http://discovermagazine.com/2013/september/13-starting-point

<snip>

The point is this is all very theoretical yet you speak as if you are certain.

Drew, I have made no claim that a timeless beginning is what has happened. I pointed out that you needed some sort of external time to make your notions make sense, yet this is something you have not supported. You. You're the one who needs to support the idea that this external time exists because your notion of Goddidit on the universe as an entire object is critically dependent on it. Yet you have not supported this idea at all. Furthermore, the fact that I have called upon you to support this idea of an external time means that I do not speak as if its non-existence were certain â€" if it were, I would be dismissing its existence outright, instead of calling upon you to demonstrate its existence.

Also, while Discover is a good magazine for popular science, it is hardly a peer review journal. The science of Discover is very much dumbed down. It's written for the masses like you who have no idea the philosophical morass they would wade into. Any time you speak about causation or creation in a context without some sort of time for it to happen in, you're speaking nonsense. Prove your external time and you'll be getting somewhere.

I don't insist its by design I opine its by design. The evidence I offer is the fact of the universes existence, the fact it has laws of nature that allowed for the existence of stars, planets and galaxies and allowed for the existence of sentient beings. You are confident that could happen inadvertently without plan or design I'm skeptical.

No, dearheart, that is insisting on design. You have not connected the universe's existence to any sort of design. You have not connected the existence of stars, planets, etc. to any sort of design. You have not connected the existence of sentient beings to any sort of design. Furthermore, everything you have spoken of only constitutes 4% of the matter and energy in the universe. Even worse, life forms such a vanishingly small amount of our solar system that it's hard to believe it's not inadvertent. Your opinion is unsupported and hence worthless.

Then by now you have caused life to exist by employing those favorable conditions and your name is right up there with Einstein and Newton.

Good try at sarcasm.

I don't have to study abiogenesis I can look it up and see where its at at the moment.

Many approaches to abiogenesis investigate how self-replicating molecules, or their components, came into existence. It is generally thought that current life on Earth is descended from an RNA world,[15] although RNA-based life may not have been the first life to have existed.[16][17] The classic Millerâ€"Urey experiment and similar research demonstrated that most amino acids, the basic chemical constituents of the proteins used in all living organisms, can be synthesized from inorganic compounds under conditions intended to replicate those of the early Earth. Various external sources of energy that may have triggered these reactions have been proposed, including lightning and radiation. Other approaches ("metabolism-first" hypotheses) focus on understanding how catalysis in chemical systems on the early Earth might have provided the precursor molecules necessary for self-replication.[18] Complex organic molecules have been found in the Solar System and in interstellar space, and these molecules may have provided starting material for the development of life on Earth.[19][20][21][22]

The panspermia hypothesis alternatively suggests that microscopic life was distributed to the early Earth by meteoroids, asteroids and other small Solar System bodies and that life may exist throughout the Universe.[23] It is speculated that the biochemistry of life may have begun shortly after the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago, during a habitable epoch when the age of the universe was only 10 to 17 million years.[24][25] The panspermia hypothesis proposes that life originated outside the Earth, not how life came to be.

Does this sound like that have it all wrapped up? You need to inform them of your knowledge because they are struggling.

Nowhere have I said that abiogenesis is "all wrapped up." It does however sound like scientists have a good handle on what's going on and the the missing pieces are being rapidly filled, just as I said. See, you cannot propose an RNA world or "metabolism-first" approaches without having some idea what the chemistry was like on early Earth, or without some idea how chemistry would operate to create life in those proto-organisms.

Furthermore, the fact that the basic building blocks of life are found in outer-fucking-space indicates that the chemistry for creating life is not that hard and there are many potential spots in the universe that might have a dense enough concentration of those building blocks to create their own life. This is only natural, as it happens that the four most common elements in life also happen to be amongst the five most common elements in the universe â€" in exactly the same order of abundance, no less. If panspermia is true, then life is not rare at all (numerically, not as a fraction of the mass of the universe), and the seeds of life are everywhere, just waiting for the right conditions to flourish.

So, yeah, the scientists have abiogenesis, if not buttoned up, well in hand. Notice further that nowhere among the leading theories is Goddidit. As always, as science gets along in answering these types of questions, it is theories based on natural law that composes the entirety of the leaders, and any appeal to God is left by the wayside. You think Goddidit is still viable only because you think that looking stuff up on the internet is a substitute for a science education. As many of your predecessors have proven, it ain't.

No actually Rees is an atheist and his conclusion is that this is one of an infinitude of universes as the only naturalistic way he could account for the right properties obtaining apart from design. However, if you read the book you'll know he devoted a chapter to the possibility of design. Why not? 

Because he's wrong on that; any argument that takes observing that the universe follows naturalistic laws and concludes that the universe operates by anything other than naturalistic laws is fundamentally mistaken. Period.

I can tell that you did not read and did not understand my discussion immediately following of why all fine tuning arguments are wrong. It's a very basic observation that you don't even need math to see the veracity of, yet you made no comment on that at all. Why is that? Is it that lack of science education showing? I think it is.

[Baruch]

It could be even funnier: God the infinite being looked around and said "I am That, I am!" The unfortunate side effect of expressing infinite self existence upon an infinite resonant body is the nucleation of infinite other relative self existences. God looked around at the infinite children it just conceived and said...."Uh oh...."

Revised Lurianic Kabbalah.  The purpose of Jews is to put the pieces of Humpty Dumpty G-d back together again after the Big Uh Oh!

[aitm]

God looked around at the infinite children it just conceived and said...."Uh oh...."

Not to be picky but, and I am most assuredly not as intelligent as you,...but how can something be infinite if it was "conceived". And if it is infinite, are you claiming that god cannot "un-infinite" it? And if god can "un"infinite it....how can it be infinite?

[Hydra009]

Shhh.  It's supposed to sound pretty, not make rational sense.

[Baruch]

Shhh.  It's supposed to sound pretty, not make rational sense.

Poetry is the work of Satan!  Long live boring prose!  On the other hand, an abstract definition of living or thinking isn't hard ...

1. Where there is a localized (in space and time) reversal of entropy (which requires mass-energy to enter that region, it isn't closed) ... you have some form of life.  For example .. a toaster.  The toaster gets hotter instead of colder, by taking in electrical power and converting it to thermal power.  While the toaster itself isn't alive, it wouldn't exist unless some living and sentient being hadn't created it.  It didn't form randomly without  that living and sentient instrumental cause.

2. Where there is a localized (in space and time) increase in information (which is related to thermal entropy) ... you have some form of sentience.  For example, a temperature recording device.  Like the toaster, it reverses information entropy by converting measurements of temperature into computer data.  While the temperature recorder isn't sentient, it wouldn't exist unless some living and sentient being hadn't created it.  The data didn't randomly form in the data store without that living and sentient instrumental cause.

Without some instrumental cause ... you will never find any sign of life or sentience.  Part of the error of atheism, is that it attempts to make things too simple (as in materialism or number theory).  Einstein said, make things as simple as possible, but not simpler ;-)