to the atheists on the board
- Thread starter kungfoofighting
- Start date
I love it, man!
Keep up the great advertising for atheism!
I don't agree. If you accept the existence of the universe as not necessarily being the result of an intelligent creator, then it is a pretty small step to accept that life can exist without an intelligent creator too. The universe is, after all, a lot bigger in scope than life - life is a subset of the universe, not the other way round.
Also, if the life is evidence of a creator, then surely the creator, being alive (if he exists), must also be evidence of a prior intelligent creator? If not, and we accept that the creator has existed forever, then why can we not also accept that a universe sans-creator may also have existed forever?
Now I would ask a question of you and other religious people - if a creator does indeed exist (or existed), and created the universe and life - well, what makes you think that he's "God", or that this is in any way "proof" of religion? Maybe he is something totally different. Maybe he just created the universe for a laugh; maybe he is pathologically evil, or even an atheist. Maybe humans were just an accidental cock-up on his part, and he thinks religion is the most stupid belief system of all time?
The fact is that the "argument by design" in no way demonstrates that the creator is a "divine" being or "god" at all, let alone the god of christian thought, or any other earthly religion.
This is quoted from the above link:
Creationist claims:
The second law of thermodynamics requires that all systems and individual parts of systems have a tendency to go from order to disorder. The second law will not permit order to spontaneously arise from disorder. To do so would violate the universal tendency of matter to decay or disintegrate.
Creationists recognize that in many cases order does spontaneously arise from disorder: seeds grow into trees, eggs develop into chicks, crystalline salts form when a solution evaporates, and crystalline snowflakes form from randomly moving water vapor molecules. In cases like these, creationists have assigned an attribute that there must be a programmed energy conversion mechanism to direct the application of the energy needed to bring about the change.
This energy conversion mechanism is postulated to "overcome" the second law, thus allowing order to spontaneously arise from disorder.
Creationists believe that changes requiring human thought and effort, such as constructing a building, manufacturing an airplane, making a bed, writing a book, etc. are covered by the science of thermodynamics. Creationists believe that a wall will not build itself simply because to do so would violate the laws of thermodynamics. In building the wall, the stonemason overcomes the laws of thermodynamics!
In the case of organic change, like seeds growing into trees and chicks developing from eggs, creationists believe that the directed energy conversion mechanism that overcomes the laws of thermodynamics comes from God.
Axeman,
This author can't be serious! In stating that "order does spontaneously arise from disorder: seeds grow into trees, eggs develop into chicks, crystalline salts form when a solution evaporates, and crystalline snowflakes form from randomly moving water vapor molecules", he suggests that a tree has no reason for developing from a seed. If you give me directions to your home and I arrive there, order has not spontaneously arisen, I have simply followed instructions which requires directed energy. So we don't have a closed system after all. What is the energy source that drives evolution so that more ordered organisms can come from simpler ones? Is it just the heat and light of the sun? He then states:"In the case of organic change, like seeds growing into trees and chicks developing from eggs, creationists believe that the directed energy conversion mechanism that overcomes the laws of thermodynamics comes from God." No, the directed energy conversion mechanism is coded in the DNA. A plant will grow from sunlight and water because its DNA has coding to accept that source of energy. Did the sunlight also create the DNA so that the plant would recognize it as useful? Other pages on that site state clearly that "evolution is a fact". How has evolution been documented? Natural selection is not evolution. Natural selection does not explain how one species could produce a different one. If there was a sudden beneficial mutation in a particular animal that would allow it to be classified as a new species, how would it reproduce itself if there are no others of its kind? Please give me some examples of evolution occurring.
I asked the question not as a trap, but to see what conclusions individuals who do not believe in a creator would draw. My personal feeling about a house on mars would be that something must have made it, because organized structures do not appear on their own. I feel the same way about life.
I follow where you're coming from in the first part of your post. Essentially you're saying "well if the universe defied the immeasurable odds of coming into existence on its own, why not life, too?" I don't follow your notion that the universe may have existed forever, however. Astrophysicists know that the universe is expanding and has not been around forever. Finally, I am not interested in talking about any particular religion, rather I am simply stating my belief that, assuming a creator could exist, a creator makes more sense to me as the origin of life than random luck.
The fact that it is expanding doesn't prove that it has not been around forever. It could have been around forever, then started expanding from a static state, or it could contract then expand again in a cycle. Or it could have existed in an entirely different form, prior to the theorised "big bang". Or our measurements could be misled by something or inaccurate for other reasons. Time may have been completely different in nature earlier in the universe's existence.
Because we cannot be 100% certain that our scientific theories are true, especially since we have no means of conducting controlled experiments on the origin of the universe, we simply cannot tell for sure whether the universe has always existed or whether it came into being at a certain point in time.
Talking about universe..
I always wondered if the universe exists, in where does it exist?
And if it didn't exist before the hypothetical big bang, what did exist before that?
I always wondered if the universe exists, in where does it exist?
And if it didn't exist before the hypothetical big bang, what did exist before that?
People also thought it counterintuitive that a heavy rock would fall the same speed as a light one. Who says the universe has to conform to your intuition?
People should learn that their feelings, intuition, opinions, logical reasoning, and personal beliefs have no bearing at all on the inherent nature of the universe. The universe's nature is as it is. What you, me, or anyone else thinks, feels, argues or even "proves" does not change that in any way, shape or form, and is even less relevant than an amoeba's opinion of an elephant. Reality has primacy over everything else - over all scientific theories, over all human experience, and certainly over feelings, emotions, intuition and beliefs.
If Stephen Hawking "proves" that the universe started at one point, but in fact the universe did not start at that point, then he is wrong and reality is right. If Hawking's logic is impeccable, then his axioms are wrong. If his axioms are based on scientific laws, then those laws are wrong. Trying to "prove" that reality is a certain way is nonsensical. All we can do is *hypothesise*, and then *test* those hypotheses by observation. If they tally with reality, and are not disproven by it, then we can tentatively accept them as working rules of thumb. Even then they can be falsified at a later date, so we can only accept them as "useful", and not 100% definitively "true".
Thus there will be no good knowledge about the nature of the universe until we can observe the early history and possible origin of the universe in extreme detail. Currently we cannot do that, and we may never be able to do so.
Right now we are in the same position as ancient astronomers who did not have access to telescopes, and all we have is speculation. Take one look at the beliefs held by astronomers in those days, and you have a pretty good idea how accurate the beliefs of current astrophysicists are.