Originally posted by CUbeatFSU:
Originally posted by Trading Tiger:
Originally posted by Tigerus Maximus:
Originally posted by rjohn19:
I agree that you don't "believe" in facts; you accept them, change your world-view if necessary and move on. But after that, your logic is fallacious.
First, let me say "why" is not a very compelling question in the cosmos. There does not have to be a reason for everything and the universe doesn't care one way or another whether we like it. Do not confuse reason with cause.
But as for your god being that primal cause, you offer no argument. In logic it is the "argument from ignorance" which means, "We don't know; therefore, it must be god." But as unfulfilling as that is by itself, you really mean, "We don't know; therefore, it must be MY god" which is even sillier given all the thousands of possible gods that still exist or have existed in the mind of men.
The only logical conclusion to "we don't know" is "therefore, we don't know." But fortunately for mankind, there have been and still are enough people who do not blindly think the answer is in a Bronze Age book written by scientifically ignorant men who though their special god did them a favor by promising them some of the least productive real estate in the habitable portion of the earth. These people who reject the "we already know" premise say, "we don't know but we're working on it."
Your appeal is to a "god of the gaps." He used to occupy a far greater territory than he does now because volumes of things from storms to earthquakes that were once attributed to his whims have been explained- gap after gap he used to occupy has been filled with knowledge. And let's not forget modern science is still in its infancy- thinking in terms of what we know right now is very short-sighted.
Hi rjohn19. I really appreciate your appeal to logic, because it is completely REASONable to conclude that this universe did not come into existence on it's own accord. I love the formal study of logic. I am a Christian, and I believe that God created the Earth and all in it (including man without evolutionary guidance). When I look at our world, the universe, and all in it, I am convinced that it could only come about by intentional design.
I am geek (Math major), and I am fascinated when I watch shows on the Science Channel and the scenarios they discuss. They discuss ad nauseum all the possibilities for the universe not to exist exactly like it does, and attribute it to chance, although, mathematically, we would classify those probabilities as zero. I find it captivating to hear them marvel over such improbabilities playing out.
At the end of the day, however, I don't fault anyone for not believing in God because the Bible clearly teaches that our discovery of God (the God of Abraham) is not through our own devices, but through Him making us believers in Him.
I love those Science/History/Discovery channel shows too, I especially like Ancient Aliens.
But anyway, I was watching one of those shows and they stated that if the force of gravity was just 0.00000000000001 m/s^2 different, that the world as we know it wouldn't exist. (that wasn't the exact number, it was probably even smaller than that, it was one of those numbers that they have to use an exponent of 10 to write or it would be way too long)
If gravity was just a fraction of a fraction of a fraction stronger, all the matter in the universe would clump together. If it was just a fraction of a...weaker, it would not be strong enough and all the matter would just fly in different directions.
The more I learn, the easier it is for me to see that God must exist, not the opposite. I agree with the poster who said that one day, science will prove God's existence rather than disprove it.
Just to clarify the statistical argument. The chances that another planet with nearly the exact same environmental conditions doesn't exist in the universe is infinitesimal. More than likely, there are thousands if not millions) of life-sustaining planets out there So while it's accurate that the chances of this particular planet spawning the proper conditions to create and sustain life as we know it were very slim, it's not at all when looking at the macro scale.
I completely agree, and I actually had the same discussion with my wife just the other day.
The first thing you need is a star, there are hundreds of trillions of stars in the universe. Then, you need a planet. Let's say that 1 out of every 1,000,000,000 stars has at least one planet. That's still a ton of planets out there orbiting stars. Then, you need a planet the correct distance away from that star to be not too hot and not too cold, each star has what is called a "habitable zone". Let's say that for every planet, only 1 out of 1,000,000,000 is in the habitable zone. Well that's still a ton of planets in the habitable zone. Then, let's say that even if a planet is in the habitable zone, the conditions have to be just right, so 1 out of every 1,000,000,000 of those planets have the conditions just right to support life. And the final step is saying that just because all of that stuff is in place, that is no guarantee that life will flourish on that planet. That's another 1 out of every 1,000,000,000 planet that is in the habitable zone, has the conditions just right, and actually has life on it. That's still a ton of life out there in the universe.
This is a vast oversimplification, and I probably don't have those odds anywhere close to being accurate, but the point I'm trying to make is basically what you already said. Even with the tiniest of chances, the universe is so unimaginably huge, life must exist elsewhere in the universe. It's a mathematical certainty.
Think about how unlikely a person is to win the lottery. Now think about if that person never died and played the lottery for millions of years. Eventually, he/she would win. Or another way of looking at it would be to buy a huge number of lottery tickets. If you bought enough lottery tickets to use every possible combination of numbers, you'd be guaranteed to win. That's what's going on here.
But I want to point out, that is not what I said in my post that you quoted. The point of that post was to simply point out the extremely fine balance of things we take for granted. A Divine Creator is the only explanation for the way that this puzzle of existence fits together the way it does. If even just one little thing was just slightly different, none of this would be possible.
I also want to say that whether or not life exists beyond the planet Earth, that does not disprove the existence of God. I stated before, my Biblical knowledge is very lacking, but I don't believe it says anywhere in there that God created humans and that we're the only life form in the whole universe.
