You realise that 99.9999999999999999999999% of the universe is dead. The only life we've found is a thin film of slime on one ordinary planet around one ordinary star in one ordinary galaxy, among quadrillions of planets, stars and galaxies.

And homo sapiens arrived 13.5 billion years after the universe began. Put us anywhere else in the universe and we'd rapidly die. We're only here because an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. And in a few billion years, the sun will get too hot for us and extinguish all complex life off the Earth.

That undermines the whole notion that humans are somehow the culmination of some 'creating force' of the universe. Life is the exception to the universe, a freak abnormality.

From page 4 of this thread:

------------

As far as we can tell, the universe is drawn towards stasis. If you view the eventual entropic heat-death of the universe as a state of perfection -- well, I suppose the case can be made.

We don't know the odds at all. We have exactly one data point.

Very clever not to use the word "intelligent," given the tendency toward obvious flaws in said "designs."

EDIT: Also, I think it's telling that the vast majority of people who devote their lives to studying the natural world/DNA/bacteria/etc. do not reach the same conclusion that you do. Curious, no?

And yet you're comfortable claiming to have a sense of the odds involved, and to know not only that a wizard did it, but that you know which wizard it was.

Also, this:

EDIT:

Indeed, it's a human impulse to assign intent to the natural world. We used to think lightning required a creative force, that the motion of the sun itself required a creative force. As far as we know we've been doing that as long as we've been human, and probably since even before.

And every time we have done so -- here's the important part -- we have later discovered that answer to be wrong. It has never been the correct answer about the natural world, to date. You want to talk stats and odds? Let's start there.

Last edited by Dorkman (2014-01-03 01:56:18)

It's true that science doesn't know everything. It may even be true that science WILL NEVER know everything.

No one claims these things.

But that doesn't mean any other means at attaining knowledge (revelation, intuition, authority, tradition) is therefore superior.

The scientific method is not just the best way at attaining knowledge, but it's the only way. It's got a self-correcting mechanism built in and admits its ignorance and has achieved more in the last 400 years than any other superstition has in 6000 years.

We're just going to have to get used to admitting we don't know how the universe began. We've got to be comfortable with uncertainty, rather than placing some Creator there.

And even if you had to insert a 'first cause' there (Deism), how do you get from there to a personal God that answers prayers, cares about your personal failures, resurrects homo sapiens, punishes and rewards, etc?

It's certainly possible. But the more evidence we collect about certain aspects of our world, the less likely it is. There comes a tipping point where it would be more difficult to explain how all the evidence we have for a particular phenomenon can exist without a particular explanation being true, than it is to accept the explanation as most likely being correct. In which case the explanation remains accepted unless and until new evidence arises that alters the balance back the other way.

But the impulse to do so for ANY event is no different.

It's wondrous, no doubt. But that doesn't make it magic or impossible. After all, we know for a fact that it happened.

I wish him luck reconciling the natural history of Earth with the claim that the Earth existed before the Sun did.

This is very much in line with the scientific perspective. Except, again, for the part about the wizard.

Never for certain, but we can get close enough to be useful.

We don't KNOW that electricity isn't carried on the backs of invisible, undetectable faeries. We never can, if you want to believe in them. But what we HAVE sorted out about electricity seems to be reliable in that it consistently behaves the way we expect it to, so we seem to be close enough to knowing about electricity in some ways that we might as well use the term as shorthand. The addition of faeries gives us nothing useful in our understanding and so the possibility is best ignored until it has a reason not to be.

Science makes predictions. Religion, at best, manages retcons.

The jump from Deism to Theism is a massive one. Even if you could demonstrate that a creative force existed at the beginning, that does not automatically mean that this force still exists, is still involved in the universe, has interest or knowledge in our existence, keeps a naughty-or-nice list, etc. Nor would it be a given that a being which CLAIMED to be the original creative force was ACTUALLY the original creative force.

Last edited by Dorkman (2014-01-03 02:32:28)

wut

how can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't real

One thing that's apparent after years of these conversations is that the human brain can rationalize just about any position. Human language is vague enough that one can get any conclusion from any premise ,if you've already decided a priori that's where you want to arrive at. And a few seconds Googling can provide anyone with extra arguments to back up just about any point.

Maybe it's like different people's metabolism. Some people just put on weight easier than others, given the same calories. Likewise, given the same arguments, and evidence, some people just gravitate towards a religious conclusion whilst others arrive at an atheist conclusion.

Reminds me of a secular proverb (which I don't think is quite accurate): You can't reason a person out of a position that they didn't use reason to enter into.

Okay, water behaves weirdly. What argument are you resting on this fact? That science doesn't know everything? That's fine. We've all conceded that.

Our knowledge is limited and fallible and some parts of it will most likely be corrected in the future.

But that doesn't mean that ANY OTHER way of knowing is better. What are the alternatives?

1. I have a hunch?
2. God told me in a dream ?
3. That's what we've always been taught?
4. The Pope/Ayatollah/Rabbi/Holy Man told me?

Here's my question, then. Why do you see the religious answers to these questions as equally worthwhile to scientific ones?

Science doesn't know everything but has a way of correcting that, and has a tendency of finding answers right enough to be getting on with. Science is the reason we're even able to have this conversation. 

Religion doesn't know everything either, but never admits it, has no way of correcting itself, and offers nothing useful in terms of human advancement except for what it piggybacks onto scientific observation.

I'm more willing to trust someone who's honestly wrong sometimes than one who lies about always being right.

True, but they do not change the nature of the world itself. If you want to understand the world as it is, you have to train yourself to set those things aside, or at least be willing to if the two -- objective reality and your subjective experience -- come into conflict.

And how much time do you spend considering faeries? They are as much a possible factor as gods.

Well, personally, there is evidence behind scientific claims that warrant investigation. There are aspects of religion that impact societies and individuals, and thus, influence social development.

Now, I will grant that religion cannot, and should not, be wholly regarded as scientific. But, if you were to claim that you were possessed by a ghost and crashed your car, well, I would at least listen. That is a part of personal experiences and anecdotes that come along with the human experience.