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Picture throwing a deck of cards into the air and then admiring the pattern that forms on the floor as the cards fall.{ How in the world did everything fall right into place in order to form this pattern? } If you were to pick these cards up and throw them again, exactly the same way even, there would likely be a different pattern. Would you then admire that pattern as well, and ask how everything fell into place as it did?
Nice example. But bear in mind, somebody made the cards and somebody tossed them in the air.
Can anyone explain how the universe just came to be? On its own. No outside help.
What evidence do you have that the universe 'came to be' to begin with? What evidence do you have that says it wasn't always there in some form or other?
Do you not see what you are doing? You are noting that the universe exists and then jumping to the completely unfounded conclusion that there must have been a time when it didn't exist and therefore, it must have been created. That conclusion has no evidence to support it. When you can provide evidence that there was once a time when the universe didn't exist, we can then go on to discuss how something could have come from nothing. Until you do that, you are jumping to unfounded conclusions and creating an event that there is no evidence for....and for no other reason than to justify the existence of your god.
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Can anyone explain how the universe just came to be? On its own. No outside help.
Can you explain how your god came to be? On its own? No outside help?
No one had to "make" the singularity or "cause" the Big Bang. It just "existed," and it just "happened."
You have evidence of this I take it? Or is that just your opinion, which is fine.
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Originally Posted by Rafius
What evidence do you have that the universe 'came to be' to begin with? What evidence do you have that says it wasn't always there in some form or other? ?
I'll go with the science boys. They have evidence of the Big Bang. But if you want to go with Hindu Cosmology, have at it.
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Originally Posted by Rafius
Can you explain how your god came to be? On its own? No outside help?
Shall we save that question for another thread.
(Why do so many atheists keep harping on the origins of God when faced with trying to explain how the universe came to be, sans creator.)
I'll go with the science boys. They have evidence of the Big Bang.
They have evidence that the BB was the start of the universe that we see today. The BB says nothing of what was there before. Where is your evidence that there was once a time when the universe did not exist in some form or other?
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Save that for another thread.
It is relevant dude. If you can ask how the universe can have come to exist with no outside help, the same must apply to what you are claiming was the outside help that was needed.
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(Why do so many atheists keep harping on the origins of God when faced with trying to explain how the universe came to be, sans creator.)
....because it is YOU that is introducing the concept of a 'creator' and as such, you are obliged to explain where the 'creator' came from. You can't just lay down a set of rules and then claim that you are exempt from those same rules....well you can but it will never work. You are claiming 'special pleading' here i.e. the universe could not have come about without a creator but that rule doesn't apply to the creator itself. Claptrap!
The evidence is what? That the Universe is doing stuff. Agreed. The thoery predicts...yes it predicts! Once again we find order, patterns predictable stuff. Not exactly the stuff of chance. Chance tends to produce randon results. Stuff that's hard to predict.
But evolution, once life had arisen by chance (even though that may well have been unlikely, it's still not impossible, and it's even intellectually feasible given the now-known interactions of molecules and ions and gravity and light and temperature and so on...), the serial occurrence of mutations. I'll agree, statistically they'd be mostly bad, but more than occasionally they'd be positive or even neutral, and this process feeds on itself to create, over time, vastly improved and complex structures. You know, like an early bacterium, then an amoeba, then a slug, then a fish then ...(oh hell; cut to the bottom line, rifleman)... us!
We can rather easily demo this in the lab any time. You deny that? Well then, come on over and I'll show you some simple molecular arrangement mutations brought on by radiation bombardment, heat, transitional and transcription errors.
But even then will you accept it? I doubt it. You can't accept it.
As for prediction, when I predict something based entirely on past experience and well-documented multiple results, and my prediction is reasonable, and then, by George, it works out, repeatedly, what am I then to conclude?
That it's all still just a random act of improbability? Nope. That it's in all likelihood, true, and a proven fact to be recognized and then used to predict and describe other phenomena to which it might apply. Like, you know, the facts of biological Evolution. Yup. That's the one!
So again: to you its still just faked and random? Not bleedin' likely, friend. After a while, we honest scientists can and do make some reasonable claims, with reasonable limitations set in place of course. And one of those is that we can easily observe, document and even create Evolution now.
Check out Dr. Richard Lenski, in case you missed his seminal 2008 research that did exactly that. In 2008, he was at generation 32,000 or some such, having been faithfully recorded, with bio-samples reliably taken for each and every generation, for well over 22 years. Now that's presence of mind!
Cause then, through the modern and quite recent miracle of DNA genome mapping, by Golly and by George, durned if he didn't find, @ about gen 22,000 or so, and thus PROVE, that purely chance mutations (also known as Evolutionary adaptation) created an entirely new species. Able to utilize a previously un-utilized resource. And eventually migrating off into it's own sort of physical "corner" of the test tube.
The best (but truly vacuous and sad...) argument the theists could cook up in response was, stupidly, "Oh yeah? Well, uhhmm... well.... uhhhhh... that was only a bacterium. And that's not ever a species as we define it! We wanna see a cat give birth to a dog overnight! Now that'd be real evolution!"
Sorry lads. you don't get to change the rules after the fact. Grow up and smell the DNA!
It is relevant dude. If you can ask how the universe can have come to exist with no outside help, the same must apply to what you are claiming was the outside help that was needed.
....because it is YOU that is introducing the concept of a 'creator' and as such, you are obliged to explain where the 'creator' came from. You can't just lay down a set of rules and then claim that you are exempt from those same rules....well you can but it will never work. You are claiming 'special pleading' here i.e. the universe could not have come about without a creator but that rule doesn't apply to the creator itself. Claptrap!
Umm, I posed a question. If you want to sidetrack the discussions (a tactic, I have seen all to often in these sorts of discussion) fine, but I won't bite. For your benefit:
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Originally Posted by Mr5150
To me the odds of the Universe coming to be (and humans existing) by chance or simply on it own are...astronomical! Can anyone explain how the universe just came to be? On its own. No outside help.
But evolution, once life had arisen by chance (even though that may well have been unlikely, it's still not impossible, and it's even intellectually feasible given the now-known interactions of molecules and ions and gravity and light and temperature and so on...), the serial occurrence of mutations. I'll agree, statistically they'd be mostly bad, but more than occasionally they'd be positive or even neutral, and this process feeds on itself to create, over time, vastly improved and complex structures. You know, like an early bacterium, then an amoeba, then a slug, then a fish then ...(oh hell; cut to the bottom line, rifleman)... us!
We can rather easily demo this in the lab any time. You deny that? Well then, come on over and I'll show you some simple molecular arrangement mutations brought on by radiation bombardment, heat, transitional and transcription errors.
But even then will you accept it? I doubt it. You can't accept it.
It seems you really didn't read post #1. aka the OP. I''l make it easy for you and quote my OP. Mr Rifleman keeps forgeting Mr5150 views the theory of evolution as correct.
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Originally Posted by Mr5150
That the Universe, with all of its matter, energy, life, physical laws just came to be all on its own. Without a creator/designer. Just look at how an atom is constructed and how it works. Its properties.
Look at DNA. Made up of said atoms. It contains a code that determines what characteristics a life form will have. And then how it figures into the process of evolution, this adaptive process by which humans have come to be. I could go on about mathematics (how it seems to describle most everything) gravity (and how it is a property of matter), time and space and so forth.
And then we build this thinking machines call computers that figure stuff out for.
So what are the odds? From the Big Bang, each event working or not. Having a 1000 events all work in a row. A million.
So obviously the universe is here as are we. That proves nothing.
To me the odds of the Universe coming to be (and humans existing) by chance or simply on it own are...astronomical! Can anyone explain how the universe just came to be? On its own. No outside help.
I am a strong atheist as to the Abrahamic god . . . he absolutely does not exist.
And since we can already see this coming around the corner, it's good to state this from early and throw in all the others run of the mill gods and goddesses that have come down the pike too while we're at it.
There may be life in the universe on other worlds, but there is no possibility of humans populating any planet but this one. Life elsewhere would be far different from life here.
Although I do believe that all gods have been invented by humans and as such are imaginary. The evidence that convinces me of that is this....If there truly were a god, there would be just one.
So... With that concept that you provided. If something is true then it will immediately be known. You just threw all scientific theories out the window with that logic.
How many times has science corrected itself? To many times to count. Does this mean that all science is wrong? Nope.
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