Did a God or Gods create the universe? EDITED

Alan Fraser

I'm more impressed by the predictions that Jules Verne makes in his books than anything in the so called holy scriptures.

Amen to that. Even Christ Himself didn't get it right...according to Mark 13.

@unknownuser said:

24But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,

25And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.

26And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.

27And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

28Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:

29So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.

30Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.

Verse 30 is as unambiguous as it gets...unless you are prepared to indulge in such mental gymnastics that you could make the Bible say anything you want. Similarly Matthew 16.

@unknownuser said:

27For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

28Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

Christ was saying that Judgement Day would come within the lifetime of the people he was addressing....and vested interests have been spinning it out with an assorted degree of sophistry for the last 2000 years.

Marian

@irwanwr said:

i think that our current numeric system we use commonly these days are arabic. or, would you perhaps prefer to write 1944 as MCMXLIV? and 1944.5 as MCMXLIV.V

In fact Arab numbers are a modification of Indian ones, we just called them Arab because that's where the Europeans got them from.
Nontheless...yes ARABS not islam made those achievements. I fully acknowledge that the Arabs of the early secod millenium had a big impact on Mathematics, Astronomy keeping ancient Greek and Roman texts alive, composing beautiful poetry etc. Practically this is what made the European Rennaissance possible. All this was before they went overboard with religious zeal and banned everything and anything related to science and even some aspects of literature.
I also recognise that those same Arabs like some Europeans after them were indeed religious but that doesn't mean the credit is due to their religions.

Also related to the subject we were discussing not one of these achievements were ever due to some explanation in the qur'an or the bible they were all done through hard work and much thinking.

@unknownuser said:

i don't really understand by what you mean above comprehensively. but i do know that i wont give that much of chance to a fiction kind of books.

What I mean is that Jules Verne managed to get a lot more things right in his books about the modern world than those holy books. This is astonoshing because many people of his age made lots of other predictions which didn't come true. It's not easy to predict the future even for a very smart guy living 100+ years ago. So it becomes apparent that it would be totally impossible for a 1000 or 2000+ year old book to be able to do the same.

@unknownuser said:

but i do know that i wont give that much of chance to a fiction kind of books

Hah I can say the exact same thing about those fictitious holy books.

irwanwr

@marian said:

Nontheless...yes ARABS not islam made those achievements. I fully acknowledge that the Arabs of the early secod millenium had a big impact on Mathematics, Astronomy keeping ancient Greek and Roman texts alive, composing beautiful poetry etc. Practically this is what made the European Rennaissance possible. All this was before they went overboard with religious zeal and banned everything and anything related to science and even some aspects of literature.
I also recognise that those same Arabs like some Europeans after them were indeed religious but that doesn't mean the credit is due to their religions.
Also related to the subject we were discussing not one of these achievements were ever due to some explanation in the qur'an or the bible they were all done through hard work and much thinking.

i see. i didn't know how skeptical you are in the subject. but to say that their religion has nothing to do with it, i may think as too skeptical.
if you ever know one, here's some saying from islamic source that might had created the environment to allow those achievements: "Allah will raise those who have believed among you and those who were given knowledge, by degrees. And Allah is Acquainted with what you do." (58:11)
"and say, "My Lord, increase me in knowledge." (20:114)
those are just a few to at least motivate them to seek knowledge. because it's part of the teaching. for that zeal etc, i guess you went overboard of it. a religion or belief were not a subject to judge by those who claim to be the followers. not to mention how many of them were responsible for those so called zeal.

what i see from our "discussion" here, we do have different frame of references. it was OOT when i replied and quoted a post before, about that big bang theory.

Marian

There is no such thing as being too skeptical. Being skeptical is a good trait in my view.
Also being skeptical doesn't mean you are blind or narrow minded. I don't hold my views as being perfect, complete but that doesn't mean they are wrong.

I'm sorry, but I don't think that single verse alone made those achievements possible. I agree that it may have helped a little but nothing more. Also the dark period that followed which continues to this day is also down to the interpretation of verses from the qur'an. So a few good verses doesn't redeem the whole book. It's the same case with the bible. It can't be redeem for the barbaric views and actions portraied in the old testament by sprinkling a few words of love in the new testament.

brodie

@alan fraser said:

Brodie, my apologies for bad grammar; I meant the chances against intelligent life evolving, not chances of it evolving. It is, of course far less likely than winning the lottery (which is what I meant). Nevertheless the numbers still stand.

Of course there are more factors involved in creating conditions for life than a planet's distance from its sun. When did I say there weren't?

My misunderstanding came from this previous quote...

@unknownuser said:

For a theist to then reason that because this cosy little planet happens to be in what the scientists call the Goldilocks Zone (not too hot, not too cold) is in some manner proof of divine intervention, is exactly the same as them arguing divine intervention in the case of the single winner of the lottery whilst conveniently ignoring the millions of punters that failed.

Maybe I didn't understand what you were getting at but the argument isn't simply that earth is the right distance from the sun therefore divine intervention must be at play. It's also the hundreds of other factors involved which make life possible. Personally, I don't necessarily count these things as 'proof' per se, but I would compare it to a mountain of circumstantial evidence at a trial and it should be given some weight.

@unknownuser said:

How can that possibly by irrelevant, as you claim? Inconvenient, maybe; irrelevant, certainly not. You appear to be rather fond of declaring things to be irrelevant without any obvious justification.

I apologize if I'm declaring to many things 'irrelevant' but I'm trying to keep the discussion somewhat focused. My point is that if intelligent life were just springing out of any old frozen little ball flying through space, then we might have to reevaluate the improbability of life. But as it stands all the evidence supports the idea that intelligent life is incredibly rare at best and perhaps unique to this planet. If we find some distant planet that scientists believe 'could' support life someday (reports of them seem to pop into existence and fade away monthly), it still doesn't really prove anything either way though so far as I can tell.

@unknownuser said:

I'm not really interested in what statistics you have seen that counteract my figures. My figures are the most recent available and the ones used by the world's leading cosmologists.

Then I'll defer to you on this as I haven't looked at those sorts of numbers in several years. I'd like to have your source for my future reference if you have a particular one you're using. I'm not interested in using out of date numbers simply for the sake of proving a point.

@unknownuser said:

@unknownuser said:

You're the one that pointed out the similarities, not me. You seem to be suggesting that the evolution of the eyes is completely different so the fact that they ended up so similar argues against a common designer. I don't see how. A theist who doesn't believe in macro evolution would simply suggest that the human and the octopus currently have similar systems which perform similar functions and how you want to construct a theoretical evolutionary tree to support a preconceived theory is irrelevant.

There we go with the irrelevant again.
I didn't point out the similarities, I pointed out the superiority, in many ways, of the octopus eye to our own

So you originally claimed that this supposed similarity (which I didn't point out) could be proof of a common designer.

The point you made that I had in mind was this, "There's also ample evidence that the octopus eye developed entirely separately from that of vertebrates...yet still managed to end up looking fairly similar..." The octopus eye, as far as I can tell, is just one of a whole host of animal traits that are in some way superior to our own. From what I hear, hawks, also, can see better than us. Monkeys are stronger. Cats can jump higher. Horses are faster. The list goes on. It's an interesting fact that our bodies are the most supreme instrument we can find in every fashion imaginable, but I'm not sure what that proves.

@unknownuser said:

Now you're saying that their dissimilarity could also be proof of a common designer? Is there any condition that wouldn't be proof of a common designer...or is that presupposition built-in?

No, in either case I was saying that their current similarities could be seen as evidence.

@unknownuser said:

The fact that you claim that a theist can argue a common designer regardless of the relationship between the two optical systems only goes to prove that theists don't argue at all. They do, indeed, simply claim that God did it....period. That's not an argument.

I phrased the original statement as I did because I personally wouldn't care to try to make that case, certainly not based on this one small example. I think the similarities between species is an interesting tidbit but I understand that both sides point to those similarities as evidence for their position so it's not a worthwhile argument to me. There are better arguments to be had in my opinion that to try and make the case that similar eyes means there's a God. However, since I'm one of the few folks here supporting my case I feel it's worthwhile to speak a bit more broadly so people know the general positions of other theists I've spoken with.

@unknownuser said:

It's not necessary to construct an evolutionary tree...theoretical or otherwise; close study of the developing young of either species can clearly demonstrate the eye forming as an offshoot of the brain or a hollowing-out of the epidermis.

Personally, I don't have any theological issue with evolution within a species, including ocular development. However, what I've seen isn't quite as clear cut as you might be describing it. If you start from the position that the eye developed from a simple structure to a complex one, you can order the tree accordingly and convincingly.

@unknownuser said:

I'm not sure which preconceived theory you are referring to. If it's evolution itself then that is immeasurably less preconceived than the presupposition of a deity, There is a mountain of utterly conclusive evidence for evolution, there is non whatsoever for the existence of God.

I mostly take issue with 'macro' evolution, if you'll forgive the term, from a scientific point of view rather than a theological one. Before we had much fossil evidence scientists, Darwin foremost among them, assumed we'd find slow progressions from one species to the next with obvious intermediate species. As the fossil record filled out scientists were forced to come up with alternate theories like punctuated equilibrium, not based on evidence but on a lack of it.

-Brodie

brodie

@mike lucey said:

What I have always found strange about this bible story [Adam and Eve and the Tree] is that God created Adam and Eve with inquiring minds but it would seem that he wanted them to remain ignorant pets, all be it immortal ignorant pets. For me living in a World however wonderful and not being allowed to explore and learn would be akin to living in a dark gloomy prison cell. Am I missing something in this story?

Mike

I don't mean this derogatorily, but you do understand that it was only one tree, yes? You're currently not allowed to shoot heroin. Does that make you feel like a prisoner in a gloomy prison cell? There are thousands of things you're not allowed to do (drugs, speed, marry an underage child, own or sell slaves, jab someone with a hot poker) and there are hundreds of thousands of places you're not allowed to go into. And yet we lose very little sleep over it and still call ourselves free people.

There are at least dozens of interpretations of the story and many would say that the fruit, unlike heroin, wasn't inherently bad. But the jist of it is that there was only one thing they couldn't do in all of their world which was eat the fruit from that tree. God often calls his people to hold something back quite intentionally. Israel had the tithe where 10% of what they earned was to be given directly back to God. It's not least a symbol of our relationship with and to Him that shows we understand He is God and we are not.

Whatever the tree was or symbolized, it was for their own good that they didn't eat the fruit. God wasn't withholding the tastiest stuff for himself like a parent might by a Godiva bar and tell their child not to eat it because they want it for themselves. It's more akin to telling your child not to drink anything they find under the sink - it's for their own good.

But then why did he put it there at all? More speculation but perhaps it was indeed to teach them something about their relationship with God as I hinted at before. Maybe it was because there's no freewill if we don't have a choice. Maybe it was to teach them good qualities like self control or responsibility. Who knows.

-Brodie

brodie

@gaieus said:

To me, the story of Adam and Eve with the tree is a nice myth about mankind gaining cosciousness (i.e. evolving from the animal World). The snake (or Evil or Devil or Lucifer) is a similar mythological figure as Prometheus in the Greek mythology. In fact, "Lucifer" means "The one who brings life" - just like Prometheus.

Now obviously the two figures are valued differently in the two "religions" since Prometheus is a positive hero. I think if you guys want to stick to the original, more abstract topic, these details should be sorted out. As well as different Ancient debates about the Holy Trinity and things like that. Everybody is somewhat looking at this topic from a certain religion's point of view.

Lucifer is latin and doesn't refer to 'life' but 'light' as in 'light bearer.' The Bible never uses the word to refer to the devil. That came about a couple hundred years later at least.

-Brodie

Alan Fraser

@unknownuser said:

I mostly take issue with 'macro' evolution, if you'll forgive the term, from a scientific point of view rather than a theological one.

Then you've got nothing to worry about...because there are ample instances of 'macro' evolution (which seems to be a term used mostly by Creationists; scientists only recognise Evolution...although they may occasionally use macro or micro to denote a difference of scale...but never, ever, a difference of type.)

There are quite a number of observed instances of speciation (I suggest googling the entire term)
Quite apart from Darwin's own Galapagos Finches, there are examples such as the Faroe Island mouse which has split into a number of different species in only the 250 years since introduced to the islands (where there are no other mice)
Stanley, S., 1979. Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, San Francisco, W.H. Freeman and Company. p. 41

Then there's the example of the widflower goatsbeard which has produced two new species since escaping into the wild after having been introduced to N. America in only 1900.

Nothing earth-shattering, but you'd hardly expect a frog to evolve into a cat in so short a period. Nevertheless point proven...new species, producing fertile offspring that no longer breed with the parent stock...that's the definition of a new species, without diving into the scientific explanation describing changes to the allele. If you want something more dramatic, you're going to have to go with the fossil record....something like this.

Regarding the number of stars...and my sources; if anything, I've been rather conservative. I stated that the average galaxy (of which ours is one) contains about 200 billion stars. In fact, our own galaxy may well contain perhaps double that number. We'll never get an exact figure. Quite apart from the difficulties of actually counting to 200 billion whilst ensuring that you don't count the same star twice, a great deal of our (and every other) galaxy is hidden by clouds of dust and dark matter...and we're in no position to scoot around the side and get another perspective.

The number of galaxies was estimated at around 125 billion several years ago, but that was before Hubble Deep Field which revealed countless distant galaxies residing in what was previously thought to be the empty space between the visible ones. Again, there is a problem of actually counting to that number...but a recent German computer simulation put the revised estimate at around 400 billion. This is the figure that appeared in Physics World (which I still get, as my astrophysicist son still hasn't got around to changing his mailing address) and is the figure commonly quoted by the world's leading cosmologists like Brian Cox and Lawrence Krauss.

Sorry but the rest of your long answer seems to have gone through the spin dryer. It's become so convoluted that I can no longer follow the reasoning. You're again telling me that planetary distance from the sun is not the only factor in considering a planet conducive to life when I've already said that I'm more than acquainted with that fact.

brodie

@unknownuser said:

Then you've got nothing to worry about...

Thanks for the examples. I'll certainly look into them.

@unknownuser said:

Regarding the number of stars

I misunderstood the statistics you were referring to by reading to quickly...

@alan fraser said:

The estimated number of galaxies in the universe just increased by 300% after the Hubble Deep Space investigations. It's now estimated that there are around 400 billion galaxies each containing on average maybe 200 billion stars. That makes 80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars...orders of magnitude more than all the grains of sand on every beach on earth. Even if you make astronomically huge conservative calculations about the number of suitable stars having suitable planets for intelligent life to develop on, that still leaves millions of possible contenders.

@unknownuser said:

I've seen statistics that would disagree. Even given the staggering size of the universe, the statistical probability of life is equally staggering. Regardless, the point is that there's life at all, which there is. If there's also life on 3 or 3 million other planets it's irrelevant to the discussion.

I thought you were saying that according to statistics there should be millions of planets with life. I see now you were simply saying there are at least millions of planets that could contain life. M-class planets for the trekies out there.

Do you have any statistics that relate to abiogenesis?

-Brodie

Alan Fraser

I'm not aware of any specific statistics relating to abiogenesis. Ultimately, either it's possible or it's not.

As I said, organic compounds...amino acids such as glycine...have been positively detected on comets, but that's only one side of the coin. For life (at least as it's presently recognised on this speck of dust) you also need nucleic acid; and that hasn't been detected 'in the wild' yet.
Obviously this wouldn't need to be anything like as complex as current DNA, which has been evolving and adding to its complexity for billions of years, it could be something far simpler.

I guess the big question currently is exactly how simple a functioning nucleic acid needs to be; and how likely is it that it might form via the same chance reactions that formed the amino acids.

New life has been synthesised in the lab by Craig Ventor...a genome biologist, but I believe that was achieved by injecting the necessary synthetic compounds (including synthesised nucleic acid) into an existing but completely sterile cell...more of a re-animation than a pure abiogenesis, some might argue.

I suppose most people will not be satisfied until life is created completely from scratch, starting with nothing but chemical compounds. The problem with that is that, even taking some laboratory shortcuts, it might prove very difficult to short-circuit a billion years of random mixing in some primordial soup.
It can be done via computer simulation, of course, which can compress the timeline to an acceptably short period; but that's not going to be remotely acceptable to the sceptics.

All that being said, I strongly suspect that it's simply a matter of time. This area of research is developing at breakneck speed. Not that that is likely to quell the argument, as all it proves is that it is possible for life to self-assemble itself. Hard line fundamentalists will continue to argue that that is no proof that it actually did.

Roger

The universe was conceived in SketchUp, but due to the high poly nature of the project there was a crash resulting in the "Big Bang."

This is a fact I learned from 2,000 year old scrolls buried in my back yard.

irwanwr

@roger said:

The universe was conceived in SketchUp, but due to the high poly nature of the project there was a crash resulting in the "Big Bang."

This is a fact I learned from 2,000 year old scrolls buried in my back yard.

LOL

d_say

@roger said:

The universe was conceived in SketchUp, but due to the high poly nature of the project there was a crash resulting in the "Big Bang."

This is a fact I learned from 2,000 year old scrolls buried in my back yard.

What is this religion called again? I'd like to sign up...

Alan Fraser

@roger said:

The universe was conceived in SketchUp, but due to the high poly nature of the project there was a crash resulting in the "Big Bang."

This is a fact I learned from 2,000 year old scrolls buried in my back yard.

I can understand that...but these early scrolls...do they give any details of the Big Bang and the following expansion....was the mesh being Push/Pulled at the time, or was it the Scale tool wot dunnit?

srx

Sketch UP ^ - it is clearly the instrument of God...
and this is what happens when humans mess around with it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOOynE1F4P4&feature=share

gilles

Maybe a far from origin problem due to a Autocad import?

Dantheman

Back on topic.
About abiogenisis, until I see a Ferrari or computer assemble itself out of an explosion in a junk yard, I see no evidence supporting it. As for mutation into new species, was information added or removed? If information was added (highly unlikely) then macro evolution might have some credibility. If not... well then, there goes that evidence. Micro evolution (change in species) was regected in error by the Roman Church (think of the size of the ark then ), Darwin was right on that, good scientific progress. However, extrapolating the beak size of finches to humans coming from apes, that is a stretch.

That's all for now.

Mike Lucey

@dantheman said:

Back on topic.
About abiogenisis, until I see a Ferrari or computer assemble itself out of an explosion in a junk yard, I see no evidence supporting it. As for mutation into new species, was information added or removed? If information was added (highly unlikely) then macro evolution might have some credibility. If not... well then, there goes that evidence. Micro evolution (change in species) was regected in error by the Roman Church (think of the size of the ark then ), Darwin was right on that, good scientific progress. However, extrapolating the beak size of finches to humans coming from apes, that is a stretch.

That's all for now.

Well, sort of back on topic. Humor was something that we humans thought was totally unique to us but it would appear to be our vanity or stupidity getting in the way of the obvious ...... again!

Have a look at Jane Goodall on what separates us from the apes
http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_goodall_on_what_separates_us_from_the_apes.html

irwanwr

@dantheman said:

Back on topic.
About abiogenisis, until I see a Ferrari or computer assemble itself out of an explosion in a junk yard, I see no evidence supporting it... However, extrapolating the beak size of finches to humans coming from apes, that is a stretch.
That's all for now.

LOL. i like that.

Hieru

If we are the product of a creator, we should get together and formulate a class action lawsuit for incompetent design.