Have you ever thought that to be an absolute atheist takes more faith and is more difficult to rationalize than one like me who believes there is a creator?
There are two different kinds of faith. One is
reasoned faith. My wife has been reasonable, kind, loyal, and several other adjectives of similar nature, for more than thirty years, despite much of my own behavior which put all of those qualities to a destructive test. It is
reasonable for me, based on all of this
evidence, to have faith that she will continue to be this way for--well probably not thirty more years but until one of us dies.
The other is
irrational faith. Belief in a supernatural universe whose denizens capriciously tamper with the workings of the natural universe is the most
extraordinary kind of assertion, because it contradicts the fundamental premise of science: that the natural universe is a closed system (in laymen's terminology) whose behavior can be predicted by theories derived logically from empirical observation of its present and past behavior. The Rule of Laplace--one of the cornerstones of the scientific method which has been tested exhaustively for several hundred years and never come close to being falsified--tells us that an extraordinary assertion must be supported by
extraordinary evidence before anyone is obliged to treat it with respect.
Yet in the half-millennium since religion lost its stranglehold on Western culture and we have been free to observe the universe objectively and submit our observations for peer review without being tortured or imprisoned for them, no one has found one shred of respectable evidence for the supernatural-universe hypothesis--much less any
extraordinary evidence.
Therefore, to have faith in the existence of an invisible, illogical supernatural universe, creatures who dwell there, and their periodic meddling in our affairs, is
irrational faith.
Really big difference.
How could nothing evolve from nothing and become everything?
You plead with us to take you seriously but you apparently are not familiar with the Laws of Thermodynamics. The Big Bang was nothing more or less than a local reversal of entropy, which the Second Law assures us is possible. Please do not continue to embarrass yourself.
This logic demand that dark nothing morphed into everything, nothing created energy time matter and finally life out of inanimate energy. I see this as a ridiculous assumption; I am left to believe that all existence including mysterious life evolved without reason or purpose. Do you really believe this as a fact?
"Reason" and "purpose" are human cultural constructs. The universe is indifferent to us. It operates according to its own natural laws. You should study them some time.
I know I promised to treat you with respect, but geeze, you sure make it hard. You are absolutely no scientist, and not much of a scholar either.
A billion trillion googolplex monkeys typing for eternity would not produce even one of Shakespeare sonnets.
Absolutely wrong. You are as poorly versed in probability theory as you are in macrocosmology. (And therefore you are probably an American, since my people seem to lack the enzyme to digest any calculation with really large numbers.) Given infinite time, anything with a non-zero probability
may happen.
Another analogy, if we took a billion airplanes, filled them with water, concrete and bricks and dumped the whole continuously on the earth for a billion years, would it magically and randomly form the beautiful Taj Mahal or the Sydney Opera house? But you insist I must accept the beautiful universe a of unimaginable precision came into existence this illogical way.
Yes indeed, you are definitely an American. You casually equate "one billion" with "infinity." Please go back and study some advanced mathematics, in addition to the other assignments I have given you.
When life needs to evolve due to changing circumstances, does it tell itself to alter its own DNA for the new conditions or could there be a watch maker resetting the watch.
Neither. Many species become extinct without forming a clade of descendants. The fossil record is littered with them. It's just sheer luck--"probability" in the proper language of science--that occasionally the DNA of an individual mutates and proves to be a survival advantage, and through natural selection or genetic drift a small population with that mutation survives to breed, and eventually after several iterations of this lucky process a new species appears that can survive conditions that its ancestor could not. Meanwhile a much larger number of other less well-adapted species die off.
There is no "purpose" or "design" in this. It is simply the Law of Averages working over an extremely long time span, so long that most Americans are incapable of comprehending it. Perhaps it's a genetic weakness in our people and we will eventually become extinct because of it--specifically because it makes us completely stooopid when it comes to risk analysis.
Can you prove there is no god of course you can’t, can I of course I can’t, but at least I can offer circumstantial evidence.
So far you indeed have not. Your reasoning is fallacious, based on a complete failure to understand some of the key principles of science.
Atheism is a faith belief system just like anything that requires belief without evidence.
Extraordinary assertions require extraordinary evidence. Belief in the supernatural is extraordinary and therefore, with no evidence at all, is
irrational faith. Belief in the supremacy of the natural universe is consistent with a huge volume of evidence (our consistent and continuing ability to figure out natural laws that govern its behavior with no supernatural meddling) and is therefore a
rational faith.
Look out the sparking water that quenches your thirst, the fruit that feeds you, and invigorated your body. There is beauty everywhere and you must search for real ugliness. Go outside on a moonless night and reflect on the wonder of the cosmos that sparkles above you. The great snow capped mountains and streams, the blue sky and the rise of the sun at dawn and its golden glow as it sets. In the early morning go and listen to the sounds of nature, birds chirping like tiny electrons in the mind of god. The wind that you breathe the precious nourishment supplied by mother earth.
Ah yes, you take me back to the "logic" of the 1960s, although back then we just referred to it as an "acid trip." "Wow man, there are butterflies and rainbows! There must a god fer sure, dude!"
Then explain to me how chance can bring this all about.
It's very difficult to explain something determined by chance to a person who has no comprehension of probability, extremely large numbers, or statistics. Sorry. You're asking me to do something that your professors, apparently, were not able to do with considerably more time.
Like all things the universe has a beginning and this demands a creator . . . .
As I pointed out in several other threads, this is the classic disingenuous argument that consigns creationist arguments to the "Bullshit" pile. The universe is
everything that exists. Any creator must clearly exist, therefore he is
part of the universe. So where the holy hell did he come from???
Who created him?
