| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Steve Jones" |
| Date: |
01 Mar 2005 09:29:57 AM |
| Object: |
Re: Scientific Reasons for God |
"stone" <antiaging@ineedhits-mail.com> wrote in message news:<42241990_6@news1.uncensored-news.com>...
The laws of probability will tell you that this universe with all of its
ordered complexity, could not have come into being by chance.
What are "the laws of probability"? Probability is not a "law", it's
a mathematical expression of the likelihood of an event. In order for
a probability expression to be made, an understanding of the causes of
the event concerned are required (in this case the event is the
universe 'coming into being' - a thing, indidentally, which is not an
established fact, either). Do you have such an understanding in this
case?
"Complexity" is a human construct: it is simply an expression of how
difficult humans find it to understand a given thing relative other
things: it is strongly relativistic. Is a rock "complex"? A thousand
years ago, the answer would likely have been "no"; now, with our
understanding of things at the atomic level, we *might* now say "yes",
but it would depend heavily on the context of the question.
Likewise "order" has no objective meaning, it is simply a property of
a given object, such that a conceptual structure humans find easy to
manipulate can be superimposed on it. It has no meaning outside human
experience, and thus notions of "ordered complexity", in a sense
abstracted from human experience, have no meaning. Your entire post
is predicated on anthropocentric notions. We, as human beings, define
"complexity". We define "order". Putting the two things together
and applying them to an object says nothing about the actual origins
of the object.
<snip>
The probability against that happening by chance is very very high.
Please express that in formal mathematical terms, and indicate your
frame of reference.
It's like giving a chimpanzee a typewriter and letting him hit
the keys at random. The probability against his being able to type a
small library full of books by hitting keys at random is so high that for all
practical purposes you can consider it impossible.
2 points:
1) The universe tended towards how it is because of the way matter
interacts within it. This is demonstrably not random, since it is
here, in the form that it is.
2) I find it remarkable that religious persons, who continually bandy
about the notion of "eternity", cannot comprehend *at all* "finite but
very, very long". The thing you've left out in your rather
chimpanzee analogy is the amount of time the chimp has to do his
typing. Let's assume that our chimp (we'll call him "George") has
been trained to perform the action of typing. If we somehow contrive
that George can live for billions of years - which is how long the
universe has been around - and he types randomly every day, the
probability of him typing several great works of literature at some
point begins to creep closer to 1. And if he can type for an
infinite amount of time, the probability *is* 1.
<snip>
There are no existing physical rules, that have been observed by science,
that indicate that ordered complexity can evolve by random chance
occurences.
It's good that they didn't, then.
The only thing observed to cause more complexity is an intelligence, of some
sort deliberately assembling something together.
As I said, "complexity" is a subjective, anthopocentric, judgement.
Example: A pile of building materials stacked in a pile is hit by a tornado.
When the pieces come down, they do not assemble themselves into a house.
They just fall into a more disordered pile of building materials. An
intelligence must deliberately assemble the materials into a house to get
ordered complexity.
And your point would be? A planet is not a house. An amoeba is not a
house. A gas is not a house. You CANNOT compare things which arise
through the processes of physics with things that are constructed by
humans. If a raindrop falls from a cloud, what is the probability of
it hitting the earth somewhere?
God created the ordered complexity in the universe. There are no observed
scientific processes that can account for it happening by itself.
Yes, there, are. Physics.
<snip>
Steve
.
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| User: "Clothaire" |
|
| Title: Re: Scientific Reasons for God |
01 Mar 2005 06:27:24 PM |
|
|
On 1 Mar 2005 07:29:57 -0800, (Steve Jones)
wrote:
"stone" <antiaging@ineedhits-mail.com> wrote in message news:<42241990_6@news1.uncensored-news.com>...
The laws of probability will tell you that this universe with all of its
ordered complexity, could not have come into being by chance.
[clip...]
The laws of probability will tell you that I should not be standing
where I am now. So what? Can you spell non sequitur correctly?
Clothaire #1392
"We work with what we've got, but worship is a thing unknown to myself
and to others like me, who have never known the grovel ling constraint
imposed by ritual designed to make goat herders feel part of some lame
fantasy dreamed up in the time when god was needed to explain the most
elementary of things like 'what made people' and 'where does lightning
come from.'"----Stix
.
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