Anyone who wants to use the "goldilocks zone" as an argument for god would have to explain why god created three planets in this zone (just in our solar system), and then never saw fit to mention it to us (we may also want to know why the others, Mars and Venus are lifeless). There is no fine tuning argument, because there is no fine tuning. The "goldilocks zone" is approx 35 million miles wide for a star such as our own. It may be larger (up to 2 AU wide). Other stars have different habitable zones than our own. There may be as many as 500 million planets within such zones in the Milky Way alone (Seth Shostek est. based on Kepler findings). Why would a creator god require any of this by the way? Could have willed us into existence on a completely uninhabitable planet.

An interesting thought. The cosmos could be filled with life supporting planets, absolutely brimming with them. Each of these little islands in this great sea of life are unfortunately moving away from each other. Every peice of blocked research, every religious taboo that slows the advance of science makes the eventual trip to these places that much more difficult. I say this without guile, I don't want you to feel that I'm ridiculing you, but you've been sold a bill of goods with regards to the cosmological argument for the existence of god. If anything in modern science supported the god hypothesis we'd all be praising Him and singing hallellujah. As it stands, we are not. Why do you think that is?

Fun Fact, The Milky Ways GHZ (Galactic Habitable Zone) has been estimated to be 6,000 light years wide. That's an awful lot of leeway for a finely tuned creation.


(not counting Europa or Titan here, though I probably should)

(July 24, 2011 at 8:32 am)Rhythm Wrote: Anyone who wants to use the "goldilocks zone" as an argument for god would have to explain why god created three planets in this zone (just in our solar system), and then never saw fit to mention it to us (we may also want to know why the others, Mars and Venus are lifeless). There is no fine tuning argument, because there is no fine tuning. The "goldilocks zone" is approx 35 million miles wide for a star such as our own. It may be larger. Other stars have different habitable zones than our own. Why would a creator god require any of this by the way? Could have willed us into existence on a completely uninhabitable planet.

Who's to say there's no other kind of life that can inhabit planets outside the HZ? Everywhere not in the HZ is only uninhabitable to life that requires liquid water. Okay, we haven't seen any life that doesn't, but restricting ourselves to one kind of life seems silly. God could have made us out of completely different stuff and dumped us on Pluto. Hell, he's God, why does he even have to obey the laws of physics? He could make us out of something completely inappropriate like arsenic or lead or mercury, then adjusted chemistry to fit.

The Goldilocks zone argument is indeed a steaming pile of bullshit, I just think you didn't take it far enough. On a scale of one to the Goldilocks zone argument, a standard bullshit statement like "I never tell the truth" or "This statement is false" or "Water is dry" or "God exists" would be zero.

I gave a slight nod to Europa and Titan, far out of the HZ. There's a reason we look for water by the way, it has to do with carbon dissolving into it, and carbon is one of the few elements that we are aware of that could support complex life. It's all about the number of possible bonds. This so called "molecular chauvinism" has been challenged by the possibilities of silicon based life, which would arise on a planet unlike any we consider to be "habitable". Very cold, devoid of oxygen and water, but with another compatible solvent, such as liquid methane or a methyl compound to exhibit polymer activity. In addition to carbon and silicon, it may be that life has somewhere arranged itself in a completely unfamiliar way.

Did you mean silicon? Silicones are inert.

My point is, this is God we're talking about. He could make people out of anything, and adjust the way physics works to fit how he'd made people.

I know water is required for how our kind of life works. However there is no shortage of organic solvents, don't know why there couldn't be life that relied on them instead.

Rgr Rgr, yeah silicon, for some reason my spellchecker sounds off without the e, I need an update. This thread has given me the theme for my NaNoWriMo project.

(July 24, 2011 at 9:38 am)edk141 Wrote: Did you mean silicon? Silicones are inert.

My point is, this is God we're talking about. He could make people out of anything, and adjust the way physics works to fit how he'd made people.

I know water is required for how our kind of life works. However there is no shortage of organic solvents, don't know why there couldn't be life that relied on them instead.

This is an something christians, including young GodMustExistSinceNothingMakesSense, bandy around a lot, the idea that god can do ANYTHING god wants. Talk about your unsupported and unsupportable claims. This really is genie in the bottle thinking. Some cosmologists assert that under other conditions the laws of physics could be otherwise, but there is no reason to assume that there is a flexible randomness to what they may be. Presumably the conditions determine the laws and a perfect scientific theory would explain what the range of 'laws' could be as well as specifically what conditions are determinative and, possibly, how.

Christians claim to know way too much about their deity. Their infinitely powerful god doesn't use knowledge and skill to fit her creations to a universal substrate. No, their god just blinks it into existence just the way he wants. Question: if god is so infinite/powerful how did chrisitans come to know so much about its methods and purposes? [Wait, never mind if the answer has anything to do with that hodgepodge of ramblings they call the bible.]

(July 24, 2011 at 9:58 am)Rhythm Wrote: This thread has given me the theme for my NaNoWriMo project.

Which is what?

(July 24, 2011 at 10:30 am)whateverist Wrote: Some cosmologists assert that under other conditions the laws of physics could be otherwise, but there is no reason to assume that there is a flexible randomness to what they may be.

I don't think the laws of physics could be otherwise. But if God can ignore them, surely he can change them. There can be no logical argument against why there is a god (although the one described in the Bible is a different matter) - it's an unfalsifiable hypothesis. That's sort of the point. Nobody with half a brain would have invented a religion it was possible to prove wrong. Anything Christians can't explain was put there to test their faith, or is in fact not true and is a big lie invented by people who think rationally in order to convince them that there is no God so that they'll go to hell.

(July 24, 2011 at 10:30 am)whateverist Wrote: Question: if god is so infinite/powerful how did chrisitans come to know so much about its methods and purposes? [Wait, never mind if the answer has anything to do with that hodgepodge of ramblings they call the bible.]

That is the only answer. I think some fundies actually believe that God dictated the wrong words to the prophets, knowing that they would be translated through many different language, so that in fact the King James Bible is the literal word of God.

(July 23, 2011 at 8:01 pm)I_Blaspheme Wrote:

(July 23, 2011 at 3:47 pm)GodIsRealOrNothingMakesSince Wrote: Its a very broad subject. If what I proposed is true then in has huge connotations and is worth an hour of your time. Same goes to everyone else. Please actually watch the video before you criticize it. It's worth your time. Trust me.

Summarize the main points in 4 or 5 sentences, and if it seems like there may be something new in it, I'll take one for the team and watch it. Seriously. Otherwise, I'm not interested in watching it based on the request of some random theist.

It's a video that goes through the the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus and uses different historical information to make a case for the existence of Jesus and that he is the son of God. The main speaker is an Ex- atheist and journalist and worked for 2 years to discover if Jesus was real through the facts. It goes through and lays a foundation giving credibility to the gospels and then uses other text people wrote about him and use different circumstances of the day to portray evidence. They also go over his miracles and shows that even those against admit he does them but just believe he gets it from the devil. Its hard to explain all of in because it has a lot of different information all packed in it.

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(July 23, 2011 at 9:41 pm)Tiberius Wrote:

(July 23, 2011 at 12:47 am)GodIsRealOrNothingMakesSince Wrote:

Atheism: The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.

Makes perfect since.

A few points of contention:

1) Atheism is the lack of belief (or disbelief) in gods. It has nothing to do with the Big Bang, "creation" of the universe, atoms rearranging, life emerging, or evolution of dinosaurs. There is no atheist dogma that we all have to believe this, and I can name a few atheists who don't believe all of this at all.

2) That said, I do believe the Big Bang is the best explanation of the facts, because simple observation will lead to it as the conclusion. We know the universe is expanding; we know it is expanding at an accelerated rate; and we know that if we reverse the clock 13.7 billion years, we can calculate the exact moment everything started to expand. Yes, I said it..."everything". Not nothing. The only "nothing" that ever was in the Big Bang was space and time. The Big Bang is the expansion (not "explosion") of space and time, which at the point of the Big Bang were great big cosmic nothings. There was no space, there was no time. There was only an infinitely small (and therefore spaceless), timeless point which contained all matter and energy.

3) Who said there was "no reason" for the Big Bang? I'm sure there is a very good reason why it happened; many think it was a quantum fluctuation; some religious people who accept the science call the reason "God", and I don't have any beef with them. As far as I am concerned, you can place God in as many aspect of the universe as you like, as long as you accept the validity of the science which attempts to explain things naturally. Pantheists I get along with very well, same with Deists. Theists who always attempt to force God into the picture, pushing out perfectly valid science as they go along, will always be frowned upon in my book.

4) There is nothing magical about particles rearranging; they do it all the time, and there are many many reasons why they do it. The laws of physics practically explain why it is that particles move, and they've been explaining why for hundreds and hundreds of years. There is no great big mystery to why particles move or cells self-replicate; the only real mystery is how everything got started (abiogenesis, etc).

5) ...and finally, to sum up evolution as "which then turned into dinosaurs" shows a complete lack of scientific understanding which I can't hope to correct here. Do yourself a favour, and instead of trying to win converts at atheist forums by posting quotes that will just get you laughed at, why not better spend your time trying to understand why we think the way we do; why we believe such things as the Big Bang, or evolution, or abiogenesis. Do some actual reading of your own; stop listening to what preachers tell you you should think, and start reading what science can demonstrate to be real. Science won't ever tell you "this is true, you must believe this"; it will show you the facts, and it will give you an explanation (or many) that attempt to explain those facts. You don't have to believe the explanation; that's up to you, but if it fits the observable facts, why (other than being motivated by religious intent) would you choose not to.

1. ok i get that
2. Yes but that begs the question where did that point containing all matter and energy come from?
3. I accept Science. I have said its possible that God did the big bang.
4. no argument
5. Im not expecting to win converts and thats actually what i wanted to do; hear that you have to say.

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(July 23, 2011 at 10:02 pm)Judas BentHer Wrote:

Quote:GodIsRealOrNothingMakesSince Wrote:
... I'm not just spewing crap and then leaving. Im trying to have an intellectual debate.

If so, you need to PM an Administrator and ask them to correct your screen name to read "Sense", rather than "Since".

That's really distracting.

Nothing about god makes sense. You should try reality without thinking it necessary to believe something never proven to exist, something you've never seen, something that's track record in narrative is that what affords the role model profile for a psychopath, is responsible for everything that is was or shall be, including your being created as unworthy of it's love.

Love yourself. See yourself as creator of your destiny by being responsible for the choices you make, rather than begging/praying for help, relief, guidance. And instead strive for what you want because you believe you're worth all good things that may come to you through taking the incentive to go get it. While all obstacles, any negativity isn't the work of some devil god created and let to live in order to tempt you from paradise again, but rather is simply life with all the hurdles that go along with it, so that in overcoming them you appreciate the effort of your personal journey having survived the challenge.

No thing unseen cares about you. Nature doesn't like you. Nature doesn't know you personally. Not even when it's named, "god".
That's your job. If you don't want it, put it off on something you only hope is there. When your life is over you think you'll find you were right all along and it was all worth the effort.

But by then wrong or right is immaterial.
Because you are.

Quote:including your being created as unworthy of it's love.

God IS love. We're not worthy of his love yet he loves us any ways.

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(July 23, 2011 at 4:57 pm)Anymouse Wrote:

(July 23, 2011 at 12:47 am)GodIsRealOrNothingMakesSince Wrote:

Atheism: The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.

Makes perfect since.

Note: edited for grammatical errors in my response.

Well, I suppose the response would be similar if ten or more atheists a month jumped in on a Christian or other theist forum and simply regurgitated "there is no proof for (your) god so there must be none." As a Wiccan, I am not suicidal enough to do that (enter a Christian forum).

However:

Scientific theory (and scientists) do not claim everything started from nothing. Some Christian theologians claim that scientists believe that. Several theories have waxed and waned over the years, the Big Bang being the most prevalent today (but look out String Theory is up and coming). Infinity is accepted as a concept in science just as it is in Christianity.

Unlike most religions, however, science does not need to resort to an unprovable position "God did it" when scientists cannot explain something. That position is ultimately fatal to theologic tautology for two reasons:

a) As science explains more and more of the natural world, theology retreats to fewer and fewer places, resulting in what has been termed "A god of the gaps" (we can't explain it, so a god did it).

b) If science were to ever uncover actual proof of the existence of a deity, in the very instant it did, faith would be eradicated, as proof now exists. And in that instant, religion would cease to exist, because it would become science.

Unlike (most) religions, science is comfortable with the statement "for now, we do not know." Organised religions can never be satisfied with that: they must be certain. And not only are they certain, they are also certain all other religious views are wrong. All with no evidence other than old books of dubious translation. And since they are certain, they must convince others that they are wrong.

The Inquisition was not a perversion of Christianity, it was an expression of Christianity. What is a little suffering on Earth compared to the everlasting torment of Hell by a loving God if your Immortal Soul is at stake? Those so tortured should be glad of the Faithful saving their souls.

Why is the Christian version of creation "the only way" and all other faiths wrong? Outside of the Bible, what proof do you have that Shinto, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Wicca, or any of a hundred thousand faiths postulated over the history of Man are incorrect visions of deity, and yours is correct?

When the Christian squares off here with their "proof," they are actually trying to destroy the foundations of their own religion. That person also takes what they allege is God's greatest creation, mankind (by one of two mutually exclusive methods, depending on whether you believe Gen chapter 1 or 2), made in the image of God, and state that man's curiosity and desire to explain and understand the Universe is evil. It cannot be evil if God created it (unless you believe the statement in Isaiah that says God creates evil, too.)

If they ever had proof, their religion would cease-to-be. Religion cannot be based on proof, therefore trying to prove their faith is self-defeating. And the Ten Commandments, (which exist in varying forms in every religion, even Wicca, and atheistic societies), says you shall have no other god before God. Not that there is no other god, or that you cannot believe in them. Just not "first."

Last week I posted this to another person who joined and asked the same question, and vowed to copy it so I could just paste it every time someone joins, makes such a post, and holds forth on this particular subject. I didn't do it. I am a masochist; I must like typing this in every week.

But none of them ever in return give an answer to my questions, not even a bad one. And by the way, if you are going to copy and paste things from the Internet, you might at least correct the grammar. The last word should be "sense." Folk here have even seen that error, that there is no original thinking behind the statement, copying again and again the same error. And that is only one error. The Bible is alleged to have existed for thousands of years.

James.

I believe if they found proof of God some people would still deny it because a lot of people just don't want there to be a God. They don't want to be held accountable for their life. I believe there a lot of atheist like that.

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(July 23, 2011 at 11:35 pm)Anymouse Wrote:

' Wrote:Oh what a surprise yet another person just insulting me and avoiding discussing what was actually said

I did respond to you, and I didn't insult you. You ignored me (for some reason that seems to happen a lot).

I wasn't ignoring you i just hadn't got to your statement yet.

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(July 24, 2011 at 12:27 am)theVOID Wrote:

(July 23, 2011 at 12:02 pm)GodIsRealOrNothingMakesSince Wrote: There are many things i could say but that would require much typing which i don't quite feel doing. But what I will say is I think the evidence is all around you. Just look at how intricate and specific and perfectly in place everything in the world and universe is. If the planet was just a few miles closer to the sun it would be to hot and if we were a few miles farther it would be to cold for liquid water. And if the earth was just a little bit off its axis the earth couldn't support life. If certain mathematical equations of the universe were just slightly off the universe would collapse in on itself as soon as it was created or it would be completely off couldn't sustain stars or planets and therefore life. And then just look at the cell, which i believe is one of the strongest evidences. They used to call the cell the "simple cell" but in the last few years in science we've discovered just how perfectly intricate the cell is. Do your research on it. The cell is so perfectly specific and so extremely complex that some scientist are even saying that aliens seeded life here on earth. Now just think about that for a moment. That doing the same thing you claim I do and just throwing off the problem onto something else and begs the question "Well where did the aliens come from?". It just shocks me that such intelligent people would rather believe that aliens created us that God. The evidence is right there in front of them, they just don't want to admit it.

What aspect of the universe being 'intricate and specific' do you think there isn't a good naturalist understanding of? We understand in great detail how a lot of the universe operates via natural process and how these processes came to be, what the precursors are etc. The stuff we do not have a good explanation for is simply unknown and positing that a cosmic wizard willed it that way is a complete farce.

If our planet was about 10,000 miles closer or further from the sun maybe. And big deal, there are 200 trillion stars in our galaxy and 100 trillion galaxies, the chances of any one planet orbiting any given star in the 'goldilocks zone' is small but non zero, we would expect millions of them throughout the universe at minimum.

Show me this evidence that if the earth was 'off-axis' it couldn't support life - that sounds completely bullshit, especially considering there exists models showing how tidally locked planets (a much more extreme situation) could still support life in certain regions. At the least the parts of the planet that currently can't support a lot of life, such a deserts, would be in different locations on the planet, at worst there would be a much smaller percent of the planet with habitable zones.

Also you raised the apparent fine-tuning of the universe, something that I am intricately familiar with. There are at least 8 possible explanations for such a thing that come to mind, a deity is just one of those options. The fine-tuning is no more evidence for a god than it is evidence for cosmic evolution, changing laws of physics, context dependent cosmological constants, inflationary multiverses and string theory - All of these are compatible with the observed phenomenon.

As for your simple cell; The cell is indeed complicated, but we know a great deal about how it works, so much so that 99% of scientists in the relevant fields see no need to posit a deity - most of us acknowledge that highly complex systems form in nature frequently and there is no reason to presume any differently. Panspermia is also NOT the idea that "aliens seeded the earth", it is the idea that the basic building blocks of organic materials could have formed from the myriad of reactions during a very hot and volatile early solar system and if that is the case, considering the range of debris in the early solar system the chances of some landing on earth are relatively high - Not only that but we have empirical evidence demonstrating that certain organisms would easily survive such a process.

I see nothing very specifically to argue to besides the 4th paragraph which is just largely opinion based thing.

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(July 24, 2011 at 12:50 am)whateverist Wrote: I'm not sure why some folks don't think you have any business here. Without you .. what else is there to do here? Preach to the choir? Congratulate ourselves. Vent against institutions and individuals that tried to impose a medieval mindset on us when we were young and vulnerable. I'm no longer interested in the existence of magical beings but I am interested in why some very interesting and otherwise rational people are. I imagine you are younger and naive. (That's not a crime and I don't think it makes you a loser.) However there are very interesting people who are deeply religious but also quite rational and accomplished. Bill Moyers, the pbs tv journalist, comes to mind. I know why one would reject religion if it were thrust on you - been there, done that. What I don't know is why you would embrace it even conceding that the bible is a hodgepodge, that church doctrine is fallible, and that evolution and the rest of science represents our best understanding of the natural world.

While I don't think a 'god' has anything to do with it, I know there are dimensions of human experience more profound than rationality. That too is unprovable, and I wouldn't try. I suspect that, while hardly necessary, religious thought can tap into an experience of the deeper self. There is a sense of otherness about this deeper self in that it is what it is independent of what your would have it be. Sometimes I think this dimension of experience is merely our animal knowing, the intelligence and intentionality that all mammals at least possess but which we become alienated to by our reliance on language. I don't know but I do know that life without coherence between my rational self and deeper self isn't enough. To the degree that the religiously inclined use religion to seek and accomplish such coherence, I can't find fault. When someone like Bill Moyers talks about god you can tell that for him it really is something mysterious, that he isn't starting with a lot of doctrinal presuppositions. I would really enjoy talking to that sort of theist.

Thank you for bringing that up. You may not believe in God but I think that everyone has to admit that there is something beyond normal reality. That there is a sense within us that is something else. Like for example, I relate God to the feeling of Love. If there were only 2 people in the world, one normal and one psychopathic, when the normal person expressed they felt love for something the psychopathic would not be able to comprehend and count love as not real because they had never experienced it before. You can't see it, you cant hear it, you cant taste or smell but you can just FEEL it and know it exist. There is no scientific evidence that can PROVE love even exist. Its just there and you know it exist and it would be difficult to explain it to a person and have them understand and relate unless they had felt it before.

(July 24, 2011 at 1:06 am)Shell B Wrote: I know this has probably been handled in the eight pages I couldn't bring myself to read, but I can't fucking handle blatant disregard for spelling and punctuation use. There is a reason why you're and your are spelled differently. You're is a contraction of you are. Your signifies another person's possession of a thing, be it material or intangible. Grammar is not grammer. Since is not sense. Speech and writing are two different animals. Sure, we can figure out what you mean in context, but it makes me have to pause for a fraction of a second and mentally replace what you have written with the correct word. I typically don't mind this as an accidental mistake pops out of everyone's keyboard every now and then, but you seem to be deliberately typing every common spelling mistake there is. It's annoying to read your posts because of it. If you were a genuinely interested participant in this conversation, I would read over those mistakes without complaint. Fuck, I know some very intelligent people who can't spell worth a damn, but some suspicious part of me thinks that is part of your act, so I tire of seeing your mistakes.

Now that I have that off my chest, your quote is akin to seeing a "This is your brain on drugs" campaign. It's been said ... enough. We have all seen it. We have all dismissed it and you are acting like we should see it as some stroke of genius. As if this played out fucking quote is going to stump the idiotic atheist masses. It isn't. It is demonstrative of the general lack of interest among Christians regarding what atheism is and isn't. You want to attribute beliefs to atheism, which has nothing to do with belief in anything, even science.

Chew on this, if you want to quote sling, "An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must
be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated." ~ Madalyn Murray O'Hair

You know, I had a situation this week that has required me to seek help for a displaced family. I posted everywhere looking for help, but came in here only looking for instructions on how to get a donate button on my facebook profile. Without my even asking, I had several atheists from here and elsewhere (writer friends) help me out. One or two Christians, one a homosexual family member, helped me out. So, I wound up getting help for these people from an exponentially higher number of atheists, agnostics and homosexuals than I did from Christians. (Not to knock Christians that helped, because they are awesome too. I'm just making a point.) You know what most Christians offered them? Prayers. Atheists who couldn't help didn't bother to patronize. They gave us condolences and encouraging words, which is also greatly appreciated. Fuck, I even appreciate prayers. My point is, I don't give a shit if atheists really did believe nothing came from nothing and blah, blah, blah. In my experience, Christianity leads people to think that god is going to work things out, medicine doesn't matter because it is up to god, things we do here don't matter because Heaven is the real goal, etc. I think this really clouds (some) Christians' judgment. I honestly think that for every Christian there is praying on this Earth, there is an atheist somewhere helping a stranger with something more tangible than an request of the air around them. /rant

I totally disagree. Christians are actually called to serve people in anyways possible in the word. We are actually required to serve others as much as we possible can and even take the very cloths off our back and give it to others if they need it. Christians are called to a very high standard of service to all people. There are some lazy christians as there are I'm sure lazy atheist but they are not in the right when they don't serve. Thats their personal problem. Don't let bad christians give you a bad outlook of the entire people and religion just as I'm sure you wouldn't want me to make and opinion of atheist as a whole based on a few bad atheist.