Christian argued that everything must have a creator

[The Grand Nudger]

Not for me, it wouldn't.  I'd ask them -all- to demonstrate that their propositions are true, lol. Apologists like to talk, they don't like to do the work. Before anything can be considered to be proven it must be shown that the form is valid -and- the propositions are sound. The second part is where every single argument for god fails...so I like to cut to the chase.

[orangebox21]

Claiming that "life can be reverse engineered in a lab by intelligent beings" is not proof that these processes took place in exactly the same way without intelligent interference millions of years ago.  I would argue the contrary.  Given that we have not observed these processes taking place apart from human reproduction in a lab, if it takes intelligence now, why not conclude it took intelligence then?  This would be a more consistent conclusion.

I understand your objection, and yes, there is difference between a laboratory experiment and something occurring naturally. My point is that we know that these chemicals can give rise to organic material. I was trying to ask why he think it's more likely that a creator who isn't proven to exist is more likely than a chemical process that we know exists.

We agree that chemical processes exist.
We agree that no one has observed this specific chemical process happening naturally.
We postulate that since scientists can arrange for a specific naturalistic process to take place, it might have taken place in the past without arrangement (or naturally).
How can we prove that if something could have happened it did happen?

Given that it has not been observed, we cannot answer the question scientifically.  It is an issue of probability.  The mathematical calculations surrounding the probability of these processes occurring naturally when compared to the law of probability show that it would never happen.

---

Walter Bradley, PhD, materials science, and Charles Thaxton, PhD, chemistry,5 calculated that the probability of amino acids forming into a protein is: 4.9 x 10-191 (Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, p. 80.)  

"No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning . . . there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (10^20)^2000 = 10^-40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup."  Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (London: Dent, 1981), p. 148, 24.

According to the laws of probability, if the chance of an event occurring is smaller than 1 in 10^50, then the event will never occur (this is equal to 1 divided by 10^50 and is a very small number).( (E. Borel, Probabilities and Life, [New York: Dover Publications, 1962], p. 28.)

---

That being said, there are only two (if there is a third I would like to add it to the discussion) explanations of human origins.  A designer or not a designer.  Given we have mathematically eliminated the possibility of 'no designer' we can logically infer 'a designer.'  

Addressed and answered by athrock in post #80.

Saying that God doesn't need a creator doesn't answer the question, it creates an exception to the rule. There still has to be a reason for the exception.

They are different categorically.  There are two categories of things.  One category is comprised of things that are eternal.  These are things that have always existed, therefore do not have a beginning and therefore would not have a cause.  The second category is comprised of things that have not always existed.  These things do have a beginning and therefore would have a cause.  God belongs to one category and the universe to the other one (according to premise two of the argument).  Certainly a person could argue that the universe should belong in the 'always existed' category and if successful would refute the soundness of the cosmological argument for God's existence (by showing premise 2 to be false).

[TheRealJoeFish]

...

We agree that chemical processes exist.
We agree that no one has observed this specific chemical process happening naturally.
We postulate that since scientists can arrange for a specific naturalistic process to take place, it might have taken place in the past without arrangement (or naturally).
How can we prove that if something could have happened it did happen?

Given that it has not been observed, we cannot answer the question scientifically.  It is an issue of probability.  The mathematical calculations surrounding the probability of these processes occurring naturally when compared to the law of probability show that it would never happen.

---

Walter Bradley, PhD, materials science, and Charles Thaxton, PhD, chemistry,5 calculated that the probability of amino acids forming into a protein is: 4.9 x 10-191 (Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, p. 80.)  

"No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning . . . there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (10^20)^2000 = 10^-40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup."  Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (London: Dent, 1981), p. 148, 24.

According to the laws of probability, if the chance of an event occurring is smaller than 1 in 10^50, then the event will never occur (this is equal to 1 divided by 10^50 and is a very small number).( (E. Borel, Probabilities and Life, [New York: Dover Publications, 1962], p. 28.)

---

That being said, there are only two (if there is a third I would like to add it to the discussion) explanations of human origins.  A designer or not a designer.  Given we have mathematically eliminated the possibility of 'no designer' we can logically infer 'a designer.'  
...

This argument is flawed.  Here is why:

First, and this is a more minor issue, you've invoked a false dichotomy.  You provide the probability of chemical processes creating life (I'm going to ignore the well-known issues about the Hoyle text and very, very charitably assume its truth.  I'm also going to similarly ignore your horrible disrespectful treatment of Borel).  You then move directly into "designer" or "no designer", when you should still be on "designer" or "chemical processes" or "other non-designed, unknown mechanism".  But, as I said, that's not a big deal. (Edit: I missed that you brought this up. I do not know what a third option would be, only that you cannot definitively say it's one of those two.)

The much bigger deal is that your argument is, of course, a backwards look at probabilities; humans are very bad at doing this, and it's really easy to hide an error in logic.  So, I'm going to try to show the problem with a thought experiment description.

Let's say that you find a box.  You open it up, and it's full of 100 normal six-sided dice (you can test that they're normal by rolling them and seeing that they all come up fair).  What's more, all of them have the 6s up.  They're not all oriented the same way, and they're not all the same size or color, but the 6 sides are face up.  The probability of all the dice having the same number pointing up is (1/6)^99.  It is a far, far more reasonable supposition that someone arranged them this way than that they somehow, randomly, all ended up with 6 up.  That would be so unlikely as to boggle the mind.

However, let's say you also know that 1) no human physically, intentionally interfered with them (some machine automatically made the dice and put them in the box, and a different machine loaded the dice in a truck, and the truck hit a bump and the box fell out the back) and 2) the box rolled down a hill before it came to rest and you looked inside.  Your same logic applies: because the end result, that you have found, has a 1/(6^99) chance of happening, and you know that no human intentionally interfered with the dice, you must conclude that, because it's so unlikely the dice ended up as they did randomly, that god (or some other non-human creator) supernaturally arranged the dice as such.

[orangebox21]

We agree that chemical processes exist.
We agree that no one has observed this specific chemical process happening naturally.
We postulate that since scientists can arrange for a specific naturalistic process to take place, it might have taken place in the past without arrangement (or naturally).
How can we prove that if something could have happened it did happen?

Given that it has not been observed, we cannot answer the question scientifically.  It is an issue of probability.  The mathematical calculations surrounding the probability of these processes occurring naturally when compared to the law of probability show that it would never happen.

---

Walter Bradley, PhD, materials science, and Charles Thaxton, PhD, chemistry,5 calculated that the probability of amino acids forming into a protein is: 4.9 x 10-191 (Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, p. 80.)  

"No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning . . . there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (10^20)^2000 = 10^-40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup."  Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (London: Dent, 1981), p. 148, 24.

According to the laws of probability, if the chance of an event occurring is smaller than 1 in 10^50, then the event will never occur (this is equal to 1 divided by 10^50 and is a very small number).( (E. Borel, Probabilities and Life, [New York: Dover Publications, 1962], p. 28.)

---

That being said, there are only two (if there is a third I would like to add it to the discussion) explanations of human origins.  A designer or not a designer.  Given we have mathematically eliminated the possibility of 'no designer' we can logically infer 'a designer.'  
...

This argument is flawed.  Here is why:

First, and this is a more minor issue, you've invoked a false dichotomy.  You provide the probability of chemical processes creating life (I'm going to ignore the well-known issues about the Hoyle text and very, very charitably assume its truth.  I'm also going to similarly ignore your horrible disrespectful treatment of Borel).  You then move directly into "designer" or "no designer", when you should still be on "designer" or "chemical processes" or "other non-designed, unknown mechanism".  But, as I said, that's not a big deal.  (Edit: I missed that you brought this up.  I do not know what a third option would be, only that you cannot definitively say it's one of those two.)

Honestly I wasn't aware of the well-known issues about the Hoyle text nor why my treatment of Borel was disrespectful.  Where can I go to learn more about that?

I agree that asserting "designer or chemical processes" and then moving to "designer or no-designer" was at least the appearance of conflation of terms.  Thank you for bringing up the ambiguity of my argument.  Let me clarify.  To the best of my knowledge (please correct me if I'm wrong) there are two categories of explanations of human origins, designer and no designer.  Every proposed explanation will fit into one of these two categories.  Designer would include any religion's claim of a creator God, some generic designer, Aliens planting life, etc.  The no designer category would include chemical processes (ultimately the theory of evolution), and ...  The reason I choose to treat "chemical processes" and "no-designer" as synonymous is because to the best of my knowledge there is no other "no designer" explanation other than evolution (and again if I am wrong please let me know so I can either amend or concede my argument).  In order my argument to be an example of conflation another option in the "no-designer" category needs to exist.  If not, then a third categorical option [in addition to designer/no designer] needs to be proposed in order to show my argument is a false dichotomy.  If neither of these objections can be raised, then my argument does not conflate nor is it a false dichotomy.  

The much bigger deal is that your argument is, of course, a backwards look at probabilities; humans are very bad at doing this, and it's really easy to hide an error in logic.  So, I'm going to try to show the problem with a thought experiment description.

Let's say that you find a box.  You open it up, and it's full of 100 normal six-sided dice (you can test that they're normal by rolling them and seeing that they all come up fair).  What's more, all of them have the 6s up.  They're not all oriented the same way, and they're not all the same size or color, but the 6 sides are face up.  The probability of all the dice having the same number pointing up is (1/6)^99.  It is a far, far more reasonable supposition that someone arranged them this way than that they somehow, randomly, all ended up with 6 up.  That would be so unlikely as to boggle the mind.

However, let's say you also know that 1) no human physically, intentionally interfered with them (some machine automatically made the dice and put them in the box, and a different machine loaded the dice in a truck, and the truck hit a bump and the box fell out the back) and 2) the box rolled down a hill before it came to rest and you looked inside.  Your same logic applies: because the end result, that you have found, has a 1/(6^99) chance of happening, and you know that no human intentionally interfered with the dice, you must conclude that, because it's so unlikely the dice ended up as they did randomly, that god (or some other non-human creator) supernaturally arranged the dice as such.

The challenge with a hypothetical is that it is hypothetical.  The probability of your thought experiment happening in reality is so small we can say with certainty that it has never nor will it ever happen.

If an event were to operate contrary to the laws of probability [such as in your thought experiment] why is it more reasonable to assume the event defied a law [by definition impossible] rather than to assume the event came about by a cause operating outside (transcendent of) the framework of the law?

Why in your view does probability only predict future outcomes and not past ones (you made a comment about 'a backward look at probabilities', could you please explain that a bit further)?

[RobbyPants]

I responded to a thread on Facebook about atheist morality. I expressed that I believe that religious people's belief reflects their morality and not the other way around. I gave Christians as an example, citing biblical teachings that modern Christians don't follow, and a Christian responded by arguing that everything needs a creator.

They said, 'Classic logic can bring one to the conclusion of a single God.  We humans are contingent beings, that is, my parents had to make me, your parents had to make you, so on and so forth up the line.  If any of that changed, I wouldn't be the same, or you wouldn't be the same.  Going back and back it's not as if there can be some loop where two or hundreds or thousands are equally contingent upon each other, it must come back to one being who is not contingent upon any other being. That would be God.  Now going from deism to a specific religion requires faith, but monotheistic deism is the logical way.'

This was my response, 'My parents made me using a natural biological process, and yes, their parents in turn made them. However, your logic falls apart at the point when you assume that this means a god must have initiated the process.

I'd say a better response would be to tell the guy that the discussion is about morality, so the origins of the universe are off-topic. Red herrings are annoying.

[Nontheist]

This is a bit off-topic as well but ask what this god was doing before he decided to create everything.