The Problem with Christians

[Esquilax]

In the case of the sphere, scientists would analyze its chemical composition, no? What elements it is made of? They could measure its weight, temperature, attempt carbon dating, etc. Kinda like we might do with the universe itself: they would study it to determine all they could about it. In the case of creation, however, there is NOTHING pre-Big Bang. So, why is there something rather than nothing?

Nothing, pre-big bang? Wherever did you get that idea? It can't be from scientists, because as I've been pointing out, the science on this is that we aren't yet equipped even to discuss the pre-expansion universe, let alone analyze it. I will point out that the general big bang model shows the universe as a singularity prior to its rapid expansion in the big bang, so you aren't talking about "nothing," there, you're actually talking about "everything," just in a form unlike anything we've ever seen before. A form we don't even really have the words to talk about it accurately, yet.

If there was nothing and then there was something (or better yet, then there was everything), what changed? And why?

Something CAUSED everything to come into existence. Things don't simply pop into existence uncaused.

I know it's difficult, but try to follow me on this: causality does not apply at the moment of the big bang and before. When you begin a question with "and then," you've already missed the point, because you're applying a linear causality to a region of spacetime that doesn't necessarily share it. Time does not work the way it does here, before there was a here: it's possible that nothing changed, and yet the big bang happened. It's possible that the event that caused the universe hasn't happened yet because of weird time shenanigans, or that it doesn't require a cause, or that the actual answer is something that, right now, defies human imagining and the language we'd use to discuss it. We don't know yet, but what we do know is that there's no use insisting that things beyond the universe, or even within the universe as a singularity, work the same way as they do inside the universe now. The one thing we can ascertain is that every fundamental constant within our universe stops working at the point where our universe stops being our universe, prior to the big bang. You need to let go of the presumptions inherent in the language you're using.

When you say "things don't simply pop into existence uncaused," my answer is that no, that's not true. Not at a quantum level, and not prior to the big bang. You don't get to assume that outside of our universe merely because it seems to be true within it.

[Esquilax]

Looking at the complexity of living systems and determining that the chances that these things evolved from random chemicals is infinitely less than there being a super intelligence that designed it all.

So, I just want to recap your position, and you can jump in to correct me wherever: you take complexity to be suggestive of design, in that you've used your incredible misunderstanding of how positive evidence works to suggest that the complexity of life indicates design. You simultaneously believe in a creator intelligence- the christian god- who designed life on Earth and has no designer or cause himself, despite being infinitely more complex due to his capabilities and attributes. That you don't see the obvious hypocrisy in holding these two positions is its own kind of terrifying thing, but I've no doubt you'll simply ignore that I pointed it out, as you do every time someone draws light upon the breathtaking double standards you hold, so I'll move on.

Just considering these two positions on their own merits, you now have two groups of complex entities that exist within your view of the situation: we have complex entities that are designed and the reason we can reach that conclusion is because they are complex, and we have complex entities of an order of magnitude greater complexity than anything in the first category, but that for random and unexplained reasons we must not conclude was designed due to its complexity, presumably because complexity is only evidence for design when it's convenient for your argument.

So to clarify: you already believe that complex things can exist naturally, without the need for a designer. Within the set of possible things, in your worldview, there exists a complex entity without any form of designer or cause. Keeping that in mind, you now cannot use complexity as evidence of design, because you've already accepted that complex things don't necessarily have designers, leaving you with a piece of "evidence" for your position that can either lead to the conclusion that you want, and the precise opposite conclusion. Evidently, you have a longer row to hoe in terms of argumentation, and that "it's complex," does not get you to "it was designed," any more than it would if I'd applied that argument to your god. If it's not sufficient to lead you to conclude that your god was designed, it's not sufficient to lead you to conclude that life was designed, not on its own, and no amount of arbitrary special pleading and totally unjustified assertions is going to get you out of this simple, set theory debunking of your lead claim.

Things can be complex with a designer, things can be complex without a designer. How did you determine that life falls into the former category and not the latter, without appealing to the odds considering that the odds of a spaceless, timeless and immaterial being existing because of nothing are far, far longer due to contravening everything we observe to be true in reality?

[LadyForCamus]

Looking at the complexity of living systems and determining that the chances that these things evolved from random chemicals is infinitely less than there being a super intelligence that designed it all.

So, I just want to recap your position, and you can jump in to correct me wherever: you take complexity to be suggestive of design, in that you've used your incredible misunderstanding of how positive evidence works to suggest that the complexity of life indicates design. You simultaneously believe in a creator intelligence- the christian god- who designed life on Earth and has no designer or cause himself, despite being infinitely more complex due to his capabilities and attributes. That you don't see the obvious hypocrisy in holding these two positions is its own kind of terrifying thing, but I've no doubt you'll simply ignore that I pointed it out, as you do every time someone draws light upon the breathtaking double standards you hold, so I'll move on.

Just considering these two positions on their own merits, you now have two groups of complex entities that exist within your view of the situation: we have complex entities that are designed and the reason we can reach that conclusion is because they are complex, and we have complex entities of an order of magnitude greater complexity than anything in the first category, but that for random and unexplained reasons we must not conclude was designed due to its complexity, presumably because complexity is only evidence for design when it's convenient for your argument.

So to clarify: you already believe that complex things can exist naturally, without the need for a designer. Within the set of possible things, in your worldview, there exists a complex entity without any form of designer or cause. Keeping that in mind, you now cannot use complexity as evidence of design, because you've already accepted that complex things don't necessarily have designers, leaving you with a piece of "evidence" for your position that can either lead to the conclusion that you want, and the precise opposite conclusion. Evidently, you have a longer row to hoe in terms of argumentation, and that "it's complex," does not get you to "it was designed," any more than it would if I'd applied that argument to your god. If it's not sufficient to lead you to conclude that your god was designed, it's not sufficient to lead you to conclude that life was designed, not on its own, and no amount of arbitrary special pleading and totally unjustified assertions is going to get you out of this simple, set theory debunking of your lead claim.

Things can be complex with a designer, things can be complex without a designer. How did you determine that life falls into the former category and not the latter, without appealing to the odds considering that the odds of a spaceless, timeless and immaterial being existing because of nothing are far, far longer due to contravening everything we observe to be true in reality?

Dude...you are just...fucking SWELL. [HEAVY BLACK HEART]️

[AAA]

Life is elegant because it accomplishes what it needs to, huh?

Are these needs being imposed on the designer, or did he impose them upon himself? Is he solving a task that was already set up for him, or did he create the task and all the requirements?

In other words, where are all these obstacles coming from, for him to overcome?

The obstacle that it must overcome is the constant movement of all reactions toward equilibrium. They have elegant systems to manipulate molecules and couple reactions together so that they can disrupt equilibrium. If they could not avoid chemical equilibrium, they could not survive. However, this obstacle is also essential for life. The fact that reactions have a desire to move toward equilibrium allows organisms to take advantage of this to utilize energy.

[AAA]

The point is that life contains extremely elegant systems to accomplish what it needs to. There are not explanations for how these elegant systems arose. However, humans have been able to (through the use of intelligence) produce fairly elegant systems as well. This leads some people to conclude that these elegant systems may have been the product of intelligence.

Or...that humans are intelligent enough to discover and replicate the necessary conditions for such elegant systems to arise on their own...

Do you have an explanation for how the elegant metabolism of organisms arose on their own? I think you would be the first one.. They may have developed on their own, but so far that is speculation.

[LadyForCamus]

Or...that humans are intelligent enough to discover and replicate the necessary conditions for such elegant systems to arise on their own...

Do you have an explanation for how the elegant metabolism of organisms arose on their own? I think you would be the first one.. They may have developed on their own, but so far that is speculation.

Yes, nice job of ignoring that preliminary evidence I provided you a few pages back.

[Ravenshire]

I wonder how you arrive at the chance of "there being a super intelligence that designed it all".

You seemed to be quite happy to lay out nice round numbers for the chance of evolution happening.... how about this super intelligence? No numbers?

How about 100% 

Where's your evidence?

[robvalue]

LFC: I know right! Esquilax is da bomb. He wins best debater every year because he just cleans house every time. He doesn't let one tiny microbe of bad argument escape... hence his cool title

Life is elegant because it accomplishes what it needs to, huh?

Are these needs being imposed on the designer, or did he impose them upon himself? Is he solving a task that was already set up for him, or did he create the task and all the requirements?

In other words, where are all these obstacles coming from, for him to overcome?

The obstacle that it must overcome is the constant movement of all reactions toward equilibrium. They have elegant systems to manipulate molecules and couple reactions together so that they can disrupt equilibrium. If they could not avoid chemical equilibrium, they could not survive. However, this obstacle is also essential for life. The fact that reactions have a desire to move toward equilibrium allows organisms to take advantage of this to utilize energy.

Right... did God create this obstacle for himself? Or was it something he had no control over?

[AAA]

Better than abiogenesis and better than the vast multitude of species all evolving from pond slime by pot luck.

First of all, "pot luck" is a strawman, as I've already explained multiple times how we're not dealing with a totally randomized process, so you can stow that dishonesty right now.

Second of all, can you do more than just lazily assert that the odds are better? How did you derive those odds? How can you derive a positive probability for a thing you cannot possibly have observed and have consistently failed to provide positive evidence of?

And in fact, why should we even care, given that you've demonstrated clearly that you have no idea what positive evidence even is?  

It isn't too hard to calculate the odds of abiogenesis. This is the probability of a protein with a specific sequence forming by chance alone. Most proteins are hundreds or thousands of amino acids long. Lets use 100 amino acids as an example. There are 20 different amino acids that could possibly be at any position in the sequence. So each position has a one in 20 chance of being the correct amino acid. (1/20)^100 shows how likely it is that all 100 amino acids will be correct. This results in a 100 amino acid protein with a specific sequence forming one out of every 7.89 x 10^131 chances. That is unbelievably improbable. We can go even further than that. 

Each chance to get the correct sequence takes 100 amino acids. Multiply that by the number of chances to get the total number of amino acids required to arrive at it and you get 7.89 x 10^133 total amino acids necessary. We can now figure out the mass of amino acids needed. Take the number of amino acid molecules and divide it by avogadro's number to get the number of moles of amino acids. This results in (7.89 x 10^133 molecules / 6.022 x 10 ^23 molecules /mole) = 1.31 x 10^110 moles. The average molar mass of an amino acid is 129.45 g/mole. You multiply this by the number of moles and you get 1.70 x 10^112 total grams of amino acids. 

To give you some reference as to how large this mass is, the mass of the earth is 5.97 x 10^27 grams. The mass of amino acids is ((1.70 x 10^112/5.97 x 10^27) =2.84 x 10^84 times more massive than earth. There aren't even that many atoms in the universe. 

In other words, the mass of amino acids you would need to get a small functional protein by chance are approximately the number of atoms in the universe times the mass of the earth. There probably haven't even been this many amino acids throughout all of time in the whole existence of the universe.

[AAA]

LFC: I know right! Esquilax is da bomb. He wins best debater every year because he just cleans house every time. He doesn't let one tiny microbe of bad argument escape... hence his cool title

The obstacle that it must overcome is the constant movement of all reactions toward equilibrium. They have elegant systems to manipulate molecules and couple reactions together so that they can disrupt equilibrium. If they could not avoid chemical equilibrium, they could not survive. However, this obstacle is also essential for life. The fact that reactions have a desire to move toward equilibrium allows organisms to take advantage of this to utilize energy.

Right... did God create this obstacle for himself? Or was it something he had no control over?

He created the obstacle, but the obstacle is necessary. No life would be possible if reactions didn't move toward equilibrium, and life would not be possible if they could not avoid equilibrium. In other words, cells need the chemical laws that govern reactions (the inherent movement toward equilibrium) so they can gain energy, and they need a mechanism to avoid internal equilibrium so that they can function.