atheist vs agnostics.

[Cyberman]

Well, things have moved on apace since I last visited I see. You'll forgive me if I cherrypick from the choicest morsels, I hope, considering that others have already dealt with most of these points at least as comprehensively as I would hope to do myself. Anyway...

I'm rejecting the atheists total rejection of theism to the extent that the universe becomes a random coincidence of some kind which result in various natural processes taking place with us as an unintentional byproduct.

Again with the random coincidence? Why does it come down between either such coincidence or a higher intelligent agency? Must those be the only two options on the table? Even if they were, one of the two is actually known to occur; particle accelerators depend on the phenomenon, as do atomic reactors. Not to mention stars. The other option, not so much and is a far less satisfying 'answer' to the problem anyway by dint of being infinitely less probable than that which it's intended to explain and hence in desperate need of an explanation itself.

But for the moment, let's just entertain the notion that the Universe and our place in it is indeed merely an unintentional byproduct of physical laws etc. Does that take away from our taking advantage of our incredible good fortune and exploiting our niche to the best abilities of the species?

It isn't necessarily quite that black and white, both sides make good arguments and both sides believe something that seems slightly off the wall to me as well.

Well, I am an atheist and I confess to having beliefs in all sorts of things, most of which are probably in accordance with yours. I also have beliefs in things that would seem not simply off the wall but straight through it and ricocheting off the wall next door. However, dealing strictly and solely with my capacity as an atheist, what off the wall beliefs do you consider I hold?

Science isn't an explanation for why anything ultimately exists the way it exists. We know the physical processes of how we were formed but that doesn't mean that what you see here is a byproduct of a non-directional process without an intended goal or destination point.

Natural, physical forces are anything but non-directional, in the sense you are employing the term. Evolution, which is what it seems you are referring to here, is most definitely a guided process and one without an ultimate goal in mind. Living organisms which are better suited to survive in a given environment stand a much better chance of reproducing and propagating their advantage via DNA into successive generations, which in turn may have the same or better advantage and so on. In this way advantageous traits become more dominant and lesser ones will tend towards extinction. Evolution is such a powerful mechanism for producing complex organisms that engineers have adopted it in their own industries to generate technologies that might otherwise take centuries for an unaided human to develop.

It seems reasonable to assume that the universe was building up toward all this from the start.

That is the viewpoint of Douglas Adams' famous sentient puddle. It may seem that way, but if history has taught us anything at all, it's that the real world is more often than not counter-intuitive. It seems reasonable to deduce from observation and measurement that the Earth is stationary and the sky revolves around it once a day.

If you look at the sequence of the formation you're looking at a well ordered sequence of events over time, it isn't random chaos.

For the umpteenth time, random chaos has nothing to do with this stuff. Take a glance back through the last couple of pages; the only person speaking in terms of random chance, blind coincidence and accidental side-effects is you.

It doesn't it particularly supports any religion either as they seemed to be more concerned with forsekins, who marrys who, sex in what position and so on. But the general idea of a universe purposefully created and formed with humanity or intelligent life at the heart could well still be true I don't see what would counter such a claim.

Therein lies the beauty of the burden of proof. It's not up to the opponents of such claims to prove that they're wrong; the proponents of the claims must prove that they're right.

Which arguments do you think theist make that are good? Post the best one. They are all fallacious.

The universe being structure purpose formed for the creation of living entities particularly sentient self aware forms. I would generally agree with that part at least. I don't particularly understand the details beyond that.

How do you draw that conclusion, or find it convincing, when the only planet we know beyond doubt harbours life is Earth? If you discovered a supercontinent on which there was exactly one particle of gold, can you then conclude that the continent was structured for the purpose of hoarding gold?

Do you believe life is an unintentional byproduct of a coincidental process without the purpose or intent of forming life? That's just where we would disagree. Our knowledge of the universe and science will be equivalent that's not the issue here.

You'll have to help me out as I'm getting a little confused trying to keep up here. You reject atheism, you reject theism, you reject deism, yet you consider that life was formed with intent and purpose? Where exactly are you nailing your colours, because I honestly cannot see them? Especially as you go on to say:

Of course it happened by natural processes, I'm not saying there's anything supernatural about the universe. But it does appear to have some kind of structure and you have immensely complicated structures, particularly the human brain, being formed within it. The process appears to be elaborate and systematic with zero margin for any kind error at any stage. If it could have happened any old way then the chances of something like ourselves being here would be trillions to one. Instead I think it's more like 100% certainity because this is what the universe was intended for, this is it's purpose of existence. In my opinion I don't know this for fact but it seems more likely than what you would have in mind, where this was a roll of some cosmic dice.

How is this not at least deism?

I don't any more any outlandish claim than saying that the universe was able to produce this effect by blind chance and luck. Goodness knows what the odds would have been for that.

Then it's a good job that blind chance and luck had nothing to do with it, isn't it?

Honestly, if I see those words just once more I am going to scream. And before I get trolled, it only counts if Zone uses them as he's done up to now.