(August 5, 2013 at 8:06 pm)BettyG Wrote: When I look at the incredible design of the universe, I see an intelligent designer, not a random accident. For example, check this site out:This is the "fine tuning" argument, which is currently being discussed in this topic. I think the fine-tuning argument depends on a lot of suppositions of things that we do not and/or cannot know. I think it is adequately analogized in the example of the bacteria that decide that the bathroom tile they are living on is part of a universe that seemed to have been designed just for them. At least until someone grabs a can of Lysol and subjects them to the equivalent of a gamma-ray burst.
What if strong force were stronger and weak force weaker?
Quote:I prefer the leap of faith I have taken to yours any day. I can have reasonable certainty that God exists, and that is good enough for me. Unless you can prove it is impossible for God to exist, I'll stick with mine. Since I am confident, you cannot do that, I don't think I will become an atheist again.This statment can be presented from the atheist's standpoint by just changing a word or two, except that for the atheist it isn't a leap of faith as much as it is that we don't share your "reasonable certainty" that god does or doesn't exist.
I do agree that I cannot prove that it is impossible for god to exist. However, I spent many years trying to prove that he does exist and it turns out that I cannot do that either. And based on what I've read in this topic, I'm pretty confident that neither can you.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould