(January 15, 2014 at 3:15 pm)Minimalist Wrote: In the vast ( and I mean VAST) majority of the universe you would be dead the moment you set foot there.
You would have to set foot on a planet with the right atmospheric composition air pressure and that kind of thing, or wear a space suit at least. But a universe that can support/develop life in every part may not even be functionally/scientifically possible to create in the first place we just don't know so this is a non-argument from ignorance.
Even though life is be confined to survival within a narrow band of physical conditions intelligent life is apparently be able to adapt itself to almost any environment including space. We ought to be running around naked on the Savannah being eaten by lions, but because as we're made "in Gods image" we can do a great deal more we're not limited by our environment. So while you can still be an atheist and that's a valid position you can't use the universe itself and what we know of it to support your world view as this would work perfectly well as a deliberate creation of an omnipotent creator God or as a random physical byproduct of some kind that just happened to be the way it is for no real significant reason.
Quote:Even this planet is largely inhospitable to human life.
We can survive anywhere on the planets surface even down the deepest ocean trench, yes in a submersible vehicle but if our intellect/adaptability to the natural world is derived from being made in the mental/spiritual image of God that will still count. Yes so we evolved but if this form of evolution was intentionally set up from the beginning then we were intentionally made. We didn't have be directly or instantly made by God in the Adam and Eve sense. A lengthy process of gradual/natural formation is perfectly fine and you can read Genesis as a process of formation in a sequence of stages leading up to intelligent beings.
Genesis wasn't necessarily written as a literal scientific/historical account to begin with as it seems quite heavily symbolic and full of metaphor and there were certainly theologians who read it this way even back in the early centuries AD. Read it in this context and you won't find any problems with it as a theist. Most theists accept evolution so there isn't really a conflict there only what you and young Earthers would want to manufacture to support whatever you/they want to believe. So I can't really stress the compatibility of the Biblical creation account and evolution/biology. From one source you get the how and from the other source the why.
Quote:Your intelligent designer comes across as something of an inept asshole.
That's not really the case when you understand the level of complexity and fine tuning that would allow for life in a universe such as this to occur. What you're looking at here is the work of a master craftsman, the ultimate mathematician and scientist. If you can see the beauty if the creation you have a master artist as well, a God worthy of worship. There are various negative aspects of life as well but there good theological explanations for that. You will get into sin, freedom of will and the general physical frailty of the human form and it's susceptibility to death. From a theistic stand point suffering is temporal and life eternal anyway of course.
Quote:Time to grow up and face reality.
God is perfectly compatible with the reality and suffering of human life and the reality of science. So you have nothing there to support the case against the existence of God. Your own opinion that he doesn't exist or you don't want to believe he exists is fine but these kinds of arguments from evil and human/natural suffering don't really hold much water. And you certainly can't use evolution to support your case even Darwin says something about God setting up the universe to allow for evolution to take place in his Origin of Species.
Come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant.