What Was Before ' the Beginning '....?

[Sword of Christ]

Really - and you know this how exactly?

Observation, logic, deduction. A little bit of faith as I don't claim to know for certain but neither do you.

Really - and you know this how exactly?

As above, and I have certain books of interest.

Well not exactly. We are seeing the same types of celestial bodies now as we see 10 billion years ago. There's no onwards and upwards in space - only, possibly in life, and even that's not 100% as we have already established.

Everything we're made from had to be manufactured in a sequence it wasn't there from the start. The galaxies and stars and what have all had to form and formed adhering to a ordered structure. The process runs through the formation and evolution of life and we can clearly see the upward direction of complexity that took. Once you understand this is is how it works it's perplexing having to explain it to someone who doesn't understand it.

Whilst I might agree with the brain the human body is no great leap forwards. In fact huge parts of it appear to be very badly designed indeed.

It wasn't micromanaged but the human form is likely the form required for civilisation. There may be other alternatives that could work. The brain was part of the body last I checked and the human body is more complex than a jellyfish, a sponge, snail or whatever developed in the earlier stages. Placental mammals are more advanced than egg laying mammals and so on so you have a progression through that line as well. If you look at the planet as a whole you'll see the essential ingredients, the plants and animal needed to feed a civilisation emerge. Give it enough and this is how life ought to develop on planets such as this, it was built into the system from the start and we can observe it.

And how do you know we have reached the point of ultimate complexity?

If the human brain were any bigger it would use too much energy and it would take too long for neural transmitters to rely instructions to the different parts meaning it would be less efficient a system. So biologically we are the apex of the process of development. Intentional development that was planned from the point of creation. Once the ball was rolling this was going to happen.

Judging by the past (98% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct) there is a VERY good chance we too will go extinct to be replaced by something else.

We will go extinct eventually but not for while imo. Bear in mind that we're immortal beings though so humanity itself won't ever die out. Unless you're right of course but I think I'm demonstrating so far that you won't be. The structure, the precise natural balance, complexity the development of the universe over time you can actually see. It helps to understand what you're looking at though and you see it better in the context of faith, in the context of design and purpose. No matter how hard you want to deny it it is still there.

No evidence of design.

If you want to ignore everything I've shown you go then go ahead. It just makes you look obstinate not open minded and reasonable. You can dig yourself deep into a hole you can't ever fill.

Certainly the universe is not well designed for life

If it wasn't we wouldn't be here. Hence it had to be 100% perfect for it's development. We know how well balanced this was and it is scientifically factual. Yes so atheist scientists are ignoring it or coming up with that puddle fitting a hole story, which is complete bollocks life does not conform itself to fit the universe not with this level of exact perfect fine tuning. Life is a product of this universe being the way it is there was no alternative this is it.

that much we know. In fact the only place in the entire universe we know we can live is here.

And a pink unicorn could fly out of my bum but I don't consider that to be very likely.

There might be other places, there might not, but they are going to be a bugger to find even if they do exist.

They exist if the universe was clearly engineered to form and develop life and living planetary system by a supreme intelligence.

Source? What bird, exactly, could compete with a 400 kilogram pterosaur as tall as a giraffe?

Birds could out reproduce them and they had better access to food and nesting sites, size isn't everything. Some of the really utterly massive ones survived to the very end but there's some debate if they flew or just crawled around on the ground. It doesn't follow that something is more advanced just because it's bigger or can move faster. It's like saying a horse is more advanced than a human.

No evidence of intention.

Don't say no evidence when I'm pointing out the evidence we already have and know and what it clearly demonstrates. The universe is a purpose made creation of God. You can disagree if you want to be obstinate but here is your evidence.

Planet-wide apparently not (The thriving life of Antarctica is now buried under 2 miles of ice). What link is there between the process on earth (evolution and natural selection) and the operation of the universe? I don't see how you made that leap.

Planet wide in the general sense as a whole. Universe wide in a general sense as a whole, it doesn't matter if nothing lives on Venus. There are places were complex life survives, Earth is one of those places.

So you are saying evolution, through natural selection, operated to a plan - with the aim of creating us?

Natural selection is a genetic filter for genetic information. What drives the initial changes for the genetic information I don't know. Not random point mutation though as that only deletes genetic information from the code what you need is new genetic material from somewhere.

Evidence?

Look at the evolutionary history of the Earth, it's in the fossil record if you want to see the advancement I'm talking about. It's right there.

Why did God go through 5 great extinction events with entire phyla of creatures roaming the earth for tens or even hundreds of millions of years going extinct?

The natural rhythms of life I guess, mass extinction events may help to advance things on a bit.

Why would he make it look so totally random?

It doesn't "look random" at all.

4 billion years to get to his target state of human like intelligent civilized life? How inefficient can a God be?

God has plenty of time to work with, he created time in the first place.

[Ryantology]

This universe is so perfect for complex life that you can find it scattered all over this one tiny and insignificant dust mote (and perhaps a handful of others) in the midst of a vast universe which is otherwise entirely void of life, complex or not, and instantly fatal to the vast majority of it without serious protection. And, the life which does inhabit roughly 0.000000000000000000000000000001% of a universe allegedly designed for it is designed so well that there are only countless ways organisms can simply fail to function pretty much by random accident. Our species shows such hallmarks of perfect design that the failure of almost any part of the body is apt to cause permanent death. But hey, I guess a perfectly-designed car, in your little fantasy land, is one you'd have to junk if the alternator blew on it.

Not exactly, because we can fix some things due to medicine, that is science, and it works bitches *Flips a birdie at fundamentalists"

We can (at least, now), but imagine how much easier it would be if biology didn't have to always be on to work? You wouldn't design a computer or a machine that you could never turn on again after something makes it shut off. I mean, I'm not crazy for thinking that would be a brutally fucking stupid design choice, right?

[Captain Colostomy]

---

Really - and you know this how exactly?

Observation, logic, deduction. A little bit of faith as I don't claim to know for certain but neither do you.

Really - and you know this how exactly?

As above, and I have certain books of interest.

Well not exactly. We are seeing the same types of celestial bodies now as we see 10 billion years ago. There's no onwards and upwards in space - only, possibly in life, and even that's not 100% as we have already established.

Everything we're made from had to be manufactured in a sequence it wasn't there from the start. The galaxies and stars and what have all had to form and formed adhering to a ordered structure. The process runs through the formation and evolution of life and we can clearly see the upward direction of complexity that took. Once you understand this is is how it works it's perplexing having to explain it to someone who doesn't understand it.

Whilst I might agree with the brain the human body is no great leap forwards. In fact huge parts of it appear to be very badly designed indeed.

It wasn't micromanaged but the human form is likely the form required for civilisation. There may be other alternatives that could work. The brain was part of the body last I checked and the human body is more complex than a jellyfish, a sponge, snail or whatever developed in the earlier stages. Placental mammals are more advanced than egg laying mammals and so on so you have a progression through that line as well. If you look at the planet as a whole you'll see the essential ingredients, the plants and animal needed to feed a civilisation emerge. Give it enough and this is how life ought to develop on planets such as this, it was built into the system from the start and we can observe it.

And how do you know we have reached the point of ultimate complexity?

If the human brain were any bigger it would use too much energy and it would take too long for neural transmitters to rely instructions to the different parts meaning it would be less efficient a system. So biologically we are the apex of the process of development. Intentional development that was planned from the point of creation. Once the ball was rolling this was going to happen.

Judging by the past (98% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct) there is a VERY good chance we too will go extinct to be replaced by something else.

We will go extinct eventually but not for while imo. Bear in mind that we're immortal beings though so humanity itself won't ever die out. Unless you're right of course but I think I'm demonstrating so far that you won't be. The structure, the precise natural balance, complexity the development of the universe over time you can actually see. It helps to understand what you're looking at though and you see it better in the context of faith, in the context of design and purpose. No matter how hard you want to deny it it is still there.

No evidence of design.

If you want to ignore everything I've shown you go then go ahead. It just makes you look obstinate not open minded and reasonable. You can dig yourself deep into a hole you can't ever fill.

Certainly the universe is not well designed for life

If it wasn't we wouldn't be here. Hence it had to be 100% perfect for it's development. We know how well balanced this was and it is scientifically factual. Yes so atheist scientists are ignoring it or coming up with that puddle fitting a hole story, which is complete bollocks life does not conform itself to fit the universe not with this level of exact perfect fine tuning. Life is a product of this universe being the way it is there was no alternative this is it.

that much we know. In fact the only place in the entire universe we know we can live is here.

And a pink unicorn could fly out of my bum but I don't consider that to be very likely.

There might be other places, there might not, but they are going to be a bugger to find even if they do exist.

They exist if the universe was clearly engineered to form and develop life and living planetary system by a supreme intelligence.

Source? What bird, exactly, could compete with a 400 kilogram pterosaur as tall as a giraffe?

Birds could out reproduce them and they had better access to food and nesting sites, size isn't everything. Some of the really utterly massive ones survived to the very end but there's some debate if they flew or just crawled around on the ground.

---

Lotsa if's, baseless assertions and miscomprehension.

[max-greece]

Now I am not going to do a point by point because it is pointless (much like your post to be honest), but here's the thing:

"A little bit of faith as I don't claim to know for certain but neither do you."

So you don't know for certain there is a God - yet - you seem to be infinitely familiar with his grand plan - how can this be?

Observation, logic and deduction are grand tools - as long as you are seeing the big picture.

There is a very old story of a blind man being introduced to an elephant. He is allowed to approach the elephant and feel around but all he gets to touch is the trunk that is proffered to him by the elephant.

He feels along the trunk and declares the elephant to be like a snake.

The rest is just more of the same argument you keep repeating with the same huge assumptions along the way - these have already been addressed.

[Zazzy]

If the human brain were any bigger it would use too much energy and it would take too long for neural transmitters to rely instructions to the different parts meaning it would be less efficient a system. So biologically we are the apex of the process of development.

This could not be more ridiculous. Seriously. PLEASE take a course in neurobiology, and one in evolutionary biology. Please.

[Sword of Christ]

Lotsa if's, baseless assertions and miscomprehension.

If you want to insist that the universe didn't build toward complex structure and forms over time and that it didn't need to be perfectly physically balanced and ordered in order to produce any of this then you're demonstrably wrong. You can't deny what we can actually see and observe. This isn't one of those kinds of things where if you close your eyes and wish hard enough it just might be true, if you want physical evidence it's under your nose.

[LastPoet]

You can't deny what we can actually see and observe.

Yes, and your fairy god isn't one of them.

[Esquilax]

If you want to insist that the universe didn't build toward complex structure and forms over time and that it didn't need to be perfectly physically balanced and ordered in order to produce any of this then you're demonstrably wrong.

The critical thing that you're missing is that neither of those things- you're correct on the former and likely wrong on the latter, incidentally- testify to a cause. There's nothing in either claim that indicates that an eternal deity with a plan for mankind was involved in the process at all. That's an additional assumption you are making, most likely because you were brought up in the religion, for which you have no justification beyond the fact that you can't imagine another way, and I'm sorry, but your ignorance, humanity's cumulative ignorance on this topic isn't an excuse for that, nor is it something we're liable to keep for long.

The interesting part will be what you'll do if the answer is revealed and it's not the one you've assumed it is; history shows us that what's most likely to happen is that your god will somehow retreat just one layer back, so the process can begin again.

You can't deny what we can actually see and observe. This isn't one of those kinds of things where if you close your eyes and wish hard enough it just might be true, if you want physical evidence it's under your nose.

We do not see or observe your god, happily. Seems like your words got away from you, there.

[Ryantology]

If you want to insist that the universe didn't build toward complex structure and forms over time and that it didn't need to be perfectly physically balanced and ordered in order to produce any of this then you're demonstrably wrong. You can't deny what we can actually see and observe. This isn't one of those kinds of things where if you close your eyes and wish hard enough it just might be true, if you want physical evidence it's under your nose.

The funny thing is, if it's all the work of an omnipotent god, it should, in theory, not matter how physics works and how the universe is ordered. An omnipotent designer would be able to make a planet out of gas and beings who could exist on it. The fact that it very much does matter is a rather damning argument against an omnipotent designer.

[StuW]

Strange how the most complex life form on this planet is a plant (...
Ophioglossum reticulatum)