I would believe in God if...

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I do not see the evidence for this being the beginning state of affairs.

Just to be clear, you are rejecting the work done by thousands of geologists, hydrologists, seismologists, volcanologists, physicists and chemists, and also rejecting the accumulation of - quite literally - tens of millions of bits of mutually corroborative evidence that tell us that the Earth in its early stages was a fearsomely hot, noxious place, bombarded almost ceaselessly by cosmic radiation and countless meteorites, and beset with volcanic activity of a nearly unimaginable frequency and violence...

...in favour of the cultural myths of a group of non-literate semi-savages? Seriously?

Boru

[Nonpareil]

Seriously?

Well, I mean, at least he's honest about it.

[Harry Nevis]

Are you pondering the personal "why" did God create the universe, as in to what purpose?

Ex:  Why did my wife and I choose to have children?   For our amusement, edification, to instill our values, procreation of the species, or to have someone to pass our gold bullion to?

Or is there a reductionist argument as to why the universe was/is a creation?

Ex:  The universe has an observable beginning where time and matter came into existence.  The universe appears governed by laws and constants and order not chaos permeates it. Life, consciousness, humanity, nature, etc appear designed.  This implies a designer.  Thus there must be a designer.

But we can prove you and your wife exist.  As far as the designer, that's just crap.

[PETE_ROSE]

Are you pondering the personal "why" did God create the universe, as in to what purpose?

Ex:  Why did my wife and I choose to have children?   For our amusement, edification, to instill our values, procreation of the species, or to have someone to pass our gold bullion to?

Or is there a reductionist argument as to why the universe was/is a creation?

Ex:  The universe has an observable beginning where time and matter came into existence.  The universe appears governed by laws and constants and order not chaos permeates it. Life, consciousness, humanity, nature, etc appear designed.  This implies a designer.  Thus there must be a designer.

But we can prove you and your wife exist.  As far as the designer, that's just crap.

Typical response. Obviously well thought out and articulated. I must re-evaluate my position at once.

Whilst I am on the cusp of renouncing theism and prepare to embrace the agnostic jihad that is surely to follow, please provide your empirical evidence and irrefutable proofs as to how you know beyond all doubt that a designer does not exist?

"That's just crap" echoes the weak Christian response of because the Bible tells me so.

[Nonpareil]

Typical response.  Obviously well thought out and articulated.  I must re-evaluate my position at once.

Whilst I am on the cusp of renouncing  theism and prepare to embrace the agnostic jihad that is surely to follow, please provide your empirical evidence and irrefutable proofs as to how you know beyond all doubt that a designer does not exist?

"That's just crap" echoes the weak Christian response of because the Bible tells me so.

A question, then.

Since you believe that the universe is designed, you must have some means of detecting design. So what do you think is necessarily different between a universe that is designed and a universe that is not, and why?

[PETE_ROSE]

Typical response.  Obviously well thought out and articulated.  I must re-evaluate my position at once.

Whilst I am on the cusp of renouncing  theism and prepare to embrace the agnostic jihad that is surely to follow, please provide your empirical evidence and irrefutable proofs as to how you know beyond all doubt that a designer does not exist?

"That's just crap" echoes the weak Christian response of because the Bible tells me so.

A question, then.

Since you believe that the universe is designed, you must have some means of detecting design. So what do you think is necessarily different between a universe that is designed and a universe that is not, and why?

Very good question! Philosophically speaking randomness, chance, and throwing things together without a purpose would result in chaos and a pile of stuff. I'm thinking about my youngest son's LEGO collection. If I dumped all of the sets on the floor it would resemble a large pile of plastic pieces.

Contrary, each individual structure (there are thousands of LEGO shapes) can be fitted together to make fire trucks and Star Wars apparatus.

The universe, its basic building blocks, the extreme diversity of life, and its building blocks, appear to have complicated structures designed into them at their basic levels. I believe this argument is partly known as irreducible complexity.

Why do I feel this way you ask? Things do not appear random and chaotic. The universe and nature appear ordered and purposefully driven. So says me.

It may very well be the universe is eternal and life was seeded by aliens from Tatooine. It may be we just don't know. Intellectual honesty, at the minimum, allows for these options as well as a creator god and/or intelligent design.

[Nonpareil]

Very good question!  Philosophically speaking randomness, chance, and throwing things together without a purpose would result in chaos and a pile of stuff.

Not entirely true.

Even assuming that everything was entirely random (and it's demonstrably not), it would still be entirely possible to have sections - even very large sections - could appear ordered within themselves. Infinite monkeys, infinite typewriters, and all that; in an infinite sample size of random results, not only is it possible to have some of them turn out looking ordered, it is necessary.

Beyond that, the universe isn't random (or, at least, not entirely - getting into quantum mechanics is not feasible for a discussion like this, and doesn't actually affect anything regardless). It obeys laws, and is ordered. This does not require, or even begin to imply, that the universe has "purpose".

The universe, its basic building blocks, the extreme diversity of life, and its building blocks, appear to have complicated structures designed into them at their basic levels.  I believe this argument is partly known as irreducible complexity.

Irreducible complexity is a nonsense concept, I'm afraid. Even setting aside its incoherent and rather fuzzily-defined nature, there have been exactly zero examples of any structure that has been shown to be irreducibly complex.

Note that this does not mean that all structures are yet explained, but "we don't know how it got that way yet" is not equivalent to "it is irreducibly complex".

[PETE_ROSE]

Everything you say is plausible. I do however disagree with your statement, that irreducible complexity is complete nonsense.

Assertions made with force, colorful adjectives, or absolutes do nothing to make them credible. It does serve to pigeonhole one's thinking or at least their openness to dissenting opinions.

Example:
If I say evolution is nonsense. We merely don't know how the diversity of life came to be.

You stated the universe is demonstrably not random. Is this correct? If so, I am interested in your thoughts on the why and how of order.

I have seen several arguments from math wizards refuting the monkeys and typewriters argument as being theoretically impossible. 2+2= Alabama wins another national title!

[Nonpareil]

Everything you say is plausible.   I do however disagree with your statement, that irreducible complexity is complete nonsense.  

Assertions made with force, colorful adjectives, or absolutes do nothing to make them credible.  It does serve to pigeonhole one's thinking or at least their openness to dissenting opinions.

Perhaps. But I wasn't actually being hyperbolic. When I say things like "incoherent" and "nonsense concept", I actually mean something by them.

Irreducible complexity is a nonsense concept. That is, it is insufficiently well-defined, and makes use of terms that it doesn't really understand or use properly. It is incoherent. It is defined as "you can't explain this", which is not something that can be supported, as even in the best-case scenario for proponents of irreducible complexity, what they claim is unexplainable could very easily just be unexplained, and there is no means of differentiating between the two.

There is more to the issues of incoherence and nonsensical premises when it comes to irreducible complexity - I could go on for pages - but that's the basic idea. I'm not being colorful when I say that it is nonsense; I am expressing a very real issue with the formulation of the concept.

You stated the universe is demonstrably not random.  Is this correct?

Yes. The universe demonstrably follows laws and behaves in predictable, non-random ways.

The possibility of true randomness in quantum physics isn't really relevant here, before anyone brings it up. Quantum mechanics still has laws, and on any scale above that, the universe is still demonstrably not random.

If so, I am interested in your thoughts on the why and how of order.

The universe has characteristics that happen to cause it to function non-randomly. "Order" is a natural result, though the term is a bit nebulous and not necessarily appropriate in every sense here. This does not require, or imply, design.

That's about it, really.

I have seen several arguments from math wizards refuting the monkeys and typewriters argument as being theoretically impossible.

I'm not sure how or why one would do that, because the monkeys-and-typewriters thing isn't an argument. It's just an illustration of some of the properties of infinity, or other situations involving arbitrarily large sample sizes of random outputs.

[Cephus]

There is nothing other than actual, demonstrable, objective evidence that would make me believe in anything.  That's the standard.  It's not going to change.