A question to atheists:

[Smith_3]

How do you come to believe that a creator doesn't exist?

I have studied alot of fundamental physics, relativity and quantum physics and such, and I can say for certain that there is no empirical evicence whatsoever that would suggest that there is no creator.

Ok, of course empirical evidence pretty much rules out the creation scenario depicted in the Christian bible (unless you assume that causality may explicitly be violated for no apparent reason and some points in time), and also makes it highly unlikely that a physical being with the traits of the god that is described there can exist.

But how do you rule out that the laws of nature themselves were "created", in a sense that they are the willfull product of some sentient entity.

IMHO Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are way to brilliant concepts just to be there for no apparent reason.

I am not arguing a creationist point here. I anything I am arguing an agnostic point over an atheist point. How can anyone claim that there is no god, when the truth is that we simply don't know?

[HereSince1628]

1. But God DOES exist, as in

Oh MY F'ing GOD! Not this again!

[Orrex]

2. This atheist is a firm believer in deja vu

I get the feeling that this topic has happened again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again...

[WillParkinson]

4. Whoa...

I knew you were going to say that.

[TZ]

48. *snort*

Yeah.
I think I'll just wait till the resident physics nerd shows up...You know, I wonder if R_A has a standard reply for this tucked away somewhere..goodness knows I've seen him respond to this enough...:popcorn:

[Dr. Strange]

59. I thought you were being snarky, but then I found this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x175868

Weird.

[Orrex]

61. LOL!

Check this one out, too:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x175868

[TZ]

62. What is this

A time causality loop? :rofl:
See here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x175868
Too bad someone swore off of RR's this would be a perfect opportunity.

[Orrex]

64. If ever I were tempted, now is the time.

Instead, check out this relevant link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x175868

[Dr. Strange]

66. This is starting to turn into the latest incarnation of the Brazillion joke.

It must be stopped.

[Orrex]

68. Nice post, Rumsfeld

Tell it to your boss during the next daily briefing.

[TZ]

70. Well yeah

I mean this forum is soo much sillier than the Lounge......;)

[hyphenate]

95. Jesus H Christ!

You had me going for a minute there! DON'T do that again! :rofl:

[Smith_3]

76. If the topic is so trivial, then why hasn't it been definately answered? eom

[TZ]

92. There is a poster on this board

who is a physicist/chemist/mathemetician expert and he has answered this questions about a zillion times..and it all comes down to the null hypothesis. He's explained WHY he is an atheist to my satisfaction. If he shows up here, I think you will get a good answer to your question.
Perhaps I will find one of his posts about it.

[WillParkinson]

3. Then you must also use this viewpoint for...

Santa Claus.
Flying Pink Unicorns.
The Spaghetti Monster.

But especially Santa. I mean, really, I want the gifts.

[Smith_3]

8. No.

All I am saying is that unless you can provide a better explanation to observed phenomena such as consciousness, the laws of nature being unchangeable etc. by okham's razor it is a valid point to assume willful intention.

I can rule santa out by taking his costume off.

As for the Spaghetti Monster etc. : you are missing my point.

[HereSince1628]

14. Isn't it spelled Occam? and actually I don't think that line of reasoning is parsimonious

Because it leads to infinite line of then who created _______.

But, I can argue you DIDN'T take the costume off the RIGHT Santa!

[Smith_3]

23. I guess the "who created" part is a problem.

But: Limited understanding of the concept of causality due to the way the human mind operates might offer some explanation.

As an analogy: We don't know what was "before" the big bang. All current models suggest that the space-time metric was singular then, therefore there is no developed concept of "before" that makes any sense. Hard for the human mind to grasp, but probably true.

[HereSince1628]

27. Actually, I thought the cutting edge model was about multiple 'branes'

And that what we call "the big bang" was an incidental collision of two of these things, which implies the apparent singularity of forces was something of a 'local' event.

[Smith_3]

30. Yeah, but those branes exist in higher dimensional space-time.

My point was just to illustrate, how just as our concept of "before" and "after" is flawed, our concept of causality may also be flawed.

[HereSince1628]

39. Yes, which really leads us back into the semantic parlor game that the subject of your OP

typically raises (What definion of GOD? What definion of DOES? What definition of EXIST?

[WillParkinson]

37. You can rule Santa out...

Because someone dresses as Santa and you remove the costume that proves he isn't real?

As for Occam's Razor:

William of Occam formulated a principle which has become known as Occam's Razor. In its original form, it said "Do not multiply entities unnecessarily." That is, if you can explain something without supposing the existence of some entity, then do so.

Nowadays when people refer to Occam's Razor, they often express it more generally, for example as "Take the simplest solution."

The relevance to atheism is that we can look at two possible explanations for what we see around us:

There is an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there, which came into being as a result of natural processes.
There is an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there, and there is also a God who created the universe. Clearly this God must be of non-zero complexity.
Given that both explanations fit the facts, Occam's Razor might suggest that we should take the simpler of the two--solution number one. Unfortunately, some argue that there is a third even more simple solution:

There isn't an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there. We just imagine that there is.
This third option leads us logically towards solipsism, which many people find unacceptable.

[trotsky]

41. A "better" explanation?

How exactly is "god" an explanation? Does "goddidit" offer up any additional understanding of those things? Give us ideas into new avenues of research?

You clearly misunderstand what Occam's Razor is, if you're using it like this.

[Zebedeo]

72. "itjusthappened"

There you go once again ridiculing a belief in God as some sort of reflexive, automatic and unthinking reaction - "Goddidit."

If you were intellectually honest, you would apply the same scrutiny to your own philosophical point of view -

"goddidn'tdoit" or "itjusthappened" or "theuniversepoppedintoexistenceallbyitselfwithoutacauseandfornoreason."

There is no reason to believe that 100 billion galaxies of matter and energy created themselves, or that natural laws came into existence on their own. You just prefer to believe that these things self-generated.

[trotsky]

73. Who says "itjusthappened"?

Any respectable scientist, if s/he doesn't have an answer, says "I don't know." You've got a lovely strawman there but it doesn't even begin to model reality. Try harder next time.

[Smith_3]

77. Which is exactly the point of my OP.

A respectable scientist doesn't say "there is no god". He says "I don't know".

[trotsky]

78. Or s/he says

"There is simply no evidence that there are any gods, nor is there any reason why gods must be invoked as an explanation for anything."

Gods have no more evidence in support of their existence than do wood sprites, fairies, leprechauns, unicorns, or Santa. Yet does any rational adult consider the existence of those things to be a 50/50 proposition?

[Smith_3]

81. Its a matter of gut feeling. On both sides of the issue.

I have met physicists who believe in a creator.

I guess I am beginning to understand the atheist position more though. It is more of a "why should I believe in something that there isn't any evidence for" than a "I believe that this something does not exist". The answer IMO is, you don't have to believe in it. Your belief is not required for a thing to exist or not to exist. If you are interested in the truth however, then that is another thing.

[trotsky]

85. So did you have a point in all this? n/t

[Smith_3]

86. Yes. That agnosticism is more plausible than atheism. nt

[trotsky]

87. But atheism doesn't say "There is no god."

It only says "There is no evidence for gods."

You misunderstand the terms "agnosticism" and "atheism." THAT'S what this thread is about.

[Smith_3]

88. I don't know. Some atheists do say "there is no god."

In the end, it is all semantics.

[trotsky]

89. Some atheists may indeed say that.

But that doesn't make "agnosticism" a more tenable position than "atheism."

Here:
http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutagnosticism/a/atheism.htm

[Smith_3]

90. Ironcially, this article treats "theism" and "atheism" as equal concepts.

Some people are not sure wether they believe or don't believe. What are they?

[trotsky]

91. They're agnostic atheists. n/t

[Smith_3]

94. lol. Then the atheists have it easier.

They can claim all the undecided parties for themselves :)

[Goblinmonger]

43. You are using Occam

to prove the existence of god. I think I have now seen everything.

[trotsky]

56. You knew it was just a matter of time.

Someone bastardizes Occam enough, and it becomes "always pick the simple explanation." Well, what's simpler than just saying GODDIDIT? It answers everything! Foolish atheistic scientists!

[Silent3]

60. The irony is, of course, that William of Ockham...

...was a Franciscan friar, who never applied his own "razor" to the question of the existence of God. He simply placed God beyond the reach of human reason, as something to be known via Revelation alone.

[cyborg_jim]

53. I fail to see how positing "will" is an application of Occam's razor

And I also don't see how the small list of phenomena follow on at all to any matters of creation.

In short you appear to be throwing random stuff into a bag.

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. Why should I believe that a creator exists? And which creator is the correct one? n/t

[Smith_3]

10. Well, my point is not that you should believe in anything.

My point is wether or not it is reality.

The creator scenarios described by the dominant religions have alot of obvious flaws of course.

[TechBear_Seattle]

11. You asked: Why do you not believe? I answered: Why should I believe?

If your point was not to solicit answers to that question, why did you ask it?

[sam sarrha]

20. "...religions have alot of obvious flaws of course", like being based on HALLUCINATIONS!! of

OF SCHITZOPHRENICS..???:rofl:

[MikeDuffy]

6. Have your observations ruled out the possibility of

multiple gods?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

7. A very good point

I think. It would seem to me that to have the order that we have in nature, the processes of evolution, etc, instead of chaos, there is some "plan", some overall pattern.

Personally, I have evolved from the human-like God described in the Christian Bible to a more pantheistic view, a concept that is shared by many mystical traditions, that everything is part of a Whole that somehow has the ability to create order. I think what we see now in religion is a re-examination of God concepts (which have changed even within religions as they have evolved), and, for many, a great and radical way of thinking about what "God" is.

[cyborg_jim]

54. Nope

I think. It would seem to me that to have the order that we have in nature, the processes of evolution, etc, instead of chaos, there is some "plan", some overall pattern.

The very crux of the point of evolution et al is that a plan is utterly unnecessary.

Shit will happen regardless.

[The Night Owl]

55. Yep. Vast amounts of time make what seems unlikely likely. Consider...

A Journey to Baseball’s Alternate Universe

By SAMUEL ARBESMAN and STEVEN STROGATZ
Published: March 30, 2008

WITH the baseball season under way and the memory of scandal in the sport so fresh, many fans yearn for an earlier era, a time when mythology mingled with baseball. The sport’s most mythic achievement is Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak, a feat that has never come even close to being matched. Fans and scientists alike, including Edward M. Purcell, a Nobel laureate in physics, and Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionary biologist, have described the streak as well-nigh impossible.

In a fit of scientific skepticism, we decided to calculate how unlikely Joltin’ Joe’s achievement really was. Using a comprehensive collection of baseball statistics from 1871 to 2005, we simulated the entire history of baseball 10,000 times in a computer. In essence, we programmed the computer to construct an enormous set of parallel baseball universes, all with the same players but subject to the vagaries of chance in each one.

Here’s how it works. Think of baseball players’ performances at bat as being like coin tosses. Hitting streaks are like runs of many heads in a row. Suppose a hypothetical player named Joe Coin had a 50-50 chance of getting at least one hit per game, and suppose that he played 154 games during the 1941 season. We could learn something about Coin’s chances of having a 56-game hitting streak in 1941 by flipping a real coin 154 times, recording the series of heads and tails, and observing what his longest streak of heads happened to be.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/opinion/30strogatz.html?ex=1364616000&en=96af12bdef4456f7&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

[MrModerate]

9. There's no empirical evidence that Tinkerbell never existed either . . .

But I still don't believe in fairies.

Your coming at this, IMO, from the wrong direction. Proving the existance of god is the believer's job: the nonbeliever just doesn't care. Maintaining faith is the occupation of the faithful; those who eschew faith just.don't.care.

There are an infinite number of possible truths for which there is no empirical proof of their nonexistance -- and no reason whatsoever to expend even a second debating them.

It really doesn't matter. There's no there there, no hint of there there, and no reason to puzzle over why.

[Smith_3]

18. I don't see how the Tinkerbell/Spaghetti Monster argument applies here.

We are talking about the fabrics of reality here, not Tinkerbell.

This argument can be invoked for physical objects that exist inside the universe and are bound to its laws. It has simply nothing to do with the basis of what we call reality and so on.

:shrug:

[asthmaticeog]

22. No, you're talking about Tinkerbell.

Unless you provide a better definition of what you're calling "god," you have no grounds on which to even continue this discussion, or for that matter to have even started it. "...physical objects that exist inside the universe and are bound to its laws" doesn't come anywhere CLOSE to the common understanding of any supernatural creator entity.

[Smith_3]

28. Ok, here a "physical" argument:

Quantum physics as we understand it requires the presence of an "observer" to force the continuum of possible histories of a system to collapse into a single concrete history which becomes factual. Unless you want to assume that human mind is the only possible observer capable of this (and thus creating a very anthopocentric worldview which would elevate the human mind to such a creator), it is not unreasonable to assume that some part of "nature" or "reality" is capable of playing the part of such an observer, which would thus also be a creator in some sense.

[asthmaticeog]

32. So you're personifying nature and/or reality to make a case for the existence of god?

On what grounds do you do so? An objection to anthropocentrism isn't sufficient evidence to make the leap to a personalized "nature." And who said the observer had to be human? And even so, making the leap without evidence to the observer being a sort of universal consciousness is too huge for the evidence you provide, which seems to amount to little more than "Why not?" The observer only has to be observing and measuring. And finally, there is nothing about humans observing quantum phenomena that makes us creators. The point is we don't know what would have happened had we not looked. Nor do we know what will happen when we look - we need to look and measure, we don't just say "ha ha, I shall observe this and change it (from whatever it is now into some very specific thing), for I am the almighty observer of quanta!" Potentially changing a phenomenon isn't the same as creating it. You're making arguments from all kinds of fatally flawed premises, begging questions and constructing straw men all over the place. Start over.

[John Gauger]

47. It is not anthropocentric to assume that humans are the only observers.

There is no evidence for any other observers. Until there is some evidence that other observers exist, it is unscientific to assume that they do.

[Orrex]

65. I think that we're putting too much literal importance on "observer"

"Observer" in this context need not be the lonely grad student with the microscope who watched the thing happen; instead, the "observer" can be a secondary microscopic event that occurred, such that it could not have occurred if the primary event had had the other of two possible outcomes.

[Smith_3]

74. That is interesting.

Do you have any more background information on that?

I always thought that it has been shown that at least within the framework of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, it can be shown that the point of observation can be arbitrarly shifted by including the surroundings and the measuring apparatus into the quantum describtion, up until the point of an actual human observer looking at the display.

[MrModerate]

26. So now you're defining god as . . .

Outside the universe and not bound to its laws. I have two observations:

1) That covers just about everything that's real or unreal -- as long as there's no evidence in favor of its existance. Which is to say, an utterly pointless object of discussion.

2) If I choose to assign Tinkerbell (or the Spaghetti Monster) the typical attributes of a god: omniscience, creation, interest in human affairs, etc., etc., and then add in the fact that she is "outside the universe and not bound to its laws," which is to say, totally imaginary, then I've arrived at your notion of god. And it's still pointless.

In the absence of faith, anything for which there is no evidence is meaningless. If you have faith, good on you. Just don't expect lack of disproof to carry much weight with anyone else.

[asthmaticeog]

29. Did I misunderstand?

I thought he was trying to define a god that was inside the universe and bound to it's laws - maybe that's why I found that line of argument so puzzling! I've NEVER heard of god defined as a part of nature before, except by gooey pantheists who wanted to redefine trees, the air and the souls of their dead childhood pets as aspects of a generalized godhead so all-encompassing there was no reason to make the leap to calling everything "god" when we already have the word "everything."

[MrModerate]

33. I thought so too . . . playing the deist provocateur who . . .

tricks benighted atheists into revealing a deep desire to believe in something by leading them down a metaphorical rabbit-hole.

I've never seen it work, but I've often seen it tried.

As an aside, I particularly like your "why bother to use the word 'god' when we already have the word 'everything?' I'm going to save that one up and use it. There's a group of pseudophilosophical sorts I sometimes hang out with who would crown me wit d'jour for dropping that one into conversation.

I'll have to use it without attribution, unfortunately.

[asthmaticeog]

35. Oh, feel free to steal it!

I, in turn, will be borrowing "deist provocateur" from time to time. :D

[eShirl]

12. How do you come to deduce a creator does exist?

How did that creator come to exist?

[Smith_3]

19. I don't deduce that a creator exists.

I say that science can explain things that happen inside of physical reality, not physical reality itsself.

[fasttense]

13. Personally all those different connections and

squirrelly designs among life forms and physics strongly suggest a very random system. Most naturally random systems are very, very complicated. I see no intentional design. I see haphazard principals colliding and randomly asserting themselves. Now show me a simple streamlined design and I could possibly see the hidden hand of the maker.

[asthmaticeog]

16. No way to answer without question-begging.

Any attempt to answer would be presuming the existence of "streamlined design" (whatever that even is) in nature where that's precisely what there's no evidence for.

You were 100% right up until that last bit, though.

[fasttense]

21. Exactly my point..

There is no evidence of streamlined designs and simple principals in nature and physics. Your inability to even conceive of it shows how unnatural the idea is. Nature and physics are very convoluted. Complicated patterns are necessary for random systems. There is no hidden hand of design in nature.

[asthmaticeog]

25. My point is that "streamlned" is utterly meaningless (except as a relative descriptor)

and "design" is endlessly debatable. I think we're making the same argument with different languages here! I only know so much about physics; I'm a designer. :D

[fasttense]

31. Well, it was meant as a relative descriptor

It provides no more information than saying it is a complicated design.

I just get tired of people bringing out that old canard that because it is complicated it indicates someone or something designed it. From what I've read and observed, randomness requires complications.

Anyway you are right we are arguing the same point. Glad to see that someone else noticed it too. :)

[Smith_3]

80. I am not talking about "design" in particular patterns that can emerge in nature.

I am talking about design in the rules which govern their interaction, which can lead to such emergence.

[sam sarrha]

15. you make some logical points, but never forget that logic does not necessarily make an actual truth,

logic is a mathematical game with words..one thing being as it is, does not make or deny another as it is.

a question may be infinitely curious.. but stories swapped by illiterate nomads over a roaring fire of goat turds, is not justification of god.

Abraham had all the symptoms of Schizophrenia, today the only people who hear voices telling them to kill their children are schizophrenic, schizophrenia runs in families.. Mohamed was direct descendant of abraham and exhibited similar symptoms... no wonder both religions are responsible for most of the insanity today... conceder the source.

i can come up with more logical examples for rejecting god based on the shear stupidity of basing your belief on fairy tales, but i don't believe anyone should be forced to believe in and live by in another's hallucinations.. and your belief has a bad track record relative to personal freedom.. i want nothing to do with it.

[asthmaticeog]

17. Insufficient evidence = no good reason to believe. Hence a lack of belief. Next question. nt

[Ian David]

24. I am willing to concede a SMALL possibility that our Universe was created by an intelligent agent...

... as a single particle among countless billions inside something like a particle accelerator.

I imagine it's possible (albeit extremely unlikely) that The Big Bang that created our universe was actually a collision inside the laboratory experiment of an intelligent being. Or perhaps even as a biological function of a non-sentient hyperdimensional being (Our Universe may be a single molecule of hyperdimensional worm poop).

I imagine it's also possible (though even more unlikely than the already EXTREMELY unlikely possibility of the above being true) that the being(s) responsible for the experiment knew they were creating universes in which intelligent life could emerge.

I imagine it's also possible (though even more unlikely than the already EXTREMELY unlikely possibility of the above being true) that those beings were able to tweak the starting conditions of the universes they were creating, so that they would be able to configure universal constants such as gravity, planck's constant, etc.

I also imagine that human beings may themselves someday be able to produce thousands of universes at a time inside something like a particle accelerator. I don't think one needs to attain god-like or omnipotent powers to do this.

However, I still find it completely impossible that any being would be able to monitor-- let alone influence-- the day-to-day functioning of the beings or objects within The Universe, let alone desire to guide them morally or have the ability to scoop-up their souls to preserve until the end of time.

[The Night Owl]

34. I am an agnostic atheist. I take Carl Sagan's position on the origin of the Universe...

People who believe in God seem to think that because science cannot explain how the Big Bang happened, then we should assume that the theistic explanation, which is really just the God of the Gaps, is the correct one. I disagree. If we assume that God created the Universe, then we must ask how God came to be. If we cannot answer how God came to be, then why don't we save a step and simply say that we don't know how the Universe came to be?

Keep in mind that some atheists do not rule out the God hypothesis. They just don't see any reason to consider it.

[XRubicon]

36. Everything we don't understand could be created by god

Or my toenail. There is no evidence for either argument, but I'm pretty sure it is my toe nail.

There were elegant models of an earth centered solar system too, good thing we looked a little deeper.

[Jim__]

38. What problem does god solve?

Granted, the question of why anything exists is, I believe, currently unanswered and maybe unanswerable by the human brain. But, we can't solve the problem of existence by postulating that a god exists. The original question also pertains to this god, so we've resolved nothing.

As to: Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are way to brilliant concepts just to be there for no apparent reason, my understanding is that Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are human ideas that we use to explain the behavior of matter and energy. We don't really need to understand everything about atoms or gravity in order to survive in the world, so it's probably not that surprising that we don't perceive these things very well. Using scientific instruments we know thay are there, consciousness let's us look out into space and ask questions about what's going on. But, really, we're pretty much earth-bound (ignoring the little bit of space travel that's been done) primates trying to explain a universe that is mostly not available to our perception. Yes, it looks extrememly complicated to us, but that may just be due to our general ignorance.

There may be some intelligent entity that created our universe, but what is the evidence. And, lacking such evidence, why postulate such a being. We'll probably learn a lot more about the universe by examining it directly than by guessing about some creator.

[The Night Owl]

40. I think what the OP is struggling with is the fact that there is something rather than nothing.{EOM}

[Jim__]

44. How does god resolve that? - n/t

[The Night Owl]

51. God resolves nothing because God is, as far as anyone knows, nothing more than...

...a hypothesis.

[varkam]

52. Well said eom

[Marrah_G]

42. Why limit it to just one creator? There could be many !

[John Gauger]

45. There is no evidence.

Do you believe in unicorns? How can you conclusively say that there are no unicorns? By your own logic, I submit that your failure to believe in unicorns is intellectually bankrupt.

[rusty fender]

46. As an atheist, I don't have to account for nothing--

as a believer, the onus is on you to prove that there is something. DUH!

[Evoman]

49. Yeah, so? There is no empirical evidence whatsoever that would suggest a creator.

The only reasonable thing to do is not believe. If someone down the road offers evidence, then good. If no one does, good..I haven't wasted my time believing in something that may not exist and probably doesn't exist.

[smoogatz]

50. Your basic premise is dead on arrival.

You can't prove a negative. As in, I can't prove categorically that people who ask questions such as yours do not fuck sheep when no one's looking. I can, however, say with reasonable certainty that there's no empirical evidence (that I'm aware of) that such people do fuck sheep. They've never been observed to have fucked sheep, and the sheep show no signs of having been fucked by them. Until such time as someone does observe a person who asks a question such as yours in the act of fucking a sheep (or perhaps more than one), or until other evidence of sheep-fucking arises (suspicious footprints in the sheep pen, a lot of over-stimulated sheep, etc.), it's reasonable to conclude that people who ask questions such as yours probably do not fuck sheep, at least not in significant numbers. If/when new evidence to the contrary arises, most rational atheists would probably amend their views to reflect it, and would accept as fact the proposition that people who ask questions such as yours actually do fuck sheep, regularly, enthusiastically and in large numbers. I hope this metaphorical example helps to clarify your thinking on this matter.

[The Night Owl]

57. If one wants to spend time considering the remote possibility that...

...a supreme being created the Universe, then why not spend time considering the remote possibility that a supreme being was the evolutionary product of the Universe? Consider...

We know for a fact that the process which produced humans took a short span of time compared to how long the Universe has been around. One can only wonder what the ocean of time which preceded humans facilitated.

[cynatnite]

58. I can't prove absolutely that Santa Claus exists...yet, I'm pretty sure he doesn't...

I waited up and he never showed with presents. I read up on the scientific data such as trips to the North Pole, spoke to mall Santa's and searched for flying reindeer. Nope, no absolute proof.

I applied the same with Jesus and God.

Conclusions are the same.

[RC]

63. How can there be a Creator?

This is the far side of Saturn, looking back toward the sun which is hidden by saturn.
At the 9:30 position, within the rings, there is a small light grey dot. That dot is us. The Earth.
Everyone we know, everyone we every knew or will know is on that little dot.
Every place we have every been, but for a very few, has been is on that little dot.
All the wars fought, all the blood spilled to control little parts of that little dot - as if some of us were more important than others somehow...
Saturn is the 6th planet out. This picture was taken by the Cassini spacecraft, well with in our own solar system. Uranus and Neptune are further out.
Our solar system is on the outer edge of an average run of the mill galaxy, 100 thousand light years across.
There are somewhere between 2 to 4 Billion other stars besides our own in our own galaxy.

There are over 6 billion of us on this little grey dot.
How are we important in any way shape or form in the grand scheme of things?
Is there a Deity that can sort out and hear our individual prayers from all the other 'intelligent' life forms on all the other countless solar systems in all the other countless galaxies in our universe? Are you sure?

We are such an arrogant, reality challenged species that we have not yet learned to look beyond our own finger tips...

[John Gauger]

69. I... I think I love you.

That was amazing....

[cain_7777]

71. LOL, you reminded me of Monty Pythons

http://www.gecdsb.on.ca/d&g/astro/music/galaxy.mp3

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough...

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the "Milky Way".

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

(Animated calliope interlude)

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And hope that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

Composers: Eric Idle & John Du Prez
Author: Eric Idle
Singer: Eric Idle
From the 'Meaning of Life' album, MCA Records MCA 6121

[Smith_3]

75. So? Then check this out:

This is a cherry. This cherry weighs less then a gram. On your dot, there exist billions of these cherries. However, this single cherry is made of on the order of 10^23 atoms. That is 100000000000000000000000 individual entities. Much much more than there are stars in our galaxy. Each Atom however, has a nucleus, with an infinitely complicated substructure. The individual nucleons within the nucleus have three valence quarks which determine its color and electric charge, but infinitely many complicated and intertwined sea quarks and gluons, that are created and destroyed out of nothing, by unobservable quantum fluctuations of the vacuum. Within this cherry, the entire laws of nature are present. What you see of this cherry, is just a very small aspect of it, namely the long range electric forces. Every potential form of matter already exists within the vacuum that fills the space between the atoms of this cherry.

Yet, the laws that govern the behaviour of this cherry are determined and eternally unchangeable, as far as we can grasp it. The cherry behaves causal up until distances of 10^{-32}. To say that just because something is small compared to some arbitrarily chosen lenght scale, that it makes it insignificant, is short sighted IMO.

The question which I raised in the OP, is aimed at this. If there is no intent behind it, then why are the laws of nature unchangeable and impossible to break. Why must the world be causal? I think intent or "programming" is a vaild point of view towards that.

I don't say I believe it. All I say is that I think, anything else than giving it a fifty to fifty chance is a belief of some sort.

[trotsky]

79. Ah, so it all comes down to the argument from personal incredulity.

"I just don't see how it could be otherwise, therefore it must be this way."

[Smith_3]

82. Well, again: I don't say that I prefer one point of view over the other.

I have no where claimed that I believe in a creator.

[trotsky]

83. What if it's turtles?

All the way down?

Sounds like you've got a 33-33-33 situation on your hands. Oh but what if an Invisible Pink Unicorn just shat the universe into existence? Oops, now it's 25-25-25-25. Dang this is getting confusing.

[Smith_3]

84. That is for you to decide.

You are certainly free to believe it is a Unicorn or turtles :shrug:

[hyphenate]

97. absolutely gorgeous picture!

I love pics of the solar system, galaxy and universe. It reminds me of how small we really are. And in that capacity, it makes science far more beautiful than any god a Terran has ever postulated.

[and-justice-for-all]

67. There is no empirical evicence whatsoever...

...that would suggest that there is a creator.

There is no divine intervention into the way things are or have been. They Universe works as it should without the assistance of a sentient being. If YOU are claiming that such a being exist, it is you duty to provide the evidence in defense of that claim.

However, to the contrary, there is NO empirical evidence to even suggest that there is or has been such a being.

"How can anyone claim that there is no god, when the truth is that we simply don't know?" The truth is, there is NO evidence supporting the claim of 'god', there is a higher probability that there is life on other worlds and in other galaxies than there is a divine creator. How can I say this? I can say that because observation and mathematical probability says so, unlike the 'hidden hand' idea.

Until there is solid evidence for the existence of the invisible wonder know as god, then the answer is NO, it does not exist. If it wants us to know that it exist and it has all the power of the universe in hand, surely it would make its self known to us in a clear way that would make its existence undeniable.

[enki23]

93. bubblegum shorts and flat gerbil houses

we don't know anything whatsoever with perfect certainty. if you are "agnostic" by that definition, you must be an agnostic in all things. if that is the case, then there is no reason to privilege "religious" beliefs in that way. if "uncertain" is the point at which you stop assessing the truth or falsity of a statement, then you must pretend equal uncertainty about the existence of little green men from mars, the moon actually being made of green cheese, elvis being alive, illuminati mind control, xenu (enough said), the earth orbiting the sun, the existence of plants, water being wet, beavis and butthead coming to life, murdering your family, and replacing them with alien doppelgangers who want to eat your soul, and jesus dying for your sins.

take the moon being made out of green cheese, for example. ultimately, i have to be "agnostic" about it. but, since i ultimately have to be agnostic about everything, agnostic becomes a completely meaningless word. a word that applies equally to everything is a word that has no meaning. i'd call it a grunt, but a grunt would be far more expressive.

however, you *could* instead recognize that we can make at the very least a rough estimate of the likelihood of a given claim being true based on how well it fits with the (imperfect) model we have developed of our world through observation and experimentation. you might come to the conclusion that different claims about reality are more or less likely to be true. from there, it's a very small step to recognizing that there are claims whose probability of being true are so small that it is both rational and convenient to dismiss them unless and until we discover something that changes our understanding of the universe in such a way as to merit a reevaluation.

religious claims are almost *all* of this type. like the earth standing still for joshua. like the son of god dying so that his father won't murder us forever because we were naughty. like an uncreated creator creating something because somethings can't come from nothing though presumably the uncreated creator is itself a something. and he loves you. those sorts of things.

[hyphenate]

96. There is WAY

too much evidence to suggest a god does not exist than there is to suggest otherwise. There are a couple of examples to be found in human beings alone to make the thought of a personal "creator" unlikely.

The nicititating membrane: this membrane, which is well known in some mammals (especially in cats, it's called the "haw" or "third eyelid") can be seen in a vestigial role in man.

Appendix: if we were created to some design, this completely irrelevant organ would never have even been formed in humans. As it is, the appendix DID have a role in mankind far enough in the past to be explainable, but for a role which it is no longer necessary.

The coccyx: at the end of the spine, we have the "tail bone" which is the vestigial remains of an actual tail. Like most mammals, especially of the common ancestor we share with primates, we once used and had need of a tail. But once we evolved from the tree-dwelling mammals and converted from 4 legged creatures to those who stood upright on two, the tail was no longer necessary, and it began its permanent trip to obsoleteness. However, we have that to always remind us of our less than stellar origin.

If "creation" was so cut and dried, these things would certainly never have existed at any time, and we would not have genetic illnesses, or any other kind of unnecessary parts. We could even be considered "constructs" instead of living, breathing, thinking human beings. But we have many things wrong with us as human beings that point less to a creator and more to the standards of a process we fondly call evolution. Evolution is the zenith of that old saying, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Mother nature (without the implication of a "god" figure) keeps trying, but we're proof that she still hasn't gotten it right yet.

[Smith_3]

98. Please read my post again.

I am no where debating against the factual correctness of the evolution of species.

[Unvanguard]

99. Because "knowledge" is a rather high standard.

I usually don't claim to "know" much of anything in a strict philosophical sense. But we have strong reasons to believe that there is no god, just as we have strong reasons to believe that there is no teapot orbiting the Earth. The idea is absurd on its face even in the absence of direct empirical evidence either way.

Edit: As for laws of nature, I see no reason why they are intuitively any less plausible than the alternative, even in a world without a creator.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

100. What do you think about the HUP?

Pretty much rules out omniscience, doesn't it?

[uberllama42]

101. I never thought about that

But it does makes sense. Since theists sometimes appeal to Heisenberg as grounds to posit free will, and free will seems to contradict God's omniscience, I think it follows that Heisenberg also weighs heavily against omniscience. Interesting point.