pondering creation
Sometimes, when I’m watching swallows swooping, or funny faced donkeys in a field, or just bumble bees buzzing around flowers, I’m completely astonished I can believe all this is here by chance. In those moments of wonder at the beauty and intricacy of our existence, I completely understand why humans are drawn to explanations that suggest everything is designed. It’s instinctive. And in the absence of any of our accumulated human knowledge, it would even be logical.
However, fortunately for us, we live in times when we don’t have to rely completely on our innate animal instincts to make sense of the world. We have lots of information tools to help come to more sophisticated conclusions.
Astronomers use giant telescopes to peer into the history of our universe, giving us insight into the miniscule significance of our planet and can give us good indications of the age of our solar system and how the universe itself was naturally formed.
Geobiologists study rocks and microorganisms to demonstrate that the Earth has changed significantly since it was formed billions of years ago.
Anthropologists and archaeologists study the remains of human societies through history and give us a picture of the myriad superstitious religions that have cropped up in every isolated corner of the world.
Historians interpret the documents and stories passed through generations, separating fact from legend, and propaganda from reality.
Psychologists study our brains and our behaviour, giving us insights into our childish need to assign agency, our craving for meaning and control, our fear of not existing – all of which have made supersitious beliefs powerfully seductive to us as a species.
Sometimes, when I see the opinion of the Pope being taken seriously, or women walking around with their full faces covered by fabric, or people streaming out of churches on Sundays, I’m completely astonished that so many people can believe all this is here on the whim of an invisible being. In those moments of head-scraching at the overwhelming evidence for a natural explanation for our existence, I can’t understand why humans are still drawn to explanations that suggest everything is designed. I know it’s instinctive. But we now live in a time when all our accumlated human knowledge clearly points to religions being nothing more than the refined product of superstitious ignorance. When, as a species, will we wake up? Will we ever collectively be able to shake off this powerful instinct that we hand from generation to generation?
Actually, for human beings, being stupid is instinctive.
We are the only creatures on Earth who have to be taught everything including where to go poop and what to do about it afterward.
And it is instinctive to think that everything just happened all by itself not that everything was designed.
Consequently, the atheist can be though of as atavistic man aka Homo estupido.
The rest of us, Homo sapiens, came down out of the trees, got religion and then developed civilization.
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Interesting claims SOM. Have you spent no time with other animals? They all learn basic survival skills from the adults of the species, like hygiene, where to poo. Knowledge, successful survival traits, are passed through generations in all animals. We call it evolution, you may call it “magic invisible god messages”. 🙂
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Violet,
Maybe you haven’t noticed but all animals do is eat, poop and reproduce.
Except for man.
We build skyscrapers, compose music, write literature, develop technology from science.
The atheist never asks herself about the impossibility of nature evolving a creature that is far beyond nature itself.
How can that be, Violet.
How is it possible that nature evolved a creature that not only does not know its own human nature, but is beyond nature itself?
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@SoM-
The proud atheist boasts of its little ‘booms’ to raise the toasting glass of touche! regarding godlessness, but you have offered here the sonic boom of common sense which quiets the mouths of all men, and shuts the tongues of all women.
Common sense, as in bears do not know how to spin a spiders web, and the spider is clueless as to tying his shoes.
Not evolution, but instinct. The bear and the spider are wired from the get go, but man is the pinnacle of creation. Common sense 101.
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This message brought to you by the cyber-resident flat-earther. 🙂
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Ah yes, specking of sleight of hand, very nice of you to ignore what is staring you in the face by way of my comment to Som.
But that is in the atheistic play book yes yes?
You can’t refute the truth, so let’s simply change the subject.
I do notice this is standard operating procedure for you especially, and most of your brethren when met with excoriating facts and truth.
Malign, accuse, slander, etc etc, all with a view to discredit the obvious. Ha, and you boast of evolution. Violet if she was fair, should slap you silly.
Oh wait, in your world, bears CAN acquire the ability to spin a web, it just takes time………. lol
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The point of my comment, CS, was to point out the one facet of your ‘worldview’ which destroys your credibility.
Which you so admirably expanded upon to illustrate my point even further. 🙂
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Hmm carm. Maybe you can check with a few of your learned and illustrious friends and ask them if they have ever SEEN the earth move one inch????
Or are you DARE I SAY, accepting this on FAITH? You are crackin me up, an atheist living by faith while cursing the life of faith.
But you are ‘pondering creation’ right? Eh, didn’t think so.
(Sorry Violet for the digression, but as you can see, some things (and people) need to be exposed by the sound of the beating on the anvil of truth.)
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Sorry ColourStorm, I’m not up to speed with your full belief system. Are you suggesting the Earth doesn’t rotate?
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The better question V: Have YOU seen it move, or are you relying on OTHERS ‘special dispensation of knowledge,’ or THEIR eyewitness accounts, or of untested assumptions, and unproven theories?
Or have you always assumed what you have been spoon fed by so called smart people and pea brained goons such as Neil Degrasse?
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Just for you, a pretty camera sitting above the earth
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-iss-stream
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That’s nice jz. Images like that are a dime a dozen. You may want to research just exactly what you are looking at, (including opposing views) and since you boast of curvature, study your own formula of 8 inches per mile squared…………….which formula you need………… and see how it does not stand the reality test. 😉 Your own formula mocks your ignorance.
Are you aware john that humans are clueless as to what lies beneath the oceans a mere few feet from the surface??? And are you aware of the distortions when looking through an atmosphere of water mile after mile after mile after mile????????? What’s the point? If ‘scientists’ are clueless as to what is a few feet away, they are equally incredible as to what lies beyond.
Have you ever seen the ISS pics where WATER is found in the images…….INSIDE????????? Hmmmm.
Facts are a bitch. But tkx for your interest. It shows you are thinking. 😉
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Is your family aware that you’re a flat earther?
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@jz
@
V
I appreciate the word ‘stationary.’
Btw,
….the plumb line….
…..the compass……..
…..the carpenter’s level…….. these three……..and the greatest of these is………. 😉
If care to study the matter, these tools are invaluable in your quest for truth. Use them.
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ColorStorm – can you explain what the millions of people involved in the coverup about this stationary ‘not planet’ we inhabit (every single airline pilot and member of flight crew, everyone involved in astronomy, everyone involved in space exploration, most of the media, most politicians etc) are hoping to gain from a deception about whether we are on a ball that spins or a flat earth? What would be the possible motivation? Most Christians still practise their faith on the understanding that science has this one right – so it’s not an atheist conspiracy.
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Ah but Violet, you assume too much. I challenge you to seek out OTHER airline pilots, ship captains, engineers of all stripes, land surveyors, farmers, doctors, sheriffs, who all disagree with you, when they have examined all evidence, data, and alleged mind numbing speeds of the earth’s alleged travel.
Do your own research, and try to prove it wrong. You would be surprised at your conclusions, if………..you follow the evidence.
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You didn’t answer my question – what would be the point in deception? I forgot to mention all the sailors who regularly sail around the world’s seas in one direction – what do you think they are doing? Or are they in on this conspiracy too? 🙂
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You are asking the wrong questions V. You assume that people who lived before you were idiots.
I’m not saying anything new. Your sailor? Imagine if you can HOW he finds his way? Does he use a ball? Hmmm? He would be lost in a New York minute.
And btw, no pilot alive has ever seen curvature. But people are lazy thinkers and are happy being spoon fed.
And I failed to mention the ten degrees halting of the sun……… 😉
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This picture was taken yesterday at 09:43, Friday July 14th, over Africa by DSCOVR satellite sitting out at Lagrange 1
Where’s Australia on your flat earth, CS?
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jz
I suggest you sort out your own contradictions.
Study the mystery of the Suez canal (which is no mystery) and watch your bouncing ball disappear just as quick as your fake curvature. 😉
But you never did address whether or not you can walk on a soccer ball like an ant……..
Maybe if you had smaller feet?
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Where is Australia, CS?
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Awesome jz, a guy who asks for directions!
If you knew where Antartica was, Aust. would be easy. Search it!
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Where is Australia, CS?
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Oh look! There’s Australia. This photo was taken at 03:10 on Friday July 14th. Now, where on earth has Africa gone???
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Oh look its the big blue marble, which marble has been changed every year for decades.
NASA is still eating eggs on the face, and you may want to research WHY the photos keep changing; continent sizes etc.
Pure laughter.
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I’m totally confused about how I flew all the way around the world, and none of the pilots noticed it was a conspiracy. I’m also confused that Ecuador happens to get 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night all year round, while the seasons are opposite every time we go from Scotland to Argentina. What function do these spinning/tilting globe clues have to a flat earth creator? And, more importantly, what does anyone gain from the ‘conspiracy’, in your mind? I’d love answers if you can focus on the questions for a sec.
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I would not call it ‘conspiracy’ but more aptly ‘organized ignorance.’ Enjoy this quote by a man who disagreed with sir Albert, and speaks to the issue at hand Vi.
“[Einstein’s theory of relativity is] a magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king… its exponents are brilliant men, but they are meta-physicists rather than scientists.”
~ Nikola Tesla, Inventor and Electrical Engineer (1856-1943)
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Carmen,
Yet again, another HUGE, GLARING logical fallacy on your part.
You aren’t always right either, yet here you are sounding off like you know what your are talking about.
In fact your comment to Storm is an example of you, once again, arguing with yourself and losing.
If we all had to be correct about everything in order to make an argument about something, the result would be the sound of one hand clapping.
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“If we all had to be correct about everything in order to make an argument about something, the result would be the sound of one hand clapping.” Is that a riddle?
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Violet,
There is no comparison between Shakespeare, Mozart and Da Vinci and birds, bees and termites.
People who can’t tell the difference are examples of retrograde, uncouth barbarians.
And in fact, atheism is humanity slouching its way back to retrograde, uncouth barbarism.
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Au contraire my friend. If you don’t understand what they have in common, what inspires us creatures to create, you probably are not fully appreciating the creations – either from the humans specifically, or from the rest of the natural world.
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Storm,
I do not understand the atheist notion that “everything just happened all by itself” is somehow sophisticated.
It isn’t.
It is sophomoric.
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The reply (to those screenshots of yours JZ) SoM sputters is, “Yes, but we’re both still on Team Jesus!”
🙂
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Carmen and John,
I like what I say and I love myself for saying it.
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SoM,
There has never been any doubt in my mind that you love yourself. Believe me.
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Hear, hear! 😉
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Nice clippings John! Where did this happen?
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Colourstorm revealed himself to be a flat earther. Seriously. SOM, bless his heart, let him know how insanely stupid that was. There were other comments even better than these, but these ones made me chuckle.
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Good stuff jz.
Unlike you however, I have no malice toward your attempt to stir up strife or cast division between good people, nor do I scorn others ignorance for not being able to prove through logic, observation, facts, and common sense that the heavens declare the glory of God, and His immovable throne.
But tkx for keeping me, an insignificant nobody, on your radar. 😉
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Aww, CS. Just takin’ one for the team, eh? 😉
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No carm, just telling the truth. 😉
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Storm,
Don’t worry, John is like CNN who tries to destroy anyone who dares expose them for what they really are.
Can you imagine how psychotic John must be to keep screen shots of all our conversations?
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Silenceofmind, jumping to conclusions, are you not? How did you come to the conclusion, that John has screen shots of all of your conversations? Has he claimed to have those? If you have no good reason to believe he has, I’d say it is possibly a bit psychotic, but quite surely rather self centered even to assume anything as much, by the fact that he has presented a couple of your most ridiculous discussions.
Since you went on a tangent here, I am a bit curious. What do you think the CNN really is?
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Rautakyy,
If WordPress doesn’t work out for you I hear O. J. Simpson is looking for a new lawyer.
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Just the one’s that make me laugh… Like this one from Colourstorm whining about censorship.
Oh, the hypocricy!
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John,
Hypocrite hunting among humans is like shooting fish in a barrel or going out and picking low hanging fruit.
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Beyond nature? You’re kidding I take it. Destruction of the environment for greed and gain. Wholesale killing of cultures and countries. That’s not better or more intelligent than anything. More likely we were dumped here from outer space because no one wanted us. Must have been a god that did that too
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“How is it possible that nature evolved a creature that not only does not know its own human nature, but is beyond nature itself?”
I’m not convinced we’re beyond nature. We use materials in our natural environment to create things that seem extraordinary to many of us, that build on the collective knowledge of millions of other humans. It’s not magic, and our motivations are much the same as other animals. Have you ever stopped to admire the individual songs of birds? Or gasped at the structures of termites? Our music and our architecture come from similar places.
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“We build skyscrapers, compose music, write literature, develop technology from science”
Insert (a) god. . . or “Magic!”
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Carmen,
“We build skyscrapers, compose music, write literature, develop technology from science,” means that evolution is a very incomplete narrative.
I’ll ask again,
How is it that nature would evolve a creature that surpasses and is not bound by nature?
Look at your view of gay rights for example…
…if evolution were true, there would be no such thing as gay rights, only human rights.
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Beyond nature? You’re kidding I take it. Destruction of the environment for greed and gain. Wholesale killing of cultures and countries. That’s not better or more intelligent than anything. More likely we were dumped here from outer space because no one wanted us. Must have been a god that did that too
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Jim,
Destruction of the environment for greed and gain is beyond nature and so is the wholesale killing of cultures and countries.
I tend to focus on the positive, but man is beyond nature in a negative way too, as you point out so well.
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Destruction of the environment for greed and gain is beyond nature
Perhaps you should look up certain strains of parasitism… the one’s that kill their host. And locust plagues. And…
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John,
Many creatures destroy their environments due to over population.
The natural response to that usually death by starvation or disease or both.
The claim that Jim made is that man destroys his environment for reasons of greed and gain.
Such a situation places man beyond nature.
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Many creatures destroy their environments due to over population.
Wrong again. Wombats are atrocious for any area they’re in… and it has nothing to do with overpopulation. They’re just stupid and forget where their burrows are, so wind up digging dozens, ruining hillsides and causing erosion, rendering the land useless.
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John,
Well, maybe you should argue with Jim.
Wombats appear to be as messy as ducks which are unsurpassed in pooping up any pond they are in.
Also, I dare you to walk through any cow pasture in flip flops or tennis shoes.
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So I think we can agree, nature is not terribly good at finding balance… More like a pendulum swinging between plenty and scarcity.
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John,
Nature is great at finding balance.
In science that is called equilibrium.
The thing is, everything is always in motion or dynamic or in flux.
Nature hardly ever stands still unless you are a rock.
In which case you are attacked 24/7 by water and wind and the motion of tectonic plates.
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…and if you’re an organism, an evolving maelstrom of increasingly concentrated predation, fear, disease, parasitism, thirst, hunger, starvation, sexual frustration, intraspecific aggression, ostracism, neuroses, complex and not-so complex phobias
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John,
One might suppose that that unfortunate creature is up Shit Creek without a canoe.
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And that’s in what biologists call a healthy ecosystem.
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John,
At this moment I am sipping tea and watching something wretched on Netflix.
The closest “healthy ecosystem” around here is my toilet.
Drat! I haven’t cleaned it in two days!
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I think that’s a rather simplistic view of religion. I don’t know what a survey in your part of the world would reveal, but here less than ten percent of Christians believe the biblical creation stories should be interpreted literally. This can be confirmed by that fact that ninety-give percent of Kiwis believe that the Big Bang theory is the best one we have to explain the creation of the universe. Likewise a similar number believe in the theory of evolution.
And the concept of God as an invisible, all knowing, all powerful being capable of manipulating believers and nonbelievers alike is a rather antiquated idea supported by a minority of Christians in my experience.
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Hi, Barry.
I comment on a fairly regular basis on the ramblings of an Ausi Christian named Unklee, who would likely be considered ”moderate”. He seems clued up on many facets of science, etc and is a firm believer in evolution,and considers much of the Old Testament myth.
For all this, he believes in the resurrection of the character Jesus of Nazareth and believes in the Virgin Birth and the power of prayer.
In all honesty, does someone like this deserve any more respect that a Giant Nob like Colorstorm?
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It’s not specifically about creationism, it’s the build up of overwhelming evidence against religions being based on anything other than human fantasy. Like I say in the post, I understand the attraction, but even though most religions evolve to take scientific findings into account and are slowly dumping the most embarrassing myths, the history of religion is quite damning to its credibility and our understanding of our brains casts serious doubts in the rest of it. What do you see that I don’t?
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When, as a species, will we wake up? Will we ever collectively be able to shake off this powerful instinct that we hand from generation to generation?
Not in our lifetime, but the move toward a secular humanist society is already happening.
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I’d like to think it is, but I see too many smart people continuing to pass religion on, and too many unacceptable things in our secular society – like public funding for specific religious schools that aren’t kept afloat by seriously religious parents, just people who want a ‘better’ education for their kids (don’t get me started, I’m almost one of them!).
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Have fun!
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Poor Wally, and that dreadful ramble about him being divorced in the middle of the ‘broken families’ condemnation – did I read that right? He means well. I haven’t been to a camp to help disadvantaged children so I can’t judge… although I did agree with most of your comments.
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And the religious seem to be out-breeding the nons. I hope reason and deconversions continue to happen at a more rapid pace.
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I’m sure religion in Pictland, the UK and Europe in general, as it is in Australia and Brazil, is mostly cultural. It’s not actual. That strange, strange Creationist worldview that is evangelical America is a tiny pocket of extraordinary nonsense… a belief set more closely aligned with radical Islam than the vast majority of people who fill in “Catholic/Christian” on their census forms every 5 years.
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I’m still disturbed by the claw effect of religions like Catholicism – it has a disturbing grip even on people who generally don’t believe.
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It is a club trapdoor waiting to be sprung if, say, the general population turns against another group like, say, Muslims.
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Prompted by something in the comments thread, I share with you something from October last year but which I noticed yesterday and found fascinating: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chimps-may-be-capable-of-comprehending-the-minds-of-others/
They know someone might believe something which is not true.
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Clare,
What does “comprehending the minds of others” even mean?
What a load of crap!
You people are SOOOoooo gullible.
Scientific American is a leftist rag that abandoned science decades ago.
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How awful it must be for you, surrounded by idiots! If you never meet people who understand the world like you do, you must be lonely.
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Clare,
I have never, ever met a chimpanzee who understood the world like I did.
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It’s useful to know on some level, but I find all these studies on animals truly disturbing. In fact, that’s why I dumped psychology in first year at university, seemed to be for people who couldn’t understand people or animals naturally, and had to make absurd experiments to come to obvious conclusions. Poor chimps living in labs!!
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Hello violetwisp,I love the way you write,all true except from my point of view,it’s true mankind needs an outlet for worship and he usually finds it in “God”,but what if it’s not religion that it’s about but relationship…like He chooses us rather than us choosing Him…
Man lost his right to perfection in Eden,as for one,I have gained it back and that is the beginning of the worlds best kept secret.
I hope you are seeking truth and become like me,it brings the rest into focus
Cheers
Skypilotgill
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Yuck! Another creepy evangelist.
”Hey, preacher, leave those kids alone!
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.”
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Those “kids” need to know Jesus or they revert to primitives!
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Rautakyy,children of religious people the same as children of irreligious people do develop an attitude to what tradition has trained them to think,what is “right”,though because our God desires our relationship people come in at different levels.
A person that is born to a Pastor for instance is highly thought of as “close” but possibly only close psychologically.On the other hand a person who is falling apart relationally in their world and thinks there is a chance with God will embrace the option whole heartedly.
I hope that helps.
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Skypilotgill, that is an interresting view. What are you actually saying? That this god of yours has chosen you but not me to be in a personal relationship? Why you, but not me? Is it because my parents and grandparents did not believe? Because to me that seems to be the biggest reason why I do not believe in gods. That I have never been taught that such are true in the first place. Why does this sort of god seem just as random as it did not exist?
What is it, when people claim they have a personal relationship with something they are unable to see, hear, taste, or feel exept within their own subjective realities? A personal relationship with their own imagination, seems far more likelier explanation, than an unexplainable and unnatural entity beyond material observable reality. Does it not?
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We can perceive reality in different ways,we may experience something on a dark rainy night but that experience being so wonderful could well keep us looking for rainy dark nights.We need a god as humans our planet is not as “good” as it used to be,but if this term of life were but a platform a launching pad for another level,then that’s different all of the “good” things we have missed out on from the past could be ours and more!
Yes it does seem that if our parents believed it would make it easier for us to believe…Christians have a saying, “God has no grandchildren”, God picks out people from the darkness of human understanding to be a light in that place.The hardest thing to deny is the reality we keep seeing and Christians are that!
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Skypilotgill, I agree that everyone percieves the reality around us from a slightly different angles and subjective views. But we also rely on an abundance of consensus on what the objective reality is like and in the end there is the objective reality around us. If we want to know what really is true, we do not reach deeper into our subjective minds, but try to figure out what the objective reality is. Right?
I do not feel any particular need for any particular gods. Why should I? If your “god has no grandchildren”, then why is it, that statistically most people who percieve themselves as Christians are the products of Christian cultural heritage. Are you not? Equally, most people who percieve themselves as Muslims are the products of Islamic cultural heritage. Are they not?
Christians claim their religion is true because it has saved many from alcoholism or drug reliant lives to purposefull, loving and productive lives. Muslims claim their religion is true because it has prevented even greater number of people from ever even becoming alcoholists and drug reliant and given them purposefull, loving and productive lives from the beginning. Neither proposition has anything at all to do with wether either concept of a god is actually true. Do they?
Both religions have taught people for generations to believe, that the believing in some other religion amounts to eternal torment in hellfire. How should we investigate wether if such threats are true? There have been terrible atrocities made in the name of both of these gods by sincere people who believed that one or the other god gave them moral justification to act and kill other people in the most imaginatively cruel ways. No gods ever appeared to stop them. What sort of gods are we talking about? Moral monsters, or impotent ones? Or is it much more likely in face of lacking evidence for the existance of either, that they simply do not exist any more than the thousands of different god concepts cooked up by the human imagination around the globe for thousands and thousands of years?
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Your right the Holy Bible of Cs teaches that ” the work is to believe” another important point is that if we don’t believe in any gods…man becomes our God as we all have governmental influence,we are not in a zoo!
Happiness stems from our place in the scheme of things and if we find our place in it well that is purpose rather than a perceived overlording.
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Welcome and thanks for your comment, Sky Pilot. I would suggest that religions arise from the experiences of individuals who egocentrically believe they have a ‘special purpose’ and have been secretly delivered information from invisible gods. It’s a pattern of human behaviour that we can analyse with the understanding that the messages are different to all these individuals, and end times prophets have been a very common feature of humanity. I hope you find the most logical conclusion and get yourself off that damaging path.
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Hello VW… Actually this path and as I have heard from many others on it has the power to transform us from drug reliant and depressed people into purposeful loving creatures!
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I hear physical exercise can do that too. All the benefits, without the potentially harmful side effects of telling people it’s the end of the world, they are evil, same sex attraction is the work of the devil etc.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276339/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC474733/
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“I’m completely astonished that so many people can believe all this is here on the whim of an invisible being.”
I have the complete opposite view. The other night, while sitting on a large deck in the mountains and gazing up at the sky, taking in the sheer enormity of our solar system, I said “I can’t believe people can look at this and believe it all started by chance.”
But, coming to sites like this and engaging with your perspective and those who comment with similar perspectives DOES help me understand why we could have polar opposite reactions to the same thing. So the reality is that I do get why people can look at the universe and have a different opinion about how it all started.
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Jim, have you not noticed, that most things in space-time happen by chance. There is very little we can actually confirm to happen as a result of any agency. Is there? Even then the chances for accidents (by chance) are very high indeed. Are they not?
I do not think the Theist idea of design is even very intuitive unless one has the cultural, heritage that tells one so. There is a long cultural evolution behind this heritage, but it is mostly based on the guesses of ignorant and superstitious people who held some charismatic or other form of authority. Is it not? There are of course evolutionary reasons why we may be inclined to see agency even where it does not exist, by a form of paranoia, that keeps us alive in face of possible threats, even when in the end it does not tell us the truth about things. However, even though such paranoia may be an evolutionary benefit for rapid instinctive behaviour models, it does not carry us very far in the face of long term problems, that require thorough analysis. Does it? I mean the chances for a mistake are rather high, when we operate on the assumptions that our intuition and instinct tells us the truth about the universe around us.
To me as an atheist, the only actual agency we are able to observe and verify on any even remotely reliable level is born out of a very long chain of chances slowly forming a line of more likely chances, than those before. We call those chances and changes the universe and much later emerging from that chain of events is the evoloution on at least this one tiny fragile speck of a planet in the wastness of the universe.
In contrast, the Theist position seems to be, that everything is a result of a particular agency. To call any such agency “benevolent” seems more like wishfull thinking, than anything else. Does it not? To call it “intelligent design” seems to be in direct cotrast to what we can observe. The design of the universe is not at all that clever. Is it? It is marvellous to behold, but not very well designed from our point of view. The only point of view we do have. The universe simply is what we happen to have. Any guesses beyond that are at best mere guesses.
The main problem of the Theist position is, that even if a particular individual feels or has the intuition that everything must be designed, it really tells us nothing at all about the reality around us. Not any more than an individual having the sincere notion that they are Napoleon reborn. Like any particular religions the person who has the particular notion of being Napoleon Bonaparte reborn is a result of their cultural heritage. It only tells us, that an individual can have such an intuitive, or instinctive perception of things. To turn such subjective notions into reality we should all accept as the truth or even most likely thruth, all the Napoleons reborn and the Theists still need to demostrate that this is even a possibility. In the absense of such demonstrations, the Napoleons reborn equally to the Theists still carry the burden of proof for these outlandish and unnatural propositions and there is no reason to believe them. Is there?
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I think I would answer “Yes” to all your questions, except this one: The design of the universe is not at all that clever. Is it?
I think it is pretty clever. It doesn’t seem random, it does seem ordered. It does seem designed. Granted, that doesn’t mean there is a designer and that it can very well all be random. But it doesn’t look that way.
I don’t think it necessarily takes a cultural heritage to arrive at this conclusion,but it surely helps.
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So, you would concede to the idea that most things happen by chance, but not that the universe is random? Can you see the contradiction?
Of course there is order in the universe, but what should make us think, that order is the result of agency? Any agency, let alone some perfect form of agency? The agency we humans and other animals project, seems often pretty random, in comparrison to how orderly totally random long lasting things seem to us, because when the chance occurs often enough, there forms a pattern. Yes?
Gravity pulls atoms and as a result water forms rivers, we in our subjective minds see beaty in landscape both esthetic and utilitarian, but does that relate to any way, in us assuming gravity is some clever design of some agency? Gravity also pulls asteroids to collide and we may see that as esthetically pleasing or not. The chance of asteroids colliding and forming planets where gravity sets them from the closest sun does not mean the design was particularly clever, nor that there was sapiency behind the event. More likely it bears wittness to the fact that random things in conjunction to natural order in the universe is the force wich creates new and more complex things without any agency.
It is merely honest to recognize, that we do not know what causes such natural order as the gravity. But we may research it. It is not very likely, that the end result of such a research, if we ever get actual answers is, that the guesses of ignorant superstitous dudes, who obviously wanted to govern and controll other people (for both good and bad ends) through the imaginary authority of a conviniently invisible deities is going to be the answer. Is it?
Jumping to that, or this conclusion, does not necessarily require a cultural heritage, but it would be weird if it did not affect the conclusion. Right? Ignorance often also helps in jumping to conclusions. Does it not? Culture is often the accumulation of conclusions about a great many things. Sometimes the conculsions are based on at least remotely verifiable facts and sometimes not.
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Yes, that would be a major contradiction!
That is not what I meant. I would concede to the idea that we don’t really have any idea how things happened, either by chance or design. Honesty on the topic requires that we accept the not knowing part. I don’t know, factually, how things got to be the way they are in the universe. Neither does anyone else. We were not there,so we have to base our conclusions on something other than first hand knowledge.
But believing / concluding one way or the other is not the same thing as knowing, is it?
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Yes, indeed. We believe what we take as the most likely truth. The – why we believe – may also reveal much about how true are the things we believe in. It is difficult to know the motivations of a nother person, when indeed we are so often – despite our percepted agency – unaware of our own actual motives. Yet there are plenty of sociological reasons for people to believe all sorts of “alternative facts”, conspiracy theories and supernatural agencies. The bottom line is more often than not, that people do not believe things because they have factual information about the issue, but because their cultural identities and sense of self are built on all sorts of nonsense, that never had any connection to any facts.
What I mean, is that since most things by far we bear witness to in the nature, world and the observable material universe are indeed quite random, or at very best, happen in conjunction to some natural order, or pattern, it is not at all so very intuitive for us to assume there is agency behind all of those observably random events. Patterns do not reveal agency. Waves move in a pattern, but it is not intuitive for us to assume there is some vawe creating agency behind them. If we however assume that everything is created by an agency, then we end up in a situation where there are no random things at all in the entire universe for us to even name anything as random. In that case recognizing a natural order or a pattern can no longer be used as a model to recognize the design of some pan-ultimate designer as that entity has alledgedly created and designed all events. Or are we talking about an imperfect creator entity that fails the creation despite good and seemingly perfect intentions this divine creator had?
I can see why it would be pleasing for people to assume a benevolent agency behind everything – A deity at least with whom to bargain for a better future (if one simply believes in this particular god, does the stuff this god teaches is virtuous, like pay tithes to support a priestly class), but I do not see any evidence, that this is the case. Do you? In my view it is logically quite obviously a form of wishfull thinking and a reason enough for a cultural heritage to evolve throghout generations to assume it is true, because it is a conforting concept.
The real question is not wether the material observable universe was created by some intelligence, or not. That is a bit silly question before we have any evidence at all other than the instinctive, intuitive, subjective world view of some individuals, or cultural heritage of the masses from ignorant people of the past, many of whom obviously had various motivations (from gaining power to simply trying to explain the unexplained) to make wild claims to explain nature in superstitious, supernatural terms.
The real question is: How did the material observable universe came to be? Supernatural should not be considered even as a possible solution to that problem untill we actually have any even remotely reliable factual information, that the supernatural exists at all. Otherwise we will end up in silly circular argumentation. An alledged supernatural agency creating everything does not provide evidence for it’s own existance, or even that it is a viable explanation to anything. Infact, it could not even explain anything at all. It is quite the simple attempt (though not necessarily deliberate – despite the agency of the person trying it) to explain a mystery with a bigger mystery and that is a logical fallacy, if there ever was one.
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Rautakyy, I love your answers and questions!
“If we however assume that everything is created by an agency, then we end up in a situation where there are no random things at all in the entire universe for us to even name anything as random. In that case recognizing a natural order or a pattern can no longer be used as a model to recognize the design of some pan-ultimate designer as that entity has allegedly created and designed all events…”
I don’t think that necessarily follows. An architect designs a building, but does not design nor create all the activities that take place in the building.
“Or are we talking about an imperfect creator entity that fails the creation despite good and seemingly perfect intentions this divine creator had?”
That is certainly an option to consider in the “Is there a designer of the universe?” category, isn’t it?
“The real question is: How did the material observable universe came to be? Supernatural should not be considered even as a possible solution to that problem until we actually have any even remotely reliable factual information, that the supernatural exists at all. Otherwise we will end up in silly circular argumentation.”
I agree with you! That is the real question for me. How did this universe come to be? At some point, you get to the “something has always been” point of the argument, which doesn’t seem possible on any side of the discussion: matter or intelligence. You would argue, I think, that the only reason we consider a super-natural explanation is because of the cultural heritage all over the world. It is a constant influence on us. I think you have a strong argument on that. At the same time, I can see why atheists and those who believe in a creator arrive at their conclusions. Which was really my initial point to Violet.
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I think it is pretty clever.
Really? The universe is better designed for the production of black holes than life-capable planets. If the intention was black hole production, then fine, job well done.
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That is a good point, John. I never looked at it like that. To be more accuaratey, I think our world seems pretty clever and appears designed.
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Not designed for happiness. After all, the very mechanisms necessary to physically experience something beginning to resemble ‘happiness’ (enkephalin and opioid receptors) did not even exist in the world until some 210 million years ago, meaning for some 3.5 billion years untold billions of generations of living things suffered enormously without as much as the hope of corporeal relief.
When viewed with an honest eye, the design argument leads inexorably to a malicious designer who’s fascinated with suffering (a negative emotional state which derives from adverse physical, physiological and psychological circumstances). It is built into the very nature of all things. It is immediate, it is inescapable, and it is everywhere. It is growing, and it is growing without interruption or meaningful regress. It is not however some emergent, ultramodern phenomena there to be experienced only by those organisms who have reached a level of biological sophistication which an inattentive human mind might equate with sentience. The truth is far more offensive. Although not cognitively aware of the sensation of pain, plants (from 3.5 billion years old algae to angiosperms) not only experience suffering in the form of chemical panic felt by the entire organism via electrical impulses transmitted across the plasmodesmata, but it is now known that they live in fear of their ferociously peculiar understanding of pain.
Located deep inside the plant genome, isolated within the first intron MPK4, lay three ancient genes (PR1, PR2, PR5) that have revealed to researchers that MPK4 is devoted to negative regulation of the PR gene expression. This gene expression is anticipatory. It is expectant. It is preparatory. It is suspicious. It is, in a word, fearful. If translated to the human experience, the PR gene expression is what a human observer would identify with as a deep-rooted, physiologically hardwired anxiety; a most ancient paranoia. It is a neurosis that rages against the night, against annihilation, and it is upon this antediluvian bedrock of fear and apprehension which all terrestrial life is raised; a gentle but persuasive insanity that has been replicated and expanded upon through increasing orders of biological complexity.
That doesn’t speak to a particularly friendly designer.
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True, when you put it that way. I am not sure a universe designer would have to be friendly.
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Rautakyy,
There is a big difference between things happening at random and things happening all by themselves.
Atheists seem intellectually unable to grasp that concept.
Random activities are still governed by the laws of nature.
Did you ever ask yourself where the laws of nature came from?
Or did they just happen all by themselves too?
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What are the ‘laws of nature’ SOM? Are they laws, or simply how we express our observations?
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Violet,
Examples of the laws of nature are Newton’s Laws of Motion, Bernoulli’s Principle (what makes flight possible), the laws of thermodynamics (internal combustion and jet engines), Einstein’s Relativity (gravity and the curvature of time-space), electricity and fields and waves (electric power, radio, wireless technology).
All of these natural laws are expressed in writing as mathematics.
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So natural laws are ways of expressing what we observe. Our use of the label ‘law’ could easily be exchanged for ‘observation’ and it would be more accurate – don’t be led astray by the the semantics of your monolingual culture.
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Violet,
Naturals laws are science, the way of the world.
The way atheists throw science under the bus in order to make atheism work out for them is astonishing!
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Did a post for you.
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Thanks! You honor me.
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Well, it was a good quote. One of your many talents. 🙂
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Silenceofmind, I rather divide things into happening with or without agency. Sometimes random things happen by agency and sometimes not. Most often not, because by far most things that we can observe in this material universe happen without agency. Or do you suggest otherwise?
May I remind you, that it is you who claim the atheist position to be that something happened all by themselves. Not the atheists. All things we know of happen as a result of a cause, but from there it is a long trek to assuming agency behind every cause. Or is there for you?
I do not know what originated for example gravity. I can only observe gravity influencing things and we can produce reliable models of how it shall influence the universe in the future. Do you know how gravity came into being? If you do not, then please do not pretend you can. Claiming a particular god did it, does not really cut it. Now does it? It is a superstitious proposition with no evidence to back it up. Or do you have any?
A god is not really an explanation to the “laws of nature”. Not any more than The Natural Laws Creating Pixies are. Infact by the Occam’s razor such pixies are more likely explanation, because they are less extraordinary, than most god propositions. That does not make the pixies an actual explanation, does it? Neither gods, nor pixies are actual explanations, because we have no verifiable observation of either. Do we? They are the figments of our imagination, that as far as we are able to verify, only exist within our creative minds.
Is it hard for you to accept that we do not know what caused the “laws of nature”?
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Rautakyy,
Law is created by lawmakers.
Logically it must be the same for the laws of nature since it would be stupid to think that they just happened all by themselves.
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Don’t bother.
Next you’ll be explaining how Relativity actually superseded Newtonian mechanics, and how theories are best descriptions.
And then you will have to explain what a description really is and how existence precedes essence…
And then you will be well into metaphysics, which is completely over the head of a person lodged in the concrete phase of Piaget’s schema of cognitive development.
Also over the head of a troll 🙂
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Keithnoback, you are propably right. I usually do not go as far as into metaphysics, because I am not into guessing games. Especially when they are about trying to guess about stuff, that we do not have reliable answers to.
Silenceofmind seems to be quite happy with my Natural Laws Creating Pixies as they fit his description of “lawmakers” perfectly, and as I described, are far more likelier than any gods (though not very likely at all). It often seems to be much about mere semantics with him. That sort of basic problem with understanding the reality around him, is typical to the Theist even if he himself is simply a troll. I really do not think he even understands why other people think he is a troll – that is to say, in my opinion he is not trolling deliberately, but unintentionally, wich goes to show how often and how complicated things happen by mere “chance” regardless of agency, or in other words, intent behind them. I suppose he may pretend he knows the universe was made by pixies, or gods all he wants, since it seems to give him comfort from some form of anxiety of not knowing, or something. I do not understand how that really is supposed to explain anything about the issue, because if we add intent to the emergence of the universe we are facing far more bigger questions and problems, like for example what was that intent and who really was the agent of whose intent we are talking about and how could we possibly know anything at all about such. Revelations and alledged miracles in ancient books are quite childish in comparrison to such an agent.
It is strange how people go about in these games of pretend, that they play to autosuggest themselves that the stories they heard when they were kids that gave them comfort simply have to be true even in the face of lack of evidence, but perhaps it is such a great part of their identity to believe in fairies, pixies and gods, that they are willing to sacrifice even their integrity for want of holding on to primitive superstitions. It would be less sad, if such did not influence their other behaviour, like for example, how they vote in elections and how they treat other people.
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Jim, curious, do you say that with an idea (or a thought) to the personal god of the bible… Or a more deistic notion?
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Well, that opposite view was my starting point. I often have that feeling too. It is indeed astounding to think all this came about by chance, but it’s the most logical conclusion based on what we know at this point in time. Unless you have something logical about invisible creator creatures to share with us. 🙂
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