Well, it’s a bit early for popcorn, but a big mug of delicious coffee and a couple of oatmeal cookies might suffice. This thread should be hugh and series entertainment. I have it on good authority that God The Creator has a sense of humour.
And all this time I thought the science was settled.
Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards, “The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery”
Many improbable occurrences conspired to create Earth's human-friendly design, and they would indeed be puzzling if ours were the only solar system in the universe. But today we know of hundreds of other solar systems, and few doubt that there exist countless more among the billions of stars in our galaxy. Planets of all sorts exist, and obviously, when the beings on a planet that supports life examine the world around them, they are bound to find that their environment satisfies the conditions they require to exist.
It is possible to turn that last statement into a scientific principle: The fact of our being restricts the characteristics of the kind of environment in which we find ourselves. For example, if we did not know the distance from the Earth to the sun, the fact that beings like us exist would allow us to put bounds on how small or great the Earth-sun separation could be. We need liquid water to exist, and if the Earth were too close, it would all boil off; if it were too far, it would freeze. That principle is called the "weak" anthropic principle
Note, that Mr Hawking has committed a logical fallacy here, and his defense against the evidence for God do to fine tuning is invalid. If I must point it out myself let me know, but I leave it as an exercise.
The chances are remote because of the vast distances involved. A message received from "out there" might have been sent tens or hundreds of millions of years ago, and the civilization that sent it might be long gone. Even the nearest neighbors' exchange of messages would likely be received by another generation.
Yes, God created it all, but we are not capable of understanding Him fully. And six thousand years give or take just does not seem to add up with provable facts. But we are told that a day with God is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. That was written when the concept of millions and billions (let alone light years) was inconceivable to us.
Also, why is the cosmological constant 120 orders of magnitude smaller than we expect from QM? According to an old argument by Weinberg, there simply wouldn't be any observers in the universe if the cosmological constant were even three orders of magnitude larger than it is now.
I find it heartening that statisticians put the odds of the universe happening by accident, along with the odds of the Earth happening to be here (by chance) in this position in this galaxy, in this orbit, with this moon, as well as the odds of DNA happening by accident; on the same plane as the odds of Jesus fulfilling in excess of 60+ Old Testament Bible Prophecies.
Jesus fulfilling Bible Prophecy: 10^157th power.
Odds of the Earth being in this solar system etc... 10^139
Odds of DNA/Human Life 10^236
The estimated number of electrons in the universe is around 10/79th power
Designer ping!