Orderly Universe: Evidence of God?

ABC News ^ | March 2, 2008 | John Allen Paulos

[metmom]

Well, I’m a Christian and a creationist and believe that God did it, but it never stopped me, nor many of the other Christian/creationists I know, from going on and getting degrees in science, up as far as PhD’s in several cases.

Hurricane development and tracking IS important to study if for no other reason than to spare lives and property from destruction. How irresponsible would that be to not use the knowledge God gave us to save lives? And that can be said for almost any other field in science.

[joebuck]

"Personally, I have no idea what light bulbs have to do with God."

Me either. In fact the light bulb experiment is a bogus red herring. Take those 10,000 light bulbs and assign an instrument and note to each one (for example "Trumpet - C sharp.") Set those lights blinking and they will never play Beethoven's 5th Symphony, even in a trillion years. Nor Mozart, probably not even a 3 part version of Mary had a little Lamb.

[metmom]

I think that was his main point, that complexity is the natural state of things. Nature, left to its own devices will generate more and more of it until it runs out of space.

And how, exactly, does that fit in with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? What's it doing being a law if everything runs in violation of it?

[RightWhale]

There is nothing random about evolution. Probability is not part of the process. Nothing in the universe is stochastic.

[Hiddigeigei]

Pascal’s equation ... hum!

Perhaps there is a God that gave man the power of reason so that he could rewards those who use their God-given reason and discards those who simply accepts without questioning. Could that be it? Naw ... that would turn Pascal on his ear.

[Dog Gone]

Since they can imagine no way for this to happen, they conclude there must be an intelligent designer, a God. (They leave aside the prior question of how He arose.)

I've wondered this myself.

If all the evidence we can evaluate indicates that the universe is no older than about 13.5 billion years, what was He doing before then, or how did He become God at that time?

The only answer to that I've ever heard is that science is wrong and the universe has always existed. There's zero evidence of that, and 100% of the evidence to the contrary.

Plus I hear that the world is only 6,000 years old.

It is bit contradictory.

[RightWhale]

We won’t be using science to prove something about the natural world or God now, will we? They have nothing to do with each other, as many have noted even on this website.

[Muleteam1]

>>but we will have to focus our efforts considerably beyond the common gut feel kind of understanding.<<

My two decades of working in the biological sciences, and the difficulty I witnessed in the resolution of opposing scientific viewpoints in face-to-face situations, tells me the anonymity of FR and the wide range of life experiences and education of Freepers will disallow any real focusing. The origin of life is an extremely interesting subject but one which I refer to as a "campfire subject." I feel humankind will still be wrestling with this issue when the sun sets on the last human.

[RightWhale]

The question is ancient. That it is still a question means that we don’t live long enough to figure these things out and we will have to go with what we were told when we were seven years old, give or take.

[NinoFan]

I’m not sure why you even bother. I’m surprised you don’t suffocate from inhaling the “smug” that some of these guys emit.

[SuziQ]

I've received a large number of e-mails from subscribers to creation science (who have recently christened themselves intelligent design theorists)

'Creation Science' and Intelligent Design are NOT the same thing, no matter how much folks who want to villify ID try to lump them together.

[RightWhale]

Quite right. The same topics, the same answers crop up over and over on this website. Once in a while a fresh idea is introduced, but it is soon forgotten like it never happened. So we’re still citing the Second Law of Thermo or a paraphrase that isn’t really the Second Law after all.

[uncbob]

How about there is a God but he doesn’t like people hedging their bets like Pschal

[Dog Gone]

The question is ancient. That it is still a question means that we don’t live long enough to figure these things out and we will have to go with what we were told when we were seven years old, give or take.

My take is that if a question has no answer, especially if it's been asked, studied, and thought about for generations, maybe there is a faulty assumption in the question.

[I see my hands]

"Take those 10,000 light bulbs and assign an instrument and note to each one (for example "Trumpet - C sharp.") Set those lights blinking and they will never play Beethoven's 5th Symphony, even in a trillion years. Nor Mozart, probably not even a 3 part version of Mary had a little Lamb"

But for certain in very short time glorious sounds will be heard. And if you listen for a trillion years you will hear glorious sounds throughout all that time.

In a trillion years Mozart and Beethoven would not compose the same music independently.

[metmom]

The only answer to that I've ever heard is that science is wrong and the universe has always existed.

Um, at one time it was science that stated that the universe always existed, not creationists. Scripture clearly states that it had a beginning and I have never heard any creationist say that it always existed.

When the steady state theory was in it's heyday, the only ones who believed that were those *stupid* creationists who believed the Bible. There was no *scientific* evidence to support that the universe had a beginning. It was taken as a matter of faith based on religious, non-scientific teachings. And guess who was proved right n the long run?

So, until Hubble came along with his observations, it was science that was wrong when it stated that the universe always existed.

[raygunfan]

right on the button

[SuziQ]

Mathematician Ping!

[metmom]

It does get pretty strong sometimes.

[reasonisfaith]

I take a sinful pleasure in pointing out the intellectual deficiencies of atheists.

You say:

“The easiest answer to all this mess: most people desperately want there to be a higher intellegence (mostly because they want to survive death)”

...which shows that you haven’t reached the next step along that line of thinking: atheists make their conclusion about divine existence in order to avoid the appearance, whether to themselves or to others, of being afraid of death. (And afraid of death they remain in the end, so it’s nothing but a waste of time for them.)