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"The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field. Almost every speck of light in this image is an entire galaxy. This is just a small region of a universe which could contain as many as 200 billion galaxies"
Could only God(s) do this, or is this beyond what God(s) could ever be capable of?
Yes, it is the simplest thing... Occams Razor says that the simplest explanation for things is the most likely explanation for things... therefore, God is real.
No. Occam's Razor places liklier validity on that proposition which has the fewest assumptions. Thus, god is an extraneous unlikely possibility compared to our current astronomical and cosmological knowledge that relies not on assumptions, but on empiricism and astro-physics.
Intelligent Design is not an assumption. There is plenty of evidence for such as can be seen on Discovery Institute's website: http://www.discovery.org/
Intelligent Design is a necessity but what could this intelligent being be? It could be aliens or it could be God; this is not an assumption.
No. It's much worse than that. It is an insidious lie that has held back scientific progress for centuries.
There is plenty of evidence for such
Sure. I don't deny that evidence exist that doesn't CONTRADICT the intelligent design fairy tale. For example. ID posits that the earth exists. The earth, from our best observations does indeed exist. Does that make ID correct? No.
Intelligent Design is a necessity but what could this intelligent being be? It could be aliens or it could be God; this is not an assumption.
It is NOT a necessity. Prove that it is with a logical proof.
"The most useful statement of the principle for scientists is
'when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better.'" God is the simplest explanation.
1. That is a childish definition.
2. It still doesn't make God the simplest explanation. That would be epistemological solipsism.
3. From that very same link: "The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct."
Read some of the articles from the citation I put up on the previous post.
We have logical absolutes (if A=B and B=C then A=C; something cannot be itself and not itself at the same time). Logical absolutes are conceptual by nature and are not bound by the physical universe because if the universe disappeared then logical absolutes would still be true. They are not the nature of things due to this fact. Logic is the product of the mind. Human minds produce contradicting logic. A rational mind will produce rational logic while an non-rational mind will not produce rational logic but in fact irrational logic. Therefore, because logical absolutes are transcendent and absolute then the mind that created logical absolutes must be transcendent and absolute as well.
Matter does not just appear from nothing. Energy has to be manipulated for matter to be created. Ask those guys at CERN.
It is not assumption that man did not create these things, but they do exist, therefore, somebody else more powerful than man had to have created them; somebody who possessed energy in the amounts needed, and directed it in the way needed, to accomplish the creation of these things.
Also, when you have non-living matter already, life does not spontaneously spring from it.
>therefore, somebody else more powerful than man had to have created them;
No some things evolve they come from simple things two simple things combine creating another a more complex thing without any one's interference. Imagine a two stick balls on an inclined plane, the one that is in the upper part will roll down (because of the gravity) and stick to the other one. (assuming the other one is in the end of the inclined plane). They combine creating something more complex than just a sticky ball. As you can see there was no interference here. The creation of everything in universe is not that different. You may ask but why is there gravity? because there is the matter, creating a gravitational field is one of that particle's properties as long as the particle is there the property will also exist. As you can see the argument that we aren't smart enough to create it therefore there was someone else who created it is not valid, it could have created itself without ANY interference form a human or the hypothetical God.
> Also when you have non-living matter already, the life does not spontaneously spring from it.
Actually it does. but not spontaneously. We have now a lot of forms of organisms that are both plants and animals take Euglena it has no consciousness it does photosynthesis and has a lot of properties that all plants have) Yet it has something that the plants do not have some kind of foot with what it moves to light (no plant ever moves, meaning displacement). The euglena has no brain it doesn't think, it acts merely on reflexes. Yet it is both a plant and an animal which means that life came from non-living material. and after that we have evolution to describe how the organisms evolved.
It is not assumption that man did not create these things, but they do exist, therefore, somebody else more powerful than man had to have created them; somebody who possessed energy in the amounts needed, and directed it in the way needed, to accomplish the creation of these things.
Why does it have to be somebody instead of something? I mean, there's a perfect natural explanation for it all, so unless you have some earth shattering evidence, you're violating Occam's Razor.
Also, when you have non-living matter already, life does not spontaneously spring from it.
God is the simplest explanation because God can do any and all things! Why wouldn't God be able to make something from nothing? Why wouldn't God be able to create life from non-life? Why wouldn't God be able to defy the laws of nature when He created the laws of nature? Saying God did it, is a pretty simple and easy explanation for why we are here today.
I'm saying that for us to be here it would require one insanely powerful being who could transcend the physical universe. If you want to call God the "flying spaghetti monster" then go ahead.. but that does not stop God from being God. Regardless of what people call Him, His characteristics will still be the same and still be required.
The known rules of the universe and its history, after a long time of research and modeling, appear to be entirely consistent with the universe we see. Adding a God on top of that is not only unjustified but nonsensical.
Just because this picture shows how beautiful and vast our universe is, and as of yet scientists do not have a definitive answer to how it got there, we don't have to assume that 'god' put it there in six days. What a ludicrous and demeaning idea creationism is.
The universe is beautiful but where is the beauty in stoning homosexuals to death or flying planes into buildings full of innocent civilians.
No, that was levitical law. Those who practiced homosexuality were to be stoned to death. However, we do not do this today because this was a civil law attributed to the Israelite justice system.
Does creationism always have to be the answer just because something is so complex in 'design'?
Leviticus 20:13 states that if a man lies with a male he shall be ''put to death''...
There is no other answer when something IS complex in design, or even when something is simple and exists, and obviously not made by men.
Leviticus does say that, which is the Jewish Law, showing the seriousness of the sin of homosexuality. But don't forget, homosexuality is no worse than adultery or heterosexual fornication, and those are equal with a lot of other sins.
God's admonition against these listed sins is to promote self control and a respect for various gifts he has given us in their proper place.
In the perfect world, no one will live like that, having peace, even in the animal world, where a child can put his hand over the hole of the cobra.
Seriously though, God is basically a hypothesis. And an unfalsifiable one at that. If he exists as we are told, cool, he could do it. But it isn't proof until you can rule out every single other possibility, and there might be possibilities we haven't thought of yet.
there might be possibilities we haven't thought of yet...
Yes, such as an intelligence which possesses energy in the amounts necessary to create it.
Why are we visible? Because of the density of the atoms, the smallest parts that make up our physical bodies.
There is a lot to theoretical physics that allows for the existence of a higher intelligence than man, one which we cannot see with our denser physical eyes.
An "intelligence which possesses energy in the amounts necessary to create it" would fit into the category of a possibility we have already thought of.
While certain aspects of theoretical physics do appear to "allow" for some higher intelligence or supernatural occurrences, they do not conclusively prove such things. They don't really prove anything at the moment. God has always relied on speculation and faith.
Of course. Just because the universe is very vast and beautiful does not imply that it was created by a God. Though I can see the temptation to think that it is because it actually is quite astounding and we have not figured out a lot of mysteries. Nobody knows how the all matter came to being or was it always there or no. What we know is how stars are being created even now when I am typing this question we even know how our planet was created. The laws of physics always were there when there was matter/Energy in the universe because laws are being created by the property of a particle if a particle exists it's property also exists therefore the laws of interactions between the particles exist. We know that the universe can evolve completely God-free. There is no reason to think there is a God, any God. And there are a lot of reasons to think that there is no God. The vastness and the beauty of the world actually is an argument against God. Why would God create such a vast universe if we are his only creations? It is quite silly to think that humans were always like they are now, it is obvious that we evolved are evolving still
I don't know. Perhaps there is a life force, perhaps not, but seeing as how it hasn't been kind enough to present itself, humanity doesn't know for sure. But I think any being that could be responsible for all of this would have very little interest in a bunch of semi-cultured animals on planet Earth that have just recently managed to scrape together a civilization worth the name. If god does exist we have about as much significance in his universe(s) as an anthill does in New York City, and in that regard I think we really need to get over ourselves, instead of pretending that we are relevant to this being, instead of pretending that we are important enough to this being that it revels in our worship, and instead of pretending this universe exists solely to support us.
We are machines that carry and protect and allow our genes to replicate. Evolution has led us on a path from the first replicating simple organic molecules to the complexity of the human body, the machine that ensures our genes can replicate once again. From simple replicators to complex genomes, this may seem like a gigantic step but if one was to comprehend the amount of time allowed for such development to occur it is easier to understand.
Why have these replicators in the first place? If I knew the answer to that I would probably be filthy rich. The only answer we can come up with is that it was pure chance, maybe even a mistake. I'm just glad we have these amazing brains to discuss such an important question.
I was going to comment on how it is proof of a god; the Flying Spaghetti Monster...but you said no stupid posts. So here's my real response.
Anyone attempting to claim this is proof of a deity it's violating Occam's Razor (which has already been stated here) and commits an argument from ignorance in general.
But to ask “Could only God(s) do this, or is this beyond what God(s) could ever be capable of?” is a but unnerving.
everything in that photo is explainable by science. you know, that thing you christians ignore when it suits them but somehow try and use it to prve god?
Of course not. That's just proof that galaxies exist (Although that could be argued as well. If it was the only picture in existence, without other suporting evidence, one might assume that that was photoshop forging of evidence).
The Hubble Telescope has captured countless breath-taking images and epitomises the vast and untold entity that is space- our universe. Nowhere on any of those pictures is a 'heavenly' image of a guy with a long beard.. just sayin'..
