Get that man a title.



They use the improbability of a single chemical reaction producing the outcome needed. Lets say this has a chance of 1 in 1 billion. They then assume these reactions happen one at a time, in sequence. What are the chances that it will have happened? Pretty slim. What they fail to consider, or consciously ignore, is that this reaction actually happens billions of time in parallel. If it happens 30 billion times at once, statistic show you will get 30 of the proper result. Suddenly, life isn't improbable, but actually quite probable.

Consider the idea that Intelligent Design can serve as a 'gateway drug' to move a population from a strict creationism viewpoint to a scientific one. While I don't think it belongs in schools, we must remember that you can't change people's minds, you have to change their children's minds; and the parents teaching them ID while the schools teach them Evolution is closer to the truth than the parents teaching Creationism and the schools teaching Evolution.

From everything I've seen, this is already starting to happen. Religious dogma does not have much time left. They had a hard enough time containing the flow of good information after the invention of the printing press. Did the frauds really think they'd be able to weather the information age?

Uggh, Saying "The universe is perfect for humans, Thus created" is moronic.
That's like saying Canada was created because my house is so well adapted to it, It's not the universe created for us, It's us created for the universe after billions of years of evolution.

It's not that the universe was created perfectly "for us", it's that it must have a perfect balance in order to simply exist at all, let alone to have life occur, thrive, and evolve into sentient lifeforms.

Think of it this way. If we exist, then we must exist somewhere. That we exist is a given, I assume—so why not here?

How do we know that if the fundamental constants were changed that something else would exist? It's completely incomprehensable as to what it would be, but why can it not be?

Sigh... I never said God was a type of energy, I mean't he was ALL energy, of all types. Energy has ALWAYS existed. It cannot be created, cannot be destroyed. Its just there.

If there is a being that can control all of the energy in the universe, this being is immortal, has always existed and has the power to do anything, and break any law of any type, be it phyiscal, chemical, any thing. This being could easily see everything, know it all, and be concious of it all, and time does not exist for this being as it would for us, and could easily hide from all of us.

The probability of the laymen of this forum discussing the origin of the universe intelligently, civilly and correctly are about the same as the probability of spontaneous abiogenesis. Fortunately, much like abiogenesis, it only has to happen once.

I am not going to read this thread because it will collapse the wave function.

Too late.

There is no evidence that any of the energy in the universe existed before the big bang. Furthermore, energy appears and disappears all the time, out of nothing more complex than vacuum.

Energy cannot be created??? Do you know what energy actually is?

Dude, one more time:

What you call 'physical' is also energy. Everything is energy.

All matter is energy if you look at it on the lowest level.

So get that idea out of your head and take some physics classes.

Guys, haven't you figured it out for yourselves yet?

I am Him. I am God.

Hey at least we don't have to deal with Jon`C's "Be nice to people's superstitions!" post.

No but we still have to put up with his "all members of this forum are idiots but me" post.

Well.. you are.

After Underthebridge's post, you all look like idiots.

No offense to him, but he simply restated everything that was already said here or in the past, but in 10 times as many words. However, the post WAS a good one.

God is Bill Bailey.
We are his flock.

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

Nice answer. But that doesn't rule out existing afterward once this life expires, at least I hope it doesn't.



Is there anyone that can give a clear answer to that? My only answer could be that in a universe such as ours, anything is possible. What we once thought to be a fundamental law, is now discovered to be able to be bent or broken to our benefit, etc.



I think you're confusing energy with something else, perhaps Matter or something, but yeah, the other posters have done a better job discrediting the statement than I can.

Get out. You're the most useless person on this forum.

Of course I know matter is energy, and every single thing is energy. Energy has always existed. Just in different states. Energy is infinite. So when I say, God is energy, I mean that he is everything, every one, every where.

So you're saying he's inside me?

mmm sex with God.

I bet he's hung.

"And then the lord desendth from the heavens and spoketh the words "I'm Jepman, LOL!" And there was much rejoyce."

-The New Testament, King Jep version

hahaha hit a nerve

I think he meant it literally, as in, Kirbs is useless because he is crippled.

Whoa. I did not expect someone to say that.

Ok, lets assume the fundamental laws are relatively constant, as in for all intents and purposes they don't change. This means that anything that occurs in the universe (such as evolution of life as we know it) MUST have happened by following these laws. It's completely flawed to argue that since the slightest changes to these laws would make our lives impossible, the laws must therefore be chosen for us.

If the laws were different, something else would have appeared and they'd have people making the same illogical arguments that the laws must have been chosen to make their lives possible.

So many people have written much better explanations of why this reasoning is utterly flawed that I can only urge that everyone who thinks the reasoning is valid should read some good books.

Similar arguments would be regarding the distance of the earth from the sun being perfect for life therefore earth must have been placed there specifically for life to evolve.

He's useless for a lot of reasons. Plenty of people with physical disabilities end up leading rich, productive, meaningful and intellectually enriching lives. Kirby isn't one of those people.

The only reason Kirby's an atheist is to rebel against his bigoted militant Christian daddy, but unfortunately Kirby didn't have the strength of character to drop the 'bigoted' and 'militant' parts. People like him make all atheists look stupid, because Kirby simultaneously isn't smart enough to understand the scientific principles behind his beliefs and isn't introspective enough to recognize that his beliefs are consequentially as meaningless and shallow as those held by any Church-going sheep.

If you are sentient, whether atheist or Christian or something else, and you see Kirby dismissing "superstitions" or generally just talking at all, you should be telling him to shut up and get out.

I'll try another example.

Say the odds of any combination of lottery balls winning the lottery are one in 5 million. Yet against all the odds, every single time the lottery is drawn, an event that only has a 1/5000000 probability happens

Say your dad won the lottery (1/5000000 chance) and as a result went on an expensive holiday and met his future wife, your mother. Eventually you are born. You look back and realise that if that lottery draw had gone any other of 4999999 possible ways you wouldn't exist. Yet here you are! Clearly the outcome of that draw must have been controlled to ensure your existence, the odds were clearly stacked against you after all!

We look back on evolutionary and physical chances from the perspective of the winner, this has a tendency to make a series of highly improbably events seem truly inplausible. Yet they happened, because we're here to talk about them. But it could have gone any other way, and instead someone else would be talking about them, or gargling about them, or bouncing about them.

I understand what you're saying there, and I would greatly appreciate some of those books you said might be a good read. To me though, it seems as if that's just one humongous set of circumstances or coincidences and I can't accept that it's just all just that. A hugely rare coincidence. I understand, to say it's all put there from God is yet a comparable leap of coincidences, or at least an extremely easy way of getting around explaining everything and just saying "God put it there. Period." But the fact that there are so many wonders out there, so many things we have yet to discover and things we are discovering daily that turn our theories upside down and inside out, that for us to just die and there be no chance of a soul is very hard for me to believe. That's not saying it's impossible at all, or that anyone who believes it is incorrect. I just find it hard to believe we live this life only to die and that be it, period. Our bodies are so complicated in even their own design, can it not be possible there is something unobservable (even with current or future technologies) such as a soul? That's what I like to call my faith. Not faith in a God per say, or a religion and set of beliefs/practice's, but faith in something beyond our life on this Earth. Perhaps maybe a higher being that we would refer to as God, or fit his description. What it is, I can't even begin to describe or theorize as to what it could be (the life after this, if it exists). And in the mix of all that I would like to think there is a God, however I don't believe it necessary that there be one. There is absolutely nothing dissuading me in either direction, thus I remain neutral on the "God" thing. You know what I'm saying?

If it's possible for a Von Neumann universal constructor to exist in a universe, no matter what physical constants or properties of that universe, it is possible for life to exist in that universe.

The thing about life is that the game is rigged. DNA, in its modern incarnation, did not develop all at once: first was something almost close enough and the basic nature of a universal constructor asserted itself. Molecules that can replicate more accurately and efficiently became dominant and the less efficient molecules were starved of resources.

When you consider the number of chemical reactions that happen every second in an ordinary glass of seawater, it pretty much ceases to be "impossibly improbable" and starts to sound pretty ordinary.

My parents are and have always been atheists, but not militant at all. They are apathetic, if anything. I was an atheist from the moment I was told people actually believe the Bible stories we learned in Sunday school were real, and I'm only ever militant on forums when people make clearly ignorant statements. I am not an atheist out of any kind of resistance or rebellion. I have read and could competently explain each and every aspect of the scientific reasons I consider myself an atheist. I think you're taking stabs in the dark when really, I just don't like religion and you don't like that for some reason.

I find it somewhat hypocritical that you, Mr. Know-it-all and antagonist of all things misinformed would criticize someone for being militant against stupidity. Yes, I called religion stupid.

I see what you're saying and those are some nice points Jon, but the thing that perplexes me is that a glass of seawater, and what is required to make certain reactions happen in said glass must be vastly different from the requirements for make life exist and subsequently evolve? (sorry if that makes little sense I am kind of intoxicated)


A human body and its reactions are vastly different than the reactions in a glass of sea water, no?


EDIT: ATM I am really trying to find that video of the guy arguing for DNA being a fingerprint of intelligent design, but I can't find it anywhere on google. I am searching for "DNA Intelligent Design" too but nothing is turning up. It was on Digg a long time ago too..

Alright, I'll play. I think you take such strong, volatile stances here on the forums because you lack the assertiveness to be so confrontational in your personal life, or lack the assertiveness to get somewhere with your life. Last I checked, you haven't gone to college, and despite being obviously extremely intelligent, can't get a good job because of it. You rationalize it away by saying that you can't really teach software engineering or computer science in schools, and self-taught is better. You could probably get a job as a software engineer, but you don't because you refuse to think you'd like working in the industry, or don't think it's worth your time. So instead you try to make games to sell on Steam while working at Blockbuster and living at home with your mom. Maybe you're such a dick on the forums because you're projecting your frustrations with your own life and career on us. After all, the internet is an easy outlet for that.

But hey, I have no real idea if any of that is true. I don't assume it is and I don't hold it to you at all. Because if I did, I would drop myself to the level of pseudo-intellectualism that you are accusing Kirby of.

What? I thought Jon'C was just a bot that scanned threads for frequently used terms and posted the contents of their wikipedia pages.



No, they aren't. But it doesn't matter, because humans, and what makes us, did not spontaneously appear from salt water. Something much simpler did, and it took 4 billion years to get from that to us.

Oh, so you mean you were lying when you complained about your dad to me? When I confronted you about being a dick to Christians for no reason and you told me it's all because your dad is such an angry Christian and it turned you off of it?

If your parents were atheists why were you in Sunday school?

Oh right. You're full of bull****, as per the many threads of attention whoring lies you posted on Something Awful. I almost forgot.

No... why would they? If you take a glass of pure water and stir in a spoonful of pure table salt you're going to end up with a solution of salt.... and sodium metal, chlorine gas, oxygen gas, hydrogen gas, hydrochloric acid, sodium hydride, sodium hydroxide, sodium hypochlorite, sodium chlorite, sodium chlorate, sodium bicarbonate, hydrogen peroxide and a laundry list of others.

The probability gets better when you expose it to energy. For example, if you put it in the sun you're going to get more of some and less of others. Boil the water dry and you're going to end up with a crystal. In the right conditions amino acids will form in seawater during lightning storms. Complex organic molecules form naturally in space. These are exactly the kinds of reactions that result in abiogenesis.

Considering the fact that our bodies contain the exact same chemicals, no. Actually the fact that our bodies use chemical semaphores like hormones and neurotransmitters makes it very likely that these compounds used to be much more common in nature (i.e. phytoestrogens and narcotics) and the metabolic process for those compounds transformed into reception.

Which I'm sure will be about as accurate as the video of the guy arguing that a banana is proof of intelligent design because it can be gripped easily by primates.

I have never told you my father was religious (although he did grow up in a religious home?)? I may have told you he was quite racist when I was younger, and I had to grow up and overcome that racism? I was in Sunday school for 5 years after I knew I was an atheist because I went with my best friend in grade school, and I really enjoyed it. I find churches to be great communal ways to raise kids. I still attend the same church in the summer despite the fact that my friend doesn't go there anymore. I have even helped with bible study and youth group. I don't hate religious people, and I don't even really hate religion. I just think it's stupid to think that the world is 6000 years old, that you are the special species above all others, and that you get to deny other people their rights because of your imaginary friend. I really really think you have completely misinterpreted my stance on religion. I'm more of a proponent of rationality than I am anti-religious.

I suggest you take an introductory biology sequence. You'll find that the fundamentals of the human body (and all organisms) are, in fact very simple.