# Life on earth is nothing but random dumb cosmic luck



## Thanatos (Sep 14, 2014)

O really? 

I've got some info for you. I hope we can debate with reasonable, rational, objective answers. Thanks

First bit of info comes from this websitehttp://www.reasons.org/articles/probability-for-life-on-earth 

Here is the article copied and pasted for you. Please visit the link for the _*258*_ references. 

_"Probability Estimate  for Attaining the Necessary Characteristics for a Life Support Body

Notes: Estimate of dependency and longevity factors are accounted for at the end of the list. References to relevant science research papers and books also follow the list. The definition used here for a planet is broad enough to include a large satellite orbiting another planet. For reasons why satellites in general and starless planets are not suitable candidates for a life-support body see Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men by Hugh Ross, Kenneth Samples, and Mark Clark (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2002), pp. 39-41.

Parameter	Probability that feature will fall in the required range for physical life
local abundance and distribution of dark matter	0.1
relative abundances of different exotic mass  particles	0.01
decay rates of different exotic mass particles	0.05
density of quasars	0.1
density of giant galaxies in the early universe	0.1
galaxy cluster size	0.1
galaxy cluster density	0.1
galaxy cluster location	0.1
galaxy size	0.1
galaxy type	0.1
galaxy mass distribution	0.2
size of galactic central bulge	0.2
galaxy location	0.1
variability of local dwarf galaxy absorption rate	0.1
quantity of galactic dust	0.1
giant star density in galaxy	0.1
frequency of gamma ray bursts in galaxy	0.05
star location relative to galactic center	0.2
star distance from corotation circle of galaxy	0.005
ratio of inner dark halo mass to stellar mass for galaxy	0.1
star distance from closest spiral arm	0.1
z-axis extremes of star’s orbit	0.02
proximity of solar nebula to a normal type I supernova eruption	0.01
timing of solar nebula formation relative to a normal type I supernova eruption	0.01
proximity of solar nebula to a type II supernova eruption	0.01
timing of solar nebula formation relative to type II supernova eruption	0.01
timing of hypernovae eruptions	0.2
number of hypernovae eruptions	0.1
masses of stars that become hypernovae	0.1
flux of cosmic ray protons	0.1
variability of cosmic ray proton flux	0.1
gas dispersal rate by companion stars, shock waves, and molecular cloud expansion in the Sun’s birthing star cluster	0.1
number of stars in birthing cluster	0.01
star formation rate in parent star vicinity during history of that star	0.1
variation in star formation rate in parent star vicinity during history of that star	0.1
birth date of the star-planetary system	0.01
number of stars in system	0.7
number and timing of close encounters by nearby stars	0.01
proximity of close stellar encounters	0.1
masses of close stellar encounters	0.1
density of brown dwarfs	0.1
distance from nearest black hole	0.2
absorption rate of planets and planetismals by parent star	0.1
star age	0.4
star metallicity	0.05
ratio of 40K, 235,238U, 232Th to iron in star-planetary system	0.02
star orbital eccentricity	0.1
star mass	0.001
star luminosity change relative to speciation types & rates	0.00001
star color	0.4
star rotation rate	0.3
rate of change in star rotation rate	0.3
star magnetic field	0.1
star magnetic field variability	0.1
stellar wind strength and variability	0.1
short period variation in parent star diameter	0.1
star’s carbon to oxygen ratio	0.01
star’s space velocity relative to Local Standard of Rest	0.05
star’s short term luminosity variability	0.05
star’s long term luminosity variability	0.05
amplitude and duration of star spot cycle	0.1
number & timing of solar system encounters with interstellar gas clouds and cloudlets	0.1
galactic tidal forces on planetary system	0.2
H3+ production	0.1
supernovae rates & locations	0.01
white dwarf binary types, rates, & locations	0.01
structure of comet cloud surrounding planetary system	0.3
planetary distance from star	0.001
inclination of planetary orbit	0.5
axis tilt of planet	0.3
rate of change of axial tilt	0.01
period and size of axis tilt variation	0.1
planetary rotation period	0.1
rate of change in planetary rotation period	0.05
planetary revolution period	0.2
planetary orbit eccentricity	0.3
rate of change of planetary orbital eccentricity	0.1
rate of change of planetary inclination	0.5
period and size of eccentricity variation	0.1
period and size of inclination variation	0.1
precession in planet’s rotation	0.3
rate of change in planet’s precession	0.3
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon abundance in solar nebula	0.1
number of moons	0.2
mass and distance of moon	0.01
surface gravity (escape velocity)	0.001
tidal force from sun and moon	0.1
magnetic field	0.01
rate of change & character of change in magnetic field	0.1
albedo (planet reflectivity)	0.1
density	0.1
density of interstellar and interplanetary dust particles in vicinity of life-support planet	0.3
reducing strength of planet’s primordial mantle	0.3
thickness of crust	0.01
timing of birth of continent formation	0.1
oceans-to-continents ratio	0.2
rate of change in oceans to continents ratio	0.1
global distribution of continents	0.3
frequency, timing, & extent of ice ages	0.1
frequency, timing, & extent of global snowball events	0.1
silicate dust annealing by nebular shocks	0.02
asteroidal & cometary collision rate	0.1
change in asteroidal & cometary collision rates	0.1
rate of change in asteroidal & cometary collision rates	0.1
mass of body colliding with primordial Earth	0.002
timing of body colliding with primordial Earth	0.05
location of body’s collision with primordial Earth	0.05
position & mass of Jupiter relative to Earth	0.01
major planet eccentricities	0.05
major planet orbital instabilities	0.05
drift and rate of drift in major planet distances	0.05
number & distribution of planets	0.001
distance of gas giant planets from mean motion resonances	0.02
orbital separation distances among inner planets	0.01
mass of Neptune	0.1
total mass of Kuiper Belt asteroids	0.1
mass distribution of Kuiper Belt asteroids	0.2
average rainfall precipitation	0.01
variation and timing of average rainfall precipitation	0.01
atmospheric transparency	0.01
atmospheric pressure	0.01
atmospheric viscosity	0.1
atmospheric electric discharge  rate	0.01
atmospheric temperature gradient	0.01
carbon dioxide level in atmosphere	0.01
rates of change in carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere throughout the planet’s history	0.001
rates of change in water vapor levels in atmosphere throughout the planet’s history	0.01
rate of change in methane level in early atmosphere	0.01
oxygen quantity in atmosphere	0.01
nitrogen quantity in atmosphere	0.01
carbon monoxide quantity in atmosphere	0.1
chlorine quantity in atmosphere	0.1
aerosol particle density emitted from forests	0.05
cobalt quantity in crust	0.1
arsenic quantity in crust	0.1
copper quantity in crust	0.1
boron quantity in crust	0.1
cadmium quantity in crust	0.1
calcium quantity in crust	0.4
fluorine quantity in crust	0.1
iodine quantity in crust	0.1
magnesium in crust	0.4
manganese quantity in crust	0.1
nickel quantity in crust	0.1
phosphorus quantity in crust	0.1
potassium quantity in crust	0.4
tin quantity in crust	0.1
zinc quantity in crust	0.1
molybdenum quantity in crust	0.05
vanadium quantity in crust	0.1
chromium quantity in crust	0.1
selenium quantity in crust	0.1
iron quantity in oceans	0.1
tropospheric ozone quantity	0.01
stratospheric ozone quantity	0.01
mesospheric ozone quantity	0.01
water vapor level in atmosphere	0.01
oxygen to nitrogen ratio in atmosphere	0.1
quantity of greenhouse gases in atmosphere	0.01
rate of change in greenhouse gases in atmosphere	0.01
poleward heat transport in atmosphere  by mid-latitude storms	0.2
quantity of forest & grass fires	0.01
quantity of sea salt aerosols in troposphere	0.1
soil mineralization	0.1
quantity of anaeorbic bacteria in the oceans	0.01
quantity of aerobic bacteria in the oceans	0.01
quantity of anaerobic nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the early oceans	0.01
quantity, variety, and timing of sulfate-reducing bacteria	0.00001
quantity of geobacteraceae	0.01
quantity of aerobic photoheterotrophic bacteria	0.01
quantity of decomposer bacteria in soil	0.01
quantity of mycorrhizal fungi in soil	0.01
quantity of nitrifying microbes in soil	0.01
quantity & timing of vascular plant introductions	0.001
quantity, timing, & placement of carbonate-producing animals	0.00001
quantity, timing, & placement of methanogens	0.00001
phosphorus and iron absorption by banded iron formations	0.01
quantity of soil sulfur	0.1
ratio of electrically conducting inner core radius to radius of the adjacent turbulent fluid shell	0.2
ratio of core to shell (see above) magnetic diffusivity	0.2
magnetic Reynold’s number of the shell (see above)	0.2
elasticity of iron in the inner core	0.2
electromagnetic Maxwell shear stresses in the inner core	0.2
core precession frequency for planet	0.1
rate of interior heat loss for planet	0.1
quantity of sulfur in the planet’s core	0.1
quantity of silicon in the planet’s core	0.1
quantity of water at subduction zones in the crust	0.01
quantity of high pressure ice in subducting crustal slabs	0.1
hydration rate of subducted minerals	0.1
water absorption capacity of planet’s lower mantle	0.1
tectonic activity	0.05
rate of decline in tectonic activity	0.1
volcanic activity	0.1
rate of decline in volcanic activity	0.1
location of volcanic eruptions	0.1
continental relief	0.1
viscosity at Earth core boundaries	0.01
viscosity of lithosphere	0.2
thickness of mid-mantle boundary	0.1
rate of sedimentary loading at crustal subduction zones	0.1
biomass to comet infall ratio	0.01
regularity of cometary infall	0.1
number, intensity, and location of hurricanes	0.02
intensity of primordial cosmic superwinds	0.05
number of smoking quasars	0.05
formation of large terrestrial planet in the presence of two or more gas giant planets	0.1
orbital stability of large terrestrial planet in the presence of two or more gas giant planets	0.01
total mass of Oort Cloud objects	0.2
mass distribution of Oort Cloud objects	0.2
air turbulence in troposphere	0.1
quantity of sulfate aerosols in troposphere	0.1
quantity of actinide bioreducing bacteria	0.01
quantity of phytoplankton	0.001
hydrothermal alteration of ancient oceanic basalts	0.01
quantity of iodocarbon-emitting marine organisms	0.01
location of dislocation creep relative to diffusion creep in and near the crust-mantle boundary (determines mantle convection dynamics)	0.1
size of oxygen sinks in the planet’s crust	0.2
size of oxygen sinks in the planet’s mantle	0.2
mantle plume production	0.1
number and mass of planets in system suffering significant drift	0.2
mass of the galaxy’s central black hole	0.3
timing of the growth of the galaxy’s central black hole	0.5
rate of in-spiraling gas into galaxy’s central black hole during life epoch	0.05
distance from nearest giant galaxy	0.5
distance from nearest Seyfert galaxy	0.9
amount of mass loss by star in its youth	0.1
rate of mass loss of star in its youth	0.3
rate of mass loss by star during its middle age	0.3
quantity of magnetars (proto-neutron stars with very strong magnetic fields) produced during galaxy’s history	0.05
variation in coverage of star’s surface by faculae	0.5
ratio of galaxy’s dark halo mass to its baryonic mass	0.2
ratio of galaxy’s dark halo mass to its dark halo core mass	0.2
galaxy cluster formation rate	0.1
proximity of supernovae and hypernovae throughout history of planet and planetary system	0.1
tidal heating from  neighboring galaxies	0.5
tidal heating from dark galactic and galaxy cluster halos	0.5
intensity and duration of galactic winds	0.3
density of dwarf galaxies in vicinity of home galaxy	0.1
amount of photoevaporation during planetary formation from parent star and other nearby stars	0.2
orbital inclinations of companion planets in system	0.1
variation of orbital inclinations of companion planets	0.2
inclinations and eccentricities of nearby terrestrial planets	0.3
in-spiral rate of stars into black holes within parent galaxy	0.7
strength of magnetocentrifugally launched wind of parent star during its protostar era	0.2
degree to which the atmospheric composition of the planet departs from thermodynamic equilibrium	0.01
delivery rate of volatiles to planet from asteroid-comet belts during epoch of planet formation	0.1
amount of outward migration of Neptune	0.1
amount of outward migration of Uranus	0.1
Q-value (rigidity) of planet during its early history	0.2
variation in Q-value of planet during its early history	0.3
injection efficiency of shock wave material from nearby supernovae into collapsing molecular cloud that forms star and planetary system	0.1
number of giant galaxies in galaxy cluster	0.2
number of large galaxies in galaxy cluster	0.2
number of dwarf galaxies in galaxy cluster	0.2
number and sizes of planets and planetesimals consumed by star	0.3
distance of galaxy’s corotation circle from  center of galaxy	0.1
rate of diffusion of heavy elements from galactic center out to the galaxy’s corotation circle	0.2
outward migration of star relative to galactic center	0.3
degree to which exotic matter self interacts	0.01
migration of planet during its formation in the protoplanetary disk	0.1
viscosity gradient in protoplanetary disk	0.1
variations in star’s diameter	0.1
average quantity of gas infused into the universe’s first star clusters	0.1
frequency of late impacts by large asteroids and comets	0.1
level of supersonic turbulence in the infant universe	0.05
number and sizes of intergalactic hydrogen gas clouds in galaxy’s vicinity	0.1
average longevity of intergalactic hydrogen gas clouds in galaxy’s vicinity	0.2
minimization of chloromethane production by rotting plants and fungi that are exposed to the atmosphere (life’s survival demands very efficient burial mechanisms and relatively low temperatures)	..01
avoidance of apsidal phase locking in the orbits of planets in the planetary system	0.03
number density of the first metal-free stars to form in the universe	0.02
epoch during which the first metal-free stars form in cosmic history	0.1
level of spot production on star’s surface	0.2
variability of spot production on star’s surface	0.2
size of the carbon sink in the deep mantle of the planet	0.05
average circumstellar medium density for white dwarf red giant pairs	0.2
number densities of metal-poor and extremely metal-poor galaxies	0.1
rate of growth of central spheroid for the galaxy	0.05
amount of gas infalling into the central core of the galaxy	0.1
level of cooling of gas infalling into the central core of the galaxy	0.1
ratio of dual water molecules, (H2O)2, to single water molecules, H 2O, in the troposphere	0.03
heavy element abundance in the intracluster medium for the early universe	0.1
quantity of volatiles on and in Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone	0.001
rate of infall of intergalactic gas into emerging and growing galaxies during first five billion years of cosmic history	0.1
pressure of the intra-galaxy-cluster medium	0.1
proximity of solar nebula to a type I supernova whose core underwent significant gravitational collapse before carbon deflagration	0.01
timing of solar nebula formation relative to a type I supernova whose core underwent significant gravitational collapse before carbon deflagrataion	0.01
sizes of largest cosmic structures in the universe	0.01
level of spiral substructure in spiral galaxy	0.2
mass of outer gas giant planet relative to inner gas giant planet	0.05
Kozai oscillation level in planetary system	0.7
triggering of El Nino events by explosive volcanic eruptions	0.1
time window between the peak of kerogen production and the appearance of intelligent life	0.1
time window between the production of cisterns in the planet’s crust that can effectively collect and store petroleum and natural gas and the appearance of intelligent life	0.1
reduction of Kuiper Belt mass during planetary system’s early history	0.1
efficiency of stellar mass loss during final stages of stellar burning	0.3
efficiency of flows of silicate melt, hypersaline hydrothermal fluids, and hydrothermal vapors in the upper crust	0.2
supernova eruption rate when galaxy is young	0.2
range of rotation rates for stars are on the verge of becoming supernovae	0.2
quantity of dust formed in the ejecta of Population III supernovae	0.1
chemical composition of dust ejected by Population III stars	0.3
time in cosmic history when the merging of galaxies peaks	0.2
efficiency of ocean pumps that return nutrients to ocean surfaces	0.1
sulfur and sulfate content of oceans	0.3
density of extragalactic intruder stars in solar neighborhood	0.4
density of dust-exporting stars in solar neighborhood	0.3
average rate of increase in galaxy sizes	0.1
change in average rate of increase in galaxy sizes throughout cosmic history	0.1
proximity of solar nebula to asymptotic giant branch stars	0.05
timing of solar nebula formation relative to its close approach to asymptotic giant branch stars	0.05
orientation of continents relative to prevailing winds	0.3
quantity and proximity of gamma-ray burst events relative to emerging solar nebula	0.01
proximity of superbubbles to planetary system during life epoch of life-support planet	0.03
proximity of strong ultraviolet emitting stars to planetary system during life epoch of life-support planet	0.02
number, mass, and distance from star of gas giant planets in addition to planets of the mass and distance of Jupiter and Saturn	0.01
quantity and proximity of galactic gamma-ray burst events relative to time window for intelligent life	0.1
infall of buckminsterfullerenes from interplanetary and interstellar space upon surface of planet	0.3
quantity of silicic acid in the oceans	0.1
heat flow through the planet’s mantle from radiometric decay in planet’s core	0.002
water absorption by planet’s mantle	0.01
timing of star formation peak for the universe	0.2
timing of star formation peak for the galaxy	0.2

Probability for occurrence of all 322 parameters ≈ 10^-388

dependency factors estimate ≈ 10^-96

longevity requirements estimate ≈ 10^14

Probability for occurrence of all 322 parameters ≈ 10^-304

Maximum possible number of life support bodies in universe ≈ 10^22

Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^282(million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion) exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracles."
_


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## Thanatos (Sep 14, 2014)

Here is another article from a less biased sourece talking about the same topic in a different vein. 

http://www.science20.com/news_releases/the_mathematical_probability_of_life_on_other_earth_like_planets

_"Infinity was invented to account for the possibility that in a never-ending universe, anything can happen. Life on other Earth-like planets, for example, is possible in an infinite universe, but not probable, according to a scientist from the University of East Anglia. 

The mathematical model produced by Prof Andrew Watson suggests that the odds of finding new life on other Earth-like planets are low because of the time it has taken for beings such as humans to evolve and the remaining life span of the Earth. Structurally complex and intelligent life evolved late on Earth and this process might be governed by a small number of very difficult evolutionary steps.

Prof Watson, from the School of Environmental Sciences, takes this idea further by looking at the probability of each of these critical steps occurring in relation to the life span of the Earth, giving an improved mathematical model for the evolution of intelligent life. 

According to Prof Watson a limit to evolution is the habitability of Earth, and any other Earth-like planets, which will end as the sun brightens. Solar models predict that the brightness of the sun is increasing, while temperature models suggest that because of this the future life span of Earth will be ‘only’ about another billion years, a short time compared to the four billion years since life first appeared on the planet.

“The Earth’s biosphere is now in its old age and this has implications for our understanding of the likelihood of complex life and intelligence arising on any given planet,” said Prof Watson. 

“At present, Earth is the only example we have of a planet with life. If we learned the planet would be habitable for a set period and that we had evolved early in this period, then even with a sample of one, we’d suspect that evolution from simple to complex and intelligent life was quite likely to occur. By contrast, we now believe that we evolved late in the habitable period, and this suggests that our evolution is rather unlikely. In fact, the timing of events is consistent with it being very rare indeed.”

Prof Watson suggests the number of evolutionary steps needed to create intelligent life, in the case of humans, is four. These probably include the emergence of single-celled bacteria, complex cells, specialized cells allowing complex life forms, and intelligent life with an established language. 

“Complex life is separated from the simplest life forms by several very unlikely steps and therefore will be much less common. Intelligence is one step further, so it is much less common still,” said Prof Watson.

His model, published in the journal Astrobiology, suggests an upper limit for the probability of each step occurring is 10 per cent or less, so the chances of intelligent life emerging is low – less than 0.01 per cent over four billion years.

Each step is independent of the other and can only take place after the previous steps in the sequence have occurred. They tend to be evenly spaced through Earth’s history and this is consistent with some of the major transitions identified in the evolution of life on Earth."_


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## Lukikus2 (Sep 14, 2014)

My first post in this forum and I give you a A+ for the title. And a A+ for content.


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## Israel (Sep 15, 2014)

I still believe all we see and know is a result of a Singularity.

that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. "The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me...


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## 660griz (Sep 15, 2014)

Reminds me of a movie quote:
"Lloyd Christmas: What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me... ending up together? 

Mary Swanson: Well, Lloyd, that's difficult to say. I mean, we don't really... 

Lloyd Christmas: Hit me with it! Just give it to me straight! I came a long way just to see you, Mary. The least you can do is level with me. What are my chances? 

Mary Swanson: Not good. 

Lloyd Christmas: You mean, not good like one out of a hundred? 

Mary Swanson: I'd say more like one out of a million. 

[pause] 

Lloyd Christmas: So you're telling me there's a chance... YEAH! 


Yes, God created all the universe(s) and the earth just for man.
That, is either real nice of him, or we are arrogant.
Then, the only way he could come up with to forgive us of the original sin was to have his only son, that he couldn't just 'POOF' into existence, tortured and killed. Got it!


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## Israel (Sep 15, 2014)

660griz said:


> Reminds me of a movie quote:
> "Lloyd Christmas: What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me... ending up together?
> 
> Mary Swanson: Well, Lloyd, that's difficult to say. I mean, we don't really...
> ...



First choice. 
Real nice of him.
Real. 
Even because of arrogance. 
To cure the blindness it causes.


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## JB0704 (Sep 15, 2014)

Dang Thanatos, been a while since you posted.  

Good post.  Hopefully it gets something going.  I do not believe we are the only life in the universe because I have no way of knowing that information.  However, I believe life itself cannot be the result of chance.  Whether God created just us, or a million different planets full of "us" does not impact that belief.


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## StriperrHunterr (Sep 15, 2014)

JB0704 said:


> Dang Thanatos, been a while since you posted.
> 
> Good post.  Hopefully it gets something going.  I do not believe we are the only life in the universe because I have no way of knowing that information.  However, I believe life itself cannot be the result of chance.  Whether God created just us, or a million different planets full of "us" does not impact that belief.



Agreed, excellent post, and the main reason I take the humble approach and say that there's no way we can attribute any of that to one specific deity. 

It's the main reason I'm still an agnostic but, like you, I seriously doubt we're the only life in the universe.


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## WaltL1 (Sep 15, 2014)

If the goal is this -


> Reasons to Believe is a ministry devoted to integrating science and faith and to demonstrating how the latest science affirms our faith in the God of the Bible.


Why not also post the probability estimates of the God of the Bible being responsible?
Wouldnt one need to compare the probability etsimates to get any kind of affirmation?


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## TheBuckMan (Sep 15, 2014)

Agreed I can't stand some of these crazys who insist that life is random chance no matter how much evidence is against them


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## ambush80 (Sep 15, 2014)

TheBuckMan said:


> Agreed I can't stand some of these crazys who insist that life is random chance no matter how much evidence is against them



No one insists that life is random.  They just say that a god didn't necessarily need to be involved.

Would you say that there is a chance that god was not involved?

Who's doing the insisting now?


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## swampstalker24 (Sep 15, 2014)

660griz said:


> Reminds me of a movie quote:
> "Lloyd Christmas: What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me... ending up together?
> 
> Mary Swanson: Well, Lloyd, that's difficult to say. I mean, we don't really...
> ...



Ha!  That movie never gets old, and thats probably my favorite scene....

The look on Lloyds face when she says "one in a million" is priceless!


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## JB0704 (Sep 15, 2014)

swampstalker24 said:


> Ha!  That movie never gets old, and thats probably my favorite scene....
> 
> The look on Lloyds face when she says "one in a million" is priceless!



The upcoming sequel looks promising as well.....we will see.  I think the original is the greatest "stupid movie" of all time.


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## bullethead (Sep 15, 2014)

WaltL1 said:


> If the goal is this -
> 
> Why not also post the probability estimates of the God of the Bible being responsible?
> Wouldnt one need to compare the probability etsimates to get any kind of affirmation?



They have the number crunchers now all that is needed is those same number crunchers to do the math on the probability of ONE divine being that always was and always will be AND is the same cat the Bible is based off of....then throw in everything penned in the Bible as to it's probability of truth....
10^282 will look pretty promising in comparison.


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## 660griz (Sep 15, 2014)

The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis.

 Lawrence M. Krauss


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## JB0704 (Sep 15, 2014)

660griz said:


> The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science *has* to confront on a *daily* basis.
> Lawrence M. Krauss



Ever wonder why that is?


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## bullethead (Sep 15, 2014)

The Probability of Life
Creationists have long asserted that the chances of life forming naturally are so remote that they could not have happened. Read about how, in fact, the chances are much wider than most think.
by Richard Peacock

Probability of Life

Creationists often claim that the chances of a modern enzyme forming by random means are astronomically small, and therefore the chances of a complete bacterium (which is composed of hundreds or thousands of such enzymes & proteins) is so near to impossible that it would never happen in the 13 billion years or so since the universe took shape.

The main problem with this argument is that it assumes abiogenesis (the initial formation of life from simpler molecules) was a totally random process. It also assumes that in order for abiogenesis to be successful, a complete microbe would have had to form spontaneously. In fact, the same non-random forces which propel biological evolution also propelled abiogenesis. Specifically, Natural Selection.

The calculation which supports the creationist argument begins with the probability of a 300-molecule-long protein forming by total random chance. This would be approximately 1 chance in 10^390. This number is astoundingly huge. By comparison, the number of all the atoms in the observable universe is 10^80. So, if a simple protein has that unlikely chance of forming, what hope does a complete bacterium have?

If this were the theory of abiogeneisis, and if it relied entirely on random chance, then yes, it would be impossible for life to form in this way. However, this is not the case.

Abiogenesis was a long process with many small incremental steps, all governed by the non-random forces of Natural Selection and chemistry. The very first stages of abiogenesis were no more than simple self-replicating molecules, which might hardly have been called alive at all.

For example, the simplest theorized self-replicating peptide is only 32 amino acids long. The probability of it forming randomly, in sequential trials, is approximately 1 in 10^40, which is much more likely than the 1 in 10^390 claim creationists often cite.

Though, to be fair, 10^40 is still a very large number. It would still take an incredibly large number of sequential trials before the peptide would form. But remember that in the prebiotic oceans of the early Earth, there would be billions of trials taking place simultaneously as the oceans, rich in amino acids, were continuously churned by the tidal forces of the moon and the harsh weather conditions of the Earth.

In fact, if we assume the volume of the oceans were 10^24 liters, and the amino acid concentration was 10-6M (which is actually very dilute), then almost 10^31 self-replicating peptides would form in under a year, let alone millions of years. So, even given the difficult chances of 1 in 10^40, the first stages of abiogenesis could have started very quickly indeed.


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## 660griz (Sep 15, 2014)

JB0704 said:


> Ever wonder why that is?



Not really. The human brain searches for order in everything. Searches for patterns. It is how we are wired. Evolutionary wiring for survival. It is amazing a few folks can understand quantum mechanics, etc.



> Most surprising of all, combining the ideas of general relativity and quantum mechanics, we can understand how it is possible that the entire universe, matter, radiation and even space itself could arise spontaneously out of nothing, without explicit divine intervention. Quantum mechanics' Heisenberg uncertainty principle expands what can possibly occur undetected in otherwise empty space. If gravity too is governed by quantum mechanics, then even whole new universes can spontaneously appear and disappear, which means our own universe may not be unique but instead part of a "multiverse."


  ---Krauss


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## bullethead (Sep 15, 2014)

Calculating The Odds That Life Could Begin By Chance
By Dave Deamer 

Many people, perhaps most, hate the idea that life might depend on chance processes. It is a human tendency to search for meaning, and what could be more meaningful than the belief that our lives have a greater purpose, that all life in fact is guided by a supreme intelligence which manifests itself even at the level of individual molecules? 

Proponents of intelligent design believe that the components of life are so complex that they could not possibly have been produced by an evolutionary process. To bolster their argument, they calculate the odds that a specific protein might assemble by chance in the prebiotic environment. The odds against such a chance assembly are so astronomically immense that a protein required for life to begin could not possibly have assembled by chance on the early Earth.  Therefore, the argument goes, life must have been designed.

 It is not my purpose to argue against this belief, but the intelligent design argument uses a statistical tool of science -- a probability calculation  -- to make a point, so I will use another tool of science, which is to propose an alternative hypothesis and test it.  In living cells, most catalysts are protein enzymes, composed of amino acids, but in the 1980s another kind of catalyst was discovered. These are RNA molecules composed of nucleotides that are now called ribozymes. Because a ribozyme can act both as a catalyst and as a carrier of genetic information in its nucleotide sequence, it has been proposed that life passed through an RNA World phase that did not require DNA and proteins. 

For the purposes of today’s column I will go through the probability  calculation that a specific ribozyme might assemble by chance. Assume that the ribozyme is 300 nucleotides long, and that at each position there could be any of four nucleotides present. The chances of that ribozyme assembling are then 4^300,  a number so large that it could not possibly happen by chance even once in 13 billion years, the age of the universe.

But life DID begin! Could we be missing something?

The answer, of course, is yes, we are. The calculation assumes that a single specific ribozyme must be synthesized for life to begin, but that’s not how it works. Instead,  let’s make the plausible assumption that an enormous number of random polymers are synthesized, which are then subject to selection and evolution. This is the alternative hypothesis, and we can test it.

Now I will recall a classic experiment by David Bartel and Jack Szostak, published in Science in 1993. Their goal was to see if a completely random system of molecules could undergo selection in such a way that defined species of molecules emerged with specific properties. They began by synthesizing many trillions of different RNA molecules about 300 nucleotides long, but the nucleotides were all random nucleotide sequences. Nucleotides, by the way, are monomers of the nucleic acids DNA and RNA, just as amino acids are the monomers, or subunits, of proteins, and making random sequences is easy to do with modern methods of molecular biology.

They reasoned that buried in those trillions were a few catalytic RNA molecules called ribozymes that happened to catalyze a ligation reaction, in which one strand of RNA is linked to a second strand. The RNA strands to be ligated were attached to small beads on a column, then were exposed to the trillions of random sequences simply by flushing them through the column. This process could fish out any RNA molecules that happened to have even a weak ability to catalyze the reaction. They then amplified those molecules and put them back in for a second round, repeating the process for 10 rounds. By the way, this is the same basic logic that breeders use when they select for a property such as coat color in dogs. 

The results were amazing. After only 4 rounds of selection and amplification they began to see an increase in catalytic activity, and after 10 rounds the rate was 7 million times faster than the uncatalyzed rate. It was even possible to watch the RNA evolve. Nucleic acids can be separated and visualized by a technique called gel electrophoresis. The mixture is put in at the top of a gel held between two glass plates and a voltage is applied. Small molecules travel fastest through the gel, and larger molecules move more slowly, so they are separated. In this case, RNA molecules having a specific length produce a visible band in a gel. At the start of the reaction, nothing could be seen, because all the molecules are different. But with each cycle new bands appeared. Some came to dominate the reaction, while others went extinct.

Bartel and Szostak’s results have been repeated and extended by other researchers, and they demonstrate a fundamental principle of evolution at the molecular level. At the start of the experiment, every molecule of RNA was different from all the rest because they were assembled by a chance process. There were no species, just a mixture of trillions of different molecules. But then a selective hurdle was imposed, a ligation reaction that allowed only certain molecules to survive and reproduce enzymatically.

In a few generations groups of molecules began to emerge that displayed ever-increasing catalytic function. In other words, species of molecules appeared out of this random mixture in an evolutionary process that closely reflects the natural selection that Darwin outlined for populations of higher animals. These RNA molecules were defined by the sequence of bases in their structures, which caused them to fold into specific conformations that had catalytic properties. The sequences were in essence analogous to genes, because the information they contained was passed between generations during the amplification process. 

The Bartel and Szostak experiment directly refutes the argument that the odds are stacked against an origin of life by natural processes. The inescapable conclusion is that genetic information can in fact emerge from random mixtures of polymers, as long as the populations contain large numbers of polymeric molecules with variable monomer sequences, and a way to select and amplify a specific property. 

I will close with a quote from Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University who also enjoys thinking about the origin of life:

“You  had what I call the garbage bag model. The early cells were just  little bags of some kind of cell membrane, which might have been  oily or it might have been a metal oxide.  And inside you  had a more or less random collection of organic molecules, with the  characteristic that small molecules could diffuse in through the  membrane, but big molecules could not diffuse out. By converting  small molecules into big molecules, you could concentrate the organic  contents on the inside, so the cells would become more concentrated  and the chemistry would gradually become more efficient. So these  things could evolve without any kind of replication.  It's a  simple statistical inheritance.  When a cell became so big that  it got cut in half, or shaken in half, by some rainstorm or environmental  disturbance, it would then produce two cells which would be its daughters,  which would inherit, more or less, but only statistically, the chemical  machinery inside.  Evolution could work under those conditions.”


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## JB0704 (Sep 15, 2014)

660griz said:


> Not really. The human brain searches for order in everything. Searches for patterns. It is how we are wired.



Without considering the alternatives, you have a conclusion?



			
				660griz said:
			
		

> Evolutionary wiring for survival.



Lucky us


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## 660griz (Sep 15, 2014)

JB0704 said:


> Without considering the alternatives, you have a conclusion?
> 
> 
> 
> Lucky us



Not luck. Trial and error.


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## JB0704 (Sep 15, 2014)

660griz said:


> Not luck. Trial and error.



One particular clump of stardust became alive.  That alive stardust developed genetics.  Thsoe gentics trial and errored in several different directions to become an amoeba, a dung beetle, a carp, a buzzard, and a human.

We got to be to human.

Lucky us.


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## bullethead (Sep 15, 2014)

JB0704 said:


> One particular clump of stardust became alive.  That alive stardust developed genetics.  Thsoe gentics trial and errored in several different directions to become an amoeba, a dung beetle, a carp, a buzzard, and a human.
> 
> We got to be to human.
> 
> Lucky us.



Lucky for some humans...not so lucky for others.


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## StriperrHunterr (Sep 15, 2014)

Not trial and error, just doing.


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## 660griz (Sep 15, 2014)

JB0704 said:


> One particular clump of stardust became alive.  That alive stardust developed genetics.  Thsoe gentics trial and errored in several different directions to become an amoeba, a dung beetle, a carp, a buzzard, and a human.
> 
> We got to be to human.
> 
> Lucky us.



Sorry. I thought you were speaking of the evolution of survival.
Since I said "evolutionary wiring for survival" and you said "lucky us".


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## WaltL1 (Sep 15, 2014)

bullethead said:


> They have the number crunchers now all that is needed is those same number crunchers to do the math on the probability of ONE divine being that always was and always will be AND is the same cat the Bible is based off of....then throw in everything penned in the Bible as to it's probability of truth....
> 10^282 will look pretty promising in comparison.


Yep. That's why I questioned the whole "affirmation" thing. If one actually gives it some thought, it affirms, well..... nothing at all.


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## Thanatos (Sep 15, 2014)

660griz said:


> Reminds me of a movie quote:
> "Lloyd Christmas: What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me... ending up together?
> 
> Mary Swanson: Well, Lloyd, that's difficult to say. I mean, we don't really...
> ...



The best part of your analogy is that atheist equate to Lloyd Christmas...awesome.


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## Thanatos (Sep 15, 2014)

WaltL1 said:


> Yep. That's why I questioned the whole "affirmation" thing. If one actually gives it some thought, it affirms, well..... nothing at all.



I am going to create another post with information for us to consume on why Christianity is more believable than other religions. It will not be written by me but information from people that express our faith in a more knowledgeable and articulate way than I can. I hope you want to test your thoughts on your own faith in nothingness, or the lack of evidence that we cant discern one religion form another. 

This post specifically is to show that the odds are against atheism. We can come up with Multi-verses and all sorts of "theories" on how and why we became but the truth is it takes more faith to be an atheist than to be religious.


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## bullethead (Sep 15, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> I am going to create another post with information for us to consume on why Christianity is more believable than other religions. It will not be written by me but information from people that express our faith in a more knowledgeable and articulate way than I can. I hope you want to test your thoughts on your own faith in nothingness, or the lack of evidence that we cant discern one religion form another.
> 
> This post specifically is to show that the odds are against atheism. We can come up with Multi-verses and all sorts of "theories" on how and why we became but the truth is it takes more faith to be an atheist than to be religious.


If you have read the two posts I made you will see that they explain the odds are not at all what they seem.
For One try...yeah impossible.
For tens of billions of tries per year for billions of years those odds increase exponentially. 

You give the odds for it happening on one try. 
You fail to acknowledge that it was not a one and done type thing.
Very very very, like 10^??? Misleading.

For the people that understand it was not just one try...no faith is needed. The odds are not against atheism at all.


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## Thanatos (Sep 15, 2014)

bullethead said:


> If you have read the two posts I made you will see that they explain the odds are not at all what they seem.
> For One try...yeah impossible.
> For tens of billions of tries per year for billions of years those odds increase exponentially.
> 
> ...



I really wish you would provide cliff notes of your post. TLDR 

Give me the numbers then. What are the chances of intelligent life happening given they have so many chances? I'll grant there could be other "organisms" on other planets, but intelligent carbon based life forms? Give me your numbers. I've given you mine.


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## Thanatos (Sep 15, 2014)

Here's another article for you that takes a little bit of the shine off your argument that we have so many opportunities it was bound to happen again. Old article but still relevant. There's a large portion of the stars in the universe that will have no planets at all orbiting them, therefore decreasing the chances of a planet or moon being found by a certain percentile further degrading your chance of randomness to strike again. 

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2000/33/text/

In the first attempt to systematically search for "extrasolar" planets far beyond our local stellar neighborhood, astronomers probed the heart of a distant globular star cluster and were surprised to come up with a score of "zero".

To the fascination and puzzlement of planet-searching astronomers, the results offer a sobering counterpoint to the flurry of planet discoveries announced over the previous months.

"This could be the first tantalizing evidence that conditions for planet formation and evolution may be fundamentally different elsewhere in the galaxy," says Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, MD.

The bold and innovative observation pushed NASA Hubble Space Telescope's capabilities to its limits, simultaneously scanning for small changes in the light from 35,000 stars in the globular star cluster 47 Tucanae, located 15,000 light-years (4 kiloparsecs) away in the southern constellation Tucana.

Hubble researchers caution that the finding must be tempered by the fact that some astronomers always considered the ancient globular cluster an unlikely abode for planets for a variety of reasons. Specifically, the cluster has a deficiency of heavier elements that may be needed for building planets. If this is the case, then planets may have formed later in the universe's evolution, when stars were richer in heavier elements. Correspondingly, life as we know it may have appeared later rather than sooner in the universe.

Another caveat is that Hubble searched for a specific type of planet called a "hot Jupiter," which is considered an oddball among some planet experts. The results do not rule out the possibility that 47 Tucanae could contain normal solar systems like ours, which Hubble could not have detected. But even if that's the case, the "null" result implies there is still something fundamentally different between the way planets are made in our own neighborhood and how they are made in the cluster.

Hubble couldn't directly view the planets, but instead employed a powerful search technique where the telescope measures the slight dimming of a star due to the passage of a planet in front of it, an event called a transit. The planet would have to be a bit larger than Jupiter to block enough light — about one percent — to be measurable by Hubble; Earth-like planets are too small.

However, an outside observer would have to watch our Sun for as long as 12 years before ever having a chance of seeing Jupiter briefly transit the Sun's face. The Hubble observation was capable of only catching those planetary transits that happen every few days. This would happen if the planet were in an orbit less than 1/20 Earth's distance from the Sun, placing it even closer to the star than the scorched planet Mercury — hence the name "hot Jupiter."

Why expect to find such a weird planet in the first place?

Based on radial-velocity surveys from ground-based telescopes, which measure the slight wobble in a star due to the small tug of an unseen companion, astronomers have found nine hot Jupiters in our local stellar neighborhood. Statistically this means one percent of all stars should have such planets. It's estimated that the orbits of 10 percent of these planets are tilted edge-on to Earth and so transit the face of their star.

In 1999, the first observation of a transiting planet was made by ground-based telescopes. The planet, with a 3.5-day period, had previously been detected by radial-velocity surveys, but this was a unique, independent confirmation. In a separate program to study a planet in these revealing circumstances, Ron Gilliland (STScI) and lead investigator Tim Brown (National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO) demonstrated Hubble's exquisite ability to do precise photometry — the measurement of brightness and brightness changes in a star's light — by also looking at the planet. The Hubble data were so good they could look for evidence of rings or Earth-sized moons, if they existed.

But to discover new planets by transits, Gilliland had to crowd a lot of stars into Hubble's narrow field of view. The ideal target was the magnificent southern globular star cluster 47 Tucanae, one of the closest clusters to Earth. Within a single Hubble picture Gilliland could observe 35,000 stars at once. Like making a time-lapse movie, he had to take sequential snapshots of the cluster, looking for a telltale dimming of a star and recording any light curve that would be the true signature of a planet.

Based on statistics from a sampling of planets in our local stellar neighborhood, Gilliland and his co-investigators reasoned that 1 out of 1,000 stars in the globular cluster should have planets that transit once every few days. They predicted that Hubble should discover 17 hot Jupiter-class planets.

To catch a planet in a several-day orbit, Gilliland had Hubble's "eagle eye" trained on the cluster for eight consecutive days. The result was the most data-intensive observation ever done by Hubble. STScI archived over 1,300 exposures during the observation. Gilliland and Brown sifted through the results and came up with 100 variable stars, some of them eclipsing binaries where the companion is a star and not a planet. But none of them had the characteristic light curve that would be the signature of an extrasolar planet.

There are a variety of reasons the globular cluster environment may inhibit planet formation. 47 Tucanae is old and so is deficient in the heavier elements, which were formed later in the universe through the nucleosynthesis of heavier elements in the cores of first-generation stars. Planet surveys show that within 100 light-years of the Sun, heavy-element-rich stars are far more likely to harbor a hot Jupiter than heavy-element-poor stars. However, this is a chicken and egg puzzle because some theoreticians say that the heavy-element composition of a star may be enhanced after if it makes Jupiter-like planets and then swallows them as the planet orbit spirals into the star.

The stars are so tightly compacted in the core of the cluster – being separated by 1/100th the distance between our Sun and the next nearest star — that gravitational tidal effects may strip nascent planets from their parent stars. Also, the high stellar density could disturb the subsequent migration of the planet inward, which parks the hot Jupiters close to the star.

Another possibility is that a torrent of ultraviolet light from the earliest and biggest stars, which formed in the cluster billions of years ago may have boiled away fragile embryonic dust disks out of which planets would have formed.

These results will be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in December. Follow-up observations are needed to determine whether it is the initial conditions associated with planet birth or subsequent influences on evolution in this heavy-element-poor, crowded environment that led to an absence of planets.

CONTACT
Ray Villard 
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 
(Phone: 410-338-4514, E-mail: villard@stsci.edu)

Ron Gilliland 
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 
(Phone: 410-338-4366; E-mail: gillil@stsci.edu)


----------



## WaltL1 (Sep 15, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> I am going to create another post with information for us to consume on why Christianity is more believable than other religions. It will not be written by me but information from people that express our faith in a more knowledgeable and articulate way than I can. I hope you want to test your thoughts on your own faith in nothingness, or the lack of evidence that we cant discern one religion form another.
> 
> This post specifically is to show that the odds are against atheism. We can come up with Multi-verses and all sorts of "theories" on how and why we became but the truth is it takes more faith to be an atheist than to be religious.





> I am going to create another post with information for us to consume on why Christianity is more believable than other religions.


More believable to who? Christians?
Strictly from the standpoint of numbers Christianity is not the most believed religion. There are no opinions on what is more believable that will change that.


> I hope you want to test your thoughts on your own faith in nothingness


Read that back to yourself. Faith in nothingness? Is that even possible?


> or the lack of evidence that we cant discern one religion form another.


Im not understanding your statements. Of course you can discern one religion from another. However they are all the same in that faith and belief are required as NONE of them have been proven to be true.


> This post specifically is to show that the odds are against atheism.


Your OP was about this -


> "Probability Estimate for Attaining the Necessary Characteristics for a Life Support Body"


Absolutely nothing to do with Atheism.
Atheism is a lack of belief in gods not life support probability estimates.


> We can come up with Multi-verses and all sorts of "theories" on how and why we became but the truth is it takes more faith to be an atheist than to be religious.


Really? Can you point me to those quantifying numbers?
Again, my statement was in essence that the probability estimates of life support DOES NOT in any way, shape or form affirm the God of the Bible. Or any other God.
Again, don't you have to have the scientific probability estimates for the God of the Bible being responsible to compare the numbers?


----------



## bullethead (Sep 15, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> I really wish you would provide cliff notes of your post. TLDR
> 
> Give me the numbers then. What are the chances of intelligent life happening given they have so many chances? I'll grant there could be other "organisms" on other planets, but intelligent carbon based life forms? Give me your numbers. I've given you mine.




All you have given us are the numbers, the odds, of life forming in ONE single attempt.

The articles I provided showed that billions upon billions upon trillions of attempts were happening every year for billions of years with Natural selection helping each time along the way.

Unlike you,I didn't make any claims to know the numbers. I have provided you with enough plausible information that not only backed up your claim but then exploited it and then showed you why your numbers are misleading because they only address a One and Done set of odds. The information I provided clearly shows that it was anything but One and Done. The information does provide numbers in parts per million and provides us with  reasons why the Earths waters were ripe for life. It combines the two to give us an insight of the billions and trillions of attempts over billions of years.
I don't know if anyone could provide a precise number but that does not lessen the fact that Your numbers are accurate for a ONE time attempt and your numbers decline every time another attempt was made. Your one attempt figure would be divided by the billions of trillions of attempts.


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## bullethead (Sep 15, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> Here's another article for you that takes a little bit of the shine off your argument that we have so many opportunities it was bound to happen again. Old article but still relevant. There's a large portion of the stars in the universe that will have no planets at all orbiting them, therefore decreasing the chances of a planet or moon being found by a certain percentile further degrading your chance of randomness to strike again.
> 
> http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2000/33/text/
> 
> ...




You said it....the article is dated.


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## Thanatos (Sep 15, 2014)

WaltL1 said:


> More believable to who? Christians?
> Strictly from the standpoint of numbers Christianity is not the most believed religion. There are no opinions on what is more believable that will change that.


 I never said we have the most dominant religion population wise. What I wanted to convey was that the message of Christ and His  gift of Grace is a message worth looking deeper into and maybe worth putting more thought into than you have recently. 



WaltL1 said:


> Read that back to yourself. Faith in nothingness? Is that even possible?


 I'm assuming we share the definition of Atheism as lack of belief in God or Gods. Can you prove that no God's exist? If you can not prove they do not exist then you have faith that they do not exist. 



WaltL1 said:


> Im not understanding your statements. Of course you can discern one religion from another. However they are all the same in that faith and belief are required as NONE of them have been proven to be true.


 Absolutely true at this current time and date and that's why we must have faith in God and the word of God the Bible. 



WaltL1 said:


> Your OP was about this -


 I know...i was redudently stating that this OP was speaking directly to Atheist. If you are agnostic then we are good...on this post. I want to start another post with information specific to how/why we believe Christianity is worth taking your time to delve into a little deeper than you have before. I mean...do this for all religions but make sure you are being objective when the information is presented to you and honest with yourself. 



WaltL1 said:


> Absolutely nothing to do with Atheism.
> Atheism is a lack of belief in gods not life support probability estimates.


 True but there is a STRONG correlation between the topics correct? 



WaltL1 said:


> Really? Can you point me to those quantifying numbers?
> Again, my statement was in essence that the probability estimates of life support DOES NOT in any way, shape or form affirm the God of the Bible. Or any other God.
> Again, don't you have to have the scientific probability estimates for the God of the Bible being responsible to compare the numbers?



I do not in this post, but giving you evidence of MY God was not the point of the OP. It was to show that the chances of an environment and process on another world where you and I are typing to each other happening again before or after now are very very very very very very very very infinitely small.


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## Thanatos (Sep 15, 2014)

bullethead said:


> You said it....the article is dated.



Ummm so over several years all of the sudden stars with no planets or orbiting bodies gained possible opportunities for life? Wow...nice. You do have a lot of faith.


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## bullethead (Sep 15, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> I'm assuming we share the definition of Atheism as lack of belief in God or Gods. Can you prove that no God's exist? If you can not prove they do not exist then you have faith that they do not exist.



 Worst argument ever.
I cannot believe adults try to use it.


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## Thanatos (Sep 15, 2014)

bullethead said:


> Worst argument ever.
> I cannot believe adults try to use it.



Uh huh. Now answer the question. Can you prove there is no God or Gods? Give me a yes or no answer please. 

If you say yes then Im getting my pop corn so I can sit and read this proof. 

If you say no, and you hold the "belief" there is no God or Gods then logically you MUST have faith they do not exist. 

I'd love to hear why this is not a mature conversation to have too.


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## Thanatos (Sep 15, 2014)

bullethead said:


> All you have given us are the numbers, the odds, of life forming in ONE single attempt.
> 
> The articles I provided showed that billions upon billions upon trillions of attempts were happening every year for billions of years with Natural selection helping each time along the way.
> 
> ...



The problem with this theory is that it hurts itself. You are right. The universe has been here for 13 billion years. If your theory is true then there must be alien species cruising and colonizing all over the place. Supposedly it would take the human species 50 million years to colonize most of the milky way. 50 million years in a cosmological life span is a really really really small sample of time. So we should have had alien species that have risen and fallen and left behind the remnants of their galactic civilizations by now right? Where are they? Why can't we see them? Where is the evidence of these previous civilizations? Im also saying all of this based of the principal that earth is not special and that there are many "earths" out there. 

So i'd like to hear your thoughts on why your theory has not provided us with other cosmological success stories because as you say we've had enough time and planets to do so...


----------



## bullethead (Sep 15, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> Uh huh. Now answer the question. Can you prove there is no God or Gods? Give me a yes or no answer please.
> 
> If you say yes then Im getting my pop corn so I can sit and read this proof.
> 
> ...



I had faith in your god once.
He was a no show.

I asked your god to reveal itself to me.
He did not.

I don't need faith something doesn't exist when I have the evidence of no evidence to prove it to me.

The argument of proving a negative is childish.


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## WaltL1 (Sep 15, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> I never said we have the most dominant religion population wise. What I wanted to convey was that the message of Christ and His  gift of Grace is a message worth looking deeper into and maybe worth putting more thought into than you have recently.
> 
> I'm assuming we share the definition of Atheism as lack of belief in God or Gods. Can you prove that no God's exist? If you can not prove they do not exist then you have faith that they do not exist.
> 
> ...





> What I wanted to convey was that the message of Christ and His  gift of Grace is a message worth looking deeper into and maybe worth putting more thought into than you have recently


I will agree the message is worth looking deeper into. However for me looking deeper was what led me AWAY from it.


> Can you prove that no God's exist? If you can not prove they do not exist then you have faith that they do not exist.


Come on. You appear to be intelligent enough to know what a deeply flawed argument that is.


> Absolutely true at this current time and date and that's why we must have faith in God and the word of God the Bible.


Uhhh ok.


> I mean...do this for all religions but make sure you are being objective when the information is presented to you and honest with yourself.


100% agree with that. Good advice for ALL.


> i was redudently stating that this OP was speaking directly to Atheist.


If it was, it did a very poor job of it. As pointed out it has a hole big enough to drive a semi through it.


> If you are agnostic then we are good...on this post.


Yes Agnostic would fit best. Part of what led me away from Christianity is these completely misleading numbers and quotes and nonsense that I had to pretend to not see through.


> True but there is a STRONG correlation between the topics correct?


Absolutely NO, NONE, ZERO, ZIP, NADA correlation between the two and that has been my point from the beginning. A low probability of one thing does not confirm the probability of another thing if the other thing hasn't even been proven to exist.


> It was to show that the chances of you and me typing to each other happening again before or after now are very very very very very very very very infinitely small


You lost me with the "happening again before".


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## bullethead (Sep 15, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> The problem with this theory is that it hurts itself. You are right. The universe has been here for 13 billion years. If your theory is true then there must be alien species cruising and colonizing all over the place. Supposedly it would take the human species 50 million years to colonize most of the milky way. 50 million years in a cosmological life span is a really really really small sample of time. So we should have had alien species that have risen and fallen and left behind the remnants of their galactic civilizations by now right? Where are they? Why can't we see them? Where is the evidence of these previous civilizations? Im also saying all of this based of the principal that earth is not special and that there are many "earths" out there.
> 
> So i'd like to hear your thoughts on why your theory has not provided us with other cosmological success stories because as you say we've had enough time and planets to do so...



You wanted to discuss life on earth.
You said it was impossible to happen by chance on one attempt and you were right.
I then showed you why it is not impossible given billions of trillions attempts over billions of years.

It must have made some sense to you but instead of acknowledging that you got the answers you asked for you now you want me to show you life elsewhere in the Universe.

I have no idea if there is other life out there.
I suspect there is.
I don't know where it is.
We are here and that leads me to believe that life as we know it or in some totally unfamiliar form is also probable somewhere else.

You again falsely assume and assert all other life must be like us and live in conditions like us and evolve and populate like us.

I have no idea about nor make any claims about life elsewhere or how IT may or may not do things.


----------



## bullethead (Sep 15, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> The problem with this theory is that it hurts itself. You are right. The universe has been here for 13 billion years. If your theory is true then there must be alien species cruising and colonizing all over the place. Supposedly it would take the human species 50 million years to colonize most of the milky way. 50 million years in a cosmological life span is a really really really small sample of time. So we should have had alien species that have risen and fallen and left behind the remnants of their galactic civilizations by now right? Where are they? Why can't we see them? Where is the evidence of these previous civilizations? Im also saying all of this based of the principal that earth is not special and that there are many "earths" out there.
> 
> So i'd like to hear your thoughts on why your theory has not provided us with other cosmological success stories because as you say we've had enough time and planets to do so...




How many years has the human species existed?

Are we not looking to expand our existence on other planets?

Given the advances we made in the last 100 years in space exploration and getting humans off of the planet...Do we still have time to colonize the Milky Way?

I can't know what life in any form is elsewhere, what environment if any they exist in and what if any advancements could be made. I don't claim to know the unknown.

All I can and have given you is information about the Earth.

I have learned that supposedly and actual are two different things. I guess you have a numbers cruncher for the 50 millions years for humans to colonize the galaxy. Maybe ask them where we are on that?


----------



## Thanatos (Sep 16, 2014)

WaltL1 said:


> I will agree the message is worth looking deeper into. However for me looking deeper was what led me AWAY from it.



Just bare with me until I can get that post up with the information specific to questioning Christianity's legitimacy 



WaltL1 said:


> Come on. You appear to be intelligent enough to know what a deeply flawed argument that is.



Do explain how this argument, or logic is flawed. Bullet could not do it..he just called it childish to make the statement. Childish or not give me your logic on why it's flawed. You've put the burden of proof on me to prove my God exist. I can give you metrics, probabilities and historical testimony of my evidence that God exist, but I can not scientifically prove that God exist. I have faith on the evidence I've seen that God exist. 

Now, I am asking you "Prove to me God does NOT exist". Now the the burden of proof is on you to scientifically prove that God does not exist. If you can not show me 100% verifiable evidence that God does not exist then you too have faith. Is it not weird that you and Bullet are trying to keep this question from being asked? 



WaltL1 said:


> If it was, it did a very poor job of it. As pointed out it has a hole big enough to drive a semi through it.



I agree. I did a poor job of communicating that point. 




WaltL1 said:


> Absolutely NO, NONE, ZERO, ZIP, NADA correlation between the two and that has been my point from the beginning. A low probability of one thing does not confirm the probability of another thing if the other thing hasn't even been proven to exist.



Again, you are correct. The two ideas are not the same and are independent of each other. In my conversations with Atheist I have found that most do believe that the earth is mediocre and not special. That's what lead me to make the connection, but they are independent of each other.  



WaltL1 said:


> You lost me with the "happening again before".



Late night Gon forum ramblings from me...haha. Basically all of the "coincidences" that lead us to this point in space time are so special and rare that it would be very^288 hard to duplicate. 

This post was directed at Atheist specifically. If you believe "something" started "this" then we are on the same page.


----------



## Thanatos (Sep 16, 2014)

bullethead said:


> I don't claim to know the unknown.



Except you know there is no God right? No faith needed for that because it's been proved. O...wait...it hasn't. 

I'm not sure you understood what I was saying. If you want to hold onto your theory that there's billions of planets with billions of chances to form life, then by your own theory we'd already have intelligent civilizations that grew and died out, or ones that are still propagating their species throughout the universe. Where are they? Or were is the evidence they existed? Cosmological your theory works against itself right?


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## drippin' rock (Sep 16, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> The problem with this theory is that it hurts itself. You are right. The universe has been here for 13 billion years. If your theory is true then there must be alien species cruising and colonizing all over the place. Supposedly it would take the human species 50 million years to colonize most of the milky way. 50 million years in a cosmological life span is a really really really small sample of time. So we should have had alien species that have risen and fallen and left behind the remnants of their galactic civilizations by now right? Where are they? Why can't we see them? Where is the evidence of these previous civilizations? Im also saying all of this based of the principal that earth is not special and that there are many "earths" out there.
> 
> So i'd like to hear your thoughts on why your theory has not provided us with other cosmological success stories because as you say we've had enough time and planets to do so...



What if we ARE the colonization?  Wouldn't that be a hoot.


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## Thanatos (Sep 16, 2014)

drippin' rock said:


> What if we ARE the colonization?  Wouldn't that be a hoot.



WE ARE! God put us here


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## drippin' rock (Sep 16, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> WE ARE! God put us here



That's so last year.  

I'm going with the 'Aliens destroyed their ozone so they came here and mixed their DNA with monkeys to create a race of slaves to mine gold to spray into their atmosphere to block harmful UV rays then disappeared after a time and left us alone to try to make since of it all' theory.


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## JB0704 (Sep 16, 2014)

drippin' rock said:


> That's so last year.
> 
> I'm going with the 'Aliens destroyed their ozone so they came here and mixed their DNA with monkeys to create a race of slaves to mine gold to spray into their atmosphere to block harmful UV rays then disappeared after a time and left us alone to try to make since of it all' theory.



That's a lot better than the concept from Prometheus......we are an experiment.  That movie depressed me.


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## drippin' rock (Sep 16, 2014)

If the answer "we can't know the mind of God, just go on faith" isn't good enough to explain all the randomness in the world, then the idea of a race of beings creating us as an experiment then getting bored and wondering off certainly could fit as a possibility.


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## 660griz (Sep 16, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> The best part of your analogy is that atheist equate to Lloyd Christmas...awesome.



Yea. That was the best part. 

I think the best part is trying to use science/math to prove there has to be an imaginary being. Ignoring of course the word 'imaginary'.
Also, ignoring all the other 'imaginary' beings.


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## bullethead (Sep 16, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> Except you know there is no God right? No faith needed for that because it's been proved. O...wait...it hasn't.
> 
> I'm not sure you understood what I was saying. If you want to hold onto your theory that there's billions of planets with billions of chances to form life, then by your own theory we'd already have intelligent civilizations that grew and died out, or ones that are still propagating their species throughout the universe. Where are they? Or were is the evidence they existed? Cosmological your theory works against itself right?



1. I don't know if there is a God. From the evidence I have, more so specifically Lack of evidence, I am confident there is no God as written about in the Bible.

2. I understood what you were saying. I think you are too focused on life being exactly like us where as life does not have to be exactly like us. On a Cosmological level other life does not have to Look like it does on Earth, act like it does on Earth,evolve like it does on Earth or advance like it does on Earth. If you want to use Earth life as your role model we can't get anyone past the Moon. So what makes you think anyone else can get very far?
And.....there are quite a few people that say life from elsewhere has visited our planet. I can't say for sure myself about that but there seems to be more pics and vids of UFOs than Gods.

3. You seem to have joined the crowd that asks questions. Gets answers. Ignores the solid answers. And keeps on asking the same questions over and over. In turn when asked questions you never address them at all.


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## JB0704 (Sep 16, 2014)

drippin' rock said:


> If the answer "we can't know the mind of God, just go on faith" isn't good enough to explain all the randomness in the world, then the idea of a race of beings creating us as an experiment then getting bored and wondering off certainly could fit as a possibility.



YEa, but in the movie, they were about to kill us.


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## 660griz (Sep 16, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> We can come up with Multi-verses and all sorts of "theories" on how and why we became but the truth is it takes more faith to be an atheist than to be religious.



No it doesn't. Where do you folks come up with this garbage. I don't believe in God. Any God. Period The end.

"Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake." ---Hitchens


How did the world start? 
How did the universe start?

I DON'T KNOW! 

“I don’t mind not knowing. It doesn’t scare me. —RICHARD FEYNMAN”

What I do KNOW is that science has helped man kind out a lot more than any religious text. 

"I can't prove that God doesn't exist, but I'd much rather live in a universe without one." (AMEN!)

Lawrence M. Krauss


Science flies men to the moon.
Religion flies planes into buildings.


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## bullethead (Sep 16, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> Except you know there is no God right? No faith needed for that because it's been proved. O...wait...it hasn't.
> 
> I'm not sure you understood what I was saying. If you want to hold onto your theory that there's billions of planets with billions of chances to form life, then by your own theory we'd already have intelligent civilizations that grew and died out, or ones that are still propagating their species throughout the universe. Where are they? Or were is the evidence they existed? Cosmological your theory works against itself right?



I don't think you can even begin to wrap your mind around how large the Universe is. You are perfect for religion. It needs people like you in order to thrive.


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## 660griz (Sep 16, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> I'm assuming we share the definition of Atheism as lack of belief in God or Gods. Can you prove that no God's exist? If you can not prove they do not exist then you have faith that they do not exist.



“What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.”


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## bullethead (Sep 16, 2014)

660griz said:


> “What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.”



Thanatos is asking us to show him a god so we can prove a god doesn't exist because if we can't then a god exists.

With that line of thought Thanatos not only believes in a god but has faith in what every single thing man, woman, or child can conjure up in their mind must also exist because he cannot prove it doesn't.


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## ambush80 (Sep 16, 2014)

JB0704 said:


> One particular clump of stardust became alive.  That alive stardust developed genetics.  Thsoe gentics trial and errored in several different directions to become an amoeba, a dung beetle, a carp, a buzzard, and a human.
> 
> We got to be to human.
> 
> Lucky us.



Do you think dung beetles are unlucky to be dung beetles?


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## JB0704 (Sep 16, 2014)

ambush80 said:


> Do you think dung beetles are unlucky to be dung beetles?



Yes.  They eat dung.  Perhaps they don't know it, but, there but for the grace of God.........

We are also able to have that perspective.


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## ambush80 (Sep 16, 2014)

JB0704 said:


> Yes.  They eat dung.  Perhaps they don't know it, but, there but for the grace of God.........
> 
> We are also able to have that perspective.



That's the point I was trying to make.  It's a matter of perspective.  You THINK you don't want to be a dung beetle.  What if dung tastes like prime rib to them?

Through your human filter you see patterns, you make inferences that might not exist. It's why the god of triangles has three sides.


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## JB0704 (Sep 16, 2014)

ambush80 said:


> That's the point I was trying to make.  It's a matter of perspective.  You THINK you don't want to be a dung beetle.  What if dung tastes like prime rib to them?
> 
> Through your human filter you see patterns.  You make inferences that might not exist. It's why the god of triangles has three sides.



Sure.....but, they eat dung


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## StriperrHunterr (Sep 16, 2014)

JB0704 said:


> Sure.....but, they eat dung



Certain people are equally revolted that you, might, eat cow.


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## JB0704 (Sep 16, 2014)

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Certain people are equally revolted that you, might, eat cow.



Revolted, sure.  Equally revolted to eating dung, doubt it.

Perhaps you guys are indifferent, but, my perspective makes me very, very thankful I am a human, and don't eat dung.


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## StriperrHunterr (Sep 16, 2014)

JB0704 said:


> Revolted, sure.  Equally revolted to eating dung, doubt it.
> 
> Perhaps you guys are indifferent, but, my perspective makes me very, very thankful I am a human, and don't eat dung.



And your thanks is completely dependent on that perspective.


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## JB0704 (Sep 16, 2014)

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> And your thanks is completely dependent on that perspective.



I don't know about you, but I'm so happy my lunch will not consist of dung......cause I know what dung is.  And, I'm thankful I know what dung is so that I don't eat it like beetles or play with it like monkeys.

Call me crazy.......


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## StriperrHunterr (Sep 16, 2014)

JB0704 said:


> I don't know about you, but I'm so happy my lunch will not consist of dung......cause I know what dung is.  And, I'm thankful I know what dung is so that I don't eat it like beetles or play with it like monkeys.
> 
> Call me crazy.......



Oh, I'm definitely happy that my diet is made of what it is. Of course, my pups are happy when I put down their "Taste of the Wild" twice a day, too. 

Perspective matters, that's all.


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## JB0704 (Sep 16, 2014)

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> Perspective matters, that's all.



Yes, of course it does.  But, I feel fortunate that I have this perspective, because that is what is preventing me from eating dung.


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## StriperrHunterr (Sep 16, 2014)

JB0704 said:


> Yes, of course it does.  But, I feel fortunate that I have this perspective, because that is what is preventing me from eating dung.



I'd say that's a product of your survival instinct, and only tangentially related to your sensibilities. You could eat dung, but you'd get sick from it since you're not evolved to process it, but likely won't since your taste buds are also evolved to dissuade you.


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## JB0704 (Sep 16, 2014)

StripeRR HunteRR said:


> I'd say that's a product of your survival instinct, and only tangentially related to your sensibilities. You could eat dung, but you'd get sick from it since you're not evolved to process it, but likely won't since your taste buds are also evolved to dissuade you.



If you are correct, my initial comment still stands.....lucky us.


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## ambush80 (Sep 16, 2014)

JB0704 said:


> If you are correct, my initial comment still stands.....lucky us.



Who's luckier, the dung beetle or the kid with the vulture hovering over him?


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## JB0704 (Sep 16, 2014)

ambush80 said:


> Who's luckier, the dung beetle or the kid with the vulture hovering over him?



The kid with the vulture had the greater opportunity at birth.  He was failed by those around him.


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## ambush80 (Sep 16, 2014)

JB0704 said:


> The kid with the vulture had the greater opportunity at birth.  He was failed by those around him.




Greater opportunity for what?


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## JB0704 (Sep 16, 2014)

ambush80 said:


> Greater opportunity for what?



A dung free life.


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## Thanatos (Sep 16, 2014)

660griz said:


> “What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.”



I can repeat the same phrase to from the perspective of a believer.


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## Thanatos (Sep 16, 2014)

bullethead said:


> Thanatos is asking us to show him a god so we can prove a god doesn't exist because if we can't then a god exists.
> 
> With that line of thought Thanatos not only believes in a god but has faith in what every single thing man, woman, or child can conjure up in their mind must also exist because he cannot prove it doesn't.



You are right, but that is a dangerous way thinking. I want you to make the decision what God or God's you decide to believe in based on evidence and rational thinking. Again, I will present info about the Judeo Christian God that is to come later in a thread that's not been created yet. 

"Thanatos is asking us to show him a god so we can prove a god doesn't exist because if we can't then a god exists." 

Explain the logic of this statement to me. It's late and I am not grasping it. Thanks


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## Thanatos (Sep 16, 2014)

bullethead said:


> I don't think you can even begin to wrap your mind around how large the Universe is. You are perfect for religion. It needs people like you in order to thrive.



O boy. You could not be more wrong. Did you forget that I am the one who started this thread and linked an article that stated the the number of celestial bodies that could host life are 10 to the 22 power? That is HUGE! I also commented that your own theory isn't grand enough. If your theory of the cosmic slot machine holds true then surely other species have hit the jackpot before. In fact there could have been civilizations that spanned millions of planets in thousands of solar systems and are now extinct for one reason or another. There is enough time and space for that. The issue is WHERE is the evidence of these civilizations if the universe has given them the chance to spawn. My imagination is huge just like your imagination but I don't have the hubris to think I have enough knowledge to be "confident" there is no God. I'll repeat again...Which God is another conversation for another thread. If i've not answered questions you've asked it is not because I am dodging them its that I have limited time to respond and pick what i think are the most pertinent to respond to. 

Just so we are clear the opening thread is speaking to the possibility of carbon based life forming on another planet. Not just the chance of homo sapiens being created on earth. "IF" there are other bodies that match, or get close to this set of criteria AND THEN life arose then I am SURE they would look and act nothing like homo sapiens as far as carbon based life goes.


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## bullethead (Sep 16, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> O boy. You could not be more wrong. Did you forget that I am the one who started this thread and linked an article that stated the the number of celestial bodies that could host life are 10 to the 22 power? That is HUGE! I also commented that your own theory isn't grand enough. If your theory of the cosmic slot machine holds true then surely other species have hit the jackpot before. In fact there could have been civilizations that spanned millions of planets in thousands of solar systems and are now extinct for one reason or another. There is enough time and space for that. The issue is WHERE is the evidence of these civilizations if the universe has given them the chance to spawn. My imagination is huge just like your imagination but I don't have the hubris to think I have enough knowledge to be "confident" there is no God. I'll repeat again...Which God is another conversation for another thread. If i've not answered questions you've asked it is not because I am dodging them its that I have limited time to respond and pick what i think are the most pertinent to respond to.
> 
> Just so we are clear the opening thread is speaking to the possibility of carbon based life forming on another planet. Not just the chance of homo sapiens being created on earth. "IF" there are other bodies that match, or get close to this set of criteria AND THEN life arose then I am SURE they would look and act nothing like homo sapiens as far as carbon based life goes.



The evidence, if any, may be too far away to observe with our current methods.


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## ambush80 (Sep 16, 2014)

bullethead said:


> The evidence, if any, may be too far away to observe with our current methods.



He should say the same about god.


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## mtnwoman (Sep 17, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> O really?
> 
> I've got some info for you. I hope we can debate with reasonable, rational, objective answers. Thanks
> 
> ...



That is way too complex for the rocket scientists who post here can grasp......


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## Israel (Sep 18, 2014)

I just enjoyed a binge watching pleasure, "Fringe".
I couldn't help but see the lessons of it, the cautions in it, the triumph of love in every situation the "heroes" faced.
If I didn't know better, I'd say the whole of it was produced, just for me.
But there was a wonderfully particular point near the end of the series when the automatons man had become discussed their probabilities. 
"Do you know why we chose this particular era in which to return, because it assured a 99.9999% probability of success"
One said to another, troubled by the reality of a child that they had never accounted for, and which could now prove their undoing.
The other man, so troubled by possible failure, and not assured by his superior's smug answer replied:
"The probability of this child surviving to this point was 0.0001%"

In all the Lord is, even by my most acute and foolish calculations and present apprehensions of him, the truth that he is, undoes all the seeming certainty of my robotics.
A man, it seems, can be won or lost to his calculations, and the discounting of even the tiniest bit of the wonder of being at all, should not be let slip.

"A bruised reed he will not break, nor smoking flax will he quench"

You are a wonder.
In that wonder is hope.
Don't cast it away for probability.


----------



## Thanatos (Sep 19, 2014)

Israel said:


> I just enjoyed a binge watching pleasure, "Fringe".
> I couldn't help but see the lessons of it, the cautions in it, the triumph of love in every situation the "heroes" faced.
> If I didn't know better, I'd say the whole of it was produced, just for me.
> But there was a wonderfully particular point near the end of the series when the automatons man had become discussed their probabilities.
> ...



Very, very well put and something to remember.


----------



## atlashunter (Sep 21, 2014)

660griz said:


> No it doesn't. Where do you folks come up with this garbage. I don't believe in God. Any God. Period The end.
> 
> "Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake." ---Hitchens
> 
> ...





Nobody knows what the probability for life in the universe actually is but we do know that it has happened at least once and the universe is a very very big place.


----------



## atlashunter (Sep 21, 2014)

mtnwoman said:


> That is way too complex for the rocket scientists who post here can grasp......



Perhaps. I suspect it is more than even Mr Ross can grasp. Simple question. Where is the scientific peer review?


----------



## Israel (Sep 21, 2014)

Hitchens, being dear to my heart, was not beyond abandoning easily mouthed nostrums for the truth reality was teaching him.

I know this can be said by either "side" about either "side", yet I found his aim for honesty refreshing in a place where platitudes can seem all that's proffered.

http://jaldenh.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/vanity-fair-trial-of-the-will-by-christopher-hitchens/


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## 660griz (Sep 22, 2014)

Thanatos said:


> I can repeat the same phrase to from the perspective of a believer.



You sure can, provided the unbeliever comes up to you and starts with, "there is no god", or perhaps knocks on your door wanting to convert you or, yells at you from the sidewalk, holding a sign that says there is no god, while you are driving by on the way to Wally World.
MOST of the time, that is not the way it happens.


----------



## jmharris23 (Sep 22, 2014)

660griz said:


> You sure can, provided the unbeliever comes up to you and starts with, "there is no god", or perhaps knocks on your door wanting to convert you or, yells at you from the sidewalk, holding a sign that says there is no god, while you are driving by on the way to Wally World.
> MOST of the time, that is not the way it happens.



I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with this? 

Couldn't I make the argument that all of the movement going on to rid schools, government, and pretty much anything other than the local church from making a stance of belief on a Christian God is exactly what you stated above. 

Atheists trying to force their beliefs on the public in general?


----------



## 660griz (Sep 22, 2014)

jmharris23 said:


> Couldn't I make the argument that all of the movement going on to rid schools, government, and pretty much anything other than the local church from making a stance of belief on a Christian God is exactly what you stated above.
> 
> Atheists trying to force their beliefs on the public in general?




Nope. Atheist aren't trying to force anything on anybody. They are trying to prevent forced religion. Atheist would do the same if the class was being directed to throw down a rug and pray to the whatever. Christians shouldn't need to pray out loud.

Atheist didn't go into government and schools 'unprovoked' and start removing stuff that wasn't there.


----------



## bullethead (Sep 22, 2014)

jmharris23 said:


> I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with this?
> 
> Couldn't I make the argument that all of the movement going on to rid schools, government, and pretty much anything other than the local church from making a stance of belief on a Christian God is exactly what you stated above.
> 
> Atheists trying to force their beliefs on the public in general?



Is it always Atheists?
Being that the Christian God gets the most attention in these schools and government places there are a lot of people who happen to believe in other gods that feel it should be an all or none inclusion.
Being that almost( I can't think of even one) no school or government entity is going to take the time to include or acknowledge ALL gods that the people in this country worship it is easier to just drop the one that gets the special attention.
If religion in education is important there are schools that cater to those needs.
When people are together acting as government or public education the "machine" should be free from all religious affiliation while in government/public school mode. Individuals can worship or recognize their god or beliefs outside of government and school.

Separation of Church and State is two parts.

The Establishment Clause prohibits laws requiring that anyone accept any belief or creed or the practice of any form of worship. 
None should be pushed or favored in public government/school settings.

The Free Exercise Clause safeguards the freedom to engage in a chosen form of religion. 
Individuals are guaranteed the right to worship and believe however they want on their own outside of the government/public works.

I do not see how both are not fantastic laws.


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## bullethead (Sep 22, 2014)

It is all fine and dandy when The Lord's prayer is said in school but I wonder if the people that are Okay with that would also be fine with a teacher taking class time to have the children kneel on a mat facing Mecca and say 5 prayers to Allah throughout the school day.

Is any Christian in these forums fine with that?


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## Israel (Sep 22, 2014)

It's always easier to make prophet famous than to believe him.
Some still fall for it.


----------



## bullethead (Sep 22, 2014)

Israel said:


> It's always easier to make prophet famous than to believe him.
> Some still fall for it.



It is always easier to post videos in an attempt to deflect conversations rather than answer a direct question directly.
Nobody falls for it.


----------



## Israel (Sep 22, 2014)

bullethead said:


> It is always easier to post videos in an attempt to deflect conversations rather than answer a direct question directly.
> Nobody falls for it.



I believe this has been read correctly.
It seems, sometimes, the frustration must be perfect, so meticulously precise in its vexation of the soul, so accurately aimed at all our own plans, all our own desires, all our own doings, that we cannot help but surrender and see a knowing hand in it. It is just too well fit for "us" to be happenstance.
The breaking through of that light, that tiniest bit of realization that we have come up against a something more solid than we have ever known, something unyielding at every point we previously explored to our own exhaustion for a chink, is hope. There really is a "something there". 
We didn't know our plans would be our undoing, our wisdom insufficient, our cleverness shown so impoverished. But chafe and buck at the bit though we may, we discover we have been made for another, another who will heal the bitterness, salve the lips of chafing, repair the wounds done ourselves in our mindless frenzies.
He is friend to what is foe to its own soul.
But at the first, he may seem only foe.
It's OK, he doesn't really mind the names we call him, the invectives we spew. He knows us past those. To where we walk together at peace in him, and with one another.
He likes hot. He likes cold. He's not put off by feelings. 
The way of unbridled liberty is surrender.
Find out what the terms of peace are, and with what they have been signed and assured.


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## 660griz (Sep 22, 2014)




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## atlashunter (Sep 23, 2014)

Israel said:


> I believe this has been read correctly.
> It seems, sometimes, the frustration must be perfect, so meticulously precise in its vexation of the soul, so accurately aimed at all our own plans, all our own desires, all our own doings, that we cannot help but surrender and see a knowing hand in it. It is just too well fit for "us" to be happenstance.
> The breaking through of that light, that tiniest bit of realization that we have come up against a something more solid than we have ever known, something unyielding at every point we previously explored to our own exhaustion for a chink, is hope. There really is a "something there".
> We didn't know our plans would be our undoing, our wisdom insufficient, our cleverness shown so impoverished. But chafe and buck at the bit though we may, we discover we have been made for another, another who will heal the bitterness, salve the lips of chafing, repair the wounds done ourselves in our mindless frenzies.
> ...



What?


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## WaltL1 (Sep 23, 2014)

Israel said:


> It's always easier to make prophet famous than to believe him.
> Some still fall for it.


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## Israel (Sep 23, 2014)

WaltL1 said:


>



Walt, yes! 
This could get real confusing in a hurry...Bullet be like on de other forum and saying folks that ain't acting like Jesus be sayin' like dey believe in him but are better'n evvyone else. Like what could be farther than what Jesus be about? Den you be over here and all like "with God on Our Side" like showin the stink of that attitude when it's used to justify cruelty and all. Sumtimes I wunda, who be da believers, and who be da fakers?
And maybe Jesus ain't jokin at all about dat sheeps and goats stuff. maybe it ain't da guy dat says "love your neighbor cause Jesus say so"...but dat guy what brought his neighbor a sammich cause he was hungry, and da guy says "why you brung me dis sammich?"...and de udder guy says "well, cause you said you wus hungry".
mebee Jesus ain't as crazy bout hearin hiz name mentioned evvytime as he interested in da hungry gettin' fed?
that could be weird for da people what's make dere livin' outta sayin' dat name a lot.


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## bullethead (Sep 23, 2014)

Israel said:


> Walt, yes!
> This could get real confusing in a hurry...Bullet be like on de other forum and saying folks that ain't acting like Jesus be sayin' like dey believe in him but are better'n evvyone else. Like what could be farther than what Jesus be about? Den you be over here and all like "with God on Our Side" like showin the stink of that attitude when it's used to justify cruelty and all. Sumtimes I wunda, who be da believers, and who be da fakers?
> And maybe Jesus ain't jokin at all about dat sheeps and goats stuff. maybe it ain't da guy dat says "love your neighbor cause Jesus say so"...but dat guy what brought his neighbor a sammich cause he was hungry, and da guy says "why you brung me dis sammich?"...and de udder guy says "well, cause you said you wus hungry".
> mebee Jesus ain't as crazy bout hearin hiz name mentioned evvytime as he interested in da hungry gettin' fed?
> that could be weird for da people what's make dere livin' outta sayin' dat name a lot.



For me, this is the clearest understanding of anything you have said so far.
You might have to type like that from now on.


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## bullethead (Sep 23, 2014)

Israel said:


> Walt, yes!
> This could get real confusing in a hurry...Bullet be like on de other forum and saying folks that ain't acting like Jesus be sayin' like dey believe in him but are better'n evvyone else. Like what could be farther than what Jesus be about? Den you be over here and all like "with God on Our Side" like showin the stink of that attitude when it's used to justify cruelty and all. Sumtimes I wunda, who be da believers, and who be da fakers?
> And maybe Jesus ain't jokin at all about dat sheeps and goats stuff. maybe it ain't da guy dat says "love your neighbor cause Jesus say so"...but dat guy what brought his neighbor a sammich cause he was hungry, and da guy says "why you brung me dis sammich?"...and de udder guy says "well, cause you said you wus hungry".
> mebee Jesus ain't as crazy bout hearin hiz name mentioned evvytime as he interested in da hungry gettin' fed?
> that could be weird for da people what's make dere livin' outta sayin' dat name a lot.



If there is a Jesus/God there is a good chance people will be judged by their actions and not beliefs.


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## ambush80 (Sep 23, 2014)

bullethead said:


> For me, this is the clearest understanding of anything you have said so far.
> You might have to type like that from now on.



Gosh......

I agree.


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## GunnSmokeer (Dec 1, 2014)

*lucky accident?*

If life was created by a lucky accident, how can the mechanisms needed for animal life be so complicated and delicate?

It's not like the DNA of a creature could evolve into a shape necessary to sustain life over a long period of time. Because if the DNA wasn't perfect in the first place, the organism would die. No evolution from dead things. 
You have to be living to reproduce.

And if you're living, you're already perfect. Perfectly put together with a billion to the billionth power options that result in death and only one (or a few) options that result in life.


Consider this new animation that shows certain parts of a cell moving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uuk4Pr2i8

Tell me that's an accident.


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## 660griz (Dec 2, 2014)

GunnSmokeer said:


> If life was created by a lucky accident, how can the mechanisms needed for animal life be so complicated and delicate?



Here is an idea. Let's just say, "We don't know." Not so hard. Or, at least, "I don't know."
Doesn't really bother me not knowing. There are lots of things I don't know. I don't need to invent a mythical being to explain them. 

Alternatively, there are lots of questions about God I could ask and there is no answer other than, God is mysterious.


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## WaltL1 (Dec 2, 2014)

GunnSmokeer said:


> If life was created by a lucky accident, how can the mechanisms needed for animal life be so complicated and delicate?
> 
> It's not like the DNA of a creature could evolve into a shape necessary to sustain life over a long period of time. Because if the DNA wasn't perfect in the first place, the organism would die. No evolution from dead things.
> You have to be living to reproduce.
> ...





> If life was created by a lucky accident, how can the mechanisms needed for animal life be so complicated and delicate?


Wouldn't the flip side to that be "if life was made on purpose why are the mechanisms needed for animal life so complicated and delicate"?
Especially the delicate part. Bacterium, probably the least complicated life form we know, can kill our complicated, delicate butts stone dead.
Please show the connection between "complicated and delicate" and "done on purpose".


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## JB0704 (Dec 2, 2014)

WaltL1 said:


> Wouldn't the flip side to that be "if life was made on purpose why are the mechanisms needed for animal life so complicated and delicate"?
> Especially the delicate part. Bacterium, probably the least complicated life form we know, can kill our complicated, delicate butts stone dead.
> Please show the connection between "complicated and delicate" and "done on purpose".



And, in another twist, we need bacterium to live too.  

I think the interdendency of everything is a decent argument for a central source.


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## SemperFiDawg (Dec 3, 2014)

WaltL1 said:


> Wouldn't the flip side to that be "if life was made on purpose why are the mechanisms needed for animal life so complicated and delicate"?
> Especially the delicate part. Bacterium, probably the least complicated life form we know, can kill our complicated, delicate butts stone dead.
> Please show the connection between "complicated and delicate" and "done on purpose".



Indeed the best designs are often the simplest.  I understand your point.

Personally there's not a day I climb in my deer stand that I'm not awed by the beauty of how nature works.  From the design of a pine needle to the annual mating of the deer, it's all just sooooooo perfectly tuned.  That's what I thinks speaks to design; the fine tuning of the infinite to the infinitesimal.


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## WaltL1 (Dec 3, 2014)

SemperFiDawg said:


> Indeed the best designs are often the simplest.  I understand your point.
> 
> Personally there's not a day I climb in my deer stand that I'm not awed by the beauty of how nature works.  From the design of a pine needle to the annual mating of the deer, it's all just sooooooo perfectly tuned.  That's what I thinks speaks to design; the fine tuning of the infinite to the infinitesimal.


I'm not convinced of the "fine tuning" part.
Our pollution, raping of the land, fires, animal starvation, plant and animal extinction and on and on.
Man and our "progress" has thrown a serious wrench into the "fine tuning" as far as nature and its beauty are concerned.
We just ignore that fact while we are admiring the pine needles. In fact those pine needles probably belong to a pine tree planted by man after he cut and burned away the trees, plants and bushes that were actually beneficial to nature.
It would be really interesting to be able to see what this earth would look like if modern man had never set foot on it.


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## SemperFiDawg (Dec 3, 2014)

WaltL1 said:


> I'm not convinced of the "fine tuning" part.
> Our pollution, raping of the land, fires, animal starvation, plant and animal extinction and on and on.
> Man and our "progress" has thrown a serious wrench into the "fine tuning" as far as nature and its beauty are concerned.
> We just ignore that fact while we are admiring the pine needles. In fact those pine needles probably belong to a pine tree planted by man after he cut and burned away the trees, plants and bushes that were actually beneficial to nature.
> It would be really interesting to be able to see what this earth would look like if modern man had never set foot on it.



I've often wondered that also.  As beautiful as nature is to me I wish I could have seen it before man went and messed it up.  I have a hard time seeing anything mankind has touched, built, or created that doesn't strike me as a scab.


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## 660griz (Dec 4, 2014)

SemperFiDawg said:


> I've often wondered that also.  As beautiful as nature is to me I wish I could have seen it before man went and messed it up.  I have a hard time seeing anything mankind has touched, built, or created that doesn't strike me as a scab.



Since you are a believer, sit back and really think about what you stated above.


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## SemperFiDawg (Dec 4, 2014)

660griz said:


> Since you are a believer, sit back and really think about what you stated above.


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## bullethead (Dec 4, 2014)

SemperFiDawg said:


> I've often wondered that also.  As beautiful as nature is to me I wish I could have seen it before man went and messed it up.  I have a hard time seeing anything mankind has touched, built, or created that doesn't strike me as a scab.



For those reasons specifically, I question all religion.


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## drippin' rock (Dec 4, 2014)

Here's a thought, if we are part of God's design and perfect plan, then everything we do, from genocide to cutting down the last chestnut tree is part of that plan. Since we are part of nature, everything we do is natural.


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## 660griz (Dec 4, 2014)

SFD, read BH and DR's post and you will see my points. Or, the points I was trying to get you to see.


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## atlashunter (Dec 4, 2014)

SemperFiDawg said:


> Indeed the best designs are often the simplest.  I understand your point.
> 
> Personally there's not a day I climb in my deer stand that I'm not awed by the beauty of how nature works.  From the design of a pine needle to the annual mating of the deer, it's all just sooooooo perfectly tuned.  That's what I thinks speaks to design; the fine tuning of the infinite to the infinitesimal.



Not so finely tuned of course for the 99% of all species that once existed and now don't.


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