Zillions of Universes? Or Did Ours Get Lucky? [Scientists Won't Entertain Theories that Support God]

The New York Times ^ | October 28, 2003 | DENNIS OVERBYE

[AntiGuv]

How do they make sense?

Knowledge is but awareness. Truth is accuracy. Justice is a glorified Golden Rule*. Love is an intense form of like, as opposed to dislike.

These are not complicated matters to 'make sense' of, regardless of whether the universe is random and meaningless.

...why don't humans live like animals?

They do, except in non sequiturs such as yours..

No, it doesn't fit with reality, I'm sorry.

What part of reality is that? Please explain.

^* An ethic of reciprocity.

[Hank Kerchief]

Either we start with the assumption that God exists, or that God doesn't exist.

Which God? Allah, Zeus, Diana, Jehovah, what?

[Hunble]

[Lexinom]

"Any science, philosophy, or knowledge which supposes that it can stand on its own pretensions, and can leave God out of its assumptions, becomes its own opposite, and disillusions everyone who builds his expectations on it."
Dr. Herman C. Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP

[Lexinom]

The God that revealed Himself in the one book whose consistency, prophetic accuracy, and content confirms its own authenticity. There is only one such book.

Also see post 44.

[Rudder]

That is why God would find it amusing to see humans using "science" to disprove the existence of the very God who enables human studies.

Your statement is one of the common myths about science.

Science does not seek to disprove God's existence.

[Hunble]

I agree. If anything, science teaches us about God.

[BioForce1]

Of course knowledge itself makes no sense in a random, meaningless universe, much less truth, justice, and love.

When the subject is physics, then meaningless, truth, justice, and love are not the subjects under examination.

The laws of physics deal with mass, time, length, temperature, pressure, electrical charge, magnetic polarity, and various combinations of these quantities. It is a fact that current laws of physics are governed, like most areas of physical science, by the laws of probability and statistics.  This statistical nature of reality extends from the smallest scales such as those that electrons occupy, to the largest clusters of galaxies, and every single layer in between.  Probability and statistics is the core of physical reality.

The physics and chemistry of life are governed by the chemistry of ammonia, cyanide, polymerized sugar, phosphates, lipids, and a few metals.  It requires no supernatural spook to explain the forces that cause Saccharomyces cerevisiae to replicate itself in a petri-dish  than it does to explain the formation of a tornado that forms in the middle of Oklahoma.  The forces that govern the chemistry of biological evolution can be explained by the chemistry of DNA, mathematics, and natural selection.

Modern cosmology comes from observation, measurement, and Einstein's  general theory of relativity.  So far every measurement and observation has confirmed a big bang, and Einstein's theory predicts that the universe can be either shrinking or expanding, but a static universe is not likely.

[Lexinom]

From whence does your awareness originate? Where does your "golden rule" find its origins? Do these ideas stand on their own?

No indeed: it does not follow that these concepts gave rise to themselves without deriving from some higher Principle.

Where do we even get the idea of a distinction between humans and animals? Show us where animals build culture and religion. Show us an example of animals administering law and justice. The difference between the humans and the animals is not one of degree but of principle.

[Lexinom]

It is a fact that...

Without an Absolute, Final Principle in the universe, a measuring rod for Truth, how do you get off asserting "facts"?

[GeorgiaYankee]

"If God exists in reality, and God created reality; then God must have created his own self."

God existed before anything that we call reality.

What do you mean by 'reality'?

re·al·i·ty

1. The quality or state of being actual or true.
2. One, such as a person, an entity, or an event, that is actual: “the weight of history and political realities” (Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.).
3. The totality of all things possessing actuality, existence, or essence.
4. That which exists objectively and in fact: Your observations do not seem to be about reality.

[Rudder]

works for me

[Lexinom]

In one sense, science leads us to God. Man has always desired to dust Creation for the Divine fingerprints. How can he see the order of things and not attribute it to Divine genius? Only if he starts out with the intent to disprove the existence of God, which is impossible.

[Ichneumon]

Here is a calculation that isn't vague at all.

But is it *correct*? That is, does it match reality? I can make up "non-vague" calculations all day long. Want to see me make one up about the "probability" of God existing?

Suppose that life only needed 200 molecules to get together in the right order.

You can suppose anything you like, but until you can make a case that it resembles in any way the likely precursors of life, you're just playing with a calculator.

The number of possible combinations is 200! (200 factoral or 200 * 199 * 198... 2 * 1. That number is 7.88 x 10e374 or 788 followed by 372 zeros. An number that defies imagination.

The oversimplifications in your "supposition" defy imagination too. For a more realistic calculation, see Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations.

(roughly twice as likely as winning the lottery ;-)

Many people have won the lottery twice. (1, 2, 3, etc.)

[L`enn]

The best line I have ever heard describing what you are saying is, is "We are fish looking through the fishtank".

[Ichneumon]

What do you think has been the source of human "scientific" intuition over the past 100's of years?

Rationality.

[tortoise]

Suppose that life only needed 200 molecules to get together in the right order. The number of possible combinations is 200!

Errrm.... This is not correct. The number of possible combinations for 200 atoms/molecules/whatever is VASTLY less than what you are stating. You can't just glue these puppies together in an arbitrary order and form a stable molecule; atoms have strong biases for what they connect to and how they are connected, and these preferences will dominate real-world chemistry. And you assume falsely that only one conformation out of the entire phase space is usable.

You also are apparently unaware that chirality considerations would increase the number of plausible arrangements, though you have to reduce your combinatorial space to only include molecules that will actually form in nature.

[Ichneumon]

[If God exists in reality, and God created reality; then God must have created his own self.]

Nope. God by definition and by revelation is not created.]

Oh, okay. Then if as you say amazing things can be "not created by definition", then the Universe wasn't created either, by definition.

Wow, that was easy. I can see why theists like using it.

[Hunble]

That image is more profound than most people realize. When I contemplate God, I keep that image in mind.

Science teaches us how large and wonderful the Universe is. From the smallest to the largest, when you study the reality of nature all around us, you get closer to God.

When I look at a spiral galaxy and realize that each of those tiny dots of light may contain a world such as Earth, I learn how complex and powerful God truly is.

Science teaches me that....