Tell me Veeky Forums, do you believe in a higher power?

>How did God create Itself?
This is a retarded argument. We see the universe and interact with it, we know that everything has a beginning, everything has a cause, therefore one comes to the logical conclusion that the universe has a creator. You can't counter this line of thinking with "BUT WHO MADE GAWD?!" because the creator is outside our scope of understanding, we can make no statements about him besides what we can infer from his creation.

Yes. To say life emerged and evolved naturally in the hostile environment of an early earth is like throwing a million dogs on mars and expecting them to adapt.

The problem I have with that argument is that I see no reason why we can't treat the creation/destruction of the universe with the same mysticism that we treat god. What makes it any more likely that the force that "started" or "maintains" the universe is an anthropomorphic being that's concerned with your existence, as opposed to some other incomprehensible phenomenon? The only reason I see to believe the second specifically is that it makes you feel better thinking that something like you is "in charge".

Intuition is real. If you honed it well enough you could predict events, get close to telepathy, etc.

No.

t. LARPing Atheist

life

>What makes it any more likely that the force that "started" or "maintains" the universe is an anthropomorphic being that's concerned with your existence, as opposed to some other incomprehensible phenomenon?
My argument was in favor of a creator existing, not an anthropomorphic being.

And there are millions if not billions of Earth-like worlds out there, none of which hosts life as far as we know, so we are that miniscule chance of naturally occurring life.

Given an infinite timescale everything that can happen will happen at least once.

>Given an infinite timescale
>infinite timescale
No such thing exists your fucking brainlet, get out of my Veeky Forums.

>He thinks the universe will collapse into itself rather than forever expand and grow colder.

Except the thrust of his argument is THAT such a thing could have happened in the first place.

Because this supposedly eldritch phenomenon is responsible for "producing" rational beings that exist in a (more or less) intelligible universe. This principle is concerned in my existence insofar as my own existence participates in it, ie I have a concept of divinity, I live this conception etc.

So if I keep throwing dogs at Mars* one of them will "eventually" be able to breath and withstand the hostile conditions and multiply?
*(Note that this is an understatement. The early earth evolutionists believe in was actually MORE hostile than today's Mars)
>this is what atheists actually believe

You're attacking this from the completely wrong angle. Dogs are adapted to an oxygen rich atmosphere and temperate climate. The early life on earth would be single cell organisms, if even that.
And we know single cell organisms are tough as nails as we have found them on some of the most extreme places on earth.

Yes. High voltage power lines are pretty much proven to work by now.

Where did that single cell come from with all it's structure and genetic information on how to reproduce, how to eat etc.? You underestimate how complex a single cell is. Even if it were much simpler than today it would still need to fulfill basic functions like reproduction, metabolism etc. which would still make it more complex than a space shuttle.
There can be no "inbetween" steps before that or else the cell wouldn't even be viable.

Of course. Doesn't everybody? You're saying it's not common knowledge that God exists? There are people on this board right now who don't know that God exists? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The cells I'm talking about were extremely rudimentary. That means no mitochondria or any of the complex functionality you're talking about. Just the ability to reproduce and survive.

The way life originated is an age old question. The hypothesis I found most satisfying is that something happened, a lightning strike, for example, that caused some atoms to bind together to form a molecule with the remarkable ability to replicate. Then over the course of millions or billions of years small errors in the replication process amalgamated to create what we can recognise as a cell. The process repeats and more and more complex lifeforms emerge until you reach us.

Now the chances of a self-replicating molecule to form are pretty slim, to say the least, but where you might argue that only a creator could have pushed life over the edge (which I can respect, though I myself find that answer unsatisfying) I'd argue that improbability is not impossibility.

>I agree that it's mystical let's just not call God a bearded white man
The abstraction is there just appreciate it and don't argue semantics

You realize that the creation of the universe is still somewhat outside of our understanding still, correct? You have no reason to attribute it to some entity that shares human traits rather than attributing it to some feature of the way things simply are.

Not to mention you're just copping out of the whole argument by claiming God is too fancy-schmancy to understand. How can you claim knowledge about something that is too transcendental to have knowledge of? You can't fathom what that is. You've just made a creator conveniently transcendental so you can ignore any response after claiming it exists (and claiming existence is nonsensical if you claim it's beyond understanding, since you can't even fathom what existence would mean for such an entity).

I will say, at least, that it's a fun bit of rhetoric to use on people that won't notice but it's still a bad way to rationalize your beliefs. You basically just gave up part way because it's hard, and then used that to support your belief.

Coherence of beliefs does not equate with accurate description of the external world.

You can have an infinite set that that is missing elements. Consider the set R that is all real numbers. Now remove every number divisible by three and let this new set be X. X is infinite but does not contain every real number.

do you completely believe in your lightning hypothesis?

Yes. Does not seem to me to be an issue with Veeky Forumsence, unless you start applying religious dogma as a test of scientific theories.

>And there are millions if not billions of Earth-like worlds out there, none of which hosts life as far as we know

Nor do we know anything else about them, really.

Hole up, hole up!

I want to try this experiment. We can't really KNOW what will happen if we don't try it.

>He thinks that colder temperatures don't increase electromagnetic and by extension gravitational attraction radii

>believe in
found the superstitious faith-based primitive

Asking who created God misses the point because God is already the First Cause by definition. He's not claiming personal knowledge, he's arguing based on the very concept in question. God cannot be another being because we're talking about the source/principle of being in the first place.

Question is so broad that it's meaningless.

I have no resentment towards the idea of a creator, whether intelligent or otherwise. I have no resentment towards the notion of purpose, in any of its forms. The underlying logic that drives the universe does suggest there is something else, that we'll likely never know.

The only thing I take issue with is the common attribution of omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience, to the creator. The creator need not have any of these things. Did Conway have complete knowledge of the Game of Life, right off?

WE

>whether intelligent or otherwise
Forgive me, blog post incoming
I was required to take a religious studies class (in this case, it was literally Christian apologetics) and one of the arguments that our book used was something along the lines of "if the universe was made, there is an intelligent creator". One of the students asked why it was necessary for the creator to be "conscious". I assume the prof either didn't hear him or didn't fully understand the question, so he just repeated the point in a different tone and said "does that answer your question?"
The kid mumbled some form of "sure" since he didn't want to make a scene because it's the Bible Belt, and the other people in the class already believed in white beard God.
I told the prof he must've misheard the question so I gave him a scenario:
"Say an educated and fully qualified scientist purposely placed milk in a dish to let it ferment and form a culture. Now say a sleeping man knocks over a glass he had drank most of the milk out of, and it rolled under bed where he never looks. Eventually it will ferment and there will be bacteria. Is it any less of a culture because he was completely unaware that it happened?"
I feel so goofy typing this out, but the professor literally stared at me for a while in contemplation, and then said he had never even considered such a thing. He told me the next day that he brought it up to his circle of apologetic friends. I guess they talked about that for a week or so.
It's like a scene from the skeptic's version of "God's not dead."

Super nice guy.

>This is a retarded argument. We see the universe and interact with it, we know that everything has a beginning, everything has a cause, therefore one comes to the logical conclusion that the universe has a creator.
And therefor that creator has a creator, that creator has a creator, etc. Why does this argument apply only to the universe but not a god? We have never interacted with an entire universe and seen that universes have beginnings.

You can't have it both ways. Either everything had to be created or the universe did not have to be created.

A creator is a being. Adding the suffix -or to create turns it into an agent noun, a person who creates. If "creator" does not imply an agent, then why can't the universe itself be the "creator" of everything in it?

>Asking who created God misses the point because God is already the First Cause by definition.
That's not what was argued though, he simply said that the universe must be created since everything inside it is created. But that does not imply that whatever created the universe is the supposed "First Cause." So it doesn't miss that point.

Additionally, you have not shown why the universe itself cannot be the "First Cause," or why infinite regression should not be allowed.

No there isn't a higher power.
I feel honestly bad for religious people.

I don't. Being religious gives them an edge.

No. Always thought it was a phase, but been over 15 years and I still haven't changed my mind.

...we exist out of random molecule assembling.

except there weren't dogs around billions of years ago, just the very simplest unicellular organisms, which could survive and evolve in a hostile dynamic environment of early earth. as the earth evolved, life expanded and diversified.

I will say this - it still blows my fucking mind that there was nothing and then something. Whether it be god or big bang, or whatever. The point is: nothing -> something.
and what is nothing anyway?

I believe that there is a very clever God that intentionally never existed. It's all epistemological.

i am the higher power.

Nothing might be a very human concept. Believing in "nothing" might be equivalent to believing in certain metaphysical concepts such as "souls".

Nothing is defined as "not anything." We like to say that that is "just common sense." But when is it observably true? We can have local situations where there is a lack of something. ie.
>"How many things do you have in your box?"
>"I have nothing in the box."
But when it comes to the nature of the universe? "Nothing" might not be an actual thing. So when asked the question
>"What was before the bigbang?" (and ignoring the inherent wording problem with the question that can be akin to saying "what happened in time before there was time")
The answer could very well be
>"Something other than our knowable spacetime"

If it is ENTIRELY unknowable, such as "what" was before the big bang (a good possibility), then we can just say it is functionally equivalent to "nothing", but that never means that there HAD to be something nor does it mean that there HAD to be the literal nothing.

I don't believe in powers greater than 5. Assuming something to excist beyond that is just silly.

Before the matter of our universe formed anything of note, the laws the govern physics were introduced. If the laws of gravity or electromagnetism were different even in the slightest degree, then there is a strong probability that nothing of substance would have been formed and we would not be here

Does not prove anything obviously, but it does get me thinking

Hate to shill but I think this is a great exposition of the view I hold on this topic. youtu.be/jikYpkrEkTQ

bit conflicted about it, however i do think that alot of the religions here are very humancentric as in why a higher power would even care about a lower being? what is a even a god? what qualify a being to become a god? is it power, wisdom, intelligence or a god can just be an object that has no consciousness but does it thing because it has to?

A complete idiot amateur in both science and religion but I will try to give my best effort

>Why a higher power would even care about a lower being?

We are made in his image. We create and reflect about the universe around us in a way that nothing else in the universe can (from what we have seen). Disregarding the possibility of having some sort of attachment to humanity, it is easy to see why a higher power would be curious about the development of beings such as we.

>what is even a god? What qualifies it?

Being the transcendental source of everything else, what reality comes from and is founded upon on a metaphysical level.

>Cell requires creator
>my favourite god does not require a creator

In the christfag "brain", this makes sense.

I think it is profoundly ignorant to assume that all 'life' must be like us -- carbon-based lifeforms. Further, what would impede the existence of an inorganic intelligence of sorts? This does not mean that it *must* be true simply because it is an arbitrary possibility, but anybody who says it is impossible is irrational and should not be taken seriously.

Along the same thread, one might wonder how an inorganic intelligence would manifest and what it would 'consume' to continue existing, if it even had such needs... It is interesting to think about. I think some sort of "higher power" existed, we would be akin to ants to them, in the same way that an ant will mindlessly dron along and crawl up your finger, unable to fathom your intelligence, let alone your existence.

The first cause to what? There's always been something (even 0 has a discrete value)

Do you mean some sort of deity/deities? No.

You need to do some research on societal health vs religiosity, because your opinion is incorrect.

Maybe not necessarily that lightning struck, but a similar event that caused a self-replicating molecule to form. I just used lightning as an example. It's impossible to know for certain but as I said I find it more convincing then a creator.

It's not even my hypothesis. You can correct me if I'm wrong, as I might be misremembering, but I think I read about it in Dawkins "The Selfish Gene".

You need the infinite before the finite. The "who created God" argument assumes God is finite and would create an endless chain of "Who created x". This actually helps the creation argument: We know that the universe is finite, therefore there has to be a higher infinite step.

If the universe was different it would be different. So what?

>You need the infinite before the finite.
Why?

>The "who created God" argument assumes God is finite and would create an endless chain of "Who created x".
No it doesn't assume god is "finite," whatever that means. Either everything requires a cause or the universe does not require a cause.

>We know that the universe is finite
LOL, no we don't. Standard physics assumes it's not. You have no idea what you're talking about.

>no we don't
I do.

Yes, it does assume God is finite, because you couldn't ask what "created" a transcendent being on account of it being, well, transcendent. If you think a transcendent being has to conform to some kind of causality, you don't know what transcendent means.

Yes, I believe in a personal God.

>Yes, it does assume God is finite, because you couldn't ask what "created" a transcendent being on account of it being, well, transcendent.
And how do you know whatever supposedly created the universe is "transcendent?" Why is the universe itself not "transcendent?" You just keep renaming the same flawed assumption with more magical words, instead of justifying it.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Those compounds don't compare to the complexity of life's compounds and the compounds that they rely upon. We realize that the universe can host complex things, but there is nothing that comes close to the complexity of life. There is a missing link between what separates the universe without life and the universe with life.

You are a little behind the times here, Chuckles.

And no, I cant be bothered looking up the sources and references. Because I can tell you wouldn't want to listen anyway.

well executed bait friendo, have a (you)

If you want to debunk evolution, then why are your arguments aimed at abiogenesis?
You realize evolution doesn't attempt to explain the origin of life, rather the origin of the diversity of life and your silly strawmen won't debunk it

No. And if one existed it would be necessary to reject it.

The older that I get, the more that I hate the idea of a god.

Please don't conflate natural epistemology with mathematical reasoning.
Mathematics is a purely logical way of expressing abstract hypotheticals
The scientific method relies on models and evidence

I don't "believe" in a higher power in the same way I "believe" in quantum physics because it does not seem like a useful model to explain observed phenomena.
I have some nonscientific thoughts (that is, thoughts about things that are by definition not the domain of science, not things that contradict it), but those are of course just guesswork to make myself feel better. Nothing in my worldview is compatible with religion or spirituality.

>There can be no "inbetween" steps
To a "primitive" (or early prokaryote-like) sinlge celled organism metabolism could have been as simple as directly absorbing nutrients form the environment; and reproduction like falling apart in two's. With no specialized internal structures every part is similar (both in form and functionality) to every orher part.

The point is: You havent been able to think of viable in-between steps. That doesn't mean they don't excist

>Nothing in my worldview is compatible with religion or spirituality.

Git gud.

Fundie Baptist /unshakable/ + STEM grad w/135iq
AMA

Your inbetween step isnt viable, you need some sort of metabolism or where is the nutrients going. How do you repair the cell membrane. You need energy to reproduce too.

This "anything but creationism" rally cry just gets sadder and sadder. I look upon these people with a mixture of pity and bemused fascination.

Ima gonna give it one last shot

The very primitive proto-cell is barely more than a blob of chemicals. There really isn’t very much to it. Hardly recognizable as being alive. Except that it can reproduce via a simple split mechanism. Once it reaches a certain critical size it splits in two. Not because it wants to or because it has evolved to do so, but simply because above this threshold size it becomes unstable and falls apart in two pieces.
The absorption of “nutrients” is also very primitive. Whenever our cell comes into contact with specific chemicals they are absorbed. Again, not because it wants to or because it has evolved to do so, but simply by the nature of chemicals reacting.

We now have two very primitive systems in place. Metabolism and reproduction. Each no more than the most basic and (literally) elemental chemical properties. But each now subject evolutionary processes. Any small (random) change in our proto cell will either improve or worsen the process.

Let’s say that on the outer edge of our cell a small change in the structure improves the absorption of the “nutrients” in a significant manner. Such that the cell reaches its critical size faster. Therefor reproducing faster. And before long this new feature will have spread through the population.

So, just like with eyes, there is no “it can only work as a complete system” and “it is useless unless it is in its modern complete form”. It’s gradual steps all the way.

>pic unrelated

i see what they mean though; creationism does encourage a form of complacency when it comes to discovery. creationist science is purely confirmational, it doesnt generally look for anything new.

I approach my science field with as much or more curiousity and wonderment as any atheist I've ever met. Your terminology of creationist science implies there is a divide somewhere and that an atheist is the only one with the real facts or something. Need i remind you that facts are facts?

yes but the nutrients need to be involved in some metabolic process to get to where theyre needed. metabolism isnt just absorbing nutrients you know.

In this fase metabolism isn't much more than absorption. Think: cell made of X absorps more X
Complex metabolic organs and processes are still way off into the future.

Eh, nevermind. I guess the complacency depends on the perspective of whether you believe in creationism or not.

Me
Allllll of you.

Higher power =/= a classical sense of 'god'. Higher power simply means a presence in the universe beyond that of human understanding and comprehension.

>why can't the universe be "transcendent"?

nigga you dumb af

I do but claiming a universal creator would care about you is like you caring about your quarks. Its moronic honestly.

Funny, for me it's the other way around.

"sky fairy" is a convenient strawman

what excuse can you make for that fact that we haven't managed to replicate the process artificially, if it's really not so complex?

>this expression indicates a Christfag's confusion and lack of understanding...

>less complex than modern cell = simple enough to replicate artificially
LOL no. First we would have to know the exact chemical mechanism, and don't.

Are you stupid? Whatever the cell imports needs work to be applied to it or else it will just float about within the cell membrane; It needs to be acted on by metabolic processes so it goes where it needs to go structurally and then waste needs to be gotten rid of. And DNA transciption itself requires metabolic processes.

your fucking post is worse then the ones you refer to.

you don't have qualms with believing in something happening spontaneously that's too complex for us to replicate? (and btw I'm not necessarily justifying any theist ideas, so don't use that in your rebuttal)