Myweponsg00d

No, more that the "mug" exists as a "mug" because we call it a "mug". ... Is there an object sitting on my desk that has a handle and is about 4 inches tall? Well it depends on how we define all of those words, but the object is there no matter what we call it. Uhh, how can someone decide to appear or not appear depending on whether they believe in him or not? Seriously, how can you think that the concept of Santa Claus is even possible? How can an invisible man in the sky create the universe? If we knew of a mechanism for how Santa could fly around the Earth in a night, then the idea wouldn't seem unlikely at all. Anything that we don't understand or don't have an explanation for will always seem baffling. You said you don't fully reject any idea with 100% certainty. I refuted your claim by showing you an idea that you rejected with 100% certainty. Then I pointed out how you were avoiding the point, and you just avoided that too. I didn't say that any IDEA is possible. My point is that the existence of a thing in the physical world cannot be determined to be impossible. Once you start adding labels and linguistic descriptors to these things, you aren't talking about the existence of a physical thing, you're classifying it into abstract categories.

A "god" can only exist, or not, because you define it. They are epistemological assertions no matter how you want to slice it. No. I look at this object on my desk and call it a "mug". Are you saying that this object only exists because I call it a mug? Regardless of what I chose to call this mug, the item that the word represents will always exist. I already explained this to you. We define a triangle to have only three sides. Can something have only three sides but have four sides? No. Do you believe that there can be a true lie? How could it possibly be a lie? Its not like a bunch of mathematicians got together in a room and did years of research to discover a triangle. A triangle is just a definition. It is just a three sided object. We just CALL that a triangle. Theres nothing to lie about...its just a term that we use to refer to something. Thats like saying "Maybe those tricky physicists have been lying to you about what we call "red"!" What? How can it be a lie? We just see a color, and we choose to call it red. Regardless of what word we picked to explain this color, it would still be the same... No. A four-sided three-sided object is not possible. It just isn't, because of the way we define the terms "three" "four" and "side". Fine then, aliens control gravity. Let's start the presses because I just answered a huge scientific question. Whats your point? Aliens would not be a good example because there is more evidence for alien existence than there is for invisible man existence. The fact that you consider aliens more plausible than Santa or flying spaghetti monsters shows you exactly why aliens are not used as an example.

If people asked you if you like sushi and you never tried it, would you say, "No, I don't like it," or "I don't know - I never tried it."? Technically both are correct, but I have no idea what would cause you to prefer saying the first over the second, since admitting ignorance would be the much less misleading option. Also, this is in a much different vein than your recent arguments. Any time it would be mentioned that god is a mere possibility, you made sure to say the same for Santa or invisible men. If this was your point all along, I don't think I would have argued with you. What got me was Santa = God, which, when you think about it, is a pretty strong suggestion that "God doesn't exist". If someone asked "Do you like sushi?" and I hadn't tried it, I would say "I don't know." And if someone asked me "What are the origins of the universe, before the big bang?" I would say "I don't know". But if someone makes the statement "You like sushi" I would have to say "No...I don't know if I like sushi." If someone says "There is a God that explains what happened before the big bang." I would have to say "No...we lack that knowledge" You keep coming back to Santa and invisible men like this comparison HURTS my case. It doesn't. Why are you so certain that these things DON'T exist? My point is that all of these things (Santa, invisible men, undetectable teapots circling the moon, the flying spaghetti monster) ALL have the same ammount of evidence. If you think God is more likely to exist than Santa, then please go ahead and list the evidence that makes a stronger case for God's existence. In fact I would be willing to take the statement you quoted and replace it with any of these things. I did not avoid this. I already answered a few pages back. A triangle is not a physical object, it is an abstract idea. Asking "Can there be a 4 sided triangle?" is like asking "Can there be a true lie?" No. There can't, because we invented these ideas; these are not objects in the physical world. A "lie" only exists because we define it.

You still need evidence for this. If your stance is that "Hey, maybe God exists." then okay. Yeah, maybe he does. I think God could exist. The point is that theism says "I believe theres a god" and atheism says "I don't believe that claim to be true." It isn't saying that god can't or doesn't exist. It is saying that you simply are not convinced of the claim, because of a lack of evidence. You don't need evidence to reject a claim. Making claims about the world requires that the burden of proof be put on the person making the claims. If you want to disagree with this then you are essentially just disagreeing with the way that we use science to figure things out. More claims. How do you know he isn't physical? Also, where did God come from? I apologize if I seem rather stubbornly convinced of my side, but I have spent most of the last 10 years debating this issue on a regular basis. Perhaps if you had met me when I still didn't figure out why every argument for God is illogical, I would be a little less firmly convinced that there aren't any strong arguments for God. It's just that I have debated tons of creationists, and I hear the exact same stuff over and over. Right well I mean...I know nothing about how to knit. I can put some ideas together and make my best guess on how to sit down with knitting materials and create a sweater. But I think it would be naive of me to think that I know better than the knitting experts. You can come to a novice conclusion about the issue, but I think most people would be modest enough to say that their best logical conclusion probably still isn't correct. It is, each atom's decay is still random. But an assemblance of random events loses its unpredictability once we quantify a certain number of atoms and quantify a certain length of time. Yeah not everything that is radioactive has the same half life. Some substances will decay entirely in a matter of seconds, some will take years, some even more. For example, Potassium 40 has a half life of 1.3 billion years, while some isotopes have half-lives in the miliseconds. They just originate in the same place. The path of any photon will be restricted by where it originates, but its exact location along this path follows a wave of probability. Found this video for anyone wondering why atheism might be beneficial to your life.

I want to know why you lump God and "creative force" together in your logic...I don't want to get creative force entangled with God. What I'm denying is the claims that people believe there to be some type of intelligent being who created the universe. I am not going to start talking about all other theories that involve the universe coming from somewhere else. I don't claim that evolution IS unguided. My stance is that we shouldn't claim anything for which we have no evidence. We have no evidence that evolution was guided, therefore we shouldn't think it was guided. Pick up a paper on evolution, you won't see anyone say "This is a process that definitely wasn't assisted by God." That would be a ludicrous thing for a scientist to claim, because theres no evidence for either side. My understanding of evolution has come largely from biology classes, lectures, and various educational documentaries and programs. I mean, if you count textbooks maybe I've gotten some knowledge from "books". I've also read "Of Pandas and People" which is basically the creationist version of a textbook. I was referring to "books" meaning the common type of book, typically written by one author. Nobody is assuming it is definitely unguided. We are saying we shouldn't assume anything about its nature that we don't have evidence for. I am not attempting to argue this. I am not making any claims about where the universe came from. I am rejecting a claim that an intelligent being created us. Nothing more. Okay, so if we want to stick with "the norm", "the norm" is to answer questions about the physical world with the use of science. We do it for literally everything else concerning the physical world except for things in the "origin" category. If you'd want to follow "the norm" you wouldn't answer this question with philosophy, faith, or anything of the like. It is not a character flaw, but it is definitely not pure logic. Just because someone is illogical doesn't mean anything about whether or not I see this person as a worthy human being. Many creationists, such as my parents, have outright told me that they just don't care if they are right or wrong about where stuff came from. They just want to believe what they want to believe. They acknowledge that this might not be a rational or logical thing to do, fine. And I don't harass them about having illogical beliefs or anything like that when I get to see them. They don't claim to be right, and they don't think the issue is worthwhile enough to talk about. My beef is with people who assert the "God hypothesis" as something that they have a reason for believing, or if they want me to believe it too. I hate repeatedly pointing out logical fallacies but this is an argument from authority. "Some scientists believe X, therefore it's gotta have merit right?" Not necessarily. You should see some of the pre-journal papers that get passed around for peer review. Individuals with great credentials are capable of putting out some strange stuff. Also I mean there really is a lot of social pressure to be a theist. Well for starters my view on "intelligence" is sure a lot more complicated than that. But secondly, no, one view on any issue has nothing related to natural giftedness in any area. Now, I might say that my views about the cosmos are perhaps more correct, adanced, or respectable. I also might say that I have a better understanding of the scientific process. None of this makes me a better person, as I'm sure he has a deeper understanding than me of how other things work. The only thing I will say is that I do think it is incredibly...odd..for people to have claims about things that they haven't really mastered. Do average people have claims about the nuclear processes that take place in the Sun? Do average people have claims about what the social norms in 5th century Asia mean? Do average people claim to know how to build the parts for a computer? No. Yet for some reason, when it comes to the origins of the universe, everybody feels like they are qualified to come on in and make a judgment about what happened. First of all, you mean exponential (or logarithmic) not linear. Secondly, it is not "predictable" but rather "able to be simulated/approximated". Thirdly, we are able to model radioactive decay somewhat reliably because what we model with the logarithmic function is the decay of a substance, not the decay of a single atom. If you have a large number of things that all have the random chance of decaying, a large number of them will decay and then the number will be cut in half after a certain time. Think of it like...if I had 100 TVs on a wall, each of them has a random chance of shutting off with each passing second. Certain properties of the atoms will tell you how quickly their random clock "ticks". Basically, how many random events occur per second. This "loss of randomness" also happens with light. Nobody would ever think that a photon demonstrates quantum behavior, since when we shine lasers at things, the light follows a predictable path. But, it only appears to do this because of the sheer number of photons that are travelling together, each with a quantum path.

"It's too random" is not an argument. It is a logical fallacy. And also, nobody is making the claim "Evolution was unguided." The idea is that we have no reason to think that it was guided. Nobody is saying that the evolution evidence we have should convince you that it is unguided. The evidence for evolution tells you that it happened. The lack of evidence for guided evolution is why we don't think it was guided. Then present some. I've presented some of evolutionary theory in this thread, so why not present whatever it is that supports your theory? It's just hard to believe that there is going to be any sort of valid argument in these books. I didn't need to read a book to learn about evolution so why do I need to read a book to hear the arguments for god? Fair enough to the second point. Your linguistic embellishments, however, don't help your case, and are unnecessary. I would say that it is more likely because the atheist leaders so far have been jerks. I'd like to see a democratic atheist state. ....why? On the contrary, many of your arguments seem to be "I just don't think it is possible...I mean, how could life be unguided?" This is an argument from personal incredulence. The basis of your argument is that the alternatives sound "too random". I think this sounds like some of your main points are argued just because you find the alternative hard to deal with. Mmmm, I would say through flawed logic and flawed reason. Theres a reason that no scientists have published peer reviewed work on the god hypothesis. To believe in god takes a logical mistake. Well if you truly only use logic and reason to arrive at your theism then you must not have heard all of the arguments for atheism.

What is there to understand? What is there for me to read in these books? Claims? Pretty pictures? What is it? Give me a good reason why it wouldn't be a waste of my time and I'll read it. If its just going to be a bunch of philosophy and arguments from incredulence, then why should I read it? Am I really supposed to expect that all reasonable arguments for God are somehow contained only in these reccomended books? What reason do I have to read these books? Other than the fact that I could hear the same arguments said by different people. The God Delusion is a really great book. Not just because I agree with its stance on God but because I feel the writing is very elegant. These aren't really arguments. I'm not saying "You are wrong because this is creationist babble." Or "You are wrong because you can't even pay attention in class." These comments are just my linguistic embellishments. "Anyone can write a book" is my way of saying "You're making an argument from authority - just because the book exists doesn't mean anything for your case." I see now that you are saying you aren't just trying to use the existence of books as support for your case, so don't worry about that now. Interesting. Again I have very little understanding of this branch of history, so I had no idea where you are going with that. However, I still insist that this has nothing to do with atheism. Atheism is not a particular doctorine or school of thought. Theres no immediate claim that these bad things happened BECAUSE of atheism. If the leaders were anything besides atheist, perhaps there would have been a different genocide. I agree. It may not be. As long as we're both on the same page that this doesn't influence the validity of theist claims for reality, then I don't have anything I want to discuss here. I understand that this is an important philosophical discussion to have, but I'm just limiting my involvement in this thread to representing the atheist standpoint on the physical world. I am not about to start writing about my views on whether or not it would be right to have people believe X Y or Z if they may or may not be true. I don't really make arguments based on books that I have read, so other than the literature I have written in the many pages of this thread I can't say I can reccomend any readings to further your understanding of my arguments. If you have any personal curiosities about atheist discussion, check out some videos on YouTube from the show called "The Atheist Experience". From the episodes I have seen, they do a pretty good job at explaining what atheism has to say about common theist concerns (they take calls from theists). Nobody is saying that evolution, by necessity, needs to be unguided. The idea is that there is no evidence to support that it was guided and therefore it isn't included in the theory. I actually agree that the idea of an intelligent overseeing force is comforting and "reassuring" in a way. In fact I will give you that philosophical reasons, I wish there WAS a god. I would love to be rewarded for living a good life and to have scumbags get what they deserve. But I just have no reason to believe that this is a reality.

It is true: anyone can write a book. Using these books as any sort of argument for the existence of God is just making an argument from authority. If the books have evidence for god, just tell me what that evidence is. I also don't recall ever making ad hominem arguments. I'm sure I have written some straw man arguments but these may have been in response to other ridiculous arguments to demonstrate the fact that the arguments are ridiculous. If you think you have a logical objection to any of my arguments then simply respond to me and demonstrate how my argument is flawed, just like what I did to you. I also would like you to quote when I said "You cannot believe in God and be a real physicist." Don't recall ever writing that. I don't know nearly enough about the USSR to determine whether or not it is a good thing to look at to determine the success of an "atheist" state. It sounds to me like we just have another example of correlation...the USSR happened to be atheistic and it happened to fall. You'd need to demonstrate that the atheism actually had anything to do with the failure of the society. Hell, otherwise I could just say "A soceity existing on Russian soil might not be the best idea for soceity." The two might have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Also, I don't even care about atheism being "good" or "bad" for society. What is good or bad for society has nothing to do with what is true about the physical world. Why bring it up?

These two seem equally rational (equally irrational?) to me. The argument for God that you just listed is nothing but an argument from personal incredulity. It is a complete logical fallacy. Calling a theory that is based on logical fallacies "rational" doesn't seem to make sense. Also, I'll go ahead and respond to each part of the definition you posted: "a belief that is held with unshakable conviction," Okay- its probably true that not all theists are unshakably "certain" of God, but I hear this all the time. ("I know theres a god" and such statements..."I have complete FAITH that there is a god") "cannot be altered by rational argument," Well. If it could, then they wouldn't be god believers unless they just haven't heard the arguments against it "and is outside the person's normal cultural or subcultural belief system [...]" I would say that it is in most peoples' culture that we should answer questions about the physical world using scientific methods. Insisting upon making an exception for God seems that God-beleif agrees with this definition "The abnormal pathology lies in the irration way in which the person comes to the belief." Again, belief in God is irrational. The only arguments that can be made for existence are logical fallacies. Unless someone has any arguments they would like to make that I haven't heard before...So I'll say that at least every argument for God that I'm aware of is irrational. Are you saying that you have stopped responding to my questioning because I have done something wrong? Or that I am not open to persuasion? I would be perfectly willing to be persuaded if I hear a valid argument.

So everyone is free to just think whatever the hell they want to think about reality. Okay, great. Same as above. People are allowed to just believe whatever the hell they want to believe about reality? If not, then why is "god" the exception? I just see no reason to hold religion to any exception. If someone hears voices in their head they get committed, but if someone hears God in their head they've had a religious experience. I hate the fact that the god theory is a protected delusion just because it is god.

Do you also feel this way about other unknown information about the physical world? What causes the force of gravity? Cause I'm going to claim that it is tiny tiny men who have telekinetic powers. Nobody knows so theres no problem with my claim.

Well, there are a couple good points you brought up. I think that the intellectual who adheres to a religion (specifically) likely believes in the existence of a God, and chooses a specific religion based on whatever morality they can relate to best. For example, there are certain things about the bible that make a lot of sense - indeed I think almost everyone (atheists included) would agree that there are very many good lessons and morality imposed there. You compare the morality imposed by the Koran, the old testament, and the new (Islam, Judaism and Christianity respectively) - I consider those the three major religions, since Hinduism and Buddhism are quite different. To me, personally, no "holy book" is perfect - I don't believe I need to go into detail as I'm sure you're well aware of the flaws of each book, but I believe that out of the three, the new testament is the one which best sums up an ideal version of religion - with a loving, caring, and powerful God. Now, it's easy to point out inconsistencies with all of these holy books, but the belief is, at least, that they were in fact written by men, with divine inspiration - many different men, in fact. Most criticisms of the bible tend to be leveled at the old testament, as the new testament is an enlightenment of the old. It stands to reason that there will be some minor discrepancies and contradictions throughout. However, there are also certain things about the new testament that make it seem odd it was the work of manipulators, exaggerators or liars. My personal belief, as well, is that a religious (specifically Christan) society is a much more productive and moral one. A common example used is the minimal testing of atheist society and what it has thus far achieved, hence references to communist Russia. (It's interesting to note, however, that when this problem is brought up with atheists, they tend to me much more likely to sidestep the argument or present a straw man rather than actually debate it - see this gem. The effects of religions on social behavior has nothing to do with the claim of physical existence of something. Even if the most prosperous society in the world was 100% atheist, I would not even attempt to justify my claims with this because it is completely irrelevant. Reality doesn't depend on whats good for society. Sure, there are differences. But there is not a difference in the strength of your claim. There are many philosophical differences but you still believe an explanation that has no evidence.

There aren't two sides. Its not like all atheists are trying to assert that we know there is no god. All you know about an atheist is that he doesn't believe the god story. It says nothing about what he does believe. Atheism is really just a label for the system of thought that rejects a claim. There are more than two sides to this argument.

I had to post this reply in two sections due to restriction on the number of quotes. This is because a triangle is a mathematical idea. Its like saying "Do I think that 5 might equal 2?" No. I am 100% certain that 5 does not equal 2 because of how we define the concept. We can know things for certain about abstract ideas. For example: can anyone ever tell a true lie? No. It is impossible, and I know 100% for certain that a true lie does not exist. But this is only because this type of knowledge only exists in the abstract; we are talking about definitions. Claims about truth or reality in the physical world are much different than claims about abstract concepts. I don't say this, and it is not representative of the atheist stance. A delusion is by definition a belief held without evidence. If you define "delusion" to be something else, then perhaps God is not a delusion. Anyone who says this is oversimplifying. This is almost as bad as "All atheists assert that there is no god" This is a bogus claim and does nothing to disprove the God theory. I never said that if you believe one you must believe the other. It is merely a comparable argument because neither case has any supporting evidence. I never said atheists can't make illogical claims. In fact I said I'd love to hear what claims you hear "atheists" make, so that I can evaluate whether or not it is even representative of the atheist standpoint. And theism is often more than a belief that a god exists. So? It doesn't mean that I take into account gay-bashers and racists when I am evaluating the claim of a god's existence. I don't think anyone even in this thread has made any assertions that god is nonexistent. It sounds like you have met some pretty dumb atheists. My point is that some atheists can act very religiously and that I find it funny how passionate some can get over a lack of belief. I didn't say that science can and will answer the question. I asked why you claim (if that IS what you're claiming) that science will not be able to answer it? There certainly is no reason to believe that the question is unanswerable by science, but that doesn't mean that it will definitely be answered by science. Also this question is not a scientific question. "Can science be used to determine the origins of the universe?" is not a scientific question and doesn't have any relationship to physical evidence. It is a philosophical question. If you don't think science can be used to answer the question then theres no point in trying to prove it or argue against atheists. Then the burden of proof would be on you to support your claim. Also @Y_Guy is there something I've done to convince you that I do not debate civilly?

Why not? We are talking about whether or not a god physically exists aren't we? Theres nothing metaphysical about what most people claim as their "god theory". They are making claims about the physical world. If we are talking about the origins of the universe, evidence most certainly DOES apply to it. For the thousandth time, nobody is asserting that we have evidence for nonexistence of god. None of these are evidence for nonexistence. All it is evidence for is that if Santa Claus does exist, we have his story wrong. Maybe he stops giving families presents when they stop believing. Or if the family tries to tell other people that Santa is real. Actually, intent of the creation of the theory says nothing about the theory's plausibility. In fact many groundbreaking scientific theories started as random "crazy" thoughts that defied logic. Example: the origins of the heliocentric model as opposed to a geocentric model. Again, atheism is not assertion of nonexistence. Atheism is the rejection of a claim. Not assertion of the opposite. Theres no way to debate God's existence or nonexistence because the theory itself is completely illogical. Instead of debating the nonexistence of God, you have to debunk the logic. Its like saying that if I claim "Theres definitely a giant invisible boat sailing around Jupiter" that you should try to refute my claim based on evidence. God existence is not debated with nonexistence because theres nothing to talk about. The theory is undebateable.

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0802629.htm What if the aliens are atheists? EDIT: Come on creationists, I'm waiting to debate more flawed logic. Let's get back in this thread

I have never seen a reason to care about which web browzer I use. All I need is an address bar, not sure why anyone would ever want anything else from their browzer.

CAN'T answer it? You mean...ever? Why wouldn't science be able to answer the question? I have never "admitted" that the question cannot be answered. I have said that we do not yet have the answer. There are plenty of things that science does not have an answer for right now, and the only one people think "God" is an acceptable explantion for is creation. Do you use philosophy to answer other unanswered scientific questions? Do you have a personal theory for the cure for AIDS? Do you have a personal theory for how we will unify the standard model of particle physics? Theres lots of unexplained questions about the physical world, and we don't just go around writing philosophy for use as an explanation. Why did there have to be someone who intended something to happen? Do you think of other natural things, such as volcanoes erupting, having intent or purpose? What? You've been reiterating evidence? You have no evidence. There are many other sources of evidence that are not direct historical observation. Think: did we see any animals evolve? No. Also, another common example is the fact that Pluto's orbit is over 200 years in length but we haven't even known about the planet for 100 years. How do we know this? Because direct observation of an event is only one source of scientific evidence. Our evidence in support of the big bang is largely similar to our evidence for evolution; it is based on historical reconstruction. Also "take that theory as evidence" doesn't make any sense. Theories are not taken as evidence. Evidence is taken as evidence and theories are constructed based on that evidence.

Which is entirely fine, but how many atheists actually leave it at a lack of belief? How many go around asserting that "God = Flying Spaghetti Monster, Santa Claus, invisible lizardmen running the Illuminati, four-sided triangles, etc." (hint: "I declare god fictional")? What? What the hell are you talking about. The point is that God is just as believeable as any of these things because none of them have any supporting evidence. Except I have never heard the "four sided triangle" comparison. I would disagree with that comparison because that is an impossibility, not a theory that lacks evidence. Such as? I'd love to hear the claims that you hear other "atheists" make Modest? Belief? Again, I'm lost as to what you are talking about and what your point is.

What about when people know nothing about the rest of the world, and only know about their own countries? I think that's worse. I think it is excusable for people to know nothing about anything as long as they don't pretend that they know something about it. For instance, if someone doesn't know anything about events in Africa, but he just lives in his home in the hills of Virginia and doesn't really care about whats happening in the rest of the world, then thats fine. Its annoying though when people try to say something like "This is the best country!" when they don't even know anything about other countries...

So why does this ONE issue of the physical world get to be answered by philosophy instead of science? If by "creator" you mean "any causal mechanism" then okay. If I tell you that a teapot is in orbit around Jupiter, does it take more faith to believe me or to disbelieve me? Also, nobody has any bones to pick with God. If you make any claims that are based on zero evidence I would be just as little convinced. If I claim that I have an invisible pet unicorn, does it take just as much faith to believe me as to not believe me? Watch this video for more discussion about "belief" that atheists have: Do you hold other beliefs about the physical world that have zero evidence? What? A theory is not evidence. Not sure what youre saying here.

This is still a scientific question though. This is like saying since we cant answer "What is the AIDs vaccine?" we should try to answer this question philosophically.... These are not the only two options! There could be many many more degrees of complexity outside of the universe! We have no idea what the options are for universal creation. You are assuming that you know nothing came before the universe, and nothing exists outside of it. We dont know this! No, I choose to believe nothing about the origins of the universe. You choose to believe something that has no evidence. In no other aspect of life do we just say "If we don't know, anyone can believe whatever the hell they want!" If we don't know, then we don't know. And anyone is a fool to think that they have any understanding of how the universe came to be...cause we don't know! So are you saying that the universe either came from somewhere, or came from nowhere? And you want to lump all of the "came from somewhere" theories together into a "God" theory? There still is no reason to believe in either case, other than philosophical reasons, which have absolutely no bearing on what actually exists in the physical world. We didn't use philosophy to discover Pluto, and we can't use philosophy to determine where the universe came from. The difference being that theists claim belief of their theory, and atheists leave their hypotheses as what they are: guesses that aren't based on evidence. Its not like cosmologists would say "I believe XXX theory of universal creation." It just simply isn't part of scientific knowledge, and we accept that. Theists don't do that.

Does Occam's Razor say that objects should be made of moluecules, which are made of atoms, which are made of particles, which are made of even smaller and smaller stuff? Occam's Razor sure sounds like a pretty concept, but it doesn't have anything to do with the physical world. False dichotomy, purely and smimply. Mind giving me your evidence that the only possible explanation for where the universe came from is either divine creation or random occurance? We have no idea what was before the universe, or what might be outside of it. You're right, it is a question that is not sufficiently answered by science, because it is NOT answered by science yet. I still don't think that the designer answers any questions. Where did the designer come from? Random occurance? If the designer came about randomly, then why couldnt the universe? Or maybe the designer was "always there"? Well then why can't the universe just be "always there"? An intelligent designer just creates an extra step before you have all of the same questions.

The reason we're talking about randomness is quite simple. For something to be truly random, it must have no outside force exerting influence on its behavior or outcome. People such as yourself maintain that the universe we live in was formed without any outside force exerting influence on its behavior or outcome. If there isn't anything truly random, how could the universe have possibly came from such? Nobody claims that the universe came from a place of no influence. No scientific claim actually even exists yet for what came before the big bang. Some of the current "hypotheses" say that our universe is only one of many other universes, which exist in a place we have yet to discover. This higher place could have its own set of rules governing how a universe should behave. Again, this would raise a lot more questions, but thats what happens when we don't know something. But yeah...nobody is claiming that the universe all of a sudden just came from absolutely nowhere. It is a thought, a possibility, but nobody is claiming it to be true.

I'm talking about something that was truly random. You can flip a coin, yes, but the result is directly controlled by things like wind speed, coin weight, and how hard you flick it, so that there's in fact nothing random about the coin flipping. It merely has the appearance of being random. Same goes for pulling paper out of a hat, using a computer to generate a "random" number, etc etc. Yes, I'm using the proper definition. Then theres nothing random about physics, biology, chemistry, cosmology, or astronomy. The position and formation of all of the planets could have been predicted if you could calculate what would happen based on like 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 events. Random DNA mutations aren't really random in the mathematical sense of the word. Theyre just impossible or very hard to predict. I don't know of anything in the physical world that is actually random. What makes you think that the origins of the universe are random then? No, the term "too random" was used for that. There is no "unlikely" connotation behind the word "random" by itself unless you give it one. "Too random" is a nonsense phrase, if we are going by the definition of random. The connotation is given to random if you say something is "too random". Saying it is too random implies you think it is unlikely. I am just going by the same argument I have heard every creationist make where they use the phrase "too random". Saying the words "too random" is like saying that somebody is "too dead" to offer medical assistance to. Either the person is dead or not. Same thing with events, using the textbook definition of random, things would either be random or not. Nobody uses the textbook definition of random though. There isn't really anything that is truly random. I dont even understand why we are talking about randomness now. I just want to know how in the hell anything being random relates to the existence or nonexistence of a deity.