But there is a very large margin, current estimates are more like 10^24
But we can't judge from that the probability of getting life.
I can't roll a dice and, getting a 6 on the first try, conclude that the probability of rolling a 6 is 100%.
Now, this *could* be accurate (maybe it's a rigged die), but I cannot state with any degree of accuracy whether or not this is so. Likewise, how can we suppose the probability of getting life?
we'd need a good septillion to one against at least to produce any reasonable doubt.
Is this unreasonable? What constitutes an unreasonable estimate of the odds of life? What criteria do we even have for that?
For the purposes of atheism vs theism we don't need to go in any more detail.
But, don't you?
Without determining what kind of dice you're rolling, how do you determine the probability of getting a particular outcome? And without knowing that, how can we assert whether an outcome is well within the realm of probability or not?
@Highroller.
We only need chance to justify it as plausible, there's more to it if you want to really demonstrate how it works and prove that the chances are right.
The point of looking at the number of planets is to show that it's quite reasonable to have life generate by chance chemical reactions. Yes, we obviously need to determine the chances of life occurring in order to prove the chance chemical reaction hypothesis, but the point is we don't need a very good chance of it happening on any one planet for it to happen at all.
The reason why we don't need more detail for atheism vs theism is because atheism doesn't need to explain everything to be correct. We can show how incredibly useful scientific principles are for explaining everything without the need for God. Atheism clearly doesn't explain anywhere near everything, very far from it, but theism is even worse, explaining very little and raising abundant new questions about how it's answers even work.
@Highroller.
We only need chance to justify it as plausible,
No, because that's not what the word "plausible" means.
Chance would justify the event as possible. Plausible means that the event is probable.
In fact, if we want to get technical, you haven't justified the event as possible, either. I'm not going to dispute that it is, because science will back up the fact that life resulted from proteins, which resulted from organic matter, which resulted from inorganic matter, etc. The thing is, this requires a knowledge of the natural sciences to be able to assert, which goes against your repeated claims of how intuitive this all is. Turns out you actually do need to know things for this discussion.
The point of looking at the number of planets is to show that it's quite reasonable to have life generate by chance chemical reactions.
Except you haven't demonstrated that.
Imagine if I rolled a die three times and got 3, 1, 6 as my results. What would you say the probability of rolling the 6 was?
The answer is you cannot possibly know based on the information I gave you, the probability is based on the sides of the dice I rolled, and you legitimately have no idea what kind of die I rolled. Might have been a six-sided die, sure, but it could have been a 20-sided die. Or a 100-sided die. Or a die with just the numbers 1, 3, and 6 for some odd reason. You can't say, because you have no idea what sort of die you're working with.
So what bearing does the number of planets have?
Yes, we obviously need to determine the chances of life occurring in order to prove the chance chemical reaction hypothesis, but the point is we don't need a very good chance of it happening on any one planet for it to happen at all.
Blinking_Spirit pointed out the problem with this in an earlier post that you seemed to have glossed over. The probability of monkeys just randomly banging keys together to produce Hamlet is not zero - it is possible - but it's also so low as to be virtually infinitesimal.
The general problem here is that you're conflating the idea of something being possible with that thing being probable (rather ironic position for an atheist). Your argument stems from the idea that because there is a nonzero chance of life just spontaneously arising, then that translates to a very likely chance given the number of planets there are. Except this does not hold, because we do not know what the probability of life is.
Essentially, you are claiming that life is probable, but also saying that you don't know what the probability of life is. Which contradicts and makes no sense.
Let's go back to the analogy of the dice. Say I roll a die multiple times. Is it probable that I would get a six after six tries?
You don't know, and you cannot know, because I didn't tell you how many sides the die had. It could be a six-sided die, a twenty-sided die, a 100-sided die, a quadrillion-sided die. You don't know, because you don't have that information.
So repeating how many planets there are doesn't work. The issue is not how many times you attempt to get the result you want, the issue is the probability of that result happening in the first place.
The reason why we don't need more detail for atheism vs theism is because atheism doesn't need to explain everything to be correct.
Which is not the same thing as not needing to explain why anything is correct. You do actually have to demonstrate some things yourself, such as what the actual probability of life is, in order for your argument to work.
@Highroller
Plausible means reasonable or probable. It can be either likely or a good explanation that isn't necessarily likely, which is the case. Plausible, possible, reasonable, whatever, it's not the point.
The number of planets shows that it doesn't need to be a good chance, yes, it's very easy to attribute much higher numbers that don't fit within the range but my point was that the basic principle is simply that there was a lot of opportunity for life to arise, we don't need to involve God unless we can show that life wouldn't have likely ever originated from just chemical reactions. It's not a scientific argument, it's a reason argument that asks why we need God with so many planets to increase the chances. The creationist argument is at an inherent disadvantage, atheism only needs to show that there are reasonable alternatives that don't require a leap of faith; a much higher level of assumptions than simply using already known forces and interactions.
Note that I never claimed to explain how it worked, I was trying to make a point directly against the theistic explanation using reason alone because using science requires the theist to accept that science, which will never happen if looks like it might put good points against them. I am arguing more on their terms because that argument can still be won.
My argument works because the theistic explanation is so incredibly bad it falls apart on it's own, my argument only needs to provide some basic explanations to beat the unreasonable ones proposed by theism, chiefly that God him/her/itself is unexplained despite it being a vital part of the entire idea. The greatest problem with theism isn't what theism proposes, it's how little it proposes in the first place to justify itself at all. Atheism offers explanations based on comprehensible, observable forces whereas theism proposes completely exterior explanations that require further explanations themselves and hence aren't really an explanation but elaborate hand-waving to distract from the lack of one.
I don't know very much at all, to be honest, about the scientific explanation for the origin of life, but I know enough about science itself to know that it doesn't even need to be correct. Any explanation that scientists come up with is open to being replaced with updated knowledge, that's the strength of atheism, it doesn't assume to understand much of anything. In this way, the current explanation of such things serves better as an example of how scientific principle is superior to theism rather than scientific theory.
@Highroller
Plausible means reasonable or probable.
Right, and what does the word probable mean? Hint:
that isn't necessarily likely
That is the exactly opposite of what the word probable means.
The fact that you don't know or are unwilling to acknowledge the difference between something being likely and something being unlikely - exact opposites of one another - is a major problem with your argument.
Plausible, possible, reasonable, whatever, it's not the point.
Which proves my point: you're conflating something having a nonzero chance of happening with something being likely to happen. Which is wrong, as has been repeatedly pointed out to you.
Also, "it's not the point"? You're trying to argue something is plausible! Whether something is plausible or implausible isn't the point?
It is exactly the point. Your argument is, "Common sense tells us that given as many planets that are in the universe, one of them would have life." This argument takes as a given that the probability of life is such that it makes it likely that one planet will have it.
But that's the problem with your argument: you haven't demonstrated what the actual probability of life is. You're trying to argue it's likely without actually demonstrating that it's likely. It could be absurdly unlikely. Do you know what another word for absurdly unlikely is? Implausible.
The number of planets shows that it doesn't need to be a good chance, yes, it's very easy to attribute much higher numbers that don't fit within the range but my point was that the basic principle is simply that there was a lot of opportunity for life to arise, we don't need to involve God unless we can show that life wouldn't have likely ever originated from just chemical reactions. It's not a scientific argument, it's a reason argument that asks why we need God with so many planets to increase the chances.
Except your argument isn't any better. Your argument relies on presuming you know a probability that you don't know, and claiming something being unlikely is the same thing as something being likely.
Your argument has the exact same problem as the one made by the people you're arguing against: making a presumption about the likelihood of life without demonstrating anything to indicate what sort of dice we're rolling. The people who believe that God is necessary for the creation of the universe are arguing that the probability of life is so low as to be either zero or some number so small as to be effectively infinitesimal. You're arguing that the probability is so high as that life is pretty much set given the number of planets.
Both of these are presumptuous arguments, because they are presuming to know probability that they don't actually know.
Also, it seems the irony of someone advocating atheism making the argument that something being unlikely should still be plausible still hasn't hit you yet. Let me explain the joke: atheism is the position that God's existence is unlikely enough to be implausible. You have defeated yourself.
My argument works because the theistic explanation is so incredibly bad it falls apart on it's own
Tu quoque fallacy. An argument being wrong does not make you correct.
my argument only needs to provide some basic explanations
Nothing you have posted constitutes an explanation of anything, and has been picked apart already.
@Highroller
Plausible means reasonable or probable.
Right, and what does the word probable mean? Hint:
that isn't necessarily likely
That is the exactly opposite of what the word probable means.
The fact that you don't know or are unwilling to acknowledge the difference between something being likely and something being unlikely - exact opposites of one another - is a major problem with your argument.
OR. OR. Not AND. Plausible doesn't need to be probable it can be reasonable instead. Or at least that's my understanding of it.
Which proves my point: you're conflating something having a nonzero chance of happening with something being likely to happen. Which is wrong, as has been repeatedly pointed out to you.
Also, "it's not the point"? You're trying to argue something is plausible! Whether something is plausible or implausible isn't the point?
"It's not the point" was referring to the use of the word "plausible" not the meaning of the comment. I meant possible and reasonable, not in the same way as a scientific theory but just in a common sense way. I may have been incorrect in using "plausible" and that's what I was saying was not the point.
It is exactly the point. Your argument is, "Common sense tells us that given as many planets that are in the universe, one of them would have life." This argument takes as a given that the probability of life is such that it makes it likely that one planet will have it.
But that's the problem with your argument: you haven't demonstrated what the actual probability of life is. You're trying to argue it's likely without actually demonstrating that it's likely. It could be absurdly unlikely. Do you know what another word for absurdly unlikely is? Implausible.
I am not trying to offer a complete explanation, I never claimed to, my claim is that the religious explanation is invalid because it makes unnecessary assumptions. The anthropic principle says that in order to support a creationist origin of life, you would need to show that the chances of spontaneous chemical origin are sufficiently unlikely, otherwise it's an unjustified assumption to involve God.
My argument works because the theistic explanation is so incredibly bad it falls apart on it's own
Tu quoque fallacy. An argument being wrong does not make you correct.
Did you read the rest of that paragraph? I explained right after, that, as a result of the theistic argument being so poor, the atheistic argument doesn't need to be very good.
my argument only needs to provide some basic explanations
Nothing you have posted constitutes an explanation of anything, and has been picked apart already.
It is sufficient to counteract the theistic explanation. As I said before, the theistic explanation is at a disadvantage, it needs to prove more. The atheistic explanation only needs the anthropic principle to say "unless you can show otherwise, it's the most reasonable explanation". Theism uses completely unknown forces and processes to explain things whereas atheism uses real world observations. Therefore, atheism wins mostly by default, especially considering it is much more flexible.
[M]y point was that the basic principle is simply that there was a lot of opportunity for life to arise, we don't need to involve God unless we can show that life wouldn't have likely ever originated from just chemical reactions. It's not a scientific argument, it's a reason argument that asks why we need God with so many planets to increase the chances. The creationist argument is at an inherent disadvantage, atheism only needs to show that there are reasonable alternatives that don't require a leap of faith; a much higher level of assumptions than simply using already known forces and interactions.
You're posing a false dichotomy. Even if life is very likely to arise spontaneously, this does not prove that a god didn't create life. If a god or gods exist they could decide to create life anyway, despite a high probability of life arising without their intervention.
In fact, if life has a very high statistical probability of arising spontaneously on other planets, this should make us wonder why we haven't discovered it yet. Maybe a god or god(s) is going around spraying a giant can of cosmic Raid on all the life that arises spontaneously and only allowing the life forms it created on Earth to survive.
Or, maybe god(s) created the universe fully formed just 5 seconds ago, and implanted all our memories in our minds to trick us into thinking the universe has been around longer.
The point here is:
If it is "plausible" that life could arise spontaneously in the universe, then either theism or atheism could be true.
If it is impossible or infinitesimally unlikely that life could arise spontaneously, then presumably some form of theism must be true.
In neither case have you established atheism to be conclusively true.
OR. OR. Not AND. Plausible doesn't need to be probable it can be reasonable instead. Or at least that's my understanding of it.
Hint: what is the definition of implausible?
It means unlikely, right?
Ok, so is something that is unlikely plausible or implausible?
"It's not the point" was referring to the use of the word "plausible" not the meaning of the comment.
How does that make any sense? Words mean things. The words you use directly affect the meaning of a statement.
I meant possible and reasonable, not in the same way as a scientific theory but just in a common sense way. I may have been incorrect in using "plausible" and that's what I was saying was not the point.
You cannot simultaneously say "it doesn't matter what word I use" and "oh, I might have used the wrong word there."
I am not trying to offer a complete explanation,
You're not offering ANY explanation.
my claim is that the religious explanation is invalid because it makes unnecessary assumptions.
How do you know they're unnecessary?
The anthropic principle says that in order to support a creationist origin of life, you would need to show that the chances of spontaneous chemical origin are sufficiently unlikely, otherwise it's an unjustified assumption to involve God.
That's not what the anthropic principle says. (You really are having problems with the meanings of words.)
The anthropic principle states that the reason we observe the universe to be in the ideal conditions to support life is because if it were not, we would not be able to observe it all.
Did you read the rest of that paragraph? I explained right after, that, as a result of the theistic argument being so poor, the atheistic argument doesn't need to be very good.
I did. Did you read what a tu quoque fallacy is? Because once again, an argument being incorrect does not make you correct.
Also, I'd like to highlight something you said: "Atheism offers explanations based on comprehensible, observable forces." You haven't done that at any point in this thread.
It is sufficient to counteract the theistic explanation.
It isn't, actually.
First, where did life come from? As I've stated at least twice now, you haven't actually demonstrated this.
Second, you haven't actually demonstrated life happening was a probable occurrence.
As I said before, the theistic explanation is at a disadvantage, it needs to prove more. The atheistic explanation only needs the anthropic principle to say "unless you can show otherwise, it's the most reasonable explanation".
You haven't demonstrated it actually is a reasonable explanation, because you haven't demonstrated the probability of life occurring.
If you and I are walking along in a forest and spy a park bench, we have two explanations: (1) someone built the park bench, and (2) the park bench manifested out of thin air.
Theoretically, the park bench manifesting out of thin air is possible according to quantum physics. Also, the idea that the bench came out of thin air requires fewer assumptions. So by your logic, we should go with the park bench popping out of thin air.
Except that's not Occam's Razor. That's a gross misinterpretation of Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor is not "the least amount of assumptions wins." Occam's Razor is "given equal predictive ability, the hypothesis with the least number of assumptions is preferred." And this is why we assume someone built the park bench even though it would ask us to assume more: because the probability of a park bench manifesting out of thin air is fantastically low, too small as to even be conceived, and is effectively zero. The predictive ability of these two hypotheses, therefore, is not equal. It's far from equal.
So we then must question what the odds are of your hypothesis happening, that is to say, what are the chances of life happening? Are they high, are they low, or are they extremely low, so low as to be effectively zero? If the latter, then your hypothesis is not preferable to the God hypothesis, because you have not demonstrated any likelihood of your hypothesis.
Here's another example: imagine two people arguing who built the pyramids. One says unicorns, the other says Elvis. The latter says, "you cannot prove unicorns exist, therefore it must be Elvis!" Is his argument reasonable? No.
You probably think your argument is superior to this obviously silly example, but you do actually have to demonstrate WHY it is.
@Highroller.
The use of the word plausible may have been a mistake, that doesn't matter, I clarified what I meant so it's no longer necessary.
On the topic of my argument, note how I said when I initially commented that I was "touching upon" an idea. I was adding an idea, not saying it was the only relevant one. In retrospect, when I said "we don't need anything more than chance and basic knowledge" I was exaggerating.
The point remains: that theism offers no real explanation. It introduces something to explain something else, but then doesn't explain the something, the anthropic principle can be used not to prove theism is worse than atheism, but to direct the understanding. It shows that God isn't as necessary as some people think
@Highroller.
The use of the word plausible may have been a mistake, that doesn't matter, I clarified what I meant so it's no longer necessary.
On the topic of my argument, note how I said when I initially commented that I was "touching upon" an idea. I was adding an idea, not saying it was the only relevant one. I never meant to try to explain the whole point and I have probably been to close in my comments to attempting that somewhat unintentionally. In retrospect, when I said "we don't need anything more than chance and basic knowledge" I was exaggerating.
But the point remains that theism offers no real explanation. It introduces something to explain everything else, but then doesn't explain the something. Theism has problems in general credibility including it's history and contradictions in ideas, which we can take into account in this particular issue. The anthropic principle can be used not to prove theism is worse than atheism, but to shows that God isn't as necessary as some people, many even, think. Theism being insufficient in explanation doesn't make another explanation correct, yes, but it means that we must question the science and not the religion, which was what I was addressing as for a forum section labelled 'religion' there wasn't much talk about that and I wanted to bring it up.
Anyway, this conversation has become much more of a personal dialogue than a general discussion. We both appear to agree on the general point and are at this point only arguing about the way the point is being made, not something I'm very interested in going into more detail on in this instance.
@Highroller.
The use of the word plausible may have been a mistake, that doesn't matter, I clarified what I meant so it's no longer necessary.
Except what you meant is still completely incorrect.
Something that is unlikely is not plausible.
Expecting something that is unlikely is not rational.
The problem is not the wording. The problem is what you're saying is wrong.
I never meant to try to explain the whole point
But the point remains that theism offers no real explanation.
So you don't offer any explanation, and then you criticize theistic arguments for doing the exact same thing you're doing?
The anthropic principle can be used not to prove theism is worse than atheism, but to shows that God isn't as necessary as some people, many even, think.
That's not what the anthropic principle means! I just got through saying that!
Theism being insufficient in explanation doesn't make another explanation correct, yes, but it means that we must question the science and not the religion,
Which you have not done. There's no science in any of your posts.
Not to mention you prefaced this entire chain of conversation with a post saying, "You don't even need to know any science for this," which good for you for recognizing that this was incorrect in hindsight.
We both appear to agree on the general point and are at this point only arguing about the way the point is being made
What the hell? No, I very clearly disagree with the points you are making.
So you don't offer any explanation, and then you criticize theistic arguments for doing the exact same thing you're doing?
I'm not trying to explain it, theism is. I was merely adding something and joining in on the discussion, I wasn't trying to provide a conclusive point and I have been way too close to doing that in my posts, I have already said that this was a mistake and not my intent.
The anthropic principle can be used not to prove theism is worse than atheism, but to shows that God isn't as necessary as some people, many even, think.
That's not what the anthropic principle means! I just got through saying that!
In your own words, the anthropic principle is: "the reason we observe the universe to be in the ideal conditions to support life is because if it were not, we would not be able to observe it all". By extension, that means that God (and some other explanations) isn't as important as some people think in explaining life. This was the point of my original comment, which I admit was badly written in that it tried to make the point too conclusively.
Theism being insufficient in explanation doesn't make another explanation correct, yes, but it means that we must question the science and not the religion,
Which you have not done. There's no science in any of your posts.
Not to mention you prefaced this entire chain of conversation with a post saying, "You don't even need to know any science for this," which good for you for recognizing that this was incorrect in hindsight.
The fact that I haven't used science is not relevant. I was trying to point out in the case of the origin of life, not the explanation of how it works, but using anthropic principle, point out that theism's explanations aren't required and in many ways worse. I was supporting the existing scientific points with a more direct argument against the theistic explanation.
We both appear to agree on the general point and are at this point only arguing about the way the point is being made
What the hell? No, I very clearly disagree with the points you are making.
I suspected this would happen.
What I meant by "the general point" is atheism and scientific thinking over religion, "the way the point is being made" is the argument being used to support that. Even in that regard, I do think we agree mostly, the problem being that I have screwed up in trying to make that argument. I absolutely agree with you that we need data and theories and such to really make the point but haven't thought through many of my comments I suppose, as the series of mistakes I've made shows.
I have been way too close to doing that in my posts
To providing a conclusive point? No. No it is safe to say that you have not been in any danger of that so far.
In your own words, the anthropic principle is: "the reason we observe the universe to be in the ideal conditions to support life is because if it were not, we would not be able to observe it all". By extension, that means that God (and some other explanations) isn't as important as some people think in explaining life.
... How did you come to that from there?
The fact that I haven't used science is not relevant.
It IS relevant. It demonstrates the problem behind your arguments!
I was trying to point out in the case of the origin of life, not the explanation of how it works, but using anthropic principle,
You don't even know what that phrase means.
point out that theism's explanations aren't required and in many ways worse.
You haven't done that. If anything, your explanations are far worse than someone who claims that God's intervention was necessary for life because at least that person would theoretically know how to use a dictionary.
I was supporting the existing scientific points
WHICH existing scientific points? You can't just not include any science in your arguments and then say, "Yeah, I totally agree with what science says." What things exactly? Point them out.
You criticize arguments for providing no substance when you have provided no substance. That's hypocrisy.
I suspected this would happen.
What I meant by "the general point" is atheism and scientific thinking over religion,
I have no idea where you would be getting the idea that I'm atheist from.
Even in that regard, I do think we agree mostly,
Go back and find something we've actually agreed on. I've only disagreed with you on every post you've made.
I have no idea where you would be getting the idea that I'm atheist from.
So you're not? Let's have a completely different discussion then.
Answer this:
How does theism explain the origin of life given that God doesn't have any empirical evidence? Why should anyone believe in it rationally?
This has been bothering me: theism does not necessarily mean belief in God. It could mean any religion that believes in a deity or deities, of which there are numerous different ones.
explain the origin of life given that God doesn't have any empirical evidence?
... The exact same way the secular explanation of it does?
This has been bothering me: theism does not necessarily mean belief in God. It could mean any religion that believes in a deity or deities, of which there are numerous different ones -
How does theism explain the origin of life
- which makes this question impossible to answer, because theism as a whole has no unified stance. Theism encompasses anyone who believes in any deity. It's not a single religion.
... The exact same way the secular explanation of it does?
Not really. Any one theory that has been offered to explain the origin of life doesn't have enough backing to be anywhere near the same level as evolution does, but they still have some basis in evidence and a firm basis in reason. Theism (in all of it's forms) has some reason to it's explanations, but without any basis in evidence, it's explanation of life is inferior. For one, intelligent design is a valid idea, but it lacks any examples of things that are not easily explained by evolution and such, and without any of these examples it's too much of a jump to introduce unknown forces as an explanation compared to demonstrable laws. Gods can't really explain life without being explained themselves. For theism to be truly valid, there would have to be some evidence for the existence of gods: what they are and where they came from. Otherwise, how can we support the idea when a vital part is unexplained?
Ok, so now you're going to tell me what I believe? Then I guess you don't really need me for this discussion, now do you?
As I've already stated, I have no idea how life came about. I'm not a biologist, I know nothing about the Precambrian era, I know nothing about the debate amongst competing theories as to how it did.
The general problem I have with a theist approach is that it just isn't useful from a scientific standpoint. It closes doors with untestable answers that can't be used to make predictions. Those answers may or may not be correct, and they may even be very useful in some other contexts (providing comfort, guidance, etc to those who accept them), they just aren't useful in science.
All of those that I've seen. From a scientific method standpoint they all commit the same errors of assumption and gap filling. Again, not saying that they are wrong (any/all of them), I have no idea, just saying that they aren't useful in that context.
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These statements contradict each other.
But we can't judge from that the probability of getting life.
I can't roll a dice and, getting a 6 on the first try, conclude that the probability of rolling a 6 is 100%.
Now, this *could* be accurate (maybe it's a rigged die), but I cannot state with any degree of accuracy whether or not this is so. Likewise, how can we suppose the probability of getting life?
Is this unreasonable? What constitutes an unreasonable estimate of the odds of life? What criteria do we even have for that?
But, don't you?
Without determining what kind of dice you're rolling, how do you determine the probability of getting a particular outcome? And without knowing that, how can we assert whether an outcome is well within the realm of probability or not?
We only need chance to justify it as plausible, there's more to it if you want to really demonstrate how it works and prove that the chances are right.
The point of looking at the number of planets is to show that it's quite reasonable to have life generate by chance chemical reactions. Yes, we obviously need to determine the chances of life occurring in order to prove the chance chemical reaction hypothesis, but the point is we don't need a very good chance of it happening on any one planet for it to happen at all.
The reason why we don't need more detail for atheism vs theism is because atheism doesn't need to explain everything to be correct. We can show how incredibly useful scientific principles are for explaining everything without the need for God. Atheism clearly doesn't explain anywhere near everything, very far from it, but theism is even worse, explaining very little and raising abundant new questions about how it's answers even work.
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I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
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Chance would justify the event as possible. Plausible means that the event is probable.
In fact, if we want to get technical, you haven't justified the event as possible, either. I'm not going to dispute that it is, because science will back up the fact that life resulted from proteins, which resulted from organic matter, which resulted from inorganic matter, etc. The thing is, this requires a knowledge of the natural sciences to be able to assert, which goes against your repeated claims of how intuitive this all is. Turns out you actually do need to know things for this discussion.
Except you haven't demonstrated that.
Imagine if I rolled a die three times and got 3, 1, 6 as my results. What would you say the probability of rolling the 6 was?
The answer is you cannot possibly know based on the information I gave you, the probability is based on the sides of the dice I rolled, and you legitimately have no idea what kind of die I rolled. Might have been a six-sided die, sure, but it could have been a 20-sided die. Or a 100-sided die. Or a die with just the numbers 1, 3, and 6 for some odd reason. You can't say, because you have no idea what sort of die you're working with.
So what bearing does the number of planets have?
Blinking_Spirit pointed out the problem with this in an earlier post that you seemed to have glossed over. The probability of monkeys just randomly banging keys together to produce Hamlet is not zero - it is possible - but it's also so low as to be virtually infinitesimal.
The general problem here is that you're conflating the idea of something being possible with that thing being probable (rather ironic position for an atheist). Your argument stems from the idea that because there is a nonzero chance of life just spontaneously arising, then that translates to a very likely chance given the number of planets there are. Except this does not hold, because we do not know what the probability of life is.
Essentially, you are claiming that life is probable, but also saying that you don't know what the probability of life is. Which contradicts and makes no sense.
Let's go back to the analogy of the dice. Say I roll a die multiple times. Is it probable that I would get a six after six tries?
You don't know, and you cannot know, because I didn't tell you how many sides the die had. It could be a six-sided die, a twenty-sided die, a 100-sided die, a quadrillion-sided die. You don't know, because you don't have that information.
So repeating how many planets there are doesn't work. The issue is not how many times you attempt to get the result you want, the issue is the probability of that result happening in the first place.
Which is not the same thing as not needing to explain why anything is correct. You do actually have to demonstrate some things yourself, such as what the actual probability of life is, in order for your argument to work.
Plausible means reasonable or probable. It can be either likely or a good explanation that isn't necessarily likely, which is the case. Plausible, possible, reasonable, whatever, it's not the point.
The number of planets shows that it doesn't need to be a good chance, yes, it's very easy to attribute much higher numbers that don't fit within the range but my point was that the basic principle is simply that there was a lot of opportunity for life to arise, we don't need to involve God unless we can show that life wouldn't have likely ever originated from just chemical reactions. It's not a scientific argument, it's a reason argument that asks why we need God with so many planets to increase the chances. The creationist argument is at an inherent disadvantage, atheism only needs to show that there are reasonable alternatives that don't require a leap of faith; a much higher level of assumptions than simply using already known forces and interactions.
Note that I never claimed to explain how it worked, I was trying to make a point directly against the theistic explanation using reason alone because using science requires the theist to accept that science, which will never happen if looks like it might put good points against them. I am arguing more on their terms because that argument can still be won.
My argument works because the theistic explanation is so incredibly bad it falls apart on it's own, my argument only needs to provide some basic explanations to beat the unreasonable ones proposed by theism, chiefly that God him/her/itself is unexplained despite it being a vital part of the entire idea. The greatest problem with theism isn't what theism proposes, it's how little it proposes in the first place to justify itself at all. Atheism offers explanations based on comprehensible, observable forces whereas theism proposes completely exterior explanations that require further explanations themselves and hence aren't really an explanation but elaborate hand-waving to distract from the lack of one.
I don't know very much at all, to be honest, about the scientific explanation for the origin of life, but I know enough about science itself to know that it doesn't even need to be correct. Any explanation that scientists come up with is open to being replaced with updated knowledge, that's the strength of atheism, it doesn't assume to understand much of anything. In this way, the current explanation of such things serves better as an example of how scientific principle is superior to theism rather than scientific theory.
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That is the exactly opposite of what the word probable means.
The fact that you don't know or are unwilling to acknowledge the difference between something being likely and something being unlikely - exact opposites of one another - is a major problem with your argument.
Which proves my point: you're conflating something having a nonzero chance of happening with something being likely to happen. Which is wrong, as has been repeatedly pointed out to you.
Also, "it's not the point"? You're trying to argue something is plausible! Whether something is plausible or implausible isn't the point?
It is exactly the point. Your argument is, "Common sense tells us that given as many planets that are in the universe, one of them would have life." This argument takes as a given that the probability of life is such that it makes it likely that one planet will have it.
But that's the problem with your argument: you haven't demonstrated what the actual probability of life is. You're trying to argue it's likely without actually demonstrating that it's likely. It could be absurdly unlikely. Do you know what another word for absurdly unlikely is? Implausible.
Except your argument isn't any better. Your argument relies on presuming you know a probability that you don't know, and claiming something being unlikely is the same thing as something being likely.
Your argument has the exact same problem as the one made by the people you're arguing against: making a presumption about the likelihood of life without demonstrating anything to indicate what sort of dice we're rolling. The people who believe that God is necessary for the creation of the universe are arguing that the probability of life is so low as to be either zero or some number so small as to be effectively infinitesimal. You're arguing that the probability is so high as that life is pretty much set given the number of planets.
Both of these are presumptuous arguments, because they are presuming to know probability that they don't actually know.
Also, it seems the irony of someone advocating atheism making the argument that something being unlikely should still be plausible still hasn't hit you yet. Let me explain the joke: atheism is the position that God's existence is unlikely enough to be implausible. You have defeated yourself.
Tu quoque fallacy. An argument being wrong does not make you correct.
Nothing you have posted constitutes an explanation of anything, and has been picked apart already.
OR. OR. Not AND. Plausible doesn't need to be probable it can be reasonable instead. Or at least that's my understanding of it.
"It's not the point" was referring to the use of the word "plausible" not the meaning of the comment. I meant possible and reasonable, not in the same way as a scientific theory but just in a common sense way. I may have been incorrect in using "plausible" and that's what I was saying was not the point.
I am not trying to offer a complete explanation, I never claimed to, my claim is that the religious explanation is invalid because it makes unnecessary assumptions. The anthropic principle says that in order to support a creationist origin of life, you would need to show that the chances of spontaneous chemical origin are sufficiently unlikely, otherwise it's an unjustified assumption to involve God.
Did you read the rest of that paragraph? I explained right after, that, as a result of the theistic argument being so poor, the atheistic argument doesn't need to be very good.
It is sufficient to counteract the theistic explanation. As I said before, the theistic explanation is at a disadvantage, it needs to prove more. The atheistic explanation only needs the anthropic principle to say "unless you can show otherwise, it's the most reasonable explanation". Theism uses completely unknown forces and processes to explain things whereas atheism uses real world observations. Therefore, atheism wins mostly by default, especially considering it is much more flexible.
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You're posing a false dichotomy. Even if life is very likely to arise spontaneously, this does not prove that a god didn't create life. If a god or gods exist they could decide to create life anyway, despite a high probability of life arising without their intervention.
In fact, if life has a very high statistical probability of arising spontaneously on other planets, this should make us wonder why we haven't discovered it yet. Maybe a god or god(s) is going around spraying a giant can of cosmic Raid on all the life that arises spontaneously and only allowing the life forms it created on Earth to survive.
Or, maybe god(s) created the universe fully formed just 5 seconds ago, and implanted all our memories in our minds to trick us into thinking the universe has been around longer.
The point here is:
If it is "plausible" that life could arise spontaneously in the universe, then either theism or atheism could be true.
If it is impossible or infinitesimally unlikely that life could arise spontaneously, then presumably some form of theism must be true.
In neither case have you established atheism to be conclusively true.
It means unlikely, right?
Ok, so is something that is unlikely plausible or implausible?
How does that make any sense? Words mean things. The words you use directly affect the meaning of a statement.
You cannot simultaneously say "it doesn't matter what word I use" and "oh, I might have used the wrong word there."
You're not offering ANY explanation.
How do you know they're unnecessary?
That's not what the anthropic principle says. (You really are having problems with the meanings of words.)
The anthropic principle states that the reason we observe the universe to be in the ideal conditions to support life is because if it were not, we would not be able to observe it all.
I did. Did you read what a tu quoque fallacy is? Because once again, an argument being incorrect does not make you correct.
Also, I'd like to highlight something you said: "Atheism offers explanations based on comprehensible, observable forces." You haven't done that at any point in this thread.
It isn't, actually.
First, where did life come from? As I've stated at least twice now, you haven't actually demonstrated this.
Second, you haven't actually demonstrated life happening was a probable occurrence.
You haven't demonstrated it actually is a reasonable explanation, because you haven't demonstrated the probability of life occurring.
If you and I are walking along in a forest and spy a park bench, we have two explanations: (1) someone built the park bench, and (2) the park bench manifested out of thin air.
Theoretically, the park bench manifesting out of thin air is possible according to quantum physics. Also, the idea that the bench came out of thin air requires fewer assumptions. So by your logic, we should go with the park bench popping out of thin air.
Except that's not Occam's Razor. That's a gross misinterpretation of Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor is not "the least amount of assumptions wins." Occam's Razor is "given equal predictive ability, the hypothesis with the least number of assumptions is preferred." And this is why we assume someone built the park bench even though it would ask us to assume more: because the probability of a park bench manifesting out of thin air is fantastically low, too small as to even be conceived, and is effectively zero. The predictive ability of these two hypotheses, therefore, is not equal. It's far from equal.
So we then must question what the odds are of your hypothesis happening, that is to say, what are the chances of life happening? Are they high, are they low, or are they extremely low, so low as to be effectively zero? If the latter, then your hypothesis is not preferable to the God hypothesis, because you have not demonstrated any likelihood of your hypothesis.
Here's another example: imagine two people arguing who built the pyramids. One says unicorns, the other says Elvis. The latter says, "you cannot prove unicorns exist, therefore it must be Elvis!" Is his argument reasonable? No.
You probably think your argument is superior to this obviously silly example, but you do actually have to demonstrate WHY it is.
The use of the word plausible may have been a mistake, that doesn't matter, I clarified what I meant so it's no longer necessary.
On the topic of my argument, note how I said when I initially commented that I was "touching upon" an idea. I was adding an idea, not saying it was the only relevant one. In retrospect, when I said "we don't need anything more than chance and basic knowledge" I was exaggerating.
The point remains: that theism offers no real explanation. It introduces something to explain something else, but then doesn't explain the something, the anthropic principle can be used not to prove theism is worse than atheism, but to direct the understanding. It shows that God isn't as necessary as some people think
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The use of the word plausible may have been a mistake, that doesn't matter, I clarified what I meant so it's no longer necessary.
On the topic of my argument, note how I said when I initially commented that I was "touching upon" an idea. I was adding an idea, not saying it was the only relevant one. I never meant to try to explain the whole point and I have probably been to close in my comments to attempting that somewhat unintentionally. In retrospect, when I said "we don't need anything more than chance and basic knowledge" I was exaggerating.
But the point remains that theism offers no real explanation. It introduces something to explain everything else, but then doesn't explain the something. Theism has problems in general credibility including it's history and contradictions in ideas, which we can take into account in this particular issue. The anthropic principle can be used not to prove theism is worse than atheism, but to shows that God isn't as necessary as some people, many even, think. Theism being insufficient in explanation doesn't make another explanation correct, yes, but it means that we must question the science and not the religion, which was what I was addressing as for a forum section labelled 'religion' there wasn't much talk about that and I wanted to bring it up.
Anyway, this conversation has become much more of a personal dialogue than a general discussion. We both appear to agree on the general point and are at this point only arguing about the way the point is being made, not something I'm very interested in going into more detail on in this instance.
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Something that is unlikely is not plausible.
Expecting something that is unlikely is not rational.
The problem is not the wording. The problem is what you're saying is wrong.
So you don't offer any explanation, and then you criticize theistic arguments for doing the exact same thing you're doing?
That's not what the anthropic principle means! I just got through saying that!
Which you have not done. There's no science in any of your posts.
Not to mention you prefaced this entire chain of conversation with a post saying, "You don't even need to know any science for this," which good for you for recognizing that this was incorrect in hindsight.
What the hell? No, I very clearly disagree with the points you are making.
I'm not trying to explain it, theism is. I was merely adding something and joining in on the discussion, I wasn't trying to provide a conclusive point and I have been way too close to doing that in my posts, I have already said that this was a mistake and not my intent.
In your own words, the anthropic principle is: "the reason we observe the universe to be in the ideal conditions to support life is because if it were not, we would not be able to observe it all". By extension, that means that God (and some other explanations) isn't as important as some people think in explaining life. This was the point of my original comment, which I admit was badly written in that it tried to make the point too conclusively.
The fact that I haven't used science is not relevant. I was trying to point out in the case of the origin of life, not the explanation of how it works, but using anthropic principle, point out that theism's explanations aren't required and in many ways worse. I was supporting the existing scientific points with a more direct argument against the theistic explanation.
I suspected this would happen.
What I meant by "the general point" is atheism and scientific thinking over religion, "the way the point is being made" is the argument being used to support that. Even in that regard, I do think we agree mostly, the problem being that I have screwed up in trying to make that argument. I absolutely agree with you that we need data and theories and such to really make the point but haven't thought through many of my comments I suppose, as the series of mistakes I've made shows.
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... How did you come to that from there?
It IS relevant. It demonstrates the problem behind your arguments!
You don't even know what that phrase means.
You haven't done that. If anything, your explanations are far worse than someone who claims that God's intervention was necessary for life because at least that person would theoretically know how to use a dictionary.
WHICH existing scientific points? You can't just not include any science in your arguments and then say, "Yeah, I totally agree with what science says." What things exactly? Point them out.
You criticize arguments for providing no substance when you have provided no substance. That's hypocrisy.
I have no idea where you would be getting the idea that I'm atheist from.
Go back and find something we've actually agreed on. I've only disagreed with you on every post you've made.
Don't bother discussing my previous comments any further, I've made too many mistakes, let's start afresh.
So you're not? Let's have a completely different discussion then.
Answer this:
How does theism explain the origin of life given that God doesn't have any empirical evidence? Why should anyone believe in it rationally?
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... The exact same way the secular explanation of it does?
- which makes this question impossible to answer, because theism as a whole has no unified stance. Theism encompasses anyone who believes in any deity. It's not a single religion.
Justify your own stance, which is presumably some form of theism or agnosticism.
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Not really. Any one theory that has been offered to explain the origin of life doesn't have enough backing to be anywhere near the same level as evolution does, but they still have some basis in evidence and a firm basis in reason. Theism (in all of it's forms) has some reason to it's explanations, but without any basis in evidence, it's explanation of life is inferior. For one, intelligent design is a valid idea, but it lacks any examples of things that are not easily explained by evolution and such, and without any of these examples it's too much of a jump to introduce unknown forces as an explanation compared to demonstrable laws. Gods can't really explain life without being explained themselves. For theism to be truly valid, there would have to be some evidence for the existence of gods: what they are and where they came from. Otherwise, how can we support the idea when a vital part is unexplained?
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As I've already stated, I have no idea how life came about. I'm not a biologist, I know nothing about the Precambrian era, I know nothing about the debate amongst competing theories as to how it did.
I was responding directly to a comment you made, explaining why I think it's incorrect. What did I do wrong?
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All of those that I've seen. From a scientific method standpoint they all commit the same errors of assumption and gap filling. Again, not saying that they are wrong (any/all of them), I have no idea, just saying that they aren't useful in that context.