Wyz_sub10

Because it's a "simulation"....it "simulates".

Are you suggesting that because it takes a programmer to simulate the effects of a tornado on a computer, it requires an "overprogrammer" to mimic the effects in reality?

That's absurd. Anytime you want to simlulate a real-world effect on a computer it requires a programmer.

Just because I want to simulate the sun's solar flare behaviour doesn't mean anything has to intercede (independent of the sun's natural processes) to produce the actual solar flare behaviour.

emotional

Are you suggesting all the natural laws just popped out of nothing?



Just as a programmer is needed to dictate the laws that such simulations follow, so too the real universe was programmed with natural laws to follow. The whole universe is an immense feat of programming. The laws cannot have emerged of themselves.

There is a limit to how much atheism can be taken seriously.



I think it rests upon logic, but if you disprove the logic, I shall have to retreat into faith.

Shadowy Man

The answer is that I don't know.

But what we need to find out is this: what are the minimum number of natural laws that are necessary to produce all of the observed phenomena?

You said that evolution is an "alogorithmic process", but if it just follows from molecular chemistry, and molecular chemistry follows from electron orbitals interacting between atoms, and electron orbitals follow from the charge of the electron and the proton and the inverse square law of electromagnetism, then really all the "creator" needed to do is set up EM theory (and gravity, weak, strong forces) and start the ball rolling.

What steps actually require supernatural interference?

Rhaedas

Careful. What you refer to as the "laws" are merely our descriptions and predictions of how things in the universe interact. There's no "Big Book O' The Universe" floating around somewhere that atoms have to refer to...they just do what they do.

It's tempting as humans to find a purpose to things, to ask "why" as well as "how". Science can help us with how things happen, but not with finding a purpose...and indeed, there may be no underlying purpose.

It's harsh, and un-geocentric. But the universe doesn't scream for a reason to exist, it's we humans that desire to find one.

So the laws didn't "emerge" by themselves at all....there are no laws. Matter and energy happen to interact a certain way, and we write them down as "laws". Period.

emotional

You think it's that simple? Simple enough to have arisen by itself?

I don't know.

How does this sound: "in the beginning were electromagnetism, gravity and weak and strong forces". Do you really think I'd trade "in the beginning God created" for that? No way. It's much too cold and impersonal.

emotional

But they do it so consistently! Hardly a RNA molecule could form without such consistency. It really does look programmed.



This I cannot accept.



Thank you for reminding me again why I'd be much happier living in the Middle Ages than now.

But WHY do they interact this way, for heaven's sake? I've never been content with the HOW question (Science), I've always wanted answers to the WHY question.

Shadowy Man

That doesn't mean it is false.


Look, I'm not saying that a "god" didn't create the universe. I'm just trying to figure out what part was actually created and what has arisen from the creation.

Could a god have just set up a few basic rules that govern the universe, such as fundamental forces and relative masses of particles (though these may be related to even more fundamental properties) and then just hit "go" and things like galaxies, stars, planets, and life been a consequence of those fundamental rules?

That concept of a god I would find nearly extremely impossible to disprove.

emotional

But it does mean I can't accept it.



Faith is better than reason.

Shadowy Man

Then I guess it will be practically impossible to have a reasonable discussion with you.

Nice chatting...

emotional

My assumption that I could find a logical basis for Deism was proved wrong.

It repeats itself: not too long ago, I tried to establish scientific evidence for the afterlife. I failed signally. Since I can in no wise give up on the afterlife, I decided to retreat into faith. Same now with God.