THE answer to Origin of Universe and Life

[Zzyzx]

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Often in these threads religionists attempt to justify supernatural beliefs by proposing that a favorite "god" created the universe and created life on Earth and by asking "How did the universe originate and how did life on Earth begin (if not by my God)"?

THE ANSWER is We don't know, period, full stop.

You (generic term) may speculate however wildly you wish and propose various guesses but they are JUST guesses. You may propose that one of the "gods" created the universe and others may propose other origin scenarios. You may propose that a favorite "god" created life on Earth and others may propose that life on Earth came from outer space (and let you chase that rabbit down a hole).

That you credit a favorite "god" may satisfy you but it is NO assurance that it is true. You are entitled to your guess / opinion but you are not entitled to call your opinion a fact. Your belly button (opinion) is not superior to any other belly button – just perhaps a bit different.

The people who speculate about such origins are 1) scientists who actually study such things, or 2) religionists (who don't study such things) attempting to claim credit for their "god." Neither can prove their case, so . . . .

Questions for debate:

1. Why debate or speculate about origin of the universe or beginning of life when verifiable information is not available?

2. Is it important in the conduct of your life and/or in your decisions to know how the universe originated or how life began?

[dgruber]

Often in these threads religionists attempt to justify supernatural beliefs by proposing that a favorite "god" created the universe and created life on Earth and by asking "How did the universe originate and how did life on Earth begin (if not by my God)"?

THE ANSWER is We don't know, period, full stop.

You (generic term) may speculate however wildly you wish and propose various guesses but they are JUST guesses. You may propose that one of the "gods" created the universe and others may propose other origin scenarios. You may propose that a favorite "god" created life on Earth and others may propose that life on Earth came from outer space (and let you chase that rabbit down a hole).

That you credit a favorite "god" may satisfy you but it is NO assurance that it is true. You are entitled to your guess / opinion but you are not entitled to call your opinion a fact. Your belly button (opinion) is not superior to any other belly button – just perhaps a bit different.

The people who speculate about such origins are 1) scientists who actually study such things, or 2) religionists (who don't study such things) attempting to claim credit for their "god." Neither can prove their case, so . . . .

Questions for debate:

1. Why debate or speculate about origin of the universe or beginning of life when verifiable information is not available?

2. Is it important in the conduct of your life and/or in your decisions to know how the universe originated or how life began?

1. Some consider, myself included, the origin of the universe to be a very interesting subject, and one worthy of thought and discussion. It doesn't seem to me that we must have verifiable evidence of how the subject actually occurred to discuss the possibilities.

While I am not a scientist by profession, I would think that there is a sector of science that spends some valuable amount of time researching and trying to find answers to the question of the beginning of the universe. They too, at this point, are "guessing" in an attempt to find the most reasonable possibility they can.

While I consider thoughtful discussion to be interesting, it does not help and is not worthwhile to declare knowledge of such an event. As Zzyzx mentions, we do not know. Each of us will come to some conclusion, or lack there of, based on our understanding of the subject matter. Hopefully we all keep our minds open to whatever future information is discovered surrounding the event (if any).

2. At the present, the way the universe began does not impact my life or my decisions in a material way. I would want to withhold any comment on how learning the true origin of the universe would affect my life/decisions until such information becomes available, because I have no concept of what that answer will be.

[bluethread]

1. Why debate or speculate about origin of the universe or beginning of life when verifiable information is not available?

When I do it, it is because the government requires the teaching of one speculation as fact. It is my view that the most important thing about education is not what one should think, but how one should think.

2. Is it important in the conduct of your life and/or in your decisions to know how the universe originated or how life began?

Mythology, speculation in the absence of sufficient information, regarding the origins of the universe, is a common way for one to establish ones world view. This is not just limited to theists, but is also the case with many who do not believe in a deity.

[Divine Insight]

When I do it, it is because the government requires the teaching of one speculation as fact.

This is an untrue charge being made against both science and the government.

Science does not teach speculation. Science teaches observed facts that are supported by observed evidence.

Mythology, speculation in the absence of sufficient information,...

Actually that's not the definition of mythology. Mythology is an ancient supersitious tale that was made up in the absence of sufficient information. Moreover, today we have sufficient information to recognize and acknowledge that those ancient mythologies are indeed clearly false.

We don't even need scientific evidence to see that these ancient myths are false. The Judea-Christian mythology portrays a God who has the very same immoral and barbaric behaviors as the culture that made him up. He attempts to solve all his petty problems using extremely violent, crude, and barbaric methods, from cursing a demon to crawl on his belly and eat dirt, to cursing Eve with greatly multiplied pain and sorrow in childbirth, to drowning out all of humanity in an effort to thwart "sin" and "evil".

None of this barbaric God's feeble attempts to solve these problems have ever worked. In Christianity this God is said to have reached an all-time low where he needs to sacrifice his only begotten Son to be brutally beaten and crucified at the demands of his own fallen and corrupt Chief Priests.

This would be the epitome of desperation for any creator. And moreover, according to these myths even this extreme act of desperation on the part of this God who can't even keep his own Chief Priests inline this act of desperation will only result in the undeserved salvation of a few sinful souls. And that's supposed to be seen as "Good News".

You have no argument against science or the government Bluethread. The mythologies that you support are outrageously absurd and not worthy of consideration at all.

[OnceConvinced]

1. Why debate or speculate about origin of the universe or beginning of life when verifiable information is not available?

It is a rather fruitless debate.

If a Christian or other religionist believes that their favoured God created the universe and insist on the rest of us answering how life could have gotten here otherwise, surely they can answer that question by asking how THEIR GOD got there? If they can come up with a rational explanation for how their God got there, then they can surely apply that same logic to how life got there without a God. Seems quite simple to me. No need for double standards here.

2. Is it important in the conduct of your life and/or in your decisions to know how the universe originated or how life began?

No. I for one am happy to live my life without those answers as curious as I might be about it. The quality of my life is in no way dependent on knowledge on how we got here.

[Divine Insight]

If a Christian or other religionist believes that their favoured God created the universe and insist on the rest of us answering how life could have gotten here otherwise, surely they can answer that question by asking how THEIR GOD got there? If they can come up with a rational explanation for how their God got there, then they can surely apply that same logic to how life got there without a God. Seems quite simple to me. No need for double standards here.

Exactly. But even more importantly to me. Not only would then need to give an explanation for how their God can exist, but if they are going to hold up ancient Hebrew mythology as a description of that God then they would also need to explain to me why their God behaves precisely like the immoral male-chauvinistic barbarians who who wrote about this God and what he supposedly wants from humans?

Why is this supposedly all-loving God so anxious to cast people into a state of damnation for not believing that he's an immature immoral idiot who tries to solve his problems using the very same crude and rude methods as the barbarians who wrote about him? Also, why has he failed at every attempt he ever made to solve a problem? That doesn't sound like a God who would have been intelligent enough to create a universe.

It makes absolutely no sense at all. It's not even remotely reasonable.

I can't see how anyone can expect anyone else to take Hebrew mythology seriously and keep a straight face. It truly is that utterly absurd.

[Mithrae]

If a Christian or other religionist believes that their favoured God created the universe and insist on the rest of us answering how life could have gotten here otherwise, surely they can answer that question by asking how THEIR GOD got there? If they can come up with a rational explanation for how their God got there, then they can surely apply that same logic to how life got there without a God. Seems quite simple to me. No need for double standards here.

Is it fair to assume a simple one-to-one comparison of unjustified assumptions? The reason for the existence of reality - whether that reality is blind or directed by intention - is a problem for everyone alike. But as you and the OP have implied, the origin of life is a second and distinct question, and if that seems unlikely to have occurred by any means known to us in a blind universe, it is an additional problem for non-theistic views only. In fact in The God Delusion Richard Dawkins suggests that there may be two other, potentially even greater hurdles in getting from a blind universe to what we actually observe:

"Nevertheless, it may be that the origin of life is not the only major gap in the evolutionary story that is bridged by sheer luck, anthropically justified. For example, my colleague Mark Ridley in Mendel's Demon (gratuitously and confusingly retitled The Cooperative Gene by his American publishers) has suggested that the origin of the eucaryotic cell... was an even more momentous, difficult and statistically improbable step than the origin of life. The origin of consciousness might be another major gap whose bridging was of the same order of improbability." (p. 140)

Dawkins appeals simply to large numbers here, assuming that there must be enough Earth-like planets in the universe that some fraction of them could bridge the improbabilities of generating life... and that some fraction of them could develop eukaryotic cells... so that at least one of those has developed conscious life. But without clearly quantifying the improbabilities involved, such an appeal is essentially meaningless; no-one would use the same reasoning to suppose that there must be worlds in our universe where computers have spontaneously generated, for example.

While reality itself is a problem for everyone alike, the supposition of a reality directed by intention (or absence of the supposition that consciousness is merely an organic anomaly) circumvents what may well be several additional problems faced by the alternative.

[Inigo Montoya]

.
Often in these threads religionists attempt to justify supernatural beliefs by proposing that a favorite "god" created the universe and created life on Earth and by asking "How did the universe originate and how did life on Earth begin (if not by my God)"?

THE ANSWER is We don't know, period, full stop.

You (generic term) may speculate however wildly you wish and propose various guesses but they are JUST guesses. You may propose that one of the "gods" created the universe and others may propose other origin scenarios. You may propose that a favorite "god" created life on Earth and others may propose that life on Earth came from outer space (and let you chase that rabbit down a hole).

That you credit a favorite "god" may satisfy you but it is NO assurance that it is true. You are entitled to your guess / opinion but you are not entitled to call your opinion a fact. Your belly button (opinion) is not superior to any other belly button – just perhaps a bit different.

The people who speculate about such origins are 1) scientists who actually study such things, or 2) religionists (who don't study such things) attempting to claim credit for their "god." Neither can prove their case, so . . . .

Questions for debate:

1. Why debate or speculate about origin of the universe or beginning of life when verifiable information is not available?

2. Is it important in the conduct of your life and/or in your decisions to know how the universe originated or how life began?

I have often thought sites like this one, or chatrooms of a similar flavor, are a wholly pointless exercise unless every sentence everyone types starts with ''What if this is true?'' and then proceeds with some idea addressing the questions we all have.

But that's not how it's treated. People come here with ''answers'' to the origin questions, which is just painfully awkward most times, and absurd the rest.

I have long maintained that we are all, to a man (or woman), agnostic. Whether an individual is honest enough to admit it is another thing entirely. These pages and pages of topics do not reflect the honesty of an agnostic population though. We have strident debates over everything from what reality is to the intentions of deities never properly established in the first place.

If sites like this truly were treated like a dinner table conversation, where everyone agrees ahead of time they're all guessing, that'd be one thing, and could be fun.

That's not what happens though. For the category of questions dealing with origins, which I invite you to rebuke my stance about being unknowable at present, there sure are a hell of a lot of people here that don't seem to know that they don't actually know.

Such fervor. Such passionate defenses. How is that justified in the slightest? Anyone?


In two threads, I couldn't get anyone to commit to having certain knowledge of the deity they believe in. Not one (except Daniel and D.I., but they were being silly).

Does that strike you at all as odd? What in the world are the thousands of pages defending then? A giant Maybe? There are at least a dozen high profile posters on here that come to each discussion with an inexplicable air of authority regarding ''gods'' no one has seemed able to verify since.... well, since forever.

As to how the questions influence my daily life, well, it's most of what I think about from day to day, even while acknowledging it's insoluble at present. But acknowledging that hurdle, at least I don't wander around pretending to know things I don't, and make an ass of myself doing it.

I find more creative ways of doing that.

[LittlePig]

1. Why debate or speculate about origin of the universe or beginning of life when verifiable information is not available?

Speculation gives birth to hypotheses which in turn give rise to theories. Although little information is available now, that may not always be the case, especially in regard to the beginning of life. Even speculation about a holographic universe has matured to the level of somewhat testable hypothesis.

Also, it's fun and generates a lot of great science fiction.

2. Is it important in the conduct of your life and/or in your decisions to know how the universe originated or how life began?

I'd say a general rule of thumb would be: the bigger the question, the less relevance it has to personal life.

For example, the mere existence of god(s) isn't as personally relevant as a god who requires you to give 10% of your income to an institution.

[Zzyzx]

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Speculation gives birth to hypotheses which in turn give rise to theories.

Speculation is probably more likely to give birth to false rumors which in turn give rise to false beliefs. A current example http://www.snopes.com/science/astronomy/blackout.asp

Although little information is available now, that may not always be the case, especially in regard to the beginning of life.

Does uninformed speculation or rumor produce accurate information?

Also, it's fun and generates a lot of great science fiction.

And religion

2. Is it important in the conduct of your life and/or in your decisions to know how the universe originated or how life began?

I'd say a general rule of thumb would be: the bigger the question, the less relevance it has to personal life.

Agreed

For example, the mere existence of god(s) isn't as personally relevant as a god who requires you to give 10% of your income to an institution.

Agreed