Atheists

[Taff Lafferty]

Surely the universe is too complex to "just exist," and must have been created by a God who "just exists."?

[wrekk]

The universe exists. Humanity's ignorance of it, fuel the fires of what we call "complexity".
Humanity exists. The universe's ignorance of us, fuel the fires of what we call "god".

[Miles]

The universe exists. Humanity's ignorance of it, fuel the fires of what we call "complexity".

Boy, from the many science articles written about the universe and all the research going on about it, it appears we have a pretty fair grasp on its nature. Not that we know everything or may be even close to the universe's deeper mysteries, but I don't believe it's fair that humanity be called ignorant of it.

Humanity exists. The universe's ignorance of us, fuel the fires of what we call "god".

Errr, come again? How do these two, rather strange issues, fuel any "god"? And just how can a lifeless/mindless object, the universe, posses ignorance?


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[wrekk]

it appears we have a pretty fair grasp on its nature.

Your conclusion is based on an assumption that the universe can be known.

a lifeless/mindless object, the universe, posses ignorance?

That is the point. Putting sentience into the universe is what we call "god".

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[Miles]

it appears we have a pretty fair grasp on its nature.

Your conclusion is based on an assumption that the universe can be known.

No, my conclusion that humanity has a pretty fair grasp on the nature of the universe is borne out by all the progress science has made in understanding it. Now, if you're unaware that science has made quite a bit of progress in understanding the universe I suggest you look into it a bit. It's quite fascinating.

a lifeless/mindless object, the universe, posses ignorance?

That is the point. Putting sentience into the universe is what we call "god".

Actually, in effect you said the universe already HAS ignorance.

" The universe's ignorance of us, fuel the fires of what we call "god"

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[boatsnguitars]

[Replying to post 4 by OnceConvinced]

Just how complex is it really? It seems that everything breaks down to basic elements. Everything appears to have been built on these basic elements.

Everything is composed of basic elements but those elements are combined in complex ways that could not have happened by chance. All the literature that exists is composed of 26 basic elements, the letters of the alphabet, but writers were needed to combine those 26 elements in ways that make sense and communicate information.

Well, we know of writers which is why we know they write with those 26 letters. We don't know of anything that makes an electron orbit around the nucleus. And, given enough time, it was bound to happen. Just like if you had enough time, spilling out all 26 letters random over eternity, in infinite ways would lead to all the literature ever written, times infinity.

The problem isn't that we must explain the universe with whatever answer we can invent - the challenge is verifying the claims we make.

Just show there is a God, Intelligence, Supernatural, etc. and we might have reason to believe they created the universe.. or not, after all, there is no reason to believe (if there is a God) that it created the universe. It might be an alien we mistake as God, who just controlled the life and death of Jesus, or Mohammad.

[Purple Knight]

Surely the universe is too complex to "just exist," and must have been created by a God who "just exists."?

I say no to this because we have no basis for comparison on complexity. We don't know how complex the universe is, because we don't know how complex it isn't... or any other universes are. If we had a thousand of them and most of them were extremely simple (what would this even look like? less kinds of atoms? who stops them from coming together in fusion to make greater kinds?) but one of them was more elegant and beautiful, I'd say sure, you have a point, it's a decent bet that the complex one was designed.

But still too we're vulnerable to our own perceptions. We are much more likely to see design which does not exist, than to perceive something well- and carefully-crafted as natural (just trying to exclude modern art here). Here are crystals of bismuth. They look designed, with their right angles which are seldom found in nature... but they're not.