Originally posted by Ray K
I think that the difference between "creation within time" and "creation of time" is really inconsequential. All it does is move the creator outside of time.
If the creator exists, as such, then yes it would necessarily exist outside a time. I posted this remark simply because from your statement:
2. Current scientific evidence indicates that the universe began at a previous point in time (as opposed to always existing in its current state)
seemed to indicate that there was some importance to the universe beginning to exist in the past, rather than having existed for all of time. I don't know if there is any importance to it or not, but if there is, then it is good to note that the universe has existed for all of time, and did not come into existence at a previous point in time.
Well, I disagree and I don't use the ignorant statistical arguments of creationists concerning randomness.
I don't understand your disagreement. I just can't figure out what you meant about "fortituitous conditions". The conditions do allow life. To say this is fortuitous would usually mean that they allow life despite the odds. That doesn't make sense when you can't know the odds.
I, for one, do not believe that the universe is designed to be hospitable to life. As many will point out, 99.9999999999% of the known universe (might need some more nines) cannot support life.
I agree, but the anthropic argument cuts both ways: most of the known universe cannot support life of the kind we are familiar with. We cannot say that any of it is necessarily inimicable to any conceivable life form.
The Anthropic Principle ("we're here so it must be a 100% chance"
is very weak. In fact, I consider it the atheist equivalent of "God did it" because it assumes the answer and inhibits further investigation.
The Anthropic Principle is merely an observation, and a demonstration that anthropic coincidence does not prove design or creation. What kind of investigation do you think the Anthropic Principle is inhibiting? What answer do you think AP assumes?
Look at the statistically independent events possibly required for life:
1) the solar system must exist within a narrow band in our spiral galaxy
2) the mass of the sun must be within a specific range
3) the mass of the planet containing life must be within a specific range and distance
4) large planets need to exist further out into the system for ejecting planetesimals out of the system
5) the life-containing planet must have some system for recycling carbon into the atmosphere
These are not trivial probabilities, although they affect the probability of life in different ways.
a) These only apply to one particular kind of life
b) How do you compute the probability that a universe, galaxy, or whatever will or will not have these features?
If you cannot compute the probability because you don't know what alternative scenarios exist for our universe and whether this is the only one, what meaningful conclusions can you draw from the so-called "probabilities"?
I certainly think there is plenty of room to disregard an Anthropic position in favor of a Deistic one. I am not a Deist, but I believe it is a tenable position to take.
Tenable, of course, from a perspective of faith. But it doesn't follow from the evidence, and it doesn't make unique predictions that can be confirmed or falsified by the evidence. It is merely a speculative interpretation of the evidence.
Well, I think you can believe in a general creation with accepting "Continuous spontaneous creation of new species from inanimate matter", but maybe that's not the point of the topic.
I may have misunderstood point 5. about new species appearing in the fossil record.
The paucity of the fossil record does not rule out theistic evolution.
Doesn't rule out much of anything really. I can't figure out anything that it is evidence for, apart from the fact that fossilization is rare.
Seriously, what kind of evidence could there be for a deistic system beyond the fact of our existence?
Deistic creation doesn't follow necessarily from the fact of our existence, so the fact of our existence cannot reasonably said to be evidence of deistic creation is far as I can tell.
The improbabilities of life according to known science and confirmed by astronomical observations (and even SETI) provides the best we can get for deism -- an inference.
The improbabilities of life can't be computed though, and I can't see how they could be "confirmed" by astronomical observations or the so-far unsuccessful SETI.
An unsupported inference is not evidence, especially when it is not the only inference one could make with equal justification..
I may have misunderstood you altogether.. maybe you were presenting an argument that scientific evidence is not strictly incompatible with deistic creation. If that was the case, then I have no real objection to it. I was under the impression that you were presenting bits of evidence in favor of deistic creation.
