I think this is the key why you don't understand me.
You are looking it from a view of a former Christian, or someone who grow up in a Christian environment.
Think the other way, I grow up from a total atheist environment.... So to me believe in God is a position of disbelief (disbelief of atheism).
Ok, I think I understand you better now. All that is left now is for you to understand me.
Just like the term "Christian", the concept of "Atheist" has different connotations to different persons. Some of them are more reasonable than others.
As I said, atheism is a position that comes from doubt, from disbelief in distinct claims. There are a lot of things that we do not believe, but we would never imagine calling ourself "a-thing-I-have-no-clue-about-ist". You - most certainly - do not believe that the second husband of the Grand-Queen of Orion IV is called "Hubert"... but that doesn't make you an "Ahubertist".
So to be an atheist "of a kind that I could
in any way recognize myself in" you need to have been aware of theistic claims, and doubt or disregard them.
I did. I grew up "in a Christian environment"... but I have never been a Christian. I have been a skeptic from a very early age, wanting to know how things really work... not what people tell.
I didn't see any difference between princesses playing with balls of gold and frogs turning into princes when kissed and people walking on water or turning it into wine. It wasn't real, just stories.
Think of this way (in a pure logic way). I believe in A and you believe in B, and it is almost impossible to proof either.
And the only reason I changed my position from B to A is because the evidence.
Now if you want I can list the evidences for A.
I still don't believe you. When you say that you changed your position "because the evidence"... that means you must have seen and evaluated "the evidence". That means you must have been confronted with all that I said before, with all that argumentation and rationalization and the empty claims. An evaluation must have included weighting in the opposite arguments... you must have critically considered what you have been presented with.
And if we went through that, my original questions stand: how can you go and argue in the way you did in your previous posts - with empty, condescending claims?
Let's decompose it down below. I will tell you, to me it is a problem is probability, which one is more Probable.
So think about it, we can do things in minutes that nature can't in millions of years, yet we can't create life, we can't create real AI that are self aware, we don't even have slightest idea how it can be done (not even a model, espically we have so many models way before the computer that can only be used by computers).
And that, as you should be aware, is an argument from ignorace. "We do not know how it happened this way... so it must have happened that way (which we also do not know.)"
The answer is simple: we do not know. Basically, we do not know either way. BUT! (And here we go into your question of 'which one is more probable') We know a lot more about the processes of "nature" than we do about anything "divine".
It is a problem of probability.
Yes. And the problem is that you declare the mechanism where we have
no data at all as more probable than the process that we only have few data.
I am arguing that there is no way it can work. i.e. nature, a thing that is not intelligence, can't produce intelligence.
In this case, you are arguing without a basis. There is nothing to justify this premise: "Intelligence can only be produced by intelligence".
Effectively, you are even contradicting your own reasoning: "God is spirit. Something that is not matter, can't produce matter." Right? Same logic... and equally invalid.
It is an old question, but why is it stupid question? When I was an atheist I thought about it too, and I just brush it off as silly. But if you take a look at a simple cell, and how complex it is (any simple cell is way more complex than maybe 8086, can you believe lighting strick sand and by some magic a 8086 jumps out, and got started?
It is a stupid question because it sets arbitrary limits. (Well, it is not stupid, if you don't approach it stupidly: in a literal way).
You refuse to see any option that isn't already given in the question: where did the chicken come from? From an egg! Where did the egg come from? From a chicken! So which was first.
The option that there was a long changing line, a line of evolving descendents... doesn't even show up in the question.
As for "it is so complex, it couldn't have come by lightning striking sand." Stupid argument! If that is the way you evaluate probabilities, you should be ashamed of yourself!
These invalid simplifications are the bread and butter of the dishonest business that is "creationism".
Don't go looking at cells and how complex they are! Take a look at something a lot more complex: go and look into a mirror. A walking, talking, thinking (I hope), internet-using conglomerate of billions of interacting cells. And the all come from two single cells, reproducing and dividing and changing. And they constantly change and adapt and interchange with outside material. All by nature. Chemistry, physics, biology. There is no God responsible for digesting your breakfast, no God responsible for shedding dead skin cells or making your hair go grey.
It is highly complex... and it didn't start with a lump of clay being breathed upon. (Or a stork, or a cabbage leaf, or whatever 'creationist' story you like).
There are many problems that we see every day, don't even notice, and they might be the next technological advance (i.e. what's gravity?)
Gravity is tiny little elves pulling you to the ground. That is more probable than space-time being bend by mass (what is mass, after all? With all our advanced computer power, we still do not know for sure.)
Probability. A very simple example, what are the chances nature can randomly creates a RNA and yet we can't do it under lab conditions?
What are the chances that nature randomly creates any molecule? Slim? Non-existent? Yet it happens, all around us.
Again, like with the chicken and the egg, you are ignoring the options that are not already given in the question. Creationist tactics. Set
one point and say "and this now must have happened randomly! This is impossible, thus it was Jesus, hallelujah!"
But even if we were to accept that: what
are the chances nature can randomly create a RNA? Tiny. Minuscule! Almost non-existent!!!
Yet we know (basically) how chemistry works, and these tiny, minuscule chance is at least there. We can at least do an evaluation!
So what are the chances that there is a "being" of utmost complexity, whose nature is to have the goal of having self-replicating molecules evolve into beings that "love" this said being? How would you even start to do an evaluation here?
No. When you say you look at the probabilities, you are fooling yourself.