OK…I want numbers. What is the probability the universe is the result of chance?

[Halbhh]

From your link:

Then, they split these stars into two batches: one containing 369 stars that rotate every 20 to 30 days and one with 2,529 stars that scientists haven't been able to calculate a rotation period for. (The sun rotates every 24.5 days, but that spin likely wouldn't be detectable to alien astrophysicists using the same techniques humans have, so both of these groups of stars are important.)

"The researchers then analyzed both these groups of stars to understand their activity levels and how they compare with the sun. Stars with known rotation rates were on average much more active than our sun has been over the past 9,000 years — about five times more active.

About 1/7th of them more active than our sun.

I understand now the problem in clarity there. It's not a really clear wording.

They are saying that when they could measure at all the most key thing of all -- the rotation period -- then for those stars (all the stars of similar mass to the sun and similar composition and for which they could measure the most key thing, the rotation period), in that group our sun stands out as an exception for being unusually quiet (stable).

The group that matters: those stars they know ought to be just like our sun.

But our sun isn't acting like them.

(!)

It's an accurate summary they made (of course) to say:

"We were very surprised that most of the sun-like stars are so much more active than the sun," Alexander Shapiro, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany and a co-author on the new research, said in a statement.

 

[Jonathan Walkerin]

Taking all these factors into account, it seem like a miracle that we are even here at all. For if even one of the above variables did not exist, then we would not exist. This is just one of the reasons why there is a Creator God who made everything you see.

So your argument for there being a creator God is an unlikely set of events ?

I once threw playing cards around living room when bored. There was a bookshelf maybe ten feet away and one of the cards became lodged between two of the tightly backed books.

What are the odds for that ?

Something being unlikely is not proof of anything apart from argument from incredulity.

There are hundreds of billions of galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars orbited by trillions of planets and moons.

Pretty far fetched to think we are the only ones who happened to luck out on some criteria necessary for life.

Especially since it doesn’t need to be life exactly as we understand it or have the same criteria for maintaining it.

At the moment we have a sample size of one planet with life. That is a pretty meager sample to do far reaching conclusions and even here life gets pretty wild when you look at stuff living near geothermal vents under oceans.

 

[mindlight]

Im gonna quote Oxford University and Nobel prize winner, and mathematical physicist Roger Penrose:
“Try to imagine phase space… of the entire universe. Each point in this phase space represents a different possible way that the universe might have started off. We are to picture the Creator, armed with a ‘pin’ — which is to be placed at some point in phase space… Each different positioning of the pin provides a different universe. Now the accuracy that is needed for the Creator’s aim depends on the entropy of the universe that is thereby created. It would be relatively ‘easy’ to produce a high entropy universe, since then there would be a large volume of the phase space available for the pin to hit. But in order to start off the universe in a state of low entropy — so that there will indeed be a second law of thermodynamics — the Creator must aim for a much tinier volume of the phase space. How tiny would this region be, in order that a universe closely resembling the one in which we actually live would be the result?”

“His calculations lead him to the remarkable conclusion that the ‘Creator’s aim’ must have been accurate to 1 part in 10 to the power of 10 to the power or 123, that is 1 followed by 10 to the 123rd power zeros.”

As Penrose puts it, that is a “number which it would be impossible to write out in the usual decimal way, because even if you were able to put a zero on every particle in the universe, there would not even be enough particles to do the job.”

And the only alternative to the universe arising from chance is for it to have arisen deliberately. Deliberate action requires a conscious creator aka God.

I am a YEC but consider this probability number impossible to calculate. We only see a fraction of what is out there, via its electro magnetic signature. But it seems that a lot of things do not give an electromagnetic signature and wobbles in orbits of distant planets and even stars and groups of stars indicate a considerable amount of unseen mass. To generalise and calculate from such a small amount of data is to repeat the same mistake as the uniformitarian Old Universe Evolutionists, speculating on the basis of a small amount of data about the larger dataset and then parading their theoretical models as 99% certain.

So the best answer scientifically is we do not really know but the probability that life exists by chance is extremely low, given what we do know and can see.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

So your argument for there being a creator God is an unlikely set of events ?

I once threw playing cards around living room when bored. There was a bookshelf maybe ten feet away and one of the cards became lodged between two of the tightly backed books.

What are the odds for that ?

Something being unlikely is not proof of anything apart from argument from incredulity.

There are hundreds of billions of galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars orbited by trillions of planets and moons.

Pretty far fetched to think we are the only ones who happened to luck out on some criteria necessary for life.

Especially since it doesn’t need to be life exactly as we understand it or have the same criteria for maintaining it.

At the moment we have a sample size of one planet with life. That is a pretty meager sample to do far reaching conclusions and even here life gets pretty wild when you look at stuff living near geothermal vents under oceans.

You obviously don't see the unlikelihood of multiple events as pointing to a Creator God versus pointing to random chance, I cannot help you. The odds of all the conditions I mentioned does not suggest random chance, but it suggests a Creator God. If you want to argue against evidences for the Creator, then be my guest. It simply sounds like you are not wanting to defend God. I initially thought you were an atheist by your negative talk against the evidence for God until I looked up your religious affiliation. But if you want to steer people away from apologetics in trusting in God (despite your religious affliliation) then be my guest. I am sure God is not happy with your defense against Him.

 

[Jonathan Walkerin]

I am sure God is not going to be happy with your defense against Him.

Unfortunate. I am sure He can handle his own defense if a He feels it is required.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Unfortunate. I am sure He can handle his own defense if a He feels it is required.

I just don't understand why you would argue against evidences for God.
For if you are for God, why would you want to steer people away from Him by arguing against His existence by the evidence given to us?

 

[Jonathan Walkerin]

I just don't understand why you would argue against evidences for God.
For if you are for God, why would you want to steer people away from Him by arguing against His existence by the evidence given to us?

Improbability is not evidence of anything and it feels silly to present it as such.

Imagine yourself at this moment. What confluence of events had to take place that exactly a person with your DNA, life experiences and derived mental faculties are writing these posts at this particular moment.

How improbable is that ? Yet here you are. Is it evidence of God ? Wouldn’t it also be same case if something had been different and you were a slightly different person ?
Still evidence of God ?

 

[hedrick]

The OP seems to be thinking of what is often called "fine tuning." It has little to do with evolution. Most of the people who make the fine tuning argument include lots of parameters that control things like stellar evolution, which wouldn't exist in a creationist model.

I find the fine tuning argument interesting, but I'm also not sure what to make of it.

• We don't know how many other regions of parameter space would produce interesting results. The studies really look at what range would produce our universe. It's true that many would produce nothing useful, but there may well be other interesting combinations
• There are several ways that the universe could express all possible combinations. One is a multiverse. (There are several quite different possibilities of how that might arise.) Another is an infinite or nearly infinite universe with varying properties. If either of these is true, it's not a surprise that we exist in one of the sections whose parameters allow us to exist.
• It's hard to know whether God is the only alternative. The existence of an eternal God of the type required to do this design may be just as surprising as the existence of a finely tuned universe. Frankly I find the existence of anything hard to understand, whether God or a self-explanatory universe.

I certainly find fine tuning interesting, and the responses I list are not without their own problems. But I'm also not sure we can validly jump to God as the only answer.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Improbability is not evidence of anything and it feels silly to present it as such.

Imagine yourself at this moment. What confluence of events had to take place that exactly a person with your DNA, life experiences and derived mental faculties are writing these posts at this particular moment.

How improbable is that ? Yet here you are. Is it evidence of God ? Wouldn’t it also be same case if something had been different and you were a slightly different person ?
Still evidence of God ?

You didn't answer my questions.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Improbability is not evidence of anything and it feels silly to present it as such.

Imagine yourself at this moment. What confluence of events had to take place that exactly a person with your DNA, life experiences and derived mental faculties are writing these posts at this particular moment.

How improbable is that ? Yet here you are. Is it evidence of God ? Wouldn’t it also be same case if something had been different and you were a slightly different person ?
Still evidence of God ?

I would say you don't undestand statistical probabilities all too much.
Check out this video by Chuck Missler on the hidden Bible code in the Hebrew Scriptures.

I would also recommend checking this short video by him, as well.

Note: These videos are both very short, and the speaker is not boring by any means. So please watch them and let me know what you think.


Side Note:

While I like Chuck Missler for informational science involving the Bible, I do not agree with his belief in Eternal Security or Once Saved Always Saved.

 

[atpollard]

But how do you declare no God on faith?

Based on empirical evidence, God fails to meet the definition of God: Q.E.D. “god does not exist”.

“The evidence of contemporary Christian life is such that God, if he ever existed, must surely be dead” -Bertrand Russel

[not my personal beliefs. I was just offering an explanation of one atheist perspective.]

 

[The Barbarian]

Based on empirical evidence, God fails to meet the definition of God: Q.E.D. “god does not exist”.

That's an act of faith. Philosophically, it makes no sense. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. "God doesn't live up to my expectations of God" isn't proof against Him, either.

As Richard Dawkins points out, one cannot prove God does not exist.

[not my personal beliefs. I was just offering an explanation of one atheist perspective.]

Yeah, I got that.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Im gonna quote Oxford University and Nobel prize winner, and mathematical physicist Roger Penrose:
“Try to imagine phase space… of the entire universe. Each point in this phase space represents a different possible way that the universe might have started off. We are to picture the Creator, armed with a ‘pin’ — which is to be placed at some point in phase space… Each different positioning of the pin provides a different universe. Now the accuracy that is needed for the Creator’s aim depends on the entropy of the universe that is thereby created. It would be relatively ‘easy’ to produce a high entropy universe, since then there would be a large volume of the phase space available for the pin to hit. But in order to start off the universe in a state of low entropy — so that there will indeed be a second law of thermodynamics — the Creator must aim for a much tinier volume of the phase space. How tiny would this region be, in order that a universe closely resembling the one in which we actually live would be the result?”

“His calculations lead him to the remarkable conclusion that the ‘Creator’s aim’ must have been accurate to 1 part in 10 to the power of 10 to the power or 123, that is 1 followed by 10 to the 123rd power zeros.”

As Penrose puts it, that is a “number which it would be impossible to write out in the usual decimal way, because even if you were able to put a zero on every particle in the universe, there would not even be enough particles to do the job.”

And the only alternative to the universe arising from chance is for it to have arisen deliberately. Deliberate action requires a conscious creator aka God.

Even the most intelligent know that it takes a Regulator to control the "chance"
particles found in the universe. This is their ongoing unsolved mystery. The Regulator is God. The answer is 0. Blessings

 

[The Barbarian]

I would say you don't undestand statistical probabilities all too much.

He's making a statistically valid point. The improbability argument ignores the fact that astoundingly unlikely things happen every day to everyone.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

He's making a statistically valid point. The improbability argument ignores the fact that astoundingly unlikely things happen every day to everyone.

Again, you don't understand statistical probablities. The more conditions you add, the less likely something is by random chance mathmatically speaking.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

That's an act of faith. Philosophically, it makes no sense. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. "God doesn't live up to my expectations of God" isn't proof against Him, either.

As Richard Dawkins points out, one cannot prove God does not exist.



Yeah, I got that.

Why would you be listening to Richard Dawkins? He rejects God.

 

[The Barbarian]

Even the most intelligent know that it takes a Regulator to control the "chance" particles in the universe.

That became a huge issue during the Enlightenment, when a more mechanistic view of things took hold. But it's based on an error, assuming that God cannot use contingency to effect His will:

The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity, happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency.
Thomas Aquinas:, Summa theologiae, I, 22, 4 ad 1.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

He's making a statistically valid point. The improbability argument ignores the fact that astoundingly unlikely things happen every day to everyone.

Your argument is sort of like saying that if I see elephant tracks, and the breaking of bushes and tree branches made by an elephant, then it could be just a person who decided to make me believe it was an elephant doing that or the footprints of the elephant were made by some other thing that just so happens to look like an elephant footprint but it isn't. That is how dumb your argument is here.

It's like you are on the wrong side (arguing against God). Why would you do that?

 

[The Barbarian]

Again, you don't understand statistical probablities.

I have a master's degree that required more statistics than most people will see in a lifetime. The fallacy is in finding an arrow stuck in a tree, drawing a bulls-eye around it, and being astonished by the accuracy.

The more conditions you add, the less likely something is by random chance mathmatically speaking.

If you add conditions before the event happens, yes. Otherwise, it's the arrow in a tree. Consider the likelihood of your genes, given the genes of your great-great-great grandparents. A huge number of improbable events had to occur to make you with the genes you have. Yet here you are. Odds are, no one in the universe has the same genes you do. The likelihood of someone with the very same alleles would be so unlikely as to be impossible. And yet here you are.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

That became a huge issue during the Enlightenment, when a more mechanistic view of things took hold. But it's based on an error, assuming that God cannot use contingency to effect His will:

The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity, happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency.
Thomas Aquinas:, Summa theologiae, I, 22, 4 ad 1.

I am pointing out that God is the designer of all creation. Mechanistic view? No that is not what I am pointing out. He created the particles and regulated them. Don't forget we came from the dust of the earth.