Dear Interplanner,
You definition of closed/open system was a bit strange since it is very different to how these words are meant in physics, but now I understand what you mean.
In fact you are correct, the sum of all the improbabilities is enormous, but that's not a problem.
You see, many things are highly improbable, there is one woman who was struck 3 times by lightning on 3 different occasions. If you had to calculate the probability of this happening, you would also claim that it's impossible.
The conditions necessary for the occurence of life just appeared on this little planet. They could have also appeared anywhere else in the vast universe with so many planets to choose from. The reason we consider this planet our home (albeit very imperfect if you take a closer look) is because we are HERE. If the conditions were unsuitable, we would not be here to talk about it, right?
Your comparison to a painting is nice but quite pointless. You know that Rembrand was an actual person, you know how the process of painting works and you look at the painting within the context of it being on display in a gallery. The notion of our universe being created in a similar manner is very different. That's more like being a single drop of ink without any senses to even know that you're part of a painting.
The conditions "perfect for mankind" are very far from perfect, we cannot inhabit the majority of this planet, the moon and all other planets do nothing at all for us on earth. I can help you understand it: it's really very simple and falls right into place once you stop presupposing that everything that is in existance was placed there for us in mind. It simply was not.
You rhetorically sarcastic question about the causality between collision events in space and the existance of life only goes to show how fragile you own faith is. If you have to convince yourself by arguments of absurdity you must be terrified to face actual facts, eh?
Let us see if we can tackle it from another angle, why have you chosen Christianity over other religions that share the same story of creation?
And as a bonus question, why have you chosen your particular denomination over the thousands of alternatives within Christianity?
-Duke
Your last question is totally irrelevant to this. Very interesting that you would go that direction. Why is that?
The 2nd to last is a bit better because out of the 4 metaphysical possibilities for a prime cause, Christian falls in the category of 'everything came from a personal intelligent creator' (that's metaphysics in the philosphic sense, the same as you found 'closed system of natural cause and effect' to be. 'Closed system...' is more clear than naturalistic uniformitarianism, but is the same).
There is nothing absurd about saying that it is more sense that an infinite being put earth and moon in place than chancing it to a Katrina. I do not accept your meaning of absurdity and you have no corner on that. What is absurd to me is to see people driving cars down the street who actually believe that the 20 areas identified in THE PRIVILEGED PLANET can just happen to harmonize and integrate the first time and every time with their mountains of 00s it takes to express improbability. And those people are driving cars are in the lane opposite me! Crikey!
Speaking of the moon, do you really want anyone to know you said the other planets do nothing for us? that you said it out loud? Nonsense. Look merely at the gravitational range we live in. Gonzalez and Richards put it this way: imagine a tape measure across our galaxy. The level of gravitational pull is at a certain marked inch. A change one inch either direction is disaster. The moon does nothing?
sorry I don't accept your definition of pointless about the painting. It is exactly the declaration of Scripture; the heavens are his handicraft. I did not ask you, however, to accept that analogy while you thought the world was 'a closed system of natural causes and effects.' That would be pointless. I don't accept that it is closed. God acts in it as he wants to communicate what he wants. He does so to communicate how we may be redeemed, not only for eternal life but for grace and virtue in this life. Instead of being the beasts that T. Huxley thought would be so groovy to be.
This world is not just a mass. It was to be a home and there are "parents" so to speak (taking a few steps down the path of the Christian concept of the Trinity). There was love and communication in the Trinity before the foundation of the world, and it was intended to be here and now as well.
If you have trouble with the livability of this world, it is partly because it is distorted; it has been since the human rebellion egged on by Satan. It is not as created originally. But even so, if you read a history of science like THE ULTIMATE RESOURCE you will see many times that gifts of God through science have made the world pretty nice. Also the broader doctrines of Christianity have engendered medicine, improvements for women and servants, etc., that would otherwise not be there.
The last time I looked at an electricity satelite image taken at night, there were few blacked out areas. It has made things very livable. What "on earth" do you mean by vast majority inhabitable?
Going back to the physics barrier to understanding in the first paragraph, I think it is a trick of that kind of naturalism, to make it impossible to consider the activity of God by the shear force and repetition of physics formulas. As Lewis said in "Religion and Science" in GOD IN THE DOCK:
"Modern science has shown there's no such thing" said my scientist friend about the supernatural.
"But don't you see," said I, "That science never could show anything of the sort?"
"Why on earth not?"
"Because science studies Nature. And the question is whether anything
besides Nature exists--anything "outside". How could you find that out by studying simply Nature?"
Then Lewis gives the daily-nickel-in-the-drawer analogy. Ie, what if a person plans to put a nickel in his desk drawer each day. On the 3rd day he has 3, etc., infinitum. "Natural laws are like that provided there's no interference... If there was anything outside Nature, and if it interfered--then the events which the scientist expected wouldn't follow. That would be what we (Christians) call a miracle. In one sense, it wouldn't break the laws of Nature, but those laws can't tell you if Someone will interfere. A child might come take a nickel. A thief might come take them all. Someone tired of change clanging around in their pocket might decide to empty their pocket.
His point was, no scientific law will tell you Someone
can't interfere with the daily placement of the nickel. You'd have to ask a psychologist or a parent or a detective that question. Not a scientist.
atrol: :cheers: :bang: :angel: