[Guest]

Any person can comment on this post, but it's geared towards Christians (Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, etc.) Anyone can post the first subject of conversation. Just discuss issues about the religion (Heaven, evangelism,etc.)

[Guest]

I really must pull you up on that. Atheism is not a religion nor does it even define your religious status. You could be atheist and religious (as are some taoists and buddhists), or atheist and non-religious. Atheism simply identifies your approach to theism, specifically that you don't buy it.

This is exactly what I'm talking about with the military-style conditioning. You are allowed a sense of worth, but only as a function of your adherence to the belief system.

1) so then, atheism is basically a belief that there is no deity whatsoever, right? what then? so you are the ruler of your own life? if so, then atheism is a religion, a religion with you as the God of your own life? (i'm not being rhetorical, these are real questions that are begging for answers.

2)There's the misunderstanding. God's love isn't conditional. He created man(it's your choice to believe that) as His children and loves them in spite of their sins, as i said before. you don't have to be Christian in order for God to love you

[peace*out]

...He created man...

than what about evoloution? what about "age of the dinosaurs" cockroaches...surely noah wouldn't have carries COCKROACHES on the ark!??!

but what about the homosapiens and neandrathals (how do u spell that?) and other forms of PROVEN evoloution. just guessing?

[Guest]

i actually don't believe in evolution. man has been here since the sixth day of creation. and yes, i'm sure he carried cockroaches on the Ark. God told him to take two of every living creature that would survive the Flood(two cockroaches aren't so bad .) over the course of time many creatures that survived on the Ark were eventually extinct, including dinosaurs.

as for homo sapiens, that is the official classification for ordinary human beings, and neanderthals are classified under that species. man didn't evolve from them.

[Guest]

1) so then, atheism is basically a belief that there is no deity whatsoever, right?

No, it is an absence of belief that there is a deity. Believing that X is false isn't the same as not believing that X is true.

what then? so you are the ruler of your own life? if so, then atheism is a religion, a religion with you as the God of your own life? (i'm not being rhetorical, these are real questions that are begging for answers.

I generally try to believe things to the extent that they are supported by evidence. I have as much evidence for my own existence as I do for the existence of anything, so my belief in my own existence is pretty strong. I seem to have more control over my own life than any other entity, but this does not make me a god. To consider that a religion would be stretching the definition of religion to breaking point.

2)There's the misunderstanding. God's love isn't conditional. He created man(it's your choice to believe that) as His children and loves them in spite of their sins, as i said before. you don't have to be Christian in order for God to love you

But once you start believing in Christianity, you are taught that your worth depends upon God's love, unconditional though it may be. Without it you are just a sinful hell-bound mortal. So if you stop believing in God, you stop believing in your own worth, and there's the trap.

[Guest]

God told him to take two of every living creature that would survive the Flood(two cockroaches aren't so bad .) over the course of time many creatures that survived on the Ark were eventually extinct, including dinosaurs.

Did he drop off the koalas in Australia or did they have to trudge/swim all the way from Mount Ararat?

[Guest]

But once you start believing in Christianity, you are taught that your worth depends upon God's love, unconditional though it may be. Without it you are just a sinful hell-bound mortal. So if you stop believing in God, you stop believing in your own worth, and there's the trap.

There is no such thing as "without the love of God." it is there, whether you want to believe it or not. man holds himself worthy to some extent. we don't teach that your worth depends on God's love. it depends on the Blood of Jesus. it is only when we get saved by His blood that we become worthy.

and, har har, i think a few thousand years is enough for the animals to repopulate the earth.

[peace*out]

Did he drop off the koalas in Australia or did they have to trudge/swim all the way from Mount Ararat?

Yes, they must have gone off in a lifeboat...

so...

LJ - "i actually don't believe in evolution. man has been here since the sixth day of creation. and yes, i'm sure he carried cockroaches on the Ark. God told him to take two of every living creature that would survive the Flood(two cockroaches aren't so bad .) over the course of time many creatures that survived on the Ark were eventually extinct, including dinosaurs.

as for homo sapiens, that is the official classification for ordinary human beings, and neanderthals are classified under that species. man didn't evolve from them."

So, he could carry 2 of EACH DINOSAUR in the boat? im sorry, but if the new cruise boat couldn't do it, neither could noah.

[Guest]

haha, yeah. that's my mistake. i can only assume that's how a lot of the dinosaurs went extinct in the first place: drowned.

forgot to take that part into account

[peace*out]

haha, yeah. that's my mistake. i can only assume that's how a lot of the dinosaurs went extinct in the first place: drowned.

forgot to take that part into account

yah i was thinking...

but then what about that meteor that made the dinosaurs extinct - do you believe that that never happened?

[Guest]

yah i was thinking...

but then what about that meteor that made the dinosaurs extinct - do you believe that that never happened?

what, the one that destroyed life over the whole world?(or something like that, i may be thinking of something else) no i don't think a meteoric catastrophe was responsible, though it is likely in history that something on a much, much smaller scale happened once or twice. i believe that meteor was simply an evolutionists substitution for the Flood

[Framm 18]

I would like to point out, even though it will probably make this even more skeptical to ya'll, but it was not two of each animal.

It was seven of the clean animals (and the fowl) and two of the unclean animals.

My reason for believing in Creation over the Big Bang.

Probably In my opinion, take it as you will. To me, just the odds of the Big Bang having placed everything in just a way that this is the only planet in our solar system that is capable of sustaining life (as far as Scientist have confirmed, that I know of) and have been placed in the right orbit around the Sun to not freeze/burn everything on this planet is astronomical at best (imagine being switched with Venus or Mars). It would be like having a tornado pick up all of the wood, nails, concrete, water, shingles, and whatever else is needed to build that house and mixing it up and setting it down in such a way that it builds that house while placing it on a rather flat piece of land. While Creation accounts for all of that above reasoning and plus the world seems like it is ordered in such a way that mere chance could not account for.

This is my two cents worth, take it however you want. Odds are high that you will not change how I view this point and it will probably not change how you view this point, but it is my opinion so it won't hurt my feelings if you don't agree. At least this is a more civilized discussion then some of the other message boards (not on BD) turn in to, that I have seen and not participated in.

P.S. I apologize if any of that was unclear, writing/trying to explain myself does not come easily for me.

[Guest]

right, i left that part out too. Noah had to have seven so that when he sacrificed the clean animals in thanksgiving, the other clean animals would still have a mate.

and yes(at least to me) you are making sense with your Creation-big bang comparison.

[unreality]

framm, I see where you are coming from. That's certainly the most (maybe only) compelling argument for a god creating the universe that i've ever heard. But it doesnt address where the god came from. You say the universe is too complex/perfect/beautiful/organized to exist just because.

With me so far?

by your own admission god is more complex/perfect/beautiful/etc than the universe.

So where did God come from?

also i've thought about this a lot and it comes down to One-or-Many:

One Universe: either we are very very lucky to be here, or some aspects of the universe have been tweaked from within (if from outside, would imply Many not One but i guess that's open to debate) to lead to life. But moot point because we ARE here so we DID get lucky. If we wouldnt have gotten lucky we weouldnt have been able to consider that we were unlucky

Many Universes: INFINITE universes, each one manifesting a logical possibility for a universe. Most of them would probably be totally empty, or whatever. An infinite majority wouldn't even be able to satisfy basic physics, let alone chemistry, let alone self-replicating microbiology. But in a tiny (maybe finite, probably infinite) minority, life can exist and reach the point where its lifeforms can ponder the universe. Clearly we are then one of those universes so we're not "lucky" because by definition being able to think about this means we just happen to be in one of those minority of life-supporting universes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle)

[peace*out]

In my opinion (big bang vs. creation) if venus or mars had come to this spot, they would have an atmosphere similar to earth's.

quick q: what was the difference between the clean and unclean animals?

[Guest]

quick q: what was the difference between the clean and unclean animals?

it was a complete Jewish custom. there is a chapter in the book of the law of God for the Israelites back in the Old Testament(Deuteronomy, i believe) that identifies the clean animals as the ones with split hooves and those that chew their cud, with the exceptions of the camel. Any creature that swam with fines and scales was clean, as well as many birds(the book specified which ones weren't clean, but i won't go into that much detail right now)

i'm not sure why this was so, but it was God's law, and His people were to obey it.

[Framm 18]

framm, I see where you are coming from. That's certainly the most (maybe only) compelling argument for a god creating the universe that i've ever heard. But it doesnt address where the god came from. You say the universe is too complex/perfect/beautiful/organized to exist just because.

With me so far?

by your own admission god is more complex/perfect/beautiful/etc than the universe.

So where did God come from?

Honestly, I cannot answer that. The only answer I can give is that He is and always has been. I know that that is the standard answer that you have no doubt heard millions of times before, but that is the best answer I can give. On the flip side of that coin, where did the first atom/electron,proton,neutron/quark/whatever is smaller than a quark come from? The truth is, we will most likely never know exactly how the universe was created, as it essentially transcends human understanding (until God comes back as I believe or the universe dies out in y'alls case). All we can do is believe what we believe and for those who choose religion, have faith that what we believe in is the truth. (I fully believe that God created the universe, but tried to write this in a non-biased way)

@Peace: Not necessarily, they could have still had their same exact atmosphere, just of been in a different place around the Sun.

[Guest]

i'm going to say it as it is:

God is outside of time, He created time, and the universe: the heavens and the earth. God had no beginning and will have no end. He is what God is, that's that.

[Guest]

i'd like to point out that there is no such thing as being non-religious.

Then I am sorry to say that I KNOW you are mistaken, because I am not religious.

Every single person alive and in history believed in some sort of religion, whether it is polytheistic, monotheistic, or atheistic.

Atheism is not a religion, it is simply the state of not being a theist; a believer in any gods. From A- (without) and theism (which stems from the Greek word Theos meansing gods.) Atheism = without a belief in gods.

Some technically atheistic people may follow what can loosely be called a deity free religion, but many of us do not.

there is a difference between being born as a sin, and being born bent towards sin.

Indeed, and only one of those could ever justify punishment or anything of the sort.

But Christians aren't purposed to make people feel terrible about their existence.

Some are, some aren't. As you say; many denominations.

we want people to know how much God as their Father loves them and wants to save them.

Evidence would suffice.

and yes, just as a human body has many members with different functions, every person has a place in the body of Christ.

That makes no sense at all. Just a flowery turn of phrase - centred on the emotions not the rational mind.

Adam and Eve's nakedness is not the symbol of our shame. rather, the sin of the eating of the fruit despite God's command not to is our symbol of shame. it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. when they ate, they saw their nakedness and covered themselves.

Which results in the problem of how on earth could they be judged at all for doing that 'evil' BEFORE partaking of the magical fruit ( Seriously?!) which somehow gave them the ability to get the distinction.

sin is the symbol of our shame.

"Our" shame? I didn't eat the magic fruit, did you?! Isn't there something about not bearing "sins of the father" in there as well?!

the two would have been much less ashamed if they didn't eat the fruit and kept on living in God's presence.

So you are saying that they then knew that being naked was 'evil', but did not also realise that therefore the Elohim (the gods actually starring in Genesis, don't ya know ) were in fact positively in favour of that 'evil.'?!

Christians do not want to make people feel ashamed of their bodies,

Again; many do. The puritanical movements were all about that sort of thing for a start.

...

[Guest]

the human is fearfully and wonderfully made by God, no doubt about that.

Plenty of doubt, reasonable doubt about any of that, actually.

_______________________________________

1) so then, atheism is basically a belief that there is no deity whatsoever, right?

No, it is simply not being in the position of positively having such a belief. It is not a position or belief in itself.

If none of one's beliefs include that of any gods, you are by definition (if not chosen label) an atheist.

what then? so you are the ruler of your own life?

Ruler of, responsible for... however you want to put it.

if so, then atheism is a religion, a religion with you as the God of your own life? (i'm not being rhetorical, these are real questions that are begging for answers.

Of course not. Being responsible for ones own life, and not the PROPERTY of another, in no way makes one a god, and does not even come close to even the weaker definition of "religion." That is just laughable, sorry but it is.

It does make you less of a slave, of another being's chattel though.

2)There's the misunderstanding. God's love isn't conditional. He created man(it's your choice to believe that) as His children and loves them in spite of their sins, as i said before. you don't have to be Christian in order for God to love you

"Worship me (or whatever way you want to spin it) or burn forever" sounds pretty darn conditional to me.

and "He created man" is not something a rational person simply 'chooses' to believe or not - where is the evidence?

_____________________________________________________

i actually don't believe in evolution.

Then you are functionally scientifically illiterate.

Evolution is a simple fact or nature.

man has been here since the sixth day of creation.

All evidence collected by people actually examining reality, as opposed to reading it in a book, disagrees with you.

and yes, i'm sure he carried cockroaches on the Ark.

You mean in that global flood that never happened (no global flood layer EVER.)

as for homo sapiens, that is the official classification for ordinary human beings, and neanderthals are classified under that species. man didn't evolve from them.

No Neanderthal ("Ne-an-der-tarl" ) Homo neanderthalensis, ARE NOT classified under the same species (H.sapiens and H.neanderthalensis are the species) but under the same genus.

Pan troglodytes (Common Chimpanzee) was almost initially classified under the same genus as well (by a creationist no less!)

________________________________________________

OH and octopuppy; not JUST all the koalas, but practically every marsupial chose Australia!

May favourite creationist 'theory' is that they were transported by volcano. Seriously!!

...

[Guest]

There is no such thing as "without the love of God." it is there, whether you want to believe it or not.

Really LJayden, just 'choosing' to believe or not believe things IS NOT the way to go about things, at all.

There are things (many I suspect) that I WANT to believe, but I don't because they are not sufficiently supported solid reasoning and/or evidence.

man holds himself worthy to some extent. we don't teach that your worth depends on God's love. it depends on the Blood of Jesus. it is only when we get saved by His blood that we become worthy.

You do know that that Scape-Goat story makes no sense whatsoever, right?

That such a sacrifice forwards absolutely nothing onto others.

The history of scape goating IS interesting though.

In short: Ancient tribes (including the early Jews) used to 'bestow' (by whispering directly or into small vessels and attaching those vessels) their 'sins' onto a goat. Which was then driven out into the desert to perish. Apparently taking the villagers' sins with them, effectively wiping them clean. Sounds silly when it is not YOUR scape goat story doesn't it?

and, har har, i think a few thousand years is enough for the animals to repopulate the earth.

It's known as Super-evolution, and no it is not. Anti-evolutionists (erroneously) cry that evolution has not been observed - well we damn well should have if it went anywhere near THAT rapidly!

_____________________________________________

what, the one that destroyed life over the whole world?(or something like that, i may be thinking of something else)

AN about 70% life ending event.

Not the first, or the greatest (an earlier one wiped out an estimated 95%!)

no i don't think a meteoric catastrophe was responsible, though it is likely in history that something on a much, much smaller scale happened once or twice. i believe that meteor was simply an evolutionists substitution for the Flood

This is simply factually wrong.

It's quite a coincidence actually. I am currently reading a book about scientific discoverers, and the section I am now on is about the man who uncovered the evidence - of a global fine layer at the K-T (Cretaceous - Tertiary) boundary ~65 million years ago.

The layer contains something around 100x the amount or iridium than it 'should' (that was the first clue) which is an element that only comes from asteroids/meteors which are heavy in that element.

There is ABSOLUTELY no doubt that the layer (and thus extinction event) was a meteor strike and by no means a flood - such layers are fundamentally different.

SO you assertions can come from nowhere but your desire for the evidence to fit into your current worldview. This is simply logically fallacious.

*It wasn't the only cause though. The Sauropod and many theropod dinosaurs were already struggling to hold on at that point. (Some of theropods had already evolved in such a way that they not only survived, but survive to this day; that's right folks - dinosaurs are among us!)

_________________________________

right, i left that part out too. Noah had to have seven so that when he sacrificed the clean animals in thanksgiving,

What?!

Thanksgiving is an American (and Canadian) Harvest Festival. Only a couple of centuries old.

and yes(at least to me) you are making sense with your Creation-big bang comparison.

One can only assume this is because you already accepted the conclusion. Another typical cause for sloppy reasoning.

Even my fellow student in the first Formal Logic paper I took had problems with this. Having great difficulty divorcing their preconceptions from the structure of an argument. And as many logic examples are specifically designed to test this (silly statements used in logically valid arguments, reasonable ones in invalid ones.)

Try this famous one on for size:

Premise 1: All Sharks are Fish

Premise 2: The Hammerhead is a Fish

Therefore

Conclusion: The Hammerhead is a shark

Is the above syllogism LOGICALLY VALID? Why?

____________________________________________

it was a complete Jewish custom. there is a chapter in the book of the law of God for the Israelites back in the Old Testament(Deuteronomy, i believe) that identifies the clean animals as the ones with split hooves and those that chew their cud,

Which included rabbits (Which don't have cud, and don't chew it, they chew one of their two kinds of faeces.)

with the exceptions of the camel. Any creature that swam with fines and scales was clean, as well as many birds

Including bats (which are mammals, not birds.

i'm not sure why this was so, but it was God's law, and His people were to obey it.

Probably a naive retelling of dietary understandings learned over generations, so as to put some authority on it.

For example pig and shellfish had a tendency to cause illness, if improperly prepared and without the benefit of improved health/preservation measures.

...

[Guest]

Honestly, I cannot answer that. The only answer I can give is that He is and always has been.

Unfortunately (and I assume you know this full well) this is nothing but an empty assertion.

On the flip side of that coin, where did the first atom/electron,proton,neutron/quark/whatever is smaller than a quark come from?

All signs point to there being nothing smaller than a quark, electron or similar.

Atoms are of course made up of subatomic particles.

And both protons and neutrons are comprised on three different quarks (named up, down, top, bottom, strange and charm - for no better reason than to distinguish them from one another.)

The best hypothetical (but mathematical solid) answer is that 'nothing' (far different than how we habitually think of it with our notoriously unreliable 'common sense') is inherently unstable, and thus the explanation of quantum fluctuation, and thus readily collapses into 'something' (basic energy/matter - which A. Einstein established are sides of the same coin anyway.) And certain models suggest happens over 60% of the time (64.7% I read somewhere.)

This leads to a universe containing absolutely nothing requiring MORE explanation than one full of energy/matter! Cool eh? Weird and counter-intuitive, but cool.

Now that's better than magic any day!

The truth is, we will most likely never know exactly how the universe was created,

Or if.

And "created" is too much of a leading term.

as it essentially transcends human understanding (until God comes back as I believe or the universe dies out in y'alls case).

Thus the proper answer to How did the universe come to be would be "We don't know."

All we can do is believe what we believe and for those who choose religion, have faith that what we believe in is the truth. (I fully believe that God created the universe, but tried to write this in a non-biased way)

No, that would be irrational; to just pick an answer we like, and stick with it. Sometimes the BEST answer is to simply admit to ourselves that we don't have one.

My favourite hypothesis, although I don't 'believe' it in any fashion, is that:

In the beginning (of the story) there was nothing.

Being unstable this nothing collapsed into something (in what framework is unknown as it is so far beyond even the best science now understood, and any situation we are at all familiar with).

Being contained in possibly a planck volume space (it's a quantum thing) at some point this build up of emerging of basic energy (probably pretty much at random frequencies equating to the varieties of fundamental particles [string theory etc.]) reached a critical point, then;

BANG; the rapid expansion event known colloquially as "The Big Bang."

The rest follows from understood science:

Basically after a few millennia (380 or so) the universe cooled etc. enough that the fundamental particles bagan to interact in such a way (collisions) to form the first protons and neutrons.

Then atoms (hydrogen primarily, still ~99% of all matter in the known universe, and a little helium, and even less deuterium etc.)

Which led to them gravitating (literally) to eventually form the first stars. Whose nuclear fusion reactions led to heavier elements.

Leading naturally to second and third generation stars, creating even heavier elements.

Leading to planets (smaller bodies that don't collapse to form stars - hey did you know that in the infra-red spectrum, only, Jupiter IS technically a star?! It's that close.) rich in those elements.

Then we go to abiogenesis, which is understood enough to be seen as quite probable given the right natural conditions, none of which are that extraordinary, it's just chemistry.

And from there evolution (simple 'competition' between variations and for resources) to us. (Complex large multicellular life might be relatively rare, it took us ~3.5 billion years to get going in that direction, but that too was a natural consequence, primarily of early life conversion of CO₂ to O₂)

All of it; basic physics becoming and coupling with chemistry to biology; no magic or 'supernatural' additions required. In fact the starting condition and requirements is 'Nothing'!

Although this is something we couldn't justifiably conceive of until the past few decades or so.

@Peace: Not necessarily, they could have still had their same exact atmosphere, just of been in a different place around the Sun.

Most unlikely that they would be EXACTLY the same, although it is possible that it would be no different than switching the labels; Earth would now be called Mars. But then any number of variables would be possible. Perhaps Mars (being smaller) would not have been hit by that Mars size planetoid which (probably) resulted in Earth's altered conditions and the formation of our moon, which has had a profound effect.

____________________________________

i'm going to say it as it is:

God is outside of time, He created time, and the universe: the heavens and the earth. God had no beginning and will have no end. He is what God is, that's that.

But think about that.

How could a being exist outside or time, what would that even mean?!

And HOW could it 'create' time without time in which to do it? Creating is a temporal event; it implies that at one point it wasn't there THEN it was made.

And then God would have a beginning, that beginning would be the beginning of time.

Anyway once again you have given nothing but empty assertions.

[Guest]

I would like to point out, even though it will probably make this even more skeptical to ya'll, but it was not two of each animal.

It was seven of the clean animals (and the fowl) and two of the unclean animals.

Or seven pairs - which makes more sense because (NIV) "Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate" is mathematically troublesome, no?

My reason for believing in Creation over the Big Bang.

Probably In my opinion, take it as you will. To me, just the odds of the Big Bang having placed everything in just a way that this is the only planet in our solar system that is capable of sustaining life (as far as Scientist have confirmed, that I know of) and have been placed in the right orbit around the Sun to not freeze/burn everything on this planet is astronomical at best

How about the odds of a supernatural (whatever that means) intelligent entity existing beyond the existence of any matter or energy (huh?!) and somehow outside of time and space, yet still capable of acting (a spatio-temporal event) using it's mystical (again, huh?!) power to CREATE "everything in just a way that this is the only planet in our solar system that is capable of sustaining life (as far as Scientist have confirmed, that I know of) and have been placed in the right orbit around the Sun to not freeze/burn everything on this planet is astronomical at best"

It's the same problem with the ADDITION of a super complex, super improbable mystical entity.

(imagine being switched with Venus or Mars).

Then complex life would probably have arisen on Mars.

It would be like having a tornado pick up all of the wood, nails, concrete, water, shingles, and whatever else is needed to build that house and mixing it up and setting it down in such a way that it builds that house while placing it on a rather flat piece of land.

Oh the infamously flawed 747 in a junkyard argument.

It represents a fundamental lack of understanding of evolution or 'cosmic evolution',depending on where you wish to apply it.

While Creation accounts for all of that above reasoning and plus the world seems like it is ordered in such a way that mere chance could not account for.

Just so long as you ignore the HUGE throw-in of MAGIC, of a MAGIC MAN, somehow existing beyond all of that.

This is my two cents worth, take it however you want. Odds are high that you will not change how I view this point and it will probably not change how you view this point, but it is my opinion so it won't hurt my feelings if you don't agree. At least this is a more civilized discussion then some of the other message boards (not on BD) turn in to, that I have seen and not participated in.

P.S. I apologize if any of that was unclear, writing/trying to explain myself does not come easily for me.

It was clear, but sadly extremely weak.

It is the understandable result of starting with a chosen conclusion (GodDidIt for short, no insult intended, just shorthand ) and trying to fit the argument to that conclusion. It is known as the logical fallacy (fundamental error in reasoning) of Circular Reasoning (or Begging the Question.)

And reminds me of this little comic image:

Edited May 3, 2010 by ADParker

[Guest]

To me, just the odds of the Big Bang having placed everything in just a way that this is the only planet in our solar system that is capable of sustaining life (as far as Scientist have confirmed, that I know of) and have been placed in the right orbit around the Sun to not freeze/burn everything on this planet is astronomical at best (imagine being switched with Venus or Mars). It would be like having a tornado pick up all of the wood, nails, concrete, water, shingles, and whatever else is needed to build that house and mixing it up and setting it down in such a way that it builds that house while placing it on a rather flat piece of land. While Creation accounts for all of that above reasoning and plus the world seems like it is ordered in such a way that mere chance could not account for.

This is a simple case of the anthropic principle, which I'll do my best to explain in this context. You would not expect life to occur in the kind of universe that does not have the right physics to support life. Nor would you expect life to occur on a planet that is too hot or cold to support life. The sort of planet on which you would expect to find life would be one just the right size containing all the right chemicals at just the right temperature, in a solar system containing a couple of large outer planets to mop up stray asteroids. Since we are a lifeform, we should not be surprised that the planet we occupy fits that description. There are a vast number of planets in the universe, and the mistake is to think in terms of "what are the chances of life on Earth being possible?", when the planet Earth has been singled out for this attention (out of all the planets there are) because it has life on it.

To put it another way, imagine you are the Queen of England. As far as I know, the Queen of England believes there is a god, and well she might. After all, there are billions of people in the world, many of whom are born into poverty and the vast majority of whom live lives which may be described as somewhat ordinary. But there is only one Queen of England, and she got to be that way simply by an accident of birth. Perhaps she sometimes thinks to herself, "What are the chances of one being born into the royal family, destined to be Queen of England? Of all the things one could have been, how astronomically unlikely is that? The only person in the world one can call 'me' (or 'us', being royal) just happens to be the only person in the world who is the Queen of England. Why, the only plausible explanation for such a hugely unlikely state of affairs is that one is selected by God for this role, which incidentally proves the existence of God." From the perspective of the Queen of England, this may seem pretty convincing. But from your perspective or mine, maybe less so. You may or may not agree with her conclusions, but the line of reasoning (the Queen of England just happens to be the Queen of England therefore God exists) is wrong. She's failing to look at the bigger picture and consider that of the billions of people on Earth, it's not at all surprising that one of them would have been the Queen of England, and whoever it was would be inclined to think such thoughts. It's only the personal perspective (what are the chances of it happening to me) that makes it seem unlikely. Likewise, when we ask what are the chances of life occurring on this planet (or even in this universe) we are applying a personal perspective that is biased by the fact that we would not ask such questions if this had not already occurred.

I don't know if that helps but one just thought up the Queen analogy and we were most amused

[Guest]

OH and octopuppy; not JUST all the koalas, but practically every marsupial chose Australia!

May favourite creationist 'theory' is that they were transported by volcano. Seriously!!

Not to mention other island species like the komodo dragon, galapagos tortoise, dodo, et cetera all trotting off to their respective islands in an orderly fashion. I was hoping to trigger some sort of thought process by just mentioning the koala. By the way, the dodos getting to Mauritius without getting extinct along the way was a most impressive feat, though it does say something about God's sense of humour that they were completely wasting their time. On the other hand, I must admit the volcano explanation had not occurred to me, I never really thought of them as a means of transportation before. Who says creationists lack imagination?

[Guest]

Not to mention other island species like the komodo dragon, galapagos tortoise, dodo, et cetera all trotting off to their respective islands in an orderly fashion. I was hoping to trigger some sort of thought process by just mentioning the koalas. By the way, the dodos getting to Mauritius without getting extinct along the way was a most impressive feat, though it does say something about God's sense of humour that they were completely wasting their time. On the other hand, I must admit the volcano explanation had not occurred to me, I never really thought of them as a means of transportation before. Who says creationists lack imagination?

And how they ALL decided to migrate in a complex but clearly visible pattern, not to mention having the gall to all die and bury themselves in just the 'right layers' to give the 'false' impression that they all evolved from one another. And worse; in a pattern NOT centring around Mount Ararat (if that is indeed the Ararat mount range of today) at all!

If that aspect of evolutionary theory is false, the Elohim/God sure put a lot of effort into making it look that way. Which one is the trickster god again?