Big bang + hydrogen + the formation of planets around suns is likely + carbon, oxygen, water and so on are likely to be pretty commonplace + habitable zones + suns + solar systems + asteroid hoover gas giants to protect against meteor bombardment + correct chemical conditions + simple chemicals + polymers + replicating polymers + hypercycle + protobiant + bacteria = ... life.

well, isn't it [just a little even] co-incidental that all these things happen to be, which, eventually lead to life forms. and, i have only stated a few from your posts. in reality, this would only entail a microscopic sample of the billions of formulas, items, reactions and co-incidences that all lead to life.

as stated before, i am not religious. i feel i need to assert this point, as i can understand that i would appear to lean towards some religious belief.

at best, i would say that i am agnostic. now, there are degrees of being agnostic and mine lies in the realm of not believing in a god, however, not ruling the possibility out; a fence sitter if you will. i would say that the sheer co-incidences leading to life forms in our universe are just one of the reasons i remain agnostic.

so, even though i do have some faith in our debate over abiogenesis, i believe that it is just as possible that the mere fact that some of these chemicals react in such a manner to produce self replicating organisms that can grow, compete and evolve, that the whole system is designed. in fact, the answer seems more sensible than believing that the big bang, all these co-incidental chemicals and processes are just that - co-incidence or just accidental.

let's think about that for a second. it would take just one of these missing parts of co-incidences to screw the whole system leading to life forms. i have used this example before and i will again; the co-incidences are like a tornado tearing apart a town and accidently creating a boeing 747 with the parts sucked up.

there is a difference with these co-incidents. the example you gave is like picking out a marble from a bag of a million, hoping to find the red one for example. this is not really a co-incidence, or, not the type we are using in this debate. what you are talking about is luck, odds or probabilities.

the co-incidents leading to life is much more complex. the enormity of the differences in the two co-incidences is like a black hole vs a tennis ball.

it's funny how science will tell you that everything happens for a purpose. this apple falls because of gravity, the black hole captures light because of the extreme bending of space-time, this animal eats this food because...

but, when it comes to life, then, all of a sudden, there is no reason. it is just an accident...

everything we see has reason and consequence, as science has shown us. then, would it make sense to believe this for lifeforms?

usually, we appreciate as a mechanism to survive. for example, fatty foods taste better than apples. this is because in nature, fatty foods are more scarce than apples [fruits and vegetable] and so the better taste is a reward for hunting fatty foods.

so, where is the benefit for enjoying music or art to the point of feeling strong emotions that can lead to tears?

good points, nevertheless, all of this does not mean that life is not created out of some type of design.

i repeat: this is incorrect. there is always evidence. police document injuries to the alleged victim. they also have a swab test of the vagina and look for injuries there. there may also be witnesses. they will look for clues of a struggle. interview all parties, take dna tests, look into the victim's background, look into the perpetrator's background. never, has there been a rape case where a person was convicted soely on the alleged victim's testimony - ever.

Had it ended up any other way, the beneficiaries of any such change would have precisely the same argument.

It strikes me that a deisgner (which can only really be some sort of godlike supernatural power without being subject to the same sort of process of coincidence that gave rise to us) is simply a stopholder metaphore for that which we currently fail to understand. The realm of the spiritual and divine used to encompass things we now regard as mundane, but there will always be some mysteries left that humans will fail to grasp - I think.

The state or fact of occupying the same relative position or area in space.

A sperm - an egg - same position required to result in conception.
A hand - a red marble - same position required to select the marble.
The atoms of a nucleotide - same postion - required for undergoing the reactions required to form it.

Coincidence.

As far as I know there are black holes and there are tennis balls, there are simple coincidences and there are complex coincidences. Of these coincidences the most complex strikes me as being likely to be very very complex indeed.

The best explanation for how things fall is the theory of gravity.

At base I would hypothesise that it's simple life enrichment. Vicarious experience could also leave us better equipped to deal with the real thing, or empathise with those who have. That sort of thing.

But any supernatural agent is equally unfalsifiable - the oddest fantasies concocted by the world's Munchausens are impossible to disprove.

I mean, if I were to design a human I'd turn off the love of fatty food after reaching a certain BMI, I'd let them distinguish between adders and grass snakes on sight without training, I'd have the tesitcles develop outside the body cavity so that they wouldn't have to punch through the cavity wall leading to hernias instead of inside like fish do, I'd leave the benighted appendix out. Some of these weaknesses are pretty elementary to fix in comparison to engineering the whole in the first place - they look like vestigal remnants of things that were once helpful to an organism we might have evolved from - so why are they there?

I repeat - you are painting all rapes as relatively violent opportunistic violations when, in fact, few of them are. Even in cases of opportunistic rape by a stranger there are not always injuries - most women in such cases are menaced into being raped through fear of being hurt rather than being pummelled into submission.

In cases of date rape - which most rapes in the UK are (about 80%) looking for injuries is pointless and swabbing for semen is pointless. Neither party denies sex took place - the only contested fact is whether or not it took place consentually.

In such cases convictions are sometimes (albeit rarely) reached on testimony alone. As for interviews and character profiles - that is testimony, not hard evidence.

from what i have studied, there is no other way in this universe. there are no other ways life could exist. it requires exactly, the incomprehensible amount of coincidences there are now. any that are removed would delete life. there is no vantage point. this is it. there is no other option... apparently.

maybe. there are plenty of logical theories why humans look up to a god. it is also a given that our dinky little brains are not intelligent enough to understand our universe. i do not believe that just because there is no proof of a god that there is not one. i keep on saying this, but at this point in time, it seems like the only logical answer to the universe and life. it just feels ludicrous to think that even a grain of sand, was just always there by itself, let alone all the elements and mass of the universe. just because we can't prove something, doesn't mean it does not exist, especially when that something makes so much sense. take for instance string theory; it cannot be proved at all, nevertheless, many scientists believe in it just because it makes so much sense.

we will never comprehend. i would say that because we can't comprehend, then we look at the next logical answer, whether or not we can prove it. leaving open the possibility of designer does not only make sense but it is the only alternative. far fetched? got any better ideas? whether the designer or 'god' is similar to the ones believed in religions, a god that doesn't even know she/he made us or aliens that have created us; it is the closest thing to making sense and the only logical conclusion available. believe me, i would like to have an alternative, but, nobody has come up with one yet.

true. just on a side note though, gravity is just one of those ingredients required for life. everything seems to lead to allowing life. i understand that, yes, it could be coincidence, but what a hell of a string of coincidences, eh?

oh yes they are. a donkey cut in half able to live on? impossible. a giant walking, talking tree? we know, through science that it is impossibe.

I wouldnt trust those studies, we just dont know enough about the universe to say something like that. I might be the result of our definition of life: has cells. What if we find some alien lifeform winhout cells but demostrating metabolism?
I also believe in a designer, but I do not think the "huge coincidence" that created life must have been part of the design or it wouldnt happen. It must, off course, have been made possible on the design, but not necessarly hardwired to happen.

We cant really say if its a big coincidence, cause there is no way we can know how many opportunities this had to happen. If we shot one billion bullets in randow directions and kill someone 10 metters away, I dont think we can call that a coincidence, but we could call it a coincidence if it was just one bullet.

They are both possible, the designer could suddently decide to make that possible for example.

from what i have studied, there is no other way in this universe. there are no other ways life could exist. it requires exactly, the incomprehensible amount of coincidences there are now. any that are removed would delete life. there is no vantage point. this is it. there is no other option... apparently.

there are plenty of logical theories why humans look up to a god.

i still think your understanding is more to do with odds and not coincidence in the way most would understand it. sure, the section you made bold may be part of a coincidence, but not the whole equation

yes. there are tennis balls and there are black holes, but i know which is more impressive.

we will never comprehend. i would say that because we can't comprehend, then we look at the next logical answer, whether or not we can prove it. leaving open the possibility of designer does not only make sense but it is the only alternative. far fetched? got any better ideas?

oh yes they are. a donkey cut in half able to live on? impossible. a giant walking, talking tree? we know, through science that it is impossibe.

a designer? you are right. it can not be proven, unless it reveals itself.

anyway, how do we know that a million years from now that natural selection will result in earth creatures evolving into super beings which we then can truly say that the result of natural selection is also uncannily fine tuned?

you said the word, 'rarely'. what you are talking about is if the police trick the perpetrator into admitting some piece of informatio, or, if the perpetrator stupidy admits something he shouldn't have to reveal his guilt.

i see where you are coming from, but, scientists believe that there is no other possible alternative using the ingredients and laws in our universe. in some other universe, maybe, yes, but it would need different laws and ingredients. of course, life could exist without some laws, like, gravity because scientists believe that simple life forms could live on meteorites in hibernation. however, it would have to have started off somewhere where gravity was present. also, complex creatures like us, could not become without gravity and many other laws and ingredients. it would only take the removal of one of these to delete life altogether.

as stated before, there is no other way for life to exist in this universe. for example, life requires heat energy. planets circle stars and some at the right distance for the correct amount of heat energy for life. coincidence? i would say so, especially when this is just one of thousands of coincidents required for life.

he could, but then he/she would need to change the universe's laws, which we would notice and probably die from.

Can never be disproven either. But the only argument you seem to propose for one is that it is "logical" - but why?

If existence if infinite, our universe as we know it is bound to be inside an infinite number of another ones, many of wich, maybe ours directly, are bound to be under the control of a deity of some kind.

Because of this problem I reckon that infinity itself is a logical contradiction.

thoughts?

we could do without most of the elements for a start.

Precisely - and the coincidences that are believed to have led to abiogenesis are impressive.

But that doesn't recommend a deity.

Look - you maybe need a deity to assign you purpose - you maybe need one to provide a placeholder for that which you don't understand. I sympathise - but I don't accept it as a logical conclusion. The reason Marx claimed religion to be an opiate is because it does provide comfort and protection from some hard to swallow aspects of material existence.

A claim that I saw a giant talking tree is unfalsifiable. Using what is known about science you can assemble a pretty good argument about how preposterous it is, but you will never 'prove' it wrong.

Can never be disproven either. But the only argument you seem to propose for one is that it is "logical" - but why?

Well, if that were the case - let's say for the sake of argument that you're right - it would still be the poor tesimony of the accused, and the certain tesimony of the interviewing officers that led to the conviction - not hard evidence.

All the best with your study of Philosophy.

so, as we know, all organisms evolve for the purpose of assisting the longlivety of a species. a creature may develop night vision through evolution [mutations] that will give the species a leg up in life and perhaps enough of an edge to keep the species around for longer.

my thought is this; why are we and every other species trying to extend their lives? what's the point? why go through all the effort to evolve those wings, or, extra leg or antenae? if species are trying to hang in there for as long as possible, they must be waiting for something, or, trying to get to some type of end. is this a hint that life is some type of race or event where we have to survive/hang on as long as possible until the end?

thoughts?

of course we can prove it wrong. cut open the tree. does it have vocal chords? no? then it did not speak.

The scientific view of evolution is ateleological.

Thats assuming you have the supernatural entity at hand.

so, as we know, all organisms evolve for the purpose of assisting the longlivety of a species. a creature may develop night vision through evolution [mutations] that will give the species a leg up in life and perhaps enough of an edge to keep the species around for longer.

my thought is this; why are we and every other species trying to extend their lives? what's the point? why go through all the effort to evolve those wings, or, extra leg or antenae? if species are trying to hang in there for as long as possible, they must be waiting for something, or, trying to get to some type of end. is this a hint that life is some type of race or event where we have to survive/hang on as long as possible until the end?

thoughts?

We don't know enough about nature to know what is super to it.