circumstantial evidence

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circumstantial evidence of an engineered universe. lets not conclude or invite a described creator please. I have often considered such evidence such as the amazing coincidence of our planets position and relation to the moon and sun, is it worthy of circumstantial evidence.

Is life and its formula worthy of consideration?

Is the chance of us surviving to progress as far as we have worthy of consideration?

The quantity of individual spiritual experiences, worthy of consideration?

Id like other examples and comments please on how others see these numerous coincidences, that can be classified as circumstantial.

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@xris,

xris;89648 wrote:

circumstantial evidence of an engineered universe. lets not conclude or invite a described creator please. I have often considered such evidence such as the amazing coincidence of our planets position and relation to the moon and sun, is it worthy of circumstantial evidence.

It is a coincidence that the distance of the moon matches the relative size of the sun. But this has not ALWAYS been the case. It is a fact that the moon is moving slowly away from the earth and has always been. So millions of years ago the moon was closer and thus their relative size were different, the moon being much larger than the sun in perspective.

xris;89648 wrote:

Is life and its formula worthy of consideration?

No because it does not follow any set criteria what so ever. We dont know the capabilities of how life happens. We simply do not have enough information to conclude that life only happens a certain way. We have a huge bias because the only place we have available to examine is Earth and our solar system. It's not enough of a chunk to determine how hardy life might be.

xris;89648 wrote:

Is the chance of us surviving to progress as far as we have worthy of consideration?

Well survival is a very relative term in itself. We know for a fact that there have been massive blocks of extinctions of species in the past. We also know for a fact that species are constantly becoming extinct with or without the help of humans. It is a natural course of existence. We just refuse to accept this because we haven't been threatened enough yet.

xris;89648 wrote:

The quantity of individual spiritual experiences, worthy of consideration?

A majority of "spiritual experiences" are debunked. One of my favorite parallels is the UFO abduction cases that sky rocketed after the Roswell incident. Thousand and thousands of people were claiming to have had abduction experiences, it became almost a trendy thing to do.

xris;89648 wrote:

Id like other examples and comments please on how others see these numerous coincidences, that can be classified as circumstantial.

The so called evidence just varies too much with too much varying degrees of similar facts. Every case is unique but you would think if the experience was actual that there would be a drastic similarity between stories, but there almost never is.

For example using the UFO phenomena again. Almost NONE of the pictures of UFOs ever look the same. They almost ALWAYS look drastically different. You would think if they were real there would be some basic similarities with them, but there are not. Just about every sighting is different from the previous.

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@xris,

I think not so much engineered, but rather manifestations:

Quantum Foam:

http://superstruny.aspweb.cz/images/fyzika/heim/dynafoam2.gif

DNA

http://www.biology-blog.com/images/blogs/10-2006/seal-dna-breaks-0921.jpg

Galaxie

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@xris,

xris;89648 wrote:

Id like other examples and comments please on how others see these numerous coincidences, that can be classified as circumstantial.

Isn't it freaky how often you meet someone who has the same birthday or the same name as you or someone in your family?

Humans have, in general, extraordinary difficulty avoiding the assignment of significance to coincidences. Yet in every classroom with 36 students there is a 10% chance of two sharing the same birthday. Certain coincidences simply aren't that interesting or significant.

EDIT -- actually the odds are higher than I thought. In a group of 23 people the odds are 50% that any two will share the same birthday.

Birthday problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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@Aedes,

Aedes;89729 wrote:

Isn't it freaky how often you meet someone who has the same birthday or the same name as you or someone in your family?

Humans have, in general, extraordinary difficulty avoiding the assignment of significance to coincidences. Yet in every classroom with 36 students there is a 10% chance of two sharing the same birthday. Certain coincidences simply aren't that interesting or significant.

Despite the statistical fact you mention, there's someone out there that will make a big deal if someone in their class has the same birthday. And especially if that person happens to be a girl they find attractive (even if the majority of the people in the class are female)! Funny how our desires have bearing on those things we call coincidence and those things we don't. Two turds of mine, three days apart, mind you, looked exactly the same. Now, do you have any idea how statistically impossible it is to defecate two identical turds in three days in the midst of a varying diet and bowel movement changes? It's like one in a trillion, and yet, miraculously, it happened to me.

I still can't get over the need for some people to assign significance, as you note. Xris, no offense, but this matter has been touched on so many times, I really don't think we need a whole new thread concerning it. It was touched on in the last thread with Pathfinder, and the dozens of other intelligent design threads (including Alan's) over the last couple months. But, since we're here, I guess I'll bite a bit.

xris wrote:

Is the chance of us surviving to progress as far as we have worthy of consideration?

There are dozens of creatures who have "survived" longer than we, including the common cockroach. Shall we consider them too?

Quote:

Is life and its formula worthy of consideration?

What exactly would you like to consider about life, and what do you mean by "formula"?

Quote:

The quantity of individual spiritual experiences, worthy of consideration?

What would the number of people having a spiritual experience have to do with anything? I'd bet a vast majority of people have felt the emotion "sadness", and/or have had the experience of tasting a bread product. What shall we consider about this?

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@xris,

Isn't all evidence in essence circumstantial? It not like there is evidence is valid in all circumstances. All evidence needs an axiomatic base and an observer, both are fairly arbitrary circumstances in themselves.

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@Zetherin,

Zetherin;89739 wrote:

Now, do you have any idea how statistically impossible it is to defecate two identical turds in the midst of a varying diet and bowel movement changes? It's like one in a trillion, and yet, miraculously, it happened to me.

You're sh*tting me...

Zetherin;89739 wrote:

There are dozens of creatures who have "survived" longer than we, including the common cockroach.

And in evolutionary terms they're just as advanced as we are. They just happen to employ different survival strategies, which don't include talking about their turds on the internet... :flowers:

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@Aedes,

Aedes;89744 wrote:

You're sh*tting me...

And in evolutionary terms they're just as advanced as we are. They just happen to employ different survival strategies, which don't include talking about their turds on the internet... :flowers:

I think I could go for that adaptation of resistance to pesticides because it would definitely make fruit and veggies taste better.

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@Krumple,

Im glad this injected some humour into the religious forum.

How or why the moon is gradually leaving its present orbit has nothing to do with the almost precise needs of life to be present on the earth...I do believe it had to be within 2% of its relationship with each of these three heavenly bodies for us to maintain this equilibrium. Now yes it could be coincidence but nothing like me having the same birthdate as st. nick, that is amazing..:perplexed:

The formula for life..is there a formula? well I would hope so. If life is possible then the correct substance and the right conditions need to be exact for life to exist..is this not a formula? If there is a formula has it always existed and if so how do you account for this coincidence? Its a matter of conviction or belief that it originated from that momentous occassion the BB. How did the BB invent this formula?

Thats enough, to drag down out the school boy turd stories for now.

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@xris,

You do wonder why life kept evolving to the point where we can have this conversation. I mean, if it were just a matter of survival, why not stop at blue-green algae? Or dinosaurs? Or chimps, for that matter? Doesn't it strike you as just a little - what is the word - portentious, that life evolved to the point where it can sit here and philosophize via computer?

Conversely, the most eloquent advocate of the idea that 'life arose by chance' was undoubtedly Jacques Monod, a Nobel-winning biochemist whose book Chance and Necessity is still a standard text in scientific philosophizing on the origins of life. Monod was convinced we are a biochemical fluke, an accident of nature that happened by mistake in a hostile universe as the result of the accidental collocation of atoms. But even he has to admit that there is vast amount of the process which is mere conjecture.

But the more I think about that explanation, the more I wonder what it actually explains. It is an irony that scientists, with the emphasis they put on finding explanatory theories, feel it necessary to assert that life arose without a cause. In fact, in any other field of endeavours this would amount to an admission of defeat. I think the only reason that science considers this explanation is because of what is being denied. It really only makes sense to say that life arose by chance, as distinct from divine creation. By itself, the attribution of something to chance is not a theory.

I have no doubt that homo sapiens evolved from earlier primates, but where did order come from? That is the really tough question. My conception of the underlying intelligence is not some super-architect or uber-designer, but the fact that certain fundamentals, constants, ratios and constraints were present at the instant of creation (and yes, we have one of those in our cosmology) in such a way that life is able to spontaneously generate. And my feeling is, it will always tend to recapitulate certain forms which are implicated in the nature of things as the same way as geometry.

But proof? No, never. And I like it like that. It is all part of the plan:bigsmile:

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@jeeprs,

For those parts of our environment and cosmos that are favorable to us, we're able to call them favorable because we developed in their presence. Take any condition and change it, and likely life here would change along with it - or not be here at all. So what...

There's a trillion different ways life has been and could have been and will be affected. The current "setup" is by no means ideal, yet where it is, it is just so because we developed here, in this environment (not because we needed it, and *bling!* it was provided) - chicken and the egg.

So no, I wouldn't call it proof or evidence for anything except, perhaps, to illustrate why life has developed the way it did.

... or so I think.

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@jeeprs,

The idea that it is coincidence, denies the fact that it could happen again and again a billion times over. Nothing can be classified as coincidence, thats like saying a coin flicked falls by coincidence, it can be determined. Nothing happens by accident, there are chains of events and only a formula will tell you the outcome.

Try denying that life was a certainty as soon as the BB occured. There is no harm in saying we dont know, but it is circumstantial and we have to say therefore that it could be presumed to be one possibility, that life is engineered by formula.

---------- Post added 09-12-2009 at 07:34 AM ----------

Khethil;89809 wrote:

For those parts of our environment and cosmos that are favorable to us, we're able to call them favorable because we developed in their presence. Take any condition and change it, and likely life here would change along with it - or not be here at all. So what...

There's a trillion different ways life has been and could have been and will be affected. The current "setup" is by no means ideal, yet where it is, it is just so because we developed here, in this environment (not because we needed it, and *bling!* it was provided) - chicken and the egg.

So no, I wouldn't call it proof or evidence for anything except, perhaps, to illustrate why life has developed the way it did.

... or so I think.

Life by its nature attains perfection by any means and perfection means the same outcome. If the formula is the same, it will only occur given certain circumstances and therefore the outcome is destined, described. These dreamed of aliens never live up to expectations, they cant even manage to climb a tree let alone build a space craft, judging by their body parts. Try building a multi tasked versatile creature that is better than the human kind.

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