Cycloptichorn wrote:At the time Christianity came about, that is, during Jesus' (supposed) life, Jesus was a radical. He advocated a complete change of the established system of faith, a total redesign of the power structure as it related to religion. So, every time you call someone a Radical, please keep in mind that the term most certainly applies to your professed diety.
A few years ago, I calculated the probability that humans EVOLVED BY CHANCE AND NOT BY DESIGN within a million years from their commnon ancester with the mouse. Human DNA contains 300 more genes than does mouse DNA.
I calculated that probability to be less than 10^(-4,000,000). I wonder what is the probability humans EVOLVED BY DESIGN AND NOT BY CHANCE within a million years from their commnon ancester with the mouse. The difficulty in computing this probability is determining the probability of the pre-existence of a DESIGNER.
Well then what is the probability that our universe as it is now EVOLVED BY CHANCE AND NOT BY DESIGN over the last about several billion years? I expect the probability of that is infintesimal.
So it takes much less faith to believe our universe EVOLVED BY DESIGN AND NOT BY CHANCE than it takes to believe our universe EVOLVED BY CHANCE AND NOT BY DESIGN.
Our universe is currently estimated to be between 12 and 16 billion years old. If it were 14.4 billion years old, then each "day" of its evolution according to the 6 days of Genesis would be about 2.4 billion years. An hour of Genesis would then be about 100 million years. It seems to me that 14.4 billion years is far too short a time for our universe to have EVOLVED BY CHANCE AND NOT BY DESIGN. If our universe did EVOLVE BY DESIGN AND NOT BY CHANCE, then who or what is the nature of the DESIGNER?
Diests believe the DESIGNER designed the whole thing so that it would evolve as it did and not require any additional participation in its evolution after that initial design was complete. Others claim the DESIGNER did subsequently participate in its evolution to correct any previous mistakes or make improvements--much like a human engineer modifies his design as errors are detected, or as he invents improvements. Still others claim that the DESIGNER evolved the whole thing in exactly six earth days, and then subsequently intervened in it's evolution thereafter whenever the DESIGNER perceived a need to do so.
Place your bets!