User talk:SouthWriter/sandbox/An atheist's objections/@comment-1777104-20100706153041

Fegaxeyl said: Fegaxeyl said:
 * This is the issue. If you can observe nothing of the workings of the universe, then you are left with two options: a) it was created by some form of supernatural being, or b) it is the product of countless unknown laws. You'd assume the former. But at our stage of development, with a fair amount of the universe's workings known to us (or at least a handful of useful principles we can work with) we have to face a new dilemma: either a) it was created by a supernatural being, even though virtually the entire universe can be explained without Its intervention with only a handful of unanswered questions, or b) everything of what we see today is the product of provable laws which for the most part we know, and what we don't know we can determine and explain.


 * You have indeed hit on the issue, Feg, so let's look at the options:
 * (a) It was created by a Creator
 * We look at the evidence and we see stuff in fine working order, following principles "like clockwork" and we wonder how it got there. Our minds, unclouded by theories of men with agendas to push, tend toward the conclusion that someone MADE the stuff in working order.  We study the stuff and figure out how it works, and we call these principles "laws" because they work everytime.  We are amazed at how well the Creator put it all together.


 * (b) It is the result of unknown forces that "work all the time"
 * We look at the evidence and we see broken stuff - bones, exploding stars; death by violence, sickness, and simply getting old; and we wonder why it all got that way. Our minds, clouded by a desire to explain it all in terms we can understand, try to figure out how to make things so they don't break.  We figure that maybe things are actually getting better and one day they will be strong enough to never break again.  We take the pieces and put them back together the best we can, and try to explain how it could have come together without our help.  We are amazed at how insignificant our attempts are to fix things!  We hope that things will figure out how to fix themselves after a while.


 * I am sorry if option b is a little strained, but the essense of "evolutionary science" is that things simply come together on their own after millions, or trillions, of tries until they reached a state that is, apparently, stable in our own time. We want to deny option a, so we go with option b.  We cannot study either option directly, but we can study one of two things -- living things and operating systems, or dead things and theoretical systems.  I choose to look at the evidence NOW, in the living present.