Time-Lapse shows the beauty of the galaxy we live in. Answered

And scientists think that something that beautiful happened by accident.

Accident? The lack of any need for a designer does not logically imply, let alone require, accidental or arbitrary origins. Your statement is a specious straw man set up by dogmatists, not an accurate representation of scientific understanding.

Physical law is deterministic (see Tegmark(2009) for comments on unitary quantum mechanics). If the initial conditions are arbitrary, then there is some level of "accident" involved, or at least some support for the strong anthropic principle (which I dislike intensely :-).

Most of us hope (expect is too strong a word) that a truly fundamental theory will either constrain the initial conditions to uniqueness, or something like the landscape will show that the initial conditions themselves are part of the unitary evolution.

No matter how much science you throw my way, regardless of whether I understand it or not. I will always believe something that amazing, so perfect, and awe inspiring could not just 'happen'. I know, that science will continue to find new things, and our understanding will increase. That won't alter my faith, just reassure me that God is most probably a scientist himself (except he is allowed to break the laws of physics).

You wrote, "I will always believe something that amazing, so perfect, and awe inspiring could not just 'happen'." I completely agree with this statement, Jake. That's essentially the point of my last paragraph.

What I disagree with, and what I find logically fallacious, is your conclusion that "could not 'just happen'" (adjusting the quotes :-) implies that a designer must have been involved. An equally logical conclusion is that the laws of nature make this amazing, complex, and perfect Universe inevitable.

Consider snowflakes -- there are no elves in a workshop carefully crafting each individual one. The laws of physics and chemistry make them all different (so each one seems "random"), but guarantee (inevitable) that they will be perfect or nearly perfect hexagonal structures with fractal complexity.

Truthfully, I know how you 'can' be with these items, i only read so far through your comment. Not to insult in any way at all, but your not think far out enough, what if God decided he wanted to make all snowflakes unique then he would not set up snow flake factories, he would make it so that physics and chemistry gives him that result. Truth is, i believe everything you do regarding science (that i actually can understand that is :P) i just believe that God made science. Science so complex, we have to build massive equipment spanning several countries just to scrape the surface of understanding.

Maybe you don't think far enough out?
> God is not male "he" is inappropriate.
> God is a creation of / perception of / part of ourselves. To think that God operates independently is a poor starting-point in the same way as thinking you can understand yourself by making impartial, independent observations / diagnoses of yourself.

L

I am human, and unable to think in the terms required to understand any of that. Im more than aware of the failings of the english language, but again, that is human in origin.

Too close to ground-level, but I think you sum my point up in "I am human". We should be looking beyond the stars into ourselves. Look in a mirror and consider you are looking at a reflection of God. Think also that God looks in a mirror and sees... what? L (I'm used to "far-out" but it still hurts my head...)

I agree about the looking at ourselves, but i also think that sometimes, looking into the stars we can stumble upon a truth regarding ourselves. God can not look in a mirror, the glass would melt..

I'll concur with both of those L

. Dr. Nacho prescribes a double-dose of psychotomimetics and six hours of navel contemplation.

How many times a week? L

. PRN

I don't take this as insulting at all. You wrote, "your not think far out enough,"

I have thought long and hard, and have read widely, about these issues. I don't hold my views superficially or cavalierly. All of the arguments you have others bring up have been around for centuries.

You wrote, "[W]hat if God decided he wanted to make all snowflakes unique then he would not set up snow flake factories, he would make it so that physics and chemistry gives him that result."

This is essentially a restatement of the "clockwork Universe" argument made by the mechanists. God created physical law and set the initial conditions, and then left the Universe to run on its own. That is a truly fine philosophy, and can be believed or disbelieved as we choose.

But it makes God entirely unobservable by hypothesis -- if God created a Universe with internal self-consistent laws, and left the Universe to operate by those laws, then all we can deduce from our observations are those laws.

I know personally for a fact, that he can alter those laws. I can not provide proof, merely my own experiences. Then, if there is a God, I think its particularly amazing that he can alter those laws and not collapse existence in on itself.

okay so in the body where is life?

Everywhere. Every cell and every coordinated system of cells.

> at least some support for the strong anthropic principle (which I dislike intensely :-).
. I guess I'm a RAPpers.

what do you think

. As my ex-mother-in-law said to my ex-brother-in-law (the youngest, by several years, of the kids). "Why, accidents just happen sometimes, honey. How do you think you got here?"

So the theory of relativity in your neck of the woods is "Everyone is a relative?"

. By George, I think you've got it!
. _{The rain in Spain falls mainly ...}

You should take that argument here.

This is one epic flamewar/troll/waste of time that is getting REALLY old.

A few millenia is pretty dang old.

Your avatar is green.

I'm colourblind.

(I can't come up with any more obvious statements)

I actually am colourblind. :-P

Coincidentally, so are both my boys. Ironically, I have perfect colour vision, as well as a very good colour memory (rarer than you think).

Are they completely color blind, or just red green/blue yellow?

They're both the classic red/green. They have a great problem with "autumnal" shades and have to ask us whether the charge indicator LED on their Nintendo DSs are red or green.

That's interesting. It always weird to try and think of what things look like to people with visual disorders.

They say it's just "a light".

I am officiall8y color blind, in that I can't pass the motor vehicle eye test ....completely, I can name all the colors, but can not see them quite properly, so I fail to pick out some of the color coded numbers (the ones made up of different color spots). I got 3 out of the four, but the one that tests if I can see red properly, I fail at. It make looking up color codes on tiny resisters a REAL challenge. *sigh* _{is it red or is it orange ?}

Your colour blind? I did not know that!

inherited it from my dad....and it is pretty mild....as I do see colors per se` but the red/orange band is blurred a bit. That is, if I THINK a resister's last color band might be an orange, I test it on the the Ohm meter first to be sure (it would mean the difference of being a either in the 1k range or the 10k range.....that could effect the circuit in a bad way. ;-)

I received a copy of Oliver Sacks' The Island of the Color Blind for my birthday, but haven't started it yet (still reading A Leg to Stand On).

Sacks has a really fascinating story about an achromatope ("The Case of the Colorblind Artist") in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which includes some great historical science about Goethe, Land, Knordby, et al.

I can't be a pilot :( I wanted to learn to fly as well.

My BinL was training to be a pilot, then his retina fell off. Apparently they're not keen on pilots being able to see less than half the sky...

Funny that.

:-D

Your avatar looks like the optical inverse of his.

It does! :D

That's why I was trying to send it elsewhere. The subject is actively welcomed at the link I gave, and both sides can stomp around as much as they want without making a mess here.

lololololololololol

No, we don't. Clearly you don't know enough to know what we do or don't believe. It's a pity that you choose to not have the awareness to recognize or understand the sublime and awesome beauty and power in the Universe.