How do atheists understand chance, in re: origin of life?

[Yrreg]

Below is the background of this thread:

viewtopic.php?p=80110#p80110

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Here is my concept of change: a situation where things are acting without any regulated directions and manners.

An example of such a situation is the scene inside a giant concrete mixer where sand, gravel, cement, and water are moving in all and every directions, everything inside hitting each other, and the mixer is rotating in quick successions clockwise and counterclockwise and up and down and left and right and fast and slow, etc. -- you get the picture.



Yrreg

viewtopic.php?p=80110#p80125



Well, the way I see it, atheists don't believe that there is order in the totality of existence; but just the same for them chance produces for example life and the species of life, including of course humans with conscious intelligence and volition.

My point is that their concept of chance is not chance if it can produce life and species of life and human beings.

Because genuine chance as I understand chance cannot produce anything at all that is stable or that stays in a permanent form like for example your nose and my nose.

And I understand chance as in the concrete mixer I described in my post above.

Of course even in that kind of chance inside the concrete mixer as God exists Who made everything and is in charge of everything and keeps everything in operation, there is ultimately no chance but order only we cannot see it.


Addressing atheists here: Do you explain the rise of life by bringing in chance, in which case how do you understand chance?



Yrreg

Please, everyone theist and atheist, tell me what you know to be the concept of chance with atheists in regard to the origin of life.

[A Y323]

Well, I'm not atheist (nor have I ever called myself atheist), and I very rarely discuss this stuff with atheists, so you might take this post with a grain of salt. But here's my concept of their reasoning:

Because atheists don't believe in a creative god and (logical) atheists accept that ex nihilo creation is impossible in the natural world, they must conclude that the source of our universe (be it a multiverse, infinite cycle of big bang/big crunch, etc.) must be eternal in some way. Now, theoretically, given the laws of probability, any event with a probability above 0 (which marks impossibility) will happen given infinite time. The probability of an event could be 1 x 10^-5000, but given infinite time, it will happen.

Thanks to advances is many scientific areas, we know that our universe, galaxy, solar system, and planet are extremely fine-tuned to allow even the possibility of life. I don't know if anyone has bothered to calculate the probability of everything in our universe being the way it is, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was some insanely small number. But, given infinite time, it's not unreasonable to say that it would "eventually" happen.

The problem is that no natural thing can keep itself going for infinite time. There needs to be a source that is supernatural and exists outside of (or transcends) time. Anyway, like I said, you might want to take this post with a grain of salt; an atheist would be much better at describing his/her position than I would.

[Yrreg]

Y323, I understand you are a theist so also am I, and we both have the concept of God as maker of everything and Himself made by nothing and by no one.

And we both claim to know the existence of God by reason even without revelation from Him; but of course reason is given by God to man.



You have not the way I read your post mentioned exactly what atheists understand by chance, except that it is an event that occurred or a series of events that occurred which did not have to have occurred, that gave rise to the phenomenon of life.

And you tell us to which I also agree that atheists maintain that things have always been around however though life came later.


Anyway, we have to wait for what atheists here will tell us about what they understand by chance, which we understand them to attribute to it in a way the rise of the phenomenon of life.



Yrreg

[B. W.]

I guess we'll see how long an atheist chances upon this thread - or was he led to it?
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[Yrreg]

I guess we'll see how long an atheist chances upon this thread - or was he led to it?
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I really don't know whether there are 'many' atheists here in this forum, but I have seen one at least who to me seems to be an atheist, exchanging views with Gman, and he appears to be a serious thinker, not what I would consider to be frivolous. to say the least.

My experience with atheists is that they tend to become frivolous when a topic gets serious.

Why they get that way I believe is because they are not really interested in coming to any point where they have to agree with theists on some idea or principle, at which on agreement they would in the longer or shorter term come to the admission of God maker of everything.

Am I saying that atheists don't really want to know the truth of things, I guess so, specially with atheists who when the topic gets serious they resort to frivolities if not downright foul language against you.

If any atheist comes here and will tell us what he understands by chance, then I will have the 'chance' to know where I am mistaken in my concept of chance or he is mistaken with his concept of chance.

Then good for us both, we have learned something correct or right or true or at least could be agreed upon by us both.

And whether atheists or theists we as humans we all should always go after what is correct, right, truthful, acceptable at least to everyone who is endowed with a mind and a heart.



So, addressing any atheists in this forum, please come over and tell me what is chance in your understanding of chance, in particular as regards it being involved in the origin of life.




Yrreg

[The11thDr.]

Well, i understand chance as something that is possible, but not necesserily probable. So you kind of need to "cheat" to stack the odds in favor of it happening. If a "god" is out of the question then it has to be a purely natural phenomenom, if enough experiments/variations are happening then SOMEWHERE, life has to happen. The universe is a very, very,very big place (not exactly infinite) but whos to say that there isn't another universe next door that we cant see?

Its slightly convuluted, but for its purpose the idea of cheating like this works. Allthough since ive been here im starting to wonder if a creator isn't such a bad idea after all. Of course I can't be a Deist because if there was a god, why create and then just leave it alone? A god would interfere, show me the interference!

[B. W.]

Well, i understand chance as something that is possible, but not necesserily probable. So you kind of need to "cheat" to stack the odds in favor of it happening. If a "god" is out of the question then it has to be a purely natural phenomenom, if enough experiments/variations are happening then SOMEWHERE, life has to happen. The universe is a very, very,very big place (not exactly infinite) but whos to say that there isn't another universe next door that we cant see?

Its slightly convuluted, but for its purpose the idea of cheating like this works. Allthough since ive been here im starting to wonder if a creator isn't such a bad idea after all. Of course I can't be a Deist because if there was a god, why create and then just leave it alone? A god would interfere, show me the interference!

Luke 23:1-56...

Isaiah 66:8

Amos 9:14, 15
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[Yrreg]

Well, i understand chance as something that is possible, but not necesserily probable. So you kind of need to "cheat" to stack the odds in favor of it happening. If a "god" is out of the question then it has to be a purely natural phenomenom, if enough experiments/variations are happening then SOMEWHERE, life has to happen. The universe is a very, very,very big place (not exactly infinite) but whos to say that there isn't another universe next door that we cant see?

Its slightly convuluted, but for its purpose the idea of cheating like this works. Allthough since ive been here im starting to wonder if a creator isn't such a bad idea after all. Of course I can't be a Deist because if there was a god, why create and then just leave it alone? A god would interfere, show me the interference!

Well, you will agree with me that cheating by a man in a stacks of cards is no example of chance.

But if he throws a deck of cards up in the air and the king of spades or any particular card for example lands on his left foot for example, that landing of that card on that foot is an example of a chance occurrence.

Do you agree with me up to this point?



Dr, I thought you were some kind of theist, but I am not disappointed that you are an atheist, because I can see that you care to think and not engage in frivolity or even blatant insolence and expletives.

Although your thinking is kind of haphazard still there is a kernel of seriousness nonetheless.



Now, let us consider that physicists tell us the components of the physical universe are for the present what they call sub-atomic particles of several kinds.

Particles are very very very small things which ultimately in the world of physics make up the components of things like a piece of wood or a nail or a piece of meat in its chemistry and physics.

Am I correct so far?


Now, suppose we imagine that particles are playing cards in very big enormous numbers -- I think physicists also claim to have already computed the quantity of particles in the universe.

No matter, I mean no big deal for our topic on what is chance, the number of particles in the universe, that is.

Let it suffice that we can imagine them to be playing cards for our purpose here of talking about what is chance.

For the present we will not ask physicists where the particles were before the Big Bang, just that these particles for our purpose can be used to illustrate what I want to understand as my concept of chance.


Let us call each specific particle by a number, so particle 1 and particle 2 and particle 3 and particle 4... on and on until every particle existing is named, and as I seem to know the number of particles however vast is still limited in quantity -- and there are enough available numbers to give a number to every particle.

Now, I want to ask you an atheist, if you find particle 4 and particle 18 in contact, is that a chance occurrence or is that an occurrence that is planned and executed by some agent capable of combining particles?



Yrreg

[Gman]

Please, everyone theist and atheist, tell me what you know to be the concept of chance with atheists in regard to the origin of life.

All explained here.. They believe that it is their god...

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/4431

[Cactus]

wow that 11th doctor could not got that more wrong...its not just Chance is it? There are physical laws that make it possible for life to start and for life to change.

[Yrreg]

Can chance result in anything that is stable?

For example, you throw a deck of playing cards up in the air and two cards land on your left foot, the queen of clubs and the ace of diamonds.

The location on your left foot of the queen of clubs and the ace of diamonds is the result of chance and it is a stable result, meaning the two cards continue to remain together on your left foot.

But suppose all the cards including the two on your left foot are thrown up into the air again and again and again and again, and on and on and on again and again and again, will there ever be any two cards that will stay on the same spot together on the floor or anywhere else in the room?


I am thinking of chance in that situation, and I gave at the beginning the example of a giant cement mixer that is moving in all kinds of random directions ceaselessly.

So my concept of chance is what I should call chaos.

Now, if there is no one in charge in the universe can anything at all come to any stable condition in the midst of chaos?

Can any life form arise and stay intanct and develop further in the midst of chaos, unless there is order in the universe instead of chaos?

But atheists, do they admit the existence of order in the universe?


Coming to the theory of evolution, atheist evolutionists tell us there is phase 1 called random mutation and phase 2 called natural selection, that is supposed to explain how new species of life can arise without the intervention whatever of any intelligent powerful agent in charge.

Do you notice, readers here, that atheist evolutionists already presume that there is stability instead of chaos in the universe, from their positing a natural selection which implies the possibility and the actuality of stability or order that persists.

That gives the lie away with atheist evolutionists insisting that it is all chance in the rise of new species of life, if they atheists understand by chance to be chaos, because with chaos there can be no lasting natural selection that can continue to be conserved and thus make possbile in the theory of evolution the rise of new life species.

So, how do atheists understand by chaos?

And is there for atheists order in the universe or it is all chaos?


Yrreg

[rajanpunj]

i am theist,but answer to chance and natural selection may be lying in quantum theory.god does not play dice. there is order in every disorder and disorder in every order. as somebody has already calculated, if there is a possibility of any thing it will happen sooner or later, provided laws of nature are obeyed. anythig or event which we can imagine if it is in consonence with basic laws is possible and does happen.