From: muehlhau@en.ecn.purdue.edu (John Muehlhausen)
Subject: Re: Does theory of evolution affect belief in God?
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 92 07:20:58 GMT

In article <sl09uINN8u9@agate.berkeley.edu> 160955r@garnet.berkeley.edu writes:
>Well folks, here you have it again! Another attempt to establish respectability
>of the religious discourse through pseudo logic. Why can't you religious people
>out there say that you simply BELIEVE the Bible. After all, yoiu can believe
>whatewver you want. Why do you have to dig yourselves into holes and try to
>"scientifically prove" creationism or other logical absurdity?
>
>
>In article <1992Apr16.203138.23810@en.ecn.purdue.edu> muehlhau@en.ecn.purdue.edu (John Muehlhausen) writes:
>
>>Indeed, without His existence we would not exist.  Independantly of how you
>>want to define "shapeless void", we know that such was once the state of our
>>universe before life on earth.  All that we know was swirling superheated
>>matter that _somehow_ came to be as it is today.  There is a _BIG_ problem
>>with this happening by chance: 1) the universe naturally tends to disorder
>>(increasing entropy) and there would therefore be a near infinitely small
>>chance that, say, a protein would "happen". 2) Even if it did, the
>>probability that it would survive, and in fact flourish in seeming mockery of
>>chaos theory, approaches NULL.  Therefore I am very, very confident in saying
>>that, at the very least, some outside ordering energy must be responsible for
>>the amazing diversity and complexity, and yet unity of everything we know.
>>"Ordering" is the key... Energy of itself does not tend to get put to good
>>work - the natural tendency is to dissipate in the least interesting fashion
>>possible.  "Ordering" implies - even demands - intelligence, so all of a
>>sudden you have God in the picture.  Especially when one considers the
>>immensity of what science has discovered, and has yet to discover, about how
>>it all works.
>
>I do not really know where to start..OK: how do we know that "shapeless void"
>singularly obtained before life on Earth? How about other forms of life on
>other planets. Actually lots of solar systems are older than ours. Zillions
>of things could have happened there before "life on Earth"..

I was speaking of before any other such happening.  Let me remind you that
all of this other activity (which you will probably claim "must" exist) has
not been asserted.

>The definition of "infinitessimaly small" probability has a meaning when we talk
>about a finite number of events, i.e. finite time. As far as we have it now,
>time is not finite; in this setting "infinitessimaly small" may become "certi-
>tude". I think in fifth grade here they tell you the story about a sufficiently
>large number of chimpanzees left by themselves for long enough time who will
>definitely discover the theory of relativity..

I think it is handy to remember here that time does not seem to be separate
and distinct from the rest of reality.  Rather, it is current thought that
time is warped by dense concentrations of mass.  If one were able to survive
being close to a black hole without being pulled into a string of neutrinos,
one would find that many, many years had passed on the outside while only a
few moments had passed from this perspective.  By this same theory, in
conjunction with "big-bang" it is clear that all matter in an infinitely
small volume would mean zero passage of time (i.e. the beginning of time, "in
the beginning", etc.)  More on this below.

>Another gross simplification is the entropy argument. To say the least, who has
>ever shown that system degradation is a linear process? Nobody, that's who! In 
>other words, dissipating systems may experience surges in "organization" on 
>the way to destrtuction. And, in view of the time frame involved, these "surges"or spontaneous self organization sessions may last billions and billions of yeasrs!

In a like manner, there is even less evidence that these surges _would_ have
a natural tendency to occur.  Why would they?  While it is true that only the
entropy of the universe must increase for spontenaity, chaos theory (although
not yet well defined) expands this to sub-systems, which intuitively makes
sense.  If indeed we are part of a "surge" it is the most unlikely thing.
Much more unlikely than God. (See below)

>Ordering does not imply imtelligence or design.A bee-hive is ordered and(I hope)you are not prepared to maintain that God is personally supervising every
>input-output system in the insect world)- this would make bears candidates to
>owning their own hell. Adaptability  and evolution produce order not God! 

Actually I am prepared to maintain that God is personally supervising...
Just as you are prepared to maintain that adaptability and evolution produce
order in the face of improbability.  I am prepared to accept your devices,
but I believe thay are the tools of God and incapable of existing for their
own sake.

>>
>>Another interesting twist is that there does not seem to be enough matter in
>>the universe (dark or otherwise) for the universe to be cyclic.  Thus what
>>happened the split second before the "big bang" is still a mystery.  Of
>>course I think God did it, so I don't really have a problem with it :-)
>>
>
>There have been innumerable twists in the history of science. For a long while
>we thought tuberculosis was caused by impure air emanating from swamps. Now we
>know better and have penicillin. No later than 1900 the academic community stron
>gly believed in the existence of ether, and built explanatory models accordin-
>gly. Now we have particle accelerators and know better. Your argument, is, basi-
>cally, the simplistic: "since we can not understand infinity, there must be a
>God".

Actually it is more along the lines of "God is the most probable cause behind
that which we see, and should therefore be credited with it until clear
evidence to the contrary presents itself".  After all, would you have those
early scientists rejecting their findings only because they believed them to
be incomplete?  Why should this be any different?

>And, last, but not least. If you really think God did it, and, amazingly enough
>do not have a problem with it, let me ask you:
>
>W H O   M A D E  G O D???

In our understanding, limited as it may be, we must always conceptualize
things within certain frameworks such as time.  I submit that time may be
part of creation (linked to matter as it seems to be) and because of this God
is above needing a beginning.  Just because we are constrained to a certain
set of rules (i.e. everything has a cause) doesn't mean that God is, provided
that he also made the rules.

Think of our reality as a two dimensional slice of _the_ reality, and then
place a three-dimensional being in _the_ reality with a pencil.  Not only is
everything visible, but we need not see a cause for everything.  This being
now lands his pencil squarely on the page with quite a force, and in our
reality all of a sudden there is something from nothing.  From our
perspective something came from absolutely nothing.  Little pieces of
graphite break off and shoot out everywhere, and the being takes a particular
interest in at least one and sets out to do his creative thing with it.  He
jiggles the paper such that they all move about, and says "it is good".  I
think you get the idea by now.



John M.