Solar Eclipse - How Common is It?

by Sea Breeze 47 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  SydBarrett

  I'm curious as to what the typical atheist response is to the goldilocks universe (where everything is juuuust right) that we find ourself in?

  Everything is juuust right because we evolved within the universe as it is. You seem to look at it as if humans existed somewhere else and a deity created a universe to fit us.
  
  And without the ability to use tools to build shelter, make clothing and farm, only a very narrow section of this small planet is hospitable to us in our natural slate.
  
  Seabreeze thinks like a sentient body of water being amazed that it finds itself in a lake basin that perfectly fits it's shape.
  
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  cofty

  There are some big questions that are really puzzling.

  Why is there something rather than nothing?

  Why do some physical factors appear to be 'fine-tuned' for life?

  The relative size and distance of the moon is definitely not among the interesting puzzles!

  However resorting to 'god' - whatever you mean by that - is NOT any kind of answer. It's a place-holder at best and a conversation stopper at worst.

  The god of christian theism is impossible. Not only is there no evidence for Yahweh, there is a mountain of evidence against the proposition. So climb down off your high-horse and join the rest of us in humbly admitting we don't know everything.
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  Sea Breeze

  The way light behaves is very interesting and looks like a a set up for observation.

  Our eyes pick up on photon particles. But, photons behave like waves while in transit. Upon observation, the wave function immediately collapses into photon particles that our eyes can detect and then the brain can interpret. Why?

  Light travels effeciently as centric waves. What happens when you cast a stone in a pond? It makes centric waves and the waves reach every bank of the pond.

  But, if light travelled as particles, then the farther away you are from something the less chance you have of picking up the photons on eye receptors.

  Think of a shotgun blast of birdshot where the BB's are likened to photons.

  
  

  If light were only particles, when looking at distant starlight, one photon might land in Europe and next one in New York..... very low density making distant light impossible to detect. The wave function of light in transit solves this problem and it certainly looks like it was designed to solve for the purpose of observation.
  
  Here's a quote from Richard Dawkins: "Biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose."

  I think Richard Dawkins appears to have a prior commitment to atheism regardless of facts. After I left Watchtower, I found myself oddly without a prior commitment to hardly anything. I've gotten used to it now. But, it was quite exhilarating at first.
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  cofty

  What's the point of being on a discussion forum where theists just ignore everything that doesn't confirm their biases?
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  Sea Breeze

  We all have biases Cofty based on our opinions. There is no way to escape that, so chill out. You are not an elder anymore where mental midgets quake in fear at the sound of your voice.
  
  Can you give me a plausible reason why light should behave both as waves and particles when nothing blew up into everything in your worldview?
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  cofty

  You are not an elder anymore where mental midgets quake in fear at the sound of your voice.

  Fuck you
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  peacefulpete

  That's deep

  No it's not, that's the point. It is just circular thinking.

  Think of this...Luna's (our moon) orbital plane is at an approximate 5 degree variance to earth's. If it was in proper alignment we would have a total eclipse every new moon and it would be taken in stride.

  But since it is the random way it is, ancient humans living at a location have been freaked out of their minds once in approximately 375 years. (many variables as nothing is astronomy is precise or constant)

  This logically means God wanted to enjoy freaking people out.
  
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  SydBarrett

  "You are not an elder anymore where mental midgets quake in fear at the sound of your voice."
  
  

  It's good that you are finally realizing you are a mental midget, Seabreeze. It's a healthy first step.
  
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  Sea Breeze

  Whether it's a coincidence or not, what difference does it make?

  I think it makes a lot of difference in our world view. If it's not designed and we are just globs of chemicals making random chemical reactions, then that affects all kinds of things, not the least of which is how can we even trust logic, if it also is a product of happenstance. But if logic is designed like the universe, then we have a basis of how we can know anything.

  Barrow & Tipler, in their standard treatment, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, admit that "there exist a number of unlikely coincidences between numbers of enormous magnitude that are, superficially, completely independent; moreover, these coincidences appear essential to the existence of carbon-based observers in the Universe."

  
  - there is the same number of electrons as protons to a standard deviation of one in ten to the thirty-seventh power, that is, 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (37 zeros)

  - the 1-to-1 electron to proton ratio throughout the universe yields our electrically neutral universe. In other words, the electron and the massively greater proton have exactly equivalent opposite charges

  Reasoning that the universe isn't designed because its here and wouldn't self exist if it was different is about as satisfying as a doctor saying that the reason your child is sick is because he's not doing well.

  That kind of thinking is well outside of popular atheist thinkers:

  
  

  Stephen Hawking: "The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted..."
  
  British astrophysicist Paul Davies wrote, "There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the universe is in several respects 'fine-tuned' for life. ...carbon, and the properties of objects such as stable long-lived stars, depend rather sensitively on the values of certain physical parameters... it is fine-tuned for the essential building blocks and environments that life requires."
  
  
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  TonusOH

  Logic is neither happenstance nor design. It's a human construct. The apologist creates a false dichotomy in order to --again-- promote the idea that a god is necessary. But it's just another presupposition. There is no way to demonstrate that logic must be happenstance or "designed." It's nonsense. A way to attempt to push the burden of proof to the non-believer when you do not have any answers for your own proposition.

  But hey-- let's accept that a god is necessary and that the universe is designed. The likeliest god is not any of the ones we have heard of. None of those are demonstrable. This bait-and-switch tactic, where the apologist tries to sneak in his god for the necessary god, is dishonest and demonstrates that you cannot get any farther than sloppy arguments for 'design.' Because you've got to account for all of these "designs," not just the ones that are convenient for the argument you're trying to make.