Actually Nick I don't get the impression that God is very small when I look at the Universe. I get quite the opposite impression. Then again size isn't really an issue when thinking in astronomical terms. A dwarf star might be so many times smaller than our own sun, but is much more dense.
The possibility of life happening by chance has been estimated to be 1 in 10 to the 40,000 power or 10 with 40,000 zeroes behind it. That's just the chance for it to occur once. ONCE.
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127
Now consider that the diversity of life is one of the most striking aspects of our planet; hence knowing how many species inhabit Earth is among the most fundamental questions in science. Yet the answer to this question remains enigmatic, as efforts to sample the world's biodiversity to date have been limited and thus have precluded direct quantification of global species richness, and because indirect estimates rely on assumptions that have proven highly controversial. the higher taxonomic classification of species (i.e., the assignment of species to phylum, class, order, family, and genus) follows a consistent and predictable pattern from which the total number of species in a taxonomic group can be estimated. This approach was validated against well-known taxa, and when applied to all domains of life, it predicts ~8.7 million (±1.3 million SE) eukaryotic species globally, of which ~2.2 million (±0.18 million SE) are marine. In spite of 250 years of taxonomic classification and over 1.2 million species already catalogued in a central database, our results suggest that some 86% of existing species on Earth and 91% of species in the ocean still await description. Renewed interest in further exploration and taxonomy is required if this significant gap in our knowledge of life on Earth is to be closed.
So you have life occuring by chance (1 in 10 to the 40k power), some 8.7 million times on this planet alone.
Either we've had really good luck or something far bigger than us is at work here.
A person commits the fallacy of bifurcation when he or she claims that there are only two mutually exclusive possibilities-when, in fact, there is a third option. For this reason the fallacy is also known as the either-or fallacy and the false dilemma.
A facetious example is this:
"Either the traffic light is red, or it is green."
This is obviously fallacious, since the light could be yellow.
A more realistic example is this:
"Either you have faith or you are rational."
This commits the fallacy of bifurcation, since there is a third possibility: we can have faith and be rational. In fact, faith is essential in order to have rationality (e.g., to make sense of laws of logic).
"Either the universe operates in a law-like fashion, or God is constantly performing miracles."
This is also fallacious because a third possibility exists: the universe operates in a law-like fashion most of the time, and God occasionally performs a miracle.
Sometimes the origins debate is framed as "faith vs. reason," "science or religion," or the "Bible vs. science." These are all false dilemmas. Faith and reason are not contrary. They go well together (since all reasoning presupposes a type of faith)
