Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Randomly arranged? Designed?

Note: I would like to apologize for not being able to convey my thoughts precisely due to my limited access towards the terminologies involved and scarce proficiency in the language used. Ignore the syntax errors, and try to broaden your mindset to walk with me. This article is not written under the intention of offending nor challenging any believers that hinge to the conviction that our world is created by the only entity namely God. I find it fairly intriguing when I recently discovered I do have some points to raise in response to religious topics which I never really concerned.

To which extent do you believe our world is perfectly designed? You would be indoctrinated by tonnes of preaches convincing you the “truth” since childhood if born in a family held tightly to Christianity. You might question what you had been perceiving, or you might not. Most of those converted clearly understand the conflict they experienced that you might not. To those holding fideism, which compartmentalizes reason and faith, and believes merely on faith, believe or not, the argument that seemed as solid as rock to you has been an object of ridicule in some others eyes, mostly allegedly you may guess, but you should also be careful it is possible that the one with blindfold might not necessarily be those defying your faith.

In this article I focus only on the aspect whether the premise “world is created and perfectly designed” could be a strong argument. In certain books, some experts including scientists pointed out that the discoveries of science are actually in the direction of proving the existence of an intelligent creator. Cosmology, biology, physics and many other fields related on the basis of science are actually contributing to the conviction of theism, according to them. For example, the human genes, the biological molecules are miraculously coordinated. The laws of physics are designed such that the integrative complexity could be resolved using mathematics and logics. No one could explain why the speed of light must be approximately 300000000 metre per second. In similar context, they infer all of these behave beyond the naturalistic explanation. It is unnatural, where there is no chance to have the same situation happening if random ways are to replace it.

They always amaze us by using probability to show us how impossible it could be if random way goes. Yes, random nature is the point I advocate. You tell me in order for the human DNA to function properly, it takes certain probability to account for the systematic and perfect matches by monomers namely nucleotides, and to be able to synthesis proteins using amino acids, so it takes another probability. It goes on until how these biological molecules interact with each other, how the blood clotting mechanism is, how systems in a human body work by calculating the probabilities, and deducing it is almost impossible that human stays alive! You could have told someone, look, the probability is one over ten to the power of integer with astronomical number of digits behind, it is approaching zero, so the world we are living is not randomly arranged! You got a point, I have come across with a lot of so called evidences such as “do you know that if the earth is orbiting slightly nearer or further to the sun, the earth would be either too hot or too cold to sustain life? How amazing!” or “if the universe is expanding at a rate that is a little faster or slower, we could not have a universe that would be capable of supporting life!” They are indeed amazing, but to me it makes no sense to support theism.

People often attribute the fine-tuned universe we are living to the mighty creation by the god simply because it provides a better explanation where science has failed to do so, especially to explain the origin of universe and life. Now try to reflect on the probability. Let say something will happen by the chance of 1/100000000. When it does happen, can we say “99999999 circumstances have failed, and the one happening is right beside us.”? The same logic goes on if you insist to use probability. You say “our universe is created by god because it is fine-tuned!”, why can’t I say “according to your probability 1/N to have such a fine-tuned universe, we can have equal number N-1 of not-fine-tuned universes besides the one we have!”? Isn’t that there are more chances to have something not happening than just happening? As you know universe is vast, who knows there are universes in other dimensions of realms with more physical elements other than just time, space and matter? It could just happen =)

Thank you for finishing my rambling, sorry if you felt offended or annoyed, but that is truly what atheists think, and they may have the same feeling when you say "yours is the wrong one."

Not to forget to thank SuSu my senior who borrowed me the book "The Case For A Creator", I learned a lot =)

4 comments:

  1. It's also quite a miracle that out of the a few hundred millions, each carrying different genetic makeups, YOU who are reading this managed to impregnate your mum's ovum. If that hasn't happened, you wouldn't be sitting in front of the computer right now reading this comment to this particular blog post.

    The probability of all these chain of events leading up to your reading this comment is infinitesimal - but are you amazed that you are reading my rambling now?

    Try to make a parallel to the whole "Earth is just fine-tuned to be at just the nice spot in the solar system" argument. Some would instinctly say that "no but the case of Earth is so much more special"; but when you think about it it's the same. They are all just abuse, misuse and incorrect use of probability.

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  2. Typo: Out of the few hundred million *sperms*

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  3. Thanks for providing supporting material I have omitted =)

    I'm just wondering how busy you might be since you are less active in Blogger and Facebook nowadays, yet you spent your time here with me =)

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  4. I'd say it's a very good read, and glad to see some really thought-provoking material here! The issue of religion must have already bugged you for a bit.

    You are absolutely right when you say that all the talk about the supposedly excellent condition of the universe is not the reason as to why you should support theism. I believe that there is actually no need for such discussions to actually convince somebody to support or reject theism.

    My point is that religion was never meant to be so complex in the first place; we made it to be so. But there are people out there who want to challenge, there are people out there who want clarify things, there are people who believe that their perception is the truth. Well, that's just our nature, our very own right.

    At the end of the day, it's really how they try to twist and turn the facts in their favour. Many people have done that, and many still will. Playing with probability is just one of the ways. But if you're not convicted to support theism, you're not in the wrong either! I'm sure that you have your own reasons to back you up.

    But, take it easy. Really.

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