Designated Religion Argument Thread

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@ AMaster: that, essentially, is the problem of the Aristotelian idea of a "Prime Mover" (a.k.a. Necessary Being), which the Christians took to be their God. The notion of the universe requiring an outside cause is infinitely regressive, as you suggest.

The notion that the universe requires something to cause it need not be true! Deterministic cause and effect is not a necessary mechanism to our universe - quantum mechanics formulates very well without it, thank you very much. Cause and effect is an imagined convenience; a human, rule-of-thumb that helps simplify our everyday view of the world. Without this grand assumption so much baggage can be stripped away - including this Prime Mover.

What caused this first cause? There need be no first cause; but more than this! there need be no cause at all. For cause is like any human invention: an absurdity that inflates beyond all sense at its limits, when people seek to apply our everyday conveniences to the abnormal. They see only the ghosts of a human, all-to-human, face upon this fabled Prime Mover.

 

First Darkthrone:
I've noticed, both in your reply to my post and to others, that you seem to add a whole lot of your own BS in when you read these things. The entire point of my post (well, most of it), was that the universe without intelligent design is the biggest, most off-the-wall coincidence ever. This means that, with no proof of God whatsoever, the statement "There is no God," is no better or more based on facts than "There is a God." In the end, it all comes down to what you choose to believe. And then we start getting into things like spontaneous healing, raising from the dead (there was a case of this in South Africa in 2002, guy was even embalmed for three days), and the prophecies (litterally thousands of precise prophecies in the Bible that have come true). This puts the weight squarely, though not decisively, on the side of God's existence and active participation in the world of Man. As for the forces thing, four are the basic Newtonian/nuclear physics ones (I know nothing of condensing them to two), and two come from quantum physics, which I am loathe to quote as I view the whole thing with scepticism. I don't know exactly what these other two are, I'm getting this from Scientific America.
Dendri:
Many religions have no doubt formed around a lack of understanding of natural forces, but a few, Judaism and Christianity included, make little to no mention of such things. The closest the Bible comes to this is calling massive, natural disasters that seemingly target mankind and/or work by Man's borders acts of God. That's not much of a stretch.
Biffle Chump:
I agree and I don't.
1.) Many 'churches' in modern day have become little more than social clubs for those that think they're better than everyone else. God has some suprises for them. The Jews started worsiping God in tents, and kept it up for some time. The early Christians met and worshiped in people's houses, as many in China and the Middle East still do. When they met, people from all walks of life and all social ranks were accepted as brothers and sisters. In many aspects, it was a commune.
2.) You can't just 'follow your heart' because your heart is corrupt and sinful. Your heart is what got you in trouble in the first place, among other things, it's not going to get you out of it by itself. We gather to worship and congregate, but more than that, we gather to learn. The first 'church sermons' were to instruct Christians on the laws of God, how to live them, how to deal with specific problems, and how to tell and help others.
3.) Very few, if any, wars have actually been started over religion. Religion has been used as an excuse and a rallying cry since it's inception, but the real causes were greed, lust, hatred, things like that. The crusades weren't really about 'taking back the Holy Land', they were about gold, glory, and land. If you want proof, just look at what happened to Jerusalem when the crusaders took it.
Gnarfwhatchamacallit:
Sorry, but people complain about my name? By the way, it does have some meaning, just not much. I'll change it as soon as I think up something good.
Anyway, point one is completely wrong. God's house in Jewish times spent as much time as a tent or less as it did Solomon's Temple. God loves order, sure, but He loves change and creation, too. There is no change in order, thus He created chaos. God, in the end, is imminently creative.
AMaster:
If you presume a First Cause to be God, you then make certain other presumptions, i.e. God made all that is, including the rules. This means that He isn't bound by them. I mean, if He spontaneously made all matter and energy in the universe from nothing, you kinda think maybe He doesn't really hafta follow the rules an' all (child-like spelling and wording intended). Same thing to Magpie.

 

@CLSVABCH:
I hate to bring this up, but I was actually the one who mentioned something about changing your nick, though I did so only in jest. Try not to take everything so personally.

BTW, if you're going to debate about religion or anything pertaining to it, Gnarfflinger's name will be one you see plenty of, so you'll have to learn it sooner or later.

 

But what influence would religion have on the parents teaching the children, or the community? If the community had no such belief in the sanctity of life, then what they teach the children would be dramatically different.

There is a difference between teaching the doctrine and indoctrination as you are using the term. Teaching the doctrine still means that they have the freedom to obey or disobey, but indoctrination implies that freedom to reject is denied. Thus if the doctrine is taught and accepted, then they truly are of that religion, but if they are indoctrinated, they are prone to reject it when they become free to do so.

Those that abuse religion for their own ends must be held accountable for their actions. No one is above the law, be it of the land or of God.

Is it still religion if you do not worship God? Wouldn't worship of community defeat the purpose of worship? And you railed against an upper caste of priests to wage war under the guise of God. Wouldn't this elevate another caste of people that would be above the law?

Yeah. We are all God's children, and he loves us all. There is no elevation one above another in the Kingdom of God.

Isn't that the way it ought to be? Let all who wish to worship come together to worship regardless of who or what they are and what they do the rest of the time.

Excellent point! We all have our own desires, and some of them can't be satisfied without risk or pain to others. Therefore, we need to learn to overcome these weaknesses. That is what Religion is supposed to do...

I've been trying to defend that point, but people still want to pin that on Religion...

As Fellinoid pointed out, I wasn't the one that complained about your name, I did have to scroll up about 3 times to make sure I got it right...

Actually, there were strict rules around the House of the Lord. The only reason that the House of the Lord was in a tent was because there were many years where they were wandering in the desert. This remained the case until they could properly build Solomon's Temple. Chaos is not explicitly created by God, but by the choices of Man.

You know it. I don't shut up when I see what I believe trampled on and treated as garbage. I try to make my point, even though I sometimes do a poor job of it...

 

I'll give you the fact that they do seem to overlap fairly often, but one does not automatically create the other. [SoL -> God = NO | God -> SoL = NO] Not all Catholics, or Protestants, or Jews, or Hindus, or Muslims, or Buddhists, or ... believe in the sanctity of life. The sanctity of life is also not, I repeat NOT the exclusive property of one religion or group of people. It is a separate concept that may be included in a specific religion, but is not neccessarily believed in by all of said religion's members.

 

I've heard that before, and it remains unconvincing.

Still, for the sake of argument I'll concede the point and pose another question; how do you view evidence of a "Prime Mover" as evidence of God with a capital G? It's evidence of a force or forces greater than our understanding--call it/them god, gods, whatever. It's not evidence that, oh, Moses parted the Red Sea. Or [insert other event from Bible, Torah, or Koran here].

 

I agree to an extent. As I have said before, the message of a religion cannot do this by itself; it requires zealots to use/abuse it - science and technology is much the same, as it is the user or designer, not the device, which has an intention and purpose in mind. That said, there is a moral and ethical responsibility to acknowledge the consequences of what is created (whether technological or doctrinal), and to accept that responsibility if it is abused unless such abuse is cautioned against.

This is my problem with organised and hierarchical religion; it elevates demagogues who are still only human, after all. Status within a spiritual organisation does not necessarily mean that a person is ethically superior or that their integrity and ability to transcend personal attitudes is any greater. These people still have their own agenda, and to believe that they will not act on it from a position of temporal authority is exceedingly naive. That they have the ultimate clear-card (ie: divine authority) does nothing to allay my suspicions about their willingness to pursue personal beliefs and ends from that position of power.

Therefore, I have no patience for arguments predicated on tradition, status or authority derived from the structures which support organised religion. I believe that they do nothing but complexify and distort the meaning of the message of a religion, polluting it with human foibles. As soon as it becomes a matter of imposing a belief or point of view on those who do not share it, religion loses any moral authority it has.

The message is what is important. Religion (to me) is about how you should live your life, how you should treat others, and what you really should not do. It doesn't have to be theistic (I am nominally Christian, as I've said) - worship of the community as a sacred object is just as valid as worship of a pantheon of spirits or of a supreme being such as God or Allah, or any other belief. I am of the view that human beings took a fantastic message about being good to each other and ruined it by making it into a competition between whose beliefs are better.

 

Only time to comment on these two

How about: Because the temperature has settled down, it has enabled mankind to live a more settled existence. 10k years ago, such swings of temperature would have decimated populations, removing the knowledge base and preventing civilisation from moving forward. Homo Sapiens is believed to have been around for 195,000 years, it took a more settled environment to enable civilisation forward. With the opportunity of not having to spend all your life looking for food, more time was spent in contemplation and invention.
And relating to point (2), what effect has the moons current position had on this more settled environment? I'm guessing that it is a lot more stable now as the moon's gravitational pull no longer has such a large influence on Earth.

OK, I'm not a physicist, but I understood that there was only one Universe ("Uni" being the latin clue here). We really don't have the slightest clue how big it is, but for all intents and purposes it is infinite. In an infinite universe, your statistical odds are irrelevant, if it is possible, it will have happened, and it's happened here. If instead it had happened the next galaxy over, our equivalent counterparts would likely be having the same conversation.

 

Formerly CLSVABCH, sorry about that.
Felinoid and Gnarfflinger:
Sorry if that sounded like an attack or something, and I hadn't meant that Gnarf had been the one that said it, your name just struck me as very odd at the time. All was intended as comedy.
As for worship of community, isn't that just worship of self expanded? Sorry, but humanism isn't the perfect religion by any means.
AMaster:
The leap from a non-specific Prime Mover force to God is done through the list of 'coincidences' I mentioned in my first post. That level of design to the universe suggests that there must be a singular inteligent being(s) behind it.
NonSequitur:
It is the nature of humans to elevate whoever they respect to the level of infallable being. This has nothing to do with organized religion. Organized religion is just the forum that gives these people the most influence and air time. In the early days of the church, when this started, the elevated people consistently made a point of de-elevating themselves and putting God back at the top. In the Old Testament, if the person didn't do that him/herself, God usually did it for them. Even in the modern Protestant church, this self-removal process is commonplace. Frankly, I don't respect any organization or leader, religious or not, that doesn't do this.
Carcoth:
On one, plenty of life survived and thrived, including homosapien, in the more chaotic period, and the Moon's gravitational effect basically only increased the tides and the significant changes on this scale occur in hundreds of millions of years, not thousands.
As for the universe thing, they were basing their calculations on how many galaxies we think there are and the use of plural universes was a hypothetical. I probably should have said that the universe would have to be x times larger. Sorry about the confusion. And assuming the universe is infinite commonly means there is no limit to the potential volume of it. We think we've found the outer edges of the expanding mass of the universe. They're quasars. Thus the mass of the universe, and thus the number of galaxies, star systems, and planets, is not infinite.

 

NOG - Before I begin, thank you for making such a considered reply. This is probably the first time in months that I haven't been emotionally charged up while making a post. Kudos to you!

Well said - and I agree. However, organised religion is peculiar in its typical assumptive requirement for adherents. As the head or senior members of an organised religion's hierarchy are deemed to have the greatest connection or even direct communication with the divine, they are elevated to a position of near-infallibility. The danger is that such an elevation frequently occurs alongside a rejection of critical thought or inquiry as heretical or evidence of a "lack of faith". While I would never suggest that all or even a majority of people in such positions are self-interested manipulators, I do not have faith in many other human beings to maintain such an open attitude when their entire position is dependent upon people believing their word and doctrine as absolute Truth.

Such positions grant power, and power that is derived almost wholly from the structure of that hierarchy, on doctrine and on official dogma. Responsibility and accountability can be out-sourced to an outside agency (eg: God) as a matter of course when actions are criticised, and this has been done too frequently for me to have such faith in humans who claim to speak for a deity. I am just as cynical of secular agents who resort to similar measures, drawing on abstractions to avoid accountability - they don't have the clear-card that is "God wills it!", but will seek a different method of expiation.

As they should - after all, their authority is drawn from a position as a messenger. However, that should never distract people from examining what is being said by the purported messenger. One should never automatically discount prophecy from being propaganda without considering it carefully first. I am firmly of the belief that any attempt to discourage thinking is suspicious, because when people in authority try to discourage thinking through less-than-coercive means, they generally succeed.

The Inquisition, the concept of heresy or apostasy and the measures taken to rein in enemies of the Church (including excommunication or its threat) are human actions, all of which derived from a desire to protect the very real power that the Church had/has. Somehow, I don't believe that the New Testament God would be quite as fire-and-brimstone as that; it requires a human agent, acting on human desires (including the desire for power) to achieve such outcomes.

As for God, well, by definition, God can do what God wants. I prefer to think of God as a deity who believes in the virtues of accountability and consistency. I don't believe that God takes such direct action, though. After all, I've never heard of a Christian athlete saying, "God made me drop the ball to teach me humility."

And neither should you. Again, though, I am wary of anyone who speaks or claims to speak for a greater entity or principle but who benefits or stands to benefit greatly from doing so until I have seen them in action. There is a difference between doing the Lord's work and using God as a justification for more personal ends. Chandos' thread about Roe v Wade in the AoLS is premised on such obfuscation in the name of "a higher agenda".

In the end, that is my problem with organised religion: it grants temporal power where none should really reside. That history is replete with examples of ecclesiastical authorities who have been all too willing to exercise said power to their own benefit only strengthens my sentiments. Of course, that's a result of my personal convictions and the belief that everyone should be free to choose their path, provided they do not harm or prevent others from doing the same.

Typically, it's that intersection between different paths (or beliefs, or articles of faith, or methods of observance) which generates so much resentment, bickering and suffering. It is not limited to religion, certainly - but organised religion has been used as a justification or a platform for such action far too often for me to place my faith in it.

 

But where ought the blame lie? Modern Catholics ought not be held accountable for the Crusades or spanish inquisition, let alone the Mormons, Protestants, Lutherans, whatever. Ultimately, these abuses were ultimately stopped from the inside, not the outside.

Actually, in my religion, it's different. We have the Gift of the Holy Ghost to help us overcome these shortfalls. Spiritual experience is taken into account when calling priesthood leaders. We believe that we are called of God to our stations, not seeking these offices ourselves...

Then how about judging a faith based on how it is structured? Don't judge a faith by other fatihs around, but by it's own merits.

That is one of the main points in My faith. It is true that the atonement of Jesus Christ is central, but it is the Laws of God that we are taught, and the wisdom of His counsels that we are given.

Now that you mention it, it was funny. There is a story behind my name, but that's way off topic...

That's why humility is so important. By putting the Lord first, we keep things in focus, that we are here to do God's will, not our own.

That's why our leaders don't dress in fancy clothing (nice suits, yes, but nothing ridiculous) and they stick to the doctrine, not draw attention to themselves. We are here to do God's will, not subvert God to our will.

Again, I ask that you judge us by our own words and ations, not those of long dead leaders of other religions.

 

Well, no, they shouldn't. That said, there is a moral responsibility to learn the lessons of that era and to understand its consequences, which are still being felt today in the case of the Crusades. It is incumbent on practitioners of Christianity to avoid making the same mistakes, in my view. Part of that requires an understanding of how such mistakes were made, and a large part of that can be linked to the influence, nature and structure of the Catholic Church at the time.

It's not the modern-day practitioner's fault that this happened. It is partially the modern-day practitioner's fault if they allow it to repeat itself in the name of their faith. It is most certainly the fault of an organisation if it discourages critical thought or assessment of conduct and actions which may lead to a repeat.

Gnarf, on this one, we're just going to have to agree to disagree. You may have faith or experience of such pure spirituality, and I respect your adherence to what you believe. I simply cannot bring myself to believe that human beings can be as uniformly benevolent, selfless or dutiful as you do. If someone has authority, then it is almost certainly going to be turned to a personal end. Whether that end is for the greater good or not, I have a hard time believing that it is something which entire priesthoods can avoid.

I don't know why I'm that cynical. Maybe it's because I work in government...

An admirable sentiment, and one I fully support. However, I don't believe that religious practitioners are usually that selfless, particularly when they have a power base under them.

I would rather not judge a faith by comparison at all, but by the conduct of its followers and proponents. You'll always have a few fringe radicals who aren't part of the organisation proper (Jim Bakker, anyone?) and who misrepresent the message for personal gain. I'm not counting them; I'm counting those who direct the faith.

I don't judge people by what they believe; I judge their actions and their conduct. I try to avoid judging anybody if I can help it - but sometimes it is hard to separate the action from the belief.

As an aside - Gnarf, I'm enjoying this metaphysical and philosophical debate. Thanks.

 

NonSequitur:
Frankly, I'm disturbed by your cynicism. The history books are filled with people who have abused power, sure, but they are also filled with those who used it wisely and generously. Are you saying that Mother Theresa or Ghandi used their power to their own ends? Ghandi could have been emperor of all India and had legions of fanatical warriors at his beck and call, but his interest was the good of the people. Mother Theresa could have used her power to the same ends as the priests and nuns that make the news now, but she had a heart for God. Don't assume that everyone in power will be corrupted by it, just keep a close eye on them to make sure they don't.
Also, you started this discussion (or portion of it) by saying that you didn't like religions because they put people in power etc. My point has been that religions are no worse on this than any other organization, and much better than some. Of course any organization or leader that crushes thought should be reconcidered, but that doesn't mean all religions. As I said, it is the people who do that, not God. The Bible says that we are to "test the spirits" when a new teaching comes in. This means take a good look at it, take a good look at the Bible, and make sure they agree. If the teaching contradicts the Bible, throw it out. If you get this uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach about the teaching, throw it out. Gnarfflinger brings up a good point on this whole topic, but I'm not sure he? went into enough detail:
Most protestant preachers dress in ordinary 'sunday' clothes to preach because they base their position on the idea that all Christians have an immediate and direct connection to God, the preacher is nothing special. Not only that, but the preacher can mess up just like everyone else, too. Preachers are people given the gift of teaching, not infallability.
Gnarfflinger:
Preach it!

 

I think that has been looked at somewhat since then. I don't think that the pope would get much support for a call to arms agains Islam any more, and I've hears Muslims claim that Al Queda wasn't truly Muslim. I know that the Church would call someone to question in regards to some radical call to arms (General Authorities have been excommunicated in the past). The Prophet himself would be removed by God if he tried to pull a stunt like that.

I have heard General Authorities speak from personal experiences, and that some Authorities speak on certain topics more frequently than others. Perhaps it is because they have a better understanding of these topics than others.

That would explain it...

That's where the concept of accountability comes in. Anyone that holds a position of any responsibility is accountable to at least one other person, some times more. All members of the ward are accountable to the Bishop and the Stake President (leader of an area of several wards).

Probably wisest. The thing I find with Christianity in General, as well as my own faith in particular is that there's so many things that are forbidden or advised against (with good reason, usually obvious too), and so many things that we ought to be doing, that it's hard to fully live the teachings.

Thanks. I'm glad that some people enjoy these topics.

Those are usually the shorter, usually boring stories in history...

Yes, it is he. That's what I do. I read about Evolution from people that seek to educate me, but something doesn't fit, and that fully embracing it may even jeopardize my soul, therefore I set it aside. I believe that Darwin observed something, thus there was something for Darwin to observe, but I reject the conclusions. Instead there must be some other part of the story. As an aside, when you pointed out that the current conditions have only existed for 10,000 years, that seemed to back up creation nicely. Taking that a day to God is 1000 years to man (from Mormon scripture), and that Adam and Eve were cast out of the Gatden of Eden about 6000 years ago, 7000 years would be the day the Lord rested, 8000 years ago was the creation of Man on the sixth day, 9000 years ago would be the fifth day, and animal life in all it's variety would be created. 10,000 years ago would be the fourth day, and plant life was then created...

True. I find myself faced with tough questions in my class that I teach on Sundays, and the best I can do is I don't know...

Yeah, I have been advised to stick with what I know, but nobody wants to ask me about that, they want me to ask about what I don't know...

 

@ NOG:

I'm sorry you find my cynicism so disturbing. I find blind faith utterly terrifying, particularly when I see what ends it is frequently turned to.

Re: Mother Teresa and Ghandi - there is a reason why these two (and others, like St Francis of Assisi) are so well-known. It is because they were truly exceptional. Look at what happened to the Franciscan order - in Francis' lifetime, no less: many of them rejected his teachings of poverty and humility when they became popular and established (ie: they had some power and influence). To his credit, Francis never let his principles slide; perhaps because he had already had material things and had rejected them. I can't claim to know the mind of a saint, but I digress.

I'm not saying that you cannot trust anybody in power or with any form of authority - I am saying that you should never take their word for it, and you really shouldn't take their word that God personally endorses them. Mother Teresa and Ghandi didn't seek power for themselves; they sought to ease suffering and their humility and lack of aggressive ambition for power was what made them iconic.

And as I have said, on numerous occasions, I am not anti-religion. I don't dispute that it takes human beings to misrepresent and pervert the word of God/Allah/the divine. However, such organisations are inevitably populated by ordinary mortals like you and I. These people have a position of power and stature based on the beliefs of others, and unless I believe that all religious leaders were automata, they must still have human will, human desire, and human failings.

They aren't automatically corrupt or selfish by virtue of being powerful, but they can do a lot more damage, to more people from such a place. That is the basis of my distrust - I do not accept authority simply because it claims to be, I accept or reject it based on whether I believe it is deserving of such authority. In the end, I'd rather be cautious and wrong than trusting and wrong.

Hopefully, you can see why I find that statement frightening, even if you do not accept the reasons why. I'm a critical thinker by training and by trade; telling me to reject something on the basis of someone else's gut feeling sets every alarm bell in my head ringing.

An admirable sentiment, and one I believe should form the basis of any organisation which claims to preach a message for the betterment of all humankind. So long as it's not a demand for obedience or a condemnation of non-believers, I have no problem with it. As I have said all along - it is the basic ideals and principles of religions which I feel have the greatest merit, and the belief structures and judgements which all too often obscure them that are the most dangerous and objectionable. People will argue over a belief or judgement; they'll fight, kill and die for them as well. God doesn't create belief structures; people do, based on religious texts and lived experience.

@ NOG and Gnarf:

I see no reason why religion and science (particularly evolution) have to be mutually exclusive. Unless people on either side believe that the words in Genesis must be taken absolutely literally. I justify that position thusly: the measures and methods undertaken by the divine being or beings responsible for the Earth and everything on it are simply incomprehensible to humans - our minds are too limited, so we must fictionalise and rationalise it as best we can to effect some understanding. It's a position similar Gnarf's 1000-year epoch system, but I would never assume that God worked by the contemporary calendar (that's not a dig, Gnarf, only an admission of my own ignorance). I'd never claim to have all the answers - if I did, this board would be unnecessary.

 

NOG,

Could you please provide some links to your sources, particularly regarding size of universe and chance of life. I think you are probably refering to the Rare Earth principle, please don't view this an an attack, but there are certainly other views within the scientific community. This one for example:

http://www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit6/life.html

Of particular interest is that it claims a possibility of 2 civilisations (not life alone) per Galaxy, and 50 Billion Galxies in the VISIBLE universe.

 

I, too would be interested in the sources. Some of these things run entirely counter to what I've been taught over the years.

For example:

Six? And nuclear is counted as one of them? Hmm... I cannot argue with the first two, but could you please tell me what the other three are?

I have never heard of such a thing as the earth and moon moving further apart. If true, then the world is ending sooner than we think. Regardless, I fail to see why humanity co-existing at the relatively rare time that an ecliple could occur is important either.

This is completely the opposite than what I've heard. Heck, even the well documented ice ages didn't have temperature changes this drastic, and the differences between the highest and lowest temperatures took far longer than a century. Even if true though, humans had populated the vast majorty of the earth as of 10,000 years ago. Heck, even 40,000 years ago, they had colonized the entire planet except the Americas, and modern humans have been around for at least 200,000 all told. How did we survive if 190,000 out of the 200,000 years we've been around were in such inhospitable conditions?

Huh? How do we know what the odds are of getting a planet-moon-solar system relationship? Present technology allows us the ability to know the presence of very large planets in neighboring star systems, but AFAIK, there's no way to determine exactly where the planet is in relationship to its sun, if there are other planets around it, and certainly doesn't tell us anything about moons. The basic problem I have with your statistics (never mind that I'm assuming you mean galaxies, not universes) is that we have an insufficient sample size (one to be precise) to make such a statement.

I'm not trying to criticize your statements, or poke fun at you or anything like this, it's just that as the saying goes, incredible claims require incredible proof.

 

Gnarfflinger and NonSequitur:
As for the whole evolution vs creation thing, I don't like either established position, and here's why.
Evolution (macro-) actually has very little proof backing it up. If you look at the proposed lines and trees of evolution, we actually only have fossils for a small fraction of them (1-5%). Essentially, it's like playing connect-the-dots, only the scientists have made up most of the dots. I'm not saying its absolutely wrong, I'm just saying evolution is the new religion, people who believe it do so by faith, not fact.
The story of creation in Genesis was never intendedto be a text book on the process of creation. In fact, if you read the original Hebrew, the order style its organized in denotes a catagorical organization, not chronological. This means that 'day one' is just everything extra-terrestrial or something, regardless of the time between them or even the chronological squence of them.
NonSequitur:
I understand your distrust of authority figures, but I would hope that you wouldn't judge all of them by that standard. Instead, wait and see how particular leaders act. If that is dishonorable, then so be it, but if not...
Carcaroth:
Sorry, most of my sources are Scientific America or Popular Science articles I read whenI have the chance. Many of these are admitadly a year or two old and I haven't a clue if I could find them online or not. As for the link you posted, note that almost all of the variables in that equation are completely unknown. What are the odds that life will develop in suitable conditions? We've got 1 for 1 so far, that's not much. Also, we are only beginning to understand the requirements of the star system to support life, i.e. a sizable (~1/4 planet mass) moon, at least one major gas giant, asteroid commonality, much less know how prevalent they are in other systems. I have no doubt that the statistic I quoted makes certain assumptions, and I'm sorry for not clarifying that earlier, but at this point, we need to make assumptions to say anything other than life could possibly exist.

 

@NOG:

Actually, the current theory is that there are 4 fundamental forces: electromagnetic (light), weak (governs the decay of protons in the nuclei, atomic fission in other words), strong (interactions of protons and neutrons, responsible for stability of nuclei) and gravity. It is believed we understand how the first three come to be what they are (basically, the underlying theory is called a GUT - Grand Unified Theory - and it says that at some large temperature -early time- the three forces were just one, but then the Universe underwent a phase transition and they split. So it is not fair to say we don't know anything about them. The only one we cannot quite figure out yet is gravity, being much, much weaker that the others. But of course, peple try to explain it with string theory.

Hundreds of degrees? I am sorry, but that is complete BS. For an ice age, you need only of order 10 deg average lower temperature. Just think, -200 F is around the temperature at which argon (which comprises most of the atmosphere) liquefies. Let's not even talk about +200 F, when all the oceans would have been vaporized.

Since when is a moon requred for life? Actually I think what is necessary is the right distance from the sun (so the temperature is more or less between 0 deg C and 100 deg C - in other words, water should not be frozen or boiled - since water really plays a big role in the genesis of life). Otherwise... the planet should be heavy enough to keep an atmosphere (Mars for example is too light) and not too heavy so you will not have crushing pressure at sea level (although how much is too much is not clear). All in all, there are chances there are many Earth - like planets in the galaxy.