Is there such a thing as God?

[dogma]

no idea what that means however....


Unfortunately that is either wrong or unclear. A tiny probability times an infinite number of trials yields a 100% expectation of success. The independance of each trial does not mean that you have no expectation of how a series of trials will end up.

The result of a series of such Bernouilli trials is a geometric distribution: As the number of trials increases then the expectation of failure (ie no life) decreases. For very large numbers of trials the decrease is exponential.

To make this 'intuitive' - think about tossing a coin an infinite amount of times. Then with 100% certainty, you would eventually toss a tails, even if the first time you toss it is after billions of attempts.

Any sequence of tosses is 100% certain if you toss infinitely often. In the limit, you would eventually toss your chosen sequence, no matter how long or complicated it is.

 

[Clampoke]

I saw this thread and thought i had to comment, even though at this point, the subject seems to have shifted.
In terms of whether or not there is a God, that can never be proved or disproved, at least not in life. In fact, the lack of evidence for a God is a fundamental aspect of all faiths, as having faith in a religion means believing it despite the lack of empirical evidence. The validity of any one particular religion is not at question here. Rather, we are discussing whether or not a God (for lack of a better word) like being can exist within the world we live in, taking into account all that we know pertaining to it.

 

[KingGengar]

@dogma: In what way does a 50/50 chance today become better odds tomorrow unless you rig the game? Notice what you said: "your chosen sequence." Of whom are you speaking if not the Creator? The coin itself cannot choose its given path, so that only leaves the tosser of coins who can choose. Randomness cannot be of certainty.

Furthermore, you make it seem as if each attempt at the creation of life is 50/50 and not 1 in (pick a high number). This is an unrealistic manner in which to couch origins, as if "yes/no" are the only outcomes. What about "partially, but no," "almost, but failed," and so on. The spark of creation can be seen not as only "go/no go" but also "dud" or "fizzle." Let's face it, the obstacles to believing in random creation, especially of something from nothing, but also of life from lifelessness, are too manifold and daunting. You cannot overcome such obstacles by pretending that the dangers to creation are nonexistent or minimal, or that mathematics demands a certain outcome when the mathematics is not there.

 

[czech59]

I don't know if there is a God or not. I am not religious, and see things as they are. With the understanding we now have of the universe around our world, it is somewhat foolish to think that this entity only created us, and that there is nothing beyond us. When there is clearly much much more out there. I think that if there is a 'creator', that we cannot be foolish to think we are the only things that are created. What if there were a series of creators through out the massive universe, and everything that was created was part of some arms race, where these larger entities create these smaller beings and choose their traits and qualities to see which survives the longest? There are plenty of other galaxies and solar systems and stars where I believe there is definitely life somewhere else in the universe. What if we're just part of a game? Like a proverbial set of ant farms lined up next to each other to see which one survives longest?

I also always think back to the marble theory from Men In Black. What if we are such a small, insignificant group where we really have no impact on a larger picture besides destroying ourselves and our planet, which is what we seem best at? I mean, us, as humans, think we are the greatest thing ever, we look down on everything else and label them as something below us, even though we are just another form of Animalia. We kill the animals that are either too small to care about or the ones we don't like, and we decide that it's not okay to kill others because we decide to like them and treat them better and consider them 'above' other animals?

Maybe we don't matter as much as we think we do. And we use this idea of a 'God' who 'loves' us and 'created' us to justify our own insolence.

 

[KingGengar]

czech59: All good stuff. I'm a sci-fi fan too. Of course, don't you have to ask who or what created those ant farms or marbles?

 

[dogma]

@dogma: In what way does a 50/50 chance today become better odds tomorrow unless you rig the game? Notice what you said: "your chosen sequence." Of whom are you speaking if not the Creator? The coin itself cannot choose its given path, so that only leaves the tosser of coins who can choose. Randomness cannot be of certainty.

Furthermore, you make it seem as if each attempt at the creation of life is 50/50 and not 1 in (pick a high number). This is an unrealistic manner in which to couch origins, as if "yes/no" are the only outcomes. What about "partially, but no," "almost, but failed," and so on. The spark of creation can be seen not as only "go/no go" but also "dud" or "fizzle." Let's face it, the obstacles to believing in random creation, especially of something from nothing, but also of life from lifelessness, are too manifold and daunting. You cannot overcome such obstacles by pretending that the dangers to creation are nonexistent or minimal, or that mathematics demands a certain outcome when the mathematics is not there.

Huh?

I was just trying to make clear for people who haven't done mathematics what NoPoke was talking about! I was talking about coins, not life!

You made the leap of interpreting the coin toss as a "go/ no go" event. Your argument about more than two outcomes for the 'toss' (the "dud" or "fizzle" for example) does not invalidate the reasoning - it just makes the statistics more complicated.

Note that, if you actually read the rest of my posts on this thread, I do not think evolution is correct and believe in a God. Maybe it would help if you try to understand what the other person has said?

 

[NoPoke]

KingGengar. I have not misunderstood a Bernouilli trial. I am certain that you do not understand the fundamental feature of statistics that makes it useful as an analysis tool ( that you are currently unable to see the forest for the presence of the trees). So here is the fundamental feature of statistics that makes statistics useful: even when individual trials are independant the results from a large collection of trials has a distribution. Both myself and Dogma are pointing out that you are ignoring the distribution of results, ignoring that every week there is a lottery winner despite the long odds. Even in a forest of identical trees a forest has a shape, it has edges and a middle, it has variation in density because not every seedling becomes a tree.

FWIW Dogma is using a weighted coin in his explanation: one with a very low chance of success. Nonetheless after a very large number of trials the presence of that very success becomes the expected outcome for the whole set of trials. The weighted coin is why I used the name Bernouilli rather than Binomial for the trials. [edit: I can see that Dogma is pointing this out himself in the above post]

Please note that I am not trying to prove that life did not have a creator. I have no idea if life was created by a Creator or not. I'll repeat that for emphasis. I do not know! However I am convinced that life does not require a creator. I am convinced of this because all of the necessary features are present for that outcome to be plausible. But that is very different to saying that a creator is required or that there was no creator. I will not make either of those two statements.

 

[KingGengar]

dogma and NoPoke: If you were making statements on mathematical situations which may or may not exist, rather than statements on whether life and/or the universe does or does not require a Creator, I apologize.

Please, however, note that, since the object of this thread is to discuss the question, "Is there such a thing as God?", I assumed you both were offering some proof of that.

I will grant that, in a set of circumstances which are otherwise of low success rate, there is a method by which success can be measured. But I would caution even here that such success is a result of the perception rather than the success. Put another way, it is the construct of the success, that is, success in hindsight, which may cause one to believe that one may predict with some accuracy the future and/or measure with some accuracy the past. If I'm not mistaken, both of you (NoPoke, dogma) are making some type of conclusion for the latter. But I will now examine NoPoke's statement in context of this thread's purpose (since it is that dogma has all but stated the opposite, that is, evolution is incorrect and God exists).

If life does not REQUIRE a Creator, that is, if there exists a statistical certainty of some type of success over a period of time which causes life to come about randomly, creating a circumstance by which one may compare that statistical certainty with the (as I see it) statistical superiority of a Creator, I still maintain the statistical superiority of a Creator over random creation of life. I do not compromise my position of the statistical probability of "Creator" for the statistical possibility of "no Creator." I consider it an inferior argument to say that, if something is possible, it overcomes the concept of that which is statistically superior, that is, probable.

In the case of flipping coins, there are even several obstacles to accepting Bernoulli over binomial. First, one must accept the premise that there are or are not weighted coins. Second, one must accept the premise that the coin is of a certain type and quality. Third, one must accept the premise that the circumstances for flipping are fair at each flip, and this includes the environment as well as the flipper. And so on. But I want to reiterate at this point that I am speaking not in terms of prediction but of hindsight! And it is this distinction which leads me to say that accepting possibilities in hindsight, when better probabilities exist, is an exercise in mathematical boredom. Of what value is it to say that in some distant past the success rate of X was 4% while the success rate of Y was 96%, or, in the case of flipping coins, that Tails came through in a 46% dispersal over some term of flipping (again, limiting the view to whichever set of circumstances may suit you) while Heads manifested 54% of the time. How true that tails is 46%, but how true that 54% is superior over 46%.

But now, as we make this leap to the creation of life, we cannot look at coins being flipped, but more like lottery tickets being purchased. And we ought to be able to agree that life's creation is more limited in probability (that is, has worse odds) than flipping a coin. I would, in fact, say that the lottery ticket purchased for the creation of life does not require you to choose 5 out of 59, with an additional Powerball, but is rather more exponential. For I say that each number chosen is not in a field of 59, but in a field of thousands; and each number is separate from the last number, with its own field; and the required number of fields is more than five. So, let it be that Bernoulli has some interesting outcomes in coin-flipping or lottery tickets - but the results are stultifying when it comes to measuring the success and failure rates in the type of experiment I have just described, that is, the creation of life.

For I say that the creation of life is not a series of coin flips, or a simple lotto, but a daunting task of precision which had but a limited time in which to complete its task. As previously exhibited, I have mentioned that the creation of life naturally follows the creation of the universe, that carbon-based life naturally follows the creation of the elements and molecular biology, and that life on this particular planet naturally followed the environmental setup for such an event (unless you believe in the alternate Creator theory, alien seeding). But this is not the end even of factors, for each of these must follow a particular gauntlet of obstacles, and maze of dead ends; so that to get even to this point in the conversation, Bernoulli must have stacks of paper up to the clouds and a continent wide to account for all of the possibilities. Then, we must consider such obstacles which might blot out life at its onset (for example, lack of nutrition), and these obstacles are too many to name. But, for the sake of hindsight, knowing that life survived, we should be willing to agree that the just-mentioned enormity of Bernoulli calculations has been magnified to a degree outside of our comprehension.

All this to say, I agree in such things as possibilities (even alien seeding), but I must direct my understanding towards not only that which is more plausible, but which also makes everything level, that is, an intelligent Creator. It may be argued that I am merely creating a Creator in order to avoid the magnificence of randomness ultimately becoming (some type of) order, but this is an argument in favor of inferiority, as if to say that faith in such inferior possibilities makes the argument or the arguer superior. This is (to me) just hype. It is not only that I have a bias towards believing in an intelligent Creator, but I have looked closely at the competing theories, and have discovered nothing but science fiction (even at the level of Hawking, if we speak of the creation of the Universe) and feigned disinterest (as against reason itself). It is not, to me, conducive toward reasoning nor learning to say that we must, in the light of Bernoulli possibilities (that is, types of success even in the face of failure), dilute the utter superiority in believing that the excessive obstacles for the creation of life was overcome, naturally, by an intelligence which designed and created.

 

[NoPoke]

*shrug* your math is still wrong. Just why should anyone listen to what you say when you claim so much yet make so many errors? Or when you continue to repeat the same error even after it is pointed out. Here is the problem you face: your case is weakened by your very poor math and bad science. I am not saying this to attack you but to offer helpful advice. My math is decent and I suspect Dogma's is better than mine. We both advise you that you are misunderstanding how probability works. Will you listen?

 

[KingGengar]

*shrug* your math is still wrong.

Which math? I am not claiming to be a mathematician, but a theoretician. I leave it to the math majors to prove me right, not snicker over technicalities.

Just why should anyone listen to what you say when you claim so much yet make so many errors?

Which errors? An "error" is something which can be explained by an indisputable fact. Which fact will you offer to overturn my theories? Why shouldn't anyone listen to me? Will it hurt them? What's the worry here?

Or when you continue to repeat the same error even after it is pointed out.

Which repetition? I offer you no higher math, only simple results from calculating odds, and even this is impossible, given all the factors. But I think I have shown which is the greater probability in the realm of "Creator or no Creator." If you disagree, offer the math, even the higher math, in a post.

Here is the problem you face: your case is weakened by your very poor math and bad science. I am not saying this to attack you but to offer helpful advice. My math is decent and I suspect Dogma's is better than mine. We both advise you that you are misunderstanding how probability works. Will you listen?

Will I listen to what? As you stated earlier, you are not arguing whether or not God exists, you are exhibiting math skills. I am, on the other hand, using direct methods of probability to present a better case for a Creator than not, and I am not at the same time attempting to use math in the way that you expect. But the math I use is not poor at all - it is simple. Perhaps you are unhappy that I am not allowing for every possibility, leaving a trail of unanswered questions. I leave that to others, to examine what I cast off.

You say "bad science" as if I am a chemist at the test tubes. I do not propose to offer you a scientific paper meant for the journals, or to present to you formulae on the blackboard, nor am I bucking for a government grant. My simple thesis is that the odds are against a universe, and life, without a Creator. If you'd like to show me how the odds are different, please do. But so far, it seems you have argued not on those things which I offer, but those things which I disregard, and this without offering anything but "possibilities." Please offer something more substantial on this topic than that, at some point, flipping coins will offer doubt on prediction of future outcomes (which I still think you were trying to say).

But, listen, if I have misunderstood your ideas, make it clear. Dammit, Jim, I'm a philosopher, not a mind reader!

 

[ryanvergel]

I think you're saying that because any given instant, the chances of a creator-less life coming to existence is highly improbable.

NoPoke/Dogma counter by saying it's actually pretty good odds, given the number of tries it has/had. The probability is low until you extrapolate it out, in which case a creator-less universe IS plausible.

If you are trying to say that because there are low odds for creator-less life, and we have life, that we should think it likely that there is a creator- then you will be disagreed with. Like I said way earlier in this thread, your entire theory relies on the assumption that a created universe/life is MORE likely.

You ignore the fact that the likelihood is much higher than you admit (dogma/nopoke show this), and ignore the fact that you have failed to present the odds of a created universe. Do you have any evidence that a creator made the universe, outside of appealing to a lack of any other explanations? The lack of other explanations for non-creator life is not in itself an explanation that a creator did it.

I said earlier that your theory also falls apart if one sees god/creator universe as illogical or impossible. Have you shown that your theory is good besides being the opposite of something you claim is highly unlikely?

 

[KingGengar]

Ryan: Ah, the voice of reason. You're right, that is exactly what I'm doing, which is what frustrates the purists. But let me examine one thing in particular:

NoPoke/Dogma counter by saying it's actually pretty good odds, given the number of tries it has/had. The probability is low until you extrapolate it out, in which case a creator-less universe IS plausible.

What are "pretty good odds?" Are they good enough to overcome the exponential impossibility that I see for "no Creator"? Even if we allow for "pretty good odds" on one particular factor in the creation of life, there are many others which need to meet criteria, quality control, and timing (which I have previously mentioned). It's not a coin toss - and that is a fact - it is a very formidable and precise lottery. The odds of life being created AND surviving past moment one is 1 in a (pick your very high number).

I notice also that concept again, that life has a certain number of tries to be created. I have presented an argument limiting those number of times to a certain extent, and I am confident I can limit it further, gaining this footstep by footstep, with general assent based on logic. I do not entertain this notion that the creation of life gets unlimited, or even extensive, tries until it makes itself happen. This, to me, is hindsight - "it had to be this way" so that the odds can be lowered in its favor. I think it is much more in favor that the conditions to create life come only so often (rarely). Why? Because it seems to me that we ought to see life spontaneously being created if such conditions were more, rather than less, friendly at different junctures. I do assume much here, but I see no facts to show that life ought to have had many tries. Why not just one?

Furthermore, even if there were many attempts before a success, there is no "learning curve" that can be assumed for that which is thought to be benign (inorganic material "becoming" organic). The odds remain the same moment to moment, unless some factor or another varies. And who can say that one variation towards favorable does not cause another factor to randomly become unfavorable? If we say the opposite, we assume some type of controlled conditions, and this leads us to an intelligent Creator. So, be careful where you say that attempts equates in some way to evolutionary progress - failure is failure, and inorganic is inorganic.

I think this is the extrapolation of which you speak. And I agree! IF the extrapolation is true, we come upon some different circumstances than which I posit. But, again, Occam's Razor... is the extrapolation more probable or less probable? On what do we base an assumption of "more probable"? Saying that it "has to be so" to fit the hypothesis, or that certain atomic particles mimic certain ideas (again, Heisenberg - did your observation of that phenomenon change it? - and so, the extrapolation becomes weaker probability) does not make it so.

I cannot discuss the existence of God as a matter of wrestling over "maybe's" but of seeking some type of probability which stands until shown to be unreasonable. And I still do not see how it is possible to minimize the obstacles to life's creation and survival without a guiding hand doing the minimizing.

But I'm an open mind. Please (anyone) offer the math or science which tells me that obstacles to success disappear without a guiding hand, and with such regularity that the odds against success become lowered enough to "pretty good odds."

 

[NoPoke]

That isn't really what either myself or Dogma have said regarding the proability of life through random chance.

I don't understand the chemistry but have read papers and books that range in opinion from life being a near certainty on earth to anything up to the universe's one shot. I can follow the math and no matter how unlikely none of the papers or books have zero as the outcome.. I am not aware (not that that means much) of any paper that categorically refutes the chemistry or has numbers that are so huge that life purely by chance should be rejected as a possibility.

Now whereas it is possible to put some sort of numbers to the chemistry for life no numbers can be applied to the alternative of a creator initiated life. As far as the math is concerned life without a creator is the only game in town. And the town is as big as it is possible to get.


Aside:
It is possible to prove anything from an incorrect statement (google Russel for an example where if 1=0 Russel is the pope)

 

[KingGengar]

Of course, if doesn't necessarily follow that I have proposed 1=0. Perhaps I am saying 1=1 and everyone else is saying 1=0. But besides that, the theoretical math is able to make 1=anything. ;-)

 

[mxrider]

this is more of a question of what you can explain verses people getting in arguments this is more of a question of a very long time ago the human kind made fires. unable to explain this they figured a supernatural being must of done this now much later people have discovered how to easily use fire through science. religon is a way of explaining why things unknown to humans happen and why some things human kind will never know explained as science gets further the religious explanition gets smaller and certin ideas get more debated and unexplainable a such issue is death. Back in the day a common belief helped groups of people get together but after a while peoples views changed and the people began to get into wars and thank there gods for the exact same things they got in wars beacuse there beliefs were slightly differnt. Now returning to present day where manny things of the olden times are very easily explainable the religions take certien issues and make a huge deal about them the most debated issue is death which is one of the main focial points of religion.

 

[NoPoke]

Organic just means the chemistry of carbon compounds. There is nothing special about organic other than just how much can be achieved with Hydrogen Oxygen and Carbon. The Miller Urey experiment demonstrated that it is possible to create some complex organic molecules from much simpler compounds. The experiment does not prove abiogenesis but is a thorn for creationists who would undoubtedly prefer that the results had been otherwise.

Please Leave Heisenberg alone. The math for that is tough: orders of magnitude harder than a Bernoilli trial. Which you are still misrepresenting. The failures don't matter. Only the success matters.

Occam's razor: don't let your entities multiply unnecessarily. You quote Occam's razor yet in every post you ignore its advice.

===

Trust me where the math is concerned you are at the level of 1=0

 

[KingGengar]

NoPoke: I admire that you won't give up.

Let's talk about organic a little.

There is nothing special about organic other than just how much can be achieved with Hydrogen Oxygen and Carbon.

"other than" - that means there is an exception to the "nothing special" rule. Meaning, it's special. Very special. "Just how much can be achieved" - how much is that? We both know it's incredible, well beyond "nothing special."

Water is incredible also, as is ice. But, nope, "nothing special" to see here either.

The Miller Urey experiment demonstrated that it is possible to create some complex organic molecules from much simpler compounds.

I've seen this. It's all controlled conditions. Man reinventing purposefully what he decides is "random."

The experiment does not prove abiogenesis but is a thorn for creationists who would undoubtedly prefer that the results had been otherwise.

Actually, it's not creationists who object to the experiment, but competing scientists who favor a different time-line. If creationists want to use the small fractures as a method of leveraging Miller-Urey out the door, they can't. The experiment is already so tightly-wound around preconceived notions that it's like a holy war.

I don't object to Miller-Urey's premises, but the middle steps. If you've seen the flow chart extrapolations (not sure if these were from the original experimentation or from later repetitions), you might (with the right skepticism) find yourself choking on the assumptions being shoved down your throat.

Please Leave Heisenberg alone

I can't leave it alone. Too many people believe in visualization through atomic physics. I don't disbelieve such things, but they are based on many assumptions which can be instantly challenged. Heisenberg is not to blame here.

Orders of magnitude harder than a Bernoilli trial. Which you are still misrepresenting. The failures don't matter. Only the success matters.

In seeking out more on Bernoulli, I find that what you had earlier proposed as binomial cannot be compared to Bernoulli. Specifically, I've been looking at this St. Petersburg paradox, which is what I believe you were exhibiting with comments on "lottery." But the solution to such a paradox seems to be that the game itself will never be played if the prize isn't enough to warrant the game's existence. It appears that Keynes limited the usefulness of Bernoulli's expectations even more, as it relates to economic gain. Look, I'm not an expert on this, but it seems straightforward enough: risk/reward, and the expectations thereof. This is my take on the creation of the universe and life: the game ought not be played by anyone except if the game is rigged - by the Creator. Now, if you'd like to keep believing that the game was not rigged, but just happened to get past not only the inconceivable odds against success, and also the intrinsic nature of Bernoulli's dynamic system, I can't stop you.

Just on cursory information, it also seems that this St. Petersburg paradox is not a universal constant of any kind, and has been challenged even on philosophical grounds. And this is what I am doing - so I guess I'm in good company.

Occam's razor: don't let your entities multiply unnecessarily. You quote Occam's razor yet in every post you ignore its advice.

I have done no such thing. You claimed earlier I have multiplied "errors" not "entities." You add this now for no apparent reason.

I have given the "simplest explanation" as the best (Occam's Razor), but I also subscribe to "the best explanation is not always the simplest" in the same manner that Sherlock Holmes was given to say: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

 

[dogma]

Can I just say one thing for the record - I understand the mathematics behind NoPoke's statement (which, as he phrased it carefully, is 100% iron-clad no questions asked guaranteed correct) - but I still disagree that that is how life originated.

How can that be true? Because NoPoke's original response to Will was to correct a misunderstanding about how statistics works. I tried to make it easier to understand for those who haven't done maths at that level, but inadvertently made the situation worse.

What NoPoke is saying that it is possible, possible, given the maths, that life started in the way scientists are proposing. All he is saying is that the statistics holds. Whether you believe in evolution or not is another matter. Remember, I have my own issues with evolution - I just have better reasoned arguments for why I believe in God and not evolution. (Not saying the two are mutually exclusive before someone jumps on that.)

For more on why I take issue with evolution or the scientific method in general, just read my posts in this topic. These are philosophical issues which are rather deep, so please have some respect in thinking things through when you read through the earlier posts.

Oh and I have two degrees in maths -presumably NoPoke has one in a mathematical subject. We are 'maths majors'. And what we're telling you is that your reasoning is wrong. But why listen to those who dare point out mistakes in your reasoning? All I've done is spend 4 years of my life studying university mathematics + 2 years before that + currently taking more even more maths. Please, please try to listen when we say that you do not appear to have enough knowledge about the concepts you raise to make a coherent argument with them.

Back to less maths and more God, anyone? But maybe NoPoke might have the last laugh: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10132762.stm

 

[ryanvergel]

I still don't accept the idea that a low probability of X (creatorless- life... abiogenesis) means more probability of Y (created life, and thus creator).

It's almost like saying that if abiogenesis has a 1% chance of occuring, and because we HAVE life, there is a 99% chance some other factor caused it, and if it isn't abiogenesis, then it's designed life. Well, it doesn't really work that way. Not logically.

How is it MORE probable that God created the universe/life, when I haven't seen any statistics on God or anything of the like. The only evidence we have for God is in logic, and on those grounds both answers seem equally good (created life and non-created life), but in terms of plausibility, and empiricist desires, only one can answer, even if the answer is of low probability.

I like the low probability more than absent probability, or assumed probability.

Basically, even if you WERE able to show that the probability was extremely low, it wouldn't help your case- it wouldn't show or provide evidence that God exists or is more likely to exist. The fact of the matter is that if abiogenesis is the only way life occurred, then that low chance is the only chance. You can't say that the fact that this is a low chance means that there IS, definitely, something that has a higher chance. You have yet to establish that there IS another chance (is a god), let alone that low chances for abiogenesis would provide evidence for more probability of created life.

 

[KingGengar]

dogma: Thanks for the good post. I cannot argue with anything therein.

Please don't take offense to "math majors" - it was a way of distinguishing between arguments - but you already know that. I make no pretense to being a mathematician, but that won't stop me from treading fearlessly (and sometimes foolishly). Being wrong on the math doesn't necessarily make be wrong on the thesis.

The link was - wow - scary. It doesn't mean a thing to our argument, except that men in controlled conditions can produce most anything. No one believes that the artificial cell produced was truly spontaneous, or uncontrolled. But, yeah, men creating artificial life so it can become a bio-machine - nothing to worry about there - no sirree.

Ryan:

It's almost like saying that if abiogenesis has a 1% chance of occuring, and because we HAVE life, there is a 99% chance some other factor caused it, and if it isn't abiogenesis, then it's designed life. Well, it doesn't really work that way. Not logically.

That's not my reasoning. I don't utilize the poor odds of one thing to produce good odds for myself. That's like saying I have a better chance of hitting 23 on the roulette wheel than hitting 18, all things being equal. No, the odds in favor of a Creator come from what I consider the impenetrability of obstacles in uncontrolled, purely-random circumstances. Just like the link dogma posted, I believe there is a guiding hand; and, furthermore, I think it required.