Tolerate the Christian right ... WHY ?

[JimC]

Some people on this thread have forgotten some basic facts about evolution. Populations may evolve, not individuals. A given individual in a later population may show adaptations missing in individuals in earlier generations, but individuals do not "adapt" in any genetic sense of the world.

Also, a given species will not have infinite plasticity in potential evolutionary pathways. Human populations are not going to reach the phenotypic dimension that involves a third set of limbs, possibly modified as wings, and pigs won't fly...

Also, selective pressures which drive evolutionary change in populations require differential reproductive success between heritable characteristics displayed in individuals. Given a vast amount of time in a zero G environment (Niven's Integral Trees springs to mind), physical change within certain limits is quite possible. Radiation, too, could provoke gradual phenotypic change in human populations, but not at the extremes...

[mistermack]

Some people on this thread have forgotten some basic facts about evolution. Populations may evolve, not individuals. A given individual in a later population may show adaptations missing in individuals in earlier generations, but individuals do not "adapt" in any genetic sense of the world.

To be fair, I don't think anybodys said that. Not even Seth.

Also, a given species will not have infinite plasticity in potential evolutionary pathways. Human populations are not going to reach the phenotypic dimension that involves a third set of limbs, possibly modified as wings,

AHA ! Got you there! What do you think angels are? And don't say they don't exist, because I've seen pictures!

Also, selective pressures which drive evolutionary change in populations require differential reproductive success between heritable characteristics displayed in individuals. Given a vast amount of time in a zero G environment (Niven's Integral Trees springs to mind), physical change within certain limits is quite possible. Radiation, too, could provoke gradual phenotypic change in human populations, but not at the extremes...

That's the point I made earlier. You would have to start by allowing enough radiation to kill some, but not all, and increase the dose gradually over hundreds or thousands of generations for evolution to work.

Or you could do some selective breeding to speed it up, but that's not generally called evolution.

The same principle applies for zero gravity.
You would have to allow it to kill some, and allow others to survive it. You would probably have to start with reduced gravity and work down to zero.

But no human society is never going to do anything of the sort.
They will adapt the environment to suit humans, not leave it to millions of years of evolution.
And if they tried some form of genetic engineering, introducing non-human genes, then the resulting creatures would DEFINITELY not be human.

[Seth]

The universe is a big place. That means that there can be lots of space between things like planets and galaxies and still there is a tremendous amount of matter out there that we know very little about, certainly not enough to say with any sort of accuracy that "almost every bit of it is Deadly to Life" (sic).

No I think you can say between the hard empty cold bits and the Really fucking hot bits that there are almost no bits that are not deadly to life .

My statement is actually almost totally accurate . There is a wider range of places where some life is viable ,but places humans can conceivably evolve to live in.... needles in a vast haystack .

Well, I grant you that finding an environment hospitable to humans outside of our present one is a difficult task, not to mention actually getting there, but that's not what you first asked in your rhetorical swipe at God. Now you're backing away, after having tried to recast the question to avoid having to deal with your lack of precision in thought and expression by suggesting that "life" and "human life" are the same thing.

Just pointing out that if you're going to use silly, smarmy arguments against God, you might want to formulate them a little more carefully if you don't want to play the fool.

[Seth]

So, Seth's point is a hard vacuum is a great place for life? I didn't expect less from him.

Well, maybe the vacuum is a great place for Seth... outside like inside the head and all that....

Maybe we should send him there and see how he adapts?

NASA has a BIG vacuum chamber. Just sayin'.

They'd have to clean it afterward.

We could sell Freeze-dried Seth for catfish bait.

Or, we could just stuff your rotting corpse in the landfill.

[Seth]

Errr, he's got a point, Seth. Remember genetic engineering? We're already looking to do it on animals. Before long we'll be doing it on humans, to reduce medical costs if nothing else.

That's gene alteration, and the products eventually will be new species. And that's evolution.

Will it be a "new species" or merely an advance sub-species of Homo Sapien?

"It?" You're kinda shaky on this whole molecular biology thing, right?

But you make an excellent point supporting my argument, which is that we don't necessarily have to wait for nature to evolve humans to live under different environmental conditions, we will likely be able to engineer them to that end in the not too distant future, which means the ability to survive in other environments in a single generation.

Your point was that 99.9999+% of space is not "empty."

Was it? Or are you merely demonstrating your inability to properly parse and interpret a simple sentence? I believe it's the latter. Don't blame me for your rhetorical incapacity.

You're changing the subject again. Either that or shifting the goalposts so you can claim "victory."

What was the subject again?

[Coito ergo sum]

The universe is a big place. That means that there can be lots of space between things like planets and galaxies and still there is a tremendous amount of matter out there that we know very little about, certainly not enough to say with any sort of accuracy that "almost every bit of it is Deadly to Life" (sic).

No I think you can say between the hard empty cold bits and the Really fucking hot bits that there are almost no bits that are not deadly to life .

My statement is actually almost totally accurate . There is a wider range of places where some life is viable ,but places humans can conceivably evolve to live in.... needles in a vast haystack .

Well, I grant you that finding an environment hospitable to humans outside of our present one is a difficult task, not to mention actually getting there, but that's not what you first asked in your rhetorical swipe at God. Now you're backing away, after having tried to recast the question to avoid having to deal with your lack of precision in thought and expression by suggesting that "life" and "human life" are the same thing.

Just pointing out that if you're going to use silly, smarmy arguments against God, you might want to formulate them a little more carefully if you don't want to play the fool.

Just to chime in -- "against all gods" would be a more precise phrasing of it. Against God is a reference to a particular god, given the upper case "G."

"Just pointing out that if you're going to use silly, smarmy arguments against all gods, you might want to formulate them a little more carefully..."

Moreover, I think calling the argument "smarmy" or "silly" is not accurate. If I understand Feck correctly, he's basically saying that it seems rather unlikely that a supreme creator would create so much stuff that is inhospitable to life. It isn't a disproof of gods, because, of course, one god or another might be capricious, arbitrary, or just not all that talented, etc. This may be the best that a given god could do. We don't know. However, based on a description of most gods who are given the role, we are asked to assume that the god is all knowing, all powerful, ever present and can do "anything." Such a god, it stands to reason, could have created a universe that is positively glorious and teeming with life - and maybe even with warm, breathable air between all the planets, and a gravitational system that allows easy transportation all over the place. Or, one would think that if the deity created the universe with humans as the object, he would just create a single large planet. If he wanted decorations up in the sky, they wouldn't be stars and galaxies light years away, they would just be jewels attached to perfect crystal spheres.....you know...like people thought a god would do before they discovered that things were bigger and farther away than they could have imagined....

[Seth]

The universe is a big place. That means that there can be lots of space between things like planets and galaxies and still there is a tremendous amount of matter out there that we know very little about, certainly not enough to say with any sort of accuracy that "almost every bit of it is Deadly to Life" (sic).

No I think you can say between the hard empty cold bits and the Really fucking hot bits that there are almost no bits that are not deadly to life .

My statement is actually almost totally accurate . There is a wider range of places where some life is viable ,but places humans can conceivably evolve to live in.... needles in a vast haystack .

Well, I grant you that finding an environment hospitable to humans outside of our present one is a difficult task, not to mention actually getting there, but that's not what you first asked in your rhetorical swipe at God. Now you're backing away, after having tried to recast the question to avoid having to deal with your lack of precision in thought and expression by suggesting that "life" and "human life" are the same thing.

Just pointing out that if you're going to use silly, smarmy arguments against God, you might want to formulate them a little more carefully if you don't want to play the fool.

Just to chime in -- "against all gods" would be a more precise phrasing of it. Against God is a reference to a particular god, given the upper case "G."

Fair point, but the attack is specifically against the Christian God, as indicated by the thread title.

"Just pointing out that if you're going to use silly, smarmy arguments against all gods, you might want to formulate them a little more carefully..."

Moreover, I think calling the argument "smarmy" or "silly" is not accurate. If I understand Feck correctly, he's basically saying that it seems rather unlikely that a supreme creator would create so much stuff that is inhospitable to life.

And my point is that it's hubris at the very least to assume that he knows more about creating universes than God does.

It isn't a disproof of gods, because, of course, one god or another might be capricious, arbitrary, or just not all that talented, etc. This may be the best that a given god could do.

This falsely presumes that what God hath wrought is somehow flawed, which is merely arrogant ignorance on the part of a creation of God. As I said before, there are many potential reasons why God might have chosen to create the universe as he did that have nothing to do with lack of ability on his part. To presume that God is required to create a universe to suit man's fancy is, well, silly and ignorant. According to my reading, God created the Heavens and the Earth, and THEN he created man, and gave man dominion over the EARTH. The Bible says nothing whatever about giving man dominion over the rest of the universe, now did it?

We don't know.

Exactly. But to infer that God made a flawed universe merely because man is not welcome in most of it is not even rational, it's a demonstration of illogic and unreason even if one doesn't believe in God.

However, based on a description of most gods who are given the role, we are asked to assume that the god is all knowing, all powerful, ever present and can do "anything."

Indeed.

Such a god, it stands to reason, could have created a universe that is positively glorious and teeming with life - and maybe even with warm, breathable air between all the planets, and a gravitational system that allows easy transportation all over the place.

Yes, such a god could certainly do this.

Or, one would think that if the deity created the universe with humans as the object, he would just create a single large planet.

Indeed. But what leads you to the belief that God created the universe with ONLY humans as the object? There is no such claim made in the Bible. God created the earth and gave man dominion over THE EARTH. Therefore, it is rational to assume that God did not give dominion over the rest of the universe to man, and it's also perfectly logical to assume that God created a universe with plenty of space where he could create other creatures and give them dominion over their planets while keeping each separate from the other by the simple expedient of distance and vacuum. All perfectly rational and logical, if you think like God for even a moment, rather than being quite so anthropocentric and arrogant as to believe, without any evidence in the biblical record, that the entire universe was made to suit humans.

If he wanted decorations up in the sky, they wouldn't be stars and galaxies light years away, they would just be jewels attached to perfect crystal spheres.....you know...like people thought a god would do before they discovered that things were bigger and farther away than they could have imagined....

Why wouldn't they be stars and galaxies? God is infinitely powerful, and it might please him to create an entire universe of stars and galaxies specifically for the intellectual pleasure and stimulation of his earthly creation: man. He might have created it all precisely so that we would wonder about things and strive to learn things.

You simply cannot second-guess God and assume that your puny intellect is up to the task of judging God or the correctness of his creation, because you're going to inevitably be wrong.

The best theological minds on the planet, for thousands of years, have pondered such questions and they acknowledge that an all-powerful God is going to have reasons for doing what he does that are beyond the capacity of mere humans to understand, and that it's pretty much a waste of time to claim that God did something or the other for a reason based in human reasoning. And if God exists, this is perfectly sound and logical reasoning, now isn't it?

Therefore, you cannot, with any hope of rational or logical strength, try to use what you perceive as a flaw in the universe to try to disprove the existence of God, which is precisely what the original ignorant rhetorical question Feck asked is completely irrational and illogical, even coming from someone who doesn't believe in God. It's indicative of shallow thinking and an inability to reason with any precision or logic, which is a feature of much of Atheism's supposed "reasoning" against God.

[Audley Strange]

So in short we've decided to launch the Christian Right into space in the hope they evolve?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Or, we could just stuff your rotting corpse in the landfill.

You'd have to file an Environmental Impact Statement.

[Geoff]

So in short we've decided to launch the Christian Right into space in the hope they evolve?

Space junk is already a serious problem, without making it worse.

[Schneibster]

Errr, he's got a point, Seth. Remember genetic engineering? We're already looking to do it on animals. Before long we'll be doing it on humans, to reduce medical costs if nothing else.

That's gene alteration, and the products eventually will be new species. And that's evolution.

Will it be a "new species" or merely an advance sub-species of Homo Sapien?

"It?" You're kinda shaky on this whole molecular biology thing, right?

But you make an excellent point supporting my argument, which is that we don't necessarily have to wait for nature to evolve humans to live under different environmental conditions, we will likely be able to engineer them to that end in the not too distant future, which means the ability to survive in other environments in a single generation.

Your point was that 99.9999+% of space is not "empty."

Was it?

I'm not wasting my time arguing with somebody who thinks it's not dark at night.

[Schneibster]

So in short we've decided to launch the Christian Right into space in the hope they evolve?

Works for me.

[Coito ergo sum]

The universe is a big place. That means that there can be lots of space between things like planets and galaxies and still there is a tremendous amount of matter out there that we know very little about, certainly not enough to say with any sort of accuracy that "almost every bit of it is Deadly to Life" (sic).

No I think you can say between the hard empty cold bits and the Really fucking hot bits that there are almost no bits that are not deadly to life .

My statement is actually almost totally accurate . There is a wider range of places where some life is viable ,but places humans can conceivably evolve to live in.... needles in a vast haystack .

Well, I grant you that finding an environment hospitable to humans outside of our present one is a difficult task, not to mention actually getting there, but that's not what you first asked in your rhetorical swipe at God. Now you're backing away, after having tried to recast the question to avoid having to deal with your lack of precision in thought and expression by suggesting that "life" and "human life" are the same thing.

Just pointing out that if you're going to use silly, smarmy arguments against God, you might want to formulate them a little more carefully if you don't want to play the fool.

Just to chime in -- "against all gods" would be a more precise phrasing of it. Against God is a reference to a particular god, given the upper case "G."

Fair point, but the attack is specifically against the Christian God, as indicated by the thread title.

Well, the title doesn't refer to any god, but rather a political movement.

"Just pointing out that if you're going to use silly, smarmy arguments against all gods, you might want to formulate them a little more carefully..."

Moreover, I think calling the argument "smarmy" or "silly" is not accurate. If I understand Feck correctly, he's basically saying that it seems rather unlikely that a supreme creator would create so much stuff that is inhospitable to life.

And my point is that it's hubris at the very least to assume that he knows more about creating universes than God does.

Well, that depends on one's assumption of what the particular god's capabilities and intelligence is. If we are assuming the Christian God, then we need to assume an omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent being that has perfect knowledge and no incapacities. We also are to assume that said being created the universe with humans in mind, as the pinnacle of creation, in that god's image. It would stand to reason that such a god need not create hundreds of billions of galaxies, none of which have anything to do with us, and certainly such a god would have been capable of creating the universe as "perfectly" as man once conceived it to be - a single Earth below the heavens, with the heavenly bodies being tiny shining objections that revolved around the Earth to serve predictive functions. Anything more is unnecessary, which is why theologians 1500 years ago didn't imagine there to be anything more than that.

It's also not hubris to suggest that an omnipotent and omniscient deity could have created the universe any way he chose, even one that would appear impossible or nonsensical to us. So, there would be no need for that deity to have random rocks floating around a hundred million light years from Earth. It's certainly possible for that deity to have some undisclosed purpose for what to us makes no sense. It's possible. That sounds an awful lot, however, like someone just saying "It doesn't make sense, but I'll believe it anyway."

It isn't a disproof of gods, because, of course, one god or another might be capricious, arbitrary, or just not all that talented, etc. This may be the best that a given god could do.

This falsely presumes that what God hath wrought is somehow flawed, which is merely arrogant ignorance on the part of a creation of God.

I thought you were a nontheist?

Anyway - no, it doesn't presume that anything is flawed. It presumes that an omnipotent god didn't need to create galaxies hundreds of millions of light years away full of mostly if not completely lifeless space. That's no different than the pre-scientific theistic idea that the Earth was a fixed center of the universe, surrounded by the heavens, with no thought that there would be billions upon billions of stars and galaxies, all monumentally far away. Why would the Christian presume that? Because based on the holy book they use, there is no need for it. When science discovered the reality of the situation, the reality was something that first had to be denied, and then later had to be harmonized with Christian theology - the square peg of reality had to be shoehorned into to the round hole of theology.

Even today, people are still in the denial phase, as we see some folks denying that life evolves over time. Some Christian theologies have harmonized that notion with the religious dogma, like Catholicism, but some others still steadfastly refuse. They refuse because there is no reason why a person would think that an omnipotent god would need to set in motion forces and processes that take billions of years to complete. He could just engage in a special creation, and it makes no sense for the deity to do otherwise.

As I said before, there are many potential reasons why God might have chosen to create the universe as he did that have nothing to do with lack of ability on his part.

Sure, but none of them make much sense. As I said, it's not a disproof of gods per se. Gods might be practical jokers - or they may enjoy putting together Rube Goldberg machines. We don't know.

To presume that God is required to create a universe to suit man's fancy is, well, silly and ignorant.

It's not a presumption of a requirement. It's a conclusion based on the characteristics of the Christian god we are asked to believe, and the application of logic. I fully admit that gods may be illogical, capricious, arbitrary, silly, or wasteful or plenty of other things. He may have created the universe in a way that makes no sense to us. For me, it seems really silly for a god to do that. I would think that a god would create a universe that makes sense. I would doubt that a god that wants us to believe in it would create a universe that looks like a universe that came to be through unguided, undirected natural processes. He may have done so, of course. I can't be 100% sure. I just think it sounds crazy for an omnipotent god to do so - it's akin to the idea that a deity placed dinosaur bones in the ground to fool us. Might it have? Sure, it or they might have done so. But, it makes no sense.

According to my reading, God created the Heavens and the Earth, and THEN he created man, and gave man dominion over the EARTH. The Bible says nothing whatever about giving man dominion over the rest of the universe, now did it?

The Bible says nothing about the rest of the universe, because the people who wrote it had no idea that there was a rest of the universe.

The way I read the Bible, god created "the heavens" and the earth. At first, earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of god was hovering over the waters. There are heavens and there is earth, but the earth was empty and without form, and dark. God just hovered there for a while. Not being able to see, I guess, he said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. He then separated the light from the darkness, making night and day. Strangely, this was able to occur without there being a sun, yet. But, the god is omnipotent, so we just have to throw up our hands and say that that's what it did - who are we to question?

Then the god made a "vault" to separate the heavens from the waters. That's because the writers of Genesis, living under a Babylonian cosmology, conceived that there had to be something holding up the heavens. Hence, a vault. Without a vault holding things up, the heavens would fall. Things fall unless they are held up. The vault is the sky. Above the sky you'll find the heavens. The Sun and the Moon were created to serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, God set the stars "in the vault of the sky" to give light on the earth. Their purpose is clear - to give light to the Earth, and the were "set" in the "vault of the sky." Right? Set - in the vault. That's what they look like from Earth - they don't look at all like they are large bodies floating all over the place and moving around. They are "set."

The Earth at this time was completely covered in water - so the god commanded the waters to be gathered together so that dry land would appear. It wasn't that elevation had to be changed - the deity just had to "gather water together" in certain places to let the dry land appear. Having some dry land, he then created vegetation on the land, but no mention of water vegetation, and no mention that some plants rely on animals to survive (flowers/bees, etc.).

Then, after vegetation, god created lights in the sky, including the sun and the Moon. The Moon, of course, is not a light, but only reflects light. And, it's odd that vegetation which requires sunlight could survive without the Sun, and no mention of how cold the Earth would be without the Sun, and how the rotation of a Moonless Earth would be wild, creating a torrential and windy environment, not hospitable to present day plants and animals.

Then came the living creatures in the sea, air and land. And, to rule over the animals and plants, mankind was created.

So - what does the creation account tell us? Well - read it carefully - is there ANYTHING in there that is not a conclusion drawn from what bronze age astrologers could see with the naked eye? Conspicuously absent is anything that one doesn't see -- no asteroids and meteors - the planets are even left out, because back then they were just thought to be odd stars. All the lights in the sky are called stars, even though many of them are, in fact, galaxies containing billions of stars. The sky is a structure which holds up the heavens - it was a physical object, resting on the waters. That made sense to writers of the Bible at the time because that's the Sumerian and Babylonian cosmology. Even the Egyptian cosmology involved an enclosure on a fixed flat Earth.

And, the Bible requires the Earth to be flat, incidentally - Daniel 4:10-11 refers to a king who “saw a tree of great height at the centre of the earth...reaching with its top to the sky and visible to the earth's farthest bounds.” If the earth were flat, a sufficiently tall tree would be visible to “the earth's farthest bounds,” but this is impossible on a spherical earth. Likewise, in describing the temptation of Jesus by Satan, Matthew 4:8 says, “Once again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world [cosmos] in their glory.” Obviously, this would be possible only if the earth were flat. The same is true of Revelation 1:7: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds! Every eye shall see him...”

So, we may wish to be a bit skeptical about what we read in Genesis. Sure, Genesis says that man will rule over the animals and plants on Earth, and doesn't mention other places. But, also absent from creation are those other places, and creation is in accord with Sumerian and Babylonian cosmology which has a flat Earth domed by a vault which holds up the heavens, and in the dome of the sky are "set" stars (and nothing else), and the Sun and the Moon are there to measure days and weeks and months and sacred holidays. There is no creation account wherein other galaxies and planets and the true glory of the universe is created - Genesis is simply a story that is in line with then prevailing astrology.

We don't know.

Exactly. But to infer that God made a flawed universe merely because man is not welcome in most of it is not even rational, it's a demonstration of illogic and unreason even if one doesn't believe in God.

I did not infer that, or even imply it. The idea is that a highly intelligent, extremely powerful being wouldn't create a lot of wasted space. Most of the universe appears, for all intents and purposes, wasted. Could we posit some use for it? Could we use our imagination and come up with something? Sure. But, that would just be guessing. Based on what we see of the existing reality, there doesn't appear to be a purpose for most, if not all, of the universe. And, certainly the purpose of the universe does not appear to be life. As I said, this is not "disproof" of gods. But, it's not a point in their favor, that's for sure.

However, based on a description of most gods who are given the role, we are asked to assume that the god is all knowing, all powerful, ever present and can do "anything."

Indeed.

And, in word.

Such a god, it stands to reason, could have created a universe that is positively glorious and teeming with life - and maybe even with warm, breathable air between all the planets, and a gravitational system that allows easy transportation all over the place.

Yes, such a god could certainly do this.

Well, we presume that, anyway.

Or, one would think that if the deity created the universe with humans as the object, he would just create a single large planet.

Indeed. But what leads you to the belief that God created the universe with ONLY humans as the object?

Nothing, since I don't believe a god created the universe at all. The universe said to have been created in Genesis 1 of the Bible doesn't exist in the real world, but if it did, it certainly places man as the pinnacle of creation and mentions nothing else anywhere in the universe, with the exception of the Sun, Moon, stars set in the vault, and the heavens where god and the angels live. The rest of the universe is unknown and not recounted in creation - which stands to reason because the astrologers of the day had know way of writing about what they didn't see, and god apparently only inspired them to write about that which they could figure out for themselves.

There is no such claim made in the Bible. God created the earth and gave man dominion over THE EARTH. Therefore, it is rational to assume that God did not give dominion over the rest of the universe to man,

The Bible makes no mention of the rest of the universe, and sets the stars in the vault of the sky. There isn't anything else in Biblical cosmology for man to have dominion over.

and it's also perfectly logical to assume that God created a universe with plenty of space where he could create other creatures and give them dominion over their planets while keeping each separate from the other by the simple expedient of distance and vacuum. All perfectly rational and logical, if you think like God for even a moment, rather than being quite so anthropocentric and arrogant as to believe, without any evidence in the biblical record, that the entire universe was made to suit humans.

I don't presume to be able to think like a god, even for a second, since there is no way of knowing how any such being thinks. We can only make assumptions about what the characteristics of such a being are, and then imagining things based on that.

If he wanted decorations up in the sky, they wouldn't be stars and galaxies light years away, they would just be jewels attached to perfect crystal spheres.....you know...like people thought a god would do before they discovered that things were bigger and farther away than they could have imagined....

Why wouldn't they be stars and galaxies?

Because stars and galaxies are not "set in the firmament" or "set in the vault of the sky", depending on which version of the Bible you read.

God is infinitely powerful, and it might please him to create an entire universe of stars and galaxies specifically for the intellectual pleasure and stimulation of his earthly creation: man. He might have created it all precisely so that we would wonder about things and strive to learn things.

As I said, we can imagine any number of purposes for doing something. That doesn't mean they make sense. He might have done it as a goof. We don't know.

You simply cannot second-guess God and assume that your puny intellect is up to the task of judging God or the correctness of his creation, because you're going to inevitably be wrong.

It's an unwarranted assumption to assume human intellect is puny compared to a gods. The Bible says we were created in the god's image - therefore, it's possible he gave us intellect close to his own. Maybe that's why we are alone among the animals in being able to life ourselves into space, and we've even got ideas about engineering universes of our own.

The best theological minds on the planet,

...or, the most well-read on Aesop's Fables...

for thousands of years, have pondered such questions and they acknowledge that an all-powerful God is going to have reasons for doing what he does that are beyond the capacity of mere humans to understand, and that it's pretty much a waste of time to claim that God did something or the other for a reason based in human reasoning. And if God exists, this is perfectly sound and logical reasoning, now isn't it?

Not really, because it just amounts to saying that whatever thing we see that seems to make no sense must be said to be perfectly sensible because a god exists.

Therefore, you cannot, with any hope of rational or logical strength, try to use what you perceive as a flaw in the universe to try to disprove the existence of God, which is precisely what the original ignorant rhetorical question Feck asked is completely irrational and illogical, even coming from someone who doesn't believe in God. It's indicative of shallow thinking and an inability to reason with any precision or logic, which is a feature of much of Atheism's supposed "reasoning" against God.

I think I've already said that it doesn't amount to a disproof of gods. I don't think Feck said it "disproved" gods either. It's certainly not a point in gods' favor. What would be a point in gods favor is if we found that the universe really was composed of a flat Earth, with a Sun and Moon going around it, and stars "set" in a vault which is the sky. If we found that, that would be spot on persuasive proof that the Genesis account was true in that respect, and we'd be like - holy shit - these astrologers from back in the day nailed it. As it happens, the Genesis story had to go from "this is the way it happened, " to "this is the best way for imperfect humans to relate to their position in the universe and how they got here, it's not exactly true in a literal sense..." and then to "well, it's pretty much a bronze age metaphor, which we know didn't happen anything like the way it's said to have happened." None of that, of course, is a "disproof," but it is a brick in the edifice of various proofs that point in a direction other than gods' existence.

It's kind of like how, back in the day, folks believed in gods all over the place. They showed up in trees, and in rocks and mountains, they ruled the waves and drove the winds and brought the rains and punished them with droughts and all that stuff. We looked in the volcanoes....no gods there. We looked into the crops, and realized they grew without gods. We learned how the winds came about, and realized that there weren't any gods there. We figured out that tidal waves came from earthquakes and volcanoes, and not Poseidon or the Jormungandr Serpent writing at the bottom of the sea. We learned that trees didn't have gods in them, etc. God lived for a while in the heavens which could be traveled to -- like Jacob's Ladder, and folks could be taken up to heaven physically by moving up through the sky. We figured out that wasn't true either. So, since we've played hide and seek with the gods for millenia now, and the gods or God now occupy some place in hyperspace, conveniently "outside the universe" and "outside of time", and isn't directly involved in bringing on storms and earthquakes, etc., but rather he's sort of the prime mover who created everything and let it all unfold, and he gave the so called "spark of life" - etc. -- conveniently occupying only those remaining spaces where we can't tell he's not there -- he only occupies the unfalsifiable places....

...is that "disproof of gods?" No. But, there does appear to be a pattern that has developed...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I don't accept that Capital G God means the Christian God any more than I accept that Capital A Asshole means Rush Limbaugh.

[Coito ergo sum]

I don't accept that Capital G God means the Christian God any more than I accept that Capital A Asshole means Rush Limbaugh.

Well, when a god is referred to as God, in the sense of a proper name, the person writing is referring to a particular god which he or she calls God. It's like capitalizing "Zeus" or "Allah." If I say a God, then it doesn't make much sense because that's like saying "a Zeus" or "an Allah." God is a name of a god.

Folks often refer to the named god God in order to limit a discussion. If folks say "I believe in God, because there has to have been a creator of all this..." they are making a huge embedded leap of logic. AT BEST the argument from existence can only get one to a prime mover of some sort - ie. -- all things that exist have a maker, the universe exists, therefore the universe has a maker -- that doesn't mean God. It just means a maker. To get us to God, the capital G one, we have all sorts of "theological" assumptions that have to be proven or declared axiomatic.