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Author Topic: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand  (Read 36771 times)

Rand47

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #80 on: February 23, 2017, 09:25:03 pm »

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You say nay, I say there's something there that can't be quantified with just statistics and a big ass telescope in space.

+1

Rand
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Rand Scott Adams

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #81 on: February 23, 2017, 09:48:24 pm »

Or could it have been a .243 (a Ruger maybe?) that had not been as well cleaned as it should be....? ;)

Could have been :-)  But as it happens we found a spur on the rim.  I doubt it was pressed that way, but probably damaged in handling some how.  Ideally, we should have noticed when loading the mag, but didn't.  Of course, God is often accused of moving in mysterious ways, right? ;-p
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Phil Brown

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #82 on: February 23, 2017, 10:10:10 pm »

There is nothing in the universe that plays out like this. I don't need scientific facts to prove this because it's impossible to gather any.

Wow! You know everything in the universe? I am impressed.  ;D

The events you related did occur in the universe, didn't they? They did 'play out', in the universe, didn't they?  ;)
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laughingbear

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #83 on: February 23, 2017, 10:47:27 pm »

Our existence considering the rest of the universe has beat all odds of us ever happening.

Such statement has always a mild anthropocentric flavour to my taste.

The count of planets in our solar system is nothing unusual!  There are more planets in the universe than he sum of every single word ever jabbered by every human who has ever lived.

Phew, yeah! Now that's a helluva lot of jabbering! ;)

As to your experience, where you suggested the existiance of a guiding hand, I read it, but can not detect the slightest hint of what you suggested, not even a sausage.

Then again, shrugs, that's just me.
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Ray

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #84 on: February 23, 2017, 11:05:42 pm »

The existence of other life has no bearing on the existence of god. There is no relation between those two issues at all. The idea that there is a materialist explanation for life and the increased probabilities based on the number of life supporting planets says nothing about the existence of god.


George,
I think you've missed the point I was making. I was addressing a view that is held by certain scientists who find it too difficult to accept that the first form of life could have spontaneously arisen in a soupy sea because the probability of all the right molecules coming together in the right circumstances, right conditions and right time in order to form a basic building block of self-replicating life, would have been unrealistically small.

Such people tend to believe that an Intelligent Designer or Creator God is a more reasonable explanation.

I won't deny that such a view has some merit, but the flaw in that argument, based upon an unrealistically small degree of probability that life could have originally occurred by chance, is that it doesn't take into consideration the likelihood of the existence of trillions of planets in our universe which have similar environmental conditions to those that have existed on the earth.

As I pointed out, recent observations and calculations imply that our galaxy possibly has about 20 billion planets, and the universe as a whole has around 2 trillion galaxies.

If we make a reasonable guess that maybe only 10% of those other galaxies are suitable for the existence of any planets, and only 1% of all planets in all galaxies have, or had, the elements, compounds and temperatures suitable for life to develop, then the total number of planets with a potential for life to spontaneously arise, could be 40 quintillion divided by 1,000, which equals 40 million trillion.

Now, however remote one might think the chances of life spontaneously arising in a soupy sea might be, those chances should be multiplied by some huge figure, such as 40 million trillion because there probably exists (very, very approximately of course) 40 million trillion planets in our universe with the essential ingredients for life to spontaneously arise.

It might be the case that only one of those 40 million trillion planets have developed life because the probability is so small, and we're the lucky ones (or unlucky ones, depending on your perspective or religion).

Can you understand the logic of my argument?

In case you don't, I'll use a simple analogy of playing roulette in a casino. However remote your chances of winning, if the chip you place on a number were simultaneously placed on a second roulette table for the same one-bet price (equivalent to a second planet with environmental conditions similar to the earth), you would increase your chances of winning, wouldn't you agree?

If you were offered the option of your chip being placed on that same number on a thousand different roulette tables around the world, for the same one-bet price, you would feel very confident of at least one of those balls settling on the number you had selected, wouldn't you?

My point is, however remote one might think the chances are of life forming on one planet, in this instance the Earth, such chances increase in proportion to the number of Earth-like planets that exist in the universe. Therefore, the reasoning that some people use, even some scientists apparently, that the chances of life spontaneously arising are too small for credibility, is now a flawed logic in the light of recent investigations that have discovered the actual existence of planets encircling other stars in our galaxy, and estimates of the massive number of planets that probably exist in the entire universe with its trillions of galaxies. Got it?  ;)
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #85 on: February 24, 2017, 01:56:55 am »

Could have been :-)  But as it happens we found a spur on the rim.  I doubt it was pressed that way, but probably damaged in handling some how.  Ideally, we should have noticed when loading the mag, but didn't.  Of course, God is often accused of moving in mysterious ways, right? ;-p

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As big as the cosmos?  I doubt it :-)  The only incident that might fall under your original concept was as a teenager, with my dad, we were on the family sheep station shooting (just at logs and rocks and such).  We had a .22 and a .243.  Anyway, the .243 jammed and wasn't easily cleared.  Rather than take the small risk of fiddling with it in the open paddock, we fired the last few rounds from the .22 and headed back to the homestead.  As we got in the car (about 50 or 60 yards away), lightning struck right where we had been.  Big burned patch, smoke, the works.  We may or may not have been killed had we been there, or having been there may have meant the lightning wouldn't have struck.  I don't know.  We laughed, shrugged, and headed in.

Thanks for your relating of a similar "guiding hand" story in avoiding getting struck by lightning. You relied on decision making that seems motivated by your desire to preserve the condition of the gun and prevent a misfire. As in my OP were you able to recall any alternate desires, motivations or decisions that might have kept you in that spot? That's the main thing I became aware about my experience with the kids, cellphone and police, none of which going in appeared connected which did influence my decision making.

I was able to closely look back and remember how other influences in my series of decisions that led me down a road that I'ld thought would turn out one way, but turned out another and for the good by my not following my normal routine and surprisingly making decisions based on false assumptions. It was a mess of happenstances in how it unfolded where making just one decision such as staying in my apt. would've prevented the outcome.
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #86 on: February 24, 2017, 02:18:56 am »

My point is, however remote one might think the chances are of life forming on one planet, in this instance the Earth, such chances increase in proportion to the number of Earth-like planets that exist in the universe. Therefore, the reasoning that some people use, even some scientists apparently, that the chances of life spontaneously arising are too small for credibility, is now a flawed logic in the light of recent investigations that have discovered the actual existence of planets encircling other stars in our galaxy, and estimates of the massive number of planets that probably exist in the entire universe with its trillions of galaxies. Got it?  ;)

The problem with your argument, Ray, is that you leave out a trillion or so variables that would affect life's evolutionary process from even starting on all those trillion other planets and especially in an enabling way to lead to an intelligence and conscience that can type on a keyboard and argue the point.

Your argument uses the complexity of any maze everyone can picture in their mind to explain probability without describing the complexity of the maze. You just jump to the conclusion that once one enters, the odds are they will find the exit just because that's the way science says it works.
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Chairman Bill

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #87 on: February 24, 2017, 03:57:29 am »

Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao - you claim these are not secular?  Not humanist?  You must be joking.
Of course they weren't humanist. Do you even know what humanism is? I'm not even sure you know what secularism is. The US is secular. The whole of Europe is secular. Most of the world is secular. The parts that aren't are the theocratic states like Iran & Saudi Arabia.

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They are just not your "preferred" vision of secular.
This just doesn't make sense. Secularism is what it is. I don't have a preferred vision of it.

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With no transcendent standard for "good secular humanist thinking" it is merely a matter of preference and power.
Ah, the old 'can't be good without God' nonsense. There are no transcendent standards. There is no objective, God-given morality. It is all a human construct.

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These killed more people for secular ideology in the 20th century than all the religious wars of history combined.
Again, you clearly don't understand the word 'secular'.

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You're dead wrong on Hitler, by the way.
No I'm not. Read Mein Kampf or some of Hitler's speeches.

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech in Munich on 12 April 1922

We are determined, as leaders of the nation, to fulfill as a national government the task which has been given to us, swearing fidelity only to God, our conscience, and our Volk.... This the national government will regard its first and foremost duty to restore the unity of spirit and purpose of our Volk. It will preserve and defend the foundations upon which the power of our nation rests. It will take Christianity, as the basis of our collective morality, and the family as the nucleus of our Volk and state, under its firm protection....May God Almighty take our work into his grace, give true form to our will, bless our insight, and endow us with the trust of our Volk.
-Adolf Hitler, on 1 Feb. 1933, addressing the German nation as Chancellor for the first time, Volkischer Beobachter, 5 Aug. 1935

The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life... The National Government regard the two Christian Confessions as the weightiest factors for the maintenance of our nationality. They will respect the agreements concluded between them and the federal States. Their rights are not to be infringed... It will be the Government's care to maintain honest co-operation between Church and State; the struggle against materialistic views and for a real national community is just as much in the interest of the German nation as in that of the welfare of our Christian faith. The Government of the Reich, who regard Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation, attach the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy See and are endeavouring to develop them.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech to the Reichstag on 23 March 1933

The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc, because it recognized the Jews for what they were"... I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent for the state and for the church and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions.
-Adolf Hitler, 26 April 1933

I could offer more, but we'd be here all day. I could also give you quotes that show his hatred of atheism. The Nazis sent atheists to the concentration camps & the gas chambers, because of their atheism. Hardly 'secular' in any way.

Rob C

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #88 on: February 24, 2017, 04:10:38 am »

The best description of religion I have read is that it is a psychological crutch.


That, for most amateurs, explains why they do photography!

But for myself, I already knew that to be the case with some retired pros. Like any faith habit, you can't just stop when you've been doing it all your life. You'd need somebody to help bring you down easy. And according to Keef in his assisted autobiography, can't do that: it's always gonna hurt. So who needs pain? Frustration hurts less than cold turkey.

A gift to humanity is to insist on taking your cameras with you when you pop; that way, you leave no possibility of contamination.

You see? there's always a little spiritual gift one can leave for someone.

;-)

Rob

Rob C

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #89 on: February 24, 2017, 04:43:03 am »

...or indeed the digital technologies.

I have to wonder, what would each of us be doing now if it weren't for them? A suitable new topic perhaps for the Coffee Corner?

Me, well, I wouldn't be posting inane questions here.

;-)


After much consideration, checking the balance of risk betwen saying what I think and/or being branded incorrigible Luddite, I have concluded that I must tell the truth as I see it (great cop-out phrase!): were it not for digital, I might well still be churning out stock images and making a better living in my dotage than making none at all!

As a secondary advantage, my nervous system might be on a more calm level of existence.

;-)

Rob

Rob C

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #90 on: February 24, 2017, 06:37:33 am »

Rob, good for you my friend!

You and I would certainly have much more in the way of free time in order to follow our chosen paths.

;-)

Indeed; the time spent online is frightening. But it is also fascinating what one can find. Never realised Sarah Moon and Deborah Turbeville had both been quite so prolific; I suppose a pre-web danger was the unconscious thought - assumption? -  that others only produced the stuff that one got to see... big boo boo! Can't buy all the magazines, see all the ads and calendars!

Perfection might have consisted of digital available in everything, as is, except cameras! There still would have existed a playing field for the aged and semi-retired; a kind of seniors league, if you will. Now here's a progressive idea: make stock legally exclus¡ve to the over 60s! I better post a huge smiley!

;-)

Rob

AnthonyM

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #91 on: February 24, 2017, 09:56:06 am »

And many, scientific interpretations of nature have repeatedly been disproved (by other science) as well, right?
Correct.  Scientific interpretations are always hypotheses which have not been disproved.  Science is not certain, it is just the best that we can do at any particular moment.

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Hmmm what? Do you know the answer? 
No, but it does sound like an odd concept.  Which does not mean it is necessarily incorrect.

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Well, that sounds more ridiculous than God to me. It is also outside the purview of science to prove or disprove which puts it in the very same category and theism. And if it were true it just means the universe=god. Again, science becomes its own religion.


It is not a religious statement, it is a hypothesis for which he sees much justification.  It is certainly not provable at this stage of our knowledge.  I certainly do not have the ability to analyse whether it is correct or not, but as he is one of the great brains of our time it certainly should be considered.  https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/sep/02/stephen-hawking-big-bang-creator

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That might be interesting from an anthropological standpoint but how man understands or misunderstands something is hardly valuable as proof that that something does not exist. We could study how man came to his various mistaken ideas about gravity. That would not change the nature of gravity. But Freud pretty much beat that horse to death years ago.

That is not my point.  If in the case of a specific religion we can show that it was entirely created by a man for his own selfish purposes, then that is a good reason to discount it as genuine.  For example, I discount the Flying Spaghetti Monster as a deity, because it was created to make a (not very) funny point.  I can think of religions which were clearly man made, and therefore fake, but I will not specify them as I do not wish to offend any believers in those religions, at least not in these forums. 
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Alan Klein

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #92 on: February 24, 2017, 11:44:56 am »


George,
I think you've missed the point I was making. I was addressing a view that is held by certain scientists who find it too difficult to accept that the first form of life could have spontaneously arisen in a soupy sea because the probability of all the right molecules coming together in the right circumstances, right conditions and right time in order to form a basic building block of self-replicating life, would have been unrealistically small.

Such people tend to believe that an Intelligent Designer or Creator God is a more reasonable explanation.

I won't deny that such a view has some merit, but the flaw in that argument, based upon an unrealistically small degree of probability that life could have originally occurred by chance, is that it doesn't take into consideration the likelihood of the existence of trillions of planets in our universe which have similar environmental conditions to those that have existed on the earth.

As I pointed out, recent observations and calculations imply that our galaxy possibly has about 20 billion planets, and the universe as a whole has around 2 trillion galaxies.

If we make a reasonable guess that maybe only 10% of those other galaxies are suitable for the existence of any planets, and only 1% of all planets in all galaxies have, or had, the elements, compounds and temperatures suitable for life to develop, then the total number of planets with a potential for life to spontaneously arise, could be 40 quintillion divided by 1,000, which equals 40 million trillion.

Now, however remote one might think the chances of life spontaneously arising in a soupy sea might be, those chances should be multiplied by some huge figure, such as 40 million trillion because there probably exists (very, very approximately of course) 40 million trillion planets in our universe with the essential ingredients for life to spontaneously arise.

It might be the case that only one of those 40 million trillion planets have developed life because the probability is so small, and we're the lucky ones (or unlucky ones, depending on your perspective or religion).

Can you understand the logic of my argument?

In case you don't, I'll use a simple analogy of playing roulette in a casino. However remote your chances of winning, if the chip you place on a number were simultaneously placed on a second roulette table for the same one-bet price (equivalent to a second planet with environmental conditions similar to the earth), you would increase your chances of winning, wouldn't you agree?

If you were offered the option of your chip being placed on that same number on a thousand different roulette tables around the world, for the same one-bet price, you would feel very confident of at least one of those balls settling on the number you had selected, wouldn't you?

My point is, however remote one might think the chances are of life forming on one planet, in this instance the Earth, such chances increase in proportion to the number of Earth-like planets that exist in the universe. Therefore, the reasoning that some people use, even some scientists apparently, that the chances of life spontaneously arising are too small for credibility, is now a flawed logic in the light of recent investigations that have discovered the actual existence of planets encircling other stars in our galaxy, and estimates of the massive number of planets that probably exist in the entire universe with its trillions of galaxies. Got it?  ;)

Where did the molecules come from?

Alan Klein

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #93 on: February 24, 2017, 11:56:03 am »

God didn't create man until the 6th day.    He was busy making the rest of the universe that you didn't mention.  Just thought I would.  Even the people who wrote the bible knew that there was nothing before there was something.  Science calls it the Big Bang.  Whatever, nothing was there at first and yet was created.


1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

stamper

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #94 on: February 24, 2017, 01:32:44 pm »

If I requested some links then you would probably direct me to the fairytale called the Bible?

Rob C

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #95 on: February 24, 2017, 02:43:45 pm »

If I requested some links then you would probably direct me to the fairytale called the Bible?


Now as a remark, that's self-defeating.

If you try to read it you discover there's a lot more in it than religious cant. Lots of history and information that is backed up by "science" and geographers and historians etc. It would be a major mistake to write it off as fairytale or simply religious tract (huge!).

Rob C

sierraman

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #96 on: February 24, 2017, 03:07:53 pm »

You guys are way over thinking this. If there isn't a God, how did the 1969 New York Mets win the World Series?  :)
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Tim Lookingbill

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #97 on: February 24, 2017, 03:49:47 pm »

I think this thread went quite well considering its subject matter. Hell, we even got a physician and psychologist to offer their expertise and they didn't bill my health insurance.

Now that's a guiding hand if I ever saw one.  ;D
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Rob C

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #98 on: February 24, 2017, 04:10:50 pm »

I think this thread went quite well considering its subject matter. Hell, we even got a physician and psychologist to offer their expertise and they didn't bill my health insurance.

Now that's a guiding hand if I ever saw one.  ;D


Nah, that's just their subliminal PR.

;-)

Rob

Ray

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Re: Just experienced an event that suggests there's a guiding hand
« Reply #99 on: February 24, 2017, 07:50:35 pm »

Where did the molecules come from?


The molecules came from the bonding of various atoms, such as Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon and Phosphorous.

Now, if you can tell me precisely and specifically which complex RNA molecules you are referring to, I could attempt to identify their constituent atoms and trace their history throughout the previous billions of years, and try to identify which atomic explosion is associated with the formation of which atom. Okay!  ;D ;D

Joke aside, the following New Scientist article does a good job of explaining the issue for the non-specialist.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128251-300-first-life-the-search-for-the-first-replicator/
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