Re: [NTLK] [OT] Carl Sagan Vindication

On 1/14/07, Dana W Cook <danacook88@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Anyway, the author, while trying to find support for a coexistant "GOD" and
> our science, he goes through what is required for our kind of life to exist
> (carbon based life) on our planet in our solar system in our universe. The
> probability as he calculates it is quite small, and therefore, he says that
> this alone MAY be proof of some higher form responsible for at least
> creating the environment from which life was spawned (and from what point of
> life is dependent on your own beliefs - I am not trying to incite a riot
> here).
>
> If I piece this all together to the current OT discussion about the
> possibility of life elsewhere, at least this author found the probability of
> our own existence to be low.
>
> Just thoughts of which I have little to no opinion as of now, just sharing
> from my reading.

Personally I always found that argument a bit lacking :)

Even if life is very rare in the universe (which we are not even sure
anyway), the simple fact that we exist can't be taken as a proof to a
creator; we just exist, therefore it doesn't matter how rare is life
in the universe -- we could be that one odd occurence.

It can sounds counter-intuitive -- after all if there's one chance on
a billion of a billion that we appeared, surely it means "someone"
created us on purpose ? well.. not really.

Imagine a lottery winner: there's an infinitesimal chance that he
wins, yet he did. Could the simple fact that there was such a small
possibility means that somebody decided that he would win ?

Anyway, it's always the same thing with the concept of god -- it's
undecidable, and a matter of faith, not logic. Tough it also depends
on your concept of god : there's a wide difference between "god" as in
"laws of nature" or even "set up the laws of nature and waited" and
"god" as in "angry white bearded old men in the clouds looking at
you".

-- 
Nicolas Roard
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