All-Purpose Religion Thread

[regular_john]

Julie - you still don't get it do you? There is no such thing as 'science' where intelligent design is concerned. The reason ID is not taught as a scientific subject, or even an alternative to science, is that it has not fulfilled any of the requirements of a scientific subject.

There is no physical evidence to support ID, there have been no papers on the topic of ID that have passed peer review, ID does not restrict itself to the natural world, ID makes no testable predictions, ID has no explanatory power concerning the nature of...well...nature.

The entire philosophy of ID hinges on the concept of irreducible complexity in nature, i.e. something that could not possibly have been constructed via an evolutionary, stepwise process. To date, there have been NO examples of irreducible complexity found in nature. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Science craves evidence, as an institution it would not reject real evidence of ID if any were ever found as such evidence would completely revolutionise our understanding of pretty much all of science.

So why do scientists continue to reject ID?

Because it has ZERO supporting evidence.

ID is nothing. It is a fanciful fairytale constructed and maintained by those who are too stupid or ignorant to understand evolution, or who are so scared of the truth of evolution that they require the comforting touch of fiction.

But not all Scientists do reject ID.

Dr Alastair Noble wrote an essay on this subject.

Why legislating for evolution is deeply unscientific

The recent clamour from a handful of leading scientists to enshrine the teaching of evolution in schools and to ban creationism and intelligent design (ID) from all classrooms is deeply disturbing. If a scientific theory cannot be sustained on the basis of the available evidence, what message does it send to students when the force of law is required?

Presumably then, if in a biology class, a pupil asks a question about ID, the teacher would have to say that it is illegal to proceed with the question. And at what point does the teacher call the police to deal with any persistent enquirers? Some science that!

If evolution requires the weight of the law, what about atomic theory? Does it need legal protection against, say, quantum theory undermining the particulate nature of matter? Or the Big Bang? Do we need laws to ensure that the steady state theory does not make a comeback? And global warming? Do we need the law to ensure that climate sceptics don’t produce any embarrassing evidence? I cannot believe that British science is so unsure of itself that it has come to this.

The whole proposition of legal enforcement is based on a failure to recognise that all scientific theories are ultimately tentative and may be updated or amended in the light of fresh evidence. The very recent doubts of the CERN scientists about the limiting position of the speed of light is a case in point. No scientific theory needs or should have the compulsion of law. And no programme of science education can afford to rule some questions illegal. That is a complete denial of scientific method and a dreadful example to commend to aspiring science students. If creationism and ID are unscientific, pupils should be allowed to explore the evidence if they wish to see why.

We also need to be careful about the scientific consensus. Science is not done by consensus. Indeed, students should be aware that some crucial scientific discoveries were made by individuals who challenged the consensus. The reality of science is that one individual scientist with sound evidence can trump the consensus.

It is also unforgiveable that leading scientists cannot distinguish between creationism and ID. The former is a religious position and, as such, should be legitimately discussed in Religious Studies. ID is a very different position. It argues that certain features of the natural and living worlds are best explained by an intelligent cause and not by blind, purposeless forces as required by neo-Darwinism.

ID argues from the information content of DNA, the fine tuning of universal constants and forces and the irreducible complexity of many biological systems. It is an exercise in design detection using methods such as inference to the best explanation, as might be employed in the forensic sciences. It does not concern itself with debates about the age of the earth, and its proponents take a range of positions on evolution. Although it has philosophical or religious implications, the theory itself is most certainly not religious and should be debated legitimately within science.

Prof Richard Dawkins himself insists that living systems “give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose”. But he also admits that he does not know how life originated. How can he possibly know, therefore, that the apparent design in nature is not real? He can’t until he finds a credible evolutionary explanation for the obvious programming in DNA. And that’s why ID, which infers design from real scientific data, is worthy of debate.

And there’s another problem with ‘evolution’. It is a very slippery word. If you mean adaptation and change over time through variation and natural selection, it is uncontroversial. If you mean common ancestry and the descent of all living things from a single ancestor, it is debateable. If you mean the generation of new genetic information and body plans by random mutation, it is highly speculative. The idea that ‘evolution’ in all its meanings is beyond any scientific challenge is just plain nonsense. To shut down debate about the strength of the scientific evidence is just about the worst kind of science you can imagine.

Why is there such a flap about the teaching of evolution? My hunch is that it has nothing to do with science at all, but with the promotion of a materialistic and secular worldview. That might explain why the British Humanist Association is leading the charge. Of course everyone is entitled to their own worldview, but suppressing scientific evidence or dissent is not the way to arrive at a reliable one.

I have often wondered how a sophisticated country like 20th-century Germany fell prey to Nazi domination of its national life. I think I can see that once you start legislating for the promotion of one particular theory over another, you suppress debate and start purveying propaganda. Surely not in 21st century Britain which so values free speech and open enquiry? I sincerely hope not.

I emailed him with a question and he had the decency to respond to my email within a few days.

If you are so adamant that there is NO scientific evidence to back up ID and NO peer reviewed papers on ID that have been published then why don't you email him and ask the question as to how he can back up his claims in the above essay?

Or are you going to dismiss him as a "proper scientist" because he like others put forward an alternative viewpoint.

Here's his contact details...Dr Alastair Noble Tel: 0141 331 1607 or email: info@c4id.org.uk

Actually come to think of it perhaps I could if you won't.

Alastair Noble is not a scientist, he has a chemistry degree but has spent most of his life working as a high school science teacher, not as an active scientist. I also have a chemistry degree but would not class myself as a scientist either.

Also, do you realise how many working scientists there are on the planet?

Millions. Millions upon millions. And out of all of those working scientists, you had to dig up nonsense by a high school teacher to find something written to support your point.

ID is banned from the science classroom for the same reason Alchemy, Astrology and Flat Earth Theory are - because it's utter gibberish.

[limpid]

I googled the subject & that particular article came up by Richard Deem. I wasn't particularly bothered who had written it... I merely wanted to show someone else's viewpoint on matters that Moses use of Yom in Genesis didn't mean 24hour creative day necessarily.

You really don't have any answers of your own do you?

I actually don't agree with his assumption that The first creative Day of Genesis included where God created the Universe & the Earth as I've explained previously. The very first Scripture that Moses wrote said "In the beginning God created the heaven & the Earth".....which could have ALREADY been billions of years old.

So why did you use his bogus "proof" to back up your argument? We don't have anything that was written by Moses. Not one scrap. You cannot prove that Moses wrote that and even if you could, all that makes Moses is an author just like any other author. Authors write what their paymasters pay them to write.

The first creative Day or period started surely when God turned his attention to the creation on the Earth that was at that time a vrgin planet....

What is a "virgin planet"? When were the other thousands of planets created? Where is the second "light" in the sky (Ge 1:16)? The moon isn't a light. In Ge 1:9 "And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so.", so where is this single body of water? Or is this a special use of the word "one" meaning "many"?

I used his reasonings to demonstrate that there are many who beleive in God and the Creation account... but that doesn't mean that they necessarily are Creationists who beleive that God made the Earth & all life on it.... in 6 literal 24 hours time periods...

Hopefully what I've tried to reason from Genesis is that if you examine the writings of Moses and reason with it in context to the Bible as a whole, then it is completely unreasonable to teach anyone that the Bible states that God made the Earth in 6 literal 24 hour days.

I can't examine the writings of Moses, no-one can. Even if I accept that he wrote Genesis, I still don't understand how things written by other, unrelated authors from different social groups and time periods could provide a single context, other than that intended by the later editors.

If the bible is the word of god, why did god stop talking to biblical editors after Constantine convened the council of Nicea? Was it because this was when it was decided the mythical Jesus was divine, 300 years after his death? What about the gospels which were discarded? How do you know the sixth and seventh books of Moses weren't real?

I don't trust facts from the bible any more than facts from Harry Potter. That isn't to say that there aren't facts in both. Kings Cross station definitely exists. I've seen it.

Surely THAT beleif is what tends to give skeptics the right to feel they can call anyone who beleives it a "nutjob".

Why have you brought the word "nutjob" into our discussion?

snipped TL;DR cut and paste which when challenged you'll probably decide you don't agree with anyway.

[Chindie]

If it was so obvious that design was evident in life, you'd think that the people who really look at this stuff, the millions of biologists (particularly those looking at cell biology and evolutionary biology), and a considerable number of card carrying chemists, and probably throw in a few physicists too, would all be clogging up the churches mosques synagogues gurdwaras and standing stone monuments the world over.

Funnily enough... they aren't.

...Any ideas why? I'm at a loss.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Lies, damned lies, and religion.

[Sie]

But not all Scientists do reject ID.

Yes they do. Any one who does not is a quack with an agenda.

[JulieB]

Alastair Noble is not a scientist, he has a chemistry degree but has spent most of his life working as a high school science teacher, not as an active scientist. I also have a chemistry degree but would not class myself as a scientist either.

Also, do you realise how many working scientists there are on the planet?

Millions. Millions upon millions. And out of all of those working scientists, you had to dig up nonsense by a high school teacher to find something written to support your point.

ID is banned from the science classroom for the same reason Alchemy, Astrology and Flat Earth Theory are - because it's utter gibberish.

That's simply not true.

Linky

In the recent state legislative battle over the repeal of the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), Zack Kopplin, the high school student who was leading the charge, produced a list of dozens of Nobel Prize-winning science laureates who endorsed repeal of the LSEA — a law allowing "supplemental materials" to be introduced into public high school biology classes.

Dr Francis Collins - Nobel Prize winner awarded for his work on the genetic code recently spoke about his faith on CNN

These Scientists below collaborated together on both sides of the argument to write a book called Explore Evolution - are you trying to say

that only the ones who agree with Neo-Darwinism are allowed to be called proper scientists?!!!

Explore Evolution The arguments for and against Neo-Darwinism

Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology, the logical structure of Darwin's argument and the methodology of the historical sciences. He also holds degrees in Physics and Geology. He is currently the Director and Senior Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle. Previously he worked as a professor at Whitworth College and a geophysicist with the Atlantic Richfield Company. He has co-authored or edited two other books: Darwinism, Design, and Public Education (Michigan State University Press) and Science and Evidence of Design in the Universe. He has authored articles in scientific journals such as the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington and Trends in Ecology and Evolution and in scientific books published with Cambridge University Press and Wessex Institute of Technology Press. He has also written many editorials on scientific topics for publications such as USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times.

Scott Minnich holds a Ph.D. from Iowa State University. He is currently associate professor of microbiology at the University of Idaho. Previously, Dr. Minnich was an assistant professor at Tulane University. In addition, he did postdoctoral research with Austin Newton at Princeton University and with Arthur Aronson at Purdue University. Dr. Minnich's research interests are temperature regulation of Y. enterocolitca gene expression and coordinate reciprocal expression of flagellar and virulence genes. Scott Minnich is widely published in technical journals including Journal of Bacteriology, Molecular Microbiology, Journal of Molecular Biology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Microbiological Method, Food Technology, and the Journal of Food Protection.

Paul A. Nelson is a philosopher of science who received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1998), where he specialized in the philosophy of biology and evolutionary theory. His dissertation, “Common Descent, Generative Entrenchment, and the Epistemology of Evolutionary Inference,” critically evaluates the theory of common descent. He is currently a Fellow of the Discovery Institute, an Adjunct Professor at Biola University, and a member of the Society for Developmental Biology and the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology. He has published articles in such journals as Biology & Philosophy, Zygon, and Rhetoric and Public Affairs, and scientific and philosophical papers in technical anthologies from MIT Press and Michigan State University Press.

Ralph Seelke received his undergraduate education at Clemson University (BS, Microbiology, 1973). He received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine in 1981, was a postdoctoral researcher at the Mayo Clinic until 1983, and has been an Associate Professor or Professor in the Department of Biology and Earth Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Superior since 1989. Dr. Seelke's research in experimental evolution has been well-regarded, and in 2004 he was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Stanford University Medical School, conducting research to further our understanding of evolution. An authority on evolution's capabilities and limitations in producing new functions in bacteria, he has co-author eight publications in such journals as Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Journal of Bacteriology, and Molecular and General Genetics. Prof. Seelke is a member of the American Society for Microbiology.

More academics & scientists coming out & putting forward the case for ID & questioning Neo-Darwinism:-

Prominent academics and scientists who have gone on record as subscribing to the idea of "an Intelligent Designer" include Phillip E. Johnson, who teaches law at the University of California, Berkeley; biochemist Michael J. Behe, author of the book Darwin's Black Box—The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution; mathematician William A. Dembski; philosopher of logic Alvin Plantinga; physicists John Polkinghorne and Freeman Dyson; astronomer Allan Sandage; and others too numerous to list.

Aerospace engineer Luther D. Sutherland wrote in his book Darwin's Enigma: "The scientific evidence shows that whenever any basically different type of life first appeared on Earth, all the way from single-celled protozoa to man, it was complete and its organs and structures were complete and fully functional. The inescapable deduction to be drawn from this fact is that there was some sort of pre-existing intelligence before life first appeared on Earth."

[JulieB]

But not all Scientists do reject ID.

Yes they do. Any one who does not is a quack with an agenda.

Author and former professor of nuclear physics Dr. Gerald Schroeder compares the likelihood of mere chance being the cause behind the universe and life to the odds of winning the lottery three times in a row: "Before you collect your third winnings, you will be on your way to jail for having rigged the results. The probability of winning three in a row, or three in a lifetime, is so small as to be negligible.

It's a ridiculous argument saying that someone must be a quack because he/she doesn't agree with your viewpoint.

It's like me saying because I didn't like a certain teacher at school - because he/she was a horrible person in my eyes and he/she made my life hell - everything he/she taught me at school, every book he/she recommended I read, every piece of homework was all a load of tosh, none of it could possibly be true.

What's more it's classic Bulverism. From Wiki:

Bulverism is a logical fallacy in which, rather than proving that an argument in favour of an opinion is wrong, a person instead assumes that the opinion is wrong, and then goes on to explain why the other person held it. It is essentially a circumstantial ad hominem argument. The term "Bulverism" was coined by C. S. Lewis

[JulieB]

Simon you tried to state that everyone who beleives in the Bible and Creation MUST beleive that the Earth and the Universe is only 6,000 or so years old.

You also argued that the Hebrew Yom can mean only a day of 24 hours.

I tried to reason that actually that's wrong.

Not everyone is a Creationist. I don't think you knew there was a difference.

Now you're changing the discussion and saying you don't beleive the Bible etc etc & bringing in the Council of Nicae.

Constantine was about as Christian as Hitler - he bought in pagan beleifs which had nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus and twisted the Christian faith for his own ends. The Roman Church was about power and domination.

No wonder the Church of Rome fought so hard and killed, terrorised thousands of people across Europe during the Inquisitions to fight to keep the Bible from being translated into the common languages of the day.

Why?....Because they wanted to keep it's words in a language that only the priests could understand and not let people be able to read it and work matters out for themselves.

[Sie]

But not all Scientists do reject ID.

Yes they do. Any one who does not is a quack with an agenda.

Author and former professor of nuclear physics Dr. Gerald Schroeder compares the likelihood of mere chance being the cause behind the universe and life to the odds of winning the lottery three times in a row: "Before you collect your third winnings, you will be on your way to jail for having rigged the results. The probability of winning three in a row, or three in a lifetime, is so small as to be negligible.

It's a ridiculous argument saying that someone must be a quack because he/she doesn't agree with your viewpoint.

It's like me saying because I didn't like a certain teacher at school - because he/she was a horrible person in my eyes and he/she made my life hell - everything he/she taught me at school, every book he/she recommended I read, every piece of homework was all a load of tosh, none of it could possibly be true.

Julie in ridiculous argument shocker. News at 11.

Dr. Gerald Schroeder....oh look, he's a god damned ORTHODOX JEW. My point proven. Thank you.

You incredulity beggars belief Julie and you're completely blind to it. It's not about my viewpoint, its about the scientific community's viewpoint. How many names do you think would be on this page if we could list every scientist in the world who dismissed ID because it doesn't hold water?

[Chindie]

Author and former professor of nuclear physics Dr. Gerald Schroeder compares the likelihood of mere chance being the cause behind the universe and life to the odds of winning the lottery three times in a row: "Before you collect your third winnings, you will be on your way to jail for having rigged the results. The probability of winning three in a row, or three in a lifetime, is so small as to be negligible.

It's a ridiculous argument saying that someone must be a quack because he/she doesn't agree with your viewpoint.

It's like me saying because I didn't like a certain teacher at school - because he/she was a horrible person in my eyes and he/she made my life hell - everything he/she taught me at school, every book he/she recommended I read, every piece of homework was all a load of tosh, none of it could possibly be true.

Time to waste some time.

Your quote from Mr Schroeder there. It's quite meaningless. The likelihood of chance bringing about the universe and subsequently life occuring might have a probability similar to winning the lottery a million times in a row - it doesn't matter. Consider that by current understanding the universe to our knowledge is billions of years old - thats a quite unfathomable length of time, its a length of time so large that we struggle to comprehend just quite how big that is. Now, consider that that is simply how long we believe it has taken the universe to get from big bang, to now. In that length of time, life arose. It's rather a long time for chance to pay out.

Now considering we also to bear in mind what happened for chance to make the universe itself arise. Who knows how long things were waiting around before the Big Bang, who knows how long that singularity that caused it was waiting for chance to hit the jackpot?

But more than that... the chance is meaningless. Even if the chance was trillions to the power of Grahams number of all it happening, and the length time for it to happen was so unutterably tiny that it was insignificant, so small a length of time that the blink of an eye would seem an eternity, it wouldn't matter.

Because you're sat on the result of the chance happening. The chance, the luck, the fluke of it happening... isn't the point. It did happen.

[TheDon]

Author and former professor of nuclear physics Dr. Gerald Schroeder compares the likelihood of mere chance being the cause behind the universe and life to the odds of winning the lottery three times in a row: "Before you collect your third winnings, you will be on your way to jail for having rigged the results. The probability of winning three in a row, or three in a lifetime, is so small as to be negligible.

You really don't understand anything do you? (And neither does Schroeder if he's used that argument).

Guess what, it doesn't matter how small the chance, we're only here to be able to comment on it because it happened. We have a biased sample size.

It's like sitting outside lottery HQ claims department and asking people who come out if they play the lottery, and if they've ever won. If you did that you'd come to the conclusion that everyone who plays the lottery wins the lottery.

It doesn't matter how small the chance is, it's still a chance, and there's countless worlds out there, trillions of trillions of planets. That's a hell of a lot of lottery tickets. When there's that many tickets being bought, and the only people who ever get asked the question are those that win, of course it looks like it wasn't down to random chance alone.

[JulieB]

You incredulity beggars belief Julie and you're completely blind to it. It's not about my viewpoint, its about the scientific community's viewpoint. How many names do you think would be on this page if we could list every scientist in the world who dismissed ID because it doesn't hold water?

It doesn't matter WHAT anyone IS. What's important is WHAT they are saying!!

I don't care how many scientists agree or disagree with Dawkins or New Darwinsim. In a survey done in the US in 1997 4 out of 10 scientists admitted they beleived in a personal God. That was roughly the same since the survey was carried out in 1904.

According to an article in the Guardian many scientists in a more secular Europe feel so pressured into not supporting ID or a beleif in God that they keep private their opinions.

In complaining that Schroeder is a Jew - you are expressing classic Bulverism which is a logical fallacy in which, rather than proving that an argument in favour of an opinion is wrong, a person instead assumes that the opinion is wrong, and then goes on to explain why the other person held it.

Scientists like Noble & Meyer were so outraged by the amount of mis-information that was being banded about about ID and what was being proposed by anti - theists like Dawkins - that they stood up and mad themselves heard last September and started the website C4ID.

That site would then give scientists the chance to voice both sides of the arguments - WITHOUT religion playing any part of it.

[Brumerican]

Author and former professor of nuclear physics Dr. Gerald Schroeder compares the likelihood of mere chance being the cause behind the universe and life to the odds of winning the lottery three times in a row: "Before you collect your third winnings, you will be on your way to jail for having rigged the results. The probability of winning three in a row, or three in a lifetime, is so small as to be negligible.

If there are an infinite amount of universes and if time is infinite then the improbable becomes the inevitable.

Monkeys.

Typewriters.

Shakespeare.

What are the odds of an omnipotent deity just springinging in to existence out of nowhere ??

Hypocrisy prevails yet again .

[Brumerican]

I don't care how many scientists agree or disagree with Dawkins or New Darwinsim.

Previous posts would suggest otherwise.

Bearing false witness is a big no no :winkold:

[limpid]

Simon you tried to state that everyone who beleives in the Bible and Creation MUST beleive that the Earth and the Universe is only 6,000 or so years old.

Actually I said that I thought you'd said it previously but I wasn't sure. I even asked you how old you thought it was and you confirmed that you didn't know. I had to ask as you quote so much from other people that I don't actually know what your own opinion is.

You also argued that the Hebrew Yom can mean only a day of 24 hours.

Yes, in the context of how it is used in Genesis, that is correct.

I tried to reason that actually that's wrong.

You employed circular logic and asked me to accept the whole of the bible has a single context. Both of which are bogus.

Not everyone is a Creationist. I don't think you knew there was a difference.

I assume you mean a difference between creationism and intelligent design? In that case it is not possible to have a difference between one thing.

Now you're changing the discussion and saying you don't beleive the Bible etc etc & bringing in the Council of Nicae.

I can't be bothered to look back, but I think you started this discussion by saying there wasn't a single example of order out of chaos. I don't think I changed the subject. You cite the bible as evidence, I am explaining why I do not accept it as evidence.

Constantine was about as Christian as Hitler - he bought in pagan beleifs which had nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus and twisted the Christian faith for his own ends. The Roman Church was about power and domination.

Hitler was a confirmed Catholic, born to Catholic parents, one of whom was practising, the other not. Constantine converted to Christianity, much as you yourself when you became a JW. To say he was not a christian as to say that you similarly are not. All religion is about power and domination, or exploitation and subjugation.

No wonder the Church of Rome fought so hard and killed, terrorised thousands of people across Europe during the Inquisitions to fight to keep the Bible from being translated into the common languages of the day.

Why?....Because they wanted to keep it's words in a language that only the priests could understand and not let people be able to read it and work matters out for themselves.

They didn't want the bible translated because they knew that it was just a set of stories, much edited and full of inconsistency and contradiction.

Excuse my ignorance, but when did the JW version of the bible diverge from the council of Nicea's bible, or if you prefer, from the church of Rome's bible?

[JulieB]

Guess what, it doesn't matter how small the chance, we're only here to be able to comment on it because it happened. We have a biased sample size.

Of course it does. When something goes beyond the probability of what's considered a NIL probability in every other sphere of mathematics or science, then people have every right to scratch their heads and say... "hold on a minute...just because we're talking about the origin of life and the origin of the building blocks of life, doesn't mean we can throw those fundamental principles out of the window"

That's just one of a number of arguments made in the book and the lecture

As I said... Monkeys, Typewriters - Shakespeare and billions of years might have been Dawkins argument - but the only way he could demonstrate

it working was IF he inputted the answer into the programme.

That took INFORMATION ....................... INTELLIGENCE

[bickster]

Julie can you find just one scientist who has no religious agenda that believes in ID and/or Creation?

I'll wager there are plenty of scientists out there who are religious but don't believe in either but not many (if any at all) that are without religion but believe in ID and Creation?

[snowychap]

Of course it does. When something goes beyond the probability of what's considered a NIL probability in every other sphere of mathematics or science

then people have every right to scratch their heads and say... "hold on a minute...just because we're talking about the origin of life and the origin of the building blocks of life, doesn't mean we can throw those fundamental principles out of the window"

What 'fundamental principles'?

What probability (other than 0) is considered a nil probability and by whom?

[JulieB]

Julie can you find just one scientist who has no religious agenda that believes in ID and/or Creation?

I'll wager there are plenty of scientists out there who are religious but don't believe in either but not many (if any at all) that are without religion but believe in ID and Creation?

Anthony Flew considered the father of Atheism in the end publically rejected it because of the discoveries that were being made in his twilight years.

However he also publically refused to believe in a God. He had no agenda, far from it. Yet even he came to the conclusion there must have been

some form of intelligence behind the Universe. He died without knowledge of being able to describe who or what that intelligence was.

[JulieB]

Of course it does. When something goes beyond the probability of what's considered a NIL probability in every other sphere of mathematics or science

then people have every right to scratch their heads and say... "hold on a minute...just because we're talking about the origin of life and the origin of the building blocks of life, doesn't mean we can throw those fundamental principles out of the window"

What 'fundamental principles'?

What probability (other than 0) is considered a nil probability and by whom?

The probability that the building blocks of life came about when examined on a molecular level.

In otherwords IIRC the chains of amino acids being able to form in the right order, in the right conditions to form self replicating DNA, just by chance.

If you watch the video as I did last year, then it explains matters far better than I can.