S
SlitheryDee
Originally posted by: irishScott
No it's not, because the odds of it being that way are 50/50. What are the odds that a Universe such as ours arose randomly?
Let me rephrase a part of what I said:
Imagine a Universe without laws. You said it would simply be a different Universe. No sh!t. One with complete chaos or nothing. If there's some 3rd possibility I'm all ears.
In truth the odds of a universe forming in exactly the right way to produce us would probably be spectacularly against. What you're missing here is that that doesn't really matter to us. The anthropic principle actually takes care of the dilemma quite neatly.
Lets assume that the laws of physics, which are undeniably well tuned to support our existence, were free to vary slightly from universe to universe. This isn't really a good assumption mind you. It's possible that the the laws of physics depend on each other in such a way that they are not free to vary in any universe, but lets assume anyway. It is theorized by some that there may be an infinite number of universes overlapping each other or sitting side-by-side or some other equally 3 dimensional misrepresentation of their relationship. In any case each of these universes have, as we assumed, slightly different laws of physics, so that the vast majority of them are unsuitable for life.
The fact remains that some of them ARE suitable for life. Furthermore, one of those universes is the one where we could and DID develop, and now sit here at our computers debating it. The fact of our statistical improbability only makes us a minority in the infinitude of the multiverse. It does not rule out the possibility of our universe's formation without the help of a deity.
Now this is all pretty far-fetched speculation on my part, but it is a perfectly workable scenario that needs no god to explain how "lucky" we are that the universe works as well as it does. As such it deserves every bit as much consideration as your assertion that everything that you perceive to be "ordered" must have been "put in order" by a deity.
I don't really understand the notion that regresses such as universal laws which depend on other laws which depend on still other laws MUST necessarily terminate with a god. That's like assuming that there is a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow simply because you can't think of anything else that ought to be there, and cannot consider the possibility that there is nothing there at all.
Edited for clarity.