Chance as a sole-product of the Universe

Phat writes: The authors of scripture, though derided as "Bronze Age Goatherders", stated some profound assertions regarding life experience and human nature.

There is wisdom that comes with life experience and has nothing to do with any belief system.

Phat writes: I need to get ready for work but will continue forming some sort of arguments regarding certainty vs probability and good being the highest ideal vs chaos and order/disorder yin/yang type of thinking ...

I think you're making a fundamental error in trying to equate Satan with chaos and God with order.

Phat writes: ...which I believe to be one of the social ideas that undermined Christian absolutism.

I don't think it was any external ideas that caused the decline and fall of Christianity. I think it collapsed from its own weight and structural weaknesses.

Here are the basic arguments that support rational secular thinking, regarding RC Sprouls book (and my sig quote)
Review of R. C. Sproul (1994) Not a Chance: The Myth of Chance in Modern Science and Cosmology Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, xiv+235

Phat writes: Here are the basic arguments that support rational secular thinking, regarding RC Sprouls book (and my sig quote)

The review starts out, "This truly dreadful book...."

Which side are we on?

Phat writes: I need certainty and not probability.

And what if certainty doesn't exist?

Would you rather know, for certain, that such certainty is unavailable?
OR
Would you rather fool yourself into believing you "have a certainty" that is, actually, false (because it's known to be unavailable - which means whatever-you-have-isn't-it?) - and then you're incredibly let down when the reality occurs and the falsity is proven to you?

Now move onto our current situation:
What if we don't know if the certainty exists or not?

Would you rather know, for certain, that we are not yet aware of any certainty? And that it's quite possible that none exists? But have a way to identify if any-idea-that-comes-along actually is "for certain" or not?
OR
Would you rather fool yourself into believing you "have a certainty" that is, actually, false (because it's not even known if any certainty is available or not - which means whatever-you-have-isn't-it?) - and then you're incredibly let down when the reality occurs and the falsity is proven to you?

Phat writes: I need certainty and not probability.

For as long as all you have is belief, there is no certainty.

If you want certainty, I can tell you for certain that you have a short time alive and that it's a good idea to be happy while you're here if you can.

The happy afterlife is a very, very, very low probability. A very poor bet Phat.

It's time for intelligent Man to look at the facts now that we are aware of the structure of the Universe.
1. There is no God, but there were Creators.
2. The Creators had a goal to create life.
3. It seems that the Creators could not directly affect the physical world that they
created through Strings.This is why we have poor design.
4.This statistical creation of the Universe creates problems like pediatric cancer, again showing poor design.
5. It seems that the goal of creation was intelligent man. However, due again the the shotgun approach to creation there is a wide rage of intelligence (Gaussian distribution of IQ) in Humans.
6. Now what is the purpose of Man? Probably to create AI. The Creators can then inhabit AI beings and not be exposed to the frailties of poor physical design like cancer.

FLRW writes: It's time for intelligent Man to look at the facts now that we are aware of the structure of the Universe.

Facts are good.

1. There is no God, but there were Creators.

If "there were Creators" is a fact - I'd like to see the evidence for it.

I would call it more of a possibility.
One that may not even have a significant likelihood of being valid.

But - if there is evidence for this "fact" - understanding it would change my mind.

2. The Creators had a goal to create life.

I'm not even agreeing that Creators exist - as I haven't heard of any evidence for them yet.
But now you also know their goal, if they do exist? I would like even more evidence of this, please.

3. It seems that the Creators could not directly affect the physical world that they created through Strings.This is why we have poor design.

From what I know - Strings are not required for us to have poor design.
That is, poor design can be entirely explained by the Theory of Evolution (descent with unguided modification) - the level of Strings doesn't even have to be mentioned.

4.This statistical creation of the Universe creates problems like pediatric cancer, again showing poor design.

Again - things like the poor design of pediatric cancer can be entirely explained using modern medical science - the level of statistical creation doesn't even have to be mentioned.

5. It seems that the goal of creation was intelligent man.

I don't agree with that at all.
Do you have any evidence to support this "fact?"

However, due again the the shotgun approach to creation there is a wide rage of intelligence (Gaussian distribution of IQ) in Humans.

I agree there is a wide range of intelligence in Humans. But I don't see why it must be explained by the shotgun creation approach.
The wide range of intelligence in Humans is, again, entirely explained by the Theory of Evolution (descent with unguided modification) - the level of creation (shotgun or otherwise) doesn't even have to be mentioned.

6. Now what is the purpose of Man? Probably to create AI.

This one I can definitely say is wrong - at least for me, and I am a Man.
My goal is not to create AI.
My goal is to care for and enjoy my family.

Are the rest of your "facts" so easily shown to be misleading?

The Creators can then inhabit AI beings and not be exposed to the frailties of poor physical design like cancer.

If the Creators (granting their existence...) can create a universe with us as inhabitants - why would they need us to create AI beings for them to inhabit? Why couldn't the Creators just create such AI beings and inhabit them on their own? For such a goal - we Humans seem like an entirely unnecessary requirement.

What special ability are we capable of that the Creators are not? Why can we do the special ability but not create universes? Why can Creators create universes, but not do the special ability?

Seems like poor project management.

We already know of the creators.

As far as our knowledge takes us so far there are at least 3 of them. Two of them we’ve identified in extreme detail. There is another one but it is still hiding deeper behind our ignorance. We'll find it.

Right now of the two we've identified, one gave us an operating universe with energy and entropy, the other gave us particle physics and chemistry.

The one creator we know is hidden behind these two known creators will tell us how to unite both of the other two and thus look beyond this spacetime … maybe.

I'm having a moment. Mind blown by the thought of monkeys having figured this stuff out. We be real majik! Curiosity and technology.

Here. Have a banana.

Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

I am saying that strings are the only thing the Creators could directly control. From that all the elements in the Universe could be created. The fact that Man has had such a poor quality of life ( 60 percent of children died before the age of 5 thousands of years ago) shows that the Creators did not care about Man as he was just an intermediate step to some other goal. What could be a product that Man could create that would be of value to the Creators? The only thing I can think of would be AI.

The fact that Man has had such a poor quality of life ( 60 percent of children died before the age of 5 thousands of years ago) shows that the Creators did not care about Man as he was just an intermediate step to some other goal.

or, it means we are just another organism produced by blind mindless evolution in a universe that lacks any capacity to know or care anything whatsoever.

If in fact we (humans) did come from mindless evolution as you call it, can we speculate on what we will eventually evolve into? Will the mind develop from mindlessness to nirvana mindfulness? (In your opinion)

Since the group of mechanisms that we call evolution are not goal oriented or planned, and depend on thousands of disparate data points from environment and genetics, the future course of evolution cannot be determined for a species.

Hot button, here, Phat.

At this point in the history of H. sapiens there is an increasing likelihood that our future evolution involves not having one. Species don't evolve when they are extinct.

Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Will the mind develop from mindlessness to nirvana mindfulness?

There are a few problems with this question. First of all it seems to be a loaded question. One that is voiced in order to cause further dispute. Even the word mindlessness you have manipulated from AZPaul3's statement into something different than how he used it. He called evolution mindless, not mankind or any entity at all that can become mindful. Maybe this is part of the issue you have understanding evolution. It is not a thing.
But the question can not even be addressed at all until you define terms that are used in the question.
What do you mean by nirvana? What do you mean by mindlessness?

The fact that Man has had such a poor quality of life ( 60 percent of children died before the age of 5 thousands of years ago)

Is this a fact? Do you have a source for this data?
I am not disputing that this may be true. What I am saying is that such a specific data point should be reinforced with the actual data if you want to use it in an argument.

If you look at ourworldindata.org you will see as recently as 1800, the health conditions of our ancestors were such that 43% of the world's newborns died before their 5th birthday.