Re: Reply to Wollysaurus
It is a tad coincidental the Sun is 400 times larger than the moon and 400 times further away, making full solar eclipses possible. That does not happen anywhere else in our solar system. What was most impressive to me were the three discoveries made because of eclipses. If true, it does seem like evidence the Designer arranged for this relationship of Sun and moon so mankind could discover more secrets of the universe.
Taq writes:
It is statements like this that make design theory all but worthless. Is it a tad coincidental? Absolutely, BECAUSE IT IS A CONCIDENCE. Given the millions to one odds of anyone winning the lottery I would guess that you also think God picks the winners. There is never anything connecting the facts with a designer other than the needs of the person based on their already held religious beliefs.
To assume that the way the solar system works is designed for the pleasure of human scientific instruments is just a bizarre level of hubris.
You could apply the same sort of "logic" to all sorts of things. God wanted the British Empire to rule the seas so that one day Darwin would visit some islands and begin to piece together biological evolution. God made that mountain so that whoever lives there would have a better view of the sea. God made the skies clear as they are so that telescopes could begin to piece together the workings of the solar system in the first place. It's just bizarre. Well, not really bizarre, it is grasping at straws.
Even supposing that the earth and solar system here were built for some purpose, this still would not require the "designer" to be the builder of the universe -- just the solar system. Why is God required to be a universal architect? Why is the possibility of an entity operating as part of and within the rules of the universe immediately excluded? I'm guessing that's because such an entity should be detectable and quantifiable, and it is much easier to keep God around if he possesses all the qualities of something which does not exist.
Mind you, I'm not saying there *is* evidence, just that the creationist presupposes that their deity is responsible for life, the universe, and
everything, when often their "evidence" is quite local in nature. They suppose that if they can "prove" that life on earth did not evolve, or that the earth is not as old as it is (among YECs anyway), any other scientific field of study, theory or law that disagrees with their worldview somehow goes *poof*. The more I read these sorts of exchanges, the more creationist arguments appear to be little more than giant leaps in bad logic rooted in presuppositions which cannot be tested, much less falsified.
Edited by Wollysaurus, : No reason given.