Tough question for hardcore atheists

[brettw777]

This is obviously my first post here and really anxious to see how some of you might reply.  First, I am not actually an atheist. Second, I am not a Bible thumping Christian either though I wasted 12 good years of my life doing just that. I definitely do not believe in any man-made religions or their views on God.

I consider myself something of an agnostic but a 100% believer that there is some kind of higher power or force. I really don't have any doubts about that.  Let me get to my question which is only directed at hardcore atheists who are firm in their belief that we and everything came from whatever but not an intelligent being or force. It is not directed to agnostics.

You fly to a faraway planet like Jupiter. You get out of your spaceship and there before you is a brand new Mercedes Benz with a jamming stereo system. How did it get there? The way I see it, you only have two choices:

1. It evolved there from nothing.
2. It was built and put there by an intelligent being or force.

Which one do you believe it is? Now, reverse the location of where you are. Instead of going to Jupiter, you are now going to Earth and you see all that is here. How did it get here?

1. Everything here evolved here from nothing.
2. Everything here was built and put here by an intelligent being or force.

Is there another option I am missing? Your thoughts?

[AllPurposeAtheist]

It was put there by Exxon of course..they want to sell gasoline.
Wow, such a thought provoking question.. I guess I'm a holy roller now. It's completely changed my way of thinking. Hell, I might just become a TV preacher and become fabulously rich because well, that's how the big spooky in the sky works.. Right?

[Mike Cl]

This is obviously my first post here and really anxious to see how some of you might reply.  First, I am not actually an atheist. Second, I am not a Bible thumping Christian either though I wasted 12 good years of my life doing just that. I definitely do not believe in any man-made religions or their views on God.

I consider myself something of an agnostic but a 100% believer that there is some kind of higher power or force. I really don't have any doubts about that.  Let me get to my question which is only directed at hardcore atheists who are firm in their belief that we and everything came from whatever but not an intelligent being or force. It is not directed to agnostics.

You fly to a faraway planet like Jupiter. You get out of your spaceship and there before you is a brand new Mercedes Benz with a jamming stereo system. How did it get there? The way I see it, you only have two choices:

1. It evolved there from nothing.
2. It was built and put there by an intelligent being or force.

Which one do you believe it is? Now, reverse the location of where you are. Instead of going to Jupiter, you are now going to Earth and you see all that is here. How did it get here?

1. Everything here evolved here from nothing.
2. Everything here was built and put here by an intelligent being or force.

Is there another option I am missing? Your thoughts?

You can get the answer to this set-up mock question.  (No, it's not a real question--and I'm not sure you are not a troll.) How get the answer?  Look through all the sections and you will come across one about evolution.  All you need to know is there in all the threads dealing with evolution.  I'm not going to do the work for you. 

[Hydra009]

First, I am not actually an atheist.

From the title I never would have guessed.

I consider myself something of an agnostic but a 100% believer that there is some kind of higher power or force. I really don't have any doubts about that.  Let me get to my question which is only directed at hardcore atheists who are firm in their belief that we and everything came from whatever but not an intelligent being or force. It is not directed to agnostics.

I doubt you have a very firm grasp on the concept of agnosticism.  Agnosticism deals with knowledge, not certainty.  And atheism, which deals with belief, is not necessarily in opposition to that.  In fact, atheism and agnosticism are often paired together.

You fly to a faraway planet like Jupiter. You get out of your spaceship and there before you is a brand new Mercedes Benz with a jamming stereo system. How did it get there? The way I see it, you only have two choices:

1. It evolved there from nothing.
2. It was built and put there by an intelligent being or force.

Which one do you believe it is? Now, reverse the location of where you are. Instead of going to Jupiter, you are now going to Earth and you see all that is here. How did it get here?

1. Everything here evolved here from nothing.
2. Everything here was built and put here by an intelligent being or force.

This is a well-known creationist loaded question - you're not actually asking a question, you're making an assertion and hoping that I'm dumb enough to play your game.

We know for a fact how cars are produced.  We can see them being assembled.  And we can see people devise new car designs.  Life obviously does not operate along those same lines.

Here's what we do know about life:

1) Organisms replicate imperfectly.
2) Organisms are subject to selection pressures - from the environment, from predators, prey, and each other.
3) The gene pool of an interbreeding population shifts from one generation to the next as a result of these pressures.
3) Species have gone extinct and new species develop.

What we can reasonably infer is 1) descent with modification 2) common ancestry.

What we absolutely cannot reasonably infer is some sort of divine entity, let alone one who magicked the species into existence.  In fact, that would contradict the known history of the life on Earth.

Is there another option I am missing?

Of course.

Your thoughts?

Well, someone's got to have 'em.

[brettw777]

You can get the answer to this set-up mock question.  (No, it's not a real question--and I'm not sure you are not a troll.)

ROTFL!  I just cannot believe it! Someone suggests I might be a troll for asking a thought provoking question that no one has attempted to answer. Mark this day down. This is the first time someone has mentioned the word "troll" on the internet. That is a very original thought.

[SGOS]

1. Everything here evolved here from nothing.
2. Everything here was built and put here by an intelligent being or force.

Is there another option I am missing?

Yes, actually all the other things you haven't considered.  Just because you haven't thought of them, doesn't mean they aren't options.  Either/Or is a popular fallacy of theism.  Usually, it takes the form:  "I don't know.  Therefore God."  It's called the argument from ignorance.

On another note, I think your question, specifically it's implications is rather absurd.

[stromboli]

It's a stupid question based on made up premises. And as far as everything coming from nothing, you must first define quantum nothing.

https://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2011/07/how-the-universe-appeared-from-nothing.html

There's no such thing as a free lunch, or so the saying goes, but that may not be true on the grandest, cosmic scale. Many physicists now believe that the universe arose out of nothingness during the Big Bang which means that nothing must have somehow turned into something. How could that be possible?

Due to the weirdness of quantum mechanics, nothing transforms into something all the time. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states that a system can never have precisely zero energy and since energy and mass are equivalent, pairs of particles can form spontaneously as long as they annihilate one another very quickly.

The less energy such a system has, the longer it can stick around. Thanks to gravity â€" the only force that always attracts â€" the net energy balance of the universe may be as close to zero as you can get. This makes its lifespan of almost 14 billion years plausible.

If you take inflation into account, which physicists think caused rapid expansion in the early universe, we begin to see why MIT physicist Alan Guth calls the universe the "ultimate free lunch."

The difference between atheism and theism is theism presupposes reasons based solely on belief. Atheism if happy to admit they don't know all the answers, but bright minded men like Stephen Hawking are atheists and can postulate a universe without a god.

[Mike Cl]

ROTFL!  I just cannot believe it! Someone suggests I might be a troll for asking a thought provoking question that no one has attempted to answer. Mark this day down. This is the first time someone has mentioned the word "troll" on the internet. That is a very original thought.

No one has attempted to answer??????  Do you know how to read?????  And the last three trolls poised the very same 'question'.  Before you run off at the mouth and let your ass override you mouth, read, my friend, read.  Can you???

[stromboli]

They come in waves. Sort of like Locusts or a Cicada hatch. You can answer all your own questions. Its called Google.

[Johan]

ROTFL!  I just cannot believe it! Someone suggests I might be a troll for asking a thought provoking question that no one has attempted to answer.

We have had our fair share of thought provoking questions on this forum. Yours is not one of them. There is absolutely nothing thought provoking about your question. I have known and/or debated with tons of people over the years who did not understand much about how evolution works. But even those people, every single one of them in fact, clearly understood that there is a real and distinct difference between entities that occur in nature, (rocks, dirt, plants, animals etc) and entities that are completely man-made.

IOW no one and I mean no one (besides you perhaps) has ever claimed or even speculated that a car is the product of evolution.

[stromboli]

We have had our fair share of thought provoking questions on this forum. Yours is not one of them. There is absolutely nothing thought provoking about your question. I have known and/or debated with tons of people over the years who did not understand much about how evolution works. But even those people, every single one of them in fact, clearly understood that there is a real and distinct difference between entities that occur in nature, (rocks, dirt, plants, animals etc) and entities that are completely man-made.

IOW no one and I mean no one (besides you perhaps) has ever claimed or even speculated that a car is the product of evolution.

Lol. Iron oxide does not turn into a Chrysler over eons.

[TrueStory]

This is what I call the watch on the beach fallacy, i'm sure it has a more formal name but it comes up often.   In your scenario is Jupiter designed?  How can you tell what is and what is not designed?  What metrics are you using?

[aitm]

The concept of evolution escapes you. Rocks cannot evolve into a Mercedes…..animals cannot evolve into a Mercedes, trees cannot evolve into a Mercedes. So the answer to your question is obvious, if indeed there is a Mercedes on this planet, it as put there by a previous visitor from earth who brought it with them. This is so obvious that I must question your honesty.

[Hakurei Reimu]

This is obviously my first post here and really anxious to see how some of you might reply.  First, I am not actually an atheist. Second, I am not a Bible thumping Christian either though I wasted 12 good years of my life doing just that. I definitely do not believe in any man-made religions or their views on God.

I consider myself something of an agnostic but a 100% believer that there is some kind of higher power or force. I really don't have any doubts about that.  Let me get to my question which is only directed at hardcore atheists who are firm in their belief that we and everything came from whatever but not an intelligent being or force. It is not directed to agnostics.

You fly to a faraway planet like Jupiter. You get out of your spaceship and there before you is a brand new Mercedes Benz with a jamming stereo system. How did it get there? The way I see it, you only have two choices:

1. It evolved there from nothing.
2. It was built and put there by an intelligent being or force.

Which one do you believe it is? Now, reverse the location of where you are. Instead of going to Jupiter, you are now going to Earth and you see all that is here. How did it get here?

1. Everything here evolved here from nothing.
2. Everything here was built and put here by an intelligent being or force.

Is there another option I am missing? Your thoughts?

Finding a Mercedes Benz on Jupiter is a completely different scenario to finding life on Earth. See, a Mercedes Benz is completely ill-suited for transit on Jupiter, not only because Jupiter has no drivable surface, but a car can only operate in an oxidizing atmosphere, and Jupiter has a reducing atmosphere. The Mercedes Benz is obviously made to drive, but it is completely unsuited to the task on Jupiter. Not only that, it cannot reproduce let alone reproduce with variation. No entity with any speck of intelligence would even think to do it. It can only have been put here by a stupid being or force.

On the other hand, the Earth contains countless self-replicating chemical von Neumann machines that are imperfect in their replications such that there are traits that persist to their offspring once coming into existence â€"heiritable variationâ€" and are tuned by environmental attrition. We therefore expect to find that these end-products are quite well adapted to their habitat and lifestyles, even if they are not perfect, and are in fact would be to any trained engineer filled with horrible kludges as well as clever elegancies, as we expect from a natural process governed by those two forces.

Neither scenario implies any intelligence involved. One because its obvious that the beings who tried were completely stupid, and the other because it is the result of two unintelligent forces put into dynamic tension.

[PickelledEggs]

Not sure if you're actually agnostic and just being a poe-agnostic...
Didn't even consider an agnostic version of poes until today. So thanks for that.