Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

This makes no sense, you are back to claiming that a cause can be its own cause. There is not a parallel stream of cause and effect running within individuals that is separate and distinct from the wider concept of cause and effect. As individuals we engage and interact with the wider world, all our deliberations and choices are made within that wider context. Someone generating his own internal stream of cause and effect would be acting randomly as far as the rest of the world is concerned.  The choices we make have to relate to the conditions requiring us to make a choice.

You are still stuck in thinking in terms of the mechanistic, time related cause and effect scenario we observe in the behaviour of material entities.  But there is more to reality.  Trying to shoe horn our humanity to fit in with our limited knowledge of material behaviour will inevitably lead you to false conclusions which do not match reality.  I do not profess to know how the human mind works, but I do know that our conscious awareness and associated freedom will never be explained within the limitations of physically determined material entities.  So I look to the divine revelations of scripture which allow us to see ourselves as we really are - God's creation as spiritual beings with our own creative power of free will.

[torridon]

No.
We are not free from determinism.
We are free from PHYSICALLY controlled chains of inevitable cause and effect over which we can have no control, because the laws of PHYSICS are in control.
Our thoughts, words and actions are DETERMINED by the conscious will of the human soul. (The soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture).
Nothing at all to do with random events.
How anyone can possibly believe that all our posts can be generated solely by inevitable consequences to PHYSICALLY controlled chains of reactions is totally beyond my comprehension. 

The principle of cause and effect is a principle of logic which is not exclusive to 'physical' things. When I do things, I do them for a reason. Is a 'reason' a 'physical' thing ? If I book a holiday to Scarborough this year because I have fond memories of my last trip there, is that memory a 'physical' thing ?  This whole physical thing is just one more distraction clouding your thinking, it is an irrelevance.

[torridon]

You are still stuck in thinking in terms of the mechanistic, time related cause and effect scenario we observe in the behaviour of material entities.  But there is more to reality.  Trying to shoe horn our humanity to fit in with our limited knowledge of material behaviour will inevitably lead you to false conclusions which do not match reality.  I do not profess to know how the human mind works, but I do know that our conscious awareness and associated freedom will never be explained within the limitations of physically determined material entities.  So I look to the divine revelations of scripture which allow us to see ourselves as we really are - God's creation as spiritual beings with our own creative power of free will.

Well that partly explains how you can be going so wrong.  You are only compounding your confusion by looking to ancient scriptures to explain things that you cannot figure out for yourself from first principles.  People in ancient times lacked our modern understandings and that is manifest in their simplistic anthropocentric belief systems. What you are lacking is clear headed logic that respects observation, and looking to the Bible for improvement in that respect is really not the way to go.

[Outrider]

No.
We are not free from determinism.
We are free from PHYSICALLY controlled chains of inevitable cause and effect over which we can have no control, because the laws of PHYSICS are in control.
Our thoughts, words and actions are DETERMINED by the conscious will of the human soul. (The soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture).
Nothing at all to do with random events.
How anyone can possibly believe that all our posts can be generated solely by inevitable consequences to PHYSICALLY controlled chains of reactions is totally beyond my comprehension. 

I believe that we are purely physical responses to previous events because that's what I see in the evidence, but regardless it doesn't matter whether you think this is limited to the physical or if you choose to invoke 'soul' or 'spirit' or some other ephemeral component of a person.

That element is either responding to prior events, or it is random.  It may be an accumulation of many individual actions, but each of those is either the result of prior activity, or it's random.  If you want to posit something in consciousness that is neither entirely determined by previous events, nor entirely random, nor an aggregate of individual actions which fall into those categories, you need to establish what the logic of that process is, because there doesn't seem to be a space for it.

Whatever the smallest activity within the processes of conciousness are, whether they are physical or spiritual, if you don't want them to be determinism and you don't want them to be random, what's left?

O.

[Stranger]

No.
We are not free from determinism.

Then we couldn't have done differently. That's what determinism means - as I've explained with multiple references many times before, see, for example, #32591 and #32601. Are you too stupid to learn what the words mean or too dishonest to stop repeating falsehoods?

We are free from PHYSICALLY controlled chains of inevitable cause and effect over which we can have no control, because the laws of PHYSICS are in control.

Again, as I explained in #40759, the argument applies to anything that changes its state over time, as any choice-making entity must and our thoughts and choices obviously do. No matter how often you repeat the nonsense about the laws of physics, they are still totally irrelevant. And as I also pointed out, unless you are claiming to be omniscient about physics, if your version of free will could be made to make logical sense, then you couldn't rule out a physical explanation.

What's the point of just repeating this nonsense without any reference to the answers you've already had? Do you have memory problems? Are you so dimwitted that you think endless repetition will make the previous answers go away?

Our thoughts, words and actions are DETERMINED by the conscious will of the human soul. (The soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture).

Which is an utterly pointless and idiotic statement. You are once again trying to substitute a 'how' question with a 'what' answer. It doesn't matter what determines our choices, it's how they are determined - which means they are either fully deterministic (we couldn't have done differently) or they involve randomness.

How anyone can possibly believe that all our posts can be generated solely by inevitable consequences to PHYSICALLY controlled chains of reactions is totally beyond my comprehension. 

Then who took your MENSA test?

"The Present" is simply defined as where my conscious awareness exists and acts.

Which makes the concept both meaningless and circular. You've made up the idea of "the present" in the hope that it gets you out of the logical contradiction you've created for yourself and then tried to define it as the thing that gets you out of the logical contradiction.

Are you even being serious? Do you seriously think anybody with a few functioning neurons is going to be fooled by this nonsense?

It can't be defined in PHYSICAL terms, because it is defined by the SPIRITUAL entity of our human soul.

Gibberish.

[Stranger]

Trying to shoe horn our humanity to fit in with our limited knowledge of material behaviour will inevitably lead you to false conclusions which do not match reality.

You have yet to point out a single solitary way in which reality contradicts the conclusions of evidence and logic - just endless fallacies and baseless assertions.

You said you had sound logic - yet, after all this time, you still haven't posted anything that even looks like a sound logical argument.

[ekim]

You are still stuck in thinking in terms of the mechanistic, time related cause and effect scenario we observe in the behaviour of material entities.  But there is more to reality.  Trying to shoe horn our humanity to fit in with our limited knowledge of material behaviour will inevitably lead you to false conclusions which do not match reality.  I do not profess to know how the human mind works, but I do know that our conscious awareness and associated freedom will never be explained within the limitations of physically determined material entities.  So I look to the divine revelations of scripture which allow us to see ourselves as we really are - God's creation as spiritual beings with our own creative power of free will.

I think it is you who are stuck with the notion that others are thinking 'in terms of the mechanistic, time related cause and effect scenario we observe in the behaviour of material entities' as it is an allegation you frequently use.  What others are doing is questioning your idea of 'freedom' which has the appearance of 'absolute freedom' and your frequent switch between free will and free choice as if they are the same.  'Will' is generally associated with an intention to act or not act and which is generally associated with the desire for certain consequences and as such it is not free but is attached to the desire.  The ability to choose is basically what intelligence is and all creatures that have intelligence have the ability to choose between a variety of scenarios.  It could be seen as a relative freedom rather than absolute e.g. you could be free to choose between an act of revenge or an act of mercy but such a choice would still have its attachments to the past. 
As regards your religion, what Jesus is said to have demonstrated, by his anticipation of his fate, is the surrender of the above, which is basically self will, to his God's Will.  He gave up 'willfulness' for 'willingness' and 'choice' for 'choicelessness'.  He may have freed himself from self will but united himself with his God's Will.

[SusanDoris]

AB

Being a person of incurable optimism and one who always looks for a chink of brightness in the gloom of all your drivel when all your posts are drivel,  etc etc, the only thing I can think of is that while you are here talking your drivel, you are not talking to any people such as children who might be tempted to believe even the tiniest scrap of it. Also, if browsers are following this thread, they are seeing how the rational, intelligent responses, vastly outweigh yours and show up all the drivel clearly!

[Stranger]

No.
We are not free from determinism.
We are free from PHYSICALLY controlled chains of inevitable cause and effect over which we can have no control, because the laws of PHYSICS are in control.
Our thoughts, words and actions are DETERMINED by the conscious will of the human soul. (The soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture).
Nothing at all to do with random events.
How anyone can possibly believe that all our posts can be generated solely by inevitable consequences to PHYSICALLY controlled chains of reactions is totally beyond my comprehension. 

You have my detailed response in #41429 but seriously, every single 'point' you've made here has been dealt with dozens of times before. It's normal, even for the most dimwitted and clueless literal creationists, to be able to at least attempt some sort of to and fro exchange. With you, if you take any notice at all of the answers you get, which is very rare, it lasts for a few posts and then you're back to the same mindless repetition.

It's literally (and ironically) like talking to a one of those annoying help bots you get on the phone or online sometimes that simply cannot comprehend things it hasn't been pre-programmed to respond to and just resets itself whenever it has no answers.

Why do you simply refuse to even try understand logic, reasoning, and keep falling into obvious fallacies? When people point out fallacies, why do you never, ever explain why you think the accusation doesn't apply? Why won't you even attempt to deal with counterarguments before just repeating the same phrases over and over again?

I've lost count of how many times I, and others, have had to explain to you what "determinism" and "deterministic" means or how many times it's been explained why the laws of physics are irrelevant. Yet, here you are again, not responding to the answers you've had, but just repeating the same things, in pretty much the same words, all over again.

How about at least trying to respond to the answers you've had?

Why do you keep 'forgetting' what determinism and deterministic mean?

In what way do you think physics has anything to do with the argument about determinism (#40759) - apart from the necessity of a time dimension (not even necessarily the one of the physical world) in order to make any sort of choice?

It's been pointed out multiple times that "the present" has no logically significant meaning and the only way you've tried to define it is circular. If you think a choice can be made without any time dimension, then how? In what way can a mind change (from not having decided to having made a choice) without any time dimension?

How about explaining how you can know that something that is logically possible, cannot possibly have a physical explanation, without claiming to know everything about the physical universe?

You've claimed so often that you have sound logic but you've never even attempted a credible logical deduction. Why not at least try? What are your premises? What are the logical steps to the conclusion? If you don't understand how to do that, I've given you a link to a full book on the subject several times now (Critical Thinking), what is so wrong with learning something new, especially if it would help your cause?

[Spud]

This just shows you haven't grasped Adam's puddle analogy.  It is absurd to imagine that some supernatural being has contrived this planet in such a stellar orbit such that H²O can exists in all three states of matter. You might as well claim that each an every hole in the world was also exactly calibrated by this being such that the volume of rainwater in it would exactly match the capacity of the hole.  Baffling.

I did grasp the analogy, and yes, if the position of the orbit was 'just right' but that was all, then it would be silly to claim that it had been designed. What I'm saying is there are loads of things that are just right. That points towards deliberate design. The position of the sun in the galaxy and its near circular orbit around the centre; the type of star it is; the mass of the earth; the moon: essential for stability of axis of rotation of earth - how many planets orbiting other stars have collided (assuming that's how it formed) to produce an earth-moon system like ours? There are other factors, such as the proportion of nitrogen, oxygen and CO2 in the atmosphere. Coincidence?

https://strangenotions.com/why-our-unique-solar-system-points-to-god/

[bluehillside Retd.]

Spud,

I did grasp the analogy, and yes, if the position of the orbit was 'just right' but that was all, then it would be silly to claim that it had been designed. What I'm saying is there are loads of things that are just right. That points towards deliberate design. The position of the sun in the galaxy and its near circular orbit around the centre; the type of star it is; the mass of the earth; the moon: essential for stability of axis of rotation of earth - how many planets orbiting other stars have collided (assuming that's how it formed) to produce an earth-moon system like ours? There are other factors, such as the proportion of nitrogen, oxygen and CO2 in the atmosphere. Coincidence?

https://strangenotions.com/why-our-unique-solar-system-points-to-god/

Your post betrays the fact that you haven’t understood the puddle analogy at all. The point it makes is that it’s a mistake to assume all the circumstances necessary for your existence must have been designed that way so you can exist.

Consider a standard deck of 52 playing cards. When shuffled randomly, do you know how many possible ways they could be dealt as a 52-card hand? I’ll tell you – the number is called “52 factorial”, written as “52!”. And do you know how big 52! is? It’s colossal – there are more ways to deal a deck of cards than there are atoms in our planet, and if the deck was dealt once per second the heat death of the universe would occur long before an identical hand would be likely to repeat. Almost certainly no same 52-card hand has in other words ever been dealt twice, and nor is it likely to be.

You will agree I think that the chances of any specific 52-card hand being dealt are therefore incredibly low, certainly comparable with all the parameters for life you refer to as having to be just so.

Now imagine that you are a 52 card hand of cards. Would you be entitled to marvel at the fantastically unlikely fact of your existence and conclude therefore “God” rather than just chance?

You wouldn’t would you. And do you know why not? Because the pack of cards neither knew nor cared what hand it would produce. Read that sentence a few times and let it sink in…

… no matter how many “co-incidences” are necessary for your existence – ten, ten million or ten trillion – it makes no difference whatsoever to the problem with your reasoning. It only “works” if you can establish first a universe that knew or cared that it would produce you specifically rather than other types of life, or no life at all.

The mistake you’re making here has various names – the lottery winner’s fallacy, the reference point error etc – but essentially it’s the same circular reasoning. It starts with the premise of a god who had you as his plan all along, marvels and the unlikeliness of everything necessary for “you” happening by co-incidence, and concludes therefore that god must have made it so.

That’s why the site you linked to is so stupid: not because it’s factually wrong necessarily, but because it relies on fundamentally bad thinking to make its argument.

I realise this is a paradigm shift from the way you think just now, but that’s no reason base you beliefs at least in part on such wrongheadedness.

[Outrider]

I did grasp the analogy, and yes, if the position of the orbit was 'just right' but that was all, then it would be silly to claim that it had been designed. What I'm saying is there are loads of things that are just right. That points towards deliberate design.

It could point to design, but let's look at the statistics.

The position of the sun in the galaxy and its near circular orbit around the centre; the type of star it is; the mass of the earth; the moon: essential for stability of axis of rotation of earth - how many planets orbiting other stars have collided (assuming that's how it formed) to produce an earth-moon system like ours? There are other factors, such as the proportion of nitrogen, oxygen and CO2 in the atmosphere. Coincidence?

An acceptable estimate of the number of galaxies in the universe is 100-200 billion (source: https://www.space.com/25303-how-many-galaxies-are-in-the-universe.html), although some estimates go as high as trillions (source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/#d683bc5a67b8)

Of those, each on average has something in the order of 100 billion stars (source: https://www.space.com/26078-how-many-stars-are-there.html#:~:text=Averaging%20out%20the%20types%20of,200%20billion%20stars%20or%20more)

Each star on average has between 2 (source: https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/on-average-how-many-planets-are-in-orbit-around-each-star/) and 10 (source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/03/13/space-is-full-of-planets-and-most-of-them-dont-even-have-stars/#f5a704f3b2a1)

Presuming that life is restricted to only planets (and not smaller bodies such as dwarf planets, or planetary satellites) then A valid combination for life (not necessarily the particular combination of criteria that's led to us) has had a minimum of 2x10²² chances to emerge to the point where it could wonder if it were designed or a result of natural chance.

This is not addressing the fact that some of the criteria that you cite (i.e. circularity of orbit) are more likely than not, whilst others (i.e. proportion of atmospheric gases, size of the moon) are only significant in our particular form and evolved nature, not intrinsic to life.

And that's without considering the possibility of multiple universes.

https://strangenotions.com/why-our-unique-solar-system-points-to-god/

And then there's this article - just a few things to point out.

Stars near the center of a galaxy and far enough from the black hole can survive its gravitational pull, but they are subject to much more intense radiation than stars far away from the center of a galaxy.

A vanishingly small proportion of the stars particularly close to the centre of a galaxy might be susceptible to increased radiation, but it very quickly reduces (the intensity diminishes roughly by the cube root every time the orbit distance doubles) and becomes negligible by comparison with the radiation coming from the local star itself... regardless of whether that radiation actually reaches ground level (our own planet has an electromagnetic barrier layer, and there's no reason to think that other similar bodies wouldn't have the same), and regardless of whether that radiation would actually be harmful to life (plants, after all, FEED on radiation that causes us skin cancer), and presuming that any life there would not be developing underground or under bodies of liquid.

If one picks stars at random, then the most likely choice would be a red dwarf, since 76% of stars are red dwarfs.

This fails to note that a star that is currently a red dwarf has not always been so, and will not always be so.

Since they are smaller, red dwarfs don’t emit as much energy as our Sun, and as a result vegetation would be more difficult to grow on a planet orbiting them.

Only if the planet being considered were at the same orbital range as the Earth is from its sun; closer in, the energy density could be the same or higher - consider the differences between energy impact on Mercury, Venus and Mars to that on Earth.  Also, whilst vegetation might grow more slowly, that's not in any way to say that it couldn't emerge, just that it wouldn't be like the vegetation we have on Earth.

However, as one moves closer, tidal forces would increase and a planet would end up in a tidal-locked state where one side of the planet always faces the red dwarf and one always faces away.

The gravitational effects would also be less because, as the original point notes, red dwarf stars are less massive than our sun.

There is so much water on the Earth that without mountains the entire surface of the Earth would be under water.

This is a baffling statement - once the land has reached sea-level, anything more has no further effect on the water at all... If we were to remove every piece of land above 20m above sea level in an instant the sea levels wouldn't change in the slightest (until the climate change altered the weather...)

The whole article is riddled with anthropocentric presumptions - it's right that life in the form of humans would be unlikely if some of those facets were changed, but that's only significant if you can somehow demonstrate that humanity was the point, but that's what the article is trying to establish.

O.

[ekim]

.... but isn't it amazing that cats have holes in their fur right where their eyes are!!

[bluehillside Retd.]

ekim,

.... but isn't it amazing that cats have holes in their fur right where their eyes are!!

Me, I can't get over how amazing it is that my arms are just the right length to reach my hands. What are the chances eh? 

[Stranger]

An acceptable estimate of the number of galaxies in the universe is 100-200 billion (source: https://www.space.com/25303-how-many-galaxies-are-in-the-universe.html), although some estimates go as high as trillions (source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/#d683bc5a67b8)

And that is, of course, only the observable universe. The total could be very much larger or even infinite.

[ProfessorDavey]

"There is so much water on the Earth that without mountains the entire surface of the Earth would be under water."

So what - life on earth arose within water and only transferred to dry land perhaps a billion years after life first emerged. Had the earth been entirely covered with water then life would have simply remained water-borne.

[torridon]

I did grasp the analogy, and yes, if the position of the orbit was 'just right' but that was all, then it would be silly to claim that it had been designed. What I'm saying is there are loads of things that are just right. That points towards deliberate design. The position of the sun in the galaxy and its near circular orbit around the centre; the type of star it is; the mass of the earth; the moon: essential for stability of axis of rotation of earth - how many planets orbiting other stars have collided (assuming that's how it formed) to produce an earth-moon system like ours? There are other factors, such as the proportion of nitrogen, oxygen and CO2 in the atmosphere. Coincidence?

https://strangenotions.com/why-our-unique-solar-system-points-to-god/

As others have pointed out, this merely shows you haven't understood the analogy yet.  It is not that we can accept that one or two puddles fill their holes exactly to the brim and no more and write that off as coincidence. Rather, there is a Eureka moment waiting to be had, like Archimides when he first realised there was a causal relationship at work which explains such things. With puddles and bath tubs, the explanation lies in the nature of fluids, but the principle has wide applicability.  The universe is vast and will contain a vast diversity of situations and habitats, each one unique to some or other degree and what will exist in those habitats will be whatever is appropriate to it.  It is no coincidence that my legs are just the right length to reach to the ground, nor is it a coincidence that the bone width and density in them is just sufficient and no more to bear the weight of a ground dwelling upright biped on a planet of this size and mass.  They are just right.  The lesson to learn from Mr Adam's analogy is a cautionary tale warning us that we stand to lose out in understanding if we mistake 'just right' for design.  If it seems 'just right' that is a clue that there is an underlying principle waiting to be unearthed and understood.

[ekim]

If it seems 'just right' that is a clue that there is an underlying principle waiting to be unearthed and understood.

Ah, but you see, that underlying principle is just another of God's creations.  It's just that man is slow on the uptake because of a design flaw.  As it says in the Book, God  first created woman and said Wow, how can I make more of these.  I know, I'll create a man from one of her ribs and place half of his brain in his genitals.  That should do it.  Now we have civilisation as we know it. 

[Alan Burns]

You will agree I think that the chances of any specific 52-card hand being dealt are therefore incredibly low, certainly comparable with all the parameters for life you refer to as having to be just so.

But the coincidences involved in bringing life as we know it into existence is infinitely greater than the deck of cards example.
Just imagine if I won the euro millions next week.  Then I won it again the following week, then every week again for the rest of my life -  it is certainly possible that they were all just coincidences, but how probable?  There is no remit in the "coincidences" of nature to produce and sustain life, yet the coincidences needed to produce life did happen and we are the living proof.  And the realistic probabilities involved far exceed the probability of me winning the lottery every week for the rest of my life.

[jeremyp]

Almost certainly no same 52-card hand has in other words ever been dealt twice, and nor is it likely to be.

I think I'm OK to take this thread slightly off topic now and indulge in a bit of pedantry.

With a standard playing deck every time you deal a "52 card hand" it will be identical since it will always contain the exact same 52 cards. The ordering doesn't matter.

I would be interested to see what the probability of dealing a perfect hand in Bridge is i.e. four hands, each of which consists of only one suit.

[Stranger]

But the coincidences involved in bringing life as we know it into existence is infinitely greater than the deck of cards example.
Just imagine if I won the euro millions next week.  Then I won it again the following week, then every week again for the rest of my life -  it is certainly possible that they were all just coincidences, but how probable?  There is no remit in the "coincidences" of nature to produce and sustain life, yet the coincidences needed to produce life did happen and we are the living proof.  And the realistic probabilities involved far exceed the probability of me winning the lottery every week for the rest of my life.

First of all you still seem to be assuming that there was an intended, specific outcome (you're making the same mistake as spud in not understanding the puddle analogy), and secondly, you've made some very specific claims about probabilities here, please provide the relevant calculations.

[ProfessorDavey]

But the coincidences involved in bringing life as we know it into existence is infinitely greater than the deck of cards example.
Just imagine if I won the euro millions next week.  Then I won it again the following week, then every week again for the rest of my life -  it is certainly possible that they were all just coincidences, but how probable?  There is no remit in the "coincidences" of nature to produce and sustain life, yet the coincidences needed to produce life did happen and we are the living proof.  And the realistic probabilities involved far exceed the probability of me winning the lottery every week for the rest of my life.

But the whole point about what we define as 'life' is that it is self sustaining. If it wasn't able to sustain itself then it wouldn't be life, would it. So there is a legitimate argument about life arising in the first place, but (by definition) once it has arising it will be sustained provided external conditions do not change so much that they make life impossible.

[Outrider]

But the coincidences involved in bringing life as we know it into existence is infinitely greater than the deck of cards example.

But we have more than just a deck of cards - as the conservative estimate above shows, if one of those situations was checked every second to see if life had emerged, you would be approximately a quarter of the way through checking if you'd started as the universe began.  The sheer number of possible planets upon which life might have emerged is unfathomably vast.  The coincidences involved in bringing life as we know are not something we can accurately calculate, but to arbitrarily decide they are 'infinitely' greater than the possible combinations on all the planets around all the stars in all the galaxies in the universe (notwithstanding possible other universes) is to fail to appreciate just how vast those numbers are.

Just imagine if I won the euro millions next week.  Then I won it again the following week, then every week again for the rest of my life -  it is certainly possible that they were all just coincidences, but how probable?

Assuming you die at 80, and started as soon as it was legal (18?) that's 62 years - in weeks that's 3232.  At 1:13 chance of winning  on EuroMillions that's 1:1.8 x 10³⁶⁰⁰.  How do you plan to compare that the chance of life emerging given that we don't have data on that?

There is no remit in the "coincidences" of nature to produce and sustain life, yet the coincidences needed to produce life did happen and we are the living proof.  And the realistic probabilities involved far exceed the probability of me winning the lottery every week for the rest of my life.

How do you make that judgement?  What are the chances of life emerging on at least one of the 10²² to 10³⁰ planets over 14 billion years of random events?  At one chance per year per planet that's still beyond the ability of any calculator I've access to to calculate - 10^{2214 billion}.*

O.

* I wanted to put an exclamation mark there, but given that we're delving in to mathematics I didn't want to confuse the issue with the misinterpretation of factorials! !!

[torridon]

But the coincidences involved in bringing life as we know it into existence is infinitely greater than the deck of cards example.
Just imagine if I won the euro millions next week.  Then I won it again the following week, then every week again for the rest of my life -  it is certainly possible that they were all just coincidences, but how probable?  There is no remit in the "coincidences" of nature to produce and sustain life, yet the coincidences needed to produce life did happen and we are the living proof.  And the realistic probabilities involved far exceed the probability of me winning the lottery every week for the rest of my life.

This whole line of reasoning founders on grounds of logic anyway. Why would a creator god intending to make life construct the cosmos such that life was impossible in the first place ?  It is the opposite of what logic would suggest. I think you can file this one away in your seemingly bottomless portfolio of irrational self-contradictory ideas.

[ippy]

No.
We are not free from determinism.
We are free from PHYSICALLY controlled chains of inevitable cause and effect over which we can have no control, because the laws of PHYSICS are in control.
Our thoughts, words and actions are DETERMINED by the conscious will of the human soul. (The soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture).
Nothing at all to do with random events.
How anyone can possibly believe that all our posts can be generated solely by inevitable consequences to PHYSICALLY controlled chains of reactions is totally beyond my comprehension. 

In this post of yours you have written the following: 

'Our thoughts, words and actions are DETERMINED by the conscious will of the human soul. (The soul as depicted in the divine revelations of scripture)'.

You simply haven't delivered anywhere in all of the posts you've written and sent to the forum on this thread a shred of evidence that supports this soul idea of yours, nor has anything from your manual, how about giving all of the posters here some direct form of evidence that supports this soul idea of yours without avoiding the you don't know answer where appropriate.

You even lie to yourself, that's known as 'cognitive dissonance', I think you don't answer these kinds of questions when so frequently put to you out of fear because you're so wound up in this rather silly catholic dogma you've become frightened that if you turn and go for the rational it'll destroy so many of your social connections; we're here Alan we can save you!  Make that, bold for you, move you know you can do it!

Kind regards and commiserations to you Alan, ippy