# Was It All An Accident...Or Did An Intelligent **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721 "2013-01-19T17:18:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/301 "2013-01-25T03:10:24Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > True, that’s why I try to limit science to it’s proper role. Science limits itself to its proper role. Yeah, yeah, every now and then there are some trespasses – but never within five orders of magnitude of the trespasses by religion against science! > [@](#): > > Also, I assume that in some manner, God reveals himself to some of the other people that go to church also. Shrug. Maybe so. Which church, by the way? Do the gods reveal themselves to Hindus, too? Do the Buddhists actually get the attention of the spirits by spinning prayer wheels? There are so very many religions, most of which are mutually incompatible. How does anyone know to pick the right one? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/302 "2013-01-25T03:31:44Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > How do you know the entity in question ain’t an evil deceiver? As I recall, you can feel it in your heart, that it is right. ---
**Author:** ![Doggo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/87869e/32.png) [@Doggo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doggo)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/303 "2013-01-25T04:34:41Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Okay, I’m going to take a crack at this. > > First, a title should be a title not the first half of the opening line. > > Moving on, the universe did not evolve. Life evolves. The universe just happened. Maybe you ask how the universe happened. How did it start from nothing? Where did it come from? What caused it to happen? > > Good questions. But ask the same questions about the Intelligent Being. How did the Intelligent Being start from nothing? Where did the Intelligent Being come from? What caused the Intelligent Being to happen? > > Any answer you come up with that explains the origin of the Intelligent Being can also be used to explain the origin of the universe. > > The thoughts of atheists, agnostics, and believers are not random. They are responses to stimuli. You don’t randomly think “I am cold” - your nervous system notes that the portion of the universe which is in your immediate vicinity has a low temperature. And so on. You are the sum of all of the inputs you have received from outside of yourself. > > The universe created you. Nothing created the universe. You are trying to create God. I was with you till your last 2 sentences. I don’t know what, if anything created the universe, and if it was god, what created god, but it is illogical for something to come to exist when nothing existed before. So till you can prove how the universe came to be, you cannot definitely say there is no god. For all you know, a being created us, as we create cities and characters on a computer, but that leads to the question of what created that being, ad infinitum. ---
**Author:** ![Doggo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/87869e/32.png) [@Doggo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doggo)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/304 "2013-01-25T04:36:13Z")
> [@For You](#): > > As I recall, you can feel it in your heart, that it is right. Once upon a time, my heart told me that a woman loved me, but it was wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/305 "2013-01-25T04:55:34Z")
> [@Doggo](#): > > I don’t know what, if anything created the universe, and if it was god, what created god, but it is illogical for something to come to exist when nothing existed before. That’s simply wrong. You may not like the idea, but there’s nothing illogical about it. > [@Doggo](#): > > So till you can prove how the universe came to be, you cannot definitely say there is no god. I can say that there’s no god as definitely as I can say there’s no werewolves, Santa Claus, Sauron or goblins. Religion doesn’t deserve a special standard of proof just for itself. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/306 "2013-01-25T05:04:23Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > Well, I’m not going to attempt to speak for other religious people. But for me I rely a lot on intuition and revelation. God reveals himself to me, as I get older, He reveals His path for me. Interesting. I’ve not had these experiences. Would you mind to describe the mechanism for this revelation as best you can? Perhaps illustrated with an example, as specific or general as you’d like. Also, I understand intuition to mean direct perceptions of truth and fact, independent of any reasoning process. Do you mean that God delivers the correct answers to you, or that religious study enables one to make the correct decisions on their own? Or another meaning? > [@Doggo](#): > > So till you can prove how the universe came to be, you cannot definitely say there is no god. Can you definitely say there is a God, on this basis? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/307 "2013-01-25T07:21:00Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > I agree with you to a certain extent, science does work when you are trying to design a better smart-phone. > > But it doesn’t work, when it comes to answering the most important questions of life, because we cannot reproduce the experiment. > > An example would be trying to decide whether you should charge up the hill into machine gun fire with fellow marines or just lay back and watch for a while. If you lay back and watch maybe the enemy will run out of bullets and then you can walk up the hill. > > How would you reproduce that type of experiment? What you should do is ethics. Science does not claim to be able to make ethical decisions. On the other hand, if you wanted to study what people do in general in that situation, you could interview people who have made the choice, you can give people questionnaires, or you could run some kind of simulation studies. Every university has a human subjects board, which might look askance at using live ammo. And, if someone claims that the answer lies in a book inspired by a god with certain characteristics and certain interactions with people can tell you if it is likely that these claims are true. MIT, by the way, has a very good philosophy department, and I took ethics there. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/308 "2013-01-25T07:23:30Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > True. What I’m saying is that with the most important questions of life, science is useless because it isn’t possible to experiment. For instance, if you ran up the hill and got killed with the rest of marines. Nobody benefits. Ah, but if God sent down lightning and killed the marines on the way up. it must be for the best. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/309 "2013-01-25T07:35:41Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > What you should do is ethics. Science does not claim to be able to make ethical decisions. On the other hand, it makes making ethical decisions easier both by giving people the knowledge they need to make a fact-based decision, and by increasing their options. ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/310 "2013-01-25T12:18:27Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > How do you know the entity in question ain’t an evil deceiver? That’s where belonging to a church is important. It’s important that the church has a rational view of Christianity and helpful people. Once you start sharing your experiences with God, you begin to have a better sense of God’s nature. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/311 "2013-01-25T12:24:56Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > That’s where belonging to a church is important. It’s important that the church has a rational view of Christianity and helpful people. And how do you know if a church has a rational view of Christianity? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/312 "2013-01-25T12:39:06Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > And how do you know if a church has a rational view of Christianity? **pchaos** , what is your current definition of the word “rational”? You’ve had trouble with the meaning of the word earlier, and I’d like to know what the current status is. ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/313 "2013-01-25T13:35:58Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > **pchaos** , what is your current definition of the word “rational”? You’ve had trouble with the meaning of the word earlier, and I’d like to know what the current status is. I understand that most people think of logical and rational as being somewhat similar. However, for me this is not helpful. I modify the terms as follows: 1. What the vast majority of people believe is logical. 2. What a significant minority of people believe is rational. 3. What doesn’t fit into 1) and 2) above is irrational. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/314 "2013-01-25T13:39:18Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > I understand that most people think of logical and rational as being somewhat similar. However, for me this is not helpful. > > I modify the terms as follows: > > 1. What the vast majority of people believe is logical. > > 2. What a significant minority of people believe is rational. > > 3. What doesn’t fit into 1) and 2) above is irrational. If this is the basis for your arguments, then there’s really no point in discussing anything with you. Your view of The Way Things Are is too warp… er… unique. ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/315 "2013-01-25T13:50:25Z")
> [@saje](#): > > If this is the basis for your arguments, then there’s really no point in discussing anything with you. Your view of The Way Things Are is too warp… er… unique. Perhaps, but it is rational as I’ve defined the terms. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/316 "2013-01-25T13:50:30Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > That’s where belonging to a church is important. It’s important that the church has a rational view of Christianity and helpful people. Once you start sharing your experiences with God, you begin to have a better sense of God’s nature. What brand of church did Christ attend? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/317 "2013-01-25T14:03:06Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > I understand that most people think of logical and rational as being somewhat similar. However, for me this is not helpful. > > I modify the terms as follows: > > 1. What the vast majority of people believe is logical. > > 2. What a significant minority of people believe is rational. > > 3. What doesn’t fit into 1) and 2) above is irrational. Have you ever actually opened a dictionary in your life? ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/318 "2013-01-25T14:04:28Z")
> [@simster](#): > > What brand of church did Christ attend? Actually, I’m not sure. There are some that dispute that Jesus Christ even existed. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/319 "2013-01-25T14:06:22Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > Perhaps, but it is rational as I’ve defined the terms. Thank you Humpty, that basically explains everything. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/320 "2013-01-25T14:08:29Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > Actually, I’m not sure. There are some that dispute that Jesus Christ even existed. Are you some, or are you you? What is _your_ opinion? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721.md?page=17)