I believe all these facts, when put together, make a compelling case for atheism or metaphysical naturalism. While each individual one is possible for theism or atheism, each one is more probable if atheism is true. Please add to these or comment.
1. Age of universe and age of Earth. The universe is 13.7 billion years old. The Earth and moon are 3.7 billion years old. If atheism is true, and natural processes like gravity acting on matter to for a planet are what created our planet, then these timeframes we are looking at make sense. If on the other hand theism is true, it's possible God created the Universe then waited almost 10 billion years to create the Earth. But it seems to make more sense that he would create the Universe and then right away create the Earth. Remember, theists believe God created everything FOR us. For around 10 billion years though, there was no life at all. Why would he wait so long?
2. Size and inhospitality of the universe. If Atheism is true, and a chance event turned a few regular organic molecules into a self replicating molecule, and life arising is very rare, then the size and inhospitality of the universe make sense. Almost all of deep space will instantly kill life. If theism is true, it's possible God created this incredibly empty fast universe that serves no apparent purpose, but it seems a bit more likely he would create more hospitable planets for life. For example, he could have created many planets close to Earth with similar climates so we could easily move to them when Earth overpopulates. He also didn't need to have created such a large universe.
3. Evolution. This is an obvious one. Personally, I think it comes pretty close to disproving God, but many people like theistic evolutionists disagree. If atheism is true, of course evolution has to be true. If on the other hand theism is true, sure God could have created through evolution, but you might expect he would use a less wasteful, less cruel, faster process that does not result in stupid suboptimal design such as the recurrent laryngeal nerve of giraffes and humans.
Missing anything?
God is very cunning, he doesn't want you to know he exists, he wants you to have faith, hence he operates in exactly the same way as if he doesn't exist.
It would take an infinitely wise mind to operate this way, hence god does exist and is all knowing and all powerful and is obviously beyond time, 10 billion years is meaningless to him. Sheesh ;D
[geek] The age of the Earth and Moon is currently estimated at 4.53 billion years old. [/geek]
Quote from: Tank on January 29, 2012, 07:25:03 AM
[geek] The age of the Earth and Moon is currently estimated at 4.53 billion years old. [/geek]
A billion up or down, it's still a far cry from "The wheel was invented before the Earth"
What is metaphysical naturalism?
Metaphysical naturalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical_naturalism)
I don't actually think a compelling case can be made for metaphysical naturalism. Certainly science can't be used to draw any robust conclusions, because there's no observation we can make, even in principle, that can demonstrate that what we observe is reality. Science, being based in observation, has nothing to say on any metaphysical positions.
Quote from: hackenslash on January 29, 2012, 11:01:01 PM
I don't actually think a compelling case can be made for metaphysical naturalism. Certainly science can't be used to draw any robust conclusions, because there's no observation we can make, even in principle, that can demonstrate that what we observe is reality. Science, being based in observation, has nothing to say on any metaphysical positions.
Science, being based in observation, testing, replicating and verifying preferably within a falsifiable veritas is as robust as you can get with anybody's reality. It has nothing to say because there is nothing of worth, of adequate value or relevant essence in all metaphysical positions
An interesting graffity once said:
"reality is for those who cannot cope with drugs"
Scientific facts make more sense of existence as a whole and metaphysical naturalism is an option
if you need one.
A good summation.