This is a bit of encouragement for those who want to believe in God but who really believe that to do so would be indulging in wishful thinking. That it would be giving way to a desire to believe in 'fairies in the sky' and all that, instead of being a scientific, rational, 21st century, intelligent person.
I originally posted this as a comment.
All in the name of freedom!
The Contradiction of Randomness:
If we think of time/space and all the events and matter in it as being without direction or design, ie, it all happened by chance, then there are two problems.
The first is that if it has happened that any order that exists, such as life, occurred spontaneously in randomness, then one is actually accepting that it is not order but simply another random set of events that have occurred by chance, and because we live in this fleeting breath of time, we perceive the apparent sequence of events as order. When, in fact, they are part of the pure randomness of eternity.
However. Then the second problem is encountered. Pure chance, randomness as we perceive it, tends to disperse, to dissipation.
A drop of ink in a glass of water tends to dissipate throughout the water. Never has it been known for ink dispersed in a glass of water to randomly come together as a drop of ink.
Pure randomness tends to evenness as all its parts, all of it, merges with every other part and becomes one unified existence.
In fact, pure randomness would lead to absolute nothingness as everything blends with everything else to become an even stillness in which all potential has discharged.
All that we see, experience, know touch and feel, including our perception of those happenings, is based on difference, potential, separation. All structure, whether matter, energy or events, is based on difference such as electrons and protons. Negative and positive. And all difference implies order because without order, if everything was purely random, there would be complete evenness, which would in fact be nothing.
Everything would have submerged into everything else. In fact that is not really correct because it would not have occurred in the first place.
Random events tend to dispersion. And dispersion tends to stasis. Total silent nothing.
Good to see a new post on 'Rabbit! Really enjoyed this John, very scientific and intelligent but easy to read too. It's been said that it actually takes more faith to believe life just started by accident, than by a purposeful Creator. If we look at the world, at nature, at life in all its wonderful and myriad forms and certainly at the sheer complexity of a human being, how can we honestly say that all this happened by accident, a glorious accident, but just an accident after all?
ReplyDeleteAs a human being, we have a wonderfully complex array of organs to keep us alive, a pumping heart sending blood around us faster than we can blink, an amazing set of hands that can build rocket ships to the moon and produce incredible filigree work on jewellery to name but two of many things and finally a super-computer for a brain that can comprehend more than just a mundane existence but marvel at the sheer wonder of it all. I attribute our incredible nature to God, who created us specifically to commune with Him intimately and personally on a daily and ongoing basis; As Jacob came to know, there is certainly a whole lot more to this planet than meets the eye!
Great post, look forward to lots more.
True, T-C.
ReplyDeleteHowever one can argue that this vast complexity developed over billions of years. That given enough time the monkeys and the typewriters will eventually produce the Compleat Works of Shakespeare.
My point is that no order, in fact no structure whatsoever, be it just the polarity of a negative and a positive, can develop in randomness.
In the natural world things tend to blend with everything else into one homogenised state.
For anything to exist at all is actually un-natural!
Nicely done John, and look forward to more.
ReplyDeleteI'll be back shortly to talk about elected police chiefs amongst other things.
I've long thought that there was a fate/pre-ordained element to our lives, with the free will of how we handle a situation essentially deciding what may be thrown at us down the line. There are always (usually tragic) things that make little sense and one would think had no place in the plan of the man upstairs, but when I look back at things sometimes, it seems impossible that they just 'happened' randomly, particularly the stuff that was out of my hands.
Very well put John: "For anything to exist at all is actually un-natural!" I couldn't have put it better myself. Life is un-natural, and hardly natural at all. I've written a piece (rather long) on my blog about the origins of man. It's quite interesting and if you have the time you can check it out here: http://tchildschristianityblog.blogspot.com/p/mankinds-origins.html I don't know whether I explain myself well in this but it might be food for thought anyway.
ReplyDeleteThough I am a Christian, I am certain that the world is billions of years old; I have no problem getting my head around the idea that Creation happened either a very long time ago or that Creation itself happened over a very long period of time. I will add the caveat that in essence I don't know the answer simply because I wasn't there at the time!!! No one really knows the answer unless they have had a specific revelation from God. I look forward to more of your posts, and more on 'Rabbit in general. Oh, alright Daz!
Have you tried Rowntrees Randoms? I like em!
ReplyDeleteI actually have, they're fantastic!
DeleteReally interesting post. I think whether we believe in God or not we should all be ready to challenge and be challenged. This kind of civilised and thought provoking post adds to the debate, whether a 'believer' or not, and is much more constructive than both sides just slagging each other off.
ReplyDelete