Atheists, explain away this?

Question

"As you tune your radio, there are certain frequencies where the circuit has just the right resonance and you lock onto a station. The internal structure of an atomic nucleus is something like that, with specific energy or resonance levels. If two nuclear fragments collide with a resulting energy that just matches a resonance level, they will tend to stick and form a stable nucleus. Behold! Cosmic alchemy will occur! In the carbon atom, the resonance just happens to match the combined energy of the beryllium atom and a colliding helium nucleus. Without it, there would be relatively few carbon atoms. Similarly, the internal details of the oxygen nucleus play a critical role. Oxygen can be formed by combining helium and carbon nuclei, but the corresponding resonance level in the oxygen nucleus is half a percent too low for the combination to stay together easily. Had the resonance level in the carbon been 4 percent lower, there would be essentially no carbon. Had that level in the oxygen been only half a percent higher, virtually all the carbon would have been converted to oxygen. Without that carbon abundance, neither you nor I would be here."15


http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/837

Should I believe in God?

Answer 1

Could you be anymore boring?

Answer 2

First let me state this is not the science section. Second what is the relevance of the radio analogy to the rest of the paragraph? Also in your link you go to a creationist web site, in which the striving argument for them to refute evolution is "life didn't just happen by accident" however in your paragraph there's "Behold! Cosmic alchemy will occur! In the carbon atom, the resonance just happens...", so you are actually refuting a "doubt" with your doubt.

Let me know if you wish to know more, apparently you find real science too hard.

Answer 3

Cosmic alchemy? Sorry the method that you just describe is totally unfamiliar to me, and as your link is to a page that is one long argument from incredulity there was no help there. I will say that a quick scan through the link showed it to be the same old argument that have been answered time and time again and proven that the writer really needs to expand their knowledge on the subject rather than building a case from ignorance.

As far as I know, elements form from fusion/fission which is not quite the process describe above.

Edit:
If there are an infinite number of universes, then there are an infinite number that will and do support life, not just one or a few, and there are also infinite amounts of ones that don't. Nice thing about ifinity, it makes a lot of things very probable.

Answer 4

No, while this is true, this is also a selection effect. Snowflakes only form in snow storms. But this does not imply they were created by snow pixies. We only form in regions of reality with physical laws conducive to the formation of carbon atoms. Its the same thing.

In some ways we are kind of like myopic falling snowflakes that can never see beyond the snow storm, and wondering why nature was so perfectly tuned for the formation of snow.

All it indicates is that reality is far more vast and varied than we might otherwise realize.

I do reject however the statements by my fellow atheists that this is completely unimportant or untrue. It is important because it provides us with an important clue to the vastness of the reality in which we live.

I suggest reading "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle" by Barrow and Tipler

Should you believe in a God? No! You should believe in a vast infinite multiverse. Gods don't solve the problem, they just lead to the much larger problem of why reality is finely tuned for gods to exist. The only answer that possibly makes sense is that reality is infinite and varied.

Answer 5

"Behold! Cosmic alchemy will occur!"

Nuclear fusion is not cosmic alchemy. The nature of the carbon nucleus is determined by it's 6 protons and 6 neutrons. The instability of beryllium-8 (two helium nuclei) which is determined by its 4 protons and 4 neutrons which are in poor quantum states.

You want to change the quantum interactions of protons and neutrons, but not of electrons for your scenario to apply. All you have is the argument that if things were different, they'd be different.

By your logic, elements heavier than iron don't exist. They cannot be formed by simple stellar fusion. They are only made available by supernova explosions.

Answer 6

The argument that "if this was just a little more this" or "if that was just a little less that" is not evidence for a magical, supernatural being.

The fact that conditions on this Earth are sufficient to support life is not a great miracle, and it certainly doesn't mean that the conditions were "created" just FOR us to exist. WE evolved to survive in the existing conditions, the conditions were not designed around some pre-planned map of our bodies.

Out in the universe, there are billions upon billions of billions of gaseous balls that are surrounded by orbiting chunks of rocks and minerals that we have named "planets". It is inevitable that *some* of those planets will have conditions that are sufficient to support life. Earth is one of those planets. Now if there was only one planet in the entire universe, and it just happened to have conditions that could support life, then you might have an argument that it's some sort of miracle that goes completely against the odds. Under the actual circumstances, it would actually be LESS likely that there WOULDN'T be some planets that would have the appropriate conditions.

As for whether or not you *should* believe in God, that's a personal choice.

Answer 7

The behaviour you cite is not mysterious. It drops straight out of the basic math that underpins the quantum mechanics that underpins the behaviour of sub atomic particles.

And very, very few basic assumptions go into this math - just things like the strengths of two fundamental forces.

So what in effect you are saying is that "if someone had mucked about with nature so that things were a bit off despite the math, then carbon would not exist", which sort of proves that god does not exist. Because no-one did muck about with the basic math.

Answer 8

If you look around you, there are these kinds of "what ifs" and "amazing coincidences" all over the place.

My wife decided to do the lottery this weekend for the first time in years and she won £10. Coincidence, or is that proof that God exists?

In your very convoluted question you say that, without these coincidences, carbon would not exist and you and I would not be here. Well no - but what if we were silicon-based rather than carbon-based - would you be saying the same thing about the creation of silicon?

Answer 9

Well given that I have a BS in chemistry, I am going to just make a blanket statement and say that is total crap.

The heavier elements are formed by fusion and the electrons fall where they fall due to several forces. Carbon is stable where it is because of the number of electrons that it has, which is the same thing that makes it useful for life. There is nothing that says life can ONLY come from carbon.

Answer 10

Well this can't be explained away. Its the way things are. Is it you contention that this would not occur without divine intervention.?
Try for minute to imagine that we exists because all the things that have happened before we came to be, made it possible for us to exists. Its a vast departure from thinking all things exists or existed only so we can.
You hate because because your belief needs to reaffirmed each time a new discovery is made. And now after a thousand years of your religion shouting down and locking away science you wish to use it as the platform from which you find meaning and evidence of your god. Holly crap can't you even see that your religion has evolved.

Keep on thumping!

Answer 11

"Intelligent Design" is not intelligent nor is it science. It is religious.

Thje argument they are presenting here is no different than Eulers proof to Diderot of the existence of God.
The truth is that arguments about prime numbers expessed as mathematical equations likke Euler offered, or a bunch of Blarney about atomic structure like your I.D. site offers are not proofs of God.
They are not even related. It is like claiming that an average man can pee 4 feet high against a wall proves God exists and created pee.

Whether you want to believe in God or not is your choice.
But that argument really should have nothing to do with it, it is just too silly.