Alright, let's get down to business...
From the beginning...
'NsPD, how do you know all that stuff? How do you know that there are billions of planets and billions of galaxies and that we've been alive for billions of years?'
I personally don't know all of this. But scientists, in their respected fields, have been able to figure out a lot about our universe through observation and then deductive reasoning. To simply observe that our situation is rather improbable and then jump to the conclusion that it must have been created through the means of something which defies all logic sounds to me a bit like a hasty generalization.
'How do you know that we developed the ability to communicate at some point, evolving from all other animals?'
Again, I can't personally know this. The facts add up pretty well; there is rather incriminating evidence for the necessity of natural selection which is a governing proponent of all of the universe.
'Which is by the way not very accurate, tons of things besides humans can communicate, the differences that humans exhibit is stuff like creativity and the ability to think beyond base desires, hunger, sexual, etc.'
I guess I should have been a little more clear on that. We have what is called the imagination. Humans also have a further developed sense of causal cognition, a part of what makes us believe as well as creates the illusion of 'understanding.'
'Also, it sounds like you're questioning the nature of knowledge too, saying that I don't know if something can be organized or not. I believe that God transcends all time and space and anything you or I could understand; I also believe He is eternal and exists outside of time.'
I'm not questioning the nature of knowledge (a topic which we could go on for a while about); I'm simply pointing out that an observation made by an individual that claims organization or any sort of order found within chaos is making just that; a claim. It's an abstract idea, created within the confines of the imagination, the imagination only something which people possess. That would be why an animal would not be able to even conceive of a creator, or venture down the thought path of how it or anything around it came to be. The imagination itself is partially responsible for the idea of a god, as well as the idea of the necessity of a god (although this, I'm sure, stems from other causes moreso than just the imagination, it only being a manifold, a necessary part in the creation of our idea of necessity).
Again, I wasn't attempting to question the nature of knowledge; the subject of epistemology could go on forever. I was making a point that such observations (the organization of a system) are only subjections, not objections, and therefore are altogether meaningless, and therefore it would follow that any attempt to assign a cause to this is as good as trying to give reason to why you like the color red or why I like the taste of chocolate.
' You may say, "That's absolutely ridiculous and you have no scientific evidence of such a thing." But look at it this way.
I believe: In the beginning, God...
You believe: In the beginning, dirt, chemicals, natural selection, etc... '
I suppose, but I would say my belief is a bit more justified. For starters, when there is a flaw found within my reasoning, (say, new evidence is found supporting a new claim), then my beliefs change to fit that which is more reasonable. I look at the new evidence, I look at the old evidence, and I attempt to use my reasoning to understand the contradictions within the situation and eventually reason will prevail. The religious way is to attempt to 'patch up' that flaw, to cover it with god's tracks, by simply fitting god's (UNKNOWABLE) nature to fit the situation. This causes many contradictions within many religions to the point of embarrassment, I would say.
