cause-and-effect: "cause" require evidence too

[Redemptionsong]

And all this is due to the advantage that religions have: no need to demonstrate dogma and claims are true in reality. This claim you cite is irrelevant outside of Christianity. It isn't considered a fact or true. So the claims and arguments WITHIN religions are typically inadequate and irrelevant to those seeking truth how things are. So it amazes me that believers do not admit or acknowledge this when engaging with those outside of their religions. The religious assumptions and faith are not accepted and believers have more work to do to establish any sort of factual basis for their beliefs. As we observe, theists can't.


This is fine as a theological argument and debate WITHIN Christianity, but outside of it? No. You need to establish many facts first, and theists don't, or can't. So this bit above is trying to jump way ahead in an open debate.


With some 44,000 sects untder the umbrella of Christianity we can see Christians disagree on a lot. We do see Christians disagree and we outsiders just watch the confusion. Yet this is the Truth?


It's a good thing that Revelations made it into the Bible by one vote, and that one vote was a trade. So imagine how Christianity would be different today if different books were selected. Let's also not forget haw many End Times Christians have predicted, and were dead wrong. Jesus is coming back? You bet. The waiting is a good way to invest more meaning because it is something to look forward to, and life in the mean time is just waiting.

People can provide interpretations of scripture, some of which are accurate and some not. This does not alter the truth of scripture.

What you appear to overlook in your analysis of the Christian faith is that each individual believer had to come to faith. This means that one is not born a Christian. One must hear the word of God and receive it as the truth. Only then, through faith in the person of Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, does one become a believer.

Now, you make out that responding to Jesus' words and actions as found in scripture is irrational. I disagree. When l read messages on RF, l get a distinct feeling for the person behind the words. The same is true when l read the words of scripture. I don't sense a childish spirit, or a immature thinker, but a heart and mind that is vastly greater than my own. In fact, of all the literature l have ever read, there is nothing that compares to the Bible. It is not that there isn't much beautiful poetry and prose about, only that none of it encompasses the truth about life as does the Bible - lMO.

When a person says they don't have faith, or trust, then l wonder at how they manage in relationships. This lack of trust sounds very much like psychopathy to me!

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The question that needs to be answered, according to Jewish law and tradition, is whether or not an adopted son has the right to kingship.

Adoption isn't related to biological lineage.

You also argue that one cannot call someone a Messiah before they are a Messiah. But, since one can be an 'anointed one' without being crowned king, we can conclude that Jesus fulfilled the criteria of anointing as required by God.

OK. Jesus was anointed. He had oil rubbed on him. That may be necessary but not sufficient. David was anointed. You're anointed: "And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2 Corinthians 1:20-22)."

The argument that you end with, that somehow people of faith are incapable of reasoning, is also without foundation.

I didn't say that. I said that believing by faith is an alternative to justified belief, where justification is according to the standards of critical analysis of evidence. A belief is something one holds to be true, a claim about reality. All such beliefs are either justified or unjustified. The later and only the latter comprise belief by faith. Either one can demonstrate a claim to be correct

Thousands of highly educated and gifted scientists, philosophers and mathematicians have also expressed belief in God.

Yes, and when they do their academic work, they leave their faith behind, or else they come up with something unacceptable to academia. Newton was able to compartmentalize his faith when he worked out his celestial mechanics until he ran out of math, and then invoked faith. His work up until that point remains valid today, and is indistinguishable from the work any sufficiently talented atheist could have generated. His leap of faith has since been discarded, namely, that God nudges the planets to keep them in orbit around the sun. Also, all of his work on alchemy is rejected, a faith-based pseudoscience.

What is much harder to understand, in my opinion, is how people can make disparaging remarks about faith when it forms the very foundation stone of healthy human relationships.

Disagree. Faith is not part of my life or my relationships. All of my beliefs are based by experience.

Faith and love, which cannot be entirely separated

I've done it, and so have many other critical thinkers who love.

Where would family relationships be if a spouse could not trust their partner?

I trust my wife, but not by faith. She's proven herself trustworthy. If I had acted by faith, I might have asked her to marry me on our first date, before I knew her, since she was fun, smart, clean, and attractive from that first date. But I didn't know her yet. There was no track record yet. When there was, I did ask her to marry me. My belief that she would probably be faithful was based in experience. Acting on incomplete information is not believing by faith. If something is 90% likely to occur and one knows that, acting is not on faith, even if the outcome is the less desirable and less likely one.

Faith is extolled by religions that require it to be believed. It is called a virtue, and labeled pleasing to God. But it's nothing more than the will to believe with insufficient evidentiary support. And clearly it doesn't deserve that respect. Faith is unexamined belief, the shallowest of experiences essentially, the most unexamined of beliefs. It cannot be a path to truth except by incredible blind luck, and even if one guesses the truth correctly, he cannot know it until evidence revels it to be that. There are orders of magnitude more wrong guesses possible than correct ones, and any of those wrong ones is just as easily believed by faith as any correct ideas, with nothing to indicate which is which. You've guessed that a particular god exists absent sufficient evidence to justify that belief. You could just as easily have picked any other god, and combination of gods, or no god at all.

It's analogous to picking lottery numbers and believing that they are correct in a fair lottery. You're just guessing, and there are orders of magnitude more incorrect guesses that correct ones. And there is no way to tell which guess is correct until after the drawing, at which time believing you have the winning ticket goes from faith to evidence-backed fact.

Let me share a story. I mentioned that I'm happily married - 32 years last week - but this is not my first marriage. At age 18, while an atheist in the Army, I met a Christian girl also in the Army, who brought me into Christianity. I recall sitting on the barracks stairs with her one evening several weeks or months into our relationship, when the appearance of crepuscular sun rays filled me with the apprehension that the Holy Spirit had chosen her to be my wife. We eventually married. Unfortunately, being a good Christian, we had not had sexual relations. We didn't live together, and we both wore military uniforms in the day and Levis at night. I never saw her cook or clean or shop, because we didn't do those things living on base.

Well, the marriage was a failure. We were sexually incompatible - I liked it and she didn't. She was eccentric and pathologically cheap. She wanted to grow wheat for bread in our postage stamp backyard to save the cost of bread. We had nothing in common but Jesus, and that wasn't enough. She was so cheap that I couldn't get her to go out to dinner with me until I bought one of those coupon books for local restaurants that lets you get a free meal of equal or lesser value along with a paid meal. I would tell her, I'm going out, and I'm going to order a nice meal. You can come along for a free meal or stay home, I told her. Only then could we enjoy a meal out together, and frankly, I don't know if she enjoyed hers knowing that I paid more to eat than was absolutely necessary. And unsurprisingly, she was a hoarder.

I just couldn't live like that, and eventually got out of the marriage, a marriage that never would have happened if I had based the decision on evidence rather than faith. Faith is a terrible idea, and I paid a price to learn that. I guess it wasn't the Holy Spirit after all, or else He's a poor matchmaker. I eventually returned to atheism, went to university, learned critical thinking, and realized that believing by faith is a logical error, a fallacy that leads to non sequiturs and unsound conclusions.

And right there is the beauty and virtue of faith.

 

[Polymath257]

I understand the argument, and even grant that it is good argument,

The only point that I am making is that you are assuming “a causeless big bang” without and prior evidence or prior examples of anything being causeless. ………. if this is not a big of deal (which I would agree) then analogous objections again theism shouldn’t be a big of deal ether

Actually, to assume that the universe has a cause is what would be going well beyond the evidence. ALL causes heretofore have been *inside* of the universe. To assume such exist outside of the universe is quite a stretch, especially given the link between causality and natural laws.

But, no, it is again, NOT an assumption, but a conclusion based on known and tested scientific principles as applied to the universe as a whole.

As for no prior evidence of anything being causeless (and avoiding the question of whether the universe qualifies as a 'thing'), there is the aspect that quantum events are uncaused (again as stated in the best tested formulation of quantum mechanics). So it isn't even a stretch in that direction.

In distinction, we have no evidence of any intelligence outside of the universe. We have no evidence that the universe *could* be caused. We have no way to test whatever 'physical laws' apply outside of the universe. So the metaphysical baggage of a deity assumption is MUCH larger than that of a causeless universe.

 

[PruePhillip]

They should update their knowledge. It's been known since 1931 that that is wrong.

And 1931 is not long ago. Indeed, a lot of science, from relativity to quantum, is seriously recent stuff.I grew up being told there's no such things as continental drift.

 

[PruePhillip]

We being here is evidence of we being here. Not of how we got here.
Try again.

No, we are here when according to physics, we shouldn't be here - there should be N.O.T.H.I.N.G., but somehow there is something.

 

[PruePhillip]

Actually, to assume that the universe has a cause is what would be going well beyond the evidence. ALL causes heretofore have been *inside* of the universe. To assume such exist outside of the universe is quite a stretch, especially given the link between causality and natural laws.

But, no, it is again, NOT an assumption, but a conclusion based on known and tested scientific principles as applied to the universe as a whole.

As for no prior evidence of anything being causeless (and avoiding the question of whether the universe qualifies as a 'thing'), there is the aspect that quantum events are uncaused (again as stated in the best tested formulation of quantum mechanics). So it isn't even a stretch in that direction.

In distinction, we have no evidence of any intelligence outside of the universe. We have no evidence that the universe *could* be caused. We have no way to test whatever 'physical laws' apply outside of the universe. So the metaphysical baggage of a deity assumption is MUCH larger than that of a causeless universe.

Now here's a nice little thought for you. We have many lovely things in our earth, but one of them is that we are a twin planet and not a planet-moon system. Simulations suggest this is rare. The collision with the planet Theia tilted the earth 23.5 degrees and stabilized our chaotic orbit, as well as giving us some lovely moonlight, plus our seasons and the tides, important for early life to emerge on land. And that asteroid which hit Tucatan 65 million years ago - it struck at the perfect angle, and at a precise spot to vaporize sulphur deposits which caused a sulhur rich atmosphere and killed off the fauna which would never have allowed intelligent mammals such as ourselves, to rise.
Some things, like evolution, likely happen everywhere because it's what physical systems do - turn ordinary chemicals into living tissue. But some things which happened are extraoridinarily rare, if not non-existant. It's nice to be a glass-half-full kind of person and marvel at all this.

 

[Polymath257]

Now here's a nice little thought for you. We have many lovely things in our earth, but one of them is that we are a twin planet and not a planet-moon system. Simulations suggest this is rare. The collision with the planet Theia tilted the earth 23.5 degrees

The tilt actually varies over time.

and stabilized our chaotic orbit,

The other planets in our system have stable orbits without having large moons, so I doubt this.

as well as giving us some lovely moonlight, plus our seasons and the tides, important for early life to emerge on land.

Unless, of course, life came from the deep sea vents.

And that asteroid which hit Tucatan 65 million years ago - it struck at the perfect angle, and at a precise spot to vaporize sulphur deposits which caused a sulhur rich atmosphere and killed off the fauna which would never have allowed intelligent mammals such as ourselves, to rise.

Maybe intelligent dinosaurs would have arisen instead....so?

Some things, like evolution, likely happen everywhere because it's what physicallsystems do - turn ordinary chemicals into living tissue. But some things which happened are extraoridinarily rare, if not non-existant. It's nice to be a glass-half-full kind of person and marvel at all this.

And I agree. The whole thing is a marvel. A feeling of awe and wonder is something I find quite important personally.

I just don't necessarily think that the domesticated primate feeling of awe and wonder necessarily matches that of other intelligent species.

 

[Polymath257]

No, we are here when according to physics, we shouldn't be here - there should be N.O.T.H.I.N.G., but somehow there is something.

Which physics text, article, or refereed paper says anything like that?

 

[Polymath257]

I said that a “Unicorn” is a better hypothesis than something logically incoherent (like married bachelor)

So even if I grant that God is as unlikely as a unicorn, it is still better than any incoherent alternative.

this is not suppose to be controversial,

Linearized gravity is known to be both inconsistent and a useful approximation. So, no, that does not follow.

Now, what, precisely, did you say is logically incoherent?

 

[Polymath257]

And 1931 is not long ago. Indeed, a lot of science, from relativity to quantum, is seriously recent stuff.I grew up being told there's no such things as continental drift.

On a grand scheme, humans have not been around all that long. Only a couple hundred thousand years. And we have only had agriculture for about 11,000 years.

Of about 400 years of scientific advance, quantum physics is about a quarter of that. And it was a time period of serious advances in general.

 

[gnostic]

I suggest you read the article by R.A.Torrey with greater care. He explains how the two genealogies allow for Jesus to be accepted legally as the royal heir, whilst not being the natural son of Joseph. The marriage to Mary, whose natural line to David is found in Luke, gives Jesus the right to be called the son of Joseph.

Jesus, from what is written in Matthew and Luke, becomes both the son of David and the Son of God. This is confirmed at his baptism, when the voice from heaven says, 'Thou art my beloved Son; in thee l am well pleased'. [Luke 3:22]

No, Redemptionsong.

That’s only a claim that suggest the genealogy from Luke 3 could be that of Mary’s line, and yet the passage actually says that Heli was Joseph’s father, not Mary’s father, as Mary isn’t mentioned at all in the genealogy.

Mary’s parents were never mentioned in any of gospels and anywhere else in the NT.

But Mary’s ancestors can be indirectly linked to the prophet Aaron through her relative Elizabeth:

5 In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was descended from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.

36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.

The only time, Mary’s parents were named, comes from New Testament apocryphal text, the Gospel of James (2nd century, most likely the original was written in Greek), where she was named as daughter of Joachim and Anne.

The author was “attributed” to James the Just, the brother of Jesus. So being an “attributed to”, would mean it was written by someone else but using the name James.

The gospel of James was popular account of Mary's life among the church traditions, because over 100 copies survived in various different languages or translations.

So many of the churches or sects from 2nd century to the 4th century, assume that Mary’s father was Joachim, not that of Heli.

So I find that any modern interpretations to Luke 3 that this genealogy belonging to Mary’s is nothing more than being apologetics, including from that of Torrey’s.

I really can’t comment on Torrey’s work, because I have not read his work, but did he mention “Joachim” at all?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

No, that is something obvious, and something I figured out long ago. Some might not think about this, but functionally their minds operate knowing it. Our brains learn to understand certain shortcuts and use them without deliberate thought.



This falls into the "no shi*t" category.


Do you really think any of this is profound? This is like first year college philosophy. Been there, done that.

Even a 10 year old knows that they can't eat an apple in their imagination. They know they can only eat a real apple. Now they might not be old enough to understand all this abstractly, but they know it from practical experience.

Ok, we are getting close. You had figured out long ago that the real apple is forever on the other side of the concept of the real apple. Now it becomes a little more difficult to see, but the same principle applies to the real you, just like in the example of the real apple, the real you is forever on the other side of any and all thoughts about what and who you really are. This is the essence of religion, to know what you really are in the context of absolute reality, by stilling your mind through some practice, usually meditation, and becoming one with what is present, the true reality beyond the thoughts of true reality.

 

[F1fan]

Ok, we are getting close. You had figured out long ago that the real apple is forever on the other side of the concept of the real apple. Now it becomes a little more difficult to see, but the same principle applies to the real you, just like in the example of the real apple, the real you is forever on the other side of any and all thoughts about what and who you really are.

The "real me'? Real would imply the material of my being.

This is the essence of religion, to know what you really are in the context of absolute reality,

Except religions don't do this. They offer a set of concepts that some humans accept and then they identify themselves by what those concepts describe. That is illusion.

We all have ideas about who we are, some honest, some wrong, some completely irrational and illusory. The social sciences focus on observing and describing human behavior and they have a great deal of knowledge about how the human mind works.

The important thing about the idea of self is how well it allows the person to function in life. On another thread we are discussing how Bahai see themselves as good, moral, peacemakers, but are invested in a religion that includes discrimination against gays. This has caused some distress for gays and some Bahai. This is the dilemma of aligning the self to dogma, that the self becomes too deeply tied to it that there is no longer a freedom FROM the religion. The self becomes a soulless agent for a set of ideas, and these ideas have no authority or meaning beyond what the community of believers assign. So it a essentially a co-dependent relationship betweem the self and a set of dogma. And despite there seeming to be a profound meaning behind it all, it is quite empty and it starves the self from it's own power, independence, and authority.

by stilling your mind through some practice, usually meditation, and becoming one with what is present, the true reality beyond the thoughts of true reality.

Yup, this happens on the bike at times, especially when I get low on blood sugar. It's a sort of sweat lodge experience. The ego is less relevant.

 

[F1fan]

People can provide interpretations of scripture, some of which are accurate and some not. This does not alter the truth of scripture.

Given the lack of consistency in interpretations who can honestly say they have the correct one? This is the absurdity of Christianity and the incoherency of the Bible.

What you appear to overlook in your analysis of the Christian faith is that each individual believer had to come to faith. This means that one is not born a Christian.

I suggest the vast majority of those who call themselves Christians is because of social influence, and this includes family. Nothing suggests any believer came to a logical and considered decision to become a Christian. Look at the lack of Christians in India, or the Middle East, or Africa before colonial forces imosed Christianity on the indigenous people. The same with South America that is most Christian these days, but was not until Europeans showed u and murdered them until they surrendered their own culture.

One must hear the word of God and receive it as the truth. Only then, through faith in the person of Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, does one become a believer.

Well unfortunately this magic doesn't happen UNLESS the person also learns they have to respond the way you describe. Magic? No, mimickry. Humans are very good at mimicking the behavior that gets them acepted into the tribe.

Your claim here should work on critical minds, but it doesn't. Christians insist we thinkers are spiritually dead and just don't get it. But the observations don't back this up. Many thinkers have the compassion and empathy and concern that is equal to any religous person. The religious dogma fails to make an impression because thinkers are expecting the magic to happen instead of creating it artifically. No God shows up. No magic happens.

Now, you make out that responding to Jesus words and actions as found in scripture is irrational. I disagree.

I don't think Jesus words and actions are irrational. In fact many Humanists agree with Jesus, and live in a similar way to what jesus taught. The odd thing is why so many conservative Christians don't follow Jesus. It is they who disagree with Jesus, not many atheists. Many atheists are not Christian, but they live like they are.

When l read messages on RF, l get a distinct feeling for the person behind the words. The same is true when l read the words of scripture. I don't sense a childish spirit, or a immature thinker, but a heart and mind that is vastly greater than my own. In fact, of all the literature l have ever read, there is nothing that compares to the Bible. It is not that there isn't much beautiful poetry and prose about, only that none of it encompasses the truth about life as does the Bible - lMO.

With some 66 or 72 books of the Bible there are some 40 different writers. I'm sure the books were edited and only the most talented were valued. When the Bible was assembled in the 4th century there were over 200 books, so the majority were rejected, and most destroyed. Around 2/3 of God's Word was thrown out.

When a person says they don't have faith, or trust, then l wonder at how they manage in relationships. This lack of trust sounds very much like psychopathy to me!

There are secular definitions for the word faith, which includes trust. What you say here is completely irrelevant to the religious meanings. Tim the evangelical can have faith in God but have no faith in women due to being rejected by them time after time. See how that works?

 

[We Never Know]

Which physics text, article, or refereed paper says anything like that?

Universe Shouldn't Be Here, According to Higgs Physics

Scientists Have Concluded That The Universe Shouldn't Really Exist : ScienceAlert

Universe shouldn’t exist, say CERN physicists

https://futurism-com.cdn.ampproject...-finds-the-universe-should-not-actually-exist

 

[rational experiences]

The real research is....if I understand how machines gained humans life as Sacrificed ...I'll own the power of God.

Real science answer is you took cold metal seamed pressure mass in law from its lawful position as a human. Inside earth mass rock pressures.

You took a huge separated cooled dust mass claiming I built my cold machine metal by time shift outside of all space time laws from coldest earths seam to reinherited cold metal machine.

I overcame God in space lying.

As a biological man.
Living on earth.

Thinking how to get a machine.

To then use changed space time laws to destroy react the rest of fusion by a big blast. Himself as humans science only.

So he got a nothing sin... sink hole that he theoried for. Nothing.

Heavens above reacted blasted science man's own memories recorded.

Using research he also looks for bio medical answers. How could attacked biology cell have overcome a machine attack that passed through them.

In reality earths heavens not owned by man's science changed...not any machine. Not linked to machine yet he researches using machines.

Old advice says man using machines hurt biology. So there never will be a machines medical human answer as you already changed biology on earth yourselves machine liars.

The answer he looks at now involved phenomena of bio metal attacks....asking about skin implants. As if a machine was passing through a human body trying to get back to being a machines mass he had overheated.

Attack hence came from above out of space. He wants not earths mass for his new resource not out of earths space. As his machine he knows owns earth first time shift mass law.

A new reaction has to come from cosmic space only...burning dust mass in hell above. Burning all bio life to death thesis.

As if he lifted the law a cold metal seam he has tried to convert biology into said machine himself by attacking machines cold dust mass first position.

Same study today believing a machine he overheated in metal machine mass past... had tried to put itself back returned into machine. So it wouldn't overheat or blow up. Biology owning living water cooling position with ice melt saved it.

Where it never belonged. In any law. The evil artificial machine placement. Humans put the machine mass by biologies side. Intention to destroy biology.

In biology it means no metallic type of implant should ever have been received.

Ever.

Satanist says if I heat transmitters myself to the implant position biology...human will die in cell but my machine mass would return where it belonged. So my machine won't blow up.

As overheating machine mass changed his reactor reacting moment itself. Right where human science is built controlled operated by humans as human science practiced.

Is how evil his human mind as a Theist researcher is.

As consciousness says no human owns any human thesis about why created creation exists. But he uses any theory to destroy life on earth himself.

As the thought about transformed big bang thesis was for machines position only.

Is what human Satanism as humans doing evil against gods bio life support was about. The A theist as an atheist non God law believer or just a Theist.

If you said the the ist then you'd understand a human double talking as a human is a liar.

Same human.

As gods laws were human only explained as human taught law. Versus any theist Satan ist.

Ist was their theist first. Not one.

As humans theoried the opposition to bio life was machines metals. To time shift bio existence by a man's human built machine.

Exactly theoried big bang meaning....earths origin sun collision.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

And 1931 is not long ago.

Considering that standardized science is only about 2 to 300 years old, I'ld say nearly 100 years ago is anything but "new". It's about a third of the total life span of methodological science.

In terms of scientific inquiry, knowledge and progress, 100 years is a LOOOOONG time ago.

But anyhow, regardless of how long ago it was and if that qualifies as "old" or not (in your subjective opinion), the fact is that the model is there and is extremely well supported.

It doesn't really matter when it was first introduced.

Indeed, a lot of science, from relativity to quantum, is seriously recent stuff.I grew up being told there's no such things as continental drift.

So? What exactly is it that you are complaining about?
You don't like progress?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No, we are here when according to physics, we shouldn't be here - there should be N.O.T.H.I.N.G.

That's ridiculous.
Nothing in physics says we shouldn't be here.

What makes you think otherwise?

, but somehow there is something.

Something existing is evidence of that something existing. Not of how it exists.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Considering that standardized science is only about 2 to 300 years old, I'ld say nearly 100 years ago is anything but "new". It's about a third of the total life span of methodological science.

In terms of scientific inquiry, knowledge and progress, 100 years is a LOOOOONG time ago.

But anyhow, regardless of how long ago it was and if that qualifies as "old" or not (in your subjective opinion), the fact is that the model is there and is extremely well supported.

It doesn't really matter when it was first introduced.




So? What exactly is it that you are complaining about?
You don't like progress?

But a model is not a fact, it is a model and it has limits as a model. It is not the scientific theory of everything.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Now here's a nice little thought for you. We have many lovely things in our earth, but one of them is that we are a twin planet and not a planet-moon system. Simulations suggest this is rare. The collision with the planet Theia tilted the earth 23.5 degrees and stabilized our chaotic orbit, as well as giving us some lovely moonlight, plus our seasons and the tides, important for early life to emerge on land. And that asteroid which hit Tucatan 65 million years ago - it struck at the perfect angle, and at a precise spot to vaporize sulphur deposits which caused a sulhur rich atmosphere and killed off the fauna which would never have allowed intelligent mammals such as ourselves, to rise.
Some things, like evolution, likely happen everywhere because it's what physical systems do - turn ordinary chemicals into living tissue. But some things which happened are extraoridinarily rare, if not non-existant. It's nice to be a glass-half-full kind of person and marvel at all this.

Rare events happen ALL THE TIME.
They do not require any special explanation.

You remind me of that story of the two frogs sitting by a random pond with one frog telling the other "look at how perfect this pond is for us to live... look how great and wonderful those floating leaves are for us to jump on and relax... look at how this pond provides us with delicious food... it's just perfect. Surely it was designed specifically for us by the Frog Gods."


I call it the "teleological fallacy".