What Evidence is there that Atheism is the best explanation for our existence ?

What Evidence is there that Atheism is the best explanation for our existence ?

If you exclude a intelligent designer/creator for the existence of our universe, and us, what remains left, is

- chance
- physical necessity
- ?

please present compelling POSITIVE evidence, that makes atheism being the BEST explanation for our existence. Please no religion bashing etc. Make a argument that makes your position stand on its own feet.

Originally Posted by choSenfroZen

welcome to the discussion Jerimoth.

simple chemical reactions. the building blocks required are some form of self replicating organic materials.
In the casse here it is DNA and RNA. Several aeons ago our atmosphere was mostly hydrogen, carbon dioxide and water with other organic chemicals.

Tests have been conducted using varieties of these chemical mixtures thought consistent with an early earth. UV light and simulated lightning was passed through and is has created the spontaeous synthesis of organic compounds.
These have been the same types of compounds only found in living things, not DNA but the compounds that create DNA and RNA.

So there had to be some chance involved, and considering there are billions of possible planets it beomes inevitable that somewhere (here for sure) life would form.

Popper, K.R., Scientific reduction and the essential incompleteness of all science; in: Ayala, F. and Dobzhansky, T. (Eds.), Studies in the Philosophy of Biology, University of California Press, Berkeley, p. 270, 1974.

the decoding machinery is itself encoded on the DNA. The leading philosopher of science, Karl Popper (1902–1994), expressed the huge problem:
‘What makes the origin of life and of the genetic code a disturbing riddle is this: the genetic code is without any biological function unless it is translated; that is, unless it leads to the synthesis of the proteins whose structure is laid down by the code. But … the machinery by which the cell (at least the non-primitive cell, which is the only one we know) translates the code consists of at least fifty macromolecular components which are themselves coded in the DNA. Thus the code can not be translated except by using certain products of its translation. This constitutes a baffling circle; a really vicious circle, it seems, for any attempt to form a model or theory of the genesis of the genetic code.
‘Thus we may be faced with the possibility that the origin of life (like the origin of physics) becomes an impenetrable barrier to science, and a residue to all attempts to reduce biology to chemistry and physics.

Originally Posted by choSenfroZen

Karl Popper was a philosopher of science, very well respected. In your quote he states :

"‘Thus we may be faced with the possibility that the origin of life (like the origin of physics) becomes an impenetrable barrier to science, and a residue to all attempts to reduce biology to chemistry and physics."

We may be faced, and possibility are the key words. We may also be faced with an answer and there is a clear possibility that this barrier may be crossed.

Mr Popper was an proponent of what some call the Argument from Personal Incredulity. He finds it difficult to believe therefore it must be impossible.

So why do YOU believe he was not right, and it is rather possible ? just wishful thinking, or hard scientific facts on hand ?

Lee Smolin (a world-class physicist and a leader in quantum gravity) estimates that if the physical constants of the universe were chosen randomly, the epistemic-probability of ending up with a world with carbon chemistry is less than one part in 10^220.
This epistemic-probability is one part in: 10000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 0.
Epistemic Probability: 0.0000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 1

Originally Posted by choSenfroZen

"So why do YOU believe he was not right, and it is rather possible ? just wishful thinking, or hard scientific facts on hand ? "

The simple answer, since you and I are having this discussion, it HAS happened at least once, right here, a carbon based system, and you and I carbon based bi-pedal units.
If it can happen by chance once in billions of possible planets, why not twice or more?

So a bit of both I suppose, facts and wishful thinking. Anything but a magic man in the sky.

The extreme fine-tuning of the universe

"Suppose you are dragged before a firing squad consisting of 100 marksmen. You hear the command to fire and the crashing roar of the rifles. You then realize you are still alive, and that not a single bullet found its mark. How are you to react to this rather unlikely event?"

'Of course you do not observe that you are dead, because if you were dead, you would not be able to observe that fact!' However, this does not stop you from being amazed and surprised by the fact that you did survive against overwhelming odds. Moreover, you would try to deduce the reason for this unlikely event, which was too improbable to happen by chance. Surely, the best explanation is that there was some plan among the marksmen to miss you on purpose. In other words, you are probably alive for a very definite reason, not because of some random, unlikely, freak accident."

"So we should conclude the same with the cosmos. It is natural for us to ask why we escaped the firing squad. Because it is so unlikely that this amazing universe with its precariously balanced constants could have come about by sheer accident, it is likely that there was some purpose in mind, before or during its creation. And the mind in question belongs to God."

Originally Posted by choSenfroZen

from the website you quote

"It is quite likely that firing squads or monkeys with typewriters have very little to do with the origin of the universe. Maybe they do, but I don't know, and frankly, you don't know either. The universe is a unique object, meaning that induction does not provide a valid means for the determination of anything about it as a whole. Regardless of the analogy: firing squads, wasps on walls[14], pillars supporting roofs[15], etc., the connection is too weak and too superficial to enable strong conclusions to be drawn.

Frankly, that seems to me a desperate rebuttal . The author might be answer, WHY it is a superficial and weak argument.

And even if one buys into the notion that parts of the universe exhibit design, this does not extend to the universe as a whole (fallacy of composition).

the finetune argument apples to the universe as a whole.

The fine tune constants - close examination, one by one

Why the Big Bang was the most precisely planned event in all of history
If the universe had expanded a little faster, the matter would have sprayed out into space like fine mist from a water bottle - so fast that a gazillion particles of dust would speed into infinity and never even form a single star. If the universe had expanded just a little slower, the material would have dribbled out like big drops of water, then collapsed back where it came from by the force of gravity. A little too fast, and you get a meaningless spray of fine dust. A little too slow, and the whole universe collapses back into one big black hole. The surprising thing is just how narrow the difference is. To strike the perfect balance between too fast and too slow, the force, something that physicists call “the Dark Energy Term” had to be accurate to one part in ten with 120 zeros.
If you wrote this as a decimal, the number would look like this:
0.000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000001

So if the AD proponents really want to keep their firing squad analogy, I suggest they employ a more honest version, one which is more in accord with what we really know (or rather, don't know) about the origin of our universe:"

thats what i have done. see above.