epistemology

http://www.crazyontap.com/topic.php?TopicId=12826&Posts=9

It's possible that, crunch the equations of the universe and life falls out. I guess. I'd like to see the proof however. The proofs of life I've seen, like those of God, seem to presume their conclusion.

> much as nitrogen atoms in isolation will almost certainly triple-bond into nitrogen gas

I'm questioning the analogy though - how did those nitrogen atoms become isolated in the first place? Did something "force" them apart? If so, was this then the "N gas-making" force? Was it inevitable or did a will isolate them on purpose?

You see, in the causal chain of events, once one step becomes "inevitable" the question of evitability moves onto the previous step. In fact this is the dance between the known, inevitable, truths and those unknown and conditional that has been going on for millenia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology

I'm not religiously affiliated myself (I think that creationists are wrong because they take things too literally, same as their critics, in fact). I just have the empathy to understand how one can be religious, in a metaphorical way.

There's an interview in a recent Time magazine article with both Richard Dawkins and Frances Collins (head of US's Human Genome Project). Dawkins doesn't need a religious introduction; Collins is Christian. It's an interesting pas de deux. I'll find the link if requested.