Responding to my Jesus-loving sister

On point one, I would say that there is still a great deal of debate among cosmologists about whether this universe is just one of many....without being qualified to intervene in these debates, I often have the feeling that the attempt of certain physicists to find the absolute and utter starting point as well as the absolute and utter end of it all is trapped in the same literal view of the world as the religionists.

Is your sister open minded enough to read those scientists who, in the field of evolutionary biology, for example, have a very well developed criticism of the 'divine watchmaker/intelligent designer' idea and try to show how such complex information systems are themselves the product of an evolving movement rather than something laid down at the beginning?

On the other hand, from my own experience discussions about 'how it all began' with young very convinced Muslims and Christians just tend to go round in circles. When it comes to discussing the social/political role that religion plays in capitalism, then you can start to make some headway.

of course, this is not controversial, but it does not imply the existence of a creator-god
any creator god invoked as an explanation for the fact that the universe must have started at some time (est. 14 billion yrs ago (bya) ) begs considerably more questions than it answers and starts an infinite regression of causation

There's basically 3 points to address here:
1 - that design implies a designer - 'design' in a non-teleological and strictly metaphorical sense most certainly does not imply a designer but its use is problematic and for practical reason I'd avoid stressing design-metaphors, but anyway...
Now, working scientists use engineering metaphors all the time (design, build, function etc etc) - but they understand them as just that, metaphors.
When looking at a biological artifact, say a wing, or eye, given the logic of biology, an initial question is usually 'what does it do?', which of course assumes that it does something in the first place.
The history of biology and evolution, and hell basic common sense, tells us that they do indeed 'do' something.
But our knowledge that they 'do' something and have a 'function' is purely a-posteriori (after-the-fact).

2- observed complexity
This follows on from 1 - The process that shaped the eye to see or the wing to aid flight had no foresight or end-design in mind.
They certainly do give the appearance of design, what Dawkins would call 'designoid' (biological artifacts that exhibit the appearance of design, but have not actually had a conscious, goal-oriented design)
Dawkins' argument is that the wing or the eye have been produced by a 'blind watchmaker'. Dawkins chose this metaphor as a counter to theologian William Paley's 'watchmaker' version of the classic 'argument from design' (i.e. things are dead complex and look like they were design... so they must have been designed)
Hume dealt with the argument from design in philosophical terms but the scientific knowledge simply didn't exist until Darwin's theory of natural selection came along to suggest a purely naturalistic process by which complex 'design', namely evolution by natural selection.
The eye and wing , despite their complexity and apparent-design, are the chances of a directed process (natural selection, i.e. variance that increases the chances of survival and so reproduction are likely to accumulate in a population) acting on random mutations (slightly more sensitive eye, even 1% better than previous).

To summarize that bit - basically evolution by natural selection can produce complex adaptive features, like the eye, or cell 'machinery', without recourse to an intentional designer.

On design again - i try to avoid using teleological metaphors when discussing this people who aren't big on their science or philosophy cos it muddies the water and feeds misconceptions in people.
I understand perfectly when design metaphors are used by biologists, and indeed engineering language is useful for day-to-day working biologists (which I am not).
Quite a few scientists, whos science (like Kenneth Miller, who happens to be a catholic, but a firm evolutionist, ) or philosophy (like Daniel Dennett, see 'Darwins Dangerous Idea') is naturalistic yet defend the use of design-language. Others, like PZ Myers , and I've heard Lewis Wolpert too, reckon they'd be happy if scientists never used design-metaphors ever.

3 - the generation of 'information'
Eejits like Bill Dembski and Stephen Myers (intelligent-design creationists) bang on about this all the time.
They posit that information is a special 'magical' type of entity in the universe separate from energy and matter.
Now all information is, is matter arranged in particular patterns - information does not exist independent of the matter it forms its patterns in.
In the biological sense, the info they're talking about is that in the DNA of living cells. It has the instructions or 'blueprints' for building living cells
'Information' in the biological sense, and particularly 'new' info is caused by mutations.
Evolution requires 3 main things:
VARIANCE - organisms in a population are slightly different from each other (e.g. taller, faster etc)
INHERITANCE - offspring resemble their parents, so some of these differences can be passed-on generations
SELECTION - more offspring are born than can survive, so any with a slight advantage are more likely to survive and reproduce
Thus, we observe descent with modification and the accumulation of change over time, with increasing biological diversity.
It is the 'variance' part that needs most addressed with the 'information' issue.
Mutations (simple random copying errors) provide a source of new info (and are usually deleterious and thus disappear in the lifespan of evolutionary history), and mechanisms like natural selection and genetic drift (random sampling effect in small populations), causes increases in difference. Sexual recombincation (i.e. when male and females reproduce they roughly give half their genetic traits to offspring, but you still manage to look slightly different from siblings) is also a source of variance.
So here we see variance, and novel 'new' things without needing to invoke intelligence. variance and 'new information' can come into being thtough purely natural processes.

It is estimated that there are a billion billion planets. If the chances of life existing are a billion to one, then even still despite those staggeringly low odd, that still means probably a billion planets have life on them.
Now, we're on one of them, we must be, if we weren't, this conversation wouldn't take place. Essentially this is part of what's known as the 'anthropic principle'. Our earth must have just the right 'settings' for life as we know it to arise, otherwise, it wouldn't have arisen.
On the question of the origin of life, yes, it most certainly is low odds that life (that is organic matter with the capability of self-replication) could arise from non-life.
Yet, it happened. It must have, because at one time, there wasn't life - we know that because we can't find any evidence of life beyond 3.8 bya (although recent fossil archaea are pushing this back past 4bys perhaps), even though the Universe has existed approx 14by
So, at some point life 'happened'. What form would this have taken?
Well we know what the building blocks and predecessors of living cells are. We have an idea about what the early earth (earth formed 4.5bys) atmosphere was probably like, in terms of temperature, gases etc.
So the question is, given the early earth atmosphere (methane, ammonia, water vapour, hydrogen...), could molecules with the capacity to organise and self-replicate come about from just the gases that existed in the early earth?
Well, apparently yes. The Miller-Urey experiment in 1953 created the precursors to RNA (pre-DNA) - actually they created most of the amino acids required to build cells - by passing electric current through the early-earth gases.
The experiments have since been replicated and suggest, so far, the best model for how organic, self-replicating molecules came to exist from inorganic matter.

They don't serve any purpose. Why should they?
Matter is constrained by physical laws - but there is no foresight or planning in these laws, they just are what they are.

Philosophers certainly do not agree that a transcendent law-giver would explain moral behavior. Neither do philosophers agree that's anything such as an objective moral standard.
Given that the whole premise of this point is entirely wrong, it's not worth expanding on with her - save your breathe!

Individual acccounts of subjective experiences are all well and good, and perhaps even very interesting, but they count for nothing in the ground of rational argument. If your sister is going to continue with the pretense of rational enquiry, she'll need to stop appealing to subjective experience and anecdotal cases.
There exists no tangible obective evidence for the supernatural, the afterlife, or any sort of god, either creator of interventionist.
You could always throw the Bertrand Russell celestial teapot argument at her.

Oh and if your sis asks how we know the universe is 14 bil yrs old, mention
Cosmic background microwave radiation
The abundance of lighter elements and relative concentrations
Red-shift
Which physcists generally agree point to a universe 14 bil.yrs old

Do you actually think there's any point debating her? Is she likely to change her mind?

This doesn't really work. You say that "matter can only exist in certain ways". That is exactly what she means by natural laws. She is asking why matter can only exist in a certain way. She says God. You haven't really said anything except repeated that matter exists in certain ways.

The answer is that there is no reason to think that matter can only exist in a certain way. (Actually, a lot of scientists themselves seem to be confused on this issue.) There is no observation of the necessity of things being how they are. Natural laws aren't observed. All we can observe is regularity. But regularity does not imply necessity or that things are following some rule.

Any appeal to natural laws to explain observable phenomena will open her to the objection that natural laws themselves have to be explained. If she resorts to saying that God created the laws, as I assume she would, then she will have to explain God and ask what the cause of God is. She will probably say that that's where her explanation stops. He is just there. Then why can't you say that things just are the way they are, and stop there instead? All explanations stop somewhere. It's the nature of the case. Your explanation stops a step before hers, but there is no compelling reason to say that your explanation must go beyond things-as-they-are. Her own disposition to go one step further is not an argument.

there it is.
how's iowa, alibadani?

in fairness the classic Paley's watchmaker argument is a little different than you suggest.
Paley said himself if you found a stone/rock on a heath and picked it up you would not think it was designed, but the product of purely natural processes such as erosion.
But if you found a watch, the complex and functionally-integrated parts, come together in a way that makes the whole watch do what it does. This points to an intelligence, and any reasonable person would come to such a conclusion. I know I would.
Paley also saw such complex 'design' in the biological world - eyes, wings, the brain etc. His mistake was that he attributed these 'designs' to an intelligent cause.
We now know how complex adaptive features can come about through purely naturalistic mechanisms - through the process of evolution by natural selection. This gives us the appearance of design, without a designer.

the rest i agree with

Good point, I shouldn't have use a rock as an example, I was thinking that the mistake was the use of the word designed, but it was actually the appearance of being design that was the issue. I think I'll blame drunkenness
Your response deals with vary well

My answers:

Whether time itself even exists before 1 planck time is debatable. Without a Grand Unified Theory, physics is utterly silent on anything before this. So a "single moment"? "Beyond a reasonable doubt"? Definately not.

Not to mention that Big Bang is one of several competing theories, and not necessarily the most favoured one among contemporary physicists.

Moreover, it says nothing about supernatural beings whatsoever.

There is no "code", no "information" in genes. It is a physical phenomena - like a ratchet. It makes it simpler for us to grasp if we say that these are "instructions", but they are not truly instructions any more than rain falling on my head "instructs" my hair to become wet. There is no mind or consciousness involved in the process, no abstraction or communication or interpretation - it is purely a chemical mechanism.

This is called abiogenesis, and there are, actually, a small number of hypotheses and experiments around the subject, all of which are completely inconclusive. None have demonstrated any "odds" to calculate. The question is largely unanswered.

A thing that is not answered is just that - it does not immediately show the involvement of anything supernatural. If religion is simply a "filler" for our ever-diminishing gaps in understanding, then it is hardly indicated as likely - quite the opposite.

The laws came from scientists! The universe itself is unknowable - science only creates abstract models which approximate its functioning, but these are human creations and often do not fully conform to the behaviour of the universe. Science does not attempt to know the universe, contrary to popular perception - science models the universe.

Science creates models which predict the occurence of observed phenomena - the "laws" are just that, models created by humans as a framework to predict natural events. The more succesful a model is at prediction, the more utility it has and the more it is widely regarded as useful. Note that there are relatively few "laws" in science. Most everything is theory, except for a few models such as Newton's laws - and the term "laws" is widely regarded as a misnomer, since Newton's mechanics had to be corrected due to a few minor flaws in predictive capability and are full of numerous exceptions which weren't foreseen. Science is always growing and new models with better predictive capability are emerging all the time, replacing old ones - thus most everything in science is termed as a theory (including, germ theory, heliocentric theory, and so on). Note that in science, theory does not mean the same thing as it means in popular parlance - the popular use of the term is referred to as a hypothesis in science.

As far as "purpose", science's foundations are completely at odds with a teleological universe. This undermines causality, which would mean science should not function nearly as well as it does.

When have philosophers ever agreed on anything? All these representations of the "experts" are absolutely false characterizations, which appear to have been made up out of thin air.

In answer to the question, morality is probably an evolved trait - humans are a social species whose success was due to the ability to co-operate effectively. Humans are not alone in the animal kingdom, especially among social species, in displaying seemingly puzzling and contradictory behaviours, being at once highly competitive but also displaying altruism and co-operation. A full understanding of the context of the behaviours in particular situations usually serves to explain them well - there are different strategies for different situations, and to meet different goals.

All of these groups have also experienced psychotic breaks - which are very often expressed in a religious context, or, are characterized by delusions such as 'magical thinking' that apply equally well to the phenomena of religion. Intense spiritual experiences may simply be the cultural expression of a psychotic break. Note that the technical sense of a psychotic break is meant here, not the pop culture meaning. A psychotic break is often regarded by the person who experiences it as a positive event, and in some cases may even have long-lasting benefits (such as quitting smoking, etc). In fact, the DSM-IV criteria for delusional psychosis had to specifically exclude religion by name, granted it a special exemption from the criteria for diagnosis, because there is no possible way to distinguish the two on the basis of symptoms.

An alternate, and less severe, explanation is that the human mind is very strongly geared to detecting patterns in its environment and experiences - so strongly geared, that it often sees patterns that aren't there. Most of us have had direct personal experience with this phenomena in one way or another, whether we've mistaken another person's intentions or had our own intentions mistaken on the basis of a series of misinterpreted incidents, or witnessed people making bizarre and irrational connections between events or things that have no relation to one another at all. Religion, and most magical thinking, may be rooted in this strong need to perceive every aspect of the world in terms of patterns, to the degree that where actual patterns cannot be deduced, we have a compulsion to introduce imaginary ones.

Yes, the only way we know that the watch was designed was because of inductive evidence and our experience with them. There is nothing in the nature of a watch that says that it must have been designed.

There is no such inductive evidence of "designers" of natural processes.

Alibadani, you should probably tell your sister that she is a strawman made-up by Richard Dawkins to argue against to make himself seem radical.

ps/ also, how did it go? Curious too

proving a negative is impossible, if i assert something exists which doesn't, you can never do anything except show a total lack of evidence, but you can't 'prove' it precisely because it's not there. thus the onus is on believers (in anything) to provide evidence in support of their beliefs, if any pretence of rational enquiry is to be maintained. science is based on this, religion on the aforementioned fallacy.

All you’ve proven there is that the rain cannot be seen from your window…

i can see how this is arguable either way, i had in mind more absolute negatives such as the complete non-existence of something, like god or iraqi WMD. i'm not sure how these can be disproved, simply the absence of any evidence for them weighed up against the volumes of evidence for more plausible explanations. either way, clearly the burden is on the person making the claim, we don't just assume any old crap is true until someone disproves it.

At sufficiently cold temperatures though string behaviour in molecules completely wipes out four-dimensional certainties, with matter able to co-exist in space/time two places at once – so they could be points in both a square and a circle. While I’m not disputing that human concepts can have perfect internal consistency, the realities of the universe (16 dimensions, we can only measure three properly) are such that to talk about immutable physical laws as though they are fixed and designed is a fallacy, pure and simple. Outside the human mind there are no known definites – which is another reason to disregard God as an attempt to make the utterly indefinite into something the human brain can comfortably accept as within its extremely limited frame of reference.

Fundamentally god-botherers lack imagination.

alibadani

Interesting role reversal. May be your sister could join in the discussion?

This is an illogical line of arguement because it rests on two premises; the first being that ''the universe' is a metaphor for the presense of matter and thatb this therefore is the whole of ''creation' in the broadest sense, yet if there were no matter and the universe was nothing but an empty vacuum then the universe would still exist. Afterall if you have an empty box, its stil a box. This line of arguement also rests on the idea that time is a finite thing, which again is a flawed line of arguement. If i run a race, there was time before and after the running of thst race, time does not consist solely of the time shown on the stopwatch. .
The big bang is a hotly debated theory, and no-one would really say they ha proved beyond reasonable douby the exact specificis of the universes creation. In short god simply exists here as an illogical leap to smooth over the gaps in humanties understanding and to help us in our inability to grasp the concept of infinity.