Taking Stock

Here's the points for and against that I have in my mind right now. I'm still on the search for others.

Points for the existence of a creator
1. The universe couldn't have existed always otherwise all heat and energy would be spread evenly throughout the universe (second law of thermodynamics) and so it was created. That implies that something created it.
2. The conditions needed for life are very specific. It seems extremely improbable that they came about by chance. You can only call on the anthropic principle (it must have happened that way or we wouldn't be here to talk about it) so many times before you say the improbabilities are just too great. Setting up the conditions seem to indicate that something was setting them up.
a) Immediately after the big bang all matter in the universe expanded faster than the speed of light.
b) Then matter expanded at exactly the right speed to form stars and planets. Stephen Hawkins says that if they expanded one part in a thousand million millions slower, matter would have collapsed back on itself. Any faster and stars wouldn't have formed.
c) The stars and planets.
d) After the earth cooled, there was no water. We needed water for life. 326 000 000 000 000 000 000 gallons appeared on earth with no good explanations for the amount.
e) There are right handed and left handed amino acids. If both existed on earth then life could not have happened. Somehow all the right handed amino acids were eliminated.
f) The development of the atmosphere for life and a stable world with small temperature changes (no other planets discovered so far could support our kind of life).
3. There is no plausible model for the first cell. There is no good explanation for where all the molecules came from and no good explanation for how they came together in close proximity.
4. Even if all the ingredients for a cell are brought together in plentiful supply in a test tube, life does not occur. Something needs to "breathe" life into it.
5. Very specific proteins with very specific tasks (eg. DNA polymerase) are needed for life. The probability of about 1 000 amino acids arranging themselves in the right order is infinitesimally small. There are many more specific enzymes that are needed for life to occur.
6. Life needed a DNA or RNA strand of about 30 000 base pairs to begin. The probability of about 30 000 nucleic acids arranging themselves in the right order is almost too small to be worth considering possible.
7. The second law of thermodynamics states that in any system, open or closed, all things tend toward entropy. For chance evolution to occur, the opposite would have had to happen millions of times over.
8. The fossil record shows sudden jumps in complexity. The first animal was the comb jelly which has connective tissue and a nervous system. During the Cambrian Explosion, plants and animals suddenly (in the geological sense) went from very simple to very complex. It is easier to believe that something was involved in the process rather than evolution took jumps.
9. Natural selection selects out or for certain traits. It does not increase the complexity of the organism.
10. There have been no beneficial mutations documented that increase the complexity of the organism.
11. In every culture there is a belief in spiritual beings.
12. Complex organs like the eye could not have evolved since there are many steps that give no benefit to the organism and there is no reason to continue along a path to build them.
13. There are DNA segments that exists in different species that did not exist in their common ancestor.
14. In cases of people who have been resuscitated, they experience very similar things including meeting some "being of light."
15. Any time we see complexity, we immediately assume that an intelligent being organized it. Why would we assume different for the universe?
16. Nobody has observed evolution occuring. Even those there are more humanoid beings living right now than for the last six million years and far more mutanogens. Lots of evolutionary steps happened then. Why are not more happening now? We see the extinction of many species but no new species appearing. Evidence shows fewer species developing.

Well, I ran out of time. I'll cover the points against in my next post.