Originally posted by ushomefree
(1) It just happened--its magic, or,(2) Something created it--an intelligent being!
1) logical fallacy:
a) Argument from personal incredulity:
What you are saying is that, because it is impossible for you as an individual to imagine something happening it is not possible. You can see very quickly why this is errorous.
b) False Dichotomy:
Your choices to not cover the vast range of ideas that have been proposed to cover the origins of the universe. The junk you mention prior to these points is, at best, amateur. There IS mathematical evidence for a constant universe that creates itself and then collapses again in a cyclical motion, above is a scientific idea of a universe with no beginning where the big bang was just an event that happened because of the nothingness of the universe that preceded it. Static universes, while scientifically unpopular, are certainly still valid in philosophies that don't take materialism as the be all and end all truth of the universe.
2) The brain
Our brains are not perfect. Even in the most basic visual scenes, your brain is making HUGE generalizations and assumptions about the world around it in order to filter down the incredible ammount of stimuli information comming in at any one time. One of these automatic generalizing processes is the idea of cause and effect. Because we live in a world where everything that happens does have a very obvious cause (the level of reality where Newtonian physics hold) there is no need for our brain to have the ability to concieve of events without a cause in the classical Newtonian sense. This skill is what can lead people to believe in ghosts or other supernatural phenomena to explain events they can't understand, since our brains NEED that explanation. In fact, the more intense the effect, the more signifigant of a cause there must be, which is the root of conspiracy theories.
There are 2 major reasons for this:
a) Evolution: Since there are no "causeless" events in the environment that our anscestors came from, there would never have been a selection pressure for creatures that could comprehend causeless things. Also, it is easy to see why a creature that saw very signifigant causes in trivial events could have a higher survival hance than those who are less reactive. If every time some proto mammal heard a twig break behind it, it runs assuming it is a predator, that mammal will have a huge advantage over one that decides to investigate the sound.
b) Neuroplasticity: When a human is born, they have far more neurons in their brains than are necessary. What happens, is various sets of neurons release various hormones that allow other neurons to make the proper connections for brains to work properly. These hormones are released in response to incomming stimuli from the world around the developing child. An amazing thing to note is that, even though this process is unique to each individual, the fact that the world around us is so constant allows each of our brains to arrange themselves in VERY VERY similar ways. Again, since there are no causeless events in the world, there is no need for any neural connections to form that could interpret events without a cause. A proof of this whole thing comes from an experiment done with kittens. For the first part of the kitten's life, it was reared in an environment that lacked horizontal lines. Once the brain had finished developing, and the kitten was placed into a natural environment, they were incapable of processing horizontal stimuli. Moral of the story, if it isn't something that our brains have learned how to process from the environment they have been previously exposed to, there is no way we can immagine it.
3) How to properly understand that science is neither random nor directed:
Science by definition is not random. The idea that something "just happened" is a straw man, and I challange you to find on astronomer or astrophycist that honestly believes things in the universe, including its origin, "just happen". Science creates models to try and understand WHY things happen, saying they just do is the opposite of this. Well, then if it isn't random, clearly it is directed. No! There is no hand guiding matter or the forces of the universe. Lets put it this way, from this webstie: http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/nothing.html
"Where Do the Laws of Physics Come from?
In a series of remarkable developments in the twentieth century, elementary particle physicists, astronomers, and cosmologists have removed much of the mystery that surrounds our understanding of the physical universe. They have found that the cosmos is, on the whole, comprehensible. Of course, no one can claim to understand or explain every facet of the structure of reality. However, we now have theories--mathematical models--that describe the general character of that reality. At this writing, these theories are consistent with all observational data, including measurements of incredible precision. While they will undoubtedly be superseded by better theories as science continues to advance, the great success of current schemes makes it likely that they are on the right track. The broad picture that is drawn by modern particle physics and cosmology is very probably the way nature is, and what we have yet to learn may be expected to fit comfortably on its foundation--just as these sciences fit comfortably on the foundation of Newtonian physics.
We now have a deep and revolutionary understanding of the true nature of the mathematical quantities and theories of physics. We have realized that they are basically human inventions, including the notions of time and space. The quantities of physics are defined by how we measure them. The laws of physics are not, as usually assumed, restrictions on the behavior of matter--handed down from above or somehow built into the logical structure of the Universe. Rather, they are restrictions on the way that physicists may formulate their theories.
Of course, the theories of physics must agree with observations. But, beyond that, they are formulated in such a way as to assure that they do not depend on any particular point of view. Otherwise they cannot be expected to faithfully describe an objective reality. Stenger calls this principle point-of-view invariance, although it is known technically as gauge invariance. When this requirement is met, the most basic principles of physics, as we know them, appear naturally.
Not everything in the Universe is thereby "explained." However, the structural details of the Universe, including basic facts such as particle masses and force strengths, can be understood as following from an accidental process known as spontaneous symmetry breaking. The origin of this structure may be likened to the origin of biological structure, the combined result of tautological necessity, random chance, and even some natural selection. "