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Jon
Which creation story do you believe, Genesis 1 Adam and Eve made together, or Genesis 2 Adam made from dust and Eve made from his rib?
The creation story I'd believe in, as it makes the most sense, involves the Big Bang and evolution. Genesis 1 and 2 aren't to be taken literally, though they convey truths which I accept like:
God created the universe and it was good.
God made man and woman and they were made good.
Man and woman were made for each other to multiply.
I hope this answers your question.
It is a weird quirk of this forum software that my reply (to something else) shows up as a reply to this. Even though my reply is posted 1 day before the post the forums try to say it is a reply to. (check the dates.)
Anyways, that said my reply to Jon's 06:40 on august 13th (or whatever time zone you happen to be in.)
If genesis one and 2 are not meant to be taken literally, what is meant to be taken literally in the bible? How is one to know which parts are to be taken literally versus which parts you are not to take literally? Whatever the religious leader of your church say is? There is no indicators in the bible of "this is story time," "this is pure factual truth time." If all or parts of the bible is not meant to be taken literally that means it is open to interpretation right? Which means then it is simply some stories where people can take their own interpretation on? God can forgive people that take the wrong interpretation, even if it is badly wrong? Or is it just a guessing game, and you hope your particular denomination and take on it is the correct one?
I'm glad you asked. This does seem like a guessing game since the Bible doesn't say "By the way, this actually happened." or "Guys, this is to be understood figuratively."
Private Interpretation is in fact very dangerous as that's exactly what could happen. People will make their own interpretation, So how does God "solve" this predicament? With a hierarchy. In the old testament, this is known as the "Chair of Moses" which is referenced only once and not even in the old testament in Matthew 23:2. Interestingly enough, this verse actually says, to follow what they preach but not what they do as they're hypocrites.
In the new testament, this concept is known as the "Chair of Peter" which decides when matters of faith come into question; like this one. That, "Chair of Peter" has been passed on from Peter to Clement and down thru the ages to a particular Pope Francis. This is how the RCC knows which Bible verses are to be taken figuratively or literally.
I realize this isn't the best picture I'm painting right now. I'm actually in a hurry typing this. There's a bunch of Bible verses to attest to this but I won't bore you with them. You can actually check more of it out at catholic.com, then search papal infallibility or the primacy of Peter.
Jon the Catholic,
The only parts of the biblical fairy tale that are not meant to be taken literally are Yeshua's parables. That's because the writer is clearly saying that those are just stories meant to illustrate a particular point. Everything else without that exemption is meant to be taken literally.
Not so, Diotrephes. I'll take Genesis 1 for an example.
You have day 1, 2 , 3 then on the 4th day, God created the sun and moon. How were there days 1-3 without the sun and moon? This is already a clue from the author of Genesis that, "Guys, this isn't literal okay?" Even the early Church fathers didn't believe this to be taken literally. This 6 day creation belief that's widespread is pretty new.
So you evade my simple question. So your saying that the bible isn't to be taken literally? If you can't believe the bible, what are you suppose to believe? Do you have any proof outside the bible your god created anything?
You put words in my mouth, my friend. The Bible isn't to be used for something it was never meant to be used for. It isn't a science text book so why should I use it as one? You ask me which creation story I believe, I'd say both. But don't understand that to mean I believe them literally.
Proof outside the Bible that God created anything? I'll give you short answer. The universe, itself. The universe came to exist. There are only three reasons why anything would exist. It's by chance, it's necessary (has to exist), or it was created. It seems highly unlikely that it's by chance (see fine tuning). There's no indication that the universe has to exist. It could not have existed at all and no natural laws would be broken. That leads us to, it was created.
Then you'd ask, how did the thing that crated the universe come into existence. You can repeat this process infinitely if you say that this being was created and this a contradiction occurs. You'd then need to say that this being is necessary. This being has to exist. This being we call God.
I'm hoping I did Aquinas justice. This came from him along with four other ways.
@jon the catholic.
You make some wild assumptions and you can't prove any of them.
1) You said "Proof outside the Bible that God created anything? I'll give you short answer. The universe, itself. The universe came to exist. There are only three reasons why anything would exist. It's by chance, it's necessary (has to exist), or it was created."
That isn't proof at all. There can be more than the three reasons the universe exists. You assume that those are the only reasons possible. Furthermore, you cannot prove that the universe was created and even more to the point, if it was created, by whom.
2) You think what you stated was logical but it isn't. It isn't logical at all. Too many gaps. Nothing substantiated or proved. Assumption after assumption.
3) Not withstanding the fact that you choose to not take PART of the bible literally. You either take the whole thing literally or you discount it altogether. If you don't take it literally then you are obviously interpreting it to fit a narrative that YOU choose. That is intellectual dishonesty.
You didn't do anyone justice, least of all yourself and your credibility.
Let me backtrack a bit. I may have jumped the gun a bit.
Would a philosophical proof suffice for you for God's creation of the universe or does it have to be scientific?
On the part of me taking the Bible literally all throughout and figuratively sometimes, I don't see a contradiction here. Remember that the Bible is not one book but a collection of books. Some are meant to be taken figuratively, some include figurative texts, some try to record histroy, some are letters with a specific purpose, some use bold imagery or symbolisms and many more. The books of the Bible were written be several people over hundreds of years so literary devices will be different. Why is it wrong for me to try to understand these texts the way they were intended to be understood?
Good luck with that.
Either you believe something or you don't. If the bible isn't a science book why do you try and use it like one? You still haven't proven your god created anything. How do you know your god created the universe? There are hundreds of creation stories, each having a god or gods create the universe.
@Jon the Catholic:
So for RCC anyways the pope is the ultimate authority on how to interpret the bible? And the pope is the ultimate authority because he is selected by god, as god gives his divine direction in the people that vote the new pope in? At least I like the current RCC pope a lot more than previous ones I know about.
You gotta see the potential for abuse though right? Men write/print/edit/interpret the bible, the bible says it is the word of god, and men frequently heavily lean on the bible to prove the existence of their god, the book also explains who gets to interpret the book, all the while the only evidence people can give to prove their god concept is "something had to start existence" "Everything is much to complex to be random chance," without any data to prove these assertions, and certainly no way to connect this possible "creating" entity with their particular god rendition.
Ultimately, the pope does have the final say on certain matters. This however, has happened 2 times in the history of the church where the pope spoke from the chair of Peter from my knowledge. I'll have to check this. Other times he speaks, it's always with the consent and counsel of the other bishops.
So as to the abuse that can come from this, what particular abuse are you referring to that has already happened? I can think of a few which are commonly cited but I just want to know which ones you're interested in.
As to the existence of the universe without a creator, I'm curious if you've read the fine tuning argument.
I was not speaking of any particular abuse, just general abuse. Let me put it this way:
There is a new god I just made up called: LFTW God. I can not prove my god is real, but I have a book (or in this case an online written paragraph,) that is the word of this god, that helps to prove the LFTW god is real because it talks about all the amazing miracles LFTW god has done. LFTW God is all powerful, all knowing, but works in mysterious ways because we can't truly know what it is to be god. We should worship this god because he is also all good and he has a plan for us. While this paragraph was written by humans, translated by humans and edited by humans, this book is still the word of the LFTW god. Also the hierarchical human follower system of this religion is how any dispute of translation and interpretation is handled. (Right now that so happens to be LogicForTW but new leaders of this religion can be voted in later by the followers.)
I obviously skipped quite a few other things the various bibles talk about, but I can just easily add them or amend the paragraph above. I can also claim "proof" of existence of my god using the cosmological argument, (what came first?) and the fine tuning argument that I am familiar with, that you mentioned in your last post.
My point is how do you disprove the god I just made up? It has the same amount of "evidence/proof" as your god does. It is the same except: I said I made it up (I can change that easily enough,) It is not as old, (I can lie/change the supposed age of the first writing of this if I wanted to,) and most certainly does not have as many followers, (I could claim many more, but I would be busted as a liar pretty quick if I tried to say 100's of millions of followers like catholicism)
.
.
I am familiar with many derivations of the fine tuning argument. I am not sure if yours is one I have read about, as people have talked about various versions of it, but I am guessing at the heart of your fine tuning argument is:
"Look how complex and perfect everything is for human life here on this planet. It is too complex and too perfect for all this to be set up by random chance, intelligent design must have been involved."
If you want to hear my counter argument to that, I am happy to provide it. Or you can provide a quick summary or link to which particular fine tuning argument you are referring to if you wanted to go into more fine details.
Yes, please provide a counter to the fine tuning argument you've presented. Fine tuning arguement I'm talking about I picked up from the debate between Tren Horn vs Raphael Lataster. Trent gives the numbers better that I could ever.
As to your god LFTW,I think we'd actually need to back up even more here. There's obviously things we haven't settled on the matter of how Jesus of Nazareth had his earthly ministry here on earth. I'd need to know where you're coming from on this.
Do you believe that a man named Jesus of Nazareth ever existed? That he taught and claimed to be God? That he was put on trial and sentenced to death? That three days after his death, his tomb was found empty? That following this event, several of his followers claimed to have seen that Jesus resurrected from the dead? (You don't even have to say that you believe he resurrected, just that people CLAiMED to have seen him.) and following his death, thousands of Christians including a Roman official continued to preach his word even under the punishment of death?
You seem to imply as well that the Bible is a collection of made up stories. Please clarify. Old or new testament? Or both? If so when would you say these books written? I hear the date 324 thrown a lot but I don't assume you hold the same view.
I googled the Trent Horn vs Raphael Lataster debate, 2 hour youtube debate. Yikes, I do not have time to watch that right now, and I prefer written debate where it is easier and faster and more concise to break down and rebuttal etc. Perhaps I can find someone that took the time to transcribe the conversation, as well as providing a compilation of the major points with links to the relevant parts when people wanted to drill down into the details.
I will respond to your paragraph 3 and 4 here, and begin the fine tune argument on our thread further down?
"Do you believe that a man named Jesus of Nazareth ever existed?"
The man/god of that name, as depicted in any of the various major versions of bible catholic/christian? - No.
- By default based on above answers the next 2 questions as - no.
- Do I believe people claimed to have seen a well regarded holy figure resurrected. - I think that is fairly likely, certainly, people today claim that other people have claimed to see Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected.
- Do I believe that thousands of people including a roman official continued to follow what this holy person/god figure talked about after his death even with these followers risking punishment of death? - I think that is quite plausible at least to some variation. It may have been hundreds, it may have been 10's of thousands. It may have been no roman officials it may have been dozens.
.
.
I feel all holy books, new/old testament, KJB, quran, etc are highly edited and translated constantly evolving books to fill needs peices of work that heavily plagiarized off similar books and ideas that are very loosely based on actual events, (noah's ark story is based on a river in the area/time that badly overflowed its bank on a particularly rainy year for example that probably felt like a great flood to the people in the area but as the story got retold it became greater and greater until it was "covered the whole world".) The jesus story is based on a religious leader that got persecuted and possibly put to death in roman times, and then later the idea of resurrection to this figure, and him being son of god or god. (It is also this person claimed to be son of god at the time as well. But in short yes, all holy books all versions I would describe as works of fiction, historical fiction maybe.
I do think a more recognizable "book" of the bible was probably commissioned and put together around the 2nd or 3rd century, based on some historical, and things like carbon dating evidence. But some version of written words containing these ideas go back even thousands of years before the supposed events of christ, they were just used by different religions. As I said before religious books are a continuously evolving constantly changing collection of ideas, that blurs the neat lines we would like to make about "when was the first christian bible written?" Which would be expected of any 1000's of years old highly edited concept idea, where exact word for word replication is not encouraged nor possible, (translations, and even spoken/written language changes within a particular language.) Which brings the point, of its similarity to the english language, (or any language) of the last 2000 years, old english of 2000 years ago would be nearly unrecognizable or understandable to modern USA english speakers. And certainly modern US english would be 90+ percent incomprehensible to people that spoke a version of english 2000 years ago.
Sorry about the 2 hour video. But Trent actually presents first and his opening statement has the most meat. It's only 15 minutes long. That might be easier to digest.
Thanks for your clear answers. I see we're long way from each other on many things. You say you don't believe that a man named Jesus of Nazareth ever existed.
I suggest reading what these historians from the ancient times would have said about either a man named Jesus who was sentenced to death, or in more vague terms as the man who Christians believe was God:
Tacitus in his account about why Nero persecuted the Christians
Pliny the younger on how early Christians celebrated the eucharist
Josephus, a Jewish Historian mentions Christ twice as a real person
The Babylonian Talmud (Jewish) mentions a "Yeshu" - Hebrew for Jesus and it states he practiced "sorcery"
None of these accounts are Christian in nature and they all date back to the 1st and second centuries. I'm sure if I dig up more, I can find more on this.
The translation of the Bible is actually really tricky, I agree. A lot of words cannot possibly be expressed in English or Spanish or whatever language we have now. Which is why a text in the original Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT) has been preserved by the Vatican so if English becomes too different from the one we know today, a direct translation from the original text may be made. This is actually why many Catholics (myself included) are very cautious as to the Bible we use. It has to be an apporved translation, one which captures to the best way it can, the original text.
Jon the Catholic,
The original Bible was not written in Greek or Hebrew. The Bible as a complete book wasn't produced until 692 A.D. when a committee of story tellers, writers, and artists produced three master copies in Latin. Those are the sources of all other Bibles that were then translated into other languages.
Now that's not to say that there weren't assorted fragments of the stories floating around but they were not the Bible with all of the books that it has now. In fact the original master copies were missing one book that is now in the Bible.
And then, about 136 years ago, two English guys got some bugs up their butts and deleted the 14 books of the Apocrypha.
BTW, the name "Jesus" didn't exit until about 1630 and there was no guy named "Josephus".
As for "Christ" = http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=christ &
http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Christ.html#.WZaT1-ZtfWA
When did I try to use the Bible like a science textbook?
Not sure if this question was directed at me or not.
But at least in our more recent conversation in this thread, I have not noticed you trying to use the bible like a science textbook.
I will say that: if the bible cannot be the source of proof/evidence of god, and if the cosmological, (what came first?) and the fine tuning argument, (earth and humans are too complex for random chance,) if these arguments do not prove/provide evidence for your god what is left? My guess is faith, which at least for this atheist (and I suspect most atheist,) is not nearly enough.
Someone asked me why I'd believe the Bible if I didnt view it as a science textbook. That wasn't you.
As to your point about the cosmological, fine tuning etc, not being able to prove my God as compared to other Gods, we need to realize that these arguments prove the answer to "Is there a God? And not, "Which God?". This would be pushing the arguments past what their meant to answer.
It's like if you gave me a box which may or may not have a marble inside. I shake it and conclude that there is in fact a marble inside. But by my meer shaking of the box, I cannot tell you the color of the marble. That's for another investigation to find out. We need to open the box to find out the properties of this marble.
The same way, we need to settle the, "Is there a God" question first (is there a marble) before we ask the "Which God?" Question (what's the color of the marble?.
I am glad you agree that cosmological and fine tuning argument does not prove your particular god. I also mostly agree with your marble analogy. So we have no need to debate on that particular side of the argument.
I think the next step is to define the word god. A quick google definition of god:
1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.
2. (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.
Do you agree with this definition or do you want to amend or supply your own?
Based on this definition, I will present a short version of my issues with the fine tuning argument/debate.
If we go by the fine tuning argument, we could deduce a few things about this God.
For Him to have created the universe, he'd have to be all powerful. He'd also have to exist outside space and time as if he did, he'd have to be in the universe and he can't create a universe he's part of. As he's outside space and time, he'd have to be unbound by space and time. He'd also have to be an intelligent being and infinitely so as he was able to finely tune the universe to create life. Needless to say, he cannot contradict himself.
To summarize this being would have to be:
All powerful
Unbound by space and time (no beginning no end)
All knowing (to account for his intelligence)
And cannot contradict himself.
I can keep going with, if God exists, did he reveal himself to us? Christian's believe that God did reveal himself to us through the Trinity. One God in three persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the second being Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Okay, thanks for defining the word god as how you define it. I will work with this definition.
Few questions first:
-Why does this god have to be all powerful? Why not just powerful enough to create the start of the universe?
-Why does this god have to exist for all time? Why not just he existed before, set off the big bang (I assume you believe the universe is 14 billion years old and the big bang happened, as the current pope says the bigbang and evolution are a real thing.)
-Why does the god have to know everything? And instead just enough to set off the big bang? Why can't a god capable of creating the universe not able to contradict himself? Sounds like a rather arbitrary condition to an all powerful being.
My counter to "the fine tuning argument." First I won't go into the cosmology (what came first) argument as well unless you want me to, although they are closely related as it is part of your definition of a god.
The universe is 14+ billion years old, and impossibly big. It has been estimated there is at least a trillion trillions of stars out there. That is an enormous amount of opportunity for something incredibly rare to happen. For all the right conditions for complex life to occur. We humans do not understand big big numbers. We can try to quantify it, imagine it, so on. Humans even struggle to imagine 1 million. Let alone 1 billion or 1 trillion. A trillion trillion's? Pfth. One way to try to understand these numbers. We understand that winning the powerball jackpot is extremely unlikely, so unlikely it is to the point that it is a waste of money/time to even consider we will win it, let alone go out and buy a ticket. Unless we somehow have a way we think we can greatly increase the odds for ourselves. (I prayed to god, the universe "owes me" I am special somehow, etc.)
However with 1 trillion dollars (half a trillion "chances" at 2 dollars a ticket.) you can guarantee that you will win the powerball lottery 1712 times in a row.
.
TLDR version of my argument against fine tuning:
You can say complex life happening by chance here on earth is as incredibly unlikely to as big of a number you can realistically imagine, and I will tell you that it likely has happened likely billions or trillions of times in this vast universe already or is happening. The odds of complex life happening, are far greater given the size and time of the universe. You do not need a "designer" beyond random chance and evolution to be where we are today, given the incredible amount of chances given for this setup, it can even be seen as inevitable
Basically you can tell me the odds of a planet forming for the right conditions for complex life is incredibly remote, well beyond our imagination remote. Say 1 in a trillion trillions, that still gives us 50/50 chance of at least a single planet earth and us.
But, instead the odds of the conditions being right, the "goldilocks" planet/solar system that gives rise to complex life sometime in 14 billion years is actually quite a bit less than 1 in a trillion trillions, many orders of magnitude less. Also as you believe in evolution, you agree life adapts to the conditions. This greatly increases the odd's of the rise of complex life. It is very possible complex life can adapt in very different conditions then our planet earth. Just within earth, there is thriving complex life on our ocean floors near volcanic vents, where pressures are enormous and there is no daylight. If complex life can thrive there, why not in the vastly different conditions of other planets orbiting other stars where the conditions are quite a bit different where certain building blocks like roughly the right temperature and places that fragile origins of life can take hold if given enough chances?
Probably the single rarest event in "complex life" is the jump from base elements, even in combination with each other, forming in a way where the base elements worked together to form a more complex entity to foster chemistry and its atomic energy in a way that is more efficient than its surroundings and then continues to expand itself with it's success. And for this fragile setup to survive long enough to get to more hardy forms that are not so fragile and only last a few seconds or less. I would put that at a 1 in trillion trillion trillion trillion trillions. 10^100th or more, really you can put this number as big as you want. The amount of atomic/element/chemical reactions that occurs on planet earth over 4.5 billion years is going to be a far greater number. After that, evolution takes over, sure plenty can happen, and has happened during the course of evolution, but those are much more manageable odds like 1 in a million that complex life survived long enough for evolution to continue to happen to get as far as it has gotten today.
It actually would not surprise me at all if their is over a trillion planets out there that at one point had complex life on them. Very rare in percentages of number of stars out there, but complex life on earth is joined by millions or billions of other planets that also currently have complex life that approaches the level of complex life this earth currently has.
Another way to put it. There is a 1 in a trillion trillions that you are exactly you (pick any number you want). The amount of hairs on your head, the exact formation of your iris and it's colors, the exact chemical balance in your brain. Yet here you are. This you, not you with 1 less hair on your head at this particular moment. Did some sort of all powerful entity decide how many hairs you will have on your head right at this moment? Or is it that pure random chance guided you to this point. That particular sperm met your mother's egg. That a tree fell in africa created enough disturbance in the entire weather system that you had a small wind gust blow in a certain precise direction that had this hair fall out at this time roughly 2 days ago, but not other hairs. The you at this moment is 1 in 1 + 1 trillion zeros following this 1 (make up as large as number as you want, the actual odds of you right now is greater,) chance of being you at this exact moment. Yet here you are, exactly you. What makes more sense? Random chance? Or some sort of weird god (as you defined it) decides what every single atom and electron in all of the universe is going to be doing at each and every moment (Trillions of times a second or more.) Also if god controlled the position of every electron in all of the universe, your "free will" would be exactly none.
All powerful, no beginning, all knowing...
He'd have to be all powerful to create the universe. All matter, energy, space and time. He'd have to have no beginning as he created time. Saying he did have a beginning would be like saying Mark zuckerburg got the idea for Facebook from one of the first Facebook messages he received. He has to be all knowing as, being the creator of the universe, he just has to know everything about it. Like how watch maker knows the watch he made, God knows the universe he made. The watchmaker may no know every single thing about the individual parts which he may not have made but he knows the parts he did make.
Yep. We definitely have a different view on fine tuning. Pardon me. I thought there was only one. I agree with your argument if that's all the fine tuning argument offered.
The one I meant was when the universe began (I believe this isn't a point of contention), the natural constants of the universe had a value and they are independent from one another, the cosmological constant, the strength of the strong force, strength of gravity. And that these constants need not be the values that they are now. They could be any value within a certain range, but the value that they have makes it possible for life.
The cosmological constant is the most famous one. The probability of the universe existing where life exists is 1 in 10 to the 122th power. To put this into perspective, the number of atoms in the universe? 10 to the 80th power. And if that constant were off by just a tiny bit, we'd either have only hydrogen or space would be empty.
Your assertion of independence is extremely reckless; and is most likely false.
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You don't know the sample space or the distribution inside that space, so you can't preform that calculation; and no one else can either. Additionally, life does not require a cosmological constant. Worse still, halving, doubling, or even flipping it negative wouldn't change anything measurable in our galaxy.
The "fine tuning" of the cosmological constant has to do with the problem of calculating its value theoretically. First off it can't be done with the current framework because it diverges. To get around this, a cut off factor is introduced by fiat (it is just a guess). Then it still can't be done as it involves an infinite number of closed loop Feynman diagrams. Worse still there are diagrams which can NOT be calculated at all (for example diagrams with gravitons). This is where the "fine tuning" comes in; each of those closed loop Feynman diagrams tend to be 50 or so order of magnitude larger than the measured value. That is the value (the one that is 50 orders larger) that would prevent life from existing, NOT the observed value. So the "fine tuning" problem is how to get those to cancel each other and leave something 50 orders smaller (which is basically impossible if they are independent). But of course, this is just a guess within a guess with the currently known particles. Change any of those nested guesses or discover some new particles and all this goes into the trash can.
For those who got lost in the woods in the above paragraph, the punch line is this: you can alter the observed cosmological constant considerably without making life impossible.
I agree you would have to be extremely powerful to set off the big bang out of nothing (if that is indeed what happened.) Maybe all the power is expended at that point? Why does it have to be ALL powerful, as in infinitely powerful? Able to do anything at all. I also never understood why an infinitely powerful and knowledgeable and timeless being could possibly care about each and every human in it's creation? It is like worrying about an individual sand pebble at beach you never been to. This god idea in terms of fine tuning and or "what started everything" would only have to be as powerful as what it would take to create the universe. We humans add on the definition of it then being even more powerful then just the ability to "kick start" the universe.
Time is a human thought construct to measure events against each other and help make predictions. Time does not "exist" it was never created. I suppose you could say since god created all events, he created the ability for human concept "time." But realize it is kind of like saying god created "inches" or meters. Humans created that "idea" that again, does not exist in the real world.
This "god" idea would only have to be intelligent enough to start off the universe, it runs just fine on it's own, it is a bit like we humans do not have to sit there and tell every single cell in our body what to do. They all go do it just fine without us thinking about the trillions of cells that make up us. "Hey cell 11,328,215,713,741 Pick up glucose and go over there!"
All those "values" that need to be what they are now, are needed for this particular universe to work. Those values can be different and there would be a different universe, that still worked, it would just work differently then this one. Complex life could still evolve. The same enormous universe with all its variations and time could still occur, sure gravity works a bit differently, masses and places of complexity would change.
Also two keywords I see when looking this stuff up. The atoms in the universe? "The observable universe"
Fine tuned universe numbers? "life as we know it" or "life as it is understood"
Also how you used the "cosmological constant" is incorrect.
The 10^122 in relation to cosmological constant is the measure of the force of vacuum that Einstein came up with. (And was found to be incorrect when the Hubble discovered the universe is still expanding.)
The actual number is ~ 3×10^−122 Notice the negative. Also, its simply a measure of the force in the vacuum of space using Planck measuring units. Modern estimates put the measure of that energy in terms of Planck measuring units at 10^-54 with all the additional information we have now that Einstein did not have. (For a long time people simply thought the number was zero.)
So it looks like you (and maybe others saw) a 10^122 number in a conversation about cosmological constant, then decided somehow took that number badly out of content and decided that number equals the odds of a universe creating life. All it is saying (and the current number is) that the value of the force must be very tiny, at least 10^-54 tiny. It could be even smaller, or it could be a bit bigger. But it in no way can you say of any possible densities it must be exactly this one. If that were required you would need an entirely different number. 1 in infinity.
Saying your god created the universe. You have no proof your god created anything. What make you think your god created the universe? Is faith the only way to prove your god is real? Science doesn't know what existed before the big bang, and neither does your religion.
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