Just a Canadian curious about the world
I thought of one more case I wanted to cover in the essay Why I am An Atheist. The case is a corollary of Clark’s Third Law – a sufficiently advanced being having local control over the evolution of humanity.
The case does not change the thesis, as the lack of free will comes from this, and without free will, I can declare myself an atheist because it’s all I could possibly be.
The essay has now been updated and re-published.
I’ve been an atheist for as long as I can remember. Over all these years, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this subject. My reasons are mostly gut-feeling – I just don’t believe in God. I never have.
I’ve spent weeks on finally putting down my thoughts on this subject. The desire to write this essay was one of the driving forces for creating this web site – so that I could have an opportunity to put down on the page all these ideas I’ve had in my head for years.
I don’t intend that this will change anyone’s personal belief. It is only my thoughts, and there are no other expectations. I feel strongly that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, just as I reasonably expect that others will allow me to have mine.
The essay is called Why I am An Atheist.
If the Earth has been slowly cooling over its history, presumably this means that the crust must be getting thicker too, right? How would that effect plate tectonics? Would the continental plates be thinner in the past than they are today? What about mountain building (from plates colliding) – if the plates are thinner in the past would mountains be smaller (because there is less material) or taller (because the plates move faster and there is less material to lift at the collision point)? Would the plates move faster in the past, since they were thinner (and lighter)? Would the thinner crust allow more volcanic activity to reach the surface, adding more material and slowly thickening the plates until they reach a thickness that would be constant between different geological times?
Or has internal radioactivity in deep in the Earth allowed the surface of the planet to be roughly constant over geological time? Over time, the amount of radioactive materials in the Earth (keeping it warmer) should decrease, which should lead to the same cooling effects, although over a longer period of time than if there were no radioactive materials in the Earth.