Extremophiles in the Goldilocks Zone

I'm not a science guy...

Let me reiterate that, I am not a science guy.  I wish I was,  but I am a truck driver in West Texas. There are no PHDs after my name. Scientific knowledge has nothing to do with why I am an Atheist. Nothing!

Evolution and adaptation via natural selection, while the best explanation we currently have for life on this planet, had nothing to do with me becoming an Atheist. I read the Bible and realized it did not comport to reality in any meaningful way. It's also not what this blog post is about. 

I am not an expert on the big bang, abiogenesis, genetics, DNA, RNA, or any other scientific gobbelty gook.  I don't know what existed before the big bang if anything. I don't really care either. If you come at me with that old, "How did something come from nothing"?"nonsense, I'm going to be like, bro... first show there was nothing, and even if you show me there was nothing then my answer would still be, I don't know. I'm not arguing about that. Not even worried about it right now, maybe later, probably not. Talk to someone like Aron Ra if you want to fight about that! If don't know who that is, find out!

Argue with me about science? You might as well be arguing with Beaker!

Some sciency guy that does have PHDs is welcome to correct all the mistakes I make in this post. Christian apologists are also welcome to tell me I'm wrong. Bring evidence though, it's more convincing that way.

This post is a refutation, based on my understanding, of one creationist claim by looking at the way the world actually works, and it's only a refutation of that one claim. 

The claim goes something like this: the Earth is at the exact correct distance to support life, and all of the various universal laws and constants have had to work together in planned harmony in order for life to arise anywhere and therefore a creator must have put it there. What they really mean though, is life as WE know it! It's called the Fine-Tuned Universe Argument. The universe is fine-tuned --- therefore God.

The Earth specific part of the claim is what I want to address here. I have also seen some making the additional claim that if the universe had been just 10%, or 5% or even 1% different in its orbit (some even say 10ft) closer or farther away we would either burn up or freeze to death or never have existed in the first place.

Just one of the many fine-tuning arguments!

My response is... nuh-uh! There ya go, completely refuted. Nuh-uh should literally put a stop to that shit. But just in case it doesn't let's talk about a couple more things.

Firstly, Eath's orbit varies wildly. It has an elliptical orbit that changes by millions of miles during the year. It can be as close as 91 million miles or as far away as 94 million miles. Maybe 3 million miles doesn't sound like a lot, but the Earth is less than 8000 miles across. which means you could fit 3750 Earth's end to end in that space. Not exactly a nice circular orbit.

See how that's not a circle? None of them are...

By the way, this assumes the reader understands and accepts the reality of a heliocentric universe. If your a flat Earther or otherwise don't understand that we live on a sphere that rotates a sun and not the other way around (like your holy books say) then I can't help you, bro.

A big part of the argument comes the fact Earth is in what is called the Goldilocks Zone (kind of like the Twilight Zone.. but gold?) Basically it is the area in a solar system in which liquid water can survive, and thus life as we know it can form and be sustained. Life as WE know it is an important thing to remember there.

An important thing to understand though is that at the time (in the 70s) that scientists started defining what was a habitable area they made certain assumptions. They thought life couldn't survive in anything colder than Antarctica or hotter than scalding water, they assumed that life as we know it is all the life that can be. 

What we now know though is that life adapts to its environment over time and if the environment changes the animal either adapts or dies. In other words, the world was not created for life, life adapted to the world.

Like Captain America at the end of the First Avenger!

For Flat Earthers reading this... that was a joke.

The very idea that this world was made for us is silly. This world has millions of ways to kill us. Most of it is completely uninhabitable by humans and our primate ancestors. However, as time has gone by we have discovered that life is about a million times more diverse than those scientists in the 70s assumed when they decided what was a habitable zone. There are diverse forms of life living in just about every part of this world in the most extreme conditions. They live in environments that would quickly kill you and I. We call these creatures Extremophiles. Which the Oxford Dictionary defines as a microorganism, especially an archaean, that lives in conditions of extreme temperature, acidity, alkalinity, or chemical concentration.
 

This is a Tardigrade, also called a Water Bear

If extremophiles have a king, it's this guy!

About a millimeter long, the tardigrade is a polyextremophile. They can withstand temperatures from -328 °F (200 °C) up to 304 °F (151 °C), lack of oxygen and water, and a thousand times the radiation we can take.

They survive is by going into a state of suspended animation, in which body functions temporarily shut down until conditions improve. They can even survive space. Researchers sent a group of living tardigrades to orbit the earth on the outside of a rocket for 10 days. 68% lived through that.

But Extromphiles are micro-organisms you say, they don't really count in your opinion? You still think this goldilocks thing is the real deal. While these are not extremophiles here are some critters that have adapted to extreme environments in order to survive.

This is the Sailfin Plunderfish. It's what is known as a notothenioid fish (not gonna lie, I just learned that word for this blog). Notothenioid fish basically have anti-freeze proteins called glycoproteins that keep them from freezing to death in the cold Antarctic Waters.  There are over a hundred different species of notothenioid fish and they have been around since before the global cooling off led to the mass extinction of most other species around 42 million years ago.
 

There are literally thousands of other examples of animals who have adapted to environments outside what we once considered survivable. From animals that freeze almost solid in the winter to micro-organisms living in acid and boiling water... 

In my mind, these animals with their obvious adaptations are one hundred percent the best arguments against the fine-tuned universe. It just didn't happen that way.

Tell me why I'm right or wrong in the comments... thanks!

Sacrilegious Sunday Stand Up - Week Two

In a shameless attempt to get more readers, and hopefully get repeat visits to this blog, I have decided to feature my favorite God  mocking  lampooning comic routines each Sunday. 

Got a recommendation - leave it in the comments!

Tim Minchin - Thank You God!

A Better Ten Commandments!

I'm taking this from another of my blogs because I really like these commandments and think they deserve their own blog entry. You can see the original blog post here.

It's pretty obvious that the bible is not a moral guide, no amount of pretending can change that fact. Only a couple of the actual Ten Commandments have anything to do with an actual moral code, and as many, many people have said all you would have to do is write "Don't fucking own people" and you will have created a more moral book than the Holy Bible.

This is what most consider to be the 10 Commandments

Thou shalt not lie, steal or kill are pretty much the only good ones.

The rest, I think we can pretty much do a lot better.

These are not the actual 10 according to the bible, more about that at the end...

With that in mind, I present my own 10 commandments. I find them much more moral, even if I use the word FUCK a lot!

I  AM THE LORD YOUR GOD...

...and These are my holy commandments and I expect you fucks to obey. Except maybe the first two, they were practice and got left in because I was feeling lazy and I really wanted there to be ten. Also, we aren't going to do the whole "Hell" thing (so I'm really not sure where that Satan dude lives) but you might have to answer to actual human authorities for being a dick, or maybe we will make you stand in a corner for a millennia or two. The point is fear my wrath asshole!

1.  Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's fish even if it's Branzini which is really tasty.
2.  Thou shalt go to a doctor and get that thing looked at. 
3. Thou shalt not lie, cheat, steal, kill, rape or own other people as fucking property. 
4.  Thou shalt realize there is some leeway with those first four items for the safety, wellbeing, and health of yourself and others but rape and slavery are fucking no-goes all of the time... forever.
5.  Thou shall get your children fucking vaccinated and take them to the doctor or hospital when sick. I gave you the science, fucking use it. Also if you make fun of the Anti-vaxxers  but don't believe in climate change science, shut the hell up and respect the Earth anyway.
6.  Thou shalt be as kind as possible to animals, even the food ones for they sustain you, cause them no unnecessary pain. 
7.  Thou shalt be kind to your fellow man and to yourself and when you fail in this you will apologize to them (or yourself), not me! Then actually try not to do it again.
8.  There is no holy land anywhere ever and the only chosen people are the ones who are truly kind. At the same time treat the land as if it is holy, and no, that doesn't mean fight over it.
9.  Thou shalt leave people who are not harming you the fuck alone.  This includes LGBTQ people and people with different levels of melatonin in their skin and even people you just don't fucking like. Side note - this does not mean you have to respect their unproven or delusional beliefs.  It doesn't mean you can't call them out for crazy shit or stop them from hurting themself or others, you can do all that while still respecting them. 
10.  Don't be a dick. Also, it's okay to say fuck, I do it a lot.  It's just a word. 

Who was the better Moses? Tell me in the comments!

Oh, and what about those real 10 Commandments? Exodus 34 has the replacement set for the ones Moses smashed at Mt. Sinai.

Exodus 34:28 plainly states that these are The 10 Commandments. By the way, if it seems like there are more then 10, you are obviously mistaken. God can count to 10 better than you can!

The bible also claims these are exactly the same as the first... and of course, except for being nothing like the first set, they are exactly the same!

• Don't make treaties with people who believe in other gods.
• Conquer people who believe in other gods and destroy their religious property.
• Worship the god whose name is Jealous.
• Don't make any molten gods.
• Celebrate three feasts during the year: unleavened bread, the first harvest, and the last harvest.
• Every firstborn donkey shall be redeemed by sacrificing a lamb. If a firstborn donkey is not redeemed, break its neck.
• Don't appear before God empty.
• Don't work on the Sabbath. Keep the Sabbath day holy.
• Three times a year every male must appear before God.
• When you make blood sacrifices to God, don't include any leavened bread.
• Don't delay in offering your first fruits and liquors to God.
• Don't boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

What would your 10 commandments say? I bet we can all do better than the Abrahamic god.

Sure Jesus cured the blind man... but just so he could show off!

Today I listened to the Gospel of John (I'm a driver and I'm always listening to something). In it, Jesus cures a blind man (John 9:1-12). When the Pharisees asked who sinned (and caused the blindness) the man or his parents, Jesus told them neither. He was born blind just so Jesus could prove God's power.

Curing a blind man = GOOD
Causing a man to be born blind just so you can cure him later = DICK

So... he suffered through his entire life blind, and he was thought sinful (because that's where they thought blindness came from) and had to beg for a living just so God could flex his muscle with a miracle at the proper time.

Side Note: This story also makes it clear infirmities and disease are the result of sin. Do modern Christians actually believe this was the case? Is it still so?

A god like that either doesn't exist or he is unworthy of being considered good. Of course, there are thousands of examples like this, but I read it today and it stood out as an abhorrent action from a god that people claim embodies love and goodness.

It also utterly refutes the claim that God respects free will. I believe this is an even better example of god not respecting free will than even the story of God hardening Pharaoh's heart (so that he could send plagues against Pharoah to show off his power), at least in the Pharoah story he had done something to deserve it be enslaving God's people. Here God is just being a dick to an innocent man.

Of course, Christians will say things like, who are we to question the will of the one true living God! His ways are above us! He is all good and we can't possibly understand. Bro, I think it is you guys who make excuses for this loving god every time he shows himself to be a monster that doesn't understand.