Well then, since everyone is getting into this discussion, I might as well make a post. I feel like this discussion is best left for another thread though.
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Okay, then, where did the universe come from? Nothing?
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A commonly used tactic in arguing for the existence of God, but a bad one. Obviously something doesn't arise from the complete and utter absence of everything. There has to be some irreducibly complex portion of reality that could have given rise to the universe.
I don't see any reason to believe this would be a God though, for a number of reasons. One - start defining the parameters of Gods existence. What exactly is God, what exactly can God do or not do, how exactly did God arise from this irreducibly complex system, etc. If you don't care to define any of these parameters then you're just using the God of the gaps argument (i.e. God always explains what you currently can't explain), and I could substitute anything in for the word God (E.g. The universe was created by a fluffy mojo jangle that looks like a pink flying unicorn with a magic staff on his head)
I usually get the 'God was always there' argument, but it fails the test of parsimony (Or uh, it's usually referred to as Occam's Razor). There are any number of different ways the universe could have arisen, but arguing that it came from vast complexity beyond anything we see in this universe (I.e. God) makes a lot of unnecessary assumptions. Especially considering the fact that, if we reverse time back to the big bang, we get a universe that is incredibly simple. Why would a complex entity beyond anything we can currently observe such as a God exist in an otherwise irreducibly complex universe? Logically, it seems that whatever caused the Big Bang, it must have been something incredibly simple, not complex, and from there I would argue - why call it God then?
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Forcing randomness to explain everything is just too much, in my opinion.
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You make the assumption that things are in fact random. What if I instead describe the entire universe as a causally forced system...a cellular automaton if you will. In that case the initial state of the universe would have subsequently determined the outcome of everything, and therefore would explain everything as well.
Things are never random. The universe abides by the laws it created. Physics defines everything. Of course the universe isn't just a gamble - it's a self manifesting system. That doesn't mean it required a higher intelligence to design it though. That's a rather large logical leap to be taking. The only thing necessary would be some mechanism capable of causing the big bang.
and I can think of a couple that don't involve a magic man.
BACK ON TOPIC
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quick question.. That test is a bit off compared to the real I.Q right Reach?
I scored 134 on that test but I scored a 123 on the real one last year.
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Well, 134 isn't a possible score on the first test as far as I know (130, 133, 135, 138 etc are the only possible 130 scores), so in that case you're lying
Unless of course you took the TRI52.
Either way, a difference of 11 points isn't all that great. If you took ~100 IQ tests, you'd notice your scores cluster around an average, but not all the scores would be the same. There is always variance - sometimes you score a bit higher than average, sometimes a bit lower. This is not unusual.
It would be even less unusual if that test was an entirely Verbal IQ test. Often, people will be slightly better at either Spatial tasks or Verbal tasks. I know that personally there's an average difference of about 10 points or so between my performance on Verbal and Spatial tasks. This is not unusual either.