Jinn

Alright, well I'll be honest and say that I'm not 100% convinced either, at least now with contemporaneous explanations of Universal creation. There are certainly a lot of 'coincidences' as you say that would have to indeed come into place for our existence. I'm not naive enough to say that current theories address all concerns, but I will tell you how I rectify my belief with your concerns.

1) Arrogance. While yes, our specific existence is coincidental and a lot of things had to line up to make our existence as we speak possible, the same is true for every other organism in existence. For all we know, there were organisms predating our current understanding of geologic history who had the collective intelligence to ask "Isn't it crazy that all these things lined up to create US?!" Only by a dramatic arrogance could be declare ourselves so special, so unique, that our 'random' creation is any more unlikely than the random creation of a dolphin. If a butterfly flapped it's wings somewhere in history dolphins could be like an alligator with a bird's wings. But does that give anything special to the dolphin's existence? Not to me. This current moment (later for you, because it won't be the same time I'm typing) everything that exists, from you and I to the computer's we're using to communicate, to the Earth's animals, to the earth's geology are the sum of a great number of circumstances which, when looked at from a detached party, would appear random. But once you make one 'random' decision, the rest fall. You're not living in a world of infinite possibilities as soon as the initial condition is satisfied. Our existence is the sum of many chances combined, but there is nothing inherently special about the way the cards fell.

2) The second point which ties tightly to the first, for me, is in probability. We know there are billions of planets in billions of arrangements in billions of solar systems being pulled towards billions of other star formations in billions of galaxies in (possibly) billions of Universes. It is likely that the probabilistic constraints satisfied by our existence - yes/no on carbon life, yes/no on moons, yes/no on asteroids, etc., have been played out differently in other places, other times, and in other conditions. Our 1 in a gajillion possibility is not special, it's just one of them. For all we know, there are a number of conditions that, while different, could've resulted in our same situation.

People feel special winning the 1 in 10 million odds of Lotto, but they really aren't special, from a probability standpoint. All enumerations of the probabilities have exactly the same worth. They all had the exact same likelihood of happening before the lotto drawing was made. Just because you have the numbers does not mean yours was any more likely, any more likely, any more coincidental or determined. You just happened to be holding it. Applying any sort of divinity or serendipity to it would belie a misunderstanding of statistics and probability and demonstrate dramatic arrogance. The fact that you're holding the lotto ticket that allows you and I to exist on a carbon-based planet in a Solar System with Sol (and not some other of the bajillions of stars) does not make it special. You're just holding the one that the probabilities resolved to. If we could go back to the beginning of the Universe, sum up all the probabilities for our existence, it's probably something like 1 in 10000000000. Re-rolling the dice would be unlikely to create us again. But does that make us special?

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"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel