This is why I think God exists.

robindch

PDN wrote: »

My entry into this thread, as is often the case, was to correct a misconception about what Christians believe.

And if I get any time, which is looking unlikely over the next day or two, I'd love to point out several flaws in your own understanding of the Nicene creed!

PDN wrote: »

What is interesting, and sad, is that the adversarial approach to fora such as these mean that some posters tend to see everything as an attack or a defence rather than an opportunity to learn from each other. Then things tend to get personal.

It's interesting you should think this. Over on this side of the fence, ideas are reckoned only to be as good as the defense that's made of them. And anything that passes examination by A+A's able Epistemological SWAT team is likely to be at the very least, quite interesting.

Unlike religious fora, though, on this side, people are not encouraged to self-identify with ideas, something that's common, if not ubiquitous, in religious fora where in-group thinking, group-identity and group-markers are all part of the religious experience. Sadly, if people self-identify with an idea, then it's hard not to believe that criticism of the idea is equivalent to criticism of the person. And the kind of vigorous questioning that's normal here, is therefore viewed -- as you incorrectly believe -- as a direct personal attack upon the people who hold this view.

It's a rather subtle point, but I think an important one.

philologos

strobe wrote: »

I'd equate that to me stopping you on the street in Dublin, putting a shotgun to the back of your head and screaming at you "believe that you are in France! Don't just say you believe, genuinely believe it!" Then pulling the trigger when you were incapable of doing so.

It's nothing of the sort. It's really this simple. If God has created the world, and if this world is His, then He has authority to rule over it, and He has the ability to give us commandments about how best we should live in it for our own well being and the authority to enforce these commandments.

Should we willingly turn away from God, we reject His authority, and when we disobey His commandments in His world, there is a penalty for doing so. This penalty arises through our own wrongdoing.

However, God in His grace, allowed for Jesus to stand in our place, so that we might not have to receive this penalty. As such the decision is firmly in our hands, as to whether we are to believe in Him and to receive His amnesty.

Otherwise we are fully accountable to God for what we have done. Pretty much in the same way that I can still be brought before court, even if I ardently deny that it has any form of authority over me, or even if I had the blind fortitude to deny that it even truly existed.

Indeed, if I receive an amnesty from jail, or indeed if I am released on good behaviour, and if I refuse to recognise the terms of this amnesty, I will be back in jail.

Turtwig

I for one think that the fine tuning argument is a rubbish argument to propose as an argument for the existence of God. The argument seems to make the implicit assumption that we decide something is true if the probability of an event occurring is highly unlikely.An example of why such reasoning is misguided is the following example. Aliens travel to earth and abduct an unknown creature. It turns out this creature is a pilot. As only less than 0.5% of humans beings are pilots, they conclude that the creature they caught isn't human. Now imagine they were to grab over 1000 specimens of bacterial samples. It's not really logical for them to state that divine intervention was needed for them to grab a bacterial organism with a probability of 1x10^-32. Also if an Alien only picks 10 bacterial samples, is the aforementioned divine intervention/fluke more or less likely to occur?

The second problem with such an argument is that assigning a probability to something which quite honestly can't be assigned one. Since we don't know the origin of the fine structured constants we cannot say how likely or unlikely it is for them to be this way. An example of this would trying to predict the likely hood of a certain person winning the lotto without knowing, how often the person plays the lotto and how many numbers the person can pick from. We simply do not know the initial conditions of the problem to calculate its probability.

drkpower

Jakkass wrote: »

Pretty much in the same way that I can still be brought before court, even if I ardently deny that it has any form of authority over me, or even if I had the blind fortitude to deny that it even truly existed

:eek:So, atheists are like those crazy Freeman of the Law people you see on the CT forum....:eek:

Christ, I think I'd prefer to believe in God.

maximoose

apart from the stupid quarrels this thread is making some pretty good reading

Sam Vimes

raah! wrote: »

Ok, so if we take fine tuning, which is one such deistic argument. There is not need to cite the anthropic prinicple now, or the multiverse jive, because these are arguments in counter to fine tuning.

You don't say "yeah it was fine tuned buuut anthropic principle", you say "No! Anthropic principle!"

My argument followed from "fine tuning", now also you must realise, that while this is an argument, most religious people don't care for such justifications of their God. For them it's an axiom, or some sort like that, a talking varying axiom.

So fine tuning, what does that mean? The universe was "fine tuned" so that planets, people, astronomers form. The so that is the important part. And that is implied in the term "fine tuned". So the universe was made "so that", for a reason. Reason suggests consciousness, and you can go on from there if you please.

You get to gayness being bad once you have established your theistic communicating version of god, which I do no think is difficult to get to from any deistic conception. A deistic conception is a thing which made the universe, and then stopped making things. So if this thing outside of hte laws of physics can make things, then he can make things, if he can make these laws, and fine tune them, then it's not ridiculous to think that he can change or break them. This is not a direct logical connection, mind you. But you must rid yourself of the notion that you me, or anyone operates under such direct connections 100% of the time

Leaving aside the fact that the fine tuning argument spectacularly fails to demonstrate any fine tuning and is actually just a misunderstanding of probability, how does one get from "something has the ability to fine tune the laws of physics" to believing that this something has performed specific supernatural acts at specific times in history? This is really my major problem with religions, religious people spend so very much time giving me deistic arguments that, even if I begin the conversation fully accepting the assumption that these arguments are valid and the universe is indeed fine tuned, I am no closer to choosing Yahweh over Thor than I was yesterday. So once we have established that the universe is fine tuned, how do we go from there to sifting through the millions and millions of contradictory claims about the nature of the thing that did the fine tuning and decide which claims are true above all others?

Morbert

Sam Vimes wrote: »

He's just copying something I said last August :P

And you were just copying something I said in 2008 :P

it is perfectly valid to say that there was never a point in time when the universe didn't exist

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58223445&postcount=57

strobe

Jakkass wrote: »

It's nothing of the sort. It's really..........I will be back in jail.

It's very much the exact same thing. Just say me with my shotgun is also the source of all morality and bang! what I did was completely reasonable and fair.

So we get back to "God can do no wrong". If he rapes a million babies it's a good thing because god did it and all good comes from god. Because you believe in this "god given morality" all is exceptable if it's god doing it. I'd love to know which particular desert Jew thought that one up because it was a masterpiece of loophole creation. A sleazebag lawyers wet dream. This is an impasse we will never breach.

Dades

Jakkass wrote: »

It's nothing of the sort. It's really this simple. If God has created the world, and if this world is His, then He has authority to rule over it, and He has the ability to give us commandments about how best we should live in it for our own well being and the authority to enforce these commandments.

Should we willingly turn away from God, we reject His authority, and when we disobey His commandments in His world, there is a penalty for doing so. This penalty arises through our own wrongdoing.

However, God in His grace, allowed for Jesus to stand in our place, so that we might not have to receive this penalty. As such the decision is firmly in our hands, as to whether we are to believe in Him and to receive His amnesty.

I couldn't have summed up better how bananas the Christian God story is.

Jakkass wrote: »

Otherwise we are fully accountable to God for what we have done. Pretty much in the same way that I can still be brought before court, even if I ardently deny that it has any form of authority over me, or even if I had the blind fortitude to deny that it even truly existed.

The bold bit is a palpably poor attempt to gloss over the stark failure of the analogy. To atheists, the Christian God's authority is a non-question. Something that does not exist cannot have authority. God is not rejected or denied his character simply falls out of the equation due to non-existence.

raah!

Malty_T wrote: »

I for one think that the fine tuning argument is a rubbish argument to propose as an argument for the existence of God. The argument seems to make the implicit assumption that we decide something is true if the probability of an event occurring is highly unlikely.An example of why such reasoning is misguided is the following example. Aliens travel to earth and abduct an unknown creature. It turns out this creature is a pilot. As only less than 0.5% of humans beings are pilots, they conclude that the creature they caught isn't human. Now imagine they were to grab over 1000 specimens of bacterial samples. It's not really logical for them to state that divine intervention was needed for them to grab a bacterial organism with a probability of 1x10^-32. Also if an Alien only picks 10 bacterial samples, is the aforementioned divine intervention/fluke more or less likely to occur?

Sorry I don't quite follow the argument fully. But if it's what I think it is, then it must be noted that the fine tuning argument is based on a model with one universe, and one set of physical constants. That's why those type of "lots of universes" or "lots of time" arguments aren't really relevant to it. The argument starts at the assumption that there is one universe.

I don't see the argument as invincible at all mind you, I was simply trying to show that when operating from within this "fine tuned" unique universe, theistic gods can be arrived at.

The second problem with such an argument is that assigning a probability to something which quite honestly can't be assigned one. Since we don't know the origin of the fine structured constants we cannot say how likely or unlikely it is for them to be this way. We simply do not know the initial conditions of the problem to calculate its probability.

Well yes, it comes down to saying that either there was an infinite number of choices somehow being chosen randomly. Or just one chooser. And it's not solidly known, it operates on the basis that there is one set of laws of physics, which isn't hard to think of at all. To say there is or can be more than one bolsters other types of "god of the gaps" arguments by quite a bit.

Fine tuning is as ridiculous as the proposed alternatives. But then, I don't know fully how these arguments were arrived at, and it's possible there is alot of evidence for multiple universes and multiple sets of laws of physics. I have no particular affinity to this argument.

Sam Vimes

Morbert wrote: »

And you were just copying something I said in 2008 :P



http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58223445&postcount=57

*searches for pre 2008 reference* :pac:

Turtwig

Morbert wrote: »

And you were just copying something I said in 2008 :P



http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58223445&postcount=57

And I said it before all of you, 8 years earlier to myself and YOU CAN'T PROVE I DIDN'T!!!!!

raah!

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Leaving aside the fact that the fine tuning argument spectacularly fails to demonstrate any fine tuning and is actually just a misunderstanding of probability,

Well I'm gonna call shenanigans on this one. In this forum full of popular science advocates, most of us don't really understand probability. We certainly don't fully understand the motivations for those varying hypotheses. We're all using arguments from authority. So I'll use this one and say that fine tuning was introduced by physicists. They still hold that view.

And I disagree that that's it's a misunderstanding of probability, based on my leaving cert understanding of it. It's an insertion of something into the gap. To say it concerns probability is to base it on the anthropic principle, or the multiverse one. As malty T pointed out, we don't know what the choices were at the start, it's just gapping in there. To use the fine tuning argument along with the multiverse or anthropic principles would be a misunderstanding, but the fine tuners don't accept those, they are alternatives.

If anything now, to say that it is a misunderstanding of probability is a misunderstanding of the only valid form of fine tuning.

how does one get from "something has the ability to fine tune the laws of physics" to believing that this something has performed specific supernatural acts at specific times in history?

Because fine tuning the laws of physics was itself a supernatural act. It was above the natural, it was preternatural, it was everything that isn't natural because it happened in a time when the natural laws didn't exist. Any conception of natural which doesn't reference the laws of physics is in my opinion worthless, but we could go into that.

This is really my major problem with religions, religious people spend so very much time giving me deistic arguments that, even if I begin the conversation fully accepting the assumption that these arguments are valid and the universe is indeed fine tuned, I am no closer to choosing Yahweh over Thor than I was yesterday. So once we have established that the universe is fine tuned, how do we go from there to sifting through the millions and millions of contradictory claims about the nature of the thing that did the fine tuning and decide which claims are true above all others?

Well i gave points in my post there. If you think they are wrong you should quote them and provide counter arguments, not repeat the request for reasons. I believe I gave them, I don't mind if you think they are bad or wrong, but If you gave arguments it would cure me of such statements as those.

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

If God has created the world, and if this world is His, then He has authority to rule over it, and He has the ability to give us commandments about how best we should live in it for our own well being and the authority to enforce these commandments.

I have a kid whom I helped to create and she's "mine" (if you stretch the meaning). I have the authority to rule over her (if I wanted to, which I don't) and I believe that I have the ability to give her reasonably good rules about how she can live what I believe is a good life. I have the authority to enforce these rules, but I rarely if ever have to force her to do anything, because she's learned by example, not by force.

She is three years old and in fifteen years time, save financially, I'm expecting her to be fully independent of me. I would view myself as a failure as a parent if she wasn't independent of me.

Could you speculate as to why christians believe that god is treating the whole of humanity like three-year olds who never grow up?

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote: »

If God has created the world, and if this world is His, then He has authority to rule over it, and He has the ability to give us commandments about how best we should live in it for our own well being and the authority to enforce these commandments.

Says who?

Jakkass wrote: »

Should we willingly turn away from God, we reject His authority, and when we disobey His commandments in His world, there is a penalty for doing so. This penalty arises through our own wrongdoing.

Who says it is wrong to do this?

philologos

robindch wrote: »

I have a kid whom I helped to create and she's "mine" (if you stretch the meaning). I have the authority to rule over her (if I wanted to, which I don't) and I believe that I have the ability to give her reasonably good rules about how she can live what I believe is a good life. I have the authority to enforce these rules, but I rarely if ever have to force her to do anything, because she's learned by example, not by force.

Providing biological material != create.

The world itself is also not under your jurisdiction. More than likely you would be made accountable to the State that has authority above you. Christians go one step further than you, and say that God has dominion over all things.

robindch wrote: »

Could you speculate as to why christians believe that god is treating the whole of humanity like three-year olds who never grow up?

I don't think God does treat us all like three year olds, in the same way I don't think the State treats us like three year olds.

krudler

Dades wrote: »

I couldn't have summed up better how bananas the Christian God story is.

The bold bit is a palpably poor attempt to gloss over the stark failure of the analogy. To atheists, the Christian God's authority is a non-question. Something that does not exist cannot have authority. God is not rejected or denied his character simply falls out of the equation due to non-existence.

Say if a bunch of tribesmen in the darkest depths of the jungle, no outside communication with christians or any knowledge whatsoever of god, they die, get to the pearly gates, and are promptly told to sod off by St peter as they "rejected god" by not worshipping him, how can you reject something you dont know supposedly exists? thats a bit of a stretch of an analogy, but you get what I mean, imagine that, being told that you were rejecting something you had no idea existed in the first place. If god wanted more people to believe in him, he would have made it a bit clearer that he exists at all.

Sam Vimes

raah! wrote: »

Well I'm gonna call shenanigans on this one. In this forum full of popular science advocates, most of us don't really understand probability. We certainly don't fully understand the motivations for those varying hypotheses. We're all using arguments from authority. So I'll use this one and say that fine tuning was introduced by physicists. They still hold that view.

And I disagree that that's it's a misunderstanding of probability, based on my leaving cert understanding of it. It's an insertion of something into the gap. To say it concerns probability is to base it on the anthropic principle, or the multiverse one. As malty T pointed out, we don't know what the choices were at the start, it's just gapping in there. To use the fine tuning argument along with the multiverse or anthropic principles would be a misunderstanding, but the fine tuners don't accept those, they are alternatives.

If anything now, to say that it is a misunderstanding of probability is a misunderstanding of the only valid form of fine tuning.

Eh, I'm not using an argument from authority. The fine tuning argument fails and I understand why it fails. I'm not just accepting someone else's opinion on it. The fine tuning argument fails basically because the universe is massive and because we are not the only kind of life possible. If there was one planet the fine tuning argument might be valid but there are trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions. given that, it does not take any stretch of the imagination to accept that just one of them could form in such a way as to support life.

Secondly, life adapted to the earth, not the other around. To quote myself from a previous posts: had the universe had different constants, it's entirely possible that a completely different kind of life would have eventually evolved. The universe might appear to be fine tuned for this kind of life but if it was different, the glaxnors with the mercury running through their veins (assuming they had veins) would sit under their purple cuboidal sun in a universe where humans could never possibly evolve and remark how the universe seems so fine-tuned for them.

Neither of the points I just made are arguments from authority, they explain logically why the fine tuning argument fails. But anyway, in my post I was assuming that the universe was fine tuned and asking you how we get from that to a specific belief system so let's continue..

raah! wrote: »

Because fine tuning the laws of physics was itself a supernatural act. It was above the natural, it was preternatural, it was everything that isn't natural because it happened in a time when the natural laws didn't exist. Any conception of natural which doesn't reference the laws of physics is in my opinion worthless, but we could go into that.

Well i gave points in my post there. If you think they are wrong you should quote them and provide counter arguments, not repeat the request for reasons. I believe I gave them, I don't mind if you think they are bad or wrong, but If you gave arguments it would cure me of such statements as those.

I'm afraid you haven't given them. I asked you to go on from the assumption that the universe is fine tuned and tell me how I choose which supernatural acts I should believe were actually performed and which weren't but you've just given more reasons for why you think the universe is fine tuned, which I said I was assuming for the sake of argument. Even if something did fine tune the laws of the universe the fact remains that >99% of the claims that were ever made about this "something" are not true. I am not prepared to simply assume that if something did the fine tuning that this something is the specific being described in one particular book written 2000 years ago so how do I sift through the millions and millions of contradictory claims about the nature of the thing that did the fine tuning and decide which claims are true above all others?

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

Providing biological material != create.

"Begotten not made" again, eh? I think the missus might have issues with that view. Or indeed, any doctor or biologist!

Jakkass wrote: »

I don't think God does treat us all like three year olds

Well, your description of how you believe your god treats the world is pretty much identical to how I treat my three-year old (or could, if I were some ghastly authoritarian parent, which I'm not ).

raah!

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Eh, I'm not using an argument from authority. The fine tuning argument fails and I understand why it fails. I'm not just accepting someone else's opinion on it. The fine tuning argument fails basically because the universe is massive and because we are not the only kind of life possible. If there was one planet the fine tuning argument might be valid but there are trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions. given that, it does not take any stretch of the imagination to accept that just one of them could form in such a way as to support life.

Ok well fine tuning is about the formation of planets. And things like that. The formation of the larger elements.

Secondly, life adapted to the earth, not the other around. To quote myself from a previous posts: had the universe had different constants, it's entirely possible that a completely different kind of life would have eventually evolved. The universe might appear to be fine tuned for this kind of life but if it was different, the glaxnors with the mercury running through their veins (assuming they had veins) would sit under their purple cuboidal sun in a universe where humans could never possibly evolve and remark how the universe seems so fine-tuned for them. Neither of the points I just made are arguments from authority, they explain logically why the fine tuning argument fails

That is wrong. Fine tuning is called "fine tuning" for a reason. There would be no planets, no complex elements, which formed in the planets, and then no complex arrangements of those atoms, called life. Unless you want to speculate some kind of magic life? But that's different, and this contradicts the position you hold when you criticise things like religion.

I'm afraid you haven't given them. I asked you to go on from the assumption that the universe is fine tuned and tell me how I choose which supernatural acts I should believe were actually performed and which weren't but you've just given more reasons for why you think the universe is fine tuned, which I said I was assuming for the sake of argument.

If you think this then please re-read the post. This is completely wrong. You asked me to go from fine tuning to benevolence etc. and I did that. If you think benevolence can't be arrived at, respond to the argument.

The multiplicity of religions, and which "supernatural acts" to believe, is an argument which occurs higher up in this, it is not pertinent to "fine tuning allows for theistic conceptions of god".

Also, I don't believe I ever gave any reasons why i think the universe is fine tuned.

Even if something did fine tune the laws of the universe the fact remains that >99% of the claims that were ever made about this "something" are not true. I am not prepared to simply assume that if something did the fine tuning that this something is the specific being described in one particular book written 2000 years ago so how do I sift through the millions and millions of contradictory claims about the nature of the thing that did the fine tuning and decide which claims are true above all others?

Well I would argue the claims aren't that difference. I would also like to highlight, this position, the one you are stating, is massively different to "the idea of a theism derived from fine tuning is ridiculous".

philologos

Wicknight wrote: »

Says who?

Says pragmatism and common sense. If you paint a painting. It is yours until it is sold. Indeed, if you found a nation, it is yours until you pass away, or change institutions and the like to allow broader leadership or indeed if someone usurps it.

One can dispute the ownership of a territory, its laws, or anything else, but ultimately if those laws are binding on you. They are binding on you.

Wicknight wrote: »

Who says it is wrong to do this?

See above.

Sam Vimes

raah! wrote: »

Ok well fine tuning is about the formation of planets. And things like that. The formation of the larger elements.

That is wrong. Fine tuning is called "fine tuning" for a reason. There would be no planets, no complex elements, which formed in the planets, and then no complex arrangements of those atoms, called life. Unless you want to speculate some kind of magic life? But that's different, and this contradicts the position you hold when you criticise things like religion.

There would be no elements, planets or complex arrangements of these atoms as we know them but that does not mean that there could not have been a completely different kind of universe with completely different kinds of atoms. This does not mean "magic life", it means a universe that follows different laws to our one. "Follows different laws" =/= "magic". If we were to pop into such a universe then the things that we are able to do would appear "magic" to them and vice versa. This is still the problem with the fine tuning argument that makes the assumption that life as we know it is a target to be reached. nozzferrahhtoo's point covers it quite well:

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Deal out 52 cards in a row. Not too special is it? However I challenge you to work out the probability of having got that exact hand as it was dealt. It is MASSIVELY improbable. I have quite a decent Calculator, and even it can not calculate the probability past the first 16 cards, let alone all 52.

You will likely NEVER deal the same 52 cards in that order ever again, no matter how much you try, even if your family were to take up the challenge for another 1000 generations after you. If every person alive today had dealt at the same time as you, it is likely no one else would have got the same hand.

The ONLY difference between your 52 cards, and the universe is that in only one case is someone applying retrospect and saying "We must consider it amazing that the cards we have been dealt were dealt in this exact way".

We were dealt the universe we were dealt. Simple as that. The probability of it is entirely irrelevant, and the probability of it in retrospect is 1 in 1, because that is exactly what happened.

raah! wrote: »

If you think this then please re-read the post. This is completely wrong. You asked me to go from fine tuning to benevolence etc. and I did that. If you think benevolence can't be arrived at, respond to the argument.

Unless I'm thinking of a different post you said "To extrapolate things like "benevolence" from that isn't hard". Well I think it is hard and a declaration that you think it's not doesn't explain how it's not. continued below...

raah! wrote: »

The multiplicity of religions, and which "supernatural acts" to believe, is an argument which occurs higher up in this, it is not pertinent to "fine tuning allows for theistic conceptions of god".

Also, I don't believe I ever gave any reasons why i think the universe is fine tuned.

Well I would argue the claims aren't that difference. I would also like to highlight, this position, the one you are stating, is massively different to "the idea of a theism derived from fine tuning is ridiculous".

Theism, as distinct from deism, makes specific claims about the thing that did the fine tuning. A deist says "something must have created the universe" where the theist says things along the lines of "god cured my cancer" and "god will allow me to live forever if I believe that a man rose from the dead 2000 years ago". I simply cannot see how one can make the leap from one to the other. Please explain how one chooses one supernatural story to believe over all others, which is what separates theism from deism

krudler

Jakkass wrote: »

One can dispute the ownership of a territory, its laws, or anything else, but ultimately if those laws are binding on you. They are binding on you.



See above.

Well according to some faiths we shouldnt work on Saturdays, even to the point of flicking a lightswitch, do you follow this? course not, because that doesnt apply to you as its not your religion, same as athiests, you dont believe, so the laws dont apply. simples. Theres a difference between state laws which prevent theft or murder, those are something you submit to be being a citizen of a country.

philologos

The context, was whether or not hell was justified as started from this post by strobe onwards.

As for the Orthodox Jewish practice of keeping Shabbat. Even in their theology, Gentiles (non-Jews) are exempt from keeping Torah, with the exception of the Noachide Laws.

If you find that I am of Jewish ancestry on my maternal side, and that Christianity is false, then indeed I am in big trouble

Dades

I'm totally down with Jewish Orthodoxy.

In fact I was wearing this exact shirt yesterday!

raah!

Sam Vimes wrote: »

There would be no elements, planets or complex arrangements of these atoms as we know them but that does not mean that there could not have been a completely different kind of universe with completely different kinds of atoms. This does not mean "magic life", it means a universe that follows different laws to our one.

The point of fine tuning is the fineness of the tuning. It says the universe would be "different". Even this is enough to make those wild extrapolations that have been made. Yes different constants could make different things, but the base of fine tuning that there was one set of constants, is unaffected by that.

"Follows different laws" =/= "magic". If we were to pop into such a universe then the things that we are able to do would appear "magic" to them and vice versa. This is still the problem with the fine tuning argument that makes the assumption that life as we know it is a target to be reached. nozzferrahhtoo's point covers it quite well:

This is back to your saying that it is a misunderstanding of probability. It suggests you haven't been listening. Probability doesn't come into it, fine tuning is based on there being one choice. That's not something that's known. But arguing about probability in the light of this only shows you don't understand the premises of fine tuning.

Unless I'm thinking of a different post you said "To extrapolate things like "benevolence" from that isn't hard". Well I think it is hard and a declaration that you think it's not doesn't explain how it's not. continued below...

This is ridiculous. You actually are just completely ignoring the point. I did it, I full spelled out how to go from "fine tuning" to benevolence. I didn't just state it. I can only surmise that you are doing this deliberately because you'd rather not argue against the actual points.

Theism, as distinct from deism, makes specific claims about the thing that did the fine tuning. A deist says "something must have created the universe" where the theist says things along the lines of "god cured my cancer" and "god will allow me to live forever if I believe that a man rose from the dead 2000 years ago". I simply cannot see how one can make the leap from one to the other.

Well again, it was about travelling from a purely deistic something, to a deistic benevolent something, and from a benevolent deciding supernatural something to a statement that theism is not hard to arrive at. And I also said it's not a direct logical passage. It seems you are only trying to divert attention from your first request and my first statement, by saying things like this.

Our last thread went in circles, but given the evidence here of you completely ignoring points and then just repeating the things I replied to, or pretending that you wanted to know something else, I place the blame at your feet.

Please explain how one chooses one supernatural story to believe over all others, which is what separates theism from deism

What separates theism from deism is the invervention of the god in the world. It is not about what this intervention is. Once you say "yes, god can and does interact" then it's an issue to believe this or that story over others.

Sam Vimes

raah! wrote: »

The point of fine tuning is the fineness of the tuning. It says the universe would be "different". Even this is enough to make those wild extrapolations that have been made. Yes different constants could make different things, but the base of fine tuning that there was one set of constants, is unaffected by that.


This is back to your saying that it is a misunderstanding of probability. It suggests you haven't been listening. Probability doesn't come into it, fine tuning is based on there being one choice. That's not something that's known. But arguing about probability in the light of this only shows you don't understand the premises of fine tuning.

Yes raah! I understand the premises of fine tuning. You've used this line of argument before and I find it very strange. My response to the fine tuning argument is to say that its premises are flawed but you don't seem to think that this is a valid form of argumentation. For some reason you seem to think that any argument must accept the other person's assumptions and work from there. I'll try again to explain the problem with this logic by an example:

My axiom is that god doesn't exist. I'd like you to now argue why god does exist while accepting the assumption that I have just made.

you of course can't do that, it's impossible to argue that god does exist while working on the assumption that he doesn't. The only way to argue your position is to argue against my assumption. But you seem to think that I shouldn't do that......

raah! wrote: »

This is ridiculous. You actually are just completely ignoring the point. I did it, I full spelled out how to go from "fine tuning" to benevolence. I didn't just state it. I can only surmise that you are doing this deliberately because you'd rather not argue against the actual points.

Well again, it was about travelling from a purely deistic something, to a deistic benevolent something, and from a benevolent deciding supernatural something to a statement that theism is not hard to arrive at. And I also said it's not a direct logical passage. It seems you are only trying to divert attention from your first request and my first statement, by saying things like this.

Our last thread went in circles, but given the evidence here of you completely ignoring points and then just repeating the things I replied to, or pretending that you wanted to know something else, I place the blame at your feet.

What separates theism from deism is the invervention of the god in the world. It is not about what this intervention is. Once you say "yes, god can and does interact" then it's an issue to believe this or that story over others.

I think I missed the part where you spelled out how to go from fine tuning to benevolance. Could you please explain it again? You say it's not a direct logical passage so what kind of a passage is it? The problem is that from where I'm standing you are right to say that it's not a direct logical passage because what it actually is is a massive leap based on fuzzy logic and wishful thinking. So if it's not a logical passage, what kind of passage is it, if not fuzzy wishful thinking? What I'm interested in is how one arrives at the beliefs that one actually believes, not how one arrives at a position a thousand logical steps before the one one actually believes.

Zillah

raah! wrote: »

Fine tuning is called "fine tuning" for a reason. There would be no planets, no complex elements, which formed in the planets, and then no complex arrangements of those atoms, called life.

This is simply not the case. A study was done a few years ago where they created hypothetical universes by feeding variations of the physical constants into the model. What resulted were numerous alternate universes with all sorts of peculiar phenomena. The most exotic of which would have been dark stars...massive collections of matter that undergo fusion as we know it, but radiate no light. How cool is that? Suffice to say, to assert that our exact universe is the only one that could result in something self aware is naive at best.

This is, of course, disregarding the fact that any universe capable of being observed, by definition, has to be one capable of supporting life (or the equivalent). Stating that our universe has features that allow us to exist as though it were anyway relevant is a straight-up tautology.

I'm doing my best to track down the article where I read about the study but it was many years ago and the keywords on google are not exactly distinctive.

raah!

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Yes raah! I understand the premises of fine tuning. You've used this line of argument before and I find it very strange. My response to the fine tuning argument is to say that its premises are flawed but you don't seem to think that this is a valid form of argumentation. For some reason you seem to think that any argument must accept the other person's assumptions and work from there.

That's not what you've been doing, and I pointed that out earlier. When I said :

Ok, so if we take fine tuning, which is one such deistic argument. There is not need to cite the anthropic prinicple now, or the multiverse jive, because these are arguments in counter to fine tuning.

You don't say "yeah it was fine tuned buuut anthropic principle", you say "No! Anthropic principle!"

It seemed that you were trying to argue from within the one universe premis against fine tuning. Maybe you weren't though, I will re-read. I retract my statement about you making circles... cough.

I'll try again to explain the problem with this logic by an example:

My axiom is that god doesn't exist. I'd like you to now argue why god does exist while accepting the assumption that I have just made.

you of course can't do that, it's impossible to argue that god does exist while working on the assumption that he doesn't. The only way to argue your position is to argue against my assumption. But you seem to think that I shouldn't do that......

I believe what I said above responds to this.

I think I missed the part where you spelled out how to go from fine tuning to benevolance. Could you please explain it again? You say it's not a direct logical passage so what kind of a passage is it? The problem is that from where I'm standing you are right to say that it's not a direct logical passage because what it actually is is a massive leap based on fuzzy logic and wishful thinking. So if it's not a logical passage, what kind of passage is it, if not fuzzy wishful thinking? What I'm interested in is how one arrives at the beliefs that one actually believes, not how one arrives at a position a thousand logical steps before the one one actually believes.

So fine tuning, what does that mean? The universe was "fine tuned" so that planets, people, astronomers form. The so that is the important part. And that is implied in the term "fine tuned". So the universe was made "so that", for a reason. Reason suggests consciousness, and you can go on from there if you please.

You get to gayness being bad once you have established your theistic communicating version of god, which I do no think is difficult to get to from any deistic conception. A deistic conception is a thing which made the universe, and then stopped making things. So if this thing outside of hte laws of physics can make things, then he can make things, if he can make these laws, and fine tune them, then it's not ridiculous to think that he can change or break them. This is not a direct logical connection, mind you. But you must rid yourself of the notion that you me, or anyone operates under such direct connections 100% of the time

Fine tuning to benevolence is direct. Fine tuning to theism is not. Fine tuning renders theism possible. It means it's a possible explanation of for some things.

Sam Vimes

raah! wrote: »

That's not what you've been doing, and I pointed that out earlier. When I said :

It seemed that you were trying to argue from within the one universe premis against fine tuning. Maybe you weren't though, I will re-read. I retract my statement about you making circles... cough.

I believe what I said above responds to this.

I did argue within one universe against one aspect of the fine tuning argument, about life forming, and then you mentioned another about the formation of atoms and complex elements etc so I took a different tack. Bear in mind that my argument does not require the existence of other universes, just that this is not the only universe in which it is possible for some kind of life to evolve. It just requires the possibility of other universes.

raah! wrote: »

Fine tuning to benevolence is direct. Fine tuning to theism is not. Fine tuning renders theism possible. It means it's a possible explanation of for some things.

I still don't understand how fine tuning to benevolence is direct. If I was all powerful and benevolent I could have made the universe a hell of a lot better than it is today and I'm sure the people of Haiti and Pakistan would agree with me. If anything the universe shows nothing but indifference to our well being as far as I can see

But you at least acknowledge that fine tuning to theism is not a direct link. So what kind of link is it? Bear in mind that I'm talking about believing that the thing that did the fine tuning did specific things, e.g. raised from the dead in Israel 2000 years ago, and didn't do others