RE: God and theists.
May 17, 2017 at 11:54 am
(This post was last modified: May 17, 2017 at 12:22 pm by Mister Agenda.)
And even if that were true, that it's 'God' doesn't follow.
That there is an explanation in no way entitles us to know what it is, though we seem to suffer more from a surfeit of possible natural explanations rather than a lack of them. If you claim that my acknowledging the simple fact that the explanation for the universe is unknown in any way supports your contention that the explanation is God, that is a classic argument from ignorance.
There's no reason to suppose that the universe came from literal philosophical nothingness, but if it did, pray tell what property does philosophical nothingness possess that prevents a universe from coming from it?
The universe is so hostile to life that out of the other side of their mouths, apologists claim it's a miracle that it exists on earth. You could equally argue that God designed the universe to be hostile to life because 99.99 (many more nines)% of its volume would kill most life as we know it in under five minutes. The anthropic principle is a fact: if the universe didn't allow for our existence, we wouldn't be here (except in a universe with an actual God who wanted us here, since it would have no requirement that the universe permit our existence to establish us) to wonder about it. Fine-tuning is an argument that the universe allowing us (or another form of life) to exist anywhere at all is so unlikely that it shouldn't exist at all. And as I said, it's based on a thought experiment. We don't know if the universal constants could have been different. We don't know how much they could have been different by if they could have been different. We don't know if they have relationships that relate their values such that if one has one value, another must have a specific related value. Our sample size is one. The thought experiment is based on a series of ifs and we can't conclude that we know what the odds of our universe holding life are, based on it.
We live in a universe that allows us to live, the only kind of universe that doesn't require a super-powerful being to explain our being able to live in it. Coincidence?
SteveII Wrote:Mister Agenda Wrote:Why WOULDN'T there be something instead of nothing? [1]
No one knows for sure how the universe came into being, and it's profoundly stupid or mendacious to think that anyone could give any other answer honestly. [2]
That the universe is fine-tuned to support human life is a claim based on a thought experiment. You don't know the probabilities and neither does anyone else. No one knows if the universal constants could have been any value at all, a narrowly prescribed range of values, or have to be the way they are by necessity. We don't know if this is the only universe or one out of trillions. [3]
It's the nature of actual evidence that it stands up to scrutiny and leads to a particular conclusion. If the same evidence 'supports' mutually exclusive conclusions, it's not really evidence. [4]
1. Because everything that exists has a explanation of it's existence (either in the necessity of its own nature or an external cause). So, what is the explanation that there is anything at all?
That there is an explanation in no way entitles us to know what it is, though we seem to suffer more from a surfeit of possible natural explanations rather than a lack of them. If you claim that my acknowledging the simple fact that the explanation for the universe is unknown in any way supports your contention that the explanation is God, that is a classic argument from ignorance.
SteveII Wrote:2. I did not ask how the universe (or multiverse) came into being. I asked how it came into being out of 'nothing'. Two very different questions. The first being filled with technical explanations and the second simply asking for the metaphysical explanation how nothing produced an eventual universe.
There's no reason to suppose that the universe came from literal philosophical nothingness, but if it did, pray tell what property does philosophical nothingness possess that prevents a universe from coming from it?
SteveII Wrote:3. No, the universe is finely tuned to support life (a fact not in question). I have never seen anywhere a serious scientist say that it is the way it is by necessity (correct me if I am wrong) so the only available naturalistic explanation is to appeal to chance--with or without a multiverse. Because the probability is so low, most appeal to a multiverse. Ironically however, the multiverse itself must be finetuned (I posted this a while back)
The universe is so hostile to life that out of the other side of their mouths, apologists claim it's a miracle that it exists on earth. You could equally argue that God designed the universe to be hostile to life because 99.99 (many more nines)% of its volume would kill most life as we know it in under five minutes. The anthropic principle is a fact: if the universe didn't allow for our existence, we wouldn't be here (except in a universe with an actual God who wanted us here, since it would have no requirement that the universe permit our existence to establish us) to wonder about it. Fine-tuning is an argument that the universe allowing us (or another form of life) to exist anywhere at all is so unlikely that it shouldn't exist at all. And as I said, it's based on a thought experiment. We don't know if the universal constants could have been different. We don't know how much they could have been different by if they could have been different. We don't know if they have relationships that relate their values such that if one has one value, another must have a specific related value. Our sample size is one. The thought experiment is based on a series of ifs and we can't conclude that we know what the odds of our universe holding life are, based on it.
We live in a universe that allows us to live, the only kind of universe that doesn't require a super-powerful being to explain our being able to live in it. Coincidence?
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.