'Seeking' God

[Captain Scarlet]

That's the entire point. Human beings never would emerge except from a highly precise Universe fine-tuned for life and living on a planet with extremely priviledged circumstances. There is a conspiracy in the laws of physics for life.

Therefore the universe isn't designed. An omnipotent designer would not be as foolish as to make it so improbable that life could emerge or sustain itself, unless they were incompetent or lucked out. Who designs anything without resiliency built into it?

You have not made the argument from fine tuning. When you do and get into probabilities, please make sure you understand the difference between conditional and unconditional probability, the probability that the universe would emerge at all, the probability that it could emerge in a different way. You would need to answer these basic questions before you could even begin to make the argument. At the moment fine tuning is like saying "gee whizz look how improbable the universe is, and it was all done with me/us in mind, therefore goddidit". Yet given the size of the universe improbable things happen all the time. 2 examples:

1st the sun. It would not throw out any heat were it not for the vastly improbable event of 2 hydrogen atoms fusing. No one thinks god is fusing those atoms (or maybe you do and if so it will land you in a world of pain), so why does it occur? It is becuase there are so many hydrogen atoms at such great pressure and heat that it is inevitable that it will happen millions of times per second.

2nd you! Your existence is vastly more improbable than the universe, think of all the Billionne chances of the right sperm meeting the right egg for hundreds of generations. Yet here you are! Again no-one is suggesting that you are anything other than the products of normal sexual reproduction without divine intervention.

Speaking of disorder, the big bang violates the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics. I know quite a bit about science, and the evidence isn't there. No evidence for cosmic origin. No evidence for life from non-life. No evidence for soup to DNA. No mechanism in natural selection for DNA. The big bang theory is basically unworkable; why do you think they're looking for dark energy and dark matter? Hint, they don't exist.

Really, sighs. You are that literate! Well if you know these things, you should publish because you would be heralding a breakthrough in our knowledge (oh no wait its a big conspiracy isnt it scientists wouldn't publish your work because it proves god). The alternative explanation is that you might not understand it at all! Wonder which one is true?

Unprovable, untestable metaphysics.

Unrpovable no; it’s a mathematical model which offers just that. Untestable yes, at least currently. But you are missing the point that it is a natural explanation with superior explanatory scope and power to that of goddidit. It should therefore be preferred, else you need to invoke a magic man to explain natural phenomena.

Try abiogenesis for DNA. Again, unproven, untestable metaphysics. There isn't even a shred of evidence it is true.

Yep and the same response from me. We have replicated the base chemicals used in synthesizing life. We have seen the evidence but cannot currently bridge the gap between organic chemistry and life. Science is honest enough to call that out. But what gives you the right to posit a creator totally untestable, unprovable and meaningless. Yes we have seen lots of hard evidence emerge from abiogenesis, but not nearly enough to satisfy the rigours needed to meet the standard we set ourselves, but one thing we definatley have not seen is a giant hand descending and zapping life into existence.

You don't get to waltz in, fail to explain *any* of the fundemental questions and then claim God can't be involved.

I don’t have to, you have to show why god is a superior explanation…and you haven’t. Your arguments are all summed up by “I just don’t see how….such and such could happen naturally”. Its not an argument.

Even if you explored the entire material universe and could monitor all of it simultaneously you still wouldn't be able to disprove it.

Disprove what exactly? I’m not following your train of thought.

Nature doesn't account for it, and there isn't an explanation for it. The gaps are grand caynons which science has no hope of filling in. I'm saying the Universe has the appearance of design, and if you look up the post list, you'll see a number of high profile scientists admitting it. So, either the Universe was designed or it designed itself. You have hawkings proposing the Universe spontaneously generated itself from nothing and people smile and nod knowingly. It's incredible.

I’ve already addressed your arguments from incredulity. “I cant possibly think of a reason how such and such can be the case naturally therefore goddidit”. What is incredible on the other hand is that you prefer to appeal to magic and mysticism in order to answer questions.

As for the universe having the ‘appearance’ of design, that is hugely different thing from saying it ‘is’ designed. Scientists don’t generally say that the universe ‘is’ designed, mostly because they know it isn’t.

It isn't that hard to be sincere. Admit that you could be wrong, and humble yourself and ask God for the answer. If you can do that God will honor it. And Mother Teresa did hear from Jesus, many times when she was younger, and once or twice when she was older. The door is open.

Firstly, its a silly ad hominem. I am sincere in my disbelief. I don't pretend to believe but secretly don't (as some do). I really do not believe and am honest to the extent of preferring to be a strong rather than weak atheism (and attracting some burden of proof as some see it). So why wouldn't a god respect my honesty? Am I worse than the preacher who doesn't really believe or the agnostic?

Secondly, please do not proselytise or preach to me. It is patronising and frankly beneath intellectual debate. This amounts to an appeal to belief. But I noticed you didn’t respond to the challenge and you have not left your own door open to the fact the you might be wrong. So why don’t you try first.