(November 4, 2021 at 11:54 am)Ranjr Wrote: Eh, just a kid trying to give the old folks a stroke.

Perhaps, but I haven't heard anything from ahri that's never fallen out of the lips of a presumably "mainline" christian in my presence.  It's just the new age market - which isn't actually a young whippersnappers thing even if this one's just another cabbage in the row, waiting to blossom into a full on frothing loon.

Ideas like his have changed the face of contemporary christianity in recent and living memory.

(November 3, 2021 at 10:31 pm)Ahriman Wrote:

(November 3, 2021 at 10:27 pm)Spongebob Wrote: Yep, just what I thought.  All air...head.

Science is poop. A real man (or woman) comes up with his (or her) own system for explaining the universe and the meaning of human lives. Anything else is extraneous and stupid.

Do you understand that every time you bake you're performing some of the same basic science involved in forming the universe?

(November 4, 2021 at 12:21 pm)brewer Wrote:

(November 3, 2021 at 10:31 pm)Ahriman Wrote: Science is poop. A real man (or woman) comes up with his (or her) own system for explaining the universe and the meaning of human lives. Anything else is extraneous and stupid.

Do you understand that every time you bake you're performing some of the same basic science involved in forming the universe?

And depending on what kind of brownies you're baking the sensation of being involved in the universe's formation increases.

(November 4, 2021 at 12:35 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:

(November 4, 2021 at 12:21 pm)brewer Wrote: Do you understand that every time you bake you're performing some of the same basic science involved in forming the universe?

And depending on what kind of brownies you're baking the sensation of being involved in the universe's formation increases.

I have anecdotal evidence which supports this. 😁

(November 4, 2021 at 12:35 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:

(November 4, 2021 at 12:21 pm)brewer Wrote: Do you understand that every time you bake you're performing some of the same basic science involved in forming the universe?

And depending on what kind of brownies you're baking the sensation of being involved in the universe's formation increases.

Jesus christ, don't give him any ideas. His products get sold to the public.

This has Nick Cage/Moonstruck implications.

(November 3, 2021 at 10:57 am)GaryAnderson Wrote: Yes. The mis-use of science. This is where we are going to get into interpretations again.

Here’s an example:
The universe exists and the Big Bang happened.

An atheist says : I don’t know why it exists. It just is.
An agnostic atheist, let’s take the scientist Michio Kaku for example, will philosophize and says : There’s a multiverse that exists which creates new universes and Big Bangs randomly.
A theist will say: God created this universe because it’s fine-tuned for life.

Who is mis-using science here?

The first example is someone being honest and only speaking to what can be known. The other examples are of people speculating.

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(November 3, 2021 at 3:26 pm)GaryAnderson Wrote:

(November 3, 2021 at 3:21 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Yes, some of us have heard of brute facts but I do not think you are there yet. Does the universe exist in the the particular way that it does by necessity or could it have been otherwise? To what exactly, i.e. what kind of objects, do the symbols of the math equation "2 + 2 =4" refer?

Yes, the universe being a random accident is also a know stance here among skeptics and atheists. The statistical probability of this accident is explained by the existence of the infinite multiverse where universes collide and create baby universes or new Big Bangs. Infinite being the key concept there, as well as being a philosophy.
That’s also a valid position which I’m not dismissing. I just have different beliefs on fine-tuning that’s all. And I don’t mind others using string theory to say that a multiverse exists.

The statistical probabiity of fine-tuning depends on assuming that the constants referred to could be other than they are, that if they could be other than they are that they could differ enough to make life impossible, that if they could differ enough to make life impossible, they are independent of each other (that is, raising one by X doesn't mean that another has to be X lower, for instance) AND there are no other possible combinations where life different from what we're familiar with would be possible. That's a lot of ifs without even bringing other universes into it and we don't know the answer to any of them. It's not evidence, it's a thought experiment.

Besides, a universe in which life can exist naturally is the only kind of universe that doesn't require a supernatural explanation for why life exists. An omnipotent being could have us live thrivingly in a vacuum or on the surface of the sun, or without a strong force. What would such a being care for for what's physically possible? Imagine the puzzlement of scientists on the surface of the sun: According to my measurements, we should all be clouds of ionized vapor in this environment!

Edit: Acknowledgements to those who ninja'd me on my points.

Can I buy archaeology?

duplicate post

(November 4, 2021 at 1:23 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: The statistical probabiity of fine-tuning depends on assuming that the constants referred to could be other than they are, that if they could be other than they are that they could differ enough to make life impossible, that if they could differ enough to make life impossible, they are independent of each other (that is, raising one by X doesn't mean that another has to be X lower, for instance) AND there are no other possible combinations where life different from what we're familiar with would be possible. That's a lot of ifs without even bringing other universes into it and we don't know the answer to any of them. It's not evidence, it's a thought experiment.

It almost seems as if there are these four basic categories keep popping up to "explain" the apparent contingency of the physical universe: chance, necessity, providence, and choice. Depending on one's faith, or lack thereof, people are disposed to feel emotionally and intellectually satisfied with some categories more than others. At the same time though, some categories seem to blur together. Is there really that much difference between them? If you can model chance outcomes statistically doesn't that bleed into necessity when there is a predictable and graphable distribution? Is there really much difference between necessity, that which must happen, and providence, the idea that some things are set-up to happen. Isn't that perhaps just a differnent way of talking about the same thing...between the "how" and "why" of things.

(November 4, 2021 at 1:23 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: a universe in which life can exist naturally is the only kind of universe that doesn't require a supernatural explanation for why life exists.

And all bachelors are unmarried. :-)

(November 3, 2021 at 11:04 am)GaryAnderson Wrote: Yes but science cannot and will not give us the answers to existential questions such as “Why does the universe exist” or “why do we exist” so some people like Michio Kaku and other theoretical physicists make leaps of faith based on educated guesses to attempt to answer “the why”.

Science does indeed answer such questions. Various cause-and-effect mechanisms are the best possible explanations for why things happened the way they did. You should study Big History, a remarkable synthesis of scientific discoveries into an over-all origins narrative.

There is no God-hypothesis incorporated into science because nothing in science requires that assumption. There is no need for it unless you are not happy that so many things come about as a matter of chance rather than by some just-so story which flatters us as humans.

So the problem with using science to "uphold" this or that belief is that the beliefs are unnecessary additions. You have to cherry-pick your science to make the beliefs seem somehow required to make sense of it all.