(April 7, 2025 at 7:20 pm)Nay_Sayer Wrote: Actually, this planet is quite hostile to life. 99% of species that have ever existed on this planet are now extinct

Evolution grows its tree on a pile of corpses. But that's all part of the plan.

/s

(April 7, 2025 at 11:57 am)Drew_2013 Wrote: Fine-tuned universe

Argumentum ad Wikipedia Copy-N-Pasta? Seriously dude, learn how to do basic attribution.

The Wikipedia article (<--- See? Like that!) goes on to debunk everything that you stated here. Here's a selection of fun quotes for you (emphasis mine):

"Because physicists have not developed an empirically successful theory of quantum gravity, there is no known way to combine quantum mechanics, on which the standard model depends, and general relativity. Without knowledge of this more complete theory suspected to underlie the standard model, it is impossible to definitively count the number of truly independent physical constants. In some candidate theories, the number of independent physical constants may be as small as one."

"Physicist Paul Davies said: "There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the Universe is in several respects 'fine-tuned' for life. But the conclusion is not so much that the Universe is fine-tuned for life; rather it is fine-tuned for the building blocks and environments that life requires". He also said that "'anthropic' reasoning fails to distinguish between minimally biophilic universes, in which life is permitted, but only marginally possible, and optimally biophilic universes, in which life flourishes because biogenesis occurs frequently"."

"Among scientists who find the evidence persuasive, a variety of natural explanations have been proposed, such as the existence of multiple universes introducing a survivorship bias under the anthropic principle."

"Belief in the fine-tuned universe led to the expectation that the Large Hadron Collider would produce evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model, such as supersymmetry, but by 2012 it had not produced evidence for supersymmetry at the energy scales it was able to probe."

(April 5, 2025 at 9:26 am)Order Wrote: I sincerely want to help people who are questioning the existence of God.
[...]
Actually I am not sure whether I should do this, because I dont think many people truly deserve it.

In the space of a single sentence, you went from wanting to help to deciding we weren't worth it. Pick a lane, friend.

Also, I am not questioning the existence of God. I am questioning the existence of YOUR God. I think that's a far more worthwhile exercise.

(April 6, 2025 at 10:52 am)Drew_2013 Wrote: He argues that if God truly exists, he would not allow such suffering to occur.

That's a theological argument. How does an atheist use theology to make an argument against the existence of a Creator?

If that is Stenger's argument, then he isn't using theology. He's just using logic.

I am open to the possibility of the existence of a creator; I don't think there are any universe origin stories that are intuitive to me.

But I can, with certainty, disqualify any number of possible deities and religions as being true. Even the most devout religious person does this as well, seeing as they have to accept one god/religion and reject all others. And a God who claims to be concerned with my wellbeing and my future prospects, but does nothing to address those concerns, is pretty easy to dismiss. Heck, any God that created our universe and our world out of a desire to have anything to do with us, and then never ever shows up, can be tossed on that pile as well. There are a long list of ways in which pretty much every God that people worship isn't real.

"God has to exist, check out these proofs" is simply unconvincing and unsatisfying. Explain how the one YOU believe in is actually real.

(April 6, 2025 at 2:14 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: I'm here for serious discussion if anyone is interested.

No, you're not. You're her to spout unsubstantiated, unevidenced bullshit. Your shtick was tired before you even started. There's nothing is any of your "arguments" (for want of a better term, like "pure bullshit") that we haven't seen a hundred times before, and will probably see hundreds more. You are in no way convincing.

^Typical JebusTroll. Seemingly a dime a dozen.

(April 6, 2025 at 2:24 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote:

(April 6, 2025 at 1:10 pm)Deesse23 Wrote: Says the guy who does not answer my questions? Nice try. This is not your congregation where you respond to uncomfortable questions with questions. THis is a place where you get grilled for not answering.
Did or did you not create a specific thread over at AD to tell how hate of religion drives atheists away from theism, and not intellectual honesty. Did or did you not tell people what they think, in the face of evidence to the contrary?

Lets start from this premise, I don't give a shit what anyone thinks, especially you. I offered the opinion (which I'm not backing down from) that many atheists come to despise religion, religious people and then as a result come to disbelieve in the existence of God. I offer my opinions on anything I feel like. Do you want people to challenge atheism on this discussion board or you just want an echo chamber for you to bellyache in?

I, for one, would welcome a challenge to atheism. You and your lame-ass shit ain't it, Sparky.

The fine-tuning argument would imply that there exists a wide range of possible universes where an omnipotent and omniscient being could not cause life to appear...

Drew: The universe is too awesomely complex to have simply happened by chance. It must have been created by God.
Universe: So you know how I work do you?
Drew: Well, not as such, but...
God: And you've got me figured out too?
Drew: Well, you see...
Both: And you have the whole Creation from Nothing business sorted?
Drew: That's not really the point...
Chorus: So when you say "God created the Universe" you're just moving air around with your mouth hole.

(April 7, 2025 at 5:30 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote:

(April 6, 2025 at 11:50 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Sure they do.

On the ‘fine tuning’ thingy, have you considered that it could simply be a happy accident? Suppose the universe evolved to support life incidentally. Out of a billion skillion universes, at least one was bound to reach a point where life-as-we-know-it could thrive. It’s a logical leap to presume that it was intentional. 

Boru

And it's a logical leap to presume that the physical constants of our universe could be different. The fine tuning argument presumes they could all have any value and that their values are unrelated to each other to come up sith astronomical odds, but we have no way to know any of that. It's just a thought experiments with a lot of 'ifs' in it. Since when are thought experiments evidence instead of analogy?

Or consider this: what if working on the inverse-square, gravity falls off by the inverse-cube? That would imply far fewer stars and galaxies, but still some. Far fewer planets, and much smaller at that, but still some rocky lumps. Fewer goldilocks planets.

But even so, after fifteen billion years, we see a Universe more widely-scattered, with fewer black holes and galaxies and larger amounts of interstellar gases, but still with roughly 1/9th the amount of those platforms for providing environments for life to evolve.

Or maybe nothing coalesces enough for life to evolve, but the Universe still exists with no observers to document it.

I don't know enough about the other constants to project much.