(April 9, 2025 at 9:21 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote:

(April 9, 2025 at 1:01 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: @Sheldon


And yet he can’t admit that he’s invoking magic. That’s what magic is - a natural phenomenon that we haven’t yet found the explanation for.

Boru

Its questionable who is invoking magic. Would it be more magical for a laptop to come together and assemble itself minus any plan or intent to do so? Or is it less magical if the laptop was created by intelligent autonomous beings on purpose? You won't answer the question but its obvious. It would be far more magical and unexpected if a laptop was caused by some unheard of natural process. Nothing would be more magical than if mindless natural forces that didn't intend themselves to exist, caused a universe with all the conditions to cause life to exist, caused the laws of physics we are utterly dependent on.

The reason atheists are such a minority is because you sell a fish story few believe.

Universes are not laptops. Read your Hume, he debunked this nonsense almost 300 years ago.


And I WILL answer your question: It would be far more magical if an all-powerful Being, operating outside the constraints of time and space, created intelligence in a slipshod fashion than if natural processes did the same thing. We have mountains of evidence for the former, none for the latter.


Boru

Drew is wilfully ignorant about laptops. Laptops are 100.00% result of natural processes. I have not had a single laptop that was produced using any kind of magic, aka supernatural forces.

Wtf is he talking about.

I tell you what he is talking about: he equivocates creating laptops with 100.00% natural processes with creating universes by magic, which is disingenuous, ignorant, and equivocation and a watchmaker fallacy. He has exactly zero evidence that any supernatural forces was involved in creating universes

(April 8, 2025 at 10:37 am)Drew_2013 Wrote:

(April 7, 2025 at 8:24 pm)Paleophyte Wrote: 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."

Not surprising Paul Davis is an atheist. 

You quoted this...

"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."

I've had plenty claim erroneously that multiverse theory has nothing to do with the fine-tuning of the universe. Most scientists are philosophically committed to naturalist explanations.

What's wrong with using sources to back up what I'm saying. Its better than a lot of folks here who quote themselves as authorities on any subject.

(April 10, 2025 at 5:31 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(April 9, 2025 at 9:21 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: Its questionable who is invoking magic. Would it be more magical for a laptop to come together and assemble itself minus any plan or intent to do so? Or is it less magical if the laptop was created by intelligent autonomous beings on purpose? You won't answer the question but its obvious. It would be far more magical and unexpected if a laptop was caused by some unheard of natural process. Nothing would be more magical than if mindless natural forces that didn't intend themselves to exist, caused a universe with all the conditions to cause life to exist, caused the laws of physics we are utterly dependent on.

The reason atheists are such a minority is because you sell a fish story few believe.

Universes are not laptops. Read your Hume, he debunked this nonsense almost 300 years ago.

Boru

He's channelling his inner Paley. The reason a shiny metal pocket watch, or laptop, if Drew prefers, looks out of place in a natural setting, is precisely because all the things we know are designed, do not occur randomly in nature, that's what manmade means. However neither is anything supernatural involved. 

We can point to offices with designers, creating designs for every stage of laptops, we can point to factories creating every piece of them. Now, Drew, demonstrate that supernatural designers and creators for universes exist, or are possible, or for anything in nature please.

Quote:Drew: I'm a theist who believes the universe was intentionally caused for the purpose of creating intelligent beings such as humans

Without any objective evidence, and by supernatural causation, which again you cannot evidence is even possible. Leaving aside the dearth of objective evidence, the obvious logical inference is this is either one incompetent wasteful deity, determined to keep itself hidden from all objective scrutiny, or it is non-existent. As if that's not enough, humans evolved just 200k years ago, that some long winded planning that is. 

Quote:

Alan V Wrote: Wrote:Atheists usually say that what theists take as evidence is better explained as evidence supporting atheism.

Drew: I have yet to hear these explanations.

Oh I very much doubt that, given that dismissive hand waving, and evasion has been your persistent response to those explanations in this thread. It seems your mind is made up, and no amount of rational objections will change it.  

Quote:

Quote:My certainty comes from the grindingly, creakingly, crashingly obvious mountain of evidence that there is no place in a natural universe for a supernatural Overseer.

Boru

Drew:  The only thing we have to go on at this time is what happened after the universe began to exist.

Correct, and every single thing we currently understand about the origins of the universe are entirely natural, and don't evidence any deity, creator, or anything supernatural. Which I suspect is precisely the point Boru was making. 

Quote:Drew: And what happened was a shitload of things to cause a planet like earth to exist.

This is still hilariously daft, when things have already happened, the probability of that event is 1. Yet you keep trying to claim how improbable it seems. though of course this is only to add on a deity, and the supernatural, neither of which you can even evidence are even possible. Occam's razor violated. 
Like a child marvelling at how intricately the puddle fits the water in it, it can only have been designed, obviously. 

Quote:Drew: Isn't the whole basis of this debate is whether the universe and our existence was intentionally caused or the result of happenstance. 

No, not at all, no one here knows, beyond the big bang, how the universe formed, but only you are claiming to, and your claim deviates from every known cause we have, in that it is not natural but supernatural, and you can demonstrate no objective evidence anything supernatural is possible, or that deity you insist must have caused it is possible. So the basis for this debate is to examine why you think this, and so far we have fallacious arguments, mendacious half truths misrepresenting science, and unevidenced assumptions. 

Quote:

Quote:In my experiences over several decades, I will say that if the Christian god or Jesus or whatever name you choose exist(s), they suck at that loving us part.  It's an abusive relationship at best.  I have been cutting abusers out of my life a long time and god/Jesus was the first one to go.

You had an abusive relationship with an imaginary being? 

Oh dear. 

Quote:Drew: How does an atheist use theology to make an argument against the existence of a Creator?

By pointing out the flaws in it, obviously, what a bizarre question? 
Always worth re-reading the start of a thread I find, very edifying.

(April 9, 2025 at 1:13 pm)Sheldon Wrote: I don't mind that someone is unware their argument is irrational, or that they make an error, as we are all capable of this. What irks, is when they ignore the fact, and then go on to dishonestly repeat the argument. Often moving from forum to forum to do this, which is pretty compelling evidence they think they can bluff others, when they have failed elsewhere. 

It's classic troll behavior.

(April 10, 2025 at 5:31 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(April 9, 2025 at 9:21 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: Its questionable who is invoking magic. Would it be more magical for a laptop to come together and assemble itself minus any plan or intent to do so? Or is it less magical if the laptop was created by intelligent autonomous beings on purpose? You won't answer the question but its obvious. It would be far more magical and unexpected if a laptop was caused by some unheard of natural process. Nothing would be more magical than if mindless natural forces that didn't intend themselves to exist, caused a universe with all the conditions to cause life to exist, caused the laws of physics we are utterly dependent on.

The reason atheists are such a minority is because you sell a fish story few believe.

Universes are not laptops. Read your Hume, he debunked this nonsense almost 300 years ago.


And I WILL answer your question: It would be far more magical if an all-powerful Being, operating outside the constraints of time and space, created intelligence in a slipshod fashion than if natural processes did the same thing. We have mountains of evidence for the former, none for the latter.


Boru

How did the forces that caused the universe to expand operate? Were those 'natural' forces inside spacetime that hadn't come into existence yet? A laptop isn't the universe its a far less complex contrivance. If mindless natural forces can cause the universe a laptop is child's play.

(April 10, 2025 at 9:51 am)Drew_2013 Wrote:

(April 10, 2025 at 5:31 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Universes are not laptops. Read your Hume, he debunked this nonsense almost 300 years ago.


And I WILL answer your question: It would be far more magical if an all-powerful Being, operating outside the constraints of time and space, created intelligence in a slipshod fashion than if natural processes did the same thing. We have mountains of evidence for the former, none for the latter.


Boru

How did the forces that caused the universe to expand operate? Were those 'natural' forces inside spacetime that hadn't come into existence yet? A laptop isn't the universe its a far less complex contrivance. If mindless natural forces can cause the universe a laptop is child's play.

Drew,  people have seen laptops being made.  If you happen to have the Universe making channel on your cable provider, do share. FSM Weaps.

Laptops operate on natural forces they don't operate on pixie dust .The distinction here should not be natural vs supernatural but natural vs artificial.

@Drew_2013

I'm still waiting for you to provide some evidence that the constants and characteristics could have been different than what they are. Do you have any?

If you can't support the key premise that they could be different, then your argument for fine-tuning fails, and the conclusion that your belief that God created the universe is irrational seems warranted.

(April 10, 2025 at 9:36 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(April 9, 2025 at 1:13 pm)Sheldon Wrote: I don't mind that someone is unaware their argument is irrational, or that they make an error, as we are all capable of this. What irks, is when they ignore the fact, and then go on to dishonestly repeat the argument. Often moving from forum to forum to do this, which is pretty compelling evidence they think they can bluff others, when they have failed elsewhere. 

It's classic troll behavior.

I consider it more as typical authoritarian-male behavior.  We all have had plenty of experiences with men who couldn't comprehend how they just might be wrong.

Intention is one thing but competence is quite another.  When people learn competence, they also often learn that they were wrong.