(April 14, 2025 at 3:06 am)Sheldon Wrote: Drew expects us to imagine, that an unevidenced deity, that can create universes instantly from sheer will alone, using limitless supernatural powers, created one "fine tuned for life", with one species of evolved ape, as the main show. 

... culminating in believers in God, I suppose. Obviously their over-bearing sense of self-worth is tied up with this God character of theirs.

Perhaps I should embrace our own mascot to show how important we atheists really are.

(April 14, 2025 at 6:42 am)Alan V Wrote:

(April 14, 2025 at 3:06 am)Sheldon Wrote: Drew expects us to imagine, that an unevidenced deity, that can create universes instantly from sheer will alone, using limitless supernatural powers, created one "fine tuned for life", with one species of evolved ape, as the main show. 

... culminating in believers in God, I suppose.  Obviously their over-bearing sense of self-worth is tied up with this God character of theirs.

Perhaps I should embrace our own mascot to show how important we atheists really are.  

Ultimately, adding a deity has no explanatory powers, so doesn't answer any questions we have about the origins of life and the universe, while adding a whole lot more unanswered questions. 

Drew never managed any cogent response to this violation of Occam's razor. Though based on a lifetime of asking theists such questions, and their vapid responses, I'd have bet my house on him having an empty bag, right at the start.

(April 14, 2025 at 7:59 am)Sheldon Wrote: Ultimately, adding a deity has no explanatory powers, so doesn't answer any questions we have about the origins of life and the universe, while adding a whole lot more unanswered questions. 

Drew never managed any cogent response to this violation of Occam's razor. Though based on a lifetime of asking theists such questions, and their vapid responses, I'd have bet my house on him having an empty bag, right at the start.

I want to read more about the quantum vacuum. There is a book titled Nothing: A Very Short Introduction by Professor of Physics Frank Close, which I have already read and highlighted passages in. It discussed what I heard about elsewhere, that quantum mechanics maintains that there can be no perfect vacuum, so even apparent nothing must have quantum properties. This is important to this discussion since it implies that the universe did not come from absolutely nothing at all, but from the quantum vacuum through symmetry splitting. This possible explanation seems to be economical to what it is actually trying to explain, the weird physics of the origin of the universe.

There may or may not be other universes, and we will likely never know. However, we just might be able to figure out what configured the one we live in. I will also have to read more about holographic cosmology, which provides some rationale about how the universe evolved to have the properties it did through quantum entanglement. Both areas of study seem more promising than any armchair philosophizing about the properties (or motives) of a First Cause. At least they have mathematical explanations.

(April 14, 2025 at 2:37 am)Sheldon Wrote:

(April 13, 2025 at 4:34 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: In the book you refer to he fields the hypothetical that universe had to be as it is. He rebuts the hypothesis because it begs the question why if a universe has to be in a certain configuration, why is it the narrow configuration that causes planets, star, galaxies, molecules and ultimately life to exist. It doesn't solve the problem only pushes it back. That's why he continues to believe in multiverse theory.

Whilst I wouldn't trust your word now, to sell me a used napkin, please give the time in that video where he claims his hypothesis requires an unevidenced deity, using inexplicable and unevidenced magical superpowers? 

Take your time, I can wait.   Oh, no need to bother, it took less than ten seconds to find out that he's an atheist. 

I am going to go out on a limb here, and suggest he is better placed, than you are, to understand whether his work evidences your sky wizard. 

I've always said he is an atheist dimwit. He substitutes an infinitude of universes over a Creator.

(April 14, 2025 at 1:24 am)The Valkyrie Wrote:

(April 13, 2025 at 4:51 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: And just think yesterday you didn't know how to spell idiot and now you're using it in a sentence. Bravo.

Be fucking careful what buttons you push, junior.

Some staff are FAR more tolerant than I am.

I assume you're referring to the person who first used the word idiot.

(April 13, 2025 at 7:49 pm)Nay_Sayer Wrote:

(April 13, 2025 at 4:51 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: And just think yesterday you didn't know how to spell idiot and now you're using it in a sentence. Bravo.

Just a few days ago you weren't a cowardly, lying, hypocritical troll.  The wonders of time.

Thoughts and prayers. RAmen

Then I made a mistake a few days ago.

(April 14, 2025 at 2:30 am)Sheldon Wrote:

(April 13, 2025 at 7:49 pm)Nay_Sayer Wrote: Just a few days ago you weren't a cowardly, lying, hypocritical troll.  The wonders of time.

Thoughts and prayers. RAmen

Just a few days ago you say, hmm...

I mean he could have always been a dishonest troll.  For my two cents I think he simply couldn't handle the push back and was getting more and more frustrated over his parroted arguments being picked apart.  

Unable to defend his stance adequately he's regressed to name calling and trolling.

(April 14, 2025 at 5:42 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(April 13, 2025 at 4:51 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: And just think yesterday you didn't know how to spell idiot and now you're using it in a sentence. Bravo.

I used the American spelling so as not to confuse you even more.

And I look forward to the day when you learn the difference between its and it's.

Boru

(April 14, 2025 at 10:17 am)Drew_2013 Wrote:

(April 13, 2025 at 7:49 pm)Nay_Sayer Wrote: Just a few days ago you weren't a cowardly, lying, hypocritical troll.  The wonders of time.

Thoughts and prayers. RAmen

Then I made a mistake a few days ago.

This is sad. Are the replies making you so uncomfortable that you have to retreat into childish behavior? Is the thought of reading and absorbing cogent arguments and questions causing you so much distress that rather then face any of it you've shoved the controls into a nose dive?

(April 13, 2025 at 7:40 pm)Angrboda Wrote:

(April 13, 2025 at 4:34 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: In the book you refer to he fields the hypothetical that universe had to be as it is. He rebuts the hypothesis because it begs the question why if a universe has to be in a certain configuration, why is it the narrow configuration that causes planets, star, galaxies, molecules and ultimately life to exist. It doesn't solve the problem only pushes it back. That's why he continues to believe in multiverse theory.

In Just Six Numbers, Martin Rees does not use the phrase begging the question a single time.   I'll need an actual quotation before I comment on this.

Given that I've just shown you misrepresenting Martin Rees, it's not a stretch to imagine that you are doing so again.

(Other words Martin Rees doesn't use as you've used them here:  'solve', 'problem', 'push', and 'back'.)

If the underlying laws determine all the key numbers uniquely, so that no other universe is mathematically consistent with those laws, then we would have to accept that the ‘tuning’ was a brute fact, or providence. - MR

I accept the fine-tuning of motherboards as a brute fact because they are intentionally designed to come out fine-tuned for computing. The fact they are caused to be fine-tuned doesn't mean they're not fine-tuned.

I think you get this now only a person of low intelligence would fail to see it.