Theists: What is the most compelling argument you have heard for Atheism?

[Jesster]

I sure would like to see this evidence.

Evidence for Fine Tuning

That link didn't work. Could you put any of it in your own words?

[RoadRunner79]

Evidence for Fine Tuning

That link didn't work. Could you put any of it in your own words?

Evidence For Fine Tuning

I think I fixed the link... I messed up with the editor. Sorry!



Here are some examples though:   

Fine Tuning of the Physical Constants of the Universe
Parameter
Max. DeviationRatio of Electronsrotons
1:10^37
Ratio of Electromagnetic Force:Gravity
1:10^40
Expansion Rate of Universe
1:10^55
Mass Density of Universe1
1:10^59
Cosmological Constant
1:10^120
These numbers represent the maximum deviation from the accepted values, that would either prevent the universe from existing now, not having matter, or be unsuitable for any form of life.

[Brian37]

I sure would like to see this evidence.

Evidence for Fine Tuning

Nope sorry, just like MK a Muslim here, just like Atlas a Muslim here on this website, when you cant peddle "pretty" alone you try to combine "pretty" with science. But again, I have also seen Jews and Hindus and Buddhist try to point to the pretty in life and try to use science to prop it up.

Nothing about this universe is "fine tuned". If it were, we would not be isolated on a very violent planet that has had 4 billion years of violent change. We would not be stuck with meteors and comets that could hit us. Our solar system would not be in a galaxy full of empty space between the billions of suns. Our galaxy would not be light years away from others nor surrounded by mostly empty space too. 

You stupidly equate abundance of life on earth as equating the universe to being "fine tuned", well not even with life does that make sense. If we were "fine tuned" as a species it would not be millions of sperm per emission to one egg per period cycle. If we were fine tuned a ratio of 1 to 1 with a 100% success rate would make more sense if one were to claim a perfect being being a factory boss. In real factories, the ones that do business globally, anything less than 98% output quality would be considered a failure. 

Again, you are not taking efficiency into this quality control, you are simply stuck on your sense of awe because humans exist and can take note of life. Most attempts at life fail. Most sperm do nothing, most eggs do nothing. Most acorns that drop from trees simply rot or become food for animals. And even with our solar system, we are the only planet out of them all that harbors intelligent life. And most of our species history has been living in total scientific ignorance. Our modern knowledge really only took off 150 years ago, and even morso over the past 40 years. 

That seems to be alot of waste for an alleged all powerful God to make if you want to claim he put it all here for humans.

[Jesster]

What does any of that have to do with fine-tuning? The vast majority of the universe is unsuitable for any form of life, so the assumption at the end there is definitively missing the mark.

[Brian37]

What does any of that have to do with fine-tuning? The vast majority of the universe is unsuitable for any form of life, so the assumption at the end there is definitively missing the mark.

Don't ask me, ask a theist who buys into fine tuning. I know it is a crappy argument.

[Jesster]

What does any of that have to do with fine-tuning? The vast majority of the universe is unsuitable for any form of life, so the assumption at the end there is definitively missing the mark.

Don't ask me, ask a theist who buys into fine tuning. I know it is a crappy argument.

I was asking RoadRunner

[Brian37]

When one postulates a perfect God and an "all powerful God" the logic fails compared to what we see, both with the universe and evolution. We are a result of the universe and atoms make up any mass in the universe as well as life, so you cannot separate "fine tuning" between life on earth and the universe. 

I mentioned factories as an analogy. Theists cannot escape that they are treating all this as a product, as if life and the universe were a product manufactured by a factory owner.

Problem is, just with the universe, most of it is empty space, and most of the universe is hostile to life, so that alone would seem lots of waste of material just to put all that here for us. 

And since we live in this universe, life as well if looked at as a product, like the universe, this too in the context of evolution, also seems to be a lot of waste.

I used the millions of sperm to one egg analogy, and even most female eggs go to period and do nothing. Imagine how quickly a car company would go out of business if the owner suddenly decided to use 1 ton of sheet metal to make one car. Humans who believe in any type of cosmic factory product maker, fail to take into account, both with the universe, and life on earth, efficiency and output vs material going in. Successful factories in real life maximize efficiency and waste as little material as possible in the input output process. 

If they still want to claim a God, it cannot be called perfect and 100% input to 100% output with no error . Otherwise it cannot be called perfect or all powerful. If you still want to call it that, then this factory boss is merely using us for it's amusement like we are lab rats or toys. I cannot buy the idea of being the product or property of a super hero. It is a vile concept to me to think of myself as having no input other than responding to bribes or grovel to the threats of the factory boss.

[Brian37]

How about you consider that your naked assertion is merely a reflection of your own human qualities?...

Xenophanes "But if cattle and horses and lions had hands
or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do,
horses like horses and cattle like cattle
also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies
of such a sort as the form they themselves have.

You better stop before you beclown yourself any more, Brian. You're so ignorant that you apparently don't even know that Xenophanes was a monotheist and the above quote is a critique of ancient Greek polytheism. Idiot.

You assume I didn't know that. He's right about that analogy but again, being right about that would still not make his god real either. Otherwise since Arabs invented algebra, by that logic Allah must be the one true God. I was agreeing with his analogy, not any god claim he had.

My mom was Catholic, so by your logic, since I loved her, and knew her for 44 years, and since she got some things right, like teaching for 30 years, that must mean eating a magic cracker will save one's soul? Sam Harris is a neurologist, so by your logic, since he is into Buddhism, better convert to Buddhism. 

I don't care he was a monotheist, other smart people in history come from all sorts of religions and? Again being right about some things, does not prove any god to be real. 

You look at the world's religious artwork, funny how the spirits/deities/gods/prophets depicted reflect the societies they are created in. That is the same thing he meant. You look at depictions of Jesus in Italy he is more depicted in their history as having Italian features. Look at depictions of Jesus in Mexico or South America and they tend to reflect Latino/Hispanic features. Look at how the gods of the Hindus in India are depicted and funny that, seem to have the features of those born in India.Look at Native American spirits and their features reflect Native Americans history.

 None of my argument was proving a monotheistic god or polytheistic god by quoting him.

[Fake Messiah]

Augustine 1700 years ago did not take the Genesis account as a literal 6 days. If you think you are making a point, it is a tired-out one with no real meaning. Congrats.

Well, who ever told you that was lying. For example here is Aquinas discussing the reality of paradise, the abode of Adam and Eve, in Summa Theologica. Responding to the words of his predecessor Saint Augustine, Aquinas shows how historical truth trumps metaphor:

Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. viii, 1): "Three general opinions prevail about paradise. Some understand a place merely corporeal; others a place entirely spiritual; while others, whose opinion, I confess, pleases me, hold that paradise was both corporeal and spiritual."
I answer that, As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiii, 21): "Nothing prevents us from holding, within proper limits, a spiritual paradise; so long as we believe in the truth of the events narrated as having there occurred." For whatever Scripture tells us about paradise is set down as matter of history; and wherever Scripture makes use of this method, we must hold to the historical truth of the narrative as a foundation of whatever spiritual explanation we may offer.

Aquinas believed not only in paradise, but also in the instantaneous creation of species and of Adam and Eve as humanity’s ancestors, as well as in a young Earth (less than six thousand years old) and the literal existence of Noah and his great flood. Further, Aquinas was obsessed with angels. Not only did he see them as real but devoted a large section of the Summa Theologica ("Treatise on the Angels") to their existence, number, nature, how they move, what they know, and what they want.

Or what about Saint Augustine of Hippo, who commented extensively on Genesis, was quite explicit that the text, though it had a spiritual message, was based on historical events:

The narrative indeed in these books is not cast in the figurative kind of language you find in the Song of Songs, but quite simply tells of things that happened, as in the books of the Kingdoms and others like them. But there are things being said with which ordinary human life has made us quite familiar, and so it is not difficult, indeed, it is the obvious thing to do, to take them first in the literal sense, and then chisel out from them what future realities the actual events described may figuratively stand for.

Augustine was also a literalist about many things later refuted by science: a young Earth, instantaneous creation, the historical reality of Adam and Eve, paradise, and Noah and his Ark.

Not to mention that still 4 in 10 Americans Believe God Created Earth 10,000 Years Ago I mean where did they get that idea when according to you Christians sobered up from that stupidity long time ago?

Or what about Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Humani Generis:

When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism [our descent from ancestors beyond Adam and Eve], the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.

[downbeatplumb]

[quote='downbeatplumb' pid='1531984' dateline='1490808256']
How is this god person supposed to set the physics?
what process did it use,?did it punch them into its celestial computer or are the theists just assuming that if no one knows, god did it is the default?

god is not the answer to how god is not the answer to anything as far as I can tell.

This isn't a God of the gaps type of argument.  (I'm starting to think that many don't understand, and do not address what is being said).

There is a gap in our knowledge and you have filled it with god. How is this not a god of the gaps argument.

What the fine tuning argument is saying; is that the evidence shows that something capable of choice and direction is responsible for what is being seen.  It also makes the notion that there is no purpose or intention behind what we see as difficult.

No it doesn't, what it says is that these are what is seen as the physics needed for life. It has nothing to say on how the physics came to be like that. This is classic god of the gaps.

"just assuming that if no one knows, god did it is the default" is a strawman, whether from ignorance, or it is intentional.

What I said is not a strawman but a factual description of what you said.