I will prove to you that God exists

[Sheldon]

@Sheldon Now Drew, do behave, all anyone need do is read this thread to know your arguments have been relentlessly irrational, do you really still imagine you can bluff your way past this? You have used more logical fallacies in this very post...

Bullshit. Because you say so?

Another rather pointless lie, You used several logical fallacies in that post, and have done so throughout your spiel, all anyone need do is read them to know this is a fact. 

Its objective inferential evidence the universe was intentionally caused to exist. 

Drawing a personal inference is by definition subjective, you clown, and though the conclusion can also be objective this one demonstrably is not, it is just a subjective religious belief you choose to hold. It is unsupported by any objective evidence, as we have seen, it has no explanatory powers whatsoever. One could change deity in your claims to the wizard of Oz, and your belief, and arguments, would lose nothing. 

The existence of the universe makes their claim more probable than if it didn't exist.

The natural is always going to have a higher probability as an explanation in any scenario, than the supernatural, as the former exists as an objective fact, and the we have no objective evidence the latter is possible, nor that any deity is possible, why you think you can keep ignoring that fact is unclear? Just because your Christian indoctrination has left you desperate to cling to deism, is not a sound or objective argument. 

Scientists have extracted numerous formulas and equations from the universe you claim was caused by non-god forces.

I have never claimed this, as I keep telling you, this is a straw man fallacy you keep invoking, now scroll up and look where you called the assertion your claims are irrational "bullshit". Dear oh dear Drew, you're stepping on your dick with each post man. 

Scientists have been successful in reverse engineering the universe.

Nothing explained in science evidences anything but natural phenomena. However as i asked before, and you ignored obviously, please cite any peer reviewed research that evidences anything supernatural? It's almost time for me to stop explaining this now, and start using the "liar liar pants on fire" response your lies deserve Drew. 

You deny a myriad of conditions had to occur for there to be a congenial planet like earth to exist? 

Have, not had, get the tense right. The probability of an event that has already occurred is 1, this was already explained to you. 

natural forces that didn't intend or want our existence have no requirements for any of these conditions to exist. Natural forces don't care if oxygen exists, don't care if planets exist, don't care if water exists. They don't care if life exists.

So what? A coin doesn't care whether heads or tails comes up, nor any of the natural forces, and random event of tossing it into the air, but yet it can and does happen. 

If this universe had to come out as it did

We don't know it had to do this, @Angrboda has patiently been trying to help you understand that this is an unevidenced assumption on your part. 

I respond to as many posts as I can. Right now I have 32 waiting...I only ignore the stupid ones to save time.

Ah I see, this explains your reluctance to re-read your own then, and why you keep repeating the same mendacious and fallacious claims. 

the universe might have been forced to come out as it did with all the conditions and properties for life to exist. How does that look any different than being intentionally caused to exist to have all the properties for life to exist? 

Obviously for the difference between might have (or might not have, they're semantically the same) is that the assertion is supported by sufficient, and sufficiently objective evidence. You, as we know, have none for your subjective religious belief. Your arguments are fallacious, and your claims subjective. 

Does it matter?  Answer the question and I'll tell you what it is analogous to.

Drew: Yes it does...now buzz off.

Oh Drew, you are priceless. 

I'm not invoking any specific explanation.  I'm pointing out that we simply don't know one way or another whether the characteristics could be other than what they are. 


Dre: Which makes it a moot point 

If you cannot demonstrate that the characteristics of this universe could have turned out differently than they are, then your subjective unevidenced assertion they are too improbable to have happened without design is killed stone dead, this question exposes how poorly reasoned your argument is, well it's not your argument obviously, just one you're plagiarising to cling to the wreckage of your Christian indoctrination. Free yourself man, learn to be rational, to think critically, you'll thank us afterward. 

In science, "fine-tuning" refers to the idea that certain fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe are incredibly precisely set for life to exist. 

No that's not accurate, it's only true for the type of organic carbon based life we know of. Can you demonstrate other types of life, even non carbon based life, could not have emerged? You see like your inability to demonstrate that those natural characteristics of the universe cannot have emerged differently, in a different type of universe, this rather destroys your subjective religious claim it all had to be designed. 

Do you think scientists who stake their reputation on the claim we live in a multiverse never considered your brilliant objection that for some unknown reason the universe had to come out as it did and that way was to allow life?

Nothing in science evidence any deity, or anything supernatural, that's a demonstrable fact. Turn on any global news network if you don't believe me. 

 It is a key premise of the argument from fine tuning that they could be or had to be tuned. 

drew: No, the key argument is that they are tuned for life to exist. It makes not a slightest difference if they had to be that way. 

Au contraire mon ami, if they had to be that way, why would they have to be designed at all? there is also no objective or scientific evidence they were fine tuned by a creator for life, that is a subjective religious belief you're adding to the science. 

how does it look any different than a circuit board deliberately designed to fine tolerances?

One more time for Drew then, you are invoking a false equivalence fallacy.  Just because any two things share a common similarity, does not mean they are the same. The key difference that expose your claim as a fallacy, is that we have overwhelming objective evidence circuit boards are designed and created, we have none for universes. 

The main issue is scientists tell us the universe is fine-tuned for life. 

If they do, then they are offering a subjective belief, as are you, not a scientific fact. In science, the term fine tuning, as we all now know, describes certain characteristics of the natural material universe, and how vanishingly narrow they had to be for the type of organic life we observe on earth to emerge at all. 
It does not assert, nor does it evidence at all, that the universe was fine tuned, or designed, or created, that is a subjective religious belief creationist like you, add on. Perhaps you think if you repeat the lie enough times, we will stop noticing? In science fine tuned is a metaphor, like the big bang, it is not a literal description. 

[b]The Grand Nudger [/b]Either assumption is deleterious to the Idiot god. If they couldn't be otherwise and still yield what god wants then god's wishes and desires are beholden to an entirely natural reality.

@Drew_2013, pay attention, that is how you draw a sound logical inference.

[Sheldon]

It meets the preponderance of evidence meaning more in favor of the existence of a Creator than against.

You have said that the fine-tuning argument supports the multiverse hypothesis as well as it does a deity. By your own standard you should believe in a multiverse. Instead, you believe in god because that's what indoctrination has pounded into your skull.

Kudos to religion on that achievement as well, they must have had him when he was very young. It'd be easier to turn an orange parade now, than get Drew to think critically, rationally or objectively.

[Belacqua]

Science, obviously, uses methodological materialism as its foundation, and that is just not the right approach for metaphysical questions. Science works really really well precisely because it doesn't attempt to answer metaphysical questions.

I had to Google "metaphysical questions."  Here is what I found:

"AI Overview
Metaphysics, a branch of philosophy, explores fundamental questions about reality, existence, and the nature of reality, often delving into concepts beyond the scope of empirical science. Here are some examples of metaphysical questions:
What is the nature of reality?
Does the world really exist?
What is the meaning of life?
Do we have free will?
What is consciousness?
Does God exist?
What is the nature of space and time?
What is the relationship between mind and matter?
What is the nature of identity?
What is the nature of change?
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Is there an objective morality?
What are the limits of knowledge?
How do symbolic systems (e.g., language) represent the world?"

The bolded questions are, I think, very definitely within the realm of science these days.
The italicized questions are debatably within the realm of science.
That doesn't leave many metaphysical questions which are beyond the limits of science.

It was good of you to take the time to look into metaphysics. As you said earlier, we all learn at different paces -- it's never too late. Certainly I have a long way to go yet. 

Naturally I disagree with which questions you've bolded and italicized, but those are all enormous questions and each one of them would require a whole lot of work if we wanted to look into it properly. 

Here is a good summary of the current state of metaphysics:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics/

It may be that people here are conceiving of God as some sort of physical entity. Certainly this is far away from the God that Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Boehme, and Blake describe. Likewise more modern people, like Edward Feser, David Bentley Hart, Terry Eagleton, etc. God, for them, is intelligible, not sensible, and therefore not something that modern science can investigate. Looking for God with scientific methods is like looking for a prime number with a metal detector. 

I should add that "methodological materialism" is not where science started, but where it ended up because of what it found to be true.  Because of the assumed unified nature of truth, anything new we are trying to learn should be consistent with whatever we have already shown to be true.  That's why God is not immune from science, for instance.

As I understand it, science limits itself to methodological materialism because it ruled out dealing with the sorts of questions it can't answer. If you read about the methodology of Paracelsus, for example, he began as more of an alchemist, but turned toward practical, material methods simply because he wanted practical results. This doesn't mean that metaphysical aspects of the universe aren't real -- only that we have no practical way of using or manipulating them. Likewise Newton, though he was very open to alchemical explanations, was careful to limit his findings to material causes. He described what gravity does, and declined to say what it is. (Except in a tautological way -- gravity is the force which does the things that gravity does.) 

The change in investigative methods was largely a narrowing-down, to what could be shown through certain kinds of results. This was obvious already in the 17th century. In Molière's play Le Malade imaginaire, for example, he satirizes the medical profession through a scene where a character explains that opium induces sleep because of its "dormitive virtue." In other words, it causes sleep because it has the property of causing sleep. 

Modern science rests on a number of metaphysical assumptions, or guidelines. This book is still the best one on the subject:

https://www.amazon.com/Metaphysical-Foun...297&sr=8-3 

So anything we learn about the material world should be consistent with what we already know about the material world, but if we assume from this that only the material aspects of the world are real then we're simply begging the question.

[Sheldon]

I have another question for Drew, that I fear will go unanswered. 

Drew, why does it clearly bother you so much, that others don't share your belief in unevidenced superstition?

[Sheldon]

1. The fact the universe exists
2. The fact life exists
3. The fact intelligent life exists.
4. The fact the universe has laws of physics, is knowable, uniform and to a large extent predictable, amenable to scientific research and the laws of logic deduction and induction and is also explicable in mathematical terms.
5. The fact that in order for intelligent humans to exist requires a myriad of exacting conditions including causing the ingredients for life to exist from scratch.

Its objective inferential evidence the universe was intentionally caused to exist. 

You don't know what objective means, do you? Or when to use a possessive apostrophe. No one is disputing the objective facts, only that your conclusion about a deity, is not a rational, or even reasonable inference. What your conclusion absolutely is not, is objective.

[Nay_Sayer]

I'm late to this thread. Did he prove it? I mean, cause if he did... like fucking a, stop the presses this needs to get out! Since it's not in my news feed I'm guessing not so much?

Do religious people not realize how big a deal it would be of their god was scientifically validated? I mean, holy shit, literally. Or maybe they do and that's why we get all this voodoo woo woo science... fuck just bummed myself out.

Nope.  Right now it's in a cycle


1: Drew says something somewhat cogent

2: Someone points out a fallacy in his posts and challenges him on it

3: Drew gets mad and switches to  grumbling about Atheists

4: laptops

5 See 1

[Drew_2013]

@Sheldon

The natural is always going to have a higher probability as an explanation in any scenario, than the supernatural, as the former exists as an objective fact, and the we have no objective evidence the latter is possible, nor that any deity is possible, why you think you can keep ignoring that fact is unclear? Just because your Christian indoctrination has left you desperate to cling to deism, is not a sound or objective argument.

The word supernatural gets a bad rep. When we put the word super in front of something like superstar, supernova it doesn't mean its not a star or it not a nova. It only means it exceeds the transcends the usual meaning of those words. Black holes are supernatural. They are naturally occurring phenomenon but clearly transcend normal natural phenomenon. 

For all your alleged logic, hubris and braggadocio atheists have only been able to persuade about 5% of the population that mindless forces minus any plan, intent or an engineering degree caused the two most complex things, the universe and life in the form of intelligent beings. That doesn't make theism right (I know someone will point that out to me) it means you folks haven't been able to convince people our existence and the entire universe was just a stroke of sheer luck. You can't defend or explain how that could have happened, you admit you don't know how the universe came into existence yet undaunted you insist nature did it. What nature was that Sheldon? The only nature we know of came into existence 13.8 billion years ago.

I can't bother to respond to the rest of your drivel I have things to do.

[Drew_2013]

Is there some reason you'd rather it was unintentionally caused? Do you have a stake in that belief?

I believe that you've hit the nail on the point with this one. Perhaps you should ask yourself why you seek out atheist websites and wander about objecting that we don't believe as you do. If you're looking for dogmatic validation of your beliefs, then you've come to the wrong place.

No, I just have fun at atheists expense.

[Sheldon]

I believe that you've hit the nail on the point with this one. Perhaps you should ask yourself why you seek out atheist websites and wander about objecting that we don't believe as you do. If you're looking for dogmatic validation of your beliefs, then you've come to the wrong place.

No, I just have fun at atheists expense.

You having your arse handed to you repeatedly, is hardly at the expense of any atheists? Come to that, it's an odd notion of fun, to invite the intellectual equivalent of being publicly "spanked" like this, over and over. 

Oh, and thanks for finally having the integrity to admit you're trolling, we all knew of course, but that is something at least. Though it's clearly you who is being so triggered by the idea that others don't share,  and don't care about, your superstitious beliefs. 

We seem to be living rent free in your bonce. 

[Drew_2013]

@Angrboda



Which makes it a moot point and the hill you choose to die on. Nor do we need to know if they could be different to ascertain the universe is fine-tuned for life.

If there is no evidence they could be different than what they are then you have no basis for making an inference of design, and thus you have no evidence for the existence of God.  Design implies that the specific characteristics were chosen -- if there was no choice as to what these characteristics are, then there is no design involved and no reason to make that inference.  Far from a moot point, showing that you cannot provide any evidence for design is central to whether your argument from design counts as evidence.  Since you have no evidence that the values are the result of choice, you have no evidence of design.

For the last time since you're obviously in broken record mode. If the universe had to be as it is, why would it happen to be in a extremely narrow configuration to allow life to exist? One reason if the universe had to be as it is to cause life, is because it was intentionally designed that way. Its false to say if there was no choice in how the universe came out then it wasn't designed. Does the fact engineers cause motherboards to come out the same some how prove it wasn't by design? 

You don't need to respond with the same tiresome recording I responded for the sake of anyone else reading.