RE: Theists: What is the most compelling argument you have heard for Atheism?
March 27, 2017 at 5:26 pm
(This post was last modified: March 27, 2017 at 5:36 pm by Brian37.)
(March 27, 2017 at 2:40 pm)SteveII Wrote:(March 27, 2017 at 1:53 pm)Whateverist Wrote: That's like asking how the lottery winner knew to choose just those numbers. We're living in the 'winning ticket' and are part and parcel of it.
The lottery is not a good analogy for the fine-tuning argument. A better analogy is if there were billions and billions of white ping pong balls and one black ball. If the black ball rolls down the shoot, you can live. A white one, you will be shot. Each individual white ball is equally improbable, but the odds of you getting some white one is overwhelming. Now, to get closer to the actual odds, you would need to see that black ball roll down the shoot 5 times in 5 drawings in a row to live. If you witnessed that happening, you would be certain that the game was rigged. So we are not interested in why you got the particular ball you did (ever ball was equally improbable), but why you got 5 life-permitting balls in a row.
That, in a nutshell, is the fine-tuning argument. We are not interested in why this universe exists, but why a life-permitting one exists. As in the drawing above, we have very good reasons to think the universe was rigged for life.
Bullshit! If you stupidly think the universe was put here with humans in mind, then go take a space shuttle up to space, take a space walk and take your helmet off.
13.8 billion year old universe, 150 billion observable galaxies and mostly empty space, and a 4 billion year old planet, of which, we have had had 5 mass extinction events, of which the life left over 1% of the 99% that have gone extinct. A 4 billion year old planet of which our species has only been on it in our current form 200 thousand years, and of those 200,000 years we have only had writing and cities for only about 10,000 years. Seems like a shitload of waste by your sky wizard if you want to claim he is perfect.
We exist because stars died 10s of billions of years ago and the atoms in them lead to the formation of our solar system. We are not the product of a sky hero anymore than hurricanes are products of the Ocean God Poseidon.
(March 27, 2017 at 4:44 pm)SteveII Wrote:(March 27, 2017 at 4:27 pm)Kernel Sohcahtoa Wrote: Could you please elaborate on what those very good reasons are. In addition, supposing that the universe was rigged for life, how can you be sure that the Christian deity, and not some other deity (or some other life-form for that matter), is actually responsible?
First, none of these arguments will get you to the God of the Bible. They only get you to a God with a list of properties that the arguments themselves infer. To get to the God of the Bible , you need additional information. The arguments can be summed up in this quick video:
(March 27, 2017 at 4:05 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Strong fine-tuning is a thought experiment in a universe where it's not even known that the constants involved could have been different, that they aren't interrelated, etc. We're not in the position of being able to declare the odds are long...we don't even know if there is more than one 'lottery ticket', or if there are lots with the same numbers on them. We can only speculate.
Can you share a link by a physicist/cosmologist that discusses the universe's initial constants could have been a large range of values and still been life-permitting? Everything I have ever read says the opposite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned...e#Examples.
Knock it off dude. You are not going to pass junk science off as real science. You are not going to convince us, much less Stephen Hawking or Lawrence Krauss or Neil Degrasse Tyson that astrophysics proves your dead man on a stick magic baby God.
