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

[SteveII]

Well, if any of the physical constants were even a little different, the universe would not hold together let along be able to form any sort of building blocks for alternative life. 

Your fragility of life point does more to support the theist who thinks that God created the entire universe for us than it does as an argument against God.

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really?!  At what point would the universe break apart? Sources?

The fragility of life points to fear, and, until you realize the ridiculousness of that fear, it points to religion.

I gave this link earlier in the thread: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned...e#Examples

The fragility of life is a fact.

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3. The universe's existence and fine tuning being a brute fact is not simplicity. It defies all reasoning with no explanation (or hope of one). That does not sit well with most people.

You're mistaking an effect for a cause. The universe isnt the way it is to accomodate the exisetence of humanity (as evidenced by the fact that 99.9% of the universe is hostile to humanity), but we exist because the universe is the way it is.

And the question is, why, against all odds is the universe the way it is? In my white/black ball example above, we had to get 5 black balls in a row. If you saw that happen, you would swear that the drawing was rigged. Why am I irrational to assume that about the universe?

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I admittedly don't have a huge amount of detailed scientific training, but isn't the fine tuning argument basically

- the universe has property x
- the universe contains life
- life cannot exist without property x
- life exists
- therefore god?

Should it not be
- the universe has property x
- the universe contains life
- life as we know it cannot exist without property x
- therefore if the universe did not have property x, but property y, life that cannot exist without x would not exist, but life that cannot exist without y may or may not exist instead?

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No, more like:

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.

2. The fine-tuning of the universe is not due to physical necessity or chance.

3. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is due to design.

Before you jump on any of these, remember that the argument is an inductive argument: in which the premises are viewed as supplying strong evidence for the truth of the conclusion.

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If we're going to go with the fine tuning argument, might as well ask why gods such a shitty fine tuner.  Take the cosmological constant, for example.  If god had fine tuned it for life, it would have been ever so slightly negative.  We don't know exactly what it is..but we know that it's ever so slightly positive...repulsing, thus inhibiting the formation of galaxies.  

Despite your beliefs, Steve, the constants could have been altered to -better- allow for life.  Fundamentally, there are infinite "values" of the constants amenable to life, even if the difference between those values seems minuscule.  Say that some constant x must be between 1 and -1 for life to exist.  Then it could be anything between .999999999999(etc) and -.99999999999999(etc).  

More fundamentally, it's unclear why there would -need- to be constants or natural values to a universe created by god magic in the first place.  Why do we find ourselves on a naturally amenable planet in a naturally amenable solar system (one of few, so far as we can tell)...rather than living and breathing as we are, in the middle of a neutron star?  

Our fragility and our dependencies point to limitations on our supposed "creator".  Were there no other options for god?  Did he have to make us (and all of this) this way or it wouldn't work?  Then there is no need or function -for- god magic.

God, the incompetent fine tuner with limited choices fully encompassed and constrained by natural law.  Good job.

In your example, you said between 1 and -1 to permit life. What are all the possible values that would not permit life? Let's get real examples (from the video transcript)

Consider gravity, for example. The force of gravity is determined by the gravitational constant. If this constant varied by just one in 10^60 parts, none of us would exist. To understand how exceedingly narrow this life-permitting range is, imagine a dial divided into 10^60 increments. To get a handle on how many tiny points on the dial this is, compare it to the number of cells in your body (10^14) or the number of seconds that have ticked by since time began (10^20). If the gravitational constant had been out of tune by just one of these infinitesimally small increments, the universe would either have expanded and thinned out so rapidly that no stars could form and life couldn't exist, or it would have collapsed back on itself with the same result: no stars, no planets, no life.

Or consider the expansion rate of the universe. This is driven by the cosmological constant. A change in its value by a mere 1 part in 10^120 parts would cause the universe to expand too rapidly or too slowly. In either case, the universe would, again, be life-prohibiting.

Or, another example of fine-tuning: If the mass and energy of the early universe were not evenly distributed to an incomprehensible precision of 1 part in 10^10^123, the universe would be hostile to life of any kind.

Multiply those very small number by the other probabilities of life permitting ranges given the overall possible ranges of any given constant and you have a number so small that there are so many zeroes in it that there are not enough molecules in the universe to cover the odds.