(September 3, 2022 at 6:52 pm)smithd Wrote: I'm a Christian looking to have a friendly conversation about the existence of God. I'd like to start with one of the Teleology arguments—that God exists based on how fine-tuned the universe is for life. For instance, physical constants, like the gravitational constant and constants of the strong nuclear force, must be within a narrow range to allow for things like atom formation, hydrogen bonding, galaxy formation, etc. This looks like design. The alternative is chance, which doesn't seem adequate. In other words, naturalism cannot account for the fine-tuning of the universe, while design can easily account for it. This is not a trivial problem, or one that can be ridiculed away, since many respected scientists have pointed out how remarkably (and inexplicably) fine-tuned the universe appears. Thanks for your polite responses.I'm replying to this post, not having read the majority of the responses so I might repeat what others have said. As Brian pointed out, this argument assumes in its premise the very thing that the argument seeks to establish.
The argument also assumes that the universe could be different. I don't think it could be and I don't know how one could go about demonstrating even the possibility of it being different. I think the universe is eternal and therefore uncaused. So there is no opportunity for it to be tuned or designed.
Also, there's just no actual evidence that the universe was created. And let's be honest, the kind of creation we're talking about here is not the kind of creation that happens when someone builds or makes something new from existing material. No, we're talking about the universe being brought into existence from nothing pre-existing and essentially by wishing it into existence. Since this argument is seeking to prove the existence of a god that created everything by essentially wishing it, I think at a bare minimum, evidence would have to be provided that anything has ever been brought into existence by an act of will alone. If I pick up a rock in my yard, what evidence is there that it was created by conscious will?
