Book of Acts: Pure Fantasy

[brotherlylove]

Then I would say - so fucking what? If the constants had been different, the life as we know it wouldn't have existed and maybe some other form of life would have. That is not evidence of fine-tuning. We are simply one of the possible consequences. Its arrogant to think that we were the objective all along.

If they had been different, there wouldn't be any life. That's the point. Does this mean there could be no spiritual life? No, but certainly no life in a material Universe.

If any configuration would have sufficed and it just landed on this one, then it is arbitrarily tuned, not fine tuned.

I didn't say any configuration would have sufficed, I said that God could have created it any way He wanted; it doesn't mean any of those configurations would have led to life.

Because there cannot be any time outside the universe.

You don't know that, not that it is even relevant to the point.

The universe did not cause itself - it is the efficient cause. Which means, it itself is causeless.

Sorry, try again. An efficient cause is external to the thing it is causing. Even if it were possible that the Universe could be its own efficient cause, it would still mean the Universe had a beginning which defeats your argument, if you had one and hadn't simply descended into incoherency. I'll let Thomas explain it:

"In the world that we sense, we find that efficient causes come in series. We do not, and cannot, find that something is its own efficient cause — for, if something were its own efficient cause, it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. But the series of efficient causes cannot possibly go back to infinity. In all such series of causes, a first thing causes one or more intermediaries, and the intermediaries cause the last thing; when a cause is taken out of this series, so is its effect. Therefore, if there were no first efficient cause, there would be no last or intermediary efficient causes. If the series of efficient causes went back to infinity, however, there would be no first efficient cause and, hence, no last or intermediary causes. But there obviously are such causes. We must therefore posit a first efficient cause, which everyone understands to be God."

No. By definition, something eternal exists for all time, not outside time.

Then why simply consider his lifespan to be exempt from this distinction? Special pleading?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternity

"While in the popular mind, eternity (or foreverness) often simply means existence for a limitless amount of time, many have used it to refer to a timeless existence altogether outside time. By contrast, infinite temporal existence is then called sempiternity. Something eternal exists outside time; by contrast, something sempiternal exists throughout an infinite time. Sempiternity is also known as everlastingness."

Do you understand that we're talking about metaphysics?

Ofcourse you can. Potential infinites of mind are actual infinites of physical reality.
Duh. We do have infinite amount of things. They are referred to as potential infinites because we haven't finished counting them - obviously.

There aren't any actual infinities, that's the point. So, going back to your original misunderstanding of potential infinities, positing a potentially infinite past, means it is at every point finite as it is streaming into infinity backwards, which means the number of events between the past and present is at every point finite, which means the past had a beginning. It also contradicts temporal becoming. I'd appreciate it if you would do some research on this.