When Faith and Science Clash

[Darkstar]

So there is basically three arguments against the teleological argument:

1) Chance, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't perfect chance.... (I would say it ignores the fact it shows Designer is highly probable)
2) Multiple universes (we happen to be in the lucky one).
3) Physical necessity (I find this to be the strongest if it's plausible).

First of all, there is no way to test a multiple universe theory (or at least not with our current technology) so that argument can't really hold water. Abstractly defining our current physics as a 'physical necessity' doesn't offer any evidence as to how there can even be a 'necessity' (although there is no evidence that the constants can be changed, so a better argument would be that they just are this way, even if there is no 'necessity').

The first argument, however, does have merit. Despite that many theists claim that 'the designer is highly probable', I would disagree.

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Let's think of god and all of the attributes he posseses. First, he created the universe. There was nothing before him, and nothing with him when he created the universe. He was the first being. Now let's take one of god's attributes such as, say, his strength. Theists argue that god cannot create a rock that he cannot lift, so his strength is infinite. If we put god's strength on a bell curve, we will find that he is infinite standard deviations above any human. Thus, the odds of any given person being as strong as god is 0.001%. Thus, if there were an infinite number of beings in the universe, we could expect one to be god. This makes sense to a monotheist; there can only be one god.

However, he was the first being. For god to be any particular being is infinitly unlikely, but he was the first. Not to mention all of god's other attributes that are infinite. This is also not taking into account the abilities (seeing into the future, etc.) that may not be possible in any form, let alone with infinite proficinecy in them. God is immensely complex; for him to exist would require either A. a greater god to create him (which would answer nothing, and only complicate things, and thus should be avoided as stated by Occam's razor) or B. evolution (but if he appeared without god then why do we need one?). The third idea is that he just is, which is what some theists will say. However, saying that an omnipotent being arose spontaneoulsy with infinite knowledge of the universe while single-celled organisms with no knowledge can't is not something I think even needs to be argued against.

Seeing as how god is infinitely unlikely, then any explanation for something is more likely than him and we can throw him out altogether. There is no evidence a non-physical being even could exist, let alone does.

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Naturally, I believe that theists will object to this. The first objection will be the bridge hand analogy. 'Just because god happening to be first is infinitly unlikely doesn't mean that he couldn't have happened later if things had been different. However, because he created the universe, he would have had to be first. If he came into existance even second, then the universe must have already existed and he couldn't have created.

Secondly, if god did not arise spontaneously, but evolved, perhaps in another universe(which has no emperical evidence of its existance) in order to become omnipotent, there would have had to have been an infinite amount of time put into the evolution. Omnipotentce is infinite power, and as far as we know, nothing can be infinite outside of abstract mathematics. Even if there are many univereses, so many that the number has 10^99999 zeros, it will still be a finite number.

In conclusion: Although this still leaves a 0.001% chance of god's existance, if chemists who count out six decimal places treat the mass of an electron as zero because it is too small to matter, then the chance of god existing is too small to matter. After all, if god does exist, I'm going to hell for not believeing in him, so I'd have to be pretty sure that he wasn't real...