Quote:You keep talking about narrow ranges, but that's not exactly right, now is it? I mean, we're working on a pretty limited scale here, aren't we? All you can say with any degree of intellectually honesty is that things fall within a narrow range for life as we understand it. But that doesn't mean that, if the circumstances were different, that life couldn't have arisen in some other way that we simply- through mistake or lack of knowledge- couldn't have imagined.
I'm not responding to hypotheticals the real world is perplexing enough. Besides I was told the first day I posted on this site that atheists are only persuaded by facts, not speculative theories.
Quote:Seriously, stop telling us what we believe, it's obnoxious. Once again, for the sake of honesty, I can't speak for everyone else here, but my worldview doesn't preclude a god entirely, but it does demand that I not believe anything without evidence, and that you and yours haven't provided sufficient evidence for yours. Given this, I'm hardly making a claim, am I?
Good point. To fully consider a claim you have to look at the ramifications of either hypothesis. The most basic meaning of atheism is Not or without God. Not what without God? Not what theists chalk up to the existence of God such as the universe, life and ultimately human life. Atheists say these things came into existence without or not from God. You call yourself an atheist, you doubt or lack belief God caused the universe or you flat out believe such a claim is false. Can you call yourself and atheist yet believe the universe was designed and engineered to support life? Theism is a belief regarding the most basic philosophical questions that can be asked such as why is there something rather than nothing? Why is there a universe, stars and planets and how did life and humans come about? If atheists said I haven't a clue how the universe got here or how humans came into existence but I say it wasn't God would you find that a compelling reason to believe God doesn't exist? To be convinced or to have a strong conviction God doesn't exist you must have some information how the state of affairs we observe ourselves came into existence apart from a Creator. If atheism is true (there is no God) then the universe came into existence by some unknown cause (or it always existed in some form and then suddenly turned into a universe such as we observe) then without plan, design or intent, the laws of physics happened to have the right characteristics to cause life and intelligence to occur. In other words, life came from non-life and intelligence arose from non-intelligence. Two characteristics emerged from something totally unlike what is alleged to have caused it.
The majority of atheists I have chatted with want to frame this discussion as one in which the theist is the only one making a claim, that the burden of evidence rests with the theist alone and if they fail to completely totally satisfy the atheists relentless demand for indisputable irrefutable evidence of Gods existence then atheism triumphs by default. Then we don't have to consider how natural mindless forces without plan or intent caused a life bearing universe to come into existence. Neither I nor any theist has indisputable irrefutable evidence God exists so the atheist is assured he or she will 'win' the argument.
Quote:Besides, who's saying that a possible designer needs to be a god? Or that there needs to be a designer or randomness? You can't say with any more certainty than I can, and yet you're advocating a position, whereas I am not. Nor is any atheist really, beyond that you haven't been able to prove your designer at all.
Whether you're willing to defend it or even admit it you are advocating a position. You are claiming that whatever caused our existence or the universe to exist, it wasn't God. Nature did it. Nature didn't plan it to happen, didn't want it to happen, didn't care if it happened but without trying to did it somehow. Mindless forces somehow miraculously stumbled upon the formula to cause a universe and create life minus any knowlegde on how to do such a thing. And it wasn't a case of like creating like, according to atheist orthodoxy mindless lifeless forces created something totally unlike it self, life and mind. No wonder atheists cry foul when someone points out they have a position to defend also.
Quote:Actually, there's also this: so what if it was all by chance? And who cares how small you think the chances would be? The chances could be .01 percent with a thousand zeroes before it and there'd still be a chance it would happen, so long as it isn't an utter zero. To be very simple, it has happened, too; on a long enough timescale, everything does, if it has a chance of happening. And in our case, the thing in question only needs to happen once.
Since we can only definately say one universe exists not only does it need to happen only once, it needs to happen the one time we know it occurred. But is this your basis for believing God doesn't exist? Because its possible God doesn't exist therefore I don't believe God doesn't exist.
Quote:What does the slim chance of a thing prove, beyond that the chances of the thing happening are slim? How does this point toward your designer at all?
Because thats how we deterimine if something is by chance or by design. Suppose we didn't know the pyramids were intentionally created by design, wouldn't the design features of the pyramids themselves strongly suggest they were intentionally created?
Quote:Are you being serious? How is that a plea to ignorance? We genuinely don't know if these constants could be different.
Then how can it be raised as an objection?
