The Case for Theism

[Drew_2013]

Such a universe wasn't caused intentionally, wasn't planned and didn't intend humans or life to exist right? Explain to me how apart from mind and intent anything can occur that isn't by happenstance?

If a universe was eternal, then it could not have happened by purely random chance, as there would be no point at which it did not exist.

So the best you can do is offer a hypothetical which you don't actually think is true.

No, because the multiple worlds hypothesis dictates that every event causes divergences, even completely unconscious ones like, for example, earthquakes. In this case it is, in fact, more likely that our universe was created as the result of a divergence from a natural event in some other one, that is nevertheless something completely predictable and non-random, given powerful enough predictive tools.

Thats your story and your stuck with it. Of course you don't really believe this BS either right?

This is why we say your design-or-chance claim is a false dichotomy; you're claiming those are the only two choices, but there are many, many more even within the realm of established theoretical science that conform to neither of those definitions. You're setting up two choices and hoping that everyone else doesn't realize there are more, and now that you've very clearly had two of those additional possibilities explained to you, will you admit that you were mistaken?

No I'm not going to say I am mistaken because you offer two hypothetical scenarios which I doubt even you believe actually exist. In the long run though it doesn't matter what I think or what you think it's what the reasonable impartial person who weighs our respective arguments thinks that matters. And even though you declare the dichotomy false, I doubt any reasonable person would. In peoples every day life experiences they note that something happens unguided and unplanned in which we say it was happenstance or by chance that it occurred, other wise something happens intentionally because someone planned it or designed it to occur in a particular fashion. And why do you go to such rediculous extremes to deny what is common sense? Because you don't want to defend the consequences of your own belief, that we owe our existence either to intentional planning and design which you reject or to happenstance and serendipity which amazingly you also seem to reject but in fact I don't think you do reject that either. You just want to obfuscate and cloud the issue because that's what atheists do in defense of atheism.

The existence of the universe and life are red flags that lead folks to question the narrative that we owe our existence to mindless forces that didn't plan, design or intend either the universe or life, yet inspite of neither the desire, the intent or the plan to create life, without knowledge of how to do it mindless forces stumbled blindly upon the formula to create life and cause a universe that allows life.

Whoa whoa, let's take a step back. Why is it a red flag? The mere existence of a thing is not evidence one way or another, after all, we see things in nature that are very random indeed yet to all observers seem designed. There are rock formations that look like all kinds of things, and yet were sculpted by erosion, very much an unguided process; saying something looks designed only gets you to the fact that it looks designed, not that it is.

Again this is only the first two lines of evidence at this point, not the entire case. But for us to even have this discussion about whether we owe our existence to a Creator who intended us to exist or to mindless forces and happenstance (even though you reject the notion those are the only two choices) both a universe and life have to exist. The fact the universe by itself exists raises the question (that wouldn't be asked if it didn't exist) how did it get here? Did someone cause it to exist? Did it poof into existence uncaused out of nothing? Did it always exist? Was it caused by some other event that leads back to an endless recession of events? If it didn't exist we'd ask none of those questions. But now we have another piece of the puzzle, not only does the universe exist but it also allows life to exist. It may have even caused life to exist. The existence of both the universe and life raise the same questions again only now whatever the answer is it has to account for both phenomena. Was it as you suggest and unguided process like we observe in rock formations or was it intentionally caused to exist by a Creator? But if neither the universe or life existed the questions wouldn't be raised.

Beyond that, you're looking at it backwards. In accordance with evolutionary theory, life develops in accordance with its environment, not the other way around. It's not that the universe allows life, but that life fills the niches that are present in the universe.

We know that isn't true. Life adopted to the conditions on earth in a universe that has a plethora of other conditions that would allow the only type of life we know of to exist.

I shouldn't have to point this out, but you've also never observed a god creating a universe or life, so this isn't really a point in favor of either one of us. Unless you can provide detailed information as to your own theory, don't start using current ignorance of ours as evidence of its weakness; we can throw that right back.

No but I have observed life coming from life. I haven't observed life coming from inert material. People can weigh for themselves the merit of our respective arguments. I know you think its up to you if my arguments and evidence carry weight but...it isn't.

So long as you recognize that we have rebuttals. Your evidence is hardly incontrovertible.

That's why theism is an opinion...as is atheism.

Stop conflating the layman's definition of a theory with the scientific one. In science, a theory is a framework that explains facts, and is in itself completely factual. A scientific theory is the graduation point of an idea, the highest status that one can achieve.

Its an attempt to create a scenario that explains observations and allows testing of the scenario to see if it fact passes scientific muster. A confirmed theory through testing when it graduates to scientific fact is the highest status a theory can achieve.