The fourth line of evidence.
4. The fact the universe has laws of nature, is knowable, uniform and to a large extent predictable, amenable to scientific research and the laws of logic deduction and induction and is also explicable in mathematical terms.
In other words it has many of the same characteristics as things known to have been planned, engineered and designed and is why in effect scientists are able to reverse engineer the universe.
I wrote in the original post...
There are two primary reasons I am a theist. First because there are facts (evidence) that supports that belief. Secondly if I were to reject the belief that God created the universe and humans I would have to be persuaded that mindless lifeless forces somehow coughed a universe into existence and without plan or intent caused the right conditions for life to occur. I'd have to believe that life and mind without plan or intent emerged from something totally unlike itself, mindless lifeless forces. I know most atheists prefer we just reject God first and then take it on faith that that our existence was caused by naturalistic forces that didn't intend our existence and that the universe also just came into existence for no particular reason. We should just assume that natural forces did it somehow. I'll leave it to atheists to persuade me such did happen or such could happen. After all we're not supposed to just take things on faith.
My opponents have stated that the explanation that has the most explanatory power is the preferred explanation.
Explanatory power is the ability of a theory to effectively explain the subject matter it pertains to. One theory is sometimes said to have more explanatory power than another theory about the same subject matter if it offers greater predictive power. That is, if it offers more details about what we should expect to see, and what we should not.
We have two polar opposite models that attempt to account for the existence of the universe; one that supports the existence of life, produced sentient life and also produced a universe with the aforementioned characteristics. The atheist model is the belief that natural forces, unguided unplanned without fore knowledge or intent produced what we see today. There are several lines of thoughts in this regard:
1. That some unknown law of physics dictates that if a universe exists it by necessity must produce one like we observe. In which case they would be unwittingly supporting the anthropic principal that some of my opponents claim to be a fallacy.
In astrophysics and cosmology, the anthropic principle (from the Greek, anthropos, human) is the philosophical consideration that observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it. Some proponents of the anthropic principle reason that it explains why the Universe has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As a result, they believe it is unremarkable that the universe's fundamental constants happen to fall within the narrow range thought to be compatible with life.
I don't think any of my opponents in this debate actually subscribe to the notion the universe had to be as it is, there isn't a shred of evidence to support that belief but my detractors only demand evidence of things they don't believe, theories that support their belief as in this case, don't require a shred of evidence. They also would like the triers of this case to believe that alternate theories minus any evidence and which they don't subscribe to somehow refute the theistic theory.
2. That this is one of an infinitude of universes of varying characteristics and naturally we would wind up in the universe that supported and allowed our existence. Even though these two theories are mutally exclusive don't think for a moment that will stop them from raising the objection anyway. In the world according to atheism, if a fact supports the theistic model any alternate theory regardless of evidence, regardless if they are mutually exclusive and regardles of whether they actually believe in the counter theories they are offered in rebuttal. My opponents are usually fond of Occams razor unless it weighs against one of their pet theories. The explanation that multiplies the least entities is the explanation the universe was designed and created for the purpose of supporting human life at least compared to this counter theory that multiplies entities infinitely.
When considering these two alternatives it should be weighed which has the more explanatory power. If one were to believe a designer creator of great power exists one might predict that if such a creator could, they might create a universe, that causes life and sentient life to exist just as we create virtual worlds on computers. Who would say a Creator designer doesn't exist therefore I predict that mindless, lifeless forces without plan or intent would cause a universe to exist that results in the creation of something totally unlike itself, life and sentience? The existence of life and mind from mindless lifeless forces is totally unexpected. No one would predict that mindless irrational forces would cause a universe that is explicable in mathematical terms, that has to the best of our knowledge inviolable laws of nature that make it predictable and knowable and to the best of our knowlege uniform across the universe.
4. The fact the universe has laws of nature, is knowable, uniform and to a large extent predictable, amenable to scientific research and the laws of logic deduction and induction and is also explicable in mathematical terms.
In other words it has many of the same characteristics as things known to have been planned, engineered and designed and is why in effect scientists are able to reverse engineer the universe.
I wrote in the original post...
There are two primary reasons I am a theist. First because there are facts (evidence) that supports that belief. Secondly if I were to reject the belief that God created the universe and humans I would have to be persuaded that mindless lifeless forces somehow coughed a universe into existence and without plan or intent caused the right conditions for life to occur. I'd have to believe that life and mind without plan or intent emerged from something totally unlike itself, mindless lifeless forces. I know most atheists prefer we just reject God first and then take it on faith that that our existence was caused by naturalistic forces that didn't intend our existence and that the universe also just came into existence for no particular reason. We should just assume that natural forces did it somehow. I'll leave it to atheists to persuade me such did happen or such could happen. After all we're not supposed to just take things on faith.
My opponents have stated that the explanation that has the most explanatory power is the preferred explanation.
Explanatory power is the ability of a theory to effectively explain the subject matter it pertains to. One theory is sometimes said to have more explanatory power than another theory about the same subject matter if it offers greater predictive power. That is, if it offers more details about what we should expect to see, and what we should not.
We have two polar opposite models that attempt to account for the existence of the universe; one that supports the existence of life, produced sentient life and also produced a universe with the aforementioned characteristics. The atheist model is the belief that natural forces, unguided unplanned without fore knowledge or intent produced what we see today. There are several lines of thoughts in this regard:
1. That some unknown law of physics dictates that if a universe exists it by necessity must produce one like we observe. In which case they would be unwittingly supporting the anthropic principal that some of my opponents claim to be a fallacy.
In astrophysics and cosmology, the anthropic principle (from the Greek, anthropos, human) is the philosophical consideration that observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it. Some proponents of the anthropic principle reason that it explains why the Universe has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As a result, they believe it is unremarkable that the universe's fundamental constants happen to fall within the narrow range thought to be compatible with life.
I don't think any of my opponents in this debate actually subscribe to the notion the universe had to be as it is, there isn't a shred of evidence to support that belief but my detractors only demand evidence of things they don't believe, theories that support their belief as in this case, don't require a shred of evidence. They also would like the triers of this case to believe that alternate theories minus any evidence and which they don't subscribe to somehow refute the theistic theory.
2. That this is one of an infinitude of universes of varying characteristics and naturally we would wind up in the universe that supported and allowed our existence. Even though these two theories are mutally exclusive don't think for a moment that will stop them from raising the objection anyway. In the world according to atheism, if a fact supports the theistic model any alternate theory regardless of evidence, regardless if they are mutually exclusive and regardles of whether they actually believe in the counter theories they are offered in rebuttal. My opponents are usually fond of Occams razor unless it weighs against one of their pet theories. The explanation that multiplies the least entities is the explanation the universe was designed and created for the purpose of supporting human life at least compared to this counter theory that multiplies entities infinitely.
When considering these two alternatives it should be weighed which has the more explanatory power. If one were to believe a designer creator of great power exists one might predict that if such a creator could, they might create a universe, that causes life and sentient life to exist just as we create virtual worlds on computers. Who would say a Creator designer doesn't exist therefore I predict that mindless, lifeless forces without plan or intent would cause a universe to exist that results in the creation of something totally unlike itself, life and sentience? The existence of life and mind from mindless lifeless forces is totally unexpected. No one would predict that mindless irrational forces would cause a universe that is explicable in mathematical terms, that has to the best of our knowledge inviolable laws of nature that make it predictable and knowable and to the best of our knowlege uniform across the universe.
