The Case for Theism

[genkaus]

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.

IOW, it has all the characteristics of everything known to exist.

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.

And then there is the third model, the fourth, the fifth, sixth etc.

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.

Except, that's not the anthropic 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.

Except, no one is arguing that to be the case. No one is saying that the universe must be compatible with conscious 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.

Except, there is plenty of evidence for that the universe had to be what it is, not the least of which is the fact that we do not know of any other way to could've been. Your theistic theory is refuted by your very own logic - you don't have any shred of evidence to support it. Your so called evidence supports all other theories equally - so there is no reason for us to pick yours over the others.

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.

I thought this was supposed to be new evidence, but you are simply repeating refuted arguments over and over again.

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Not that I've noticed.

Don't blame your failures on me.

I think they'd be smart enough to figure out how to turn it on. They would carefully take it apart and examine the intricacies. They could take the CPU out and note it no longer works. They could take the memory chips out and note it doesn't work.

When was the last time you opened your laptop?

Just looking at a laptop and turning it on would not tell you that it performs any specific function or operates in a specific manner.

But you say the conclusion of intelligent design would be invalid...even though in that case it would be true. Its your conclusion that would be invalid.

Nope. A conclusion doesn't necessarily have to be true to be valid.

Maybe it was an orange that turned into a laptop and you would say its still an orange in the form of a laptop. Or maybe it materialized from a corridor to an alternate universe where only laptops always existed. I mean come on in the world of atheism any alternative theory you can imagine is viable since it doesn't require any evidence it actually happened or could happen and you don't have to believe it yourself. And if you don't believe that I'll chalk it up to personal incredulity.

All these theories are equally valid - that's what you fail to understand. There is no specific evidence pointing to your pet theory of sentient design - in case of the 200 year old laptop or in case of the universe. Which is why, your conclusion is invalid.