Fine tuning argument assessed

[Sword of Christ]

Only if we assume there is intention behind all processes.

You don't have to assume it but it's the obvious thing generally throughout history have assumed seeing as this how it looks. Particularly when you have process which develops from simplicity to greater complexity. People in the past didn't know all this but that's an interesting piece of knowledge we now have. This does tie in strongly with the assumption in question, if you can call it an assumption. An assumption makes it sound like it's wrong or not reasonable to consider it.

My main gripe with the 'why' sphere is that it already loads the conclusion in to the premesis, namely that all things/processes necessarily have meaning.

I think it helps to understand the purpose of your own life within the context of a purpose that itself has purpose. Of course that's the central tenant of Christian/Abrahamic faiths it has been from the beginning this is the idea of it. The idea is not necessarily mistaken.

Hopefully you can understand that, just as I see no inherent meaning in weather patterns, rock formations or the occurence of sun spots, so too do I see no inherent meaning for greater cosmological processes

You're not seeing the forest because you're too busy looking at the trees. Still if you want to really look at the individual parts like this you will see that universe is a mathematical framework, physical objects and processes will form themselves into the various shapes and patterns. From the shapes galaxies, weather systems, flowers and even the human body.

such as supernovas, supermassive blackholes

Everything is connected though, if there were no supernovas or supermassive blackholes there would be no galactic planetary formation and we would not exist. Our existence depends on everything else. This isn't non-scientific it's 100% factual and known. It's not just us here isolated on a little planet the rest of the universe having nothing to do with us, we are a part the system.

and indeed even the beginning of the universe. The why for all of these is Asking why assumes sentient agency

God is a sentient agency and God created the universe with a purpose in mind. The purpose is to create ourselves beings of freewill who can then have a loving relationship with God and each other. Though as we have freewill we can do something else with it but the freewill is the important part, we have a certain degree of separation from God as physical beings seeing as God is not physical.

but as we can see from many natural processes on earth there is no actual agency, merely a descriptive process that just is.

The agency only has to make to set the whole thing it's Newtonian motion so it will run itself.

See above, I moved from seeing agency in all things as you do, to realising that many things that religion has claimed agency for (tidal patterns, storms, illness etc) in fact have no agency

The universe runs itself on it's mathematical framework it doesn't mean God didn't create it or that he isn't present within it.

simply naturalistic explanations.

They didn't always exist so something else that did explains those.

As a moderate you appear to ascribe to more or less the same fundamental timescale of events (age of the universe, evolution through natural selection etc) as most of us do

These are all facts we know about but there is nothing here that would conflict with the kind of God Issac Newton believed in.

I just simply go one step further and remove that last instance of proposed agency from the start of the existence question.

You've gone several miles further in the opposite direction to by removing God from the picture and proposing a purposeless/accident universe. You removed the whole grounding for existence itself, the grounding for freewill and the basis of good and evil.

I'm glad we can at least agree on most things though, if i'm not mistaken.

There's no point disagreeing on scientific facts we know that's not open to debate. It's what lays behind them that is the issue.

You must understand we get some very fundamental theists here who insist on young earths, young universes, no evolutionary processes etc.

They have divorced themselves from reason and you have divorced yourself from belief/faith. You're both equally wrong to believe what you believe but on opposite sides.

Still you've evaded my question here, which is what criteria do you use for rejecting the bits that are purely human inference, whilst still retaining the elements from the stories that aren't human inventions and are the divine bits.

The Holy Spirit I guess. If you there's anything in there you don't "feel is right" then you're doing the same thing yourself. Perhaps we have a better understanding of God now than people did back then so we have in some way advanced in our moral understanding. There is a perfect ideal we could advance toward but because we are subject to sin we never will.

If the bible isn't completely the word of god, and only partially, how do you know which bits are which?

It's the historical product of a people who had a special relationship or Covenant with God which is told through their eyes. You just have to understand the context. It would be nice if certain passages weren't in there but they were just human people, no-ones saying they were flawless.

But it doesn't really complement any science or further any understanding.

It's not a scientific book so it shouldn't.

Religion has basically made no in-roads in to any understanding since its inception

Not scientific understanding, understanding of a different kind about something else.

All scientific discoveries have taken place in spite of religion never as a direct result of it.

Bloody hell no, do you know how and from what science originated? This science versus religion business is propaganda not the history of what really happened.

sure, religious people have furthered science

They founded modern science, they're the reason why we have science in the first place.

No later demonstrated facts have been predicted through revelation

We find out scientific facts by observation of data using our rational minds not revelation. Revelation deals with the topic of God and his relationship to man.

at least nothing specific that can defy all belief. If Jesus or Mohammed had crapped out the theory of relativity or explained (albeit briefly) the features of RNA then we'd have some serious shit to contend with

Apparently Mohammed made some revelations that were later found to be scientific or whatever but that's not what revelation is supposed to be for imo.

but instead all we've got is 'God made the first man out of some clay, or a bloody clot, or some dust' and 'salt water can't mix with fresh water'

Molded clay and water is a fair enough poetic description of what we physically are and how we were made.

I don't see how religion gives us a better understanding about anything

It gives you an understanding of God and your relationship to God.

it simply reasserts what it has always asserted, namely the primacy of religious scripture and the correctness of one's religion over any others.

You don't have to entirely reject other religions you can just have minor disagreements over certain points.

But that is too vague. It is conveniently unspecific. If he is everywhere, in all space-time coordinates, that he surely is physical from the outset, else he is nowhere.

Within the physical and beyond the physical, immanent and transcendent, everywhere and nowhere.

If he's thus more of a pantheist unifying energy, he is still operating on the turf of science.

He isn't any kind of energy or physical detectable presence he sustains and contains all of existence and has a relationship to his creatures.

If he is completely unverifiable then we have no evidence for him, and he is simply Carl Sagan's garage dragan and Bertrand Russell's celestial tea pot.

The evidence can't be of that kind given what God is so you will have to use other kinds of evidence, both objective and subjective. You can use logic and deductive reasoning as well.

A hypothesis that attempts to explain everything whilst being unverifiable is just useless at understanding how, and at best irrelevant to understanding why (if there even is a why).

It's more a context of purpose than an explanation. There isn't a scientific explanation on offer for anything there, we have science for that.

To have so many human characteristics simply suggests to me that he is made in man's image

We're made in his image, but we're corrupted by sin while God is entirely Holy. Being made in Gods image we're still essentially good though.

If something is maximally perfect then it surely doesn't require a purpose or a need

He just likes to have loving relationship with other beings yourself included.

else it is incomplete and still seeking fullfillment.

There's no point being a power of supreme love if you have no-one to share it with. This has to be expressed in a relationship with a community of beings. So that is why the universe/we exist.

Then the energy beam should be projected from one coordinate to another.

If God is omnipresent he wouldn't need to project anything anywhere as he would already be in the location in question.

It should be measurable.

You can measure the physical effect if there is any but if the cause of effect is beyond the physical it wouldn't be possible for us to explain why it's happening. You would just have something odd that happened and remains forever unexplained. Odd things do happen, much of it may be explainable in the naturalistic sense but there's no way to know.

Even if not, the cellular regeneration of the bone should be observable and recordable, pending further enquiry.

It would just be a medical mystery if the cause lays beyond the natural physical world we can observe. And there are medical mysteries like this.

Yeah many people have claimed jedi powers over the centuries. Mother Theresa etc, virtually none of them have ever opted to demonstrate their powers for testing, usually with the old "vulgar display of power" excuse, yet they will freely flaunt these powers to the converted (apparently) such as miracle healing etc.

It doesn't mean such things have never happened or don't still happen to people though for the most part I think it will be a little more subtle that more extreme end of the scale example.

Surely, to convince the sceptics, it would be better to subject miracle powers to rigorous testing so that these things that 'science can't explain'

There is the field of Noetics which researches this though at best if there's anything beyond the physic at work they will only attain data that is interesting but inconclusive. If it's a natural occurring effect then it will just be incorporated into standard scientific knowledge.

can blow science out of the water.

Science doesn't need to be blown out of the water but it can be advanced with new knowledge. We probably only know 0.0000000001% of what we could know about the universe.

If on the other hand they can't be measured by science, and are thus unvarifiable, then how do you know anything is happening at all?

We can only measure what lays within our own physical sphere as that's all can physically perceive with the senses we have.

Science requires a keenly open mind, we must accept at every step that our hypothesis is completely wrong, the history of electromagnetism is a great example of individuals accepting that they were completely mistaken with their initial hypothesese (sp?). Science declares from the outset quite clearly what would prove a theory wrong, religion conceeds no such weakness, it is eternally correct yet eternally unverifiable.

They are two different subjects, though there is some small amount of overlap but all you end up with is something unusual no-one can really explain and there is plenty of that.

I thought you said he was everywhere.

Absolutely he will be right where you're sitting now for instance. There is nothing there to see though.

Until he started raising zombies, then zombifying himself, and doing all the other miracles. If only those things could be performed now, in the presence of video recorders and measuring equipment.

There's no way to know whether that equipment could have captured the event in question or exactly what the event specifically entailed and how people experienced it. But there was some kind of experience a group of people had and this is part of the revelation, an understanding of God.

Again, he's got all the answers but we can't verify him

Science can't be used to prove the existence of God. Therefore you have little to no conflict. It's a matter of faith/belief and always will be till the end of time.

And thus unverifable. Sorry to keep coming back to this, but you say there's no evidence for him cus we can't test him, but then there is scripture which is a form of evidence (for you). A social science is still a science (think Psychology, Sociology etc). You're still claiming there is some form of evidence, albeit historical written evidence rather than demonstratable energy at work.

Science has it's scope based on the limits of human physical perception and God lays beyond this scope being beyond the physical.

Again, if he's not detectable or mesurable, then how do we know he's there

By various other means that have nothing specifically to do with science though science can be used as an argument in favour of Gods existence. It does demonstrate a rational comprehensible universe.

and how can we be forgiven for concluding that he is no mroe likely than Carl Sagan's garage dragon or Bertrand's celestial teapot?

Bertrands celestial strawman if a teapot is an object in space and time and provides no context or answers to anything.

Well, christianity wasn't the first monotheistic religion, and given the vast numbers of primitive human populations (we're talking small tribal units at the dawn of man) it's entirely possible that even a minority of them had some form of monotheistic view of the world, they simply didn't produce anything that survived the test of time.

You could say the Bible/Torah was a correction to a later error that crept into the primordial belief in the "Great Spirit" or whatever it was called when civilization developed, that being idolatry the worship of things that isn't God.

Ironically, most jesus fans worship pieces of carved wood and stone to this day

That's just iconography, basically it's something that looks kind of cool and makes you feel all Christian/religious and shit not something you worship.

A history of a people, albeit with wild claims (such as prophets living to 300 years old and people parting the ways) are surely truly indications of the beliefs and imaginations of primitive peoples in the abscence of better information about their surroundings?

Most of the prophets lived to around 120 which is scientifically known to be the maximum extent of the human lifespan, certainly beyond the average particularly of the time though. Perhaps God maintained them in health for as long as they were required. The 900 year old lifespans are probably going to be mythological/not literal so fair enough.

A history book doesn't automatically prove divine origin. Many individuals profoundly changed their communities, some of them claimed to have special powers and others didn't. What criteria am I supposed to use to chose Jesus as the right one and save myself a life of eternal torture in hell?

Hell is a voluntary separation from God rather than an eternal torture/punishment. Jesus parable of Lazarus and the rich man is a good interpretation of it though he uses fairly symbolic language. To achieve a full separation I think you will have develop a certain amount evil, selfishness, hatred and so on. This you will experience forever.

You seem like a nice guy, and i'm happy you acknowledged the massive role assigned to faith here. I just don't understand what criteria thinking people are supposed to use to conclude that a desert book is way more special than others, particularly when you admit yourself that none of it can be proven (and thus non of it constitutes evidence of itself).

Christianity is the only religion to offer grace over saving yourself through good works. So it would seem like the best deal overall. Plus most revelations tend to be centred on one man while the experience people had with Christ was a shared revelation in a community. So the more people you have the merrier it cuts down on the possibility of someone making up some bull for self gain. Also Jesus didn't really gain any status or power while he was alive as most religious founders tend to gain so that seems more genuine/impressive, he's no Joesph Smith.

But nothing in the bible can't be thought up and described by any of us here. Someone had to do it first, obviously, and indeed the Greeks and the Hindus applied many of the same attributes to a potential deity that the christians and jews did. Again, it's really not that unique.

It wouldn't be unique if it's true so there's your outside source confirmation.

Human reason is easily capable of conceptualising vague and unverifiable ideas such as 'eternity' and 'present everywhere'. It's precisely that they are so vague that leads me to conclude that these ideas truly did originate in human minds alone.

The human minds perception of God/reality.

Yeah it's got some nice bits, worthy of admiration. But some of the moral lessons (particularly in the OT) are truly abhorrent and are certainly not worthy of respect imho (inherited sin, giving your daughter up for gang bang rape sessions etc).

Those bits were a problem for early Christians right from the start but it is a product of an ancient culture as well as a revelation from God so everything will be packed together in there. You're not saying "It was right for them at the time" you think it was wrong in general so you're not a relativist as you ought to be as an atheist.

If he's not a thing then he's just another word for the universe; it is the sum-total of all things. If he is in any way seperate and unique (ie he stands out from other things) then he is surely a thing. If he is so far beyond the universe that indeed the universe is not the sum-total of all things, then there is another medium greater than the universe that god (and our universe) is contained within, and god is still a thing within something else. Otherwise, god cannot interact with the universe if it is not a thing that can be isolated and defined.

He contains the sum totality of existence and he is also infinitely and eternally beyond it as the Creator of the sum totality of existence.

it could all just be chance

No-ones saying it couldn't be. It would be fairly extraordinary if it was. though.

Again, if its unverifable you can hardly blame people for rejecting it, yet we're still expected to burn in hell for utterly refusing god's word.

You won't burn in hell for eternity you're just missing out on something/being wrong as far as I'm concerned. You don't seem to be filled with pure hate.

Chance is fine by me. God is anything but straightforward as far as i'm concerned, he is infinitely complex and requires some serious explaining, ideally by way of evidential support.

It's seems pretty straight forward enough, you have the Creator who is eternal/infinite and the creation and Gods creatures within it. The cause and the effect the object and the purpose. It ties together into a neat package. Nothing at all complicated about this it's very easy to understand.

It was precisely my introduction to the realm of science that led me away from religious education.

Some of the greatest scientific minds in history were religious/theists so by rights it shouldn't be an issue.

Since working in pathology labs for years I came to fully appreciate the importance of weighting up evidence. A book from the desert, in your own words, can't be proven or disproven. It's unverifable, and thus not much help for furthering understanding.

You made some kind of connection between that and a faith in God though no such connection exists.