Future of Christianity in US

[Esquilax]

esquilax: Well I am impressed you looked up something having to do with the book. I dont buy your argument against fine tuning. It seems to me one of those things where one could argue that your assumptions/beliefs before looking at the data could push you either way. If you decide there is no way fine tuning exists, it never will.

You misunderstand my contention. The problem is that the way fine tuning arguments are formulated presumes that fine tuning exists without demonstrating it, the standard one that Hugh Ross uses being "the universe's physical constants are such that if they were slightly different then life would not be possible. Without being fine tuned by an intelligent agent, there's no way such an improbable thing could happen!"

I have no particular issue with arguments from fine tuning that have evidential backing, it's just that the ones Ross uses don't bother with evidence at all. Improbable events are still possible events, and the probability of this particular universe being the outcome is exactly as high as the probability of any other; it's really not that unusual a claim, so saying "it's improbable!" does absolutely nothing to discount natural means, or advance the case for fine tuning. More importantly, the argument itself is entirely unproved: consider the first premise, that the improbability of a specifically life-allowing universe implies fine tuning. Where in that premise is the justification for assuming that a life-allowing universe is special or significant in any way? Where is the justification for the assertion that a life allowing universe was a "success" state for the universe, for which it is possible to fail? Hell, where is the justification for the conclusion, that a fine tuning agent is the only possible, or even one of the possible, solutions to this problem that fine tuning defines into existence by assuming fine tuning is true?

Since when has "X is improbable," exclusively led to, or even hinted at, the presence of an intelligent designer? If I draw a hand of five cards out of a deck, it's improbable but doesn't need a designer. Designers have never been the exclusive sources of improbable events, why would I assume fine tuning based on simply being pointed to yet another improbable event?

Assumed conclusions. That's the problem.

And yes, macroevolution is a theory where parts of the findings can be falsified. They somebody can come up with the next best thing.

Macroevolution is not a thing in science. If you look it up you'll never see it mentioned in scientific resources, only creationist ones. Insofar as it is a thing, it's a defunct term describing merely a change in scale; "macro" changes were just a series of "micro" changes added up.

As it stands, you might want to drop the term entirely. It's not a thing.