If I were an Atheist

[Ravenshire]

An except from Just Six Numbers.

https://sciencebits.wordpress.com/2008/0...-stronger/

Gravitation is feebler than the forces governing the microworld by the number N, about 10exp36. What would happen if it weren’t quite so weak? Imagine, for instance, a universe where gravity was ‘only’ 10EXP30 rather than 10EXP36 feebler than electric forces. Atoms and molecules would behave just as in our actual universe, but objects would not need to be so large before gravity became competitive with the other forces. The number of atoms needed to make a star (a gravitationally bound fusion reactor) would be a billion times less in this imagined universe. Planet masses would also be scaled down by a billion. Irrespective of whether these planets could retain steady orbits, the strength of gravity would stunt the evolutionary potential on them. In an imaginary strong-gravity world, even insects would need thick legs to support them, and no animals could get much larger. Gravity would crush anything as large as ourselves.

Galaxies would form much more quickly in such a universe, and would be miniaturized. Instead of the stars being widely dispersed, they would be so densely packed that close encounters would be frequent. This would in itself preclude stable planetary systems, because the orbits would be disturbed by passing stars — something that (fortunately for our Earth) is unlikely to happen in our own Solar System.

But what would preclude a complex ecosystem even more would be the limited time available for development. Heat would leak more quickly from these ‘mini-stars’: in this hypothetical strong-gravity world, stellar lifetimes would be a million times shorter. Instead of living for ten billion years, a typical star would live for about 10,000 years. A mini-Sun would burn faster, and would have exhausted its energy before even the first steps in organic evolution had got under way. Conditions for complex evolution would undoubtedly be less favourable if (leaving everything else unchanged) gravity were stronger. There wouldn’t be such a huge gulf as there is in our actual universe between the immense timespans of astronomical processes and the basic microphysical timescales for physical or chemical reactions. The converse, however, is that an even weaker gravity could allow even more elaborate and longer-lived structures to develop.

The difference between the two numbers is nearly infinitesimal yet the effect is disastrous and this is just one of 6 'constants' that have to be in a mind numbing narrow range for something like a life supporting universe to exist. The only 'naturalistic' explanation Rees can conjure is that this is one of an infinitude of universes (or universi) with variable parameters in which one was bound to have favorable characteristics to allow life and that's the one we find ourselves in. However that theory is pure naturalism in the gaps of our understanding. We don't know there are other universes and we don't know if they have variable parameters. It also has some bizarre implications. For example there would be a universe in which someone just like me and someone just like you exists only in that universe I may be an atheist and you may be a theist.

This is why its plain silly for atheists to claim there isn't a shred of evidence, not one fact anywhere that supports belief in theism. If someone makes such a claim in a debate before impartial people there going to get eaten alive.

This whole argument is so intellectually dishonest. "a universe where gravity was ‘only’ 10EXP30 rather than 10EXP36 feebler..." "The difference between the two numbers is nearly infinitesimal..." The argument is trying to make the claim that if gravity were just a tiny bit stronger, but making their example orders of magnitude stronger. 1 million times stronger, in fact. 1 million times is dismissed by the article as "nearly infinitesimal."

Yes, if any of the fundamental forces in the universe were drastically different, the universe as we know it could not exist. Where is the "fine tuning" in an argument that uses such blatantly coarse adjustments?

3...fucking, au man......thats nearly half a million k.   For reference there's enough elbow room for a dozen earths unraveled and layed out flat like a sheet of paper in that range in every minute (lets not even talk about the total area of the range.....) - and that range is just about to the point where it;s been disputed beyond any reason to accept it.  Just here, in our solar system, we have examples of things that don't fit with that range.  Water where it "shouldn't be" - if we only went by our exacting specifications for life.  That's generally the problem with these fine tuning claims.  They omit that the tuning aint so fine, or only -sounds- fine when you condense half a million kilometers into 3 units of measure.

He likes argument that make big numbers look small.