The Case for Theism

[The Grand Nudger]

Rhythm,

I was planning to respond to what you wrote...but there is nothing of merit to respond to.

Well, that's unfortunate, still trying to help you put together a case for theism.

[Esquilax]

I'm not closing my mind to your counter arguments and have responded to many of them. But when you or others say my arguments have failed or have no merit...well of course your going to say that unless you change your mind and decide to become a theist.

Your arguments have failed because they haven't convinced us to turn to theism. Think about that for a moment. If you actually had a convincing case, it would... you know, convince people.

Of course this is predominantly an atheist board.

So what? Atheists follow the evidence, generally speaking. In particular, my atheism is a product of having seen no compelling evidence for the existence of a creator god; I just won't believe in something before there's a reason to. You've presented arguments. They have not done anything to convince me of the truth of your position. I have no entrenched need to not believe in a god- there's nothing to gain from that, if you think about it- so any sufficiently cogent argumentation coupled with real evidence can convince me. I just don't find your particular brand of argument to even point to the need for a god.

[pocaracas]

Drew... drew, drew, drew, drew....
I'm not going to quote your huge post, there's no need.
I'm not going through it point by point... others have done that for me.
I'm just going to say your whole post is one big "god of the gaps" argument, while trying to shift the burden of proof to "naturalism".
And I'm also going to elaborate a bit on what Luke said, about the history of the god of the gaps argument.

Some hundreds of years ago, people believed that almost everything in the world was the product of some god. The spirit world, where each animal, plant, mountain, cloud, moon, sun has a spirit or is itself a god... only humans are subject to those spirits.
Thor or Zeus as gods of thunder are good examples of civilizations where we can actually find a god responsible for a natural unexplained event.
This notion persisted in people's minds throughout judaism, christianity, islam... only recently has the natural world been shown to be "mindless forces" at work. So mindless they are predictable. And the rules of this predictability has been called science.
As science establishes these "rules of Nature", the god-did-it explanation shrinks in scope.
What was once explained by the existence of a god, became explained by simple mindless forces. The god explanation shrank into the gaps in the scientific explanation of the world.
And those are the gaps you examine here:
- Where/how/why did the universe come into being?
- How did life on Earth come into being?
- How did intelligence evolve?

I can't say for certain that these questions will someday be answered by science, but the god-did-it track record shows that it is a very weak position that has, so far, yielded at every single corner of knowledge.
The History that Luke wants you to research tells us that "god-did-it" is a shrinking proposition which tends to zero.

Why some people cling to it is beyond me... I guess that's because I'm close-minded...

[KichigaiNeko]

And of course pocaracas, there are other multitudinous "religions" that have a differing view.

I would venture the statement that Drew is closed minded as being true here.

Evidenced by the limited view (aka Luke) as opposed to the monumental evidence from other views globally.


Hard evidence is lacking globally for anything that appears in any "religious text" anywhere. This scares a great many people it would seem pocaracas, where you and I would say..."Hell Yeah! Let's find out"



Which is the "closed mind"?

[Neo-Scholastic]

...the god-did-it track record shows that it is a very weak position that has, so far, yielded at every single corner of knowledge. The History that Luke wants you to research tells us that "god-did-it" is a shrinking proposition which tends to zero.

Agreed. Faith predicated on god-based theories as substitutes for physical causes is shaky. God's sphere of influence is not limited to particular pieces of reality, it pervades all of reality, like waves need water.

[pocaracas]

Like electro-magnetic waves need aether... oh wait....

[Angrboda]

5. The fact there are several characteristics of the universe that fall within an extremely narrow range that not only allow life as we know it, but also allow the existence of planets, stars, solar systems and galaxies.

In his book 'Just Six Numbers' the deep forces that shape the universe, highly respected astrophysicist (and atheist) Martin Rees explains each constant in depth and the consequences if any of these constants were slightly different. So mind numbingly narrow is the degree of precision needed that as a result he concludes this is one of an infinitude of universes all with different characteristics and as a result we live in the universe with the right 'numbers'. A simpler explanation that doesn't needlessly multiply entities (to infinity in this case) is that the constants were intentionally designed to fall within a range that allows planets, stars and galaxies to exist.

Since you seem so enamored with them, let's take a good long look at Martin Rees' "six numbers." (And I'll note as an aside that it's rather telling that this is the only author whom you cite, but more on that below; it turns out we're in for a big surprise from Lord Rees.) Text in blue and green adapted from the article quoted following the material (a review of Rees' book).

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1. N = Relative strength of electrical force over gravitational force (e.g., electrical force between 2 protons/gravitational force between 2 protons) = (approximately) 1036, i.e., the gravitational force is extremely weak compared with the electrical force.

We can conclude that instead of having 36 zeros after 1 in the value of N, if there were only 30 zeros after 1, then the universe would be very much different from the current universe, and life as we know it would not be able to exist. Note: On the other hand, if the gravitational force were even weaker, i.e., if N is even larger (having more than 36 zeros after 1), then it would take longer to form galactic structure, and galactic structures would be less densely populated, and larger and perhaps more complex life organisms, different from current life organisms, could exist.

Conclusion: Not fine tuned.


2. € = nuclear efficiency, defined as the % of the mass of the nuclear constituents that is converted to heat when the nuclear constituents react via nuclear fusion to form a heavier nuclei = 0.007.

If € = 0.006 or smaller, the strong force is not strong enough to fuse a proton and a neutron into a stable deuterium. Without stable deuterium, helium cannot be formed. ... If € = 0.008 or greater, then the strong force is strong enough to overcome the electrical repulsion of two protons, and two protons can fuse together. This would have happened early in the life of the universe, so that all the hydrogen (i.e., protons) would have been used up very early on, and there is no hydrogen remaining to continue to provide the fuel to produce light in ordinary stars as in our sun. Furthermore, water, H2O, could never have existed, and therefore no life as we know it.

Therefore, any universe with complex chemistry and life would require € to be in the range of 0.006 – 0.008.

Conclusion: Not fine tuned.


3. Ω and dark matter; Ω ≈ 0.3: the ratio of the actual density of the universe to the critical (minimum) density required for the universe to eventually collapse under its gravity.

In an expanding universe, galactic matters are moving apart from each other. Will this expansion continue forever, or will these motions eventually reverse, so that the universe will eventually re-collapse to a “Big Crunch”? Since we know the expansion speed of our expanding universe, the answer to the above question depends on whether there is enough matter in the universe so that gravity from all these matters is strong enough to slow down the expansion and then cause the collapse to a “Big Crunch”. The matter density in the universe that is necessary to cause this reversal is called the galactic “critical density”. Knowing the expansion speed, we can calculate and determine this critical density to be approximately five atoms [4] per cubic meter.

Even with generous account of the possibility of such dark matter, based on current information the value of Ω can at most be raised to approximately 0.3, not quite the critical value of 1, but not extremely far from it. At first sight, such large abundance of dark matter may seem strange, but why most of the matter in the universe must emit radiation so that they can be seen or directly detectable? There are various theories for what constitutes dark matter, but it remains as one of the most important unsolved questions in astrophysics and cosmology.

What is the significance of the value of Ω with respect to the existence of our universe and life as we know it? If Ω were significantly smaller than 1, then not only that the universe would expand forever, the gravitational pull would be so small that expansion would occur so rapidly that galactic matters would be so far apart and galaxies would not be able to be formed, with a corollary that planets and life as we know it would not be able to exist. On the other hand, if Ω were significantly larger than 1, then the universe would quickly collapse before there was time for any interesting evolution of galaxies, planets, and life as we know it.

Conclusion: Not fine tuned as its value and reason for its value is currently unknown. Moreover, it's expected value is predicted from some specific natural hypotheses as to the origins of the universe.


4. λ ≈ 0.7: The ratio of the energy density of the universe, due to the cosmological constant, to the critical density of the universe.

λ: When Einstein first formulated his field equation in general relativity in 1916 to describe the universe, he found that the solutions of his field equation would lead to a non-static universe, i.e., the universe would either contract or expand. Since the general thinking at that time (in the latter part of the 1910 decade or the early part of the 1920 decade) was that the universe should be static (remember that this period was before Hubble’s observations that the universe was expanding), Einstein introduced an extra term in his equation, called the cosmological constant term containing the cosmological constant λ. By adding this term and with the proper choice of the value of λ, his equation could lead to a static universe.

When in 1929 Hubble discovered Hubble’s Law that the universe is expanding, Einstein regretted that he ever introduced the cosmological constant term and called that action the “biggest blunder” of his life.

From other astronomical observations, the current estimated value for λ is around 0.7, which is also consistent with the supernova observations of an accelerating expanding universe. A much larger value for λ would mean that the universe would have expanded rapidly even in its early stages. Therefore, there would not be sufficient time for stars, galaxies, planets to form, and therefore would have precluded life as we know it. On the other hand, a much smaller value for λ would not lead to catastrophic consequences in terms of the formation of stars, galaxies, planets, and life; it only means that the expansion of the universe will slow down.

Conclusion: Not fine tuned, as explicitly demonstrated by Einstein's early prediction. Moreover, the actual value, and what it is dependent upon is not currently known.

(This may not even be an independent variable; see #3.) Claiming that an unknown is fine tuned demonstrates great chutzpah, but little else.


5. Q: The energy required to break up and disperse an instance of the largest known structures in the universe, namely a galactic cluster or supercluster, expressed as a fraction of the energy equivalent to the rest mass m of that structure.

After the Big Bang as the universe expanded, matter was randomly distributed in space, which means that there were areas which were more densely populated and areas which were less densely populated. In the more densely populated areas, there would be stronger gravitational attractions between various matters. So over time, these clusterings of matter would become bigger and bigger and would eventually form stars, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, all are held together by gravity.
...
The measure of the strength of these bonds among galactic matter to form clusters (stars, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies) is called Q = the amount of energy, as a proportion to their rest mass energy, needed to break up and disperse the clusters. For our universe, Q is estimated to be 10-5. As explained in the two previous paragraphs, if Q were much larger or smaller than 10-5, then life as we know it would not exist.

Conclusion: Possibly fine tuned.


6. D = the number of dimensions in our universe = the number of physical dimensions plus the dimension of time.

Conclusion: Not fine tuned.

We do not actually know the number of such dimensions which exist in our universe, it can't be determined solely by observation, nor do we have any idea whether life would or would not be possible in a universe with more or less dimensions than that which exists. As with #3, it takes great balls to claim that an unknown quantity is "finely tuned," but the tendency of fine-tuning theorists to find gold everywhere they look when the rest of science finds only straw is perhaps the least mysterious thing here.

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So out of Martin Rees' "six numbers" only one looks like a valid candidate for fine tuning, and even that is only "possibly fine tuned," not definitely fine tuned. Moreover, it's worth noting that Martin Rees himself is led not to the hypothesis of an intelligent creator, but instead favors the multiverse hypothesis, which you have gone to great lengths to disarm with incessant whining about how we don't believe it ourselves. In hindsight, it's obvious why you took such great pains to disarm the multiverse hypothesis, as if it were known that the man whose numbers were undergirding your argument believes in it, it would shatter the illusion that you are making an impartial case based on the evidence presented by him.

Material adapted from:

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Note that in all the examples of fine-tuning given in the theist literature, such as the lists of Ross and Deem, the authors only vary one parameter while holding all the rest constant. This is both dubious and scientifically shoddy. As we will see in several specific cases, changing one or more other parameters can often compensate for the one that is changed. There usually is a significant region of parameter space around which the point representing a given universe can be moved and still have some form of life possible.

— Victor Stenger, The Fallacy Of Fine-

(I will also note for the benefit of our viewing audience that this was pointed out to you in your earlier attempt at this argument in another thread, and far from denying it, you acknowledged this to be the case. This makes your continued insistence on the supposed fine-tuning of these parameters not only incorrect, it shows that your continued insistence on it is an example of gross dishonesty on your part. [apo])

As a physicist, I cannot go wherever I want to but wherever the data take me. If they take me to God, so be it. I have examined the data closely over many years and have come to the opposite conclusion: the observations of science and our naked senses not only show no evidence for God but also provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that a God that plays such an important, everyday role in the universe such as the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God does not exist.

I will devote most of this book to showing why the evidence does not require the existence of a creator of the universe who has designed it specifically for humanity. I will show that the parameters of physics and cosmology are not particularly fine-tuned for life, especially human life.

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Now, I mention this only for completeness .... My case against fine-tuning will not rely on speculations beyond well-established physics nor on the existence of multiple universes. I will show that fine-tuning is a fallacy based on our knowledge of this universe alone.

— Victor Stenger, The Fallacy Of Fine-

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And, if necessary, I will return to the point that I raised earlier that even if the exact parameters of this universe represent a cosmically unlikely scenario, that in itself does not argue design for many of the reasons explored in the literature. That you both ignore the technical arguments against design and continue to depend on a loose argument from analogy is, perhaps tactically wise, but suggests that you couldn't define explicitly what you mean if you tried. (One of the main problems being how your criteria separates out invalid conclusions of design for phenomena that are not designed [false positives]; the opposite case, not detecting design when design is present is of no interest here. Of note here, a simple example is the lattice structure of a crystal such as a diamond. The observed variation of such a structure may well fall into an extraordinarily narrow range, but this in itself does not indicate that some designer "placed each individual atom there to satisfy that narrow range." Even if I grant that the parameters exist within an exceedingly narrow range, that still does not warrant an inference to design. I'd wish you luck, but it's obvious that someone with your talents would require an absolute miracle to solve this problem.)

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[Drew_2013]

Hello LukeMC,

The universe didn't get it "right". There is no "right". The claim that sentient life is a goal, or even that it is desirable, is simply a human-centric manipulation of the story of the universe told from the perspective of humans being the center of all things valuable. The problem with your summary is that you suppose human value to be so high that a 13.7 billion year old, 47 billion light year radius universe had to be carefully designed to allow a few small critters on a rock to write poems and watch sunsets. We didn't "get lucky". We just happen to enjoy life and so now you're taking the position of defining the entire universe in terms of that fact.

While on the one hand you profess ignorance about how the universe came about whether it was unintended naturalistic causes or purposely planned by a creator or some other unknown option, you then speak authoritively about whether the universe got it 'right' and whether or not humans may have been the intended goal. How do you know we either didn't get incredibly lucky or we weren't the intended goal? What I meant by get it right was that the conditions for human existence obtained. If the universe was purposely designed and created for human existence would humans be more valuable if that was the case? It seems to me that even though you claim not to know, you assume humans were in fact the unintended by product of the laws of physics and therefore there is nothing significant about human existence. I will argue otherwise in either case. From what we know and what we can observe the entire universe acts as it does because it has no choice in the matter. Planets form, stars form, galaxies form, water rushes through rivers, volcanoes explode but none of those things do so because they want to. They don't have any choice in the matter and cannot act volitionally. To the best of our knowledge in all of the universe humans alone act volitionally. While everything around us has no choice in the matter humans alone have the ability to think and decide for themselves whether to call in sick for work and play golf or read a book or get on the internet and debate a bunch of people we don't know. What quality makes something special? If something is extremely rare and unique it is deemed special. On what basis do you deem humans not to be special?

The origin of the universe is such an incalculably difficult subject to comprehend that neither of us can possibly hope to come up with a satisfactory answer. Theists claim that some intelligent force created it. I on the other hand cannot presume to have an opinion on this, and deem your claim to be as indefensible as any. I don't believe in a "naturalist" origin of the universe- I have no idea at all how the universe came about. And neither do you. This is why an atheist must call you out when you make a positive claim. It's not that I deny God in favour of a godless origin- I just cannot comment. If somebody was to say "the universe came about unintentionally and through random means" then this too would be overstepping the barrier of what we can reasonably posit.

Its not overstepping the bounds by offering an opinion and since everything thus far can be attributed to either plan and design or to happenstance we have good reason to think one of those possibilities is true. What we can't do is state it as a fact (although I can show you plenty of sites where atheists do just that). However, by declaring humans neither got lucky or are special you are making an authoratative claim about the nature of human existence as if you do in fact know about these things.

I don't. What, do you think I'm a genius physicist who has a plausible answer for the origin of the universe? This is very disingenuous. I truly and genuinely do not have an answer for the question of existence.

This debate is about belief. A belief is what you think is true given what information is available.

You seem to contradict yourself here by saying that no evidence is necessary for atheism to be true. This means that atheism is not a claim based on evidence, but rather it rests on the lack of evidence for a creative agent- this is precisely what you argued against earlier in your post.

Therein lies the problem...there is no lack of evidence in favor of the existence of God. All evidence is are facts that comport or agree with a conclusion. There is nothing (I can think of) that needs to be true or condition that needs to be true for the claim God doesn't exist to be true, in contrast there are conditions that need to be true to have evidence in favor of the existence of God.

This is no more interesting than steam ,a gas, coming from ice which, being a solid, is quite unlike steam. The properties of organic molecules are no different to the properties of dead matter. They just happen to behave in a way that we recognize and call "life". Again, you're being human-centric and giving undue treatment to a phenomena simply because you personally value it.

And you're devaluing life and impugning its significance. Were it not for life and the existence of sentient life we wouldn't be having this conversation.

This is purely ridiculous. God of the gaps is the claim that because scientists cannot explain a phenomenon, god must exist and must be the answer to the puzzle. A basic study of scientific history will shed light on the God of the gaps legacy. The "atheist" take on the matter would be to make no claim at all but rather investigate the situation empirically until suitable evidence is found. To claim that this "assumes naturalism" is a nonsensical statement. Anything that can be tested and observed is by definition "natural" and so of course we expect that when we investigate a situation, we will find a "natural" answer. This has nothing at all to do with a creative agent.

In one sense you're correct. If for example scientists had never seen a car and were asked to explore it and explain it they would be able to do so in purely naturalistic terms without reference to whether it was caused to exist by a intelligent agent. My opponents like to believe because we have found naturalistic explanations for most phenonmena that this is evidence its naturalistic causes all the way down and that means no Creator necessary. Unfortunately for them, its not true. Even though scientists can explain a car and how it functions naturally it was in fact caused by intelligent beings who caused it to exist. The same holds true for the universe even if all the working inside the universe can be explained by the laws of nature it is silent on whether it was caused to exist by an intelligent agent(s). When it comes to the issue of how life began and how the universe came into existence my opponents offer naturalisim in the gaps theories whether they subscribe to them or not.

We expect an explanation to exist and so we investigate to uncover an explanation. This only assumes that the universe is investigable. God of the gaps on the other hand undermines investigation by claiming that the answer is not knowable and cannot be discovered, and that therefore it must have happened supernaturally. You are therefore being incredibly deceptive in attempting to equate the two positions as essentially the same thing.

You don't know your history. The father of modern science and perhaps the greatest scientist ever Isaac Newton believed the universe was knowable and could be explained in mathematical terms because he believed he was unraveling a phenonmena (the universe) that was created by God. He didn't believe God was personally manipulating things to keep the universe running, he believed it was designed similiar to the way we design things to run without the creator. Secondly as I pointed out, I'm not making God in the gaps arguments I made a God of the facts arguments.

It is indisputable that complex lifeforms replicate. The origin of lifeforms was not even remotely similar to the way that lifeforms exist now. They were much, much simpler, and to draw the line between "life" and "matter" doesn't make much sense at such a level.....

I didn't argue the existence of God from the fact we haven't discovered how life began to exist, I argued from the fact it does exist and all the conditions necessary for that to come about.

Again, you are either being deceptive or are misleading yourself. We have concrete evidence that life didn't always exist.

We have reason to believe life didn't always exist on planet earth. Whether it existed prior to life on earth is the debate we're having.

Therefore, the "life always comes from life" argument is not sound.

You are being misleading...I didn't say life always comes from life. Its quite possible arguments you falsely attribute to me are unsound. I stated the fact that life comes from life. Do you disagree that is one known provable repeatable method? I am tweaking my opponents a bit because they claim their conclusion there is no God is derived from facts. In reality its driven by philosophical reasons so they believe the theory that life came from non-life through some as yet unknown process. But from a factual basis we only know life comes from life.

That isn't the basis upon which we should form our opinions on life. We can observe that there was no trace of life on earth before a certain point through various means and thus we can know that in some exceptional case, some primordial form of life must have come from something that we would not describe as being alive. The conclusion that life came from no-life is entirely factually based. There is no other possibility.

Oh? Its not possible life was planted here by some other advanced life form?

Absolutely no different to a hot star giving birth to a cold planet. A bunch of molecules reorganized themselves through inevitable physical processes to form something that looks and behaves differently to other collections of molecules. Placing any value on this observation is foolhardy.

So if mindless lifeless forces some how cause a universe the laws of physics must produce life and sentience? Is that a law of nature? Do you know of any reason the laws of nature had to be as they are or does a life bearing universe have to exist for some reason? By the way your welcome to your opinion that there is nothing significant about this but that doesn't mean it is insignificant or others are foolhardy to draw a different conclusion particulary when you appear to be offering an opinon.

The nature of consciousness is quite beyond our intuitive capacity to comprehend, so it's not surprising that this argument comes up a lot. It's not an argument though- it's just God of the gaps. It's near-impossible to understand consciousness, therefore something intelligent must have done. There's no reason to make this claim, or any other claim.

Because you have spoken? Now you say the nature of consciousness is quite beyond our intuitive capacity to comprehend yet if my opponents are to believed, it was caused by mindless lifeless forces that didn't intend or plan to create consciousness. Let me make sure I have this right, our intelligence isn't smart enough to comprehend or understand consciousness but mindless forces without attempting to were able to cause it to exist.

It's near-impossible to understand consciousness, therefore something mindless and lifeless must have unknowingly created it by accident. If we came across a computer so complicated that scientists couldn't figure out how it worked...we'd have to conclude it was the result of mindless forces that didn't attempt to cause or create it. Is that how it works?

As sentient humans we have progressed to the point where we can create on a computer virtual worlds. We can create AI avatars to interact in the worlds of our creation and as sentient beings we can create the laws of nature as we see fit in such virtual worlds. This is the closest model we have to creating a universe with unique laws of physics. In those worlds we are the transcendent gods who caused them to exist. We don't have to ask if the God model is possible, we simulate such ourselves.

It certainly is possible, but no more probable than any other speculation. Thus holding and guarding such a position is foolish.

The speculation is that mindless, lifeless forces created the universe and subsequently life and mind. It isn't speculation that intelligent beings can simulate a virtual world we are doing it.

I'll respond to the rest later...

[Neo-Scholastic]

Like electro-magnetic waves need aether... oh wait....

Seems like the quantum vacuum has many of the characteristics traditionally associated with ether, but I haven't studied physics in 20 years. Just what I read in the popular literature.

[Baalzebutt]

...because they want to. They don't have any choice in the matter and cannot act volitionally. To the best of our knowledge in all of the universe humans alone act volitionally. While everything around...

A truer statement was never made.

So where, exactly, does your god fit into that view?

You have managed to step on your own dick yet again.