Fine tuning argument assessed

[Sword of Christ]

As I expected you haven't understood what I meant by causality having to be different for your god explanation to be correct.

Basically you can either have purposeful universe and we're part of that purpose or an accidental/non-intentional universe as a byproduct of a process and we're the byproducts of that. I prefer the purposeful premise but I also think it's the more likely premise as well everything considered. There's a chance I'm mistaken and you have it right of course so it's good to see the counter arguments people have, in case there's something I have missed.

Causality down here on earth for physical things requires a material cause.

Consciousness could be the ultimate cause for all physical things and material processes, the foundation of reality and our consciousness is a part of this aspect of non-physical reality we would call God. Unless there is an explanation for matter/collections of atoms can create consciousness which as far as I can tell no-one can provide.

It also eliminates the God argument if you believe that God created the universe from nothing.

If the foundation of physical reality is eternal consciousness rather than eternal matter/energy then "creatio ex nihilo" from nothing would still apply. The physical universe would have been brought into existence rather than being crafted from already existent matter. The alternative is creatio ex materia where the universe is created from pre-existent matter which is the foundation for the universe, this is something atheists and Mormons believe in. Most religious would place consciousness first and matter is either the creation or an illusion of consciousness.

So either causality works the same outside the universe as it does within it

Whatever is "outside the universe" would if it can be observed and detected by us through physical means just be an extension of our own universe. If something was to be fundamentally different then it would be beyond the scope of what we know or can know through that means.

(highly unlikely) and both the religious and scientific arguments are wrong or causality does apply as it does within the universe. You can't have it both ways.

There are religions such as Mormonism and Raelianism that agree with the view you call the "scientific argument" which is creatio ex materia. They also believe physical restoration to life after death to live alien planets in space but a minor difference there. The general idea is broadly the same.

[Whateverist]

No relation to the sampling problem being discussed here but another question which cuts hard against common sense is the tile problem.

A bag contains three tiles. One tile has an "X" on both sides, one has an "0" on both sides, and the last one has an "X" on one side and an "0" on the other. If you draw one at random and hold it up where you can only see the side facing you on which there is an "X", what is the probability that there is also an "X" on the other side?

[FreeTony]

No relation to the sampling problem being discussed here but another question which cuts hard against common sense is the tile problem.

A bag contains three tiles. One tile has an "X" on both sides, one has an "0" on both sides, and the last one has an "X" on one side and an "0" on the other. If you draw one at random and hold it up where you can only see the side facing you on which there is an "X", what is the probability that there is also an "X" on the other side?

I'm going to go with 2/3, is that right?

My reasoning is that there is twice the chance that I've picked the XX tile, rather than the XO tile.

[Whateverist]

Yep. But common sense wants to say I could be holding one of two tiles, so 50%.

[Chas]

The 'fine-tuning argument' is utterly flawed as it has the cart before the horse.

It assumes that the universe exists to allow our existence. We exist because the universe is as it is.

[Jacob(smooth)]

The 'fine-tuning argument' is utterly flawed as it has the cart before the horse.

It assumes that the universe exists to allow our existence. We exist because the universe is as it is.

Fine. Fucking sum up 4 pages of argument in two simple accurate easily understood sentences if it makes you feel smart!

Actually that is pretty smart

[Rayaan]

Objections to the Argument from Fine-Tuning

The argument from fine-tuning is one of the most compelling arguments for the existence of God, not only because it is logically air-tight and finds support in modern science, but because it exposes the unreasonable lengths to which skeptics will go to deny evidence of God’s existence and creative activity. In this post we’ll consider some of the more common objections to the argument and show why they fail as refutations.

...

Objection 3: If the universe weren’t fine-tuned, we wouldn’t be here to observe it. Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised by fine-tuning, and we shouldn’t waste time trying to explain it.

It is true that, given the fact that we’re here and we’re alive, we should expect to observe a life-permitting universe. This is called the Anthropic Principle. But that expectation, and our observations which confirm it, do nothing to explain why the universe is life-permitting when it didn’t have to be. A life-prohibiting universe is vastly more probable than a life-permitting one, so why does a life-permitting universe exist? What is the best explanation? Is it chance, necessity, or design? Fine-tuning cries out for an explanation, but the anthropic principle is not the answer. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is helpful once more: "While trivially true, [the anthropic] principle has no explanatory power, and does not constitute a substantive alternative explanation."

http://logicalfaith.org/?p=1190

[FreeTony]

A life-prohibiting universe is vastly more probable than a life-permitting one, so why does a life-permitting universe exist?

All we know is that the probability of a life-permitting universe is not zero.

For a life-prohibiting universe we no not even know that.

So how can we possibly infer one is more likely that the other?

[Sword of Christ]

A bold assumption, given how much science has unlocked in the last century alone.

It will only ever explain how the physical process we can see and detect operate that's the sphere in which it operates. We may not have covered even a tiny fraction of the sphere in question but that doesn't mean science can explain why we exist or what the meaning/purpose of life is. There is an absolute limit to what science can do.

One day it may indeed be possible for science to reveal absolutely all answers.

It could explain how all observable/detectable process work. It can't provide a reason for any of it.

As the edicts of (incorrect) religious doctrine have progressively been shown to be false over the centuries

It has demonstrated that disease and sickness isn't caused by demons or entering the body and various other things like that but that's really just pre-science folk superstition rather than religion proper.

, so religion plugs ever smaller gaps in knowledge

No it just gives you a better understanding of how the physical universe and natural processes operate it hasn't really done anything to bother God.

, pleading that there is a 'why' in everything, whereas more often than not the 'why' is simply interchangeable with 'how.

It's still a valid enough question that can be asked even if science can't answer it.

God is described as a sentient lifeforce, if he isn't empty space then he will occupy physical coordinates, either within a universe or in a hyperspace bubble somewhere.

He occupies and fills all coordinates being both omnipresence and immanent. The Quran describes God as being closer to you than your jugular vein which I suppose is one of the good passages in there. It's not like the Mormon God who lives on the planet Kolob.

The christian bible describes him as having motivations/desires

Of course he is a purposeful intelligence much like ourselves. That's why the universe and life have a purpose because it's God who has this to begin with.

so that's how I assume him to be 'alive' rather than 'not alive'. He apparently allows miracles which temporarily suspend the normal laws of physics

A miracle wouldn't be a suspension of the physical laws the universe would be constructed in such a way to allow such events to take place within the context of the physical laws God creates. Say for instance you broke your leg and someone was able to mend it back together by holding their hand over it or something like that there would be some kind of energy or processes that would allow for this effect to take place. While materialistic science is skeptical of these things there are certainly many strange, unusual and unexplained occurrences people have experienced the over the years. The universe could well be a far stranger place than you could ever imagine, not that it isn't strange enough anyway. That's not to say you should believe everything you hear and read but you can keep a more open mind.

, and is theoretically so powerful that, if need be, he could summon up the strength to move or destroy all matter in our universe

All he would have to do is stop sustaining the universe and it would cease to be.

, this means he must have at least an equal storage of reserve matter to counteract all our universe's matter.

He doesn't really have anything in storage, not physically anyway. We're just talking pure consciousness without a material form.

This storage, along with god himself and his various mechanisms of effect, elbow in to the scientific realm.

They would but you're talking about some kind of physically existent God which doesn't exist. Well God physically existed as Jesus who would be scientifically detectable but he would have only be detectable as an ordinary human.

They concern tangible concepts that should be observable and measurable, if not with current technology then theoretical technology.

Sure I guess but all you will have is an unexplained and bizarre event that could possibly have some other explanation that is nothing to do with God. So God is still going to remain beyond the bounds of what science can answer.

To say you can't prove god with science is a cop out, as science can demonstrate everything (given time), and everything demonstrates science.

Everything science explains would become part of science and anything science can't explain would remain outside of science forever. God isn't part of what science can explain because God isn't physically detectable or measurable.

Revelation is the testimony of self-appointed prophets living centuries ago in primitive, archaic desert cultures.

Considering all that what they ended up producing was an impressive feat, way beyond even the most technologically advanced and civilized people who were still worshiping pieces of carved wood and stone at the time. The idea is that God appointed them but not something can prove scientifically.

Why on earth would anyone take anything it says seriously, especially when any number of claims it (scripture/revelation) makes are consistantly shown to be nonsense.

There are many other revelations of God in the world but the Bible/Torah I would say is a particularly good one as it one that was shared by an entire historical culture and community of people. Most of the time a revelation is centred on a single man in cave or under a bodhi tree or whatever. When you get to Jesus and the NT again you have an event that effect a whole community in some fashion, we can be clear that there was a group of people involved who collectively had a profound experience of some kind involving a teacher they called Jesus or Yeshua. Though if someone want to claim that the Quran or whatever is the better revelation that's fine with me, it is a faith after all you can't say certain who has the best and most accurate source material. But certainly the Bible has a great deal going for it.

As mentioned, the more garbage that scripture is shown to contain, the more desperate theists become in trying to substitute direct claims for 'metaphorical' or 'poetic' inferences.

People didn't necessarily take it entirely literally even at the time and even Jesus spoke in parables and metaphor to get certain truths and teaching across. A literal interpretation of the Bible and Genesis and so on is a relatively recent phenomenon after the birth of modern science.

Revelation/scripture is a series of claims, not evidence for the claims.

Either there is revelation from God or there isn't. You can't prove or disprove this either way scientifically therefore it's a question of belief.

Two fundamental points here. The first is that this is just regurgitated Cosmological/Kalam causal regress stuff. It's dead old and has far too many gaps in it. Again, your only criteria for selecting what can and cannot be an uncaused cause (or an unmoved mover, or something that does not begin to exist) is that which some daft book from the desert tells you.

You can come to understand the existence of God through general revelation that's through deductive reasoning and so on. The philosophers of ancient Greece living in a polytheistic culture did something this. The Bible is an example of a special revelation which gives you details about God and his character that would be unobtainable to human reason alone. You don't necessarily just read the Bible and then just believe what it say without question that woulds be a blind faith.

This requires pure faith

It requires faith but it can be a reasoned faith. Being faith you will have to accept the possibility of being wrong but even as an atheist you would have to do this if you don't know.

, the bible is self-confessed religious propaganda and can be shown to be written by ignorant fools who still adhered to flat earth theories and everything else that was prevailant at the time.

Even in secular academic circles the Bible is regarded as a great work of literature, even Richard Dawkins admires it. These weren't ignorant fools by any means.

Nothing in it stands out, absolutely nothing.

I'd say it stands tremendously out from the primitive polytheist and idol worshiping cults of the time as well as in terms of the coherence of the narrative spanning over a thousand years written by diverse authors. The Jews as a people also survived when all the great empires around them are nothing but memory and dust. I think that is something that historically very much stands out.

Do you know what the Vedas and the Qur'an say?

I've read those as well I'm certainly open to other faiths even if I personally believe Christianity is the better/more accurate view of mans relationship to God. The Quran is about submission and obedience to God while Christianity is more about love and grace.

Why suspend your critical thinking skills at the christian bible, or is it because you were indoctrinated as a child in to the christian faith?

I live in a Christian culture sure but that doesn't stop me from considering the alternatives atheism included and making a choice of what I think is the best belief/most likely reality. Unless you're saying you can only critically think yourself into atheism which I don't agree with. I'm sure there are plenty of atheists who just happened to be brought up that way and never questioned it as much as there are believers who did likewise.

Secondly, you say that everything is caused by something else, except god.

The idea is that God being eternal wouldn't require a cause while everything else being finite and brought into existence would.

But to demonstrate all things you need to isolate an individual object, limit it, define it and then make the case (whether it's a table or a planet or whatever).

You can't do that with God because he isn't an object.

The universe is the sum-total of all things, it is not an individual unit in itself that can be limited and defined.

Yes but it's still finite in space and time, old and vast though it is. You will still require an eternal context.

Even if we accept the most generous view of the multiverse theory, and accept that everything is floating in a giant hyperspace membraneous mass, this is still a concept that describes 'every thing', the universe itself isn't simply another one of those things, rather, it is all the things together.

Sure but God won't be included as one of those things if he has no physical existence. You could say God contains everything and everything contains God. So God is both immanent and transcendent.

The jump then from all things to god is even more mind-boggilingly nonsensical, as you've made the case that everything must taper to one cause, but that this cause, rather than being simple, is in fact bizzarely complicated. God either begins to exist (in which case something caused him) or he didn't begin to exist (in which case he doesn't exist).

He doesn't exist as a physical object in time and space he brings time and space into existence from his own creative consciousness. So the rules you would normally apply to physical objects that exist time wouldn't apply to him. So you can see how that makes sense and would work.

It's possible that everything really did just begin without a reason.

It wouldn't make a lot of sense though.

Dawkins ultimate 747 argument puts it nicely, as does Dan Barker's 'godless'.

If they're talking about the physical process of evolution by natural selection I would agree with them though. I don't personally see a conflict with biological science and God. God just has to create the system that allows for the biological processes to take place within it. As long as there is some kind of interaction/revelation from God to humanity it won't be Deism.

Cosmological simply introduces more irrational complexicity, the only 'evidence' of which derives from some silly books, penned by the scribes of tribal leaders who were more concerned with consolidating tribal power than philosophy. The bible was written by humans, contains contradictions and contains bombastic claims which, since its creation, have been shown to be false (even with poetic reinterpretation factored in to the equation).

Written by humans who had some kind of special Covenant with God. Again this is something that is beyond the scope of science to prove or disprove it isn't a scientific question. This isn't a claim you can show to be false.

Some things don't have to have a meaning, they just are.

You may be a more incredible proposition in place of God if you're not careful, at least God gives the universe, consciousness and life some kind of a framework or a context. Otherwise you're looking at infinite monkeys on calculators mashing the buttons and that just happened to produce all the correct mathematical calculations for construction a life sustaining universe. I'm not quite sold on the monkeys I think God is better more straightforward way of producing the results and you also get to have some kind of answer to the why and not just the how.

Your only reason for assigning meaning to everything is because a silly book from the desert says there is meaning, but why would any of us give that more credit than contemporary informed text books?

There are plenty of contemporary informed Christian books, ancient informed Christian books as well. The Confessions of Saint Augustine is a good one to read.

A lot of us on here, myself included, used to be religious...................one guess as to why we're no longer religious.

You may not have made the effort to support your faith with reason which is fatal to faith if you're going to scientifically/historically educate yourself to a decent level, particularly in our Western post-Enlightenment post Darwin culture. A simple or ill informed faith doesn't really survive any level of battering or doubt.

They're the same thing

The question of how we came to exist can be answer by pointing out the big bang, cosmology and organic evolution. If you ask why we exist you can't point the same things, they just describe how you came to be here not why you are here.

[max-greece]

Objections to the Argument from Fine-Tuning

The argument from fine-tuning is one of the most compelling arguments for the existence of God, not only because it is logically air-tight and finds support in modern science, but because it exposes the unreasonable lengths to which skeptics will go to deny evidence of God’s existence and creative activity. In this post we’ll consider some of the more common objections to the argument and show why they fail as refutations.

...

Objection 3: If the universe weren’t fine-tuned, we wouldn’t be here to observe it. Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised by fine-tuning, and we shouldn’t waste time trying to explain it.

It is true that, given the fact that we’re here and we’re alive, we should expect to observe a life-permitting universe.

Good - that is the case as we have stated it.

This is called the Anthropic Principle. But that expectation, and our observations which confirm it, do nothing to explain why the universe is life-permitting when it didn’t have to be.

Well that's an unfounded assumption. Of all the possible universes (we don't know how many that is - could be 1, could be 10^500) any or all could support life - just not as we know it (bit Star Treky but you know what I mean). A 5 dimensional universe with no mass, different rules of physics and so on could support an intelligent life form capable of asking the question "Why does my universe exist?"

A life-prohibiting universe is vastly more probable than a life-permitting one, so why does a life-permitting universe exist?

As above really. What the question confuses is life like ours with unknown possible intelligences about which we know precisely zip.

What is the best explanation? Is it chance, necessity, or design? Fine-tuning cries out for an explanation, but the anthropic principle is not the answer. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is helpful once more: "While trivially true, [the anthropic] principle has no explanatory power, and does not constitute a substantive alternative explanation."

Here we have the next giant, unsupported, leap of religious thought - although not expressed here. Suppose the universe was deliberately designed to support life, but not ours. We could still be a by-product in a designed universe. You'd have to prove that we are the point (good luck with that).

If the universe were deliberately designed to support life my bet would be on single cellular life as the point. Even if it only exists on this planet any no-where else it is almost 1/3rd of the age of the universe itself.

On the other hand we know for a fact that if we do ever find life on other planets that life will be single cellular although it may also contain multi-cellular.

Against that we have an uppity species that has existed for about 200,000 years (about 1/7,000th of the age of the universe).

Now if its really fine tuning from a creator with us in mind, looking at the structure of the universe, its age, size, future - then looking at the more immediate vicinity (with another galaxy on a collision course with ours) - or more immediate still - going around a sun that will destroy the planet in 1,7 billion years, or the shooting gallery of NEO's we live in - looking at the history of life, the 99.8% of all life forms that have gone extinct - looking at our poor physical design and so on and so forth almost ad infinitum....


Would you employ this designer?