Fine Tuning Argument

[The_Flying_Skeptic]

Astronomer Fred Hoyle reports that his atheism was shaken by his own discovery that in the stars, carbon just manages to form and then just avoids complete conversion into oxygen. If one atomic level had varied half a per cent, life would have been impossible. "Would you not say to yourself . . . 'Some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule' ? Of course you would. . . . The carbon atom is a fix.

I quoted this from nogodaloud. The idea that that a 'supercalculating intellect' is required conflicts with their deity being omnipotent. The idea that an omnipotent deity needs to make sure that the laws of nature allow for existence of life defeats the purpose of believing that the existence of life is a miracle (contradicting the laws of nature [how many times have you heard a creationist argue that life contradicts the laws of thermodynamics?]): If a deity went out of its way to make sure that the laws of nature were just right for carbon to form in a star or during a supernova, why not fine tune the universe so that life will come into existence naturally all together? What do you think?

[LastPoet]

The idea of an Omnipotent entity, is prone to find itself around paradoxes. And nogodaloud is just quoting out of context there.

[Minimalist]

"Would you not say to yourself . . . 'Some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom

Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, that is about the last thing that would occur to me.

But the superstitious always seem to find their god in what they cannot understand.

[NoGodaloud ?]

Astronomer Fred Hoyle reports that his atheism was shaken by his own discovery that in the stars, carbon just manages to form and then just avoids complete conversion into oxygen. If one atomic level had varied half a per cent, life would have been impossible. "Would you not say to yourself . . . 'Some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule' ? Of course you would. . . . The carbon atom is a fix.

I quoted this from nogodaloud. The idea that that a 'supercalculating intellect' is required conflicts with their deity being omnipotent. The idea that an omnipotent deity needs to make sure that the laws of nature allow for existence of life defeats the purpose of believing that the existence of life is a miracle (contradicting the laws of nature [how many times have you heard a creationist argue that life contradicts the laws of thermodynamics?]): If a deity went out of its way to make sure that the laws of nature were just right for carbon to form in a star or during a supernova, why not fine tune the universe so that life will come into existence naturally all together? What do you think?

imagine if the law of gravity would not exist...... we could not exist either.

So, the omnipotence of God must be defined. Omnipotence and “all powerful” are incorrect words to use when encompassing all possibilities of illogical or self-contradicting occurances. In Christianity we have
this statement regarding God being able to create a rock too big to move, or this sort of thing. “Nonsense is nonsense, even when you try to apply it to God.”

[Welsh cake]

Astronomer Fred Hoyle reports that his atheism was shaken by his own discovery that in the stars, carbon just manages to form and then just avoids complete conversion into oxygen. If one atomic level had varied half a per cent, life would have been impossible. "Would you not say to yourself . . . 'Some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule' ? Of course you would. . . . The carbon atom is a fix.

I quoted this from nogodaloud.

Not sure if nogodaloud referenced it but the extract is actually from Dr. Holmes Rolston III, professor of philosophy at Colorado State University, here's the link to his entire article:-

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=66

imagine if the law of gravity would not exist...... we could not exist either.

Imagine if the movie Ghostbusters didn't exist... there would be no reviews of it.

Okay I'm game, where the hell are you going with this?

So, the omnipotence of God must be defined. Omnipotence and “all powerful” are incorrect words to use when encompassing all possibilities of illogical or self-contradicting occurances. In Christianity we have
this statement regarding God being able to create a rock too big to move, or this sort of thing. “Nonsense is nonsense, even when you try to apply it to God.”

Okay first your argument was cut and paste from religion-online.org without citation and now you are plagiarising this extract from other people's posts from this blog page on WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com!

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/blog/?p=1123

[Eilonnwy]

NoGodaloud, answer with your own arguments, not from someone else. You can certainly quote arguments you agree with, but they must be used in the quote tag and the source linked.

[tackattack]

@Eil.. does it have to be a proper quote in tags or is a reference and link sufficient? I ask because sometimes When retorting several people I get lost in the quote and hide tags.

[Eilonnwy]

If you put " " around it, I don't mind. At the very least it needs to be clear you're referencing something else and a link is absolutely important, or an author if it's a book.

[Captain Scarlet]

[quote='The_Flying_Skeptic' pid='88245' dateline='1282352013']
[quote]quote]
What do you think?
[/quote]
The fine tuning argument is the latest attempt to prove god from inferring design. It has a number of serious problems. The most obvious are that:
1 If the universe is truly deterministic then the 'chances' of events unfolding this way are 100% certain
2 It misuses probablity theory to say gee whizz look at how improbable this is. Improbable things happen all the time and continue to do so, it is an after the fact argument and has no predictive power
3 If true then its an argument against design as the universe needed fine tuning and wasn't perfect at creation
4 Even if true because of 3 above the designer wasn't perfect because he created something incompetently that it needed tuning
5 Even if true it says nothing for the designer, it could have been anything
6 It says nothing for the purpose of the universe. The most successful carbon based life is bacteria, the most prominent structures are black holes, and this universe is the most perfrect black hole generator
7 99.999999%+ of the universe is a very hostile place to us. What makes us think we were the object of it?
8 The universe is doomed to entropic heat death

[The_Flying_Skeptic]

imagine if the law of gravity would not exist. we could not exist either. So, the omnipotence of God must be defined. Omnipotence and “all powerful” are incorrect words to use when encompassing all possibilities of illogical or self-contradicting occurances. In Christianity we have this statement regarding God being able to create a rock too big to move, or this sort of thing. “Nonsense is nonsense, even when you try to apply it to God.”

I did not make an argument paralleling "a deity cant' make a rock so big he could not lift hence deity is not omnipotent." I'm saying that you can't pin the laws of nature or the existence of carbon on a deity that you believe has violated the laws of nature to perform life and other so called 'miracles'.

I need to know what you believe about the history of the universe. There are a lot of different points of views and knowing what your point of view is helps a lot because knowing prevents us from arguing over points we already agree on. so what's your position on the history of the universe, life, and everything?

a. are you a young earth creationist? do you believe that the universe is 6000 +- 4000 years old and that your deity created everything at once (everything at once: all the galaxies in their current state)?

b. are you an old earth creationist? do you believe that the universe is as old as physicists all around the world say (about 16 billion years old or something) yet not believe in evolutionary biology?

c. are you a new creationist? do you believe in evolutionary biology and a billions of years old universe but believe that your deity created the laws of the universe so that humans would come into existence and worship him eventually?