Theists: What is the most compelling argument you have heard for Atheism?

[Cyberman]

"I think it's reasonable to infer a designer" is not a rational inference.  Do you also think it's reasonable to infer a lottery number designer when someone wins?  Some fine tuner of lottery numbers..setting up just so, in order that Ms. Sally Mae Parks of Wichita Falls wins the jackpot?

He's xtian. He has to.

[SteveII]

"I think it's reasonable to infer a designer" is not a rational inference.  Do you also think it's reasonable to infer a lottery number designer when someone wins?  Some fine tuner of lottery numbers..setting up just so, in order that Ms. Sally Mae Parks of Wichita Falls wins the jackpot?

What are you talking about? As in my example of billions of white balls and one black ball in a drawing and I not only see the black ball come down the shoot, but it does so 5 times in a row in 5 subsequent drawings, I think it very reasonable to infer that it was fixed.

[Mister Agenda]

"I think it's reasonable to infer a designer" is not a rational inference.  Do you also think it's reasonable to infer a lottery number designer when someone wins?  Some fine tuner of lottery numbers..setting up just so, in order that Ms. Sally Mae Parks of Wichita Falls wins the jackpot?

What are you talking about? As in my example of billions of white balls and one black ball in a drawing and I not only see the black ball come down the shoot, but it does so 5 times in a row in 5 subsequent drawings, I think it very reasonable to infer that it was fixed.

Except that, for all we know, they're all black balls.

[Neo-Scholastic]

What are you talking about? As in my example of billions of white balls and one black ball in a drawing and I not only see the black ball come down the shoot, but it does so 5 times in a row in 5 subsequent drawings, I think it very reasonable to infer that it was fixed.

Except that, for all we know, they're all black balls.

Not to strain the analogy, but that would be all the more fine-tuning.

(then of course there is the universe of all blue balls...not anyone's favorite)

[The Grand Nudger]

"I think it's reasonable to infer a designer" is not a rational inference.  Do you also think it's reasonable to infer a lottery number designer when someone wins?  Some fine tuner of lottery numbers..setting up just so, in order that Ms. Sally Mae Parks of Wichita Falls wins the jackpot?

What are you talking about? As in my example of billions of white balls and one black ball in a drawing and I not only see the black ball come down the shoot, but it does so 5 times in a row in 5 subsequent drawings, I think it very reasonable to infer that it was fixed.

How many universes have you seen, again?  

In any case, "I think it's reasonable to infer that it was fixed" is not a rational inference, nor is "fixing" something that only a designer can do. Points for being consistently less than rational, I guess?

[Mister Agenda]

Except that, for all we know, they're all black balls.

Not to strain the analogy, but that would be all the more fine-tuning.

(then of course there is the universe of all blue balls...not anyone's favorite)

Or they're black (or blue) of necessity. Or it could be even up. Or any combination. When we don't know the odds, we can't say the odds are slim.

I could win a lot of money from some folks around here who seem to be eager to bet on the outcome of a ball drawing knowing nothing except that the set of balls to be drawn from has at least one black one.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's just the springboard for an argument from incredulity anyway.  It doesn't have to be rigorous.  

"I can't believe this would have happened unless it was designed"

Strange, considering the sorts of shit they can believe.

[masterofpuppets]

You can get a brief overview here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned...e#Examples

• N, the ratio of the strength of electromagnetism to the strength of gravity for a pair of protons, is approximately 1036. According to Rees, if it were significantly smaller, only a small and short-lived universe could exist.[12]
  
  
• Epsilon (ε), a measure of the nuclear efficiency of fusion from hydrogen to helium, is 0.007: when four nucleons fuse into helium, 0.007 (0.7%) of their mass is converted to energy. The value of ε is in part determined by the strength of the strong nuclear force.[13] If ε were 0.006, only hydrogen could exist, and complex chemistry would be impossible. According to Rees, if it were above 0.008, no hydrogen would exist, as all the hydrogen would have been fused shortly after the big bang. Other physicists disagree, calculating that substantial hydrogen remains as long as the strong force coupling constant increases by less than about 50%.[10][12]
  
  
• Omega (Ω), commonly known as the density parameter, is the relative importance of gravity and expansion energy in the Universe. It is the ratio of the mass density of the Universe to the "critical density" and is approximately 1. If gravity were too strong compared with dark energy and the initial metric expansion, the universe would have collapsed before life could have evolved. On the other side, if gravity were too weak, no stars would have formed.[12][14]
  
  
• Lambda (λ), commonly known as the cosmological constant, describes the ratio of the density of dark energy to the critical energy density of the universe, given certain reasonable assumptions such as positing that dark energy density is a constant. In terms of Planck units, and as a natural dimensionless value, the cosmological constant, λ, is on the order of 10−122.[15] This is so small that it has no significant effect on cosmic structures that are smaller than a billion light-years across. If the cosmological constant were not extremely small, stars and other astronomical structures would not be able to form.[12]
  
  
• Q, the ratio of the gravitational energy required to pull a large galaxy apart to the energy equivalent of its mass, is around 10−5. If it is too small, no stars can form. If it is too large, no stars can survive because the universe is too violent, according to Rees.[12]
  
  
• D, the number of spatial dimensions in spacetime, is 3. Rees claims that life could not exist if there were 2 or 4 dimensions of spacetime nor if any other than 1 time dimension existed in spacetime.[12]
  

Carbon and oxygen[edit]
Further information: Triple-alpha process § Improbability and fine-tuning
An older example is the Hoyle state, the third-lowest energy state of the carbon-12 nucleus, with an energy of 7.656 MeV above the ground level. According to one calculation, if the state's energy were lower than 7.3 or greater than 7.9 MeV, insufficient carbon would exist to support life; furthermore, to explain the universe's abundance of carbon, the Hoyle state must be further tuned to a value between 7.596 and 7.716 MeV. A similar calculation, focusing on the underlying fundamental constants that give rise to various energy levels, concludes that the strong force must be tuned to a precision of at least 0.5%, and the electromagnetic force to a precision of at least 4%, to prevent either carbon production or oxygen production from dropping significantly.[16]

Regarding your question about why so fragile. Life is extremely complex in its requirements. It is not clear why we should expect the right combination of elements, heat, gravity, radiation, and self-contained planetary feedback loops to be a common occurrence.

Even if the allowable ranges of the values of constants that lead to a universe with structure (atoms, stars etc.) is very small, the fact that these constants need to have very specific values does not make it unlikely for them to have these values. You are ascribing a low probability to the universe having its specific constants without justification. It may be that certain values of constants are more likely than others. Or, what if the range of possible constants for all possible universes is quite small to begin with? It's not necessarily true that the constants can range from minus to plus infinity.

The fine-tuning argument fails on the basis that it cannot establish the purported low probability of the universe acquiring its constants. For all we know the probability could be 1.

[vorlon13]

"I think it's reasonable to infer a designer" is not a rational inference.  Do you also think it's reasonable to infer a lottery number designer when someone wins?  Some fine tuner of lottery numbers..setting up just so, in order that Ms. Sally Mae Parks of Wichita Falls wins the jackpot?

He's xtian. He has to.

Not the Methodists, though.  A former local pastor even advised the flock to not share wins with the church.  Yet with the Catholics, it's a sacrament.

Odd, ain't it, scripture doesn't seem to be real clear to all the Christians in the same way . . .


I think Jehovah declared He wasn't the author of confusion, but I have some doubts about that.  Still Jehovah doesn't hold a candle to Joseph Smith in the confusion category.

[Amarok]

You can get a brief overview here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned...e#Examples

Regarding your question about why so fragile. Life is extremely complex in its requirements. It is not clear why we should expect the right combination of elements, heat, gravity, radiation, and self-contained planetary feedback loops to be a common occurrence.

Even if the allowable ranges of the values of constants that lead to a universe with structure (atoms, stars etc.) is very small, the fact that these constants need to have very specific values does not make it unlikely for them to have these values. You are ascribing a low probability to the universe having its specific constants without justification. It may be that certain values of constants are more likely than others. Or, what if the range of possible constants for all possible universes is quite small to begin with? It's not necessarily true that the constants can range from minus to plus infinity.

The fine-tuning argument fails on the basis that it cannot establish the purported low probability of the universe acquiring its constants. For all we know the probability could be 1.

And indeed he has not proven that it's necessary for those ranges to be as they are only that they currently are . Also he over looks the fact of why the loops should not be common in as supposed life specific universe.