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

[Pat Mustard]

What evidence is there of fine tuning? All we have to go in fine tuning's existence is a presupposition made by certain people that the universe exists as it is is because humanity has to exist, an unjustifiable assertion.

This has been all gone over earlier in the thread. You are wrong about how we arrive at the conclusion: 

Yes, and it has also been conclusively proven that a) what you consider evidence for fine tuning is not evidence, and b) even if fine tuning were real there is no current way to lead from fine tuning to god (for example the multiverse hypothesis is a much more plausible way to explain fine tuning than the god hypothesis, at least the multiverse actually agrees with what we know of reality, your god hypothesis flat out contradicts it).

So again, what evidence is there of fine tuning?

[Brian37]

Well, who ever told you that was lying. For example here is Aquinas discussing the reality of paradise, the abode of Adam and Eve, in Summa Theologica. Responding to the words of his predecessor Saint Augustine, Aquinas shows how historical truth trumps metaphor:

Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. viii, 1): "Three general opinions prevail about paradise. Some understand a place merely corporeal; others a place entirely spiritual; while others, whose opinion, I confess, pleases me, hold that paradise was both corporeal and spiritual."
I answer that, As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiii, 21): "Nothing prevents us from holding, within proper limits, a spiritual paradise; so long as we believe in the truth of the events narrated as having there occurred." For whatever Scripture tells us about paradise is set down as matter of history; and wherever Scripture makes use of this method, we must hold to the historical truth of the narrative as a foundation of whatever spiritual explanation we may offer.

Aquinas believed not only in paradise, but also in the instantaneous creation of species and of Adam and Eve as humanity’s ancestors, as well as in a young Earth (less than six thousand years old) and the literal existence of Noah and his great flood. Further, Aquinas was obsessed with angels. Not only did he see them as real but devoted a large section of the Summa Theologica ("Treatise on the Angels") to their existence, number, nature, how they move, what they know, and what they want.

Or what about Saint Augustine of Hippo, who commented extensively on Genesis, was quite explicit that the text, though it had a spiritual message, was based on historical events:

The narrative indeed in these books is not cast in the figurative kind of language you find in the Song of Songs, but quite simply tells of things that happened, as in the books of the Kingdoms and others like them. But there are things being said with which ordinary human life has made us quite familiar, and so it is not difficult, indeed, it is the obvious thing to do, to take them first in the literal sense, and then chisel out from them what future realities the actual events described may figuratively stand for.

Augustine was also a literalist about many things later refuted by science: a young Earth, instantaneous creation, the historical reality of Adam and Eve, paradise, and Noah and his Ark.

Not to mention that still 4 in 10 Americans Believe God Created Earth 10,000 Years Ago I mean where did they get that idea when according to you Christians sobered up from that stupidity long time ago?

Or what about Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Humani Generis:

When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism [our descent from ancestors beyond Adam and Eve], the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.

You're confusing a literal Adam with a 6-day creation--they are not the same thing and can be considered separately. I believe there was a literal Adam at some point in the past. I don't know how that worked, I was not there and I was not told.

Nope sorry, you are back peddling. Back when that story was written, they literally believed that story word for word. You back peddle now because science has blown the bullshit claim "men magically pop out of dirt" out of the water. How is it you can look at the other myths of antiquity and rightfully reject those, but ignore that the story of Adam is just as much a myth as any other "first people" motifs in religion. The concept of "first people" was not a motif invented by either Christians or Jews. Much older polytheism prior had it's own bad claims of how humans first magically appeared. 

Humans in both monotheism and prior polytheism simply made horrible guesses as to the nature of reality, humans back then of all religions were very superstitious and bought "poof abracadabra " gap answers because they didn't know better. Genesis is full of scientifically absurd claims, they didn't even know the sun and moon were not separate sources of light.

Neither Christians or Hebrews were the first to make bad guesses as to how our planet or species or universe began. Humans were making horrible guesses long before both.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_myth

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I disagree.  Fine tuning is an interpretation of the data.  It can't be evidence for itself.

No, fine tuning is not an interpretation. It is a fact, that the initial constants had to be in a mind-boggling narrow band of values for the universe to hold together, elements to form, galaxies to form, etc. See here for a another basic list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned...e#Examples

If you think this is just a fringe opinion, here is the bio of the guy who created the list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Rees

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What evidence is there of fine tuning? All we have to go in fine tuning's existence is a presupposition made by certain people that the universe exists as it is is because humanity has to exist, an unjustifiable assertion.

This has been all gone over earlier in the thread. You are wrong about how we arrive at the conclusion: 

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. The fine-tuning of the universe is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is due to design.

It was NOT designed, but if you insist on plopping your perfect sky hero in as a gap answer, then I cannot buy that it would be a good or even close to perfect design. Black holes, super novas, meteors, comets, all are nasty and destructive. Your argument sucks. 

If you want to argue a perfect sky parent, it would be like saying it would be ok as a parent to leave your kid in a house full of razor blades, broken glass all over the floor and cockroaches. So if you really insist on that knowing kids die of cancer, and famine, and 50 to 60 million humans of all ages, die every year on average worldwide, the only conclusion i can come to if you want to stupidly claim this is by design, then you have the sucky mentality of the Takata air bag designers.

[Mister Agenda]

If you think there is not 100% established mind-boggling low probability, then you do not understand the issues. Physicists and cosmologists agree that the universe is finely tuned. Martin Rees, who wrote the list above (from the wikipedia article), has impeccable credentials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Rees

In fact it is so well established that the multiverse theory was dreamed up to account for it!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R97IHcuyWI0

Sean Carroll seems to disagree completely. However, for the sake of argument, let's grant that the universe is indeed finely tuned. Even if this is the case, we're not one step closer to demonstrating that any deity exists. All we've done is show that the universe was fine-tuned by something. That something could be a million different things. What makes you think a god is a more likely fine-tuner?

If the possible universes that God could create are infinite, what are the odds that we would get a God that would choose to create this exact one out of all those possibilities?

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How about you consider that your naked assertion is merely a reflection of your own human qualities?...

Xenophanes "But if cattle and horses and lions had hands
or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do,
horses like horses and cattle like cattle
also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies
of such a sort as the form they themselves have.

You better stop before you beclown yourself any more, Brian. You're so ignorant that you apparently don't even know that Xenophanes was a monotheist and the above quote is a critique of ancient Greek polytheism. Idiot.

Asshat. The monotheism of Xenophanes is irrelevant to the point of the quote.

[Brian37]

If you insist on assuming a god so what, if this mostly hostile universe is the best he can do, he sucks at his job. I wouldn't hire such a selective deadbeat to run a real factory. I would have dead customers, dead employees and get sued and go out of business and get put in prison.

[SteveII]

In order for my conclusion to be irrational, you would need to provide alternative reasons for landing the winning ticket despite the odds having enough zeros as the molecules in the universe (or half that, of halve that again--I don't care--it does not matter).

......lol, no, I wouldn't.  I don't have to do anything in order for some nonsense you believe in to be irrational.  You're handling that all by yourself.

If you say, "I don't know" then my reasoning that it was fixed is better than that. At least I have math providing good evidence that it was.

You didn't do any reasoning, or math....?  You believed, and so sought out what you thought was a rational argument.  It wasn't, and not only that it's truth was unacceptable to you.  So here you are, pages later, still bullshitting us.

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either design, chance, or physical necessity.
2. The fine-tuning of the universe is not due to design or chance.
3. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is due to physical necessity.

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either design, physical necessity, or chance.
2. The fine-tuning of the universe is not due to design or physical necessity.
3. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is due to chance.

Are these, in your estimation, rational arguments against your god?

No, they are not good arguments because the universe is not the way it is by necessity or chance. I have mentioned both and I have yet to hear back a reason why either is more probable than design.  If you think it is, make the case.

[Mister Agenda]

How is this god person supposed to set the physics?
what process did it use,?did it punch them into its celestial computer or are the theists just assuming that if no one knows, god did it is the default?

god is not the answer to how god is not the answer to anything as far as I can tell.

This isn't a God of the gaps type of argument.  (I'm starting to think that many don't understand, and do not address what is being said).

What the fine tuning argument is saying; is that the evidence shows that something capable of choice and direction is responsible for what is being seen.  It also makes the notion that there is no purpose or intention behind what we see as difficult.


"just assuming that if no one knows, god did it is the default" is a strawman, whether from ignorance, or it is intentional.

The fine tuning argument is built entirely on 'ifs'.

[SteveII]

This has been all gone over earlier in the thread. You are wrong about how we arrive at the conclusion: 

Yes, and it has also been conclusively proven that a) what you consider evidence for fine tuning is not evidence, and b) even if fine tuning were real there is no current way to lead from fine tuning to god (for example the multiverse hypothesis is a much more plausible way to explain fine tuning than the god hypothesis, at least the multiverse actually agrees with what we know of reality, your god hypothesis flat out contradicts it).

So again, what evidence is there of fine tuning?

You continue to misunderstand the term "finely-tuned". It is a simple summary of the facts that the initial constants are mind-boggling precise to allow for our universe and for life. It is not a statement of intention. It does not itself imply a designer. It is simply a handy summary of the facts.

[Brian37]

This isn't a God of the gaps type of argument.  (I'm starting to think that many don't understand, and do not address what is being said).

What the fine tuning argument is saying; is that the evidence shows that something capable of choice and direction is responsible for what is being seen.  It also makes the notion that there is no purpose or intention behind what we see as difficult.


"just assuming that if no one knows, god did it is the default" is a strawman, whether from ignorance, or it is intentional.

The fine tuning argument is built entirely on 'ifs'.

  
BINGO and a shitload of "ifs"..... If only Angelina Jolie would give me a blowjob life would be awesome.

[Mister Agenda]

I disagree.  Fine tuning is an interpretation of the data.  It can't be evidence for itself.

No, fine tuning is not an interpretation. It is a fact, that the initial constants had to be in a mind-boggling narrow band of values for the universe to hold together, elements to form, galaxies to form, etc. See here for a another basic list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned...e#Examples

If you think this is just a fringe opinion, here is the bio of the guy who created the list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Rees

---

What evidence is there of fine tuning? All we have to go in fine tuning's existence is a presupposition made by certain people that the universe exists as it is is because humanity has to exist, an unjustifiable assertion.

This has been all gone over earlier in the thread. You are wrong about how we arrive at the conclusion: 

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. The fine-tuning of the universe is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is due to design.

What is not a fact is that the universal constants could have been different. You have only arbitrarily asserted physical necessity is not the reason for the fine-tuning of the universe, not ruled it out by any rational process. I'm sure there's a Nobel waiting for the person who can do that.

Not to mention that there's no mechanism for universe generation that would not just keep spewing them out, so there's no way to rule out chance from near infinite opportunities, either.

2. fails spectacularly.

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No, they are not good arguments because the universe is not the way it is by necessity or chance. I have mentioned both and I have yet to hear back a reason why either is more probable than design.  If you think it is, make the case.

For the love of reason, you can't be this dense. You haven't given a reason why design is more probable than necessity or chance. Without that, it's 2 to one against.

[Brian37]

No, fine tuning is not an interpretation. It is a fact, that the initial constants had to be in a mind-boggling narrow band of values for the universe to hold together, elements to form, galaxies to form, etc. See here for a another basic list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned...e#Examples

If you think this is just a fringe opinion, here is the bio of the guy who created the list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Rees

---

This has been all gone over earlier in the thread. You are wrong about how we arrive at the conclusion: 

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. The fine-tuning of the universe is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is due to design.

What is not a fact is that the universal constants could have been different. You have only arbitrarily asserted physical necessity is not the reason for the fine-tuning of the universe, not ruled it out by any rational process. I'm sure there's a Nobel waiting for the person who can do that.

Not to mention that there's no mechanism for universe generation that would not just keep spewing them out, so there's no way to rule out chance from near infinite opportunities, either.

2. fails spectacularly.

---

No, they are not good arguments because the universe is not the way it is by necessity or chance. I have mentioned both and I have yet to hear back a reason why either is more probable than design.  If you think it is, make the case.

For the love of reason, you can't be this dense. You haven't given a reason why design is more probable than necessity or chance. Without that, it's 2 to one against.

Eddy Murphy, "Norton, I know that you know that I know that you know"

Norton, "Get to the point Ralphy boy"

Ralph "Norton, how would you like your logic ......up the......"

Norton, "Humna humna humna...... way to go Ralpy boy".

I cant't take them seriously. A book full of myth full of scientific absurdities and in reality a nasty universe that if a parent treated their kid the way their God Character does, would be arrested for child abuse. They are stuck in an echo chamber not trying to convince us, but themselves.