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

[SteveII]

You mean there are other alternatives to consider? What? 

If you are going to say the Multiverse, then you have just pushed back the problem. If order for any multiverse to spawn billions upon billions of universes--each unique in its physical laws and constants, doesn't it too have to be fine-tuned to do so?

According to your argument God would have to be finely tuned as well, and to reject this is committing the fallacy of special pleading. God is just another candidate hypothesis to the solution of the fine tuning problem (if it even exists), and this hypothesis doesn't magically get a free pass.

I'll grant God is finely tuned to create universes. You are making a category error. You want to believe there is a naturalistic explanation against all odds. I believe there is a personal (intentional design) explanation. If you stick with the naturalistic, and propose a multiverse, you are only doing so to explain away the odds but really you have just moved the same problem back one step.  BTW, you have also crossed from science and entered the realm of metaphysics--because there is nothing scientific about a multiverse.

[Jackie]

For theists, the existence of a Necessary Being is strongly suggested by the apparent contingent features on which the the universe seems to depend. The skeptical objection to our stance, appealing to chance, is quite odd and is really just a way for them to have their cake and eat it too. That approach allows the skeptic to acknowledge the contingency of the physical world while tacitly relying on "laws of chance" that must transcend the universe in order to constrain its possibilities. This is just another way to bring a Necessary Being in by the backdoor while expressly denying there is one. The other skeptical objection is to consider the features of the physical universe brute facts, a simple assertion that some facts about the world are not subject to the principle of sufficient reason.

See if you can spot the pattern.

"The universe is dependent on Allah"
"The universe is dependent on Yahweh"
"The universe is dependent on the Hindu creator God Brahama"
"Lightening is dependent on Thor to be created"
"Hurricanes are dependent on the Ocean God Poseidon to be created".


You assume cosmic factory boss is necessary to fill in the gap. 

How about you consider that your naked assertion is merely a reflection of your own human qualities? How about you consider that humans make up all god claims and all religions born out of ignorance? How about you consider that most humans adapt the god claims, superstitions and religions of the societies they are born into?

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.
...
 say that their gods are snub–nosed [σιμούς] and black
Thracians that they are pale and red-haired.[20]"

---

According to your argument God would have to be finely tuned as well, and to reject this is committing the fallacy of special pleading. God is just another candidate hypothesis to the solution of the fine tuning problem (if it even exists), and this hypothesis doesn't magically get a free pass.

I'll grant God is finely tuned to create universes. You are making a category error. You want to believe there is a naturalistic explanation against all odds. I believe there is a personal (intentional design) explanation. If you stick with the naturalistic, and propose a multiverse, you are only doing so to explain away the odds but really you have just moved the same problem back one step.  BTW, you have also crossed from science and entered the realm of metaphysics--because there is nothing scientific about a multiverse.

Nope, you fail with that first sentence right off the bat. We are not going to assume a god first, that is not how good logic works.

Just like you would not assume a giant invisible pink unicorn farted the universe into existence. It would be stupid of you to simply swallow that. 

Fine tuned my ass. Humans can choke on their food because they share the same eating breathing tube, people die from choking all the time. Cockroaches are far better at reproduction than humans, outnumber humans and are far better suited to survive an extinction event like the meteor that killed the dinosaurs. 

You merely want your god claim to be true, but so what, there are other people worldwide with their fictional sky heros who try to fill in the gap too. Get in line take a number.

[masterofpuppets]

I'll grant God is finely tuned to create universes. You are making a category error. You want to believe there is a naturalistic explanation against all odds. I believe there is a personal (intentional design) explanation. If you stick with the naturalistic, and propose a multiverse, you are only doing so to explain away the odds but really you have just moved the same problem back one step.  BTW, you have also crossed from science and entered the realm of metaphysics--because there is nothing scientific about a multiverse.

Nope, you fail with that first sentence right off the bat. We are not going to assume a god first, that is not how good logic works.

Just like you would not assume a giant invisible pink unicorn farted the universe into existence. It would be stupid of you to simply swallow that. 

Fine tuned my ass. Humans can choke on their food because they share the same eating breathing tube, people die from choking all the time. Cockroaches are far better at reproduction than humans, outnumber humans and are far better suited to survive an extinction event like the meteor that killed the dinosaurs. 

You merely want your god claim to be true, but so what, there are other people worldwide with their fictional sky heros who try to fill in the gap too. Get in line take a number.

To add to that, I have at no point accepted the multiverse hypothesis as true. I simply don't believe in anything beyond the material universe at this point of time.

[Neo-Scholastic]

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.

[SteveII]

Nope, you fail with that first sentence right off the bat. We are not going to assume a god first, that is not how good logic works.

Just like you would not assume a giant invisible pink unicorn farted the universe into existence. It would be stupid of you to simply swallow that. 

Fine tuned my ass. Humans can choke on their food because they share the same eating breathing tube, people die from choking all the time. Cockroaches are far better at reproduction than humans, outnumber humans and are far better suited to survive an extinction event like the meteor that killed the dinosaurs. 

You merely want your god claim to be true, but so what, there are other people worldwide with their fictional sky heros who try to fill in the gap too. Get in line take a number.

To add to that, I have at no point accepted the multiverse hypothesis as true. I simply don't believe in anything beyond the material universe at this point of time.

That's fine, but a far cry from saying I am not justified in inferring a designer. You are simply avoiding the question, while I am asking the question and backing it up with science and math.

[downbeatplumb]

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.

[RoadRunner79]

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.

[Neo-Scholastic]

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.

There is a difference between know "that something is" and "what something is." The initial objections to Newton's theory of gravity were based on his not having a mechanism to explain how it worked. The materialists of the day believed that objects could only affect changes by bumping up against other objects. Action from a distance was ridiculed as magic. (Sound familiar?) Your objection is similar in that respect - you don't know how it could work within your materialist paradigm therefore, in your view, the phenomena does not exist.

[Jesster]

the evidence shows

I sure would like to see this evidence.

[Harry Nevis]

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.

I still don't see the evidence that the FTA refers to.