God and theists.

[Mister Agenda]

1. There are no natural explanations.

Here's one: Quantum foam can't not exist and produces minuscule bubbles of space-time that occasionally experience runway expansion and become universes. Absolute nothingness is impossible and quantum foam has always (for any meaningful sense of 'always') existed.

That's the point, we are beyond that. I can, with logical arguments (which is the only option since we are on to metaphysics and not something that can be deduced from science), deduct what sort of properties an explanation of the physical world would have. The best you can say is the universe or the multiverse is a brute fact despite the logical problems that come with that.

Maybe you should take a class on the theoretical physics of cosmology before boldly declaring the origin of the universe is something science isn't qualified to speak on. Within the constraints of not violating what we know of physics and having math that works, there are multiple explanations for the origin of the universe.

 
2. Why would you insert the word 'philosophical' in front of 'nothingness'? Are there different definitions of nothing? Nothing is quite easy--it is not anything.

The closest science can get to 'not anything' is still full of quantum foam. Philosophical nothingness is what you're talking about: not the hardest vacuum possible, but literally not anything. No space, no time, no properties other than nothingness. This presents immediate problems. When would there have been absolute nothingness without time? How long can a state without time last? It's often referred to as a void, but you can't have a void without space. Not being able to stop being nothing is a property besides nothingness, so what is to stop nothing from becoming something? And in your own religion, if God was eternal, there never was absolute nothingness, and the question applies to God: why is there God instead of nothing? God can't be an answer to the question of why is there something instead of nothing because if God exists, God is the prime example of there being something instead of nothing. But you don't require an explanation for that question, do you? And it's the exact same question you say must have an explanation, Steve, only with the word 'God' in it.

3. The anthropic principle in no way changes anything. We can all readily admit that we should not be surprised that we are not observing features of the universe which are incompatible with our existence. But it does not follow from that that we shouldn't be surprised to observe features of the universe compatible with our own existence. 

That is precisely what follows from the Anthropic Principle. The only thing that should surprise you about the universe is if you find out it's not possible for us to exist in it. THAT would be evidence of omnipotent intervention.

Fine tuning is a fact because it is true that the physical constants must be in a narrow range for a variety of things ranging from the universe holding together, not collapse on itself or burn out too quickly all the way to forming the necessary heavy elements needed for more complex things (like life). Even if I granted you that the universe had to have these values because of some prior condition, that simply pushes the fine tuning back one level: why is the thing that produces only finely tuned universes finely tuned to do so? 

But it is not a fact that the universe having the properties it does is improbable. It's speculation. If anything, given a sample size of one, we should suspect that our universe is exactly what ought to be expected from universes, but that's probably a step too far as well. We just don't know. That's the problem with small sample sizes.

If there is something producing only fine-tuned universes, the most logical explanation is that universes like ours are the way they are by necessity. Since most the universe-production mechanisms proposed that I'm familiar with don't have a feature that would limit them to one universe, a mechanism that produced universes with completely random physical constants would eventually produce one like ours by chance, so I don't know where you're getting the idea that whatever spawns universes would have to be fine-tuned to produce a universe like ours.

All of these are thought experiments (which is just another way of describing attempts to answer metaphysical questions) and are the appropriate form in which to tackle these questions.

Theoretical physics has not gotten the memo that it isn't qualified to tackle the origins of our cosmos and has been blithely following the evidence.

 Like I have been saying for quite some time, this in only one component in a list of reasons that become a cumulative case for God.

A cumulative case is only as strong as it's weakest component.

[GrandizerII]

Sean Carroll is one scientist who does not believe the universe is necessarily fine-tuned for life.

[Zenith]

Sean Carroll is one scientist who does not believe the universe is necessarily fine-tuned for life.

I'm thinking... what if the universe had been so restrictive that it wouldn't have allowed for anything better than worms to exist? What would the worms have said about the universe, if they could speak? Clearly: "There must be a God who made everything, all just for us."

[downbeatplumb]

Evidence and reasons to believe in God:

1. Person of Jesus is compelling.

No he isn't.

2. The NT describes actual events including the miracles, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

No it doesn't.

3. God works in people's lives today--changing people on the inside as well as the occurrence of miracles.

No it doesn't.

4. The natural theology arguments:

Fail when they encounter facts.

a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.

God is probably the worst possible explanation for "why things exist at all".
It supposes that an intelligent agency that consists of nothing at all and in with no time to exist in managed through means not gone into create everything including space and time and hates the gays.

b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.

Nope.

c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.

Nope.

d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.

Nope.

e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

Nope.

[Harry Nevis]

Why would god make a universe that needed to be finetuned?

We are a part of the design.
If we didn't hold a fragment of creation; we'll never understand it. 

Still; the solar system is quite convenient to support life.

Was that supposed to make sense?

[SteveII]

Sean Carroll is one scientist who does not believe the universe is necessarily fine-tuned for life.

Some scientists that defend the reality of fine-tuning:

Barrow, Carr, Carter, Davies, Dawkins, Deutsch, Ellis, Greene, Guth, Harrison, Hawking, Linde, Page, Penrose, Polkinghorne, Rees, Sandage, Smolin, Susskind, Tegmark, Tipler, Vilenkin, Weinberg, Wheeler, and Wilczek.

[Mister Agenda]

Balls in your court now, Grandizer. Who will win 'who's got the most scientists agreeing with them?'?

[Succubus]

Sean Carroll is one scientist who does not believe the universe is necessarily fine-tuned for life.

Some scientists that defend the reality of fine-tuning:

Barrow, Carr, Carter, Davies, Dawkins, Deutsch, Ellis, Greene, Guth, Harrison, Hawking, Linde, Page, Penrose, Polkinghorne, Rees, Sandage, Smolin, Susskind, Tegmark, Tipler, Vilenkin, Weinberg, Wheeler, and Wilczek.

This is Gish Gallop writ large.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'm just disappointed in not having being born in a universe of craft beer volcanoes. I'm growing tired of this crapsack world.

[SteveII]

1a. There are no natural explanations.

Here's one: Quantum foam can't not exist and produces minuscule bubbles of space-time that occasionally experience runway expansion and become universes. Absolute nothingness is impossible and quantum foam has always (for any meaningful sense of 'always') existed.  

1b. That's the point, we are beyond that. I can, with logical arguments (which is the only option since we are on to metaphysics and not something that can be deduced from science), deduct what sort of properties an explanation of the physical world would have. The best you can say is the universe or the multiverse is a brute fact despite the logical problems that come with that.

Maybe you should take a class on the theoretical physics of cosmology before boldly declaring the origin of the universe is something science isn't qualified to speak on. Within the constraints of not violating what we know of physics and having math that works, there are multiple explanations for the origin of the universe.

 
2. Why would you insert the word 'philosophical' in front of 'nothingness'? Are there different definitions of nothing? Nothing is quite easy--it is not anything.

The closest science can get to 'not anything' is still full of quantum foam. Philosophical nothingness is what you're talking about: not the hardest vacuum possible, but literally not anything. No space, no time, no properties other than nothingness. This presents immediate problems. When would there have been absolute nothingness without time? How long can a state without time last? It's often referred to as a void, but you can't have a void without space. Not being able to stop being nothing is a property besides nothingness, so what is to stop nothing from becoming something? And in your own religion, if God was eternal, there never was absolute nothingness, and the question applies to God: why is there God instead of nothing? God can't be an answer to the question of why is there something instead of nothing because if God exists, God is the prime example of there being something instead of nothing. But you don't require an explanation for that question, do you? And it's the exact same question you say must have an explanation, Steve, only with the word 'God' in it.

3. The anthropic principle in no way changes anything. We can all readily admit that we should not be surprised that we are not observing features of the universe which are incompatible with our existence. But it does not follow from that that we shouldn't be surprised to observe features of the universe compatible with our own existence. 

That is precisely what follows from the Anthropic Principle. The only thing that should surprise you about the universe is if you find out it's not possible for us to exist in it. THAT would be evidence of omnipotent intervention.

Fine tuning is a fact because it is true that the physical constants must be in a narrow range for a variety of things ranging from the universe holding together, not collapse on itself or burn out too quickly all the way to forming the necessary heavy elements needed for more complex things (like life). Even if I granted you that the universe had to have these values because of some prior condition, that simply pushes the fine tuning back one level: why is the thing that produces only finely tuned universes finely tuned to do so? 

But it is not a fact that the universe having the properties it does is improbable. It's speculation. If anything, given a sample size of one, we should suspect that our universe is exactly what ought to be expected from universes, but that's probably a step too far as well. We just don't know. That's the problem with small sample sizes.

If there is something producing only fine-tuned  universes, the most logical explanation is that universes like ours are the way they are by necessity. Since most the universe-production mechanisms proposed that I'm familiar with don't have a feature that would limit them to one universe, a mechanism that produced universes with completely random physical constants would eventually produce one like ours by chance, so I don't know where you're getting the idea that whatever spawns universes would have to be fine-tuned to produce a universe like ours.

All of these are thought experiments (which is just another way of describing attempts to answer metaphysical questions) and are the appropriate form in which to tackle these questions.

Theoretical physics has not gotten the memo that it isn't qualified to tackle the origins of our cosmos and has been blithely following the evidence.

 Like I have been saying for quite some time, this in only one component in a list of reasons that become a cumulative case for God.

4. A cumulative case is only as strong as it's weakest component.

I appreciate the discussion. Thanks. 

1a/2. You said "Absolute nothingness is impossible and quantum foam has always (for any meaningful sense of 'always') existed." Neither of these are true. 

'Nothing' is not a void. 'Void' is in relation to something else.  There are no logical problems with this concept and despite Krauss and other's attempt to redefine it, nothing is just simply not anything. Attempting to claim there is no such thing is an obvious attempt to avoid the implications. 

Quantum foam is something physical and as such cannot be past eternal because that is a logical absurdity. There cannot be an infinite number of successive events stretching off into the past because we would have never arrived at the present. From the other side of this absurd coin, the quantum foam woudl have generated our universe already--an infinite time ago. 

I never said there was nothing before the universe (or multiverse). There was God. What I said was the universe (or multiverse) --both physical were created from nothing. All of the best models of the universe can't avoid a beginning. All of our reason and experience points to anything physical had to have a beginning. Anything that has a beginning has an explanation.

God, by necessity (in the sense if God exists it could not be any other way) did not have a beginning. There is nothing necessary about anything physical--it is all contingent. 

1b. Science cannot help us with anything before space-time. If a theoretical physicist hypothesizes what may have been, it is metaphysics. This is just mater of definitions. 

3. I don't think that is true. The Anthropic Principle is just the conclusion that observations of the universe must be compatible with the observer observing it. It does not follow that the existence of the observer is unremarkable. 

Say you have been sentenced to be shot for treason. There are 100 marksmen with loaded guns aimed at your heart. The signal is given and they all fire. Now while it is true that the you should not be surprised that you do not observe you are dead, it is equally true that you should be surprised that you do observe you are alive. 

4. The fact is that most cosmologists (Christian or not) think the universe shows remarkable fine-tuning. 

5. That's simply not true.