The universe is just one enormous 'Soul Filtering machine'

[KevinM1]

Oh shit, fine-tuning. An argument from both ignorance and arrogance.

"I, as a puddle, fit perfectly in this hole... it must have been made specifically for me!"

[Crossless2.0]

Every thread is like fucking Groundhog Day.

[Angrboda]

Why is that?  We've been given no real reason to accept the bible as fact, so we're not rejecting anything.  And if the acceptance and rejection are both infinite, what does that say about your god?

I posted this before:

People come to the place where they are willing to believe in God/supernatural for all kinds of reasons. Most are wired with something. Some are raised that way, some have events happen in their life (bad and good things), some encounter people who's testimony is compelling, and some read and find the person/message of Christ compelling (or a combination of any of these or something else I haven't thought of).

Why is it not pure faith? Well there are good rational reasons to believe. As we have been discussing, the NT events certainly compelled the witnesses of those events to believe (miracles and such) and continue to be compelling to those that accept the evidence for them as true. Another category of rational reasons are the Natural Theology Arguments.

a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.
b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.
e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

I'm frequently confronted by theists who declare that God is the best explanation for some phenomena. I end up having to explain to them that while God is an explanation or hypothesis for that phenomena, by the standards we judge hypotheses / explanations, it is not a particularly good one. The Goddidit explanation has great scope, meaning the number of facts it can accommodate is broad -- he's omnipotent so that makes sense -- but it doesn't fare as well on other traits which we look for in a good explanation or hypothesis. The following is a list of them, for comparison purposes. (i.e. I finally found a good list of them.)

Philosophers of science have proposed a number of comparative approaches [to evaluating hypotheses], usually involving some combination of the following criteria:

Likelihood. The probability of the evidence occurring given the hypothesis in question.
Prior probability or plausibility. Our degree of belief in the hypothesis prior to observing the evidence, or assuming we had not observed it.
Predictive power. The degree to which the hypothesis determines which potential observations are possible (or probable) and which are impossible (or improbable).
Falsifiability. The degree to which the hypothesis "risks" being falsified by new evidence.
Parsimony. The degree to which the hypothesis observes the principle of Occam's razor: "Do not multiply entities needlessly."11

Other criteria often cited include explanatory power, track record, scope, coherence and elegance.

http://www.talkorigins.org/design/faqs/nfl/

What you assert as being the "best" explanation has few of the hallmarks that make even a good explanation. In terms of the quality of these explanations, they are basically on a par with the explanations of "it just happened" or "it just is." There are no properties of your god which are constrained by anything but the human imagination. In order for any of your natural theology arguments to be remotely compelling, you'd need to show that your hypothetical god exists anywhere but in the imagination of its proponents. This you cannot do, which is why you resort to characterizing your imaginary but poor solutions to these questions as "the best explanation." It's nothing but spin. Mere propaganda. Your explanations suck as explanations and there is no rationally compelling reason to accept them, any more than it makes rational sense to accept, "it just happened" as an explanation..

[Angrboda]

So, your 'god' is able to design a dimension, where free will exists, and humans have free will, yet are unable to do evil. Why didn't he just create the dimension we currently inhabit, with humans having free will, yet are unable to do evil?

But you can't get to the "heaven" dimension without first having experienced this dimension. As you pointed out, a filter has already been applied. The flaw in your logic is using a generic human when clearly the dimension of "heaven" is filled with specific humans having specific experiences that led to them being there.

You seem poorly read on the concept of free will. Libertarian free will implies that a person can choose to do any alternative available to it, regardless of past events. Your objection that the persons in heaven share a certain past is irrelevant. Your objection is moot.

[ignoramus]

Every thread is like fucking Groundhog Day.

Except that these ones can now type!

[SteveII]

But you can't get to the "heaven" dimension without first having experienced this dimension. As you pointed out, a filter has already been applied. The flaw in your logic is using a generic human when clearly the dimension of "heaven" is filled with specific humans having specific experiences that led to them being there.

You seem poorly read on the concept of free will.  Libertarian free will implies that a person can choose to do any alternative available to it, regardless of past events.  Your objection that the persons in heaven share a certain past is irrelevant.  Your objection is moot.

You missed the point of the answer. Simon asked (at least I understood his question to be) if there are people in heaven who do not sin while there, then why couldn't God have created a world with those people. My answer was "those people" are the way they are because of the way the world was, their experiences there, and the conditions they now find themselves in.

---

I posted this before:

People come to the place where they are willing to believe in God/supernatural for all kinds of reasons. Most are wired with something. Some are raised that way, some have events happen in their life (bad and good things), some encounter people who's testimony is compelling, and some read and find the person/message of Christ compelling (or a combination of any of these or something else I haven't thought of).

Why is it not pure faith? Well there are good rational reasons to believe. As we have been discussing, the NT events certainly compelled the witnesses of those events to believe (miracles and such) and continue to be compelling to those that accept the evidence for them as true. Another category of rational reasons are the Natural Theology Arguments.

a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.
b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.
e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

I'm frequently confronted by theists who declare that God is the best explanation for some phenomena.  I end up having to explain to them that while God is an explanation or hypothesis for that phenomena, by the standards we judge hypotheses / explanations, it is not a particularly good one.  The Goddidit explanation has great scope, meaning the number of facts it can accommodate is broad -- he's omnipotent so that makes sense -- but it doesn't fare as well on other traits which we look for in a good explanation or hypothesis.  The following is a list of them, for comparison purposes.  (i.e.  I finally found a good list of them.)

What you assert as being the "best" explanation has few of the hallmarks that make even a good explanation.  In terms of the quality of these explanations, they are basically on a par with the explanations of "it just happened" or "it just is."  There are no properties of your god which are constrained by anything but the human imagination.  In order for any of your natural theology arguments to be remotely compelling, you'd need to show that your hypothetical god exists anywhere but in the imagination of its proponents.  This you cannot do, which is why you resort to characterizing your imaginary but poor solutions to these questions as "the best explanation."  It's nothing but spin.  Mere propaganda.  Your explanations suck as explanations and there is no rationally compelling reason to accept them, any more than it makes rational sense to accept, "it just happened" as an explanation..

But, "it just happened" or "it just is" are not possible answers. There are no successful defeaters to the arguments. While they do not prove anything, they are rational options of explanations which Christians for millennium have used in a cumulative case for their belief. 

You state: "In order for any of your natural theology arguments to be remotely compelling, you'd need to show that your hypothetical god exists anywhere but in the imagination of its proponents. This you cannot do..." You completely ignored the first two paragraphs of my post. These factors, while not convincing to you, are clearly convincing to others. Problem solved: Natural Theology arguments support the cumulative case.

[The Grand Nudger]

A huge pile of shit is still shit, regardless how many people think it smells like roses, Steve.

[Harry Nevis]

You state: "In order for any of your natural theology arguments to be remotely compelling, you'd need to show that your hypothetical god exists anywhere but in the imagination of its proponents. This you cannot do..." You completely ignored the first two paragraphs of my post. These factors, while not convincing to you, are clearly convincing to others. Problem solved: Natural Theology arguments support the cumulative case.

So, as long as somebody is convinced, it validates the argument?!

[SteveII]

You state: "In order for any of your natural theology arguments to be remotely compelling, you'd need to show that your hypothetical god exists anywhere but in the imagination of its proponents. This you cannot do..." You completely ignored the first two paragraphs of my post. These factors, while not convincing to you, are clearly convincing to others. Problem solved: Natural Theology arguments support the cumulative case.

So, as long as somebody is convinced, it validates the argument?!

The arguments are successful pieces of reasoning. Jorm's comment was that we need additional reasons because inferring God into existence is not compelling.

[The Grand Nudger]

You're commenting on their ability to compel a subset of the population...not their rational success.

A well told lie would be a "successful piece of reasoning" by the metrics you state above. Convenient. I'm guessing that a habitual liar convinced you of that.