The existence of God

[arewethereyet]

I'm a Christian looking to have a friendly conversation about the existence of God. I'd like to start with one of the Teleology arguments—that God exists based on how fine-tuned the universe is for life. For instance, physical constants, like the gravitational constant and constants of the strong nuclear force, must be within a narrow range to allow for things like atom formation, hydrogen bonding, galaxy formation, etc. This looks like design. The alternative is chance, which doesn't seem adequate. In other words, naturalism cannot account for the fine-tuning of the universe, while design can easily account for it. This is not a trivial problem, or one that can be ridiculed away, since many respected scientists have pointed out how remarkably (and inexplicably) fine-tuned the universe appears. Thanks for your polite responses.

 bold mine 

It's curious to me that you use the word 'appears'.  It seems to me that if you really believed in this you would use the word 'is' instead.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I'm a Christian looking to have a friendly conversation about the existence of God. I'd like to start with one of the Teleology arguments—that God exists based on how fine-tuned the universe is for life. For instance, physical constants, like the gravitational constant and constants of the strong nuclear force, must be within a narrow range to allow for things like atom formation, hydrogen bonding, galaxy formation, etc. This looks like design. The alternative is chance, which doesn't seem adequate. In other words, naturalism cannot account for the fine-tuning of the universe, while design can easily account for it. This is not a trivial problem, or one that can be ridiculed away, since many respected scientists have pointed out how remarkably (and inexplicably) fine-tuned the universe appears. Thanks for your polite responses.

Everyone believes in God's existence so it's futile to cozy up and tried to convince them of something they all ready know. What happened to them is this*
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*Romans 1:21    Because, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Replace the phrase ‘God’s existence’ with something else to see how monumentally stupid that statement is.

‘Everyone believes in pixies…’

‘Everyone believes in Bigfoot…’

‘Everyone believes in alien abductions…’

‘Everyone believes in astrology…’


And so on.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Everyone’s done such a wonderful job with this fine tuning silliness I have nothing to add about it, but the framing is interesting. Fine tuning or chance.

Let’s say there’s a flash flood. Does god finely tune every bend in the washout, is that chance, or is it neither?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Everyone’s done such a wonderful job with this fine tuning silliness I have nothing to add about it, but the framing is interesting.  Fine tuning or chance.  

Let’s say there’s a flash flood.  Does god finely tune every bend in the washout, is that chance, or is it neither?

And are the kiddies killed in the flash flood an act of Divine planning or mere happenstance?

To what extent DOES the Creator fine tune things? Did she just set the whole thing spinning and then just sit back and watch, or does she tune me to prefer link sausage over patties? 

Boru

[Peebothuhlu]

Not at work.

[Jehanne]

Maths models = academic numerology

Is that a bad thing? As long as the models are testable and make falsifiable empirical predictions, they're scientific.

[Jehanne]

Everyone’s done such a wonderful job with this fine tuning silliness I have nothing to add about it, but the framing is interesting. Fine tuning or chance.

Let’s say there’s a flash flood. Does god finely tune every bend in the washout, is that chance, or is it neither?

As I posted before, nuclear bombs do not explode with 100% efficiency (in fact, only around 15% of the rest mass energy is converted into "work" with the remaining U235 surviving the explosion intact); the yield of identical bombs are not exact, sometimes the yield will be somewhat higher, for other bombs, somewhat lower.

Did God, from Eternity past, ordain the various yields of atomic blasts?

[The Grand Nudger]

Well that’s what the form of the argument asks us to entertain. It’s either that or chance (in the argument) and since it’s not chance- it’s that other thing. There’s a more elegant way to posit that, compared to fine tuning, at least. That god manifests itself continuously throughout all of existence. We may not believe that, but it isn’t saddled with a false dilemma where one half of the posited conclusions are significantly misinformed and the other rejected for no explicit reason.

[Neo-Scholastic]

..the problem of why this particular universe exists and not some other remains nevertheless.

It doesn't because you would have to demonstrate that some other universe could exist with other properties which you didn't.

You are arguing against yourself. Thank you for making my point.

[Jehanne]

Thanks for your reply. Fair enough that it doesn't connect to the Christian God. I just wanted to establish that fine tuning points to a designer of some sort. Your argument is that fine tuning is an illusion? There is a real case to be made that there is fine tuning though. If the physical parameters were different we may not even have atoms, let alone life. Why is the universe like that?

Fine tuning would point to a designer if it could be established that fine tuning exists. It can’t be, so it doesn’t.

Acting surprised at the existence of life in a universe that has the conditions for life is rather like walking into a clothing shop and being stunned at all the coats and trousers.

Boru

If our Universe were designed by God, then God did not need to "fine tune" anything.  He could have arranged things so that we could survive, say, on the surface of the Sun.

The whole idea of the Universe being "fine tuned" is that some grand designer does not exist.