The fine-tuning argument for God's existence

[El_Machinae]

"Nature", "laws of the universe", etc. But who or what enacted those laws?

Well, I cannot see a way around it. Each law is actually the outcome of a more meta-law that includes the possibility of the sub-laws. Eventually you get to the brain-squishing "uncaused cause", but ehn.

I don't think there's any need for the UnCaused Cause to be sentient or knowable.

We were talking about Evolution upthread. Evolution is either a local quirk, that is a runaway (temporary) order-out-of-chaos event, a million monkeys at a million typewriter thing OR is a way for the Universe to increase total entropy more efficiently. The maths need to be hammered out on that second idea for awhile still, but I'd not doubt it too aggressively

 

[Flying Pig]

"Nature", "laws of the universe", etc. But who or what enacted those laws?

I think this is a good example of one of the many linguistic traps in philosophy - replace 'laws' with 'tendencies' or 'reliable coincidences' and you wouldn't ask who put them in place. It's just that we use the same word as we use for a human institution which necessarily has a founder. You may as well ask who 'wrote' the law of diminishing returns or who invented gravity.

 

[warpus]

Well, I cannot see a way around it. Each law is actually the outcome of a more meta-law that includes the possibility of the sub-laws. Eventually you get to the brain-squishing "uncaused cause", but ehn.

Well, there is a scientific explanation for where the laws came from. I think inflation theory explains it (to some degree), but I could have that wrong - maybe it's another theory. I remember reading a bunch of stuff about how there used to only be 1 force - then it split into several, and so on. And the forces seem to drive the laws.

 

[Borachio]

The British invented gravity. I know that much. Some bloke called Newton, I think. Before that we just floated about. Which is probably why the airplane wasn't invented till the C20th: there was no call for it.

 

[Perfection]

There is absolutely no physical need for Coulomb's inverse-square law, a law of physics describing the electrostatic interaction between electrically charged particles to be analogous to Isaac Newton's inverse-square law of universal gravitation, for example.

Actually there is. They're both inverse square laws are because the surface area of a sphere is proportional to the square of it's radius.

I think looking for deep mathematical symmetries are the key to the universe's secrets not trying to discern the intentions of some capricious creator.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I have asked this a couple times and no one advocating Fine Tuning as proof of a Creator has been able to answer it... What is the ultimate point of proving intelligent design? Is it to justify religion? Anything else?

I mean assuming that I accept the premise that Fine-Tuning proves that there was an intelligent designer. What impact does that have on anything that is different from the Universe being uncaused?

Or am I supposed to draw some additional inferences from the existence of a Creator? Like the creator "wants" something or "expects" something from me? Please help me understand the point the Fine tuning argument.

 

[Borachio]

<nvm>

 

[Arakhor]

Since the sort of people who make this argument are devoutly religious, I assume that they implicitly equate an intelligent designer with the God of their particular faith.

 

[Borachio]

I'm not sure they are devoutly religious, tbh.

I think the devoutly religious don't care one way or another about how we come to be here. Nor care to try and persuade others.

 

[Tigranes]

I have asked this a couple times and no one advocating Fine Tuning as proof of a Creator has been able to answer it... What is the ultimate point of proving intelligent design? Is it to justify religion? Anything else?

This was answered again and again. Any position you hold without knowing -- you are believing in it. Positivism in the broad sense is a religion, atheism is a religion, nihilism is a religion, moral relativism is a religion. The prevailing attitude of Skins era atheism -- "Just copulate it". Life is absurd, science proved religion wrong, there is no objective right or wrong, my life belongs to me, so I do what I want with it, who are you to tell me anything -- you know the words of this song. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

But it fact science does not prove true religion wrong. It only provides "good indication" of it's own limits and teaches you there is always something more than you can see. Very few people who idolizes science repeat after Einstein: "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."

Sceptics, for example, worship evolution, as if it is something so distant from the character of God that it surely proves believers to be a bunch of ridiculous obscurants.
And yet without evolution I would have very hard time talking to El_Machinae, for example, who didn't have real relationship with God, but used Problem of Evil, in particular, as his mantra to pull the plug on Christianity .

To which I can say -- there was no evil in the beginning, just the free will of angels and, later, people, free will was good, just as much as you are better than a robot, roughly 1/3 of the angels with the chief archangel abused their free will, helped people to abuse their free will (as we are doing it every day), and introduced the evil, while God is in the process of destroying this evil, through His evolution of salvation. There will be no evil at the end, we are all just caught in the middle of the evolutionary process. One cell life form evolved into intelligent human according to the design, fallen humanity will evolve into saints through love and faith in Jesus Christ by the power of His blood, according to the design. Evolution is the way God works with this material world. Lamb was slain from the beginning of the world. Just like you know your child will face evil, but you start new life anyway -- God brings you into this life, and shows that He cares. Universe is fine tuned just for you, Earth has magnetic field just for you, amount of oxygen is just right, hopefully someone is there to change your diapers and there is also the Revelation: His word teaching you how to make sense of everything you see around. Fine tuning is just a signature move of the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God, demonstrating the elegance of His Universe contradicting that world sucks, so just copulate it. We suck, not the world, and just like 12 steps of AA, we need to make the first step by our own free will -- recognize that we are all sinners in the dire need of the Holy God.

 

[Perfection]

I don't think many atheists are best characterized as know-it-alls unwilling to say they don't know. I don't pretend to have the answers to the exact way the universe came into being. It just seems to me that the theistic explanation is unsatisfactory and uncompelling. It is routed in tradition and ritual not rational inquiry. That's not to say religious ideas aren't often beautiful or brilliant that religious people aren't intelligent. I just think it's incorrect.

When one pushes God as the answer to be an atheist I only need to think that answer is wrong I don't need to pretend to know the Truth.

 

[Perfection]

One question I have for you Tigranes is if God fine-tuned the universe why are there natural disasters? I've heard you state free will but if I understand Christian theology that occurred after the fall of man. Why does it seem that Earth was just as brutal (with earthquakes, volcanoes, meteor impacts etc.) before the rise of man as after the fall?

 

[Tigranes]

One question I have for you Tigranes is if God fine-tuned the universe why are there natural disasters? I've heard you state free will but if I understand Christian theology that occurred after the fall of man. Why does it seem that Earth was just as brutal (with earthquakes, volcanoes, meteor impacts etc.) before the rise of man as after the fall?

Very good question. Isaiah 24:6

The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left.

Surely you understand, that what we call natural disasters on Earth called planet formation on Venus, or star formation in Orion. Disaster is disaster when it causes pain to life. If not for the moderation of God -- we would end up in conditions like Mars and Venus, without possibility to have intelligent talks like these.

 

[Perfection]

It strikes me as awfully odd that God must resort to inflicting such savage disasters on his creations. Did the dinosaurs sin too?

There is clear evidence of apocalyptic brutality unleashed on God's creatures before the dawn of man. I don't think you can sugar coat it away.

 

[Sommerswerd]

This was answered again and again.

Thanks, that is very clear. This is my interpretation of your response. The point of the Fine-Tuning Argument is:

1. People have incorrectly interpreted scientific discovery to mean that there is no morality or purpose to life. The reality is that scientific discovery has actually proven that there is a God who put all of the scientific processes in place.

2. God's creation is perfectly, finely-tuned for his beloved human creation. It is the beings that God has created, Humans and Angels, who have through their free will, made imperfect decisions and thereby corrupted God's perfect design. If humans lived in accordance with God's perfect will, we would be in accordance with God's perfect design, and the universe would function perfectly, exactly as God has designed it to.

3. Therefore, everyone must pick a religion. A religion in favor of a God or a religion against God. There is no such thing as non-faith. Everyone believes in something. It is a matter of choosing the correct belief rather than choosing what can be so-called "proven."

4. The correct religion is Christianity, which is the belief in God and his only begotten son Jesus Christ who was sent by God to give his blood for all man's sins as described in the Bible book of John chapter 3 verse 16.

Now, have I correctly stated your position? Have I left anything out?

 

[Tigranes]

It just seems to me that the theistic explanation is unsatisfactory and uncompelling. It is routed in tradition and ritual not rational inquiry.

Rational inquiry has it's limitations and it's very well defined domain. Relativity applies to physics, not ethics. &#8212; Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist (1879-1955). Senses report to reason, reason uses senses to draw rational conclusions. Senses and reason report to the heart, heart uses senses and reason to draw moral conclusions. Such is the nature of things. Religion of the Suffering God -- is the only thing that make sense in this world which is both seemingly infinitely crazy and infinitely intelligent.

Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life." This is where every single Christian stands. Just like any mortal man -- I am preoccupied with my limitations. My limited senses, my limited mind, my limited morality, my limited life. Everything you do -- you try to be better at it. Limited demands less limited, even less, less, less, less, and, taking this to the limit, -- Unlimited.

To whom shall I go? Aleister Crowley? Perfection? Plotinus? Karl Marx? Laozi? Mohamed? Mother Theresa? They did not even claim to be Unlimited.

To whom shall I go then? Vissarion? Zeus? Huitzilopochtli? Allah? Or the One Who is declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead? You say rational inquiry -- we say the spirit of holiness. Anything in the realm of material world has to pass the test of rational inquiry. Anything in the realm of spiritual world has to pass the test of moral inquiry, has to demonstrate the spirit of holiness. I know no other laws of perfection but kindness - brought you by Ludwig van Beethoven personally for the Mr. Perfection

 

[Arakhor]

Sceptics, for example, worship evolution, as if it is something so distant from the character of God that it surely proves believers to be a bunch of ridiculous obscurants.

Do you actually believe this? If so, that's very similar reasoning to those people who insist that since evolution disagrees with YECism, clearly those who disagree have been corrupted by an evil and base religion and should be cast out of the sight of God forever.

 

[Perfection]

You may want a lawgiver to provide moral authority, but I don't think there is one. You are right that knowledge of morality does come partly from within but that's not God, merely a manifestation of our instincts given by evolution and thoughts influenced by culture and experience. It all interplays and feeds back on itself to generate our sense of ethics.

Personally I find it quite difficult to know what the right thing to do is, but I think that's the nature of the human condition. To pretend you have an answer or the way to it is to act with overconfidence.

 

[Tigranes]

Do you actually believe this? If so, that's very similar reasoning to those people who insist that since evolution disagrees with YECism, clearly those who disagree have been corrupted by an evil and base religion and should be cast out of the sight of God forever.

I have a trouble following your argument. Base religion is false religion, is that what you tried to say?

Now... Do I believe in what? That evolution was used as "fact" that "proves" there is no God? Yes. This is in effect what every Western kid learns in school: "The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments. ~ National Association of Biology Teachers


Or consider this quotes from two different textbooks:

From Joseph S. Levine and Kenneth R. Miller, Biology: Discovering Life (D.C. Heath and Co., 1st ed. 1992, p. 152:

Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless–a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit.Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.

From Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology (1998, 3rd Ed., Sinauer Associates), p. 5:

Darwin showed that material causes are a sufficient explanation not only for physical phenomena, as Descartes and Newton had shown, but also for biological phenomena with all their seeming evidence of design and purpose. By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous. Together with Marx’s materialistic theory of history and society and Freud’s attribution of human behavior to influences over which we have little control, Darwin’s theory of evolution was a crucial plank in the platform of mechanism and materialism…

The root of the problem is that "science" has two distinct definitions in our culture. On the one hand, science refers to a method of investigation involving things like careful measurements, repeatable experiments, and especially a skeptical, open-minded attitude that insists that all claims be carefully tested. Science also has become identified with a philosophy known as materialism or scientific naturalism. This philosophy insists that nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating, and that the means of creation must not have included any role for God. Students are not supposed to approach this philosophy with open-minded skepticism, but to believe it on faith.

The reason the theory of evolution is so controversial is that it is the main scientific prop for scientific naturalism. Students first learn that "evolution is a fact," and then they gradually learn more and more about what that "fact" means. It means that all living things are the product of mindless material forces such as chemical laws, natural selection, and random variation. So God is totally out of the picture, and humans (like everything else) are the accidental product of a purposeless universe. Do you wonder why a lot of people suspect that these claims go far beyond the available evidence?

 

[Tigranes]

Personally I find it quite difficult to know what the right thing to do is, but I think that's the nature of the human condition. To pretend you have an answer or the way to it is to act with overconfidence.

Exactly what I say. Limited has to rely on the Revelation from Unlimited. There is already a thing called "conscience" in you, which really evolved over the time thanks to Revelation. Conscience of wise Greeks saw something "divine" about pederasty but now common wisdom calls it child abuse and statutory rape.