Summations Only

I can see that Fine Tuning seems to require an explanation, but it doesn't require that we have to have a good explanation right now, and I agree with Rees and others in thinking that the multiverse is presently the best explanation we have.If your argument goes anywhere beyond that you'll have to present it because the evidence that you've mentioned so far won't get you there.

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1. First, you look at what life requires: stellar evolution, rocky planet correct distance from its star, carbon, water, sunlight, atmospheric oxygen mixture, etc. Then we look at what parameters will allow these to exist in our universe.

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That would specifically be for life as we see it on Earth, not the more general concept of life. So I think that you already have a big problem there. Not to mention the fact that the oxygen content of Earth's atmosphere is more a consequence of life than a requirement for it.(And as a side note, doesn't Ross argue for at least some of THOSE conditions as an example of "fine tuning" too ? If our universe needs divine assistance to produce suitable conditions for life then it isn't as finely tuned as you'd like to say).Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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Actually, most of the items listed would be necessary for any advanced life. If you don't have stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis, you don't get any heavier elements. Yes, there are discussions about non-carbon-based life, but these are silicon-based life is not likely at all.

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You're missing both more exotic possibilities - and not considering that changing constants could enable different forms of life.

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I'm not certain what you are referring to. And your logic doesn't make sense. If our universe needs divine assistance to produce suitable conditions for life and gets those conditions by divine assistance, that is the very definition of fine-tuning. It is almost as if you are trying to argue against fine-tuning because the universe needs fine-tuning.

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Hugh Ross seems to argue that the Earth is unique in the universe. And my logic is fine. If the universe isn't capable of producing something then it obviously isn't fine-tuned to produce that thing. At least not successfully.

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If the most likely possibility (silicon) is not likely at all, and it is not likely according to NASA, then the more exotic possibilities are even less likely. Did you read the link to NASA?

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How? That seems to be absurd. I'm not talking about a simple change in chemistry but something radically different.

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You write: "If the universe isn't capable of producing something then it obviously isn't fine-tuned to produce that thing. At least not successfully."

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In this statement you are assuming you know the purpose of the Creator and how many earth-like planets he wants to create. I don't think we know that. If the earth is fine-tuned for life, as the evidence seems to suggest, why would you expect that to happen multiple times around the universe?

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I guess that I should be flattered that you confuse me with Hugh Ross, but I'm not. I'm simply arguing that successful fine tuning to produce a particular outcome should actually produce that outcome. No sane person should disagree with that.

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You still did not answer the question. Did you read the link I posted to NASA?

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Why should I read a paper about the possibility of silicon-based life when I'm not talking about silicon-based life?

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Wrong again. Religious people, rightly or wrongly, tend to believe the planet they live on has a special place in the universe. It is true that Jesus said he has sheep in places we don't know about and that statement could mean he has creatures on other planets, but most Christians do not understand it that way.

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How does that show that what I actually said was wrong? I didn't even say anything about religious people in general.

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Your assumption that God has fine-tuned the entire universe for life is unwarranted

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That is certainly not MY assumption. I guess you're thinking of the idea that the "fine-tuned" constants apply to all of our universe. But I don't see why you'd want to disagree with that.

I think you have the question wrong.The question is, is it more plausible that the most basic part of reality is simple or a massively complex ordered entity ?I'll go with simple, because assuming unexplained complexity and order is just asking to be wrong.

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The most basic part of "natural" reality is complex arrangement of particles that appear to have properties that are either non-dimensional or uni-dimensional. In the end we know something about the properties of these particles but in the end know very little about. They pop in and out of our perceived existence. They don't take our perceived form until they are observed and then we find that they go back in time in order to be observed.

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Not really.

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Even if you can imagine all of that forming without an intelligent first cause you then have to believe that somehow there was a chance coming together of these particles to form atoms, and then molecules. It takes a great deal of faith to believe all of this.

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So this intelligent first cause is composed of these particles and is more likely to come together by "chance" than a hydrogen atom. I somehow think that this view requires even more faith.

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Again I ask, Which is more plausible? That all of that happened by blind chance or is there an intelligent first cause. I can't begin to generate enough faith to conceive of the first choice as being even the least bit plausible.

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If you call all alternatives to an intelligent cause is "blind chance" then it is obviously more plausible that the complexity we see developed slowly through the mechanisms that we have at least some knowledge and understanding of than that a greater complexity just popped into existence through "blind chance" and then directed all the rest.Really you can't argue that atoms are too complex to form without an intelligent cause and then argue that an intelligent being - more complex than a human being - could just pop into existence. It's completely absurd.

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Your thinking is linear. The explanation I gave gives a theory that is consistent with current scientific theory, or probably more accurately scientific speculation, of the rationale for an eternal being.

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Of course it is not "linear" thinking yep that you object to- it is thinking about the question of how a God could exist at all that you are desperately trying to avoid. Indeed your "explanation" explains nothing - it is a transparent excuse for avoiding the issue. Which I suppose is better than the self-contradiction of your earlier argument.Indeed I think we should put you forward as good evidence for atheism. The mere fact that you are reduced to the desparate clutching at straws we see here demonstrates the irrationality of theistic belief in a way that would be hard to do by intellectual argument.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

What you're missing is that you aren't offering ANY explanation of how this incredibly complex entity could exist. All you're doing is hand waving.It's pretty clear that you know that your position is rationally indefensible, that's why you don't even attempt to really address the issue.

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Assuming that God exists would you really expect that anyone could answer that question? I can't and I'm not trying to.

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An intellectually honest person would at least admit that they had no answer and accept that it had a serious impact in the plausibility of their view.

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I am only saying that in a universe with more than 1 time dimension it is possible to have an eternal existence, which would not then require a creator as it would mean that it just always was.

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Even if that is true it isn't relevant it's more an argument against the idea that our universe requires a cause.

Personally I'd say that you were trying to CREATE a gap to fill. Your whole argument assumes that existing explanations - even for the existence of atoms!!! - are so inadequate that simply assuming this entity is MORE plausible. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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The explanation of why everything from atoms to intelligence exists is unknown. I'm simply saying that IMHO the belief that the root cause was intelligent is more plausible than not.

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That may be what you wanted to say, but you said a whole lot of things that are very different. Certainly you argued that it is implausible that atoms could form without intelligent direction. Quite frankly it is hard to avoid the conclusion that your idea of plausibility has a lot more to do with attempting to justify your beliefs than any considered analysis.

In other words you hold that "blind chance" is much more likely to arrange the basic particles into a highly ordered intelligence capable of shaping our universe than it is to produce something as relatively simple as a hydrogen atom.I don't really think that many people would share this view.

But your plausibility assertion is based on the very claim that you now say that you don't agree with. And the post you referred back to said nothing about first causes at all. So it seems that you don't even understand your own posts.

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The question is about the process itself. The question is how and why the process existed in the first place.

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Ah, the usual gambit of pushing the question back until we run out of answers so you can wheel out the conclusion you want to reach.That's not rational thought, that's just the rationalisation of dodgy apologetics. Because if we found any answer other than God you'd just ask why THAT exists. Your arguing strategy is designed to end up with that one answer - and then arbitrarily stop. It's really quite transparent.