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Pauline Member (Idle past 3756 days)  Posts: 283 Joined: |
--Sorry to butt in to your ongoing discussion, you can keep it going if you wish
 -- Hello Everybody, First of all, thank you Woodsy for making this thread. This thread is largely a result of me claiming that the scientific method is invalid as a means to study supernaturalism. I had proposed < in another thread (Straightforward questions) but unfortunately, the topic degenerated into a long dialogue between Dr Adequate and I which ultimately landed nowhere. Anyway, I still hold on to said view. The reason being: Since by definition, God is not subject to physical observation, empiricism, and testing--a method that is founded upon said concepts is not viable as a means to study the supernatural existence of God. Like Woodsy said in his OP, I have claimed that there are reliable and relevant ways to prove the existence of God. Proof is a tricky word. What is proof to one person might not be proof to another person. For example, as a theist I consider nature to be a proof of God’s existence; but an atheist will not be satisfied with such an argument I’m not here to force, push, or convince anybody. I also would like to apologize (in advance) if the arguments I present are not as appealing or satisfactory as you would like. I am aware that this forum contains a lot of scientists and expertswhich is wonderful but it also adds a little more pressure on the theist’ shoulders since he knows they will expect arguments of high value, reliability, and of course reasonable logic. I would like to clarify before I begin the discussion that my aim is not to convert anybody. As I have claimed, I would like to present you with certain arguments that I have gathered from a number of sourcesright from Bible classes in College to personal research--, and as a theist, accept as proofs for the existence of the highest authority ever conceivedwhom we call, God. None of what I present is of my origin. I’m here only to present already existing arguments and debate them with you. To start off I would like to give a brief overview of what I hope to do. I’m going to begin by asking a few questions (and you guys are welcome to answer/or not answer thembut I would really appreciate it if some of you do answer). The intent of the questions is to get us thinking about why we even need to think about God i.e what things in nature call our attention to study supernaturalism. Next, I’m going to offer a few philosophical arguments for the existence of God. After we have debated enoughand if you all think that you would like to hear arguments for why the Biblical God is, in fact, God I will present those arguments. So * Philosophical questions * Arguments for the existence of God * Arguments for the deity of the Bible God Here are a few questions to get us started 1. Why am I here/ Why is the world here? 2. Where did I come from/ Where did this world come from? 3. Is there an unseen world out there? Can we know anything about it? If yes 4. How can we know anything about an unseen world? 5. Who is the greatest authority? If we term HimGod, then is He real? 6. How do we define God? 7. Do we need God? If yes/no, why/why not? 8. Are there ways to test the existence of God i.e are there reasons for His existence to be true? Are these reliable, logical, reasons that are supported by physical observation of the seen world around us? 9. How much can empiricism tell us about God? The only questions I compulsorily ask you an answer for, is nos. 6 and 7. I hope to learn something from your answersand this debate. I put forth these questions only to create a starting pointquestions such as why do we even need God are, I think, pre-requisites for any debate about God’s existence. I don't know what definitions of "non-scientific" and "reliable" we all have in our minds, but the ones I have in my mind are: 1. non-scientific: Anything that cannot be tested by experimentation i.e philosophical ideas, historical data...etc. Anything a priori, basically. As Galen Strawson put it, "[An a priori argument is one that] you can see that it is true just lying on your couch. You don't have to get up off your couch and go outside and examine the way things are in the physical world. You don't have to do any science." 2. Reliable: Worthy to put complete trust in. Ex: I rely on my eyes to see, therefore my eyes are reliable to help me see. So, once we establish certain initial answers to questions about God, I will present the first argument. Over to you.
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Pauline Member (Idle past 3756 days) Posts: 283 Joined: |
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Pauline Member (Idle past 3756 days) Posts: 283 Joined: |
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Pauline Member (Idle past 3756 days) Posts: 283 Joined: |
Hi All,
By now, I think the majority of us are quite clueless as to what exactly I am going to propose as proof for the existence of God. I myself, admittedly, was a little confused because there are certain terms being thrown around by people which are causing ambiguity; for example, Woodsy’s use of the term, non-scientific. A non-scientific claim or argument can be made for anything and might even be theoretically proven for anything (theoretically, mind youwe have no reason to believe that such claims are true of our physical world). A non-scientific argument would not be verifiable by observation. However, the arguments that I am going to propose for debate are verifiable by physical observation. The only argument, which comes to mind right now, that you can verify while sitting on your couch is the ontological argument. For the rest of them, you most definitely can go out of there, physically observe the world, and test the plausibility of discussed arguments. I hope I made myself clear. In light of this, I personally think Woodsy’s non-scientific qualifier is not accurate. (since we are being scientific by invoking observation in our analysis) Another thingI think we should properly understand this statement that I use often:
DS writes: This thread is largely a result of me claiming that the scientific method is invalid as a means to study supernaturalismThe reason being: Since by definition, God is not subject to physical observation, empiricism, and testing--a method that is founded upon said concepts is not viable as a means to study the supernatural existence of God. All I’m saying is: God Himself is not subject to science, but God’s effects certainly are subject to and can be studied by science. We can study the physical world around us, and make extrapolations about the supernatural world based on those studies but we can never physically study the supernatural world itself. I am going to use the scientific knowledge of certain phenomena---whose cause, I hope to properly and reasonably attribute, to God.
Meldinoor writes: Hello Dr. Sing,I've been watching your discussion in the other thread and I find your insistence on unscientific PROOF of God's existence quite interesting. Not because I'm quite sure what you're getting at here, but because I'm curious as to what you think constitutes evidence of God's existence, whilst completely avoiding scientific methods. You never quite explained what you were referring to in that thread, so I'm glad that you are making that effort here. Like I just said, I am not going to completely avoid scientific methods. I am going to propose arguments that are based on physical observation. For example, the Cosmological argument for the existence of God states that: Every created object needs a creator. The universe is a created object, therefore it needs a Creator. This argument is based on physical observation of the world around us. In this senseit is scientific. However, the argument itself is a philosophical statement which is verifiable a priori and by physical observation-- it is not a hypothesis that anyone can use to test specifically for God's attribute as Creator.
First off, I'm going to be honest with you. I'm very skeptical of your claims of "unscientific proof". Mostly because I'm not sure we're using the same definition of either "scientific methods" or "proof". I consider anything that can be studied empirically[=Physical observation] within a framework of rigorous analysis[=Hypothesizing and Predicting] and critique[=Testing] to be something to which scientific methods can be applied. (the words in brackets are mine) Absolutely. I agree with you. Again, by unscientific proof, I quite simply mean that I am NOT going to give you scientifically testable hypotheses to test the presence of God himself (like you would test the presence of Oxygen.) ---That’s all. However, I am going to use the scientific method to study effectswhich I hope to reasonably conclude are attributable to God through philosophical arguments. (this is the best we can do--extrapolate, since God Himself is not testable)
Meldinoor writes: Finally, to preface our discussion I'll give a bit of background on my own views. I'm a theist, raised as a Christian, although over the past year or so I've begun to question many of the beliefs I once took for granted. As such, it may be more accurate to consider me an agnostic with a (understandable) bias toward theism. Perhaps you will provide me with some solid argument to restrengthen my beliefs. Perhaps not. In any case I will, for the sake of discussion, take the devil's advocate position in this debate. Alright. Thank you for the preface, Meldinoor. I hope this debate will be of use in your quest for meaning.
3. Is there an unseen world out there? Can we know anything about it? Meldinoor writes: I don't know. And I'm not sure if anyone knows. Can it be studied/observed by any means at all? No, it cannot be studied by the best means of study we havescientific. This is exactly what I mean when I say the scientific method is not viable as a means to study the supernatural i.e God Himself (Can it study His effects (or effects that some would like to attribute to Him)? Sure as heaven, it can!) We can have beliefs about the unseen world (assuming there is one) and we can test those beliefs against out natural world and by doing this, we can measure the truth in our belief. If the elements of our belief do not agree with reality, then our belief isjust that, unsubstantiated belief. On the other hand, if our beliefs are verifiable by scientific means, then there is meaning and truth to our belief about the unseen world. (assuming there is one)
5. Who is the greatest authority? If we term HimGod, then is He real? Mel writes: Is there a greatest authority? Isn't the existence of God something you're supposed to be proving to me? How does asking the exact same thing that you're trying to prove help you advance your argument? Immanuel Kant differentiated between real and non-real existence in his objection to the ontological argument for the existence of God. All I was asking you is Is the greatest authority we can conceive of (which we are interested in doing in this thread), also really existent? He might exist as a non-real concept in my mindbut does He exist as a real being? —This was the essence of my question. I don't expect you to answer this---just think about it. I am going to propose an answer for your perusal. You can most certainly point out the holes in the logic of the arguments I present...
6. How do we define God? Mel writes: Differently This is a problem. If we define God differently, then I also would have to give up my work, and spend my life on EvC trying to prove every single conception of God out there. Right now, there might be hundreds or thousands of definitions of God. But we all have to settle for the traditional onea version of which Dr Adequate provides for us.
Mel writes: I would like God to be real. But my opinion or need does not constitute evidence of His existence. I agree with you.
Mel writes: I used to think that the structured universe and the amazing fact that I exist was bona fide evidence of God's existence. But the more I learned about how the world works the less obvious was the need for a God to make things like people and planets. It became clear to me that God is often used to explain the yet unexplained, pushed back once we've learned to explain phenomena by other means. For example, Newton invoked God to explain the stability of the solar system, his conviction being that a system that complicated could only be kept stable by continuous intervention. As our knowledge grew we no longer had any need of that hypothesis. I agree with you here also. Just because something complex exists, it doesn’t become direct evidence for Godas we traditionally define Him. The existence of a complex entity might cause different people with different viewpoints to formulate different hypotheses to explain its origin, one of which might be God caused this to happen, but the hypothesis by itself is no proof for God’s existence.
Mel writes: Of course, if God intervened in the physical world causing an observable effect, He could be studied scientifically. Something like a world-wide flood perhaps, or mana from heaven. If either of these things happened today, in an age of scientific methodology, at least the effects of God's existence could be studied empirically. Yes. Agreed. And if our beliefs about God agree with our physical tests for those beliefs, then we can lend credence to our beliefs, as truth. (any unverifiable beliefs unfortunately will depend upon faith)
That depends entirely upon whether there are any observable indications of God's existence. AND, if we can scientifically conclude that said observable indications are attributable to God only.
How much can non-empiricism tell us about anything? Well, it can’t give us knowledge/facts, no. It can spark beliefwhose truth can be tested against reality using physical observation/empiricism---, but no, non-empiricism cannot be used to obtain direct knowledge or facts.
Hopefully my answers will be of relevance to this discussion and I look forward to seeing what arguments you bring to the table. Thank you very much for your answers, Meldinoor. I really appreciate your participation in this debate. ******************************************************
DS writes: If I tell you I have a "gisrugnienfilaubflvfaaziafcn" in my room and I do not describe or qualify it in anyway way, are you ever going to be able prove or disprove its existence if you don't even know what it looks like or what it is? Straggler writes: Until there is a concept to even consider the only rational conclusion is Ignosticism 2. one who requires a definition of the term God or Gods as without sensible definition they find theism incoherent and thus non-cognitive. So until you tell us what a "gisrugnienfilaubflvfaaziafcn" is I am afraid that I can only conclude that you are talking gibberish. But we do have a traditional definition of God which we all have to agree as universal. The concept of God has been handed down to us by our predecessors and to them by their predecessors. We are only going to test whether this concept is real or non-real.
Woodsy writes: DS writes: 3. Is there an unseen world out there? Can we know anything about it? If yes 4. How can we know anything about an unseen world? Here is the crux of the matter, if by unseen you mean physically undetectable rather than just not accessible to human senses. I do not see how any knowledge of anything real can be gained without reliance on observations of some kind. By unseen I mean physically undetectable, yes. In order to conclude that our conception of God is indeed, real, we HAVE to rely on physical observation. There is no shortcut to this. There's no escaping empiricism at SOME point in order to establish the reality of the object in question.
Woodsy writes: By the way, the study of history is indeed empirical. Evidence can be collected by observation as well as by experimentation. You are right. I was wrong. I was thinking along the lines of something like, In order to believe that "Mahatma Gandhi was an Indian Freedom-fighter", I wouldn't (and couldn't) be able to do science to verify this.... However, testing this statement against the knowledge presented in websites, books, through people, etc for truth...is ultimately, a scientific process. You and Dr A are right. ******************************************************
6. How do we define God? DA writes: Traditionally, as a being having certain attributes. These would include omnipotence and omniscience, plus perfection of all the psychological traits we think of as desirable, such as love, wisdom, mercy, justice, and so forth. Very close. Here's a universal definition:
Wikipedia writes: God is the English name given to a singular omnipotent being in theistic and deistic religions (and other belief systems) who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism. God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe. Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. The most common among these include omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence. God has also been conceived as being incorporeal, a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent". 7. Do we need God? If yes/no, why/why not? DA writes: Need is rather a strong word --- we do not quite need a god in the same way that we need oxygen. Nonetheless, it seems like the existence of such a being would be a good idea. The existence of God is a conceivable, and desirable idea.
2. Reliable: Worthy to put complete trust in. DA writes: That seems to be going a little too far. If I say, for example, that my car is reliable, do I mean that I think that it will never break down? No, I do not. And if I did think so, that would not imply that it was worthy of such a degree of trust --- I might just be wrong. Indeed, according to your definition of "reliable", I don't see how we could ever know anything to be reliable, since it might always let us down at some point in the future. But you car is reliable to transport you to places...whether or not it is absolutely reliable is a different question. For that matter, nothing is absolutely reliable in this world. Not even the rising of the sun tomorrow.
DS writes: Ex: I rely on my eyes to see, therefore my eyes are reliable to help me see. DA writes: Have you ever seen an optical illusion? Yes, I have seen many. The point is, that my eyes have even helped me see the optical illusions I've seen.
DS writes: If I tell you I have a "gisrugnienfilaubflvfaaziafcn" in my room and I do not describe or qualify it in anyway way, are you ever going to be able prove or disprove its existence if you don't even know what it looks like or what it is? Hyroglyphyx writes: Sure, but I hardly see how that helps your case. The entirety of the FSM claim, along with your gisrugnienfilaubflvfaaziafcn and God, none of them are either verifiable or falsifiable. We already know this, so what exactly is the point you are making? None of them are verifiable in and of themselves, but their effects sure are (if they have any observable effects). Testing the beliefs of the FSM, (if you have any) against reality in the physical world through physical observation and analysis,--will show that it is a mental idea and nothing more. I hope to show you God is more than a mental idea.
Taq writes: If you can't see gisrugnienfilaubflvfaaziafcn how would you be able to define it? What you are asking for is a made up definition for something that you will protect from disproof. There are things that I have never seen that I can define. For example, I can define the Taj Mahal. I've never seen it. I have not asked you to "make-up" a definition for God. We already have a universal set of attributes that qualify God. Now, my job here is to show you arguments that establish God's real existence...and leave it you to you to measure their reasonableness.
DS writes: 4. How can we know anything about an unseen world? Onifre writes: Technology... Uhh....no. We're talking about a supernatural world here. We can use technology to verify out beliefs about an unseen world, but we cannot use technology to study a supernatural world in order to obtain knowledge.
DS writes: 5. Who is the greatest authority? Oni writes: In my house it was my dad...but secretly we knew it was my mother.  Next question...
6. How do we define God? DS writes: Anyway you want. It is a personal choice so there is no wrong answer. Yours could be Jesus, some else's could be an invisible unicorn...mine in particular is name George Carlin. Uhhh, that's your idol, Onifre ; Don't confuse him with whom we universally call God DS writes: For example, if you told me that Paris is the capital of France, the only reasonable way for me to believe that is to go to Paris, France myself and verify it? Let's assume i don't have the money to do so, will I forever stay in ignorance? DA writes: No, because you have other data available to you: photographs, video, eyewitness accounts, etc. This was the answer I was looking for. Thank you, Dr A. ****************************************************** Alright, I think we have established what I hoping we could before I present any arguments: a universal definition for God. I also hope we have cleared the ambiguity about whether or not my arguments will be scientifically verifiable i.e tested against reality for truth. And finally, I hope we understand how reliable these will be. Next post will contain my first philosophical argument for the existence of God... Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.
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Pauline Member (Idle past 3756 days) Posts: 283 Joined: |
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Pauline Member (Idle past 3756 days) Posts: 283 Joined: |
Meldinoor says that the ontological argument is not evidence for God's existence because such an argument can be constructed for other things which we have no reason to believe are true. Gaunilo raised this same objection and giving the example of the hypothetical existence of the "perfect island" he said, An island that is perfect must exist or else it would not be perfect, therefore a perfect island exists. However, we have not seen visible perfect islands (or rabbits, Meldinoor). Moreover, how do we define perfection? One way is: A perfect island has all perfections within the domain of being an island. Or, A perfect rabbit has all perfections within the domain of being a rabbit. For the perfect island, the number of trees, leaves, sand grains, its atmosphere etc...have to be perfect. For a perfect rabbit, its height, weight, size, colour, shape, health, etc all are perfect i.e there can be no better rabbit than this one. All this sounds good...but we have no reason whatsoever to believe that such a rabbit exists because we have never seen such a rabbit. I agree with Meldinoor that the ontological argument is an argument--not evidence. The way it might become evidence is if it fits into our natural world. When I tested to see if it agrees with our world, it turned out that we what see actually contradicts the argument. We would expect that a perfect Being would be interested in making perfect creations. However, we see imperfections all around us. Where did they come from? Why are they here? This is a MAJOR obstacle for the ontological argument. Unfortunately, there is no one answer to this question. It is a matter of personal choice as to which answer to embrace or.....not to embrace a particular philosophy, treat imperfections as part of this world and go on with life--that's another option. The Christian religion has its answer, but no, the answer does not constitute evidence for the existence of a perfect God.
However there is some value to the ontological argument and here's how I would put it: 1. The Ontological argument cannot be applied to natural entities. There is no physical entity that is perfect in every domain. IOW, saying the phrase "the perfect island" is like saying "the four-sided triangle"--it contradicts reality. A perfect island is perfect in being an island but imperfect in being everything else. A perfect island is imperfect in knowledge, imperfect in skills, imperfect in wisdom.....imperfect in everything else that contribute to not making it anything else. So after all, it is just a "perfect" ISLAND but not a perfect entity. However, in God's definition, He's perfect in EVERYTHING; there can be no one quality that we can point out and say oh look God does not have this. But I can point to the concept of a perfect island and say oh look, the island does not have wisdom...therefore it's imperfect. For this reason, it makes no sense to conceive of perfect natural entities. However it does make sense to conceive of a single supernatural perfect Being because He's not natural. Any natural being is bound---by space, time, matter, and every law that governs our universe---and by being subject to all these, any natural being therefore is imperfect. Think of any natural thing and think of omnipresence----imperfection. Think of any natural thing and think of eternality (eternalness?)----imperfection. So if we want to talk perfection in EVERY domain possible (which we expect of God), we HAVE to talk something supernatural or else we will be binding it by natural limitations which cause imperfections........ 2. Now that I have ruled out perfect natural entities, I'm left with perfect supernatural entities. So, let me conceive of a supernatural perfect Angel and apply the ontological argument to it. The perfect angel must exist or else it would be imperfect, therefore it exists....Well, not necessarily! We have no reason to believe that existence is a characteristic within the domain of being an angel. We say existence is a characteristic within the domain of being God because God is perfect in EVERY possible quality--even existence. I can't make the same argument for a perfect angel that I would for God. While one can conceive of a perfect angel just like a perfect island, the ontological argument cannot, however, be applied to either of these because, these two entities are not perfect in an absolute sense ( for example, they have a name--which means they are one thing and not another) Whereas, by definition, God is that than which no greater can be conceived i.e He is perfect is everything. You can't give God a name, or a job, or a degree, nothing! I think this is the reason God told Moses to tell Pharaoh that I AM has sent you. Which means...God is just......GOD, we can't limit him---even assign Him a name which is all encompassing.This is my take on why Anselm's ontological argument is a valid philosophical argument. Is Anselm's argument supported by subsequent physical observation of our world? I already answered the question. No, it is not. This means we can either label it as irrelevant and forget about it, or take it a step further and investigate the origin of imperfection--and the choice is a personal one. Meldinoor writes: 2. The Cosmological Argument The cosmological argument basically tells us that every observed effect has some kind of cause. Let's just assume this to be true, although I'm not sure that it need always be the case. Causes always precede their effects. However, if time began with the Big Bang, there would have been no "before" where a cause could have taken place.Creation takes time. There has to be a moment when the creation does not exist, followed by a moment in which it does, otherwise it wouldn't make sense to say there was a moment of creation. Now if T=0 was the Big Bang there would be no "before" the beginning, at least not in a meaningful sense. If so, what does it mean to say that the universe was created? Subsequently, how does one fit a creator into such a scenario? Hi Meldinoor. I read your post and thought about it for a long time. Some initial thoughts surfaced and I tried to formulate a coherent answer. However, I realized that I had no proper definition of time, at least not a scientific one. Time is the progression of events, yes, but what exactly is it? A force? A constant? A dimension?...I'm not a physicist...so I set out to investigate what the physicists conception of time is. After visiting several physics forums (= feeling like being fed from a fire hose), I found that the generally accepted definition for time is something like:
Forum writes: The term dimension has a specific mathematical meaning: "In mathematics the dimension of a space is roughly defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify every point within it". A minimum of four coordinates are needed to specify every event in spacetime, so spacetime is a four-dimensional space. The fact one coordinate is different from the other three does not make it any less of a coordinate.Having said that, you are absolutely correct that time is fundamentally different than space as can be seen from the Minkowski metric: ds=-cdt+dx+dy+dz. Time is still a dimension, but that minus sign definitely singles it out. Some of what he said (like the equation) went right over my head, but I got this part: Our universe is 4 dimensional; with 3 spatial (space) dimensions and 1 temporal (time) dimension. Taking this guy's definition (actually wiki's) of a dimension, I thought about this: Space and time are measurements of progress. To move from point A to point B is a progress in space. Similarly, to go from yesterday to today is a progress in time. I extended this idea to the question of Did time have to exist prior to creation? Initially, my mind was blank. After thinking about it for while, I think I have my version of an possible answer. It might be weak...but at least I started somewherePerhaps the physicists here can provide a scientific, formal answer. I am just going to speculate: Time tracks progress, and progress is contingent upon time but the existence of the object/phenomenon undergoing progress is not a result of time. IOW, God's creating the universe does not need time. Time is used to track the progress of an object, yes? Well, without any object whose progress to track ( i.e the universe) would it make sense for time to exist prior to creation? No, not really. Atleast not to me. I set out to find individual physicists/their books. I found Sean Carroll.(I'd never heard of him before) The book sounds very interesting...in a naive sort of way because his concept of a temporally symmetric multiverse is completely novel to me. But from watching that video and reading one of his articles on Scientific American, I gathered that, time could possibly be linked with the second law of thermodynamics. The reason we cannot travel backwards into the past is probably because the entropy of the universe is growing more and more...at an almost irreversible rate (possibly the reason why you can’t undo or traverse the past). This view assumes an extremely stable beginning (Carroll mentions this), that is to say the entropy during Big Bang (or creation, or whatever...) was fantastically small. And so, I speculate that if time is a measure of the progress of entropy (like he says)...and if entropy was very small at the beginning of the universe (which is fact), then it makes sense that time also had a beginning. The way I come to this conclusion is because of what I said earlier--Time is a measure of the progress of something.
Meldinoor writes: 3. Teleological "Fine-Tuning" Argument This was once my favourite argument for God's existence. However, after giving it some serious thought, it almost seems the worst argument. Yes, the universe does have certain traits that allow us to exist. It also has a lot of qualities that are very detrimental to human life. As far as we know, Earth is the only planet with any kind of life. Not particularly impressive if the universe was carefully "fine-tuned" for life. Even our own planet would not have been comfortable for human life during much of its history. Not to mention the massive extinction events that have taken place in the past, wiping out most of the planet's biodiversity. It is impressive, looking at the rest of the barren universe and marveling at how well suited our planet is for life. It is impressive that we exist at all given how hostile the universe is. But a universe barely capable of sustaining any life is not good evidence of careful fine-tuning, unless the Creator was satisfied with a sloppy job. I think we're looking at a glass filled to half of its capacity in two different ways. I'm seeing the half full glass and you're seeing the half empty glass. I'm saying that the universe is so finely adjusted that life is able to exist. And you seem to be saying that the universe is so poorly fine tuned so that life exists but finds it very difficult to do so. I don't think either of us is wrong.You are right in saying that there are tons of factors that could kill life right now...celestial bodies roaming around the earth with unimaginable speeds etcImagine what would happen if a star like Arcturus were to collide with the Earth! What you are saying is that the earth is having a hard time braving all the stormsbut what the Cosmological argument says is that there HAS to be someone out there whose is allowing it to brave these storms (fine-tuning)BECAUSE chance itself is pathetically and abysmally incapable of such a grand feat! Mere chance never could have brought about the harmony of the factors that support life all at once. Meldinoor writes:
What do you mean by barely capable of sustaining any life? Given the biodiversity we see around us, we have to conclude that our planet is a great place for life, no? OTOH, if you are saying that if the universe was so finely tuned for life, then why don’t we see other planets being inhabited by life forms..yes, that is a valid question. To which I would respond by saying, well, what if the Creator intended life on only one planet and fine-tuned the rest of the universe so that not one factor amidst the zillions could do anything to stop life? That’s some fine-tuning, no? I don’t know much about theoretical physics and cosmology but I do know that the forces and laws of space are interrelated and intricate such that a major disturbance of even one factor could have catastrophic effects. I read that Arcturus is travelling past Earth. Well, what if something messed up its direction and it flew into us, at 500,000 km/hr? Taking into consideration all other factors congenial to life, it is reasonable to attribute this grand feat to chance? Not really, no.
But a universe barely capable of sustaining any life is not good evidence of careful fine-tuning, unless the Creator was satisfied with a sloppy job. Meldinoor writes: This would be interesting, were it true. But other animals have been observed acting morally. I'm too tired and lazy right now to look up specific examples, but check out the wiki article Altruism in Animals I read the wiki article, it was extremely fascinating! I smiled at the hunting dogs bringing back food for the pack at home part.Thank you. Let’s just thrown the definition of conscience out there. We probably all have made the distinction between conscience and conscious already. Like wiki says, conscience is the faculty that enables judgments between right and wrong. The question is, can animals judge right and wrong explicitly and not instinctually?
Here’s some very interesting news about a dog who consumed it’s masters corpse. (faithful, eh?) Here’s a succinct but deep article that differentiates consciousness from conscience: Thinking And Moral Problems/Consciousness And Conscience - Wikibooks, open books for an open world The article, at the end, says that animals may or may not have conscience. I wish it went into more detail... I would maintain that while animals, esp. higher ones like primates, elephants etc do act morally, they do it instinctually--second -level behaviour like the article says. OTOH, human morality is more aware and explicit. I gotta go and see what the journals/peridicals have to say about thisI’m too tired right now. So maybe tomorrow.*crashes!* Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.
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