Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
Theists: Please give me a reason to believe in your superpowered invisible overlord
- Thread starter Vortigern99
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ddt
Mafia Penguin
We must not be talking about the same Elizabeth R...
We're speaking of this one, aren't we?
Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
The Big Dog
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Interesting take on ignoring the "your superpowered invisible overlord" part!
Thumbs up.
Scorpion
Illuminator
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Cosmologists have determined that the existence of the universe, and the evolution of intelligent life is so improbable that they have invented the theory of infinite failed universes to explain the one we are in.
I cannot give you a list of all the reasons why life as we know it is improbable without some research, but I know there are many reasons. For example the force of gravity has to be just right to build planets, and we have to be just the right distance from the sun. There are many, many such things that have to be exactly right, or we would not exist.
Therefore I propose the universe has an intelligent designer. As this is more probable that that all we can survey throught the hubble telescope came into being by accident, and without meaning.
Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
In what way does your concept of 'god' include "being limited to ordinary, human abilities"? If your concept of 'god' is not limited, it is "super-powered".
In what way does your concept of 'god' include "being visible"? If it is not "visible", it is "invisible".
In what way does your concept of 'god' include "not expecting, even scripturally demanding, obeisance, obedience, endless praise, and submission"; and "not threatening dire consequences for their lack"? In what way does your concept of 'god' not include "insisting upon being 'lord' of all"? If it arrogates sovereign power, particularly power over other sovereigns, it is, in fact, an "overlord"".
The vengeful, spiteful, inconsistent, murderous, arbitrary, immaterial, egoistic, praise-hungry, jealous, omnipotent/omniscient/ominibenevolent 'god' of the bible certainly does a creditable "superpowered invisible overlord" act, at any rate. If your concept of 'god' is actually different, it is possible that the OP was not, in fact, addressed to you.
halleyscomet
Penultimate Amazing
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Because without God, all religious people would become cannibals.
Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
The "special puddle" argument for "fine tuning" has been offered, and countered, before. The universe is not, in fact, "fine tuned" for life as we know it. The vast majority of the universe is instantly inimical to LAWKI; The majority of even this "favored" planet is nearly equally inimical (as an example, until very recently, you would not have survived spending the night in my backyard without technological support).
The "fine tuning" argument shakes the dog at the stick. "These conditions" are not "fine tuned" for LAWKI. Instead, LAWKI developed in response to these conditions.
turingtest
Mistral, mistral wind...
The "fine tuning" argument has always struck me as a circular one. The only way to see life as we know it as more than just a result of the conditions in which it arose- to see it as the reason for those conditions- it to presuppose what the argument is meant to prove. That's fine for faith; but it ain't evidence.
ETA- as for the "improbability" of life- any string of contingencies can be said to have improbable results when those results are mischaracterized in hindsight as goals in prospect. My favorite example is taking a normal deck of 52 cards and laying them out one by one until you have a complete lay. If you lay them out non-normatively- i.e., with no particular outcome in mind, the way evolution works non-deterministically- the probability for any one result is the same as for any other- one in one, or 100%. If, OTOH, you lay them out predictively, your chances of getting a desired result is about 1 in 8x10^67- that's one in 80 followed by 67 zeroes. I doubt that even scorpion would lay out those cards, without a specific lay in mind, and then exclaim "but that couldn't have happened!" when that was what he got.
ETA- as for the "improbability" of life- any string of contingencies can be said to have improbable results when those results are mischaracterized in hindsight as goals in prospect. My favorite example is taking a normal deck of 52 cards and laying them out one by one until you have a complete lay. If you lay them out non-normatively- i.e., with no particular outcome in mind, the way evolution works non-deterministically- the probability for any one result is the same as for any other- one in one, or 100%. If, OTOH, you lay them out predictively, your chances of getting a desired result is about 1 in 8x10^67- that's one in 80 followed by 67 zeroes. I doubt that even scorpion would lay out those cards, without a specific lay in mind, and then exclaim "but that couldn't have happened!" when that was what he got.
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Foster Zygote
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DOC is in love with pointing out that Ehrman believes that an historical Jesus existed. What he doesn't like to talk about is the fact that the Jesus Ehrman believes existed was an apocalyptic Jewish rabbi who thought that he was going to usher in the expected (by apocalypticists) kingdom of God by ousting the Roman occupiers, reestablishing the House of David's rule over a sovereign Israel, and giving what for to all the collaborators who's failure to honor YHWH had brought about his punishment of Israel in the first place. Much to his own shock, this Jesus was arrested and executed for sedition almost as soon as he'd made his move, and some of his equally shocked followers rationalized his failure as having been part of the plan all along.
Foster Zygote
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Yeah, if accepting that Jesus actually existed proves what Christians believe about him, then accepting that Joseph Smith existed should prove what Mormons believe about him, and accepting that L. Ron Hubbard existed... Well, you get the picture.
Foster Zygote
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Just look at the conditions to be found right here on Earth that were once considered too hostile for life, but are now known to be teeming with it.
ddt
Mafia Penguin
First of all: Google turns up nothing when I search for "theory of infinite failed universes", so would you care to give me a couple of links to this purrported theory? As well as at least two names of cosmologists who support this theory?
Secondly: the argument that all physical constants are "just right" is a bunk. If they were different, physics and chemistry would be different, but would that make the development of life impossible? That is overlooked when the argument is made.
Thirdly: the argument that the earth is "just the right distance from the sun" is likewise bunk. There are millions of millions of stars in our universe, most of which have planets. Some of them are bound to have the right conditions for carbon-based life forms to develop. Right now, there may be many other planets which also have life. They're only too far away for us to observe.
Fourth: "it's life, Jim, but not as we know it". Life, essentially, is a complex set of molecules which can self-replicate. Who's to say that life must be carbon-based? Why not nitrogen-based or silicium-based, to name two other elements which are abundant and can form a wide variety of molecules?
In other words, the question you pose is falsely, and maliciously, posed to question the specific development of life as happened on earth, and not if life in general would develop.
And even in your intellectually lazy solution to posit a god - or "intelligent designer" as you put it, which is just disingenous hiding of the religiosity behind the argument - there still is the questoin: where did god come from? You only shifted the problem one step away.
Donn
Philosopher
God spoke to me during my afternoon nap. He said he's all made up by humans and when are we going to retire him? I said, as far as I'm concerned, he could go straight away. So he did.
Farewell god of the nod.
Farewell god of the nod.
Scorpion
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ddt, do a google for "multiverse" and you will find a lot of information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
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Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
I know, right?
Not only that, it is not the extremophiles and archaeobacters for which the universe is "fine-tuned", but us, the finest flower of the "creator's" imagination. And, as has been pointed out, most of even this planet will kill an unsupported human post haste. I live at 7500 feet, in the NM High Country--as recently as two months ago a naked night in my garden would have been fatal to most humans. Six months from now, a naked human would live about three days (and the closest water not dependent upon technology is a further walk than that).
And that is supposed to represent "fine tuning"--other places on the planet are even more quickly fatal.
Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
Have you read that information?
There is not one line about "infinite failed universes"...
Did you make that up?
ddt
Mafia Penguin
What about cutting to the chase and point me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe. Must I presume that your favourite cosmologists are actually Plantinga and Dembski?
I can't find that either. And I see that the claim that our universe would be so improbable is very contentious, and contingent on all 25 or so basic physical constants actually being independent.
Foster Zygote
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Yes, we're familiar with the concept of a multiverse. What we are asking for is a defense of your statements regarding multiverses. Multiverse hypotheses have been proposed as possible consequences of certain leading cosmological theories and they are based on mathematics. They were not invented, as you've claimed, because cosmologists can't explain the existence of life without them.
RoboTimbo
Hostile Nanobacon
