Koyaanisqatsi

Again, just to reiterate, the "little maggot" line was meant to be shockingly illustrative of his presumption from the projected perception of somebody within the cult.

I did not mean to state or imply that I personally consider him to be a maggot.

JB01

Well, how about this: the fine-tuning argument rests on the observation that, under the following assumptions:

1. The universe we live in is the only one that has ever come into existence.

and

2. Whenever a universe comes into existence, its physical constants are selected at random from a large continuum of possible values, the vast majority of which would not be conducive to the formation of stable complex structures.

...our universe is a priori highly improbable. Since it's not actually impossible under these assumptions, we could just leave it there, but few people would find that satisfying. We all feel that something would need explaining.

Those who put forth the fine-tuning argument want us to reject the 2nd assumption above and replace it with the idea that the constants were purposely chosen by some pre-existing being in order to create a universe that could support intelligent life.

However, it is just as consistent with all the evidence available to us - and at least as parsimonious as the design inference - to speculate instead that the first assumption is wrong; if our universe is just one of a large or even infinite ensemble, then the probability problem disappears. Similarly, we might plausibly postulate that the breaking of supersymmetry early in our universe's evolution divided it into a large number of spatial domains, each with its own set of physical constants; it would be no surprise in this case that we happen to find ourselves in one of the few that can support life.

Alternately, we could speculate that the first assumption is correct but that there is only one or a small number of values the physical constants can take on, or that the only physically realizable values happen to be conducive to stable complexity.

Unless and until observations can be made that would allow us to distinguish among these various possibilities, the design inference is neither necessary nor particularly compelling.

britinusa

Just a follow-up to my last post. Odemus believes the sky god of an ancient nomadic desert tribe is the creator of the universe, and this is a "more reasonable" scenario. And yet Odemus (and most other xians) can blithely dismiss huge chunks of the bible as "not to be taken literally."
But where would xianity be without the bible, the biggest selling book of all time (man, the author must be making a fortune in royalties [I know, its an old joke ])? How would Odemus arrive at his "more reasonable" worldview without it?