Hayden

Argument from Incredulity.

HR

atrahasis

[ October 14, 2002: Message edited by: Black Moses ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Vinnie,

You should first address Liquidrage's response:
This question ALONE has invalidated your whole argument. Your argument is also self-subverting because it uses an unexplained phenomena to explain phenomena.

You seem so fascinated with black holes. Are you also aware that black holes helped scientists (Hawking and Penrose) to come up with the Big Bang theory? Are you also aware that the same theories predict the Big Crunch?

When the sun has finished its daily chores and its light has diminished its patiently waiting celestial neighbors become visible. The moon begins its shift and serves as our planetary nightlight. It is accompanied by tides and loneliness as it surveys

the earth's surface.

Intensity : Now what is all this sentimental stuff supposed to achieve? Dont you

know there are moonless nights?

Vinnie : When you point your eyes over the horizon and focus your vision upwards at the long enduring and slow moving night time sky what do you see? I see beauty and fear, hope and despair.

Intensity : What you see is not evidence of anything. What is this, a poem?

Vinnie :I see a painting that endears hope and shatters dreams, an illusion that is capable of stealing a person's breath or sending chills and goose bumps down their back. The polarization is immense and it forces some to wonder whether or not there was an Artist behind the painting.

Intensity : Yes, those who want artists will create artists. Those who want invisible pink elephants will create invisible pink elephants
Vinnie : From earth the aesthetic beauty and the worth of the awe inspiring night time sky is tough to equal. That is undeniable. Its beauty is the inspiration behind poetry, its slow moving and constant pattern serves as a navigational guide.

Intensity: Oh puleeze!
&lt;ignores the rest of the sentimental crap and goes down...down...&gt;

Vinnie We find ourselves here as the climax and crowning achievement of four billion years of evolutionary development wondering whether or not there is an actual (transcendent?) purpose and meaning to our existence
Intensity : No we dont.

Vinnie :There are tons of other parameters that needed to be just right in order for life itself or advanced life to have been able to develop here on earth.

Intensity : You have NOT listed these parameters. And explained what you mean by "just right". You are talking of descriptions yet treating them like necessary prescriptions.

Vinnie : To many the precision involved is so great that it implies a designer
Intensity : I guess this is where the argument starts.

Vinnie : "We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures.. .. If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in."

Intensity : This is crap. Was the universe also made for earthquakes and floods to kill man? And heatwaves? What about deserts - they were meant for human life right? Was the universe designed for mutations?

Vinnie : &lt;teaches us physics and the history of physics, CMBR, red-shifting, Big
Bang etc&gt;

Intensity You could simply refer us to Stephen Hawkins' A Brief History of Time Instead of taking it upon yourself to teach us something you are not qualified to teach us. Your writing is not focused because its clear you have a great need to demonstrate your (newly found) understanding of physics and astronomy. You need to decide what the purpose of your article is and stick to it.

Vinnie : &lt;teaches more physics as he discredits some discarded scientific theories&gt;

Intensity : Oh man, what is the purpose of this article?

Vinnie : Current day researchers are now using superstring theory in attempts to find ways to circumvent the beginning of our universe. Thus far, all such attempts have failed

Intensity : Where did you get the idea that scientists are interested in CIRCUMVENTING anything while they probe into the possibility of superstring theory?

Vinnie : As we stand now the scientific consensus stands behind a universe emerging from nothing and to put it quite simply, from nothing nothing comes.

Intensity : Can you define Nothing? Does Nothing exist? If not, how would you know it is nothing? Ever heard of vaccum fluctuations? They are created ex nihilo.

Vinnie : We find ourselves here created

Intensity :We find ourselves here, alive. We have created God since we found ourselves.

Vinnie : We find ourselves here in light of overwhelming odds that suggest we shouldn't be.
Intensity : Which odds are these? earthquakes? Floods? genetic mutations?

Vinnie Human life is truly a rare gift in the universe.

Intensity : And human death? Is that a gift too? What about animal life?

Vinnie Compared to its hostile and inhospitable celestial neighbors the earth is an oasis

Intensity : Is it the earth that was created? Humans, or our galaxy? Whatever the case, where is the evidence other than your personal incredulity and cult indoctrination?

Vinnie : It seems that our designer for whatever purpose went through a lot of trouble crafting and cultivating it for our development

Intensity : Yeah, talk about omnipotence. Why the hell did he bother so much? He should have created an omnipotent and omniscient woman with infinite beauty to love him. Or would she have challenged him? Would you also create some tiny things in some tiny planet in one galaxy among millions of galaxies to have someone to love you? What a waste of omnipotence!

Vinnie : While searching for the purpose and meaning of life, cutting edge scientific findings indicate that we stand somewhere between apes and angels.

Intensity : Angels dont exist. Are you delusional? I am really disapointed in you Vinnie. I thought you knew something.

The following are counterarguments to your Fine Tuning argument.

1. Who is God? Is there any evidence of his existence? Where is he? Is he part of our universe? Does he live in some galaxy? In what sense is he alive?
If God is alive and yet he does NOT live on Earth like humans, then its obvious that earthly conditions are not the only conditions necessary to support life. Consequently, even the universe is not necessary to support life since God lived before the universe existed.
If you are incapable of answering these questions, then your designer argument is incomplete and thus invalid. It is inadequate as an answer.

2. There is also the alternative explanations objection which is<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/tuning.html" target="_blank"> right here</a>

If you can, refute them. Otherwise, rest assured your argument has crumbled to ashes as you read this.

[ October 14, 2002: Message edited by: Intensity ]</p>

atrahasis

Go ahead and speculate but where shall you be at the end of the day? here on earth...

Vinnie, your clay argument is already shattered...

What else? nothin.....the rest is gas bye...

Vinnie

Intensity, I do not feel compelled to respond to Liquidrage as I see nothing but a non-sequitor. We are positing a mind behind the creation. The whole premise is that the probablitiy of life forming in any universe "randomly" is ridiculous. If you posit a mind behind the creation with a purpose then all this fine-tuning makes sense in that light. Otherwise we simply say we got wickedly lucky. I don't even know what is being argued by Liquidrage's response. It makes no sense to me.

Also, your "science" is no better than your "biblical criticism.". This is a MAJOR boo-boo on your part. I actually wasn't aware that "black holes helped scientists (HAwking and Penrose) to come up with the Big Bamg theory?" ROFLOL H&P did not "come up" with the big bang theory!! Not even close! Had you had a clue you would also know that despite the popular appeal of "the big crunch", the universe looks like it wil expand forever and die a cold death. Scientists now think the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating. No big crunch and no "magic bounce mechanism" producing an infinite reincarnating universe either. Don't worry, your superstring buddies are working on bounce mechanisms though . Its quite fascinating though.

I purposefully made many of the descriptions poetic for impact. If you don't like the style of it, too bad. To each his own.

""""Dont you

know there are moonless nights?"""

Yeah, I am aware of the whole moon-phase cycle: gibbus, crescent, full, new, quarter, waxing, waning etc. What you are referring to is a new moon that comes after a waning crecent. What I am not aware of is your fact that H&P came up with the big bang through a study of black holes. That one has eluded me during my extensive readings.

"""""""""Intensity No we dont."""""""

We don't what? Find ourselves as the crowning achievement of evolution? This does not mean more evolution will not occur.

"""""Your writing is not focused because its clear you have a great need to

demonstrate your (newly found) understanding of physics and astronomy.""""""""

Uh, actually all this information I've known for years. I am really into cosmology and astronomy. I slowed down in my readings though when I became a Christian to study that more. I've been starting to swing into science again. I want to start writing some science articles for my website. I'm also into things like particle physics, grand unified theories etc. I've been reading these types of books for a while now. And as for your suggestion, while I am certainly not as qualified or anywhere near as qualified as Hawking I doubt I will learn anything new out of that book though I do have it on my shelf. I'm not extremely fond of Hawking though i admit he is brilliant. In fact, my paper talked about one of the arguments he's made if I am not mistaken. Since you seem to know so much about him why don't you tell us which one.


""""""""""Intensity Where did you get the idea that scientists are interested in

CIRCUMVENTING anything while they probe into the possibility of superstring

theory? """"""""""

Books. Where did you get the idea that they weren't?

"""""""""Intensity Can you define Nothing? Does Nothing exist? If not, how would you

know it is nothing?
Ever heard of vaccum fluctuations? They are created ex nihilo."""""

Ask your buddy Hawking what "nothing" is and I take it you mean stuff like virtual pairs? Sorry, but quantum vacuum fluctuation occur in "space-time". Space-time is not actually "nothing" despite what you might think. Remember that I will simply argue that the equations of general relativty state that space and time were created as well. Though I can't argue this myself I take the scientists word on it as we all do on so many issues. Nice try though

""""""""""Intensity Angels dont exist. Are you delusional?
I am really disapointed in you Vinnie. I thought you knew something."""""""""

It sounded nice and poetic though. Juddging by your interpretation of my words, you would be a good biblical literalist

""""""""The following are counterarguments to your Fine Tuning argument.""""""""""

First one was a non sequitor and I'll read Drange's paper later.

""""Was the universe also made for earthquakes and floods to kill man? And heatwaves? What about deserts - they were meant for human life right? Was the universe designed for mutations?""""""

Yeah, its quite simple. You know, the old "the air we breath has to be thin enough to respirate our lungs but consequently, thin enough for us to fall through. " If God wanted a real universe with real choices and problems it seems we got one. I doubt our purpose was ever to sit around playing harps in a blissful garden eating bananas off of golden dishes.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Saying the universe was created for pond scum or for a puddle of water might sedate some people and their ideology but it doesn't work within a world view we can actually live by and one most of us actually do live by on a daily basis. If we do not and cannot live by our philosophy then what good is it? Saying the universe could have been created for pond scum is simply avoiding reality.

Vinnie

[ October 14, 2002: Message edited by: Vinnie ]</p>

Hayden

He's not talking about pond scum, he's talking about the puddle itself. As a puddle exactly fits the hole it's in, so do we (and all life on Earth) exactly fit our environment, at least until we become capable of changing it. However, the puddle does not shape the hole that it's in.

HR

HR

Liquidrage

Otherwise we simply say we got wickedly lucky. I don't even know what is being argued by Liquidrage's response

Which is why I see your article, your whole view in fact, as someone not getting it.

You put a mind behind the improbability so as to remove the "luck of the draw" factor. However, you fail to acknowledge the "luck of the draw" for the existence of the mind you have posited.

Which has a better odds of coming from nothing?
A designer capable of creating an entire universe and with the foresight to use an ever so subtle process that after billions and billions and billions (take that Carl) particle interactions produces something like us.
Or a process with no rhyme or reason but that after the same number or processes produces something which just happened to be us.

I will gladly pick B as being more likely. You are picking the less probable and more complex situation. And since your arguement hingest that B is too unlikely, it invalidates your entire point.

ps418

I'm way too far out of my field when it comes to physics to say anything intelligent. But I (intuitively) don't know what could act as elements except elements, or what would serve as a subatomic building blocks, or how narrow the range of constants would have to be in that hypothetical universe to produce the alternative forms of elements.

I guess what I'm saying is that other things remaining equal, none of the fundamental physical constants could be changed much and still give rise to a universe in which life exists. But as to whether there could be a radically different type of universe, where life is instantiated (right word?) in a radically different type of matter, I'm clueless!

Vinnie

Liquidrage, who cares? I never said I accepted that God "came from nothing." That is not one of my beliefs so I could care less about your statistics. They are irrelevent. Most Christians I know feel God is Eternal and not having a moment of conception as did the universe itself.

Ps418, I'm clueless as to those posited invisble pink unicorns myself. I think we all are despite the arguments some might attempt to promote. Unless you mean Flatlanders, talk of 2-d life seems to be trading in science for science fiction.

Vinnie