In the video description: "I felt sort of bad doing any kind of refutation regarding Lennox. He's just so cuddly and earnest and, more importantly, smart."
That's it, I'm beginning to think you are homosexual Triumph. And you conceded with the fine-tuning argument at 2:44: "life can exist within the universe". Then the universe is fine-tuned for life.
Not so. Saying the universe was fine-tuned for life assumes that life was part of a larger plan to begin with. Yes, life can exist within the universe, but it's a non-sequiter to then say "therefore, the universe must be designed FOR life."
It's like saying, "Glasses fit on the nose, therefore the nose was designed FOR glasses!"
As Triumph states, you need to get rid of this anthropocentric perspective.
@Hektor88 The argument isn't intelligent design but fine-tuning. If the constants of the universe were altered in any way life couldn't exist, even Hawkings admits to this. Since life does exist, the reality in which it exists must be fine-tuned for it. It's basically hopeless to argue against it.
Fine-tuned doesn't mean comfortable for life. Nobody is saying a possible intelligent designer fine-tuned the universe in such a way that everything is made for the benefit of life.
The initial premise of the argument is that in order for life to exist, the universe must have such properties that warrant a designer. However in this line of reasoning, the designer of those properties would exist in a state where none of these properties were true. Therefore any properties deemed to require a designer can't be necessary for existence in the first place, as the designer can exist without them. The argument is self-refuting.
If you know anyone who's been falsely DMCA'd by William Lane Craig collaborator John Leonard, otherwise known as drcraigvideos, please contact @thunderf00t.
"Fine tuned"?? Humans can only exist in a microscopically small fraction of the universe...if that's "proof" of "fine tuning" then whoever did the tuning was an imbecile.
"Humans can only exist in a microscopically small fraction of the universe"
That's not the fine-tuning argument. It deals with the very constants of the universe, which seem to be fine-tuned in order to allow life anywhere in it at all.
@mawa89g: Theists often confuse or overlap the 'fine tuning' claim. Regardless, to claim that the fundamental constants of the universe were deliberately "tuned" to the "right" values by some super-deity is also ridiculous.
@mikefromwa Its also ridiculous that it was complete chance either. Thats why you people have your multiverse theory. As someone once said. "If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse". Because without it. You dont have much left. As a Agnostic. I dont know which is right. But im not stupid enough to stop asking questions. Unlike you boring people.
@Lone432345: "Its also ridiculous that it was complete chance either."
I don't claim to have all the answers, but I know bullshit when I hear it. And believing in an invisible super-being that controls the entire universe (and for which there is ZERO proof) is bullshit. You might as well claim that magic pixies created the universe. Or that Elvis did it. Neither of those ideas are any sillier than what religious people believe.
@mikefromwa With all due respect, but i think it's just as ridiculous to believe we came from nothing. Why would we even exist? Why isn't there simply just nothing? Why are we here in the first place?
He took the sound from a debate with Richard Dawkins, edited it, and played it somewhere else as proof of Richard Dawkins admitting that there had to be some 'designer' behind it all. :-)
The fact that we have only this universe and that varying ratios and constants by only 2% in this 1/1 universe would result in this 1/1 universe being non-life sustaining is precisely why Lennox's probability analysis and fine tuning are correct.
How well put in Sirach, with humility have self-esteem for who will acquit the person who condemns himself! And here the vid poster and commenters awfully declare human life not special! Of course it is! No wonder atheists have no morality if they see no value in our lives. This is humility to ACCEPT the gift God gives us. And arrogance to refuse to bow with thanks to the giver.
I don't understand all the dickering about the fine tuning argument...maybe I need to read more philosophy and cosmology?
It doesn't matter if we calculate after the fact from human arrogance (the universe was designed with me in mind) the small chance of life...we are here so obviously we hit the jackpot.
The universe happened to have the qualities to support our type of life, not vice versa...the universe was not designed for us, we were designed by nature for it.
I suppose any event could be considered "special", but I think Lennox was taking for granted that we consider our existence to be special. Besides, I'm not sure how being predisposed toward one event or other changes its probability value.
@Mentat1231 It doesn't, but if any set of values is considered equally special, it falls flat because any exact set of universal values is that improbable. But that's what I was getting at. If you think life is special, and therefore you believe in God, the fine-tuning argument is a good reason to believe, but I just think it fails to prove it to someone else because it needs that one point to be granted.
1) Logic isn't concerned with convincing people, since some people will always choose to remain unconvinced, regardless.
2) This is the exact set of values that exist, not any other. And this exact set of values was needed for the Universe to not collapse on itself instantly, for chemistry to work, for cosmological evolution to take place, and for biological life to exist. It was EXTREMELY unlikely, as Lennox rightly points out.
By the way, Bill Craig addresses your argument better than I will, here: watch?v=AUpvf5ZFsVA&feature=related
He mentions "specified complexity" (a design theory term), and illustrates it as a man who was given a car for his birthday with a random license plate CHT 4271. Nothing special. But, what if he'd been born on Aug. 8th 1949, and the license plate said "BOB 8849"?
@Mentat1231 In that situation, while it's not clearly a goal, it's something that was already recongized. Like getting the same suit for every card. Even if we didn't recognize it as a goal, humans already have a perception that it's special.
@TimofAwsome btw the link you gave me didn't send me to a bill craig video that mentioned what you said, so sorry but I did only reply to your comment, not the video. The one I got was him talking about 5 things science can't prove.
Oh, I'm sorry. I must have done the copying/pasting incorrectly. You addressed the central point well, even without the right link.
One thing I hadn't realized before: Saying "the existence of human life was not special until after the fact" is actually begging the question. It presumes that God didn't intend us.
@Mentat1231 I'm not saying that as a certainty though, I'm merely saying that unless it was intended, there's not much of an argument. I'm personally 50/50 approximately on whether some type of God exists, so it's very possible that he did fine-tune it for life. But if you're using it as proof or evidence, you should have at least a good case for life being sig. and when looking at how rare life is, it makes me think the opposite. That's just me though.
If rarity indicated insignificance, wouldn't grass be more valuable than diamonds? As to what is and isn't significant, doesn't the central subject of our discussion (our existence; involving so many things different unlikely events) become significant by virtue of being the central subject of our discussion?
@Mentat1231 It's just my personal view, that I don't know either way if the universe has been designed for life or it's the type of universe that came up among the gajillion others. My basis is that life is such a small part of the universe, that it seems silly to make it the main variable in judging sorting likely and unlikely universes. I'm not arguing that though, that's my view on something I don't actually know.
Well, you're entitled to that view. I would point out that the whole Universe has to have the physics, chemistry, etc that this one has in order for life to ever come about. And it has to support its own weight (the expansion rate and entropy rate have to be precisely tuned). But I see where you're coming from.
@TimofAwsome "I don't know if...its the type of universe that came up among the gajiilion others"
Firstly, thre's absolutely no indepndent evidence for a "gajillion others" since we can't see any Universes outside our own: secondly, William Lane Craig already dealt the Boltzman Brains death blow to the multiverse hypotheses: if it were true,given the unbelievable improbability of a fine-tuned Universe, we should be seeing such extraordinarily improbable events all the time
@relarerfhjk You clearly don't understand my point at all, and instead just regurgitate what you heard Craig say. I never defended the multiverse. Read my comments again lol, before you try to repeat the same argument without even thinking.
@relarerfhjk I don't know where your reply comment was, so I'll just respond to it through this. You're accusation of me not knowing the basics is laughable, as I was discussing the entire thing peacefully with someone else, then you enter without even understanding what we're talking about and you regurgitate Craig's words back at me when we had already moved past it. I explained my position on why I think a probablity arguement like this is bs (no its not the same one in the video) if you
@TimofAwsome "it seems silly to make life the main variable" You clearly have no idea what your talking about
Life is the "main variable" because we are by far the most complex arrangements of matter in the Universe (presuming other complex, intelligent life doesnt exist elsewhere ) and the range of conditions needed to create such astonishingly complex intelligent beings capable of consciousness, are astoundingly precise
@relarerfhjk Why is life more complex than, say, Jupiter?
Also, the range of environments on this planet that life inhabits is staggering. Miles deep in the ocean, in immense pressure, heat and toxicity, organisms survive. To say that the conditions are precise for this is simply incorrect, because life adapts to almost all environments on earth, in a somewhat imprecise range of conditions.
I noticed you've qualified with "intelligent". Why?
@Th1sWasATriumph "we couldnt adapt" or even exist in the first place, without an astonishing array of exquisitely fine-tuned constants of nature
"intelligent. Why?"
Because its even harder to get intelligent life than to get much simpler life-forms.
In slightly different conditions some very tiny,simple life-forms could exist,but nothing more complex than an amoeba: to get intelligent life, the constants have to be perfectly arranged across the whole Universe
@TimofAwsome You did not "move poast it", by proposing we may be one of a "gazillion Universes" you were suggesting multiverse was a plausible explanation when, in fact, it is far more implausible, due to the odds against an entire fine-tuned Universe appearing which is able to support conscious, complex, intelligent life
Its far more likely we should be observing nothing bigger than a solar system since this is more probable, in a multiverse scenario, than a fine-tuned Universe
@Mentat1231 "the existence of human life is not special" is a ridiculous statement: the existence of intelligent, complex, conscious life is both astonishingly improbable, given the criteria needed, and astonishingly "special": as Paul Davies said, the real miracle is that we should have come from the Universe yet can look out and comprehend that very same Universe and our own place within it
You'll be hard-pressed to find humans who don't think their existence is special. At the end of the day, there was a much greater likelihood of a non-life-supporting Universe than of a life-supporting one. "Much greater" is an abominable understatement. And so, when so many unlikely things have gone so right ("right" for us to exist), it is not a violation of statistical understanding to talk about how unlikely that was, and to look for reasons.
@Mentat1231 Well certainly special to us; I'm not saying I don't personally consider my existence special. But I do think life is insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe.
Even your ability to think that (or anything at all) is what's at stake. Along with everything else humans ever do. None of it could have occurred without that precise fine-tuning.
@Mentat1231 True, but I don't think my ability to think is significant to the universe either. It's important to me for sure, and anybody I know well/ converse with (like you), but its importance ends there, unless God does exist and fine-tuned the universe (which again I'm not saying is untrue, but I think the 99.999999% argument the F.T. argument is supposed to be fails).
I understand what you're saying, but mathematically speaking, it is significant that all of these variables came together for a life-sustaining Universe. You speak as though there were so many other options, when in fact the Universe was either going to be life-sustaining (which requires WAY too many things to be *just right*) or it wasn't (which requires nothing at all, and which encompasses any number of other possible configurations for the Universe).
I don't know why this is so difficult for apologists. The whole "we only have one point in our data set" is not some atheist talking point they can casually dismiss, it destroys their entire argument. Their premises are based on our kind of life not being able to exist in other kinds of universes, and assuming that other universes can't support their own kinds of life. They have no basis for these assumptions.
Btw, if it helps at all, in mathematics the terms "likelihood" and "probability" are not synonymous. Probability only refers to future events, much in the way you describe in this video. But "likelihood" does in fact refer to past events. Likelihood is calculated based on "probability density", and through straightforward mathematics can give us a value for an event which has already occurred. That is, of course, what Lennox is doing.
This video is based on a fallacy. The question: "how likely was this event" is a perfectly legitimate one which we ask all the time. For example, the winner of the lottery did not have a 1:1 probability of winning it. He had, in fact, a very low probability, which is why there is such a pay-off. The maker of this video (and the man who asked the question of Craig) seem to have no comprehension of statistics. Thank goodness for Lennox, who as a mathematician, seems to understand statistics.
@Mentat1231 Clearly a lottery contestant doesn't have a 1:1 chance of winning. You can work out very precisely the odds against such an eventuality, UNTIL IT HAPPENS, at which point retrospectively the odds become 1:1.
What you haven't understood is that Lennox is comparing something which has ALREADY happened to a hypothetically improbable scenario of finding a single penny amidst trillions. Discussing an event afterwards is as relevant as saying "Jupiter is improbable!"
Again, likelihood is different than probability in mathematics. The likelihood of Jupiter was indeed lesser than the likelihood of our Sun, for example. And the likelihood of Earth much much less than Jupiter. This is actually part of the basis of Information Theory (e.g. there is more information in DNA than in RNA because there were more possible permutations from which this particular one was drawn).
@Th1sWasATriumph "UNTIL IT HAPPENS" I have explained the fallacy at the heart of this misrepresentation of probability theory numerous times! Why endlessly recycle an argument thats already been demolished?
We can judge the probability of any EXPLANATION of a past event...e.g is the fine-tuning of the intial conditions for life, best explained by chance or design? Did 5000 marksmen all miss by acident, or on purpose? Which explanation is more probable
@Th1sWasATriumph Deary me, you still havent understood the fallacy in your stupid "until it happens" argument? So you can't say its improbable that 50,000 marksmen could miss a target if it happened? What a stupid fucking argument.
Get over it, your argument is a ridiculous fallacy that no probability theorist would ake seriously.
"Jupiter is improbable" No, its like saying 500 marksmen missing by accident was so improbable that they clearly didnt miss by accident
@relarerfhjk Yes, it would be improbable for 50,000 marksmen to miss a target. However, I don't see any examples of such hypothetically improbable, anthropocentrically derived, scenarios ACTUALLY HAPPENING. So are there any?
@Th1sWasATriumph Yes and using the relevance of the obscure chance in justifying God belief. The idea is saying that the removal of God complicates the explanation. However, I feel that since science is the exploration of the creation it will only lead to the creator.
It's not about goals. It's a bygone conclusion that life can (and does) exist. But, mathematically speaking, the *likelihood* of that event was ABSURDLY small. Perhaps infinitesimally so.
@Mentat1231 Without goals there's no basis to argue for "fine-tuning" though. I'll give you an example. If I make a prediction about that the exact order of 52 cards in a deck, the chances I'll be right is almost impossible. It's only special though if you make an define an improbable goal (like a life permitting universe) and than it actually happens. There's a 1/1 chance I'm going to get some astronomically unlikely order of cards, but it's not special unless the goal was defined before
@TimofAwsome With life, it was not defined before. There are infinite possible universes that could exist, and yes only a fraction that can support life. But unless you make the distinction of life vs. nonlife universes before hand, the fact that we got a life-permitting universe is pointless. If there are other universes that don't permit life but still have unlikely features, how come we value life over those features. Without setting goals beforehand, a "fine-tuning" argument is useless.
My description of the mathematical term "likelihood" is just to show the maker of this video (and several others who support his reasoning) that their argument is logically invalid. And it is, since they are using an obscure fact about probability to challenge Lennox's statement. But Lennox was using "probability" in the usual way. Mathematically, he means "likelihood", and the video's argument evaporates.
Forgive me for not understanding your point. You have been clear enough, but I just don't get what you're driving at. A Universe that can support us is what is being discussed, and the specific conditions of that Universe are so precise and there are so many such conditions that the likelihood of this Universe (and the likelihood of us) was staggeringly (some would say "impossibly") low. How does your argument address this fact?
@Mentat1231 You seem to know more about the laws of probability than I do, but I still don't see the difference between the fine-tuning argument and my card example, where any choice is really unlikely. I could look back at the order of the cards and say they're "precise" because they landed in the order they did, which is staggeringly low, but because we didn't define that certain order as significant beforehand we don't consider the unlikely event happening as special.
@relarerfhjk- If we don't have to explain an explanation, then we don't have to explain order resulting from the big bang. Other goodies: an argument is not circular because of what you think I would say if..., compared to what I'm saying now. That's pretty silly. Talk abot basic philosophy. Your contention that there was a designer becase things are clearly designed IS circular. And you still haven't answered my question: couldn't a maxiamally powerful god create life in any kind of universe?
@pastafarianprophet "then we dont have to explain order resulting from the Big Bang" The point would be that, to recognise intelligent design as the best explanation of fine-tuning, we dont have to be able to explain the designer.To recognise design as the best explanation of a jungle city we dont have to be able to explain the builders!
"create life in any universe" it would be illogical for material life to exist when nothing heavier than gas can exist...a perfect God is not illogical!
@pastafarianprophet No you fool, its cicular to say that evidence OF design, is really evidence AGAINST design, since if there was no evidence of design, this would also be evidence against it! You know perfectly well what a stupid, circular argument looks like, stop trying to look clever and ended up looking silly!
God can create anything but reating material life with nothing heavier than helium would be like God creating a square circle,its a logical contradiction so isnt a THING
@pastafarianprophet Your argument is a fallacy: its basic philosophy that you dont have to be able to explain an explanation, in order for that explanation to be considered the best one. So e.g if we discovered a odd-shaped UFO,even if we coulnt explain why aliens designed it in such a way,design would still be the best explanation!
To answer the question, God built the Universe logically because He is logical and it displays his artistry for us to see: He is written all over the cosmos
@relarerfhjk -- You just assume that the mindbogglingness of it all is evidence of YOUR god. Things happened a certain way, and post hoc you say god made it happen that way. It's like when people say "if I wouldn't have skipped getting in that cab on 147th street, then I wouldn't have bought that hot dog, and wouldn't have dropped it on the guy next to this girl that stopped the guy from beating me up-- and I married that girl! See? it was meant to be!" Poppycock! It's conspiracy theory "logic"
You havent understood the arguments. Its not the "mindbogglingness of it all" its called deductive logic: the fine-tuning of the Universe only has 3 plausible explanations...physical necessity, chance or design. It cant be physicialnecessity since the constants are indepndent of natural law, they dont HAVE to be that way, it cant be chance because the odds against it are far too high, so design is the most plausible explanation
@relarerfhjk You haven't shown that physical necessity doesn't apply, and you haven't shown that chance doesn't apply. The design assumption proposes a being of which we have no experience and which is more improbable than the universe.
@gamesbok I have shown physical necessity doesnt apply I repeat...the constants are INDEPENDENT OF NATURAL LAW,so those exquisitely fine-tuned constants could have any of a vast range of values and still be consistent with natural law...i.e they dont have to be the way they are!
Chance dosnt apply as the odds against all 30 constants falling into the exact life-permitting range by accident are far too high!
Gods existence is rendered MORE probable by the Universe's existence!
@relarerfhjk You are DEEPLY deluded. Far from being independant of natural law, they ARE natural law, and speculation that they could be different is futile and unsupported. The universe is fine tuned to kill you stone cold dead at the first opportunity it gets, and where it has done in the overwhelming majority on the universe. God is the speculation that there is a more complex being beyond what we can observe, and that is a wild speculation. Don't ask me to believe in magic.
Yur embarassingly thick...the constants are NOT natural laws they describe the values of fundamental constants such as the size of protons or the strength of the weakforce or the strength of gravity or the energy match between helium nuclei and isotopes etc...these are ALL INDEPENDENT OF NATURAL LAW, protons could be any size and still be consistent with natural law, yet if they were just 2% bigger life couldnt exist!
@relarerfhjk You can argue chance perfectly logically if you remove the arbitrary claim that the spec of life that exists in the universe, or even matter itself is of significance to judge universes by.
No you can't, because a life-prohibiting Universe is infinitely more probable than a life-permitting one. Due to the fact that the life-permitting range of values is incomprehensibly small compared to the whole range of possible values.
try learning the basics, before entering the discussion
In the video description you typed " Craig's resume is his doctorate in philosophy, but even that has been used simply to back up his faith from experience." so am I missing something? Is that supposed to be a negative?
If so you can apply that to Dawkins or any other number of atheists who use there academic knowledge to back up their world view
Good vid, ugh these cretards on the thread don't realize their making calculations after (what their calculating) it already happened. lol Well I seen a leaf fall on my foot today what are the odds of that SPECIFIC leaf landing there at 3:45pm WTF! after being 'poofed' into existence by 'evilution' lol looks like krishna's real! ~_~ ah!!!
if the constants were different, then instead of "life" being the thing that seemed important, it would probably be something else, like "fhygludhhdgf", something which we don't completely understand yet.
You state that the probability of an event occurring given that event has occurred in the past, is always one. However, the question is not "What is the probability of 'the' event occurring given that occurred?" but rather "What is the probability 'an' event occurring?"
Now, yes, completely improbable events occur all the time, but what stands out are improbable events with meaning. I guess I am biased, but life itself cries out with meaning.
When I was a kid I played T-ball at school and hit a foul onto the basketball court and the ball went through the hoop! I agree it was just as probable to go through the hoop as anywhere else (any path is equally improbable), but because the event had some significance and meaning combined with low probability the teacher was shocked and offered me $5 to do it again! (true story).
Why are you basing the past, what you think that happened, based on a questionable theory that has no scientific evidence to support it. Perhaps it is yourself that has a bias towards atheism and so reject all things that support theism.
Surely human consciousness and cognition tells you that there is something special about man that no other creature has and should raise fundimental questions about reality.
@Surfxeo Consciousness is subjective. I can make a guess that you experience the world in broadly the same way as me but I cannot be certain. Most of my evidence would come from what you say you experience. A dolphin cannot talk to you so you even less chance of ascertaining whether a dolphin experiences consciousness in the same way as you. Or an Orang Utang or a Chimpanzee!
So why assert that there is something special about human consciousness. It may be true but you don't know it.
@jamesrands Every animal has a spirit of some sort by they do not have a divine soul as man has. You can only be subjective if you believe if everything is subjective. I do not however, I believe in abolutes. Animals communicate all the time but they are not at all like man. A man can appretiate, art, music, philosophy, music, a beautiful sunset. We have the capacity to think beyond ourselves. To think of the afterlife or before life. Animals have no moral code.
@Surfxeo You are just asserting that animals are different which you cannot know. The strength of your argument is that we have an inner mental life which differentiates us from animals but you have no idea what goes on in animal's mind. I am sorry if this is too complicated for you. Are you saying that a human that takes no interest in art (and this would describe a pretty substantial number of people) are not humans?
@Surfxeo "Every animal has a spirit of some sort by they do not have a divine soul as man has." Apart from the desperate attempt to change the subject and not answer the actual point - where the fuck do you get that from? How do you know that? Where is your evidence? What do you mean by spirit? What do you mean by soul? What are the differences? Does a dog have a spirit more like a man's or a bee's? You can't throw that out as if it were some killer argument unless you explain it.
@Surfxeo "We have the capacity to think beyond ourselves." And you know that to be a fact because? If one observes behaviour in animals such as mammals and in fact birds one can see care for the young and in the case of some social animals for a wider extended family. That is exactly what you are saying they can't do? Your position is just plain indefensible and stupid.
@Surfxeo "Animals have no moral code." What are you defining as a moral code? Many animals have strong inhibitions against harming others within their own species. See Lorenz "On aggression" (I realise you won't actually read it; why read hard science books when you have a holy book?). The nearest we can find to a hard and fast moral code in humans is a weak inhibition against harming other humans. Essentially identical to those of other primates.
@jamesrands "See Lorenz "On aggression" " Do you think this book has any bearing on the origin of morality.
The 20th century showed what happens when humans forget the moral law and forget God to see what they are capable of. None of the atheistic dictators had any inhibition to annihilating human life. Life was cheap to them.
What I see is all life is created by a common creator. Not random events taking place ad-hoc.
@Surfxeo If you read it you'd understand why it's relevant to the origins of morality. What atheistic dictators are you talking about? If you suggest Hitler go to the corner and don the dunce's cap and never speak again.
@jamesrands Take your pick. There wasn't one dictator but a whole multitude of them. Just look at any communist counrtry.
From the Christian perspective it is not people who are atheists that are the problem but human nature that is at fault, it is from the human heart that all evil comes from. If Hitler believed that he would one day answer to God for all the evils he caused then he would have been more mindful to what he was doing.
I am glad that hell exists because there is justice for evil
@Surfxeo Ye shall thee don the dunce cap for ye know fuck all 'bout 20th century history. Hitler did expect to answer for his actions to "the great providence" as he refered to god. Raised a catholic at a time when the catholic church had an official policy of anti-semitism he quite clearly believed what he was doing was just. Add in his belief that Aryans were the bible's chosen people and what was your point? So which atheist leaders are you refering to.
@jamesrands Yes but are aware that Catholics are not considered Christian. They persecuted around 68 million Christians and Jews from the 11 hundreds to the 19th century. Burning them to the stake for not recognising the authority of Rome. They uphold church dogma over the inspired word of God. What the Bible referes to as the anti-Christ.
The Aryans were not the bibles chosen people, the title belongs to the elect.
No the aryans were supposed to be the superior race, more "evolved" than others
@Surfxeo Right so Catholics aren't Christians? That's insane but let's for argument's sake pretend your right. That doesn't make him an atheist does it? Obviously I do realize that having lost the debate on consciousness you have just flipped to even dumber argument without any satisfactory riposte my points. Nonetheless, which atheists are you talking about?
@jamesrands You are right it doesn't have to follow that Hilter was atheist but neither was he Christian.
What I see of Germany in the 20th century was an evolutionary theism which is not the same as Christian theism.
There are many Gods but you cannot lump them all with the same stick. In Christianity those other Gods are called idols, made up Gods in someones imagination and to worship them is what you call idolotry.
@Surfxeo Erm I am not committing the this god or no god fallacy, you are. Your initial attempt was to claim that Hitler was an atheist. I told you you'd look silly when you did but you went and did it anyway didn't you. Whether he was a christian in your conception of the word is irrelevant to the fact that he wasn't as you claimed an atheist. Are you trying to claim that evolution is a religion? I'm going to laugh at you again if you are.
@Surfxeo Stalin was a trained Orthodox Priest. He did renounce his faith but according to his closest aides he reconverted in 1941 after going into seclusion for a period. If you look at his religious crackdowns post 1945 you'll notice that the Orthodox Church was excluded which are not the actions of atheist. Next!
@Surfxeo I am afraid you are wrong. Look up the purges of the 1950s an you will see one religion is exempted. That happens to be the religion he trained as a priest in. How strange one might think - an atheist cracking down on religion but giving one group an exemption. Strange until you read about his reconversion (which is well documented). He was an atheist for a while and he was nasty shit at the time but not noticeably more so than when he was religious.
@jamesrands I think you are missing the point. He did these things contrary to Christianity. All other religions are false that goes for atheism too. All false. Stalins beliefs grew out of a belief that he would not answer for his sins.
@jamesrands Germany was indoctrinated to Darwins evolutionsim and that is the root to how Nazis thought that they were the "master race" so decided to exterminate the Jews to get rid of the weak races so the aryan race could thrive. This was the whole point of the concentration camps. I'm surpirsed you never heard of this. And to compound the error they follow the philosophy of markism.
All this is against Scripture. Man was created in the image of God and to murder man is to deface God himself
@Surfxeo Right Hitler was not a believer in mad religious ideology, weird folk tales and his own myth. The master race ideology was a natural extension of the realpolitik of Ludendorf borne out of the nationalism of the Napoleonic period (prior to the theory of evolution). I doubt very much that Hitler ever believed in evolution. His back to the land, feudalist ideas were deeply counter-progressive.
@jamesrands But Darwin didn't invent evolution. His own Grandfather was an evolutionist before he was born, he just made it popular with his book Origins of Species.
You cannot understand Napoleonic period without first understanding the french enlightenment which was a terrible time in European history. It was truely horrific, the whole country descended into anarchy & blood lust.
@Surfxeo Well no one invented evolution. But given that Darwin set sale on the Beagle as a creationist you really are talking absolute rubbish. The enlightenment was not a terrible time in European politics. It essentially began after the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 so after the end of the Thirty Years War or Wars of Religion a period which saw a full third of the German population slaughtered by barbaric Protestant and Catholic armies. It was a period of relative peace.
@jamesrands Charles Darwin was still a creationist after he wrote the origins of species. If you have ever read his book you would see that the tree of life he proposed shows that there is no one origin but multiple origins of species.
What you you talking about, millions throgh France were murdered. The only thing that came out of the enlightenment were corpses.
@Surfxeo Do you mean "marxism"? There is such a thing as "markism" but saying that's what the Nazis believed in is almost as ludicrous as claiming they were Marxists (you know the people they locked up first along with the atheists and homosexuals but before the mentally ill, Jews and Jehovah's witnesses).
@Surfxeo No it is not. One of the main appeals of Nazism in post-war Germany was its resistance to Marxism hence the loyalty of the Frei-Korps volunteers. Nazism stresses national identity and racial purity whilst Marx claims that these are inventions of the ruling elites to repress the international working proletariat. How the hell does Nazism come from Marxism.
@Surfxeo As for cognition. Read Konrad Lorenz King Solomon's Ring or On Aggression or The Other Side of the Mirror which also deals with consciousness. Insects have virtually no cognition (assuming that you are using cognition in any fashion broadly compatible with the sense in which it is normally used). Rats have very little. Dogs a little more. Some birds have quite a lot. Chimpanzees are positively clever (IQs of 85 in some cases.) Cognition shows very clear evolution. What's your point?
@Surfxeo "How can you say Chimps have an IQ of 85? You need to be able to read to have an IQ lol" It is easy to see that creationists aren't used to IQ tests. IQ can be tested without the use of language. In most animals we do it with problem solving tests with food as an incentive. However, with chimpanzees you can actually sit them down and get them to play brain training games. They are that clever.
@Surfxeo By your rationale if I gave a chinese speaker an IQ test in English then it would prove he was stupid. Tests need to be made feasible for the test subject that doesn't mean you can't test them.
@Surfxeo "Stick with what science actually knows." I love it when you fuckwits try and refer to science. Did you note that whilst you assert that science says something I actually gave you three references. "Cognition is not part of evolution." I'm going to need more than your assertion to believe that. Rats are not very intelligent when compared with us but when compared with a stick insect they are geniuses. All mammals have the ability to learn which is an evolutionary trait.
@Surfxeo The point you either did not understand or just avoided was that as consciousness is a subjective experience you cannot know what someone else (including animals) is experiencing. The only way you could do that would be in an improvement in neuroscience which would prove that consciousness was a physical process and therefore not mystical. See Dennett "Consciousness Explained" or "Freedom Evolves" and Nagel "The view from nowhere". I know you won't actually read any.
Amateur narrator. We dont need some one to regurgitate someone words or to be held by the hand and told what to think, not to mention that your understanding of probability factors in that they only apply to future events is is kind of odd and not factual. Its kind of like being shot in the head with a shot gun, and then I falling 700 ft on to solid concrete with rebar sticking out, surviving and then saying, its no wonder I'm alive, because if I were dead I wouldn't be alive to observe it.
If you give an iota of credence to the fine tuning argument - think about a puddle, considering the hole it sits in, how perfectly it shapes the puddle, and concluding that the hole was fine tuned by an intelligent designer to fit the puddle. We all know however that its the puddle that fits the hole, not the other way around. Now think of the puddle as life, adaptable, malleable, and the universe as the hole, constant. This is how Douglas Adams did away with the fine tuning argument.
[from above]...We can, if we want, ALSO model universes where the laws of physics are different, say that gravity was inversely proportion to the cube of the distance, or that it was proportionate to the square of the mass.
So we can model many other universes without having observed them, which negates the complaint you and the questioner raise.
First, as to probability and the complaint that we only have one universe to sample.... further universes are not needed because they can be MODELED.
I don't need to buy a car in order to know how much the payments are. The payments can be calculated without me purchasing the car. In the same manner, we can adjust the constants given the laws of physics and model a large number of universes without having observed them..... [TBC]
The persuasiveness of the fine tuning argument always comes down to The human tendency for egocentric behavior."the universe produced me/my species/biological life,there for that is what it must be about."
Never mind that any alternate fine tuning(if such a thing was even possible) would be bound to produce alternate unique phenomena,we place greater value on the one that is us.
And if tomorrow some discovery happened that showed that the constants must be their current values, WLC wouldn't care he'd just go on to misuse some other unknown in science, and use this new information to bolster his new argument.
So are physicists actually saying that we know anything about the origin of constants? I would really like to hear from one of them instead of letting WLC use their ideas for his own purposes. Here is what I get from their argument, physicists KNOW that the constants could be different, they KNOW that all values for a given constant are equally probable. We shouldn't have to argue against this BS.
Th1sWasATriumph, what Craig and Lennox are doing has a name. it is called an intuition pump. these are not proofs, counter-examples, or a new argument, but just a restating of the initial point in the form of analogy. another example is John Leslie's firing squad.
You were raising some so-so points until you got to about 4:30 and you made a bigoted statement about theists which nullifies for me anything you have to say. The best minds are not bigoted.
@Roper122 You're not disagreeing with a theist. You're committing the fallacy of overgeneralization at that point--something in my experience only bigots do.
You're an anti-religious bigot: deal with it or not. I don't care.
I just know I can't take bigoted comments seriously.
@EastofForever Please quote the statement. Is it the typhus thing? Strap on a pair and watch the rest of the video.
The best minds are not bigoted? Would this explain why you decided to stop watching the video, thus nullifying your ability to construct a valid argument against it? Could it be that my apparent bigotry has inspired genuine bigotry on your part? Please, explain.
@Th1sWasATriumph The basic premise of your argument is wrong.You say Lennox's argument is based on the idea that life is "more important" than anything else.Wrong.It's based on the fact that a life-permitting Universe is infinitely more improbable than a life-prohibiting Universe.This is why atheist physicists (including Martin Rees) all accept the Universe is fine-tuned for life,and many resort to a "Multiverse" to explain it, but there is no evidence whatsoever for this its just another belief
Probability arguments are misleading when used in this way. The bottom line is that this is the universe we have ended up with, which makes it's probability 100%. We have only one universe to observe, so if we ask the question, what SHOULD a universe look like, we have only to look around us. It may simply be, that for a universe to even exist it must be like this, otherwise you wouldn't exist to ask the question.
@Staunts Thats a failed counter-argument thats been dealt with many times..It is the equivalent of discovering an ancient city and deciding it just fell into place by chance because, if it wasnt there we wouldnt "observe" it. If you were lined up for execution in front of 50'000 trained marksmen, but you survived, while it is true that you are only able to ask why because your alive to ask, it remains reasonable to assume that there must be a reason you survived given the improbability.
No, my argument still stands. What a universe should look like is apparent by what we see, and it is extremely telling that, at the heart of theism is the statement that reality as it is given is not normal. That is the essence of deceit, and is unfalsifiable, AND, hopelessly contaminated by personal bias toward life as we know it. And you stated that this improbability was fact, when it can be nothing of the sort, it is mere speculation based on the unknown.
@Th1sWasATriumph You are actually a dimwit. "you can only calculate the improbability of an event before it has happened"
Thats complete bollocks, as any probability theorist will tell you.
As Craig noted, If you were lined up for exeecution before 50,000 marksmen and survived, while you can only see the improbability of your survivial because you survived to see it, this doesnt take away from the fact that its extremely improbable 50,000 marksmen could have missed by accident!
@relarerfhjk It's notable that the examples used are almost always anthropocentric ones. It is indeed improbable that 50,000 marksmen could have missed. However, it's also improbable that 50,000 grains of sand would go to any particular 50,000 locations in a beach, but no-one gives a shit about beaches, so that's ok.
Even ignoring that argument, if there ever WERE any anthropocentric examples like the marksmen thing, it would not be rational to say "huh, that was unlikely. TO CHURCH WITH US!"
@Th1sWasATriumph "gives a shit about beaches" The point is that any life-permitting Universe is INFINITELY more improbable than a life-prohibiting one! The very fact we're debating this question is a result of this immense probability....that we could come from the Universe yet be able to observe & reflect on our place within it!
"TO CHURCH WITH US" The point is that it would not be rational to say 50,000 marksmen must have missed by accident just because the event has already happened!
@relarerfhjk INFINITELY improbable? I'd be interested to see the calculations that led to that answer. May I?
Once more, I'd like real-life examples showing the kind of apparent improbability that genuinely suggests divine interference or manipulation as a legitimate alternative to simple chance.
@Th1sWasATriumph "I'd be interested to see the calculations" Very easy,sir.
Physicists calculate a life-prohibiting Universe is infintely more probable than any kind of life-permitting one by comparing the TINY life-permitting range of values with the utterly vast life-prohibiting range of values
The constants can all fall almost ANYWHERE on the range and you get no life! But all 30 of them have to fall precisely inside a tiny range from the VERY INCEPTION to get any life!
@relarerfhjk Now, can you actually give me any real-life examples of such amazing improbability (they all seem to be things like picking correct lottery numbers consecutively for ten years, or finding one penny in the entirety of world currency 12 times in a row). Can you find me situations in anthropocentric terms that do genuinely seem to demonstrate some kind of fuckery behind the scenes, or can you only offer hypotheticals to try and make me see that the universe is fine tuned ergo designed?
@Th1sWasATriumph The purpose of the marksmen example is to expose your argument that "we can only consider the improbability of an event before it has happened" as complete bollocks!
The equivalent of surviving 50,000 executioners and saying it must be "pure chance" just because the event already happened!
As mathematician Roger Penrose says: a solar system popping out of a random collision, is far more probable than all 30 constants being as fine-tuned for life as our Universe
@relarerfhjk So what you HAVEN'T done is provided me with any real-life examples comparable to the 50000 marksmen thing. It's all pretty lights and shapes with you guys, isn't it? "Imagine this beautifully constructed hypothesis AND ACCEPT MY ARGUMENT." Nope, I need more than that.
How unlikely you view 50000 marksmen missing is simply a result of your human bias. Once it's happened, probability is 1:1.
@Th1sWasATriumph "thats like saying a desert is fine-tuned for life because life can survive there"
It is nothing remotely like saying that: the Universe is fine-tuned for life because the initial conditions have to perfectly tuned with mind-blowing precision (accurate to 120 decimal places) to permit any kind of life to ocurr!
just a slight tweak to the fundamental constants and nothing heavier than helium gas could exist, another tiny tweak and the Universe would fly apart!
Are you atheist?
RockinHBWJunior 57 minutes ago
In the video description: "I felt sort of bad doing any kind of refutation regarding Lennox. He's just so cuddly and earnest and, more importantly, smart."
That's it, I'm beginning to think you are homosexual Triumph. And you conceded with the fine-tuning argument at 2:44: "life can exist within the universe". Then the universe is fine-tuned for life.
MoonwalkerWorshiper 2 weeks ago
@MoonwalkerWorshiper "Then the universe was fine-tuned for life."
Not so. Saying the universe was fine-tuned for life assumes that life was part of a larger plan to begin with. Yes, life can exist within the universe, but it's a non-sequiter to then say "therefore, the universe must be designed FOR life."
It's like saying, "Glasses fit on the nose, therefore the nose was designed FOR glasses!"
As Triumph states, you need to get rid of this anthropocentric perspective.
Hektor88 8 hours ago
@Hektor88 The argument isn't intelligent design but fine-tuning. If the constants of the universe were altered in any way life couldn't exist, even Hawkings admits to this. Since life does exist, the reality in which it exists must be fine-tuned for it. It's basically hopeless to argue against it.
Fine-tuned doesn't mean comfortable for life. Nobody is saying a possible intelligent designer fine-tuned the universe in such a way that everything is made for the benefit of life.
MoonwalkerWorshiper 7 hours ago
The initial premise of the argument is that in order for life to exist, the universe must have such properties that warrant a designer. However in this line of reasoning, the designer of those properties would exist in a state where none of these properties were true. Therefore any properties deemed to require a designer can't be necessary for existence in the first place, as the designer can exist without them. The argument is self-refuting.
Jiaxis 3 weeks ago
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YOURINQUIRER 3 weeks ago in playlist William Lane Craig
"Fine tuned"?? Humans can only exist in a microscopically small fraction of the universe...if that's "proof" of "fine tuning" then whoever did the tuning was an imbecile.
mikefromwa 1 month ago
@mikefromwa
"Humans can only exist in a microscopically small fraction of the universe"
That's not the fine-tuning argument. It deals with the very constants of the universe, which seem to be fine-tuned in order to allow life anywhere in it at all.
mawa89g 3 weeks ago
@mawa89g: Theists often confuse or overlap the 'fine tuning' claim. Regardless, to claim that the fundamental constants of the universe were deliberately "tuned" to the "right" values by some super-deity is also ridiculous.
mikefromwa 3 weeks ago
@mikefromwa Its also ridiculous that it was complete chance either. Thats why you people have your multiverse theory. As someone once said. "If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse". Because without it. You dont have much left. As a Agnostic. I dont know which is right. But im not stupid enough to stop asking questions. Unlike you boring people.
Lone432345 2 weeks ago
@Lone432345: "Its also ridiculous that it was complete chance either."
I don't claim to have all the answers, but I know bullshit when I hear it. And believing in an invisible super-being that controls the entire universe (and for which there is ZERO proof) is bullshit. You might as well claim that magic pixies created the universe. Or that Elvis did it. Neither of those ideas are any sillier than what religious people believe.
mikefromwa 2 weeks ago
@mikefromwa With all due respect, but i think it's just as ridiculous to believe we came from nothing. Why would we even exist? Why isn't there simply just nothing? Why are we here in the first place?
soooooo89 1 week ago
Ah. yes John "the liar" Lennox.
He took the sound from a debate with Richard Dawkins, edited it, and played it somewhere else as proof of Richard Dawkins admitting that there had to be some 'designer' behind it all. :-)
BelieveNoGod 2 months ago in playlist The Craigening: Refuting William Lane Craig's Proofs For God
The fact that we have only this universe and that varying ratios and constants by only 2% in this 1/1 universe would result in this 1/1 universe being non-life sustaining is precisely why Lennox's probability analysis and fine tuning are correct.
cmottes 2 months ago
@cmottes Not really. Gravity is relative to mass. If gravity was 2% stronger, but the Earth was 2% smaller the affect on us would be the same.
mathew2283 20 hours ago
@Th1sWasATriumph, Lennox is completely correct you are entirely mistaken in every response to him.
cmottes 2 months ago
How well put in Sirach, with humility have self-esteem for who will acquit the person who condemns himself! And here the vid poster and commenters awfully declare human life not special! Of course it is! No wonder atheists have no morality if they see no value in our lives. This is humility to ACCEPT the gift God gives us. And arrogance to refuse to bow with thanks to the giver.
cmottes 2 months ago
I don't understand all the dickering about the fine tuning argument...maybe I need to read more philosophy and cosmology?
It doesn't matter if we calculate after the fact from human arrogance (the universe was designed with me in mind) the small chance of life...we are here so obviously we hit the jackpot.
The universe happened to have the qualities to support our type of life, not vice versa...the universe was not designed for us, we were designed by nature for it.
Am I missing something?
AtheistPowerlifter 2 months ago
Tim,
I suppose any event could be considered "special", but I think Lennox was taking for granted that we consider our existence to be special. Besides, I'm not sure how being predisposed toward one event or other changes its probability value.
Mentat1231 2 months ago
@Mentat1231 It doesn't, but if any set of values is considered equally special, it falls flat because any exact set of universal values is that improbable. But that's what I was getting at. If you think life is special, and therefore you believe in God, the fine-tuning argument is a good reason to believe, but I just think it fails to prove it to someone else because it needs that one point to be granted.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome
1) Logic isn't concerned with convincing people, since some people will always choose to remain unconvinced, regardless.
2) This is the exact set of values that exist, not any other. And this exact set of values was needed for the Universe to not collapse on itself instantly, for chemistry to work, for cosmological evolution to take place, and for biological life to exist. It was EXTREMELY unlikely, as Lennox rightly points out.
Mentat1231 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome
By the way, Bill Craig addresses your argument better than I will, here: watch?v=AUpvf5ZFsVA&feature=related
He mentions "specified complexity" (a design theory term), and illustrates it as a man who was given a car for his birthday with a random license plate CHT 4271. Nothing special. But, what if he'd been born on Aug. 8th 1949, and the license plate said "BOB 8849"?
Mentat1231 2 months ago
@Mentat1231 In that situation, while it's not clearly a goal, it's something that was already recongized. Like getting the same suit for every card. Even if we didn't recognize it as a goal, humans already have a perception that it's special.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome btw the link you gave me didn't send me to a bill craig video that mentioned what you said, so sorry but I did only reply to your comment, not the video. The one I got was him talking about 5 things science can't prove.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome
Oh, I'm sorry. I must have done the copying/pasting incorrectly. You addressed the central point well, even without the right link.
One thing I hadn't realized before: Saying "the existence of human life was not special until after the fact" is actually begging the question. It presumes that God didn't intend us.
Mentat1231 2 months ago
@Mentat1231 I'm not saying that as a certainty though, I'm merely saying that unless it was intended, there's not much of an argument. I'm personally 50/50 approximately on whether some type of God exists, so it's very possible that he did fine-tune it for life. But if you're using it as proof or evidence, you should have at least a good case for life being sig. and when looking at how rare life is, it makes me think the opposite. That's just me though.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome
If rarity indicated insignificance, wouldn't grass be more valuable than diamonds? As to what is and isn't significant, doesn't the central subject of our discussion (our existence; involving so many things different unlikely events) become significant by virtue of being the central subject of our discussion?
Mentat1231 2 months ago
@Mentat1231 It's just my personal view, that I don't know either way if the universe has been designed for life or it's the type of universe that came up among the gajillion others. My basis is that life is such a small part of the universe, that it seems silly to make it the main variable in judging sorting likely and unlikely universes. I'm not arguing that though, that's my view on something I don't actually know.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome
Well, you're entitled to that view. I would point out that the whole Universe has to have the physics, chemistry, etc that this one has in order for life to ever come about. And it has to support its own weight (the expansion rate and entropy rate have to be precisely tuned). But I see where you're coming from.
Mentat1231 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome "I don't know if...its the type of universe that came up among the gajiilion others"
Firstly, thre's absolutely no indepndent evidence for a "gajillion others" since we can't see any Universes outside our own: secondly, William Lane Craig already dealt the Boltzman Brains death blow to the multiverse hypotheses: if it were true,given the unbelievable improbability of a fine-tuned Universe, we should be seeing such extraordinarily improbable events all the time
relarerfhjk 2 months ago
@relarerfhjk You clearly don't understand my point at all, and instead just regurgitate what you heard Craig say. I never defended the multiverse. Read my comments again lol, before you try to repeat the same argument without even thinking.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@relarerfhjk I don't know where your reply comment was, so I'll just respond to it through this. You're accusation of me not knowing the basics is laughable, as I was discussing the entire thing peacefully with someone else, then you enter without even understanding what we're talking about and you regurgitate Craig's words back at me when we had already moved past it. I explained my position on why I think a probablity arguement like this is bs (no its not the same one in the video) if you
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome have a rebuttal, give it please, but don't just act like an idiot and repeat the initial argument from the beginning of the discussion.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome "it seems silly to make life the main variable" You clearly have no idea what your talking about
Life is the "main variable" because we are by far the most complex arrangements of matter in the Universe (presuming other complex, intelligent life doesnt exist elsewhere ) and the range of conditions needed to create such astonishingly complex intelligent beings capable of consciousness, are astoundingly precise
relarerfhjk 2 months ago
@relarerfhjk Why is life more complex than, say, Jupiter?
Also, the range of environments on this planet that life inhabits is staggering. Miles deep in the ocean, in immense pressure, heat and toxicity, organisms survive. To say that the conditions are precise for this is simply incorrect, because life adapts to almost all environments on earth, in a somewhat imprecise range of conditions.
I noticed you've qualified with "intelligent". Why?
Th1sWasATriumph 2 months ago
@Th1sWasATriumph "we couldnt adapt" or even exist in the first place, without an astonishing array of exquisitely fine-tuned constants of nature
"intelligent. Why?"
Because its even harder to get intelligent life than to get much simpler life-forms.
In slightly different conditions some very tiny,simple life-forms could exist,but nothing more complex than an amoeba: to get intelligent life, the constants have to be perfectly arranged across the whole Universe
relarerfhjk 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome You did not "move poast it", by proposing we may be one of a "gazillion Universes" you were suggesting multiverse was a plausible explanation when, in fact, it is far more implausible, due to the odds against an entire fine-tuned Universe appearing which is able to support conscious, complex, intelligent life
Its far more likely we should be observing nothing bigger than a solar system since this is more probable, in a multiverse scenario, than a fine-tuned Universe
relarerfhjk 2 months ago
@relarerfhjk i never proposed the multiverse, you didn't understand what I said.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@Mentat1231 "the existence of human life is not special" is a ridiculous statement: the existence of intelligent, complex, conscious life is both astonishingly improbable, given the criteria needed, and astonishingly "special": as Paul Davies said, the real miracle is that we should have come from the Universe yet can look out and comprehend that very same Universe and our own place within it
relarerfhjk 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome
You'll be hard-pressed to find humans who don't think their existence is special. At the end of the day, there was a much greater likelihood of a non-life-supporting Universe than of a life-supporting one. "Much greater" is an abominable understatement. And so, when so many unlikely things have gone so right ("right" for us to exist), it is not a violation of statistical understanding to talk about how unlikely that was, and to look for reasons.
Mentat1231 2 months ago
@Mentat1231 Well certainly special to us; I'm not saying I don't personally consider my existence special. But I do think life is insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome
Even your ability to think that (or anything at all) is what's at stake. Along with everything else humans ever do. None of it could have occurred without that precise fine-tuning.
Mentat1231 2 months ago
@Mentat1231 True, but I don't think my ability to think is significant to the universe either. It's important to me for sure, and anybody I know well/ converse with (like you), but its importance ends there, unless God does exist and fine-tuned the universe (which again I'm not saying is untrue, but I think the 99.999999% argument the F.T. argument is supposed to be fails).
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome
I understand what you're saying, but mathematically speaking, it is significant that all of these variables came together for a life-sustaining Universe. You speak as though there were so many other options, when in fact the Universe was either going to be life-sustaining (which requires WAY too many things to be *just right*) or it wasn't (which requires nothing at all, and which encompasses any number of other possible configurations for the Universe).
Mentat1231 2 months ago
I don't know why this is so difficult for apologists. The whole "we only have one point in our data set" is not some atheist talking point they can casually dismiss, it destroys their entire argument. Their premises are based on our kind of life not being able to exist in other kinds of universes, and assuming that other universes can't support their own kinds of life. They have no basis for these assumptions.
inuyashaxx 2 months ago
Btw, if it helps at all, in mathematics the terms "likelihood" and "probability" are not synonymous. Probability only refers to future events, much in the way you describe in this video. But "likelihood" does in fact refer to past events. Likelihood is calculated based on "probability density", and through straightforward mathematics can give us a value for an event which has already occurred. That is, of course, what Lennox is doing.
Mentat1231 2 months ago
This video is based on a fallacy. The question: "how likely was this event" is a perfectly legitimate one which we ask all the time. For example, the winner of the lottery did not have a 1:1 probability of winning it. He had, in fact, a very low probability, which is why there is such a pay-off. The maker of this video (and the man who asked the question of Craig) seem to have no comprehension of statistics. Thank goodness for Lennox, who as a mathematician, seems to understand statistics.
Mentat1231 2 months ago
@Mentat1231 Clearly a lottery contestant doesn't have a 1:1 chance of winning. You can work out very precisely the odds against such an eventuality, UNTIL IT HAPPENS, at which point retrospectively the odds become 1:1.
What you haven't understood is that Lennox is comparing something which has ALREADY happened to a hypothetically improbable scenario of finding a single penny amidst trillions. Discussing an event afterwards is as relevant as saying "Jupiter is improbable!"
Th1sWasATriumph 2 months ago 2
@Th1sWasATriumph
Again, likelihood is different than probability in mathematics. The likelihood of Jupiter was indeed lesser than the likelihood of our Sun, for example. And the likelihood of Earth much much less than Jupiter. This is actually part of the basis of Information Theory (e.g. there is more information in DNA than in RNA because there were more possible permutations from which this particular one was drawn).
Mentat1231 2 months ago
@Th1sWasATriumph "UNTIL IT HAPPENS" I have explained the fallacy at the heart of this misrepresentation of probability theory numerous times! Why endlessly recycle an argument thats already been demolished?
We can judge the probability of any EXPLANATION of a past event...e.g is the fine-tuning of the intial conditions for life, best explained by chance or design? Did 5000 marksmen all miss by acident, or on purpose? Which explanation is more probable
relarerfhjk 2 months ago
@Th1sWasATriumph Deary me, you still havent understood the fallacy in your stupid "until it happens" argument? So you can't say its improbable that 50,000 marksmen could miss a target if it happened? What a stupid fucking argument.
Get over it, your argument is a ridiculous fallacy that no probability theorist would ake seriously.
"Jupiter is improbable" No, its like saying 500 marksmen missing by accident was so improbable that they clearly didnt miss by accident
relarerfhjk 2 months ago
@relarerfhjk Yes, it would be improbable for 50,000 marksmen to miss a target. However, I don't see any examples of such hypothetically improbable, anthropocentrically derived, scenarios ACTUALLY HAPPENING. So are there any?
Th1sWasATriumph 2 months ago
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@Th1sWasATriumph Yes and using the relevance of the obscure chance in justifying God belief. The idea is saying that the removal of God complicates the explanation. However, I feel that since science is the exploration of the creation it will only lead to the creator.
MrItchyElbow 2 months ago in playlist The Craigening: Refuting William Lane Craig's Proofs For God
@Th1sWasATriumph Is there any reason to suppose that the universe could exist in any form other than it does?
mathew2283 20 hours ago
@Mentat1231 But in your example you made a clear distinction of what the goal is, just like Lennox did with painting the red coin.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome
It's not about goals. It's a bygone conclusion that life can (and does) exist. But, mathematically speaking, the *likelihood* of that event was ABSURDLY small. Perhaps infinitesimally so.
Mentat1231 2 months ago
@Mentat1231 Without goals there's no basis to argue for "fine-tuning" though. I'll give you an example. If I make a prediction about that the exact order of 52 cards in a deck, the chances I'll be right is almost impossible. It's only special though if you make an define an improbable goal (like a life permitting universe) and than it actually happens. There's a 1/1 chance I'm going to get some astronomically unlikely order of cards, but it's not special unless the goal was defined before
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome With life, it was not defined before. There are infinite possible universes that could exist, and yes only a fraction that can support life. But unless you make the distinction of life vs. nonlife universes before hand, the fact that we got a life-permitting universe is pointless. If there are other universes that don't permit life but still have unlikely features, how come we value life over those features. Without setting goals beforehand, a "fine-tuning" argument is useless.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome As for "likelihood", I admit I'm not an expert in mathematical terms, but I don't see any merit in this argument for god.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome
My description of the mathematical term "likelihood" is just to show the maker of this video (and several others who support his reasoning) that their argument is logically invalid. And it is, since they are using an obscure fact about probability to challenge Lennox's statement. But Lennox was using "probability" in the usual way. Mathematically, he means "likelihood", and the video's argument evaporates.
Mentat1231 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome
Forgive me for not understanding your point. You have been clear enough, but I just don't get what you're driving at. A Universe that can support us is what is being discussed, and the specific conditions of that Universe are so precise and there are so many such conditions that the likelihood of this Universe (and the likelihood of us) was staggeringly (some would say "impossibly") low. How does your argument address this fact?
Mentat1231 2 months ago
@Mentat1231 You seem to know more about the laws of probability than I do, but I still don't see the difference between the fine-tuning argument and my card example, where any choice is really unlikely. I could look back at the order of the cards and say they're "precise" because they landed in the order they did, which is staggeringly low, but because we didn't define that certain order as significant beforehand we don't consider the unlikely event happening as special.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@relarerfhjk- If we don't have to explain an explanation, then we don't have to explain order resulting from the big bang. Other goodies: an argument is not circular because of what you think I would say if..., compared to what I'm saying now. That's pretty silly. Talk abot basic philosophy. Your contention that there was a designer becase things are clearly designed IS circular. And you still haven't answered my question: couldn't a maxiamally powerful god create life in any kind of universe?
pastafarianprophet 3 months ago
@pastafarianprophet "then we dont have to explain order resulting from the Big Bang" The point would be that, to recognise intelligent design as the best explanation of fine-tuning, we dont have to be able to explain the designer.To recognise design as the best explanation of a jungle city we dont have to be able to explain the builders!
"create life in any universe" it would be illogical for material life to exist when nothing heavier than gas can exist...a perfect God is not illogical!
relarerfhjk 3 months ago
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pastafarianprophet 3 months ago
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pastafarianprophet 3 months ago
@pastafarianprophet No you fool, its cicular to say that evidence OF design, is really evidence AGAINST design, since if there was no evidence of design, this would also be evidence against it! You know perfectly well what a stupid, circular argument looks like, stop trying to look clever and ended up looking silly!
God can create anything but reating material life with nothing heavier than helium would be like God creating a square circle,its a logical contradiction so isnt a THING
relarerfhjk 3 months ago
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pastafarianprophet 3 months ago
I should also mention that when faith has you spinning in circles, everything but your faith looks like a circular argument
pastafarianprophet 3 months ago
@pastafarianprophet Your argument is a fallacy: its basic philosophy that you dont have to be able to explain an explanation, in order for that explanation to be considered the best one. So e.g if we discovered a odd-shaped UFO,even if we coulnt explain why aliens designed it in such a way,design would still be the best explanation!
To answer the question, God built the Universe logically because He is logical and it displays his artistry for us to see: He is written all over the cosmos
relarerfhjk 3 months ago
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pastafarianprophet 3 months ago
@relarerfhjk -- You just assume that the mindbogglingness of it all is evidence of YOUR god. Things happened a certain way, and post hoc you say god made it happen that way. It's like when people say "if I wouldn't have skipped getting in that cab on 147th street, then I wouldn't have bought that hot dog, and wouldn't have dropped it on the guy next to this girl that stopped the guy from beating me up-- and I married that girl! See? it was meant to be!" Poppycock! It's conspiracy theory "logic"
pastafarianprophet 3 months ago
@pastafarianprophet "you assume is evidence of YOUR God"
You havent understood the arguments. Its not the "mindbogglingness of it all" its called deductive logic: the fine-tuning of the Universe only has 3 plausible explanations...physical necessity, chance or design. It cant be physicialnecessity since the constants are indepndent of natural law, they dont HAVE to be that way, it cant be chance because the odds against it are far too high, so design is the most plausible explanation
relarerfhjk 3 months ago
@relarerfhjk You haven't shown that physical necessity doesn't apply, and you haven't shown that chance doesn't apply. The design assumption proposes a being of which we have no experience and which is more improbable than the universe.
gamesbok 2 months ago
@gamesbok I have shown physical necessity doesnt apply I repeat...the constants are INDEPENDENT OF NATURAL LAW,so those exquisitely fine-tuned constants could have any of a vast range of values and still be consistent with natural law...i.e they dont have to be the way they are!
Chance dosnt apply as the odds against all 30 constants falling into the exact life-permitting range by accident are far too high!
Gods existence is rendered MORE probable by the Universe's existence!
relarerfhjk 2 months ago
@relarerfhjk You are DEEPLY deluded. Far from being independant of natural law, they ARE natural law, and speculation that they could be different is futile and unsupported. The universe is fine tuned to kill you stone cold dead at the first opportunity it gets, and where it has done in the overwhelming majority on the universe. God is the speculation that there is a more complex being beyond what we can observe, and that is a wild speculation. Don't ask me to believe in magic.
gamesbok 2 months ago
@gamesbok "you are deeply deluded"
Yur embarassingly thick...the constants are NOT natural laws they describe the values of fundamental constants such as the size of protons or the strength of the weakforce or the strength of gravity or the energy match between helium nuclei and isotopes etc...these are ALL INDEPENDENT OF NATURAL LAW, protons could be any size and still be consistent with natural law, yet if they were just 2% bigger life couldnt exist!
You clown
relarerfhjk 2 months ago
@relarerfhjk You can argue chance perfectly logically if you remove the arbitrary claim that the spec of life that exists in the universe, or even matter itself is of significance to judge universes by.
TimofAwsome 2 months ago
@TimofAwsome "you can argue chance logically"
No you can't, because a life-prohibiting Universe is infinitely more probable than a life-permitting one. Due to the fact that the life-permitting range of values is incomprehensibly small compared to the whole range of possible values.
try learning the basics, before entering the discussion
relarerfhjk 2 months ago
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pastafarianprophet 3 months ago
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pastafarianprophet 3 months ago
In the video description you typed " Craig's resume is his doctorate in philosophy, but even that has been used simply to back up his faith from experience." so am I missing something? Is that supposed to be a negative?
If so you can apply that to Dawkins or any other number of atheists who use there academic knowledge to back up their world view
FeignofCordor 3 months ago
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Good vid, ugh these cretards on the thread don't realize their making calculations after (what their calculating) it already happened. lol Well I seen a leaf fall on my foot today what are the odds of that SPECIFIC leaf landing there at 3:45pm WTF! after being 'poofed' into existence by 'evilution' lol looks like krishna's real! ~_~ ah!!!
buktomsin 6 months ago
if the constants were different, then instead of "life" being the thing that seemed important, it would probably be something else, like "fhygludhhdgf", something which we don't completely understand yet.
BozoTheBear 7 months ago
The fine tuning arguement states that if the universe was different then it would be....er.......different.
gamesbok 7 months ago
When you put the guy with the question in the video at about 4:50 howcome you didn't put where the answer was given....
samuellis 9 months ago
Ah, the miracle of apologetics: It instantly makes any idiot into an expert on cosmology.
Staunts 9 months ago
You state that the probability of an event occurring given that event has occurred in the past, is always one. However, the question is not "What is the probability of 'the' event occurring given that occurred?" but rather "What is the probability 'an' event occurring?"
Now, yes, completely improbable events occur all the time, but what stands out are improbable events with meaning. I guess I am biased, but life itself cries out with meaning.
marveymarker 10 months ago
When I was a kid I played T-ball at school and hit a foul onto the basketball court and the ball went through the hoop! I agree it was just as probable to go through the hoop as anywhere else (any path is equally improbable), but because the event had some significance and meaning combined with low probability the teacher was shocked and offered me $5 to do it again! (true story).
marveymarker 10 months ago
Why are you basing the past, what you think that happened, based on a questionable theory that has no scientific evidence to support it. Perhaps it is yourself that has a bias towards atheism and so reject all things that support theism.
Surely human consciousness and cognition tells you that there is something special about man that no other creature has and should raise fundimental questions about reality.
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo Consciousness is subjective. I can make a guess that you experience the world in broadly the same way as me but I cannot be certain. Most of my evidence would come from what you say you experience. A dolphin cannot talk to you so you even less chance of ascertaining whether a dolphin experiences consciousness in the same way as you. Or an Orang Utang or a Chimpanzee!
So why assert that there is something special about human consciousness. It may be true but you don't know it.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@jamesrands Every animal has a spirit of some sort by they do not have a divine soul as man has. You can only be subjective if you believe if everything is subjective. I do not however, I believe in abolutes. Animals communicate all the time but they are not at all like man. A man can appretiate, art, music, philosophy, music, a beautiful sunset. We have the capacity to think beyond ourselves. To think of the afterlife or before life. Animals have no moral code.
Can an animal write?
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo You are just asserting that animals are different which you cannot know. The strength of your argument is that we have an inner mental life which differentiates us from animals but you have no idea what goes on in animal's mind. I am sorry if this is too complicated for you. Are you saying that a human that takes no interest in art (and this would describe a pretty substantial number of people) are not humans?
jamesrands 10 months ago
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@Surfxeo "Every animal has a spirit of some sort by they do not have a divine soul as man has." Apart from the desperate attempt to change the subject and not answer the actual point - where the fuck do you get that from? How do you know that? Where is your evidence? What do you mean by spirit? What do you mean by soul? What are the differences? Does a dog have a spirit more like a man's or a bee's? You can't throw that out as if it were some killer argument unless you explain it.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@Surfxeo "We have the capacity to think beyond ourselves." And you know that to be a fact because? If one observes behaviour in animals such as mammals and in fact birds one can see care for the young and in the case of some social animals for a wider extended family. That is exactly what you are saying they can't do? Your position is just plain indefensible and stupid.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@Surfxeo "Animals have no moral code." What are you defining as a moral code? Many animals have strong inhibitions against harming others within their own species. See Lorenz "On aggression" (I realise you won't actually read it; why read hard science books when you have a holy book?). The nearest we can find to a hard and fast moral code in humans is a weak inhibition against harming other humans. Essentially identical to those of other primates.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@jamesrands "See Lorenz "On aggression" " Do you think this book has any bearing on the origin of morality.
The 20th century showed what happens when humans forget the moral law and forget God to see what they are capable of. None of the atheistic dictators had any inhibition to annihilating human life. Life was cheap to them.
What I see is all life is created by a common creator. Not random events taking place ad-hoc.
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo If you read it you'd understand why it's relevant to the origins of morality. What atheistic dictators are you talking about? If you suggest Hitler go to the corner and don the dunce's cap and never speak again.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@jamesrands Take your pick. There wasn't one dictator but a whole multitude of them. Just look at any communist counrtry.
From the Christian perspective it is not people who are atheists that are the problem but human nature that is at fault, it is from the human heart that all evil comes from. If Hitler believed that he would one day answer to God for all the evils he caused then he would have been more mindful to what he was doing.
I am glad that hell exists because there is justice for evil
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo Ye shall thee don the dunce cap for ye know fuck all 'bout 20th century history. Hitler did expect to answer for his actions to "the great providence" as he refered to god. Raised a catholic at a time when the catholic church had an official policy of anti-semitism he quite clearly believed what he was doing was just. Add in his belief that Aryans were the bible's chosen people and what was your point? So which atheist leaders are you refering to.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@jamesrands Yes but are aware that Catholics are not considered Christian. They persecuted around 68 million Christians and Jews from the 11 hundreds to the 19th century. Burning them to the stake for not recognising the authority of Rome. They uphold church dogma over the inspired word of God. What the Bible referes to as the anti-Christ.
The Aryans were not the bibles chosen people, the title belongs to the elect.
No the aryans were supposed to be the superior race, more "evolved" than others
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo Right so Catholics aren't Christians? That's insane but let's for argument's sake pretend your right. That doesn't make him an atheist does it? Obviously I do realize that having lost the debate on consciousness you have just flipped to even dumber argument without any satisfactory riposte my points. Nonetheless, which atheists are you talking about?
jamesrands 10 months ago
@jamesrands You are right it doesn't have to follow that Hilter was atheist but neither was he Christian.
What I see of Germany in the 20th century was an evolutionary theism which is not the same as Christian theism.
There are many Gods but you cannot lump them all with the same stick. In Christianity those other Gods are called idols, made up Gods in someones imagination and to worship them is what you call idolotry.
Stalin for one, he murdered 20 million people.
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo Erm I am not committing the this god or no god fallacy, you are. Your initial attempt was to claim that Hitler was an atheist. I told you you'd look silly when you did but you went and did it anyway didn't you. Whether he was a christian in your conception of the word is irrelevant to the fact that he wasn't as you claimed an atheist. Are you trying to claim that evolution is a religion? I'm going to laugh at you again if you are.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@Surfxeo Stalin was a trained Orthodox Priest. He did renounce his faith but according to his closest aides he reconverted in 1941 after going into seclusion for a period. If you look at his religious crackdowns post 1945 you'll notice that the Orthodox Church was excluded which are not the actions of atheist. Next!
jamesrands 10 months ago
@jamesrands Stalin was an atheist. This fact is well documented. You are the first person who has ever said otherwise.
Religious crackdowns are the actions of an atheist
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo I am afraid you are wrong. Look up the purges of the 1950s an you will see one religion is exempted. That happens to be the religion he trained as a priest in. How strange one might think - an atheist cracking down on religion but giving one group an exemption. Strange until you read about his reconversion (which is well documented). He was an atheist for a while and he was nasty shit at the time but not noticeably more so than when he was religious.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@jamesrands I think you are missing the point. He did these things contrary to Christianity. All other religions are false that goes for atheism too. All false. Stalins beliefs grew out of a belief that he would not answer for his sins.
But he is answering for them today
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo So are you now conceding that perhaps he wasn't an atheist and are we going through the same nonsense we did with Hitler?
jamesrands 10 months ago
@jamesrands Germany was indoctrinated to Darwins evolutionsim and that is the root to how Nazis thought that they were the "master race" so decided to exterminate the Jews to get rid of the weak races so the aryan race could thrive. This was the whole point of the concentration camps. I'm surpirsed you never heard of this. And to compound the error they follow the philosophy of markism.
All this is against Scripture. Man was created in the image of God and to murder man is to deface God himself
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo Right Hitler was not a believer in mad religious ideology, weird folk tales and his own myth. The master race ideology was a natural extension of the realpolitik of Ludendorf borne out of the nationalism of the Napoleonic period (prior to the theory of evolution). I doubt very much that Hitler ever believed in evolution. His back to the land, feudalist ideas were deeply counter-progressive.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@jamesrands But Darwin didn't invent evolution. His own Grandfather was an evolutionist before he was born, he just made it popular with his book Origins of Species.
You cannot understand Napoleonic period without first understanding the french enlightenment which was a terrible time in European history. It was truely horrific, the whole country descended into anarchy & blood lust.
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo Well no one invented evolution. But given that Darwin set sale on the Beagle as a creationist you really are talking absolute rubbish. The enlightenment was not a terrible time in European politics. It essentially began after the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 so after the end of the Thirty Years War or Wars of Religion a period which saw a full third of the German population slaughtered by barbaric Protestant and Catholic armies. It was a period of relative peace.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@jamesrands Charles Darwin was still a creationist after he wrote the origins of species. If you have ever read his book you would see that the tree of life he proposed shows that there is no one origin but multiple origins of species.
What you you talking about, millions throgh France were murdered. The only thing that came out of the enlightenment were corpses.
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo Your comments on Darwin are silly at best.
Millions murdered? What do you think you are talking about? Do you know what the enlightenment was?
jamesrands 10 months ago
@Surfxeo Do you mean "marxism"? There is such a thing as "markism" but saying that's what the Nazis believed in is almost as ludicrous as claiming they were Marxists (you know the people they locked up first along with the atheists and homosexuals but before the mentally ill, Jews and Jehovah's witnesses).
jamesrands 10 months ago
@jamesrands Sorry I meant Marxism. My screen res is small. Nazism is a natural progression from Marxism as was communism.
I've never hear of Jehovah Witnesses being gased. I never realised that American cult had reached that far.
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo No it is not. One of the main appeals of Nazism in post-war Germany was its resistance to Marxism hence the loyalty of the Frei-Korps volunteers. Nazism stresses national identity and racial purity whilst Marx claims that these are inventions of the ruling elites to repress the international working proletariat. How the hell does Nazism come from Marxism.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@jamesrands Can you not see the obvious link between these two common mind sets? Can you not see they are both socialist societies?
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo Nationalism versus international class struggle. Collectivisation versus private industry. No, I really can't.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@Surfxeo As for cognition. Read Konrad Lorenz King Solomon's Ring or On Aggression or The Other Side of the Mirror which also deals with consciousness. Insects have virtually no cognition (assuming that you are using cognition in any fashion broadly compatible with the sense in which it is normally used). Rats have very little. Dogs a little more. Some birds have quite a lot. Chimpanzees are positively clever (IQs of 85 in some cases.) Cognition shows very clear evolution. What's your point?
jamesrands 10 months ago
@jamesrands How can you say Chimps have an IQ of 85? You need to be able to read to have an IQ lol
Rats are very intelligent. So are pigs. Raven is the most intelligent bird, scientists say they are smarter than chimps.
Cognition is not part of evolution. You cannot use it as it is not a scientific argument. Stick with what science actually knows.
Surfxeo 10 months ago
@Surfxeo "How can you say Chimps have an IQ of 85? You need to be able to read to have an IQ lol" It is easy to see that creationists aren't used to IQ tests. IQ can be tested without the use of language. In most animals we do it with problem solving tests with food as an incentive. However, with chimpanzees you can actually sit them down and get them to play brain training games. They are that clever.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@Surfxeo By your rationale if I gave a chinese speaker an IQ test in English then it would prove he was stupid. Tests need to be made feasible for the test subject that doesn't mean you can't test them.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@Surfxeo "Stick with what science actually knows." I love it when you fuckwits try and refer to science. Did you note that whilst you assert that science says something I actually gave you three references. "Cognition is not part of evolution." I'm going to need more than your assertion to believe that. Rats are not very intelligent when compared with us but when compared with a stick insect they are geniuses. All mammals have the ability to learn which is an evolutionary trait.
jamesrands 10 months ago
@Surfxeo The point you either did not understand or just avoided was that as consciousness is a subjective experience you cannot know what someone else (including animals) is experiencing. The only way you could do that would be in an improvement in neuroscience which would prove that consciousness was a physical process and therefore not mystical. See Dennett "Consciousness Explained" or "Freedom Evolves" and Nagel "The view from nowhere". I know you won't actually read any.
jamesrands 10 months ago
Sigh, good arguements, nice try... try harder i guess...
samuellis 11 months ago
Amateur narrator. We dont need some one to regurgitate someone words or to be held by the hand and told what to think, not to mention that your understanding of probability factors in that they only apply to future events is is kind of odd and not factual. Its kind of like being shot in the head with a shot gun, and then I falling 700 ft on to solid concrete with rebar sticking out, surviving and then saying, its no wonder I'm alive, because if I were dead I wouldn't be alive to observe it.
benthemiester 11 months ago
Good quote that I paraphrase: why is it important that life came about? I had not actually considered this before.
donjx 11 months ago
If you give an iota of credence to the fine tuning argument - think about a puddle, considering the hole it sits in, how perfectly it shapes the puddle, and concluding that the hole was fine tuned by an intelligent designer to fit the puddle. We all know however that its the puddle that fits the hole, not the other way around. Now think of the puddle as life, adaptable, malleable, and the universe as the hole, constant. This is how Douglas Adams did away with the fine tuning argument.
tipoomaster 1 year ago
[from above]...We can, if we want, ALSO model universes where the laws of physics are different, say that gravity was inversely proportion to the cube of the distance, or that it was proportionate to the square of the mass.
So we can model many other universes without having observed them, which negates the complaint you and the questioner raise.
XForceBowhunter 1 year ago
First, as to probability and the complaint that we only have one universe to sample.... further universes are not needed because they can be MODELED.
I don't need to buy a car in order to know how much the payments are. The payments can be calculated without me purchasing the car. In the same manner, we can adjust the constants given the laws of physics and model a large number of universes without having observed them..... [TBC]
XForceBowhunter 1 year ago
The persuasiveness of the fine tuning argument always comes down to The human tendency for egocentric behavior."the universe produced me/my species/biological life,there for that is what it must be about."
Never mind that any alternate fine tuning(if such a thing was even possible) would be bound to produce alternate unique phenomena,we place greater value on the one that is us.
NemoUtopian 1 year ago
And if tomorrow some discovery happened that showed that the constants must be their current values, WLC wouldn't care he'd just go on to misuse some other unknown in science, and use this new information to bolster his new argument.
heatmourning33 1 year ago
So are physicists actually saying that we know anything about the origin of constants? I would really like to hear from one of them instead of letting WLC use their ideas for his own purposes. Here is what I get from their argument, physicists KNOW that the constants could be different, they KNOW that all values for a given constant are equally probable. We shouldn't have to argue against this BS.
heatmourning33 1 year ago
Th1sWasATriumph, what Craig and Lennox are doing has a name. it is called an intuition pump. these are not proofs, counter-examples, or a new argument, but just a restating of the initial point in the form of analogy. another example is John Leslie's firing squad.
OrderoftheWhiteHand 1 year ago
You were raising some so-so points until you got to about 4:30 and you made a bigoted statement about theists which nullifies for me anything you have to say. The best minds are not bigoted.
Stopped at 5:00.
EastofForever 1 year ago
@EastofForever " you made a bigoted statement about theists "
- you should've kept watching it got better.
I struggled to find the supposed " bigoted " statement, but to be fair, Triumph's clips are always " colorful ".
Although I don't understand how anyone disagreeing with the theistic position is therefore " bigoted " ?
If someone says " I think you're stupid for believing in UFOs " that's not bigoted.
( noticed that you had no answer to the " so-so " points though...bigoted or no )
Roper122 1 year ago
@Roper122 You're not disagreeing with a theist. You're committing the fallacy of overgeneralization at that point--something in my experience only bigots do.
You're an anti-religious bigot: deal with it or not. I don't care.
I just know I can't take bigoted comments seriously.
Good day!
EastofForever 1 year ago
@EastofForever " You're not disagreeing with a theist "
- I most certainly am.
" You're an anti-religious bigot: deal with it or not "
- Name calling always beats a good argument doesn't it? .. no, wait a minute...
( I've already explained how you don't understand bigotry ...ironically )
" I just know I can't take bigoted comments seriously "
- I just know that it's all too easy to cry foul, present no argument, and run away.
If that's your plan..
congratulations, mission accomplished
Roper122 1 year ago
@Roper122 son son son.....just go away.
EastofForever 1 year ago
@EastofForever " son son son.....just go away "
-- Oh please... that's makes you sound even more pathetic.
There's no need for that.. just maintain your fingers in your ears and your ....
" la la not listening stance "
Roper122 1 year ago
@Roper122 whatever you want to think son...just go away...and study A LOT.
EastofForever 1 year ago
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@Roper122 whatever you want to think son...just go away...and study A LOT.
EastofForever 1 year ago
@EastofForever Please quote the statement. Is it the typhus thing? Strap on a pair and watch the rest of the video.
The best minds are not bigoted? Would this explain why you decided to stop watching the video, thus nullifying your ability to construct a valid argument against it? Could it be that my apparent bigotry has inspired genuine bigotry on your part? Please, explain.
Th1sWasATriumph 1 year ago
@Th1sWasATriumph He was a hopeless Craig groupie who closed his account as soon as you challenged him to look at his own bigoted attitudes.
alianchild 1 year ago
@Th1sWasATriumph The basic premise of your argument is wrong.You say Lennox's argument is based on the idea that life is "more important" than anything else.Wrong.It's based on the fact that a life-permitting Universe is infinitely more improbable than a life-prohibiting Universe.This is why atheist physicists (including Martin Rees) all accept the Universe is fine-tuned for life,and many resort to a "Multiverse" to explain it, but there is no evidence whatsoever for this its just another belief
relarerfhjk 9 months ago
Probability arguments are misleading when used in this way. The bottom line is that this is the universe we have ended up with, which makes it's probability 100%. We have only one universe to observe, so if we ask the question, what SHOULD a universe look like, we have only to look around us. It may simply be, that for a universe to even exist it must be like this, otherwise you wouldn't exist to ask the question.
Staunts 9 months ago
@Staunts Thats a failed counter-argument thats been dealt with many times..It is the equivalent of discovering an ancient city and deciding it just fell into place by chance because, if it wasnt there we wouldnt "observe" it. If you were lined up for execution in front of 50'000 trained marksmen, but you survived, while it is true that you are only able to ask why because your alive to ask, it remains reasonable to assume that there must be a reason you survived given the improbability.
relarerfhjk 9 months ago
No, my argument still stands. What a universe should look like is apparent by what we see, and it is extremely telling that, at the heart of theism is the statement that reality as it is given is not normal. That is the essence of deceit, and is unfalsifiable, AND, hopelessly contaminated by personal bias toward life as we know it. And you stated that this improbability was fact, when it can be nothing of the sort, it is mere speculation based on the unknown.
Staunts 9 months ago
@Th1sWasATriumph You are actually a dimwit. "you can only calculate the improbability of an event before it has happened"
Thats complete bollocks, as any probability theorist will tell you.
As Craig noted, If you were lined up for exeecution before 50,000 marksmen and survived, while you can only see the improbability of your survivial because you survived to see it, this doesnt take away from the fact that its extremely improbable 50,000 marksmen could have missed by accident!
relarerfhjk 3 months ago
@relarerfhjk It's notable that the examples used are almost always anthropocentric ones. It is indeed improbable that 50,000 marksmen could have missed. However, it's also improbable that 50,000 grains of sand would go to any particular 50,000 locations in a beach, but no-one gives a shit about beaches, so that's ok.
Even ignoring that argument, if there ever WERE any anthropocentric examples like the marksmen thing, it would not be rational to say "huh, that was unlikely. TO CHURCH WITH US!"
Th1sWasATriumph 2 months ago
@Th1sWasATriumph "gives a shit about beaches" The point is that any life-permitting Universe is INFINITELY more improbable than a life-prohibiting one! The very fact we're debating this question is a result of this immense probability....that we could come from the Universe yet be able to observe & reflect on our place within it!
"TO CHURCH WITH US" The point is that it would not be rational to say 50,000 marksmen must have missed by accident just because the event has already happened!
relarerfhjk 2 months ago
@relarerfhjk INFINITELY improbable? I'd be interested to see the calculations that led to that answer. May I?
Once more, I'd like real-life examples showing the kind of apparent improbability that genuinely suggests divine interference or manipulation as a legitimate alternative to simple chance.
Th1sWasATriumph 2 months ago
@Th1sWasATriumph "I'd be interested to see the calculations" Very easy,sir.
Physicists calculate a life-prohibiting Universe is infintely more probable than any kind of life-permitting one by comparing the TINY life-permitting range of values with the utterly vast life-prohibiting range of values
The constants can all fall almost ANYWHERE on the range and you get no life! But all 30 of them have to fall precisely inside a tiny range from the VERY INCEPTION to get any life!
relarerfhjk 2 months ago
@relarerfhjk Now, can you actually give me any real-life examples of such amazing improbability (they all seem to be things like picking correct lottery numbers consecutively for ten years, or finding one penny in the entirety of world currency 12 times in a row). Can you find me situations in anthropocentric terms that do genuinely seem to demonstrate some kind of fuckery behind the scenes, or can you only offer hypotheticals to try and make me see that the universe is fine tuned ergo designed?
Th1sWasATriumph 2 months ago
@Th1sWasATriumph The purpose of the marksmen example is to expose your argument that "we can only consider the improbability of an event before it has happened" as complete bollocks!
The equivalent of surviving 50,000 executioners and saying it must be "pure chance" just because the event already happened!
As mathematician Roger Penrose says: a solar system popping out of a random collision, is far more probable than all 30 constants being as fine-tuned for life as our Universe
relarerfhjk 2 months ago
@relarerfhjk So what you HAVEN'T done is provided me with any real-life examples comparable to the 50000 marksmen thing. It's all pretty lights and shapes with you guys, isn't it? "Imagine this beautifully constructed hypothesis AND ACCEPT MY ARGUMENT." Nope, I need more than that.
How unlikely you view 50000 marksmen missing is simply a result of your human bias. Once it's happened, probability is 1:1.
Th1sWasATriumph 2 months ago
@Th1sWasATriumph "thats like saying a desert is fine-tuned for life because life can survive there"
It is nothing remotely like saying that: the Universe is fine-tuned for life because the initial conditions have to perfectly tuned with mind-blowing precision (accurate to 120 decimal places) to permit any kind of life to ocurr!
just a slight tweak to the fundamental constants and nothing heavier than helium gas could exist, another tiny tweak and the Universe would fly apart!
relarerfhjk 2 months ago