the universe is designed

[i_am_i]

ellie, instead of giving me a lecture about how i refuse to debate, why not try to demonstrate how some of my ideas are wrong.

You've answered your own question.

Well played, Ellie, but I'm afraid that's destined to go over Ms. Tubman's head.

[Dretlin]

I'm not going to bother here, it is obvious our OP is exceedingly obvious and presents no desire to change, I salute those of you who are willing to try.

come on, ssy, don't give up.  i'll listen to reason.  just give me some good reasons to be an atheist and i'll consider it.

Clearly your decisions so far have not been based on reason. Right now you need sense, then reason. One step at a time huh?

[i_am_i]

i'll listen to reason.  just give me some good reasons to be an atheist and i'll consider it.

Nobody can give you any reason to be an atheist. To be an atheist requires that you think for yourself, an ability  which you are obviously lacking.

You'll "consider it." No, you won't.

You came here. Remember that? And right out of the gate you started tossing out terms like atheist hypocrisy and making insinuations against people who tried to engage you in debate. Your haughty, sarcastic and self-righteous attitude has not been conducive to constructive discussion, rather it's been you telling us while dismissing out of hand anything anyone else here has to say.

In my estimation this makes you a person to avoid because you, madam, are a predictable and frightful bore.

[karadan]

pick up a 100 rocks and throw them with no aim to form anything, do the 100 rocks form a design? seems pretty obvious.

The universe isn't made of 100 rocks.

Pick up 100 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion rocks and throw them with no aim. Eventually the rocks will form piles. Those piles will eventually join up with other piles until they coalesce to form enormous balls floating in space with their own gravity due to mass. They might be rotating slightly with other piles of rocks orbiting them. Some balls of rock might get so massive that something amazing happens, they ignite under their own gravity to form stars which then bathe the other balls of rock in radiation. Entire systems will form just because you did something as simple as introduce trilllions of individual rocks to the universe.

You see where i'm going here? Your over-simplification of, well, everything is your failing. You aren't able to entertain these concepts (more than likely because you've been taught not to) so imprint a lovely fluffy simplistic picture over the top so you can grasp reality with a little more ease.

[skevosmavros]

(delurks, blinking in the bright light)

Hi all,

How appropriate that I stumble onto this thread (via twitter) on 25 May - International Towel Day (http://towelday.org/), created in honour of author/skeptic/atheist Douglas Adams.

Appropriate because I think he summed up the fine tuning argument quite well (from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams):

Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'

Now Mr Adams went on to make a point about the environment, but I think this quote nicely illustrates the mindset of the FineTuners.  Basically - "if things were a tny bit different, then EVERYTHING would be different. So an intelligence must have done it".

They don't seem to realise that almost everything we see is the result of energy and matter acting and interacting according to physical "laws" - including ourselves.  These interactions seem to be neither random nor designed - merely "natural".

If FineTunersn want to argue that these "laws" needed an intelligence to set up, then they have to argue it, not merely assert it.  I have yet to hear a plausible argument for this that doesn't rely on unevidenced assertion or argument from analogy.

Happy Towel Day!

Skevos Mavros

(relurks)

[harriet_tubman]

Your haughty, sarcastic and self-righteous attitude has not been conducive to constructive discussion

this is a subjective statement and cannot be proven/disproven

[harriet_tubman]

Pick up 100 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion rocks and throw them with no aim. Eventually the rocks will form piles. Those piles will eventually join up with other piles until they coalesce to form enormous balls floating in space with their own gravity due to mass. They might be rotating slightly with other piles of rocks orbiting them. Some balls of rock might get so massive that something amazing happens

this is the if you roll a trillion sided dice a trillion times you will hit a number fallacy.  think about the last time you built something.  it required about 50 steps or so.  each step required you to hit an exact number out of innumerable possibilities.  there has to be a point at which atheists say, yes, that's impossible.  imagine if i poured ink on a paper and it formed a paragraph.  you can't say that it was just an accident.  

just the sun which makes helium out of hydrogen, scientists cannot understand that.  think about how many steps it took just to do that.

[harriet_tubman]

Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'

i really think adams is way off the mark.  this thought experiment does not answer how a system of a million interrelated parts can achieve a goal.

Basically - "if things were a tny bit different, then EVERYTHING would be different. So an intelligence must have done it".

i'll answer this later

They don't seem to realise that almost everything we see is the result of energy and matter acting and interacting according to physical "laws" - including ourselves.  These interactions seem to be neither random nor designed - merely "natural".

prove that we are just the result of physical laws interacting

If FineTunersn want to argue that these "laws" needed an intelligence to set up, then they have to argue it, not merely assert it.  I have yet to hear a plausible argument for this that doesn't rely on unevidenced assertion or argument from analogy.

let's take the great pyramid.  it's the result of fine tuning and intelligence.  random wind or erosion in the desert has produced nothing similar.  the photo posted earlier on in this website does not even come close to the pyramids precision.  the pyramids are almost a near perfect square, those little geometric shapes aren't.

here is my logic
1. random forces such as wind or erosion or waves have never produced a system of interrelated parts that achieve a goal
2. therefore it is reasonable that random forces never will
3. intelligent humans can do this
4. therefore fine-tuning is the result of intelligence.

[Shine]

If the universe is finely-tuned for life, why is such an infinitesimally minute portion of it actually inhabited by living beings?  If indeed this universe is an example of design, then I hardly think it could be called finely-tuned for life given the overwhelming bulk of inhospitable area.  We have yet to find any other lifeforms in the universe beyond this exceedingly thin band of atmosphere, liquid water, and topsoil which circles our little rocky planet.  How could you possibly sum up the entire universe as designed specifically for the existence of life?

Plus--and this could be due to my lack of science education--I have never understood this conclusion that life can only exist within the specific physical properties of the universe.  As we have never experienced another universe with different physical properties, how could we ever possibly say that these specific properties are the only ones which could give rise to life?  How could anyone possibly infer that these properties alone make life possible?

[Whitney]

Your haughty, sarcastic and self-righteous attitude has not been conducive to constructive discussion

this is a subjective statement and cannot be proven/disproven

A simple sociological examination of how best to interact with others would take away the subjectivism and support i_am_i's statement, so you are wrong.

Not to mention that it would fall under uncivil which is against the forum rules...you are probably lucky I don't have time to read the thread right now...

[harriet_tubman]

If the universe is finely-tuned for life, why is such an infinitesimally minute portion of it actually inhabited by living beings?  If indeed this universe is an example of design, then I hardly think it could be called finely-tuned for life given the overwhelming bulk of inhospitable area.  We have yet to find any other lifeforms in the universe beyond this exceedingly thin band of atmosphere, liquid water, and topsoil which circles our little rocky planet.  How could you possibly sum up the entire universe as designed specifically for the existence of life?

say you found a house in antartica.  you would still conclude it was designed in spite of the barrenness around it.  

Plus--and this could be due to my lack of science education--I have never understood this conclusion that life can only exist within the specific physical properties of the universe.  As we have never experienced another universe with different physical properties, how could we ever possibly say that these specific properties are the only ones which could give rise to life?  How could anyone possibly infer that these properties alone make life possible?

say, you saw a 100 homes.  each home represents a universe with different constants.  outside of the homes is nothing.  that represents the void.  we would still conclude that the homes were all designed even though they have different constants.

[NoStupidQuestions]

Snowflakes form patterns that are very complex (and pretty) yet form randomly...it wouldn't be right to call them fine tuned yet your way of thinking would lead us to that description.

true, snowflakes are complex but even the simplest life form, the eukaryote, is probably a million times more complex than a snowflake.  moreover the snowflake is not made up of parts that interact with one another.

As has already been said, life wouldn't exist if conditions didn't allow for life to exist.

true, but proves nothing about atheism

Something working is not fine tuning...it just means it works.

on the contrary, fine-tuning is the placement of parts into precise locations so that they interact with other parts to achieve a goal.  only intelligence can do that.

The "eukaryote" isn't the simplest life form.  An amoeba is a eukaryote, as are you.  The "simplest" life form may be considered to be the bacterial genus Mycoplasma, which lacks a cell wall and has the smallest known genome of any organism.  Of course, this doesn't take viruses into account, which are generally considered to be non-living infectious particles.

Also, have you considered what else the universe might be "fine-tuned" for, in addition to life?  These parameters seem necessary for lots of other things to exist as they do, not just life.  So does the argument for the "specialness" of life still hold then?

[Davin]

Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'

i really think adams is way off the mark.  this thought experiment does not answer how a system of a million interrelated parts can achieve a goal.

Hahaha, wow. Are you for real or what? You are the puddle thinking there is a unified goal, when there isn't, the puddle just happened to be in a hole.

They don't seem to realise that almost everything we see is the result of energy and matter acting and interacting according to physical "laws" - including ourselves.  These interactions seem to be neither random nor designed - merely "natural".

prove that we are just the result of physical laws interacting

You demand so much "proof" but provide none, I'm really beginning to wonder if you're even serious.

If FineTunersn want to argue that these "laws" needed an intelligence to set up, then they have to argue it, not merely assert it.  I have yet to hear a plausible argument for this that doesn't rely on unevidenced assertion or argument from analogy.

let's take the great pyramid.  it's the result of fine tuning and intelligence.  random wind or erosion in the desert has produced nothing similar.  the photo posted earlier on in this website does not even come close to the pyramids precision.  the pyramids are almost a near perfect square, those little geometric shapes aren't.

So the universe wasn't designed because there are no natural structures that look like they're designed. Got it.

here is my logic
1. random forces such as wind or erosion or waves have never produced a system of interrelated parts that achieve a goal
2. therefore it is reasonable that random forces never will
3. intelligent humans can do this
4. therefore fine-tuning is the result of intelligence.

So what you're saying is that because there is no evidence in nature that anything was designed, then nature was designed?
This is some kind of weird "no evidence for my idea proves my idea."

[i_am_i]

here is my logic
1. random forces such as wind or erosion or waves have never produced a system of interrelated parts that achieve a goal
2. therefore it is reasonable that random forces never will
3. intelligent humans can do this
4. therefore fine-tuning is the result of intelligence.

You're claiming that the universe has a goal and has been fine-tuned to achieve that goal.

What is it that makes you convinced that the universe has a goal? There is nothing anywhere outside of religious texts to support that idea. Yours is just the same old religious canard that God created everything.

[Sophus]

here is my logic
1. random forces such as wind or erosion or waves have never produced a system of interrelated parts that achieve a goal
2. therefore it is reasonable that random forces never will
3. intelligent humans can do this
4. therefore fine-tuning is the result of intelligence.

 

"Random" forces? What's so random about them? A cause has an affect.