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Goodbye Jesus

Need Help Fleshing Out An Argument


dB-Paradox

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WLC is the greatest abuser of mathematics when it comes to proving the case for a designer.  And I have also been presented his arguments from family members.  The whole "why is there something rather than nothing" and why is this something so "finely tuned" for life.  Concerning the teleological argument, I have been trying to show that God violates this idea.  Any advice on where I may be going wrong greatly appreciated.

 

If the universe is so finely tuned for life, as it's pointed out, then it speaks of a very precise designer.  But doesn't God, then, go wholly against this idea?  If the universe, right from the big bang, has values and constants so precisely tuned for the formation of stars, planets and galaxies (and ultimately life), then it's said it speaks of a designer.  But is it not more mathematically fantastic to say that an eternal, infinitely powerful, and supremely intelligent being exist without a designer?

 

At this point, I can hear Craig making the argument that the universe is a part of nature, and therefore needs an external cause, since in all nature we observe cause and effect.  And if the universe needed no cause, then nature contradicts itself.  However, can it not then be said that the matter from which the universe was formed is eternal, and that the cause for the big bang was natural law?  How is that any more a mathematically fantastic statement than saying God is the cause, and he is eternal, intelligent and powerful?

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Basically they cheat.  All the things Christians claim a universe needs are ignored because God is defined as not needing them.

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The universe must have a designer. Otherwise we would expect to find ourselves in an amazingly vast universe surrounded by sextillions of stars with billions of planets. This universe would have evidence that it was billions of years old because it would take so much time and space to come up with the right combinations of elements to generate something as complex as life. The life that this universe did produce would be extremely rare and sparse by comparison to all the other non-living things. In fact, the vast majority of this universe would be completely hostile to any kind of life whatsoever.

 

But the Bible is clear on this. We don’t live in that kind of universe. Our universe is fairly small by comparison and is only about 6,000 years old. It has a flat, disc-shaped earth as its center with a solid dome in the sky holding back the water. The much smaller sun, moon and stars orbit the earth and Yahweh, who lives up in the sky on a throne with Jesus sitting at his right hand, opens the windows of heaven whenever we need a little rain for our crops. Silly unbeliever.

 

My advice: grant them a designer or designers. Now what? What is it? Is it even still around? How would we know? Wouldn’t whatever it is have been constrained by the very natural laws which they’re arguing would’ve had to have been constant? If that’s the case, whatever it is, it isn’t the god of classical theism.

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This last part of a 2006 speech by Neil Degrasse Tyson.  Really blows that argument out of the water. 

 

 

But this last 20 minutes he destroys the idea that everything is fine tuned for life.   He gives a list of EVERYTHING that can kill you.  

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Another example is badly evolved parts in humans. Well-designed sinuses wouldn't drain at the top, for instance.

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But we know what the creatards are going to say about poor design..."original sin and fall of man".  And I hate to be a hammer banging a crooked nail, but does the god hypotheses come out even more mathematically fantastic than the random chance hypotheses?

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This stuff gets a little too deep for me. But one thing that I think is relatively simple: No matter whether there was/is a designer or not  he/she/it sure as hell isn't the god of the bible. The other thing  is that we and all other animals as well as plants evolved. That is virtually indisputable. All the creationists have to do is to come up with one irreducible organism to refute it. And it's interesting how they periodically come up with one, only to be proven wrong by scientists. Now how life began is an open question.

Tell me scientists did I get this right?     

                                                                                                                                                                                 bill

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WLC is the greatest abuser of mathematics when it comes to proving the case for a designer.  And I have also been presented his arguments from family members.  The whole "why is there something rather than nothing" and why is this something so "finely tuned" for life.  Concerning the teleological argument, I have been trying to show that God violates this idea.  Any advice on where I may be going wrong greatly appreciated.

 

If the universe is so finely tuned for life, as it's pointed out, then it speaks of a very precise designer.  But doesn't God, then, go wholly against this idea?  If the universe, right from the big bang, has values and constants so precisely tuned for the formation of stars, planets and galaxies (and ultimately life), then it's said it speaks of a designer.  But is it not more mathematically fantastic to say that an eternal, infinitely powerful, and supremely intelligent being exist without a designer?

 

At this point, I can hear Craig making the argument that the universe is a part of nature, and therefore needs an external cause, since in all nature we observe cause and effect.  And if the universe needed no cause, then nature contradicts itself.  However, can it not then be said that the matter from which the universe was formed is eternal, and that the cause for the big bang was natural law?  How is that any more a mathematically fantastic statement than saying God is the cause, and he is eternal, intelligent and powerful?

 

Just for the record dB, the universe isn't finely tuned for life. 

 

The Xians like to believe it is and Hugh Ross... http://www.reasons.org/articles/fine-tuning-for-life-in-the-universe ...is the most prolific perpetrator of this falsehood.  The lynch-pin of his case can be summed up like this.  Deviation of even one of the many listed constants, by even a decimal point, would result in a dead or non-existent universe.

 

False!

 

http://physics.aps.org/articles/v2/21  Jaffe, Jenkins and Kimchi have mapped out other possible universes that could sustain life and have done so by excluding and altering the very parameters Ross claims cannot be changed in any way.  Please look at the diagram (Fig.1) and note the following.

 

1.

The green zones are the very broad range of values that the fundamental constants can take, where life-friendly universes can exist.

 

2.

The small dot labelled as, 'Our universe' doesn't represent it's size or location in space.  It's simply showing where we are in the possible range of of life-friendly values.

 

According to Ross, any other arrangement of these values should be impossible.  But, as Jaffe et al have shown, he's just wrong.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

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Or maybe don't throw pearls to swines, dB.

 

If he was really interested in learning, and not just arguing, he'd read some science books.

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UCMP Berkeley. Great resource for biology and science.

In a nutshell: yes, abiogenesis holds up, as does evolution. Most of what they don't get here is the stupid huge scale of time. Of course, things that breed fast and have lots of mutations are evolving so fast we have trouble getting drugs to keep up. Don't let them give you any of that "just a theory" crap, either. A theory is the highest level of explanation in science, being an idea that's been put to the test rigorously, and supported, every time. A law in science is a mathematical formula that can be used to predict the results of a theory. Universal gravitation is "just a theory." Newton's law of universal gravitation is the law that goes with it. Feel free to test it by dropping things. If you get an unexpected "floater", record it, and you'll get a Nobel Prize for sure! (That's the difference between faith and science. Nothing is above honest testing in science. Emphasis on the Honest part: whining about something not being beyond testing is not only academically dishonest, but explicitly missing the point of the scientific process... looking at you, "intelligent design" people. Intelligent Design is NOT science for this reason. Just because I say that "gravitation is only a theory, and it isn't beyond questioning" doesn't mean that I can say that MY "theory" that it's caused by magic gravitation pixies - they are blue and sparkly - rather than the mutual attraction of mass - is correct, or even a legitimate theory. You see, I'd have to have evidence for gravitation pixies, that is overwhelmingly more compelling than centuries of research on dropping things. Intelligent design people are, by definition, not doing science. Oh, wait, it's because they're ideologically motivated, and they have no evidence.)

 

Some other random stuff: if there is a designer... in humans, the food tube and the air tube is the same hole for a good length, and swallowing is regulated by a very finely-timed reflex. Ever choke on anything? I guess God actually likes pythons better. Oh, and the eye. It's a craptasm of a hackjob, if it's designed. The blood vessels that supply the retina (the part that actually senses light) lie ON TOP OF the surface, rather than behind, blocking some light, and actually making your vision less acute. And, while we're on the subject of eyes, ireducible complexity can kiss my behind, 'cause it just ain't so. A light-sensitive spot is better than nothing (and does well enough for some creatures), then there's scallops and their loads of simple cup-like eyes, and then the nautilus, with a pinhole-camera-like eye, and then lenses, like we have. I guess God also likes squid better, 'cause they don't have that retina blood supply issue. They also have three hearts.

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But we know what the creatards are going to say about poor design..."original sin and fall of man".  And I hate to be a hammer banging a crooked nail, but does the god hypotheses come out even more mathematically fantastic than the random chance hypotheses?

Badly evolved parts in animals, then. Or did the animals sin, too? And did we evolve since Adam and Eve, or did God punish humans in advance knowing they were going to sin?

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Before you go head-to-head with a WLC disciple, central to WLC's ideas of origins is the KCA as follows (Wikipedia):

 

  1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
  2. The universe began to exist.
  3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

In more detail:

  1. WLC believes in God-directed evolution, i.e. an Intelligent Designer who created the universe via the Big Bang 13+ billion years ago and then let it evolve as per science. Links: Discovery Institute* http://www.discovery.org, Reasonable Faith Website (not forums) http://www.reasonablefaith.org.
  2. William Lane Craig developed the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA). It is central to his and his followers' view of creation. They should not be confused with six-day-creationists. Some on this thread have made that mistake.
  3. To read up on the KCA, here are some links.

A term to look for is "six 24-hour day creation." Some creationists believe that God created the universe in six 24-hour days while others believe it was six vast geological periods (days) to fit more or less with science. WLC would be the latter. Each apologist and theologian comes up with his own ideas on these geological periods but they are distinct from the six 24-hour day creationists. This difference is very important when discussing science because the geological periods guys are open to far more science than the others.

 

I haven't read it yet but found a new article re evolution by WLC at http://www.reasonablefaith.org/an-evolutionary-argument-against-christian-theism. It may contain something relevant to this discussion.

 

*The Discovery Institute website is mostly links but I find it to be a central hub for more information.

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You know, I typed "refuting William Lane Craig" in Google and got 31,000+ results. Here's a page that seems like it compiled the best of the arguments against him: Arizona Atheist link. But apparently lots of people have given him way more attention than he deserves.

 

Besides online pages, John Loftus demolishes the sanctimonious asswipe so regularly and so thoroughly that it's surprising WLC doesn't have Loftus' ballprints on his forehead from getting teabagged so often by him. Loftus' book, "Why I Became an Atheist," should IMO be required reading for ex-Christians and neatly handles WLC's fallacies as well as those of numerous other popular apologists.

 

WLC is exactly why I say that it's just not wise to try to bring logic to something that should be supported by reality, not fancy legalese maneuvering. If the evidence just doesn't support this "designer" (oh, we know who they mean by that coy term, don't we?), then all of WLC's fancypants debate techniques won't logic him up a god who just isn't there. Apologetics starts at the top with "well of COURSE God's real" and then tries to work its way backwards. By its very nature, it's doomed when it meets people who start from the bottom with "let's look at the evidence and see what we get out of it." The world WLC comes up with when he hits the bottom doesn't look a damn bit like the world we see all around us, even if his logic were sound, which it isn't unless one concedes an alarming number of re-definitions and fallacies to prop it up.

 

If religion wants to poke its head out of the philosophy department into reality, then reality is what it must rise or fall upon, not arguments.

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The world WLC comes up with when he hits the bottom doesn't look a damn bit like the world we see all around us 

 

Oddly enough, the god WLC comes up with doesn’t look a damn bit like the god of the Bible either. There was a time not long ago when I considered guys like WLC essentially part-time idolaters who had fashioned a god in their own imaginations in an attempt to “rescue” Christianity from post-Enlightenment criticism. My god was the god of the Bible (or so I thought) and theirs was the compromised, syncretistic bastard child of Yahweh and the philosopher’s god. Even then I found their apologetic methods disingenuous to say the least and I hurled a fair amount of “friendly-fire” their way. Ah, those were the days.

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God's certainly a versatile fellow, isn't he? All things to all people.

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