I (News) usually run this kind of question on Sunday but at a recent post, “Intelligent design: The materialist double standard” there was an exchange:
Bob O’H: Seriously, what is the IDers’ answer to the “who designed the designer” question?
(failure to answer this will – of course – immediately condemn all IDers as poopyheads, despite any efforts by the Federation of Creationist Scientists, International/Overseas to suppress this categorisation)
and it was replied to:
Barry Arrington: Bob, have you ever heard the old saw “there’s no such thing as a stupid question?” It is false. Stupid questions abound. The one you just asked is one of them. As has been pointed out on these pages 1,303,261 times (all of which apparently sailed right over your head), the design inference is independent of the provenance of the designer.
Okay. A lot depends on what one wants an explanation to do. From J. Warner Wallace at Cold Case Christianity:
Imagine if someone said, “Christians sometimes point to the appearance of fine-tuning in the universe as proof that God exists. But you don’t need God to explain this fine-tuning.” How would you respond to such a statement? Here is a conversational example of how I recently replied:
He draws on extensive case files from his career as a homicide detective, then adds:
The universe is so incredibly fine-tuned, and even atheists admit there is an appearance of fine-tuning. At the foundational level, the constants of the universe; all the forces in the atom, including the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force, in addition to the forces of electromagnetism and gravity (along with many more universal constants) are incredibly fine-tuned to assure the existence of our universe and the appearance of biological life. At a regional level, our galaxy possesses a particular shape, size, mass, density, and location that allows life to emerge. Our solar system is also fine-tuned for the existence of life. Our sun’s location in the galaxy, it’s size, mass and nature are perfectly life-permitting. Finally, at what I call the ‘locational’ level, Earth is also finely tuned with a particular atmosphere, terrestrial crust, size, tilt, distance from the sun and existence of a moon that allows life to emerge.
Given all these levels of apparent fine-tuning, it’s reasonable to ask the question: how do we explain these layers of tampering, while at the same time, rejecting the existence of a tamperer? There are only a few ways to do this. First, you might ask: is this fine-tuning the result of chance? When you investigate at the improbability of this explanation, especially when we recognize the multi-layered nature of the fine-tuning, it’s unreasonable to explain what we see as a matter of chance. Another way to explain the appearance of fine-tuning is to argue that it’s inevitable based on the existence of the ‘natural laws’ than govern the universe. But this second explanation is rejected even by atheist astrophysicists. Many of these scientists claim our universe could possess entirely different universal constants (although an alternate universe of this nature would be unable to support the existence of life like ours). Finally, multiverse theories are growing in their popularity as an explanation for the fine-tuning in our universe. If there’s an infinite number of universes in a multiverse system, one like ours could exist simply on the basis of probability. But multiverse theories are incredibly controversial, even among atheist scientists, because the evidence for a multiverse is not commonly recognized and multiverse theories necessitate the existence of every kind of possible universe, including parallel universes (and even universes in which God exists – a notion unacceptable to atheist thinkers). More.
But are there no other options? What about this?: The laws that create fine-tuning, however they came to be, are the basis of the universe. The universe is their possibly inevitable outcome.
The laws include moral laws (which explain moral intuitions that cannot really be derived from vulgar claims about Darwinian fitness). That is, people would obey the moral law (or not) irrespective of whether their descendants survive and breed.
In the Eastern conception of karma, one cannot escape the choices one has made in a past life because these laws operate as natural laws. So the idea of rebirth is not an escape from death but rather a requirement that those who have acquired bad karma rebalance the system to zero via good karma, after which they can be liberated from existence.
I am not saying I believe this. I am wondering why it would not work as an explanation for a fine-tuned universe where intelligent beings have moral intuitions not derived from observations of animal nature. What observations does it not address?
See also: Copernicus, you are not going to believe who is using your name. Or how.
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I’m not sure I follow you completely. If these hypothetical laws were somehow material, then we haven’t explained their origin. If the laws are immaterial (like Plato’s forms?), then what imposed them on the universe, and what caused the universe to conform to them? And how would those laws that initially controlled the form of the universe then make their way into our minds as moral laws?
Those would be my first questions anyway…
“Who designed the designer?” asks one thoughtful human designed robot to another.
“Nobody designed the designer” answers another.
Nobody designed the designer? Who programmed that robot – an atheist? Or a theist?
Firstly, atheists do not admit an appearance of fine tuning. If gravitational constants, the velocity of light, atomic forces, and Pi were all easy round numbers, then that would point to design.
As it is when you look at the list of mathematical constants on Wikipedia you see an alarming aray of randomness, almost as if these natural constants appeared randomly in a messy violent, unstable, poorly designed, universe.
The who designed the designer question, simply notes that God’s answer, “I am that I am”, aside from being an unprovable tautology, is also a lazy answer.
I don’t know what existed before the Big Bang, and as the Big Bang created time and space, and as time and space are requirements for existance I would say nothing existed; but then of course you must ask, what made time and space?
Your answer is God. A weak answer requiring no effort or curiosity. As it stands at the moment, I’ll go for the multi verse and parallel universe answer.
My answer at least has the benefit of being possibly testable in the future, as we learn more about black holes and quantum strangeness. The test for a designer, or God? Fat chance.
Rvb8- Here you go again extolling the virtues of science but when asked a science question you run away and hide.
So Rvb8 is the Big Bang in defiance and opposition to the first law of thermodynamics , which is one of the most well founded and substantiated laws of science.
RVB8:
I would think that the Nobel-equivalent prize winning astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle would fit with what is generally termed being an atheist. He also happened to be an expert on the subject. So, the agit-prop talking point fails utterly when we see:
Earlier in the same Caltech talk, he argued:
And again:
That’s the context for understanding the force of the much more general result given by Walker and Davies — as has been put to you repeatedly and studiously ignored:
As for the next sentence:
Strawman.
First, our scheme of numnering on decimal place values is arbitrary, we could even gain advantages by going to a -10 base! More importantly, the values of pi, e, 0, 1 and i are logically locked together to literally infinite precision, per Euler’s expression 0 = 1 + e^i*pi, which gives us high confidence in the coherence of a lot of math tied to the functionality of our world. Let’s just say that for years I lived more in the complex frequency domain than the day to day time domain.
Further to this, demanding round numbers manifests ignorance of the reality: there are dozens of fine tuned constraints that set our observed cosmos to a precise, deeply isolated operating point for C-Chemistry, aqueous medium, terrestrial planet in spiral galaxy galactic habitable zone life. And things involved include precision of order 1 in 10^60 etc.
As for the who designed the designer rhetorical gambit, let me clip from another thread where I noted as follows last evening in the materialist double-standards thread:
As for rhetoric that ethical theism is a weak answer requiring little effort, that is little more than an intimidatory, ill-advised rhetorical boast. It shows that you have not seriously engaged worldviews considerations, I give a 101 here on.
RVB8, it is high time for a serious bit of re-thinking on your part.
KF
PS: On evidence in hand, design of life on earth could be accounted for on a molecular nanotech lab several generations beyond Venter. It is fine tuning of the cosmos that calls for a designer capable of building such a cosmos, and then we see how it is fine tuned for C-Chem, aqueous medium life. Those are serious issues and the sort of rhetoric I just had to remark on does not remotely begin to reckon seriously with such.
F/N: If the fine tuned values are locked by a super-law, that would point to second level fine tuning or even more incredible cumulative degree. Indeed, it would point to a programmed cosmos bakery cooking up life-habitable sub-cosmi. KF
F/N 2: John Leslie has something to say about the matter that we again need to hear:
He also notes, through a famous metaphor:
KF
F/N3: The temporal-causal framework of our cosmos points to a regress to origins. Infinite regress is not feasible (as this implies trying to span endlessness in finite stage steps, a futility). An ultimate chicken-egg loop of circular causation is not feasible as it implies something coming from nothing. That leaves a finitely remote world root. Where, as non-being has no causal capacity, were there ever utter nothing such would forever obtain. A world now is, so something always was, implying a necessary, world-framing eternal being without beginning or end, independent of other beings for existence. In effect the pure actuality of the philosophers. Such a NB world-root would be present in all possible worlds. But now, we find ourselves as morally governed, rationally and responsibly contemplative, significantly free creatures, just as requisites to have a serious conversation. That points to a need for an IS that grounds OUGHT inherently, at world root level. After centuries of debate, there is but one serious candidate: the essentially good creator God, a necessary and maximally great being, worthy of loyalty and the reasonable, responsible service of doing the good in accord with our evident nature. The God of ethical theism, antecedent to any religious traditions as such. It is interesting to see that this is on worldview level inference to best explanation per comparative difficulties, and that an invitation to put forth a coherent alternative having been often given: _____, we find a studious dodging of this challenge, by and large. It is interesting, that the issue of clarifying the nature of omniscience did come up, but from a theist. Grudem’s reply on Divine Sovereignty meaning God’s ability to effect his holy will has proved an apt succinct answer, though one that obviously needs a lot of unpacking to see its full import. KF
PS: No species of monism is capable of accounting for significant, responsible rational freedom, whether eastern pantheistic idealism or western materialism. Likewise any scheme that appeals to blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. It turns out that it is crucial to be able to see moral evil as the outworking of responsible choice, whereby the good is twisted and/or frustrated from its proper end. That is, evil is not an ultimate creation and aspect of the world-root. it cannot be balanced to zero in some imagined scheme of cosmological accounting. And fading to zero is not the proper end of those who have eternity placed in their hearts and may be surprised by C S Lewis’ joy beyond earthly fulfillments.
rvb8 writes at 3: “Firstly, atheists do not admit an appearance of fine tuning. If gravitational constants, the velocity of light, atomic forces, and Pi were all easy round numbers, then that would point to design.”
Round numbers? But “round numbers” are a human construct. If you use the decimal system of counting, the tens series will be round numbers to you. I’ve heard that one West African system is base 17 (sum of first four primes). No doubt those are “round numbers” in that vicinity.
Have arguments against fine-tuning really come down to this?
Also: Could pi even BE round number? One wonders whether its sheer irrationality provides a sort of stability.
Now that’s an interesting choice.
”Could pi even BE round number?”
No. For Euclidian geometry it must necessarily be the value it is. But it is a number about things which are round. Therefore, you could say that it is a round number– the ultimate round number, couldn’t you?
One of the mysterious things about pi is that it appears to show up in nature where we don’t expect it. As the following Nova program explains in the natural world, “pi appears in a whole host of other phenomena… which have nothing to do with circles… [for example] it appears in probability theory quite a bit.”
The discussion of pi begins at 7:35. However, the whole program is worth watching. There are other fascinating numbers besides pi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3iuBXrTBRo
I don’t see how the number pi or the profound mathematical nature of the universe could lead anyone into atheism. Anyone who smugly says that “God wouldn’t have done it that way,” needs demonstrate that by creating his own world. Short of that I am skeptical that he has the vaguest clue that he really knows what he is talking about it.
though its been answered – a truly ridiculous condition as if fractions/decimals are shunned by any proposed designer.
Thats a pretty lazy retort. Its not only provable its logically undefeatable. You yourself then align with multiple universes and parallel universe “answers”. However thats not an answer but simple a “punt” to one more turtle down the turtles all the way down proposition. At some point you end up with something or someone that is just because it/he/she is. even an eternal regression of causes is causeless. You are just not thinking beyond shallow rehtoric.
P.S. the fact that all three world religions positing a designer used fractions in their books hundreds of year before any controversy regarding a designer is yet another nail in the coffin of your condition that round numbers are a logical pointer to a designer. Since fractions were used in their religious calculations why wouldn’t their designer use them in the universe?
Try to get an exact whole number of teeth on a gear without dealing in irrationals starting with c = 2 * pi * r. Likewise for growth linked to a rate on current mass and frequency related phenomena, without running into e or its close relatives. KF
There are plenty of elegant ways to describe Pi. Just not within the real numbers. It really sounds like a complaint that there exist, simultaneously, round pegs and square holes; and that, surely, this makes the whole toy industry worthy of condemnation; or even casts doubts towards its existence.
A base 17 number system? Everybody knows base 10 is the only legitimate numbering system. All those zeros make it easier to work with. 😉
kairosfocus at 8, I can see why the universe cannot be infinitely old, because everything would already have happened, including its demise, an infinite number of times.
I am still not sure why the “armies of unalterable law” cannot stand in the place of God, with respect to design as such.
To ask what created them is like asking who created God. It’s not a silly question so much as one with no possible answer in this frame of reality.
That is, it is like asking, “What if two and two did not make four?”
What indeed? It is possible to ask a question to which there cannot be an answer. But that says nothing about the intrinsic reality of what we are discussing.
Marfin @4;
“So Marfin is GOD in defiance and opposition to the first law of thermodynamics…?”
And I’m accused of silly questions.
Could an all powerful, all knowing God, make Pi=3.0? Or is this God constrained by circles, diameters, and physical laws; it would appear so.
And the simple observation that constants are messy, derived from a violent, destructive universe, which is accelerating to a ‘heat death’ in sevral hundred billions of years also points to chaos and randomness at work.
NEWS,
Yes! ‘Fine Tuning’ arguments have come down to this. When I design something I don’t make one side of the box 1.56473m, and the other 1.37856m because that’s stupid and bad design.
All of the messy constants points to one of two conclusions; that God is a shoody designer, a good designer would make simple round numbers; or, God is constrained by nature, making God part of nature, placing God under the rule of nature, making nature greater than God.
No other conclusions are possible; Oh sorry, one other conclusion, there is no God, only nature. And I’m just fine with that, actually the alternative is positively frightening for you (but not me), because your God may be the wrong one.
Rvb8- So Big Bang , first law of thermodynamics , you don`t want to answer the question, why am I not surprised.
Great article of yours in Nota Bene, today, News : How Rationalism Rots Science from the Head Down. It made very amusing reading for all the right reasons. It might seem like shooting fish in a barrel, atheists inviting ridicule by the infinity of their folly, but
a) Ordinarily, you have a withering way with words, to match your satirical inights, anyway, and occasionally prompt much squealing from the chaotic ranks of scientism’s finest, and
b) This is eccentric from you, in that regard, in that you simply allow them to show what fools they are by soberly citing a few of their more outlandish, intellectual antics ; which, of course, heightens the humour – rather like the characteristically dead-pan delivery of Australians of their jokes.
And, of course, what raises the madness of materialists to truly dizzying heights is that they claim to be paragons of rational analysis.
‘No other conclusions are possible; Oh sorry, one other conclusion, there is no God, only nature. And I’m just fine with that…’
But your opinions are of no consequence are they, rvb8 ? You could be a splendid jewel fit to be the centre-piece of a royal crown ; or a piece of ordure. Both just matter. No more, no less.
J. Warner Wallace quote from the OP,
In 2007 while making observations at the Keck observatory in Hawaii, Sandra Faber, a professor of astronomy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told science writer Anil Ananthaswamy,
One of the problems with invoking the multiverse is there is absolutely no evidence that it exists. So an atheist who believes in it must believe it on the basis of faith. But isn’t the pretense and posture of atheism that it doesn’t require faith?
‘In 2007 while making observations at the Keck observatory in Hawaii, Sandra Faber, a professor of astronomy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told science writer Anil Ananthaswamy,’
————–
Dear Ms Faber, what are you doing making observations ? They only give you ‘appearances’, tell you how something appears. You know… that empirical nonsense.
But truth to tell, you have nowhere to go, do you, when you dismiss observations that ‘might allow God a foot in the door’, while earning your living carrying out other observations that will accomodate your favoured world-view, but will be false.
No, it only points to the existence of an intelligence with huge capabilities. This Intelligence does not have to have the characteristics of the Judeo/Christian God.
I suggest people read “The Last Question” by Issac Asimov, a professed atheist.
http://multivax.com/last_question.html
What a silly statement. I assume it was made. The ultimate question is why does anything exists. Once that is given, the existence of a huge intelligence can be explained very easily. I am surprised that the anti-ID people do not take this obvious path. My guess is that they do not want to admit the existence of a huge intelligence no matter what.
If one wants to get to the existence of the Judeo/Christian God, then that is another line of reasoning completely divorced from ID.
News asks:
What parts of the theistic argument does it address? How does one get karma and reincarnation without a soul and a non-material spiritual realm? Are you saying these exist, but are part of the natural world and operate by natural law? If so, what is free will? How does one explain the experience of the Divine?
I mean, if we’re going to ignore how it all came to exist in the first place and just accept it as a brute fact, who cares about natural moral law? You say the penalty is continued existence due to a karmic debt payable in the future? Sign me up! The last thing I’d want to do is balance my karmic debt and disappear from existence!
You might claim that doing good will ensure me of good Karma in future lives; why should I care about that guy? All you’ve said is that I can get away with doing bad things now and some other guy who won’t even remember me will pay the price. SIGN ME UP!!
rvb8 at 17: You write:
—
NEWS,
Yes! ‘Fine Tuning’ arguments have come down to this. When I design something I don’t make one side of the box 1.56473m, and the other 1.37856m because that’s stupid and bad design.
All of the messy constants points to one of two conclusions; that God is a shoody designer, a good designer would make simple round numbers; or, God is constrained by nature, making God part of nature, placing God under the rule of nature, making nature greater than God.
No other conclusions are possible; Oh sorry, one other conclusion, there is no God, only nature. And I’m just fine with that, actually the alternative is positively frightening for you (but not me), because your God may be the wrong one.
—
But this is so dull, I cannot believe that a science teacher wrote it (you are a science teacher, no?). You should check to see if someone has wormed into your system and is posting in your name.
First, “round numbers” exist only in our own heads. Numbers we can easily think about are round numbers to us.
A universe designed by a Grade 12 English and Drama major would feature all round numbers, to be sure. It wouldn’t work, but neither, usually, do her play scripts (interesting but not actable).
So, very well, we have a universe that works fine but was not designed to be easy for a person who dropped all her maths after Grade 10 to understand. It’s conceivable that making it easy for her to get by without study was not a priority.
You write, “When I design something I don’t make one side of the box 1.56473m, and the other 1.37856m because that’s stupid and bad design.”
My brother-in-law, a custom carpenter, has often worked on unusual projects. Whether design is bad depends on its relationship to intended function, not on what the numbers look like apart from function. But surely you knew that.
Present a man with a stupid idea and he might reject it, based on experience.
Teach a child to be stupid and you’ll just have to wait awhile to have your stupid man.
Andrew
RVB8, meanwhile, this is still there to deal with, illustrating the problem with the strawman demand for “round numbers”:
And BTW, round numbers in general are a product of power series sums, so are transcendentals like pi and e, just these will not sit with any place value notation scheme based on a whole number base.
KF
PPS: Cf also 5 – 8 above which you also studiously avoided.
For that matter, what kind of shoddy designer decided that the standard dimensions of a pine board would be 2.4384m x 0.3048m? Obviously, board dimensions were determined by blind, pitiless nature.
KF,
To throw a wrench into the gears and getting down to the actual nitty gritty.
Are the only numbers that actually exist in the physical world, whole or round numbers because all that exist are individual discrete entities? Do irrational numbers such as pi,e, square root of 2, etc. only exist in the abstract? I was a mathematics major and know the usefulness of irrational numbers as well as imaginary numbers. Just as infinity is a necessity in math, it really does not exist in the real world.
Is it impossible to draw in our universe a true circle, or a right triangle with two equal sides? Will it always be an incredibly small bit off because all that exist are individual entities which are positionally restrained? If the physical universe is composed of a finite number of particles and their possible position from each other is somehow determined in exact distances even though these distances are extremely small, does that mean we will never be able to draw the perfect circle or the perfect right triangle. How can one have a circle when there are only discrete particles which are not continuous. We can certainly come incredibly close to drawing a circle but can it actually be done if we had to get down to the level of individual particles which we can’t. Because a true drawing requires the use of the positions of the finite particles. Do quarks or what are the basic particles actually have physical dimensions?
If the universe is the sum of individual entities and if these entities are restricted on where they can be positioned relative to each other, then does that impose limitations on what actual numbers that can exist physically? We can imagine the space between two of these entities but can anything actually exist there? And what role does waves have in all this? Are waves continuous or they too composed of discrete elements that look like they are continuous?
I am sure there are lots of issues but the brining up of round numbers is an absurd objection to design when all that may exist are round numbers.
Does this mean that all the physical constants that affect how the universe operates, are really whole numbers and we will never have the tools to actually measure exactly what they are?
I am just throwing this out as a possible description of reality when I am sure a particle or quantum physicist might have a much different understanding.
Are the elements of the universe sort like what Plato described in his cave, imperfect elements to a form that exists only in the abstract.
This really has nothing to do with the discussion in general but somehow it got into the discussion.
Jerry, numbers, whole or not, are logical properties tied to structures and quantities. Once the logic is there, any number is as good as another. The capital example is the relationship 0 = 1 + e^i*pi, which locks whole domains together in an utterly exact coherence. I have already spoken to the challenge of cutting gears, which inherently brings up irrationals — and yes, good enough precision and tolerance are relevant. Physical instantiations and operations are almost never exact in relevant cases, but that just goes to underscore that logical relations are as real as physical ones. I here think of two radios I have, one a superhet and the other a DSP chip that directly calculates the output. The latter is superior. Where, I think the best short summary of what math is, is the logic of structure and quantity. As for the half-square triangle, at small enough scales the uncertainty principle comes to bear, but even that obeys mathematical patterns. We cannot physically instantiate a point particle, even in the classical realm [finite mass m in zero volume . . . ], but the ideal is useful. KF
I believe what rvb8 meant to say was:
“Firstly, poorly-educated atheists, like me, do not admit an appearance of fine tuning.”
As kairosfocus conclusively proved, educated atheists fully accept the fine-tuning of the cosmos.
F/N: Here are some numbers on a highly successful design, the SMLE:
From Wiki, on the rounds:
No sensible person will deny the effectiveness and even dominance of this design, tracing from the 1880’s to the 1950’s and 60’s, with echoes down to today.
And yet, the numbers, all carefully adapted and tested to work together, simply are almost defiantly not “round.”
In short, the talking point being used as a red herring to distract from seriously discussing the main issue, is patently fallacious. It is just irrelevant and smacks of being a mark of rhetorical desperation.
I trust we can now refocus the main issues.
KF
NEWS,
I teach History, Political Culture in the West, occasionally Media Studies, and very occasionally English.
Secondly my claims to a ‘no God’ universe are just as well supported as the ‘God/Designer’ universe.
More so, because as has been pointed out again and again, and never really refuted, the ‘God/Designer’ universe must necessarily work outside known physical constraints, and laws.
Could this be? Sure, but there is no evidence for it, hence the extraordinary claim resides in the ‘God/Designer’ corner, and hence they need extraordinary proof.
They provide none so I’ll stick with naturalism’s answer.
Marfin,
you always confuse me, either you’re extraordinarily brilliant, or the opposite. What do you want me to answer, and why is what I’ve written not an answer?
You like all IDists are fond of obscure questions, which you often ask in salvoes, why is it you never provide answers or evidence?
So is the Big Bang in defiance of the law, ‘energy can neither be created nor destroyed’, right?
Well, why can’t I throw that in God’s face?
To answer, at first glance yes, but what do I know, and more pointedly what do you know?
The confidence you evince in God being the answer is as unsupported as the atheist’s answer that the Big Bang just happened; was an event.
The differance between the two camps is that to atheists it’s an open question, whereas to the religious (like so many other unanswered questions about nature), Goddit!
Kairos,
you give a load of Imperial measurements to suggest round numbers are not necessary in good design; that’s because your human designed system is a poor example of good design in measurement systems.
When good design is employed in measurement systems we do indeed get round numbers; apparently God can’t think one up, but humans can?
Water melts at 0 degrees Celcius and boils at 100 Celcius.
tera 10 to the 12th.
giga 10 to the 9th.
mega 10 to the 6th.
kilo 10 to the 3rd.
hecto 10 to the 2nd.
deca 10 to the 1st.
0 none.
deci 10 to the negative 1st
Repeat down to atto, 10 to the negative 18th.
Used in weight; grams/ kilograms etc.
Distance; mm/kilometre etc.
Pressure; pascal/kiopascal etc.
Density; gram/mm cubed; kilogram/m cubed etc
etc etc, in all areas of measurement and design.
NASA uses this, all science departments in US universities use this, as do research facilities, and all doctors.
There is a map showing which countries in the world don’t use this well designed, convenient, simple decimal system in daily life, they are Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States.
My question Kairos, if humans can design a whole number system for design, why can’t God, or the US government for that matter?
RVB8, the SMLE and good design patterns and realities are not under test, you were. And you failed; again. KF
F/N: Let us refocus, does the designer indicated through the design inference on sign need to be God?
Here is my earlier answer, in a nutshell:
And BTW, Sir Fred Hoyle (who readily qualified as both atheist and well qualified to comment on cosmology), took the evident fine-tuning seriously. Indeed, he is one of the first to have noticed, c. 1953.
KF
I don’t think there is any way to answer an incorrigible cynic. They are too blinded by their own ingrown thinking to see the world any other way.
j_a_d,
“I don’t think there is any way to answer a religious person. They are too blinded by their own scientifically unsupported faith to see the world any other way.”
Try this; Jesus defied gravity, mortality,and the first law of thermodynamics, (the loaves and fishes).
Marfin says can the Big Bang defy ‘1st law’? Don’t know, neither does he, can’t know neither can he. When I ask can God defy this law, the clear answer is yes, Jesus did! Does that still make it a law, or ‘best practices’?
Why can’t God do absolutely anything if this creation is his? He is constrained by his own laws? Tempting. But he made them, presumably he can unmake them. Why can’t God the omnipotent, omniscient, the omnipresent do anything he wills? And if not is he below these laws, making Nature God’s God.
This is just where these silly, ‘what was before the Big Bang/God arguments take you; nowhere. Except of course into meaningless theological speculation as profitable to knowledge as Aquinas’s attempt to calculate how many angels could dance on a pin head.
It is entertaining viewing however.
Rvb8-As my friend tells me ” you should have been a genius”
rvb8 the problem is you want to have your cake and eat it too, when we mention God or miracles you scream the laws of science, when we mention that what materialists teach goes contrary to the laws of science you say well so does God.
Now you cannot say the material world and the materialist definition of science is all there is and then hold me and my arguments to this standard but not you and your arguments.
I don`t believe the material world and the materialist definition of science is all there is , and I dont believe this because of the evidence from science and the natural world.
The universe and all it contains is a creation of either natural or a supernatural event , if you disagree show me a third possibility.
So if you are on the materialist fence ,then answer the question if matter cannot be created or destroyed (in a purely material world ) then who or what created matter.
RVB8– You can believe there is no God , you can believe the universe popped into existence from nothing , you can believe life popped into existence from non living materials, you can believe that every living creature we see around us evolved from Hydrogen gas , you can believe, but dont call it scientific , dont call it fact , and don`t say we are the only ones who believe in miracles
RVB8, it is clear that you have some serious re-thinking to do, and in so doing you need to be looking at plumb line self-evident truths; you seem to be using a crooked, inaccurate yardstick, which means that genuine truth — which already matches reality — cannot match the flawed yardstick. I suggest you do so before you go over a cliff and suffer serious consequences. I suggest that further rhetorical gambits such as the turnabout stunt you just tried on JAD are only highlighting even more that you have little more in hand than a rhetorical bag of agit prop tricks. I suggest, again, that here on will prove helpful. KF
PS: A very good description of omnipotence, FYI, is precisely that God has power to do anything in accord with his holy will. This means he will do no evil (he is inherently good), and that it is no limitation that he cannot create a logically impossible being, he is communicative reason himself. And, that he would create creatures capable of creative love (which requires responsible, rational freedom) in no wise requires him to slice off or alienate or use up some of that power.
PPS: I remain astonished at how often people seem to imagine that physical laws are logically necessary. The fine tuning evidence etc point elsewhere. And, no inductive procedure can demonstrate that a generalisation is without exception. Indeed, on miracles, we see that God sustains the general order of the world (necessary for responsible freedom) but reserves the right to act in accord with a higher purpose for his own good reason. There is nothing irrational or silly in believing that the author of life could raise Jesus from the dead in accord with prophecy written down 700 years ahead, with 500 witnesses who could not be turned.
That’s the thing, It hasn’t sailed over my head.
Design isn’t abstract property. It’s not just will, or intent. While that might have seemed reasonable hundreds of years ago, we know so much more about how designers accomplish their goals that you’re might as well have said fire has the property of dryness.
So, it’s unclear how you can say design is independent of a designer unless you’re making some implicit assumptions you haven’t disclosed.
For example,
For example…
So, it’s insufficient to merely point to “design” as an abstract property. I’m a designer, yet I’m unable to cure cancer.
So, it’s unclear how details about the designer, such as what they knew and when they knew it would be irrelevant to what they supposedly designed.
Of course, since the designer could not be God if it’s methods, means etc. could be explained, it would come as no surprise that theists would want to artificially limit ID.
Furthermore, good explanations have reach beyond the immediate problem space. They cannot be contained because you find them inconvenient to one’s theological beliefs.
I suppose we can all breathe a sigh of relief on behalf of your students that Mathematics are not on this list. Or science.
Phinehas,
you can breathe in relief.
I am interested in a subject, evolution. I research that subject by visiting the best minds on that subject; available on the inter-net, hence, the world.
I find that subject in no debate whatsoever about the causes and reasons for this Darwinian observed process.
I visit sites such as this to view the theological, and very poorly concieved philosophical reactions:
Life is good:)
rvb8,
It is not a lazy answer, it is a lazy question. No one designed the designer if the designer is God. Do you understand why the causeless cause cannot be designed?
If “something made time and space,” then obviously something existed before time and space. If something did not make time and space, then time and space made itself. Are you arguing for the second option?
Law-like regularities cannot create anything; they can only repeat their behavior. In order to bring something new into existence, the cause must decide to stop not creating and begin to create. Only an intelligent agent can do that. What we call “laws” cannot make decisions or change their behavior.
SB, a pleasant surprise. I hope all is well.
And yet, you have no interest in what is physically required for evolution to occur.
@StephanB
There are to options: either the designer / God created the universe the way it is on a whim, which explains nothing, or it created the universe the way that it is because of necessary reason X, in which case reason X explains why the universe is the way it is, not the designer / God.
critical rationalist,
You have changed the subject altogether. The point is that a law cannot create anything. That power is reserved for an intelligent agent.
Meanwhile, to address your new subject, you are clearly wrong to say that identifying the cause of the universe explains “nothing.”
If an intelligent agent created the universe from nothing, then that agent would be the *efficient cause* of the *fact* of its existence. This can be known through unaided reason, and it is definitely an “explanation.”
To know the *reason* for its existence would also constitute an explanation, though of a different kind (final cause); but that can be known only through revelation.
UB @47,
Greetings back to you.
StepheB,
“Do you understand why the causless cause can not be designed?”
Umm, No! What the hell is a ‘causless cause’? If its not there, it can not cause anything! Unless you bring in faith, or religion, then it makes perfect sense.
You’re not dealing with yokels here SB. We want reasons, facts, evidence, experimentation, provable concepts. Not empty wooo.
‘Causless cause?’ Grow up! Fairytales were left behind by me at age 12.
SB: “Do you understand why the causless cause can not be designed?”
rvb8
A causeless cause is the first cause in a chain of causes and effects. Think of the train’s engine, for example, as the first cause of the movement of a series of box cars. It is not moved by anything else but it is responsible for all the other movements.
That the universe, as an effect, requires a first cause, and that the first cause must be a causeless cause, has nothing to do with “faith” or “religion.” It is simply a matter of logic.
You don’t need evidence to know that effects require causes and the the universe, as an effect, requires a first cause, which must also be a causeless cause. Indeed, no amount of evidence can either confirm or negate the point. That is why it is stupid for anyone to ask, “Who designed God?” in the context of a scientific discussion about the fine tuning of the universe. In keeping with that point, I invite everyone to refrain from asking the question, “Who tuned the tuner?”
I can provide the requisite remedial education, but I cannot help you control your emotions.
Very insightful post SB @53
– Who tasted the taster?
– Who cooked the cook?
– Who sang the singer?
It does look far more daft when you put it like that.