Discussion about scientific issues as they relate to God and Christianity including archaeology, origins of life, the universe, intelligent design, evolution, etc.
Okay so Im debating another atheist and he raises the atheist free will contradiction. So I responded to it. But he seeminly has put a peg into the argument for fine tuning as well as the impossiblity of chemical evolution (Red Hoyle's calculations).
Here is the link to the video that he says refutes these arguments based on probability.
There seems to be a lot of intelligent Christians in this forum and this video has me confused. Could someone please refute this? Finetuning is my fauvorite argument. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I1YTdiuXro
Thanks, Tim
uneedHim wrote:Okay so Im debating another atheist and he raises the atheist free will contradiction. So I responded to it. But he seeminly has put a peg into the argument for fine tuning as well as the impossiblity of chemical evolution (Red Hoyle's calculations).
Here is the link to the video that he says refutes these arguments based on probability.
There seems to be a lot of intelligent Christians in this forum and this video has me confused. Could someone please refute this? Finetuning is my fauvorite argument. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I1YTdiuXro
Thanks, Tim
Firstly, if you are attempting to 100% prove God using teleological design arguments (for example the fine-tuning arguments), then I think you are attempting to milk too much from them. Such arguments can be used to argue that belief in God creating our universe is an entirely plausible and logical belief. I think they can also be pushed much further to conclude that given such significance in our universe, an intelligent explanation is more plausible than any non-intelligent alternative based on chance and necessity. Yet, it unreasonable to say that these kind of arguments logically prove God's existence in an unequivocal manner.
So lets take the guy in the youtube video. He pours salt into the pan and then essentially says in retrospect: "Look at what we have here! The odds that all the salt grains must have ended up in this combination is so highly improbably it must be a miracle." Yet I ask what is the perceived significance of the placement of salt grains? For example, if he poured them randomly into the pan and they formed the shape of a face or something we perceive as significant, then we would truly be amazed and even begin wondering how the heck he did that! Neat trick! Right?
Teleological arguments are about the perceived significance of our universe's design. It really does look like it was no accident life came about given all the fine-tuning required. In order to argue the insignificance of teleological arguments, a person needs to provide reasons why the fine-tuning we perceive in our universe is insignificant. This requires a higher level argumentation then simply pouring salt into a pan which has a final result of no significance whatsoever.
It seems to me that it would not be possible to disprove the existence of God with an experiment that man could do. (For instance the pouring of salt.) Because that then puts the man doing the experiment in the position where God would be if He does exist. Man essentially become the creator of the experiment, and regardless of how unbiased the experimentor is, he will still have an influence (even if accidental) on the outcome of the experiment.
You see, actually the outcome of the experiment is completely insignificant for the argument. The significance is the fact the the experiment was executed (created, started, begun, "in the beginning", etc......) and that some one had to start the execution and someone had to observe the results and make judgements on the outcome of the results.
