|
|
Post by michaelw on Mar 2, 2017 17:42:37 GMT -5
But, it becomes a fallacy when a person falsely believes that the universe that we perceive is necessarily the only one that could possibly exist. If the universe had formed in a different way, then there could have been different constants which would have evolved life in different ways. Right. Personally I think the idea of the multiverse is just as plausible as the argument from fine-tuning. Even if you have many universes that simply can't sustain life--any life--the odds continually go up that you'd end up with one that could. And this happens not because the universe is adapted to life, but rather because life is, in a sense, adapted to it. In that sense, one can think of life as more or less a natural byproduct of a particular universe being in a particular state. This, I think, provides a fairly straightforward solution to the problem of fine-tuning. It shows how the the idea of “the universe is fine-tuned for us” is only one possible starting point, not something we can necessarily just take as a given. As as side note, I also think it's pretty interesting how the precariousness of a system can be turned into an argument for design. To me, it seems like one could just as easily argue the exact opposite. A system that could fall apart with slight tweaking might easily seem more likely to be the product of a natural process. If the laws of the universe were such that it would take tremendous tweaking, rather than slight tweaking, in order to kill off humanity, I'd actually be more willing to see the system as being designed with us in mind. |
|
|
|
Post by robeiae on Mar 2, 2017 17:46:33 GMT -5
Meh. It's easy to take down thinkers like Aquinas; I can't say I'm very impressed with the first part of the first vid. Using words like "weaselly" and "cheat" in that regard is just an exercise in hitting low-hanging fruit. True enough, Aquinas' arguments are not strong, but that's because he was trying--and failing--to reconcile logic with his own theological certainties. There's a lot of "as every school boy knows" in his writings.
To be clear, it's not that I think arguments from design are valid; I find them ridiculous, truth be told. But I think these sorts of "serious" takedowns of the same only result in extending the issue, for no real good reason. Maybe I'm naive on this, but I think the issue of faith is getting seriously ignored, even by the people who claim to be religious. It's a live and let live thing for me. No one can prove the existence or non-existence of God, imo. It's categorically impossible. So I kinda wish everyone would stop trying.
Of course, I realize there's a cottage industry here, so I know it probably won't ever stop.
|
|
|
|
Post by michaelw on Mar 2, 2017 17:51:42 GMT -5
Maybe I'm naive on this, but I think the issue of faith is getting seriously ignored, even by the people who claim to be religious. Right, it seems like the argument for fine-tuning is basically a way for apologists to skip faith altogether, to say "look, you don't even need faith, because basic reason shows that this must be the case." The arguments, both pro and con, I do find interesting. When people start talking as though they've hit on "proofs", yeah, I agree. I think that's why I always found Pascal's theological writings much more interesting than Descartes' or Anselm's. |
|
|
|
Post by Optimus on Mar 2, 2017 21:39:20 GMT -5
Meh. It's easy to take down thinkers like Aquinas; I can't say I'm very impressed with the first part of the first vid. Using words like "weaselly" and "cheat" in that regard is just an exercise in hitting low-hanging fruit. True enough, Aquinas' arguments are not strong, but that's because he was trying--and failing--to reconcile logic with his own theological certainties. There's a lot of "as every school boy knows" in his writings. To be clear, it's not that I think arguments from design are valid; I find them ridiculous, truth be told. But I think these sorts of "serious" takedowns of the same only result in extending the issue, for no real good reason. Maybe I'm naive on this, but I think the issue of faith is getting seriously ignored, even by the people who claim to be religious. It's a live and let live thing for me. No one can prove the existence or non-existence of God, imo. It's categorically impossible. So I kinda wish everyone would stop trying. Of course, I realize there's a cottage industry here, so I know it probably won't ever stop. It's perhaps easy to take down Aquinas for you or me, on our own, but would we be able to do it effectively in a debate, either formal or informal, with a Christian apologist? Perhaps not. But, Dillahunty's vids aren't necessarily for people educated in philosophy and counter apologetics. They're geared toward people without a strong background in apologetics, counter apologetics, theology, and the relevant philosophy. Their purpose is to inform people on the background/history of the common arguments that Christian apologists use and to teach counter apologetics arguments against them. Popular Christian apologists like William Lane Craig, Sye Ten Bruggencate, Alvin Plantinga, and Matt Slick use many of those tactics - including the argument from design and including invoking Thomas Aquinas (which Hitchens also did) - so teaching people about the history of where these arguments come from certainly isn't "low hanging fruit" when the entire point of the vid is to educate people on counter apologetics. Your statement, to me, is as valid a criticism as claiming that a third grade class teaching multiplication tables is "just an exercise in hitting the low-hanging fruit" of mathematics. |
|
|
|
Post by robeiae on Mar 3, 2017 7:44:56 GMT -5
If you say so. Your experiences here are perhaps far more extensive than mine.
It just seems to me that anyone hellbent on finding/hearing a proof of God's existence isn't going to allow themselves to be educated, while those who believe because of faith alone don't need to be educated.
|
|
|
|
Post by robeiae on Mar 3, 2017 7:46:11 GMT -5
Maybe I'm naive on this, but I think the issue of faith is getting seriously ignored, even by the people who claim to be religious. Right, it seems like the argument for fine-tuning is basically a way for apologists to skip faith altogether, to say "look, you don't even need faith, because basic reason shows that this must be the case." The arguments, both pro and con, I do find interesting. When people start talking as though they've hit on "proofs", yeah, I agree. I think that's why I always found Pascal's theological writings much more interesting than Descartes' or Anselm's. Just fyi, Descartes is a horse's ass.  |
|
|
|
Post by michaelw on Mar 3, 2017 7:56:45 GMT -5
That would be putting Descartes... after the horse? |
|
|
|
Post by Amadan on Mar 3, 2017 14:36:19 GMT -5
In my experience, most religious adherents grow up picking and choosing which things about their religion they take "literally." So for example, most modern Christians might reluctantly allow, in theory, that angels and demons actually exist, but they don't expect to encounter them and wouldn't believe anyone who claimed to. And if asked to justify their belief in supernatural beings, they'd handwave them as metaphors or descriptions of psychological/spiritual states, etc. They go to church because they like feeling there is some benevolent being who will make sure everything turns out all right in the end, but they don't really think miracles happen today or believe that God is listening to them except in a vague warm-fuzzy kind of way.
The Biblical literalists are a bit of a fringe nowadays, though there are a fair number of them. As Opty said, the "fine tuned universe" theory is just a variation of the "Watchmaker" universe.
One way this is often presented is: "There is less chance of a tornado going through a junkyard and assembling a fully-functional automobile than the universe as it exists now occurring by random chance." But that assumes there was some end-state in mind, that the universe was "designed" to exist in its present state. A tornado going through a junkyard could end in an infinite number of states, only one of which is that highly improbable automobile. Likewise, our current state is only one of an infinite number of possibilities. Sure, looking at it from the beginning of the universe and predicting it would turn out the way it is now would require an intelligent designer. But every other possible universe would have looked the same way.
|
|
|
|
Post by Angie on Mar 6, 2017 11:25:43 GMT -5
Perhaps not. But, Dillahunty's vids aren't necessarily for people educated in philosophy and counter apologetics. They're geared toward people without a strong background in apologetics, counter apologetics, theology, and the relevant philosophy. Their purpose is to inform people on the background/history of the common arguments that Christian apologists use and to teach counter apologetics arguments against them. Popular Christian apologists like William Lane Craig, Sye Ten Bruggencate, Alvin Plantinga, and Matt Slick use many of those tactics - including the argument from design and including invoking Thomas Aquinas (which Hitchens also did) - so teaching people about the history of where these arguments come from certainly isn't "low hanging fruit" when the entire point of the vid is to educate people on counter apologetics. I think it's also pertinent that Dillahunty has debated almost all of those guys. His debate experience is what prompted him to create the video series addressing various apologetics that he's encountered over and over again. He also hosts the Atheist Experience television show, where he's heard the arguments dozens of times. And, yeah, he's speaking to an audience that isn't as well versed in counter-apologetics. If you say so. Your experiences here are perhaps far more extensive than mine. It just seems to me that anyone hellbent on finding/hearing a proof of God's existence isn't going to allow themselves to be educated, while those who believe because of faith alone don't need to be educated. I personally know several people who ultimately left religion after hearing & investigating counter-apologetic arguments. So it's not necessarily a useless exercise. And I'd be a lot more live-and-let-live about religion in general if people weren't constantly voting Bible thumpers into office - Bible thumpers who then try their damndest to nudge us closer to a theocratic government. |
|
|
|
Post by perks on Mar 8, 2017 10:42:19 GMT -5
My favorite dismantling of the fine-tuning argument comes from Douglas Adams:
|
|
|
|
Post by Angie on Mar 8, 2017 23:58:59 GMT -5
Perks!!  |
|
