The distance between Christianity and the 4 Gospels

[MG 2.0]

The American Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg, an atheist with a particular disdain for religion said that life “as we know it would be impossible if anyone of several physical quantities had slightly different values.” Weinberg also said that if the value of the cosmological constant were different by just one part in ten to the 120th power, life could not exist.

So life as we know it only exists because of the exactness and precision of all the features of the universe beginning with the Big Bang. If you’re comfortable going the reverse engineering route that ends up saying, “It is what it is”, then fine. I think you might find quite a few smart folks out there that will take issue with String Theory and Multiverse Theory. What does that leave you if both of these theories don’t pan out?

I think I’m pretty much done with this thread but wanted to jump in and point out that the fact that life even though sentient life is an astronomically small percentage of the mass of the known universe, that really doesn’t matter. What IS important is that life IS. There is nothing that Trump's the qualitative difference between sentient life and stardust.

My opinion anyway. And there isn’t any evidence to the contrary.

Regards,
MG

And the selfsame physicists proponents the multiverse theory - not the god did it theory. How does this help your case?

And yet, that the constants can be anything else has never been demonstrated, and our sample size of what they can be is ONE. Great argument.

Like I said, be patient it's going to take more than a few eons to get somewhere over 'there' to get that sample. Until then, this universe is all we have...and Fine Tuning and Abiogenisis show promise of identifying intelligence behind the big picture. Sure fire hit? Not if you're looking at things simply as they are without paying detailed attention to how all the nuts and bolts fit together. There is INFORMATION at the root of it all. Where in the world/universe did IT originate? Does information just pop into being also without some type of organization or template?

Anyway, I guess you guys can go on looking for NO God in the schema of the universe, but at the end of the day I'm willing to take a chance on a creator God.

I'm sure you have your reasons.

Regards,
MG

[drumdude]

And the selfsame physicists proponents the multiverse theory - not the god did it theory. How does this help your case?

And yet, that the constants can be anything else has never been demonstrated, and our sample size of what they can be is ONE. Great argument.

Like I said, be patient it's going to take more than a few eons to get somewhere over 'there' to get that sample. Until then, this universe is all we have...and Fine Tuning and Abiogenisis show promise of identifying intelligence behind the big picture. Sure fire hit? Not if you're looking at things simply as they are without paying detailed attention to how all the nuts and bolts fit together. There is INFORMATION at the root of it all. Where in the world/universe did IT originate? Does information just pop into being also without some type of organization or template?

Anyway, I guess you guys can go on looking for NO God in the schema of the universe, but at the end of the day I'm willing to take a chance on a creator God.

I'm sure you have your reasons.

Regards,
MG

If the Universe requires an explanation for its existence then so does God.

[MG 2.0]

Like I said, be patient it's going to take more than a few eons to get somewhere over 'there' to get that sample. Until then, this universe is all we have...and Fine Tuning and Abiogenisis show promise of identifying intelligence behind the big picture. Sure fire hit? Not if you're looking at things simply as they are without paying detailed attention to how all the nuts and bolts fit together. There is INFORMATION at the root of it all. Where in the world/universe did IT originate? Does information just pop into being also without some type of organization or template?

Anyway, I guess you guys can go on looking for NO God in the schema of the universe, but at the end of the day I'm willing to take a chance on a creator God.

I'm sure you have your reasons.

Regards,
MG

If the Universe requires an explanation for its existence then so does God.

Would you like to flesh out this statement? Sounds like you're going the if/then route. Can you show a direct implication/connection that's not too confusing?

Not quite sure where you going with "requires". Direct correlation requires direct association, or does it?

Have you sent this all encompassing rebuttal of a sentence to some of the big minds that encourage the Fine Tuning Argument?

I apologize if your one sentence is an 'end all' refutation to all the work that cosmologists have accomplished in defense of Fine Tuning Theory and I'm just not smart enough to get it first time through.

Help me out. I'm a simple man. That you can pack SO MUCH into a short sentence is pretty amazing.

If/then statements frequently cause me a bit of discomfort and consternation, in some instances. This is one of those times.

Regards,
MG

[drumdude]

There can be another God that created God. There can be another universe that created our Universe. It can even be an infinite regression, there is nothing that says logic must hold outside the universe.

Because these are by definition outside of the universe they are by definition not able to be investigated.

The multiverse theory is just as valid as the God theory for explaining what is perceived as fine tuning. And it has just as much evidence (none).

[PseudoPaul]

And the selfsame physicists proponents the multiverse theory - not the god did it theory. How does this help your case?

And yet, that the constants can be anything else has never been demonstrated, and our sample size of what they can be is ONE. Great argument.

Like I said, be patient it's going to take more than a few eons to get somewhere over 'there' to get that sample. Until then, this universe is all we have...and Fine Tuning and Abiogenisis show promise of identifying intelligence behind the big picture. Sure fire hit? Not if you're looking at things simply as they are without paying detailed attention to how all the nuts and bolts fit together. There is INFORMATION at the root of it all. Where in the world/universe did IT originate? Does information just pop into being also without some type of organization or template?

Anyway, I guess you guys can go on looking for NO God in the schema of the universe, but at the end of the day I'm willing to take a chance on a creator God.

I'm sure you have your reasons.

Regards,
MG

In Mormonism there is no designer at all - only an infinite succession of builders. So the usual Christian arguments for God that you've consumed on Youtube don't work for Mormonism

[dastardly stem]

Would you like to flesh out this statement? Sounds like you're going the if/then route. Can you show a direct implication/connection that's not too confusing?

Not quite sure where you going with "requires". Direct correlation requires direct association, or does it?

Have you sent this all encompassing rebuttal of a sentence to some of the big minds that encourage the Fine Tuning Argument?

I apologize if your one sentence is an 'end all' refutation to all the work that cosmologists have accomplished in defense of Fine Tuning Theory and I'm just not smart enough to get it first time through.

Help me out. I'm a simple man. That you can pack SO MUCH into a short sentence is pretty amazing.

If/then statements frequently cause me a bit of discomfort and consternation, in some instances. This is one of those times.

Regards,
MG

The problem with referencing "great minds" in an argument presupposes there is something to a claim simply because there are smart people who agree with it. But every great mind can be wrong at least once. That's why it's called a fallacy. There are too many problems with the fine tuning argument or set of arguments to take seriously. And that smart people take it seriously does not in any way justify the argument.

The fine-tuning argument presupposes a god. It basically begs the question assuming that since there is fine-tuning in nature something like God must have been involved.
The fine-tuning argument presupposes that the constants could be different. Since no one can possibly know that they could have been different, all we have here is an argument from ignorance. All efforts I've seen suggesting we can know that the constants could have been different continues the argument from ignorance with a "we don't know, so that means we can guess that they could be different".
The fine-tuning argument presupposes there is fine tuning. Another begging the question fallacy. There had to be fine tuning because we're here and everything seems to work for us and that's a really fat chance if there was nothing
The fine-tuning argument presupposes that there is an explanation for why nature transpired. It very well could be it just happened.

[dastardly stem]

In Mormonism there is no designer at all - only an infinite succession of builders. So the usual Christian arguments for God that you've consumed on Youtube don't work for Mormonism

Yep. Mormonism is wholly materialist. Not only is God a physical being but that Holy Spirit has a spirit body which is made up of matter, just too fine for us to see. All suggesting there is nothing supernatural...whatever that might be.

[¥akaSteelhead]

The problem with referencing "great minds" in an argument presupposes there is something to a claim simply because there are smart people who agree with it. But every great mind can be wrong at least once. That's why it's called a fallacy. There are too many problems with the fine tuning argument or set of arguments to take seriously. And that smart people take it seriously does not in any way justify the argument.

The fine-tuning argument presupposes a god. It basically begs the question assuming that since there is fine-tuning in nature something like God must have been involved.
The fine-tuning argument presupposes that the constants could be different. Since no one can possibly know that they could have been different, all we have here is an argument from ignorance. All efforts I've seen suggesting we can know that the constants could have been different continues the argument from ignorance with a "we don't know, so that means we can guess that they could be different".
The fine-tuning argument presupposes there is fine tuning. Another begging the question fallacy. There had to be fine tuning because we're here and everything seems to work for us and that's a really fat chance if there was nothing
The fine-tuning argument presupposes that there is an explanation for why nature transpired. It very well could be it just happened.

^^^THIS!!!^^^

At the end of the day it is just another argument that does absolutely nothing to forward the god position, appeal to authority not withstanding.

[MG 2.0]

In Mormonism there is no designer at all - only an infinite succession of builders. So the usual Christian arguments for God that you've consumed on Youtube don't work for Mormonism

Yep. Mormonism is wholly materialist. Not only is God a physical being but that Holy Spirit has a spirit body which is made up of matter, just too fine for us to see. All suggesting there is nothing supernatural...whatever that might be.

Something beyond that which the ‘natural’ eyes can see?

It seems as though ever since the Steady State view of the universe went down the tubes and the universe became ‘birthed’ and may die in the far distant future (expanding universe), atheists have had to make some heady adjustments knowing that they no longer had an infinite amount of time to throw into the formula for abiogenesis. When they saw that Fine Tuning seemed to fit the timescale for the universe’s age and that they couldn’t just say, “Well, anything can happen if you have enough time”, they had to do some fancy footwork.

So we have some pretty weird theories that have been put out there on paper. But as one tries to stretch their mind around multiverse or string theory it becomes readily apparent that a HUGE amount of conjecture is involved. And for me, I see Occam’s Razor carving out a place for God.

So believers and non believers come to an impasse. Each having their own reasons for either believing in or not believing in a creator. Much of it, I suspect, to do with having issues…or not…with authority. Having to listen to and obey the teachings of folks who claim to speak for God. Following commandments rather than wholly doing their own thing with no strings attached to a ‘sky daddy’.

That seems to be a ‘big thing’ with many critics and ex-Mormons.

Regards,
MG

[PseudoPaul]

Yep. Mormonism is wholly materialist. Not only is God a physical being but that Holy Spirit has a spirit body which is made up of matter, just too fine for us to see. All suggesting there is nothing supernatural...whatever that might be.

Something beyond that which the ‘natural’ eyes can see?

It seems as though ever since the Steady State view of the universe went down the tubes and the universe became ‘birthed’ and may die in the far distant future (expanding universe), atheists have had to make some heady adjustments knowing that they no longer had an infinite amount of time to throw into the formula for abiogenesis. When they saw that Fine Tuning seemed to fit the timescale for the universe’s age and that they couldn’t just say, “Well, anything can happen if you have enough time”, they had to do some fancy footwork.

So we have some pretty weird theories that have been put out there on paper. But as one tries to stretch their mind around multiverse or string theory it becomes readily apparent that a HUGE amount of conjecture is involved. And for me, I see Occam’s Razor carving out a place for God.

So believers and non believers come to an impasse. Each having their own reasons for either believing in or not believing in a creator. Much of it, I suspect, to do with having issues…or not…with authority. Having to listen to and obey the teachings of folks who claim to speak for God. Following commandments rather than wholly doing their own thing with no strings attached to a ‘sky daddy’.

That seems to be a ‘big thing’ with many critics and ex-Mormons.

Regards,
MG

Who told you that physicists postulated the multiverse as a way to get out of theism? This is pure wish fulfillment fantasy. I'd suggest spending more time with physicists and less time with apologists.