The distance between Christianity and the 4 Gospels

[MG 2.0]

Give it a bit more thought.

MG 2.0: Thank you for the advice to “give it a bit more thought.” On reflection, I believe that you’re right. This is the PERFECT world for choice.

We get to pick where we’re born and how we die. We get to pick our race, our parents, our country of origin. We get to select our social-economic status. We choose how smart we are or aren’t. We choose how we’re treated in childhood, and whether others rape, abuse, torture, or torment us throughout life.

We select our sexual preference and are given a menu to pick from as to whether to be born with a club foot or a cleft palate. Some of us get to select to be brain damaged or have poorly functioning heart valves. Some of us pick to be blonde.

I know I got to select my skin tone, my height, and the rate at which I would grow bald. Indeed, every part of my life and that of others has been all about being able to choose. This is indeed the PERFECT world for choice.

I do sometimes wonder why some people choose to be victims of the Rohingya genocide--but then, with a panglossian flip of my curls, I just push it out of my mind. Thoughts like this have no place in my head. I chose my life and they chose theirs. How could they have chosen to be so stupid?

Certainly, this overwhelming evidence that this is the PERFECT world for choice is the ultimate proof of intelligent design.

Apparently I wasn’t clear. Let me repost what I said:

Through all the static we find sentient beings that are able to reason out whether or not they are going to believe in a creator and/or higher power. Who would've thought?

Creator God? God of Chance?

We live in a PERFECT world for choice. I can’t imagine it being any more finely tuned than that.

We live in a perfect world for choice as to whether or not we choose to believe in a creator God or a higher power. Amazing what context does to meaning.

Ya gotta read what comes before.

Regards,
MG

[Jersey Girl]

MG 2.0: The clouds are literally made of cotton candy.

Morley (stupidly): What the hell? How is that possible?

MG 2.0: Give it some thought. Whoops, got to go! Bye, now!

I call that discussus interruptus. It's a thing. I just put a name to it is all.

[MG 2.0]

MG 2.0: The clouds are literally made of cotton candy.

Morley (stupidly): What the hell? How is that possible?

MG 2.0: Give it some thought. Whoops, got to go! Bye, now!

I call that discussus interruptus. It's a thing. I just put a name to it is all.

Yeah, it was time to head out the door to church. Hopefully my last post helped clarify Morley’s misconceptions from not reading things in context.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

We get to pick where we’re born and how we die. We get to pick our race, our parents, our country of origin. We get to select our social-economic status. We choose how smart we are or aren’t. We choose how we’re treated in childhood, and whether others rape, abuse, torture, or torment us throughout life.

We select our sexual preference and are given a menu to pick from as to whether to be born with a club foot or a cleft palate. Some of us get to select to be brain damaged or have poorly functioning heart valves. Some of us pick to be blonde.

I know I got to select my skin tone, my height, and the rate at which I would grow bald. Indeed, every part of my life and that of others has been all about being able to choose. This is indeed the PERFECT world for choice.

Very little choice in these matters and the others you mentioned.

Nonetheless, for the most part, we have a choice to believe in and worship a creator God or higher power than ourselves.

And the perfect fine tuning allows for that.

Regards,
MG

[Bret Ripley]

Nonetheless, for the most part, we have a choice to believe in and worship a creator God or higher power than ourselves.

"For the most part"? It's perfect except when it isn't?

[malkie]

To reiterate a point made earlier in the thread (can't find it right now):

We have no way of knowing if the purported "tuning" - or rather, the values of the universal constants that we know about, never mind those we don't - is optimal in any way. It could be, but it is perfectly conceivable that different values could produce a superior environment for humans.

To steal Asimov's idea, a larger value of the strong nuclear force would make nuclear fusion more easily attainable.

Of course a lot of other things would change - we wouldn't just get easier and cheaper energy - but I can suggest (with, I think, as much justification as that everything is "perfect") that some other changes would bring the universe back to a stable, happy state.

We could even currently be at a local minimum of universe "quality", as far as human viability and comfort is concerned - we simply don't know.

[MG 2.0]

Nonetheless, for the most part, we have a choice to believe in and worship a creator God or higher power than ourselves.

"For the most part"? It's perfect except when it isn't?

Yes.

You might be able to think of some examples. People with mental disabilities that make it difficult for them to make fully informed decisions, etc. The Lord has made it clear, however, that individuals that fall into the category of those that cannot be judged within a certain spectrum of accountability will be judged by other metrics. If you were at one time or are now scripturally proficient in the LDS tradition you may be aware of scriptural references that teach this.

This is a fallen world in that environment, genetics, and other factors influence a whole host of things. Again, going back to my original point, the world is in such a state as to give equal opportunity to those that choose to believe and those that choose not to. The fact that you are communicating with me on a reasonably intelligent level signifies that you know this to be the case and can reason it out.

That’s the fine tuning I’m referring to. It seems to me that if the world wasn’t fine tuned to being able to make a reasoned choice between belief and non belief then there would be only one reasonable option, right?

It’s not rocket science.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

To reiterate a point made earlier in the thread (can't find it right now):

We have no way of knowing if the purported "tuning" - or rather, the values of the universal constants that we know about, never mind those we don't - is optimal in any way. It could be, but it is perfectly conceivable that different values could produce a superior environment for humans.

To steal Asimov's idea, a larger value of the strong nuclear force would make nuclear fusion more easily attainable.

Of course a lot of other things would change - we wouldn't just get easier and cheaper energy - but I can suggest (with, I think, as much justification as that everything is "perfect") that some other changes would bring the universe back to a stable, happy state.

We could even currently be at a local minimum of universe "quality", as far as human viability and comfort is concerned - we simply don't know.

Good points. Minimum quality pretty much obviates the fine tuning argument. Which, by the way, mg2 has now retrofitted to mean being able to choose his version of god. talk about achieving a minimum!

[MG 2.0]

To reiterate a point made earlier in the thread (can't find it right now):

We have no way of knowing if the purported "tuning" - or rather, the values of the universal constants that we know about, never mind those we don't - is optimal in any way. It could be, but it is perfectly conceivable that different values could produce a superior environment for humans.

To steal Asimov's idea, a larger value of the strong nuclear force would make nuclear fusion more easily attainable.

Of course a lot of other things would change - we wouldn't just get easier and cheaper energy - but I can suggest (with, I think, as much justification as that everything is "perfect") that some other changes would bring the universe back to a stable, happy state.

We could even currently be at a local minimum of universe "quality", as far as human viability and comfort is concerned - we simply don't know.

If the strong nuclear force was just a bit stronger compared to the electromagnetic force, two protons could stick together in spite of their electromagnetic repulsion (forming a diproton).
If this happened, all the hydrogen in the universe would have been burned to helium in the big bang. It’s very difficult to imagine how a universe with no hydrogen could produce the complicated chemistry needed for life – there would be no water, for a start, and there would be no long-lived stars like the sun. (Stars made from helium burn up much more quickly than stars made from hydrogen.) Barrow and Tipler again:
‘All the hydrogen in the Universe would be burned to He2 during the early stages of the big bang and no hydrogen compounds or long-lived stable stars would exist today.’5
‘In our actual universe, two protons repel each other so strongly that the nuclear ‘strong interaction’ force can’t bind them together without the addition of one or two neutrons (which add to the nuclear ‘glue,’ but being uncharged, exert no extra electrical repulsion). If... [the strong nuclear force was fractionally stronger] then two protons would have been able to bind directly together. This would have happened readily in the early universe, so that no hydrogen would remain to provide the fuel in ordinary stars, and water could never have existed.’ 6

‘The nuclear strong force, too, must be neither over-strong not over-weak, for stars to operate life-encouragingly. ‘As small an increase as 2 percent’ in its strength ‘would block the formation of protons out of quarks,’ preventing the existence even of hydrogen atoms, let alone others. If this argument fails then the same small increase could still spell disaster by binding protons into diprotons: all the hydrogen would now become helium early in the Big Bang, and stars would burn by the strong interaction which, as noted above, proceeds 1018 times faster than the weak interaction which controls our sun. A yet tinier increase, perhaps of 1 percent, would so change nuclear resonance levels that almost all carbon would be burned to oxygen. A somewhat greater increase, of about 10 percent, would again ruin stellar carbon synthesis, this time changing resonance levels so that there would be little burning beyond carbon’s predecessor, helium. One a trifle greater than this would lead to ‘nuclei of almost unlimited size,’ even small bodies becoming ‘mini neutron stars.’ All which is true despite the very short range of the strong force. Were it long-range then the universe would be ‘wound down into a single blob.’’

http://www.focus.org.uk/strongforce_long.pdf

If this is accurate we may not want to think about what would have been in regards to a larger value of the strong nuclear force. Our universe and our world would have been in a heap of trouble.

Apologies to honor for cut and pasting from links on the internet. But what’s a person to do?

Regards,
MG

[malkie]

To reiterate a point made earlier in the thread (can't find it right now):

We have no way of knowing if the purported "tuning" - or rather, the values of the universal constants that we know about, never mind those we don't - is optimal in any way. It could be, but it is perfectly conceivable that different values could produce a superior environment for humans.

To steal Asimov's idea, a larger value of the strong nuclear force would make nuclear fusion more easily attainable.

Of course a lot of other things would change - we wouldn't just get easier and cheaper energy - but I can suggest (with, I think, as much justification as that everything is "perfect") that some other changes would bring the universe back to a stable, happy state.

We could even currently be at a local minimum of universe "quality", as far as human viability and comfort is concerned - we simply don't know.

If the strong nuclear force was just a bit stronger compared to the electromagnetic force, two protons could stick together in spite of their electromagnetic repulsion (forming a diproton).
If this happened, all the hydrogen in the universe would have been burned to helium in the big bang.
...

‘The nuclear strong force, too, must be neither over-strong not over-weak, for stars to operate life-encouragingly. ‘As small an increase as 2 percent’ in its strength ‘would block the formation of protons out of quarks,’ ... Were it long-range then the universe would be ‘wound down into a single blob.’’

http://www.focus.org.uk/strongforce_long.pdf

If this is accurate we may not want to think about what would have been in regards to a larger value of the strong nuclear force. Our universe and our world would have been in a heap of trouble.

Apologies to honor for cut and pasting from links on the internet. But what’s a person to do?

Regards,
MG

You missed where I said:

I can suggest (with, I think, as much justification as that everything is "perfect") that some other changes would bring the universe back to a stable, happy state.

In other words, perhaps there could an increase in the strong force (either less than or more than 2% - again, who knows), along with other compensating changes in other "constants", including ones we have not yet discovered, to bring us back to human viability plus some advantages.

Notice that the paper you refer to does not explore these possibilities. It restricts itself (as far as I can see) to discussing forces, and concentrates almost exclusively on the strong force, with a nod in the directions of electromagnetic and gravitational forces, and considers only relatively large changes, of the order of 1%. It also makes the assumption that all else remain the same.

In other words, I'm giving myself the benefit of imagining modulations of values outside of those mentioned in the paper, and changes of values that are potentially tiny compared to those in the paper. I gave the example of modulating the magnitude of the strong force only as an example.

Can you say that this is not just as valid a possibility as saying that we are currently experiencing perfect tuning?

I have no evidence for my suggestion - of course - but I don't think I need any to make as strong an argument as you are making in suggesting god made the tuning perfect. And I have the advantage of not needing to introduce an outside agent to do the tuning - I'm happy for the values in my universe to arise from initial conditions, just as I believe that they did in the universe that we share with Dr Shades and his wonderful discussion board.