The distance between Christianity and the 4 Gospels

[MG 2.0]

You and I both know that there are a bunch of places one can go online to find arguments pro and con having to do with Fine Tuning, Abiogenesis, the Teleological Argument, Intelligent Design, and the like. I’ve read and considered arguments pro and con, but admittedly more in support of those views that allow for creative processes by a designer.

To go your direction one must subscribe to this universe being a ‘one off’. A lucky roll of the dice. Astronomically lucky. We happened to win the lottery of events that just so happened to result in a world that Goldilocks would find ‘just right’.

I think you’re saying that what we find ourselves in, this universe, is just the way it is. The math, the precursors, everything…it is what it is. Don’t worry your pretty little head trying to figure it out. It’s pure chance and dumb luck that we’re here today carrying on a conversation.

That takes more faith than I think I can muster. I think it takes less faith to believe in a creator. I think that purpose is more than what WE make it. The universe is not, as you say, indifferent and cold to sentient creatures. Beauty is an outgrowth of God’s love for His creations.

That’s where I’m at. But I wish you best of luck as you make up your own rules and moral compass in a world/creation that doesn’t really care what you do.

Regards,
MG

You find the odds of our observing the universe from one where our existence would be impossible impossibly unlikely? So do I.

You find it unlikely you or I will win the lottery? So do I.

But people do win the lottery. And whatever the odds are of a universe emerging in which human life could evolve may be, we are in one.

You abandon the argument at it's most obvious, easy point. What you are obligated to demonstrate to even have an argument at all is intention.

I don’t think so. We find ourselves in the Matrix. It needs explanation. You are avoiding arguments that have logically accounted for an organizing influence.

I agree with this statement:

It is not surprising that the hypothesis of the multiverse – that there are zillions of universes, or domains of the one enormous universe, each with different laws and parameters, and while most of them don’t permit life, we are in one of the few that does – is the most popular response to the theistic fine-tuning argument. It has some scientific basis (though it has a long way to go to being shown scientifically to be true) and it offers a reasonable explanation that doesn’t need to involve God.

But, it isn’t yet established science, so there is still an element of faith in it. And, if the physics of a multiverse can be worked out, the fine-tuning argument may then be able to be re-formulated to relate to that physics, and ask for an explanation. It is impossible to say how this would work out because neither the scientists nor the philosophers have enough information.

At the end of the day this is all that atheists have to fall back on in trying to explain the fact that we are here rather than not. Fine Tuning has very few hoops to jump through to arrive at an explanation. Fewer hoops. Occam’s Razor.

An atheist is obligated to live in a state of perpetual denial of the facts as they ARE. They have to come up with convoluted and at times fairy tale(ish) explanations. The ontological pretzel making almost becomes nonsensical in relation to what we can observe with our very eyes. If you want to play that game in order to remain an atheist, that is obviously your choice.

Here is the link that I extracted the quote above from. I agree with the rest of what this author says.

https://www.is-there-a-god.information/blog/cl ... ne-tuning/

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

Anyway, another question. Why do you trust your convictions?

https://www.closertotruth.com/series/ar ... video-2027

Do you ever consider the possibility that you’re wrong? What about Pascal’s wager?

Wrong about what? Wrong that the Judeo-Christian God is a myth? I spent plenty of time hung up on that question until it became clear the question itself was a trap.

If there is some organizing "something" that may be called God, whatever it is it isn't the mythological figure taught in Mormonism. Almost every ounce of knowledge, everything conceivable in ethics, would be overturned by the existence of the Mormon God and validity of Mormonism being true.

Yet that creates a paradox. This God would be a deceiver, his prophets merchants of hate and greed. The Jesus of the New Testament would have restored a gospel that ultimately proved more Pharisaical than the actual Pharisees were.

There isn't a shadow of doubt in my mind Mormonism is wrong. The destruction of reason and good that would be required for it to have things right simply isn't viable.

It probably won’t surprise you that I strongly disagree with you in regards to your conclusions resulting in your disaffection from the CofJCofLDS. It appears as though your views towards God and your perceptions/experiences of ‘everything LDS’ have common threads running between them.

I wish you continued success in your chosen path. If it brings happiness to you and your family, then there is good in that.

Regards,
MG

[honorentheos]

Fine tuning has very few hoops to jump through? Poppycock. It demands that we accept the existence of an exterior intelligence for which it says fine tuning is the evidence.

That's circular reasoning. That's not demonstrating intent.

Emergent properties in nature are demonstrably all around. The only reason one needs fine tuning to mean there is a god is to combat the existential fear of insignificance.

[honorentheos]

Wrong about what? Wrong that the Judeo-Christian God is a myth? I spent plenty of time hung up on that question until it became clear the question itself was a trap.

If there is some organizing "something" that may be called God, whatever it is it isn't the mythological figure taught in Mormonism. Almost every ounce of knowledge, everything conceivable in ethics, would be overturned by the existence of the Mormon God and validity of Mormonism being true.

Yet that creates a paradox. This God would be a deceiver, his prophets merchants of hate and greed. The Jesus of the New Testament would have restored a gospel that ultimately proved more Pharisaical than the actual Pharisees were.

There isn't a shadow of doubt in my mind Mormonism is wrong. The destruction of reason and good that would be required for it to have things right simply isn't viable.

It probably won’t surprise you that I strongly disagree with you in regards to your conclusions resulting in your disaffection from the CofJCofLDS. It appears as though your views towards God and your perceptions/experiences of ‘everything LDS’ have common threads running between them.

I wish you continued success in your chosen path. If it brings happiness to you and your family, then there is good in that.

Regards,
MG

Yet again an exchange where you fail to provide an single synthesized argument you arrived at through study but instead regurgitated back cover synopses from wikis and other sources.

I believe you do this because you don't actually understand what you are reading. But because you like the implications of these claims, you just say we will have to disagree to bow out.

You are tedious, MG. Predictable but tedious.

[MG 2.0]

It probably won’t surprise you that I strongly disagree with you in regards to your conclusions resulting in your disaffection from the CofJCofLDS. It appears as though your views towards God and your perceptions/experiences of ‘everything LDS’ have common threads running between them.

I wish you continued success in your chosen path. If it brings happiness to you and your family, then there is good in that.

Regards,
MG

Yet again an exchange where you fail to provide an single synthesized argument you arrived at through study but instead regurgitated back cover synopses from wikis and other sources.

I believe you do this because you don't actually understand what you are reading. But because you like the implications of these claims, you just say we will have to disagree to bow out.

You are tedious, MG. Predictable but tedious.

I think I understand what I’m reading as much as the next guy. On a scientifically literate level in comparison to those that have received training in cosmology, etc.? Obviously not. But enough to know that I can see when there are rhetorical games being played in order to run circles around the obvious? Yes. But what is obvious to one is not to another.

I get that.

That’s why I wish you, a very smart and intelligent person, best of luck in your continued search for truth. May I suggest to you, however, that you look forward with a bit more humility in regards to our common and shared human ignorance and insignificance in comparison to the ‘intelligence’ of the cosmos. Yes, we’ve come a long way. But I think we’ve arrived at a point where arrogance has superceded/supplanted humility as we look up at the heavens and ask “How?” and “Why?”

Some of us choose God and some of us don’t. Some of us that choose God, choose membership in the CofJCofLDS. And for valid and worthy reasons. Some don’t.

And that’s OK. You live with your decisions and I and others live with ours.

Regards,
MG

[honorentheos]

Yet again an exchange where you fail to provide an single synthesized argument you arrived at through study but instead regurgitated back cover synopses from wikis and other sources.

I believe you do this because you don't actually understand what you are reading. But because you like the implications of these claims, you just say we will have to disagree to bow out.

You are tedious, MG. Predictable but tedious.

I think I understand what I’m reading as much as the next guy. On a scientifically literate level in comparison to those that have received training in cosmology, etc.? Obviously not. But enough to know that I can see when there are rhetorical games being played in order to run circles around the obvious? Yes. But what is obvious to one is not to another.

I get that.

That’s why I wish you, a very smart and intelligent person, best of luck in your continued search for truth. May I suggest to you, however, that you look forward with a bit more humility in regards to our common and shared human ignorance and insignificance in comparison to the ‘intelligence’ of the cosmos. Yes, we’ve come a long way. But I think we’ve arrived at a point where arrogance has superceded/supplanted humility as we look up at the heavens and ask “How?” and “Why?”

Some of us choose God and some of us don’t. Some of us that choose God, choose membership in the CofJCofLDS. And for valid and worthy reasons. Some don’t.

And that’s OK. You live with your decisions and I and others live with ours.

Regards,
MG

Nice Mormon Story.

MG, the argument from fine tuning isn't anything more than the observation we exist in a universe with conditions where we can exist. It then takes advantage of the many other alternative variables that could have happened and claims this shows the odds of our existing being too great to accept as the product of chance.

But that's being deceptive. This argument is based on having a preferred outcome as an initial condition. We, as humans who needed those preconditions to occur in order to exist, may feel like this should also be the only way the universe OUGHT to have formed. But that's getting it backwards. Supposing it formed slightly differently and different evolutionary paths had been followed where a sentient something arose that looked around the universe and saw conditions were such that had they been different, THAT outcome wouldn't have been possible? It would be silly to accept any claims made by this alternative reality being that the fact they ended up existing and we didn't is due to the universe needing to be guided so they could exist.

Their existence, as our existence, is merely an outcome emergent from the conditions that preceded our existence. Which, being essential to our being able to exist, appear guided to the naïve and fearful.

[Marcus]

Yet again an exchange where you fail to provide an single synthesized argument you arrived at through study but instead regurgitated back cover synopses from wikis and other sources.

I believe you do this because you don't actually understand what you are reading….

I will have to agree with this also.

Look at this

I agree with this statement:

It is not surprising that the hypothesis of the multiverse – that there are zillions of universes, or domains of the one enormous universe, each with different laws and parameters, and while most of them don’t permit life, we are in one of the few that does – is the most popular response to the theistic fine-tuning argument. It has some scientific basis (though it has a long way to go to being shown scientifically to be true) and it offers a reasonable explanation that doesn’t need to involve God.

But, it isn’t yet established science, so there is still an element of faith in it. And, if the physics of a multiverse can be worked out, the fine-tuning argument may then be able to be re-formulated to relate to that physics, and ask for an explanation. It is impossible to say how this would work out because neither the scientists nor the philosophers have enough information.

https://www.is-there-a-god.information/blog/cl ... ne-tuning/

At the end of the day this is all that atheists have to fall back on in trying to explain the fact that we are here rather than not. Fine Tuning has very few hoops to jump through to arrive at an explanation. Fewer hoops. Occam’s Razor.

So you agree with your quote about multiverses, mg? That’s a problem because you go on to say “this is all that atheists have to fall back on…”

That’s not true. Refuting the intelligent design idea doesn’t require assuming multiple universes. Your pasted sections even says that.

Your “fewer hoops Occam’s razor” is also incorrect. Your posts above listed known conditions of the universe, but THEN your argument added on the assumption of some sort of power or supernatural organization, of which no specific properties are understood or can be explained. That is not the simplest assumption, by far. Even the quantum physics stuff behind the multiverse idea are more factually based. There are way more ‘hoops’ required to get to intelligent design.

And honortheos’s point— that you haven’t fixed the “too perfect to believe” argument to explain intent still stands.

fine-tuning requires no special explanation at all, since it is not the Universe that is fine-tuned for life, but life that has been fine-tuned to the Universe.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.10 ... -26300-7_6

[honorentheos]

fine-tuning requires no special explanation at all, since it is not the Universe that is fine-tuned for life, but life that has been fine-tuned to the Universe.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.10 ... -26300-7_6

That's elegantly put. Thanks for sharing it.

[honorentheos]

But I think we’ve arrived at a point where arrogance has superceded/supplanted humility as we look up at the heavens and ask “How?” and “Why?”

I come back to this because it deserves to be singled out while also slightly tying back into the OP.

I think you have this backwards. It isn't humility that drives one to look out into the universe and see reflections of humanity. It's egotistical to demand the universe explain, "Why people?" and, when it responds, "Because, until not people", impose on it something superior to the universe that has a pro-human bias.

[MG 2.0]

I think I understand what I’m reading as much as the next guy. On a scientifically literate level in comparison to those that have received training in cosmology, etc.? Obviously not. But enough to know that I can see when there are rhetorical games being played in order to run circles around the obvious? Yes. But what is obvious to one is not to another.

I get that.

That’s why I wish you, a very smart and intelligent person, best of luck in your continued search for truth. May I suggest to you, however, that you look forward with a bit more humility in regards to our common and shared human ignorance and insignificance in comparison to the ‘intelligence’ of the cosmos. Yes, we’ve come a long way. But I think we’ve arrived at a point where arrogance has superceded/supplanted humility as we look up at the heavens and ask “How?” and “Why?”

Some of us choose God and some of us don’t. Some of us that choose God, choose membership in the CofJCofLDS. And for valid and worthy reasons. Some don’t.

And that’s OK. You live with your decisions and I and others live with ours.

Regards,
MG

Nice Mormon Story.

MG, the argument from fine tuning isn't anything more than the observation we exist in a universe with conditions where we can exist. It then takes advantage of the many other alternative variables that could have happened and claims this shows the odds of our existing being too great to accept as the product of chance.

But that's being deceptive. This argument is based on having a preferred outcome as an initial condition. We, as humans who needed those preconditions to occur in order to exist, may feel like this should also be the only way the universe OUGHT to have formed. But that's getting it backwards. Supposing it formed slightly differently and different evolutionary paths had been followed where a sentient something arose that looked around the universe and saw conditions were such that had they been different, THAT outcome wouldn't have been possible? It would be silly to accept any claims made by this alternative reality being that the fact they ended up existing and we didn't is due to the universe needing to be guided so they could exist.

Their existence, as our existence, is merely an outcome emergent from the conditions that preceded our existence. Which, being essential to our being able to exist, appear guided to the naïve and fearful.

Reverse engineering. Of course you can take the clock apart and see how all the pieces fit exactly and with great precision. But to then say that it was pure chance that brought those parts of the clock together? Or that those parts were self existent to begin with? Big Bang results in everything ‘just right’?

C’mon.

It’s not too difficult to go back and retrofit everything. Hindsight is always going to trump foresight…unless you have a Being/Intelligence that knows the end from the beginning.

The universe is fine tuned for sentient life down to the smallest detail…and you’re right, you can take it apart and say, ‘hey’, I figured it out!

One thing at least we have in common. We both have to exercise faith. Faith in God, or faith in the power of human reason. Period. If you think that human reason is all there is, then that is ALL you have to work with.

The track record is mixed in taking this route.

You take your chances and I take mine.

Regards,
MG