What I meant to convey is that, under theism in which God is believed to be omnipotent, God could create life and put it in a universe that is not life-sustaining. He could then sustain these life forms thru his supernatural and unlimited powers.
Would that not be possible under your beliefs?
I am assuming that a universe with more lax parameters would not sustain life.
The number things that need to be just right for life in our universe is high.
Do you have any reasons based on actual reality as to why life can exist with more âlaxâ parameters.
This just adds to my point that athiesm requires a denial of reality as we know it for it to be true.
Which evil act?
You misunderstand. On theism they certainly can. Iâm not saying given our current laws of physics it can. But God can make the universe and life any which he wants. And we have no reason to expect a universe designed with more stringent laws over more lax laws. Though I fully grant the existence of life is evidence for theism. But the fine-tuning data adds nothing to that.
A relevant paper:
I was merely pointing out an inconsistency that theists often take part in. They know what God would do when it helps them. But they also donât know what God would do when it helps them.
I also think we donât truly know if a life permitting universe really is vastly improbable:
Living beings are not infinite. They need to occupy space and time.
Unless you are talking about immaterial beings, this argument doesnt make any sense.
If God created life and put it in a universe that is not life sustaining. Then the particularly part of space occupied by said life would still have to be life sustaining.
This means this space would have different physics/physical constants etc compared to the universe.
You are just talking about putting a universe within a universe.
Edit: or of organisms that exists apart from space and time⊠i.e immaterial beings.
We have every reason based on all of our understanding of life to expect a universe designed with more stringent laws.
Your objection is based on a fantasy. I dont have any objection to the claim that athiesm could be more probable in a universe which is not fine tuned.
However, the fact of the matter is that our universe is fine tuned and needs to be so for life to exist.
In such a circumstance, one would have to ignore ones knowledge of reality and adopt an attitude that life could be possible in less finetuned circumstances also.
I am not making a philosophical argument. I am pointing out that athiesm requires one to ignore the actual reality we experience and hope for a different kind of reality.
In this case, one where life can exist in a universe that is not fine tuned. Any such life would have to be totally different from any living beings known to us.
Itâs a similar case with freewill/human agency. Athiesm needs one to ignore our experience of reality and assume that freewill/agency is an illusion while our actions are actually the result of determined material interactions.
So I think we should end this here. Because everything you said is completely irrelevant to the point I was trying to make. And that may be my fault. Not yours. Iâm not always clear in my writing.
Though as a side note, I think you can argue for the compatibility of atheism and libertarian free will. Maybe a topic for another day.
Is that what you believe Jesus did when he walked on water?
Youâre not making any sense.
What is a âless fine-tunedâ set of laws? If the value of some physical constant is 289037203478923 joules/m^3(or whatever) on a fine-tuned universe, then how would that value look if it was âlessâ fine tuned? The turn of phrase âless fine tunedâ reads to me as nonsensical.
Youâre mindlessly asserting this with zero supporting argument. You appear to take @T.j_Runyonâs reference to a suggestion by some physicists, that it is possible life could exist over a broader range of values of the physical constants, than other physicists have traditionally argued, to entail that this view is somehow required on atheism. It is not.
Whether the range of values for the physical constants that allow life to exist, is narrow or broad, is irrelevant with respect to atheism. Atheism has no requirements or entailments for the magnitude of this relationship.
Perhaps thatâs true. But so what? If the statement is true, that life can exist over a much broader range of values for the physical constants, then what does it matter that that life would be different from our kind of life? Did anyone suggest otherwise? No. Nobody has said you can alter the values of the physical constants and still get this exact universe.
No, it does not. Atheism makes no claims about the nature of human beings, or the relationship we have to how the world works, or the constituents of which we are made. Atheism is about belief in the existence of God(s) and nothing else.
If you donât believe that a God exists, then youâre an atheist. What follows from that about whether human beings have free will? Nothing. What follows from that about whether living organisms, or the universe, is made up of or determined by material interactions? Nothing.
It simply doesnât follow, and atheism has no such requirements.
You are one extremely confused individual, and I recommend you spend some time educating yourself on these basic philosophical principles going forward, because I have to say I find your posts so full of poor reasoning and fundamental misunderstandings that I literally cringe when reading them.
Not at all. If the god you believe in existed, he could just sustain the life forms with his unlimited powers.
There is nothing complicated or controversial about this. I honestly donât see what you are having difficulty understanding here.
Whatâs the connection between sustaining life and Jesus walking on water?
This is a false equivalence.
Let me put it into simple words here.
I understand âlifeâ to be material beings. Such beings would have to exist in space and time.They would need to interact with the material universe and derive sustenance from it. Hence my point.
God could create immaterial beings that could exist in any kind of universe.
God could also create material universes that support material life.
God could also sustain material life in universes that do not sustain life. This would involve God creating some other means to sustain said life. It could be a pocket dimensions. It could be God regularly maintaining life by countering the negative effects of the universe that it exists in and so on,
These are all hypotheticals.
The fact is that we live in a fine tuned universe which is better explained as an intentional creation of God than the result of chance and an almost infinite number of universes.
I am starting from the reality that we can observe.
What you are asking for is a contradiction: You are asking that creatures that need the universe to exist
A less âfine tunedâ universe would be one where physical constants donât have to be fine tuned.
For example, a universe where the physical constants can vary by 1% without any major change would be a less fine tuned universe than the one we live in,
Such a universe would be one without any galaxies and stars according to the laws of physics as we know them.
Athiesm explains the reality we live in as having happened by âchanceâ.
Fine-tuning is always a problem for such explanations.
Would you accept this?
If not, why?
Many athiests tend to strip athiesm of its philosophical foundations and reduce it to mere denial of Gods. This is more of a rhetorical device in my view.
Why donât you present a positive case where one can hold to atheism and still believe human beings have free will/agency in a rational coherent way.
Every explanation i have heard breaks down to free will being an illusion.
The idea that God does not exist is usually accompanied by philosophical materialism.
Can you point me to these âpureâ athiests you are talking about who disbelieve in God but donât hold to philosophical materialism?
Are you an atheist who believes Ghosts can exist? Or that human beings can make decisions without these decisions being determined by material causes?
If you are, i am interested in learning about the basic philosophical principles you are applying.
A brute fact that can be changed by an omnipotent being. You donât seem to know what âomnipotentâ means.
Also, you canât maintain consistency for a single sentence. âcouldâ does not imply âwouldâ. Unless you think your omnipotent deity is incapable of creating a universe that could support life, but doesnât have any life in it.
This would involve one of the two -
a. Changing things about the universe so it can sustain life. (i.e different universe)
b. Changing things about life such that it doesnât need any kind of material sustenance. (i.e something we might not define as life)
Everything is possible as long as you donât ask for a logical inconsistency like a square circle.
Whatâs the point you want to make exactly?
Changing some aspects of one part of a universe doesnât make it a different universe any more than changing the radio in a car makes it a different car.
That you donât know what âomnipotentâ means.
So a universe in which the way gravity is modified slightly would not be a different universe?
I think you are raising up points just for the sake of doing so.
Changing gravity throughout the universe is not analogous to changing just one part of a universe (or just the radio in a car).
I think you arenât intelligent enough to understand such not-really-subtle distinctions.
Exactly. So why did God not do this in our universe? Was it too difficult? Heâs supposed to be omnipotent.
See, this where I think you are going wrong.
If life was created by God, then it could exist in literally any possible universe. There is no reason for there to exist material conditions that permit life to exist because, as you just admitted, God has no need for this. He could just sustain life thru his own supernatural powers.
But if life has arisen thru natural processes only, then it could only exist in a universe that provides physical conditions that allows life to arise and persist.
So the fact that life exists in a universe such as ours is evidence against the claim that this life was created by God. If it is true that the number of universes that could sustain life thru natural means only is a very minute proportion of the possible universes, then it would be an astonishing coincidence that we find ourselves in just such a universe, if one assumes theism.
But if one assumes ânaturalismâ, then the odds go up to 100%.
This is a rather subtle argument, so I expect you will need some time to fully grasp it. No problem.
I think it is fair to posit that if life logically requires complexity, it would be a required property of a universe that it permit complexity to be logically consistent with life. If anything goes, I suppose that life does not even require a universe at all.