The fine tuning argument, on it's head.

The fact the universe from its very inception require certain very specific characteristics in an incredibly narrow range for planets, stars, solar systems, galaxies and the chemicals and conditions for life to exist.

There's nothing to indicate they are variables at all and vary at all. In fact, we've never seen characteristic of anything that wasn't contingent on other physics.

And a God does not need these specific characteristics to allow for the natural creation of planets, stars, solar systems, and galaxies, chemicals, or the right conditions for life. A God could just make that happen directly. Some land, make it the right temperature, poof life alive, and you're done! These special conditions are those which we have that allow for natural forces to result in exactly the universe we have, without God. This universe looks exactly like a universe would need to look if there were no God, and this is exactly true on every level and on every point. It's massively good evidence for atheism because on atheism we would assume these things would need to be the case and lo and behold they are. The fine-tuning argument in this light is really just looking at the fact that the universe can exist without a God, that it looks exactly as if there is no God, and says, "Well isn't that an amazing coincidence? Isn't that too good to be true? Yes it is, God did it!" -- It's saying that it's amazing that there are no gaps to shove God into, and therefore God.

The fine-tuning argument here is wrong because, God doesn't need *ANY* special conditions or characteristics. Only atheism requires that those characteristics should be exactly like they are, because these are the kinds of characteristics that could allow a universe to exist, if God didn't exist. "Why if you jigger those characteristics a bit you might not get 70 sextillion stars and 13 billion years to allow random mindless forces to get have life kick up here and there purely by chance!" -- YOU DON'T NEED THAT! GOD CAN MAKE ONE PLANET AND PUT LIFE ON IT!

You don't need just the right stars to make higher elements in those stars and allow them to explode and make the debris for planets to coalesce. God could just make these higher elements, without the right levels to build them in stars. Only atheism needs it to happen by mindless natural forces. "Oh, it's so suspicious that the universe so perfectly fits what it would need for atheism to be true, therefore, clearly, God exists and did that. Here's some things somebody else pulled out of their ass to suggested if they were different the universe wouldn't exist!" -- If the universe were made out of butter rather than elements there'd be no life, therefore Elves made the universe exist out of atoms. If gravity pushed rather than pulled there'd be no life, praise be to the flying spaghetti monster!

If the universe cannot be explained perfectly by natural forces, then God. If the universe can be explained perfectly by natural forces, "Well isn't that remarkably perfect?" Therefore God! The fine tuning argument is basically saying that perfectly meeting the requirements implied by atheism, is too perfect and therefore is evidence of God. There's a very narrow window of universes that can create themselves without God, and we perfectly fall into that window! It's an amazing feat that only God could do.

My life changes through various media.

I have, for various reasons, a lot of free time. I spend a lot of time reflecting and watching various things. As such, I've had my perspective changed rather radically many times over the years. Some major changes were major, some profound, some subtle. I have a good memory and can usually recall what changed my thinking.






Asimov's "The Relativity of Wrong" essay about the nature of science.
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm

This essay really did change my perspective on science and allowed me to view science generally as an evolutionary algorithm gradually improving things over time. Not perfecting them, but making them better by increasing understanding. When the older theories are wrong it isn't that they overturned, but rather improved subtly.








Krauss' lecture on the Universe from Nothing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

While, I've advocated zero-sum universe for a bit, mostly on philosophical grounds and lack of preclusion by science. Krauss makes a very compelling case that the science actually supports it. This is going to be the end of the first cause argument. QM says we don't need causes. And 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says we can't get something for nothing. So if we have something. It needs be net zero. So rather than 0=1, the universe is 0=1+(-1).


Aron-Ra's explanation of taxonomy, as well as his argument that humans are monkeys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6TEDuDD3Zs

I swear I understood evolution prior to watching Aron-Ra's videos but it really doesn't feel like I did, how could I. I didn't properly understand cladistics. I can't even fathom how my brain worked without understanding basal relationships within monophyletic clades.



(Several More, Below the Fold)
(I just now figured out there's a button for the fold, not that I looked much).

Ego Surfing Gold. 1000th post.

Ego surfing is a fun activity. You can find several old discussions that you never knew about or strange twitters about demotivators that get translated into Esperanto or many other things. This find is however a strange thing that harks back about four years ago to the first post I made to this blog which was simulposted to the (edit deadlink)About Agnosticism/Atheism (edit deadlink) Forum and actually (edit deadlink) got traction on the other site that I never knew about. It's weird.

The posts itself was about hemisphere differences, wrestling with faith, and the typical categories of religious beliefs. I'm still on board with much of what I said then, but I have a bit more nuance in my understanding. I do think there is certain truths with emotionally accepting that God exists while intellectually not accepting it at all and I think the answers to the question "Why do you believe in God?" are very revealing in these cases.

It's also pretty nice to hark back to my first post here for another reason, this is my 1000th post to this blog. I've now posted to this blog about an average of once every ten days for all of my life (I turned 10,000 days old last July), though the blog started back in September of 2006.

Intelligence is evolution, thread

I did a pretty poor job of explaining my thoughts on the issue previously, but I started a thread on About's Agnosticism/Atheism forum that does a remarkably good job of explaining it when prompted for more evidence and explanations etc.

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=ab-atheism&tid=44116

Some of the posts are quite long, but I think they are quite good.