natural, I was pretty sure I was going to get some replies like that but I believe you completely misunderstood my question. Before I go any further I should mention that I am most definitely an atheist and yes I am quite familiar with the arguments you gave and I completely 100% agree with them. My question is more one of how the cosmological theistic anthropic principle argument even got started in the first place. Every specific part of that "anthropic" principle argument only seems to show that (if the rest of the argument even had merit) the alleged creator only wanted to create stars and a diverse range of elements. Most of the arguments say that if some constant were changed, there would be no stars or only hydrogen and therefore no life, so some creator must've meant for life to exist. My problem lies in how people can even come close to saying that because some creator meant for stars and a diverse range of elements to exist, that this creator directly intended for life to exist. Basically, what I am asking is why couldn't this alleged creator have just meant for stars and awesome astronomical formations to occur without intending for the insignificat freak accident that created us on our puny little planet? I'm just curious if there actually is anything cosmologically anthropic about the anthropic principle at all.

And btw, a good way to shut down theists claiming this argument has merit is to wait until they start telling you all the crazy odds and shit about how life could not have existed and then give them this statistic: The odds of us living in and observing a universe that is able to support our life is 100%.

I believe you are right about the point being lost on a theist, which is why I came to this website to see if it had any merit haha. I know of many Christian defense books who attempt to use this anthropic principle to their advantage and although there are the run of the mill philosophical arguments against it, I felt that the validity of my original point completely exposes the authors' presuppositions of their God and lack of good reasoning. What makes me most curious is whether or not Barrow and Tipler actually made this terrible mistake themselves or if, perhaps, I missed something.

And I too have considered questions about how we can even trust God himself. A common question for religious people is how they can trust their religion's doctrine (especially given how primitive some of its content is), but the best part about the uncertainty of God's intentions is that it avoids the doctrine altogether and applies to all religions at the very source. One example: how can we truly know that the supposed Christian God has not lied to us? Perhaps Satan is truly the good one and tried to contest God's evil, but was less powerful and so God has spread lies about him, slandering his name and his home(hell). If this scenario truly happened, then it is almost certain this God would pretend to be the best and good and make his enemy look like the evil one who should be hated. Or, how can we even trust a creator in general, perhaps he created us as some kind of experiment and delights in our sorrow. It's interesting to me that theists will believe God when he tells them he's the shit and is always right, even though he makes plenty of mistakes in his own book, but if anybody else were to tell them they were infallibe, they wouldn't believe them. Why can they not apply this own skepticism when it comes to religion?

I know a lot of Christians like to talk about how God made man in his own image and what this really means is that God gave man a free will, just as God has a free will. Well this notion about not being able to trust God is a perfect response to this comment, because if God has a free will just like us, and our free will is always the response to why evil happens, then how could God not be evil? It's quite simple really and it uses two of their own beliefs against them. God made man to have free will just as God does, and evil exists because man has free will, therefore God is quite possibly evil. That's the problem with theists, they can come up with all sorts of thoughts, but can't put em all together and make a sensible picture. The sad reality of the situation is that this argument will only get you a "God's logic doesn't work like our mistaken human logic" or "You are a human so you suck and I hate you and God is right" or maybe even a "But God loves us."

Only those who actually try to seek truth, will be able to find it.

 

 

Simple answer is I don't know.

 

 

 

 

If you are going to reply, read the entire post please.

I did not want to know anything about the merit of the theistic cosmological anthropic principle argument. I already know many of the flaws present in this argument. The question was whether or not a different argument against that theistic argument that I thought up has any merit. That alternative argument is the lack of any true anthropic cosmological constants actually being anthropic (meaning they don't give any intention of life). There are indeed many coincidences but most of these can be simply explained by different locations in the universe. Such as the claims that our sun needs to be the right temperature or that our planet needs to be the right distance from the sun, etc. These arguments are easily dismissed by the observation of over trillions of other planets and other possibilities that give proper justification to the idea that we can only evolve where suitable and such.

The current theist arguments are that of cosmological coincidences. Like neutron-proton mass ratios, fundamental force ratios and such. They usually help their confidence in these assertions by observing the lack of evidence for multiple universes (of course lack of evidence doesn't necessarily disprove anything, but it sure seems to help theists a lot in their biased misdirection). The argument against this I am proposing (the one I wanted comments about) is that the only scenarios I have seen are ones where changing a cosmological constant only creates a lack of stars and diversity. And even conceding to the theist their belief that cosmological constants prove a creator's existence and reveal his intentions, there is still no reason to believe this creator's intentions were that of life. His only intentions were to create stars and a diversity of elements (which is necessary for all the formations of the universe).  Of course these things are also necessary for life but in no way do they reveal an intention to create life in the slightest way. This reveals that anyone who truly uses this as an attempt to rationalize the existence of their life-giving God is clearly presupposed and biased towards their idea (as most theists are anyways).

K, that's the last time I am going to restate it. If you brush over it again this time and miss the point, then you should really stop trying to read people's posts. Not to mention you should try to figure out titles a little bit better... Either that or you don't know what the word anthropic means...

Also, I would suggest that you

considering you seem to think you know what people are talking about and that they are wrong without even fully understanding their posts. Not to mention you clearly attempted to insult me in your lack of understanding. I even gave you a second chance and restated my post and you once again did the same thing. This reminds me of theist behavior, presupposing you are right and better than others without even giving a full understanding of the reality of the situation a chance.

 

I did. Just to be sure, I read it again just now. And it's the same post I read the first time.

What is occurring here is a case of violent agreement. You misinterpreted my post as being against you, when in fact I was agreeing with you. Now you're pissed at what you think is a disagreement when in fact I agree.

And I answered this indirectly by answering the following questions you posed:

To which I replied that there is no reason to suspect that this is the case:

And:

Which is covered by the same answer:

I expanded on this by ridiculing the theist's argument. I suspect that you thought I was ridiculing you. I wasn't.

The 'you' in this paragraph is generic, indicating the generic theist, not you, Madmax958. I'm telling the theists to get over themselves.

Apparently this answer wasn't to your satisfaction, and so you asked:

To which I replied:

Q: How did the theist's argument get started in the first place?

A: Flawed intuitions, hidden assumptions, and a lack of critical thinking.

Q: How can people even come close to saying that because some creator meant for stars and a diverse range of elements to exist, that this creator directly intended for life to exist?

A: Flawed intuitions, hidden assumptions, and a lack of critical thinking.

 

As you can see, I am attempting to directly answer questions that were part of your posts. I don't see why you're getting so upset, unless you have misinterpreted me, which I suspect is the case.

Now, you somehow have not seen my answers for what they are, because you think I have not answered your main question. You restate it thus:

I have already answered that: "The Anthropic Principle in no way supports a god". In other words, I agree with you that cosmological constants do not support the idea that humans are the product of a divine intention (i.e. a god).

I further explained that this whole idea of a divine intention is an example of "Flawed intuitions, hidden assumptions, and a lack of critical thinking."

 

So, I have answered your initial questions, and I don't see what the problem is. However, I notice that you perhaps have a misunderstanding of the Anthropic Principle:

The Anthropic Principle is *not* that there was an intention of some kind for the universe to give rise to us. It is also not the idea that the cosmological constants reveal such intention.

The anthropic principle, strictly speaking, is what I portray in my signature. It is the idea that the universe *must* support human life, *because* human life exists. It reveals *nothing* about any intention or end-goal or directedness at all. It is simply a statement of the obvious (though somewhat counter-intuitive to some people) fact that if the universe could not support us, we wouldn't be here to talk about it.

That's it. Anthropic is not the same as anthropocentric. That is why I made the comment about the theist's argument being renamed to the Anthropocentric Argument, because it wrongly portrays the Anthropic Principle in an anthropocentric light.

The argument about cosmological constants is also not the same as the anthropic principle. It is the Fine Tuning Argument.

So, when you say that "That alternative argument is the lack of any true anthropic cosmological constants actually being anthropic (meaning they don't give any intention of life)", you are equivocating on the word 'anthropic' to be equivalent to 'anthropocentric'. They are not the same.

The universe is indeed anthropic. After all, we do exist.

The universe is *not* anthropocentric. We are not the end-goal or purpose of the universe. The universe (or a god) did not intend for us to exist.

The Anthropic Principle is that we should expect that the universe (and indeed our time and place in the universe) is conducive to the existence of human life. Theists try to switch this around, ass backwards, and say that this implies that the universe was created for just this purpose.

This is the false intuition, the hidden assumption, and the lack of critical thinking I was talking about.

And this is why I said that "No. The Anthropic Principle in no way supports a god or any miracles."

It simply does not support it. End of story.

So, after all this, can you see that we are in violent agreement?

Be careful not to be hypocritical (i.e. missing the points of my posts) when you give people advice.

I'm pretty sure it is your own confusion over anthropic vs. anthropocentric.

I did no such thing. You will be hard pressed to find any insult directed at you in my earlier posts. I did ridicule theists, which you may have misinterpreted as being directed at you.

Please be aware that you yourself may also misunderstand others, and do not be so quick to accuse next time.

I think we can all see that you guys had a miscommunication, but you're also not used to the site yet, which has a brusque tone. I can assure you, being familiar with natural's writing style, that he meant no offense, and has no intention of frustrating your questions. If you're having a hard time getting back to the question you want addressed, you might want to try it one step at a time.

You obviously object to the anthropic principle. In my opinion, it's not an argument for anything at all, so when natural dismisses it out of hand, I have to sympathize. But you'd like to take issue with just one part of it (I think), so if there's a way you can re-phrase that briefly, that might help.

On this website we tend to riff on ideas, to spark discussion. You proposed your question/argument, I answered briefly, and then I went on to riff with some of my own ideas:

The "In fact," is intended to extend the conversation. I'm adding a new point that I did not see mentioned in the OP. This new point is that not only does the Anthropic Principle not support the argument for an intentional god, it can also be used to contradict such a god.

I noticed you hadn't mentioned this idea, so I added it as something additional to discuss.

We tend to do this all the time on this board. It's a way of sharing ideas and arguments and approaches. I might start a topic on X, and someone will say something like, "Yeah, X. But also Y." That's essentially what I was doing. My very first line was answering your basic questions briefly, and the remainder of the post was me going on a riff into the additional arguments that I have used before.

You mean my second post? That was explaining the various ways people can jump to false intuitions, hidden assumptions, and lack of critical thinking.

I had already answered in agreement with your first statement of your argument.

Remember, you had asked:

To which I answered:

Do you not see how this is a direct answer to your question? Perhaps not. But it was absolutely intended as such.

Q: Is there a scenario showing intention that you missed?

A: No. The Anthropic Principle in no way supports a god or any miracles. See my signature.

No, there is no scenario you missed, and additionally you should know that the Anthropic Principle in no way supports a god or any miracles. For reference, you should examine my signature.

Here is my signature for posterity's sake:

This is the Anthropic Principle in loose logical format. It shows that there is nothing miraculous or special (e.g. intended) about the nature of the universe such that human life can be supported.

I suspect that you have misunderstood the word 'anthropic' to mean 'anthropocentric'. The *Anthropic* Principle has nothing to do with intent, design, end-goals, specialness, or anything like that.

In fact -- and this is the point I was making in my first post in the second paragraph when I said "In fact," -- the Anthropic Principle argues *against* apparent intent, design, end-goals, specialness, and all other things like that.

Anthropic =/= anthropocentric.

With this understanding, can you see why I responded with "No. The Anthropic Principle in no way supports a god or any miracles. See my signature."?

Your original post was asking if there was an argument to be made that the theist's argument of fine tuning is fatally flawed because it makes the *hidden assumption* that fine tuning implies intent (of any kind).

You asked if you were missing some scenario that you hadn't thought of.

I responded, no, you were not missing such a scenario, because the Anthropic Principle has *nothing to do with* intention, and it is the theist's hidden assumptions that were the problem (explained in my second post).

Admittedly I was terse, and obviously you didn't get my meaning. But I assure you, that was my meaning.

I have dealt with the theist's flawed argument dozens of times before. That's why I dedicated my signature to it, after all.

I suspect that it is your confusion over the word 'anthropic' that has caused most of the cross-talk here. It makes no sense to say that the universe is not 'truly' anthropic. It is. We exist in it. It *must* be anthropic. That is exactly what the Anthropic Principle states.

What the universe is not, is anthropocentric. We are not the end-goal of the universe. There are no miracles indicated, no intention indicated. In no way does the Anthropic Principle support the idea of god, gods, miracles, design, intent, purpose, etc. etc. etc.

To highlight the absurdity of the theist's argument, I proposed renaming it to the Anthropocentric Argument. Now that you know the distinction between the two words, can you see how I was ridiculing the theistic argument?

I want to make it very clear to you: Re-read my first post. All of this was in there. Perhaps a little terse, fine. But my main response to you has not changed from the very beginning. What I am saying now is exactly what I was saying then.

Ridicule is not the same as insult. Just as satire is not the same as fart jokes. I was not intending to insult theists, but to ridicule their argument. If I wanted to insult them I would have just said, "Theists are assholes."

The entire extent of my answer to you was the first paragraph only:

The remainder was an extension, adding additional ideas to discuss, which I prefaced with the phrase "In fact,", which is the equivalent to "I agree. And also,".

If you insist on being offended, that's your own prerogative. Have fun with that.

Here's who: The general theist, the passerby who's interested in learning about the anthropic principle, the regular RRS members who might be interested in additional insight, the on-the-fence theists who might be persuaded by an additional twist on the idea, et al.

There is no actual principle called the 'anthropocentric principle'. The principle under discussion is the Anthropic Principle. It is the *theist* who mistakes this principle as lending weight to their arguments. They put an anthropocentric twist on the Anthropic Principle. You also seem confused as to what the Anthropic Principle states, which I suspect is because the theists keep misusing it, and you've never heard the original formulation of it.

I agree that pointing out that the Anthropic Principle in no way supports the idea of intention, purpose, god, goal-directedness, miracles, etc. is a good counter-argument against the Fine Tuning Argument. That's why I said so in my first post. That's why my signature has been exactly such an argument for the past three years.

Hopefully this 'violent agreement' is now capable of dying down.

Okay, one last time. This will be my final comment on our violent agreement. Afterwards, if you're still offended, that's entirely your choice.

No, you're not missing something.

Or intent (requries a god), or goal-directedness, or purpose, or meaning, or *anything* beyond the simple idea that a universe containing humans *must* be capable of supporting them. (It also says that where and when we find ourselves must also be so capable. For instance, we do not exist 5 nanoseconds after the Big Bang, because we *couldn't* exist then, as the universe at that time could not have supported human life.)

In other words, the theists are mistakenly (false intuitions, hidden assumptions, lack of critical thinking) using the Anthropic Principle to support the Fine Tuning Argument when in fact it in no way supports this argument.

Which contains my little distillation of this concept.

In addition to my agreement with you,

This is an argument which I find interesting and which you did not mention, and which I do not hear very often, and so I would like to promote it as something worthy of discussion.

This is the basic argument that the Anthropic Principle actually argues *against* the Fine Tuning Argument.

I'm pantomiming what a theist *could* argue if the universe was such that it *could not* support human life, and yet magically did.

The fact that we do *not* live in such a universe strongly implies that God is limited in power. For why would he bother to create an Anthropic universe when he can literally defy the Anthropic Principle and just poof man into existence? The fact that we live in an Anthropic universe is actually a fairly good argument that a 'god' does not exist.

I'm pointing out that even this hypothetical theist's argument wouldn't really argue *for* a god. It would just be another unknown to investigate.

Stating the obvious that nobody really knows why the universe is the way it is. All that we can know is, according to the Anthropic Principle, that it *must* be able to support human life, because of the *mere fact* of our actual existence. No implication of design, intent, or anything like that. We simply don't know.

Explaining the formulation of my signature.

Imagining the scenario that the universe was in fact different than this one, but also happens to support conscious life. *That* life would find itself pondering the same questions the theist ponders, and it would be equally foolish to say that "The universe must have been designed specifically with the intent of supporting Flooblag life." In this case, it would not be an Anthropic universe, it would be a Flooblaggian universe, and the Flooblaggians would have their scientists who would articulate their Flooblaggian Prinicple: That the universe *must* be one that can support Flooblaggian life *because* of the mere fact that Flooblags exist. As with the Anthropic Principle, the Flooblaggian Principle would also *not* support the Flooblaggian theist's arguments of Fine Tuning, that the Flooblaggian God exists.

After showing that the Flooblaggian theists would be foolish, I turn my attention to *any* theist who might be reading this post: You (the theist) exist because you do. Get over it, you foolish theist. It's not a miracle (nor a sign of intent, or purpose or meaning, or anything). Tone down that ego (realize that the existence of an anthropic universe *does not* support your anthropocentric notions that the universe was therefore created for just that purpose, to support human life).

Further highlighting just how full of themselves theists must be to be convinced by this theistic argument.

Concluding with some ridicule.

Another way of putting it is (I forget who said this originally): If the existence of humans is supposed to be evidence that God wanted to create humans, it seems more likely that God wanted to create black holes. After all, there are far more black holes than there are humans.

Hydrogen is the most valuable element in existence! There's more hydrogen than anything!

But Jill, if you knew God like I do, he doesn't like variety. He likes beetles the least, see? He punished them by making too many different kinds. We only got a couple of vague skin-colour differences, but they got thousands of different species. That's because he hates them. He hates them with love.

See how simple it all is?

...

Fuck, after a couple of days of reading that shit on TheologyWeb, I'm starting to turn into a Poe Machine.

Don't they have a topical cream for that? I mean really, you should have a doctor take a look at that.

 

Nope. God made more of it than anything else, so obviously it is more good than everything else, hence it is more valuable than anything else.

Oh! Oh yeah! Right. Well done.

...

Ugh.

OK madmax, I am guessing that what you wanted was a relatively short argument that can be thrown back at a theist to refute the basic argument that they have just made. So here, let me give you one:

 

Premise 1: There is not god and the universe was not made for some grand purpose.

Premise 2: The universe just happens to be exactly right for us to be here having this discussion.

 

P1 requires that it be impossible to prove that god exists, if for no better reason than the fact that he doesn't.

 

Now let's reconsider the first premise thusly:

 

Premise 1': There is a god and he had the power to make the universe in any way he felt like making it.

Premise 2 can remain unchanged and in fact, I prefer that such be the case so that we can look at P1' in isolation.

 

Here P2 becomes a problem for god as he clearly made the universe exactly as it must have existed if the original P1 is true. So if P1' holds, then it also leads us back to the original P1 being equally valid.

 

Mind you, I just typed that up in a few minutes and with some luck, bobspence will clean up whatever my sloppy logic is. Even so, please allow me to continue.

 

Pretty much, I really don't like to have that type of argument with theists. They are all too often masters of making shit up and to allow them that much control of the argument only gives them sufficient foolish confidence to push their ideas.

 

I much rather prefer to come on strong from the beginning and keep them destabilized. If you can get them on uncertain ground early on, then keep the pressure on, one of two things will happen. Either they will eventually give up or you can play the game until you get tired and dismiss them.

 

For example, a couple of my favorite arguments:

 

“So the bible is really true? As in if it says something in the bible, it must have happened in exactly that way?” Literalists always fall for this one BTW.

 

“So the bible says that Solomon built the temple?” General agreement follows.

 

“So if that is right, what were the Israelites doing standing around watching him? Really, some of those huge stone columns must have weighed many tons. Didn't anyone bother to say to Solomon 'hey that one looks kind of heavy, let me give you a hand'?”

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

“OK, you say that Jesus was/is god. And he was a man at the same time. Do you know how many of the early bishops voted for that version of doctrine at the first council of Nicaea?”

 

When confronted with this, theists tend to retreat into crap like “Well I don't know much about that but”. At this point, simply cut them off with “Well, don't you think that you ought to know important stuff like that before you go off telling people the result of the vote as if it really described the situation that you are advancing?”

 Oh, this is what you're looking for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1cKD93W3yg

But of course I know that is what you believe, and you are accurately describing your worldview, and we understand the psychology of it, but that is quite irrelevant to the validity of my argument.

Well, let's look at your question again, you asked "even if there were a God....", but this requires the question of what was revealed to lead us to this belief. Speaking of the anthropic principle, if it were compelling enough to lead an individual to believe there was a god, what was revealed was an intelligent sort of hand in creation. Your question is if God only revealed himself in a supposed intelligent hand in our creation, how would we know anything else about him? and my answer would be that if this was only way God revealed himself, that we would know nothing at all about him beside that.

You're speaking of God who reveals himself in the cosmos, I don't believe in such a God at all, I believe in a God who revealed himself in Jesus Christ, who revealed himself in the true meaning of love, as sacrificial and all encompassing. A god who revealed himself in the purpose and meaning revealed in the person and message of Christ. It's the endearing nature, what compels me to him, the revealing of my own misery, and dignity, my hopes, and despairs, and the redemptive power of love. i believe in a God who revealed himself in these things, revealed himself in a motive, revealed himself in love, not in the composition of the stars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is almost comical. It's funny what you call stupid is you speaking on my behalf. So the words of the idiot here are not my one, but yours. 

Really? no shit? get out of here? Did i say this? Does the bible say this? Does the new testament anywhere claim that Jesus revealed that men are so worthless in the sight of God? What it does say about the worthless, is that they are loved. What the crucified innocent reveals, is that he forgives us, those who abandon him, and even those who nailed him, even if they reject him, or spit it on him, he still forgives us. 

I never knew I was being punished for being imperfect, I alway though my imperfect life was a gift, a testament to my freedom.

An acceptance of forgiveness requires a change of heart, a change of heart requires a conviction. And what convicts us? Besides God's own sacrificial love for us?If He's willing to suffer and die because he loves me, than I'm willing to live for him, because I love him. 

No person can accept forgiveness unless he has a change of heart, and unless he has a conviction that empowers that transformation. Christ only convicts us to accept that forgiveness. 

He got pissed off at the injustice of the temple practices, for the turning of the temple into a den of thieves. What does this have to do with forgiveness? Should he have just allowed the injustice to continue? 

I suggest you read the book, because I for sure have, and I know, I have a far better knowledge of it than any individual I've seen expound on it here. Your idiotic claims sure don't reveal a sense of knowledge of the text that's for sure, all you seem to know is what the idiot fundamentalist expounds, but not what the text itself seems to be saying. 

I've been on this forum long enough, to know that the atheist idiots who post on here so frequently, know as much about the Gospels, as Ken Hovind knows about the sciences. I mean I would love to find a single atheist on this forum, who even has a clue as to what's going on in the Gospel narratives, what the message and life of Jesus Christ was about. When you've actually found one let me know. 

How does this make personal experience more reliable for determining truth? 

What is the symbolic meaning of the cross? How is it the most accurate depiction of the human condition?

Accurate how? In what ways?

How?

If you do not love your dead, and if you love they'll kill you? What does that mean?