And it could be that a computer is designed as a really big paper weight.

And inefficient is only applicable to a being with limited time and resources. So efficiency would not be a concern of the type of being we are discussing.

This is a silly argument too. You could say the exact same thing about atheists. That they desperately desire there not be a god so they try to imagine ways in which the universe does not look designed to substantiate that world veiw.

I already made the arguments. You didn't repsond to them. Why is the CC fine tuned but not the mass of the earth?

Susskind means something very specific when he sayd fine tuning and it is not what you are saying. I mean, it's fine if you want to keep making the same wrong arguments over and over again, but you shouldn't be surprised that nobody is buying it.

AIF doesn't often make OP's, but when he does they're epic.

If anyone hasn't gone through this I highly recommend it.

But we know the purpose of computers.

I'm a bit confused why you said this though, so if you could explain I'd appreciate it.

How do you know efficiency wouldn't be a concern to a being with unlimited time and resources?

I disagree. It is only evidence that we live in such a universe. Where exactly, is the evidence of a fine tuner? I've used this example before, but I have yet to hear a theist respond to it...

When you deal a randomly shuffled pack of cards to 4 people, the chance that those cards would fall in the exact order that they do is astronomical. Yet, every time a deck is dealt, some astronomical event occurs. If your universe happened to be within one of those deals, you would be waxing poetically about how miraculous it is that the cards fell in such a precise order.

The point is, the only thing that can be said is that we must live in a universe with the precise tuning we see, because we are here talking about it. We do not know if a universe could have came about had the cosmological constants been some other way. All we can say is that we wouldn't be here talking about it. Also, one other thing to consider...

The discover of dark matter has shown that we are even more insignificant than we ever could have imagined! Every thing we see from the hundreds of billions of galaxies, to the hundreds of billions of stars in each of those galaxies, to the galactic clouds stretching thousands of light years across, doesn't even amount to 2% of the total volume of the universe! (don't quote me on the 2%, but it's something like that). Some fine tuning just for us, huh? We have no idea if the universe could have been some other way or if there are an infinite number of universes. And that is NOT a claim, which needs to be justified. It's simply a fact that we do not know.

Even if the universe appears find tuned that doesnt mean that the fine tuner (God?) in fact could be dead by now and we are left spinning without him, which means there is no fine tuner (God?) here today. (but at a point there was)

If we measure something in the nano scale in Parsec, would Stu say it is fine tuned?

I mean, take something that's vital for humankind's existence. Measure it in units such that a different value after x decimal places would mean we wouldn't exist. Evidence for the appearance of fine tuning?

So your assertion that god designed a fine tuned universe with approximately 9*10^21 stars and then chose one of them to put life on?

This would be by far the least efficient form of creation or design ever undertaken.

Not exactly as fine tuned as I would expect from an all knowing all powerful creator.

If your particular hand didn't matter..your argument would make sense. However only a few specific card combinations make a up a winning hand.

Suppose you sit down at a heads up card game. In the first hand your oppponent is delt a royal flush(the cosmological constant) and wins the hand. You think to yourself....he was just lucky...so you re-buy. The next hand your opponent is delt a full house(the fine structure constant) and wins the hand. You think to yourself he was just really luckly to get too good hands in a row....so you you re-buy. The next hand your opponent is delt 4 of a kind(the ratio of the strength of electromagnetism to that of gravity) and wins the hand again....etc.

How many great hands in a row does your opponent have to get before you finally decide that they dealer is a mechanic? With regard to the universe there were about 20 such great hands in a row.

Now there are two reasonable ways the universe could have got those 20 hands in a row. A) the dealer was a mechanic(i.e. intelligent design) or B)An astronomically huge number(perhaps infinite) of hands were played thus assuring a stretch of 20 awesome hands in a row(the multiverse/landscape models).

Now technically the universe could have been delt just 20 hands and as a matter of happenstance all 20 turned out to be winners but that is so unlikely that only a sucker would believe that.

the guy from HP never contacted me and told me what the purpose of the box in my house was. I just inferred it's purpose.

The poster said that our universe looks like its purpose if for rocks, which makes about as much sense as saying a computers purpose is as a giant paper weight. Just because something can do something else does not mean that it is the most logical conclusion of its purpose.

The being could if it wanted to, but it does not have to be concerned.

If you don't like decimals or a particular scale think about it in part per notation. In the video I linked the documentary claimed that if the cosmological constant was off by one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion then life would not be able to arise.

Who are you more likey to believe? Martin Rees/Leonard Susskind or Sommerset/Maxraker?

True...even if the universe is intelligently designed that does not mean that anyones particular god did it.

Aren't Martin Rees and Leonard Susskind atheists? So they actually think that your argument fails?

That only works if you shift burdens and assume that there must be a God and that atheists are trying to disprove it rather than simply show the lack of evidence for it.

I'm not sure about Rees but I know Susskind is an atheists and a very staunch opponent of intelligent design. However I have heard him say that if it was somehow shown that the multiverse or his landscape were untennable people like him would be hard pressed to counter an intelligent design argument.

I don't know what Susskind or Rees would say about my argument but I doubt Susskind would ever except it. However I do think they would agree that the "fine tunning" of certain constants of nature calls out for an explaination....that it just can't be hand waved away as people have suggested in this thread....of that I am very sure.

Is that what you are saying?

This forum is full of atheists trying to disprove God.

I'm saying some shots are so long you're a sucker for betting on them. That there is only one universe and as a matter of pure happenstance all the necessary constants of nature just happened to fall into the right values to make life possible is one of those sucker long shots. It could be right but the chances of it being right are so low its not worth even considering.

If God was real he would not need disproving.

I fell sorry for you stu, in fact i pity you.

Susskind would say that he already has an explanation for it. The observable universe is some random anthropic selection from a vast landscape multiverse. The measured value makes no sense as something a designer would choose and looks much more like a random selection. I disagree with Susskind (or should say that he doesn't have enough evidence to convince me he is correct) but his view is alot less silly than any of your claims.

Susskind and Reese and all physicists naturally disbelieve theories that require high degrees of fine tuning, but what you say "calls out for an explanation" is total nonsense and based on simply not understanding what fine tuning means in the first place.

This is a silly statement. A better and more accurate statement is if God exist then you can't disprove His existence.

Correct, Susskind would say he has a more reasonable explaination. I find the multiverse/landscape model to be a very reasonable explaination....but just not compelling enought to eliminate intelligent design as a possible explaination.

But you have not even tried to explain why the measured value of the CC makes sense if the universe was intelligently designed. Susskind at least has a sensical argument for why it makes sense in a multi verse scenario.... he just doesn't have enough hard evidence to convince me. You don't even seen to have an argument that I can claim lacks evidence.

Let us posit for the moment that the deist's case is correct and we can say that the appearance of design in the universe DOES mean it was designed. Can we deduce a single further property? Can we assign even the word "entity" to "that which designed the universe"? Omnipotence? Intelligence?

It seems to me that we are being entirely vacuous. We are asserting that their needs to be a cause of this define and then just calling that cause a deity in which case we have done nothing beyond a trick of language.