Re: and who made god?

From: Allan C Cybulskie (allan.c.cybulskie_at_yahoo.ca)
Date: 01/19/05 

Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 16:41:58 -0500

"Barb Knox" <see@sig.below> wrote in message
news:csi43r$p77$1@lust.ihug.co.nz...

I would have replied to the earlier post, but in this one you highlight the
problem with your reasoning so well that I had to use this one:

> >No. It is your attempt to explain away the highly improbable fact
> >of your existence as some sort of scientific necessity.
>
> Please read what I actually wrote. I do not claim my existence is any
sort
> of necessary fact, but it does happen to be a (contingent) fact. Given
that
> fact, the universe I find myself in must be one which supports life such
as
> myself. So any argument that the fact that the universe appears
fine-tuned
> for our sort of life actually means something more is thoroughly bogus.
>
> Let me put it in terms of conditional probabilities: Let's posit that the
> probability of the existence of our sort of universe is very close to 0.
> But, the probability of its existence GIVEN THAT we are in fact here is 1.

Basically, your argument is this: "Because the universe turned out this way,
it is a probability of 1 that the universe would turn out this way"
Perfectly true, but not terribly enlightening [grin]. It's still quite
possible that the combination was improbable and could only have arisen out
of design.

There is an interesting comment that if the universe was arranged
differently, there would be no intelligent people to argue over whether it
was designed or random. But since a universe without intelligent life is
certainly possible, this is not an objection to the argument from design.

>
> Ad the late Douglas Adams so succinctly put it:
> [I]magine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "... interesting
hole
> I find myself in -- fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? ... must have been
> made to have me in it."

Well, this is a special case, since a puddle adapts to fill its hole, but
you are not arguing that humans adapt to that degree to whatever universe
they happen to be in. And, to counter-example, if I dig a hole and fill it
with water, the puddle is, in fact, actually stating true fact [grin].

Relevant Pages

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