Eternity (Origins)

by dhw, Sunday, November 24, 2013, 17:35 (3804 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw:"Plans" and "laws" are loaded terms, because of course they imply intelligent design, but the atheist case is that there is no planning. Dawkins says there are estimated to be 100 billion galaxies in our universe alone (disregarding the zillions of universes that may have preceded our own), and atheists argue that the "laws" are natural and not divine (i.e. that is how materials behave). -DAVID: The reason the atheists have fought against the idea of fine tuning, and Vic Stenger has written a book filled with errors denying fine tuning exists, and they also add multiverses to the mix is that they know that the number of galaxies in this universe is not enough to overcome the odds against chance. It is too bad you do not follow Strassler who explains how theoretical quantum physicists invent imaginary worlds to help them understand this world. This world is very complexly ( A word?) organized at its basic levels and studying alien states of matter in imagined universes helps explain this one. My point is they are using other 'laws' than the rules of conduct for matter they find here. Paul Davies questions the origin of those local laws, and he is not a theist although he borders on deism.-Perhaps the reason atheists fight the idea of fine tuning is that the expression implies a fine tuner! Nobody can possibly deny that our universe works in such a way as to support life, because hey ho, our universe supports life. But nobody actually knows how many galaxies there are (I've seen one estimate of 500 billion!) and nobody knows if or how many other universes have preceded our own, so it's not possible to calculate odds. Nor is it clear to me how other laws in imagined universes explain why this universe had to have been designed by your God. And is it not possible that other laws in other universes might produce different forms of life? (Anyway, I thought you were opposed to people imagining other universes.) Perhaps we are here through the deliberate planning of an eternal, unknown mind which created 100-plus thousand million galaxies and made ours special, and organized our little dot of a planet to receive the benefits of his nano-engineering. Or perhaps we just struck lucky. When we contemplate the potential realities of eternity, we are all infinitely out of our depth. But we keep looking for answers all the same, and doesn't that make you proud to be human?