Sorry mjpb, but I'm really not interested anymore.

The fact that you at least tried is enough to satisfy me. You gave it a crack by presenting the fine tuning argument as evidence for god and it failed.

But I'm tired now and this is just getting embarrassing to witness - let alone be a part of.

If that is the way you feel AJ I am happy to accept it and call it a day but not this second from my side. You have raised a few issues and you will understand if I feel the need to give my thoughts anyway. I'm not trying to embarass you or make you feel uncomfortable but I do need to respond considering the way your comments seem to have the tone of rubbing my nose in something and your comments about Foxy reveal where your assumptions were based and that we probably owe each other an apology for jumping to conclusions. Anyway I'm not forcing you to continue against your will and if you are so confident that my plight is so hopeless I apologise for demonstrating it further but here is my answer for what it is worth - very little apparently in your view.

“Do you have any idea of just how tautological it is to express surprise in being able to exist in a universe in which you are capable of expressing surprise in being able to exist?

Didn’t think so.”

It isn’t the fact of being able to express surprise but the fine tuning of so many things that I am referring to. In other words surprise that such a place exists not surprise that we are able to exist in a place that suits us. However I agree that your version is tautological.

”Since you’re struggling with this fine tuning argument, I’ll point out another reason as to why it doesn’t work by giving you a little analogy. We can even have cute little characters if it helps you out. Let’s call them “Space Duck” and “Cosmic Bunny”….

Do you catch my drift here, mjpb?”

I believe so but if there were a large number of fine tuned things identified that inspired astrophysicist Fred Hoyle to say “looks like a put up job” then I don’t believe that space Duck would be so confident.

”A probability analysis with a sample size of 1 is meaningless. We have one universe to analyse. If we knew of any number of universes other than 1, then we could start to talk about probabilities.

This is why it doesn’t matter if there are 122 constants or 122 million constants. It makes no difference. The notion of altering constants is something dishonest theists have invented for the sake of introducing probability as an argument. You have no evidence or reason to believe that the constants were mutable in any way. And without a basis for assuming the mutability of the universal attributes, your fine tuning argument is nothing but a fallacy - an error in logic and reasoning.”

You have a very interesting idea. People go to so much trouble hypothesizing about multiple universes explaining the fine tuning but you just say that because there is only one universe we don’t know it is inevitable. Nevertheless even if I stayed in my first ever motel and it had my favourite CD and DVD, the room had a book from my favourite author (which it probably would have), and my favourite food and drinks are in the fridge and my favourite painting on the wall I’d be surprised and think the motel management knew something. I wouldn’t casually dismiss it on the basis that all motels might be identical and it could be inevitable. Perhaps I’m just not properly in touch with probability but I believe that mine would be the normal reaction.

Now as regards the fine tuning, certainly we might think it fortunate that electromagnetism has one-force strength thus ensuring that leptons do not replace quarks and thus atoms are possible. Since there is one universe we can scold ourselves for being surprised because we can’t prove the phenomenon is mutable. However other fine tuning facts could not be dismissed so easily. For example the fact that a significantly thicker crust on earth would take in too much oxygen for the planet to support life on its surface and a significantly thinner crust on earth would allow too much volcanic and tectonic activity to allow life are qualities that we know to be mutable. If water vapour levels in the atmosphere were much greater than they are now, a runaway greenhouse effect would cause temperatures to rise too high for human life; if they were less, an insufficient greenhouse effect would make earth too cold to support human life. Likewise if Jupiter was not in its current orbit, the earth would be bombarded with space materials. These types of fine tuning can’t be written off on your criterion.

”Now to ‘burden of proof’- another subject you seem to be struggling immensely with.

You introduce the topic of Roman law to bolster your position (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3814#101888), but as soon the law goes against your largely improvised arguments on this topic, you drop it like a hot potato and switch to another argument which goes against the only other accepted form of ‘burden of proof' the ‘philosophic burden of proof’...”

I use the analogy when it is relevant and don’t when it isn’t.

”It doesn’t matter who wants who to take them seriously. In this situation, it goes by... funnily enough... PROBABILITIES!

Out of the following two claims, which has the burden of proof?

- x is y
- x is not y

According to your logic, until one proves their point, they both have the burden of proof.

But this is wrong."

”The initial burden of proof lies on the positive claim (x is y), because only a small minority of statements in the form "x is y" are actually true. You could randomly assemble an infinite combination of nouns and adjectives with 'x is y' and only a very small number of them will be true; whereas if you were to do this with "x is not y", most of them would be true.

So since ‘x is not y’ is more likely to be true, the burden of proof rests on the positive claim.”

I don’t want to appear slow and you labeled my comments nonsense, indicated that they are irrevocably rebutted and I should apologise and once were certain I will vacate this discussion. However when I look at your equation and explanation I am haunted with this proof of 1 = 2:

• Step 1: Let a=b.
• Step 2: Then a squared = ab
• Step 3: Then a squared + a squared = a squared + ab
• Step 4: 2a squared = a squared + ab
• Step 5: 2a squared - 2ab = a squared + ab - 2ab
• Step 6: and 2a squared - 2ab = a squared - ab.
• Step 7: This can be written as 2(a squared - ab) = 1(a squared - ab),
• Step 8: and cancelling the (a squared - ab) from both sides gives 1=2.

In the above example the a and b hide the division by 0 that is mathematically impossible.

In your example the x and y seem to hide what appears to me to be a fact that it all depends on what they are. If x = a pear and y = a banana I can understand your argument. However if y is true and therefore “is not y” is false it looks awfully binary and entirely dependent on the statement. I am truly impressed by how you IT people generate so many things on a binary system and if there is something in what you are saying perhaps that’s why you get it much easier. But as much as I think about it I can’t see how some unknown something or things in general are more likely to be false than true. It just seems that either something is true or it is false. Sorry. If you can explain this better I’ll become keen to take a true/false examination. In the meantime I don’t get it.

”But how does this relate to an ‘atheist vs theist’ scenario?

Easy.

Like I said, the burden of proof always lies with the least likely claim. In an ‘atheist vs theist’ scenario, the least likely claim is that “God exists” since “God does not exist” allows for an infinite number of other possibilities. In other words, an infinite number of possibilities/scenarios would disprove “God exists”, while only one scenario would disprove “God does not exist”.”

Do you mean if it was confined to a specific Christian conception of God? Again I don’t want to appear slow but it isn’t so easy for me to get that sorry. You’ll have to explain it to me further.

“This is also yet another reason as to why atheism is the default position - regardless of what Plantinga has argued in your fallacious ‘appeal to authority’.”

Appealing to authority can be fallacious but I cited him only to point out that an event had occurred being that he had argued something.