Present Evidence Here II

[Blackleaf]

This is the evidence that persuades me of theism.

We all have the same evidence for or against the existence of God defined here as a personal intelligent agent capable of causing a universe with the conditions for life to exist. Evidence is merely facts that comport with a belief.
The following indisputable facts lead me to believe we owe our existence to an intelligent agent commonly referred to as God as opposed to the counter belief that mindless unguided forces are responsible for all we observe.

1.   The fact the universe exists
2.   The fact life exists
3.   The fact intelligent life exists
4.   The fact the universe has laws of nature, is knowable, uniform and to a large extent predictable, amenable to scientific research and the laws of logic deduction and induction and is also explicable in mathematical terms.
5.   The fact there are several characteristics of the universe that fall within an extremely narrow range that not only allow life as we know it, but also allow the existence of planets, stars, solar systems and galaxies.
6.   The fact that sentient beings cause virtual universes to exist which in effect is a working model of theism.

These are the primary facts of our existence and one can believe these facts came into existence minus any plan, intent or designer or doubt that claim and believe it was the intentional result of a personal agent. I subscribe to the former belief. I don't care if anyone else does everyone can decide for themselves...

What's with all of the theists showing up here all of a sudden? If your writing style wasn't so different, I'd suspect that you were an alt of someone who got banned.

I bolded the most important part of your post here. If you don't care if anyone here agrees with you, why did you come here? If you're telling the truth, you may be a more tolerable theist than the majority who come here. But if you intend to stay, I recommend you make a post in the Introductions forum.

[Drew_2017]

What's with all of the theists showing up here all of a sudden? If your writing style wasn't so different, I'd suspect that you were an alt of someone who got banned.

I bolded the most important part of your post here. If you don't care if anyone here agrees with you, why did you come here? If you're telling the truth, you may be a more tolerable theist than the majority who come here. But if you intend to stay, I recommend you make a post in the Introductions forum.

I'm merely justifying my own belief I'm not on a mission to persuade others. Even if we debated the subject, it would be for the benefit of the undecided, not those convinced of their point of view...I posted to the Introduction forum.

[Hydra009]

What's with all of the theists showing up here all of a sudden? If your writing style wasn't so different, I'd suspect that you were an alt of someone who got banned.

[Baruch]

Now we know how a Budhist can sit and meditate for hours. Its because they start thinking about something like Proverbs 26:4-5. almost like a computer program starting an infinite loop that keeps going until you push the power button.

Sanskrit, at reformed by Panini about 2400 years ago, is so logical, it can be compiled like a computer program.  It is the only language that is sufficiently logical to be so ;-)

[fencerider]

is sanskrit hard to learn. might make an interesting alternative to C++.

[Baruch]

is sanskrit hard to learn. might make an interesting alternative to C++.

With Sanskrit, you can only compile a superior karma ;-)

Unfortunately it is hard to learn, it is a very old language, and its grammar was perfected, to aid memorization of Hindu prayers and scriptures, even though this means a lot of limited application rules .... but there is a rule for everything ... a context-sensitive "production" as we would say in computer science.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pāṇini ... in Devanagari type for example à¤...ष्टाध्यायी १

[Baruch]

Cartoon evidence ....
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2013-10-28

People find the god they expect to find.

[Cavebear]

A sparrow fell unobserved today.  Therefore there is no deity...  (coff, coff)

[Baruch]

A sparrow fell unobserved today.  Therefore there is no deity...  (coff, coff)

What is the content of an ignored post?  One hand clapping ;-)

[surreptitious57]

The universe is not fine tuned for life. Rather life is fine tuned for the universe. Albeit infinitesimally so given that over 99 per cent of it is
actually incompatible with human existence. And further more were one of the four fundamental forces [ weak nuclear ] removed entirely
it would not adversely affect life on Earth. In fact it would allow for greater diversity of life to exist not less. The ratios of the constants are
what makes it possible for life to exist. Now this is a random process. However random here does not mean chance but instead a statistical
probability based upon all possible outcomes. That is to say something which can be predicted in advance so is not something unanticipated

[sdelsolray]

This is the evidence that persuades me of theism.

We all have the same evidence for or against the existence of God defined here as a personal intelligent agent capable of causing a universe with the conditions for life to exist. Evidence is merely facts that comport with a belief.
The following indisputable facts lead me to believe we owe our existence to an intelligent agent commonly referred to as God as opposed to the counter belief that mindless unguided forces are responsible for all we observe.

1.   The fact the universe exists
2.   The fact life exists
3.   The fact intelligent life exists
4.   The fact the universe has laws of nature, is knowable, uniform and to a large extent predictable, amenable to scientific research and the laws of logic deduction and induction and is also explicable in mathematical terms.
5.   The fact there are several characteristics of the universe that fall within an extremely narrow range that not only allow life as we know it, but also allow the existence of planets, stars, solar systems and galaxies.
6.   The fact that sentient beings cause virtual universes to exist which in effect is a working model of theism.

These are the primary facts of our existence and one can believe these facts came into existence minus any plan, intent or designer or doubt that claim and believe it was the intentional result of a personal agent. I subscribe to the former belief. I don't care if anyone else does everyone can decide for themselves...

Welcome Drew.

I take issue with two of your listed items:

"5.    The fact there are several characteristics of the universe that fall within an extremely narrow range that not only allow life as we know it, but also allow the existence of planets, stars, solar systems and galaxies."

You imply that if these "several characteristics" had different values, then life as we know it, as well as the existence of planets, starts, etc.  would not be possible.  This is speculation, your assumption and not fact.  I do not know (and neither do you) whether such characteristics can have different values, or if they did whether intelligent life of some form could not emerge from that.  The "fine tuning" thought experiment does not demonstrate what you imply.

For those characteristics that can vary in value (e.g., distance of Earth from Sol), the fine tuning argument must take probability properly into account.  Virtually all theists who promote the fine tuning argument as "evidence" of their particular god(s) fail to do so.

"6.   The fact that sentient beings cause virtual universes to exist which in effect is a working model of theism."

The "fact" that you or I can imagine something does not make that something real.

As to points 1 through 4, I fail to see how those observations necessarily requires a GODDIDIT conclusion.

[Blackleaf]

Welcome Drew.

I take issue with two of your listed items:

"5.    The fact there are several characteristics of the universe that fall within an extremely narrow range that not only allow life as we know it, but also allow the existence of planets, stars, solar systems and galaxies."

You imply that if these "several characteristics" had different values, then life as we know it, as well as the existence of planets, starts, etc.  would not be possible.  This is speculation, your assumption and not fact.  I do not know (and neither do you) whether such characteristics can have different values, or if they did whether intelligent life of some form could not emerge from that.  The "fine tuning" thought experiment does not demonstrate what you imply.

For those characteristics that can vary in value (e.g., distance of Earth from Sol), the fine tuning argument must take probability properly into account.  Virtually all theists who promote the fine tuning argument as "evidence" of their particular god(s) fail to do so.

"6.   The fact that sentient beings cause virtual universes to exist which in effect is a working model of theism."

The "fact" that you or I can imagine something does not make that something real.

As to points 1 through 4, I fail to see how those observations necessarily requires a GODDIDIT conclusion.

I'll just add that the "fine tuning" argument also fails to consider how huge the universe is. The Milky Way galaxy alone contains about 100,000,000,000 stars. It's unknown how many galaxies there are, but in the currently observable universe, there are an estimated 100,000,000,000 galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars. This number is expected to increase as technology advances. So no matter how unlikely the chances are of life appearing somewhere in the universe by random chance, it's bound to happen at least once. I'd be surprised if Earth was the only planet in existence with randomly generated life.

[Cavebear]

What is the content of an ignored post?  One hand clapping ;-)

One reply...

[Baruch]

One reply...

Good try!  No gold star ... you aren't young enough to be a snowflake ;-)

[Cavebear]

Good try!  No gold star ... you aren't young enough to be a snowflake ;-)

Yet you called me one elsewhere.