The real battle isn’t between believer vs nonbeliever, religion vs science, left vs right. It’s between good ideas & bad ideas and they can come from all sides
You said: "There IS no PROOF for either argument."
Without proof, you should withhold judgement, and say you're not sure about the origins of our universe, instead of pretending you have justified certainty, right?
You're trying to argue, improbable (really really realllllllllyyyyyyyyyy improbable) means designed.
But improbable doesn't automatically mean designed.
You need a better argument, which is why after reviewing the arguments, our highest boards of examination classify the origin of our universe not as known fact but rather as an open question, when presenting to mainstream school children.
You gave an answer, but there’s a flaw.
Just because an event is unlikely, even highly unlikely, does not mean that event was necessarily caused by a self-aware entity.
Imagine walking on the beach, and see a rock on its shore, one could argue the odds of that rock out of all the rocks that exist, in that particular spot out of all the spots that possibly exist, that the odds are so astronomically prohibitive against this particular rock in that particular spot, the only reasonable conclusion is that a self aware entity put it there.
But you haven’t eliminated, by any reasonable standard, a non-sentient natural force explanation why the rock is there.
So appealing to improbability by itself is not enough.
I hope that makes sense.
@Maracus57 For somebody not of your faith, why would they believe the Supernatural favors you over, say, the person of a different faith in the checkout line behind you at the grocery store?
@Maracus57 Would you agree, using the collective human cognitive process, many societies created a purely human generated idea of God, that the citizens of that society then worshiped?
Or do you think all ideas of God are ultimately generated by God and then passed along to humans?
@theerealtao If there is no supernatural God, then the things/ideas that are worshiped as God, are generated via the collective human cognitive system.
Why would we be surprised that system is capable of generating a desire for meaning, and things to fill that gap for many?
@HeapBigMuckMuck You said: “probability of our universe producing any ordered structure at all is effectively zero.”
Highly unlikely, and impossible are not the same thing. Unlikely/highly unlikely events do happen.
Can you prove it’s impossible, instead of appealing to probability?
Unlikely? Sure. But that's not the argument.
Aren't you claiming these variables were fine-tuned by a self-aware entity, (you'd call God?) specifically to produce conscious beings?
How many other arrangements of those variables could also produce conscious entities? Do you know? Can you provide an estimate from testing? No.
You have one data point. This universe. That's it.
So you're not working with the problem in its entirely when you claim fine tuning settles anything, other then the variables are what they are. How those variables got there, how many arrangements produce conscious entities, is still an open question.
I disagree with your assessment.
You're not engaging with the problem at it's full scope, so your solution is incomplete.
The question: "How do you demonstrate under which variables self-aware intelligent entities at our level could have appeared under? What do you estimate that number to be? Is it one or is it many, or is it we don’t know?"
The answer is you don't know, so you side step the question. Hopefully one day we'll have that answer, time will tell.
@HeapBigMuckMuck If you don’t know the answer, you’ve circled back to guesswork and the origin of our universe being an open question, not a settled one.
@HeapBigMuckMuck Even if that’s granted, how do you demonstrate under which variables self-aware intelligent entities at our level could have appeared under? What do you estimate that number to be? Is it one or is it many, or is it we don’t know?
How do you demonstrate those values could have been any other combination?
If they couldn’t have, then intelligence isn’t needed because it could only unfold one way.
But let’s say those values could be a different combination, how do you demonstrate under which variables self-aware intelligent entities at our level could have appeared under? What do you estimate that number to be? Is it one or is it many, or is it we don’t know?
If it’s we don’t know, we circle back to guesswork and the origin of our universe being an open question, not a settled one.
Is it possible for any self-aware entity, once it reaches a certain level of intelligence and rationality, to examine the conditions allowing for its own existence and not conclude that those conditions appear extremely fine tuned?
@HeapBigMuckMuck Is it possible for any self-aware entity, once it reaches a certain level of intelligence and rationality, to examine the conditions allowing for its own existence and not conclude that those conditions appear extremely fine tuned?
@HeapBigMuckMuck I didn’t make the claim the universe’s constants are just a brute fact.
I’m asking you, do you accept any fact as a brute fact?
For example: “something exists” is impossible to be false.
Would you disagree with that?