Atheists, how do you justify fine tuning theory of universe?

Question

The fine-tuned universe is the idea that conditions that allow life in the universe can only occur with the tightly restricted values of the universal physical constants....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_universe
http://web.ecs.baylor.edu/faculty/marks/Marks/ChristainFacultyNetwork/Index/ScientEvid.htm

"Which then of the bounties of your Lord will you deny?"
---Quran(55-31)

Answer 1

All that is semantic gymnastics. The simple fact is that atheists cannot put two and two together and see that the engineered sophistication that we find in this world and within our own bodies is not possible without some programming. And there is NO evidence that Nature programs anything, as it has no intelligence of its own.

Atheists disbelieve in God not because there is lack of evidence for the existence of God. They disbelieve because they don't like religious people and want a lifestyle unencumbered by any religious authority.

Answer 2

Just because we are uncertain about something, does not mean it can be attributed to a supernatural being.

For thousands of years people have been saying "Goddidit" when they didn't fully understand a concept. This is known as the "God of the gaps".

Those gaps are shrinking with every passing year as scientific discovery enlightens our species.

By the way, you do realize that the universe is far from being finely tuned? Stars die and destroy their solar systems, meteorites annihilate planets and galaxies collide with other galaxies. To say that the universe is chaotic is an understatement.

Answer 3

Look pianokid, the Earth is 5 Billion years old. There is scientific proof from many fields and multiple souces.

Sometimes, in the field of Cosmology, a new discovery contradicts an old theory, as in Einstein's theory of Relativity.
He invented the Cosmological Constant in order to explain an anomoly.

These discoveries are not meant to contradict your religion unless your religion believes in something that is false -- like the Earth is 6000 years old. That notion is so off the charts, it can't even be considered a possibility.

Answer 4

Well we really don't have any idea how far the conditions can stretch and support life. We just don't have the data.

And besides, if M Theory is right there are an infinite number of universes making the odds of anything 100%

Answer 5

1. The claim assumes life in its present form is a given; it applies not to life but to life only as we know it. The same outcome results if life is fine-tuned to the cosmos.

We do not know what fundamental conditions would rule out any possibility of any life. For all we know, there might be intelligent beings in another universe arguing that if fundamental constants were only slightly different, then the absence of free quarks and the extreme weakness of gravity would make life impossible.

Indeed, many examples of fine-tuning are evidence that life is fine-tuned to the cosmos, not vice versa. This is exactly what evolution proposes.

2. If the universe is fine-tuned for life, why is life such an extremely rare part of it?

3. Many fine-tuning claims are based on numbers being the "same order of magnitude," but this phrase gets stretched beyond its original meaning to buttress design arguments; sometimes numbers more than one-thousandfold different are called the same order of magnitude (Klee 2002).

How fine is "fine" anyway? That question can only be answered by a human judgment call, which reduces or removes objective value from the anthropic principle argument.

4. The fine-tuning claim is weakened by the fact that some physical constants are dependent on others, so the anthropic principle may rest on only a very few initial conditions that are really fundamental (Kane et al. 2000). It is further weakened by the fact that different initial conditions sometimes lead to essentially the same outcomes, as with the initial mass of stars and their formation of heavy metals (Nakamura et al. 1997), or that the tuning may not be very fine, as with the resonance window for helium fusion within the sun (Livio et al. 1989). For all we know, a universe substantially different from ours may be improbable or even impossible.

5. If part of the universe were not suitable for life, we would not be here to think about it. There is nothing to rule out the possibility of multiple universes, most of which would be unsuitable for life. We happen to find ourselves in one where life is conveniently possible because we cannot very well be anywhere else.

6. Intelligent design is not a logical conclusion of fine tuning. Fine tuning says nothing about motives or methods, which is how design is defined. (The scarcity of life and multi-billion-year delay in it appearing argue against life being a motive.) Fine-tuning, if it exists, may result from other causes, as yet unknown, or for no reason at all (Drange 2000).

7. In fact, the anthropic principle is an argument against an omnipotent creator. If God can do anything, he could create life in a universe whose conditions do not allow for it.

Links:
Drange, Theodore M. 2000. The fine-tuning argument revisited (2000). Philo 3(2): 38-49. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/tuning-revisited.html

Stenger, Victor J. 1997. Intelligent design: Humans, cockroaches, and the laws of physics. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cosmo.html

Stenger, Victor J. 1999 (July). The anthropic coincidences: A natural explanation. The Skeptical Intelligencer 3(3): 2-17. http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/stenger_intel.html

Weinberg, Steven. 1999. A designer universe? http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_weinberg.cfm
References:

1. Drange, Theodore M. 2000. The fine-tuning argument revisited (2000). Philo 3(2): 38-49. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/tuning-revisited.html
2. Kane, G. L., M. J. Perry, and A. N. Zytkow. 2000 (28 Jan.). The beginning of the end of the anthropic principle. New Astron. 7: 45-53. http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0001197
3. Klee, Robert. 2002. The revenge of Pythagoras: How a mathematical sharp practice undermines the contemporary design argument in astrophysical cosmology. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 53: 331-354.
4. Livio, M., D. Hollowell, A. Weiss and J. Truran. 1989. The anthropic significance of the existence of an excited state of 12C. Nature 340: 281-284.
5. Nakamura, Takashi, H. Uehara, and T. Chiba. 1997. The minimum mass of the first stars and the anthropic principle. Progress of Theoretical Physics 97: 169-171. http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/9612113

Further Reading:
Goldsmith, D. 2004. The best of all possible worlds. Natural History 113(6) (July/Aug.): 44-49.

Answer 6

You really do not want to try and have a scientific debate with the atheists here. They will chew you up and spit you out. Your first mistake is assuming that only atheists believe in the Big Bang or the Theory of Evolution.
Edit- LMAO @ Sips

Answer 7

Well I am a Christian, and I am familar with arguments against this antrophic proof. First of all if the universal constants were different we would not be here to observe the universe and make these very claims. The universe and our obsevations of it seem to be taking on a quantum importance. The more we learn through science, the more mysteries and awe we have, the more wonders we have about God.

Answer 8

Toss a coin 20 times. The probability of getting the exact sequence of heads and tails that you got is less than 1 in a million (1/1,048,576). Denying that something happened just because there is a low probability of it happening is nonsense.

Answer 9

Many Worlds: The universe that we see is only the one out of uncountable numbers in which it is possible for us to exist.

Answer 10

Just because the conditions on Earth are sufficient for us to exist, doesn't mean that some invisible entity CREATED it specifically FOR us to exist. WE developed and evolved to fit the conditions, the conditions did not develop around some pre-conceived notion of how we were going to be.

Answer 11

The universe is hardly fine tuned. Therefore there is no explaining it.
That is an IDEA not a fact.