Posted: Dec 17, 2011 2:32 am
I could be completely wrong here, but I'll put some thoughts out there.
The argument put forward is interesting. Even if it means we should elevate the status of theism because of the "apparent fine tuning" of the universe, theism would still rank pretty low IMO. You could put forward a better case for the existence of UFO's or ghosts using the same sort of logic. Soon enough we'll be taking all sorts of quackery seriously.
It makes me wonder though. Do people who say that we should elevate the case for theism above other supernatural claims come to their conclusion before or after making up these arguments? It's perfectly fine if people do spend their time doing this sort of stuff on a daily basis, ie - evaluating supernatural claims and giving them some sort of order. But it would annoy me if people are just deciding that theism has some sort of special case to be answered and then running it through their logic equations to get that desired result.
I think this is why scientists don't often use these methods, they are open to abuse.
Someone could easily refute this by saying "regardless of all that, the logic stands and there is a point to be addressed". I'm just not convinced it is an effective way of telling us much about reality.
The argument put forward is interesting. Even if it means we should elevate the status of theism because of the "apparent fine tuning" of the universe, theism would still rank pretty low IMO. You could put forward a better case for the existence of UFO's or ghosts using the same sort of logic. Soon enough we'll be taking all sorts of quackery seriously.
It makes me wonder though. Do people who say that we should elevate the case for theism above other supernatural claims come to their conclusion before or after making up these arguments? It's perfectly fine if people do spend their time doing this sort of stuff on a daily basis, ie - evaluating supernatural claims and giving them some sort of order. But it would annoy me if people are just deciding that theism has some sort of special case to be answered and then running it through their logic equations to get that desired result.
I think this is why scientists don't often use these methods, they are open to abuse.
Someone could easily refute this by saying "regardless of all that, the logic stands and there is a point to be addressed". I'm just not convinced it is an effective way of telling us much about reality.