Thx a lot for that link you sent me. I've been reading that like a crack addict. Sounds like, if you accept the idea of a First Cause, that you see God as Q-like if you know what I mean? (You'd have to have seen the generation series to know what I'm talking about...) But let me counter the perverse perversion idea: think of the incredible beauty. I really don't think one can characterize the universe as Perverse. If I were a non-Christian, I think that I would think of it as more Yin and Yang, Force and Dark Side, etc. What I'm getting at is that there are so many things of a sublime and downright gorgeous nature: the Crab Nebula, Maxwell's Equations, Relativity, the Hana Highway in Maui, Beethoven's 5th and you can think of your own fav female. I know that on the other side you can think of the ferocious and the deadly: flesh-eating viruses, raptors and any number of genetic diseases. So why the label of Perverse? I see only dark and light and not distortion...
Not perverse = Evil. More like perverse = highly annoying. When you wash a load of laundry, why is it that it seems like you never lose two of the same pair of socks -- why always two of different pairs? The universe seems perverse because we are always struggling just to stay even. Much of this can be ascribed to entropy (we're all dying, one day at a time), but you get the idea. I agree that what is beautiful in our universe is incredibly so.
Gotcha - that makes more sense to me. But to me that decay aspect of the universe is specifically designed. Yes, I'm sure you're going to say that to me everything looks designed to me, but I do have a reason for saying that. It is my belief that in general humans do not look to the spiritual the more physically comfortable that they are. For example, in American I see some spiritual "hunger" - I would argue that most people search for the supernatural/spiritual at some point in their life - but it does not compare to other less afluent cultures. Imo the turbulence of life is designed so that people will see that the physical is actually accompanied by a spiritual reality. And I would that add that I bet spiritual leaders of other religions besides Christian would often agree with me on this point. Not try to be annoying - just saying my opinion. And whew! I thought you were going to ask me why there was a T-Rex. I don't know the answer to that one.
As someone who values the maker and the makings of this world, you may find many "New Agers" and Science of Mind type folk agreeing with you. As an admirer of nature and supernature, you are right in there with those who dance in circles under a full moon around big beautiful oak trees. The only real difference is the style of dance, and whether you do it skyclad or not. They and their rituals value both the so-called natural and the supernatural. As one who feels that spirit expresses itself naturally through physicality, you are very much in league with Earnest Holmes and Science of Mind. In this paradigm, there is a natural spiritual "reality" that accompanies the physical...not as an aberration, but as normal. And in this way, you believe that the status quo is normal, even preferable to formlessness. Those steeped in this mode don't really stop to ask themselves, why there should be a reality behind physicality...which makes physicality, what? Finally, you are still in the same boat with the so-called New Agers in that you value the maker of this world as intelligent, worthy of awe...and you value your place in the world. With them, you seek to negotiate your way around this world in a way that you might call "success". For them, they attend to what they are desiring to accomplish the next leg in their evolution. Some of them just want to be dolphins. Some want to be elves. Some want to return to the Pleiades. Some want to migrate closer to the Great Central Sun. You are not different. You are simply negotiating to appear in another body upon a "new earth" ruled by rulers you believe would be good, while the unruly are shipped off to neverneverland. Both you and the New Agers are looking for an age of peace under the hoped-for benevolence of the Power that makes this world. Only the means differ. They call the Power by one name, you call it by another. Same difference. Jesus
the card shuffle analogy is the exact analogy I cited in the past. if you truly understand it you will conclude that our universe is so unlikely to exist that you either have to say that our universe must have been designed or their are trillions of other universes. The thrust of the question is -- how likely is it that life exists given our deck. The answer according to many top scientists is that our universe is so unlikely to have been dealt you have to concede it was not dealt by chance or you have to have trillions of universes. It is why I kept citing the father of string theory for saying our universe looks spectacularly designed. I explained that he found it necesary for there to be trillions of unseen universes to combat the Design argument. Now I have this cite... "In a calculation similar to Hoyle's, mathematician Roger Penrose has estimated that the probability of a universe with our particular set of physical properties is one part in 10 to the 10 to the 123 (Penrose 1989: 343). ( However, neither Penrose nor anyone else can say how many of the other possible universes formed with different properties could still have lead to some form of life. If it is half, then the probability for life is fifty percent." http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cosmo.html Note how the famously anti design website quickly inserts the need for an multiple universes to combat the conclusion of design. To be fair the author of the website later goes into to his own proof about there may only need be one universe but his thoughts are not consistent with the top minds in string theory. So again - I ask you if some of the best scientific minds in the world understand that that if you have one universe it looks designed -- what in your background says they are wrong. In terms of current scientific understanding we have evidence of design. Sure I grant you that someday science could find evidence of trillions of parallel universes or they could prove something else. But for now that takes more faith than an IDer.
There is no scientific evidence to show the Universe is fine tuned for life.. There is scientific evidence to show life is fine tuned for the Universe. It's called evolution.
That's catchy. But without carbon and heavy elements, you can't have evolution. Here's we're talking about tuning that even gives evolution the opportunity to occur...
Random unplanned unguided events could not be "fined tuned" unless that programming to "fine tune" was according to their internal initial design to be able to "fine tune" to their environment... Atheists are so funny. Their Bible speaks of a random unplanned physical universe which just happens to pop into existence from an unknown prior condition of non universe for no reason, then within that physical universe which is not containing biological life...biological physical life just pops into existence for no reason which just happens to have a nature to "fine tune itself" to its environment, then that physical universe and the physical nature of physical life just happens to for no reason produce a human mind that wants to believe this is all by accident. What a crack up...