The Fine Tuning Argument and the Beauty of Science - Alex J. O'Connor

This was thoroughly enjoyable to watch. I could only hope to have a fraction of your eloquence.

That was as eloquent as fk! I think I might have been experiencing some kind of mindgasm/mindmeld thingy by watching your videos. Maybe it's just my sapiophile sense that's tingling? Who knows? But above all, please keep doing what you're doing. It's rather imperative IMO... not to mention that I really enjoy those mindgasm thingies. Which is quite probably why I subbed.

Does fine tuning include the destruction of galaxies, disease, animal suffering, war, starvation, genocide and slavery?

Of coures it is anthropocentric we are anthrops. From your own admitted veiw there is no other perspective than ours. Everything other than sentient life is meaningless matter. The emergence of other sentient life elsewhere would do nothing to resolve this problem. It would only futher demstrate an increased unlikliness of chance ocurance. As the odds of its emergeance twice would be even less credible.

The material world is intrinsically without meaning we are that which imbues meaing on what we perceive. There is no other perspective than ours. Atheism is the adoption of the thearetical divine perspective. In the form of scentific objectivity. Which is mearly a model within our subjective minds. Whilst adopting this perspective athiesm is simultaneously denying that same perspective has real and meaningful existence.

The advent and existence of the material universe is an astonishingly beautiful fact. So long as there is some one to percive and imbue it with meaning and beauty. Otherwise it is simply rocks gas and empty space exploding out of nothingness into which they will return. Without us to ascribe it there is neither meaning nor reason.

The Advent and existancs of life is profoundly unique and amazing. However, only if there is sentience to perceive and imbue its meaning.

The advent and existence of humanity is incredible. We are, as beings that can think and ask these questions, uniquely and profoundly amazing. This is because we are the source of all this deep meaning which we ascribe.

There is nothing which we can say has meaning due to the objective God prerspctive. We are asuming his nonexistence. We can therefore not rely upon him for meaning. Matter carries no intrinsic meaning in and of itself. Meaning and even truth are ideas. So we are the source of meaning all the metaphysical world must be within and a product of our emergent contiousnes. There is only subjective us.

Unless Sam Haris and Dawkins are right and our consciousness and wills are just ilussions. In which case there is not even subjective us.

So either;
1 we are the centre of meaning wich leaves the athiest or nearly athiest to deal with the anthropocenteric uniqueness of humanity.
2 God is the centre and source of meaning. Not I'm guessing your preferred option.
3) Dawkins and co are right there is no meaning and we are automita deterministicly living out our programming whilst deluding ourselves that we have selves. Which as well as being a bit of a self contradiction renders the whole bloody conversation pointless.

If you are truly a sceptic you must admit you can know nothing other than that you know nothing. The subjective self can be used to establish nothing with certainty beyond cogito ergo sum. Thus rendering your act of faith in living each day as if there is truth and meaning and moral principle in no way more rational than mine. Which is simply the faith in the source from which truth and meaning and moral principle emerged. If anything I am the more rationally consistent and logical. I have the fulcrum by which all things turn. You have only an absence of axiomatc foundation supported by a tapestry of disparate hopes.

Once we take the leap of faith. You in meaning and truth me in god we find our selves in a world which is easy for me to explain. However, it requires you to belive that everything came from nothing for no reason. You are then required you to acept a number of deeply improbable propasitions. This even if we grant you your unfounded axiamatic presuppositions. Im sorry mate I just don't have your level of faith.

By the way this is also why your idealogical movement losing ground to postmodernism. They are not blind to the emotional and spirtual dimensions of the existential reality of human experience. 'The heart has its reasons which reason cannot know'- Pascal

They are deeply and dangerously wrong but they are at least consistent in their inconsistency.

A so biased host....why you bothered Alex ?

You are right in that human is unworthy and the creator is infinity glorious. That's why we need to turn to God and receive His grace and mercy.

There is strong support in science for the idea that there are many (maybe infinite) universes. If that's right, we just live in the one that we could.

I mean, you're basically aping Hitchens (see what I did there?) ... but you do it well!

Why is it surprising that God created everything we have observed but cares about us (rational logical decision making) beings when he can create an infinite number of planets, stars, and galaxies that may have living forms that we may not even know exist (that he may also care about)? How can you be so sure that the universe wasn't also designed for other existing creatures that we can't even observe?

bottom line: Just because we do not understand the wisdom behind everything he created doesn't mean we are making a huge leap of faith

The bible makes it clear that people are so valued by God and that the fact that God values such an insignificant thing, a person, out of all possibilities of what god could have created, shows how loyal he is, that he loves you no matter how insignificant you are, also, God would be all powerful and could do anything, the claim that God is limited by not being able to create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift means he's not all powerful and if he could he's not all powerful is not correct, it just reflects your inability to grasp the concept of infinity, he can make his strength strong enough or not relative to anything, with that in mind you can't ask a question like that like you can ask it period, you do need to grasp the idea of a never ending pattern before answering that question, you have to go in circles, you'll end right back at the beginning, you can't grasp the idea of something never ending because you can't grasp the idea of no start, you cannot think outside of this circle, your understanding of time lies in your ability to grasp time going in circles within a circle, I'm saying circle because a circle is a good shape to represent your perception of infinity, you can't grasp infinity so instead you grasp the understanding of repetition, something going back to the beginning like what circles represent, your senses can perceive the diameter of a circle but you cannot see or imagine an endless straight line- no start, the same as no end, this is obvious but it's why you can't answer questions that relate to endless patterns, even if you know what the pattern is, in this case - God is strong enough , God is too weak, ect ect
Also he's said to be all powerful which makes anything unbelievably insignificant to him so much that you, a person, wouldn't be that much less insignificant, worthy, impressive than anything else in the bigger picture of it

Do you know that science discovered that the universe had a beginning? So you know if I had a car in my driveway that it will become break apart in time? Meaning anything that isnt enternal, will fade away. That's what GOD is showing us, as we still sit here with a possiblity to receive JESUS.

I love science although it can be flawed and contradictory and what is true one day can be false the next. I love the Catholic Church more because it teaches eternal truths which are the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. I choose God's words of life over man's flawed words of confusion.

Hugh Ross a theistic astrophysicist answers many of Alex's questions

This guy really study alot, i can tell but because he doesnt understand some stuffs doesnt mean that is not exist, u dont know and understand the electricity even scientist doesnt understand it but still we have benefit from it. Same goes with God we think we know him but we dont, still we have benefits from him.

Why don't you compare "Charles Darwin" to his contemporary "Louis Pasteur"? Look at how little Darwin contributed and how much Pasteur contributed to humanity... Pasteur proved God's existence by the Scientific Law called Biogenesis and he was a devout Christian... I put it to you that Science and Biological-science became "amazing" thanks to great men like Pasteur in spite of men like Charles Darwin... Without men like Pasteur we probably wouldn't have modern medicine and the treatment of many diseases, food packaging, the modern wine and beverage industry, etc... but without Darwin ... without him I guess we would only not have... whiny atheists... is that all that Darwin gave us ... an excuse for atheists to think that they may be right... pathetic. Please note that the Big Bang Theory was thanks to a Catholic Priest (Georges Lemaître) and it was in suport of Theism... no atheistic scientists have given us very little in comparison to their Christian counterparts...

Fun Fact: Albert Einstein didn't believe in a personal God but he did believe in a "Creator".

Funny quote from Einstein regarding atheists: "The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against traditional religion as the "opium of the masses"—cannot hear the music of the spheres.

Albert Einstein

He's admitted that there may be an intelligence behind the creation of the universe. Well, if something is possible and of sufficient worth to us, we'll take action to find it. That plain old human nature. He admits God may be possible but he's taking no action to seek God so what does that mean? It means he sees no worth in God. Evidence doesn't matter. End of story.

This guy doesn’t understand fine tuning at all, these constants are abstract quantities, not physical quantities. That is why multiverse is the most widely held belief or theory in the scientific community.

He has a cool accent though that makes him seem more intelligent though.

Hi frnd nice to meet .sty connected.

You don't see fine tuning because you have your head in the sand.

Great video.

I’m an atheist, but Jesus Christ

I have just wrote this down and I cant deduce or add anything to what he has just said

where can i hear the whole podcast?

K, thats one of the worst arguments Ive heard so far but its atheist...what did I expect

See there's the issue, neither side has proof of the origin of the universe, the argument for design had added that information is embedded but it quickly turns into philosophy of science.

The problem with attributing flaw with the design is that you can't choose any other alternative.
My reasoning: the flaws being pointed out is the intelligent designer went through all the trouble just so that we suffer and kill each other and I'll assume the underlying reason there is what's the purpose. But where is the purpose in a world where everything is good and kind and peaceful? So the philosophical argument doesn't really convince me and yet I want such conversations to happen with the broader society, it's clear that science is not sufficient for now.

Well spoken though, keep the debates going.

I find it hilarious that people in the comments take the time to question what Alex said here, most of them who are the same people who never bat an eye to all of the questionable things in their religion.

I think a possible flaw in Alex’s argument is that it invokes claims about “efficiency” in relation to God. He says it’s unlikely that God would’ve waited all this time for mankind to come into existence, but theists have argued for centuries that God is a timeless being. He wouldn’t have been waiting at all. It’s not really a state of being we can imagine, but thanks to Einstein’s, we now know that time came into existence alongside matter and space.

Smashed it man

Jeeez. Hit the nail on the head

These guys r making me doubt atheism😭😭 wtf this makes no sense💀.

"Disproving Christianity In Four Sentences" - 1. For thousands of years, the Christian faith has claimed that the world became a harsh environment of intense suffering and death only after the first humans rebelled against God.

2. We can know that the above event never happened because every field of science has increasingly demonstrated in great detail for the past two centuries that the “natural evils” were built into the normative functionality of the cosmos for billions of years: meteors, disease, tornadoes, earthquakes, predation, tsunamis, death, volcanoes, birth defects, droughts, hurricanes, etc.

3. Since a “fall” or “decline” of humankind from a peaceful and harmonious state into disarray and strife definitely did not occur, there is no epic need for salvation, a terrible calamity leading to new levels of human suffering was not caused by some dramatic human wrongdoing, and thus one of Christianity’s major foundations is empty.

4. We humans encounter difficult problems, but these are finite challenges – not part of a cosmic dilemma that a god must help us to solve.

(see more at my blog - disagreementsihavewithchristianity dot com)

i'm surprised that no one points out that if god fine tuned the universe he appears to have picked the most difficult combination of values for the desired ouitcome, surely if you want humans you COARSE tune?

The fact of the matter is is that you're running from the actual truth because fine-tuning is the evidence. There is no reason that randomness or any other Force should be able to find tune a universe and keep it the way it is which in turn keeps Us alive. So you're overlooking the very evidence of fine tuning as evidence for God on purpose and that makes you intellectually dishonest and what the Bible considers evil according to Romans 1. Knowing that you willfully ignore this truth so you can maintain your atheism and that's the problem with you atheist it's madness that goes with atheism. But we're not going to see them around and let you ignore this. Fine tuning is evidence get over yourself

I’m sure his superb articulation skills won’t matter very much at all at the end of he day - didn’t answer the question …

Brilliantly said.

2 trillion galaxies, earth like planets all around. its not about US, its about US ALL

The thing is, to an all powerful God to whom creating humans outright or within a gigantically large and complex universe makes no difference to him. An omnipotent creator doesn't find more struggle in creating a large universe compared to a small one. What it does do however is show the beauty and majesty of the Creator and glorify him, reason enough to do it.

thats cause you guys wana think God in a rational way...or atleast in a way thats suits the logic of a human mind...

it is obvious that a Creator built it all. just look at the complexity of life itself and the nano machines inside the cells.

I say with no hyperbole that hitchins could not have said it better himself. The fine-tuning argument for me is the best evidence of a God existing. Not of the Christian God or islamic God but a God.

But there is still no evidence to believe that a disembodied mind could exist and if it doesn't exist it's probably in a universe relatively similar to our own where it's simply a simulation.

It could be an entity that to us is God like but in THEIR universe dimensions removed from ours they may be equivalent to a loser in moms basement building a mine raft world with cheetos on his shirt.


There could be many other beings in this dimension that have MUCH BETTER SIMULATION where they've set everything so that life can emerge in a Fast, relatively painless and ubiquitous manner.

Is this the new atheism calling God 'something' coooooooooooool

Great debate on both sides guys. Just too add. Darwinian evolution does not privilege human beings in any way. We are the result of blind chance. To understand this you must understand evolution natural selection 🙏

It is useful to be able to blame God for our grotesque demands for reward. Lowest of the animals we nonetheless imagine that we resemble the universe’s creator. That is not complimentary toward Him/Her. Fee fie foe fum, eh?

Hey Alex, 👋 this is Jackson from the Truth & Tradition Podcast. I am on a mission to watch every one of your videos and leave a comment on each of them.

This is extremely well put. "It takes an extraordinary amount of faith to believe that the Universe was desgined for us."