On Creationism

The fine-tuning argument (FTA) is a popular one for theists wanting to prove God. Craig is a frequent proponent. Here is the Discovery Institute on the FTA, and here is CMI's take: Neither really give a formal argument, so I will give one from here : The fine-tuning of the universe to support life is either due to law, chance or design It is not due to law or chance Therefore, the fine-tuning is due to design How Finely Tuned Exactly? The argument is based on the claim that changing the nature of the universe even slightly would prevent intelligent life appearing. So far that has not been established - we just do not know what the effects would, or under what conditions life could form. Maybe not life as we know it, but how can we rule out life in an unimaginable form? It also seems to be the case that not so many parameters need to be fine tuned as certain people would like you to think. That is not to say there is no fine tuning. It is a thing, and it does need e...

A collection of links to interesting articl;es on the origin of life and other things, updated as and when I come across them. Start of the Universe https://www.edge.org/conversation/alan_guth-the-inflationary-universe   Building blocks of life In their paper published in the journal Nature Chemistry, the team describes how they were able to map reactions that produced two and three-carbon sugars, amino acids, ribonucleotides and glycerol—the material necessary for metabolism and for creating the building blocks of proteins and ribonucleic acid molecules and also for allowing for the creation of lipids that form cell membranes. In their paper published in the journal Nature Chemistry , the team describes how they were able to map reactions that produced two and three-carbon sugars, amino acids, ribonucleotides and glycerol—the material necessary for metabolism and for creating the building blocks of proteins and ribonucleic acid molecules and also for allowing for ...

Just to be clear, this is about what was there before the Big Bang, not Elizabethan literature! What is nothing? If I have an empty box, what is inside it? Nothing! Well, that is the simplistic answer, but in fact the box is full of air. Let us suppose inside we have a glass vessel that we can pump all the air of, is there now nothing inside it? Is a vacuum something? I am going to assume not, but light can travel through the vessel, so it does contain photons. So have an opaque, evacuated vessel. What does it contain now? A gravity field for one thing. Electromagnetic fields will be slight, but there will be present. Looks like we have to move our thought experiment to intergalactic space, and to suppose that not only is nothing here, but there is also nothing for an extremely long distance, and electromagnet and gravity fields are essentially zero. This surely is nothing... Still no. Quantum fluctuation leads to spontaneous production (and subsequent destruction) of virtual particl...

William Lane Craig is a Christian who seems to make a living by debating non-Christians about the existence of God. One of Craig's favourite topics is the Kalam cosmological argument. Here is Craig's formulation: 1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. 2. The universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause. Whatever begins to exist has a cause Number 1 is carefully formulated to exclude God; God did not begin to exist, so he did not have a cause. It is a bit of semantic trickery that builds in the conclusion Craig wants to reach. You might as well exclude the universe. Everything except the universe and God has a cause, and we have no particular reason to suppose the universe has a cause, do we? The claim of number 1 is based on inductive reasoning . All the things around us have a cause, therefore it is likely that some other thing also has a cause. Inductive reasoning is not certain, but it is what we do all the time, and is often the only way ...