You Can't Tuna Universe, Part 4

In the previous three installments of this series I attempted to shoot down the individual premises within the Fine Tuning Argument (FTA) used by theists to prove the existence of God. In this fourth installment I'll present some of the objections raised in the past by others, and then in the fifth and final installment I'll deliver one final blow using an example from our own atmosphere.

Clearly the objections I raised about the FTA are not the only ones that have been raised. Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson objects to the whole notion that the universe is fine-tuned for life. Tyson points out that there are so many things in the universe that can kill us (asteroid, nearby supernova, disease, etc.) and that 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 percent of the universe is uninhabitable for life, hardly what one would consider a grand design by an all-powerful creator. As Tyson eloquently states "the universe is no garden of eden."

Physicist Lee Smolin comically points out that the universe is more fine tuned for black holes than life, since they are more abundant in the cosmos than planets which are capable of supporting life. Historian Richard Carrier makes an excellent point that our universe looks exactly how it would if the universe was created naturally without god. It would have to be enormous in size, very old (to give time for life to evolve naturally somewhere in the universe), and life would only be rarely observed. And this is exactly what we see. In contrast, an all-powerful god would be expected to build a universe that is more benevolent for life.

Perhaps the most vehement objections to the FTA come from physicist Victor Stenger, who argues that many of the physical constants in the universe have to be that way and can not be set to anything other than the values we observed according to established physics and cosmology. He also points out that many of the constants appear to have a narrow window of life-permitting values only because of the units chosen. More importantly, many of the physical constants are not independent of each other, so changing one parameter can be compensated for by a change to another parameter which increases the probability of life-permitting universes. This dependency among many factors also means that accurate probabilities of a life-permitting universe can not be calculated. In his work Stenger was able to show computer simulations whereby viable universes can develop and exist for billions of years even when the physical parameters are simultaneously varied by several orders of magnitude. Plus there is no telling what other forms of life could form in a universe that had different sets of parameters.

So, as you can see, the FTA is a bunch of bunk no matter which angle it's viewed. In the fifth and final part to this series, I'll provide an example from our own atmosphere which shows that if you believe that the FTA is proof of god, then god must be controlling our weather!!

How Stupid is Christianity? Part 1

Had a busy couple weeks at work, and still need to wrap up the Fine Tuning with one last installment. However I had an idea on my mind for a multi-part series on the stupidity of Christianity, and I wanted to belt out part 1 while it's fresh in my mind. So here it goes.

One of the core teachings of Jesus in his famous Sermon on the Mount is that we should love our enemies. The exact quote is from Matthew [6:43-44]:  "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

Notwithstanding the fact that nobody in America would love Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, the stupidity of Christianity is that Jesus doesn't even follow his own teaching, because if you are not righteous you will be punished for eternity [Matthew 25:41, Matthew 25:46, Mark 9:43]!! Moreover, if any household or town doesn't welcome what Jesus preaches, they will be condemned to eternal torture [Matthew 10:14-15]!! To me that sure doesn't sound like Jesus loves his enemies!

This would be like the Pope saying it's wrong to have sex before marriage but then he goes out and hires a prostitute, or that it's wrong to gamble but then spends a week in a Las Vegas casino. Would anybody respect the Pope if he didn't practice what he preaches? Probably not. So why do people respect Jesus for not practicing what he preaches? Reason is people are blind to what's actually in the Bible and simply believe the dribble that comes out of the mouths of pastors without taking the time to do their own research.

Philosophy vs. Science vs. God

I wanted to take a brief pause from the Fine Tuning posts while this topic was still fresh in my head.

Last week at the monthly meeting of our SMASH group (Sarasota Manatee Atheists & Secular Humanists), one of the members made a couple of statements I wanted to expand upon in more detail. Specifically, the claim was made that the question "Does God exist?" is purely a philosophical question and science can not be used to determine whether God exists.

Of course I disagree with that, but maybe there's some bias involved on both ends since the member who made the statement is a philosophy professor and I'm a scientist, LOL. However, looking at the issue as objectively as possible I can't help to think that without question science can address the likelihood of whether a specific God exists, like the God(s) of Christianity.

For starters, numerous Christian apologists (e.g., William Lane Craig, Dinesh D'Souza, Frank Tipler, etc.) are always trying to use science to prove the existence of God. In fact, the fine tuning argument (see my previous posts) is one of their favorites, and Tipler even wrote a book called the "Physics of Christianity". Additionally, science can also be used to debunk the claims of theists. For example, evolution theory disproves creationism. Natural selection debunks claims of intelligent design.

There are also several ways science can be used to determine whether God exists. The most obvious one would be if cosmologists could find a natural cause for the formation of the universe. Another one would be if chemists or biologists could determine how life could form from non-life. If natural solutions to these problems were found then that would certainly lower the probability of the existence of God.

Science could also be used to assess the probability of the existence of a specific God, like the God(s) of the Bible. For example, if the creation story in Genesis was found by modern science to be true, well then the probability of the existence of God would be high. However, if the creation story is proven nonsense by astronomers, anthropologists, archaeologists, geologists, and biologists, then the probability of the Biblical God would much lower. As another example consider the effects of prayer, which can be scientifically evaluated. In the New Testament Jesus said that if you pray and have faith you will receive what you ask. So if praying really works then that would be a positive sign that Jesus really exists. However if the opposite is true that praying has no effect, then that would lower the probability that Jesus exists. One other example to drive the point home is that God is often characterized as having certain properties (e.g., all-powerful and all-loving). Well if needless suffering exists then wouldn't that wouldn't that lower the probability of an all-powerful and all-loving God, and if starvation on earth were to suddenly end with food falling from the sky wouldn't that increase the probability of God's existence? Lastly, it's often said that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However, this is not necessarily true. For example, if there is no evidence that a goldfish is swimming in the lemon tea that I'm drinking right now, then that would be pretty good evidence that there really are no goldfish in my drink. Likewise, an all-powerful God would easily have the power to come down and say hello to us. The fact that we have no video recording of such an event does lower the probability that a God exists. So by considering all the potential factors, a rational person through science, logic, observation and reason should be able to assess the probability of God's existence.

In a way, trying to assess whether God exists is a similar problem in determining whether your home has any termites. The pest expert can perform a visual inspection to see if there are any living or dead termites. The expert can look for signs of termite damage (i.e., chewed wood, sagging floors, sawdust). The expert can look for mud tubes on the home's foundation. After assessing the evidence the pest control expert can form an opinion on whether there are any termites in the home. Even with the lack of any sign of problems, he may never be able to state with 100% certainty that there there are NO termites in the home since there are areas he may not be able to inspect. However, the expert should be able to make a judgment on whether termites are a problem.

In the same way a person can assess the evidence for the existence of a specific God. Does praying work? Did they see God? Did they witness a supernatural miracle? Are the scriptures accurate and in concordance with modern science? Did scientists discover how life forms from non-life? These are the many ways we can use science, observation and reason to assess whether a God exists. If the question of God's existence is purely a philosophical question, and if it wasn't possible to evaluate the evidence for the existence of God, then atheism would be nothing more than a faith-based viewpoint (like Christianity) rather than one based on critical thinking, objective analysis and scientific application that most atheists believe.

You Can't Tuna Universe, Part 3

In the last post I shot down the first premise of the fine tuning argument (FTA) because it leaves out at least one possible contending choice for the explanation of the physical constants of the universe. This post will deal with the second premise, which eliminates chance and physical necessity from the equation leaving God as the only remaining choice.

In eliminating chance, the theist is solely basing this decision on the insanely low probability (1 in 10^1050) that all the physical constants would fall in a narrow, life-permitting window. However, is that enough information to eliminate chance from contention? The answer is definitely not! Here's why.

Suppose you are gambling in a Las Vegas casino and you start winning money playing blackjack. What information would be needed by the casino operators to prove that you were cheating instead of winning the money by luck (i.e., random chance)? Well, three pieces of information are required:

• The odds of winning a blackjack hand;
• The number of hands played;
• The number of hands won.

So, if the probability of winning a blackjack hand is 48% and you won 8 of the first 10 hands played, well that clearly could have happened by pure luck. However, if you played 10,000 hands and won 8,000 of them, then the casino would have solid evidence that the player and/or dealer was cheating the casino because the odds of winning 8,000 out of 10,000 hands couldn't happen reasonably by luck. Therefore, you need to know more than just the probability of winning in order to eliminate chance from consideration.

Here's another way of looking at it. Suppose I won the lottery in which there were 100 trillion possible number combinations. Does that mean I had to cheat in order to win since I couldn't have possibly overcome those odds? Of course not. If I had played this game 50 trillion times before or I purchased 75 trillion lottery tickets then I could easily win without cheating (or without supernatural intervention from God).

In the case of the FTA, the only information theists have at hand are the fact that we won once (i.e., our universe is life-permitting) and that the odds of a life-permitting universe are very low. Nobody knows how many times a universe tried to form in the past somewhere within the cosmos (i.e., the number of hands played). Nobody knows how many life-permitting universes exist within the cosmos or have existed in the past (i.e., the number of hands won). Without this information, the theist can not eliminate chance from premise 2. Therefore the entire FTA is unsound and must be discarded.

In part 4 of this series I'll list common objections that have been raised in the past by physicists which will really tighten the noose around the neck of the FTA.

You Can't Tuna Universe, Part 2

This is the second post in a series debunking the Fine Tuning Argument (FTA) used by theists to "prove" the existence of God.

At the end of the first post I pointed out the flaw in the first premise of the FTA ... namely that it is all too easy to omit a possible contender from the list of options. In the FTA the first premise argues that the explanation of the fine-tuning of the physical constants must be due to either physical necessity, chance or intelligent design (God). In the second premise theists rule out random chance due to the insanely low probability of all the constants appearing in a narrow window for life to occur. Theists also rule out physical necessity because there is no requirement that a universe MUST be life permitting. So that just leaves God. How convenient!

Unfortunately for the apologist, they are leaving out one important contender from the first premise ... that there's a physical explanation for the values of the constants but science isn't advanced enough to provide a thorough explanation just yet! Now this may initially sound like a cop out or a "physics of the gap argument", but there is actually a large body of historical precedence in favor of such an explanation.

At one time several thousand years ago nobody knew what caused thunderstorms, rainbows and solar eclipses. So those phenomena were thought to be caused by a God, and several gods were invented for each one (e.g., Zeus, Iris, Helius, etc.). Of course, today we are smarter and have natural explanations for each of these phenomena, and the Gods who were once worshiped are now in the trash heap of the almighty known as mythology. Even by the 1600s the eminent Sir Isaac Newton thought that the regular motions of the planets "could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent being." Well, today we know how solar systems form and what the planetary motions would be like in those naturally forming systems. Again we figured out no god is required.

So how do we know there isn't a physical explanation why the physical constants appear to fall in a narrow window required for life? Isn't it very possible that our body of knowledge in cosmology just hasn't advanced enough yet? What would happen if this debate was happening 2000 years ago and theists were using the observation of a rainbow as evidence for the existence of God?

Well, the argument might go something like this:
Premise 1: Rainbows are caused either by chance, physical necessity or God.
Premise 2: Rainbows are not the result of chance or physics.
Premise 3: Rainbows therefore are caused by God.

The apologist would eliminate physical necessity from premise 2 because at that time they didn't know any physics or optics, and they would eliminate chance as well because the odds of all those colors forming in that pattern are astronomically low. How low? Well let's do some back-of-the-envelope calculations, pretending of course we don't know the physics of rainbows.

Suppose there are 10 color choices (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, clear, white and black). In actuality rainbows have over 100,000 distinct colors our eyes can detect, but only 10 are needed to make the point. Next, assume it's a typical rainbow that has an arc length of one mile (5280 feet) and a width of 100 feet. This results in a rainbow of 528,000 square feet in size. Last, for convenience assume a "pixel" size of one square foot and that there can only be one color in each pixel. Remember, we're assuming this argument is taking place 2000+ years ago when we didn't know there could be hundreds of water drops in each "pixel" that can produce their own color.

Given the ultra-conservative numbers presented above (10 colors & 528,000 pixels), the probability of a rainbow appearing in the sky by random chance would be just one in 10^528,000 (that's 10 raised to the 528,000th power)!! Of course this number is even lower than Hugh Ross's probability of a life-permitting universe (1 in 10^1050). No wonder why people in ancient civilizations attributed the formation of a rainbow to a creation from God, LOL.

Today, however we know the optics of rainbows and know that the "pixels" are not independent of each other. However 2000 years ago if they eliminated chance as an explanation based on the extremely low probability (just like they are doing today with fine tuning of the constants) they would have been gravely mistaken. So in reality, the theist can not eliminate the strong possibility that there is a physical explanation for the fine-tuning of the physical constants (that we just don't know yet). As such, premise 1 is flawed which makes the entire FTA unsound.

In the next installment I'll shoot down premise #2.

You Can't Tuna Universe, Part 1

One of the more popular arguments for the existence of God used by theists is that the universe is finely tuned for life, and only God could have done it.

Over the past couple of decades it has become apparent to astronomers, physicists and cosmologists that if many of the constants of nature (e.g., gravitational constant, expansion rate of the universe, etc.) were just a hair's breath different, then our universe and life would not exist. This much is true. In fact, if the expansion rate of the universe was slower or faster than just 1 part in 10 to the 55th power (10^55), our universe would not exist as we know it. Astronomer Hugh Ross lists over 100 of these variables that need to be similarly fine tuned for us to exist, and he estimates the probability that all of them fall in the narrow window for life is on the order of 1 chance in 10^1050. Needless to say this number is extremely small, in fact it's almost zero.

Theists have jumped on this discovery and argue the only way to overcome that low probability is if God designed our universe and that it could not happen naturally by chance because the odds are too low. This is known as the teleological argument from fine tuning, or commonly called the fine tuning argument (FTA). The formal logic for the FTA is as follows:

Premise 1:  The fine tuning of the physical constants of the universe is due to either physical necessity, random chance, or intelligent design (God).

Premise 2:  The fine tuning is not due to physical necessity or random chance.

Conclusion:  The fine tuning is due to intelligent design.

Over the next few posts I'll be pecking away at this argument. For starters, I tend to hate these types of "negation" arguments, for the lack of a better term. These are arguments where the proponent lists several possibilities, eliminates all but one of the possibilities, and thereby concludes it must be due to the remaining choice. These are weak arguments in general because it's easy to leave out a potential contending choice from the first premise and no positive evidence is provided for the remaining option.

To see how this is the case, consider the following example. Suppose you work in a bank and at the end of the day the manager discovers a shortage of $1000 cash. The manager searches all the employees and their belongings except for you. Since none of the other employees has the money the manager concludes you must have stolen the money and has you arrested. He doesn't provide any direct evidence that you took the money. No video surveillance tapes were checked to see if you stole the money. The manager didn't search you for the cash either. No, he just concluded that because nobody else had taken the money it must be you who took the loot.

The FTA has the same weakness. No direct evidence is provided that God performed the fine tuning of the constants. No documents are provided exactly how God performed this fine tuning. No video tape evidence is provided discussing with God whether he fine tuned our universe for life. Rather it just eliminates the other contenders leaving God as the remaining option, and as indicated above already, it's all too easy to leave out potential contending choices out of the first premise. For example, in the bank situation, instead of concluding that one of the employees stole the money maybe the wrong change was given to a customer, maybe the manager miscounted the money, or perhaps the money was misplaced somewhere else in the bank.

In the next installment of You Can't Tuna Universe I'll pick apart the premises in the FTA more specifically, and will provide an alternative possibility for the fine tuning of the constants omitted by theists. I'll also provide examples of how our weather must be controlled by God if we are to conclude that our universe was designed by God, so stay tuned!!

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a God.

Well, that's my rendition of the poem anyway, but it leads into the topic of my next post. Over the next couple of days millions of Americans will attend church to honor the birth of Christ, sing some songs and say a few prayers. However did you ever really think about whether God can hear you pray? Let's find out.

If God really does exist and let's say that he lives in heaven which is located outside our known universe, then how could he possibly hear our prayers? Even if our sound waves could travel across the universe (they don't) then it would take roughly 10,000,000,000,000,000 years for your prayer to reach God traveling at the speed of sound, and that's likely a gross understatement since the universe is constantly expanding. So you would long be dead and decayed by the time God got to hear your prayer.

If it's argued that God exists closer to earth, say outside the earth's atmosphere somewhere else within our universe, well there would be another problem. There is no such thing as sound in empty space. Set off a firecracker in empty space it would not make a noise. Sound requires a physical medium (air, ground). So there is no way an entity existing outside the earth's atmosphere could hear our prayers. Even if there was a way God could hear us pray from his location outside earth, there would be so much noise from everybody else talking that our prayers would be drowned out by all the excess commotion, kind of like trying to listen to someone talk when a loud band is playing at a bar and others are singing.

If it's argued that God is here on earth all around us, well I'm not buying that either. We know the weight of the earth's atmosphere and its composition precisely. God = energy and energy = mass (remember Einstein's equation E = M * C^2). If God was all around us then there would be excess mass in our atmosphere that is unaccounted for. However, that is not the case since we can account for every micro-gram. Therefore, God can not be all around us either. Moreover, if he was all around us here on Earth then there would be other issues like why would he let millions of innocent children starve each year, but that's another post for another time.

So really, there is no physical way God can hear our prayers even if God existed. However, if it can be shown that there is power in prayer, then maybe God has a way that we just can't explain with known physics just yet. So let's see if praying really works, after all Jesus said in Matthew [21:22] that "Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive." So let's see if Jesus is telling the truth.

First we can look at scientific studies, like that performed by the Cochrane Collaboration Group, who in 2010 performed a meta-analysis of all peer-reviewed medical trials to determine the effects of prayer on people with health problems. Their results showed that praying had no effect on the death rates or recovery rates of patients who had serious medical issues. What was more shocking was the authors suggestion that no further money be spent on determining the effectiveness of prayer ever again.

So where else can we look to see if prayer works. How about Professor William Lane Craig? He is one of the world's foremost Christian apologists and has probably debated in favor of the existence of God over a hundred times. What is interesting is that in all of his debates, not once did he use the power of prayer as evidence for the existence of God. If prayer really worked, he'd be all over it like a fly to honey using it to his debating advantage for sure. The fact he is silent on the subject of the prayer in his debates is telling.

There is one sure way you can find out whether prayer is effective. Simply pray that none of our military troops will be killed in battle in the middle East and pray that no Christians will ever get killed again by a natural disaster like a tornado, hurricane or lightning. You know neither of those prayers will ever come true even if they were blessed by the Pope.

For those who still believe the power of prayer despite the evidence against, then here's a simple challenge. If you really believe that God answers prayers, then there should be no need to carry health insurance, life insurance and homeowners insurance. Just think of how much money you can save through the power or prayer. Of course no sane person would do this because they know deep down praying has no impact on anything that happens on this planet.

In summary, there's no physical way God can can hear our prayers and there's no evidence that God is answering our prayers, contrary to the words of Jesus. So I say skip the church, skip the prayers, save the time, save the donation money and don't worship a liar and a fraud, even on Christmas.