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The crux of the argument that they're making here is actually oft repeated by many mainstream Christians.

by jsonne 8y ago

thrav 8y ago
Genuinely curious...Does that strengthen or weaken it, in your mind? The fact that science may be moving closer to something millions of people across history have intuitively believed.
- indigochill 8y ago
  Even as a Christian, I don't think it goes one way or the other particularly, for me at least. To me, the strengths and weaknesses of his argument are in the article itself. The main strengths I see in it are the observations regarding physics and the limitations of observation. The weakness I see in it is the author's straw-man assumptions about theism (that a creator must be loving, and that a loving creator cannot allow suffering or evil, for instance) and his failure to dig deeper into potential criticisms against his own model such as: 1. Where did the universe come from? "Always been" or "created itself" or even "emerged from primordial chaos" are all functionally equivalent to the theism answer. 2. By what means does the universe exert agency on the constants of physics? One might ask whether the constants of physics are not actually more fundamental than the universe itself, such that other hypothetical universes would necessarily share the same constants, although the article seems to assume that these constants are only true for this universe (or perhaps some subset of all universes like ours as opposed to all universes). 3. If it does exert control over these constants, would we not expect these constants to have changed over time rather than be, well, constant? If we do expect them to have changed, does this not make things like astronomy fairly dicey since we don't necessarily have guarantees that, e.g. the constant speed of light is/was the same at some distant point we're observing, in the time at which we're observing it? 4. Where did the principles come from that led the universe to achieve whatever degree of consciousness it's ascribed? Again, leaving this question as a "well, it just did" feels very much like theism by another name to me. So I guess I find it interesting that the author is leaning towards something that seems very deity-like as a result of physics, but am bothered by my sense that he's unwilling to call a spade a spade.
- jsonne 8y ago
  Strengthen. Many Christian apologists would look at things like physics as "proof" God exists. Then again I'm Catholic which tends to treat science (at least these days) more as the how rather than the why if that makes sense.

The crux of the argument that they're making here is actually oft repeated by many mainstream Christians.

by jsonne 8y ago

The crux of the argument that they're making here is actually oft repeated by many mainstream Christians.

Genuinely curious...Does that strengthen or weaken it, in your mind? The fact that science may be moving closer to something millions of people across history have intuitively believed.

indigochill 8y ago
Even as a Christian, I don't think it goes one way or the other particularly, for me at least. To me, the strengths and weaknesses of his argument are in the article itself. The main strengths I see in it are the observations regarding physics and the limitations of observation. The weakness I see in it is the author's straw-man assumptions about theism (that a creator must be loving, and that a loving creator cannot allow suffering or evil, for instance) and his failure to dig deeper into potential criticisms against his own model such as: 1. Where did the universe come from? "Always been" or "created itself" or even "emerged from primordial chaos" are all functionally equivalent to the theism answer. 2. By what means does the universe exert agency on the constants of physics? One might ask whether the constants of physics are not actually more fundamental than the universe itself, such that other hypothetical universes would necessarily share the same constants, although the article seems to assume that these constants are only true for this universe (or perhaps some subset of all universes like ours as opposed to all universes). 3. If it does exert control over these constants, would we not expect these constants to have changed over time rather than be, well, constant? If we do expect them to have changed, does this not make things like astronomy fairly dicey since we don't necessarily have guarantees that, e.g. the constant speed of light is/was the same at some distant point we're observing, in the time at which we're observing it? 4. Where did the principles come from that led the universe to achieve whatever degree of consciousness it's ascribed? Again, leaving this question as a "well, it just did" feels very much like theism by another name to me. So I guess I find it interesting that the author is leaning towards something that seems very deity-like as a result of physics, but am bothered by my sense that he's unwilling to call a spade a spade.
jsonne 8y ago
Strengthen. Many Christian apologists would look at things like physics as "proof" God exists. Then again I'm Catholic which tends to treat science (at least these days) more as the how rather than the why if that makes sense.