I’m in a discussion on another forum where the most evangelical atheists constantly beat up Christians who don’t know how to respond. I don’t normally respond (they’re usually 3 arguments deep, then become abusive) but I dismantled someone’s flying spaghetti monster argument - that implies anyone who believes in something without proof will believe in anything - by first asking her if she believed there was life on other planets… And went on to dark matter, dark energy as good examples of reasonable, unproven beliefs. I also said that the proposition for the existence of God has a history of a body of thought and argument to support it, whereas the flying spaghetti monster is simply hyperbole. So she’s asked for a body of thought.
I could list the standard set of arguments. I realised I never turn to most of them. When I reached my most agnostic point, middle of chronic depression of fifteen years, there were certain things I couldn’t let go of - despite my experience. They were the core I slowly began to rebuild faith from.
I’m interested to know what these are for you. The reasons you believe.
For me i most often think of -
Existence: Why does anything exist at all? What would be the alternative? (Not even belief in God removes the incomprehensibility of these two questions. I don’t just mean current universe, I mean any existence.)
Consciousness: An unconscious universe resulted in beings that are conscious of it. It would make no difference to the inanimate existence whether a slight fluctuation in a field removes the entire material universe in a flicker. On a scale of size, we are insignificant. On a scale of complexity, the human mind is the most complex structure we know of. I think of Francis Schaffer and his argument that consciousness most likely came from something higher - which must be conscious.
Fine tuning The ridiculous line-up of circumstance required for life to exist - not just life but something as complex as us. I asked a physicist once - so there must be something in the nature of these ‘random’ particles that emerged that would in the right circumstances result in simple elements, which then were morphed up to more complex elements via generations of stars, etc, which then managed to combine in the right circumstances… (fill in the amazing evolutionary gap here)… right up to us contemplating it? He said, no. Impossible for them to have that kind of information. So many things needed to line up for life… and it only started once on this planet.
Numinous: That humans have always had a spirituality - a sense of something beyond the physical world. It could be an evolutionary crutch or misfire because our brains asked unanswerable questions? Or is it possible we are spiritual beings, and there is something beyond material?
Morality: Deep down, in a world of spin, manipulation, greed, violence… why do I long for truth, justice, kindness, gentleness, love, understanding… Is it an evolutionary fail that we all have a sense of morality that we don’t live up to? That would make a slug a higher being, because it has no such disconnect, doesn’t suffer psychologically because it can’t find meaning or purpose. I remember reaching a point of disgust with the world and thinking - I don’t believe in God, but I believe in what God stands for - the kind of truth and gentleness to vulnerability and love - that is out of reach of humanity: And then I had to ask myself why?
The person of Christ: A big one. If there was one human being I would hold up in my search… The person, the sayings - and before my crash into depression I did a major study into the historicity and the arguments for/against the resurrection. Even in the complete collapse of my faith I couldn’t shake the solidity of the analysis I’d walked through back then.
Experience: There are things that have happened that are quite powerful. Hard to deny. We can deny anything, of course.
There’s more, but these are kind of core. I heard an atheist philosopher on ABC radio in Melbourne saying the two best arguments for the existence of God were origins of the universe and the resurrection of Christ. I was gobsmacked. They were my two (if the resurrection includes the concept of everything he was and said and stood for.)
Although I think morality only makes sense with God, morality doesn’t have an undeniable place for me. I can perfectly well accept that morality is merely a fiction imposed by humans on a godless world.
I think that given the overall spectrum of possible arguments for God apart from the person of Christ I would be inclined to accept that there is something like a “god” that exists but his existence would merely be another fact along others. I don’t see any reasonable way to know “god” apart from the person of Jesus.
When speaking to anyone, believer or unbeliever my foundation is that God is the Living God. I don’t trust in my ability to persuade people. I must trust in His desire to deliver mankind from sin. It is Him working by the Spirit to convict mankind of their sin. I sow the seed of His Word and leave the growth up to Him. His Word is alive and active, able to divide between spirit and soul and the Spirit through God’s Word will do the convicting. So, all I have to do is proclaim the words of Jesus and the Spirit will do the rest. “If you look at a woman to lust after her you have already committed adultery in your heart”. A person can kick against it or explain that away as your personal conviction all they want, but it is The Word of God. It is alive and will do what it was sent out to do, convict. They may resist and never come to the Lord and it will be those very words that will judge them on that great and terrible Day of The Lord.
Honor all scripture. Preach the Word in season and out of season. Cast the seed far and wide, you don’t determine the ground it falls on. God is not far from any of us and those who see their sins will realize they need a Savior.
The reason to believe (put your trust in) in God is because He convicts of sin, righteousness and judgment to come and once a person is convicted by the Spirit, they will understand their only way out is to believe (trust) in Him and His son Jesus. Then the Good News that we proclaim will truly be good news to them.
Preach the Kingdom of Heaven as Jesus did, you can’t do any better than that.
My top three are existence, Christ (everything he said and did), and experience.
The greatest set of miracles I have seen is … a wooden table. It exists (miracle of existence); it’s made of living organisms (miracle of life); it was planned and made to a purpose (miracle of intelligent life). The first one is the greatest miracle. It’s a matter of belief how we think energy/matter & space came to existence but it’s anyhow an amazing miracle.
What Jesus said and did is also amazing. What Jesus spoke was shocking or insanity, but he did not just speak, he did things no one else had done. He had many enemies who would have liked to accuse him of tricks or insanity, and kill him. The problem was that they could not deny the many miracles Jesus did or show that he had made such things that could be punished by death.
Experience is a personal matter. I have experienced many times happenings that are difficult to explain in other ways that God exists and acts. These are personal in the sense that, if I would tell of these to others, many would either say that they are just lucky coincidences, I have misinterpreted things or that I’m not speaking the whole truth. So I have learned to be quiet about personal experiences and speak of those issues that are more general.
Yes,there is much fascinating in these stories. I read the first part of the book ‘Imagine heaven’ by John Burke (not yet the whole book). It includes descriptions of many cases where someone was clinically dead and returned later to life with interesting descriptions of what happened after death. Some of these cases have been published in medical or other scientific journals.
Morality is a big one For me… the reality of good and evil. C.S. Lewis’s most central argument, and I think inescapable. The most devout atheist will speak about good and evil as if they are transcendent, eternal, absolute realities. I find it fun to search works of Richard Dawkins for how often he calls something “evil,” and he clearly means by the term something transcendent and objectively and eternally evil (right after he claims that good and evil don’t exist).
Somewhat related, is the very concept of recognizing real beauty. I saw a site somewhere that listed arguments for the existence of God. It had something like…
“7. The music of J. S. Bach. You either get this or you don’t.”
But I think that very insightful. Not only is the world stunningly beautiful, not only does beauty actually exist in art, literature, and music, but we are made to be able to recognize, create, and perform such acts of beauty.
This seems nonsensical to me in a god-less world. At most we could only say that our ancestors somehow passed on genes that made find certain combinations of sights or sounds pleasing, while it also made us (falsely) believe that such combinations of light wavelengths or sound frequencies are inherently beautiful while others aren’t.
Related, and crossing into the intricate design of us as humans, is the fact that we are so carefully designed to be able to recognize Mathematical frequencies in music and hear the harmony and beauty of them. The most “tone-deaf” person can still recognize the difference between a properly tuned and a terribly out of tune instrument.
I confess I forgot about beauty and our tuning to appreciate it. And Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor is one piece I’ve been in the midst of when this has crossed my mind. Just frequency patterns, yet they transport us - patterns and arrangement of sound or light and colour.
The God of the Bible spoke to me clearly at least twice in my life so if I were an atheist or a non Christian I would be what TV Tropes and idioms calls a Flat Earth Atheist, a non believer who is a nonbeliever despite clear experience with the divine being in question to such a point that it would be like believing the earth is flat.
Also, atheism is one of the dumbest beliefs I have ever come across. I like to play Skyrim, an open world video game where you can pretty much live a another life in the game world. It would be foolish for anyone to say that this game and the world depicted within has not been designed by someone (in this case a team of video game developers) and just kind of came into existence by random chance, and our world is infinitely more complex than Skyrim.
I don’t think that people are atheists because of any kind of rational thought but rather because they wish to live in a world without purpose and thus be accountable to no one and nothing. Richard Dawkins has even said that if God spoke to him or revealed his existence by talking to him, or writing it in the stars, or really in any manner he’d chalk it up to aliens or a hallucination and refuse to believe. That is not rationality; that is willful delusion.
Shall I post my reasons again or just link to them?
When you connect to this link, if you read further down the page you find explanations for how these reasons for belief link up to what I believe.
2 Likes
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
11
Only the big one. The others are post hoc of that and still fail as apologetics. As all apologetics do, but worse.
Existence: Why does anything exist at all? What would be the alternative? (Not even belief in God removes the incomprehensibility of these two questions. I don’t just mean current universe, I mean any existence.)
Aye, so it’s neutral.
Consciousness: An unconscious universe resulted in beings that are conscious of it. It would make no difference to the inanimate existence whether a slight fluctuation in a field removes the entire material universe in a flicker. On a scale of size, we are insignificant. On a scale of complexity, the human mind is the most complex structure we know of. I think of Francis Schaffer and his argument that consciousness most likely came from something higher - which must be conscious.
It’s no argument. Consciousness emerges sufficient brain. Not by magic.
Fine tuning The ridiculous line-up of circumstance required for life to exist - not just life but something as complex as us. I asked a physicist once - so there must be something in the nature of these ‘random’ particles that emerged that would in the right circumstances result in simple elements, which then were morphed up to more complex elements via generations of stars, etc, which then managed to combine in the right circumstances… (fill in the amazing evolutionary gap here)… right up to us contemplating it? He said, no. Impossible for them to have that kind of information. So many things needed to line up for life… and it only started once on this planet.
Life starts everywhere as soon as it starts raining at least for a start. What fine tuning? Self tuning. Harmonics. If stuff has to exist, it settles down: ergonomics.
Numinous: That humans have always had a spirituality - a sense of something beyond the physical world. It could be an evolutionary crutch or misfire because our brains asked unanswerable questions? Or is it possible we are spiritual beings, and there is something beyond material?
Both.
Morality: Deep down, in a world of spin, manipulation, greed, violence… why do I long for truth, justice, kindness, gentleness, love, understanding… Is it an evolutionary fail that we all have a sense of morality that we don’t live up to? That would make a slug a higher being, because it has no such disconnect, doesn’t suffer psychologically because it can’t find meaning or purpose. I remember reaching a point of disgust with the world and thinking - I don’t believe in God, but I believe in what God stands for - the kind of truth and gentleness to vulnerability and love - that is out of reach of humanity: And then I had to ask myself why?
It’s an evolutionary success.
The person of Christ: A big one. If there was one human being I would hold up in my search… The person, the sayings - and before my crash into depression I did a major study into the historicity and the arguments for/against the resurrection. Even in the complete collapse of my faith I couldn’t shake the solidity of the analysis I’d walked through back then.
THIS. There are no rational arguments for it of course. It doesn’t need any. It is so outrageous but still works. Sometimes.
Experience: There are things that have happened that are quite powerful. Hard to deny. We can deny anything, of course.
Hi Brett,
Have you come across Tim Keller’s book ‘Making Sense of God - An Invitation to the Sceptical’? It has within it a summary of his arguments for God’s existence from existence, fine-tuning, moral realism, consciousness, reason, and beauty, all relatively concise (p216ff). It also points out that atheism itself is a faith and makes arguments that the christian faith deals with all the concerns of today more effectively than atheism. In my view, a great resource for these sorts of questions.
The main point of my question was more about, at our moments of deepest skepticism or doubt, what is it for us personally that convinces us. What do we fall back on.
I believe in God I guess because I was born in America and as a kid I believed in many things such as a higher power. As a teen, I begin to describe the higher power as God. As I got older, I studied the Bible and at first begin to think that God is real because the chances of life just happening such as the right size and we were the right distance.
In the end I believe we hit the right ratio of like 1-100 or 1-1000 galaxies that had planets that could support life as we know it. At least according to some podcast I heard months ago. So there is no real scientific argument or historical one as to why I believe in God. I simply do.
O, OK. For me it is mainly three things - firstly that there is a good rational basis for believing, you don’t have to be head in the sand and take blind leaps of faith (supported by books like Tim Keller’s). Secondly the person of Jesus himself, his character, his miracles, the cross, its need and its fit with prophecy, the resurrection, and the trustworthiness of the eye witness accounts, and thirdly the two personally undeniable experiences I have had in my life of God Himself.
I don’t see how this leads to anything in particular. One can creatively come to any answer at all. This is the flaw of logic. Where it leads depends on the premises you start with. The theist starts with God and the naturalist starts with laws of nature.
Why should significance be a function of size? More surrounding only provides more context for meaning and significance. It is demonstrable that infinite complexity can be generated by a rather simple set of rules (check out the Mandlebrot set), so I see no reason why great complexity requires an even greater complexity to bring it into being.
On the one hand I doubt that probabilities which cannot be calculated have any meaning. On the other hand, it certainly seems to me that the universe is designed to give rise to life in many ways it could easily not have been.
I am certainly inclined to accept our basic inclinations as evidence of reality rather than dismiss them. To do otherwise seems willfully selective to me.
Logical consequences seems more than enough to explain this to me.
No depression and no such history of belief for me. I am most likely to look on the belief of others whether it be gods, angels, manitou, or devit and think whatever makes life work for you.
It is an established fact of psychology that perception cannot be separated from belief. We perceive according to what we believe.
So what is that? Two out of seven that find some resonance with me even if I don’t find them terribly convincing. But let me remind you that I have reasons of my own for belief even if these don’t quite do it for me.
Existence
I think every one of these is a valid reason to believe God Exists. Philosophy has long struggled with the ‘fire in the equations’ question of why something rather than nothing exists. If there is truly nothing, then it can create nothing at all. Physicists talk about creating the universe from ‘nothing’ but they always start with the vacuum, math, logic etc, which must pre-exist what ever is called into existence by those laws. Consciousness
Consciousness is the hard problem of materialism. Many quantum physicists have rejected materialism based on this alone–they always try to return to materialism, but at least for some time or their lie time, they give credence to this basic problem, Consciousness is not of this world. Anyone who wants to disagree with this statement is free to explain in details of physics how consciousness arises step by physical step.
Here are examples:
The "…principal argument is that thought processes and consciousness are the primary concepts, that our knowledge of the external world is the content of our consciousness and that the consciousness, therefore, cannot be denied. On the contrary, logically, the external world could be denied–though it is not very practical to do so. In the words of Niels Bohr, ‘The word consciousness, applied to ourselves as well as to others, is indispensable when dealing with the human situation.’ In view of all this, one may well wonder how materialism, the doctrine that “life could be explained by sophisticated combinations of physical and chemical laws,’ could so long be accepted by the majority of scientists.” Eugene Wigner, Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, in Eugene Wigner, Philosophical Reflections and Syntheses, Springer, 2012, p. 253
Gordon Simon and I went to some length to show that all quantum theories lead to consciousness in the misdt of quantum. The Migrant Mind: Quantum Soul
"Fundamentally, I have an ideal of what a physical theory should be. It should be something that doesn’t refer in any specific way to human beings. It should be something from which everything else–including anything you can say systematically about chemistry, or biology, or human affairs–can be derived. It shouldn’t have human beings at the beginning in the laws of nature. And yet, I don’t see any way of formulating quantum mechanics without an interpretative postulate that refers to what happens when people choose to measure one thing or another." Steven Weinberg cited by Tim Folger, How Does the Quantum World Cross Over?, Scientific American, July 2018, p. 32
Stephen M. Barr, a physicist said: “But this was only one of the remarkable reversals produced by the quantum revolution. In the opinion of many physicists-including such great figures in twentieth-century physics as Eugene Wigner and Rudolf Peierls-the fundamental principles of quantum theory are inconsistent with the materialist view of the human mind. Quantum theory, in its traditional, or “standard,” or “orthodox” formulation, treats “observers” as being on a different plane from the physical systems that they observe. A careful analysis of the logical structure of quantum theory suggests that for quantum theory to make sense it has to posit the existence of observers who lie, at least in part, outside of the description provided by physics. This claim is controversial. There have been various attempts made to avoid this conclusion, either by radical reinterpretations of quantum theory (such as the so-called “many-worlds interpretation”) or by changing quantum theory in some way. But the argument against materialism based on quantum theory is a strong one, and has certainly not been refuted. The line" of argument is rather subtle. It is also not well- known, even among most practicing physicists. But, if it is correct, it would be the most important philosophical implication to come from any scientific discovery.” Stephen M. Barr, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), p. 27-28
All this leads to the hard problem of consciousness:
"Even for a system of whose qualia I have near-perfect knowledge, myself for example, the problem of qualia is serious. It is this: How is it possible for physical, objective, quantitatively describable neuron firings to cause qualitative, private, subjective experiences? How, to put it naively, does the brain get us over the hump from electrochemistry to feeling? That is the hard part of the mind-body problem that is left over after we see that consciousness must be caused by brain processes and is itself a feature of the brain." John R. Searles, “Francis Crick, the Binding Problem, and the Hypothesis of Forty Hertz,�”
Fine Tuning
To escape from this argument, the atheist must believe in much more than the red queen did, 6 impossible things before breakfast. The atheist must believe in an infinitude of unobserved universes. If that is what physics is to become–unobserved things, then it is nothing different from a religion.
Numinous
Not quite so strong an argument, but still rock don’t go to church, and neither do tree bumping chimps, often claimed to show chimp religion–might be ocd and nothing more.
Morality and purpose
A materialist universe should not care about how we treat each other outside of survivalist/darwinian survival. The terms right and wrong apply to nothing that is not human and conscious. It is impossible for an electron to form a stable orbit around another electron, both being positively charged. to try to do so is not IMMORAL, it is impossible
Experience
I have had such an experience which kept me from becoming an atheist. It is the Turkish translator experience. I just re connected with one of the other two witnesses to this event and Wayne has graciously added to the account. It is here: The Migrant Mind: My Turkish Translator Experience
But the experence and behavior I see in the disciples tells me that they too experienced something that constrained their lives. All the disciples died for what they beleived to be true–that Jesus rose from the dead. I particularly like the one about St. John, who when an old man risked his earthly life to bring a lost sheep home. Why would a man in his 80s do that if he thought everything was a lie? It is fascinating and comes from John’s spiritual grandson:
XLII. And that you may be still more confident, that repenting thus truly there remains for you a sure hope of salvation, listen to a tale? which is not a tale but a narrative, handed down and committed to the custody of memory, about the Apostle John. For when, on the tyrant’s death, he returned to Ephesus from the isle of Patmos, he went away, being invited, to the contiguous territories of the nations, here to appoint bishops, there to set in order whole Churches, there to ordain such as were marked out by the Spirit. Having come to one of the cities not far off (the name of which some give), and having put the brethren to rest in other matters, at last, looking to the bishop appointed, and seeing a youth, powerful in body, comely in appearance, and ardent, said, “This (youth) I commit to you in all earnestness, in the presence of the Church, and with Christ as witness.” And on his accepting and promising all, he gave the same injunction and testimony. And he set out for Ephesus. And the presbyter taking home the youth committed to him, reared, kept, cherished, and finally baptized him. After this he relaxed his stricter care and guardianship, under the idea that the seal of the Lord he had set on him was a complete protection to him. But on his obtaining premature freedom, some youths of his age, idle, dissolute, and adepts in evil courses, corrupt him. First they entice him by many costly entertainments; then afterwards by night issuing forth for highway robbery, they take him along with them. Then they dared to execute together something greater. And he by degrees got accustomed; and from greatness of nature, when he had gone aside from the right path, and like a hard-mouthed and powerful horse, had taken the bit between his teeth, rushed with all the more force down into the depths. And having entirely despaired of salvation in God, he no longer meditated what was insignificant, but having perpetrated some great exploit, now that he was once lost, he made up his mind to a like fate with the rest. Taking them and forming a hand of robbers, he was the prompt captain of the bandits, the fiercest, the bloodiest, the cruelest. Time passed, and some necessity having emerged, they send again for John. He, when he had settled the other matters on account of which he came, said, “Come now, O bishop, restore to us the deposit which I and the Saviour committed to thee in the face of the Church over which you preside, as witness.” The other was at first confounded, thinking that it was a false charge about money which he did not get; and he could neither believe the allegation regarding what he had not, nor disbelieve John. But when he said “I demand the young man, and the soul of the brother,” the old man, groaning deeply, and bursting into tears, said, “He is dead.” “How and what kind of death?” “He is dead,” he said, “to God. For he turned wicked and abandoned, and at last a robber; and now he has taken possession of the mountain in front of the church, along with a band like him.” Rending, therefore, his clothes, and striking his head with great lamentation, the apostle said, “It was a fine guard of a brother’s soul I left! But let a horse be brought me, and let some one be my guide on the way.” He rode away, just as he was, straight from the church. On coming to the place, he is arrested by the robbers’ outpost; neither fleeing nor entreating, but crying, “It was for this I came. Lead me to your captain;” who meanwhile was waiting, all armed as he was. But when he recognized John as he advanced, he turned, ashamed, to flight. The other followed with all his might, forgetting his age, crying, “Why, my son, dost thou flee from me, thy father, unarmed, old? Son, pity me. Fear not; thou hast still hope of life. I will give account to Christ for thee. If need be, I will willingly endure thy death, as the Lord did death for us. For thee I will surrender my life. Stand, believe; Christ hath sent me.” And he, when he heard, first stood, looking down; then threw down his arms, then trembled and wept bitterly. And on the old man approaching, he embraced him, speaking for himself with lamentations as he could, and baptized a second time with tears, concealing only his right hand. The other pledging, and assuring him on oath that he would find forgiveness for himself from the Saviour, beseeching and failing on his knees, and kissing his right hand itself, as now purified by repentance, led him back to the church. Then by supplicating with copious prayers, and striving along with him in continual fastings, and subduing his mind by various utterances of words, did not depart, as they say, till he restored him to the Church, presenting in him a great example of true repentance and a great token of regeneration, a trophy of the resurrection for which we hope; when at the end of the world, the angels, radiant with joy, hymning and opening the heavens, shall receive into the celestial abodes those who truly repent; and before all, the Saviour Himself goes to meet them, welcoming them; holding forth the shadowless, ceaseless light; conducting them,to the Father’s bosom, to eternal life, to the kingdom of heaven. St. Clement of Alexandria Who is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved? Clement of Alexandria: Who is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?
Person of Christ
Anyone who claims to be God leaves us little options but to take a side. Either he is or he isn’t. He isn’t a good teacher if he is wrong. His resurrection is preceded by several claims that he is God, several miracles: water to wine: healing blind people, healing lame people; raising Lazarus. etc. His appearances afterwords and the behavior of his disciples clearly indicate something very very odd happened. They believed it was a resurrection.They behaved accordinglling, like St. John above.Yet atheists would have us disbelieve all the above to become as miserable as they are.
Thanks for your feedback. By the way, these are not arguments to convince others - these are the things that move me. Yes, ‘why is there anything at all’ is precisely neutral. It just blows my mind constantly and opens it to wonder. And at my lowest and most agnostic point it was the person of Christ I couldn’t quite shake. If only he hadn’t made those ludicrous claims I could have left him in a box of my own choosing.
That’s a big call. Perfect conditions on earth - yet life started only once. That’s all we got.
There has been some serious science over the years to calculate the odds of life commencing as we know it (since the possibility of other forms of life is just a postulation at this stage.) My first encounter with that goes back as far as Sir Fred Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, and many since. Astronomical odds. Yes, we may discover it’s more likely, but we haven’t yet. Once. Not every rainfall.
So as it stands, fine tuning stays on my list.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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Aye Brett.
Link to serious science’s calculated odds on abiogenesis? And that life started only once on Earth? Both meanings?
I encountered those guys too. Calculation is spurious in the face of the obvious. The multiverse has always teemed with life for eternity.
And what do you mean by fine tuning? Your ‘perfect conditions on earth’ aren’t fine tuning. Hoyle’s discovery of nucleosynthesis is a better and still totally spurious candidate, which led him up the pseudoscientific garden path and cost him a Nobel.
So do you have any serious serious science? I’m not aware of any.
Genetic evidence means we’re pretty certain that all currently living organisms on earth are descended from a common ancestor. Lots of reasonable speculation otherwise, but no evidence.
We have no evidence of life anywhere other than earth.
So everything else is speculation. The multiverse is massive speculation without any hard evidence - it’s potentially reasonable - but to say it has ‘always teemed with life for eternity’ is just your best guess. Your statement that ‘life starts everywhere as soon as it starts raining’ doesn’t really have anything to back it. And since I’ve been criticised for referring to odds I’ll lay the same charge back if that’s part of your reasoning that life must have occurred elsewhere. Even ‘infinite’ multiverses - I see a lot of equivocation on the word infinite - infinite multiverses doesn’t necessarily mean every possibility will occur.
Ok, Hoyle aside - I did reach into dangerous history there - my version of fine tuning includes anything that potentially worked against the odds (whatever they are), and taken together continue to stack the odds exponentially, that resulted in life and conscious life. The perfect conditions on earth absolutely fit that. Why on earth not?
Let me refer to a non-theist (I think) some for the basics. I’m sure this isn’t new to you.