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Date Posted:02/ 7/02 6:24pm In reply to:
Ben
's message, "A fundamental question..." on 02/ 6/02 3:09pm
>I said:
>
>>>So what if nature operates in mathematical patterns?
>>>Maybe this is just the way nature is.
>
>To which Wade replied:
>
>>So what if the fossil record is in a particular order?
>> Maybe this is just the way nature is. So what if
>>there are similarities? Maybe this is just the way
>>nature is etc. You see, I can play that game too.
>>You can put forth any data you wish that evolution
>>explains, and I can explain it away just as easily.
>>But the point is that theism explains the data (nature
>>consistently operating in mathematical patterns)
>>better than atheism, because there is no a
>>priori reason to expect it from atheism, whereas
>>that's not the case for theism.
>
>I disagree on all this. But before moving on, I would
>like to pose a simple question. You say the universe
>is "orderly", and that this order is better explained
>by theism than atheism (incidentally, to me the whole
>word "atheist" is much like the word
>"non-Christian"... you start with the theist and work
>backward, and then you get someone who _doesn't_ have
>any religious beliefs. It seems that the person with
>no religious beliefs would be the default setting, but
>this shows the religious nature of our culture. Words
>we use every day without thinking about them are
>biased toward the idea that God's existence is
>rational). Anyway, my question is... what sort of
>universe does atheism predict? What would a
>non-orderly universe be like? In other words, please
>explain what one could expect to see based on the idea
>that there is no God. Since you feel that theism much
>better explains our orderly universe, show us what
>kind of universe could exist that atheism would better
>explain.
Classical atheism holds to the idea of lots of stuff happening via random chance, something that would more straightforwardly imply a lack of such order that the theists predicted. What sort of universe would atheism better explain? Well, according to contemporary theory, the universe is 10-30 billion years old. Indeed, the reason why the Big-bang theory was initially resisted is because it had theological implications (“if the universe had a beginning, where did it come from?”) So if there was more indication of the universe that existed forever that would be one category of data that atheism could better explain. Another would be the lack of the necessity of “fine-tuned” physical constants being necessary for any kind of life.
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