Our Universe Is not fine-tuned for life, but it’s still kind of OK
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
Wow! Look at the possibility that non-human and even non-Earth life could exist and live in the vacuum of space between the stars. Life on Earth is the only sample we currently have, but that does not automatically mean that it is the only life possible. If we detect life on another body in our solar system, that would add a second data point that could be drastically different from life on Earth.
Upvote
-3
(0
/
-3)
I saw a documentary with Vin Diesel where they called it the "Underverse".
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
As knowledge advances, the religion literals turn into metaphors to avoid the embarrassment of their primitive beliefs.
Upvote
-1
(1
/
-2)
I'd start by asking you whether you were making a salad or writing a poem. That would do a lot to clear up which one is correct for you.
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
The "Robert H. Dickle" mentioned at the start of the article is no doubt Robert H Dicke (often misspelled Dickie), who was, as Wikipedia notes, an "American astronomer and physicist who made important contributions to the fields of astrophysics, atomic physics, cosmology and gravity."
Perhaps most notably, he predicted (and sought to measure) the cosmic microwave background (CMB) before Penzias and Wilson accidently stumbled upon it. Indeed, Dicke was the physicist Penzias called, when he and Wilson were trying to make sense of their observations; sadly, Dicke did not share in the Nobel prize for this discovery.
Perhaps most notably, he predicted (and sought to measure) the cosmic microwave background (CMB) before Penzias and Wilson accidently stumbled upon it. Indeed, Dicke was the physicist Penzias called, when he and Wilson were trying to make sense of their observations; sadly, Dicke did not share in the Nobel prize for this discovery.
Upvote
5
(5
/
0)
Who is it, that you imagine, is out there discussing the nature of god, other than humans?
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
And the giraffe's recurrent laryngeal nerve really destroys the idiot design argument.
Upvote
-1
(1
/
-2)
Also note the plural "Let us make man in our image" that believers like to wave away.
Upvote
1
(4
/
-3)
So you haven't heard the joke: What does the "H" in "Jesus H. Christ" stand for? Obviously, it stands for Haploid. Of course, this can also be easily explained that Mary's "X" was magically changed into a "Y".
Upvote
1
(2
/
-1)
While the Catholic Church claims that they are compatible with science, they still peddle belief in demons (demonic positions) and a literal Adam and Eve, which they move back to 40,000 YBP. Without a literal Adam and Eve, there could be no fall, and there goes the original sin that allows for punishing children for "crimes" their parents allegedly committed. Of course, religionists are free to believe whatever they want, but that does not absolve them from any skepticism about their claims. Also note that according to Pew, 61% of White Catholics, along with 82% of White evangelical Protestants and 58% of White nonevangelical Protestants voted for an adjudicated rapist, 34 count felon and career criminal for the presidential election this year, with many of them insisting that he is the second coming of Jesus. So much for "metaphorical" interpretations and religious morals.
Upvote
4
(7
/
-3)
Upvote
4
(4
/
0)
The insistence of a literal Adam and Eve as progenitors of all subsequent living humans was clearly stated in the the encyclical Humani Generis by Pope Pius XII. So if you want to argue Catholic doctrine, argue with him, not us. Or else get them to admit that a pope, and the Holy Roman Catholic Church, made a mistake.
Upvote
-2
(1
/
-3)
What you say about the Catholic Church and a literal Adam is true; I have a link to the relevant papal encyclical in another comment. The issue is over polygenism.
Any competent population biologist will tell you that the population of humans was never bottlenecked down to two individuals. FFS, we share certain blood types with chimpanzees and other apes. We have the DNA, we win.
Upvote
-1
(2
/
-3)
And of course, consideration of those answers would reveal that neither establishes a father-son relationship between the Creator of the Universe and Jesus H. Christ.
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
Yes, the whole house of cards that is Christianity hinges on the concepts of "The Fall" and its resulting "Original Sin". Without that buttress there is no Christianity. However the religion might evolve to accommodate Deep Time and Evolution, Original Sin can't be set aside. Without that, there is no need for Universal Salvation, and no need for a spiritual Savior.
Yet there is no place to put The Fall within a scientific cosmology. Maybe the Inflation event? It's all special pleading.
This explains why, although there will always be a few Christians who can accept science and somehow compartmentalize away the inherent contradictions, the religion as a whole must and always will be fundamentally hostile to science, as a scientific cosmology fundamentally contradicts the very defining foundation of Christianity.
Upvote
5
(6
/
-1)
The plural implies the Godhead three-in-one, ie the Trinity - Father/Son/Holy Spirit. Personally, I haven't really witnessed any believers trying to wave that one away.
Upvote
-3
(0
/
-3)
The paper presumes life needs stars, and I didn't even include those in my scenario... I was just trying to get us to a land area that could pass dude's test, which is also a requirement the paper presumes (land/water with gravity).
ie, it's the paper's lack of imagination you have an issue with, not mine.
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
1. The concept of The Trinity postdates by centuries the plural found in Genesis.
2. Unitarians are a thing. Their number has included a few famous personages, including Isaac Newton, Linus Pauling, and William Howard Taft, to throw up some random names.
Upvote
3
(3
/
0)
No, it refers to the original polytheistic religious structure of the regions that became the two kingdoms. Thus also the multiple names for the chief god. The evolution to monolatry and then into monotheism probably didn't take place until well into the Babylonian captivity. (Aside, did you ever wonder about the Samaritans who are mentioned in the Bible, especially by Jesus who used a parable of one as an example of neighborly conduct? They split off from Judaism proper sometime after this point.)
Not only does the Trinity not apply, it doesn't even apply in most of the Gospels. The Gospel attributed to John, probably the latest to have been written, is the one that starts to really try and drive a Trinitarian view into the Christian mainstream. And the explicit reference to a Trinity was almost certainly a later addition, not found in the earliest version of the book.
Upvote
3
(4
/
-1)
Huh, that's news to me. I'll have to read that whole article!
As for the latter question, clearly His Son took over the operation when He realized His Dad was a bit soft in the head. Or He chilled out after having a kid; it happens for humans, after all.
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
Yet they also claim that God somehow has none of the manifold and defining flaws humans have, including the ones he demonstrates in their own holy book.
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
Wait, I thought people knew this. It diverges substantially from the other two gospels, often in ways clearly intended to bend the truth towards religiously significant symbolism (when did Jesus die?). John is the least reliable gospel by far; is it really a favored one?
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
"John 3:16" is the verse they show at sportsball matches and everywhere.
Upvote
1
(2
/
-1)
The thing is, that assumes that those constants can just have any arbitrary value. When it seems likely that there are underlying principles that define them.
And frankly, 0.5% isn't that unlikely. I rolled the same number on a d100 three times in a row last week. That's a 1/1000000, or 0.0001% chance. Are religious people going to insist God must have controlled my dice for that to happen?
Upvote
1
(1
/
0)
Do they? That's weird. What does that have to do with playing sports?
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
The ultimate, checking off the boxes on the assignment so I can say I did the work feeling.
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
What’s with those “John 3:16” signs that people hold up at football games?
They do. And it has nothing to do with sportsball, it has to do with blanket advertising their brand in every possible venue. Metastasis.
Upvote
3
(4
/
-1)
the entire concept of an anthropomorphic universe is unscientific.
Upvote
-1
(0
/
-1)
Voix des Airs
Ars Praefectus
So I'm not going to get in an argument about this because I don't really care but many of you are misunderstanding the current mainstream Catholic take on Adam and Eve (and as I mentioned above, there are numerous Catholic factions ranging from very conservative to very liberal/"hippy"). And that's that evolution of physical bodies is fine but that Adam and Eve were the first "people" (and there may have been more than two of them) to have souls, not the first people. And that those first people with souls did "fall". I'm not saying that this makes sense, but that is the position. And that is what I was taught in my religion classes in Catholic school by, in 7th and 8th grade, a monsignor and before that by priests. Most of the other classes were taught by nuns, including science classes, and in those science classes we were taught from secular text books which included evolution and the Earth being several billion years old. I'm not defending any of this, I didn't like the school and as a non-Catholic/non-Christian was not treated very well, but what some posters above are saying is generally not the mainstream view of this stuff.
edit: stupid autocorrect.
edit: stupid autocorrect.
Last edited:
Upvote
3
(5
/
-2)
NO, you're not going to argue about this with us. Because we don't set the doctrine of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and neither do you.
Pope Pius XII already weighed in on this topic (link already provided). And according to the Holy Roman Catholic Church, the person who does set Catholic doctrine is the pope. So go read that encyclical, and then read up on the doctrine of the Holy Roman Catholic Church concerning papal infallibility.
And do it elsewhere, because I don't have time to listen to you whine about how you are overruling the pope.
Upvote
-8
(0
/
-8)
Voix des Airs
Ars Praefectus
Whatever. But maybe consider this piece of wisdom from a "Working at [major lab]" HR course we all had to take... "Before you can solve a problem you first have to identify the problem." I'll go with what 8 years of Catholic school, collaboration with some some physics professors at a Catholic university and a good friend of mine who has been a Catholic missionary to Haiti tell me over what some apparently pretty angry internet atheists insist must be the case.
Upvote
4
(5
/
-1)
Digital_Dreamer
Ars Scholae Palatinae
There's actually a very logical explanation for all the things that we have observed, but very few people are willing to dig down to find that answer. And, unfortunately, religions have done a disservice to billions of people and made a mockery of all of this, so it's no wonder few take it seriously. I certainly wouldn't have given it a second thought, if it wasn't for someone showing me the answers to these basic questions about life, where we come from, and why we are here.
Just a final point: Even the Bible notes that in the very near future, religions will be destroyed, and deservedly so, because they are responsible for misleading so many.
Upvote
1
(2
/
-1)
The 0.5 percent from the study is about disproving the anthropic principal. They could only really calculate that at all because if the constant gets too low or too high you get no stars so you can calculate a denominator for your probability. What it really says is if universes exist with all values of the cosmological constant 0.5 percent of the stars in the multiverse will be in universes with cosmological constants at or less than the observed value in our Universe. So it's still unlikely that we'd see the actual value based on an anthropic argument.
See, the real problem with the fine tuning argument is that the entire thing rests on probability. But we have no idea what constrains the possible values of the cosmological constant. We don't know why it is what we observe it to be. The argument compares a finite range required for life to imagined infinite possible values of the cosmological constant. And that doesn't work, because you can't actually do probability with infinite possibility space.
Look at it this way, if the range of all the constants consistent with life were 10100 times larger that it actually is it would make zero difference with regards to the fine tuning argument. You're still dividing a finite range by infinite possibilities and while you can't actually do that in any rigorous way, it kind of feels like it's 0 right.
The entire argument is just handwaving in front of human hunches about probability.
Upvote
1
(1
/
0)
That's where the weak anthropic principle comes in. That's not valid reasoning because if there were only one unique life bearing planet in a whole hypothetically infinite universe, they might make the same argument, and they'd be wrong. We only know that there is one planet in the universe on which life evolved. The rest might or might not have life until we have more evidence than we have now. We haven't even established what the bare minimum conditions are to support life, nor do we know that planets very much like Earth are the most likely to have life on them. We don't know if there is other non-terrestrial life in the solar system. But given how early life got established here and under what conditions, we know that it's possible over at least the range of conditions that encompasses the early Earth and conditions today. But given those conditions we don't know if the chance that results in life is 100%, or 1 in 1000 or 1 in a 100 trillion. It could be any of those and that would be consistent with what we know now.
I'll accept that if you can demonstrate the existence of even one of those 45,000 different Christian sects that has made an assertion that God has more than one, two, or three heads.
Home of Captain Underpants? Or a specialty clothing store? Or both?
I object to your sly intimation that ranch dressing is not appropriate for fruit salad.
Ah a serious question. No, you can have original sin without the fall because original sin as a doctrine doesn't logically rely on a prior fallen state. Rather the whole Genesis myth can be taken as a metaphor for the inherent conflict between individual imperfect humans that have free will and God. If they have free will, they inevitably will come in conflict with any other will, including God's, whether God is held to be perfect or not. Freedom implies difference. That we are imperfect and prone to error and to harmful actions isn't honestly in dispute by anyone, whether or not they're religious. The insidious and inhumane claim of Christians is that humans are therefore worthy of condemnation rather than understanding and acceptance, and that a just God could do so and punish us for the very nature that makes us worthy of its consideration at all; IOW when the conflict that they call "sin" is an inevitable consequence of our individual existence. Their notion of salvation is likewise inhumane, because in being perfectly conformed to anything, even the perfect, our individual nature would be extinguished.
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
FYI, the extent of formal infallibility of doctrinal statements by the Pope is a slightly contentious issue in Catholic philosophy, but it certainly does not include all Papal opinions, and many contend that it includes only a small subset.
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
c
The aliens are far far away. The speed of light is a terrible tyrant. The universe is do big, that other intelligent life doesn't even matter. Even if humanity survives the death of the earth, it's unlikely we ever make contact with an alien lifeform. At best, some of our long lived robotic probes might find life after thousands of years, and send a radio signal report back to our long dead planet.
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)