If God were real, you wouldn’t need a book

[Cypress]

The opinion that "it's not an adequate explanation" or "I can't explain" has been the basis for many creating gods for millenia.

Good, now you're saying you have absolutely no logical way to explain the rationality and mathmatical intelligibility of the universe, and all you can do is make wild guesses just like the theists.

The theists - at least the smart ones - actually have decent abductive logical reasoning to infer a higher rational agency or entity, based on observable facts of the universe and historical testimony.

You're saying your best argument is to just throw your hands up and blurt out:"It is what it is! That's just the way things are!"

 

[ZenMode]

"It is what it is! That's just the way things are!"

Yes. There's no need to invoke extraterrestrial beings because we are baffled by something.

 

[Cypress]

Yes. There's no need to invoke extraterrestrial beings because we are baffled by something.

You haven't explained how something can come from nothing, how the rational can come from the irrational, how lawful order can come from random chance.

Your belief in miracles are at least as extraordinary as the theists.

I realize you would like to sweep these uncomfortable questions under the rug, but that's a cop out.

Every human makes decisions based on incomplete information, and there's no reason we can't do that here

Logically there are still least four possibilities to explain the cause of a mathematically rational, lawfully organized, finely tuned universe. It's up to the intelligent person to infer through reasoning what the best explanation among these choices is.

1. The universal parameters were designed by an external rational agency to allow for atomic complexity, organization, and life.​

​

2. We will discover that for one reason or another, the laws of physics just dictate the parameters can not be any other way.​

​

3. It was just an accident. The universal constants could have been something different, but they're just not.​

​

4. There was a selection event, and we just happen to live in a part of a larger multiverse where the physical constants allow us to live.​

 

[ZenMode]

You haven't explained how something can come from nothing,

I don't believe something came from nothing.

how the rational can come from the irrational, how lawful order can come from random chance.

Your belief in miracles are at least as extraordinary as the theists.

Not being able to explain something doesn't mean a miracle occurred.

I realize you would like to sweep these uncomfortable questions under the rug, but that's a cop out.

Acknowledging that I don't know something, and science has yet to explain it, isn't a cop out. What's silly is invoking extraterrestrial beings because you're so desperate to explain something.

Every human makes decisions based on incomplete information, and there's no reason we can't do that here

Agree.

Logically there are still least four possibilities to explain the cause of a mathematically rational, lawfully organized, finely tuned universe.

Finely tuned is your opinion.

It's up to the intelligent person to infer through reasoning what the best explanation among these choices is.

1. The universal parameters were designed by an external rational agency to allow for atomic complexity, organization, and life.​

​

2. We will discover that for one reason or another, the laws of physics just dictate the parameters can not be any other way.​

​

3. It was just an accident. The universal constants could have been something different, but they're just not.​

​

4. There was a selection event, and we just happen to live in a part of a larger multiverse where the physical constants allow us to live.​

Ok.

 

[gmark77]

"You haven't explained how something can come from nothing, how the rational can come from the irrational, how lawful order can come from random chance."

^^^this doesn't sound like someone who is honestly agnostic.