regarding posts 14 and 31 and the OP
Following the OP about the FTA and ignoring my post addressing your straw man you added this in post 14......
These facts have been latched onto by theologians and apologists to claim that the Universe as we know it is so unlikely, that there must be an all powerful, intelligent creator to account for that fact. Ignoring other possibilities of course. And jumping to conclusions.
Complete straw man. You are the one ignoring the facts here. You ignore the fact that you are referring to a deductive argument constructed to provide evidence for design. Which combined with other distinctly individual arguments (LCA, KCA, MA and RA) builds a case for God’s existence. No jumping to conclusions and certainly not ignoring any of the other possibilities which we have a history of debating. Those are disingenuous assertions without evidence.
But at root, failing to account for how such a being can come to exist and how unlikely that is.
Again the argument you posited in our OP does not pertain to cause. It pertains to the best explanation for fine-tuning. Cause and explanation are two different issues. Thus by conflating the two you're also committing a categorical fallacy.
The theistic case is far more sophisticated than your simple straw man.
What I am suggesting is that if an existing Universe that can support life is unlikely, and cannot happen by chance, a Universe that can support existence of a God as described is even more unlikely.
A properly placed “THEN” would have helped clarify your argument.
But…….
What you are suggesting is either a backwards straw man
Or
You are equivocating your use of the word “support”. That is a fallacy as well. Because you are clearly inferring........ That in the same way......... X
supports Y, X
supports Z.
Examine……..
When you first use the word “support” here….. "an existing Universe that can
support life is unlikely” you are clearly meaning “provides substance for being, gives life to”. Crystal clear.
But how are you using “support” in the second part here…… "a Universe that can
support existence of a God”?
Does it mean the same that the universe gives life to God? If so then you are not talking about theism but pantheism. Thus you are out of your own context and building a straw man of the theistic position. We are certainly not trying to infer that the universe is fine-tuned for God’s existence. Thats completely backwards.
Or……… did your second use of “support” in “a Universe that can
support existence of a God” mean “provides evidence for”. If that is the case then you are committing an equivocation fallacy. Because you changed the way in which you were using the word “support”. Just like Krauss does with his use of the word nothing.
Either way your argument is a fallacy. Theism remains unaffected.
The fine tuning argument is what philosopher Schopenhauer called a taxi cab argument, an argument used to arrive to a desired conclusion and then dismissed.
The taxi cab fallacy would not even reasonably apply to the FTA. It is not that kind of argument.
You and I have been here before and perhaps that is why you ignored my first response to you. You are mixing up arguments again. Schopenhauer’s taxi cab has been falsely leveled at premise one of the KCA but not the FTA. If you disagree, simply provide some evidence.
The only place where I can reason that the Schopenhauer taxi cab fallacy would apply in reference to tha FTA is against those that deny the need for an explanation of fine-tuning.
wait.... how convenient you just brought it back up........post 31
First of all, if one brings God in as a first cause, as an explanation of all things other than himself, then to avoid Schopenhauer’s “taxi cab” objection to the cosmological argument (Schopenhauer charged that the causal principle behind the cosmological argument was dismissed once the existence of God was proved, like a cab that is no longer needed once one is at the destination, and not applied to God himself) one must affirm that God is the explanation of his own existence, perhaps by there being a sound ontological argument, though possibly outside of our grasp, for his existence or by his existence being implicated by his essence.
Note the use of the objection. It’s an objection to the use of God as a first cause. In other words, it’s specifically an objection to an argument that God made the universe. So, it’s a counter to the very argument of Cosmological Contingency that Craig is defending when he invokes the “fallacy”!
This is intellectual dishonesty of staggering proportions.
Wow you couldn't have timed that any better. You just proved my contentions above. Your OP was addressing the FTA. Not only did you get the argument backwards you conflated it with the KCA and LCA and got the Schopenhauer reference wrong.
The FTA concludes the best explanation for the fine-tuning is design.
The KCA concludes universe has a cause.
The LCA concludes the explanation of the universe's existence is God.
Three different arguments for three different objectives, therefore three different lines of reasoning.
You are ignorantly or dishonestly twisting the different objectives and arguments to create a straw man. You and I have been here before, not to long ago when you conctructed the straw man that theists argue that since science/evolution cannot account for morality therefore God. This board is your playground to construct and knock over straw man. You atheists applaud yourselves as the reasonable ones. Is there anyone amoung you that will be honest enough to address his blanant straw man?
BTW your use of the Schopenhauer there in post 31 is doing the same thing by mixing the LCA and KCA. It's a common mistake.
