Which is more rational? God is real or imaginary?

[otseng]

Proposition: God is a real actual thing, not something merely imagined or written about. God is intelligent and has intentionally created the universe.

Otseng will argue that belief in the truth of the above proposition is more rational than disbelieving it. McCulloch will argue that disbelieving the truth of the proposition is more rational than believing it.

[otseng]

Let's get some preliminaries out of the way.

The god I'm arguing for is a generic god. It would not necessarily be the God of Christianity, or actually any religion in particular. The only characteristics of God that can be inferred would be from the evidence. This god would be typically classified under Deism.

Deism is a religious and philosophical belief that a supreme being created the universe, and that this (and religious truth in general) can be determined using reason and observation of the natural world alone, without a need for either faith or organized religion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

I will not use any religious writings as evidence to support my position. And I will attempt to use "reason and observation of the natural world alone".

I will not be "proving" that such an entity exists. But, I will attempt to show that there are more logical arguments to believe that a god exists and is not just something that man has made up. I believe the default position would be having no opinion on the matter. That is, one cannot say if such a god is real or not real. So, the pendulum would be straight down. I will give arguments to push the pendulum to my side by presenting evidence that god is real. If at the end, there are more arguments for my position than the opposite position, then I believe it is more rational to believe that such a god exists.

The format of the debate will be casual. I prefer if we stick to a few arguments at a time. Preferably one argument from each side at a time while the other gives counterarguments. This way we can then explore in depth each argument.

[McCulloch]

The god I'm arguing for is a generic god.

Good! And yet, according to the agree upon question, you will be arguing for more than just the generic god of the deists. The god you have agreed upon has the attributes of intelligent and intentionally. Providence, as some deists called their god, did not necessarily have those attributes.

From the same Wiki article:

A modern definition has been created and provided by the World Union of Deists (WUD) that provides a modern understanding of deism:

Deism is the recognition of a universal creative force greater than that demonstrated by mankind, supported by personal observation of laws and designs in nature and the universe, perpetuated and validated by the innate ability of human reason coupled with the rejection of claims made by individuals and organized religions of having received special divine revelation.

I cannot and have not agreed to argue against a definition of god. To that god, I remain quite agnostic.

I will not be "proving" that such an entity exists. But, I will attempt to show that there are more logical arguments to believe that a god exists and is not just something that man has made up.

Neither will I be proving that such an entity does not exist. However, I will not simply be counting the number of arguments for and against. I will attempt to assess the validity of the many arguments for and against belief in such a god.

If at the end, there are more arguments for my position than the opposite position, then I believe it is more rational to believe that such a god exists.

In this, I must disagree. A few strong arguments on one side, in my view would outweigh many weak arguments on the other.

The format of the debate will be casual. I prefer if we stick to a few arguments at a time. Preferably one argument from each side at a time while the other gives counterarguments. This way we can then explore in depth each argument.

Agreed. I think that both of us are past the point of using the debate tactic of swamping our opponent with many simultaneous arguments or with switching prematurely to the next point before thoroughly beating the last one to death.

[McCulloch]

How about starting with the fine tuned universe argument?

[otseng]

How about starting with the fine tuned universe argument?

OK, good place to start as any.

(BTW, the tone that I'll be presenting my arguments is in front of a jury (the readers). McCulloch most likely knows many of the things I'll be presenting, but I'll be giving a little more detail so that the readers can understand what we're talking about.)

Wikipedia defines it as:

The fine-tuned Universe is the idea that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different the universe would be unlikely to be conducive to the establishment and development of matter, astronomical structures, elemental diversity, or life as it is presently understood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

One such parameter is the density of the universe 1 ms after the Big Bang. It is 447,225,917,218,507,401,284,016 gm/cc. If this value had varied by even 0.2 gm/cc, we would not even be here to ponder this value.

The figure above shows a(t) for three models with three different densities at a time 1 nanosecond after the Big Bang. The black curve shows a critical density case that matches the WMAP-based concordance model, which has density = 447,225,917,218,507,401,284,016 gm/cc at 1 ns after the Big Bang. Adding only 0.2 gm/cc to this 447 sextillion gm/cc causes the Big Crunch to be right now! Taking away 0.2 gm/cc gives a model with a matter density ?M that is too low for our observations. Thus the density 1 ns after the Big Bang was set to an accuracy of better than 1 part in 2235 sextillion. Even earlier it was set to an accuracy better than 1 part in 10⁵⁹!

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo_03.htm


The idea of a fine-tuned universe is, as far as I know, without contention. But the issue is why does the universe appear to be fine-tuned.

There are two explanations that I know about:
- We are in one of a multitude of universes that exist. Ours is the one that happens to have the factors for life.
- An intelligent entity created our universe.

If McCulloch knows of more, then please present those also. Then we can talk about the merits of each.

[McCulloch]

I would like to present an analogy.
Imagine a plastic sheet, spread out perhaps the size of Utah. The sheet represents the space of all possible universes' configurations. In the sheet there are a few small holes. These holes represent potentially stable configurations for a universe, such that something like self-conscious life would be possible. We do not know how many holes there are in the sheet, but we do know that the holes are small, far apart and that there is at least one (ours). We observe that one grain of sand (representing our universe) has fallen through a hole in the sheet. We don't know if any other grains of sand have fallen through this hole or through any other of the holes. Our information is severely limited. We have no inkling or knowledge of the world above the sheet.

Would it be rational to conclude, from such limited knowledge that some intelligent being above the sheet carefully selected this particular hole and pushed the grain of sand through it? Or would it be more rational to think that there is probably lots of sand whipping around up there and that a certain amount of it falls through the existing holes?

Thus, I believe that the conclusion that there is some deliberate intentional intelligent being, from our apparently fine tuned universe is totally unwarranted and premature speculation.

[otseng]

OK, let's take your analogy and apply some numbers to it.

Taking the odds of the density of 1 in 2235 sextillion and the area of Utah to be 219,899 km². Divide that by 2.235 x 10²⁴. The resulting area would be 0.0984 micrometer². Let's compare that to the area of one grain of sand. Let's take 62.5 micrometer for a diameter of a grain of sand. I compute that to be 3068 micrometer² for the area that a grain of sand would represent. One grain of sand would still be over 30,0000 times too big to represent one point on a sheet of the size of Utah. A more representative area would be the surface of Jupiter. So, if we take one sheet the size of the surface of Jupiter, there would be only one point the size of the grain of sand where life would exist. And even more, we know exactly where it should fall before we even start to drop it.

Now, there are two possibilities. One is that only one grain of sand was dropped (and as far as we can tell, this would be the case). Another is that a lot of grains of sand was dropped. The former indicates a very intelligent dropper was behind it. The latter would be pure chance based on numerous universes somehow coming into being.

The above also mentions an earlier accuracy of 1 in 10⁵⁹. If we use this number for calculations, we'd have to increase the area by a factor of 5 x 10³⁴. From my calculations, this would be .... a very very big area to drop a grain of sand on.

[McCulloch]

I think that we are getting close to agreement on this one.
Let me change the parameters of the analogy to emphasize the point.
Suppose that the sheet is now a circle the size of the orbit of Jupiter. There are a few holes in the sheet, but very few. We observe a single photon come through a hole. We don't know if other photons have come through this or any other holes. Which would be the more rational hypothesis, that there was some super accurate smart guy on the other side with a laser pointer directed precisely on this hole that let loose a single photon that went through this hole, or that there was a really dumb, but powerful light source providing lots of light over most of the available surface?

The answer in the analogy is rather obvious. Thus, I have not been convinced that the fine tuned universe is sufficient reason to suppose an intelligent deliberate creator, in fact, quite the opposite.

[otseng]

Which would be the more rational hypothesis, that there was some super accurate smart guy on the other side with a laser pointer directed precisely on this hole that let loose a single photon that went through this hole, or that there was a really dumb, but powerful light source providing lots of light over most of the available surface?

OK, before continuing on, we then have two explanations that I gave earlier:
1. We are in one of a multitude of universes that exist.
2. An intelligent entity created our universe.

I assume you would agree then that these are the only two possible explanations. If not, what other explanation would you add?

[McCulloch]

OK, before continuing on, we then have two explanations that I gave earlier:
1. We are in one of a multitude of universes that exist.
2. An intelligent entity created our universe.

I assume you would agree then that these are the only two possible explanations. If not, what other explanation would you add?

For now those will do. I cannot think of other viable explanations, but that does not mean there are none.

There is a third.
3. We are in the only possible universe. Uncreated.