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By Michelle A. Vu | Christian Post Reporter

 

Outspoken evangelical geneticist Francis Collins revealed that combative atheist Richard Dawkins admitted to him during a conversation that the most troubling argument for nonbelievers to counter is the fine-tuning of the universe.

 

“If they (constants in the universe) were set at a value that was just a tiny bit different, one part in a billion, the whole thing wouldn’t work anymore,” said Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, during the 31st Annual Christian Scholars’ Conference at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.

These constants regarding the behavior of matter and energy – such as strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity, and the speed of light – have to be precisely right during the Big Bang for life as we know it to exist.

“To get our universe, with all of its potential for complexities or any kind of potential for any kind of life form, everything has to be precisely defined on this knife edge of improbability,” said the world renowned scientist.

“That forces a conclusion. If you are an atheist, either it is just a lucky break and the odds are so remote, or you have to go to this multiverse hypothesis, which says that there must be almost an infinite number of parallel universes that have different values of those constants,” explained Collins to Christian scholars of various disciplines in the audience. “And of course we are here and so we must have won the lottery, we must be in the one where everything worked.”

There are some serious scientists in the world, however, such as English theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who believe in the multiverse hypothesis.

 

But it is “because the alternative is that you have to see the hands of a creator who set the parameters to be just so because the creator was interested in something a little more complicated than random particles,” Collins said.

The NIH director, who came to speak for himself and not as a government official, delivered a thoughtful yet provocative hour-and-a-half lecture last Thursday titled, “Reflections on the Current Tensions Between Science and Faith.” This year, the Christian Scholars’ Conference theme was: “The Path of Discovery: Science, Theology, and the Academy.”

More than 300 scholars from 90 different universities participated in the three-day conference, June 16-18, where they were challenged to discuss and engage with one another on the topic of faith and science. The scholars interacted through 91 paper, panel or performance sessions.

During the keynote presentation, speaker Francis Collins deliberated out loud about a question that the Big Bang theory cannot answer. Although the Big Bang theory explains how the universe started, it can’t explain what happened before that.

Collins said there are unending questions of “what happened before that” with scientific theories, but the only way to satisfactorily answer what happened at the very beginning is if something not limited by time is involved.

“A creator who is not limited by time, doesn’t need to have such a beginning,” Collins stated. “The question doesn’t make any sense if you have a creator outside of time.”

Creation and Evolution

Unlike most evangelicals, Collins said he never struggled between his acceptance of evolution and his Christian faith. When he looks at evolution, he thinks it is part of God’s elegant way of creation.

But 45 percent of Americans believe that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. The Young Earth Creationism theory is “very incompatible” with what scientists have learned from physics, chemistry, cosmology, biology, and geology, emphasized Collins, who believes the Earth is over 13 billion years old.

He noted that even though billions of years sound long to humans, if God is outside of time then it might not seem long to God.

Collins also pointed out that when Darwin’s evolution theory was first introduced, there was not unanimous protest from the Church. Many Christians saw that as an explanation to how God created the world.

“God is the author of it all and we just learn something more about the how,” said Collins. “God is an awesome mathematician and physicist … God’s plan included the mechanism of evolution to achieve that, to create this marvelous diversity of living things on our planet.”

His view of evolution being a part of God’s creation plan is called theistic evolution, or another term is biologos. Bio is the Greek word for “life,” while Logos means “word.” So biologos would mean God speaking life into being.

consider this warning Paul gave: "See then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off" (Rom. 11:22)

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A very common question asked at such discussions is "What is the most compelling argument from the other side that you acknowledge"?  I have heard Prof. Dawkins respond to this question with the fine-tuning answer.

 

Imagine I have a wine glass in front of me.  It is empty, oh, forlorn me.  I pour a glass of water into it.  The water, miraculously, takes the shape of the inside of the wine glass.  If the property of water was one infinitesimal bit different than it is, it would immediately form into room-temperature cubes of water, and not take the shape of the wine glass at all. 

Things are the way they are.  Physical nature demands that existence obeys certain mutually-satisfying laws, or existence would not be here.  No god is needed.  Of course, you can claim that god makes the water take the shape of the wine glass.  go ahead.  Make my day.

 

DF

Originally Posted by A. Robustus:

"Atheist Richard Dawkins Admits Universe's Fine-Tuning Difficult to Explain"

 

Duh. - Oh I know, God did it! End of story. No exploration necessary

 

(btw HoD, still waiting for you to show me God like you promised quite a while back. I've been real patient like you asked...)

 

I have discuss this with Jesus.  He says you will see what you chose to see... he wants me to continue to pray for you.

HoD,

 

You know I luv ya, but if you've discussed this with Jesus, then I must suggest that you are deranged.

 

Sorry.

 

All the years I begged Jesus to speak with me, he did not?  When I needed him?  Yet he speaks to you?  What is more likely, that Jesus is dead or that you are hallucinating?

 

I'm not angry with Jesus.  He's simply dead.  No reason to be miffed that we can't have a conversation.  Truth be told, if I could speak with dead people, I'd much prefer Leonardo da Vinci.  Or even Isaac Newton.  Perhaps Richard Brautigan.

 

But, I cannot.  They're dead.  Gone.  Not to return.  Their influence lives on, and that is the only hope of any sort of indefinite immortality we have.  I can live with that.

 

DF

Originally Posted by House of David:
(btw HoD, still waiting for you to show me God like you promised quite a while back. I've been real patient like you asked...)

 

...I have discuss this with Jesus.  He says you will see what you chose to see... he wants me to continue to pray for you.

Awww HoD, you offered proof! I didn't even ask for it but you promised you would show me. I told you I would gladly go to church with you on Sundays if you could. So this is it? He says "nah" and you'll pray for me?

Keep your faith HOD.  This is only a test.  LOL

 

DF,

You begged Jesus to speak to you when you needed him?  I thought you didn't need any fairy tales and pixie dust. So I was right, you did not get the answer to a prayer you wanted and I also assume semi did not either. So both of you decided God is a shame, a fake, a fairy tale.

 

My humble opinion here, sometimes we DON"T get what we think we need because we don't see the big picture..it's a fact of life.

Originally Posted by Not Shallow Not Slim:

A very common question asked at such discussions is "What is the most compelling argument from the other side that you acknowledge"?  I have heard Prof. Dawkins respond to this question with the fine-tuning answer.

 

Imagine I have a wine glass in front of me.  It is empty, oh, forlorn me.  I pour a glass of water into it.  The water, miraculously, takes the shape of the inside of the wine glass.  If the property of water was one infinitesimal bit different than it is, it would immediately form into room-temperature cubes of water, and not take the shape of the wine glass at all. 

Things are the way they are.  Physical nature demands that existence obeys certain mutually-satisfying laws, or existence would not be here.  No god is needed.  Of course, you can claim that god makes the water take the shape of the wine glass.  go ahead.  Make my day.

 

DF


hawgwash deep the waters properties can change temperature, it could be heavy water, different hydrogen bond several things in it's property could change and still fit the glass. Who are you trying to fool? Dawkins is a madman escaped from the UK. An idiot without a country.

Originally Posted by A. Robustus:
Originally Posted by House of David:
(btw HoD, still waiting for you to show me God like you promised quite a while back. I've been real patient like you asked...)

 

...I have discuss this with Jesus.  He says you will see what you chose to see... he wants me to continue to pray for you.

Awww HoD, you offered proof! I didn't even ask for it but you promised you would show me. I told you I would gladly go to church with you on Sundays if you could. So this is it? He says "nah" and you'll pray for me?

 

 

AR,

 

Not exactly, there is still hope, I must keep praying, Jesus will let me know more when the time is right.  The comment I made about being told, "you will see what you chose to see", is referring to why you haven't seen anything thus far.....  and I probably should be more fervent in my prayers regarding you.

Victor Stenger argues that....."The fine-tuning argument and other recent intelligent design arguments are modern versions of "God of the gaps" reasoning, where a god is deemed necessary whenever science has not fully explained some phenomenon".

The argument from imperfection suggests that if the universe were designed to be fine-tuned for life, it should be the best one possible and evidence suggests that it is not. In fact most of the universe is highly hostile to life.

Additionally Stenger argues, "We have no reason to believe that our kind of carbon-based life is all that is possible. Furthermore modern cosmology indicates that multiple univerises may exist with different constants and laws of physics. So, it is not surprising that we live in the one suited for us. The universe is not fine-tuned to life; life is fine-tuned to the universe".

Originally Posted by Rramnlimnn_TheGreat:
Originally Posted by Not Shallow Not Slim:

A very common question asked at such discussions is "What is the most compelling argument from the other side that you acknowledge"?  I have heard Prof. Dawkins respond to this question with the fine-tuning answer.

 

Imagine I have a wine glass in front of me.  It is empty, oh, forlorn me.  I pour a glass of water into it.  The water, miraculously, takes the shape of the inside of the wine glass.  If the property of water was one infinitesimal bit different than it is, it would immediately form into room-temperature cubes of water, and not take the shape of the wine glass at all. 

Things are the way they are.  Physical nature demands that existence obeys certain mutually-satisfying laws, or existence would not be here.  No god is needed.  Of course, you can claim that god makes the water take the shape of the wine glass.  go ahead.  Make my day.

 

DF


hawgwash deep the waters properties can change temperature, it could be heavy water, different hydrogen bond several things in it's property could change and still fit the glass. Who are you trying to fool? Dawkins is a madman escaped from the UK. An idiot without a country.

This post speaks for itself. The idiot here is obvious.

It never ceases to amuse me when so-called Christian scientists try to give insight into creation. The biblical Creation story is a Bronze-Age attempt to explain our existence. Nothing more. Either accept it or reject it, your choice. But to try and reconcile Creation with Cosmology and Quantum Mechanics in order to perpetuate the God-myth in a modern, technological, more enlightened world is simply a fool's errand. I don't care what one believes, as it really doesn't matter. But when desperate people make attempts like this to give their religion relevance, it makes me wonder how they got their science degrees in the first place.

Originally Posted by Jennifer:

Victor Stenger argues that....."The fine-tuning argument and other recent intelligent design arguments are modern versions of "God of the gaps" reasoning, where a god is deemed necessary whenever science has not fully explained some phenomenon".

The argument from imperfection suggests that if the universe were designed to be fine-tuned for life, it should be the best one possible and evidence suggests that it is not. In fact most of the universe is highly hostile to life.

Additionally Stenger argues, "We have no reason to believe that our kind of carbon-based life is all that is possible. Furthermore modern cosmology indicates that multiple univerises may exist with different constants and laws of physics. So, it is not surprising that we live in the one suited for us. The universe is not fine-tuned to life; life is fine-tuned to the universe".


That is a really great line, no matter which side of the god/no god debate you're on.

thanks for posting that - it makes me happy 

It amazes me that folks will argue for a universe that seems designed for life while, right now. an asteroid is headed to destroy this earth.  It's almost a certainty that it will happen.

Just a few miles over all our heads, gamma rays abound and will kill any living thing it touches.

Just below us is a mantle that is so radioactively hot that rocks boil.  

Just any moment now, a star will explode in some far away galaxy that will send out so much radioactivity that it will sterilize an entire galaxy.  

Just above our heads is a vacuum so cold that atoms barely move and so hot that atoms are ripped apart. 

Every living thing on this planet has a lifespan that lasts less than the blink of an eye compared to the time spans of the universe.

Throughout this unimaginably vast universe, there is a stark absence of anything resembling life except for right here on a tiny rock that has a razor thin coating of life-friendly chemistry..

And the universe is "friendly" to life?

Really? 

Originally Posted by Unobtanium:

It amazes me that folks will argue for a universe that seems designed for life while, right now. an asteroid is headed to destroy this earth.  It's almost a certainty that it will happen.

Just a few miles over all our heads, gamma rays abound and will kill any living thing it touches.

Just below us is a mantle that is so radioactively hot that rocks boil.  

Just any moment now, a star will explode in some far away galaxy that will send out so much radioactivity that it will sterilize an entire galaxy.  

Just above our heads is a vacuum so cold that atoms barely move and so hot that atoms are ripped apart. 

Every living thing on this planet has a lifespan that lasts less than the blink of an eye compared to the time spans of the universe.

Throughout this unimaginably vast universe, there is a stark absence of anything resembling life except for right here on a tiny rock that has a razor thin coating of life-friendly chemistry..

And the universe is "friendly" to life?

Really? 

 

 

 

pssst...you left out "Dr. Eeeeeeeeeville, and his Alan Parsons Project".

Originally Posted by b50m:

DF,

You begged Jesus to speak to you when you needed him?  I thought you didn't need any fairy tales and pixie dust. So I was right, you did not get the answer to a prayer you wanted and I also assume semi did not either. So both of you decided God is a shame, a fake, a fairy tale.

 

My humble opinion here, sometimes we DON"T get what we think we need because we don't see the big picture..it's a fact of life.

Your HUMBLE opinion??? Humble? Are you serious? The word you're looking for would be sarcastic. You said in another topic that I had never seen an Atheist & now you're saying I've never had a prayer answered. Actually, you're right on that one but you're wrong in your delivery of it. I've never said said that God was a shame, a fake or a fairy tale. What I've said was that I wasn't positive that He actually exist. Why do you think that someone that once lived that Christian life, left it simply because a prayer wasn't answered? A Christian life consist of much more than praying. Maybe that's all it is for you but it covers much more than that. I suggest you get your Bible out & study it. If you study real hard, it might even show you what humble really is.

 

Unoi is correct. According to NASA the asteroid will visit around the middle of October.

 

We will possibly celebrate Halloween as fragments.

 

We are relying on scientific arithmetic at this point hoping it will come no closer than .23 astronomical units [the mean distance between the Earth and Sun]

 

If we survive this near miss it will be at the hand of God we are spared.

 

Joy and LMM. It’s not too late to repent and ask my forgiveness.

 

Unoi and Deep, send us a post card from hell.

 

Originally Posted by semiannualchick:
Originally Posted by Rramnlimnn_TheGreat:

 

Unoi and Deep, send us a post card from hell.

 

You be sure to do the same.


 

My dear semi,

Myself and a select few, other than my family, will have made our escape. Being an avid reader of Poe I have perfected a method of interplanetary travel similar to “one Hans Pfall”. our plan is to hover safely at some distance from the impact and after a period of scientific calculations select one of the larger remaining pieces in proper orbit to sustain life, land on it and reign as Monarch while re-establishing a community of God fearing citizens.

 

Originally Posted by Rramnlimnn_TheGreat:

 

Unoi is correct. According to NASA the asteroid will visit around the middle of October.

 

We will possibly celebrate Halloween as fragments.

 

We are relying on scientific arithmetic at this point hoping it will come no closer than .23 astronomical units [the mean distance between the Earth and Sun]

 

If we survive this near miss it will be at the hand of God we are spared.

 

Joy and LMM. It’s not too late to repent and ask my forgiveness.

 

Unoi and Deep, send us a post card from hell.

 

"scientific arithmetic"?  Is there unscientific arithmetic? You made that up, didn't you?

Originally Posted by JimiHendrix:
Originally Posted by Rramnlimnn_TheGreat:

 

Unoi is correct. According to NASA the asteroid will visit around the middle of October.

 

We will possibly celebrate Halloween as fragments.

 

We are relying on scientific arithmetic at this point hoping it will come no closer than .23 astronomical units [the mean distance between the Earth and Sun]

 

If we survive this near miss it will be at the hand of God we are spared.

 

Joy and LMM. It’s not too late to repent and ask my forgiveness.

 

Unoi and Deep, send us a post card from hell.

 

"scientific arithmetic"?  Is there unscientific arithmetic? You made that up, didn't you?


 

I wuz speaking of arithmetic used by science.

As you know [I’m sure] by strict definition arithmetic is not a science.

2+2 will always be the non refutable 4.

 

Originally Posted by semiannualchick:
Originally Posted by b50m:

DF,

You begged Jesus to speak to you when you needed him?  I thought you didn't need any fairy tales and pixie dust. So I was right, you did not get the answer to a prayer you wanted and I also assume semi did not either. So both of you decided God is a shame, a fake, a fairy tale.

 

My humble opinion here, sometimes we DON"T get what we think we need because we don't see the big picture..it's a fact of life.

Your HUMBLE opinion??? Humble? Are you serious? The word you're looking for would be sarcastic. You said in another topic that I had never seen an Atheist & now you're saying I've never had a prayer answered. Actually, you're right on that one but you're wrong in your delivery of it. I've never said said that God was a shame, a fake or a fairy tale. What I've said was that I wasn't positive that He actually exist. Why do you think that someone that once lived that Christian life, left it simply because a prayer wasn't answered? A Christian life consist of much more than praying. Maybe that's all it is for you but it covers much more than that. I suggest you get your Bible out & study it. If you study real hard, it might even show you what humble really is.

Semi, it is you who keeps putting words in my mouth. I said I assumed you were the same as DF and you confirmed that. Since both of you did not get your prayers answered I also assumed that you both decided God was a shame.  I did not SAY YOU SAID THAT! As for that Christian life, I asked you what you meant and you give the same answer. You have a complex idea of a Christian life but as of yet have said nothing more than "read the Bible".

 

As for humble, the last line was my humble opinion.  The first part was sarcastic.

Originally Posted by b50m:

DF,

You begged Jesus to speak to you when you needed him?  I thought you didn't need any fairy tales and pixie dust. So I was right, you did not get the answer to a prayer you wanted and I also assume semi did not either. So both of you decided God is a shame, a fake, a fairy tale.

 

My humble opinion here, sometimes we DON"T get what we think we need because we don't see the big picture..it's a fact of life.

Originally Posted by semiannualchick:

Your HUMBLE opinion??? Humble? Are you serious? The word you're looking for would be sarcastic. You said in another topic that I had never seen an Atheist & now you're saying I've never had a prayer answered. Actually, you're right on that one but you're wrong in your delivery of it. I've never said said that God was a shame, a fake or a fairy tale. What I've said was that I wasn't positive that He actually exist. Why do you think that someone that once lived that Christian life, left it simply because a prayer wasn't answered? A Christian life consist of much more than praying. Maybe that's all it is for you but it covers much more than that. I suggest you get your Bible out & study it. If you study real hard, it might even show you what humble really is.

Originally Posted by b50m:

Semi, it is you who keeps putting words in my mouth. I said I assumed you were the same as DF and you confirmed that. Since both of you did not get your prayers answered I also assumed that you both decided God was a shame.  I did not SAY YOU SAID THAT! As for that Christian life, I asked you what you meant and you give the same answer. You have a complex idea of a Christian life but as of yet have said nothing more than "read the Bible".

 

As for humble, the last line was my humble opinion.  The first part was sarcastic.

You do alot of assuming about me. I don't know when I've put words in your mouth because I read your post exactly as you write them. Just because a prayer isn't answered, doesn't mean that God is a shame. When my 12 year old died, I was very angry but I didn't see God as shameful. 

 

I told you what I believed a Christian to be, & there's only one answer to give. I said I believed a Christian to be one who professes belief in Jesus as Christ, truly follows His teachings & lives humbly before Him. You acted as though you didn't know what that meant so I told you that you could find it in the Bible. How to follow his teachings is everywhere in the Bible. Being humble is being free from pride and arrogance. What more can I say?

Originally Posted by b50m:

Sorry to disappoint you jimi, but I have no intentions of fighting with semi. We have differences of opinion and things have been misunderstood, that's all.

If you want to watch a cat fight, I'm sure the hookers you use would oblige for extra pay.

B, don't waste your time responding to Jimi. He's not worth it. I think he's a child that uses this forum as play time.

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