AB,
For God not to exist, we need to assume -
1. That the universe came into being on its own without divine help
2. That the initial conditions concerning the incredibly fine tuned balance between the rate of expansion of the universe an the force of Gravity (the cosmological constant) which allowed the formation of stars and galaxies was not intentional.
3. That the first living cell came into being through the actions of random, unguided, purposeless events.
4. That a sufficient quantity and quality of beneficial mutations can be generated from random events to drive the process of evolution.
5. That the detrimental effects of harmful mutations could not wipe out life entirely.
6. That every one of the billions of discrete mutations needed to form life as we know it was able to provide sufficient survival advantage in its own right to facilitate natural selection.
7. That molecular activity alone can generate self awareness.
8. That every event needed to write this post was an inevitable consequence of previous events, because we must assume that there can be no such thing as free will.
And we must presume that all these assumptions are true because God does not exist.
You fit an awful lot of wrong into one post. This’ll be lost on you, but let’s unpack it anyway:
1. That the universe came into being on its own without divine help
That assumes that it did “come into being” at all, assumes that the cause and effect we observe in the universe also applies “outside” it, and assumes that time itself is linear. It also assumes that "divine help" is a coherent option. That’s a lot of assumptions.
2. That the initial conditions concerning the incredibly fine tuned balance between the rate of expansion of the universe an the force of Gravity (the cosmological constant) which allowed the formation of stars and galaxies was not intentional.
A very basic mistake. What “fine tuning” do you think there is, and why? It only looks that way if you put yourself at the centre of it and assume you were the intended outcome all along. Try looking up “anthropic principle” to see where you’ve gone wrong.
3. That the first living cell came into being through the actions of random, unguided, purposeless events.
Half right. The “random” is questionable, but given the countless trillions of opportunities for it to happen there’s no great surprise that it did – probably many times.
4. That a sufficient quantity and quality of beneficial mutations can be generated from random events to drive the process of evolution.
Nope. That “beneficial” betrays the paucity of your thinking again. It might look beneficial to you because it produced, well,
you. Had by happenstance it produced a different sentient being though, it would look the same way to that being too.
5. That the detrimental effects of harmful mutations could not wipe out life entirely.
Er, yes – evidently so as there clearly
is life. Having said that, some 99.9% of the species there have ever been have gone extinct – it’d be a pretty rubbish “creator” with that track record don’t you think?
6. That every one of the billions of discrete mutations needed to form life as we know it was able to provide sufficient survival advantage in its own right to facilitate natural selection.
Categorically wrong. Perhaps if you found out something about the T of E you wouldn’t make this kind of schoolboy error in future? Most genetic mutations have no effect or a negative one. All natural selection requires is
enough adaptability to environment to enable survival.
7. That molecular activity alone can generate self awareness.
That’s not so much an “assumption” as the direction the overwhelming body of evidence from several disciplines indicates, yes.
8. That every event needed to write this post was an inevitable consequence of previous events, because we must assume that there can be no such thing as free will.
We don’t need to assume it, it’s necessarily the case because it's conceptually incoherent for reasons that keep being explained to you and you keep ignoring. The model is either determinative or it’s random – the options are binary. Your third way (effectively, “it’s magic”) is epistemically worthless.
And we must presume that all these assumptions are true because God does not exist.
That’s backwards. We tentatively conclude that these things are true because that’s where the cogent and robust reason and evidence available to us leads. “God” is irrelevant here because it’s both incoherent and lacking in reason and evidence entirely.
Oh, and your whole effort is just another argument from personal incredulity by the way – yet another of the logical fallacies of which you’re so fond and on which your claims rely.
Apart from all that though...
