AB,
As I inferred previously,
We are not just considering one highly improbable event.
The initial fine tuning of the universe to allow the formation of stars and planets is just the beginning of the preparations required before many more improbable events are needed to bring life into existence.
You may claim that bringing the unfathomable complexity of life into existence requires no intentional guidance and that it can all be achieved by the unintended consequences of random events.
My own intelligence tells me that our existence is evidence of a creative force beyond our comprehension, and that human creativity must be inherited from this force.
Try thinking of the probability that I could win the lottery every week for the rest of my days, and that my offspring continue the winning streak for the next few thousand years if that helps.
Oh dear. OK, imagine that we give the unlikeliness of the series of improbable events necessary for your existence the value
n (
n being an unfathomably vast number). Now imagine just as a thought experiment that we design a lottery in which the chance of winning is equally improbable – ie also value
n. To put it another way, imagine the chance of you existing are a bajillion bajillion bajillion to one, and the chance of winning our lottery is
also a bajillion bajillion bajillion to one.
Still with me? Good.
Now imagine that the lottery winner inferred that there must therefore have been some sort of intervention for little old him to win. Would he be right about that, or would he just be the lucky recipient of an outcome-blind process that neither knew nor cared who would win?
Can you see now why your existence – no matter how unlikely – does not imply that there was therefore a guiding hand to make it so
unless your existence was also the plan all along – ie, unless your conclusion “god” also had the same premise “god”?
And can you see too how an argument in which the premise and the conclusion are the same thing
is a false argument?
Something?
Anything?