Atheism’s reductionist, or absolutely materialistic, sect’s conceptualizations have produced many fascinating, or fascinatingly myopic and fanciful, arguments.
Reductionism refers to the analysis of something into simpler parts or organized systems_the oversimplifying of something complex, or the misguided belief that everything can be explained in simple terms.As the philosopher Fox Mulder put it, “what are we but impulses, electrical and chemical, through a bag of meat and bones?”
Or, as the philosopher Ren put it in referring to Stimpy as a “bloated sack of protoplasm.”
I wanted to offer a quick thought on the atheist [pseudo] counter-argument against the scientifically verifiable fine-tuning of the universe. From its very inception the universe consisted of many very finely tuned variables.
Let us consider any of the variables as a tape measure that stretches from one end of the universe to the other. Let us further imagine that there is a mark at one spot on the tape measure. If you were to move the spot one inch in either direction life would never have existed, various elements essential to life and the very make up of the universe would not exist. This is true of any of the various variables. There is a list of 47 such variables available here or here as a PDF file.
Benjamin D. Wiker described fine-tuning, as the anthropic principle, as follows (in his article, Does Science Point to God?: The Intelligent Design Revolution):
“In short form, it is the discovery that the universe appears rigged, astoundingly fine-tuned, suspiciously calibrated as part of some kind of a conspiracy of order to produce life-indeed intelligent life. This fine-tuned conspiracy occurs on all levels, from the fundamental constants governing the formation of all the elements in the cosmos, to the extraordinarily precise relationship of planets in our solar system, to the delicate balances on our own planet.”
The [pseudo] counter-argument is fascinating and fallacious: it is fascinating in that it is an argument from worldview adherence and fallacious for the same reason, it presupposes reductionism.
Note that the particular atheists who hold to this reductionist-absolutely materialistic argument answer all of life’s and the universe’s deepest questions (and oft the shallow ones as well) in the same way. Whether it is why there is something rather than nothing, or how and why the universe came to be, or how and why life came to be the answer is the same: it just is, it just did, it is just there and that is all.
Oh, you were wondering what the [pseudo] counter-argument is: it is simply to state that that the scientifically verifiable minutely fine-tuned universe is irrelevant because if it were alternately tuned other life forms would surely have arisen. Another [pseudo] counter-argument, or another portion of the one just mentioned, is that if there are multiverses and that each surely has its own fine-tuning and produced its own sort of life (not life as we know it).1
The presupposition is that the Big Bang was an arbitrary explosion of arbitrary materials and thus, this view forces the conclusion that fine-tuning, regardless of just how fine-tuned it is in its intricate minutia, is arbitrary.
Yet, the scientifically verified fine-tuning of the universe ought not discount just because some atheist activists build a facade of scientific respectability around their worldview adherence and believe that life is a cosmic accident.
The reason that I refer to a “[pseudo] counter-argument” is that it denies scientifically verifiable minute fine-tuning, it presupposes reductionism-absolute-purposeless-materialism and it denies the scientifically verifiable minute fine-tuning not on a scientific basis but due to the fact that reductionism-absolute-purposeless-materialism is presupposed.
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