Isn't theism more rational than atheism?

The hole is exactly the right shape for the puddle. Ah Magoo you've done it again.

Your definition of theism isn't really theism, it's deism. All the arguments you listed are just arguments in favor of deism. None are very convincing, and have standard refutations.

Even if it is rational to believe that a God exists (deism), it is an irrational leap to go from there and say that this God takes an interest in what we do or does things like answer prayers or provides a way to have life after death (theism).

The fine-tuned universe is an argument from probability and is fallacious right?

Definition of proof courtesy Merriam-webster..

"the cogency of evidence thatcompels acceptance by the mind of a truth or a fact "

All one has to do is stubbornly refuse to change their mind, and they can keep saying, "there is no proof!".

They'd be telling the truth too.

Proof to you may not be proof to someone else.

Deism refers to belief in the existence of a God who created the universe and doesn't intervene. Theism, broadly, refers to belief in the existence of God(s) . Theism, more narrowly, refers to an interventionist or tri-omni God. The fine-tuned universe argument is compatible with all of the above.

What do you find is the best refutation of the argument?

Yes, we agree for the most part on the definitions of theism and deism.

 

My point was that the arguments you listed (assuming one accepts them as sound) only get you as far as deism. While they are compatible with theism, they don't help you with any particular theistic claim.. In other words, even if the conclusion that God exists is true, it tells you nothing about the specific attributes or nature of that God, or whether the particular claims of any religion are true.

The fine-tuning argument is refuted by the simple observation that it has things backwards. The universe did not form to fit life. Life formed to fit the universe. The fine-tuning argument is an example of puddle thinking. A puddle thinks, because the hole it finds itself in fits it so perfectly, that hole must have been made just for that puddle.

If you are only considering the more specific definition of theism, then yes, but if you're using the definition of theism more broadly to mean belief in the existence of God(s), then no. Atheism is lack of belief or disbelief in the existence of God(s). The opposite of A-theism is theism. So anything that cannot be considered compatible with atheism, like the existence of a prime, eternal consciousness, is theism (broadly) until narrowed further. 

How did you determine that the fine-tunedness of the universe was happenstance and not the result of deliberate design? The puddle analogy assumes that the desired conclusion is true.

We've pretty much agreed on the definitions so you can disregard that piece. I'd edit my post but don't see the button anymore. 

I'm not asserting that the fine-tuning of the universe is due to happenstance.. It's not necessarily a choice between design and happenstance. For instance, it may be that laws of physics we don't yet understand dictate that the physical constants of the universe can be no different than what they are. If that is the case, then neither happenstance nor design need apply.

The puddle analogy is apt because we see countless examples of puddles adjusting to holes, never the other way around, just as we see countless examples of life adapting to different environments. For all we know, if the universe were tuned differently, some kind of life of which we cannot conceive might still flourish.

Can you prove that the axiom is true?

An axiom is only a personally accepted truth which is different from an objective truth.

The fine-tuning might be by chance, necessitated by physics, or, it might be by design. According to Hawking, the laws of physics were broken down during the big bang. The odds of the fine-tuning being due to chance is incomprehensibly small, and shrinking. The fine-tuning strongly suggests a deliberate structure. So why isn't that the most rational inference given the evidence we currently have? 

Fine-tuning is required in order for matter to exist. Speculation that non-carbon based life might've existed is pure speculation and isn't a defeater for the fine-tunedness. The fine-tunedness is based on science. It's a matter of inferring the best explanation to explain it.

The universe is so fine tuned that as far as we can tell 99.99999% of it is lethal to all known life forms.

Can you prove that? (Ad infinitum)

When I use those terms that is what I mean. This makes the statement that the two terms mean different things this is a definitional truth not an objective truth. We as human beings cannot know objective truth with complete certainty. If our perceptions reflect reality then there are certain things that seem to be true when tested repeatedly with the scientific method. Some things cannot be tested in this way and we can be even less certain of them. If we cannot test a hypothesis it is a bad hypothesis. We have no other universe to examine as a comparison so we cannot test any hypothesis that ours is fine tuned or created. The best you can say is that it is possible. The same can be said of the hypothesis that ours is not fine tuned. They are equally sensible. By this I mean not sensible at all. The only sensible position in the absence of sufficient evidence is I don't know. In any case if we were to accept that the universe is fine tuned this still does not tell us anything about the force(s) or entity(ies) that did this fine tuning or why. This justifies a belief in deism at best.

I know that (A = A) is true, with complete certainty, because it's not possible for something to violate the law of identity. 

When you make a claim like "We as human beings cannot know objective truth with complete certainty" then are you applying that same standard to that sentence? Statements such as these are taken to be invariant, universal, and abstract. Yet, if your statement were true, this would be a contradiction and self-defeating line of reasoning.

On the fine-tuning argument we are repeating our positions so I don't feel there is anything new to add.

Again, the universe is not fine-tuned to us, we are fine-tuned to the universe.

Calculating the odds of a random universe being tuned just like ours is akin to dealing 52 cards and saying that the odds of that particular ordering of 52 cards is so low that it can't be due to chance.

Saying that the vast majority of possible tunings would not produce life is just as much speculation as saying that other tunings might produce life. The fact is, we simply don't know what other tunings are possible or what those universes might be like.

Then, too, there is the anthropic principle. Any universe that gives rise to  conscious creatures must necessarily have conditions to support those conscious creatures. So of course we find ourselves in a universe able to support conscious creatures. It could not be any other way, no matter how low the odds.

Again you are talking about a linguistic truth. All the "objective truth" you have so far mentioned is qualified truth not quantified.

But stronn, the way the universe is means that life exists for sure only in a thin layer around one planet in eight around our sun.   If things were even slightly different there could well be no life at all anywhere.   Even if ours is not the only possible universe that can support life I'd say that there are far more possible 'dead' universes that 'living' universes.

I'll grant that life appears to be exceedingly rare in our universe, so rare that f things had been slightly different it might never have occurred at all in our local neighborhood. But in the entire universe? We have know way of knowing. Even when the odds of life occurring on a single planet are extremely low, given the numbers involved--a billion trillion stars over 14 billion years--it is not inconceivable that life developing somewhere in the universe is a near certainty, even if the universe was tuned differently.

Our universe, where life is extremely prohibited, is still fine-funed. 

Here is the definition once more and if there is nothing left to say that hasn't already been said we can transition to a different topic:

"The fine-tuned universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the universe can occur only when certain universal dimensionless physical constants lie within a very narrow range of values, 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 understood."

Clearly, inconclusive.

What on earth do you think an Ultimate Reality would be if not an eternal consciousness... a reality where observation is as it truly exists apart from creation? what else could it be? that's what you're not getting or are avoiding. Mr. Ultimate Reality doesn't even know what that means and tells others if they are ignorant of it they are deluded and not confessing the truth lol, yet here you are doing the same thing. 

Of course, the answer depends on how you determine which is more rational. 

The main issue I have is treating the claims as the same sort of thing, when a positive claim and a negative claim are actually pretty different. With a positive claim about the existence of something you can positively establish your claim with a single piece of evidence. A negative claim - no matter how much evidence you have - cannot be specifically proven.

I am an Atheist (capital A), in that I am concinced that gods in any form do not exist, and this position is based primarily on the two part abductive argument that:

1.) The claims of Gods existence are thousands of years old, and if such a being existed one would have expected to have some sort of evidence by now. The belief in God existed before concrete, steel (I think), steam power, electricity, the transistor, the computer, space travel and the internet: despite us formulating explanations of the atom and the expanding universe as a whole - and despite the microscope, the telescope, and detectors sensitive enough to detect neutrinos, the amount of actual objective evidence to support Gods existence is still zero.

2.) Current claims about Gods existence come off the back of those same thousands of years of failed predictions - rather than some new explanation. When you talk about God, you’re not talking about a new hypothesis, or a new explanation for some aspect of the Cosmos. You are talking about a variation of the same God that people have touted for thousands of years, and whose any specific predictions and specific claims have invariably been been proven wrong. 



To not consider these failures, or to expect that current claims of God be treated on their own “merit”, rather than considering the history of failure is inherently irrational in my view - and the primary basis on which most (A)theists base their conclusion.

Or to create an example.

Suppose Jimmy tells you that a cat got into the living room. You go in and there is no cat. You shrug, it’s possible - you have no reason to disbelieve it. 

He comes to you again - saying the cat is on the sofa. It isn’t. Jimmy says that the cat must have run away. This goes on and on - you set up cameras, motion sensors, sound detectors - and never see anything. Let’s say this goes on for months - every day Jimmy comes and tells you that there is a cat. There is never a cat to be seen.

(A)theists conclude that there’s probably no cat, there was probably never any cat, and any claims from Jimmy about there being a cat are likely fictitious.

Theists, on the other hand, tell (A)theists that they are being irrational for concluding that there is probably no cat.

I don't believe that you speak with any true knowledge when you explain "the problems of orthodoxy". 

I

Given the weight of the evidence, is it more likely that God does or doesn't exist? 

This places an equal burden of proof between affirming the positive and negative claim.

When we observe the absence of something where it was claimed to exist, this is inductive evidence we can then use to justify disbelief. With a prime, eternal consciousness though this is not something observable. So we would need to rely on non-empirical means to evaluate the claim. 

It's worth mentioning that the source of a claim or the number of variations it has doesn't invalidate it. 

Is the universe indicative of design or does it seem to be the byproduct of mindlessness?