Design? Not Arbitrary? That's exactly the words used by theologians to put forward an argument for a creator of the universe. But why do you say design? Why aren't the laws arbitrary, in your opinion? Why shouldn't they work another way? They could. We might not exist in such a universe to see it though. That's a situation of apparent design. Look at the anthropic principle. There could be any number of universes with different physical laws (within the bounds of the theories by which we understand those laws - I'm sure there's only so many ways superstrings can vibrate) but we are in a 'goldilocks' universe because if this universe wasn't suitable for carbon based life we wouldn't be in it to observe it!

I mean, what do you mean by PURPOSE? You could get these laws of the universe either by randomness or by explaining it via the anthropic principle (and probably either a version of chaotic inflation or M-theory). That's not purpose, that's happenstance.

Yet if you say they have been put there for a purpose, that purpose can only have been created by an INTELLIGENT agency. What do you call the sentient, intelligent creator of a universe then, except 'god'?

If you say it isn't 'god' but the laws of purpose theory, what does that mean? If the laws of 'purpose theory' dictate that the laws of the universe are the way they are, then you've just shifted the argument from "how did the laws of the universe come about?" to "how did the laws of purpose theory come about?". As I say, you have two choices. Evolution or intelligence. Evolution leads you back to the anthropic principle arguments, intelligence to god.

It seems theoretically possible we may be able to create a universe in a laboratory - but whether we could affect or choose its physical laws is another matter. If we could, then maybe that changes matters - but that doesn't explain how the multiverse (rather than our observable universe) came into being in the first place.


You seem to think we've evolved the way we have so that we're smart enough to think our way off this dirtball before the sun becomes a red giant. Well I've got news for you - a bigger problem is that the Andromeda galaxy, M31, is going to hit the Milky Way well before that. After cataclysmic upheavals, planets and stars thrown off into space, stars colliding, supernovae and starbursts set off by the gravitational waves, the galaxy will become a large elliptical. The black holes at the center of the galaxies will merge and there'll be massive amounts of radiation spewed out of them. What are the chances of the sun or earth's survival?

You think we've evolved this way for a purpose, and that the universe is like that for a purpose. What purpose? How can you have a purpose without an intelligent agent to create the purpose? If you don't see this as a god issue then you're being obtuse.
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Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.- Isaac Asimov