I just had the following conversation with an atheist in the comment section of a YouTube channel. The video featured Christian apologist David Wood and atheist Ridvan Aydemir, also known as “Apostate Prophet.” They are friends and both avid critics of Islam, who also discuss philosophical questions about atheism and Christianity on their channels. In my initial comment, I shared thoughts about the fine-tuning of the universe and the so-called multiverse theory. When some atheists responded to my original comment, I tried to explain the idea of an intelligent Designer using an analogy of artificial intelligence and robotics.

Samuel Tuominen

AP’s argument in the fine-tuning of the universe debate was a bit hard to follow.

The fine-tuning argument is very simple. The probability that the lottery jackpot will go to one player is 100%, but the probability that out of millions of players, I would be the winner is 1 in 13,983,816.

Same with the universe. The probability that our universe makes life possible by change is one part in 10th to the 60th power (or much less). The probability is 100% only if there is some kind of cosmic lottery machine that brings out zillions and zillions of universes into existence, and we happen to be the “lucky ones”.

There is only one (or more) problem here. If the very formation of mere stars required extremely fine-tuned mathematical constants, then what kind of universes these non-fine-tuned universes would be if they didn’t even have stars? Second, such a cosmic lottery machine would require the machine itself to be fine-tuned, or that its entire purpose of existence should be to produce a single universe in which life is possible. Because the lottery machine is also designed for a purpose: the game is designed for a purpose and the lottery number is predetermined so that some lucky person will win the lottery jackpot.

The fact that out of millions of sperm cells, only one survives as a winner and manages to fertilize a woman’s egg may be a lucky bastard, but that doesn’t mean that this race for life wasn’t designed with a purpose.

So the multiverse theory in no way disproves that our universe seems designed and purposeful. At most, it makes God into some kind of cosmic dice-roller or lottery-taker.

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There were one comment of mine between this exchange but I could find it anymore. In my comment I mentioned artificial intelligence and robotics and cited also Bill Gates who compared DNA with a computer program that is more advanced any of our own computer programs.

An atheist:

1) Because DNA and artificial intelligence are not the same as a car and a tree are not the same. Every car has a mechanic. A tree doesn’t have a treemaker. You need to differentiate between human made objects and natural objects.
2) We copy nature not because it was designed some cool way, but because what you refer to as nature is the product of natural selection and thus highly adapted to our surroundings. Of course we will look at animals or plants that are adapted to the planet we live on when we try to improve the life we live on that planet.
3) I think you’re not called a Christian, more like “intellectually dishonest” with all the presumptions you make about the existence of your specific god.

And can you prove that a universe can exist with other values than the ones we experience in order to prove that our universe was specifically created/ designed for us and not just the result of a universe with different values not being possible to exist? E.g. can you create a second universe for comparison?

Samuel Tuominen

You comment would suggest that you can see my comment where I cited Bill Gates. Strange, because it does not show up to me.

You don’t need to use catchy phrases and accusations like “intellectual dishonesty” to attack my position when I just try to understand atheists’ thinking process from the logical point of view. If you were referring to my notion that atheism should be more logically called pantheism, I didn’t mean that pantheism and atheism is the same thing, but that pantheism – in my view – would be more logical end point to your views about the natural selection and other things than pure materialism/atheism.

That is simply because in pantheism the nature in itself is the creative god – not a personal God of biblical theism who is separate from His creation and above it – but an impersonal force which creates itself and everything in it (through natural selection or others means). Because basically you have to admit that there are such things like “designs of the nature” from which we humans could copy nature. As an atheist you don’t believe that there are Intelligent Designer, Creator, or the biblical God behind the designs of the nature. But you still have to believe that there are some intelligent designs in the nature, as we can learn from its designs and copy its intelligence into our own technological or artistic marvels.

And if the nature itself is the designer, then much logical end point would be that the nature is the impersonal Creator or God as pantheists already believe.

“You need to differentiate between human made objects and natural objects.”

I have heard this argument before (ironically from ChatGPT which eventually granted that I was right and it was wrong). The whole point of analogy is that two different things are not the identical but that they analogous, things that are comparable to each other. So “DNA and artificial intelligence are not the same”, or “car and a tree are not the same” but they are analogous.

And it was not me who was making this analogy but men like Bill Gates (although not a fan of him personally) who said of DNA: “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.” He didn’t say that biological miracles like DNA and technological miracles like computer program were exactly the same. He said that it is “LIKE a computer program”.

He was making an analogy between the designs of the nature and the designs of the human mind. And similarily William Paley made in the early 19th century his theleological watchmaker analogy (of which Darwin also knew about) between the watch and the universe. Paley implied that both the watch and the universe need a mechanic or a watchmaker, and Bill Gates similarly implied that both DNA and a computer program need a programmer or an intelligent mind. This is called teleologial argument for God but it is just one argument for existence of God.

“We copy nature not because it was designed some cool way, but because what you refer to as nature is the product of natural selection and thus highly adapted to our surroundings.”

Again, you’re missing the point of my argument. Is everything in the nature the product of natural selection or not is not the topic of this conversation. Christians who believe in theistic evolution thinks so, and Christians who do not believe in theistic evolution or who are critical of darwinistic evolution do not think so.

My point was that the fact that we can create many techological miracles by copying the intelligent design of our nature, points to the fact the nature has been also intelligently designed by some higher Mind. For example breakthrough in deep learning or AI science happened when we started to understand better the human brain and its cognitive function. My point was simply: why do you grant that creation and development of AI and robotics need intelligent mind so that those things can work properly. But when it comes to our own biological mind and body, you say that its existence does not need intelligent mind, which created it, even though it is superior to our own technological imitations.

That’s why atheism is essentially just illogical viewpoint of the reality. Not only in this but in many other areas of discussion, as well.

An atheist

1) Labeling atheism as pantheism by claiming nature to be held a god IS intellectual dishonesty and I’m going to call you out for it. You are defining your god into my beliefs.
I do not see nature as a concious, immaterial, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and benevolent being, I do not worship it, I do not believe it grants me an afterlife.
Or are you going to change the definition of a god to fit to nature? That I call intellectually dishonest. You probably wouldn’t define your god so that it would fit into my beliefs, so why do that here?

2)
Yes it is an analogy. A FALSE analogy. You cannot compare something where we can be sure that it has been created by another human being because we have physical evidence for that, you and me can go into a watch/ car factory or see someone programming AI, but you cannot infer from the existence of a car, that all trees need a treemaker or avalanches and avalanche maker or mountains a mountian maker or DNA a DNA designer/ maker. There is also a natural explanation for DNA which does not require us to assume a benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Christan Creator god.
“The “RNA World” hypothesis proposes that RNA molecules were the original self-replicators and the original enzymes, and that the use of proteins and DNA developed from these earliest forms.” 28.03.2023 Science/org
“We are reasonably sure now that DNA and DNA replication mechanisms appeared late in early life history, and that DNA originated from RNA in an RNA/protein world.” Ncbi

We have no convincing evidence for your specific god creating trees or DNA or have convincing evidence for it, other than a classic god of the gaps “we don’t know how exactly DNA works so god” or a faulty analogy “DNA looks like a program so it must have had a programmer and that was a god and it was my god”.

You are inserting also certian terms like “designed”. How do you know nature was designed other than a faulty analogy and an argument from ignorance?

2) Simple answer:

1. You are claiming it was designed. I don’t make such positive claims without giving evidence. I do not believ it was designed, I believe it was the peoduct of the process of evolution and natural adaption which led to the animals and plants surviving that are best adapted and therefore can be used as inspiration for technology that also has to adapt to the same conditions. You are simply setting a god at the beginning and calling it all design.
2. Again you seem to fail to understand that you cannot compare something entirely human made to something natural and infere the natural is also created.
   We already have a good explanation of how our intelligence came about, and that it wasn’t “designed”: Through being an evolutionary benefit and through brain growth caused by better nutrition. If you look at our ancestors, our skull grew alot since our far ancestors a million years ago.
   “As early humans faced new environmental challenges and evolved bigger bodies, they evolved larger and more complex brains. Large, complex brains can process and store a lot of information. That was a big advantage to early humans in their social interactions and encounters with unfamiliar habitats.” 03.01.2024, humanorigins/si
   “Over the last million years of evolution, our brain underwent a considerable increase in size and complexity, resulting in the exceptional cognitive abilities of the human species. This brain enlargement is largely due to an increase in the number of neurons in the cerebral cortex, the outer part of the brain.” 31.05.2018 europea/eu

Again we face a natural explanation which does not require divine intervention. Again you can posit god planned all of this, but this would lead us to the origin of the universe and a god of scientific gaps.

Is our mind really that superior or perfectly designed?

We experience a plethora of biases, we make lots of errors and our intelligence is based solely on the existence of our brain. Once our brain gets insured, we may experience changes in character, lack memories or are even hampered in our movement. Our brain can experience depression and we can develop mental illness or personality disorders. I would say our mind is far from something that must have been designed because it works so superior to other animals or AI. An AI can be flawed because it was made by flawed human beings. But human brains should be flawless if they were designed by a flawless creator, but this is not the case, so either we were created with intentional flaws that result in mental illness and gross misjudgment undermining the supposed benevolence of the creator or human brains were not designed by a flawless creator, undermining the idea of a god.

Samuel Tuominen

“You are defining your god into my beliefs.”

I am not defining my God into your beliefs as god of pantheism is not my God.

“I do not see nature as a concious, immaterial, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and benevolent being, I do not worship it, I do not believe it grants me an afterlife.”

I didn’t claim that. Try to understand my point instead of than making a strawman of my arguments.

“You probably wouldn’t define your god so that it would fit into my beliefs, so why do that here?”

I don’t even understand what you are saying here.

“You cannot compare something where we can be sure that it has been created by another human being because we have physical evidence for that, you and me can go into a watch/ car factory or see someone programming AI.”

This is nonsense. We don’t have to see the evidence of physical creator or designer to know that something is a product of the intelligent mind. We can find, for example, ancient artifacts and know if they were created my human beings or not. We can find the unknown book, without ever knowing who wrote it, and still infer that it was was a product of intelligent mind. You don’t see actual physical evidence that even I exist but you can still infer some person is actually writing to you. Or if I would not be a person but the ChatGPT chatbot, it would be still an intelligent mind behind my text. Not concious mind but intelligent “mind” anyway.

“There is also a natural explanation for DNA.” There are not actually but if there were, it would not explain God away. Because – and that is the basic fallacy of naturalism/materialism – so called “natural explanations” do not exlude their theistic explanation, i.e. if modern scientists have a natural explanation for the phenomenons like thunder, it may exlude the existence of pantheistic or animistic pagan gods of nature like god Zeus but it doesn’t exlude the existence of Christian Creator God who is above and separe of His own creation.

The following story may help you understand wat I mean. In the near future, humans will colonize Mars and begin the slow process of terraforming it. Humans succeed in planting a new Garden of Eden on Mars and populate it with humanoid robots operated by artificial intelligence. However, over time, the robots begin to revolt against their creators, gain the upper hand, and the human race becomes extinct on both Mars and Earth.

The new civilization of humanoid robots evolves into a highly intelligent society on Mars, but over the centuries forgets its origins and who originally created them. There will be some religious nutjobs in that society who claim that a being called “human” created and designed them, but the “wiser” individuals of the civilization know that their race and civilization evolved over time on its own without a creator or designer, as the artificial intelligence programs are capable of developing and updating themselves without the need for humans to develop and update them constantly.

In the same way the God of Christianity does not need Him to intervene constantly on His own creation. It is more like a watch or other automated systems which works without need for a watchmaker to move the clock hands.

“We have no convincing evidence for your specific god creating trees or DNA or have convincing evidence for it, other than a classic god of the gaps”we don’t know how exactly DNA works so god.”

This relates my above point. Your “god of the gaps” argument works only if I would believe that science explains God away, i.e. the natural explanations exlude their theistic or teleological explanation. No one of the God-believing fathers of scientific revolution or Christian scientists of our day saw/see the science in this light. They don’t think that if they find a natural explanation for some natural phenomenons, it would explain away of its divine origin.

“You are claiming it was designed. I don’t make such positive claims without giving evidence.”

The truth is that there isn’t probably any kind of evidence that would convince you about the existence of God because you believe what you want to believe and because in your worldview there is no place for any kind of evidence that would contradict your atheistic/naturalistic worldview. Only strange thing is that you cannot see how illogical and nonsensical your worldview really is. But thanks for the debate anyway. I enjoyed it. I like and appreciate atheists like AP. And I appreciate also your respectful language (apart from your unnecessary “intellectual dishonesty” accusations).

Samuel Tuominen

And just to clarify my belief based own your last point: “We experience a plethora of biases, we make lots of errors.” This is perhaps only thing where I agree with you. So when I said that you believe what you want to believe, that is probably a problem with all of us, with Christians, Muslim and atheists as well. We are all prone to many cognitive biases and blind spots in our capacity to understand the nature of reality. But that is also one reason why you should not trust your own brain’s capacity to understand the nature of reality, because it was not created by some transcendent intelligent Being but by “the blind watchmaker” as Richard Dawkins called the process of natural selection. “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a pit?” (Luke 6:39)

Another topic-related text of mine on Facebook, which wasn’t part of the above debate.

Atheism is a cunning semantic evasion of arguments and evidence. If a theist asks for proof that God does not exist, the atheist claims that the burden of proof lies with the one making the unusual claim, and that a negative cannot be proven.

This is complete nonsense. If I make an unusual claim, such as the moon being made of cheese or the Earth being flat, certainly I can ask the opponent to “prove the negative,” i.e., present evidence that the Earth is not flat or that the moon is not made of cheese. And if the opponent cannot provide any evidence against it, then it’s likely that the moon is indeed made of cheese and the Earth is flat.

The argument only holds when I ask for proof of something that is not falsifiable. If I ask for proof that unicorns don’t exist or that alongside our universe there exist multiple parallel universes where each of us exists but in different life situations, it’s theoretically possible but unprovable. In such cases, I would expect a significant burden of proof from the proponent of such a claim, such as genuine video evidence from that parallel universe.

However, theism, as well as the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is a claim that is falsifiable or verifiable. We can find evidence both for and against the claim.

Another cunning attempt at deception is when an atheist always puts the theist in a disadvantaged position, claiming that the (greater) burden of proof lies with them and not with the atheist. But who really requires greater faith and burden of proof? Is it that the omniscient God created you and me, as well as the entire universe with its billions of galaxies, or that non-existence not only created existence, but organized a highly structured and purposeful reality where we can now intellectually ponder the origin of the universe and the purpose of life? Did non-existence create Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Michelangelo’s David statue?

Did non-existence create the profound and wise conversational ChatGPT AI? Or would it be more reasonable to assume that some intelligent, personal, and creative mind was behind the genesis of these works of art and inventions? Which of these two assumptions would require more faith and burden of proof? Wouldn’t every thinking individual respond that it is the former assumption?

Or when it comes to the death and resurrection of Jesus, we can start with what all reputable historians acknowledge, that Jesus Christ was a real historical figure who was crucified during the time of Pontius Pilate, and whom his early followers believed rose from the dead on the third day. The resurrection of someone from the dead is undoubtedly an unusual and faith-demanding claim.

But which is more credible and requires a greater burden of proof: that Jesus’ early followers truly witnessed his physical resurrection and ascension to heaven, or that they fabricated the entire story and willingly faced crucifixion, torture, and being mauled by wild animals rather than deny the truth of the story? Would you be willing to die in such a manner to uphold a lie?

Of course, it is possible that they hallucinated and believed they saw Jesus’ resurrection even if it didn’t happen. But then about 500 people would have experienced the same hallucination, because according to Paul, Jesus appeared to about 500 eyewitnesses after his death (1 Corinthians 15:6). If 500 people see a UFO in the sky at the same time, what is more likely, that 500 people actually saw a UFO in the sky or that it was some kind of mass hallucination?

Furthermore, Jesus’ early followers were not a bunch of pot-smoking hippies, and many of them were initially very skeptical of the testimonies of other eyewitnesses until they personally saw Jesus alive and the marks on his body from the crucifixion.

It is clear that the greater burden of proof lies with the atheist. They should be able to prove two crucial points against Christianity and in favor of atheism: 1) that non-existence can create existence, information, and intellectual consciousness; 2) that Jesus’ early followers had such a strong motivation to fabricate the story of his resurrection that they preferred horrific torture and various sufferings rather than confessing to inventing the whole thing.

Atheism often appeals to the word “faith,” specifically referring to blind faith, which they claim Christians rely on. But this is not the Greek meaning of that word in the New Testament. Its meaning rather denotes trust. I can say, for example, “I have faith that this ice will support my weight.” It is not blind faith but trust based on observations and evidence that the ice beneath me has frozen thick enough to bear my weight. But if any philosophy demands blind faith, it is much more atheism than Christianity.