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Dr. Robin Collins is a Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Messiah College. Collins is the foremost defender of what is known as the teleological argument for the existence of God. He has a background in both physics and philosophy and will be discussing how the specific physical constants and conditions in the universe are finely-tuned for intelligent life and how this “fine-tuning” gives us reason to believe in a Creator.
Here is the video:
Topics:
- the constants and quantities set at the origin of the universe is fine-tuned for conscious, embodied intelligences like us
- three kinds of fine-tuning: 1) laws of nature, 2) constants, 3) quantities
- examples of 1): gravity, electromagnetism, strong force, quantization, Pauli exclusion principle
- examples of 2): gravitational constant, cosmological constant,
- examples of 3): initial distribution of mass-energy
- in addition to fine-tuning for life, there is also fine-tuning for discoverability
- Naturalistic response to the evidence: the multiverse hypothesis
- problems with the multiverse hypothesis
- additional topics
I put the ones I am ready to speak on in bold. I recommend you learn those as well in order to illustrate the fine-tuning with evidence when you present it. It’s important to understand that if the constants and quantities change, it’s not that you still have life, but just with pointy ears and/or green skin. It’s that you don’t have stars or planets or heavy elements or chemical reactions. Too much science fiction makes people misunderstand the argument.
Atheists claim the reason the cosmo constant is fined tuned to zero (because the univ is observational flat) is because the univ is “nothing” since the the total energy of the univ (mass/energy-gravitational) is zero. So the claim that the univ “tunneled” from the void is what we see and expect. I have several ways of answering this but I would like to know yours.
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