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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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What do you think of my example of the “made by God” world? Wouldn’t your argument be equally applicable in such a world, so that it wouldn’t be evidence of theism?

In a world where each subatomic particle is stamped with the words "made by Jesus Christ," we have two apparently unlikely things being true:

  1. The parameters of the universe are fine-tuned to produce human life, and

  2. The parameters of the universe are fine-tuned to reference a particular Hebrew carpenter by name.

Even though point 1 seems extremely unlikely ex ante, it is not actually unlikely given that human observers exist. Point 1 must necessarily be true in any universe in which human observers exist. Therefore, observing that point 1 is true does not tell us any information about how our universe came into existence, because point 1 is 100% guaranteed to be true in any universe we can observe.

Point 2, on the other hand, is actually extremely unlikely. There is no reason why point 2 must be true in every universe where human observers exist, and in fact we know it need not be true in all such universes because it isn't true in our own universe. Therefore point 2, if it were true, would actually be powerful evidence of something (perhaps the truth of Christianity, or perhaps that we're living in a simulation and are being messed with by the simulators).