I don't think I'm going to stick with this thread much longer since neither of us has budged at all and it's been several weeks.
Yet, it can't be demonstrated that empirical evidence be required to demonstrate a truth claim...
So does that mean your assumption that only empirical evidence is required to demonstrate a truth claim is untrue? We make truth claims even when we can't demonstrate empirically for those claims. We can claim that the universe is older than five minutes old but can we demonstrate that empirically?
Under an epistemology based on empiricism, it is true by definition that claims (specifically, synthetic propositions) must be demonstrated empirically. You are making an argument based on the assumption that empirical evidence can show us truth. Whether that's really true is an entirely different discussion. In any case, you cannot try to disprove my position on the grounds that it lacks empirical evidence when yours lacks it as well. That puts us on the same level empirically, as I have been saying.
Unfortunately, you are saying that and that is the problem. We can know all the ingredients of the cake. The material is know i.e. flour, sugar, etc. The knowledge of the material elements is just that, knowledge of the material. It says nothing about how that material became the cake. My position is not that we don't know the exact ingredients of the cake, but that we know what they are and they are not sufficient in themselves to give rise to the cake. The cake didn't create itself. The same could be said for a car, we know all the materials that make it work and how it works but the car didn't create itself. These are material things too, and we know they didn't create themselves. If we go to another planet and we find a cake lying on the surface of a rock we are not going to assume that it is part of the material of the planet and was created naturally. Life and intelligence is far more intricate than a cake but you expect me to believe that even without any evidence of life arising from non-life that life just appears on the surface of this planet and that it is a "natural" occurrence. Evolution didn't evolve. Only after life is present does the evolutionary processes act.
These are improper analogies because we already know the things you're comparing life, intelligence, etc. to are things that are made by people. It's not as though we really puzzle over the origin of cakes or cars in real life. We're already very familiar with the ways by which they come about. Life, intelligence, etc. aren't quite so mapped out yet. That's why I compared it to our ignorance to the ingredients of a cake rather than the process of its preparation. That would better reflect the conundrum we're in.
I don't expect you to believe anything about the origin of life that isn't demonstrated, but we're comparing two worldviews that require us to take opposite sides. If you accept that we have identified all the materials required for life, identified the origins of those materials, and observed natural complex chemical reactions that display the potential to form rudimentary self-replicating molecules, it shouldn't take much work to imagine how life could flourish from there. God, on the other hand, has nothing going for him. Intricacy is not a reliable indicator of design, especially in a universe wherein you ultimately believe
everything is designed. Intelligent Design proponents swallow their own tails whenever they try to argue that design can be recognized against nondesign because they don't actually believe there's anything that wasn't designed by their intelligent creator. It's kind of funny, but a little frustrating when they keep insisting on doing it.
Scientists agree that the universe and life itself has the appearance of design:
Richard Dawkins: (I will use quotes that show that he doesn't believe the design is from God:
I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.
Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view. Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning.
The feature of living matter that most demands explanation is that it is almost unimaginably complicated in directions that convey a powerful illusion of deliberate design.
Paul Davies:
"There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature�s numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming".
"The laws [of physics] ... seem to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design... The universe must have a purpose".
I hope the foregoing discussion will have convinced the reader that the natural world is not just any old concoction of entities and forces, but a marvelously ingenious and unified mathematical scheme. ...these rules look as if they are the product of intelligent design. I do not see how that can be denied.
Michael Turner:
The precision [of the fine tuning] is as if one could throw a dart across the entire universe and hit a bullseye one millimeter in diameter on the other side.
And they don't agree on whether that appearance, being quite subjective, is an illusion or reality. That's why it's so important to nail down precisely what features are required to indicate design, and I don't know of a reliable way to do that without requiring the identification of structures or materials with known designers or design processes. You haven't offered one. I don't think going by the subjective impressions of people who admit they don't know is a good lead.
As you can see above, scientists are the ones making the statements about the appearance of design, even those that show their biases on their sleeves so to speak. Dawkins is a outspoken atheist as well as a biologist but he sees the design and claims everyone agrees that they see it. But you are right when you say it is due to our biases that we interpret that of which we do see. But to claim that there is no evidence of design or anyway to recognize it, is simply incorrect and goes against the empirical evidence for it.
Well, if you can objectively demonstrate a reliable measure of design, I'll be the first to congratulate you.
Tell me, don't you believe in your naturalistic worldview that there is something that is eternal? Either the universe, or the mulit-verse?
I don't know. The idea of eternity isn't something my brain can properly conceptualize, but that doesn't mean it's not real. Maybe there was an absolute beginning to the universe and all reality, and maybe there wasn't. That's beyond the scope of anyone's knowledge as far as I'm aware.
Now, will you tell me how your response addresses the dilemma I have shown you you're in?
Please see the post I made to Silmarien.
I don't see anything in your exchange with her that indicates Christianity is the only worldview that can coherently house a rationally intelligible universe.
I hope then that you don't use any Bible error arguments in your posts.
I'd be glad to drop them if you'd do the same with your Bible prediction arguments. For any verse there's a charitable interpretation and an uncharitable one. What's stopping you from interpreting them all charitably and claiming the Bible had foreknowledge?
You are under the mistaken assumption that only one fundamental constant determines all this. That is not the case. Change one and it affects all, and then you open another can of worms.
What demonstrated empirical evidence do you have that shows that changing just the cosmological constant would affect the ways the other constants affect the formation of life as we know it?