fine tuning Archives • Richard Carrier Blogs

The Utter Destruction of the Fine Tuning Argument

Richard Carrier — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 15:07:38 +0000

Christopher Hitchens rightly said the argument from fine tuning is the best argument theists have, but only because it requires thought to figure out why it’s bullshit (whereas most Christian apologetics is obvious bullshit from the first moment you hear it). Because it is actually a really bad argument. Here I will explain this and […]

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Ross Douthat’s Worst Argument for God

Richard Carrier — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 21:00:40 +0000

I’ve written before about the recent decline of Christian apologetics (e.g. Addressing the New Christian Apologetics and Ben Shapiro’s Worst Argument for God and Another Two ‘Best’ Arguments for God?)—a trend that is illustrated by the enthusiastic revival of such antiquated and bumbling arguments as Undesigned Coincidences and Thomism: The Bogus Science. Ross Douthat of […]

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Boyce and Swenson’s Theological Argument against Multiverse Theory

Richard Carrier — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 15:50:35 +0000

In 2020, Christian philosophers Kenneth Boyce and Philip Swenson presented a thesis at a conference, which has yet to appear under peer-review (though a version is in review), arguing that “fine tuning” is actually evidence against a multiverse. This is strange because it is most definitely the other way around. Consequently, a patron funded my […]

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Another Two ‘Best’ Arguments for God?

Richard Carrier — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 14:12:50 +0000

Last time I analyzed YouTube’s “best” argument for God: Ben Shapiro’s, which tops the YouTube “influence” list with six million views. I also briefed a really terrible argument for God second on that list by Jordan Peterson, at under a million views. Nothing else even reached a hundred thousand views. But when I took “best” […]

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Three Common Confusions of Creationists

Richard Carrier — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 23:24:34 +0000

In response to some recent queries, and being reminded of some things in an old slideshow of mine, which accompanied a talk I gave in Humboldt some years ago (which was supposed to be my opening for a debate with a creationist; but the creationist bailed as soon as they heard I’d be the one […]

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Why the Fine Tuning Argument Proves God Does Not Exist

Richard Carrier — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 01:16:16 +0000

In Bayesian Counter-Apologetics I outlined why the Fine Tuning Argument actually disproves the existence of God. And I didn’t make that up. What I outline there was independently corroborated twice by the peer-reviewed research of multiple experts (see On the Bayesian Reversal of the Fine Tuning Argument). And I’ve formally laid this all out in […]

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Justin Brierley on the Science of Existence

Richard Carrier — Sat, 30 Apr 2022 22:59:05 +0000

Does science prove God? It is painfully ironic that Justin Brierley opens his chapter on this topic with a false quote from a scientist (p. 22). This common Christian failure to do the work to ascertain what scientists have actually said about these subjects explains every failure to get any of the pertinent facts right […]

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A Hidden Fallacy in the Fine Tuning Argument

Richard Carrier — Sun, 30 Jan 2022 07:46:37 +0000

One of the most popular and persuasive arguments for theism is the so-called Fine-Tuning Argument. But there is a singular fallacy in it that I think usually gets overlooked. There are of course actually many fallacies in it, but those have been well-explored (hence I’ve written on this subject often enough and there is a […]

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PragerU to The Internet: Science Proves God, You Pinko Commies!

Richard Carrier — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 19:00:38 +0000

PragerU claims in multiple conservative propaganda videos that science has proved God exists and atheists should just go stuff it already. I’ll tackle this nonsense today—just to be useful, since most of PragerU’s critiques online target its lies, fallacies, and distortions about history and politics. Which is great. But I feel like the God thing […]

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The Carrier-Marshall Debate: My Seventh Reply

Richard Carrier — Fri, 07 Jun 2019 00:32:09 +0000

Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one; for the rest, our index. We are now discussing what I call the Argument from Indifference against the existence of God. Marshall […]

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