God and the Friendly Universe

The proposition that the universe is hospitable to human life, potentially supporting a teleological argument for God, is implausible at a first glance. So far as we now know with certainty, the universe is congenial to human life only on the rind of one minor planet of one among 10²¹ stars. Almost all of the real estate of the universe is distinctly hostile to biological organisms, and this will remain the case as a matter of the percentages even if the recent success in finding extrasolar planets turns up some that are good candidates for life.

A second glance, however, reveals some developments in theoretical cosmology that may seem to give currency to the old saw that God made the world for our use and enjoyment. Theists (and a few of the very few deists there are) draw our attention to the “fine tuning” of certain physical constants and initial conditions, a fine-tuning that makes the existence of life possible.

Can we hope that God exists? If so, should we?

I do not believe that God exists, but I hope that I am wrong.  In fact, everyone should hope that God exists: believers (perhaps with nagging doubts), agnostics, atheists, and those who haven’t given the God question much thought. The evangelists of cross and crescent and their antagonists, especially those atheists still called “new,” have had a well-publicized, widely published, and mostly tiresome debate whether belief in God is reasonable. Completely ignored is a question on which even the most dogmatic theist and virulent atheist might possibly agree: is it reasonable to hope that a powerful intelligence lovingly created us and everything else? See my Hope to God
https://scribl.com/books/E9HZ8/hope-to-god

Amazon: Hope to God: Common Ground for Unbelievers and Believers - Kindle edition by Crocker, Larry. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.