I found this claim, “Consciousness, Cosmos, and God” for an argument for god. It’s amazingly silly, being a little more than the anthropic argument or “humans exist, therefore my god exists”, or as you’ll see below “If I exist, therefore my god exists”.
It’s by this fellow: “Prof. Leighton Vaughan Williams is Professor of Economics and Finance, Director of the Betting Research Unit and Director of the Political Forecasting Unit at Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University. Leighton is also Director of the Centre for the Public Understanding of Probability.”
And it shows he evidently has no idea what probablity is, despite his supposed training. He’s invented this concept:
“To make this case, the anthropic argument relies on a principle called the Self-Indication Assumption (SIA). SIA is a way of reasoning about your existence: it says that if a theory predicts more observers like you, then your existence makes that theory more likely. In other words, the more people a theory predicts, the better it explains why you find yourself existing at all.
Here’s why this matters: Theism naturally predicts a reality filled with observers, while atheism typically predicts a smaller, less populated reality. SIA suggests that the more people there are, the easier it is to explain why you specifically exist as an observer. Therefore, if you do exist, you should lean toward theories that predict a greater number of observers.”
I may be wrong, but I find this ridiculous. That one human exists is not evidence of any god, so the fact that unique me exists is also no evidence for any god.
My response:
And yet, still no evidence for any god, including all of the ones christians invent. You simply assume your god is the right one, as does every other theist. You also can’t agree on what “goodness” even is, so you seem to have nothing but baseless assertions.
your SIA is silly, and shows a complete ignorance of probability. “This is because, in a universe filled with many observers, your existence becomes much less surprising. If there are billions, trillions, or even infinitely many observers, the odds of you being one of them are far higher than if there were only a few. Here’s an analogy: Imagine entering a lottery with only 10 tickets. If your ticket wins, it feels extraordinary and almost unbelievable. Now imagine a lottery with 1 million tickets and 1 million winners. If your ticket wins in this scenario, it’s far less surprising—you were bound to win because there were so many chances. Similarly, a universe with more observers makes your own existence feel far more likely.”
Our existence has a probablity of 1 e.g. we exist. No need for your god at all, and theists seem to never be able to admit that your god is not needed. the laws of physics can suffice, so no “random” nonsense that theists create for their strawman.
Addendum: here’s an interesting discussion about this argument on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1bi4ki9/anthropic_evidence_for_god/
Club Schadenfreude 
These kind of silly non-arguments seem to be proliferating lately.
Here’s a thought – the more silly arguments there are for the existence of a god the less likely is god’s existence…
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indeed. The more time passes, the more desperate theists become and thus the more ridiculous the arguments are.
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I think therefore I am (okay so far), therefore God must be (how so?).
I was once asked what kind of proof I would need to believe in a god. If you factor in that I had had been a believer (on and off) longer than the person asking me had been alive, I could have said anything for which no evidence would have been provided. My answer was easy: “God proves the existence of God.” Easy.
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