The Fine Tuning Argument

I was over reading Debunking Christianity and came across this particular post.

Generally speaking I like John Loftus. I think he has a lot of good points to make, and his position as a former apologist makes him an ideal candidate for making credible and pointed arguments against the Christian faith. That said I'm not sure why he posted this article, and even less sure why he thinks it makes for good apologetics, let alone sets a standard. All of the listed arguments are fairly standard, commonly debunked or irrelevant, but the one that bugs me most is the fine tuning of the universe argument.

This is a tired argument to most atheists, but it goes basically like this: Any number of factors in our universe are so specific that if they were changed even slightly human life could not exist. This is extremely simplified, but I'm sure you get the gist. Through this reasoning they foolishly assume this means that the universe was designed for human life.

Now, think about that for a minute and you'll surely see what's wrong with that assumption. The base of the assumption itself already assumes creation. By extension of its assumption that the universe was designed for human life, it automatically assumes that humans must have been designed as well. Even beyond that, assuming the environment was designed for the creature as opposed to the creature arising due to its environment is like saying legs were designed to fit pants instead of the opposite. A complete absurdity.

Fine tuning, in my estimation is one of the last refuges of a failing philosophy.