What Passes for "Logic" over on TSZ

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This could also be titled "How to Erect a Strawman".

There is a recent post over on TSZ titled- The Fine-Tuning Argument – Kettle Logic on a Cosmological Scale. And yet it contains strawman after strawman and the "logic" is based on those.

For example the author has 3 premises:

1- An infinitely powerful being, God, created the Universe ex nihilo.

2- The same being carefully tuned a number of fundamental physical constants to extremely narrow ranges outside of which life as we know it would not be possible.

3- God’s creative hand is clearly visible in the structure of our Universe and its properties.

And somehow he thinks these three cannot all be true:

As with the Kettle Logic example above, any one of these three arguments might be true by itself.  However, also as with the previous example, I don’t see any way that all three can be true simultaneously.

Yet his "arguments" are all strawmen.

Scenario A: Assume statement 1 is true – If God is infinitely powerful and God created the Universe from nothing, then there can be no limit as to which values God could set physical constants to.  If he literally sets the rules, then he would be able to make any combination of values work for his desired outcome (If 1, then not 2).  And whatever set of values he chose, it should appear to any observers who might emerge within the Universe to be a brute fact (If 1, then not 3).

Yes, God could have picked any values but God also has to answer to the physical world God Created. It does not mean that God is not infinitely powerful just cuz God couldn't Create living organisms in a universe with any values for the laws and constants.

That is a huge strawman. And that brings us to:

Scenario B: Assume statement 2 is true – If there are only very narrow ranges of physical values that will allow life to emerge, then God could not have created the Universe from nothing.  In that case there must be a pre-existing substrate upon which reality is built which limits the creative actions of God (If 2, then not 1).  And similarly to Scenario A, if the constants were set at the beginning, they would appear to any observers in the Universe to be an unchanging brute fact (If 2, then not 3).

That doesn't follow at all and the author doesn't give any reasoning for it. The rules physical world is what limits the powers. God must adhere to those or be forced to be a baby-sitter for the Creation.

That was strawman #2. Then he finally gets it right:

Assuming that statement 3 is true brings me back to Joe Felsenstein’s comment that I quoted above.  The chemical properties of water are indeed exceptional.  However, as Joe points out, changing anything about the properties of water would necessarily change the nature of all of chemistry since water is made up of components which are common to all elements.

That is true! And guess what? Your position doesn't have an explanation for the existence of water. All you have is sheer dumb luck to explain what we observe. And seeing that science can only allow so much luck then your position is out of it and not science.

Look, if you want to refute the fine-tuning argument as evidence for some Intelligent Designer then start with science and show us how your position explains what we observe. But we all know that you have nothing and so you are forced to erect strawmen arguments and attack those.