Steve..Atheists tend to fall into one of two camps. First, are the atheists who say that science cannot have anything to say about the existence of God. However, recently, the "new atheists" think that they can prove the non-existence of God through science. Although science cannot directly detect God, it can examine His creation. Consider the non-physical concept of love. We all accept that love exists, although it cannot be directly measured by science. However, if we observe those who love each other, we can indirectly measure the affect of love on these individuals' actions. For example, we might notice that they spend a lot of time together, they are constantly helping each other in various ways, and they come to each other's defense when the other is threatened in some way. Although we cannot measure love directly, we can measure the indirect effects of love. Likewise, although we cannot measure God directly, we can examine the universe to detect God's imprint on the physical world.
"Unlikely things happen all the time." This is the mantra of the anti-design movement. However, there is an absolute physical limit for improbable events to happen in our universe. The universe contains only 1080 baryons and has only been around for 13.7 billion years (1018 sec). Since the smallest unit of time is Planck time (10-45 sec), the lowest probability event that can ever happen in the history of the universe is:1/1080 x 1/1018 x 1/1045 =1/10143
So, although it would be possible that one or two constants might require unusual fine-tuning by chance, it would be virtually impossible that all of them would require such fine-tuning. Some physicists have indicated that any of a number of different physical laws would be compatible with our present universe. However, it is not just the current state of the universe that must be compatible with the physical laws. Even more stringent are the initial conditions of the universe, since even minor deviations would have completely disrupted the process. For example, adding a grain of sand to the weight of the universe now would have no effect. However, adding even this small amount of weight at the beginning of the universe would have resulted in its collapse early in its history.
