>I don't understand?

Really? You didn't understand me? That's weird, seeing as you claim to be able to understand none other than God. Contradiction

>I've mentioned Aristotle and Spinoza as more clear examples of thinkers who have thought about the designer

Those two have done no such thing. Their concepts of God are incompatible with the designer. One is non-intelligent, and the other is indifferent. False claim

>I think it's clear at this point that fine-tuning does not commit you to a religion, and apparently you agree.

I neither agree nor disagree. I haven't taken a position on it yet as I think it's irrelevant to the argument of understanding the designer. Religion will come up when and if we ever bubble back up from this question of understanding the designer. Non sequitur

>I don't understand?

Oops... Here is this powerful mind that can understand God, not understanding some text on the internet again. How is it possible that a bunch of words is beyond your understanding, but the thing that fine tuned the thing that caused the thing that made the words come together is not beyond your understanding? Could it be that the words are imperfect, but God is perfect and free of contradictions? In which case how do you know this? Or did you mean that God is within human understanding, just not within yours? We just need to find somebody with a big enough brain? Or do you want to redefine "understanding" yet again, to whatever fits your current mid-sentence point? Contradiction

>Atheism is not a religion. That he can be interpreted as an atheist...

Ok... Atheism not a religion... Got it... Gonna interpret Spinoza as an atheist for this argument... Got it... Let's pin this.

>the positing of a designer and going on to ascribe properties to the designer via arguments can still keep you as an atheist

No it can't. Spinoza did not posit a designer, and positing a designer makes you a non-atheist, by definition. Not that this has anything to do with understanding such a designer. False claim

>Spinoza ascribes an intellect to God and describes God as a thinking thing.

Hey, remember that thing we pinned? Here is your atheist, acting like a theist. Contradiction

Also, Spinoza's idea of the intellect that you reference is incompatible with the intelligence required for the fine tuner. Non sequitur

>He proves many things about God in Ethics

Here is that guy you interpreted as an atheist going on and on about God, yet again... Or is he a theist now? You want to interpret him as the opposite of what you just interpreted him as? Tell you what, why don't you just interpret him as whatever you feel like at any given moment? Maybe next time he becomes a Hulk Hogan sidekick? Or you could just interpret him as me agreeing with you? Wouldn't that make it easy? All I ask is that you give him a big mustache. Contradiction

Also, no one has ever proven even the existence of God, let alone "many things" about him. All meta-physicists do is postulate. False claim

Moreover, even if he did prove something about something, even God, that would not show that he did not ascribe meager power to the human mind. Non sequitur

>Aristotle has no affiliation with any traditional religion in the sense that he was not Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc., and wouldn't have recognized these religions (not the least because the first two didn't exist during his time).

Aristotle is 100% affiliated with Christianity because St. Aquinas affiliated him with it. The fact that he was dead before St. Aquinas was born is irrelevant to the fact that he is now affiliated with St. Aquinas' religion, as his arguments can be found all over Christian theology. False claim

Moreover, you did not seem to mind dragging him into fine tuning, although he was dead before fine tuning came about. So you want to have it both ways? When it's convenient for you, it's Ok to affiliate him with a concept (fine tuning) although he was dead before the concept came about, but when it gets inconvenient for you, it's suddenly not Ok to affiliate him with a concept (Christianity) because he was dead before it came about? Bad faith

>The problem of evil is something you can use as an argument that the designer is not all-good.

The problem of evil is not something you can use as an argument that the designer is not all good, because you would need to establish the designer first, and the problem of evil does not do that. False claim

>It gets you to knowledge of the absence of a particular property of the designer.

It does not get you to knowledge of the absence of a property of the designer because it does not even establish the designer. All it does is show that a particular kind of a designer is logically inconsistent. So you would need to first establish this designer, before you can start getting to knowing some of its properties. But how are you going to establish this designer? Fine tuning? But you are in the middle of arguing that fine tuning is not nonsense. So you want to use a time machine to jump forward in time where you have established fine tuning as a valid argument, and then jump back here to use it to support the thing that supports it? Circular reasoning

>I don't know why this wouldn't be a form of understanding.

This would not be a form of understanding because it is not possible to understand something full of internal contradictions, paradoxes and circular reasoning that the problem of evil brings with it into fine tuning.

>I don't know where I've said that understanding the designer is something we can do scientifically

I inferred it from you bringing up the simulation hypothesis.

>I don't take the simulation hypothesis very seriously either

Why in the world would you bring something you don't even take seriously yourself into the dialogue? Have you already run out of things you do take seriously? Bad faith

>I don't think that religious understanding and scientific understanding exhaust the kinds of understanding we can have. The kind of understanding that's relevant here that is neither of these two things is metaphysical understanding. So not requiring a commitment to religion is not the same thing as being scientific here.

Totally irrelevant to the question of understanding the designer, but let's be honest here: religion and metaphysics are basically two peas in a pod.

>I don't understand what the designer being all-knowing in contrast to the human intellect being constrained has to do with the designer being beyond understanding.

Again something you just don't understand. You're doing a lot of not understanding for somebody who understands God. In this case, one is beyond understanding of the other because one is infinitely larger than the other.

>Maybe I'll guess at what the confusion might be here - I read "not being beyond understanding" not to mean "having a full understanding". For example, the natural world is not beyond understanding (science has allowed us to gain knowledge of various things about the natural world), but it is not something we have a full understanding of---and it perhaps may not be something we ever have a full understanding of. But I, and I suspect almost everyone, would not say the natural world is beyond understanding even if it is something we will never have a full understanding of. One might argue the finitude of human intellect means we cannot come to a full understanding of God, but this says nothing about whether we can understanding some things about God.

I don't think there is confusion here. I suspect you are feigning ignorance. I could not have been more clear on what I meant by "understanding." "Full understanding," or "complete understanding" is a very problematic concept, that may be either paradoxical or impossible depending on the framework used, and I would not have used it. I defined understanding using your own words ("why and what the designer is") and I added "and how it came to be this way, that it can fine tune universes". How could you be confused with your own words?

>Yes, I don't mean ascribing it contradictory attributes either, and I don't think I've said anything like this. I mean ascribing it attributes like being all-good or not being all-good.

Here, in the second sentence you are doing the thing that you said you never did in the first sentence. There is no such thing as an all-good designer, as you demonstrated yourself with the problem of evil. And you cannot ascribe the not-all-good attribute to a thing you have not even established yet. You cannot use Argument A (problem of evil) to support Argument B (fine tuning) while at the same time using Argument B to support Argument A. Circular reasoning

>I think I've already said much more than needed to explain why the fine-tuning argument does not posit a designer that is beyond understanding, but I'll summarize it again: There are arguments that, if you buy them, lead you to knowledge of particular properties of the designer.

You have done no such thing. All you've done so far was engage in contradictions, self-refutations, circular reasoning, false claims and other fallacies, so characteristic of goddidit. Not to mention the fact that the definition of understanding you're using in your summary here is yet another reinterpretation, which is not only inconsistent with the definition I gave, but it is also inconsistent with your own wrong interpretation of my definition, where it means "full understanding." Here you are reinterpreting understanding to mean "ascribing paradoxical properties that depend on circular reasoning."

Want to have another go? Just so we don't miss the forest for the trees here, here is the assertion you need to either refute or concede:

"Fine tuning posits a designer that is beyond human capacity to understand."