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A challenge for atheist (From Youtube)

lukethethird

unknown member
“How he did it” is a separate question, you can establish that Egyptians made the pyramids, even if you don’t know how they did it

The claim that God is that cause of the universe logically follows from a series of premises that are alleged to be true, how is that question begging?

Your logic escapes me. It begs the question, what caused God, then what caused the cause that caused God ad infinitum.

Theist arguments are not “fill in the black” they are based on premises that may or may not be true, and arguments for the truth of the premises are usually given

They are exactly a "fill in the blank." There is no other way to describe such a notion. It is based on ignorance, we don't know what caused the universe to expand and here you are filling in that blank because you just can't say "I don't know." Do you know that the universe is expanding? If so, how do you know that, did you get that from The Bible? I don't think so.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Your logic escapes me. It begs the question, what caused God, then what caused the cause that caused God ad infinitum.


The same is true with any other proposition.

What causes apples to fall from trees (gravity)

Then what causes Gravity

Then what caused the cause of gravity (at infinitum)

You always get an infinite regress of causes (unless you establish a first cause)



They are exactly a "fill in the blank." There is no other way to describe such a notion. It is based on ignorance, we don't know what caused the universe to expand and here you are filling in that blank

Someone who doesn’t believing gravity could argue: You don’t know why apples fall from trees therefore you invoke a “gravity of the gaps argument”……… do you see the flaws of that objection?




because you just can't say "I don't know."

Positive arguments in favor of that proposition are usually proposed. Which is why it is suggested that God is the best explanation.



Do you know that the universe is expanding? If so, how do you know that, did you get that from The Bible? I don't think so.

No I didn’t get it from the bible…… whatis your point?

The amazing thing about the expansion of the universe is that the cosmological constant has a very precise value, such that if it would have been different life would have been impossible in this universe.

So why does the universe has such value

1 Intelligent design

2 chance

3 it was determined to be that way since the big bang

Theist usually provide arguments for why they thik that option 1 is the most probable explanation, you may or may not agree with these arguments, and you may have a stronger case for any other alternative, but this is not “fill in the blanks” but rather an appeal to propose ID as the best explanation
 

lukethethird

unknown member
The same is true with any other proposition.

What causes apples to fall from trees (gravity)

Then what causes Gravity

Then what caused the cause of gravity (at infinitum)

You always get an infinite regress of causes (unless you establish a first cause)





Someone who doesn’t believing gravity could argue: You don’t know why apples fall from trees therefore you invoke a “gravity of the gaps argument”……… do you see the flaws of that objection?






Positive arguments in favor of that proposition are usually proposed. Which is why it is suggested that God is the best explanation.





No I didn’t get it from the bible…… whatis your point?

The amazing thing about the expansion of the universe is that the cosmological constant has a very precise value, such that if it would have been different life would have been impossible in this universe.

So why does the universe has such value

1 Intelligent design

2 chance

3 it was determined to be that way since the big bang

Theist usually provide arguments for why they thik that option 1 is the most probable explanation, you may or may not agree with these arguments, and you may have a stronger case for any other alternative, but this is not “fill in the blanks” but rather an appeal to propose ID as the best explanation
The same is true with any other proposition.

What causes apples to fall from trees (gravity)

Then what causes Gravity

Then what caused the cause of gravity (at infinitum)

You always get an infinite regress of causes (unless you establish a first cause)





Someone who doesn’t believing gravity could argue: You don’t know why apples fall from trees therefore you invoke a “gravity of the gaps argument”……… do you see the flaws of that objection?






Positive arguments in favor of that proposition are usually proposed. Which is why it is suggested that God is the best explanation.





No I didn’t get it from the bible…… whatis your point?

The amazing thing about the expansion of the universe is that the cosmological constant has a very precise value, such that if it would have been different life would have been impossible in this universe.

So why does the universe has such value

1 Intelligent design

2 chance

3 it was determined to be that way since the big bang

Theist usually provide arguments for why they thik that option 1 is the most probable explanation, you may or may not agree with these arguments, and you may have a stronger case for any other alternative, but this is not “fill in the blanks” but rather an appeal to propose ID as the best explanation
By all your reasoning we could just as well conclude that God is the worst explanation and the same for ID.

The fact is, there is no known explanation.
 
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leroy

Well-Known Member
By all your reasoning we could just as well conclude that God is the worst explanation and the same for ID.

The fact is, there is no known explanation.
Sure, but you would have to justify that assertion.

The fact is, there is no known explanation
But that doesnt mean that we shouldn’t look at the evidence that we have to date and try to find the best explanation.

here is no other way to describe such a notion. It is based on ignorance, we don't know what caused the universe to expand and here you are filling in that blank

I don’t really understand your “fill in the blanks” objection.

For example if you observe a clear an unambiguous miracle (say a resurrection) where other witnesses with video cameras reported the same event.

And then the guy who supposedly resurrected talks to you and told you that he was in heaven with Jesus and that he meat your grandfather and he even gave you information about him that nobody except for you knows…………………. Would you consider this evidence for God ? or would you say “ohhhh that is just a fill in the blanks argument, just because you can’t explain these events that doesn’t mean that a real miracle took place, nor that “God did it”

It seems to me that any argument / evidence for God can be dismissed by simply saying “Ohhh it´s a fill in the blanks argument”
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
What if you look at the universe with your telescope and discover a cluster of stars.


Then you look closelly and note that the stars are arrange in such a way that they spell the first 3 verses of the gospel of john in 10 different languages


Would that count as evidence for God ? Yes /no why?

How would I know it wasn't aliens who came to Earth and learned some religions and decided to play a visual trick on us?
Yahweh or Zeus or any God could spell out their scripture in space and it would be compelling.
What is the point? Thor could show up and fly around and make storms and lift cars and use the rainbow bridge to take people to Asgard? Obviously it would be good evidence?
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Maybe , but you are claiming to have such knowledge therefore you have a burden proof. (That is the point of the Op)
I cannot prove Santa Clause isn't real. But we know characters in ancient fiction are probably fiction. This isn't hard to figure out? Do you think people now have to assume every fictional character is real unless they can prove they are not?
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
How would I know it wasn't aliens who came to Earth and learned some religions and decided to play a visual trick on us?
Yahweh or Zeus or any God could spell out their scripture in space and it would be compelling.
What is the point? Thor could show up and fly around and make storms and lift cars and use the rainbow bridge to take people to Asgard? Obviously it would be good evidence?
Ok so just to be clear, Not even stars spelling the gospels would count as evidence for God.

Is that what you are saying ?
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
I cannot prove Santa Clause isn't real. But we know characters in ancient fiction are probably fiction. This isn't hard to figure out? Do you think people now have to assume every fictional character is real unless they can prove they are not?
No, what I am saying is that you shouldn't conclude by default that a character is fiction unless you have some sort of argument or evidence for it.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
It’s your model, it’s your theory,

It's not. I'm not an evolutionary biologist.
Nor is it the model or theory of any single evolutionary biologist.
It's rather the result of +150 years of scientific cooperation and research done by thousands, if not millions, of scientists.

you are the one who has the obligation of presenting a realistic example of what actually happens.

Sorry, but over the years you have only shown me that it is utterly pointless to go through the time to find the links and papers and type out the posts that provide you with such.

You are not an honest conversation partner and I have better things to do with my time.

Evolutionary biology is a gigantic field and information is easily accessible.
The fact of the matter is that if you really were interested, you wouldn't need to ask me to do your homework - you would have already done it.

So, thanks but no thanks.

You may now continue with flying away claiming victory, pigeon chess style.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
No way José. Where in the world do you come up with your ideas?
.

His hero is William Lame Craig.
That should tell you all you need to know.

I will give him though, that he's a fine student. I indeed recognize the tactics and strategies of WLC in his postings. Same type of dishonesty and trying to sound sophisticated, while the actual contents is just rehashing of apologetic and creationist inspired PRATTs.
 

Sheldon

Veteran Member
I am not talking about evolution, I am talking about “complexity”

1 Do you agree that modern life is on average more complex than life in the past? (say 3 billion years ago)….. yes or no?

2 If yes ….Do you affirm that the mechanism of random variation + natural section is responsible for this average increase in complexity? (if yes can you provide a source?)

You seem to have ignored my question...

Sheldon said:
So you're saying the theory of evolution is not an accepted scientific theory then? When did that happen, I can't find anything on any news channel about this paradigm shifting event, almost as if you made it up. Have you ever heard of "Project Steve"? It might help you understand that science has already dealt this particular creationist canard a fatal blow.

This addressed a specific claim you made.

I have already answered both those questions, go back and read my answer.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
And you'll no doubt be aware of an experiment that ran for many years in a British hospital last century, where two doctors placed large placards on the top of high cupboards and fixtures so that they could only be read from above, typically the view reported by those experiencing OBEs. The placards asked the reader to report that they'd seen the placard. The result of that, and of similar experiments elsewhere, have all been zero.

Ha! That's actually quite funny. Never heard of this before. Got a link with extra info perhaps?


We have not one single authenticated case of a person returning from an OBE or an NDE with new remote information about reality.

Idd. Unfortunately, this is not going to stop people claiming otherwise.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
As I said you cant disprove any idea.


I dont see your point, i cant falsify with 100% Certanity the existance of Santa, Perhaps I live in the Matrix and the real world has a real Santa.

But we can reject the idea of Santa for these reasons

1 it has no explanatory power 2 no explanatory scope

3 inconsistency with previous knowledge

4 no predictive power

5 we don’t see the evidence that we would expect to see

6 its unparsimonious

7 introducing the Santa hypothesis would require hundrets of “ad Hoc” explanations

Etc

In the case of God / intelligent design we do have some of this points fulfilled.

Which ones and how?
be specific.
 

Sheldon

Veteran Member

The argumetn si more like:

1 The cause of the universe necessarily has to be timeless, space less, immaterial, with causal powers, personal etc.

A begging the question fallacy, since you are just making an unevidenced assumption that the universe needs a cause, in your argument it has a cause.

2 Something timeless, space less, immaterial, with causal powers, personal etc sounds a lot like God. ………..its hard to even imagine something with all those attributes that wouldn’t be label as “God”

Another begging the question fallacy, as in your argument for a causal deity, you make unevidenced assumption about its attributes. You have yet to demonstrate any objective evidence a deity is even possible, let alone what attributes it might have.

Its pretty much like saying that the cause of the first computer “necessarily” was a “non computer”….

No it isn't, that's a false equivalence fallacy, as we can easily demonstrate sufficient objective evidence that computer are designed and created by humans. Can you show us the designs of a universe, or demonstrate them being create beyond your bare assertions and unevidenced assumptions?

If you establish that computers have a cause, then this implies the existence of a “non computer” with the ability to create a computer and that exists independently of computers....

It doesn't need to be implied, it is an objective fact, as we have more than enough objective evidence that humans design and create computers, what you're using is a variation of Paley's watchmaker fallacy.

How many logical fallacies is that you have used in one single post. you'll next be telling us again how your deductions are logical?

I didn’t say that there are no scholars that dispute Aquinas in some particular points…. I said that nobody disputes the particular claim that “Cause of the universe = God”

There are people disputing right here, and again it is pure unevidenced assumption on your part that the existence of universe requires a cause, so what on earth are you talking about? A deity does not need a cause of course, but everything else does, that one is called a special pleading fallacy, since your other begging the question fallacies about a deity you intone are real, is neither supported by evidence or valid logic.

First cause arguments are not theistic arguments for a start, and they are flawed, as they invoke known logical fallacies. How many times are you going to ignore these?
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
And according to your rules, why is the existence of Aliens more “credible” than the idea of God or Santa Clause?

I already told you in the very post you are replying to.
Aliens aren't extra-ordinary magical beings. They are just biological creatures like we know trillions of precedents. The only difference is that they don't live on planet earth but on some other planet.

Planets exist.
Biology exists.
Biological organisms exist and they live on planets.

Where is your evidence for aliens? ………. Under what basis do you conclude that “Aliens” are likely to excist and that God and Santa Clause almost certainly don’t exist?

On the fact that they are natural biological creatures of which we have trillions of precedents.

If we find the ruins of an ancient city in an other planaet why would you conclude Aliens did it?

Because they would be the only plausible candidate, requiring the least assumptions.

........ why not saying “I don’t know and you don’t know ether” maybe there is an unknown natural law in that planet that causes something that looks like an ancient city.

Which would be incredibly less likely then alien life.

Why can God be comparable with Aliens? (Perhaps he exist perhaps not, we don’t know both possibilities are realistic)?

Again..... aliens are natural biological creatures, for which we have trillions of precedents on this planet.
We also know for a fact that there are countless of other earth-like planets out there orbiting their star in the goldilock zone.

To consider life existing on other planets in the universe is therefor extremely plausible.

What exactly do you mean by extraordinary ?

Without any type of precedent whatsoever.

and why is Aliens less extraordinary than God?

Aliens would be natural biological creatures, of which we have trillions of precedents.
God would be a magical being for which we have zero precedents.

........... what exactly do you mean by “magic” and why is magic “extraordinary”?

:rolleyes:

I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
For example if someone claims that God is the best explanation for the FT of the universe, and if he provides reasons for making such a claim you have to actually refute the arguments

Or just point out how the arguments are fallacious off course.
A fallacious argument does not require refutation. It only requires pointing out.

You can’t simply repeat like a parrot “there is no evidence for God” “there is no evidence for God”

You can, if there is no such evidence.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Evidence for the claim that natural selection has on average a “preference” for complexity over simplicity.

Nobody has claimed that natural selection has a "preference" for complexity over simplicity.
In fact, in principle and ignoring all other factors, natural selection will always prefer simplicity. At least in the sense that it will usually select against unnecessary complexity.

But here's the thing... we, on this side of the table, aren't ignoring all other factors.....................................
 
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TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Its not a strawman (at least not an international strawman)


This is my understanding of your view (correct me if I am wrong)

1 you belive that the first living things where simple (much much simpler than any modern microbe)

2 this means that un average complexity has increased over time.

3 ) you belive that the process of random variation + natural selection is the main responsable for this increase in complexity.

4 this would imply that natural selection on average has a preference for complex life (otherwise the average complexity would remain consrant)

4 does not follow from 3.
 
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