The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[SkepticThinker]

Those names were not connected to the enlightenment. Once again your misapplying my statements. I gave only a tiny fraction of the names involved. I think they were in a rough chronology and given without any reference to the enlightenment. The enlightenment claim is accurate, my claims about Christian science are accurate, and my names were correct. They only have problems if you jam them all together and attempt to use them in ways I did not. A list of enlightenment Christian scientists names can easily be found if you actually wanted them.

Then it was an odd thing for you to say, “What I mentioned happened mostly during the enlightenment” after mentioning the names of several people who were gone before the Enlightenment.

What? The majority of names (for example in the tope 100 list I use at times) claimed emphatically what they believed. people like Newton wrote more on theology than science. In fact this works in your favor because a Christian that was very private about his faith would not appear on the lists.

Some of the names you gave claimed emphatically what they believed.

And remember, up until around the end of the 19th century admittance to Cambridge was based on religious declaration. You couldn’t get in if you didn’t claim religious affiliation with the preferred church.

Do not answer questions for me.

I can answer whatever questions I like.

Science is like any other group. It ebbs and flows over time. It does contain many atheists these days. This seems to go hand in hand with the theoretical becoming the new reliable I guess. I however was not talking about numbers of mere scientists. I was talking about numbers or those who had made the breakthroughs and formed the fields of science themselves. The only groundbreaking science done in modern times on the scale of calculus or the laws of motion for example is the Quantum. It is still in it's infancy but I can give most of the credit to atheists for that one. However decoding the genome, and even probably the most formidable cosmologist (Sandage) are Christians. Where are the modern atheist equivalents of Copernicus, Da Vinci, Newton, Galileo, Descartes, Pascal, Faraday, Kelvin, Planck, Pasteur, etc .. ad infinitum. There are hordes of mere Chinese scientists, atheist scientists, Muslim scientists, Indian scientists, etc.. but the whose who of sciences golden age were predominantly Christian.

Yes, science ebbs and flows over time. Once most scientists were Christian (back when most everyone claimed to be Christian), excluding the people you don’t want to talk about like the ancient Chinese and Muslims. Now most scientists appear to be non-religious probably at least in some part because it’s much more acceptable in this day and age. They’re not likely to be murdered for expressing such heresy. So what does that mean? About as much as it means to point out that most scientists used to be religious. So, nothing really.

I’m not so sure that the golden age of science has come and gone. Look at all the breakthroughs we’ve made over the last century or so and continue to make on a daily basis.

Never heard of half of them. I was never ever taught about a single one in ten years of college, I never saw them in a single text book, even in the history of mathematics and physics classes. I have read about a few of them on my own and they are scientists but not among the Newton and Da Vinci type. Did you think I claimed you cannot find dozens of names of scientists in other cultures or something. Was a single one of them the father of a academic field?

I don’t care if you’ve never heard of them. What does that have to do with anything? They were responsible for many scientific breakthroughs and discoveries.

Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi is known by some as the father of modern surgery with his greatest contribution to medical science being a 30 volume encyclopedia of medical procedures.

Shen Kuo was the first person known to describe the magnetic needle compass and the idea of “true north” that led to humanity’s progress in using the compass for navigation. That’s fairly significant, I’d say.

Those are two examples from the ones I gave you.

I never said other wise. However the facts remain clear. Those that got into science based in some part on faith contributed far more greatly to science as a whole that those from any other cultural group and by a large margin.

You’re entitled to your opinion. Let’s not pretend it’s fact though.

I am not sure about excluding non-religious scientists. I am inclined to think we could if marginal people of faith like Einstein are not ruled out.

I’m not.

It was not me that said that. It was every textbook I ever used and all my instructors though not all of them went from A to Z themselves. I was educated in mathematics. Not a single Chinese, Muslim, or anyone beyond those groups I gave was ever mentioned to my knowledge. Now if you get beyond the fields themselves and into obscure off shoots then many nationalities would be necessary, but for the primary mathematic disciplines a few Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Christians are al that is needed until the quantum.

And again, I ask, so what if you’ve never heard of them?

This is a big waste of time, so let me summarize this.
1. I do not bring up Christian scientists to either suggest atheist scientists are stupid or that Christians are superior. I use them to suggest that any pathetic claims about faith and science being incompatible is an abject absurdity.

Okay. I’m not so sure that religion and science are incompatible overall, but definitely some particular offshoots of some religions are incompatible with science. Like 6-day creationism, for example.

2. I think it is true that Christianity more than any other cultural group has advanced science but do not really care to build upon that.

I’ve seen you assert as much on more than one occasion, so maybe you should build upon that.

3. That the enlightenment was in no way a rebellion against faith, but only a rebellion against church oppression.

I see it more as a shift toward reason and somewhat of a challenge toward tradition and faith.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I will be very very generous and say weather 48 hours may have a 85% success rate. Well it will quickly drop of to single digits given a few years. If science is that inaccurate (and believe me I understand fully why they could not help but be) about the weather a few years in advance, then of what use are predictions about billions of years in the future. If we still fight over even the most well known events from a few hundred or a few thousands years ago with written documents of what accuracy are claims about millions or billions of years ago? If we cannot effectively hit a bulls eye a hundred yards away I am not going to listen to claims about hitting one a hundred miles away.

If you want people to agree with you that meteorologists can’t predict the weather 48 hours in advance, then I’d suggest not sharing a story in which they did that, but were off by only a couple of hours.

I have no idea what that means. It seems to be answering someone else question and not to have anything to do with my statement it was responding to.

I’m responding to you. You’re doing the very thing you often accuse others of doing. Picking and choosing the science you like and ignoring the rest. You go with what you think verifies your Biblical interpretations like big bang theory for example then turn around and say science can’t accurately predict what happened billions of years ago or billions of years into the future.

That is completely wrong. I have never met a single Christian that ever held to true faith before they had investigated the bible thoroughly.

I’ve met many Christians who do that very thing, some of them on this very board. I’ve met Christians who have never actually read the Bible in its entirety, as I have.
So where does that leave us? With a bunch of anecdotal nothingness.

In fact I have never met a group of people who test their beliefs more often than Christians.

I have. They’re called scientists.

Find any seasoned Christian and you will find a person who has spent years and years questioning his faith daily. I like to say that since being born again I do not even need the bible, but without the bible's being accurate I would never have been born again. let's say you are given a treasure map. If you follow that map and it guides you in truth all the way until you find the exact treasure it promised, then on what basis do you conclude the map was wrong? Especially with teams of people testing the map and finding it more accurate than any other map of any kind from it's error.

You can claim all day long that the Bible is scientifically and historically accurate, but that doesn’t make it true. Many, many people have pointed out where it is not.

Can you imagine the frustration that a person must have trying to be patient with a person who never used the map declaring it is false? All Christians I know of are very aware of the historical corroborations on one end and are perfectly aware of the treasure they received after using the map at the other end. I am sure there are many that do have faith but are not aware of either but I do not consider them as Christians because Christ didn't. And since there are hundreds of millions of Christians of the type I mentioned any the simply swallow faith whole are not evidence of anything being unjustified. This is also a genetic fallacy by the way. Unlike others I do not yell fallacy and then hit send. I point out why it is incorrect.

All the Christians you know are perfectly in tune with your beliefs. Amazing. While I find that extremely hard to believe, I’m pretty sure you haven’t met every Christian in the world.
What part are you referring to as a genetic fallacy?

I agree in principle but most of the knowledge I use is self taught and not mathematical or technical. I just have developed a feel for troubleshooting. Many times I do not even know why I suspect a certain part until much later. I would of course not have a DAC to fix if they did not build it, but fixing it has nothing to do with Newton's, Da Vincis, and especially Hawkings. Unless you are in development an engineering degree is only a rite of passage. You do next to nothing with it. IN fact even in design my father was one of the NASA Apollo engineers that designed it's boosters and he only had a 2 year drafting degree. Now he is teaching geometrical tolerancong and dimensioning to Nasa and at the college I went to without a degree. He was one of the last that could do that without a degree.

You suspect a certain part much later because you’re thinking about it and building on your body of knowledge that you apparently think you came up with all on your own with no help from other minds that came before you.

If you had not said other universes I would have agreed. I do not think there is any evidence that makes another universe more likely. Your life from non-life evidence was much better if still woefully inadequate.

I presented some to you, which you dismissed and then told me you wouldn’t read any more on the subject. So maybe your own ignorance is responsible for your lack of knowledge on the subject. I don’t know. I’m no genius on the subject matter either, but there is some evidence that COULD indicate the existence of other universes which may or may not pan out some day. Hence why for the time being I say, “I don’t know.”

I agree it is theoretically possible. There are many reasons and better to think it didn't but I cannot rule it's possibility out. However a theory that devoid of evidence is not an effective counter to creation.

It is not devoid of evidence, as you well know.

I have been generous. Let me get this over with. Every single thing you think you know or might know, or even considered possible is in some part based on faith.
Nothing is known for certainty other than we think and many from your side even deny that. So lets just get that out of the way up front. You believe things you do not have any capacity to know them. I admit that we must assume many things to make any progress but I still am the only one that will admit that simple fact.

Monk of Reason gave a great response to this that I will point you to as he articulated it very nicely.

1. Even if that were possible it would be matter of faith. I see no rights you posses inherently and neither did even Jefferson unless God was included. You may like to think you have rights but that cannot be true or even defended without God.

Is Jefferson the be-all and the end -all when it comes to rights? I don’t think so. He was a deist anyway.
I can defend my rights and the rights of everyone else, as I have and will continue to do. I don’t need a divine commander to do so.

2. Rights must be possessed by something in order to grant them. You came into this world possessing nothing if there is no soul anyway. You nor any government has rights stacked in a warehouse to bestow on anything. In fact everything including your body can be stripped completely from you. Only God can ultimately bestow inherent rights that even temporarily impeded are never the less true eternally.

They’re possessed by us, which as far as I can tell, are the only ones around to decide something like that.
We all have personhood. That’s a good place to start.

3. The fact that no one has rights to grant is obvious by the fact that governments are tasked with protecting rights not bestowing them. People and institutions cannot grant rights, they are only required to not take them away. I can take every right you think you have away from you unless God restores what I have taken in an eternal sense. So in what way do you have anything without God?

As already described several times.

Atoms arranged in even impressive ways do not have the power to create moral truth. They can apparently imperfectly apprehend moral truth but they can never create it. Without God there are no morals to detect.

Funny that our brains should do so anyway, despite what you say.
I put something to you a while back which I don’t think you responded to. If, as you say, god has instilled these values and moral truths in our hearts, why do different individuals have different ideas about moral values? Why are our thoughts on the matter not all exactly the same? Even among Christians you find a variety of different moral beliefs that aren’t all perfectly aligned. Why is that?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I have no idea why the term that indicates the absence of something would be non-sensical.

What does love look like?
How can we measure beauty?
The entirety of reality contains much more nothing than something.
We know that nothing can exist because we know that everything began to exist.

If you have a perfect vacuum insulated from all energy fields is it something?
The thing we do know is impossible is an eternal or infinite something. That is not an option.

Can you point me to all this nothingness then? What does it look like? How do I measure it?

I'm not so sure that physicists agree that a vacuum is actually filled with complete nothingness.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

Its obviously a logical possibility, as it is not self-contradictory, and we have no good reason to suppose it is a physical or practical impossibility either.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I recognized you may not be making the claim that usually inspires the one you did make after I had completed my post. I reasoned that if I was mistaken you would indicate that.

That is not the point at which scholars stop.

They go on to include (to only mention a few) that the tomb was found empty and that he appeared to even his enemies.

Where can I read these eyewitness accounts?

 

[1robin]

Then it was an odd thing for you to say, “What I mentioned happened mostly during the enlightenment” after mentioning the names of several people who were gone before the Enlightenment.

I have no idea whether you mentioned the enlighten or events associated with it or not. I had previously mentioned names that had no connection with the enlightenment. I later mentioned the enlightenment. I thought you were saying my names were not associated with the enlightenment. That is because they were never intended to be. If you were referring to something else my names and claims still stand but I have no idea what you meant.

Some of the names you gave claimed emphatically what they believed.

And remember, up until around the end of the 19th century admittance to Cambridge was based on religious declaration. You couldn’t get in if you didn’t claim religious affiliation with the preferred church.

I am sure that occurred. I am also quite sure it does not have any meaningful effect of Christians contributions to science since many of them were in direct confrontation with stupid church traditions. At best it would balance out and be a wash. It is however very hard to fake actual faith.

I can answer whatever questions I like.

You can do so without my responding or reading them as well. There is no point to doing that and no justification can be made for it. If you want to waste your time do not expect me to do so as well. Honor alone should prevent you from placing words in another's mouth but as you said you may do it anyway.

Yes, science ebbs and flows over time. Once most scientists were Christian (back when most everyone claimed to be Christian), excluding the people you don’t want to talk about like the ancient Chinese and Muslims. Now most scientists appear to be non-religious probably at least in some part because it’s much more acceptable in this day and age. They’re not likely to be murdered for expressing such heresy. So what does that mean? About as much as it means to point out that most scientists used to be religious. So, nothing really.

Again with assuming my motivations which you have no access to nor knowledge of. I have debated Islamic scientific contributions quite a lot. Look in the Muhammad is great thread and you will find dozens of them in made in detail. Of course minor fluctuations occur in the make up of most groups. That however does not even begin to explain why Christians dominated science in it's greatest days for so very long. For instance it did not have any effect on Chinese, Japanese, south American, Pacific rim, or even African science for huge swaths of time yet all together they did not equal Christians contributions.

I’m not so sure that the golden age of science has come and gone. Look at all the breakthroughs we’ve made over the last century or so and continue to make on a daily basis.

Do not think I ma discounting gene decoding, medical advancements, nor space exploration. I am saying that all those are based on breakthroughs made by Christians and in fields they pioneered. Almost all of science has value and is helpful but most of what is necessary is Egyptian, Greek, and Christian. The only completely new and independent modern science is the quantum. Let me put it another way, if the goal was to damage scientific progress as much as possible by removing the contributions of a single cultural group, Christianity is the obvious choice.

I don’t care if you’ve never heard of them. What does that have to do with anything? They were responsible for many scientific breakthroughs and discoveries.

I was given a full education on what or who allowed the development of science as we know it, or at least was crucial to it. Not one name on that list was even mentioned. I am talking about relative value here not the existence of absolute value.

Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi is known by some as the father of modern surgery with his greatest contribution to medical science being a 30 volume encyclopedia of medical procedures.

I am not a medical student but I just watched "something the Lord made" which covered medicines greats including surgery. His name was not mentioned. That being said Islam's greatest advancement was in medicine. I am aware of several greats that were Muslims. I thought we were discussing physics, chemistry, mathematics, cosmology, genetics, biology, etc... the classic sciences. Medicine is kind of it's own thing and I do not claim Christian superiority in it but if investigated I believe I would find it there as well.

Shen Kuo was the first person known to describe the magnetic needle compass and the idea of “true north” that led to humanity’s progress in using the compass for navigation. That’s fairly significant, I’d say.

What are you doing? I never said 100% of all scientific inventions are Christian. I have constantly said that is not the case. The list of people who made progress that are not Christian is endless but still not as impressive as Christianity when compared to any other single group.

Those are two examples from the ones I gave you.

Since I never even hinted no science exists outside of Christian Europe this was not necessary.

Here is something that is not so meaningless. I typed in 100 of histories greatest scientists and picked the first link. I did not even look at it beyond the first 4 or 5. You look at it and tell me which cultural group has the most members on that list. I will even bet there are 10 theistic names for every atheist name but that is just guessing.
100 Scientists Who Shaped World History

You’re entitled to your opinion. Let’s not pretend it’s fact though.

As long as you agree that the facts back up my opinion.

I’m not.

I have thought about this a little. I do not think that the general scientific fields would suffer to much if all atheistic contributions were removed. Some specific areas of study would but not the fields themselves. At the level I was educated to I do not see much loss at all, but that level does not include the most modern areas of science. I end at partial differential equations, light based physics, and circuit analysis.

And again, I ask, so what if you’ve never heard of them?

If I can get through 10 years of school with never hearing their names how essential could they be? I was not given a single name in the essential history of all the higher math I had and the calculus based physics. I even studied secondary mathematical education and they covered more history still and not one of those names was mentioned. Constant mention was made of Newton, Planck, and those other Christians I mentioned because any history of science must.

Okay. I’m not so sure that religion and science are incompatible overall, but definitely some particular offshoots of some religions are incompatible with science. Like 6-day creationism, for example.

I would have to be convinced 6 literal days were intended by the verse in genesis before it would make any sense to debate it. I am currently not sure. I am inclined to think creation a semi literal metaphor designed to be understood representatively by bronze age men. This is why I normally stick to claims made about the historical period which contain thousands of claims that can be verified by science and are confirmed. I also use generalized creation claims. For example that God is ultimately responsible for the universe but the details concerning means are hard to nail down.

I’ve seen you assert as much on more than one occasion, so maybe you should build upon that.

I am virtually certain Christianity has done what I claimed it has. I however have no need to amplify that claim. This is not a who is smarter competition, it is a who is right exercise. I think I prevail on both accounts but have no need to expand on one of them.

I see it more as a shift toward reason and somewhat of a challenge toward tradition and faith.

I have read and watched many documentaries on the enlightenment and claim that what I stated is consistent with more or the evidence than your version of it but it really is not important either. The only thing that needs to be established is the fact that it was a revolt by atheists against Christian ignorance is pathetically ridiculous. There was an over abundance of both Christian ignorance and oppression but it was not primarily an atheist rebellion against them, it was a Christian revolt against them.

 

[1robin]

Can you point me to all this nothingness then? What does it look like? How do I measure it?

I'm not so sure that physicists agree that a vacuum is actually filled with complete nothingness.

You are wearing me out today.

I think your getting that from the new theory that empty space is not empty. That is not what I am talking about.

 

[idav]

I'm not so sure that physicists agree that a vacuum is actually filled with complete nothingness.

I thought that's what a vacuum of space was.

Vacuum is space that is devoid of matter.

Vacuum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In fact they do the quantum experiments in the vacuum otherwise there would be unknown variable from free floating particles.

Are we redefining nothing now?

 

[Willamena]

I thought that's what a vacuum of space was.

It's just devoid of air, not of space.

 

[metis]

What's interesting is that mathematical formulas point in the direction that dark matter is more prevalent than all other matter, and yet we can't find the #*%$_@&_) stuff! Maybe what we call "space" may be more occupied than what we think.

 

[idav]

It's just devoid of air, not of space.

True. What is the "something" of space? These vacuums contain virtual particles popping in and out of existence?

Maybe what we call "space" may be more occupied than what we think.

Apparently so, space isn't nothing. But a nothing before space-time wouldn't be the same as our space concept.

 

[SkepticThinker]

You are wearing me out today.

I think your getting that from the new theory that empty space is not empty. That is not what I am talking about.

Then what are you talking about?

 

[SkepticThinker]

What's interesting is that mathematical formulas point in the direction that dark matter is more prevalent than all other matter, and yet we can't find the #*%$_@&_) stuff! Maybe what we call "space" may be more occupied than what we think.

That's along the lines of what I'm getting at. It's not all nearly as clear cut as we want it to be.

 

[Avi1001]

Please do because I'm having a hard time following what you're saying. Maybe I just need more coffee.

BTW, Hawking has hypothesized that quite possibly gravitational energy alone may have caused our minute universe to appear.

The concept of dark energy is relatively new, and needed to explain the shspe of the universe. Let me give some thoughts about dark matter and dark energy:

Dark matter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy

Note, the universe is approx. 68-73% dark energy. Here is an explanation for the dark energy:

"The existence of dark energy, in whatever form, is needed to reconcile the measured geometry of space with the total amount of matter in the universe. Measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies indicate that the universe is close to flat. For the shape of the universe to be flat, the mass/energy density of the universe must be equal to the critical density. The total amount of matter in the universe (including baryons and dark matter), as measured from the CMB spectrum, accounts for only about 30% of the critical density. This implies the existence of an additional form of energy to account for the remaining 70%.[15] The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) spacecraft seven-year analysis estimated a universe made up of 72.8% dark energy, 22.7% dark matter and 4.5% ordinary matter.[4] Work done in 2013 based on the Planck spacecraft observations of the CMB gave a more accurate estimate of 68.3% of dark energy, 26.8% of dark matter and 4.9% of ordinary matter.[18]"

 

[Thief]

What's interesting is that mathematical formulas point in the direction that dark matter is more prevalent than all other matter, and yet we can't find the #*%$_@&_) stuff! Maybe what we call "space" may be more occupied than what we think.

Occupied?....as with Spirit?

 

[Enai de a lukal]

Occupied?....as with Spirit?

So spirit takes up space?

 

[Thief]

So spirit takes up space?

Spirit (that creator portion) can create substance and space in between is a side effect.

Spirit is neither substance or space.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

Spirit (that creator portion) can create substance and space in between is a side effect.

Spirit is neither substance or space.

You didn't answer the question. Does spirit take up space? Does it have mass?

 

[Sees]

You didn't answer the question. Does spirit take up space? Does it have mass?

Brohim you are thinking three-dimensional...Thief and I see and think on up past five dimensions :highfive:

 

[psychoslice]

Is there such thing as nothing ?.