The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[Thief]

Unlike people in the other camp I believe in the supernatural and without good reasons (instead of bias) I have no reason to challenge anything you claimed. However your going to face preference based responses to your claim. They will probably grant you had a wreck as that is not inconvenient for their view point. However they will demand proof for your premonition claims even though they do not demand the same for most of the decisions they make every day. I was only commenting on what will be demanded by others, not me. With people who will summarily dismiss billions of claims to the supernatural no evidence is ever enough because evidence is not what their position ever was based on to begin with. I think in general a lack of faith is a preference or emotionally based decision that once adopted goes in search of evidence to support it and in search of reasons to deny evidence in defiance of it. That is what we face and why documentation of the supernatural aspects of your claim are so vital. I actually have some documented medical miracles and even they are chalked up to a naturalism of the gaps, instead of the supernatural.

Yep!...that continual whine for documentation seems to be....continual.
But I keep telling them....
No photos, no fingerprints, no equations and no repeatable scientific experiments.

No proof.

Proving the spiritual?....acceptance only with evidence in hand?
Reminds me of Doubting Thomas.

As for something from Nothing?.......
if you really believe in science.....ok.....I do.....
and it was science that took me back to the singularity.
but science needs the experiment....the equation.....the photo....

I don't.
I believe in cause and effect....which science should not dismiss.
And at the 'point' of singularity...we have nothing to work with but how we think and feel.

And as we stand before heaven...that's the 'point'!
How we think and feel.

 

[idav]

Yep!...that continual whine for documentation seems to be....continual.
But I keep telling them....
No photos, no fingerprints, no equations and no repeatable scientific experiments.

No proof.

Proving the spiritual?....acceptance only with evidence in hand?
Reminds me of Doubting Thomas.

As for something from Nothing?.......
if you really believe in science.....ok.....I do.....
and it was science that took me back to the singularity.
but science needs the experiment....the equation.....the photo....

I don't.
I believe in cause and effect....which science should not dismiss.
And at the 'point' of singularity...we have nothing to work with but how we think and feel.

And as we stand before heaven...that's the 'point'!
How we think and feel.

When the evidence can point in any direction then the belief becomes just preference. We could easily chalk things up to the fact that the brain is an extremely sophisticated machine with a preference for survival. So sophisticated that it can tap into other realms that are not natural? I dont see why that would be the case since the brain is natural, built with atoms you know.

 

[Thief]

When the evidence can point in any direction then the belief becomes just preference. We could easily chalk things up to the fact that the brain is an extremely sophisticated machine with a preference for survival. So sophisticated that it can tap into other realms that are not natural? I dont see why that would be the case since the brain is natural, built with atoms you know.

Well....if your spirit is the part I'm conversing with....
or is that your chemistry responding?

Tapping into info without the five senses would be a spiritual event.

I believe we are all headed that way.
Dead men cannot use the five senses as we are doing now.

If you have any sense of communication beyond this life....
it will be directly to your mind and heart.

Doing so while still breathing does not surprise me.
I am surprised about that event which happened to me.
It was very exacting....and life saving.

So of course...I have little reserve leaning to Spirit.
Especially when I really enjoy science and that very basic concept of cause and effect is applicable.

 

[idav]

Well....if your spirit is the part I'm conversing with....
or is that your chemistry responding?

What evidence do we have that the brain does anything but electrochemical responses? I would say it is a good question but the question assumes something. A loaded question. A better question is what is the source of our chemistry? Are atoms supernatural?

Tapping into info without the five senses would be a spiritual event.

The brain has much more than our five outer sensory. There are tons of senses within the individual all coming from the brain. I would be fascinated to find if we have a sense within that can get passed the physical barriers, many look for this evidence with no luck.

I did respond to your miracle a page back, not sure if you might of missed it.

 

[1robin]

Forgive me but I have a hard time defining miracle in cases like this. A lot of times I define miracle as defying the odds (which i am comfortable with) but really there isnt odds to defy. When a plane crashes odds are people might survive, a miracle for survivors but not for the ones that didnt make it.

I hesitate to respond to posts like this, it isnt my intention to get too personal. It is good that your still here.

Survival was not the miraculous claim. The miraculous claim (which is exactly the part that did not survive your copying was in precognition of the wreck and the preparations for it. I do not think thief implied survival was miraculous.

 

[idea]

I think our brain receives and transmits, as well as produces signals. The incredible part of it is not information, but the entity that is aware of information - intelligence.

 

[1robin]

What evidence do we have that the brain does anything but electrochemical responses? I would say it is a good question but the question assumes something. A loaded question. A better question is what is the source of our chemistry? Are atoms supernatural?

Countless ways but let's pretend that is all there is. Are electrochemical responses a sufficient justification for moral edicts that allow a million human lives to be taken in the womb? I could not agree with that regardless but I can't see how anyone can sign the death warrants for millions and use chemical reactions as justification.

The brain has much more than our five outer sensory. There are tons of senses within the individual all coming from the brain. I would be fascinated to find if we have a sense within that can get passed the physical barriers, many look for this evidence with no luck.

I make no claims about it's merits (most of it is above my head) beyond the fact that many legendary scholars agreed in part or wholly that mind is primary and even matter, secondary. Sounds completely whacky but much of science does anyway. I can give you the article I refer to if you want.

I did respond to your miracle a page back, not sure if you might of missed it.

Let me add at least a few details of my own experience. I had rejected Christianity and had grown to hate God when my mother passed away. As usual this made a wreck of my life and despite me knowing it I had a ton of guilt and depression that had built of for years. This caused me to seek chemical methods of subduing these influences. Of course that made things even worse but I could not break the habits. Years later I had finally concluded my view on Christianity may be wrong and at the same time God placed me with one of the very few people I would listen to. In short order I cried out to Christ for forgiveness but in no way anticipated what occurred. Several habits I could not break were instantly gone without any residual desires. Years of depression over the loss of people close to me evaporated. Guilt in quantities I never knew were there was lifted. I instantly knew the factual nature of many theological propositions in a way unlike how I knew anything else was true. I literally felt like I was brand new. I had no experience in Christian terminology but long before I heard the term I described my experience to myself as being born again. I used the Gospels (that I had once hated) and found exactly what they promised in exact detail without knowing what it was previous to experiencing it. I can add about a dozen addition stories that have no natural explanation (or at least one that is a rational explanation) to that one. Since there are billions of stories just like this one and only one has to be right to invalidate your world view, which side is being biased here?

 

[1robin]

I think our brain receives and transmits, as well as produces signals. The incredible part of it is not information, but the entity that is aware of information - intelligence.

Consciousness is so miraculous it not only defies explanation it also almost defies definition. The brain is also the most complex arrangement of matter in the known universe.

 

[idav]

Survival was not the miraculous claim. The miraculous claim (which is exactly the part that did not survive your copying was in precognition of the wreck and the preparations for it. I do not think thief implied survival was miraculous.

What he had said was there were "no thoughts", which I attribute to instinct. That's mastering Tao and non-action.:yes:

 

[1robin]

What he had said was there were "no thoughts", which I attribute to instinct. That's mastering Tao and non-action.:yes:

Instinct would require that he had sensory indications that a wreck was going to occur. The story does not contain that. It insists the acts had no known natural instigation. Why are you assuming the opposite without justification? I also saw no reference to a lack of thoughts in his claim. Where did you find it?

 

[SkepticThinker]

There are hundreds of millions of claims to supernatural experience. Keep in mind it only takes one to be right to destroy your position. Are they all mistaken? Are all prophetic claims wrong? Is the two thirds or more of mankind over history mistaken to think a God exists? You have set up a burden you can't possibly meet.

Are these claims testable, demonstrable and repeatable?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Instinct would require that he had sensory indications that a wreck was going to occur. The story does not contain that. It insists the acts had no known natural instigation. Why are you assuming the opposite without justification? I also saw no reference to a lack of thoughts in his claim. Where did you find it?

There could easily have been sensory indications that he wasn't consciously aware of.

And of course, none of us were there to know whether there were actually any indications that a wreck was forthcoming. It's kinda hard to analyze an account like that without knowing every detail.

 

[idav]

Now.....
I didn't hear any voices.....didn't see anything unusual.....
There was no 'apparent cause' for my ...response.

What was I responding to?......you decide.

Instinct would require that he had sensory indications that a wreck was going to occur. The story does not contain that. It insists the acts had no known natural instigation. Why are you assuming the opposite without justification? I also saw no reference to a lack of thoughts in his claim. Where did you find it?

Instinct.

I presume there to be a cause and causes are natural. I could presume angels, demons, holy*spirits,*but why? Saying there is a natural explanation isnt fantastical, it is in the realm of reason.

 

[shawn001]

It does have to fluctuate. It does not have to, and it is imposable that it has done so, from eternity. It would have either produced the universe an infinity ago or have never done so.

Natural law stops at the singularity. That si why something beyond nature is required.

Agreed, though they are as fantastic as any biblical claim.

Must have made a type O. It is undetectable yet is believed to exist. God is undetectable yet resisted like grim death. Double standards like this just burn me up.

Majority, expert, and qualified opinion means something in law, every formal debate I have ever seen, every level and type of academia, medical statistics, and democracy. Why is it only ignored when inconvenient for a non-theist? While having 1 out of 3 people make the same claim to experience does not prove it. It does make denying it pathetically unjustifiable.

Sorry my double quote function doesn't work.

You know how you cherry pick is amazing. I stated we don't know if it was a singularity and you went onto the singularity properties which you don't have completely right either.


"Natural law stops at the singularity. That si why something beyond nature is required. "

Wrong again, because there STILL can be a natural explanation and there IS NO SUPERNATURAL EXPLANATION.


"Black holes exist and are natural."

"Agreed, though they are as fantastic as any biblical claim."

LOL

"Must have made a type O. It is undetectable yet is believed to exist. God is undetectable yet resisted like grim death. Double standards like this just burn me up."

Except both have an effect naturally on our universe which we can observe and test. The "biblical claims" don't offer any insight into how the universe physically works. Your special pleading here.

"Most of the matter in the Universe is very different than the stuff of which we, planets, and stars are made. This Dark Matter - it is actually transparent, not dark - provides the gravity which holds galaxies together, and built the structures we see in the Universe today. We do not know what it is - yet, but assume it is made of new types of elementary particles. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva will provide some clues. Astronomy is the way to discover how Nature works on the grandest scales. Dramatic recent advances in discovering the smallest galaxies which exist create the first chance to test the nature of dark matter. I will present the newest results, and show how we continue to learn that everything we see is not really reality."

A 3D map of dark matter in the Universe


http://asymptotia.com/wp-images/2007/01/hubble_dark_matter_map_3d.jpg


http://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2007/01/3d_map_of_dark_matter_as_seen_by_hubble/10184381-2-eng-GB/3D_map_of_dark_matter_as_seen_by_Hubble_node_full_image.jpg


"Yet hundreds of millions claim to have experienced the supernatural"

The amount of people means nothing, its the evidence and there is any for anything supernatural.

Your responce

"Majority, expert, and qualified opinion means something in law, every formal debate I have ever seen, every level and type of academia, medical statistics, and democracy. Why is it only ignored when inconvenient for a justifiable? While having 1 out of 3 people make the same claim to experience does not prove it. It does make denying it pathetically unjustifiable"

You can't use Argumentum ad populum

"In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or most people believe it. In other words, the basic idea of the argument is: "If many believe so, it is so."
This type of argument is known by several names,[1] including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to democracy, appeal to popularity, argument by consensus, consensus fallacy, authority of the many, and bandwagon fallacy, and in Latin as argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), and consensus gentium ("agreement of the clans"). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect. The Chinese proverb "three men make a tiger" concerns the same idea."

Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

magical thinking

magical thinking - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com


What would be justifiable is if you had any evidence at all, but you don't. You have failed to supply any what so ever. It would be great if you could? I would like to see it.

 

[johnhanks]

Instinct would require that he had sensory indications that a wreck was going to occur.

No, only that he had sensory indications (conscious or otherwise) of the possibility that a wreck was going to occur. There have been plenty of occasions as a passenger when I have prepared myself for that possibility (either because of my driver's indifferent skills or hazardous driving conditions) without it actually occurring, and I suspect this is true for the teller of this story and everybody else. Most times the "premonition" is forgotten as soon as the journey has safely ended; only when an actual crash occurs does it in retrospect appear spooky and supernatural.

 

[ArtieE]

I am well aware of experiential mistakes. However when you have billions and they must all be wrong in order for you to be right that argument is meaningless. Again this is about as obvious as bias comes. A claim that depends on a billion people (30%) being mistaken is not much of a claim.

It doesn't matter to evolution whether people are mistaken or not or whether what they believe exists actually exists as long as the belief enhances chances of survival. We have a survival instinct. Gather irrational and immoral "sheep" in "flocks" or "congregations" led by "shepherds". Have the "shepherds" tell the "sheep" there's a god with the power to grant them eternal survival but only if they keep this gods commandments and behave morally. Hence all the different beliefs in different gods and different religious scriptures. Whatever belief, if it enhanced chances of survival for the believers it was selected for. We even evolved a brain wired for belief so as to encourage gathering in these flocks.

 

[Thief]

Instinct.

I presume there to be a cause and causes are natural. I could presume angels, demons, holy*spirits,*but why? Saying there is a natural explanation isnt fantastical, it is in the realm of reason.

Not instinct.
Instinct...as per the typical animal...is a response to a sense.
They don't rationalize it....they just respond.
But none the less.....to a sense.

A scent on the breeze....a small movment at the periphery....another animal jumps....

What I responded to had no sensory input.
'something' from 'Nothing'

 

[1robin]

Are these claims testable, demonstrable and repeatable?

Are testimonies used as evidence in court testable and repeatable in totality? Are an affidavit's claims known to be true? Are multiverse testable or observable? Is abiogenesis? Is macro evolution? If you want to be technical (as apparently was your only escape) is any claim ever made a certainty? If consistent you must credit claims of experience with the weight their numbers deserve or abandon thinking anything is known. Dang a double standard. They have wasted at least 10,000 words of mine responding to.

 

[1robin]

There could easily have been sensory indications that he wasn't consciously aware of.

And of course, none of us were there to know whether there were actually any indications that a wreck was forthcoming. It's kinda hard to analyze an account like that without knowing every detail.

If truck and a drunk driver were not in sight just what sensory inputs were there. This is a naturalism of the gaps claim.

We could simply ask the person who's story it is.

 

[1robin]

Instinct.

I presume there to be a cause and causes are natural. I could presume angels, demons, holy*spirits,*but why? Saying there is a natural explanation isnt fantastical, it is in the realm of reason.

You can label things in any way that tickles your ears, or redefine things in any way that is convenient. However the story as is eliminates instinct and any other natural cause known. As it is you have no case. Maybe we should get him to elaborate to see if the vehicle was in site and swerving or something. If so I can grant you may have a case. If not the case is closed IMO.