The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[SkepticThinker]

Oh come off it. I have been in a hundred cars when I was younger that were going to fast and I without supernatural intervention put on the seat belt and did not say stop the car. Premonitions are not certain knowledge they are dreadful feelings, simple instructions, or fear. In this case it seems a dread of something unknown or quantified resulted in fishing a seat belt out of a hard place to retrieve it from and a general apprehension of a un named and un detectable problem. It turned out it was a wreck. Virtually no one would normally feel a bit of fear, and then stop a car on the side of the highway. Why are you so danged determined to appeal to anything that is not impossible to dismiss what is almost unmistakable. An objective atheist would say well that is interesting but not in it's self convincing and move on. The fact a non-theists must deny everything is a sign that if one ray of light is ever allowed in the whole house of cards might fall. It never ceases to amaze that nothing is ever given the benefit of the doubt even if all the evidence is in it's favor if it in any way makes God slightly more likely.

I have "dreadful feelings" all the time that never materialize into anything. Does that have some kind of supernatural explanation as well?

I don't. I do not think that state has the right to tell me how to be safe in that way. If I for no apparent reason do put it on, especially if I have to go through abnormal trouble doing so and then survive a wreck no argument you made is relevant. I knew another girl that in the dead of winter rolled her window down and she to this day can't think of why she was caused to do so. The car a few minutes later went off an over look. She was thrown out and every one else died. There are billions of claims that seem to make the supernatural the best answer going. What is it that would drive you to find a far less evidenced but natural cause for them all. It certainly is not the lack of a bias.

So what’s the point of these supposed supernatural interventions? God wanted to save that girl and wanted the rest of the people in the car to die?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I am saying there exists no natural explanation for actions that seem to anticipate unknowable future events. That is exactly hat I would expect if God exists and not what I would expect except on a miniscule coincidence level if he did not. It gets even worse with claims that have an entire series of events that must multiply together to determine the naturalistic probability.

There does though. You're just ignoring it.
Remember (a while back now) when I told you that studies show that our brains make decisions before we’re even consciously aware of them? Our brains receive massive amounts of sensory input (both external and internal) at any given moment. Think of all the things your brain has to take in and interpret at any given second.

Doesn’t this kind of experiment demonstrate that we’re not consciously aware a great deal of the activities our brains are constantly and continually examining, interpreting and carrying out? Doesn’t it demonstrate that it’s possible that our brains can capture sensory input that we’re not actually consciously aware of?

http://www.eaglemanlab.net/papers/EaglemanSciencePerspective2004.pdf

Not to mention, everything we do know about brain functioning and human nature, as already discussed here:

In the case of "claims similar to this" the natural explanation is a very good one. The way our brains work makes us very prone to (1) seek agency and purpose in whatever happens to us, even where there is none, and (2) select and elaborate memories of experiences that confirm our biases. Are you suggesting that people never have premonitions of misfortunes that fail to materialise? Claiming that the ones they felt when a mishap did occur are evidence of supernatural agency is to paint bulls-eyes around random bullet-holes.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I at one time was desperate for a correct interpretation to a core biblical concept. I prayed hours about it. In the middle of a long prayer I suddenly had the urge to turn on the TV. I thought that about the most ridiculous and inappropriate desire possible but I was tired of praying so either way I turned it on. It happened to be on a bible network channel and a preacher was speaking on the same subject I wanted clarity on. I thought that had to be chance. So weeks later I am back to praying for an answer and got the same urge but it was in the morning this time. I gave up resisting and turned it on. It was the same preacher on the same subject. Now I am starting to wonder but thought maybe some viewing habits I had were causing this. I mean I did not even have to change channels. I decided to do this one final way for certainty. I prayed in my car outside a Christian book store that I would ask the first employ I saw for a book on the issue. The person I met instantly gave me one by Charles Stanley (the exact person who had been on the TV both times). No win order to get rid of the only eternal hope for mankind you can concoct using intellectual gymnastic some ridiculously improbable natural explanation for this. However it would not be even fractionally as good as a supernatural one. It would be a travesty or logic but could still be used as a shield against faith if you started the story having already determined the conclusion based on bias.

I wonder if amputees pray day and night for their limb to grow back. And yet it never, ever happens.

 

[metis]

I wonder if amputees pray day and night for their limb to grow back. And yet it never, ever happens.

Things like that have been tried under scientific observation with no positive results as such. However, what they have seen under controlled conditions is that if people think they're being prayed for, there is evidence that there can be some improvement with some patients overall. Generally speaking, it is maybe a "mind over matter" thingy, but who knows for sure.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Things like that have been tried under scientific observation with no positive results as such. However, what they have seen under controlled conditions is that if people think they're being prayed for, there is evidence that there can be some improvement with some patients overall. Generally speaking, it is maybe a "mind over matter" thingy, but who knows for sure.

At this point in time, that appears to really be the only thing we can say about the efficacy of prayer. And I don't see any reason why it would require a supernatural explanation.

The mind is a powerful thing, that's for sure.

 

[idav]

Oh come off it. I have been in a hundred cars when I was younger that were going to fast and I without supernatural intervention put on the seat belt and did not say stop the car. Premonitions are not certain knowledge they are dreadful feelings, simple instructions, or fear. In this case it seems a dread of something unknown or quantified resulted in fishing a seat belt out of a hard place to retrieve it from and a general apprehension of a un named and un detectable problem. It turned out it was a wreck. Virtually no one would normally feel a bit of fear, and then stop a car on the side of the highway. Why are you so danged determined to appeal to anything that is not impossible to dismiss what is almost unmistakable. An objective atheist would say well that is interesting but not in it's self convincing and move on. The fact a non-theists must deny everything is a sign that if one ray of light is ever allowed in the whole house of cards might fall. It never ceases to amaze that nothing is ever given the benefit of the doubt even if all the evidence is in it's favor if it in any way makes God slightly more likely.

I don't. I do not think that state has the right to tell me how to be safe in that way. If I for no apparent reason do put it on, especially if I have to go through abnormal trouble doing so and then survive a wreck no argument you made is relevant. I knew another girl that in the dead of winter rolled her window down and she to this day can't think of why she was caused to do so. The car a few minutes later went off an over look. She was thrown out and every one else died. There are billions of claims that seem to make the supernatural the best answer going. What is it that would drive you to find a far less evidenced but natural cause for them all. It certainly is not the lack of a bias.

All your thoughts are not conscious! This doesn't make the supernatural the best answer!

God or supernatural must be beating everyones hearts cause we don't think about it.

 

[johnhanks]

I am saying there exists no natural explanation for actions that seem to anticipate unknowable future events.

And I have given you a very simple natural explanation. We just set aside all the occasions when the anticipated future events don't happen, and lend enormous significance to the few occasions when they do.

That is exactly hat I would expect if God exists and not what I would expect except on a miniscule coincidence level if he did not.

No minuscule coincidence needed - only concentration on the rare hits and ignoring of the very large number of misses.

 

[Thief]

Memory is not just a recorded playback. That's the point.

Your memory of an event is subject to your own perceptions, experiences, world view, brain functioning, etc. and these are things we're not even usually conscious of. Or as you said, it's subject to your own influence. That's the problem.

Excellent retort!...and it seems true as meds and scientists continue to reason how the memory works.

But the items I offered remain the same.

As for asking the driver to stop the car?.....that would be unreasonable.
Would he do so?....likely not.
There was nothing to be afraid of....and I wasn't.

Something out of nothing?
Seemed that way to me.
Angels?.....maybe.

But I can't let it slide to everyday explanation.
I never found one for myself.....and I was there.
and I still have the scar to prove it.

 

[1robin]

I have "dreadful feelings" all the time that never materialize into anything. Does that have some kind of supernatural explanation as well?

That is irrelevant unless a dreadful feeling caused you for no apparent reason to go buy a parachute and then struggle putting it on only to later fall out a 100th story window. I never said anything about dread being evidence of the supernatural.

So what’s the point of these supposed supernatural interventions? God wanted to save that girl and wanted the rest of the people in the car to die?

Are you suggesting given, Noah's arc, the Jewish people, salvation it's self, etc... God does not treat those that follow him differently than those that defy him? If he warns people who listen to him to prepare to avert disaster he hates everyone else. If he does not then he has no evidence for existence. Heads he looses tails you win. This is bias from alpha to omega.

By the beard of Zeus this is no way to go about deciding if God exists, but a dang good method for denying he does, at any cost.

 

[1robin]

I wonder if amputees pray day and night for their limb to grow back. And yet it never, ever happens.

I can grant that is a tough one. I can only give two inputs that will affect but not resolve this issue.

1. It maybe that the prayers were answered in the great strides made in artificial limbs.
2. I have heard at least of one case where a evangelists refused to have a rotting arm amputated and supposedly it was restored to perfection in from of a tent full of people but can't find the source.
3. As Paul and others said some debilitations are sent to amplify our dependence on God and lower it on our selves.

The apostles said they gloried in every hardship.


The above in no way defeats the real problem you mention, but this might:
If just one supernatural healing of the millions of claims, of any kind, inn any time period, your entire position is ruined, just one. Are you prepared to deny them all? The Catholic Church is about the most skeptical organization concerning miracles there is because of liability issues yet they have thousands they confirm.

 

[1robin]

All your thoughts are not conscious! This doesn't make the supernatural the best answer!

God or supernatural must be beating everyones hearts cause we don't think about it.

What? BTW I do not continue discussions too long with face palms in them. If you can't make the point, an emoticon can't do it for you. They are arrogant and juvenile and the one who use them usually have the least justification for doing so.

One last time it is not any particular alone that makes this a possible miracle.
All these combined does.

1. No danger was apprehended by the senses.
2. A person who does not wear seat belts suddenly desired to put one.
3. In spite of it being very hard to get, it was struggled with until it was put to together.
4. Soon after a wreck occurred in which the seat belt probably saved their life.

Please see my description of being born again as exhibit two.

Exhibit three. In the six days war a tank battalion on foot for some reason was walking along and one of them stepped on something. It was a mine. They checked their maps and found they were in the middle of a huge mine field and by some miracle they had not exploded one and there was no way they were getting out without massive casualties. Just then a freak wind so strong it blew 4 inches of sand from the area and every single mine was exposed.

There are actually entries in Jewish battle reports like this one that contain the word miracle.

Multiply these few stories by millions.. Are you actually going to gamble everything you have on them all being wrong?

 

[freethinker44]

3. As Paul and others said some debilitations are sent to amplify our dependence on God and lower it on our selves.

It's funny to me that something is pretty much universally seen as an evil except if it involves God.

Make someone dependent on something only you can provide? Your a drug dealer.
Make someone you're in a relationship with dependent on you? Your an abusive spouse.
If you're a god and you do this? It's a miracle.

 

[1robin]

And I have given you a very simple natural explanation. We just set aside all the occasions when the anticipated future events don't happen, and lend enormous significance to the few occasions when they do.
No minuscule coincidence needed - only concentration on the rare hits and ignoring of the very large number of misses.

That is an interesting take. Let me illustrate it a different way. If a fixed bulls eye was set up 5000 yards away and people started firing arrows at it. There is no natural way a standard bow will get any where in the same realm as the bulls eye. Now if 6 Christians say they got a sign from god before firing and despite the range being several times farther than a bow can shoot they hit dead center. Would it not be reasonable to chalk up all the misses as natural and the impossible but undeniable bull's-eyes as possibly supernatural. This gets far worse in other cases. For example if several things must occur like the fine tuning of the universe to support ANY life of any conceivable type they are multiplicative because they require countless things balanced just right. If only one parameter was needed then like a lottery someone had to win but instead what we need is the same guy to win hundreds of times. There are easy ways to eliminate the natural for the possibly supernatural.

 

[SkepticThinker]

That is irrelevant unless a dreadful feeling caused you for no apparent reason to go buy a parachute and then struggle putting it on only to later fall out a 100th story window. I never said anything about dread being evidence of the supernatural.

Of course it’s relevant, as per johnhanks’ posts.

The one time I get a dreadful feeling and something dreadful actually does happen, I don’t necessarily have a reason to link the 2 events any more than I am do when I get a dreadful feeling and nothing dreadful happens at all.

Are you suggesting given, Noah's arc, the Jewish people, salvation it's self, etc... God does not treat those that follow him differently than those that defy him? If he warns people who listen to him to prepare to avert disaster he hates everyone else. If he does not then he has no evidence for existence. Heads he looses tails you win. This is bias from alpha to omega.

Well, firstly, it’s not a given that the Noah’s ark story ever happened. But whatever.

Yeah, I’m saying apparently, god does not treat those that follow him differently than those that defy him. I see no evidence supporting your assertion. Devout amputees can pray forever and never see their limb grow back. How many Jews do you think prayed that their families would make it through the Holocaust, to no avail? The Jews have been through some of the worst crap in human history. Thousands of children go missing every year never to be seen again. What’s your god got against those children?

In other words, I see what I would expect to see if there were no personal god intervening in lives and answering prayers. I would assert that your point of view is the biased one here.

By the beard of Zeus this is no way to go about deciding if God exists, but a dang good method for denying he does, at any cost.

I was just wondering what you think is the point of these supernatural interventions that supposedly occur in some cases but not others.

 

[1robin]

It's funny to me that something is pretty much universally seen as an evil except if it involves God.

Make someone dependent on something only you can provide? Your a drug dealer.
Make someone you're in a relationship with dependent on you? Your an abusive spouse.
If you're a god and you do this? It's a miracle.

I did not say nuclear war was helpful, or being in a comma, or that not being able to communicate is conducive to helping God. I said as Paul did that when he prayed for his unknown thorn in his side to be removed God said no because it would remind him to depend on God's strength not his own. The principle is perfectly sound if you do not mangle it up and apply it to things it has nothing to do with. I do not care if you agree or not, but can you not see the obvious principle I am illustrating. In fact drill instructors, teachers, and parents do it every single day though through means not quite as devastating.

I will even give you a well know example. Gideon was commanded to attack an army that was in route to attack Israel. He took 30,000 men. God said send back 20,000. Then later he said send back even more. Then finally he said to only take 300 into battle. Gideon asked why? God said because he wanted Israel to rely on him and not it's armies. They beat an army of tens of thousands with 300.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I can grant that is a tough one. I can only give two inputs that will affect but not resolve this issue.
1. It maybe that the prayers were answered in the great strides made in artificial limbs.
2. I have heard at least of one case where a evangelists refused to have a rotting arm amputated and supposedly it was restored to perfection in from of a tent full of people but can't find the source.
3. As Paul and others said some debilitations are sent to amplify our dependence on God and lower it on our selves.
The apostles said they gloried in every hardship.

Or

4. Maybe prayer doesn't work.

It's funny that the prayers that are answered never seem to be anything that actually defy the impossible in any verifiable way, like an amputated limb growing back.
James Randi has been trying to give away a million dollars for many years now, to anyone who can demonstrate any supernatural event under proper scientific conditions. If what you say is true, he should be broke by now, no?

The above in no way defeats the real problem you mention, but this might:
If just one supernatural healing of the millions of claims, of any kind, inn any time period, your entire position is ruined, just one. Are you prepared to deny them all?

If that actually did occur, it still wouldn’t confirm that the specific god you believe in exists, or any god for that matter.

The Catholic Church is about the most skeptical organization concerning miracles there is because of liability issues yet they have thousands they confirm.

Good one!

 

[freethinker44]

I did not say nuclear war was helpful, or being in a comma, or that not being able to communicate is conducive to helping God.

Neither did I, so I don't know where this came from.

I said as Paul did that when he prayed for his unknown thorn in his side to be removed God said no because it would remind him to depend on God's strength not his own. The principle is perfectly sound if you do not mangle it up and apply it to things it has nothing to do with. I do not care if you agree or not, but can you not see the obvious principle I am illustrating. In fact drill instructors, teachers, and parents do it every single day though through means not quite as devastating.

I do see the principle you're illustrating, and it doesn't change the fact that fostering dependence is almost always seen negatively except when God is involved. Even in your example of teachers, parent, and drill instructors, they aren't about making people dependent on them, the ultimate goal is to create independence. A parent that creates a child that can't function on their own is bad parenting, a teaching is about teaching children how to think, not what to think, drill instructors don't make soldiers dependent on them, they build them up so they can be a successful fit in the military. Having people who are dependent on you isn't the same as making someone dependent.

Drug dealers and abusive spouses make people dependent on them, teacher and parents make people independent of them.

 

[shawn001]

What? BTW I do not continue discussions too long with face palms in them. If you can't make the point, an emoticon can't do it for you. They are arrogant and juvenile and the one who use them usually have the least justification for doing so.

One last time it is not any particular alone that makes this a possible miracle.
All these combined does.

1. No danger was apprehended by the senses.
2. A person who does not wear seat belts suddenly desired to put one.
3. In spite of it being very hard to get, it was struggled with until it was put to together.
4. Soon after a wreck occurred in which the seat belt probably saved their life.

Please see my description of being born again as exhibit two.

Exhibit three. In the six days war a tank battalion on foot for some reason was walking along and one of them stepped on something. It was a mine. They checked their maps and found they were in the middle of a huge mine field and by some miracle they had not exploded one and there was no way they were getting out without massive casualties. Just then a freak wind so strong it blew 4 inches of sand from the area and every single mine was exposed.

There are actually entries in Jewish battle reports like this one that contain the word miracle.

Multiply these few stories by millions.. Are you actually going to gamble everything you have on them all being wrong?

Again your using the

Ad populum fallacy

The ad populum fallacy is the appeal to the popularity of a claim as a reason for accepting it.

The number of people who believe a claim is irrelevant to its truth. Fifty million people can be wrong. In fact, millions of people have been wrong about many things: that the Earth is flat and motionless, for example, and that the stars are lights shining through holes in the sky.

The ad populum fallacy is also referred to as the bandwagon fallacy, the appeal to the mob, the democratic fallacy, and the appeal to popularity.

The ad populum fallacy is seductive because it appeals to our desire to belong and to conform, to our desire for security and safety. It is a common appeal in advertising and politics. A clever manipulator of the masses will try to seduce those who blithely assume that the majority is always right. Also seduced by this appeal will be the insecure, who may be made to feel guilty if they oppose the majority or feel strong by joining forces with large numbers of other uncritical thinkers."

ad populum fallacy - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com

You need to supply some real scientific evidence not anecdotal evidence!!! You haven't done that yet at all.


Where are the links to any of this information?

 

[McBell]

Again your using the

Ad populum fallacy

The ad populum fallacy is the appeal to the popularity of a claim as a reason for accepting it.

The number of people who believe a claim is irrelevant to its truth. Fifty million people can be wrong. In fact, millions of people have been wrong about many things: that the Earth is flat and motionless, for example, and that the stars are lights shining through holes in the sky.

The ad populum fallacy is also referred to as the bandwagon fallacy, the appeal to the mob, the democratic fallacy, and the appeal to popularity.

The ad populum fallacy is seductive because it appeals to our desire to belong and to conform, to our desire for security and safety. It is a common appeal in advertising and politics. A clever manipulator of the masses will try to seduce those who blithely assume that the majority is always right. Also seduced by this appeal will be the insecure, who may be made to feel guilty if they oppose the majority or feel strong by joining forces with large numbers of other uncritical thinkers."

ad populum fallacy - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com

You need to supply some real scientific evidence not anecdotal evidence!!! You haven't done that yet at all.


Where are the links to any of this information?

Psssst...

Are you actually going to gamble everything you have on them all being wrong?

is nothing more than Pascals Wager....

 

[ImmortalFlame]

And because of those requirements some of the greatest experts in testimony and evidence in history claim hey meet every standard of modern law and could even be submitted under the ancient documents procedures.

And who are these people and why do their opinions count for so much?

Yet we accept them as valuable testimony used even in cases on life and death, so why are they only throw out if concerning faith.

Because of what I just said above. Evidence, corroboration and reason. A claim is never known to be true, but its claims can be evidenced and supported so that we can conclude that it is reasonable to believe that they are true.

No need. I have heard them say as much at least for the time being.. With one possible exception that is based on assumption piled on guesses, piled on speculation there is no evidence for anything natural beyond this universe.

Well, that's your opinion. I'll wait until I speak directly to those who are more educated on such subjects.

It is not impossible that it occurred but not a single piece of evidence or a single observation indicates it occurred.

Except for the Miller/Urey experiment, obviously.

They could not even cheat and force it to occur.

Why would they?

Nope, mico evolution is a reasonable deduction for the evidence but has never ever been observed or tested.

Yes, it has. It has been repeatedly tested by observations of fossil formations, geology and genetics. These things are testable, observable and repeatable by any reasonable standard.

He placed sciences burdens (which much of science betrays) on faith. My point was the standard demanded does not apply to faith yet faith in many cases can meet it, it does apply to science but in many cases it can't be met.

You've changed the subject entirely. I was making a point about certainty, not about the burden of science.

Will this mistake never end. Numbers do not prove they do indicate.

Actually, they do neither in this case.

Your going straight for no proof to of no use which is the exact opposite of what occurs in countless areas of study, law, and government. It is not proof or nothing. If it were no claim of any kind including science would be of any use, since they are not proven. No claim beyond that you think is certain. Quit shooting holes in your ship trying to hit my life raft.

You're not understanding my argument. My point isn't "No proof, no nothing". It's "belief does not equal proof nor evidence". You are making a refutation of an argument I never made.

This does not even apply. My numbers were associated with experience not an intellectual consent to a proposition. If there were 6 billion people along the beech of a nation. 4 billion stick their hand in the water and almost get frost bite, 3 billion look at the ocean and determine it looks frigid, 1 billon turn away and insist there is no ocean at any temperature. Which group is in the best position to know. The claim from the data that there is no ocean is the worst possible claim unless you then add that the numbers of those who felt it do not matter. That is not how companies that survive based on accurate statistics operate either.

The difference being that in your analogy, the water is there, right in front of them, and the people can be observed interacting with it directly. In the case of God, none of their experiences were observed, and none of them have any evidenced veracity whatsoever - that I am aware of.

None of that is true. If two reports go to a game. One said team X one by ten points and the other side team y lost by seven they are not accurate yet the fact a game occurred is a certainty or at least eh best conclusion. You attempting to use an amplification of uncertainty in order to dismiss in totality fallacy. Your claiming that since they disagree a little of the score no game occurred. That is what bias causes.

Again, this analogy is a poor attempt to misrepresent my argument. My argument is simply this: When all that can be provided of evidence of a claim is testimony - which cannot be independently verified - the testimony doesn't equate to evidence. Your argument that the weight of numbers of believers is sufficient reason to believe is a simple fallacy.

I say it over and over and it never ever gets through. I am not talking about those that believe. I am talking about those that have experienced.

No, you're talking about those who have claimed to have had experience. There's a big difference.

10 people who went to the north pole and claim it is cold are of infinitely more value than 1000 people who theorize it is cold and believe their theory with going there. I have hundreds of millions of people who went to the N pole and say it is cold. You have a team who didn't bother to go trying every trick in the book to dismiss the claims of those that did.

Again, if your analogy will serve, what you're actually talking about is 1000 people who claim to have been to the north pole, despite the fact that there is no evidence that they actually did go to the north pole, and no reason to believe that any of their many (sometime conflicting) testimonies are actually based on truth.