The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[1robin]

No


OK


Sure cause and effect just happened. More likely than creation just happened.

Well if singularity needs a cause then the cause needs a cause as well. At some point you have to be satisfied with it just is, just happened that way, an non-cause. The source has to be a non-cause.

edited for clarity

You will find no law in philosophy that states that causes require causes. You will only find that things that begin to exist have causes. God did not begin to exist (BTW that must be true regardless of what created the universe, an uncaused first cause is a necessity) and so requires no cause himself. This is philosophical kinder garden stuff here. beyond these facts you do not have to identify the cause of a cause for the cause to be justifiable. If I found a building on mars, the explanation that intelligence is the cause is true whether I can explain where that intelligence came from or not. So God requires no cause but even if he did I do not have a burden to know it.

 

[viole]

You must have spent all weekend on his thing. I can worship Santa Clause or the bunny rabbit but that will not make them any more logical. You can hold that the universe is eternal even when there are tons of reasons to think that is impossible. My degree is math and infinity is usually a boundary condition where the natural can't not go. It either provides an unreachable boundary or causes mathematic contradictions to occur. IOW it is off limits to the natural. You can't cross an infinite span of things like time, if the universe is infinite then the energy it contains would be infinite yet it is a very cold place. I am going the long way round the barn to say that you can believe something whether it is possible or not, does not make it true or logical, nor consistent with the evidence. Even if causality applies to everything ever observed by anyone at anytime does not apply to the one thing we cannot observe but you can not do so on logic or reason. You must do so on pure faith. You seem to divorce time from the universe for some reason. Space time is only non existent when space and change do not exist. Even fluctuating quantum energy fields change temporally. Your describing a very bad metaphysical belief not a scientifically justified theory.

I did not think about it all this time. I just returned from vacation....

My view of the universe is not based on faith. It is actually a consequence of relativity. Spacetime manifolds cannot move, obviously. They cannot change either, for the simple reason that they are the context in which things move and change.

Arguments are not required to make sense to you. They are required to be consistent with what is known or based on what can reliably be conjectured. Existent things require an explanation. The universe exists and your explanation seems to be missing.

Of course it is missing. Because I don't know how the Universe exists. Nobody does, yet.

I guess you believe God exists too. Your explanation is missing too, I am afraid. At least I have no explanation for something that has evidence.

But of course, I forgot, God does not require explanation by definition whereas Universes do. I wonder why.

I actually do not believe anything can exist without a creator but my arguments take in any context that my opponent might have that is not impossible. However none of this matters. We know of one universe that seems to be fine tuned on a razors edge and it requires an explanation. Fantasy universes do not.

This does not make logical sense. If you believe that nothing can exist without a creator and God does not have a creator, we can infer that you do not believe that God exists.

Of course I cannot but people who specialize in doing this type of thing all say similar things. The one universe we know exists is not one that probability explains very well.

What? Nobody has a clue. Actually string theorists argue that there might be 10^500 universes with all possible geometries and constants of nature within them. If true, your fine tuning woukd be as surprising as finding water on this planet.

This is basic stuff in cosmology. I am no cosmologist but I do not have to be because I have access to thousands of them. Nothing I have said is inconsistent with mainstream cosmology.

Then you might want to point me to a paper that gives a measure of the rate of expansion of spacetime (not space alone, which is relative, obviously). You can ask any of your 1000 experts.

The difference is that my speculations are not grounded in some remote corner of a theoretical physics lab. My deductions are based on comparatively simply concepts that are derived from the much more accessible realm of supplied science. Over many years I have lost all the omniscience that I had at one time invested in theoretical scientists. At one time I thought they were God like. After much research I think they are in many ways narcissistic speculators of fantasy. Al theories are not equal. Depends on what they are based on. String theory at this point in time is based on precious little. I never claimed I am the only game around, I claim only that I am the best game around at this time, and by a very wide margin.

If you consider 100 years old relativity a much more accessible realm of supplied science, then your deductions are simply contradicting it.

That would make you the unorthodox one.

Jesus was not among the options, however lets examine that claim. There are currently hundreds of millions of people who have claimed to have experienced a risen Christ. This experience (unlike UFO's does is not easily explained by mistaking one thing for another). There exists no actual reason to be less trustful of our spiritual experiences than our visual perceptions. So even in your invented comparison Christianity still outstrips anything necessary to justify faith. My faith is not based on Jesus' ascension and so the number of witnesses is not important. You keep giving me theories that not only contradict what can be observed but have not been observed themselves by anyone yet you balk at only having two witnesses for a minor secondary detail of the bible.

Yes, and apparitions of Mary happen only in catholic areas, for some reason. Looks like Mary likes to convince who is already convinced.

I suspect that your faith is driven by an accident of birth. If you were born in Jemen you would probably laugh at all these Jesus claims. At least with a much higher probability than if you were born in Alabama.

After all, I am pretty good at guessing the religion of people acquaintances or relatives when I know their own. Am I psychic? What are the odds? That is fine tuning, lol.

You do not include unknowns in the data set of things used to examine what is known. We know we have one, finite, very very fine tuned universe. That is all. That is perfectly consistent with theism and must remain an unexplainable brute fact to non-theists.

No, we do not know. That is why cosmologists and physists still have a job.

And again, isn't God a brute fact as well?

You seem to think if here is a label that can be applied to a fantasy reality that that reality must be included as a possibility. That is not the way science, philosophy, or anything beyond speculation works. We look at the evidence we have, not the fictions or fairy tales we can invent, and then try and see what explains them the best. I could give you eternity but without God or some similar first cause you will not ever generate anything, of any kind, at any point.

Your arguments will fall apart the moment you try to precisely and unambiguously define what a cause is. For instance, how do you differentiate between a cause and its effect, if any?

You can try and then we will analyze it rationally.

I have a math degree and took 9 hours of probability theory and at least 20 hours of math that used probability. It is actually far far worse than I indicated. If we are going to grant that by some magical process nothing could create something, and that since we know of one thing then there must be other things like it then the spectrum of possible "other" universes would be infinite. That is a game ender so lets instead consider only a billion. Now scientists far more qualified than I agree that of that billion possible universes only a handful could have any life of any kind (at least that we could think of). Inflating the numbers will not help because it is the ratio that is effectual. I am ball parking but probably being generous to say for every 1000 possible universe only one or two would allow life (or even structure) to exist. Most universes are self annihilating. So why is it that even if we find multiple universes (which we have not) do we find ourselves in the highly improbable one that supports intelligent life instead of the far more probable Boltzmann brain universe or simply without anything what ever.

9 hours? Mmh.

i hope you indulge my humor, but I hope you agree that probability theory is not a trivial subject that definetely requires more than some hours to fully inderstand it. A graduate course on the introductory concepts takes a full year.

But again, what makes you think that if the universe has been fine tuned, it has been fined tuned for complex life? After all, for that you need only one stable solar system or one galaxy. I could have tuned it even more optimally.

I will have to look it up but this was not really part of my primary claims. It was from a journal that is at home but is a very popular philosophic principle. For this one I had to (and have stated more than once) to rely on some very theoretical science. Since I deny the merit of most of extremely theoretical science in a debate I cannot simultaneous posit it. It was just interesting. Anyway you can easily find a hundred papers on it but I will try and find he source I mentioned in the mean time.

And what journal is that? Something oxymoronic like "Christian Science"?

And I would not lose too much time with phylosophy. I agree that it is fun, but it has the habit of backpedalling all the time a new scientific discovery is made, so it is clear who has the intellectual leadership today.

It is a bit like the Bible, isn't it? Things turn magically into metaphors when facts strike.

Ciao

- viole

 

[idav]

You will find no law in philosophy that states that causes require causes. You will only find that things that begin to exist have causes.

Just throwing non-beginning around doesn't really help the issue. It makes little to no sense. Just as an non-caused causer makes little to no sense. A non-cause is the very first issue to deal with. By virtue of God theory your admitting a non-cause can exist, anything such a non-cause causes would be a beginning but hardly means it is THE beginning. It also doesn't mean the non-cause had any choice in the matter. Choice and super alien intelligence before anything is caused is wishful thinking.

 

[viole]

Do you simply deny all of the dominant cosmological models. Do you ignore the BBT and the BGVT? Genesis and these models are consistent.

1. They both posit a finite universe.
2. They both posit mass, time, and space coming into existence at the same moment.
3. They both posit a universe which does not contain it's own explanation.

From philosophy we can also conclude that the cause:
1. Is independent of time.
2. Is independent of matter.
3. Is independent of space.
4. Is more powerful than is comprehendible.
5. Is more intelligent than is comprehendible.
6. I is present at all time space locations.
7. Is personal (capable of choosing).

You will find all of that in dominant cosmology, dominant philosophy and Genesis.

What I expect will be your response would be to suggest that since I can't know for certainty these things they do not hold up. This is called an inflation of uncertainty argument. However we are dealing with things that have almost no certainty available. What we must do (and what science oriented folks say they do) is to adopt the best explanation. My explanations are orders of magnitude better than yours and consistent with far more of the reliable data. As of yet I have not seen the slightest attempt to justify a single position you hold.

Do these parameters include a formless earth (whatever that means) and all other nonsensical statements of Genesis (not the Rock band)? Or are they now metaphors?

I believe that the Greeks and the Romans (who took over from them) were more precise. Look what Lucretius wrote in 50 BC:

"..(atoms) moving randomly through space, like dust motes in a sunbeam, colliding, hooking together, forming complex structures, breaking apart again, in a ceaseless process of creation and destruction. There is no escape from this process. ...

All things, including the species to which you belong, have evolved over vast stretches of time. The evolution is random, though in the case of living organisms, it involves a principle of natural selection. That is, species that are suited to survive and to reproduce successfully, endure, at least for a time; those that are not so well suited, die off quickly. But nothing — from our own species, to the planet on which we live, to the sun that lights our day — lasts forever. Only the atoms are immortal ..."

I think Jupiter is much better in conveying scientific facts, don't you think so?

It is not really important for me to identify which form of life it is fine tuned for because the range of variables in which any life we can imagine can exist with is infinitesimal. IOW we have one extremely improbable universe regardless of which life form you concentrate on. Anytime anyone sees consecutive improbabilities occur time after time we automatically infer agency (unless that agent is God of course). Agency is light years a better explanation for this universe than probability.

And who said that it is probability? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. We don't know, and therefore we do not know how to apply the very concept of stochastic processes. But even if it isn't, how do you come to the conclusion that it is conscious agency?

The only evidence we have is that natural unconscious processes can generate cosnscious agencies. We do not have evidence of the opposite, do we?

Deism is the most self contradictory position I can imagine but that is another topic.

i don't see why. I actually think that a true God does not need to intervene, unless he missed something, which is self defeating.

I hope your not defending a deterministic universe. This is an all but dead philosophy.
Choice is not competing with the laws of physics, they need not transcend them.

You should know by now that I don't care too much about phylosophy.

And I do not see how choice needs to trascend the laws of physics. All you have to do to test that is to try to take a decision after 20 vodka shots and see what happens to your metaphysical free will.

Did Leprechaun's write the most scrutinized 750,000 words in human history? Are there hundreds of millions of people (1 out of 3) that claim to have experienced Leprechauns? Are leprechaun's the most influential moral foundation in human history? Do 3 out 4 people believe some kind of beings similar to leprechauns exist? Do Leprechaun's adequately explain the universe or anything at all? Guess they are not equivalent after all. A much better analogy is to compare theology with dark matter. Actually theology has advantages that dark matter does not have. Beyond the offensiveness of the act this reducto absurdum is intellectually bankrupt.

Since Leprechauns and your God share the same objective evidence, all you have left is an argument ad-popolum, it seems. Why only one out of three, by the way? And why not uniformly distributed over the globe in time and space?

You are also not politically correct. Many Icelanders experienced and saw little gnomes populating their island. They claim you have to live there to see them as well. What strategy would you devise to prove them wrong?

Your interpretation of made in his image is biblically unsound. It is not based on any sound hermeneutics or exegesis and no biblical commentary I have ever seen claims anything like what you have. In his image means we are free moral agents and personal and does not even hint we are omniscient which would have been as obvious in the bronze age as today.

So, Adam was a moral agent from the beginning? What is all this fuss about the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then?

Not in any class I ever had. We do not assume conclusions in math we derive them.

What? You never proved a theorem by assuming a conclusion and come to an absurdity in order to prove it false so that its negation is true? Either you are an intuitionist or you had less than of 24 hours of math training.

I am at the finish line and have merely decided to encourage those that are still at the starting gate. You do not speak to those at the beginning of a journey about the finish until it becomes relevant.

Well, don't do it, for their sake. It is far preferrable not to know anything about the "good" news, for obvious reasons. At least thay can plead ignorance at the perly gates. If god saved Neanderthalers or pre-columbian Americans, they have a better chance.

No they do not but even if they did I have met Christ not any sea spirit so my beliefs are perfectly justified in Christ but not your sea monster.

It is not a monster. It is a great Spirit. Which you would be worshipping if you were born in tribal Africa. You are not politically correct, again.

You guys make good knives, to bad you do not have an army to give them to. I am just kidding but Sweden ought to feel a great debt to other nations. Maybe give away some of that oil or something.

Swiss make knives and they have a pretty strong army, as well.

Oil is in Norway, unfortunately. An additional reason not to believe in divine providence.

You are obviously educated and intelligent but I noticed there is not even an attempt by you to show your counter claims are true. You simply state another view as if the stating is justification enough. No reasons, no deductions, no evidence just declaration.

it depends on the claim. i am not making a lot of positive claims. Maybe you can give me an example.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Ouroboros]

Just throwing non-beginning around doesn't really help the issue. It makes little to no sense. Just as an non-caused causer makes little to no sense. A non-cause is the very first issue to deal with. By virtue of God theory your admitting a non-cause can exist, anything such a non-cause causes would be a beginning but hardly means it is THE beginning. It also doesn't mean the non-cause had any choice in the matter. Choice and super alien intelligence before anything is caused is wishful thinking.

Also if the issue is that "existence needs to be explained", by pushing the explanation to an external God, it only pushes the question. God's existence needs to be explained instead of the universe. An external and independent God is nothing but a roadblock for continued research and investigation. It's like a black-box as the explanation without allowing further explanations.

 

[1robin]

I did not think about it all this time. I just returned from vacation....

My view of the universe is not based on faith. It is actually a consequence of relativity. Spacetime manifolds cannot move, obviously. They cannot change either, for the simple reason that they are the context in which things move and change.

If your view that the natural or any part of it is based on reality not faith then you can supply me at least one example of a natural infinite. I did not say your view was mere faith but pure faith. My faith in unproven things is at least consistent with known things, your faith in infinite natural reality or a universe which every known observation posits a cause actually not having one is another type of faith. It is pure faith, that is opposed to reality, not consistent with it. You are free to have any faith you wish but at least lets call it what it is.

Space time is a description not a context.

Of course it is missing. Because I don't know how the Universe exists. Nobody does, yet.

I guess you believe God exists too. Your explanation is missing too, I am afraid. At least I have no explanation for something that has evidence.

But of course, I forgot, God does not require explanation by definition whereas Universes do. I wonder why.

You do not need a foundation to believe in something. However you do need one to contend with another view or debate your own. I have many reasons to think what you suggest is impossible and apparently you cannot supply any reason to think it is based in reliable science. How persuasive do you think I would find that?

Your paradox is no paradox at all. The principle states that things that begin to exist require causes, not things that do not begin to exist. Just as lines have ends and circles do not, it is similarly meaningless to ask where a circle begins. It is no paradox.

This does not make logical sense. If you believe that nothing can exist without a creator and God does not have a creator, we can infer that you do not believe that God exists.

The context of that comment was entirely about natural entities. Your inserting a new context is a straw man. I said natural entities do not come into existence without a cause and an explanation. This necessarily has nothing to do with the supernatural. In fact the very question it's self (as illustrated in Dawkin's central argument) has been referred to as the worst argument against God in the history of western thought. It is hard to believe that the most profound concept in human history and one that has the greatest conceivable consequences is resolved by such juvenile means.

What? Nobody has a clue. Actually string theorists argue that there might be 10^500 universes with all possible geometries and constants of nature within them. If true, your fine tuning woukd be as surprising as finding water on this planet.

The mere existence of a theory that has believers is not justification or evidence. On my road which cost theoretical scientist's their credibility with me was going to dinners where the exact same scientist would proclaim the merits of two mutually excusive theories. One in particular that applies here is hearing the same faculty proclaim string theory posits numerous dimensions and then on another night hearing them proclaim that holographic theory allows for only two. Both were given as reliable yet both cannot be true. Your going to have to go deeper than merely claiming someone says with me. I need why they say X to even begin to evaluate X. There are entire groups in scholasticism that deny string theory has any merit at all.

Then you might want to point me to a paper that gives a measure of the rate of expansion of spacetime (not space alone, which is relative, obviously). You can ask any of your 1000 experts.

I did not mention any expansion of space time, nor is there a need to. Just the cosmological constant's fine tuning alone (1 part in trillions of trillions of trillions etc...) and no life permitting universe. The fine tuning argument is not confined by your requests.

If you consider 100 years old relativity a much more accessible realm of supplied science, then your deductions are simply contradicting it.

That would make you the unorthodox one.

Exactly what state was relativity in 100 years ago? You have so far relied on nebulous (someone said) claims about string theory, and natural infinites. Neither of which are reliable. Everything I have stated is based on simplistic evidence and reasoning consistent with everything reliably known.

Yes, and apparitions of Mary happen only in catholic areas, for some reason. Looks like Mary likes to convince who is already convinced.

Back up the truth train here a minute. I have never denied the appearance of Mary. There is one example where tens of thousands are involved that is very convincing but this is another type of claim all together. Events that require interpretations of fleeting visual stimulus are easily mistaken. This can not be said to even remotely the same degree about spiritual experience. I have not gotten into hat because we do not have a common ground to meet on here.

I suspect that your faith is driven by an accident of birth. If you were born in Jemen you would probably laugh at all these Jesus claims. At least with a much higher probability than if you were born in Alabama.

I was born to a Christian mother and an agnostic father. However I rebelled against God and became at times either hateful of the concept of God or a denier all together, when my mother died. I loved evangelicals who came to the house. I spent hours embarrassing them. So I thought at least, until against my desire, God proved me out to be the fool. I was in early adulthood as opposed to God as any atheist ever has been but was overcome by evidence eventually in-spite of my wishes. Beyond all hat what you stated is a classic genetic fallacy anyway.

Continued below:

 

[1robin]

After all, I am pretty good at guessing the religion of people acquaintances or relatives when I know their own. Am I psychic? What are the odds? That is fine tuning, lol.

I do not know what to make of that claim except that it has no bearing on the truth of any faith.

No, we do not know. That is why cosmologists and physists still have a job.

What?

And again, isn't God a brute fact as well?

Far from it. It is a hypothesis that is far more explanatory of reality than any other ultimate explanation ever posed. It is pretty much a necessity as without it nothing has any ultimate explanation.

Your arguments will fall apart the moment you try to precisely and unambiguously define what a cause is. For instance, how do you differentiate between a cause and its effect, if any?

Cause and effect has stood up since the Greeks and is still not seriously damaged after 4000 years. I doubt it's merit is dependent on me. I also doubt that the universe will be any less in need of a cause even if I failed to define that word accurately as the two are not dependent what so ever. I can already see that you are attempting to get me to introduce a temporal chronological order here that you find paradoxical. It isn't but I will not get stuck there regardless. A cause is an effects explanation. Though I cannot comprehend how it is claimed by many scholars to not be dependent on space time. A cause and effect theoretically can occur simultaneously or even without reference to space time. The only impossibility here is that the cause occur after the effect in space time. I sense the last shriek of atheism is on it's way. If you cannot use reality to counter my claims then semantics apparently is the only retreat left open.

You can try and then we will analyze it rationally.

There is little need. There are volumes that do what you requested from histories greatest thinkers that have existed for thousands of years. What do you need my poor efforts at definitions for? Here is one: a person or thing that acts, happens, or exists in such a way that some specific thing happens as a result; the producer of an effect:

If you type cause: definition you get 268 million hits. Why are you asking me?

9 hours? Mmh.

That is three more than required and about 9 more than 80% of the population has taken.

i hope you indulge my humor, but I hope you agree that probability theory is not a trivial subject that definetely requires more than some hours to fully inderstand it. A graduate course on the introductory concepts takes a full year.

Do you understand the difference between semester hours and literal hours? Your comments make no sense to me. How many semester hours do you have in it?

But again, what makes you think that if the universe has been fine tuned, it has been fined tuned for complex life? After all, for that you need only one stable solar system or one galaxy. I could have tuned it even more optimally.

The very claim of fine tuning carries with it a necessary object. Fine tuned for what must always require a goal. I can see you do not understand what I am talking about. I am not talking about life as we find it, carbon life, not even theoretical silicon based life or some hybrid. I was talking about the fine tuning required to get a structured universe at all. I am talking about gravity that would allow stars of galaxies to form at all, not just us.

And what journal is that? Something oxymoronic like "Christian Science"?

Do you think I would have said I have to find it if I had known the name. This is anything but a Christian journal. It had a picture of Nietzsche on it's cover dressed as Neo. It is connected with Cambridge but is not published by them officially and contains far more atheists than believers of any kind. I think it was called Philosophy now. Just look for an issue with a section called things we know that are wrong. It concerns the belief that matter is primary and how that has been proven wrong. I do not agree with their "proven" but with contributors from kripke to Penrose I took it seriously.

And I would not lose too much time with phylosophy. I agree that it is fun, but it has the habit of backpedalling all the time a new scientific discovery is made, so it is clear who has the intellectual leadership today.

What are you talking about? Cause and effect has never been anything but confirmed and I think that exhausts all the philosophy I have used. The only part I find unreliable has been created by modern secularism. Their claims that truth does not exist are not only untrue but self defeating. They have ruined modern philosophy but they have not touched classical philosophy. In fact there is far more philosophy in texts written by Hawking, etc.. than science despite his being a noobe in the field.

It is a bit like the Bible, isn't it? Things turn magically into metaphors when facts strike.

One of the first complaints given by your side is the fact that Christianity has does not change. Now your saying the opposite. Which is it? Long before Chesterton became a theist he gave completely up on atheism because it was so contradictory. It said God could not be real because he was both too cruel and too soft, too warlike and to passive, too demanding and too remote, etc....... He said Christianity could not be both a black mask on a white world and a white mask on a black world and gave up atheism as untenable. These platitudes are not arguments. My bible is 99% percent the same as what they had 1000 years ago. What changes are you talking about?

 

[1robin]

Just throwing non-beginning around doesn't really help the issue. It makes little to no sense. Just as an non-caused causer makes little to no sense. A non-cause is the very first issue to deal with. By virtue of God theory your admitting a non-cause can exist, anything such a non-cause causes would be a beginning but hardly means it is THE beginning. It also doesn't mean the non-cause had any choice in the matter. Choice and super alien intelligence before anything is caused is wishful thinking.

I am not merely throwing around anything here. It is not only logical, it is a necessity. Infinite regressive chains of causation are not possible, natural infinites are not possible. Every effect must ultimately trace it's explanation back to an uncaused first cause by necessity. The only "world" that does not require an uncaused first cause (though it does not prove that one does not exist) is one that contains nothing. The existence of something requires an original cause.

An analogy would be if you asked me for a dollar and I said I did not have one but would ask someone, the person I asked did the same and so one for eternity. Would you ever get a dollar in that scenario, of course not. Someone would have to already have a dollar and not require another source in order for you to have it. The same can be said of anything even your ability perceive that existence of the dollar. If you have X then X must have had an uncaused first cause.

 

[idav]

I am not merely throwing around anything here. It is not only logical, it is a necessity. Infinite regressive chains of causation are not possible, natural infinites are not possible. Every effect must ultimately trace it's explanation back to an uncaused first cause by necessity. The only "world" that does not require an uncaused first cause (though it does not prove that one does not exist) is one that contains nothing. The existence of something requires an original cause.

OK aside from your infinite regress problem, I can agree with that. This uncaused first cause thing something doesn't follow. One thing I want to note is uncaused does not presume a beginning or infinite regress or whatever the case may be. However because of the issue, I think existence necessitates being uncaused no matter how you think it went. If your god is uncaused and exists then it is an uncaused object existing before anything even needs to happen.

 

[1robin]

Do these parameters include a formless earth (whatever that means) and all other nonsensical statements of Genesis (not the Rock band)? Or are they now metaphors?

Why is that a burden for me? Why would that label not apply to an early still cooling earth being reshaped by tectonics and meteor strikes. They have been considered semi-metaphorical long before the first (monk) suggested evolution might be true by Maimonides and countless others. What your complaining against (though I have yet to see the fault) is the literal interpretation made popular by the Catholic authorities. Since I am not defending the history of Catholic dogma it has no relevance here. I never liked the band Genesis and would not consider them rock (or at least good rock).

I believe that the Greeks and the Romans (who took over from them) were more precise. Look what Lucretius wrote in 50 BC:

Took over what from whom?

"..(atoms) moving randomly through space, like dust motes in a sunbeam, colliding, hooking together, forming complex structures, breaking apart again, in a ceaseless process of creation and destruction. There is no escape from this process. ...

I am not sure what a description of chaos is. This was very late Greek studies. Mostly the Greeks asked the right questions but often did not get right answers. Especially about cosmology and physics. Even as late as Ptolemy they were dead wrong about much. I think what you mean here is how detailed this meaningless description is compared to Genesis which came thousands of years earlier. The bible was concerned primarily with agency not mechanism and was never intended to give the far less meaningful how's but the far more meaningful why's. This accounts for the difference in styles. However the Bible unlike every other major theoretical view on cosmology is consistent with modern cosmology. The Greeks thought the God's changed something into the universe, same with the Romans during paganism. The bible is not a scientific textbook but where it speaks to science it unlike everything else is still as true today as 4000 years ago.

All things, including the species to which you belong, have evolved over vast stretches of time. The evolution is random, though in the case of living organisms, it involves a principle of natural selection. That is, species that are suited to survive and to reproduce successfully, endure, at least for a time; those that are not so well suited, die off quickly. But nothing — from our own species, to the planet on which we live, to the sun that lights our day — lasts forever. Only the atoms are immortal ..."

1. Evolution is no threat to the bible what so ever unless you are talking about evolution as naturalism alone would describe it and all that it would depend on and which the evidence does not support. What the evidence does support is exactly what the bible claimed a long time ago, that things change according to heir kind.
2. For evolution to even be meaningful you would have to defend naturalism it's self, and good luck with that.
3. So much for evolution it's self what about the bible (the only other issue mentioned here). If the bible was re-written in the face of scientific theory you might have a point. It was not so you do not.
4. If it's translation was influenced primarily by scientific theory you would at least have some sympathy but not a point. It is certainly not an indictment that interpretations are open to evidence. However it was not or at least was not most of the time. Your arguing against Catholic dogma, not scripture.
5. Thousands of years before anyone got the first grant check for evolutionary dogma Christians by the score interpreted Genesis in ways that are perfectly consistent with evolution.
6. I of course cannot give you the full history of all these various schools of interpretation but the book. "The science of God" by Schroeder would be a good start. Not even the evolution of homo-sapiens is inconsistent with these early interpretations that Adam was the first primate with a soul. Anyway you need to do some reading before we can discuss this issue in depth.

I think Jupiter is much better in conveying scientific facts, don't you think so?

It is not relevant what source is the best at science but only hat the bible is consistent with it. I do not read the bible for cosmology but I do find what I read in it to be consistent with it.

And who said that it is probability? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. We don't know, and therefore we do not know how to apply the very concept of stochastic processes. But even if it isn't, how do you come to the conclusion that it is conscious agency?

Actually you said it was probability, and I agree. I think you must have made a type O here somewhere. Nothing has no properties of any kind. I cannot produce anything and does not stand in causal relationships. If your going to insist it could (for the heck of it I considered it possible) then you at the very least cannot restrict what it could do. If nothing can do anything you cannot suggest what it could not. It is on atheism that I am even considering this. It makes no sense and is there is no reason to think nothing could do anything or that everything is eternal but there is no debate at all at that point so I only allowed the possibility for entertainment purposes.

The only evidence we have is that natural unconscious processes can generate cosnscious agencies. We do not have evidence of the opposite, do we?

The only thing we know is that you presume this has occurred. There is no direct evidence that this occurred and no one even knows how it could be possible even theoretically. Which molecule was added to my brain that made it conscious and how do you know? The fact that one chunk of matter can be about another is no more solved today than when Aristotle considered it. Consciousness is a complete mystery. Technically the only thing we KNOW is that we think. Now I grant many things in order to have a conversation but your observation of the rise of consciousness is not one of them.

i don't see why. I actually think that a true God does not need to intervene, unless he missed something, which is self defeating.

I did not say that a deistic God could not exist but that, that God would by definition have the least evidence of all the possible theistic God's. It is kind of like believing that determinism was true. It's conclusion defies the means by which it was derived.

Continued below;

 

[1robin]

You should know by now that I don't care too much about phylosophy.

That explains quite a lot but does not do anything to indicate that the rest of us should not consider the subject anything but vital.

And I do not see how choice needs to trascend the laws of physics. All you have to do to test that is to try to take a decision after 20 vodka shots and see what happens to your metaphysical free will.

I believe it was my position that it did not need to defy physics. I do not even get the question. It is like asking does up defy gravity. I do not think anyone will be deciding anything after 20 shots. Freewill does not eliminate the influence of anything else but only affirms I could always have chosen differently even if I FELT compelled no to. Do you deny choice and affirm determinism? Strange stance for a denier of cause and effect.

Since Leprechauns and your God share the same objective evidence, all you have left is an argument ad-popolum, it seems. Why only one out of three, by the way? And why not uniformly distributed over the globe in time and space?

God and dark matter have the same objective evidence is it a Leprechaun as well. In no counter argument against your analogy did I appeal to popularity. I appealed to experiences just as valid as any other sensory experiences, except possibly my very last point. Did you really ask why only one out of three rebellious humans believe that a human rose from the dead? The bibles claims are so preposterous that the evidence would have to be absolutely incredible to convince one out of one hundred.

You are also not politically correct. Many Icelanders experienced and saw little gnomes populating their island. They claim you have to live there to see them as well. What strategy would you devise to prove them wrong?

I never attempt to be politically correct. IMO that is one of the worst evils present today. The claim you present does not rise to the level where I feel compelled to examine it at all, it does not even begin to rival Christianity's claims. Unlike many on your side I believe gnomes do not exist and act exactly as if they do not. I do not write books about how evil gnomes are, nor debate their existence. I live as I believe. Why are you here? Is it really good to take away without knowing the truth a persons hope or attempt it?

So, Adam was a moral agent from the beginning? What is all this fuss about the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then?

What? A moral agent is a being that can weigh, consider, and act on moral issues. It does nothing to make the tree irrelevant. Not that a literal tree was the issue to begin with.

What? You never proved a theorem by assuming a conclusion and come to an absurdity in order to prove it false so that its negation is true? Either you are an intuitionist or you had less than of 24 hours of math training.

I wish I had 24 hours instead of ten years and the loss of almost 100,000 dollars to learn what I almost never use in my laboratory. I do not get what you stated. Are you saying what should not be done, or asking what is it I have done, or making some generalized point?

Well, don't do it, for their sake. It is far preferrable not to know anything about the "good" news, for obvious reasons. At least thay can plead ignorance at the perly gates. If god saved Neanderthalers or pre-columbian Americans, they have a better chance.

There are two people who now have a relationship with Christ who would strongly disagree with you. I also am responsible to a much higher authority than you.

It is not a monster. It is a great Spirit. Which you would be worshipping if you were born in tribal Africa. You are not politically correct, again.

I only can come up short if I had your assumed goal. I do not. All theological propositions are no the same. For one, unlike your sea serpent Christianity alone has crossed every cultural barrier on earth. It is the only one in significant presence in every country on earth. It's evidence for it's even more extraordinary claims is so vastly superior that in spite of the outrageous claims it has succeeded everywhere even to the highest reaches of human intelligence or the poorest and most ignorant masses. The text that it relies upon is not only more reliable than any other theological texts of the ancient world it is more reliable by orders of magnitude than any work of any kind in ancient history. You might as well condemn eyewitness testimony as a whole, or archeology as a whole, or philosophy as a whole (oops you actually did this one). All claims that are theological are not even remotely equal.

Swiss make knives and they have a pretty strong army, as well.

It must be all seals or special ops that are well camouflaged. Maybe it's all submarines. I certainly did not see it too much in WW2. I am only joking. I do not care whether the Swiss fight or not.

Oil is in Norway, unfortunately. An additional reason not to believe in divine providence.

Your are right. I only know of it through arguments about the superiority of secularism (actually being better explained by oil reserves).

it depends on the claim. i am not making a lot of positive claims. Maybe you can give me an example.

Ciao

- viole

First what is the phonetics for Viole? Second if you believe in determinism or an eternal universe or natural entity of any kind then on what basis are your beliefs founded? It is not enough to merely arbitrarily amplify uncertainties in my explanations you must provide better counter explanations.

 

[1robin]

Also if the issue is that "existence needs to be explained", by pushing the explanation to an external God, it only pushes the question. God's existence needs to be explained instead of the universe. An external and independent God is nothing but a roadblock for continued research and investigation. It's like a black-box as the explanation without allowing further explanations.

Not according to a single principle of philosophy that I have ever heard of right or wrong. An uncaused first cause is a necessity whether it is God or something else as I have explained in detail so many times. I have simply found the concept of God to be far more reliable and consistent with what must be true of a first cause than any other and so have posited him as it. However whether God or something else whatever it is absolutely required and can not ever be explained by anything else by necessity. You made many demands above but did not give me any reason to consider them necessary or even the proper questions to ask to begin with. God by definition has no explanation outside himself. You might as well demand to know what is above up or below down. It is an irrational and silly request.

 

[1robin]

OK aside from your infinite regress problem, I can agree with that. This uncaused first cause thing something doesn't follow.

Well I applaud you for granting even that much but the rest is even more straightforward.

One thing I want to note is uncaused does not presume a beginning or infinite regress or whatever the case may be.

Not all effects are beginnings at least as far as existence is concerned but all natural beginnings are effects. You would have to argue that you could get a material something from nothing without a cause and I hope you would agree how absurd that would be, in order for your claims to be true. One of the oldest and truest statements of fact in human learning is "out of nothing - nothing comes". So an eternal natural anything (especially one without a cause is inconsistent with every observation ever made).

However because of the issue, I think existence necessitates being uncaused no matter how you think it went. If your god is uncaused and exists then it is an uncaused object existing before anything even needs to happen.

Not a single principle by which natural events are regulated applies to anything supernatural. I am speaking about what is observably true of the natural world. Those laws or principles state that only those things that begin to exist require a cause. This would by necessity not apply to a divine eternal being who being non-material is not governed by physics, being outside of time does not obey chronological dictates, and being everywhere is not limited by location or time. To require a cause for God has been called the worst argument against God in the history of western thought.

I believe you can see that God if he exists would have no need for a cause necessarily, and that the universe if it began to exist requires a cause, so the only route left is to claim the universe is eternal and so not in need of a cause. BTW that one is the easiest to disprove. Is this what you believe or do you have another theory. I only want to contend with what you believe not what I think you believe.

 

[Thief]

The source has to be a non-cause.

edited for clarity

And I would say yeah to this small point.

The Source had no Cause.

but it's kinda hard to say....I AM!....without throwing some light on the topic!

 

[adi2d]

Easy to disprove is it? I would like to see your disproof.

 

[McBell]

Easy to disprove is it? I would like to see your disproof.

Duh...
GODDIDIT!

The end.

 

[adi2d]

Duh...
GODDIDIT!

The end.

That's a statement. Not a proof. I hope he ras more arrows in his quiver than that.



Wait.... That was an assumption on my part. Robin are you from Sherwood? Or Batmans side kick?



I know 20000 comedians out of work and I try to be funny for free. Sorry
Visualize a sarcasm and smiley face here

 

[Thief]

Thief is ninja!....stab....stab....stab.....

oooops!.....sorry!

Wrong thread!

 

[idav]

Not a single principle by which natural events are regulated applies to anything supernatural. I am speaking about what is observably true of the natural world. Those laws or principles state that only those things that begin to exist require a cause. This would by necessity not apply to a divine eternal being who being non-material is not governed by physics, being outside of time does not obey chronological dictates, and being everywhere is not limited by location or time. To require a cause for God has been called the worst argument against God in the history of western thought.

I believe you can see that God if he exists would have no need for a cause necessarily, and that the universe if it began to exist requires a cause, so the only route left is to claim the universe is eternal and so not in need of a cause. BTW that one is the easiest to disprove. Is this what you believe or do you have another theory. I only want to contend with what you believe not what I think you believe.

I think god is the creator and created. I think timespace is eternal as part of that background of eternal omnipresence. Timespace is the beginning but is part of the eternal source so I don't think technically had a beginning anymore than its background did. Spacetime as it stands, seems illusory at best since it is interconnected in ways that defy our sense that there is spacetime at all. Based on that I believe all existence is eternal and the creator became the created.

 

[1robin]

Easy to disprove is it? I would like to see your disproof.

You need some posting instruction. Only by chance did I see my name in this post.

I will not only give your reasons to think natural infinites are impossible I will let you choose which one I will use. Pick either eternal matter, time, or space and I will show you that not only can you produce not a single example of an eternal example of any one of them but there are very good reasons to think hey are impossible to begin with and no good reason to think they are possible. However I hope you will get the formatting down, I can not depend on luck every time. I would be happy to explain the basics if you wish.