The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[ArtieE]

That seems to be at least part of the picture. Are you making a non optimality claim or something? Only if God had limited resources or time is time an issue. I have heard it described as creating like a painter instead of an assembly line. The bible does not really expound on prehuman life all that much so I would have little to offer or reason to discuss it. What is your contention exactly?

I repeat: "First your god decides to create a universe "fine tuned" for "life". Then he sets up the initial conditions for the "big bang" to ensure that about 13.7 billion years later the conditions will be such that this universe can support "life". Then he makes a lot of life including 135 million years worth of dinosaurs all without souls. Then he wipes them out and creates humans as containers for souls." I am trying to get you to explain exactly what it is you believe. I thought we were off to a good start here. Now, please help me fill in the timeline we started on. Help me fill out the details of your belief.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

This is hopeless. Good thing much of my motivation is to kill time. It is not pre-supposition it is a principle called sufficient causation. A cause has no contain a sufficient characteristic determined by it's effect. I can say to release 1000 joules of energy it must have at least that amount of energy in it for example. I can look at Hiroshima and know a wooden cube did not cause it. I can look at an aircraft carrier and know two mice on a tread wheel are not powering it.

I don't think you've gotten to my part yet about causality.

If I am looking for a cause of the material universe it must be immaterial not by pre-supposition, not even by deduction, but by absolute necessity. If I look for a cause of time it must be independent of time necessarily. It must be powerful, must be intelligent, must be rational, must even probably be personal. You can get these almost certainties without cracking a single theological text or having faith in anything supernatural.

What is immaterial then? How can you ascribe any sort of properties to something specifically "non-existent" by many definitions.

SNIPPED

Guess these idiots don't know what evidence is either.

Continued below:[/QUOTE]
I think all of those men and women were more than likely influenced by their faith and falling back on god of the gaps. I can find you a myriad of scientist who will tell you exactly what I am telling you. Are they idiots as well?

Let me state the argument in one of it's dozen or so equivalent forms just to avoid this pot hole you created. All changes in state require causes and explanation. The beginning is a change in state regardless of what the state change was and does not contain an explanation within it.

"Creation" or "non-being into being" is not a change of state. You can argue that there was something before the big bang but then you need evidence.

Are you qualified to teach a logic class? You have a masters or higher in logic?

I have a minor is logic and philosphy actually. Hardly a master's degree but I don't actually have to. If I had never taken a class in logic ever in my life and I was a 5 year old, it doesn't matter.

Because your example is so generic no correlation exists between X and C nor are they defined in any way. The same way your hypothetical has no correlation with the philosophical argument I made.

What do you think? That Aquinas, Augustine, Craig, the Muslims with the Kalam, Zacharias, Leibniz, plus juts the few examples above, etc.... are so dense as to not know the simplistic methodology required to validate this emphatic and extremely straightforward argument that has stood for thousands of years?

You keep saying it has "stood for thousands of years" when in actuality only certain people believe it to be viable. Several people do not see it as a viable "argument" for god. You need to stop making this mistake of thinking it is a universally accepted viable argument that can simply be fallen back on without support or debate.

But if you want me to get specific here it is.

Change is A. Change requires or implies causality (C). "Creation of matter or bringing into existence"(b) is not a change of a pre-existing state(A). Therefor A implying C does not mean B implying C. IF you want B to imply C you must link A to B.

Hey where is your avatar from? Looks familiar.

Google. I dunno where it is originally from.

 

[1robin]

What parts are based on evidence?

Any change in states have causes and explanations. Every observation ever made is evidence.

Except I have already explained that if A is not B and A implies C then B does not have to imply C.

That depends entirely on how you define the variables. If A is a change in states, and B is a cause or explanation then no A ever has occurred without a B. Add to this that the nature of A always informs about the nature of B. If B is found shown to have a nature that is virtually identical to C then C is a good candidate for B in the context we are discussing.

When did I say anything about ceasing to exist? I stated that I have objected to several things in your argument and pointed out the fallacies and you have done little to counter me.

You said assuming our existence was relevant somehow. I said it was not. You said it was. I said whether either of us existed or not has no effect on the argument. Now your saying the issue that was irrelevant is not even what was being discussed. This is like debating with the old whack-a-mole machine a chucky cheeses. You old enough to remember that game?

Few questions.
1) what is a "professional atheist" and how do I become one?

An atheist with a degree in an area like philosophy that is relevant to theology. You can get to be one by going to school and continuing to deny evidence and reason. Just kidding but it is true.

2) Can you bring up a time an atheist in a formal debate has conceded the point?

You mean that conceded that the argument is valid?

3) IF it is universally accepted then why does the argument not have built in answers for all of the historical critiques that I have mentioned?

I did not say it was universally accepted or universally anything. I said the validity of the argument is consistently accepted. There are I'm sure some exceptions but I see them so infrequently I can't remember who made them. I am speaking about the professional debate realm here. I will give you an example. The best atheist debater I am aware of is Sean Carroll. When he faced Craig he did not object to the arguments validity. He instead drew a cartoon of a universe that did not begin in any sense of the word. The reason I respect him is he admitted his drawing was probably wrong but it served to illustrate that other (not impossible) universes might exist which had no beginning. Of course Craig tore that to pieces but Sean put up the best fight I have ever seen from the other side. I recommend that debate over any of the other hundreds I have seen. Krauss may be smart but he is a terrible debater, Hitches is charismatic but not a scientist, Dawkins is an idiot, Harris is so arrogant and assumptive he is hard to take, etc.... Sean is the best you guys have IMO.

There is no authority to the argument and you can't just repeat over and over and over that it is infallible when I keep bringing up problems with it. Though I suppose there is a key distinction to make is that I haven't actually stated that the argument itself was invalid but that your claim that it was the "best answer" was invalid.

Then I misunderstood. I took your dismissal as an attack against validity not my conclusion. I do not agree with that either but it is different. What is a better argument?

There is no "Must". We don't know what cause the first cause even if there was a first cause. IF you notice no scientist worth his salt when studying the big bang refers to anything as incoherent as a "first cause". Mainly because we do not know. It is a blank in our knowledge and if you wish to put god in that as the answer then that is your prerogative but it is not by any sort of default or deduction a "best" answer.

They do so constantly but the motivation why they do not all the time is that their profession posits natural solutions and there is not one. They are simply done at the singularity. BTW I posted all kinds of those quotes recently in this thread (I think) post 1830 was just the tip of the ice burg.

IT is impossible to determine its validity is a better way of stating it. Therefore it is not "best" or "worst" or any other value qualifier.

That does not follow. However it is an example of the certainty or nothing mind set I often mention. No jury case ever knows for certain but decides the best conclusion. Your criteria would destroy civilization if anyone acted according to it.

That the universe is self causing. One such theory is that instead of "white holes" which is theorized to have existed actually spew matter out at a different point in time which would be the big bang. So the eventual theoretical removal of matter via black holes is actually the condensed constant stream known as the big bang and it would also explain the driving force of both "dark energy" and entropy.

I know the alternatives and their only virtue is that they can't be proven wrong, which is an even larger violation of your criteria. I read Vilenkin shoot most down emphatically in a speech given for Hawking's birthday. He, not I said they were impossible but he did not get to all of them. They if even worthy of inclusion are not better in any category than mine.

"There was" itself becomes incoherent. There was no time when the universe did not exist. This is because time itself is a quality of the universe.

Do you understand the difference between space time and concepts like eternity? Bronze age men did.

"Are you trying to say there is no way to determine or differentiate between different degree's of validity when it comes to claims?

No, that is exactly what I am trying to say and have been in every way I can think of. There is not only black and white. Everything is a shade of grey.

In that I can demonstrate it logically which I have several times in this post even.

I forget the context here.

Then you need to refer back to your boss because you are misunderstanding a lot here. "Information" can also mean "patterns" or "laws" in our universe at least that is what I get the sense you are inferring. They are not "information" in the same sense because it was not "coded". It is a natural law. To say that natural laws do not exist is folly. To state that natural laws must be "information given by a coder" is folly till you provide evidence for it. It is not necessary till you give an example of something that is created without a "coder".

I have and do constantly refer to him. I have become educated on information. Your making distinctions without difference here. Let me clarify in a way to remove this. Semiotic systems require intelligence.

I will give an analogy. In the movie contact their criteria to distinguish between intelligence and natural patterns and waves was information. If they received specified complexity they had intelligence if only a pattern like a quasar they did not.

For example if I drop a marble on the floor then it will bounce and land back at an ever increasing rate as it looses energy with each bounce therefore causing a lower "highest point" in its arc. That is a pattern that we could use to send a message. However without pre-ascribing the information that it represents then it is no longer information but just a "pattern".

Maybe but this violates what I said. You must have a decoder tuned to the code. Bouncing balls alone mean nothing to anyone. Only if you have an INTELLIGENT system that can decode it is there intent.

Unless "universes from nothing" is a natural pattern or cause. We don't know that it isn't. And based on what other universe do you speculate that this universe suggests it even more? This sounds like a bunch of arguments from ignorance. Give me a good example. A specific example to showcase your point.

Nothing has no pattern. Nothing is just that no-thing. It has no property or characteristics of any kind and never does nor can stand in causal relationships.

Does it take more faith to believe in god than it does to wait for a bus?

Now you have it, shades of grey. Both are valid, now we can haggle on which is the darker or lighter shade.

Several of these philosophers disagree with you. For example Aristotle was accused of atheism. But then they also didn't know that the earth revolved around the sun, I guess that made them idiots too didn't it? Or is it the lack of information at that time didn't give them the better choices they have now.

I did not mention Aristotle. I said Greek. Unless he fathered every child he was not Greece.

They didn't understand time and we still struggle with it today.

You don't, you seem to claim to understand and bind it at will.

But ON WHAT basis do you raise the "god" theory higher than "natural force" that holds the same properties minus the intelligence?

That will take some time to explain and you always catch me at the end of the day. I will try and get to this in the next go around. Have a good one.

 

[1robin]

I repeat: "First your god decides to create a universe "fine tuned" for "life". Then he sets up the initial conditions for the "big bang" to ensure that about 13.7 billion years later the conditions will be such that this universe can support "life". Then he makes a lot of life including 135 million years worth of dinosaurs all without souls. Then he wipes them out and creates humans as containers for souls." I am trying to get you to explain exactly what it is you believe. I thought we were off to a good start here. Now, please help me fill in the timeline we started on. Help me fill out the details of your belief.

The bible is a theological book not a scientific one. It places creation in less than a chapter. I can't give you a detailed time line and purpose for things it does not speak on. It would at least help if you gave me your argument. I see your premise, where is the conclusion.

 

[ArtieE]

The bible is a theological book not a scientific one. It places creation in less than a chapter. I can't give you a detailed time line and purpose for things it does not speak on. It would at least help if you gave me your argument. I see your premise, where is the conclusion.

I simply want you to tell us exactly what it is you believe in. You can't possibly believe in just what the Bible says. Start with the beginning before the universe if you believe there was a before the universe. Go through the Big Bang and the dinosaurs and everything else you believe in or not up to the present day. Incorporate the Biblical accounts in the time line. Whenever an atheist talks to Christians he hears "I believe this and that because the Bible says so" but I would like you to give us a time line of exactly what it is you believe in with what the Bible says incorporated so we can get a sense of some continuum, a proper idea what a Christian actually believes, about absolutely everything from before the universe up to now.

 

[1robin]

I simply want you to tell us exactly what it is you believe in. You can't possibly believe in just what the Bible says. Start with the beginning before the universe if you believe there was a before the universe. Go through the Big Bang and the dinosaurs and everything else you believe in or not up to the present day. Incorporate the Biblical accounts in the time line. Whenever an atheist talks to Christians he hears "I believe this and that because the Bible says so" but I would like you to give us a time line of exactly what it is you believe in with what the Bible says incorporated so we can get a sense of some continuum, a proper idea what a Christian actually believes, about absolutely everything from before the universe up to now.

I hold no firm positions of faith about dinosaurs other than they existed. I have nothing additional to draw any conclusions from. I have seen many philosophers and scientific theists tackle the issue and have never seen any barrier to faith given dinosaurs, but have no convictions about them in a theological context.

Let me recommend a scholarly work called "The science of God" by Schroeder which does tackle all manner of scientific evidence including dinosaurs in a theological context. I have never found any need to draw any firm conclusions so have not and even if I did I have no idea what to base them on.

As I said all the creation/evolutionary events prior to man are compressed into a few verses in the bible. God did not intend nor do I have a need to build any time line he did not include.


I will add one last thing. Hundreds and maybe thousands of years before any one found a dinosaur, came up with evolutionary theory, or the universe's age many great theological scholars interpreted Genesis in ways that would allow for them all. For example no Jewish calendar includes the six days of creation until Adam arrives, because they did not believe those first few days were earth centric time frames. They were not reacting to modern science. They got it from only the text its self. Only after Adam were days earth centric to them.

Again I highly recommend that book. It speaks directly to the issues you mention and is an extremely technical work by an eminently qualified man of science and he includes countless others of that type and the history of interpreting Genesis.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Any change in states have causes and explanations. Every observation ever made is evidence.

You must present that "creation" is a change of state. By all accounts it is not.

That depends entirely on how you define the variables. If A is a change in states, and B is a cause or explanation then no A ever has occurred without a B. Add to this that the nature of A always informs about the nature of B. If B is found shown to have a nature that is virtually identical to C then C is a good candidate for B in the context we are discussing.

Except I have defined them very differently.
A= "change in state" B= "creation of matter/energy" c= causality. A implies C. B is not A therefore B does is not required to imply C.

You said assuming our existence was relevant somehow. I said it was not. You said it was. I said whether either of us existed or not has no effect on the argument. Now your saying the issue that was irrelevant is not even what was being discussed. This is like debating with the old whack-a-mole machine a chucky cheeses. You old enough to remember that game?

Went back a few pages to look into that back and forth and you misunderstood my point. Our "existence" the fact we exist (not us specifically) was a component of the argument. What it means to exist is another gray area. You misunderstood that to mean us specifically.

You mean that conceded that the argument is valid?

That the argument proves that god is the best answer. Rather I think that is a personal belief to you rather than fact. If it were then there would be no atheists.

I did not say it was universally accepted or universally anything. I said the validity of the argument is consistently accepted. There are I'm sure some exceptions but I see them so infrequently I can't remember who made them. I am speaking about the professional debate realm here. I will give you an example. The best atheist debater I am aware of is Sean Carroll. When he faced Craig he did not object to the arguments validity. He instead drew a cartoon of a universe that did not begin in any sense of the word. The reason I respect him is he admitted his drawing was probably wrong but it served to illustrate that other (not impossible) universes might exist which had no beginning. Of course Craig tore that to pieces but Sean put up the best fight I have ever seen from the other side. I recommend that debate over any of the other hundreds I have seen. Krauss may be smart but he is a terrible debater, Hitches is charismatic but not a scientist, Dawkins is an idiot, Harris is so arrogant and assumptive he is hard to take, etc.... Sean is the best you guys have IMO.

I think your bias has a large amount to do with the way you view things. For example I find Dawkins and I differ on our view of things considerably. However he is still a very good scientist who is very intelligent. To call him an idiot would require some proof. And the fact you think that Craig had ever "torn apart" anyone in a debate that was dictated by facts and reason is a bit beyond me. I've seen him make a lot of fallacies and I've actually addressed his arguments and claims in depth about a year ago. I kind of feel that 90% of your arguments are directly from watching his videos.

Then I misunderstood. I took your dismissal as an attack against validity not my conclusion. I do not agree with that either but it is different. What is a better argument?

Is the argument valid? Yes. Is the argument sound? That is a different horse.

They do so constantly but the motivation why they do not all the time is that their profession posits natural solutions and there is not one. They are simply done at the singularity. BTW I posted all kinds of those quotes recently in this thread (I think) post 1830 was just the tip of the ice burg.

I saw. But that doesn't change the actual scientific position. The position is "we don't know". It could be natural but at this point we don't see how we could ever postulate what it is. If it is "unnatural" then once we figure out what it is then it ceases to be supernatural and becomes natural. I liked the phrase "magic is just science we don't understand yet". If there is some kind of unseen unknown force that provides some kind of answer, when we find out what it is, it is no longer "supernatural". If "god" exists then he is "natural". We just don't understand it yet. And once we do then I wonder if we will still call him god?

That does not follow. However it is an example of the certainty or nothing mind set I often mention. No jury case ever knows for certain but decides the best conclusion. Your criteria would destroy civilization if anyone acted according to it.

Yes it does follow. If I have a box and we have ZERO idea of what is inside it but we can postulate a philosophical argument that states that there is a possibility that it could be a rock then that doesn't make it the best answer. It could just as easily be a book. Or a feather. If the answer to the question "what is in the unkown box" and no one has ANY degree of certainty of their answer then "a rock" is no better an explanation than any other.

I know the alternatives and their only virtue is that they can't be proven wrong, which is an even larger violation of your criteria. I read Vilenkin shoot most down emphatically in a speech given for Hawking's birthday. He, not I said they were impossible but he did not get to all of them. They if even worthy of inclusion are not better in any category than mine.

The theory of god is no better. It cannot be proven wrong. It is not falsifiable. I truly don't understand why you seem to think that this argument has any kind of superiority as it holds the exact same flaws as you point out in any other theory.

Do you understand the difference between space time and concepts like eternity? Bronze age men did.

I would guess I understand better than them as the first one to have ever conceptualized it in any sort of meaningful way was Einstein. Prior to that no one knew that space and time were even connected. It is not due to any brilliance on my part but just the fact that I was born in an age where this information has been found out by very smart individuals. In the future another thousand years, assuming society continues to advance, they will know things we didn't even dream off. Not because they are vastly more intelligent than us but because they are in a more advanced time.

So I challenge the notion that Bronze Age men were adept in dealing with the philosophy of inherent contradictions to our known universe and the laws governing spacetime.

No, that is exactly what I am trying to say and have been in every way I can think of. There is not only black and white. Everything is a shade of grey.

In many things. But there is no "lighter grey" given to your argument than any of the others.

I have and do constantly refer to him. I have become educated on information. Your making distinctions without difference here. Let me clarify in a way to remove this. Semiotic systems require intelligence.

I will give an analogy. In the movie contact their criteria to distinguish between intelligence and natural patterns and waves was information. If they received specified complexity they had intelligence if only a pattern like a quasar they did not.

Exactly. So what "information" in the universe exists that we have decoded that must have been put there by god? You have never mentioned any.

Maybe but this violates what I said. You must have a decoder tuned to the code. Bouncing balls alone mean nothing to anyone. Only if you have an INTELLIGENT system that can decode it is there intent.

Nothing has no pattern. Nothing is just that no-thing. It has no property or characteristics of any kind and never does nor can stand in causal relationships.

Exactly. There has to be intent and pre-ascribed meaning given to specific "patterns" for them to be recognized by another (or the same) intelligent "decoder". What "information" do you see in the universe that follows this? And no, DNA sequences, are not an example of this.

Now you have it, shades of grey. Both are valid, now we can haggle on which is the darker or lighter shade.

I haggle that your side is no brighter than any of the other theories and if anything it tends to be darker as you are based upon presuppositions that may or may not be true.

I did not mention Aristotle. I said Greek. Unless he fathered every child he was not Greece.

And Aristotle was Greek. You should have specified "some Greek philosophers" not "Greek philosophers" as a whole.

You don't, you seem to claim to understand and bind it at will.

I understand more than them. I understand less than we will in a 100 years.

That will take some time to explain and you always catch me at the end of the day. I will try and get to this in the next go around. Have a good one.

I'll be waiting. As the whole of this argument isn't that your argument as a whole is invalid but that it does not stand above the rest and I am tired of trying to prove that when you are obviously arguing something else.

 

[ArtieE]

Let me recommend a scholarly work called "The science of God" by Schroeder which does tackle all manner of scientific evidence including dinosaurs in a theological context.

I'll check it out.

As I said all the creation/evolutionary events prior to man are compressed into a few verses in the bible. God did not intend nor do I have a need to build any time line he did not include.

Reality is a jigsaw puzzle of various pieces of knowledge. You claim the Bible has a few pieces of this reality puzzle. It is up to you to show that your pieces fit in with all the pieces we have outside the Bible such as dinosaurs and the Big Bang etc. All pieces combined must fit into each other and show a clear motive. I am asking you to fit all the pieces together and show how they fit. If you can't do that your faith is irrelevant to our understanding of the universe. It doesn't matter to us how detailed you can describe each piece if you can't show it fits with all the other pieces. All pieces have to make sense together.

 

[cottage]

I have seen many attempts to make the most self refuting claim I can think of not conflict with it's self. You are right that it has almost always been theists but that is irrelevant. I would not matter if it was painters, engineers, or astronauts the statement holds a vast contradiction.
Hume was a minimalist when it came to knowledge but as usual it seems his criteria were arbitrary, self contradicting, and pliable.

It is irrelevant as some form of argument. I think you are making rather too much of that brief clause in the sentence saying the detractors are mainly theists, as that observation most definitely forms no part of any argument I’m making.

As I said I agree with Hume in many places. My chief complaint is the moving bar he seems to have and the inconsistency with which his propositions are used. I really do not care if we use minimalistic approaches, generous assumption, or some middle ground. I just want the same standard used for everything.

The standard remains the same throughout the Enquires, although he examines it from many different angles. Hume’s philosophy is, in part, psychological, analysing the way we come to form judgements.

It appears here that he says nothing true of the past no matter hos constantly it occurs is grounds for believing it will occur in the future. Now this I wholly reject. No human operates in that way, we all act exactly the opposite and are justified in doing so. I think Hume may be describing what is true of an arbitrarily chose extremely rigorous criteria imposed without cause.

Yes of course nobody carries on in that way. Again, in what Hume calls “common life” nobody would believe that a stick placed in water really was bent, to use one of Descartes’ examples, and nobody believes a dropped stone will fly upwards, and so we are confident that the stick when withdrawn from the water will reveal itself to be as straight as it was prior to being submerged and likewise the stone will fall to the ground when dropped. We don’t question these things because we’ve never experienced the converse. But what Hume is saying is that since we cannot give any reason why those things should be thus and not otherwise then how can we argue that the past or present is an argument for the future? The only response we can give is to say that cause and effect teaches us this. And to this Hume would say but what is cause and effect but an observed relationship between two objects? There is certainly no contradiction in supposing that the sun will not rise in the morning, and we unable to reason why it ought to rise and that’s because the belief isn’t arrived at via any intellectual ability but only by referring to custom and habit. Causation is not validated by experience or logic.

Now the very first of any species coming across fire for the first ever time would only learn that fire warms and has the ability to combust objects by putting its hand or paw near the flames or observing fire’s ability to consume objects. There is nothing in the flames that causes the creature to reason that fire burns. And as the very first species there is no genetic pathway developed whereby the creature would fear fire innately, but once learned it becomes ingrained as instinct. So the argument that knowledge begins from experience is difficult to argue down. But if there are no innate ideas then God is just an idea abstracted from experience and awarded qualities and a narrative all compounded from experience.

I think that is lacking because many things have other tests by which to validate a perception. For example if seeing a puddle is not enough to conclude it is water, maybe a recent rain storm, feeling it, boiling it, or a hundred other test can add layers of reliability for the conclusion. I may have missed your intent here a bit but that is what I saw.

Yes, indeed! And what is that if not "experimental reasoning"?

But no one acts as if this is true. I can certainly see what it is driving at but do not agree with his conclusion. The conclusion he condemns as worthless in real life are not considered to be so. They just assume a lower reliability factor.

That is the choice.

1. Relegate anything in Hume's categories to the dung heap. No one does this. Academia does not do it, legal institutions don't do this. no one lives their lives like this.
2. Keep what Hume would rule out (which included his statement) but apply it an appropriate level of reliability lower than what his statement does not condemn. This is the way everything actually operates beyond a few weirdo's in labs some place.

There are not two black and white categories but an infinite number of gray shades.

For me the beauty of Hume’s argument is that it is proper philosophy in the sense that he takes us on a journey to which he himself cannot know the destination beforehand; he doesn’t set out with the answer to the question. In fact there is no answer, only further questions, which to this day are subject to intense discussion.

Compare Hume’s approach with that of Descartes' rationalist metaphysics of the same era, which was supposed to be a complete system of knowledge, but ran into trouble on its first principle, the Cogito. God was appealed to by begging the question, famously known as the Cartesian Circle, and we were expected to believe that the soul together with all our thoughts were to be found in the pineal gland!

 

[idav]

You must present that "creation" is a change of state. By all accounts it is not.

That is the sort of creation that makes sense. Is creation supposed to be ex nihilo, how would that ever be possible?

 

[Monk Of Reason]

That is the sort of creation that makes sense. Is creation supposed to be ex nihilo, how would that ever be possible?

It gets to that point eventually. And that is why scientists don't make a lot of assumptions beyond that. If there was "pre-matter" that was in a different state then what came before the "pre-universe"? If "infinity" is such a problem with this universe why would it suddenly NOT be a problem there? Goddidit godidit goddidit godidit.

That is the brunt of the argument. So when we talk about the "creation" we aren't talking "changing form" but "coming into existence". Ex nihilo would be the eventual discussion or in this case the immediate discussion. But it doesn't make sense but that seems to be what the evidence points to.

That is why I say we can't really make assumptions because it is counter intuitive to all we know to be true.

 

[idav]

It gets to that point eventually. And that is why scientists don't make a lot of assumptions beyond that. If there was "pre-matter" that was in a different state then what came before the "pre-universe"? If "infinity" is such a problem with this universe why would it suddenly NOT be a problem there? Goddidit godidit goddidit godidit.

That is the brunt of the argument. So when we talk about the "creation" we aren't talking "changing form" but "coming into existence". Ex nihilo would be the eventual discussion or in this case the immediate discussion. But it doesn't make sense but that seems to be what the evidence points to.

That is why I say we can't really make assumptions because it is counter intuitive to all we know to be true.

I'm just not sure that if you go back far enough you end up with nothing. I think, matter of opinion I guess, that no matter how far back you will have at least something.

How is it that we can call god nothing? Would god be nothing before becoming the only source of existence? I contend that any source for all of existence is something at least. Otherwise it would be interesting to find that a source of nothing can be responsible for so much.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I'm just not sure that if you go back far enough you end up with nothing. I think, matter of opinion I guess, that no matter how far back you will have at least something.

How is it that we can call god nothing? Would god be nothing before becoming the only source of existence? I contend that any source for all of existence is something at least. Otherwise it would be interesting to find that a source of nothing can be responsible for so much.

That is the point I'm getting at. There is no "before" time. This idea that something outside space and time had to have created it is beyond anything we could assume. We simply do not know. The universe has existed for all time and will exist for all time. Not before or after and those words loose meaning.

 

[cottage]

Interject away. I have no idea how Kalam is flawed as many professional philosophers use it, but I can't even begin to see how it was potentially intentional. What is the motivation? Several other versions of the same argument already existed. I do not know about you but this argument is as partisan as they come. I find every denier is a non-theist and every supporter a theist plus a few non-theists who at least grant the arguments soundness but end run around the conclusion to a multi-verse or something similar. Regardless my position is not dependent on Kalam. There exist at least ten versions of this argument from Greece to modern times. My position is a loose generalization on the principles involved not wedded to any specific version. If it was I would go with Leibniz but have no necessity to adopt a particular one.

The term I used was “misleading”. I’m sure or rather I know that advocates of the argument such as WLC, whom I generally respect, are only too aware of the difficulty with that first premise. As a matter of fact I saw Craig on a Youtube video deliberately misrepresent an objector’s argument by contriving it to mean that a person that was born wasn’t born and he followed this up, much to the amusement of the theist audience, with the conclusion that he (WLC) therefore didn’t exist. But despite all the levity and guffawing I thought it a pretty poor show from one who is generally highly esteemed. But then I have to modify my criticism and remember that is how philosophical debates are conducted: we don’t attract notice to those aspects that don’t support or agree with our arguments.

All the cosmological arguments are causal, and the argument from contingency doesn’t avoid that term either. The Leibniz semantic argument is easy to refute because it doesn’t try and smuggle in a subtle clause as with the Kalam, but presents a proposition in which denial of the premises is supposed to involve a contradiction – and yet the proposition itself can be safely denied. And further more, as I’ve demonstrated at length elsewhere, a personal conscience being that explains the universe also needs an explanation to explain itself in terms of explaining the universe. Note that this doesn’t mean it needs to account for its own existence but only that there must be an explanation for bringing the universe into being that doesn’t run to a contradiction. And several reasons can be given to show that it does just that!

I do not think we are entitled to ask which sense perception. The entire field of mathematics is not derived by sensory organs. Let me state something here I think is very relevant. Muslims arbitrarily picked "begins to exist" is juts semantics and not important. That is why I like Leibniz because he suggests all things have explanations. That includes everything, not just beginnings. Not that there exists any problem with beginnings as every reason exists to posit causes for them but it makes a far more generalized claim. Any change of state, material, informational, or in energy has an explanation. Beginnings are mere subcategories of a general principle. State changes always require explanations and explanations include causes. Even most atheists (including Hume I believe) bristle when it is suggested they think something began to exist without a cause. However my claim simply throws beginnings into a huge category of state changes and does not sink or swim with beginnings.

Nobody is denying that change requires cause. What I’m saying is that this is not a sound argument:

1. Whatever changes form has a cause
2. The universe changes form
3. The universe has a cause

The structure is logically valid but the premises are fallacious since the inference is contained entirely within the universe, but presumes to find for a conclusion outside the universe. The fallacy is exposed with the proper insertion: "Whatever changes form in the universe has a cause" for then the conclusion "The universe has a cause" cannot logically follow.

I think we have repeated everything here many times and my clarification above sort of short circuited all this, so I will leave it here. Change requires an explanation. Aquinas for example makes the same argument from motion alone.

And I’m aware of St Thomas’s Five Ways, which are all subject to the same problem, where the first premise is falsely assumed.

The reason I’m still engaged with this subject is twofold: 1) Historically you never acknowledge any problems with the argument and continue to promote it almost as an article of faith. I predict that you will continue to claim it has never been faulted and is “ironclad” etc , without reference to the arguments made here (not that I’m the first to fault it by a l-o-n-g chalk).

2) You keep inviting me to respond, and so that is what I’m doing: responding!

 

[idav]

That is the point I'm getting at. There is no "before" time. This idea that something outside space and time had to have created it is beyond anything we could assume. We simply do not know. The universe has existed for all time and will exist for all time. Not before or after and those words loose meaning.

No disagreements there.

 

[Aman777]

That is the point I'm getting at. There is no "before" time. This idea that something outside space and time had to have created it is beyond anything we could assume. We simply do not know. The universe has existed for all time and will exist for all time. Not before or after and those words loose meaning.

Dear Readers, Forgive Monk for he obviously hasn't read Genesis. Our universe is one among at least three other Heavens, in our Multiverse. It was caused on the THIRD Day, Gen 2:4 which means that there were TWO other Days or Ages, in God's time, BEFORE the Big Bang of our Cosmos. Since each of God's Days is some 4.5 Billion years in length, in man's time, you can read of the events BEFORE the Big Bang, which are recorded in Gen 1:1through Gen 1:8. Someone should tell Monk. God Bless all of you.

In Love,
Aman

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Dear Readers, Forgive Monk for he obviously hasn't read Genesis. Our universe is one among at least three other Heavens, in our Multiverse. It was caused on the THIRD Day, Gen 2:4 which means that there were TWO other Days or Ages, in God's time, BEFORE the Big Bang of our Cosmos. Since each of God's Days is some 4.5 Billion years in length, in man's time, you can read of the events BEFORE the Big Bang, which are recorded in Gen 1:1through Gen 1:8. Someone should tell Monk. God Bless all of you.

In Love,
Aman

And if you stay in tune there is a new sequel that is actually a pre-quel that goes even further BACK before god. We get to see his fall from grace before he becomes the Darth Yahweh.

 

[1robin]

From your post I was curious how you arrive to a particular type of god one that gives free will or pre destines every single thing.

The bible supports freewill and choice from A - Z. If my fate is determined by initial conditions the bible makes no sense what so ever. Are you asking for verses that affirm choice and freewill?

 

[1robin]

I don't think you've gotten to my part yet about causality.

Every known state of change has an explanation and a cause. You need to justify why only state changes that involve coming into existence would be exempt for that principle which has no known exception.

What is immaterial then? How can you ascribe any sort of properties to something specifically "non-existent" by many definitions.

A disembodied mind. Abstract concepts we use every day, morality, ascetics, numbers, etc.... Why is only the first out of bounds but the rest part of every day life they are equally immaterial? BTW much of the latest science (the theoretical type which I have little faith in even when it is on my side) suggests minds are primary and material derivative. I once posted an article on it if you want to search for it. I do not understand it but I assume the scholars like Max Planck they used, potentially do.

I think all of those men and women were more than likely influenced by their faith and falling back on god of the gaps. I can find you a myriad of scientist who will tell you exactly what I am telling you. Are they idiots as well?

I was not the one who accused any group of being insufficiently intelligent to arrive at truth. My view is that science is filtered through whatever lens existed previously to viewing it. I try hard to remove anything that seems to be the result of lensing and see if what is left is reliable. I think both sides have reasonable positions but I think theisms side is by far the better of the two. So no I do not claim Hawking is an idiot in science though he is an idiot in philosophy which is where his conclusions unfortunately come from. I think most scholars honestly find data but I think the atheists view more biased when making a conclusion. Now a few rungs down in the amateur level and the opposite is the case. Most laymen's arguments why evolution is lacking are terrible but at the top levels the theist scholars are better IMO. Very modern science of any kind is suspicious in my view because money, grants, infighting, and getting published has become more important than truth. I am skeptical about the quantum, string theory, Penrose claimed M theory was not even a good excuse for not having a theory, and holographic theory for example. That is why I seldom use them even when in my favor.

"Creation" or "non-being into being" is not a change of state. You can argue that there was something before the big bang but then you need evidence.

Non-existence to existence is the greatest change in state possible. A state is a property of essence. How many times have you heard the phrase "state of existence"?

I have a minor is logic and philosphy actually. Hardly a master's degree but I don't actually have to. If I had never taken a class in logic ever in my life and I was a 5 year old, it doesn't matter.

Depends on the claim. You made the claim you could teach a logical class. How many five year olds have? Maybe the best modal logician in history (Kripke) only did so in his late teens or early twenties.

You keep saying it has "stood for thousands of years" when in actuality only certain people believe it to be viable. Several people do not see it as a viable "argument" for god. You need to stop making this mistake of thinking it is a universally accepted viable argument that can simply be fallen back on without support or debate.

Usually arguments with true flaws do not survive that long. Flat earth long gone, the earth being supported by a turtle or elephant gone, hollow earth theory long gone, earth-centricity long gone. Even second tear arguments like alien visitors get relegated to the basement very quickly. Yet arguments 40 times older like the cosmological argument is not still believed in by many but is at the forefront of professional debate.

But if you want me to get specific here it is.

Change is A. Change requires or implies causality (C). "Creation of matter or bringing into existence"(b) is not a change of a pre-existing state(A). Therefor A implying C does not mean B implying C. IF you want B to imply C you must link A to B.

You said A = change, then you out of no where said it later equaled a change in a thing that already existed. Which one is it? IN the argument change is anything that doe snot remain static. A box coming into existence is about the most radical change I can comprehend.

Google. I dunno where it is originally from.

It does not matter that much.

 

[1robin]

I simply want you to tell us exactly what it is you believe in.

No you don't but I will anyway. I know the Holy spirit exists and can be found by using the Gospels as a road map. I did. I deduct from that and a thousand other lines of evidence that the Gospels and the bible in general are very reliable, that God exists, and that Christ died historically for my sins and by virtue of this I can be reconciled to God for eternity.

What you want to know is how I account for any aspect of genetic history you find implausible given God, out of the trillions that have occurred. Now how on earth is there even a potentiality for me to do that? I believe the bible and it says almost nothing on the subject. I'm finite and God is infinite, how can I be expected to catalogue every action he ever took and why?

You can't possibly believe in just what the Bible says. Start with the beginning before the universe if you believe there was a before the universe. Go through the Big Bang and the dinosaurs and everything else you believe in or not up to the present day. Incorporate the Biblical accounts in the time line. Whenever an atheist talks to Christians he hears "I believe this and that because the Bible says so" but I would like you to give us a time line of exactly what it is you believe in with what the Bible says incorporated so we can get a sense of some continuum, a proper idea what a Christian actually believes, about absolutely everything from before the universe up to now.

I have read book after book. I have two or three sitting on my desk here at work with imminently qualified scientists who reconcile Genesis with cosmology and genetics in every way. I most certainly can believe it, however what I believe it says may not be set in stone or what you think I should think it says. The bible doe snot say anything about why dinosaurs existed or went extinct. On what can I build a timeline from? I am required to have a faith position on every event that ever occurred? Why? I try and defend what the bible says, I have no reason to defend what it doesn't. My faith is in Christ not in a triceratops so I do not care what happened to them.

You cannot sincerely be asking for my theological position on the velociraptors existence.

Long before Chesterton became a Christian he abandoned atheism because it was based on mutually exclusive claims. In this case it would be that the Christian is wrong because he claims to know everything even though he can't, and that he is wrong because he does not know everything. It was the sheer incoherence of atheism's argumentation that caused the apostle of common sense to abandon it. Only much later did he become a theist. He knew God can't be both too intrusive and too illusive, too violent and too passive, too demanding and too forgiving. He couldn't be a black mask on a white world and a white mask on a black world. Atheism had no coherent foundation and could no longer be held.