What is the falsification methodology of the God argument?

[exchemist]

It seems......yes.

I come in here sporadically and then disappear for sections at a time, I simply don't have the desire to wrestle things out as I used to, other than the occasional pointing of a direction of where one can get the answer. I don't find this format fruitful at the pace and complexity that I think it requires. We can do a one on one and I can answer as time permits me if you are really interested.

It's been interesting to learn from you the extra subtlety in the cosmological argument as expounded by people like Aquinas. Certainly it seems he was alert to the need to distinguish God, qualitatively, from the classes of things that he maintained must have a cause. So indeed it does look as if the standard riposte that if-everything-must-have-a-cause-then-so-must-God is naive and misdirected. That's useful to know.

But it does look to me as if modern physics would still knock the cosmological argument on the head. All that does, however, is restore this age-old issue to its seemingly permanent status of unprovable either way. It thus remains a matter of personal faith and conviction or lack thereof, rather than proof.

 

[lukethethird]

Thus if God exists then "God" is a synonym for the pre-existing state of things in which the Big Bang occurred and need not be (and certainly does not appear to be) sentient, rational, purposeful, or active independently of the rules of physics.

Yes, if matter-energy always existed in one form or another no need to call it God.

If the universe started from nothing it is begging the question to suggest God is therefor necessary to bring it into existence via the first cause simply because we then have to ask what caused God, and if the answer is that God does not need a first cause then there we have the self contradiction; if God is an example of an existence without a first cause then the first cause argument is rendered moot.

 

[Polymath257]

The collision supposedly is why the earth has a tilt. So without that collision would the poles run vertical to each other rather than on a 23.5 degrees tilt?" See picture

My confusion is in the phrase 'vertical to each other'. The tilt *with respect to the orbit* is due to a collision in the distant past. If that collision had not happened, there would have been a different tilt with respect to the orbit.

Mars, for example, has a tilt with respect to its orbit as well, which is about the same as the Earth's tilt to its orbit. Jupiter has less of a tilt to its orbit.

But, each of those orbits is in a slightly different plane to the others. So the tilts of the orbits are not all the same either.

There is no 'vertical' that makes any sense in this example. Up and Down are not relevant concepts in space.

 

[Polymath257]

Look at your map vs my globe. Do you notice any thing different on the continent's?

And how is that relevant at all? Both are models of what is going on. There is no 'up' or 'down' in space. The tilt of the Earth's axis is with respect to its orbit.

And, again, north and south make no sense in space, but they *do* have well defined meanings on rotating bodies like the Earth.

 

[Polymath257]

You can whoosh all you want. Whoosh doesn't make a point. In fact replying whoosh implies you have no point.

Why do you think the shape of the continents is relevant? Why do you think that 'vertical' has any meaning in this situation? And why do you think that has anything to do with 'north' and 'south'?

 

[Polymath257]

Since the Universe could, under different circumstances, conceivably not exist (contingency), its existence must have a cause – not merely another contingent thing, but something that exists by necessity (something that must exist in order for anything else to exist).
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The distinction between 'contingent' and 'necessary' existence is one that has always bothered me.

WHY must a contingent thing (by this definition--we can conceive of its non-existence) have a cause?

For example, the existence of an electron is clearly not *necessary*, but it is also NOT always caused (if it is part of a spontaneous positron-electron pair).

It seems to me that part of that argument is a confusion between different meanings of 'contingent': one where we can conceive of the non-existence and one that requires a cause to exist. They are clearly NOT the same thing!

 

[We Never Know]

My confusion is in the phrase 'vertical to each other'. The tilt *with respect to the orbit* is due to a collision in the distant past. If that collision had not happened, there would have been a different tilt with respect to the orbit.

Mars, for example, has a tilt with respect to its orbit as well, which is about the same as the Earth's tilt to its orbit. Jupiter has less of a tilt to its orbit.

But, each of those orbits is in a slightly different plane to the others. So the tilts of the orbits are not all the same either.

There is no 'vertical' that makes any sense in this example. Up and Down are not relevant concepts in space.

Most of this I have already addressed.

Simple question, Is vertical different than being at 23.5 degrees?

 

[We Never Know]

And how is that relevant at all? Both are models of what is going on. There is no 'up' or 'down' in space. The tilt of the Earth's axis is with respect to its orbit.

And, again, north and south make no sense in space, but they *do* have well defined meanings on rotating bodies like the Earth.

Again I've already said there is no up or down in space. There is no N or S in space.

 

[We Never Know]

Why do you think the shape of the continents is relevant? Why do you think that 'vertical' has any meaning in this situation? And why do you think that has anything to do with 'north' and 'south'?

A flat map doesn't show the tilt of earth's axis.

 

[We Never Know]

My confusion is in the phrase 'vertical to each other'. The tilt *with respect to the orbit* is due to a collision in the distant past. If that collision had not happened, there would have been a different tilt with respect to the orbit.

Mars, for example, has a tilt with respect to its orbit as well, which is about the same as the Earth's tilt to its orbit. Jupiter has less of a tilt to its orbit.

But, each of those orbits is in a slightly different plane to the others. So the tilts of the orbits are not all the same either.

There is no 'vertical' that makes any sense in this example. Up and Down are not relevant concepts in space.

So without that collision would the poles run vertical to each other rather than on a 23.5 degrees tilt?

 

[Polymath257]

Most of this I have already addressed.

Simple question, Is vertical different than being at 23.5 degrees?

Not only is it different, there is no comparison. For example, vertical for me in the US is a different direction that vertical for someone in Australia. And neither has anything to do with the plane of the Earth's orbit or the rotational axis of the Earth.

North has to do with the rotation of the Earth. The 23.5 degree tilt has to do with comparing the axis or rotation to the plane of the orbit.

 

[Polymath257]

Again I've already said there is no up or down in space. There is no N or S in space.

I agree. But that doesn't make north or south arbitrary. They make sense *on a rotating body*. Up and Down make sense in a gravitational field. But up for me might well be different than up for you. It is dependent on location.

 

[Polymath257]

So without that collision would the poles run vertical to each other rather than on a 23.5 degrees tilt?

Like I said, they would likely have a *different* tilt instead. It is rather unlikely that the axis of rotation would be exactly perpendicular to the plane of the orbit.

 

[Polymath257]

A flat map doesn't show the tilt of earth's axis.

What do you think the tilt is with respect to? Your use of the word 'vertical' is exceedingly strange.

 

[blü 2]

The distinction between 'contingent' and 'necessary' existence is one that has always bothered me.

WHY must a contingent thing (by this definition--we can conceive of its non-existence) have a cause?

For example, the existence of an electron is clearly not *necessary*, but it is also NOT always caused (if it is part of a spontaneous positron-electron pair).

I entirely agree. Though to be fair to the ancients, as distinct from eg Craig, they didn't know about QM.

It seems to me that part of that argument is a confusion between different meanings of 'contingent': one where we can conceive of the non-existence and one that requires a cause to exist. They are clearly NOT the same thing!

Again I agree. And again people like Craig have no excuse for not knowing better.


[Thanks again for straightening out my argument on a previous occasion.]

 

[We Never Know]

Like I said, they would likely have a *different* tilt instead. It is rather unlikely that the axis of rotation would be exactly perpendicular to the plane of the orbit.

As adjectives the difference between perpendicular and vertical. is that perpendicular is (geometry) at or forming a right angle (to) while vertical is along the direction of a plumbline or along a straight line that includes the center of the earth.

As I said vertical, straight up and down, as through earth. I even provided a picture.

 

[We Never Know]

I agree. But that doesn't make north or south arbitrary. They make sense *on a rotating body*. Up and Down make sense in a gravitational field. But up for me might well be different than up for you. It is dependent on location.

Keep in mind what I'm speaking about is all hypothetical/assumption. Just like the big bang.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You can whoosh all you want. Whoosh doesn't make a point. In fact replying whoosh implies you have no point.

Polymath tried to explain something to you. It went over your head. I tried to explain the same thing to you with simpler language. It went over your head. That is why the "Whoosh!!"

 

[Tiberius]

Lets say a person makes an argument like the cosmological argument for his personal deduction to affirm God, how would an atheist approach a falsification of it?

Well, one can show that a particular argument for God leads to a contradiction. Or one can show that a God is not logically required. But to provide a positive proof that God does not exist is practically impossible, because the idea of God is unfalsifiable. And anything unfalsifiable is a worthless idea. It can tell you nothing real about the world.

 

[Kfox]

From what I learn from Cosmological argument as explained in Wikipedia is that everything has a cause. It is OK with an atheist like me. But what cause - people differ on that. There is no evidence that God / Allah is the cause.

If everything has a cause, that would mean God / Allah would have to have a cause as well. IMO everything having a cause is a logical impossibility.