Dear theists, are you angry at me because I argue with you?

[Juma]

neither is there scientific proof that there is no God.

Bullshit. Of course there is. There cannot be any entity that sees everything, hears prayes, lets one army win over another etc etc. modern physics knows that there cannot be any forces that such an entity would need to perform such fantasy actions.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

neither is there scientific proof that there is no God.

Bullshit. Of course there is. There cannot be any entity that sees everything, hears prayes, lets one army win over another etc etc. modern physics knows that there cannot be any forces that such an entity would need to perform such fantasy actions.

The basic premise of theistic thinking is that the world should be a certain way. Further, if some part of it is not precisely that way then there is a cause. Finally, the only condition that needs no explanation is the condition in which everything is exactly and "perfectly" the way it is supposed to be. So theists endlessly search for these causes, all of which must explain that initial personal and comforting prejudice that the world was meant to be a certain perfect way.

Because of that initial prejudice conflicts naturally arise, conflicts which must be resolved with causal explanations that agree with that initial comforting prejudice that the world was meant to be a certain way. And there is certainly nothing unnatural about this as nature is constantly offering up new recipes for what constitutes the human.

The comfort that religious thinking imparts can be a definite survival advantage, which explains it's persistence. The lesson I take from that however is not the same lesson that your average theist takes. The lesson I take is to find comfort, and for me that arrives with having answers based on quantifiable observations grounded in scientific naturalism. In other words, I simply want to understand why thing are the way they are, and then go from there.

The theist on the other hand, is locked into that initial prejudice, and so locked into an endless cycle of conflict and necessary conflict resolution, a cycle that eventually needs to invent fantastic explanations that explain nothing, but rather simply introduce more conflict that now needs to be resolved in order to have comfort.

 

[Copernicus]

neither is there scientific proof that there is no God.

Bullshit. Of course there is. There cannot be any entity that sees everything, hears prayes, lets one army win over another etc etc. modern physics knows that there cannot be any forces that such an entity would need to perform such fantasy actions.

Juma, I don't see that as a scientific argument against the existence of God. It is a logical argument. You don't need to be a scientist to know that there are problems with the concepts of omniscience and omnipotence. For the existence of God to be scientifically disproved, God's existence has to be a testable hypothesis. If the concept is incoherent or self-contradictory, then it cannot be addressed by science.

 

[Copernicus]

What do you mean by "universe", Lion? Physical reality that we can observe, or physical reality in general?

What do you mean by "physical reality"?
What do you mean by "observe"?
What do you mean by "in general"?

(I'm content to use your definition of universe for the sake of the discussion if you like)

My point was that you seem to be equivocating on the term "universe". It can refer to "all the stuff there is", or it can refer to "all the stuff we can detect". The Big Bang is about the "all the stuff we can detect" sense, not the "all the stuff there is" sense. As a theist, you need to be clear about what it is that you think God created. It is entirely possible that our "universe" is just one bubble in a "multiverse", but there are other possible cosmological models. Atheism does not deny that our universe was caused, only that it is reasonable to conclude that a deity caused it.

...It is far from clear that physical reality itself is not past-eternal, but the observable universe does seem to be.

OK

Not sure that you understood my point. Causality breaks down at the point of singularity. Saying that something existed before the Big Bang is like talking about going south of the south pole. Temporal relationships are defined in terms of relationships between physical objects--the fourth dimension. However, physical reality as we know it ceases to exist beyond the point of singularity. At least, that is how my non-physicist brain interprets what physicists tell us the math says. Division by zero is undefined. However, it is still possible to speculate that the Big Bang happened in the context of a "metaverse" in which events took place in a different temporal framework from that of our universe--what has been called  imaginary time.

And what does "past-eternal" mean, if time itself ceases to be meaningful at the point of initiation?

LOL
Stuff can have existed forever notwithstanding our ability to find it meaningful.

Well, that is the point I was trying to make. For your "God" story to make sense, there has to be some kind of orthogonal temporal matrix in which our time is embedded. Just as authors of novels exist outside of the imaginary temporal framework of their narratives, God must exist outside of our temporal framework. But, as Jobar and others have pointed out, that gets us back to the original question. If we use God to solve the mystery of what caused our universe, then God is operating temporally in an external "imaginary" temporal framework. So the question of a First Cause just gets shifted to that temporal framework. Do you understand why God can't be used to solve the First Cause dilemma? It ultimately becomes  turtles all the way down.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Well, that is the point I was trying to make. For your "God" story to make sense, there has to be some kind of orthogonal temporal matrix in which our time is embedded. Just as authors of novels exist outside of the imaginary temporal framework of their narratives, God must exist outside of our temporal framework. But, as Jobar and others have pointed out, that gets us back to the original question. If we use God to solve the mystery of what caused our universe, then God is operating temporally in an external "imaginary" temporal framework. So the question of a First Cause just gets shifted to that temporal framework. Do you understand why God can't be used to solve the First Cause dilemma? It ultimately becomes  turtles all the way down.

I think Lion is convinced that we deserve to have to sit in the back of the bus, and to give up our seats when told by the driver. It's because we are somehow inferior. Our nonreligious claims make us have black skin which means we should drink at another water fountain.

For some folks religion is the great equalizer. For others it's another way to segregate people.

 

[Juma]

neither is there scientific proof that there is no God.

Bullshit. Of course there is. There cannot be any entity that sees everything, hears prayes, lets one army win over another etc etc. modern physics knows that there cannot be any forces that such an entity would need to perform such fantasy actions.

Juma, I don't see that as a scientific argument against the existence of God. It is a logical argument. You don't need to be a scientist to know that there are problems with the concepts of omniscience and omnipotence. For the existence of God to be scientifically disproved, God's existence has to be a testable hypothesis. If the concept is incoherent or self-contradictory, then it cannot be addressed by science.

? If the concept of god is incoherent and self-contradictory then it IS disproven by science.
If you disregard that then the descriotion of abrahams god contains lot of physical impossiblilities.
If this isnt to be disproven by science then I really do not know what is..

 

[Kharakov]

Why are we here? Don't ask.

Because of some eternal substrate that gives rise to all being. Many Gods have arisen out of this substrate, and died before they got as far as the God's of Earth, because the universe (created by the one true God, TM, which I happen to own) is hostile to Gods appearing anywhere where I am not in close proximity.

What happens when we die? Don't ask.

Not much. Your brains no longer generate your consciousness, particles focus on doing what they like doing, maybe they get caught up in a social movement like creating a bacteria, dog, human, or some other scale entity (like the USA).

Is anything objectively right and wrong? Don't ask.

Definitely. It's objectively wrong to interpret my jokes as universal truths, and my universal truths as jokes.

Why is there something instead of nothing? WUT?

Because there was always something. Nothing is a byproduct of scientific recreation of the first instant of universal awareness. Nothing can go wrong, which is why nature abhors a vacuum, because she remembers it scared her to feel alone. Which is why dogs sometimes run from vacuums, because they are fucking comedians, teasing nature, who they are closer to than dumb humans.

They also make fun of people who do drugs up their noses... by sniffing other dog's butts. Damn B, that shit is good.

 

[Lion IRC]

My point was that you seem to be equivocating on the term "universe". It can refer to "all the stuff there is", or it can refer to "all the stuff we can detect". The Big Bang is about the "all the stuff we can detect" sense, not the "all the stuff there is" sense. As a theist, you need to be clear about what it is that you think God created. It is entirely possible that our "universe" is just one bubble in a "multiverse"...

OK
I'll use your definition of universe aka multiverse.
And I'll stick with..."in the beginning God"

...but there are other possible cosmological models.

Sure. Some are theistic too.

Atheism does not deny that our universe was caused, only that it is reasonable to conclude that a deity caused it.

Well not atheism per se, but atheists are frequently using (the theory of) a past-eternal uni/multi/megaverse as the basis for challenging the need for God. So I think the two are connected.

...It is far from clear that physical reality itself is not past-eternal, but the observable universe does seem to be.

OK

Not sure that you understood my point. Causality breaks down at the point of singularity.

Could you please define "breaks down". I'm not familiar with that scientific term.
Well, OK. I admit it. I don't even know what you mean by 'singularity'.

...Saying that something existed before the Big Bang is like talking about going south of the south pole.

Wait. Didnt you say multiverse?
How many big bangs have there been? An infinite number perhaps?
Come on Copernicus. You and I both know M theory is a workaround for folks who want to avoid the (Genesis) God Conclusion.

Temporal relationships are defined in terms of relationships between physical objects--the fourth dimension. However, physical reality as we know it ceases to exist beyond the point of singularity. At least, that is how my non-physicist brain interprets what physicists tell us the math says. Division by zero is undefined. However, it is still possible to speculate that the Big Bang happened in the context of a "metaverse" in which events took place in a different temporal framework from that of our universe--what has been called  imaginary time.

Jargon detected.

And what does "past-eternal" mean, if time itself ceases to be meaningful at the point of initiation?

LOL
Stuff can have existed forever notwithstanding our ability to find it meaningful.

Well, that is the point I was trying to make. For your "God" story to make sense, there has to be some kind of orthogonal temporal matrix in which our time is embedded.

OK. Sure. In the beginning, God created an orthogonal temporal matrix.

Just as authors of novels exist outside of the imaginary temporal framework of their narratives, God must exist outside of our temporal framework.

Heaps of authors appear in movies portraying one of the characters in that movie.
God certainly can and does interact with temporal matters.
Eg. The Eucharist. Calvary. etc.

...Do you understand why God can't be used to solve the First Cause dilemma? It ultimately becomes  turtles all the way down.

No. God didn't have to cause the universe. By His own free will He could have refrained from creating the first turtle. You only need an infinite regression of prior causes (turtles) if you take divine volition - contingency - out of the scenario.

 

[Copernicus]

...

...Do you understand why God can't be used to solve the First Cause dilemma? It ultimately becomes  turtles all the way down.

No. God didn't have to cause the universe. By His own free will He could have refrained from creating the first turtle. You only need an infinite regression of prior causes (turtles) if you take divine volition - contingency - out of the scenario.

I feared that you were missing the point, and now I see that my fear was justified. The issue here was expressed perfectly well by Jobar. If God is an uncreated entity, then you admit that there can be something that just always existed. In your case, that is God, whom you use to explain the creation of everything else. However, Occam's razor can be used to cut God away, because you are inventing an unnecessary entity to explain physical existence. Physical existence itself can be the thing that just always existed. God is your "first turtle", and that turtle is first because there were not turtles before it.

That said, you also appear to be completely oblivious to the irrationality of a God that can know the future but be capable of changing the future--that is, having free will to change its mind. We humans can change our minds over time, because we are limited sequential beings, but the attempts of theologians to explain their invented "omniscient" being has mired them in logical contradiction. If God can change his mind, then he cannot possibly know what his own future will be, for, if he knows it, he cannot change it. So an omniscient God actually did have to cause the universe, because he had to know he would do it. Ironically, God's omniscience makes him unable to do what his creations can do--change over time. He lacks that power. Does that undermine omnipotence? Well, yeah, it sounds that way. However, you could just say that God can't do anything that is logically impossible, so being unable to change his mind--lacking free will--is just like his inability to create an object that he cannot lift. It turns out that God is an actual  P-zombie.

 

[Lion IRC]

...If God is an uncreated entity, then you admit that there can be something that just always existed.

Of course.
There's nothing controversial about the metaphysical notion of a perpetual, past-eternal thing that exists either by (ontological) necessity or by its own apparent nature.

...In your case, that is God, whom you use to explain the creation of everything else. However, Occam's razor can be used to cut God away, because you are inventing an unnecessary entity to explain physical existence.

No. There you mistate my position on two counts.
Firstly, I don't invent God. That would be an anathema. I wouldn't worship an invented god.
So I not only deny the notion of inventing God but don't recognise that theology/atheology.
Secondly, I don't accept that the lack of an explanation for why the universe exists is something Occam can simply dismiss.
Atheists expropriate Occam's razor and use it as a hand-waving exercise to special plead the claim that existential why questions are invented questions that don't matter.
Can you admit that why we are here matters a LOT if the universe is the result of contingent intent?

... That said, you also appear to be completely oblivious to the irrationality of a God that can know the future but be capable of changing the future

On the contrary. It's perfectly rational IMO.
And I assert that being able to change the future and cause it to be what you want it to be is part of being able to know what will happen.
No inconsistency in that.
But aren't you now changing the topic from omnipotence to omniscience?

...If God can change his mind, then he cannot possibly know what his own future will be, for, if he knows it, he cannot change it.

You ignore the fact that God can answer the question 'what are you going to do tomorrow' by saying 'I haven't decided yet'.
Or perhaps you don't understand that an omnipotent God is probably the most likely being who can afford to not worry about the future. Que sera sera.

 

[Lion IRC]

Dear theists, are you angry at me because I argue with you?
No - we're grateful.

Matthew 10:14 refers to people who are willing to hear what we have to say.
1st Peter 3:15 tells us to give an answer to everyone who asks

 

[Copernicus]

...If God is an uncreated entity, then you admit that there can be something that just always existed. In your case, that is God, whom you use to explain the creation of everything else. However, Occam's razor can be used to cut God away, because you are inventing an unnecessary entity to explain physical existence.

No. There you mistate my position on two counts. Firstly, I don't invent God. That would be an anathema. I wouldn't worship an invented god. So I not only deny the notion of inventing God but don't recognise that theology/atheology.

OK. Perhaps "invent" is not the right word to use with you. God is a concept, and the mind invents concepts on the basis of experience and reason. All I was saying was that you posit the existence of God, but Occam's razor undermines your justification for doing so, because you are positing an entity that is not necessary to explain the existence of physical reality. IOW, there is no logic that demands we posit a cause to explain its existence, although I can certainly see why it is tempting to posit a cause for the Big Bang.

Secondly, I don't accept that the lack of an explanation for why the universe exists is something Occam can simply dismiss. Atheists expropriate Occam's razor and use it as a hand-waving exercise to special plead the claim that existential why questions are invented questions that don't matter...

Occam's razor does not prove nonexistence. Its purpose is to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary steps in an argument. Nothing more. And whether atheists or theists invoke it is totally irrelevant. It is about empirical validation, not the categories of people who invoke it.

...Can you admit that why we are here matters a LOT if the universe is the result of contingent intent?

Why we exist matters a lot to me regardless of whether it is the result of contingent intent. That's why we are having this discussion.

... That said, you also appear to be completely oblivious to the irrationality of a God that can know the future but be capable of changing the future

On the contrary. It's perfectly rational IMO. And I assert that being able to change the future and cause it to be what you want it to be is part of being able to know what will happen. No inconsistency in that...

You assert that, and I assert that an omniscient being cannot logically have the power to change what it knows will happen. The problem, I believe, is that you can't stop thinking of God as a kind of human being, whose imperfect knowledge turns the future into a perpetual hypothetical. The future cannot be hypothetical for an omniscient being. It is fixed reality.

...But aren't you now changing the topic from omnipotence to omniscience?

Of course, and that is why I used words like "that said" and "also". Omniscience is not the same thing as omnipotence, but the juxtaposition of the two concepts is very relevant to the discussion of an omnimax God. They cause theologians to engage in logical contradictions that actually disprove the possibility that their version of God exists.

...If God can change his mind, then he cannot possibly know what his own future will be, for, if he knows it, he cannot change it.

You ignore the fact that God can answer the question 'what are you going to do tomorrow' by saying 'I haven't decided yet'.
Or perhaps you don't understand that an omnipotent God is probably the most likely being who can afford to not worry about the future. Que sera sera.

God doesn't need to be omnipotent to answer the question any way he pleases. The question before us is whether such an answer makes any rational sense. An omniscient being, by definition, has already decided what it is going to do tomorrow. If it can change its mind, then it is not omniscient. I know you don't want to accept that point, but it is true by definition. Not open to debate, despite your effort to assert that it is. Worrying about the future only makes sense if the future is hypothetical, so I agree with you that your God does not worry about the future. But my agreement is not with your logic.

 

[bilby]

neither is there scientific proof that there is no God.

Bullshit. Of course there is. There cannot be any entity that sees everything, hears prayes, lets one army win over another etc etc. modern physics knows that there cannot be any forces that such an entity would need to perform such fantasy actions.

Juma, I don't see that as a scientific argument against the existence of God. It is a logical argument. You don't need to be a scientist to know that there are problems with the concepts of omniscience and omnipotence. For the existence of God to be scientifically disproved, God's existence has to be a testable hypothesis. If the concept is incoherent or self-contradictory, then it cannot be addressed by science.

Sure. But if a person claims that God interacts with matter, then either that interaction is via one of the forces described by the Standard Model (and we know it is not, because we would be easily able to detect it it if were, and we have not done so); OR it is via a force not described by the Standard Model, and no such forces can exist at energies high enough to interact meaningfully with objects smaller than solar systems, and low enough not to atomize any human.

So the various 'God' hypotheses are wrong, if the Standard Model isn't. And the Standard Model cannot, according to observation, be sufficiently wrong as to allow for these 'God' hypotheses. To rescue these (very poorly evidenced) God hypotheses, we would need to reject the (very well evidenced) Standard Model. Of course the Standard Model is not complete or perfect - but that's not a requirement for our purposes, because we know, from experiment, that it is good enough - those forces will not suddenly become possible when a new, better, Grand Unified Theory replaces the Standard Model, any more than the replacement of Newton's Universal Gravitation with Einstein's Relativity suddenly allowed things to fall upwards.

Of course, most people have an insufficient understanding of the Standard Model to grasp that they must reject it in order to allow for their God's existence, or in order to be concerned that rejecting it is denying a huge chunk of well established and very well tested science; So their ignorance allows them to avoid rejecting their God. But I don't think we should consider other people's ignorance as a compelling argument for anything.

Science has definitively disproven the VAST majority of God concepts that are prevalent today, and a huge swathe of those proposed throughout history. Only the rather weak God concepts, such as a creator who set things running at the Big Bang and then disappeared, are not (yet) completely at odds with science. Gods that interact with humans, and souls that can survive the destruction of the physical brain or body, are ruled out, so any theology that relies upon such things is disproven.

 

[Jobar]

If theists are wrong to assert that something caused the universe, why aren't atheists also wrong to assert the opposite - that nothing caused the universe?

Because we do not assert that. (As others have said, though perhaps not as directly.) In fact we cheerfully admit that the origin of the universe (or the multiverse) is not something we claim to understand. Even though our best theories can explain the behavior of matter/energy back to an incredibly tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang, past that tiny moment we cannot as yet go.

What we do assert is that a god who causes the universe is unevidenced, and therefore unparsimonious. Thus Occam's Razor shaves such a being away.

If believers ever manage to find some aspect of reality/the universe which indicates the need for a creator- then we might need to re-examine our position. Not until then, though.

 

[Jobar]

I was a searcher for many years before I became a Christian. Joedad and I discussed this on a previous thread.

Ruth

From your first post in that thread-

My attitude, and that of the other Christians I have seen stay around here, is completely different. I believe that the best way to represent my faith is as stated in Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

[deep bow]
Fine desiderata indeed, and no decent person would speak against any of those things.

My father was a Christian all his life; his favorite verse was Micah 6:8:

He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Likewise a fine guide to an ethical life.

But Ruth, do you see that none of those excellent things actually requires you to believe in God? Reduce that verse from Micah to 'do justly, love mercy, walk humbly'; is it any less noble for that?

If we saw that Christian belief always, or even usually, made a person more moral and ethical than does skepticism- but we do not. As expressed by Jesus & Mo-


(Note: the last panel there is humorous, but not necessary for my point. The article Jesus is reading can be found at http://science.sciencemag.org/content/345/6202/1340.)

You say "This is strictly a matter of faith." But unexamined, uncritical, blind faith- the sort all too commonly praised by all sorts of Christian ministers and priests, and preachers of many other religions too- can lead you down some dark roads, indeed. Fred Phelps, Jim Jones, David Koresh, plenty of others, modern and ancient.

 

[Hermit]

If/since the universe is not past-eternal then a prior first cause isnt superfluous - it is necessary

Russell dismisses the question about the first cause because it does not lead anywhere. I came to the same conclusion in my early 20s. I started with the assumption that the universe had a beginning and that there had to be something that caused it to come into existence out of nothing. Sure, without invoking a supernatural entity that could do that, the origin of the universe was bound to remain shrouded in mystery. But what is achieved when you explain that origin with the agency of a supernatural entity, other than replacing one mystery with another?

I am actually completely indifferent in regard to the question about the existence of such an entity. For all I care, it might actually exist and it might have created the universe out of nothing. My indifference stems from the fact that it makes no difference whether we say the origin of the universe is entirely mysterious or if we say its originator is entirely mysterious. Waste of time, as Russell noted. He, like I, probably regarded the output of mystics as fevered, untestable speculations, and subsequent interpretations as even more speculative at best.

 

[Lion IRC]

See how Jobar at #154 uses the term evidence as if it's synonymous with proof.
And how saying "I dont know" somehow grants you the right to presume nobody else does either.

The implication of this is that generations of theists, in their billions, have never experienced any evidence of divinity and that they willfully lie to themselves about what they think they know.

 

[none]

but that certainly seems to be the case lion irc
ask any apostate

 

[Copernicus]

See how Jobar at #154 uses the term evidence as if it's synonymous with proof.
And how saying "I dont know" somehow grants you the right to presume nobody else does either.

You have seriously misrepresented what he actually said. He said that a creator god was "unevidenced" and that that rendered it "unparsimonious", not disproved. He never said anything about a "right to presume" that nobody else knows what caused the universe to come into being. That is a blatant straw man, given that he talked about re-examining his position if evidence did turn up for such a being. You ought to reread that post.

The implication of this is that generations of theists, in their billions, have never experienced any evidence of divinity and that they willfully lie to themselves about what they think they know.

Jobar's post did not specifically imply that, but atheism does generally imply that theists have never experienced any evidence of divinity. It is quite another thing to claim that theists willfully lie to themselves. Given that theism is so widespread, most people feel rather compelled to take belief in one or more deities seriously. Atheists, a minority of humanity, are always flying into that headwind.

But none of this should distract from the fact that there is no reason other than blind faith to conclude that an intelligent agency caused the universe to come into existence. Occam's razor is appropriate as a criticism of belief in a creator god. Given the myriad of competing origin stories, it is ludicrous to assume that the one described in Hebrew folklore--a variant of other Semitic origin myths--ought to be taken seriously without some concrete evidence to back it up. What scientists have to say about the origin of the universe is far more credible than what ancient storytellers came up with.

 

[Hermit]

See how Jobar at #154 uses the term evidence as if it's synonymous with proof.

Jobar does no such thing. You are the one who thinks evidence is synonymous with proof.

And how saying "I dont know" somehow grants you the right to presume nobody else does either.

Again, no. Copernicus spared me the effort of having to explain to you why Jobar does not.

The implication of this is that generations of theists, in their billions, have never experienced any evidence of divinity and that they willfully lie to themselves about what they think they know.

And no again. All he wrote was "a god who causes the universe is unevidenced."

What is so controversial about this anyway? When it comes down to tin tacks, billions of Christian theists. following their highest authority - the Bible - have been quite explicit about their belief being ultimately founded on faith. So they turn to Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. and 2 Corinthians 4:18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. The Catholic Catechism is particularly scathing about knowledge not based on faith: 157 Faith is certain [original italics]. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but "the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives."


I kind of assume your post was meant to be a reply to the one above it. If so, on that ground too it's a spectacular fail. You have not addressed a single word of it, seeing fit to discuss someone else's post instead.