The Causation Argument

[Learner]

Religious creationism proposes more from the point of magic already existing, not so oddly enough. But of course religion has nothing to do with magic, blah blah blah. It all just happens because of an invisible magic person living in the sky. Not so different from a jolly prson in a red suit living with elves and flying reindeer at the north pole. Granted religious tales are a bit more developed but have the same genesis and appeal.

Welcome aboard?



See you later debater

 

[Keith&Co.]

Ah ....so Kieth doesn't believe in the universe has always existed (Well noted Lion).

'Well noted?' Thst's what i said! It's not like he had to read between the lines, or recall a post i made in 2006.
AND he still jumps to the wrong fucking conclusion!

God, you guys are dense.

I stated that i do not believe that the universe is eternal. That does not mean that i have discounted that as a possibility.
My entire point was that you (alla youse, and all us) have no real experience with anything BEGINNING. Just changing. Changing state, changing position, changing relative velocity...
And if you think we can leverage our experiences up to the scale of the Entire Universe, the only honest answer must reflect that: constant reorganization of eternal components. It's what we see, what we experience, what we understand of everyfuckingthing around us.

I haven't been convinced that this IS the truth, but it's the only one you can draw from the evidence you guys want to start from.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You and Atrib seem to be suggesting previously... "energy is synominous to paper planes and trees," regardless of when trees existed, which sounded a tad confusing (garbled logic-like) saying that the earth, planets and paper planes are the same thing as energy in the context to Steves OP below....

Synonymous? No. Just configurations in a chain. The energy making up the atoms exists with foreverness, but we name different configurations they form and fade.
Not sure where you see a logical failure.

My point was that the physical universe ...the SOLID stuff we observe with our eyes has a beginning ...has a date or when it was formed because SCIENCE SAYS SO.

yeah, but i think you're drawing the wrong undersranding from that word, 'beginning.'

Energy however WITHOUT physical form has always existed

Okay, see? Scoence doesn't say that

As I said previously, both of you confusingly (language) seem to make the point; responding with the notion that... "energy is synominous (exists) with paper planes and planets" which is not the same as .... paper planes and planets are synominous to energy e.g. paper planes and planets did NOT always exist!!!!

This is why we keep saying you don't actually understand what you're talking about.

The physical atoms are made of energy, meaning no matter what form it takes, it's the same, everlasting thing.

Only now you mention you don't take to the line above in bold,

ah. There's your failure.
I do take to the bolded line above. If you are going to argue that everything needs a creator, you need to explain where the creators came from. And making a Special Case argument for your favorite creator is cheating.

so I am wondering if Atrib is arguing from the concept. So that there is no misunderstanding before responding further.


Better to have garbled posts than garbled common-sense (I say half jestingly).

Half? You're always trying to be cute. It seems to fail....a lot.

My position on the origin of the universe is I DO NOT KNOW. But my position on Special Case arguments is Flag On The Play.
My position on "everything that begins to exist needs a cause" is "can you show me three examples of something that begins to exist?"

 

[Wiploc]

My point was that the physical universe ...the SOLID stuff we observe with our eyes has a beginning ...has a date or when it was formed because SCIENCE SAYS SO.

Citation needed.

I know that Asimov and Hawking said the universe began at the big bang, but they both immediately nuanced that claim by saying something like, "At least we can say that was the beginning, since we don't know what happened before that."

I know that internet Christians like to claim that science says the big bang was the beginning, but they never, in my experience, offer reason to believe them. One of them was so insistent that I decided to investigate on my own. I went up on campus; I found a cosmologist; I asked him whether it was true that there is a scientific consensus that nothing happened before the big bang.

He said, "Nobody knows what happened before the big bang. Nobody knows what happened before the big bang. Nobody knows what happened before the big bang."

My impression, then, is that there is no such scientific consensus.

But that was years ago. I'm open to new information. If you know of a recent consensus, I'm all ears.

Energy however WITHOUT physical form has always existed was my proposition

Energy is always in one form or another. Maybe you mean that some of it isn't in palpable form? Other forms are still physical. Physics isn't just about things you can stub your toe on.

I have trouble with claims that something has always existed. I'm not sure it means what people hope it does. Let's consider a hotdog and last Thursday-ism.

Today is Saturday. For the purpose of this argument, we stipulate that the universe began at noon on Thursday, two days ago. This hotdog has existed for the whole time, a little less than forty-eight hours. Before the hotdog, there was nothing, not even time.

Is it fair to say that this forty-seven hour old hotdog always existed? Yes, because there was never a time when it didn't exist. It always existed. It existed at all times. Always. Just like the Christian gods.

(And, also just like the Christian gods, the hotdog began last Thursday.)

When I attempt to convey the concept that many people use always existed to mean, I wind up using awkward locutions like, "infinitely old and unbegun."

 

[abaddon]

Ya'll are arguing with persons who think of the universe the way we'd think of a room full of furniture. You say it's all a flux of eternal energy taking temporal forms. That's going to fly right over their heads because all they know is that for furniture to exist, someone had to make it and the date of manufacture was its beginning. It's "kinds" kind of thinking.

The other doofbaggery is the insistent either/or thinking. They want to use the law of the excluded middle to force answers to happen. But, how to do that when there are more options than anyone can even know? Well, "more options that can even be known" is beyond the capacity of persons insistent on an answer. So for them questions always devolve to two options. In the case of cosmology it's either 1) you think the universe began in which case you "reasonably" must join them in the intuited impulse "then someone made it" because of how "obvious" it is. Or 2) you think the universe is eternal in which case you unreasonably must ignore their intuited impulse that "infinite regress" can't happen.

 

[steve_bank]

Not sure what you mean? May not be in context with your Q but Professor and mathematician John Lennox says "numbers aren't real things."

UH OH..I feel another one of those lengthy derails coming over whether numbers are real or not. That is philosophy and metaphysics, not physical science.

An old saying, a little knowledge is dangerous.

The Big Bang Theory winds the clock back to a theoretical initial condition from which all we see today came about from atoms to galaxies. How the initial condition came to be is not addressed, it is imagined as a kind of hot soup which led to the BB. The theory does not address ultimate origins.

Form of mass energy changes with time. The universe is changing. We observe for infinitesimally small part of changes.

Pick any point in our observable universe and everything moves away from everything, as if we are in an explosion. Hence the tag Big Bang.

As to 'solid stuff', that concept was blown apart by quantum physics starting in the late 19th century. The idea that what we call solid is actually comprised of tiny atoms separated by vast relative inter atomic spaces was actually a big deal philosophically at the time.

 

[steve_bank]

Yes propositins.

Science bases propositions on a set of unambiguous units of measure based on the kilogram, second, and meter. Systems International.


Today it is evolution and still cosmology.

Evolution proposes more from the point of life ALREADY existing oddly enough. With that line of thought, rather than Creation V Evolution ... I wondering how interesting Abiogenesis V Creation would be? Both concepts are in the context of coming into existence.

You'd think that the two would be combined - stating strongly under one proposition, presenting the FULL picture of the existence of life. (if not for being over cautious perhaps)

We often hear atheists always keeping seperate the two with phrases like " You don't know anything about evolution because abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution" blah blah blah. Ah ...so NO starting-point then, one must be asking? A little like magic or faith?

Theory Of Evolution covers a broad area. It combines archeology, physics, chemistry, biology and other areas to support the conclusion that life devoted on Earth form simple organisms to life today through mutation and natural selection.

Some of it is theoretical, some is demonstrated. Mutation and natural selection can be seen and tested.

Abiogenis today as dar as I now has no working theory. Experimnts have creted amino acids in sea water with simulated lightning strikes.

There is also Brownian Motion. All it takes is the right chemicals togter with an energy sources for a self replication reaction to occur.

Deep sea violinic vents where organisms live on chemicals from the vents..

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Not sure what you mean? May not be in context with your Q but Professor and mathematician John Lennox says "numbers aren't real things."

UH OH..I feel another one of those lengthy derails coming over whether numbers are real or not. That is philosophy and metaphysics, not physical science.

An old saying, a little knowledge is dangerous.

The Big Bang Theory winds the clock back to a theoretical initial condition from which all we see today came about from atoms to galaxies. How the initial condition came to be is not addressed, it is imagined as a kind of hot soup which led to the BB. The theory does not address ultimate origins.

Form of mass energy changes with time. The universe is changing. We observe for infinitesimally small part of changes.

Pick any point in our observable universe and everything moves away from everything, as if we are in an explosion. Hence the tag Big Bang.

As to 'solid stuff', that concept was blown apart by quantum physics starting in the late 19th century. The idea that what we call solid is actually comprised of tiny atoms separated by vast relative inter atomic spaces was actually a big deal philosophically at the time.

I was trying to get remez to address his claim about beginnings and the KCA. Most people think about the BB as happening 14 billion years ago. It's still happening, proof that the universe has no observable end. If something has no end it has no beginning, something real that is, not ghosts and magic.

 

[skepticalbip]

Yes propositins.

Science bases propositions on a set of unambiguous units of measure based on the kilogram, second, and meter. Systems International.


Today it is evolution and still cosmology.

Evolution proposes more from the point of life ALREADY existing oddly enough. With that line of thought, rather than Creation V Evolution ... I wondering how interesting Abiogenesis V Creation would be? Both concepts are in the context of coming into existence.

Is this an example of creationists shifting goal posts (yet again) after being soundly defeated on their old stand?
The creation vs. evolution debate became a big cause for creationists with the publication of Darwin's work on evolution. Creationist's staunch stand was that species do not change over time (no evolution), that god created everything exactly as we see it today. They even defended that position in court during the Scopes trial.

After finally realizing how stupid their original stand was, they shifted their goal posts on anti-evolution to allowing for "micro-evolution" but not what they labeled "macro-evolution"... that a species can evolve (a little) but that they can not evolve into a new species because god created "kinds".

Most have given up on this ridiculous goal post position too (though certainly not all) because it is demonstrably wrong. And now the goal posts are being positioned so that they are not even discussing evolution but denying abiogenesis.

 

[hyzer]

Most have given up on this ridiculous goal post position too (though certainly not all) because it is demonstrably wrong. And now the goal posts are being positioned so that they are not even discussing evolution but denying abiogenesis.

And the funny thing is, creationists support abiogenesis - they will readily agree that one day there wasn't life on Earth and the next day there was . . .

 

[Learner]

My point was that the physical universe ...the SOLID stuff we observe with our eyes has a beginning ...has a date or when it was formed because SCIENCE SAYS SO.

Citation needed.

I know that Asimov and Hawking said the universe began at the big bang, but they both immediately nuanced that claim by saying something like, "At least we can say that was the beginning, since we don't know what happened before that."

I know that internet Christians like to claim that science says the big bang was the beginning, but they never, in my experience, offer reason to believe them. One of them was so insistent that I decided to investigate on my own. I went up on campus; I found a cosmologist; I asked him whether it was true that there is a scientific consensus that nothing happened before the big bang.

He said, "Nobody knows what happened before the big bang. Nobody knows what happened before the big bang. Nobody knows what happened before the big bang."

My impression, then, is that there is no such scientific consensus.

But that was years ago. I'm open to new information. If you know of a recent consensus, I'm all ears.

You'll be surprised to hear that I'm not a proponent of the Big Bang as it may seem to you. Meaning a "beginning" doesn't neccessarilly come from an explosion as conventionally understood - although I do take the side of the BB discussing the universe being estimated to be 14 + billion years old ; having a beginning (the theory) to work with, so to speak. This regarding the universe having began at some point. If you type when the universe began in google its usually generally understood by common rhetoric and the links associated to the "age of the universe".

Nobody knows what happened before the BB, well yes sure. I DID say science can't prove either way in one of my posts. SO what's left then to discuss but propose an idea - being opened to suggestion but ....someone (plural) thought to mstakenly pretend this was my debate for a claim or sumink. It started well . I'll explain further in the other posts I need to address.

 

[Lion IRC]

I did find it curios that the universe is modeled as expanding faster than the speed of light at some time...

Yep and...

We long assumed particles carrying the force of gravity couldn't have mass. That's wrong

https://twitter.com/newscientist/status/1281529473867882496?s=20

 

[Keith&Co.]

You'll be surprised to hear that I'm not a proponent of the Big Bang as it may seem to you.

this is my shocked face. :/

 

[Lion IRC]

Ah ....so Keith doesn't believe in the universe has always existed (Well noted Lion).

'Well noted?' Thst's what i said! It's not like he had to read between the lines, or recall a post i made in 2006.
AND he still jumps to the wrong fucking conclusion!

God, you guys are dense.

Dont be rude.
Learner said "well noted".
Taking notice of what you wrote. Would you rather have what you say ignored?

I stated that i do not believe that the universe is eternal.

Yes, and I said I agree with you.
Whats wrong with me saying THAT?
So dont be rude!

That does not mean that i have discounted that as a possibility.

Nobody said you HAD "discounted" any other possibility.
So dont be rude!

 

[Keith&Co.]

And now the goal posts are being positioned so that they are not even discussing evolution but denying abiogenesis.

Well, science finding a hard edge to the boundaries of exploration is a great gift to the creationist. There's a gap god can hide in and never have to move along. Like Learner's latest post, pretending that if science has failed, then his "idea," propsing woo as the next step after science fails makes as much sense as non-woo ideas.

 

[Learner]

Yes propositins.

Science bases propositions on a set of unambiguous units of measure based on the kilogram, second, and meter. Systems International.


Today it is evolution and still cosmology.

Evolution proposes more from the point of life ALREADY existing oddly enough. With that line of thought, rather than Creation V Evolution ... I wondering how interesting Abiogenesis V Creation would be? Both concepts are in the context of coming into existence.

Is this an example of creationists shifting goal posts (yet again) after being soundly defeated on their old stand?
The creation vs. evolution debate became a big cause for creationists with the publication of Darwin's work on evolution. Creationist's staunch stand was that species do not change over time (no evolution), that god created everything exactly as we see it today. They even defended that position in court during the Scopes trial.

Oh please ...moving goal post excuse again. Its merely something that needs updating - old redundant arguments. Yours and Ours.

After finally realizing how stupid their original stand was, they shifted their goal posts on anti-evolution to allowing for "micro-evolution" but not what they labeled "macro-evolution"... that a species can evolve (a little) but that they can not evolve into a new species because god created "kinds".

Most have given up on this ridiculous goal post position too (though certainly not all) because it is demonstrably wrong. And now the goal posts are being positioned so that they are not even discussing evolution but denying abiogenesis.

*Edit - Hope you understand the rephrase:

I need updating on "evolution"myself (a little outdated) so .. Curiously is the fossil record still problematic? Is the Cambrian explosion still an issue?



(Someone else needs to go online now g'day)

 

[skepticalbip]

Is this an example of creationists shifting goal posts (yet again) after being soundly defeated on their old stand?
The creation vs. evolution debate became a big cause for creationists with the publication of Darwin's work on evolution. Creationist's staunch stand was that species do not change over time (no evolution), that god created everything exactly as we see it today. They even defended that position in court during the Scopes trial.

Oh please ...moving goal post excuse again. Its merely something that needs updating - old redundant arguments. Yours and Ours.

Now that is an interesting (and weird) take. I thought religious folks knew "god's truth" and were arguing and defending it against the ignorant. Are you now saying that "god's truth" is flexible and subject to change?

After finally realizing how stupid their original stand was, they shifted their goal posts on anti-evolution to allowing for "micro-evolution" but not what they labeled "macro-evolution"... that a species can evolve (a little) but that they can not evolve into a new species because god created "kinds".

Most have given up on this ridiculous goal post position too (though certainly not all) because it is demonstrably wrong. And now the goal posts are being positioned so that they are not even discussing evolution but denying abiogenesis.

Indeed I need "evolution" updating myself (a little outdated) so .. Is the fossil record still probematic? Is the Cambrian explosion still an issue?

I don't know what you are trying to say here. Could you rephrase so that it makes some sense?

 

[steve_bank]

In the 90s the Catholica pope declared in the face of the evidence evolution might just be part of god's plan. I checked the major protestant sites and they were moving in the same direction.

The biblical narrative and tine lime derived from scriptura can not possibly account for the human diversity that appears from the alleged Noah breeding bottleneck.

A Chisinau response is micro-evolution. Humans always contained the seeds for variation. The time line still excludes that.

A white couple would be wondering why their kids had slanted eyes or black skin. The evolution would be observable in real time.

Creationism fails. Evolution is the best fit to all available information.

 

[atrib]

...i do NOT think the universe has always existed

Great. Looks like we agree on something at last.

So...either it came into existence spontaneously (magic) or was caused.

If caused, then caused by deliberate intent/agency OR a necessary, forced caused (which itself requires a prior explanation ---> infinite regression?)

Was it inevitable that the universe came into existence?

Ah ....so Kieth doesn't believe in the universe has always existed (Well noted Lion).

Talk about quote mining. This is what Keith actually said.

Because, Lion, i do NOT think the universe has always existed. You misunderstand me.

I do think that if the creationist is going to point to something inside the universe and say, "There! That is an example of what we can base our understanding of the beginning of the universe on," they shouldn't pick an example that's bass-ackwards to the conclusion they're trying to force.

Everything around us that we can percieve is made of eternal parts, mixein endless diversity, like using Pirates of the Caribbean Legos to build a Ghostbusters adventure in The Haunted Rum Cellar.

Pointing to reconfiguring elements and claiming 'this shows how we understand gawd started everything' just makes you look stupider than when young earthers try to explain sedimentary layers.

Amazing how his post puts the single line that Lion picked up puts everything into context, context that both Lion and you have deliberately ignored.

 

[atrib]

You and Atrib seem to be suggesting previously... "energy is synominous to paper planes and trees," regardless of when trees existed, which sounded a tad confusing (garbled logic-like) saying that the earth, planets and paper planes are the same thing as energy in the context to Steves OP below....

Ok, but where did god come from? Was he, she, or it always was and always will be o? Hmmmm….if so why could the universe itself not have always existed with no beginn9ng or end?

My point was that the physical universe ...the SOLID stuff we observe with our eyes has a beginning ...has a date or when it was formed because SCIENCE SAYS SO. Energy however WITHOUT physical form has always existed was my proposition - unless one takes to N Krauss who once said IIRC "the universe came about because of the number zero or the letter O?".

As I said previously, both of you confusingly (language) seem to make the point; responding with the notion that... "energy is synominous (exists) with paper planes and planets" which is not the same as .... paper planes and planets are synominous to energy e.g. paper planes and planets did NOT always exist!!!!

Matter is a form of energy. In the very early universe (the primordial era), there was only energy. As the universe expanded and cooled down, this energy condensed into matter (galaxies, gas clouds and star systems). And matter can be turned back into energy, by burning a piece of paper, or in stellar cores. The distinction you appear to be making is trivial. The point is that we have no evidence of matter/evidence popping into existence ex nihilo. All the matter/energy we can observe today has existed since the Big Bang.

Better to have garbled posts than garbled common-sense (I say half jestingly) .

Better to educate oneself than repeatedly embarrass oneself in public by arguing about things that one knows nothing about.