120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[Learner]

elements or laws, make up your mind

You made my mind up for me. No laws.

Lets just get back to the topic shall we?

 

[none]

elements or laws, make up your mind

You made my mind up for me. No laws.

Lets get back to the topic shall we?

im not following you at all
are you willing to concede that the laws of nature are created by human beings?
or will you try to say the laws of nature are created by god and a later time?

 

[Learner]

im not following you at all
are you willing to concede that the laws of nature are created by human beings?
or will you try to say the laws of nature are created by god and a later time?

I thought you would have got it by now that I would say God created the "laws" of all the universe.

 

[none]

im not following you at all
are you willing to concede that the laws of nature are created by human beings?
or will you try to say the laws of nature are created by god and a later time?

I thought you would have got it by now that I would say God created the "laws" of all the universe.

mighty lofty claim.
we have evidence that human beings created the laws by observing and recording, not sure why you reject that

 

[Learner]

[
mighty lofty claim.
we have evidence that human beings created the laws by observing and recording, not sure why you reject that

You were using the same words "Laws" with a slight different meaning in context.

 

[none]

[
mighty lofty claim.
we have evidence that human beings created the laws by observing and recording, not sure why you reject that

You were using the same words with a slight different meaning in context.

i'd like to see you illustrate that

 

[Learner]

blah
if humans didn't do the describing there would be no laws, they are not some thing like force or matter

Because of man No Laws = No discriptive language or No Laws = No actual processes?

 

[none]

blah
if humans didn't do the describing there would be no laws, they are not some thing like force or matter

No Laws = No discriptive language or No Laws = No actual processes?

for simplicity if there were no laws, forces and such would still exist

 

[Learner]

for simplicity if there were no laws, forces and such would still exist

Ok I get you.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

You said;
"Things happen in the natural world all the time without a "personal" cause."
...meaning, they just happen. Ho Hum.
That's fine if you don't care about why questions.

Who said they "just happen"? Not me. All I said is that we don't need a "personal cause" to explain them.

Yep. The bible refers to the hydraulogical cycle. It rains. The rivers run to the sea but the sea doesn't ever 'overflow' etc.
They knew stuff about the laws of physics and nature - laws created by God.

Well, no. all the "laws" of nature are, is are descriptions of the way nature works. They're not 'laws" as in "if you break this law, you'll be punished". They can't, as far as anybody knows, be broken, which is what they don't have in common with himan laws. And to say they are "created by God" is to assume that they were created at all, instead of just being the way things work and, as far as anybody knows, must work. So, no.

That sounds very much like a fact claim. Or is that just your faith in the unseen and things you believe?

Actually, it's an observation. It rains without any discernible intervention from any quarter. If, OTOH, you have evidence that there is somebody who makes it rain, go ahead and present it. I'd really like to see that.

Yes,
WLC follows the logical progression to a conclusion which has better explanatory power than...'stuff just happens OK!

No, WLC makes a huge logical leap from "we don't know", to "therefore GOD Ha!" Not the same thing.

Nope. If the universe didn't happen by absolute random chance 13.7 billion years ago then we have good reason to contemplate the nature of its cause.

So far, so good, although for "absolute random chance", I'd substitute "as yet unknown reasons", and maybe sometime in the future, I'd change that to "physical necessity' ... maybe. But, go on, I'm listening ...

And if that cause was necessity rather than a deliberate (personal) cause we likewise have a good reason to ask why it happened 13.7 billion years ago instead of 1 billion years ago.

If we found it was necessity, we'd be some way towards knowing how that necessity came about. And knowing that might provide a clue as to why it came about when it came about. To date, the only honest answer is "we don't know".

And if it was neither chance nor necessity but a deliberate intentional act of causality then we have a very good reason to ask WHY questions.

We already have good reason to ask "why" questions, we just don't have enough information to say "that's why, and you can't tell me otherwise".

Speak for yourself.
Saying we don't know is suspiciously similar to atheism-of-the-gaps.
If you don't know, why not stay open-minded to the God hypothesis?

No, it's actually agnosticism, not atheism of any stripe. Atheism concerns belief questions, agnosticism is concerned with questions of knowledge. As an athistic agnostic (or an agnostic atheist, whichever you prefer), I am open to any hypothesis that contains a "god" (whatever that is). It's just that I haven't seen anything to convince me of the existence of such a thing, and a lot of evidence that contradicts it. Being open-minded doesn't mean accepting the first idea shoved in your face. It means being willing to consider the possibility of an idea being true, subject to evidence. There's a big difference.

Who is 'we'?

The human race, and the body of human knowledge. Honestly, of all the things I said in that post, I'd have thought that "we" was not only the most obvious, but also the one we'd have least trouble defining. Shows how much I know. Or don't.

A past-eternal universe/multiverse/megaverse is the only way to avoid the Kalam argument but that belief system comes with so much baggage - gonzo metaphysics - that it's worse than magic or religion.

Is it ,though? An always-existing universe ... an always-existing, all-powerful intelligence ... six and half a dozen. Although, we know the universe exists, so from there to saying it always existed is only one step. Explaining an always existing god, we first have the step of showing it exists. Thay's an extra step we/you haven't yet taken.

If the universe has always existed we would have long ago worked out that the universe has always existed.

Why? It's not all that long ago, relatively speaking, that we figured out the stars weren't just pinho;es in a curtain, or (as the Koran would have it) obstacles to djinns trying to reach the earth. Why would we necessarily have worked out the reasons for the origin of the univerdse in the few short millenia of human existence, never mind the few short centuries of the scientific method?

We wouldn't be asking why questions. There would be time-travellers popping by the forum to let us know that the universe is/was a past-eternal, perpetual motion machine and we would be like;
...yeah, we already know that...you told us the same thing last year

I look forward to your treatise on the nature of time explainung exactly why time travel is not only possible, but inevitable. Or are you just pulling that out of your arse to support your already-flimsy argument?

Yeah, yeah, I get it already! We don't know.

Good. I'm pleased to see the message is getting through to you.

*rolls eyes*

Oh. Maybe it's not, then. Well, go ahead. Explain to me what it is that we know, which I said we dont. I'm always willing to learn. But, be warned ... when I say "know", I mean "have knowlede and can demonstrate the truth of". "Know in my heart" doesn't cut it. No more than "know because it says so in my very favourite, bestest Book" does.

Will you at least agree that there for every unanswered question there is an actual answer?

There are no unanswered questions. There are only questions for which we have a definitive answer and questions for which the current answer is "ignoramus". i.e. "we don't know". "We don't know, therfore God" is no answer at all.

And that an omniscient God has an answer to EVERY question and so He resolves the infinite Q&A regression?

Only by special pleading. By which I mean, you can say, "everything has a cause ... except GOD!!!!" or "nothing is eternal ... except GOD!!!" ... or everything is contingent ... except GOD!!!". But, while you can say it, it doesn't mean anything, without first being able to show conclusively that a)this "GOD!!!" is real and not just a placeholder for where our current knowledge ends and b) that it fits the criteria proposed while closing off other possibilities.

Proposing the unknown (or as some believers would have it, the unknowable) to explain the unknown is as ludicrous as it gets.

 

[none]

for simplicity if there were no laws, forces and such would still exist

Ok I get you.

are you willing to concede natural laws are created by humans or are you going to say that natural laws are created by god at a later time?

 

[Learner]

are you willing to concede natural laws are created by humans or are you going to say that natural laws are created by god at a later time?

Surely you must mean the discriptive language for the term "natural laws". Clarify first what you mean then I'll tell you.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

blah
if humans didn't do the describing there would be no laws, they are not some thing like force or matter

Because of man No Laws = No discriptive language or No Laws = No actual processes?

"Laws of nature" are simply the way we describe how things work. "Laws" in society are they way we tell each other things should work. Societal laws are prescriptive, and can be broken, and if breaches are detected, the lawbreaker can be punished. Physical (or natural; "physical" is derived from the Greek "physos" meaning "natural") laws are descriptive, and say how things do work. If they are broken, no punishment ensues, but a new field of study will be opened.

 

[none]

are you willing to concede natural laws are created by humans or are you going to say that natural laws are created by god at a later time?

Surely you must mean the discriptive language for the term "natural laws". Explain first what you mean then I'll tell you.

i mean the laws themselves, they were created by humans and there is evidence of that
maybe you are a little confused because you think the laws are the forces and such
I tried to mitigate the confusion by saying the laws are not forces and such

 

[Learner]

i mean the laws themselves, they were created by humans and there is evidence of that
maybe you are a little confused because you think the laws are the actual forces and such
I tried to mitigate the confusion by saying the laws are not forces and such

Ok so you mean laws as in what we use as "units of measure" . Well then, that is obviously created by humans.

 

[none]

i mean the laws themselves, they were created by humans and there is evidence of that
maybe you are a little confused because you think the laws are the actual forces and such
I tried to mitigate the confusion by saying the laws are not forces and such

Ok so you mean laws as in what we use as "units of measure" . Well then, that is obviously created by humans.

laws of physics seem to be ideas, at minimal an electrical pattern in the brain
to me anyways

 

[Learner]

laws of physics seem to be ideas, at minimal an electrical pattern in the brain
to me anyways

Thats a fair point of view.

 

[none]

laws of physics seem to be ideas, at minimal an electrical pattern in the brain
to me anyways

Thats a fair point of view.

Thank you

 

[Learner]

Thank you for the discussion

(and keep arguing of course)

 

[Lion IRC]

for simplicity if there were no laws, forces and such would still exist

Ok I get you.

I don't get it.

Would gravity still exist as a force if there were no 'law' of gravity?
Would there just be forces all jumbled together with no ability to tell one from another?

Why would we even call something a 'force' if we had no (pattern-seeking) ability to tell one force from another?