Common theist argument: "You know, I used to be an atheist myself..."

[Methinx]

The failure is yours. You are claiming your "version" of cause and uncause as "fact". It is, no more or less than other variations of cause and uncause.

What he is saying is that "the more 'virtuous' argument is the one that says:
because matter and energy are eternal, never ceasing to be one or the other, they cannot have a cause, but must always have had 'Being'.

In other words, the existence of matter and energy is the 'default' of existence. 'Something' must always have existed, because to say 'nothingness once existed' is a contradiction".

 

[bilby]

The failure is yours. You are claiming your "version" of cause and uncause as "fact". It is, no more or less than other variations of cause and uncause.

What "other variations" exist that do not entail contradictions?

You are just hand waving here. Either make a counter argument, or STFU.

 

[bilby]

The failure is yours. You are claiming your "version" of cause and uncause as "fact". It is, no more or less than other variations of cause and uncause.

What he is saying is that "the more 'virtuous' argument is the one that says:
because matter and energy are eternal, never ceasing to be one or the other, they cannot have a cause, but must always have had 'Being'.

In other words, the existence of matter and energy is the 'default' of existence. 'Something' must always have existed, because to say 'nothingness once existed' is a contradiction".

No, that's not what I am saying. That is (as I made very clear) a separate side-track from my argument:

Funny, though, that everything we have experience with does not come into existence. Things that already exist recombine into new forms, which we give new names, but their existence stretches back the length of the universe.
Minerals in tge soil configure to become a plant, which feeds and becomes part of an animal, part of which becomes part of a predator... which becomes a trophy on the wall, until it becomes an eyesore, then part of it becomes part of moths, which reconfigures to parts of a spider, which, if you're not diligent, becomes part of an 8-month old named Kelly who insists to this day that she never ate spiders... and part of Kelly contributed to Beowulf, who ate a butterfly...

if anything we see is an indication for the operation of the universe, it must be eternal, just reconfigured from the last iteration. And some day to reconfigure into something else...

^This.

The First Law of Thermodynamics implies that nothing ever comes into existence, nor ceases to exist.

If creationists wish to claim that there is a circumstance to which 1LoT doesn't apply, they are going to need some seriously impressive evidence. This is one of the most thoroughly tested laws of physics. It's not about to be overturned by a bit of hand waving and a collection of old stories.

But as I showed above, even if we allowed, ad argumentum, that the universe - everything that exists - had a beginning, it would require a contradiction to declare that this beginning had a cause.

Thus:

A. Creationists believe that things which come into existence have a cause.
B. Creationists believe that God did not come into existence.

Do you see any contradiction here Learner?
Nope. Me either.

It's kinda implied by the word creationist.

Creationists also believe that the universe came into existence, and therefore requires a cause. I am a little surprised that you forgot that.

The contradiction then lies in their exclusion of 'God' from the set 'the universe' - which is a contradiction of the meaning of 'the universe', which in this context means 'everything that exists'.

Of course, you could resolve that contradiction by saying 'God doesn't exist'.

Or you could pretend that hiding it in an equivocation fallacy on the meaning of 'universe' makes it go away - but that would be intellectual dishonesty.

There are two distinct and different issues here, BOTH of which creationists need to address.

Firstly, there is a contradiction inherent in the assumption that everything needs a cause - because causes are things. Arguing that God needs no cause contradicts the premise that everything needs a cause, which was the only reason to invoke a God in the context of the need for a cause.

Secondly, there is the separate matter that we have no reason to expect anything to ever have a beginning - because nothing we have ever experienced has been shown to do so - 1LoT tells us that nothing comes from nothing, implying that the universe has always existed. If the universe has always existed, a cause for it is impossible.

In this thread, I am more interested in the first of these arguments; It presents an insoluble logical conundrum for creationists, even if we allow ad argumentum that somehow the universe is not eternal, in contravention of 1LoT.

 

[Lion IRC]

The failure is yours. You are claiming your "version" of cause and uncause as "fact". It is, no more or less than other variations of cause and uncause.

What "other variations" exist that do not entail contradictions?

You are just hand waving here. Either make a counter argument, or STFU.

Hand waving is an acceptable response to your special pleading that God is part of "the set the universe".

Creationists use the two perfectly sound epistemological categories of creator and creation. (Designed/Undesigned. Intentionality/Sponteneity. Caused/Uncaused. Teleology/Atheology.)
There is nothing controversial about the category of contingent things.

But your special pleading metaphysics expects us to simply accept on blind faith that a) the universe has always existed and b) that its 'laws' and deterministic nature lack any ontological contingency whatsoever.

You're making that up. You have nothing but hope that we will believe your claim and give you a hall pass.

Aren't you even a little embarrassed to be doing exactly what you accuse creationists of doing?

 

[bilby]

The failure is yours. You are claiming your "version" of cause and uncause as "fact". It is, no more or less than other variations of cause and uncause.

What "other variations" exist that do not entail contradictions?

You are just hand waving here. Either make a counter argument, or STFU.

Hand waving is an acceptable response to your special pleading that God is part of "the set the universe".

Creationists use the two perfectly sound epistemological categories of creator and creation. (Designed/Undesigned. Intentionality/Sponteneity. Caused/Uncaused. Teleology/Atheology.)
There is nothing controversial about the category of contingent things.

But your special pleading metaphysics expects us to simply accept on blind faith that a) the universe has always existed and b) that its 'laws' and deterministic nature lack any ontological contingency whatsoever.

You're making that up. You have nothing but hope that we will believe your claim and give you a hall pass.

Aren't you even a little embarrassed to be doing exactly what you accuse creationists of doing?

I explicitly defined that by 'universe' I mean 'all things that exist'.

It's not 'special pleading' to include in that set anything that exists; So are you claiming that God does not exist, or are you just hoping that nobody will notice that this is a requirement in order for your counter argument to work?

 

[Lion IRC]

I explicitly define God as the Creator of your 'universe'.

 

[skepticalbip]

I explicitly define god as the creation of human imagination. And there are a hell of a lot of gods in that pantheon, each the creation of their specific culture. Of that pantheon, Akihito is the only god that I know of that is walking among his believers.

 

[bilby]

I explicitly define God as the Creator of your 'universe'.

Feel free to define the meanings you assign to any words you use. Indeed, I strongly encourage it.

I know that that's your definition of the word 'God'; But thank you for the clarification, it is important that we understand the words each of us is using.

It still remains true that if everything that exists has a cause, then that cause must be something that does not exist.

Therefore everything that exists does not have a cause.

God, as you define it above, therefore is not a part of the set 'everything that exists'.

 

[Lion IRC]

READ MOAR carefully...

A. Creationists believe that things which come into existence have a cause.
B. Creationists believe that God did not come into existence.

Do you see any contradiction here Learner?
Nope. Me either.

It's kinda implied by the word creationist.

 

[bilby]

READ MOAR carefully...

A. Creationists believe that things which come into existence have a cause.
B. Creationists believe that God did not come into existence.

Do you see any contradiction here Learner?
Nope. Me either.

It's kinda implied by the word creationist.

So you are saying that complex systems can simply have always existed.

Why then should we hypothesise a creator for the universe? It can simply always have existed. No need for us to posit some additional entity at all. God is a needless and unevidenced solution to a nonexistent problem.

Why is there something rather than nothing? Because something always existed.

No need for a God. Adding God just adds complexity, while not answering any questions arising from observed facts that were not already addressed by the simpler answer.

 

[Lion IRC]

Complex systems can have always existed.
They can also NOT exist.

Occams Razor doesn't prevent us from questioning the ontology parsimony of a past-eternal, perpetual motion, Groundhog Day universe where everything which can happen, has necessarily already happened an infinite number of times.

Occams Razor doesn't constrain us from postulating how and why intentional creative volition might be a more sensible explanation for a "complex system" with intelligible "laws" of physics and rules of logic and mathematics, etc etc

 

[bilby]

Complex systems can have always existed.
They can also NOT exist.

Occams Razor doesn't prevent us from questioning the ontology parsimony of a past-eternal, perpetual motion, Groundhog Day universe where everything which can happen, has necessarily already happened an infinite number of times.

Occams Razor doesn't constrain us from postulating how and why intentional creative volition might be a more sensible explanation for a "complex system" with intelligible "laws" of physics and rules of logic and mathematics, etc etc

Question away.

While you are there, question whether an eternal God doesn't have all of the same problems that you see in the idea of an eternal universe, with more besides.

If God has existed for an infinite time, then your 'Groundhog Day' postulate (if we accept ad argumentum that it is sound) implies an infinite number of universes have been created by him, each of which has played out every possible thing that can happen an infinite number of times.

Adding the concept of an eternal God to any hypothesis about the universe leads to a more complex and less easily explained problem than the one you started with.

You can't make a piece of string longer by snipping bits off the end; And you can't make a cosmology less complex by adding more entities to it.

 

[Learner]

The failure is yours. You are claiming your "version" of cause and uncause as "fact". It is, no more or less than other variations of cause and uncause.

What "other variations" exist that do not entail contradictions?

Exactly .. no more , no less than any other variation of cause and uncause. Why is yours, the real mccoy?

*Edit:

But your special pleading metaphysics expects us to simply accept on blind faith that a) the universe has always existed and b) that its 'laws' and deterministic nature lack any ontological contingency whatsoever.

You're making that up. You have nothing but hope that we will believe your claim and give you a hall pass.

Aren't you even a little embarrassed to be doing exactly what you accuse creationists of doing?

Lion says it better.

 

[bilby]

Exactly .. no more , no less than any other variation of cause and uncause. Why is yours, the real mccoy?

*Edit:

But your special pleading metaphysics expects us to simply accept on blind faith that a) the universe has always existed and b) that its 'laws' and deterministic nature lack any ontological contingency whatsoever.

You're making that up. You have nothing but hope that we will believe your claim and give you a hall pass.

Aren't you even a little embarrassed to be doing exactly what you accuse creationists of doing?

Lion says it better.

Lion is full of shit, and is desperately pretending that my simple logical argument is instead some kind of complex philosophy, so that he can dismiss it.

But it's not, and he can't.

It's irrelevant whether or not we can divide up entities into other classes or sets than 'things that exist' vs 'things that do not exist'; no matter how many other ways you could divide up entities, that one is a perfectly valid choice for me to use as the premise for a logical argument - and to do so is not special pleading, regardless of Lion's rather pathetic claim to the contrary.

This is really simple.

If anything can be eternal, then the question 'why is there something rather than nothing?' is needless - the answer can simply be 'there always was something'. Adding a God does nothing in this case, it's just an extra entity for which there's neither evidence nor need.

If, on the other hand, nothing can be eternal, then the question 'why is there something rather than nothing?' can only be answered with 'something began to exist spontaneously'. Again, adding a God achieves nothing other than to add unnecessary and unevidenced complexity.

Lion wants to have his cake and eat it too, by claiming that when we are talking about that 'something' being the material universe, it cannot be eternal; But when 'something' is his preferred God, suddenly that something can be and is eternal. That's practically the textbook definition of special pleading; It's a fallacy, and to persist with it is intellectually dishonest.

There's no consistent explanation for the existence of something rather than nothing, wherein a God adds explanatory power, rather than simply raising a whole new set of questions that are even more intractable than the one we started with.

It's a difficult question; And I don't know the answer to it (and nor does Lion, or anyone else). But one thing is obvious - trying to make the question less difficult by adding a God or Gods is as effective as trying to fix a leaky bucket by drilling more holes in it.

Explaining the observed universe is hard. Explaining the observed universe plus an unobserved God can only be harder.

 

[Wiploc]

Note too that no single definition of "begin" allows for god to be unbegun while the rest of the universe is begun.

To argue that god is unbegun while other things are begun is to surreptitiously dance back and forth between conflicting definitions.

For any single definition of "begin," either god (if god exists) began and the rest of the universe did also, or else the rest of the universe didn't begin and god didn't begin either.

 

[Lion IRC]

Are you postulating that the categories of creator and creation are BOTH invalid?
...that neither Beethoven nor his created intellectual property began to exist? Or that both must have simultaneously always existed?

WOW !
Thats one I've never heard before

 

[bilby]

Are you postulating that the categories of creator and creation are BOTH invalid?

I certainly am not. And I can't see how you could reasonably construe anything I have said as postulating such a thing.

In fact, this bizarre accusation is so completely divorced from anything I have written that I can only assume that it's a desperate attempt to avoid the things I HAVE said, which appear to be making you very uncomfortable. Perhaps you are ignoring my earlier posts, and responding only to wiploc, who you see as providing a distraction so that you can get away with not addressing my simple logic?

...that neither Beethoven nor his created intellectual property began to exist? Or that both must have simultaneously always existed?

WOW !
Thats one I've never heard before

My argument has no need of these categories you insist upon, and stands unaffected whether or not you choose to think in terms of 'creator' and 'created'. It's neither a helpful mode of thought, nor one that harms the logic and reason I set out with regards to the question 'why is there something rather than nothing?'. Both 'creator' and 'created' would comfortably be described as 'something' (provisional upon their having real existence, which is going to be a potential output of our reasoning, and therefore cannot be an input to it), the existence of which is therefore irrelevant other than as an attempt at question begging.

Please, try to stop throwing random concepts around in your panic, and try to address what I have written, and not what you would rather I wrote in order to make it easy for you to rebut. Here it is again:

This is really simple.

If anything can be eternal, then the question 'why is there something rather than nothing?' is needless - the answer can simply be 'there always was something'. Adding a God does nothing in this case, it's just an extra entity for which there's neither evidence nor need.

If, on the other hand, nothing can be eternal, then the question 'why is there something rather than nothing?' can only be answered with 'something began to exist spontaneously'. Again, adding a God achieves nothing other than to add unnecessary and unevidenced complexity.

Lion wants to have his cake and eat it too, by claiming that when we are talking about that 'something' being the material universe, it cannot be eternal; But when 'something' is his preferred God, suddenly that something can be and is eternal. That's practically the textbook definition of special pleading; It's a fallacy, and to persist with it is intellectually dishonest.

There's no consistent explanation for the existence of something rather than nothing, wherein a God adds explanatory power, rather than simply raising a whole new set of questions that are even more intractable than the one we started with.

It's a difficult question; And I don't know the answer to it (and nor does Lion, or anyone else). But one thing is obvious - trying to make the question less difficult by adding a God or Gods is as effective as trying to fix a leaky bucket by drilling more holes in it.

Explaining the observed universe is hard. Explaining the observed universe plus an unobserved God can only be harder.

 

[Lion IRC]

Wiploc - Are you postulating that...

 

[bilby]

Wiploc - Are you postulating that...

Ahh.

So I was correct in my assessment:

Perhaps you are ignoring my earlier posts, and responding only to wiploc, who you see as providing a distraction so that you can get away with not addressing my simple logic?

 

[Lion IRC]

Bilby says the existence of past-eternal things is metaphysically possible.
So do creationists

Bilby says you don't need to account for the origin of past-eternal things.
So do creationists

See? Everyone can do simple logic.