Different Kinds of Reasoning - Scientific Method vs Faith

[remez]

That's easy. We do it all the time.

You may open your fridge door, for instance, expecting to see (evidence) a carton of milk that your partner said was there, but upon thoroughly searching every nook and cranny of the fridge you are dismayed to find that your partner was wrong, there is no carton of milk in the fridge.

The absence of evidence where it should be found (the physical presence of carton) is in fact evidence for the absence of the article.

The absence of evidence, where it should be found, is indeed evidence of absence.

Your objection is without merit.

Think of all the things that you yourself don't believe for the very reason that there is insufficient reason in terms of available evidence with which to form a conviction.

Hi, remez....just curious, do you have any objections to this?

Notice you are making a positive claim. Sure you want to do that? Examine

p1) God exists
And
p2) God does not exist

If there is no evidence for p1, then the only rational course of action is to believe its denial p2. But of course you do not suggest the same treatment of p2; you don’t propose that if there is no evidence for p2, then our only rational course of action is to believe is denial p1. So why do you suggest this lack of parity between p1 and p2? What is your justification to treat them so differently? Couldn’t I just as reasonably say “If the arguments for atheism fail then there is no evidence for p2, then theism is rationally obligatory.” Your claim seems to be a case of mere arbitrary intellectual imperialism.

Back in the 60’s Scriven try to paradigm “the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence.” It was easily cast aside by even the atheistic philosophers. I think remember in one of the more recent Dawkins/Lennox debates Dawkins quickly stating that that he certainly was asserting the absence of evidence is the evidence of absent because that would be wrong.
The notion has moved on to “the hiddeness of God”
Further the second part of my challenge was to provide evidence for the early inflationary era. Woe to the cosmologist that asserts the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence in this context.
This is an important issue for me. What evidence is there for the inflationary era? If there isn’t any, then why does anyone consider it reasonable?
Again why does anyone consider it reasonable?

 

[remez]

In addition, he's trying to shift this burden to an area of cosmology currently under tense research and so far not fully understood, so he can tease god out of the fog and uncertainty.

Cosmology juxtaposed with philosophy/theology was just an arbitrary place to start.

Tease???….. not tease but reason.

The fog of uncertainty ???……. I referred to our best understandings. Nothing outside of possibly mathematics is certain.

The fog of uncertainty ??? …. For you it is that place to hide and deny reason.

He is trying to enforce a false dichotomy in his question about an expanding universe.

Please explain. Really I’m not seeing it and that is a serious assertion. I would like to defend or revise my remarks.

All this in order to avoid answering the question: Is faith a different kind of reasoning?

I addressed that in full earlier. What is your question of my view here?

It's not just a ninja throwing up a smokescreen as he runs away, instead of a smoke bomb, he's using a god damn volcano.

Thanks.

 

[remez]

Q1 Is it your contention that an expanding universe implies any mono-theistic god? Or just your particular version?

The Biblical God.

Q3 Does a non-expanding universe imply multiple gods? Or no gods?

Where was question 2?
Multiple Gods ….no never.
If you’re inferring an eternal static universe, then evidence for the atheistic no-God ideology would have some life once more.

Q4 Do you agree that science, and not faith, determined that the universe is expanding?

Category error??????
Science discovered the universe was expanding back in the twentieth century.
Theism has always asserted the universe had a beginning.
What is your point here?

Q5 What if tomorrow, the scientific paradigm were to change with the discovery of new data and new observations that showed that in fact the universe is not expanding - would you renounce your faith in god?

Depends on what you’re claiming the reality of that universe to be?
Eternal?
But if the universe were determined to be eternal, then I would seriously need to re-examine my reasons. The atheistic-no god ideology would now again have to be a possibility. With such a speculated turn of events would come I’m sure a whole new host of understandings to be reason through, who knows?

The present understandings of the universe greatly supports theism. However, these are not the only reasons to be a theist. The non-eternal universe was the only the first piece of evidence on the table for discussion.

 

[remez]

Certain sets of theistic beliefs make the claim that the universe was created by a supernatural entity external to the universe, but such claims are not supported by evidence.

The EVIDENCE is the universe had a beginning.
The alternative explanations.

P) Continue to believe the universe is eternal.
A) Believe in self creation.
T) Someone created the universe.

Which explanation best explains the EVIDENCE?

If you assert otherwise, it in incumbent on you to provide the evidence to support the claim.

The evidence IS a finite universe.

My reasons theism is the best explanation…… is the other two, self-creation and denial of reality, are completely irrational.

Cosmology is a branch of the physical sciences that seeks answers to this question, and at the present time, our understanding of the origins of the universe is nebulous at best.

Nebulous at best…..no way. Do they know with absolute certainty what happened in the first Planck epoch? Of course not.

But does that deny the obvious conclusion that the universe had a beginning. NO of course NOT. Even Hawking claims the universe had a beginning, last paragraph beginning of time lecture.

Nebulous at best…..you think not.

How about a little support for your denial of the obvious?

 

[remez]

Universe doesn’t mean all that exists, it means “all existing matter and space considered as a whole”. Theists want to know where all that matter and space came from, and so figure the universe is not all that is. A theist is going to see you as begging the question if you’re asserting that the universe is all there is.

Well said.

I just don’t see gods in it anywhere, or God as a logical necessity.

Everything that exists has an explanation for its existence.
Either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.

God cannot not exist, he is the necessary first cause.

 

[Juma]

You must present the the argument that connects the fact (expanding universe) with your theory (gods). Without that the fact isnt evidence of anything.

The universe has a finite past, a beginning.
Therefore by logic it needs a cause.
So which “ism” best explains a universe in need of a cause?
Theism states an eternal God is the cause.
Pantheism is any ready in trouble because they claimed the universe was eternal.
Atheism ran out of nature and materials. How reasonably can nature cause itself?
Thus theism the best explanation for a universe that needs a cause.
Now of course that is not the whole case and this evidence is open for you to debate. But any attempted refutations or rebuttals need to be defended not only asserted as fact.

So you can start and defend your unasserted statements that:
1) that universe has a finite past.
2) that logic require it to have a cause.
3) that stating "eternal god" is an explanation of anything.
4) "atheism ran out of nature and materials"

To prepare you for that assignment I want to hint at some of the obstacles you have to meet:

1) an (eternal) god is an extremely complex entity which is actually harder to explain than a universe so stating "god did it" leaves you with the much harder problem of explaining why there is a god.

2) if you succed then the only defining property of that "god" is "created the universe" which doesnt show that this god is the god of the Bible.

3) there is no evidence that the universe as a whole must have a cause. There is no logic contradition in assuming that universe just started to exist.

4) while expanding now, the universe can still be eternally old: it can be pulsating. (Big crunch -> big bang -> big crunch -> big bang and so on)

5) our universe can be a "bubble" in a metauniverse and the cause of that bubble can be something like quantum events in ours, eg not require any causing event.

6) cause and effect is metaphysical terms and not really part of scientific models. They are categories in the human mind only.

Good luck!

 

[DBT]

Hi, remez....just curious, do you have any objections to this?

Notice you are making a positive claim. Sure you want to do that? Examine

What I pointed out is that is that evidence or its absence justifies a belief or lack of belief in the truth of any given proposition...and that an absence of evidence where it should be found is evidence against presence.

If you parked your car in the garage when you got home, the presence of the car is evidence for its presence.

But upon going to your garage in the morning, you are dismayed to find that your garage is empty.

There is no car in the garage.

There is no evidence for the presence of a car where it should be found.

Absence of evidence, where it should be found, is evidence for absence (there is no car in the garage)

Your car has probably been stolen.

p1) God exists
And
p2) God does not exist

If there is no evidence for p1, then the only rational course of action is to believe its denial p2. But of course you do not suggest the same treatment of p2; you don’t propose that if there is no evidence for p2, then our only rational course of action is to believe is denial p1. So why do you suggest this lack of parity between p1 and p2? What is your justification to treat them so differently? Couldn’t I just as reasonably say “If the arguments for atheism fail then there is no evidence for p2, then theism is rationally obligatory.” Your claim seems to be a case of mere arbitrary intellectual imperialism.

If there is no evidence for p1, the existence of a god, it is still not justified to believe (hold a conviction) in the existence of a god. No evidence means no reason or justification to believe regardless of the reality of a hidden god.

Not having evidence, you don't know that god exists. The opposite could be equally true, that there is no hidden god.

You are simply guessing on the basis of faith....holding a conviction without a foundation. The absence of evidence for the existence of god works against a justified belief.

If you think that there is a hidden god, that is as far as you can go without evidence, to think but not to believe.

 

[atrib]

The EVIDENCE is the universe had a beginning.
The alternative explanations.

P) Continue to believe the universe is eternal.
A) Believe in self creation.
T) Someone created the universe.

Which explanation best explains the EVIDENCE?

We don't know. What we do know is that the universe began to exist in its present form about 13.5 BYA. The universe may be eternal, going through cycles of expansion and contraction. It may also be self created, popping out of nothing. It may have been created by the collision of membranes, or within a black hole in a dimension we cannot perceive, as some current mathematical models appear to predict. There is no evidence to support the assertion of a religious text that claims a supernatural god created the universe, then cloned himself as a human after 13.5 billion years, and had his clone killed to appease his own bloodlust, then resurrected the clone and had him flown up to heaven, when so much of the text in said document is wrong about its depiction of reality. And if you argue that universes cannot self create or that the universe is not eternal, then you would need to demonstrate how a god could do the same.

If you assert otherwise, it in incumbent on you to provide the evidence to support the claim.

The evidence IS a finite universe.

My reasons theism is the best explanation…… is the other two, self-creation and denial of reality, are completely irrational.

Feel free to demonstrate that they are irrational. Go on. The visible universe may be finite, but there is very little we can say beyond the reaches of the light that can get to us.

Cosmology is a branch of the physical sciences that seeks answers to this question, and at the present time, our understanding of the origins of the universe is nebulous at best.

Nebulous at best…..no way. Do they know with absolute certainty what happened in the first Planck epoch? Of course not.

But does that deny the obvious conclusion that the universe had a beginning. NO of course NOT. Even Hawking claims the universe had a beginning, last paragraph beginning of time lecture.

Nebulous at best…..you think not.

How about a little support for your denial of the obvious?

Ummm, you are not paying attention. We DON'T KNOW about the origins of the universe. That's the whole fucking point of cosmology. If the universe began to exist at a point in time, then time could not have existed before that point, and there is no concept of before. I suggest you spend a little more time boning up on cosmology.


By the way, we are still waiting for you to provide evidence that an expanding universe supports a monotheistic god. Now would be a good time to provide it.

 

[abaddon]

I just don’t see gods in it anywhere, or God as a logical necessity.

Everything that exists has an explanation for its existence.

Do they all really?

Either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.

God cannot not exist, he is the necessary first cause.

That's a "necessity of its own nature" that God exists? So God exists because his believers say he does. That's a little circular isn't it?

Why is the Biblical God the necessary first cause?

I said before you were trying to make reality into what your words say it is, and you told me I was wrong. But here you are trying to determine how all reality is with mere words. You know, reality might not agree with your definitions.

 

[abaddon]

P) Continue to believe the universe is eternal.
A) Believe in self creation.
T) Someone created the universe.

Or:

P) Believe the universe is worthy of reverence.
A) Don't know about the universe's origin, waiting on more evidence.
T) Someone created the universe.

You understand little or nothing about either pantheism or atheism. And when others tell you what they do or don't believe, you just keep misrepresenting them anyway. Isn't that what you were complaining about when you first entered the thread, that atheists misrepresent your stance?

 

[remez]

1) that universe has a finite past.

It is at the present the most prevalent scientific understanding.

2) that logic require it to have a cause.

The law of causality.

3) that stating "eternal god" is an explanation of anything.

If some effect exists then something logically has to be eternal and thus necessary.

4) "atheism ran out of nature and materials"

Despite your desperate attempts to not positively assert anything that you might have to defend. You atheists must espouse materialism/naturalism which is reasonably indefensible. The natural universe is material and had a beginning. No nature or material prior to the beginning.

1) an (eternal) god is an extremely complex entity which is actually harder to explain than a universe so stating "god did it" leaves you with the much harder problem of explaining why there is a god.

How so? It’s your assertion defend it. I’m really curious to your reasons why this is criterion is remotely reasonable? Ex….allow me to name an effect, let’s say a book. Now the cause is an author. Compare the complexities of the cause and effect, and then explain to me why what you claim above is reasonable.

2) if you succed then the only defining property of that "god" is "created the universe" which doesnt show that this god is the god of the Bible.

Latter then and here’s to success.

3) there is no evidence that the universe as a whole must have a cause. There is no logic contradition in assuming that universe just started to exist.

You are using the laws of logic to dismiss the laws of logic. How is that logical?

4) while expanding now, the universe can still be eternally old: it can be pulsating. (Big crunch -> big bang -> big crunch -> big bang and so on)

I thought we were sticking to the best understandings of science. As I pointed out earlier this (oscillating model) is old news and theologically neutral for it only kicks the can down the road and logically changes nothing. It still can’t be eternal. You are misunderstanding the science to promote an illogical metaphysical notion probably for the reason to suppress evidence.

5) our universe can be a "bubble" in a metauniverse and the cause of that bubble can be something like quantum events in ours, eg not require any causing event.

How do you get no cause by stating a cause?
How does this not the assault the same complaint of complexity you decried earlier?
Between this and theism…..theism is a less complex.
Again that only kicks the can down the road alters nothing. Once again you have not kept a pace with science.
Further. Just because we can’t determine the cause of a quantum event does not mean it didn’t have a cause.

6) cause and effect is metaphysical terms and not really part of scientific models. They are categories in the human mind only.

Wow where to begin….????
Again you are using logic to dismiss logic. That alone destroys your assertion. But there is so much more at fault there.
Science logically presupposes logic.
If logic isn’t a part of scientific models than those models are logically illogical.
You are asserting that the laws of logic are human convention. Which is illogical.

 

[remez]

Not having evidence, you don't know that god exists. The opposite could be equally true, that there is no hidden god.

First, I’m not claiming that there is no evidence. I only challenged you to examine a defunct philosophy.

Second, explain your evidence for the inflationary era of our expansion history. You keep avoiding this. Or have you?

This concept alone destroys your presented defunct philosophy. A car in a search space of a garage presents a reasonable search, but evidence beyond the event horizon has a different expectation.

So how is it (inflationary era) still reasonable without evidence?

 

[remez]

We don't know. What we do know is that the universe began to exist in its present form about 13.5 BYA.

You don’t know what?
What you do know (the universe began) is the EVIDENCE I claim is best explained by theism.

The how is not the evidence I’m addressing here.

What we do know is that the universe began to exist in its present form about 13.5 BYA. The universe may be eternal, going through cycles of expansion and contraction.

I was scolded by you to bone up on cosmology. I suggest you should start with some basic reasoning skills. Examine what you wrote. How can a universe that begins to exist be eternal?

Also, I have addressed the oscillating models several times in this thread.

It may also be self created, popping out of nothing.

The quantum vacuum is not nothing. If that is not the equivocation you were attempting there then defend your illogical assertion that something can come from nothing.

Also not knowing a cause does not mean it’s self-created? That's logically incorrect at two different levels.

It may have been created by the collision of membranes, or within a black hole in a dimension we cannot perceive, as some current mathematical models appear to predict.

By all means continue your investigations. They are of interest to me as well. But we are asking, with what we have before us, what is the BEST explanation.

Those suggestions are faith based without evidence with the added flavor of self-creation. It’s stuff like that, that lead to the phrase “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.”

Where is your evidence for these metaphysical entities?

There is no evidence to support the assertion of a religious text that claims a supernatural god created the universe, then cloned himself as a human after 13.5 billion years, and had his clone killed to appease his own bloodlust, then resurrected the clone and had him flown up to heaven, when so much of the text in said document is wrong about its depiction of reality.

That was a straw man fallacy, so silly in fact, it would be equivalent to me challenging the validity of evolution due to the observance that there are still monkeys around.

And if you argue that universes cannot self create or that the universe is not eternal, then you would need to demonstrate how a god could do the same.

The universe had a beginning.
Logic stands in the way of self-creation.
The Biblical God is eternal and did not begin to exist, therefore did not have a cause.

We DON'T KNOW about the origins of the universe.

You keep saying we don’t know. But there are TWO points of Knowledge there to be known.

One we know, the universe began.

The other we don’t, the mechanistic HOW?

It is the part we do know that I submit as evidence.

It’s the part we don’t know that you illogically use to suppress the part we do know.

It is dishonest for you to continue suppress the evidence that the universe had a beginning with categorical switch that we don’t know the mechanistic HOW.

You hide in the ignorance of the how to suppress the evidence we do know.

By the way, we are still waiting for you to provide evidence that an expanding universe supports a monotheistic god. Now would be a good time to provide it.[/B]

No need to wait………here it is again

The EVIDENCE is the universe had a beginning.
The alternative explanations.
P) Continue to believe the universe is eternal.
A) Believe in self creation.
T) Someone created the universe.
Which explanation best explains the EVIDENCE?

Because of the three alternatives two are completely irrational.

 

[remez]

I said before you were trying to make reality into what your words say it is, and you told me I was wrong.

Not sure what you mean by this….so please allow me to clarify.

But here you are trying to determine how all reality is with mere words. You know, reality might not agree with your definitions.

I think you are missing the understanding that what I presented to you was a “logic” question that has been in debate since Plato. I was addressing the issue of ….. “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Kraus and Hawking recently wrote books addressing this very topic, discussing the very same terms I was using.

That's a "necessity of its own nature" that God exists? So God exists because his believers say he does. That's a little circular isn't it?

Not at all. It is fact that the Biblical God was worshipped as eternal prior to the conception of this argument. The prominent scientific view up until just a century ago was the universe was also eternal. Skeptics would point to the universe as eternal to eliminate God from the necessary list. If you can present another candidate for the necessary conditional of being eternal, then present your case. Just because the Biblical God is all that remains on the list of necessary entities does not represent a case for special pleading. He remains by process of elimination.

Why is the Biblical God the necessary first cause?

For one….he is eternal.

P) Believe the universe is worthy of reverence.
A) Don't know about the universe's origin, waiting on more evidence.
T) Someone created the universe.

You understand little or nothing about either pantheism or atheism.

To address your comment on:

P) ……….. I would think all three “isms” would reverence the universe. But my point was should we continue to reverence it as eternal.

A) ……….. DOES KNOW that the universe began which is the pertinent truth here. Hiding in the “don’t know” fog irrationally based on they don’t know HOW it began. Which wouldn’t change anything unless somehow nature self-created. That’s (self-creation out of real nothing) what they mean when the say it takes more faith to be an atheist. It’s almost a case of a “nature of the gaps” reasoning.

The “we don’t know” is twistingly dishonest. You may not know HOW but we do know it BEGAN.

Let me ask you…. Image that you, for a moment, believed the truth that the universe began. Nature began. Science can only study nature. So how does one reasonably think they can naturally find a cause of nature itself? You claim the laws break done when we travel back to the creation moment (singularity). Look at it from the other direction. They weren’t breaking down. They were birthing into existence by a cause that could not be nature itself.

T ………… no changes

And when others tell you what they do or don't believe, you just keep misrepresenting them anyway. Isn't that what you were complaining about when you first entered the thread, that atheists misrepresent your stance?

Yes. And we had a discussion about it. It was determined that the dictionary terms were it, no clarifications. Each side was trying to secure an important clarification of understanding. None was provided me. The dictionary was declared to me as definition of faith. So I used the same dictionary to define atheism. I agreed to those terms to the point of confessing that I don’t have faith (your definition) I have reasons for what I believe. Since then I have been dealing with those reasons. Your charge of misrepresentation is wrong if all you have is that I use the dictionary definition of atheist as one who disbelieves in the existence of god. Your “lacking” clarification was fairly discarded. Thus your charge is “lacking”.

 

[Juma]

Remez: you seem to have to misunderstandings: about the complexity of a god and about the "laws of logic" so I start with those issues.

1) an (eternal) god is an extremely complex entity which is actually harder to explain than a universe so stating "god did it" leaves you with the much harder problem of explaining why there is a god.

How so? It’s your assertion defend it. I’m really curious to your reasons why this is criterion is remotely reasonable? Ex….allow me to name an effect, let’s say a book. Now the cause is an author. Compare the complexities of the cause and effect, and then explain to me why what you claim above is reasonable.

That system (author -> book) requires an entire universe to exist: The author is the result of a process that has been going on since the BigBang, an enormously complex process involving huge amounts of atoms in staggeringly complex combinations over billons of years.

And more: The author is immensly more complex than the book.

3) there is no evidence that the universe as a whole must have a cause. There is no logic contradition in assuming that universe just started to exist.

You are using the laws of logic to dismiss the laws of logic. How is that logical?

I do not dismiss any "laws of logic". i just note the obvious: assuming that universe started involves no logical contradiction. It may or may not clash with facts but logic in itself cannot prove anything about the real world.

 

[DBT]

Not having evidence, you don't know that god exists. The opposite could be equally true, that there is no hidden god.

First, I’m not claiming that there is no evidence. I only challenged you to examine a defunct philosophy.

It's not defunct philosophy because you say so. For the given reasons, you are wrong. Basically. if there an absence of evidence for the presence of an article, that absence of evidence is evidence for absence.

No doubt that you yourself use this principle in relation to the many claims that you do not accept or believe.

First, I’m not claiming that there is no evidence.

What evidence?

Second, explain your evidence for the inflationary era of our expansion history. You keep avoiding this. Or have you?

It's not something I have to explain. I'm not the one who is making a claim....just pointing out that red shift, background microwave radiation, etc, is the evidence for an expanding universe. Which say absolutely nothing about a possible creator or creators.

That being your claim. A claim that you need to justify and not me.

This concept alone destroys your presented defunct philosophy. A car in a search space of a garage presents a reasonable search, but evidence beyond the event horizon has a different expectation.

So how is it (inflationary era) still reasonable without evidence?

You appear to be arguing against a strawman of your own making. If the Universe was created, there should be evidence for the existence of a creator.

Unless the creator wishes to be hidden.

In that case, as I've already explained, we do not know.

Because we do not know, and have no evidence to support a justified conviction in the existence of a creator, it is not justified to form a conviction/belief in the existence of a creator.

 

[abaddon]

Why is the Biblical God the necessary first cause?

For one….he is eternal.

You seem overly dependent on definitions to comprehend anything, even to say “reality is like this” by pointing out definitions: God’s eternal simply because he’s defined to be eternal. The definition can only reveal what people have imagined that God is, it can never logically necessitate anything. What if God really did exist but human’s definitions had got it wrong and God is actually a temporal being, a creation of yet other gods? You don’t know. Seems like a topic we could make up a lot of stuff about… something theists have been busily doing for a long time.

All the various creation myths contain the basic gist of how things have beginnings. Because… they’re creation myths, duh. It’s a silly twist to make any of them into "the best explanation" for seeming roughly approximately 'right' about that one thing: not that everything had to have been created but all things seem to have a beginning. The other details in the myths, including Genesis, are way off.

And why do some humans assume that something existing is more remarkable than if there were nothing? Is there a compelling reason or just a rut in the brain that makes it seem “obvious”?

Observation trumps logic. We cannot know how reality is by using words and logic, we have to look too. An argument can be both perfectly logical if it’s consistent with itself yet wrong too if one or more of the premises are wrong.

You sum up "P" "A" and "T" too easily, too self-servingly, with “P thinks x, A thinks y, and T thinks z” in a way it's easy to make your proclamation about who's right and who's wrong.

Atheism isn’t the philosophy that 'God didn’t make the universe', its only descriptive of persons -- the ones that don’t believe God for whatever reason. There's absolutely nothing incompatible between the universe having a beginning (of whatever sort it might have had) and a disbelief in God. And also, one can be not-theist and not-metaphysical-naturalist too. So name the right “ism” that you want to attack for the stupid reason that you think if we come to doubt metaphysical naturalism then we have to make a leap of blind faith and accept whatever god.

“I don’t know” is the only honest answer for now about “where’d it all come from?” You have a hard time dealing with it, and blame us for it. If you have other things to say about God, then it’s time to move on because this turkey of a cosmological argument is dead.

 

[Malintent]

It is at the present the most prevalent scientific understanding.

2) that logic require it to have a cause.

The law of causality.

3) that stating "eternal god" is an explanation of anything.

If some effect exists then something logically has to be eternal and thus necessary.

4) "atheism ran out of nature and materials"

Despite your desperate attempts to not positively assert anything that you might have to defend. You atheists must espouse materialism/naturalism which is reasonably indefensible. The natural universe is material and had a beginning. No nature or material prior to the beginning.

1) an (eternal) god is an extremely complex entity which is actually harder to explain than a universe so stating "god did it" leaves you with the much harder problem of explaining why there is a god.

How so? It’s your assertion defend it. I’m really curious to your reasons why this is criterion is remotely reasonable? Ex….allow me to name an effect, let’s say a book. Now the cause is an author. Compare the complexities of the cause and effect, and then explain to me why what you claim above is reasonable.

2) if you succed then the only defining property of that "god" is "created the universe" which doesnt show that this god is the god of the Bible.

Latter then and here’s to success.

3) there is no evidence that the universe as a whole must have a cause. There is no logic contradition in assuming that universe just started to exist.

You are using the laws of logic to dismiss the laws of logic. How is that logical?

4) while expanding now, the universe can still be eternally old: it can be pulsating. (Big crunch -> big bang -> big crunch -> big bang and so on)

I thought we were sticking to the best understandings of science. As I pointed out earlier this (oscillating model) is old news and theologically neutral for it only kicks the can down the road and logically changes nothing. It still can’t be eternal. You are misunderstanding the science to promote an illogical metaphysical notion probably for the reason to suppress evidence.

5) our universe can be a "bubble" in a metauniverse and the cause of that bubble can be something like quantum events in ours, eg not require any causing event.

How do you get no cause by stating a cause?
How does this not the assault the same complaint of complexity you decried earlier?
Between this and theism…..theism is a less complex.
Again that only kicks the can down the road alters nothing. Once again you have not kept a pace with science.
Further. Just because we can’t determine the cause of a quantum event does not mean it didn’t have a cause.

6) cause and effect is metaphysical terms and not really part of scientific models. They are categories in the human mind only.

Wow where to begin….????
Again you are using logic to dismiss logic. That alone destroys your assertion. But there is so much more at fault there.
Science logically presupposes logic.
If logic isn’t a part of scientific models than those models are logically illogical.
You are asserting that the laws of logic are human convention. Which is illogical.

Remez, the flaw in your argument is that the 'big Bang' is not proposed as the 'beginning of everything'. It is the point in time as far back as we can measure this universe... and it was small. VERY VERY VERY small. If you accept that the body of science is not trying to tell you that the universe had a beginning that started with some 'explosion', which they are not, then you will have to reexamine your thought process. If you do that, what do you find about your argument?

 

[remez]

Remez, the flaw in your argument is that the 'big Bang' is not proposed as the 'beginning of everything'.

Depends on what you mean by everything.

It is the point in time as far back as we can measure this universe... and it was small. VERY VERY VERY small.

Yes and that is as far as we can go with natural investigation because nature disappears at that singularity. Actually it’s just beginning. It’s too obvious to ignore.
Try this ..... why can’t we measure any further back?
Likely you’ll say the laws of nature breakdown. Then why do they “breakdown”?
Where do the laws of nature come from?

If you accept that the body of science is not trying to tell you that the universe had a beginning that started with some 'explosion', which they are not, then you will have to reexamine your thought process. If you do that, what do you find about your argument?

Then why did Hawking’s and others just write a books proclaiming their own theories on how the universe began?
What if you re-examine the obvious beginning and all its implications?

 

[remez]

No doubt that you yourself use this principle in relation to the many claims that you do not accept or believe.

Yes, most certainly I do, but there is a limit. It is not the case that the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence in every case. That was my point only. We consider an “inflationary era” as part of the history of our expanding universe yet we have no evidence for it.

Because we do not know, and have no evidence to support a justified conviction in the existence of a creator, it is not justified to form a conviction/belief in the existence of a creator.

Please read your sentence carefully. The conjunction is hard to follow.
Your conclusion is clear. Your evidence is not.
Specifically, what is it you don’t know in the context of the universe having a beginning?
The “if” it had a beginning
Or
The “how” it began.
Then………
Is the universe contingent or necessary?