Why I'm not an Atheist

[Chuee]

I don't get why people keep saying the universe is beautiful.....
I mean, 99.9% of it is EMPTY SPACE, and a large amount of the matter is MATTER WE CAN'T EVEN SEE, oh and from the matter we can see almost all of it is hydrogen gas. Yea, maybe the universe looks pretty when you look at some ****ing hubble picture of a spiral galaxy or nebula. If by beauty you mean somewhat ordered and complex looking, then all you have that look ordered are what maybe stars and galaxies? Those are caused by gravity and aren't even that ordered really.
The book thing is beyond stupid. Natural law doesn't create books without intelligence, natural can cause everything we observe in the universe.
Also stop mentioning this 'chance' crap. Universes don't just automatically **** themselves into existence by chance, and with a multiverse view everything that's physically possible is to expected to exist.
Also the universe is endless bro. All our current data supports the idea that the universe will expand forever, unless you're one of those guys who thinks God is going to intervene and stop this lol.
edit: just because you can't imagine it doesn't mean it isn't real

 

[Falconv1.0]

I feel like you don't get what's being said when the word "chance" is used. If it's not chance then it's God, is that what you're saying? There are chances of things happening, not guaranteed ****ing outcomes. What we're saying is that specifically the way we see **** right now was one of many other probable outcomes.

Or it was God.

 

[Suntan Luigi]

Luigi, you're going in circles. If I wasn't watching a hilariously perverted anime right now, I'd be getting frustrated.

Here, I'll just copy and paste from Wikipedia:

"William Lane Craig formulates the argument as follows:[20]

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

(Requirements of a cause for the universe are quite large. To create a universe from nothing likely requires omniscience, omnipotence, and since the universe had a finite beginning in the past and is not eternal one, and the cause existing outside of time with no beginning, that the cause must have agency. If the cause exists eternally then the effect must also if there is no intervening factor such as agency.)
With two sub-sets of arguments.
[edit] First sub-set of arguments

Argument based on the impossibility of an actual infinite:

1. An actual infinite cannot exist.
2. An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
3. Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.

[edit] Second sub-set of arguments

Argument based on the impossibility of the formation of an actual infinite by successive addition:

1. A collection formed by successive addition cannot be an actual infinite.
2. The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by successive addition.
3. Therefore, the temporal series of past events cannot be actually infinite."

This is basically what I'm trying to say, if you will. Argument from first cause. By the way, the second subset shows why our universe cannot be infinite.

As to everyone else, here is the wiki definition of "random": The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'random' as "Having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard." This concept of randomness suggests a non-order or non-coherence in a sequence of symbols or steps, such that there is no intelligible pattern or combination.

Note the highlighted portions, those are the key parts.

 

[Falconv1.0]

Sooo what created God?

 

[Suntan Luigi]

Sooo what created God?

God is the "uncaused cause" if you will. If something created God we would have an infinite regress. There has to be an uncaused cause in order to prevent an infinite regress.

 

[Corigames]

I said I wasn't coming back to this thread, but... here I am...

Let's back up a bit. I stand by my original statement that because books don't write themselves and buildings don't build themselves it shows that the universe could not have created itself.

Let me re-write this...

Let's back up a bit. I stand by my original statement that because things that humans wrote didn't write themselves and things that humans built didn't build themselves it shows that the universe could not have created itself.

It's not a sound conclusion. What you are saying is that because some things you know are constructed that everything, therefore, must be constructs.

The reasoning behind that isn't the only problem though, as we can see if we take your example to it's logical extreme. Let's say that because there is beauty, complexity, and order in the universe that there must be a designer that created it all, or at least set it in motion. That being would have to understand beauty, complexity, and order to necessitate creating those aspects. From whence does the knowledge of these things come from? Are they innate in the designer, or were they learned after creating it all? To say that because of the qualities of the universe you defined that there must be a designer then calls into question the designer itself.
Taking that line of thought to it's next level then demands an explanation for the creator. The tried and true argument: "If God made everything, what made God?" The question is old and worn, and the religious despise it. God is the alpha and omega, he is eternal and exists outside yet inside the universe. Is intangible yet interferes with reality. If we look at the universe and say that it is too good to have come from nothing, then for what reason may we look at God and say that those same qualities we find in him must have either come from chance or have always been present? Since we cannot prove the existence of God, would it not be easier to say that these qualities are inherent of our universe and save the step of saying they come from a god that we don't know where he acquired those qualities from?

If we go by a naturalistic explanation of things, or "random chance" as the religious seem to only state it as, we can have a concrete understanding of how things came to be. Why are humans here? We are an evolutionary ancestor to great apes closely, mammals by large, sea dwellers at larger, bacteria and other cellular life at the greatest. If you attribute our presence on this planet to a grand designer, then you have generated more questions than answers. Why make us go through evolution instead of creating the final product? Why have a planet with tectonic plates shifting over millions of years? Why stick life on one tiny planet on the rim of a galaxy adrift in the vast emptiness of space? Instead of understanding the mechanics of the world as we see them, you must do that AND understand the reasoning behind it. You are making the question superficially complex in order to elaborate on a much simpler answer. Remove god and you can get at the true grit and meaning of life; an understanding much more practical than any theology could present.

Why is there beauty in the world? Because our minds have evolved to place value in certain things like sympathy, society, and imagination and we project those aspects onto the universe and everything in it. We see beauty because our brains are wired to through the way our species has come to be. Any feeling of reverence or majesty we are endowed with comes from consciousness being influenced by this fact. Why are things complex? There was a time when the world was much simpler: we did not always have the compounded knowledge that we've accumulated now. We did not know what stars were, what composed our bodies, what made the skies rain, how plants grew, etc. We know now and we are in awe of the vast complexity of existence. When we look deep into the fabric of mass, we find atoms. Inside atoms there are neutrons and protons. Inside those are quarks and whatnot. When we look to the heavens we find our sun. Beyond the sun we are part of star clusters. Beyond those clusters we are amidst a galaxy. Beyond the galaxy we are part of a universe. Beyond the universe... who knows? There is an ever larger macroverse and an ever smaller microverse that we continue to find more and more complex systems hidden inside.
The fact that this complexity exists allows for the systems that we require to survive, but does not mean that they were put in place with us in mind. Stars formed under these laws, the laws weren't made to form stars. Had the laws of the universe been different, we would not be here discussing it, some other form of life that adapted to the universe as they know it would.

In other words, you are mistaking the wonders of reality that our brain concocts as the gifts of a celestial being that was originally created to explain those wonders.

Edit:
I would also advise you to avoid arguments supported by William Lane Craig. He is the laughing stock of the scientific community at large. Though he may strengthen your faith with his pandering, you will find it difficult to convince any skeptic from any walk of life using his methods. This also holds true for Kent Hovind, Ken Ham, Lee Strobel, and other over glorified street preachers. This is not a condemnation of what gives you great passion, but a warning for future conversations with atheists.

 

[GwJ]

God is the "uncaused cause" if you will. If something created God we would have an infinite regress. There has to be an uncaused cause in order to prevent an infinite regress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading

Special pleading is a form of spurious argumentation where a position in a dispute introduces favorable details or excludes unfavorable details by alleging a need to apply additional considerations without proper criticism of these considerations themselves. Essentially, this involves someone attempting to cite something as an exemption to a generally accepted rule, principle, etc. without justifying the exemption.
The lack of criticism may be a simple oversight (e.g., a reference to common sense) or an application of a double standard.

 

[Falconv1.0]

Suntan Luigi, you have zero proof or logic behind any of that argument, like literally nothing to support that, you are quite literally just saying **** that fits what viewpoint you want to have.

 

[Suntan Luigi]

Let me re-write this...

It's not a sound conclusion. What you are saying is that because some things you know are constructed that everything, therefore, must be constructs.

The reasoning behind that isn't the only problem though, as we can see if we take your example to it's logical extreme. Let's say that because there is beauty, complexity, and order in the universe that there must be a designer that created it all, or at least set it in motion. That being would have to understand beauty, complexity, and order to necessitate creating those aspects. From whence does the knowledge of these things come from? Are they innate in the designer, or were they learned after creating it all? To say that because of the qualities of the universe you defined that there must be a designer then calls into question the designer itself.
Taking that line of thought to it's next level then demands an explanation for the creator. The tried and true argument: "If God made everything, what made God?" The question is old and worn, and the religious despise it. God is the alpha and omega, he is eternal and exists outside yet inside the universe. Is intangible yet interferes with reality. If we look at the universe and say that it is too good to have come from nothing, then for what reason may we look at God and say that those same qualities we find in him must have either come from chance or have always been present? Since we cannot prove the existence of God, would it not be easier to say that these qualities are inherent of our universe and save the step of saying they come from a god that we don't know where he acquired those qualities from?

If we go by a naturalistic explanation of things, or "random chance" as the religious seem to only state it as, we can have a concrete understanding of how things came to be. Why are humans here? We are an evolutionary ancestor to great apes closely, mammals by large, sea dwellers at larger, bacteria and other cellular life at the greatest. If you attribute our presence on this planet to a grand designer, then you have generated more questions than answers. Why make us go through evolution instead of creating the final product? Why have a planet with tectonic plates shifting over millions of years? Why stick life on one tiny planet on the rim of a galaxy adrift in the vast emptiness of space? Instead of understanding the mechanics of the world as we see them, you must do that AND understand the reasoning behind it. You are making the question superficially complex in order to elaborate on a much simpler answer. Remove god and you can get at the true grit and meaning of life; an understanding much more practical than any theology could present.

Why is there beauty in the world? Because our minds have evolved to place value in certain things like sympathy, society, and imagination and we project those aspects onto the universe and everything in it. We see beauty because our brains are wired to through the way our species has come to be. Any feeling of reverence or majesty we are endowed with comes from consciousness being influenced by this fact. Why are things complex? There was a time when the world was much simpler: we did not always have the compounded knowledge that we've accumulated now. We did not know what stars were, what composed our bodies, what made the skies rain, how plants grew, etc. We know now and we are in awe of the vast complexity of existence. When we look deep into the fabric of mass, we find atoms. Inside atoms there are neutrons and protons. Inside those are quarks and whatnot. When we look to the heavens we find our sun. Beyond the sun we are part of star clusters. Beyond those clusters we are amidst a galaxy. Beyond the galaxy we are part of a universe. Beyond the universe... who knows? There is an ever larger macroverse and an ever smaller microverse that we continue to find more and more complex systems hidden inside.
The fact that this complexity exists allows for the systems that we require to survive, but does not mean that they were put in place with us in mind. Stars formed under these laws, the laws weren't made to form stars. Had the laws of the universe been different, we would not be here discussing it, some other form of life that adapted to the universe as they know it would.

In other words, you are mistaking the wonders of reality that our brain concocts as the gifts of a celestial being that was originally created to explain those wonders.

This problem is avoided if you consider that God created time. It's hard for me to describe but I'll try: basically we people are viewers in the book of time. Everyone perceives time differently, but the reality is that if God created time then we are like characters in a book that has already been written. I also don't think the evidence that humans evolved from lesser species is strong enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading

Special pleading is a form of spurious argumentation where a position in a dispute introduces favorable details or excludes unfavorable details by alleging a need to apply additional considerations without proper criticism of these considerations themselves. Essentially, this involves someone attempting to cite something as an exemption to a generally accepted rule, principle, etc. without justifying the exemption.
The lack of criticism may be a simple oversight (e.g., a reference to common sense) or an application of a double standard.

Suntan Luigi, you have zero proof or logic behind any of that argument, like literally nothing to support that, you are quite literally just saying **** that fits what viewpoint you want to have.

The proof is in the fact that reality exists. Reality needs an uncaused cause, that's the whole point. And this uncaused cause cannot be limited by anything it causes.

 

[Falconv1.0]

Reality needs an uncaused cause because why. Why doesn't God need a cause.

How is this. You.

Nope. Not arguing. Hell **** no.

 

[Suntan Luigi]

Reality needs an uncaused cause because why. Why doesn't God need a cause.

How is this. You.

Nope. Not arguing. Hell **** no.

Which of these do you dispute?

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

God is the uncaused cause since He is not bound by any of the laws or rules of our world.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

So if we need something that cannot have a cause... why can't it be the freaking universe and why does it have to be your God? ._. I've already went over the fallacious nature of that point of view earlier in this thread, no more please. Edit: To add something further, explaining something that has no explanation, or giving an illogical thing to make things logical doesn't really add up, and does what metroid said, raise more questions than answers.

As for infinity, you're strawmanning. The "infinity" wasn't the point. There doesn't even need to be an infinity for it to work. My point was that the likelihood of it happening is actually very very likely. William Lane Craig is a master debator, but foolish in logic and philosophy. He argued that the percentage of having a hospitable planet is so insanely low that it is logically more sound to believe a God caused it. Now, first off, that doesn't even follow, you still have to prove God is more likely, and not to mention, prove how that he DOES exist, but moving on to the more relevant point. He didn't factor in the scope of the universe, and how many times that percentage was ran through. The ACTUAL percentage would be a lot higher, in fact, we don't even know how high it could go.

 

[Suntan Luigi]

So if we need something that cannot have a cause... why can't it be the freaking universe and why does it have to be your God? ._. I've already went over the fallacious nature of that point of view earlier in this thread, no more please.

The universe is part of reality. Reality needs a cause. Unless you agree that reality can appear out of nothing for no reason. You say reality created itself out of nothing. Can you not see how utterly absurd this is?

As for infinity, you're strawmanning. The "infinity" wasn't the point. There doesn't even need to be an infinity for it to work. My point was that the likelihood of it happening is actually very very likely. William Lane Craig is a master debator, but foolish in logic and philosophy. He argued that the percentage of having a hospitable planet is so insanely know that it is logically more sound to believe a God caused it. Now, first off, that doesn't even follow, you still have to prove God, and not to mention, prove how that is more likely, but moving on to the more relevant point. He didn't factor in the scope of the universe, and how many times that percentage was ran through. The ACTUAL percentage would be a lot higher, in fact, we don't even know how high it could go.

Can you show me those numbers, and their proofs? What is the ACTUAL percentage?

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Strawmanning again. The exact percentage isn't the point, it's that it is much larger than what people let on because the universe is large enough to run through the numbers an exhaustive amount of times. On top of that, like I've said, no matter how unlikely it is, it does not prove a God. You're going to have to try harder than that.

As for reality creating itself out of nothing, I find it less absurd than God doing it, because with God there are a lot more things to explain. Applying Occam's Razor it is a lot more likely reality is just there, as opposed to some powerful entity.

 

[kataklysm336]

I honestly think you are trolling, but...

This problem is avoided if you consider that God created time. It's hard for me to describe but I'll try: basically we people are viewers in the book of time.

Why do you think this?

Everyone perceives time differently, but the reality is that if God created time then we are like characters in a book that has already been written.

Why?

I also don't think the evidence that humans evolved from lesser species is strong enough.

Why? What is lacking?

Reality needs an uncaused cause, that's the whole point.

Why?

Which of these do you dispute?

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

God is the uncaused cause since He is not bound by any of the laws or rules of our world.

All of them.

 

[GwJ]

Which of these do you dispute?

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

God is the uncaused cause since He is not bound by any of the laws or rules of our world.

Here's the problem with the Kalam Cosmological Argument. There is only ONE (1) possible outcome from this proof and that is the notion of a god. It does not allow for any other possible answers and thus the "proof" is flawed.

It's one thing to just copy and paste **** from the internet then call it a day and actually understanding what you're saying.

And by the way, I finished season 1 of my hilariously perverted anime, so I'm ready to get frustrated now. :|

 

[Suntan Luigi]

Strawmanning again. The exact percentage isn't the point, it's that it is much larger than what people let on because the universe is large enough to run through the numbers an exhaustive amount of times.

According to whom? Where's your proof?

As for reality creating itself out of nothing, I find it less absurd than God doing it, because with God there are a lot more things to explain. Applying Occam's Razor it is a lot more likely reality is just there, as opposed to some powerful entity.

It's logically impossible though. Do you know what "Bootstrapping" is? From Wikipedia:
Bootstrapping or booting refers to a group of metaphors that share a common meaning: a self-sustaining process that proceeds without external help.
The term is often attributed to Rudolf Erich Raspe's story The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, where the main character pulls himself out of a swamp by his hair (specifically, his pigtail), but the Baron does not, in fact, pull himself out by his bootstraps. Instead, the phrase appears to have originated in the early 19th century United States (particularly in the sense "pull oneself over a fence by one's bootstraps"), to mean an absurdly impossible action, an adynaton.

Suggesting that reality created itself is analogous to saying that a person can levitate by pulling on his own bootstrap.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping#cite_note-0

 

[Corigames]

This problem is avoided if you consider that God created time. It's hard for me to describe but I'll try: basically we people are viewers in the book of time. Everyone perceives time differently, but the reality is that if God created time then we are like characters in a book that has already been written. I also don't think the evidence that humans evolved from lesser species is strong enough.

Once again, the application of what you are stating leads to more questions than answers? How does one "create time?" Also, what is the evidence that God created time? If I were to stumble upon a murder scene where the victim was stabbed in the heart and say, "Ah! I know John did this," you would ask me to explain why. If you said, "Well, you would understand if I said the knife used to kill him was Johns!" This, however, does not actually explain anything. Saying that the knife is John's doesn't mean it is. On top of that, you now have to explain the motive behind John stabbing someone supposedly irrelevant to his life. Simply proposing a solution to a problem you created for yourself doesn't rectify the situation at whole. Why is there beauty? Well, people make beautiful things so something must have made the universe beautiful. But then what about God? Well, imagine that God created everything and it explains what I'm saying perfectly. Yes, I understand that, but it proves nothing. It's an assertion with no foundation to rest upon.

Secondly, what evidence has not been presented to show that we have evolved from lesser beings? Does the biological evidence not say enough? Does the archeological evidence not say enough? Does the geological evidence not say enough? Does the concept of random mutation coupled with natural selection over the 4.3~ billion years the Earth has been around not supply that proper environment for the generation of our species through this process not say enough? I don't want to assume your contentions about evolution, but I'm willing to suppose that if your other arguments from from WLC, that your scientific understanding is being undermined by religious indoctrination. I beseech you to examine the evidence of evolution as every educated individual across the globe has that you too may come to realize the truth of the process laid out in the Theory of Evolution instead of those presented by age-old folklore.

Lastly, let's tackle the premise of your argument:
Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.
Let's take out the Jenga block on the bottom:
Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
Why is this so? Does Craig ever explain why something that exists has to have a cause? What deems this cause? Must this cause be practical? Relevant? Necessary? What if something created with a cause does not complete its cause? Did it ever really exist? Does that mean the true cause was whatever it came to be applied to instead of the original purpose?

Now let's take on the rest of it:
An actual infinite cannot exist.
God is the "uncaused cause" if you will. If something created God we would have an infinite regress.

This is contradictory. You are stating in one argument that the universe cannot come to be from nothing, by random chance, or be eternal because that is impossible. Then, you turn right around and attribute those qualities to God stating that something MUST adhere to those attributes or existence couldn't exist. What you are doing is creating a dilemma, creating an answer to this artificial problem, and providing that as the key to explaining reality. By saying that universe must be caused, you create the problem of defining what caused it. Then, by applying that same logic to that cause-er, you switch to say that the cause-er is exempt from this rule as SOMETHING has to be in order to stop there from being an infinite chain of cause-ers. Yet, you are bypassing the simplest explanation in order to assert this, the universe IS the uncaused cause. There is no logic you can present in favor of God being the uncaused cause that could not also be applied to the universe itself.

Hope that makes sense to you.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

According to whom? Where's your proof?

My proof? Are you kidding me? Do you know how many galaxies that are out there? Hell, there are so many, we don't even have a CLUE.

It's logically impossible though. Do you know what "Bootstrapping" is? From Wikipedia:
Bootstrapping or booting refers to a group of metaphors that share a common meaning: a self-sustaining process that proceeds without external help.
The term is often attributed to Rudolf Erich Raspe's story The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, where the main character pulls himself out of a swamp by his hair (specifically, his pigtail), but the Baron does not, in fact, pull himself out by his bootstraps. Instead, the phrase appears to have originated in the early 19th century United States (particularly in the sense "pull oneself over a fence by one's bootstraps"), to mean an absurdly impossible action, an adynaton.

Suggesting that reality created itself is analogous to saying that a person can levitate by pulling on his own bootstrap.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping#cite_note-0

I'm not saying I can explain it, I'm applying OCCAM'S RAZOR. Meaning, the thing that requires the least amount of explaining and has the least amount of unnecessary explainable things is the most probable answer.

 

[Suntan Luigi]

Secondly, what evidence has not been presented to show that we have evolved from lesser beings? Does the biological evidence not say enough? Does the archeological evidence not say enough? Does the geological evidence not say enough? Does the concept of random mutation coupled with natural selection over the 4.3~ billion years the Earth has been around not supply that proper environment for the generation of our species through this process not say enough? I don't want to assume your contentions about evolution, but I'm willing to suppose that if your other arguments from from WLC, that your scientific understanding is being undermined by religious indoctrination. I beseech you to examine the evidence of evolution as every educated individual across the globe has that you too may come to realize the truth of the process laid out in the Theory of Evolution instead of those presented by age-old folklore.

I'll make this short: some parts of evolution are, beyond a doubt, true. Animals do change and morph over time. But where the evidence falls flat is the archeological evidence, which is a complete joke. There is not enough proof to suggest beyond reasonable doubt that there is no limit to how much an animal can change, and that over billions of years a cell can evolve into a man.

Lastly, let's tackle the premise of your argument:
Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.
Let's take out the Jenga block on the bottom:
Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
Why is this so? Does Craig ever explain why something that exists has to have a cause? What deems this cause? Must this cause be practical? Relevant? Necessary? What if something created with a cause does not complete its cause? Did it ever really exist? Does that mean the true cause was whatever it came to be applied to instead of the original purpose? Once again, the application of what you are stating leads to more questions than answers? How does one "create time?" Also, what is the evidence that God created time? If I were to stumble upon a murder scene where the victim was stabbed in the heart and say, "Ah! I know John did this," you would ask me to explain why. If you said, "Well, you would understand if I said the knife used to kill him was Johns!" This, however, does not actually explain anything. Saying that the knife is John's doesn't mean it is. On top of that, you now have to explain the motive behind John stabbing someone supposedly irrelevant to his life. Simply proposing a solution to a problem you created for yourself doesn't rectify the situation at whole. Why is there beauty? Well, people make beautiful things so something must have made the universe beautiful. But then what about God? Well, imagine that God created everything and it explains what I'm saying perfectly. Yes, I understand that, but it proves nothing. It's an assertion with no foundation to rest upon.
Now let's take on the rest of it:
An actual infinite cannot exist.
God is the "uncaused cause" if you will. If something created God we would have an infinite regress.

This is contradictory. You are stating in one argument that the universe cannot come to be from nothing, by random chance, or be eternal because that is impossible. Then, you turn right around and attribute those qualities to God stating that something MUST adhere to those attributes or existence couldn't exist. What you are doing is creating a dilemma, creating an answer to this artificial problem, and providing that as the key to explaining reality. By saying that universe must be caused, you create the problem of defining what caused it. Then, by applying that same logic to that cause-er, you switch to say that the cause-er is exempt from this rule as SOMETHING has to be in order to stop there from being an infinite chain of cause-ers. Yet, you are bypassing the simplest explanation in order to assert this, the universe IS the uncaused cause. There is no logic you can present in favor of God being the uncaused cause that could not also be applied to the universe itself.

Hope that makes sense to you.

If you have reality, you need an agent that can create laws and rules for that reality whilst being not limited by the laws he creates. If you don't have that agent, you get the bootstrap model, which is logically impossible. If the agent is bound in any way to the rules he writes, this is also a logical impossibility which does not solve the infinite regress. It would be like saying a programmer wrote a computer program and he was bound by the laws of that program. We know a program exists, so the agent wrote it, and thus there is not way he could have been bound by its rules if it never existed to begin with. This "program" is reality, and the "agent" is simply known as God. You don't have to call Him God. I think many people have an incorrect understanding of what a God actually is.

My proof? Are you kidding me? Do you know how many galaxies that are out there? Hell, there are so many, we don't even have a CLUE.

And what's to stop me from saying that the odds of life forming by themselves are smaller still?

Here's a number: 10^80. Do you know what that number is? It's the estimated number of known atoms in the universe. Who's to say I can't just say the odds of life forming by itself are some astronomically bigger number, like 10^3000. Heck, there are more possible chess game positions then there are atoms in the universe. It's not so easy to judge these probabilities.

I'm not saying I can explain it, I'm applying OCCAM'S RAZOR. Meaning, the thing that requires the least amount of explaining and has the least amount of unnecessary explainable things is the most probable answer.

Of course you can't explain it. It's logically impossible!

 

[Corigames]

But where the evidence falls flat is the archeological evidence, which is a complete joke. There is not enough proof to suggest beyond reasonable doubt that there is no limit to how much an animal can change, and that over billions of years a cell can evolve into a man.

In what way? We have a comprehensive library of fossils that date our ancestry back to the Great Apes and we then can trace their ancestry back even further. Similarly, if you can admit that, over thousands of years, adaptations through random mutation and natural selection can occur, why impose the limitation that this process cannot extend from early life to present life? Why can a single cell not adapt to survive as a multi-cellular culture? Why can't a multicellular organism not adapt an infrastructure? Why can't it adapt a central relay? Sensory mechanisms? Ligaments? And so on? Why does the process have this limitation on it that keeps it from being applied for you as it currently is in biology and history?

If you have reality, you need an agent that can create laws and rules for that reality whilst being not limited by the laws he creates. If you don't have that agent, you get the bootstrap model, which is logically impossible.

I have now made this argument two times and this will be the third in my conversation with you alone. This is why I left this thread to being with. A constant circle jerk where I repeat myself continuously until my fingers cringe and the thought of retyping it all again.
If the universe creating itself presents us with a bootstrap problem, then why does God not having to be caused not also generate this problem? You have yet to provide a sound explanation for this.

If the agent is bound in any way be the rules he writes, this is also a logical impossibility which does not solve the infinite regress. It would be like saying a programmer wrote a computer program and he was bound by the laws of that program. We know a program exists, so the agent wrote it, and thus there is not way he could have been bound by its rules if it never existed to begin with. This "program" is reality, and the "agent" is simply known as God. You don't have to call Him God. I think many people have an incorrect understanding of what a God actually is.

Your analogy has a small problem. In the case of the programmer writing a program, yes, he exists outside of the program, but the hardware has to be there for him to write on. In the case of God, he's creating existence, which is comparative to creating the hardware. A semantics argument, maybe, but I thought I would say.
More importantly, the programmer came from somewhere, and that somewhere does have rules affecting him, even if they aren't the same as the ones he has programmed. Likewise, if there is a being that exists outside of the universe and doesn't follow the rules of the universe, that doesn't mean he's unaffected by rules at all or that they are necessarily different from the universe's. Furthermore, this still doesn't explain why the programmer (God) doesn't necessitate a cause yet the universe does. Hardware doesn't follow the rules of software, so, to some degree, I could still take this argument and apply it to the universe. Why must the beginning of the universe follow the rules that exist inside of the universe after its conception? What is the reasoning behind that? To a greater degree, if the rules that God is affected by are different from the universes, what inscribed those laws? If it was God itself, would that not be bootstrapping?

Once again, more questions than answers.

 

[Suntan Luigi]

In what way? We have a comprehensive library of fossils that date our ancestry back to the Great Apes and we then can trace their ancestry back even further. Similarly, if you can admit that, over thousands of years, adaptations through random mutation and natural selection can occur, why impose the limitation that this process cannot extend from early life to present life? Why can a single cell not adapt to survive as a multi-cellular culture? Why can't a multicellular organism not adapt an infrastructure? Why can't it adapt a central relay? Sensory mechanisms? Ligaments? And so on? Why does the process have this limitation on it that keeps it from being applied for you as it currently is in biology and history?

Go check the fossil record yourself. There are many, many gaps that need to be filled, particularly with the transitional species.

“Given the fact of evolution, one would expect the fossils to document a gradual steady change from ancestral forms to the descendants. But this is not what the paleontologist finds. Instead, he or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series.” (Ernst Mayr-Professor Emeritus, Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, What Evolution Is, 2001, p.14.)

“Absence of the transitional fossils in the gaps between each group of fishes and its ancestor is repeated in standard treatises on vertebrate evolution…. This is one count in the creationists’ charge that can only evoke in unison from the paleontologists a plea of nolo contendere” (Strahler, Arthur, Science and Earth History, 1987, p. 408.).

“What is missing are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types.” Carroll, Robert L., “Towards a new evolutionary synthesis,” in Trends in Evolution and Ecology 15(1):27-32, 2000, p. 27.)

Interestingly enough, you'll find the fossil records are actually against evolution. From Wikipedia, read this carefully:

"The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the relatively rapid (over a period of many millions of years) appearance, around 530 million years ago, of most major animal phyla, as demonstrated in the fossil record,[1][2] accompanied by major diversification of organisms including animals, phytoplankton, and calcimicrobes.[3] Before about 580 million years ago, most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. Over the following 70 or 80 million years the rate of evolution accelerated by an order of magnitude (as defined in terms of the extinction and origination rate of species[4]) and the diversity of life began to resemble that of today.[5]
The Cambrian explosion has generated extensive scientific debate. The seemingly rapid appearance of fossils in the “Primordial Strata” was noted as early as the mid 19th century,[6] and Charles Darwin saw it as one of the main objections that could be made against his theory of evolution by natural selection.[7] The long-running puzzlement about the appearance of the Cambrian fauna, seemingly abruptly and from nowhere, centers on three key points: whether there really was a mass diversification of complex organisms over a relatively short period of time during the early Cambrian; what might have caused such rapid change; and what it would imply about the origin and evolution of animals. Interpretation is difficult due to a limited supply of evidence, based mainly on an incomplete fossil record and chemical signatures left in Cambrian rocks."

How is my lack of belief in long term evolution, based on this evidence, not justified?

I have now made this argument two times and this will be the third in my conversation with you alone. This is why I left this thread to being with. A constant circle jerk where I repeat myself continuously until my fingers cringe and the thought of retyping it all again.
If the universe creating itself presents us with a bootstrap problem, then why does God not having to be caused not also generate this problem? You have yet to provide a sound explanation for this.

Because the universe itself is bound by the laws of physics. Anything bound by the laws of physics cannot create the laws of physics, this is the key point. Anything within the program cannot create the program. You need something not bound by the laws to create the laws. An agent that is unbound by time and space is the only satisfactory cause, since it is meaningless to ask what caused him if he is not bound by time, which is a law. There are no laws outside of reality, there is only God.

I'll admit, it is rather hard to wrap one's head around.

Your analogy has a small problem. In the case of the programmer writing a program, yes, he exists outside of the program, but the hardware has to be there for him to write on. In the case of God, he's creating existence, which is comparative to creating the hardware. A semantics argument, maybe, but I thought I would say.

Yes, this is irrelevant.

More importantly, the programmer came from somewhere, and that somewhere does have rules affecting him, even if they aren't the same as the ones he has programmed. Likewise, if there is a being that exists outside of the universe and doesn't follow the rules of the universe, that doesn't mean he's unaffected by rules at all or that they are necessarily different from the universe's. Furthermore, this still doesn't explain why the programmer (God) doesn't necessitate a cause yet the universe does. Hardware doesn't follow the rules of software, so, to some degree, I could still take this argument and apply it to the universe. Why must the beginning of the universe follow the rules that exist inside of the universe after its conception? What is the reasoning behind that? To a greater degree, if the rules that God is affected by are different from the universes, what inscribed those laws? If it was God itself, would that not be bootstrapping?

Once again, more questions than answers.

The main issue is the concept of time. It is a law of physics. God has to be outside of time. We are not concerned with where the programmer came from in this analogy. Time is another law written into His program.

I'm trying to be as clear and concise as I can, but this is not easy stuff to get on paper.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

You don't really answer how God can be there and be "outside" of things (or even what that means for that matter, especially outside of time). You must also make sense of how a thing can interact with a thing that it is not only outside of, but follows different rules. This is something I posed to the topic poster, and his only answer was that it isn't suppose to make sense.

 

[Corigames]

Go check the fossil record yourself. There are many, many gaps that need to be filled, particularly with the transitional species.
*Quotes*
How is my lack of belief in long term evolution, based on this evidence, not justified?

I hope you know that I'm going to fact check every single one of those sources for quote mining when I get off from work tonight. Prepare yourself.

Additionally, we aren't ever going to find a continuous stream of constant fossils of every single intermediate step of every species ever made. Fossils are made by random occurrences. A body has to be preserved in a very specific fashion in order to be used as a fossil, let alone identified as one. To expect to find a fossil of every organism and every stage of its evolutionary process is asking for nature to be aware of itself and to leave clues for us to find in the future.
That said, I was a Christian. I was indoctrinated to believe evolution as myth. I was a staunch proselytizer for creationism until I researched evolution and biology as a whole. Telling me to go look at it for myself would be a bit redundant considering it was the fact that I did such a thing that led me to this conclusion.

Because the universe itself is bound by the laws of physics. Anything bound by the laws of physics cannot create the laws of physics, this is the key point. Anything within the program cannot create the program. You need something not bound by the laws to create the laws.

A. Your wording shows your hand. When you say, "create the laws of physics" you are presupposing that they haven't always been there, that they require being put into being, and that a "something" did it.
B. I understand what you are saying, but I'm asking for your evidence in believing it. Why do you believe that the universe necessitates an acting agent to create it? Why does this thing have to exist outside of reality as we know it? How does one supply reasoning to back this concept?

An agent that is unbound by time and space is the only satisfactory cause

...and now you lost me. Why is this so? Why must this being be devoid of time and space? Can it not be a different understanding of these things? Can it not be an event and not a thing with these qualities?

since it is meaningless to ask what caused him if he is not bound by time, which is a law. There are no laws outside of reality, there is only God.

There is only God, because you say so. What if there are multiple Gods? What if there are no Gods but some time distortion that led to the creation of the universe? Something in the fabric of reality tore and made matter and time erupt from a singularity infinitesimally small, who knows? Your quickness to jump to an intelligent being or whatever you would call it is unjustified.

The main issue is the concept of time. It is a law of physics. God has to be outside of time. We are not concerned with where the programmer came from in this analogy.

Maybe you aren't, but we are. It's very important to know where the programmer came from if we are to understand how the program was made.

I'm trying to be as clear and concise as I can, but this is not easy stuff to get on paper.

That is because what you are saying is absolute speculation, unfounded and unguided by reasoning and a product of religious teachings by illiterate, ignorant ancient tribes. I'm trying to be as polite and cordial as I can, but the limitation of my patience is surfacing. Gotta go to work, though, so I guess it will be a nice break from the chaos of deciphering and evaluating the arguments you are trying to present.

 

[Chuee]

Go check the fossil record yourself. There are many, many gaps that need to be filled, particularly with the transitional species.

So because there are gaps, evolution isn't true?
That isn't even logical lmao.
You should probably look up the fossil process, because it's a long process and we're lucky we do have them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxrxnPG05SU
and when we look at the genome of our ape cousins guess what we find?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK3O6KYPmEw

Oh boy, Kalam Cosmological Argument. fun fun fun

Here, I'll just copy and paste from WikipediaRequirements of a cause for the universe are quite large. To create a universe from nothing likely requires omniscience, omnipotence, and since the universe had a finite beginning in the past and is not eternal one, and the cause existing outside of time with no beginning, that the cause must have agency. If the cause exists eternally then the effect must also if there is no intervening factor such as agency.)

I see absolutely nothing which suggests that the cause of the universe needs to be all knowing and all powerful.

Argument based on the impossibility of an actual infinite:

1. An actual infinite cannot exist.
2. An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
3. Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.

Things not bound by time don't follow this.


Argument based on the impossibility of the formation of an actual infinite by successive addition:

This is basically what I'm trying to say, if you will. Argument from first cause. By the way, the second subset shows why our universe cannot be infinite.

Nobodies even arguing that the universe is infinite lol...........................
The biggest flaw in Craig's argument is that is relies on us not having a clear theory on the start of the big bang. It tries to make it sound like universes can't possibly arise from nothingness therefore only God could have caused it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb10QvaHpS4
Here's a pretty answer to that argument.
edit: You said time is a law of physics when it's not. Time is really space-time. There is no law of time or any nonsense like that.

 

[Suntan Luigi]

You don't really answer how God can be there and be "outside" of things (or even what that means for that matter, especially outside of time). You must also make sense of how a thing can interact with a thing that it is not only outside of, but follows different rules. This is something I posed to the topic poster, and his only answer was that it isn't suppose to make sense.

Like I said, this is pretty hard to grasp because it is impossible to fully understand the nature of God, because all of our understanding is confined to the reality. That being said, we can understand some things that definitely cannot be true of God.

What do I mean when I say God is not bound by the laws? He has no physical form, so you cannot draw His likeness, and there is nothing in this universe that is comparable to Him in the absolute sense. He always existed; since He created time it is impossible for Him to have a beginning, and likewise it is impossible for Him to have an end. Also, God does not follow different rules. He is not bound by any rules whatsoever. The only rules that exist are the rules our universe abides by. And they need a cause.

As for the nature of this interaction, I think the best way to put it is this: In God's point of view, time has no meaning. Everything in our reality has already happened, but only from His point of view. God is not constantly interacting with the world, because that would be a logical impossibility. It would be like a person who keeps changing the story of a novel and yet the novel remains unchanged.

chuee: I will answer you tomorrow, I getting pretty tired of this onslaught now. Although I will say now that the numerous gaps in the fossil record provide reasonable doubt as to the credibility of long term evolution. I was not proving anything. As for that video, I loled. It does not prove anything.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Like I said, this is pretty hard to grasp because it is impossible to fully understand the nature of God, because all of our understanding is confined to the reality. That being said, we can understand some things that definitely cannot be true of God.

It's really frustrating when religious people say such things, it's the equivalent of just saying, "Pffft, hell if I know, but I'll keep believing it."

What do I mean when I say God is not bound by the laws? He has no physical form, so you cannot draw His likeness, and there is nothing in this universe that is comparable to Him in the absolute sense.

How and why?

Also I think in there you mean "visible" and not "physical". God has no appearance and thus cannot be drawn.

He always existed; since He created time it is impossible for Him to have a beginning, and likewise it is impossible for Him to have an end.

First off, if there is no beginning, then isn't there an eternity before our creation? This is where you say, "But there wasn't time until he made it." That means he didn't exist until he made it, for there is no existence if there isn't anything.. well.. existing, which means He created himself.

I'm really trying hard to even imagine what you're thinking here. Do you imagine that there was nothing but him with no time, and at one point he made the universe? But at what point did he make it in a timeless existence? When in time do you make time? That makes sense, because if time was "created", that insinuates that there was a point where there was none, and another that has time. That is where things get a bit confusing and paradoxes are made. I am slightly confusing myself because of how silly this all is, a third party needs to proof read this. He couldn't have always existed, nor could he he have made himself.

As for the nature of this interaction, I think the best way to put it is this: In God's point of view, time has no meaning. Everything in our reality has already happened, but only from His point of view. God is not constantly interacting with the world, because that would be a logical impossibility. It would be like a person who keeps changing the story of a novel and yet the novel remains unchanged.

I can't make any sense of this.

 

[Chuee]

As for that video, I loled. It does not prove anything.

You probably didn't even watch the one on the chimpanzee genome or didn't even pay attention if you think that doesn't prove anything...

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Lol, whatever dude. If you can show me something beautiful that is the result of chance, maybe I'll reconsider my position. Write a book by hitting random letters, paint a picture with random brush-strokes, etc.

You see, I'd do this... But I can't. You know why? Because if I ever showed you something "random" that was beautiful, you'd anthropomorphize design in. I show you the sunset, which clearly came about more or less randomly, and you'd say, "But clearly this is designed!" Yes, if you assume from the get-go that a god created the universe, then of course nothing is random! But we don't buy into the premise that there is a designer. Furthermore, you really can't then turn around and say, "Therefore there is a god". That reasoning is absurdly circular. You don't get to assume god as part of a premise, and then use that to conclude that god exists.

Also, you might wanna look Douglas Adam's puddle analogy. It's entirely reasonable to believe that we evolved to find certain things beautiful, and that what we find beautiful is, to an extent, hardcoded into us. In other words, we adapted to the environment.

And lastly, if you want to claim that the universe is "designed" for life, keep in mind that literally 0% of its total volume is matter arranged in a way to even allow for life if you round anywhere before somewhere near the thousandth decimal place.

Also the Kalam fails on many levels. We have never witnessed anything be "created". Ever. The first premise falls flat, and even if you accept the argument, you're still applying special pleading to make it so that god doesn't need a cause.

I'll make this short: some parts of evolution are, beyond a doubt, true. Animals do change and morph over time. But where the evidence falls flat is the archeological evidence, which is a complete joke. There is not enough proof to suggest beyond reasonable doubt that there is no limit to how much an animal can change, and that over billions of years a cell can evolve into a man.

Oh my god he seriously just went there.

I await your thread on evolution with outright glee.

 

[Falconv1.0]

I'd give up on this ****, guys, I mean **** even I'm bailing. I've never faced a foe this um...um...what's something I can say without getting infracted?

 

[Arbuckle]

Suntan Luigi, while I'm out finding fossil evidence of every transitional species ever, you want a piece of pie if I cut it in half, then cut one of those in half, then cut one of those in half, etc?

I'll get down to the atoms eventually, but I'll need a better knife if I want to split that.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Suntan Luigi, while I'm out finding fossil evidence of every transitional species ever, you want a piece of pie if I cut it in half, then cut one of those in half, then cut one of those in half, etc?

I'll get down to the atoms eventually, but I'll need a better knife if I want to split that.

So true. Literally everything is a transitional fossil. To find every transitional form in the geologic record, we'd need a fossil of literally every single creature that ever lived.

 

[Dre89]

Wow this thread just exploded into activity out of nowhere.

The cosmological argument isn't bad, it just isn't complete. It doesn't explain why this uncaused cause has to be God, or why this cause happens to be loving and have a will, and even moreso things like the Trinity.

Besides, Craig usually puts 4 or 5 other arguments alongside it anyway, which kinda shows it's not that strong of an argument by itself.

You really need to expand the cosmological argument from those three steps, otherwise you can't explain why the proposed first cause is uncaused or has God-like properties.

 

[Oasis_S]

If a god designed something as perfect as the eye, then does that mean optometrists are greater than god since they have to fix that god's shoddy job.

 

[Dre89]

Optometrists don't alter the design of eyes. They just fix the damaged ones. They're two different things.

Now that I'm done nitpicking, it was still a decent joke though.

 

[Oasis_S]

If there was a point to be made, it's probably that God is a really DUMB designer, and we're intelligent enough to point out the flaws in the things he created. It's okay God, nobody's perfect.

 

[Teran]

Wow this thread just exploded into activity out of nowhere.

The cosmological argument isn't bad, it just isn't complete. It doesn't explain why this uncaused cause has to be God, or why this cause happens to be loving and have a will, and even moreso things like the Trinity.

Besides, Craig usually puts 4 or 5 other arguments alongside it anyway, which kinda shows it's not that strong of an argument by itself.

You really need to expand the cosmological argument from those three steps, otherwise you can't explain why the proposed first cause is uncaused or has God-like properties.

Optometrists don't alter the design of eyes. They just fix the damaged ones. They're two different things.

Now that I'm done nitpicking, it was still a decent joke though.

Enough of your babble, Pangloss!

 

[Dre89]

I don't understand why you don't just lock the thread if you want everyone to stop talking so much....

 

[Corigames]

*Quotes*

Way to copy and paste:
http://www.genesispark.org/exhibits/fossils/missing-links/gaps/
So, you throw me a list of quotes from a site that has GENESIS in the name of it. I get the feeling that this is is going to be an objective look into the world of evolution, isn't it?

“Given the fact of evolution, one would expect the fossils to document a gradual steady change from ancestral forms to the descendants. But this is not what the paleontologist finds. Instead, he or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series.”

Let us continue reading what he says: LINK

"Only a fraction of the fossil-bearing strata is presently exposed at the Earth's surface. But it is even highly improbable that any organism ever becomes fossilized at all, since most dead animals are eaten by scavengers or decay."

You see, this quote is a quote mine. It is a short excerpt from a credible source taken out of context to dissuade the reader from understanding what was actually meant. What you posted makes it sound like that if evolution were true we must find tons of fossils yet we don't. In reality, what he's saying is that the process of creating fossils is so specific that occurrences of it happening are rare, so we find very few fossils at all.

“Absence of the transitional fossils in the gaps between each group of fishes and its ancestor is repeated in standard treatises on vertebrate evolution…. This is one count in the creationists’ charge that can only evoke in unison from the paleontologists a plea of nolo contendere” Strahler, Arthur
This quote became popular from its mentioning in the creationist book: Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics which was a direct response to Arthur's.

Check the Wikipedia article about quoting things out of context: LINK
In light of the first quote, I feel like I shouldn't have to explain the context of this one, but I shall anyway. You see, Gould is famous for his theory on punctuated equilibrium, the idea that evolution has periods of rapid progress and times of the opposite. What Arthur's saying in this quote is that people that don't share his opinion justify it by citing the lack of extensive intermediate fossils. Taken out of context, it sounds like he's saying that all paleontologist agree with creationists that there is little evidence in the fossil record. Once again, a quote mine.

“What is missing are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types.” Carroll, Robert L.

Unlike the other two quotes, I cannot look at the source material of this for free. At least, I couldn't find a free version of it. I would like to point out, though, that every single creationist/anti-evolution site has this quote in use on it somewhere yet none show any sentence preceding or proceeding it. Usually, that's a heads up that it is being quote mined, but I'll reserve final judgement until I can get a hold of it somehow. Though, I'd say that doesn't look too good for you.

"*Copy/Paste of the first two paragraphs of an extensive wiki page: Link*"
Oooooh, watch what I can do with that same:

"The presence of Precambrian animals somewhat dampens the "bang" of the explosion: not only was the appearance of animals gradual, but their evolutionary radiation ("diversification") may also not have been as rapid as once thought. Indeed, statistical analysis shows that the Cambrian explosion was no faster than any of the other radiations in animals' history.[4] However, it does seem that some innovations linked to the explosion — such as resistant armour — only evolved once in the animal lineage; this makes a lengthy Precambrian animal lineage harder to defend.[93] Further, the conventional view that all the phyla arose in the Cambrian is flawed; while the phyla may have diversified in this time period, representatives of the crown-groups of many phyla do not appear until much later in the Phanerozoic.[94] Further, the mineralized phyla that form the basis of the fossil record may not be representative of other phyla, since most mineralized phyla originated in a benthic setting. The fossil record is consistent with a Cambrian Explosion that was limited to the benthos, with pelagic phyla evolving much later.[94]

There is little doubt that disparity – that is, the range of different organism "designs" or "ways of life" – rose sharply in the early Cambrian.[5] However, recent research has overthrown the once-popular idea that disparity was exceptionally high throughout the Cambrian, before subsequently decreasing.[95] In fact, disparity remains relatively low throughout the Cambrian, with modern levels of disparity only attained after the early Ordovician radiation.[5]"

All those problems that supposedly arise from the fact of the Cambrian Explosion become a bit more humble in the face of new and ever expanding evidence that the explosion wasn't really an explosion at all.
Do you wish to copy and paste more things, or are you going to start thinking on your own now?

 

[GwJ]

I honestly do not know how to respond to any of this anymore.