God's God

[archangle]

Why is it irrelevant if I'm not infallible. I go do a math test, an answer seems true to me, I shouldn't write it after much studying, because I'm not infallible? Of course I can be wrong, it doesn't mean I ought to not have the answer to what seems true to me.

Because the answer you feel seems true and the answer that is true are different concepts. You live on a planet that, from your individual perspective, seems like a flat plain. It's not, it's spherical, just beyond the resolution of your perception. Things that intuitively seem true can be false.

The problem I'm having is that you're making claims based on ideas that trained physicists and scientists much smarter than you or I are still grappling with. If you've got some scientific training that I'm not aware of then I apologize, but if not, then there's a huge gap between the things that seem to you to be true, and the things that evidence would lead us to believe.

Also, you are assuming this all from the lenses of naturalism. If naturalism is true, I agree we really can't know existence requires a constant cause.

I'm not assuming anything. I'm just keeping in mind that the evidence is still coming in, and thus making a statement now would only be working with partial information.

However if is the case the existence does require a constant cause, and the Creator requires to constantly cause himself and everything else in existence, then, I don't see, how given that we have logic, and knowledge of other intuitive things like praise, morals, etc, or "from nothing, nothing follows", that we can't be given knowledge of this?

But aside from that, aside from the issue of knowledge, even if we weren't given knowledge, it does seem to be the case that existence too requires a constant cause instead of simply things like motion.

Out intuition often leads us astray. Science is the most reliable method we have for discerning what the truth is beyond what seems to be the truth; it was once common knowledge that thunder and lightning were an expression of the gods' anger. Science showed us otherwise.

True enough. However, most Atheists tend to think a cosmic creator his highly unlikely as opposed to highly likely.

Yup. Sorry that we don't all lean the way you'd like us to, but at least you can be happy with the idea that you can persuade us with evidence.

I don't need to know everything to know somethings. That's just silly.

Sure, that's true. And if you want to show me your degree in physics or quantum mechanics, I'll happily take the things you "know" a little more seriously. If not, I'll be applying my grain of salt, because you'd be claiming to know things in a subject you don't really have a great handle on.

Science can't really answer for you regarding this. It's ontological...not empirical.

I can be patient.

What I meant is why give up being certain. Often, when I do a math problem, I redo it a few times to become certain of it.

Perhaps constant reflection over this issue, can make us certain. I don't know. It may, it may not.

You can be certain of something and still be wrong, is my contention.

We have evidence that time is not infinite (it doesn't go back forever and ever). You can make conclusions based on that.

But those conclusions can only safely extend to "time must have had a beginning." Anything beyond that point would be conjecture.

That was the conclusion that followed from a premise though, mainly that everything requires a cause including existence.

Which is the premise you can't quite prove.

It's still special pleading. It's saying we do know everything else requires a cause but we don't know existence does.

Seems like special pleading still. Unless you can explain why existence should be treated differently.

I'm saying that both should be treated with equal uncertainty. That's why it's not special pleading.

no, the two claims are not on equal terms. one is based on observations the other is not.

"existence, at least from what we can tell, is based on some type of particle interaction. To claim that we don't know that for sure is ok, but the fact remains, that everything we see is based on particle interaction. The claim that existence is probably based on particle interactions is a valid stance.

So there is no way to put them on equal terms of uncertainty.