In a conversation with Peter Atkins and John Lennox Here
Its pretty stupid that the video is called 'Lennox DESTROYS atheist', there isn't much destroying going on, Atkins's response was completely cut out. Regardless:
Atkins said the universe could be a mathematical structure, and thus it could form from nothing. Lennox disagrees and states that mathematics doesn't 'cause' anything. I was wondering what everyone's thoughts on this is.
While I don't think mathematics acts 'causally', but it does tell us what will happen, regardless of our opinion. When you have a ball, it will follow f =ma when you throw it every time. And we can apply this to the origin of the universe. We know from quantum mechanics and gravity, that fluctuations can occur, even when you have absolute nothing, no universe, no space, no time, the laws still apply. And you will eventually get a universe. If this is nothing is up for debate, it probably isn't since we still have laws. This doesn't point to a mind behind it at all, in fact the opposite. If we have mathematical constructs that tell us how the universe got here, that is all we need, god therefore becomes completely superfluous.
Lennox also likes to argue for god due to the order in nature. Sure, we don't know why nature is so orderly, there are a few guesses, that still gives no reason to propose a god. That's just an argument from ignorance, which Lennox is fond of. He said the similar things with abiogenesis. Is gods mind ordered? Why is god so ordered then? So you've really answered nothing.
Its pretty stupid that the video is called 'Lennox DESTROYS atheist', there isn't much destroying going on, Atkins's response was completely cut out. Regardless:
Atkins said the universe could be a mathematical structure, and thus it could form from nothing. Lennox disagrees and states that mathematics doesn't 'cause' anything. I was wondering what everyone's thoughts on this is.
While I don't think mathematics acts 'causally', but it does tell us what will happen, regardless of our opinion. When you have a ball, it will follow f =ma when you throw it every time. And we can apply this to the origin of the universe. We know from quantum mechanics and gravity, that fluctuations can occur, even when you have absolute nothing, no universe, no space, no time, the laws still apply. And you will eventually get a universe. If this is nothing is up for debate, it probably isn't since we still have laws. This doesn't point to a mind behind it at all, in fact the opposite. If we have mathematical constructs that tell us how the universe got here, that is all we need, god therefore becomes completely superfluous.
Lennox also likes to argue for god due to the order in nature. Sure, we don't know why nature is so orderly, there are a few guesses, that still gives no reason to propose a god. That's just an argument from ignorance, which Lennox is fond of. He said the similar things with abiogenesis. Is gods mind ordered? Why is god so ordered then? So you've really answered nothing.
