You realise your signature is factually incorrect, right Chad? An atheist is a person with a belief there is no God, or a lack of belief in God. A cabbage is not a person.

Or is it just a joke?

(April 13, 2016 at 10:32 am)robvalue Wrote: You realise your signature is factually incorrect, right Chad? An atheist is a person with a belief there is no God, or a lack of belief in God. A cabbage is not a person...Or is it just a joke?

It is a joke about the imprecision of the saying "Atheism is simply the lack of belief in God." Like that stupid meme about everyone being born an atheist. Since both babies and cabbages are living things, neither of which can form an opinion about whether god(s) exist or not, then if follows that both babies and cabbages are atheists. But that's a discussion for another thread. I'm growing tired of that signature and will probably change it soon.

(April 13, 2016 at 10:29 am)ChadWooters Wrote:

(April 12, 2016 at 9:23 pm)Brian37 Wrote: As soon as you postulate a super hero as the cause of that cycle, then it begs the question as to what caused that super hero, and what caused that super hero and so on. The problem is called "infinite regress".

So what then is your solution to the infinite regress?

This problem of infinite applies only to any sequence in which potential posterior causes necessarily depend on actual prior causes. The dependency of the posterior on the prior is what distinguishes an accidentally order sequence from an essentially ordered one. The solution to an infinite regress in an essentially ordered sequence is having a fully actualized initial member to the series, a first cause, that is not contingent upon any other. In your words, that would be a "super hero" the greater than which cannot be conceived.

However, if you believe all causal chains are accidental sequences, then of course, a world of non-contingent causes could extend into the infinite past without contradiction. This position comes at great cost. Such a world would be absurd since there would be no reason for posterior causes to follow prior causes. You can assert that they do as a "brute fact" but that is the opposite of supplying a reason. It's a simple choice based on blind faith about in what type of world you believe we live.

I gave you the answer in the OP. Something or nothing, finite or infinite does not need a cognition as a starting point. If you can accept the seasons of the planet changing without a god, just like lightening does not need Thor to be the gap answer, than the universe can also simply be either a finite thing, or the result of the end of another season that lead to our big bang. Just like a light can be off, get turned on, then go off again. 


Now here is what  real scientist has to say about "nothing".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbsGYRArH_w

I think the reason all god claims fail is that not one of them is presented with actual evidence.

(April 13, 2016 at 5:38 pm)Doubting Thomas Wrote: I think the reason all god claims fail is that not one of them is presented with actual evidence.

Yea......

But on top of that we do literally know the evolutionary reason humans make god claims. Our species evolved to seek patterns, but because in our early evolution we didn't have modern science we gap filled because of our flawed perceptions so we thought those things affecting us must have been controlled by a spirit/god entity with thinking cognition like humans. We projected our qualities on the world around us.

(April 12, 2016 at 9:23 pm)Brian37 Wrote: Not only are they projections of human desires, there is no way to postulate "eternity" with an infinite cognition as the starting point.

why not?

Quote: You cannot claim everything has a cause then ignore the implication that your "super cause" has to have a cause itself.

Why? What if God is not a "thing?"

Quote:"Eternity" is only plausible as an up and down cycle without a cognition.

why?

Quote: Much like a light switch goes from off to on back to off. As soon as you postulate a super hero as the cause of that cycle, then it begs the question as to what caused that super hero, and what caused that super hero and so on. The problem is called "infinite regress".

Ah, no-way. (Say it in a Ted Theodore Logan voice)

All one has to do is simply be smart enough to understand that what is being measured as 'infinate' is the light in the room. Or rather what has been 'created' in a given plane of existence.

No one is making the claim nothing has existed nor can not exist outside of your 'room with a light switch.'
(which leaves room for anything who can reach the light switch the ability to turn it on)

Think of this world this life/your life, as the matrix. There is a 'real world' outside of this one (the area which God exists) God is the creator of the 'matrix' (which again is why everything tastes like chicken) Eternity simply refers to an existence beyond the measure of time we clock at start of or creation this matrix and the ultimate end of it. So when we say God (an infinite being) created "Everything" We are saying a being outside of the matrix/this realm created everything in this being from a specific point in our time and our 'matrix space.'

You see, all your little "can't happens" are easily pooped on when one learns to think outside the little box you've been taught to think in.

No Drich, science has proven where god claims really come from. They are a side affect of humans flawed perceptions and a projection of humans qualities, nothing more.

Our species evolved to seek patterns, the problem is back in our early evolution we did not have the benefit of modern scientific knowledge so when answers lacked we gap filled. God is in your brain, your imagination, nowhere else.

(April 14, 2016 at 1:04 pm)Brian37 Wrote: No Drich, science has proven where god claims really come from. They are a side affect of humans flawed perceptions and a projection of humans qualities, nothing more.

Our species evolved to seek patterns, the problem is back in our early evolution we did not have the benefit of modern scientific knowledge so when answers lacked we gap filled. God is in your brain, your imagination, nowhere else.

Love it!

You start off in a philosophical discussion, when you get your teeth kicked in you retreat to a scientific approach. That is the best concession any atheist anywhere could ever offer! That's what happens when atheists loose a logic and reason discussion, they retreat to their blinders science offers them so they do not have to look anywhere science hasn't already been.

Why else drop the message of the OP and cower behind the dress of 'science.'

So then lets make your failure complete, and call your bluff.

What in the meaning of the word 'theory' suggests to you that 'science' is not gap filling with out 'God?'

NO isn't philosophical it is actual science. God claims are literally a projection of human qualities on non human things. Not my baggage you don't want to accept that.

(April 14, 2016 at 1:45 pm)Brian37 Wrote: NO isn't philosophical it is actual science. God claims are literally a projection of human qualities on non human things.

Citations, please.