Why William Lane Craig is a dope.

[Astonished]

Why don't theists understand that Occam's Razor makes positing a deity as the cause an extraneous, unnecessary contingency when we have an explanation based in the natural world? Their catch-all dodge (which doesn't begin to solve the infinite regress) is no longer able to nudge its way in. The god of the gaps is fucking dead, let's cremate his ass already.

[Jehanne]

Why don't theists understand that Occam's Razor makes positing a deity as the cause an extraneous, unnecessary contingency when we have an explanation based in the natural world? Their catch-all dodge (which doesn't begin to solve the infinite regress) is no longer able to nudge its way in. The god of the gaps is fucking dead, let's cremate his ass already.

It needs to be pointed out that the beginning of the universe is not the only "infinite regress".  Let's take the example of Hawking Radiation, the existence of which surrounds virtual particles, which come into existence spontaneously and then annihilate a very short time later, all within the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, unless, of course, they are on the event horizon of a black hole.  Which caused these virtual particles to come into being?  Now, here is where Dr. Craig likes to do a "bait & switch" -- he'll say things like the "quantum vacuum is not nothing".  But, that is not the point!  Did the quantum vacuum cause the virtual particles to come into existence?  If so, what caused the quantum vacuum to cause the virtual particles?  And, what was the cause of the cause of the quantum vacuum that caused the virtual particles, ad infinitum?

[Astonished]

And it's just as irrelevant as before because it's conjuring something outside of the known universe to do this, so it's still extraneous. Wasn't even worth mentioning, no idea why you'd say it 'needs' to be pointed out. It gets impaled on Occam's Razor at every turn.

[Jehanne]

And it's just as irrelevant as before because it's conjuring something outside of the known universe to do this, so it's still extraneous. Wasn't even worth mentioning, no idea why you'd say it 'needs' to be pointed out. It gets impaled on Occam's Razor at every turn.

Oh, I agree 100%.  I was merely pointing out Craig's "bait & switch" technique, and why theists should not pose the "infinite regress" as being some sort of argument against atheism.  Craig does this, of course.

[Amarok]

I love the whole but if we define god as uncaused  or eternal or outside of time  yada yada yada make believe .As if any of that escapes the problem. Hell I have even meet theists will to admit special pleading but say it does not count because god. Or even worst try and pull the ontological argument . As if just proposing a necessary as possible helps despite all beings we know of are not necessary.

[Astonished]

I love the whole but if we define god as uncaused  or eternal or outside of time  yada yada yada make believe .As if any of that escapes the problem. Hell I have even meet theists will to admit special pleading but say it does not count because god. Or even worst try and pull the ontological argument . As if just proposing a necessary as possible helps despite all beings we know of are not necessary.

And then you ask them to prove why it's necessary, that's always fun. Or by what mechanism god's own existence gets to be exempted from the infinite regress. They can't give a description. It's all fucking woo-woo magic which explains NOTHING.

[Amarok]

I love the whole but if we define god as uncaused  or eternal or outside of time  yada yada yada make believe .As if any of that escapes the problem. Hell I have even meet theists will to admit special pleading but say it does not count because god. Or even worst try and pull the ontological argument . As if just proposing a necessary as possible helps despite all beings we know of are not necessary.

And then you ask them to prove why it's necessary, that's always fun. Or by what mechanism god's own existence gets to be exempted from the infinite regress. They can't give a description. It's all fucking woo-woo magic which explains NOTHING.

Indeed

[Jehanne]

I love the whole but if we define god as uncaused  or eternal or outside of time  yada yada yada make believe .As if any of that escapes the problem. Hell I have even meet theists will to admit special pleading but say it does not count because god. Or even worst try and pull the ontological argument . As if just proposing a necessary as possible helps despite all beings we know of are not necessary.

And then you ask them to prove why it's necessary, that's always fun. Or by what mechanism god's own existence gets to be exempted from the infinite regress. They can't give a description. It's all fucking woo-woo magic which explains NOTHING.

And, that's the point; why bother with God when the the Schrodinger equation clearly implies that the Universe is eternal, both beginningless and endless?  The Schrodinger equation, unlike God, can be written down, tested, observed, found to agree with observation and experiment, and leads to the prediction of new observations and experiments.  "God" is ill-defined, untestable and leads to no predictions of any kind.  The whole concept is woo-woo:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woo-woo

[Astonished]

And then you ask them to prove why it's necessary, that's always fun. Or by what mechanism god's own existence gets to be exempted from the infinite regress. They can't give a description. It's all fucking woo-woo magic which explains NOTHING.

And, that's the point; why bother with God when the the Schrodinger equation clearly implies that the Universe is eternal, both beginningless and endless?  The Schrodinger equation, unlike God, can be written down, tested, observed, found to agree with observation and experiment, and leads to the prediction of new observations and experiments.  "God" is ill-defined, untestable and leads to no predictions of any kind.  The whole concept is woo-woo:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woo-woo

Right. The deist god of nebulous thought but which is credited with setting the big bang and whatnot in motion is already shanked in the gut by Occam's Razor, but to add any theistic claims about any other attributes is where the problems lie. I could deal with someone thinking there was something behind everything as long as there was absolutely no follow-up contemplation about it whatsoever and they went on about their lives like they do with everything else. But that's not how anyone treats religion or spirituality.