Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[The Grand Nudger]

I still can't believe people here are seriously second-guessing causality, what else is left if we start shooting down the simplest principles of thought..

You're doing it again.  No one has to shoot down any principles.  A person can grant causality in full.....and still think your god inference is poorly constructed.  I know I do.  Because they don't have anything to do with each other.

The question of whether any theistic god exists is a question of whether there is a personal and intervening force or being operating in reality as described, for example, in any of our myths - on our behalf.  The answer to that question, and arguments to the effect of yay or nay, have literally nothing to do with however the causality cookie crumbles.  It doesn't even matter how the god cookie crumbles.  

The evidential problem of evil directly refers to this when positing indifference.  You can be given cause, and even be granted supernatural beings - and it will then be argued that supernatural indifference is a better explanation for the state of affairs in this world than theism.

This is a really downgraded definition of a deity. If the benevolent deity is also omnipotent, then nothing escapes its will, including evil.

If you searched the boards you'd find no end of long doomed arguments to that effect.  If I had a nickel for every time one god botherer told me some other god botherers god concept was trash, I'd be rich.  However, the bit at the end there is where the logical problem of evil arises.  Being omnipotent has logical consequences.  The tri-omni combination also has logical consequences, compounded with every purported omni-attribute.  

If god is willing to prevent evil but not able to prevent evil - then god is not omnipotent.  Able, but not willing?  Not omnibenevolent.  

Able and willing - then where does evil come from?

[Rahn127]

From an early age I clearly saw that the god of the bible was evil and I was living in a country that worshipped this god.

It was a very strange feeling to realize that most everyone I knew was either evil or brainwashed.

[Jehanne]

-and no further explanation or description of causaulity has lead to any revision in the god concepts allegedly premised upon god as the grand nudger.

Because they don't have anything to do with one another, don't suggest or imply anything about one another, and aren't interchangeable as arguments for each other.  So..yeah, no amount of poly explaining the difference between classical notions and quantum mechanics has done a thing for you, huh?

Ground zero.

Don't tell me you think QM violates causality......... For the upteenth time: QM changes the definition of an object, a particle at the quantum level can display counterintuitive phenomena such as quantum entangement. Once we adopt the "quantum definition" of the particle, we can plug the new definition into the assertion of causality and the principle remains valid. This misunderstanding only arises if one tries to fit causality with outdated definitions of particles as in classical mechanics.

I still can't believe people here are seriously second-guessing causality, what else is left if we start shooting down the simplest principles of thought..

Because, it's not as clear-cut as you imagine; I already posted this:

Abraham–Lorentz force

From 21st Century Astronomy, 4th edition:



Ergo, not every event (in physics, something that happens at a particular point in space at a particular time) has a cause; most, in fact, do not.

[Belacqua]

Ergo, not every event (in physics, something that happens at a particular point in space at a particular time) has a cause; most, in fact, do not.

When discussing causality in theology, they are not talking only about efficient causes, which is what you're referring to.

Aitia (Greek: αἰτία), the word that Aristotle used to refer to the causal explanation, has, in philosophical traditional, been translated as "cause." This peculiar, specialized, technical, usage of the word "cause" is not that of everyday English language.

"The cause of X" in theology means something like "that which must be the case in order for X to be the case." All of the events in physics which you're talking about require something to be the case in order for them to happen. For example, the universe must exist. The laws of nature must be as they are. etc. etc.

Everything you're talking about has αἰτία. 

[Jehanne]

Ergo, not every event (in physics, something that happens at a particular point in space at a particular time) has a cause; most, in fact, do not.

When discussing causality in theology, they are not talking only about efficient causes, which is what you're referring to.

Aitia (Greek: αἰτία), the word that Aristotle used to refer to the causal explanation, has, in philosophical traditional, been translated as "cause." This peculiar, specialized, technical, usage of the word "cause" is not that of everyday English language.

"The cause of X" in theology means something like "that which must be the case in order for X to be the case." All of the events in physics which you're talking about require something to be the case in order for them to happen. For example, the universe must exist. The laws of nature must be as they are. etc. etc.

Everything you're talking about has αἰτία. 

If it can't be measured, then, it doesn't exist, or, at least it doesn't matter if it exists or not.

[Belacqua]

When discussing causality in theology, they are not talking only about efficient causes, which is what you're referring to.


"The cause of X" in theology means something like "that which must be the case in order for X to be the case." All of the events in physics which you're talking about require something to be the case in order for them to happen. For example, the universe must exist. The laws of nature must be as they are. etc. etc.

Everything you're talking about has αἰτία. 

If it can't be measured, then, it doesn't exist, or, at least it doesn't matter if it exists or not.

One can't measure stupidity.

[Jehanne]

If it can't be measured, then, it doesn't exist, or, at least it doesn't matter if it exists or not.

One can't measure stupidity.

It depends on how one defines "stupid".  Most experts claim that IQ can, in fact, be measured, that it is partly genetic, partly environment, and mostly stable over one's lifetime.

[Angrboda]

Ergo, not every event (in physics, something that happens at a particular point in space at a particular time) has a cause; most, in fact, do not.

When discussing causality in theology, they are not talking only about efficient causes, which is what you're referring to.

Aitia (Greek: αἰτία), the word that Aristotle used to refer to the causal explanation, has, in philosophical traditional, been translated as "cause." This peculiar, specialized, technical, usage of the word "cause" is not that of everyday English language.

"The cause of X" in theology means something like "that which must be the case in order for X to be the case." All of the events in physics which you're talking about require something to be the case in order for them to happen. For example, the universe must exist. The laws of nature must be as they are. etc. etc.

Everything you're talking about has αἰτία. 

Which may not make much sense. In order for a baseball to break a window, the ball, the bat, and the window must be the case. But also, the earth must be just so, the gravitational constant be just so, the sun be where it is, and everything in the universe which can in some way be traced back to the beginning of the universe the way it is, for if that were different, the universe's beginning would be different, and might lead to a different fate for the baseball. So, that definition of cause seems to lead to everything in the universe being the cause of any specific event.

[polymath257]

-and no further explanation or description of causaulity has lead to any revision in the god concepts allegedly premised upon god as the grand nudger.

Because they don't have anything to do with one another, don't suggest or imply anything about one another, and aren't interchangeable as arguments for each other.  So..yeah, no amount of poly explaining the difference between classical notions and quantum mechanics has done a thing for you, huh?

Ground zero.

Don't tell me you think QM violates causality......... For the upteenth time: QM changes the definition of an object, a particle at the quantum level can display counterintuitive phenomena such as quantum entangement. Once we adopt the "quantum definition" of the particle, we can plug the new definition into the assertion of causality and the principle remains valid. This misunderstanding only arises if one tries to fit causality with outdated definitions of particles as in classical mechanics.

I still can't believe people here are seriously second-guessing causality, what else is left if we start shooting down the simplest principles of thought..

They will and have.  Positing, for example, that evil is not decided upon or done by god - but by man, or through a privation of gods creation.

This is a really downgraded definition of a deity. If the benevolent deity is also omnipotent, then nothing escapes its will, including evil.

The point is that causality isn't a principle of thought. It is a testable hypothesis about how the universe works.

The quantum definition of 'particle' includes the fact that its properties are probabilistic and not determinate. it includes the fact that many interactions are not determined, but probabilistic. It includes things like the fact that decays are probabilistic and there is NOTHING that determines when a decaying nucleus will decay.

In other words, the quantum definition of particle includes the fact that such are non-causal in nature.

So your basic claim is wrong: determinism doesn't work in QM the way you claim it does. It works at the level of probabilities, not at the level of events.

[vulcanlogician]

So your basic claim is wrong: determinism doesn't work in QM the way you claim it does. It works at the level of probabilities, not at the level of events.

But couldn't there (hypothetically) be events that do cause the nucleus to decay, but we aren't aware of them/are unable to observe them?

Not asking in the context of the debate... just in a "curious about science" way.