What is wrong with this premise?

[Minimalist]

An evolutionary system caused my existence.

Nope. Billions of years of accumulated change caused your existence - there was nothing systematic about it.

Jesus Fucking H Christ, Chas, just think of that. Billions of years of evolution to end up with Woodie.

[Heywood]

Premise: Everything that has come into existence has had a cause.

What is wrong with the above premise?

Then what "caused" god?

Maybe I'll do a thread on it someday.

[Chas]

Nope. Billions of years of accumulated change caused your existence - there was nothing systematic about it.

Jesus Fucking H Christ, Chas, just think of that. Billions of years of evolution to end up with Woodie.

Evolution is mindless.

[Minimalist]

That makes two of them!

[IATIA]

Premise: Everything that has come into existence has had a cause.

What is wrong with the above premise?

Then what "caused" god?

Maybe I'll do a thread on it someday.

It would seem that your premise insists that this be the thread as I am sure that is where you are headed.

As to your premise, it is false.

If we have a 'first cause', the problem is what was 'before' the first cause. An infinity before the first cause would never pass to allow for a first cause. There must then be nothing before the first cause which then means the first cause always existed.

Whoops! Same problem.

If the first cause always existed then we are still dealing with an infinity and infinite regression just does not work. Therefore, time does not exist, everything just is and there is no first cause and causality becomes just an artifact of our linear thinking. There is no first, there is no last, there is no before, there is no after. Everything just is.

We do not need a god either as nothing was created. Creation requires causality, which requires time, which again invokes infinite regression.

I know you are going to argue this until you are blue in the face, but no argument against this can avoid the infinite regression. Do not feel too bad about this as the atheists here will also be attacking my particular views, so you will have lots of help. Go figure. Atheists and theists working together.

[ManMachine]

Premise: Everything that has come into existence has had a cause.

What is wrong with the above premise?

Because its not necessarily true.

The idea that the word and the Universe we live in is made of matter ('stuff') may seem self-evident, but the truth is much stranger. I don't want to go into it here because the reality of the Universe is actually much weirder than the notion of an overseeing god or gods.

In what we call the 'macro' Universe and for systems that adhere to Newtonian principles, this is broadly true. But you need to understand that Newtonian physics does not hold true for the Quantum Universe and effect can occur before a cause, and this has been experimentally proven. We have some great theory as to why this may be but no one really knows for sure.

So there you have it, your premise is too simple to be true and the truth (as far as we can understand it) is too complicated from the majority of people to grasp.

MM

[Heywood]

But you need to understand that Newtonian physics does not hold true for the Quantum Universe and effect can occur before a cause, and this has been experimentally proven.

An effect that occurs before a cause still has a cause. Any "lack of causality" in quantum mechanics may simply be an artifact of our in ability to accurately interpret the wave function.

[Davka]

But you need to understand that Newtonian physics does not hold true for the Quantum Universe and effect can occur before a cause, and this has been experimentally proven.

An effect that occurs before a cause still has a cause. Any "lack of causality" in quantum mechanics may simply be an artifact of our in ability to accurately interpret the wave function.

All of which is irrelevant to your original premise. Your premise suffers from the glaringly obvious fact that it has no basis in reality, and has already been falsified.

[ManMachine]

But you need to understand that Newtonian physics does not hold true for the Quantum Universe and effect can occur before a cause, and this has been experimentally proven.

An effect that occurs before a cause still has a cause. Any "lack of causality" in quantum mechanics may simply be an artifact of our in ability to accurately interpret the wave function.

Very true, what I was driving at is that the premise contains knowledge that is assumed to be a priori (cause comes before effect in an Newtonian sense), I am merely calling that into question.

I think it's fair to propose that 'cause comes before effect' is no longer a priori knowledge.

MM

[wiploc]

All quantum physicist can say is that some things come into existence without local causes.

Right, you tell those quantum physicists what to believe.

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I think it's fair to propose that 'cause comes before effect' is no longer a priori knowledge.

I disagree. I think it's a matter of definition. You can claim that bullet holes cause guns to fire, but that would require adopting a new and different a priori definition.