Proof of God

[robvalue]

Also, this argument doesn't demonstrate that the "God" still exists, if it existed in the first place. Saying the universe needs maintaining is an assertion unrelated to the argument.

This Kalam stuff is about the worst of all the arguments as it has piles of problems.

[Harris]

Most Harrises are unaware of the popular quarrel between theists and atheists concerning the existence of god.

Theist: There is a god.
Atheist: Prove it.

The right way to say is:

Atheist: there is no God
Theist: Prove it.

Prove the necessary being is a thinking being.

Logically, universe cannot be the outcome of chance or accident. Entire universe is in a necessary order with the first cause. The logical pattern of the universe comes forth from it necessarily, as premises from a principle.

Human necessary substance is personal in that it is an intelligent being having both intellectual and emotive consciousness. Intellect and emotive consciousness are immaterial and are not subject to coincidences because all scientific and logical reasoning go against the coincidence, chance, and accident.

Appearance of design in plants and animals made it difficult to find a plausible explanation in something other than the activity of an intelligent being. Therefore, a foothold in ultimate explanations remained; and certain phenomena in nature, particularly the apparent design in plants and animals, continued to suggest an intelligent being exercising a causal influence within nature.

This. The atheist position is not nothingness, or alternative, it's simply that nobody has adequately proved God. It's a lack of belief due to lack of evidence not a lack of belief due to a priori belief in something different.

The proof of necessary God lies in the impossibility to prove Nothingness and in the impracticality of unknown ambiguous mystery that act as alternate substitute of intelligent God, The Grand Designer.

All symmetries, harmonies, balances and orders are fine-tuned precisely to constant values. These physical constants are sufficient evidences for the existence of an Intelligent God.

If you prefer to have physical appearance of God as evidence in place of universe then you should reject the existence of gravity as well, as it too has no appearance.

Science is not able to provide absolute knowledge yet you believe in science as if it is your god.

Your logic above hinges on turning that lack of belief into a positive belief, then attempting to assault that position. But it isn't. Co-incidentally, you don't get to make "nothing can come from nothing" as a law, not unless you can come up with the force which created God

The question, “Who created God?” initiates infinite regressive series of questions about infinite number of gods. That simply means there is no universe and you know that is not true. Because universe exists, therefore, the question “who caused God?” is wrong. God is the uncaused Being Who caused everything else. If human mind do not grasp the idea of timeless God it is because human life is a captive of aging process.

Most atheists will admit that it may be possible some sort of being created our universe/reality, just that there's no actual reason to think so.

If there is such a creator, so what? What practical difference does it make to anything? Even if I knew there was one, it would make fuck all difference to me.

In other words, unless you got some astounding further evidence or argument up your sleeve, this kind of thing leads nowhere.

(Sorry Exian couldn't resist I'm tired of these arguments that have no consequence even if correct! I keep bringing this up and no one addresses it.)

The astounding evidence is the logical fact that you cannot give counter argument to the idea that there indeed is something who created the Universe.

The question if God really exists then “what practical difference does it make to anything?”

Your life is dependent over this universe. Nature is so precisely balanced that you feel no physical exertions over your body. Gravity, atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, earth’s magnetic fields, wind speed, balance of oxygen and other gases in the air, etc. are precisely tuned to keep you healthy and joyful. Only increase of 60 degrees Celsius is sufficient for all ocean water to evaporate.

If you are totally immersed in your enjoyments then give thanks to the balance and harmony among the forces and objects of the universe that provide you most comfortable atmosphere and all life supporting resources without any of which you would not be able to survive. Fine-tuning works so well that you even do not bother to contemplate over the reality of this universe. You think that nature should work for your comfort and enjoyment as if it is your servant.

If we say God does not exist then we are left with THREE options:

a. Nothingness or
b. Alternate of God or

c. EVERYTHING AS IT IS MINUS ONE MORE IMAGINARY FRIEND

Do you have some REAL FRIEND? If you have one, would you mind sharing some details about HIM?

If you do not have any REAL FRIEND then are you accentuating the idea that universe is self-sustainable and eternal, came out of nothingness, or created its own self?

I'm starting to see the benefit of DeistPaladin's approach.

I give you your "creator", call it a god if you want to.

What can you do with it? Are you going to make the assumption that one of our man made myths about it must be correct? Because I've got some story books too.

I'll be away most of the day, so for those it may concern I won't be able to reply to stuff until later/tomorrow. (I see something going on in my blog thread but don't have time to check it out now!)

Is your life yours? Can you run away from your aging process or from your death?

No proof in OP.

Downvote.

What do you have in place of God?

I give you your "creator", call it a god if you want to.

What can you do with it? Are you going to make the assumption that one of our man made myths about it must be correct? Because I've got some story books too.

That's more and less my approach. I'll grant a necessary thing exists but it needs to proven that said being has attributes like thinking and experiencing in anyway like a human that isn't obscure(I hate obscure analogies), all the omni attributes, and such.

You were nothing only a 100 years back. Your consciousness literally came out from nowhere. You are now an intelligent being who speaks language, uses different notions, metaphors, analogies, and examples to express your inner world. Every blood cell and every single neuron in your body has the power to communicate with each other and to take decisions. The great order and harmony within your body makes you capable of performing extremely difficult tasks such as speaking in different languages but with no virtual efforts.

All that Balance, Order, and harmony within your body are so precise that you are enjoying your life so much so that you do not even bother to know how universe is keeping you alive and what the reality of universe is. Contemplate over the functioning of your body and the universe and you will see the obvious signs of Intelligent God.

Feel that sharp, sick-inducing pain? That's vacuum fluctuation kicking you in the balls.

Nothingness has no metaphor, analogy and example.

Hasn't this been dismissed already, in various occasions?

First premise: wrong!

The definitions employed are faulty. Our brains cannot grasp what it means "to begin to exist" in a real sense. We can grasp what it means to begin to exist in a transformative sense: things get transformed into other things


- A few planks of wood get transformed into a chair or a table; two hydrogen nuclei get transformed into an alpha particle, a bunch of organic matter is transformed into a new baby, etc...


But nowhere in here is anything purely created, just transformed.


And, indeed, for a transformative event, you need some prior energy, something that acts on something else. But that is not where you want to apply this premise. You want magic to happen to nothing creating the building blocks of the Universe.

No one can disprove the premise one.

Whether existing things transformed into other things or things developed out of available resources, everything that begins to exist has a cause. There is nothing eternal in the universe including universe itself.

Second premise: Not necessarily! At best, you can claim that, at the big bang, all the particles that were later transformed into hydrogen, stars, planets, etc. were created... but... given that our understanding of "created" relies on a transformative event, that means that something would have to exist prior to the Universe... and that is what current physics is suggesting with virtual particles and fields that, under some conditions do cross into real particles... it is a possibility.
Can you safely say that the big bang wasn't itself a tranformative event from some unknown (very likely unknowable) state into what we call the known universe... the known particles?

If it was, then, just like the stars don't need a helping hand to become super-novae, then the universe too would need no help in becoming what we see now

Suppose you are right and universe came out from some existing stuff. Does that change anything in the premise two? Does that means universe has no beginning? Your body also developed out from available stuff, does that mean you have no beginning.

Hence, "premise" 3 follows in the same way as any other event in the cosmos... it is as it is. No magic is required!

And your conclusion that the only power that could give rise to a Universe is god is completely erroneous. It could happen by purely natural means.

Is “Natural” some law or force or is it some mystical phenomenon. How and why NATURAL is happening. What exactly NATURAL is? Do you have ANY scientific definition for it?

Unless you wish to call that process "god", but why carry all the baggage associated with all the gods that have ever been created by human imagination into that definition?

Do you mean that sentient beings, non-sentient beings, and this universe are the products of Chance or Accident? If you think that chance and accident cannot cause the universe then what are your assumptions for this cause.

Even if we agreed with this very feeble reasoning, you'd still be nowhere near proving God. Merely - a god-like (from our perspective) creator, possibly no longer existing or interested in his creation.

What do you have in place of God?

As for “whether the Creator is interested in His creations or not” I will talk once you are confident that indeed universe cannot be without a cause.

Now if you'd like to enlighten us - what exactly is supposed to convince us, that this hypothetical being whispered its alleged commandments into the ears of illiterate barbarians, in the middle of the desert, thousands of years ago? Even if there is a god, the verses you're quoting are - until proven otherwise - just bad poetry, from primitive minds.

Doubt is a disease that takes away sight from the mind’s eye. Be optimist rather pessimist and give a neutral thought to the idea even if it seems to be false in the first look.

What you feel when you contemplate over universe, nature, and your own being? Is there anything surprising or do you think everything should serve you in making your life comfortable and joyful. Is your infinitesimal life is to have enjoyment? Think wisely, why your life is so short.

You're basically saying that non existence is meaningless and therefore it cannot be the end. That's not how it works. Life is not fair lad.

I am not saying non-existence is meaningless. I am saying Nothingness is meaningless.

The short summery of this is that you don't know, and I don't how the universe began, but you say you definitely know god did it and I say I don't know.

For me, logical evidences and Quran are more than sufficient that I blindly believe in the existence of God. The logical truths are so powerful that after I understood their real meanings my mind’s eye practically and intuitively see evidence of God in almost everything and everywhere.

You list a few things as being illogical, then replace them with a being that exists outside of space. A being who can be conscious, make decisions and actions outside of time. Someone who is none physical yet can affect the physical world. A being that had to have created everything out of nothing unless we are made from whatever god is made from.

There are really two radical halves of the universe. The physical realm and the mental realm.

The physical realm contains all physical thing. These things (including your bodies) have physical dimensions and these exist at particular places at particular time.

The mantel realm contains your thoughts, your hopes, your emotions, your imaginings, and your consciousness.

Consider a can of pineapple. It is a particular physical stuff in particular space and time. It is a part of physical universe.

However, the taste of pineapple is something different. It is essentially mental. You can imagine how pineapple tastes right now and in doing so, you are accessing the mental side. You cannot depict taste by means of physical properties because taste has no physical dimensions.

However, these two realms are essentially different kinds of things. One exist in the physical world and one not.

Your physical actions are caused by your mental actions. When you are thirsty, you drink water. Because of your mental sensation and because of your mental desire you make a mental decision. As a direct result, your body perform certain predetermined physical actions to quench your thirst. The mental causes the physical.

If you want to see a physical cause that causes a mental cause then buy a physical bottle of scotch. Pour down that physical liquid in your physical body through your physical throat and look what happens next in your mental realm.

If you doubt in the existence of mind then consider the following argument.

Your doubt about God is the mental side of the universe. You can doubt everything. You can even doubt that your body is not yours.

Is there anything you cannot doubt?

If you doubt that you are doubting that means you are still doubting. As long as you are doubting you cannot doubt that.

Rene Descartes (1596–1650) based on these facts propose:

1. I cannot doubt that I am doubting
2. I cannot be deceived about whether I am thinking

If you are thinking or doubting then you exist.

I think, therefore I exist.
Cogito ergo sum.

If I am thinking then I must have a mind.

The important point here is if your mind does not exist in the physical realm and yet it effects your physical body then why you think God is unreal outside time and space.

The First Cause (AKA Kallam Cosmological) Argument has made a bit of resurgence on the board over the past couple of weeks. What's happened? Has a WLC vid been doing the rounds?

Harris, it's a nonsense argument because:

1. it ignores the fact that there are states of the universe (other than the one we currently inhabit) where causality, as we experience it, may not exist

There is no way to determine the properties of any other universe in the multiverse if they do indeed exist, for they are forever outside observational reach. The idea of multiverse emerges from the idea of existing universe. The pattern on which our universe exist is atoms made molecules, molecules made substances, substances made bodies, planetary systems made solar systems, solar systems made galaxies, galaxies made universe and if we extend this same pattern then we have multiverse and then multiverse of multiverses and so on into infinity.

No serious astronomer or physicist suggests that there are an infinite number of universes. But there could be an extremely large number of universes in the cosmos, and the number might be potentially infinite (that is, finite at any moment of time but open to an infinite future). If we assign laws and principles of nature randomly among all these universes in the cosmos, the fact that ours is so well fine-tuned for the sustenance of intelligent life seems less surprising.

2. There's no such thing as 'Nothing'

Agreed, “there is no such thing as ‘nohingness’”

3. The most you can get from this is a deistic, impersonal, distant god, far removed from the theistic definitions of god

If you are convinced that there indeed a necessary thinking being who is the Grand Designer then I would be in position to talk about the known qualities of God. Whether God is impersonal, distant and far removed from theistic definitions is only a matter of refining the thoughts through logical evidences.

4. It fails to tell us where god comes from so it just pushes the answer back a step: it only pretends to be an answer but really leaves us with more questions than we had before

God is an uncaused being because once you answer, “who created God?” that answer fires infinite series of question, “who created the second God that created the first God?” and so on. In simple words, the question “who created God?” means there is no universe but because there is universe therefore the question “who created God?” is wrong.

Have a look around the board, you'll see plenty of other recent rebuttals to your argument.

Please give your best argument against Fine-Tuning, Cosmological argument, and Intelligent Design, if you have any.

I say there are no invisible pink unicorns. End of story?

I do not have proofs favouring the idea of unicorn or condemning it. Perhaps unicorn is a distorted image of some real fact. If that is true then I do not have any clue on that either.

No, because humans like clinging to superstition. Bad claims persist because fear and ego allow people to cling to the past. This is no "philosophy" anymore than debating Scientology knowing a si fi writer started it.

I have concretely given you logical facts from the real world. In place of undervaluing my argument based on pure subjective speech, give logical objective reasons to show how and why my reasoning is false.

There is no debate. There are simply humans who refuse to get with the times because warm fuzzies and the idea of a cosmic security guard gives them a false sense of comfort.

Sense of comfort is not the benchmark to evaluate the purpose of your existence. A very good sense of comfort can also be achieved through narcotics.

I can only say it still needs to be addressed because humans interject their superstitions into politics globally and also control weapons. But as far as neutral evidence that is falsified and peer reviewed they have nothing.

Religion, no matter how corrupted, still has the qualities to guide people to the moral path whereas atheism pushes people purely to arrogance and to indifferent attitude to other people’s life.

I came here looking for proof of god. Now I'm disappointed.

You are disappointed because you have not understood my argument.

Oh look, another proof of god that is only negative, boiling down to "you don't know, but I'm going to claim I know the only possibility is god, therefore god."

Harris, you do know that claims require positive evidence to be true, right? You can't just poke holes in what everyone else thinks and assume that makes what you think true; subtracting from zero will never give you a positive number.

Oh, who am I kidding? You don't know anything.

You have my post and you are free to criticise. However, without logical reasoning, you sounds exactly "you don't know, but I'm going to claim I know the only possibility is no god, therefore no god."

I don't get how it can be a proof of god if it doesn't prove a necessarily thinking thing exists necessarily.

In my post, I had demonstrated that Universe cannot exist without necessary being and that necessary being is God.

Universe is a place of order, balance and symmetry; also of change and conflict, subordinated to larger-scale patterns of stability. Symmetry consists in a proper agreement between the members of the universe and relation between the different parts and the whole general scheme. In common usage, the term symmetry often refers to a certain pleasing proportion or balance.

The most familiar understanding of order in the West is associated with uniformity and pattern regularity. This logical or rational ordering is an implication of the cosmological assumptions, which characterize the logos of a cosmos in terms of causal laws and formal patterns. A second sense of order is characterized by concrete particularities whose uniqueness is essential to the order itself.

When searching for new theories in science, symmetries are a guide to discovery. For example, Kepler sought order and harmony in the universe, a conviction that guided him in his successful search for the true orbits of the planets.

The whole point is that universe and nature are intelligible. We are intelligible according to the laws, which govern everything.

Human intuition is the noblest kind of knowledge because it presents itself by itself in the soul and is not subject to generation and corruption. Through reason, we overcome all obstacles to reach God through the intellect, which is the medium between human beings and the supernatural world. Reason has the power to contact the super-sensible beings until it reaches the First Being.

Order, symmetry, and harmony are the evidences that the cause of the universe is the intelligent God.

Esquilax Wrote: Oh look, another proof of god that is only negative, boiling down to "you don't know, but I'm going to claim I know the only possibility is god, therefore god."

ChadWooters Wrote: Always setting up the same straw man, I see.

Perhaps you have some alternate of God.

Esquilax Wrote: Oh look, another proof of god that is only negative, boiling down to "you don't know, but I'm going to claim I know the only possibility is god, therefore god."
Always setting up the same straw man, I see.


Pizz-atheist Wrote: Seems like a fair claim for Esquilax to make given the OP lacks arguments for the "God of Abraham" and givens only arguments for the the abstract God of the philosophers and scientists.

If you are okay with the idea that there exist necessary being then we can take a step ahead and define what that necessary being is. It is not wise to discuss the qualities of something in the existence of which you do not accept as true.

Harris Wrote:
Atheist: Prove there is God
Theist: Prove there is no God


Minimalist Wrote:

Absurd. More like:

Atheist: There is no evidence for any god.
Theist: MY GOD IS REAL...Wah, Wah, Wah!

Can you disprove anything in my post by means of reason and logic?

Harris Wrote: Logically, Nothingness does not exist and there is no alternate of God. Alternate of God is God.

ChadWooters Wrote: I repeat: "You don't know, but I'm going to claim I know the only possibility is god, therefore god."

Esquilax Wrote: You're just embarrassing yourself, Chad.

I do not understand why you always talk as the mood takes you. I think we are not discussing about your personal and subjective thoughts here. If you disagree with something then you should give logical reasoning in place of showing your personal feelings and thoughts.

Wrong. It goes more like this:

Atheist: Good Morning! A lovely day we're having.
Theist: You can't disprove existence of a god, therefore the one true God is the one that loves me and wants me to live forever!
Atheist: Uh... A-what, now?

Are lovely days and lovely nights the only purpose of your infinitesimal life?

Also, this argument doesn't demonstrate that the "God" still exists, if it existed in the first place. Saying the universe needs maintaining is an assertion unrelated to the argument.

This Kalam stuff is about the worst of all the arguments as it has piles of problems.

Please, do not talk in non-representational manner. If you have something real that is logical and reasonable then use it, otherwise whatever you are saying is meaningless.

[robvalue]

...give thanks to the balance and harmony among the forces and objects of the universe that provide you most comfortable atmosphere and all life supporting resources without any of which you would not be able to survive. Fine-tuning works so well that you even do not bother to contemplate over the reality of this universe. You think that nature should work for your comfort and enjoyment as if it is your servant.

How am I meant to do this? How do I give thanks, and to what? Also, my life is fucking shit, so really I'm not all that thankful.

[bennyboy]

Most Harrises are unaware of the popular quarrel between theists and atheists concerning the existence of god.

Theist: There is a god.
Atheist: Prove it.

The right way to say is:

Atheist: there is no God
Theist: Prove it.

That's retarded. /thread

[FatAndFaithless]

Harris is blatantly misrepresenting the atheist position and being dishonest about what we think?

I'm shocked. Absolutely and utterly surprised. I've never seen this before.

[TheRealJoeFish]

---

Most Harrises are unaware of the popular quarrel between theists and atheists concerning the existence of god.

Theist: There is a god.
Atheist: Prove it.

The right way to say is:

Atheist: there is no God
Theist: Prove it.

Prove the necessary being is a thinking being.

Logically, universe cannot be the outcome of chance or accident. Entire universe is in a necessary order with the first cause. The logical pattern of the universe comes forth from it necessarily, as premises from a principle.

Human necessary substance is personal in that it is an intelligent being having both intellectual and emotive consciousness. Intellect and emotive consciousness are immaterial and are not subject to coincidences because all scientific and logical reasoning go against the coincidence, chance, and accident.

Appearance of design in plants and animals made it difficult to find a plausible explanation in something other than the activity of an intelligent being. Therefore, a foothold in ultimate explanations remained; and certain phenomena in nature, particularly the apparent design in plants and animals, continued to suggest an intelligent being exercising a causal influence within nature.

This. The atheist position is not nothingness, or alternative, it's simply that nobody has adequately proved God. It's a lack of belief due to lack of evidence not a lack of belief due to a priori belief in something different.

The proof of necessary God lies in the impossibility to prove Nothingness and in the impracticality of unknown ambiguous mystery that act as alternate substitute of intelligent God, The Grand Designer.

All symmetries, harmonies, balances and orders are fine-tuned precisely to constant values. These physical constants are sufficient evidences for the existence of an Intelligent God.

If you prefer to have physical appearance of God as evidence in place of universe then you should reject the existence of gravity as well, as it too has no appearance.

Science is not able to provide absolute knowledge yet you believe in science as if it is your god.

Your logic above hinges on turning that lack of belief into a positive belief, then attempting to assault that position. But it isn't. Co-incidentally, you don't get to make "nothing can come from nothing" as a law, not unless you can come up with the force which created God

The question, “Who created God?” initiates infinite regressive series of questions about infinite number of gods. That simply means there is no universe and you know that is not true. Because universe exists, therefore, the question “who caused God?” is wrong. God is the uncaused Being Who caused everything else. If human mind do not grasp the idea of timeless God it is because human life is a captive of aging process.

Most atheists will admit that it may be possible some sort of being created our universe/reality, just that there's no actual reason to think so.

If there is such a creator, so what? What practical difference does it make to anything? Even if I knew there was one, it would make fuck all difference to me.

In other words, unless you got some astounding further evidence or argument up your sleeve, this kind of thing leads nowhere.

(Sorry Exian couldn't resist I'm tired of these arguments that have no consequence even if correct! I keep bringing this up and no one addresses it.)

The astounding evidence is the logical fact that you cannot give counter argument to the idea that there indeed is something who created the Universe.

The question if God really exists then “what practical difference does it make to anything?”

Your life is dependent over this universe. Nature is so precisely balanced that you feel no physical exertions over your body. Gravity, atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, earth’s magnetic fields, wind speed, balance of oxygen and other gases in the air, etc. are precisely tuned to keep you healthy and joyful. Only increase of 60 degrees Celsius is sufficient for all ocean water to evaporate.

If you are totally immersed in your enjoyments then give thanks to the balance and harmony among the forces and objects of the universe that provide you most comfortable atmosphere and all life supporting resources without any of which you would not be able to survive. Fine-tuning works so well that you even do not bother to contemplate over the reality of this universe. You think that nature should work for your comfort and enjoyment as if it is your servant.

If we say God does not exist then we are left with THREE options:

a. Nothingness or
b. Alternate of God or

c. EVERYTHING AS IT IS MINUS ONE MORE IMAGINARY FRIEND

Do you have some REAL FRIEND? If you have one, would you mind sharing some details about HIM?

If you do not have any REAL FRIEND then are you accentuating the idea that universe is self-sustainable and eternal, came out of nothingness, or created its own self?

I'm starting to see the benefit of DeistPaladin's approach.

I give you your "creator", call it a god if you want to.

What can you do with it? Are you going to make the assumption that one of our man made myths about it must be correct? Because I've got some story books too.

I'll be away most of the day, so for those it may concern I won't be able to reply to stuff until later/tomorrow. (I see something going on in my blog thread but don't have time to check it out now!)

Is your life yours? Can you run away from your aging process or from your death?

No proof in OP.

Downvote.

What do you have in place of God?

I give you your "creator", call it a god if you want to.

What can you do with it? Are you going to make the assumption that one of our man made myths about it must be correct? Because I've got some story books too.

That's more and less my approach. I'll grant a necessary thing exists but it needs to proven that said being has attributes like thinking and experiencing in anyway like a human that isn't obscure(I hate obscure analogies), all the omni attributes, and such.

You were nothing only a 100 years back. Your consciousness literally came out from nowhere. You are now an intelligent being who speaks language, uses different notions, metaphors, analogies, and examples to express your inner world. Every blood cell and every single neuron in your body has the power to communicate with each other and to take decisions. The great order and harmony within your body makes you capable of performing extremely difficult tasks such as speaking in different languages but with no virtual efforts.

All that Balance, Order, and harmony within your body are so precise that you are enjoying your life so much so that you do not even bother to know how universe is keeping you alive and what the reality of universe is. Contemplate over the functioning of your body and the universe and you will see the obvious signs of Intelligent God.

Feel that sharp, sick-inducing pain? That's vacuum fluctuation kicking you in the balls.

Nothingness has no metaphor, analogy and example.

Hasn't this been dismissed already, in various occasions?

First premise: wrong!

The definitions employed are faulty. Our brains cannot grasp what it means "to begin to exist" in a real sense. We can grasp what it means to begin to exist in a transformative sense: things get transformed into other things


- A few planks of wood get transformed into a chair or a table; two hydrogen nuclei get transformed into an alpha particle, a bunch of organic matter is transformed into a new baby, etc...


But nowhere in here is anything purely created, just transformed.


And, indeed, for a transformative event, you need some prior energy, something that acts on something else. But that is not where you want to apply this premise. You want magic to happen to nothing creating the building blocks of the Universe.

No one can disprove the premise one.

Whether existing things transformed into other things or things developed out of available resources, everything that begins to exist has a cause. There is nothing eternal in the universe including universe itself.

Second premise: Not necessarily! At best, you can claim that, at the big bang, all the particles that were later transformed into hydrogen, stars, planets, etc. were created... but... given that our understanding of "created" relies on a transformative event, that means that something would have to exist prior to the Universe... and that is what current physics is suggesting with virtual particles and fields that, under some conditions do cross into real particles... it is a possibility.
Can you safely say that the big bang wasn't itself a tranformative event from some unknown (very likely unknowable) state into what we call the known universe... the known particles?

If it was, then, just like the stars don't need a helping hand to become super-novae, then the universe too would need no help in becoming what we see now

Suppose you are right and universe came out from some existing stuff. Does that change anything in the premise two? Does that means universe has no beginning? Your body also developed out from available stuff, does that mean you have no beginning.

Hence, "premise" 3 follows in the same way as any other event in the cosmos... it is as it is. No magic is required!

And your conclusion that the only power that could give rise to a Universe is god is completely erroneous. It could happen by purely natural means.

Is “Natural” some law or force or is it some mystical phenomenon. How and why NATURAL is happening. What exactly NATURAL is? Do you have ANY scientific definition for it?

Unless you wish to call that process "god", but why carry all the baggage associated with all the gods that have ever been created by human imagination into that definition?

Do you mean that sentient beings, non-sentient beings, and this universe are the products of Chance or Accident? If you think that chance and accident cannot cause the universe then what are your assumptions for this cause.

Even if we agreed with this very feeble reasoning, you'd still be nowhere near proving God. Merely - a god-like (from our perspective) creator, possibly no longer existing or interested in his creation.

What do you have in place of God?

As for “whether the Creator is interested in His creations or not” I will talk once you are confident that indeed universe cannot be without a cause.

Now if you'd like to enlighten us - what exactly is supposed to convince us, that this hypothetical being whispered its alleged commandments into the ears of illiterate barbarians, in the middle of the desert, thousands of years ago? Even if there is a god, the verses you're quoting are - until proven otherwise - just bad poetry, from primitive minds.

Doubt is a disease that takes away sight from the mind’s eye. Be optimist rather pessimist and give a neutral thought to the idea even if it seems to be false in the first look.

What you feel when you contemplate over universe, nature, and your own being? Is there anything surprising or do you think everything should serve you in making your life comfortable and joyful. Is your infinitesimal life is to have enjoyment? Think wisely, why your life is so short.

You're basically saying that non existence is meaningless and therefore it cannot be the end. That's not how it works. Life is not fair lad.

I am not saying non-existence is meaningless. I am saying Nothingness is meaningless.

The short summery of this is that you don't know, and I don't how the universe began, but you say you definitely know god did it and I say I don't know.

For me, logical evidences and Quran are more than sufficient that I blindly believe in the existence of God. The logical truths are so powerful that after I understood their real meanings my mind’s eye practically and intuitively see evidence of God in almost everything and everywhere.

You list a few things as being illogical, then replace them with a being that exists outside of space. A being who can be conscious, make decisions and actions outside of time. Someone who is none physical yet can affect the physical world. A being that had to have created everything out of nothing unless we are made from whatever god is made from.

There are really two radical halves of the universe. The physical realm and the mental realm.

The physical realm contains all physical thing. These things (including your bodies) have physical dimensions and these exist at particular places at particular time.

The mantel realm contains your thoughts, your hopes, your emotions, your imaginings, and your consciousness.

Consider a can of pineapple. It is a particular physical stuff in particular space and time. It is a part of physical universe.

However, the taste of pineapple is something different. It is essentially mental. You can imagine how pineapple tastes right now and in doing so, you are accessing the mental side. You cannot depict taste by means of physical properties because taste has no physical dimensions.

However, these two realms are essentially different kinds of things. One exist in the physical world and one not.

Your physical actions are caused by your mental actions. When you are thirsty, you drink water. Because of your mental sensation and because of your mental desire you make a mental decision. As a direct result, your body perform certain predetermined physical actions to quench your thirst. The mental causes the physical.

If you want to see a physical cause that causes a mental cause then buy a physical bottle of scotch. Pour down that physical liquid in your physical body through your physical throat and look what happens next in your mental realm.

If you doubt in the existence of mind then consider the following argument.

Your doubt about God is the mental side of the universe. You can doubt everything. You can even doubt that your body is not yours.

Is there anything you cannot doubt?

If you doubt that you are doubting that means you are still doubting. As long as you are doubting you cannot doubt that.

Rene Descartes (1596–1650) based on these facts propose:

1. I cannot doubt that I am doubting
2. I cannot be deceived about whether I am thinking

If you are thinking or doubting then you exist.

I think, therefore I exist.
Cogito ergo sum.

If I am thinking then I must have a mind.

The important point here is if your mind does not exist in the physical realm and yet it effects your physical body then why you think God is unreal outside time and space.

The First Cause (AKA Kallam Cosmological) Argument has made a bit of resurgence on the board over the past couple of weeks. What's happened? Has a WLC vid been doing the rounds?

Harris, it's a nonsense argument because:

1. it ignores the fact that there are states of the universe (other than the one we currently inhabit) where causality, as we experience it, may not exist

There is no way to determine the properties of any other universe in the multiverse if they do indeed exist, for they are forever outside observational reach. The idea of multiverse emerges from the idea of existing universe. The pattern on which our universe exist is atoms made molecules, molecules made substances, substances made bodies, planetary systems made solar systems, solar systems made galaxies, galaxies made universe and if we extend this same pattern then we have multiverse and then multiverse of multiverses and so on into infinity.

No serious astronomer or physicist suggests that there are an infinite number of universes. But there could be an extremely large number of universes in the cosmos, and the number might be potentially infinite (that is, finite at any moment of time but open to an infinite future). If we assign laws and principles of nature randomly among all these universes in the cosmos, the fact that ours is so well fine-tuned for the sustenance of intelligent life seems less surprising.

2. There's no such thing as 'Nothing'

Agreed, “there is no such thing as ‘nohingness’”

3. The most you can get from this is a deistic, impersonal, distant god, far removed from the theistic definitions of god

If you are convinced that there indeed a necessary thinking being who is the Grand Designer then I would be in position to talk about the known qualities of God. Whether God is impersonal, distant and far removed from theistic definitions is only a matter of refining the thoughts through logical evidences.

4. It fails to tell us where god comes from so it just pushes the answer back a step: it only pretends to be an answer but really leaves us with more questions than we had before

God is an uncaused being because once you answer, “who created God?” that answer fires infinite series of question, “who created the second God that created the first God?” and so on. In simple words, the question “who created God?” means there is no universe but because there is universe therefore the question “who created God?” is wrong.

Have a look around the board, you'll see plenty of other recent rebuttals to your argument.

Please give your best argument against Fine-Tuning, Cosmological argument, and Intelligent Design, if you have any.

I say there are no invisible pink unicorns. End of story?

I do not have proofs favouring the idea of unicorn or condemning it. Perhaps unicorn is a distorted image of some real fact. If that is true then I do not have any clue on that either.

No, because humans like clinging to superstition. Bad claims persist because fear and ego allow people to cling to the past. This is no "philosophy" anymore than debating Scientology knowing a si fi writer started it.

I have concretely given you logical facts from the real world. In place of undervaluing my argument based on pure subjective speech, give logical objective reasons to show how and why my reasoning is false.

There is no debate. There are simply humans who refuse to get with the times because warm fuzzies and the idea of a cosmic security guard gives them a false sense of comfort.

Sense of comfort is not the benchmark to evaluate the purpose of your existence. A very good sense of comfort can also be achieved through narcotics.

I can only say it still needs to be addressed because humans interject their superstitions into politics globally and also control weapons. But as far as neutral evidence that is falsified and peer reviewed they have nothing.

Religion, no matter how corrupted, still has the qualities to guide people to the moral path whereas atheism pushes people purely to arrogance and to indifferent attitude to other people’s life.

I came here looking for proof of god. Now I'm disappointed.

You are disappointed because you have not understood my argument.

Oh look, another proof of god that is only negative, boiling down to "you don't know, but I'm going to claim I know the only possibility is god, therefore god."

Harris, you do know that claims require positive evidence to be true, right? You can't just poke holes in what everyone else thinks and assume that makes what you think true; subtracting from zero will never give you a positive number.

Oh, who am I kidding? You don't know anything.

You have my post and you are free to criticise. However, without logical reasoning, you sounds exactly "you don't know, but I'm going to claim I know the only possibility is no god, therefore no god."

I don't get how it can be a proof of god if it doesn't prove a necessarily thinking thing exists necessarily.

In my post, I had demonstrated that Universe cannot exist without necessary being and that necessary being is God.

Universe is a place of order, balance and symmetry; also of change and conflict, subordinated to larger-scale patterns of stability. Symmetry consists in a proper agreement between the members of the universe and relation between the different parts and the whole general scheme. In common usage, the term symmetry often refers to a certain pleasing proportion or balance.

The most familiar understanding of order in the West is associated with uniformity and pattern regularity. This logical or rational ordering is an implication of the cosmological assumptions, which characterize the logos of a cosmos in terms of causal laws and formal patterns. A second sense of order is characterized by concrete particularities whose uniqueness is essential to the order itself.

When searching for new theories in science, symmetries are a guide to discovery. For example, Kepler sought order and harmony in the universe, a conviction that guided him in his successful search for the true orbits of the planets.

The whole point is that universe and nature are intelligible. We are intelligible according to the laws, which govern everything.

Human intuition is the noblest kind of knowledge because it presents itself by itself in the soul and is not subject to generation and corruption. Through reason, we overcome all obstacles to reach God through the intellect, which is the medium between human beings and the supernatural world. Reason has the power to contact the super-sensible beings until it reaches the First Being.

Order, symmetry, and harmony are the evidences that the cause of the universe is the intelligent God.

Esquilax Wrote: Oh look, another proof of god that is only negative, boiling down to "you don't know, but I'm going to claim I know the only possibility is god, therefore god."

ChadWooters Wrote: Always setting up the same straw man, I see.

Perhaps you have some alternate of God.

Esquilax Wrote: Oh look, another proof of god that is only negative, boiling down to "you don't know, but I'm going to claim I know the only possibility is god, therefore god."
Always setting up the same straw man, I see.


Pizz-atheist Wrote: Seems like a fair claim for Esquilax to make given the OP lacks arguments for the "God of Abraham" and givens only arguments for the the abstract God of the philosophers and scientists.

If you are okay with the idea that there exist necessary being then we can take a step ahead and define what that necessary being is. It is not wise to discuss the qualities of something in the existence of which you do not accept as true.

Harris Wrote:
Atheist: Prove there is God
Theist: Prove there is no God


Minimalist Wrote:

Absurd. More like:

Atheist: There is no evidence for any god.
Theist: MY GOD IS REAL...Wah, Wah, Wah!

Can you disprove anything in my post by means of reason and logic?

Harris Wrote: Logically, Nothingness does not exist and there is no alternate of God. Alternate of God is God.

ChadWooters Wrote: I repeat: "You don't know, but I'm going to claim I know the only possibility is god, therefore god."

Esquilax Wrote: You're just embarrassing yourself, Chad.

I do not understand why you always talk as the mood takes you. I think we are not discussing about your personal and subjective thoughts here. If you disagree with something then you should give logical reasoning in place of showing your personal feelings and thoughts.

Wrong. It goes more like this:

Atheist: Good Morning! A lovely day we're having.
Theist: You can't disprove existence of a god, therefore the one true God is the one that loves me and wants me to live forever!
Atheist: Uh... A-what, now?

Are lovely days and lovely nights the only purpose of your infinitesimal life?

Also, this argument doesn't demonstrate that the "God" still exists, if it existed in the first place. Saying the universe needs maintaining is an assertion unrelated to the argument.

This Kalam stuff is about the worst of all the arguments as it has piles of problems.

Please, do not talk in non-representational manner. If you have something real that is logical and reasonable then use it, otherwise whatever you are saying is meaningless.

---

Bullshit 2: Electric Boogaloo!

[robvalue]

Atheists are not in general claiming there is no god.

Can you really still not understand this Harris? I've written about this in detail on my website. Please check it out if you are still confused about this.

[pocaracas]

Hasn't this been dismissed already, in various occasions?

First premise: wrong!

The definitions employed are faulty. Our brains cannot grasp what it means "to begin to exist" in a real sense. We can grasp what it means to begin to exist in a transformative sense: things get transformed into other things


- A few planks of wood get transformed into a chair or a table; two hydrogen nuclei get transformed into an alpha particle, a bunch of organic matter is transformed into a new baby, etc...


But nowhere in here is anything purely created, just transformed.


And, indeed, for a transformative event, you need some prior energy, something that acts on something else. But that is not where you want to apply this premise. You want magic to happen to nothing creating the building blocks of the Universe.

No one can disprove the premise one.

Whether existing things transformed into other things or things developed out of available resources, everything that begins to exist has a cause. There is nothing eternal in the universe including universe itself.

"We are star stuff".
Electrons and other elementary particles, the sort that make up everything we know of... those are eternal, in a time-forward sense.
Going back in time, we hit the Big bang and we can't say...

Second premise: Not necessarily! At best, you can claim that, at the big bang, all the particles that were later transformed into hydrogen, stars, planets, etc. were created... but... given that our understanding of "created" relies on a transformative event, that means that something would have to exist prior to the Universe... and that is what current physics is suggesting with virtual particles and fields that, under some conditions do cross into real particles... it is a possibility.
Can you safely say that the big bang wasn't itself a tranformative event from some unknown (very likely unknowable) state into what we call the known universe... the known particles?

If it was, then, just like the stars don't need a helping hand to become super-novae, then the universe too would need no help in becoming what we see now

Suppose you are right and universe came out from some existing stuff. Does that change anything in the premise two? Does that means universe has no beginning? Your body also developed out from available stuff, does that mean you have no beginning.

It means the building blocks of the Universe have always been there. Like the building blocks of my body had been around for a long long while before they assembled into me.

Hence, "premise" 3 follows in the same way as any other event in the cosmos... it is as it is. No magic is required!

And your conclusion that the only power that could give rise to a Universe is god is completely erroneous. It could happen by purely natural means.

Is “Natural” some law or force or is it some mystical phenomenon. How and why NATURAL is happening. What exactly NATURAL is? Do you have ANY scientific definition for it?

In this case, Natural phenomenon is mindless.
Can be studied, probed, measured... somehow...

Unless you wish to call that process "god", but why carry all the baggage associated with all the gods that have ever been created by human imagination into that definition?

Do you mean that sentient beings, non-sentient beings, and this universe are the products of Chance or Accident? If you think that chance and accident cannot cause the universe then what are your assumptions for this cause.

errr.... I am aware of no beings apart from this universe. So sentient and non-sentient begins are part of the universe and have come about through a long, long chain of events.
If causality is a strict thing for all fields, even quantum, then it was going to be this way.... if not, then some randomness played a part.

Either way, I am not aware of any being apart from the Universe and I cannot fathom how could someone become aware of such beings... can you?

[Ben Davis]

There is no way to determine the properties of any other universe in the multiverse...

You missed my point. I wasn't talking about the multiverse, I was talking about the pre-expansion state of our immediate universe. Pre-expansion, there was no time and no space. All that we know regarding the laws of physics (and thus causality) are made a nonsense by this state. Consequently we can't assume that causality has any meaning in the context of a pre-expanded universe and I certainly can't imagine how anyone would be able to know enough about it to posit the existence of a disembodied mind with universe-causing abilities, especially since, as you say "if they do indeed exist, for they are forever outside observational reach.".

Agreed, “there is no such thing as ‘nothingness’”

At least we agree on something!

If you are convinced that there indeed a necessary thinking being who is the Grand Designer then I would be in position to talk about the known qualities of God.

I thought you said that god's "forever outside observational reach"? How can you be in the position to talk about the known qualities of something which is, by your own definition, fundamentally unknowable?

Whether God is impersonal, distant and far removed from theistic definitions is only a matter of refining the thoughts through logical evidences.

Something which is unobservable & unknowable can't have any 'logical evidences'. You're contradicting yourself.

God is an uncaused being because once you answer, “who created God?” that answer fires infinite series of question, “who created the second God that created the first God?” and so on. In simple words, the question “who created God?” means there is no universe but because there is universe therefore the question “who created God?” is wrong.

This is just gibberish.

Please give your best argument against Fine-Tuning, Cosmological argument, and Intelligent Design, if you have any.

I've already done the 'cosmological' argument in this (& my previous) post. If you'd care to present any arguments from fine-tuning or intelligent design, I'd be happy to address them.

[Cyberman]

Harris is blatantly misrepresenting the atheist position and being dishonest about what we think?

I'm shocked. Absolutely and utterly surprised. I've never seen this before.

It's the only way he can make his own argument work. It's sad, really.