RE: How to debunk the first cause argument without trying too hard
September 10, 2015 at 3:25 am
(This post was last modified: September 10, 2015 at 3:37 am by Ronkonkoma.)
(September 9, 2015 at 5:33 am)robvalue Wrote: "Mathematics" doesn't literally exist, it is an abstract concept.
I've seen this false equivocation a lot. If "god" exists in the same way, then it only actually exists in the form of images in people's brains. Images in brains may map to some existent object, they may map to an abstract concept consistent with reality or they map to nothing in reality. At best you're equating "god" with the laws of the universe.
As it happens, pure mathematics is not even required to map to anything in reality. All that is required is internal consistency. Whether or not it has any practical application is irrelevant. In the same way, you could come up with an abstract notion of an internally consistent god, and it might have nothing to do with reality either.
This form of "existence" is meaningless for something that's meant to have an intelligence, unless you can explain further. We have no experience of any intelligence distinct from a physical body of some sort. We don't know that it's possible. Just saying, "Yeah, well there could be" is not an argument nor is it evidence.
Sure Boss, Math is definitely abstract, and uses abstractions but that does not give or take from the question of whether it actually exists or not. Did Einstein actually invent e=mc2? Or did he only recognize it? Are abstractions created by our brains, or recognized by our brains?
And speaking of the brain, we know precious little about what a thought IS. We may very well be like little kids standing in front of a radio set thinking the sound is coming from a small midget inside. Actually, the radio only registers the radio waves, but in order to know that, we have to know about radio waves. In terms of the brain, we don't have that basic knowledge know what a thought is. Values, longing for justice, a sense of purpose in life, freedom, personhood, human rights, responsibilities... are these all produced by our brains? How about collective values? Are they all produced by a giant mega-brain of many humans? Or are they only recognized and sensed?
And the other thing is, the argument is way more complex than just saying "yeah there could be". The argument rests on philosophy, science, history, experience and observation of human behavior, all coming together to form a consistent picture. I can talk about all of these for days.
(September 9, 2015 at 5:18 am)pocaracas Wrote:(September 9, 2015 at 2:37 am)Ronkonkoma Wrote: Either way it had a beginning. And things that have a beginning are usually begotten by a cause.
The original question was, why does God not need a cause? Because He had no beginning.
Not all existence is material. Immaterial things like ideas and information, and even mathematics. These are all immaterial things that have an effect on us, so we know they exist. Logically God could act if He was eternally simple. And that is what all the great theologians have taught that God is eternally simple (i.e. Not made up of any parts/indivisible, and eternal - above space and time.)
In the meantime, they have all been presupposing that a god exists in the first place!
Do ideas, information, mathematics exist, if no human, or conscious being, is around to formulate them? Can M$ Windows exist without a computer?
I wouldn't interpret the current "big bang theory" as placing a beginning in time and space, but rather as a limit to our ability to perceive beyond... In other words, we don't know if there was a before, nor does it seem to be knowable that there was a before.
Yes, but the presupposing has no bearing on the arguments I gave and the science I talked about.
We live in the present. The future is full of possibilities. The past is impossible to reverse. How do we change reality in the present? Through our behaviors, and our behaviors are influenced by our values. Values are immaterial. Just like you can print money out of seemingly nothing. MS window existed as a stolen idea before it came into existence as software.
You can say that the Big Bang is the limit of our knowledge. I guess that's acceptable. But other evidence for the existence of God is the immensely huge improbability of life forming on earth given the number of conditions that all need add up to make it possible.. Estimated that there are around 320 of these conditions, with each of their probabilities to be "just right" to support life and prevent the earth to implode, being less than 1%. Adding all of them up gives a probability for there to be life on earth at a staggering 10 to the power of 23. AllThat in a small window of time!
