RE: What do scientists say about existence?
June 14, 2017 at 9:18 am
(This post was last modified: June 14, 2017 at 9:24 am by Jehanne.)
(June 13, 2017 at 5:50 pm)bennyboy Wrote:(June 13, 2017 at 10:07 am)Jehanne Wrote: I suppose that a position that is intrinsically not true is one that is difficult to defend!
That's a can of worms you're opening there.
Craig's view of God, at least as he uses it in debates with atheists, is purely metaphysical. Metaphysical views are extremely hard to subject to truth examination, pretty much by definition-- if it was explainable with observation, it wouldn't metaphysics, it would just be new physical discovery.
So to say that his position is "intrinsically no true" is overstepping the truth of it, I think. Few atheists claim that no God could exist; more say that specific definitions of God can't be true, and the evidence doesn't support others."
It is really, really hard to discriminate between things that are invisible for which we have no empirical evidence and "things" that simply do not exist.
(June 14, 2017 at 1:22 am)Kernel Sohcahtoa Wrote:(June 13, 2017 at 5:00 am)bennyboy Wrote: Yep, I'm pretty sure. Anyone who thinks Craig is just a throwaway should go try to debate him. I'm not saying he's got a good position, but as far as Christians go, he's one of the best at trying to defend a very difficult position.
IMO, Craig is a great debater and has a solid understanding of logic. However, out of curiosity, when these types of debates occur, do they actually establish the truths and merits of the actual positions being argued (and possibly uncovering new truths which could improve humanity's understanding of reality), or do they simply establish who the better debater was?
Craig loves to equivocate, a logical fallacy, which, in Latin, means "to call by the same name". For example:
Major Premise: A bishop can only move diagonally.
Minor Premise: The Pope is the bishop of Rome.
Conclusion : Therefore, the Pope can only move diagonally.
Craig, with respect to his Kalam argument, does the same thing with respect to the Universe, the fallacy of decomposition -- While it is absolutely true that in a flock of sheep that every member (individual sheep) has a mother, it does not therefore follow that the flock has a mother. Ditto for the Universe.
(June 13, 2017 at 10:55 pm)Astreja Wrote:(June 12, 2017 at 4:44 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote: What do scientists say about existence?
They point out the window and say, "Hey, look: Existence!"
Exactly. There's stuff. You analyze it and come up with theories to explain what it is and what it does. If there's no stuff, there's nothing to experiment on.
Has there ever been pure nothingness? I don't know, but I'm inclined to think that some form of matter/energy has always existed in some form or another.
Nothingness is a non-sequitur; it's like asking, "What color is Saturday?" Think of "nothing" as being like absolute zero; you can never, ever reach absolute zero; maybe, a millionth or a billionth of a degree above absolute zero, but never absolute zero. Due to quantum indeterminacy, there will always be something, just as a changing magnetic field will give rise to an electric field, or a changing electric field will give rise to a magnetic field, and on and on and on.
