RE: A question about atheistic “beliefs” (opinions, guesses, etc.)
June 28, 2021 at 1:36 pm
(This post was last modified: June 28, 2021 at 1:37 pm by HappySkeptic.)
(June 28, 2021 at 1:22 pm)Deesse23 Wrote:(June 28, 2021 at 10:59 am)Frank Apisa Wrote: As I wrote earlier...anything that has not been established as impossible...is possible.Wrong, again.
You cant prove a negative, thus you cant show anything to be impossible, thus everything is possible? Like the universe being created by (a god or) pink, universe farting pixies?
Nope, you have to demonstrate the actual possibility of something. "Possibility" is an active claim. If you want to make the claim that its possible that the universe was created by pink, universe farting pixies, you have to show that (pink) pixies do (possibly) exist, before you can claim its possible they can fart universes into existence.
The usual philosophical argument to combat this, is that the existence of a "creator" or "prime mover" or "first cause" is in a different category that pink pixies.
There is some validity to this. We imagine that all things have causes, and we are hit with either a first cause, or no first cause (infinite regress of causes, or perhaps the universe or multiverse is uncaused).
So, the question of there being a first cause, or no first cause is a binary question to be answered. That makes the question reasonable.
However, once one starts to give even a single arbitrary property to this "first cause" (should it exist), then we DO get into pink pixie territory. If one claims that the first cause was an intelligence, or it loves us, or is omniscient, or is spirit ... then it becomes just another in the set of "all possible imagined things", which has vanishingly small probability of matching something real.