RE: Benevolent Creator God?
August 22, 2021 at 7:09 pm
(This post was last modified: August 22, 2021 at 7:49 pm by Spongebob.)
(August 22, 2021 at 5:32 pm)Klorophyll Wrote: In addition to my response above to @Spongebob : If one didn't study Maxwell's equations, they wouldn't even know that the speed of light (c= approx. 3.10^8 m/s) is something special. Einstein's thought experiments relatively to light are certainly motivated by the fact that the constant c is explicitly present in Maxwell's equations. All this obviously entails that Einstein knew Maxwell's theory from the inside out.
At 16 years old and a student at the Gymnasium in Aarau, Einstein would have had the thought experiment in late 1895 to early 1896. But various sources note that Einstein did not learn Maxwell's theory until 1898, in university.[7][8]
Wikipedia
(August 22, 2021 at 3:51 pm)Klorophyll Wrote: And I gave the reasons why this assumption might very probably be true. There are valid arguments out there establishing the existence of a first cause. Once this preliminary result is settled, we assess whether this first cause has some properties, which we infer from its effects (the universe).
No, you didn't give any "reasons", you just offered opinions, not even real logical arguments. And you were claiming that god exists; you didn't say anything about "first cause". That could mean different things.
Quote:From my experience with these discussions, non-believers just keep playing around and throwing charges of "special pleading" or "infinity is not well understood" left and right to escape the unavoidable necessity of a first cause. Even well known atheist debaters like M. Dillahunty start complaining about how difficult infinity is to dodge the arguments, whereas establishing a first cause is really straightforward.
Well, if the shoe fits... Look, if you use logical fallacies you should expect they won't be taken seriously. They are called fallacies because they are false arguments. If you showed up to work late every day and your supervisor asked why and you said that some little green men kept letting the air out of your tires, your boss would reject that as nonsense. That's what logical fallacies are; they are nonsense arguments and not to be accepted as valid. Also, if you really want to change someone's mind or at least get them to consider your ideas the very first thing you should do is make sure you aren't repeating old and antiquated arguments. A lot of Intelligent Design advocates do this. They trot out one argument that supposedly supports their ideas but when a scientist demonstrates how this argument is flawed and is completely wrong, they just keep beating that dead horse. It gets them nowhere and they look foolish. In some cases these are people who were once considered accomplished in their field of study.
Quote:The universe's existence per se can't be explained by natural science, so you would call it a miracle? Laws of the universe only describe its inner workings... but I suspect you already know that...?
I do agree that the existence of the universe cannot be explained, but is that a reason to stop questioning? Humans once thought disease was caused by an angry god, among thousands of other terrible assumptions. You don't understand that to learn things you must keep questioning. The moment you say "god did it", all inquiry ends and you learn nothing. If you are happy not knowing and just accepting everything your preacher tells you then I suggest you go back to church and don't worry yourself with atheist forums.
Quote:Argument from authority, I frankly don't care about how much some atheist is familiar with the teleological argument. If their reasons for rejecting it are not good enough, then they have an epistamically flawed position.
There's no argument from authority here. Learn what these terms mean before you try to use them. All I said was that you haven't said anything new, and I mean nothing. I've read books about this stuff, watched debates, and was not sure myself what was true at one time. But that was a while ago and it's all settled now. But you did set up a teleological argument, a circular argument. That's indefensible.
Quote:We all know this, dude. You said Einstein didn't rely on electromagnetism and classical mechanics, when, in fact, and, OBVIOUSLY, he did, which is something you can guess by just reading the damn title of his original paper on SR. That's the only thing I was responding to, nobody here is denying that his insights led to major discoveries.
You can see I've proved you wrong already so I'll just drop it.
Why is it so?
~Julius Sumner Miller
~Julius Sumner Miller