Atheism is unreasonable

[Esquilax]

I'll handle the rest of this stuff later on- I don't often have fifty thousand years at a time with which to respond to these tomes we write- but I do have some stuff to say about the early game right now that I'll get out for the folks at home, and follow up maybe tomorrow.

The argument against infinity is independent of past scientific knowledge, present scientific knowledge, and future scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge is simply irrelevant when it comes to philosophical problems such as infinite regress.

Except where the scientific evidence would provide an answer; you can call the infinite regress- still not the thing I'm actually arguing, by the way!- a philosophical problem all you want, but when the evidence comes in saying one thing it doesn't matter what you're philosophical inclinations are. You won't be able to change reality just by thinking about it really hard.

Why is ever since Hubble's discovery, cosmologists have been positing theories that would naturalisticly explain why our universe began to exist...like the Steady State Model...Oscillating models, etc, which is something you wouldn't need to do if you believed our universe is infinite.

It's also something that you'd do if you didn't know what the universe was like prior to the big bang and were attempting to figure it out. Stop trying to stuff infinity into my corner like it's what I'm arguing for, and address the actual position I hold, which is that neither of us know.

Well, I don't know about all of that...but what I do know is that William Lane Craig put out there for the record a personal email correspondence with Alexander Vilenkin himself, regarding the theorem and also Lawerence Krauss' deceitful representation of the theorem, which can be seen here http://www.reasonablefaith.org/honesty-t...gv-theorem

Actually, what WLC presents us is a second hand email purporting to be from Vilenkin. So what we've got here are two sources, both with emails from Vilenkin, in which he says two different things. The important point to note is that in the email I presented, there is no room for the kind of misinterpretation that WLC often engages in; the man is asked straight out whether his theory implies a beginning, and his answer is no. Given this kind of straight-talking answer, what can we say of Craig's response? My suggestion is that, as he is seen doing in the video I provided, Craig is wilfully misinterpreting Vilenkin's words to his own benefit, which is a tactic he is on record as doing many times.

And in case you are to lazy to read through the entire page, I will quote you the one good paragraph, from Mr. Vilenkin to Craig..


I think you represented what I wrote about the BGV theorem in my papers and to you personally very accurately. This is not to say that you represented my views as to what this implies regarding the existence of God. Which is OK, since I have no special expertise to issue such judgements. Whatever it's worth, my view is that the BGV theorem does not say anything about the existence of God one way or the other. In particular, the beginning of the universe could be a natural event, described by quantum cosmology.

Dr. Craig is a advocate of the BGV theorem and Vilenkin said that Craig represented the theorem very accurately.

Yes, and he also said later on: "The question of whether or not the universe had a beginning assumes a classical spacetime, in which the notions of time and causality can be defined. On very small time and length scales, quantum fluctuations in the structure of spacetime could be so large that these classical concepts become totally inapplicable. Then we do not really have a language to describe what is happening, because all our physics concepts are deeply rooted in the concepts of space and time. This is what I mean when I say that we do not even know what the right questions are.

Bolding mine. Well gee, you know what that sounds like? It sounds like what I've been saying all along, that our physics is not currently equipped to accurately handle descriptions of a pre-expansion universe! hock:

It's funny, how you'll highlight the bits that you think agree with you, but stop short of including the conclusion Vilenkin makes at the end of his email, when it basically states what I've been saying all along.

I have quite a few things to say about this. First, the narrator of the video made some very ridiculous points, and what is funny is the fact that he thought he was REALLY saying someting lol. Second, it is also funny the fact that I am semi-familiar with the Carrol-Craig debate, so when you say "Alan Guth was willing to go on video for Sean Carrol" I immediately thought, "Well, I watched the debate between Carrol/Craig, did I miss something? Because I don't remember seeing Guth "go on video for Sean Carrol" when I watched it.

So then I reluctantly went on ahead to watch the vid that you posted above, and sure enough, no where in the clip or in the debate in general did Guth "go on video for Sean Carrol". So where the hell you got that from, I don't know. Maybe you worded it wrong.

Or you could go to 2:56 on the video I posted and see a nice picture of Alan Guth on the projector, holding up text of his answer right there in the picture for all to see.

What actually happened in the debate was Carrol "quoted" Guth, but he didn't tell us where he got the quote from at all. He just made the assertion that this is what Guth stated.

No, he had Guth right there on screen. And it's funny that you'll take WLC "quotes" of Vilenkin as factual, but when someone who disagrees with you quotes someone you cast aspersions.

Ahhh but in case that isn't enough for you, here is an article from Mr. Guth himself

And in case you don't want to read the entire article, I will just quote you a paragraph that is meant to sting..

"At the present time, I think it is fair to say that it is an open question whether or not eternally inflating universes can avoid having a beginning. In my own opinion, it looks like eternally inflating models necessarily have a beginning. I believe this for two reasons. The first is the fact that, as hard as physicists have worked to try to construct an alternative, so far all the models that we construct have a beginning; they are eternal into the future, but not into the past. The second reason is that the technical assumption questioned in the 1997 Borde-Vilenkin paper does not seem important enough to me to change the conclusion, even though it does undercut the proof."

Hilariously, again you cut out the bit where Guth agrees with me, and not you.

"So, as is often the case when one attempts to discuss scientifically a deep question, the answer is inconclusive. It looks to me that probably the universe had a beginning, but I would not want to place a large bet on the issue."

It's the last sentence, the conclusion. Good job with the dishonesty there.

And before you start saying that I've moved the goalposts, I'll point out that "we don't know" has always been my view. It's even the view Guth espouses in the video: "I don't know." I picked the BGV theorem specifically because it's fun to take an apologist's chew toy and use it against them, and you took the bait pretty hard on this one; misrepresenting this theorem is the WLC specialty, after all.

Incidentally, you do understand that the BGV theorem only discusses inflationary models of the universe, yes? As a response to physicists who use inflationary universes to assert an eternal universe? And that their conclusions, insofar as they suggest a beginning, suggest a beginning to the inflation, and not to the universe as a whole? Which is basically what the big bang is... the pre-conditions of which I've been telling you we know nothing about this entire time?

Don't believe me? Here's a quote from the BGV theorem itself:

"Whatever the possibilities for the boundary, it is clear that unless the averaged expansion condition can somehow be avoided for all past-directed geodesics, inflation alone is not sufficient to provide a complete description of the Universe, and some new physics is necessary in order to determine the correct conditions at the boundary [20]. This is the chief result of our paper

Bolding and enlarging mine. So... even what you were originally referencing doesn't say what you were asserting it said. It says... what I said is the consensus of physicists.

I think that about caps it, when it comes to BGV. You can hardly argue with the paper itself, let alone its "chief result." I'm sure you'll try, but then, I knew what the BGV was describing from the beginning, and just wanted to give you some line so you could ensnare yourself. I took you as the kind of guy who wouldn't look deeply at what the results were, since the barest surface reading of the conclusions seem to agree with what you want to be true... and you didn't disappoint.

You hung yourself on this one, guy.