Atheism is unreasonable

[pocaracas]

Just to milk a few nuggets from this mine... Sorry MA!

Based on the infinity problem and causation...no single event within the universe (and by "universe" I mean all natural reality ANYWHERE) could ever come to past...and if no single event within the universe could ever come to past, that mean that nothing that is within the universe can be used to explain the fact that events DO come to past....and since causes within the universe can't explain it, that would mean that we need to posit a cause OUTSIDE of the universe...and that cause is the source of the universe as a whole, and every part within it.

Elementary stuff going on here.

Consider an infinite spacetime.
This spacetime has quantum foam everywhere.
This quantum foam can produce real particles. On occasion, it produces so many that it causes the local spacetime to contract beyond (smaller than) the plank length. After that, a Big bang happens within that spacetime that was contracted and it expands with all the newly created matter within.

Now, perhaps this piece of spacetime got ripped out of the original fabric... perhaps not.... I like to think it didn't.

There you have a naturalistic cause, from outside of the Universe, but which is also present in the Universe.
I'm not saying this is how it happened for real... I don't know how it was... but it is a possibility.... no conscience required.

If there was an infinite number of births which preceded your birth, how will your birth ever come to past? For every single birth that came to past, there is an infinitely many more births to go..so your birth would never come to past.

Or better yet, if me and you are on a road, and I told you to begin walking, and after you've taken an infinite amount of steps on this road, you will receive a trillion dollars...and you began walking...at what point would you "traverse" infinity...and receive the money?

Clearly, you have a problem thinking in the temporal domain.... let's try it with the spatial domain. Maybe it's easier.
Imagine space (let's forget about spacetime, for now) is infinite in all 3 directions. Not so difficult, is it?

Here's a 2D axis:


It stretches from minus infinity to plus infinity, in X and Y directions. And yet, I can mark a start position and an end position for that black line.
Of course, in your example, you want me to draw the infinite line, for that, I'd require infinite "paper" and ink.

The cool thing is that, which ever point you decide to place your origin, there's an infinity to both sides.
But the arbitrary starting point is a real point.
I didn't have to start at minus infinity to get to my starting point.... I just, arbitrarily, chose one and called it Start.

The same can happen with time, we choose to call t=0 to the instant of the big bang.... it doesn't mean that there isn't some other time prior to it.
If spacetime is infinite, then there would be an inifnite amount of time prior to our t=0. We don't know. You don't know.
Don't shut down your brain by pretending to know.

If you can answer either of these questions adequately, I will become an atheist.

What does "adequately" mean, to you?

So right and wrong is based on what society thinks? So if the society allowed it, then that would make it right?

I skipped a lot here.... talking about rape, or other moral rules of conduct.
If a society deemed something as right, then it would be considered right by the grand majority of people within that society... even rape.
However, our societies have developed quite a nice algorithm to determine what is right and what is wrong, starting with the golden rule.

So who decides what is best for human beings in the first place?? Individuals? Societies? Civilizations? Governments? Who? Where does moral values come from, and who decides of all of the moral values, what is right, and what is wrong?

Don't you think that's the wrong question?
No one decides and all decide.
It's, roughly, a collective effort of improving the life of as many as possible.
It's not rocket science... all it takes is observation of group behavior and attempt to guide that to minimize hardship and maximize happiness.

Where does these functions come from? And how come nature was able to create life from nonlife despite being mindless and blind, when intelligent human beings cannot do it?

Doesn't that tell you something about the inappropriateness of advocating Intelligent Design?

If you haven't noticed, I keep going back to the question of origins...and also if you haven't noticed, the questions of origins are the most difficult questions for you people to answer...and that isn't a coincidence.

We noticed alright... you keep hiding your god in the current gaps of scientific knowledge. There's a name for that.... hmmm?

I wonder why you don't say that god is responsible for lightning, nor magnets, nor nuclear fusion...

A selection is not a creation. It selects from stuff that is already there. How did the stuff get there in the first place? It can't select from anything if the stuff that it is selecting didn't come from somewhere else.

Pay attention to your debate. Esq said something about that, over there...

Admittedly, the notion of free will stumps me. But then again, on naturalism, there is no free will, because all of my decisions are based on the flow of electrons and neutrons in my brain...but I can't control them but they control me...so my actions are not "free actions", so I am not responsible for anything that I do.

But... the electrons and neurons and all matter which compose you ARE you.
So you, your atoms and electrons and ions and stuff, are responsible for your own behavior and actions.
Now you can say what does "responsibility" mean in this context.

But here's the thing: if scientists produced a self-replicating molecule tomorrow by emulating Hadean-era conditions, it wouldn't affect your beliefs one whit.

You are right, it wouldn't. Wanna know why? Because that would still prove that for life to exist, you need INTELLIGENT DESIGN to orchestrate the process. The entire process would take some intelligent engineering, wouldn't it?

You clearly didn't notice the detail that MA put in there "emulating Hadean-era conditions", the conditions naturally existent when life is thought to have first appeared on this planet.