Hello, Anyone interested in a debate?

[nihilistcat]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxNbXjBbzEo

I FUCKING LOVED THIS!!  It made me whip out my Quantum Mechanics books which I have not looked at since I got my Master's in Electrical Engineering.  Great shit!!!

1.  The Irony:  The irony is indeed amazing.  While I am positing the existence of a single proactive cause which was not caused by anything else to avoid an infinite regressive chain at the beginning (and hearing staunch opposition).  You are positing the existence of innumerable virtual particles at all times to establish the existence of "some kind of space-time quantum foam sort of something existed before our own universe began."  Now I delayed response to research and to see if everyone was as opposed to this as what I was positing.  Somehow the majority seem okay with the existence of innumerable virtual particles while be opposed to a single proactive cause without cause (I am still geeking out about it!!!):
https://youtu.be/MzzlgxTvCIM
By general atheistic threshold of proof you would need to evidence these virtual particles in a manner that is not implicit circumstantial empirical evidence.  Now I recognize as soon as I say that, others will say that threshold of proof does not need to be satisfied by this theory; in which case one may argue special pleading or bias.  However, I am content with implicit circumstantial proof and am willing to consider the existence of these virtual particles. . . . (rest of post omitted for the sake of brevity)

Nice job ... and so it remains to be seen whether or not this can account for the creation of a universe. This is obviously a super-interesting topic (for science geeks anyway, and although I'm a molecular biologist, I've taken quite a few physics courses, as you had to for EE). So I wonder how the possible existence of a multiverse effects the theology of the Catholic church?

It even remains to be seen whether or not some other underlying cause exists (i.e. even if this hypothesis is largely true, is there something else causing things like quantum fluctuations)? The answer is of course ... we don't entirely know. But it is possible that this hypothesis describes a non-particle space that represents the end of the chain of causation (though I should say, one major problem I've always had with cosmological arguments is they're premised on human intuition, and I'm not a fan of measuring scientific possibilities against human intuition, since humans really only have the capacity to understand things, roughly speaking, between grains of sand and mountains, we did not evolve in a way that enables us to understand quantum mechanics intuitively, as I'm sure you'd agree).

Moreover, as I said, even if we can one day come up with ways to test this hypothesis, it would not rule out a god (quite frankly, I think it's impossible to "rule out" a god scientifically, it's almost an absurd to think we can). But in response to the point you raised about the need for evidence in this case, I fully agree, although it may be possible to test this hypothesis in ways that do not require the seemingly impossible (e.g. somehow traveling to the boundary of our universe and seeing if we can observe the existence of something beyond it).

Personally, I've accepted the fact that we don't know everything. In my mind it's okay to say that "we don't know" ... more investigation is needed, without feeling the impulse to attribute these things to the myths of our ancestors. For me, an analysis of religion starts with, well, an analysis of religion. What do they claim today, what were they claiming yesterday, the day before that, the century before that, and so on. And the fact remains that religious theology continues to rely on a god of gaps argument, and by now so many of those gaps have closed, the credibility of these arguments are strained.

A good analogy might be ... a snake oil salesman comes to town. The first concoction he sells people makes them sick. The second concoction has no effect at all (but again, it fails to live up to its promise of curing illness). Third concoction, fourth concoction, etc., all turn out to be bullshit. Do we continue to buy the snake oil?

I'll grant the Catholic church this much, it seems to do a better job with this fact than other faith systems. It does seem to expend considerable time and effort on massaging its theology in a way that sort of keeps the issue cloudy enough to maintain some level of (almost) plausible deniability. Of course the problem with the Catholic take on these things is the Catholic church has a very long history that we can reach back to (which is why, I suspect, it expends so much time and energy on gently massaging its theology in way that obscures the fact that they do keep shifting the goal post, while at the same time, they're able to plausibly --in the minds of its adherents at least-- hold on to the claim that their official doctrines are infallible).

Moreover, I like Pope Francis so much that I really don't want to spend very much time criticizing (he's almost as left wing as I am, with the exception of issues like gay and reproductive rights, albeit I understand that no Pope could change the churches position on these issues in a credible way, but even in these sensitive areas, he's not very dogmatic, which again is commendable). Quite frankly, I'm far more interested in having a decent society where people care about each other as opposed to wasting huge amounts of time and energy battling with religionists over questions that we'll probably never resolve. I'd be happy enough if people became a little more skeptical, to the point where they no longer feel like they have a mandate from a god instructing them to commit murder or inhibit the rights of others and so on (as far as I'm concerned, I love our Bill of Rights, and I think that people have a right to their beliefs, again, as long as they're not impeding the rights of others). Like the Catholic church wants to say that a small collection of cells, which are not sentient in any reasonable sense, somehow comprise "life" ... and as absurd as I may think that position is, I'm not bothered by the fact that people hold this view, I'm only bothered when these views inform our public policy). This is why we have a judicial branch of government. To enforce our Bill of Rights, which is to say that we're a secular democracy founded upon a separation of church and state, and thus where religious dogmas appear in our public policy, our court system should strike it down. But then, our courts are only as good as the justices who sit on the bench, and there's always the possibility that we could return to a dark and theocratic society (especially in a reactionary culture, where the religious feel threatened by the encroachment of other faiths, like Islam, and instead of dealing with that threat in an enlightened way, it's very easy for a society to reflexively go down the path of tribalism).

But again, for me, religious arguments are not persuasive. It's as if on his fifth attempt, the snake oil salesman refined his sales pitch. Those earlier concoctions did in fact have some curative effect, even though it wasn't obvious at the time, and so I never lied. It's just that you'll need a dose of my new concoction to realize those benefits. Ahhhhhh

I guess we also have to deal with the fact that many people are not "quantitative" in their outlook, they're visual, artistic types, who in many cases have an affinity towards spirituality (even if they're not formally religious). So of course in comes the guru's, the Deepak Chopra types, who blend eastern mysticism with quantum jargon (that has no relationship with real science). Ultimately, their case in chief reduces to personal experience, which can be easily explained by conventional psychology and/or neuroscience. But then, you can't deny the artist their spirituality or their perceptions regarding personal experiences, unless you want to have a long drawn out bickering contest with new age types, and what would be the point anyway (although I still reserve the right to pick on Christian Scientists, because it's really fun to pick on Tom Cruise and his flaky sheeple, and their anti-science posture really does need to be challenged, because it's potentially harmful, like some people do really need psychotropic drugs, even though we may overuse these drugs ... but in that case, it's capitalism not science causing the problems)? And also, here in the US, evangelicals are a real problem. They are in fact influencing public policy, literally going as far as changing history books to conform with their essentially mythical version of American history, they work hard to keep real science out of our schools, and so if we want to remain economically competitive and intellectually progressive, we have to challenge this crap. At the same time, I'm real apprehensive about Pope Francis' call for a truce of sorts with atheism (I think that really reflects a church that's worried about the increasing secularism of Europe, and to a lesser extent, the US). Pope's die, our next Pope could be another Benedict type (or worse), and so I'm not gonna team up with the RCC just because the current Pope seems like a really nice guy, who seems so devoted to socialism that he might be willing to roll out a sleeping bag and do some protesting with us. Nonetheless, I have worked with Catholic groups (and some Episcopalian clergy members) during occupy wall street (which I was somewhat involved in), and consider many of them to be good friends (I've maintained those relationships, because they're good people who give a shit). And incidentally, I've always viewed Jesus as the first famous anarchist (and I really think that somewhere along the way, some Roman inserted that bullshit about 'give to Caesar' ... since it's so inconsistent with everything else Jesus said, and so obviously self-serving for the then existing Roman government). I'm willing to view Jesus as an anarcho-socialist superhero of sorts, just not a godman.