The absolute absurdity of God

[SteveII]

Sounds fishy that a mathematical model can affect anything in the real world. Links?

The mathematical model of spacetime models, um, spacetime, which is really real. Currently really real. Unlike the past, which is in the past, which is not a real place in the same sense that Albuquerque is a real place (for now).

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Yes, there is very much a need. If it was not past eternal it would need an explanation for its existence. The whole point to the argument is to get back to a necessarily-existing first cause and break an infinite regress.


No, not "to the best of our knowledge it is a transformation of a previous state...". We have no knowledge of any kinds. It is metaphysical musings at best. The universe cannot be past eternal because material things can't be. See the other post on the impossibility of a past series of events. Something purely material cannot "have existed statically forever until something changed"--see premise (4). Nothing in the argument proposes there was 'nothing' at one point. 


Since this is a sub-argument that Jorm inquired about to get to a "personal" cause, I focused on the logic specifically to that point--and not feeling the need to include the whole argument up to that point. The larger argument specifically avoids arguing by composition. "An explanation" is rooted in the metaphysical principle that things don't just pop into existence: a PSR. 

i. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
ii. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
iii. The universe exists.
iv. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence (from 1, 3).
v. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God (from 2, 4).


Seems like my effort survived all your criticism.

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What? Quantum mechanics describes quantum events of real quantum particles in the four actual dimensions of the universe. Spacetime is a mathematical model of how the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time might work together. The mathematical model of spacetime is the very definition of an abstract object. Abstract objects are causally effete.  Therefore spacetime does not cause or affect anything.

1. In other words, YOU need it for YOUR argument to work.

What are you talking about? You must really not understand the argument at all if you think a first cause did not have to be past-eternal. 

2. Up to the point where our knowledge ends, only transformations are observed. Inserting something different than transformations beyond that point is unjustified. You don't get to posit a whole new thing because of our ignorance. The most you can posit is that the series of transformations might not hold. And I'd be interested in your proof that material things can't be past eternal. We've never observed a material thing (energy or matter) ceasing to exist above the quantum level. In fact we only observe matter and energy transforming, never ceasing to exist. On what basis can you conclude that they can't be eternal? And how can you eliminate the possibility of a 'causeless cause' when such events seem to be common at the quantum level? I know it's inconvenient for your premise, but it's what the available evidence points to.

No a series of transformation going back never will "hold". Here is the proof that material objects can't be past eternal:

1. An event is a change in a concrete material object. 
2. From any point in the past, there is a finite amount of events to the present and can be counted down en...e3...e2...e1...e0(now).
3. If there are an infinite amount of events in the past, we could never count down from infinity to e3...e2...e1...e0 because there would always be an infinite amount of events that would still have happened on the leading edge of the series.
4. With an infinite series of past events we could never arrive to the present.
5. Therefore an actual infinite series of past events is impossible.

Events are not 'causeless' at the quantum level. They are indeterminate. There is a huge difference. So...not any evidence of anything.

3. The 'metaphysical principle' that things don't just 'pop into existence' was a reasonable inference before we began to understand quantum mechanics and became capable of devising instrumentation that can observe events on a subatomic scale. To infer that 'everything has a cause' and to maintain that despite new observations that indicate otherwise is a form of foolishness. That it's conceivable that someday quantum events may be discovered to not actually be stochastic in nature is not a justification to cling to a principle that denies evidence. 

Again, quantum particles materialize out of an energy field (the material cause). We don't know why they seem indeterminate. Seems like an argument from ignorance only repeated in atheist forums.