Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[polymath257]

So your basic claim is wrong: determinism doesn't work in QM the way you claim it does. It works at the level of probabilities, not at the level of events.

But couldn't there (hypothetically) be events that do cause the nucleus to decay, but we aren't aware of them/are unable to observe them?

Not asking in the context of the debate... just in a "curious about science" way.

For quantum mechanics in general, there are the so-called Bell's Inequalities that follow from any 'hidden variable' theory that is local and with things having definite properties. These Inequalities are violated in actual experimental situations. So, such hidden events are excluded in some quantum systems.

For nuclear decay specifically, I am not aware of a Bell type inequality that applies or has been tested, so technically hidden variables *might* be possible. That said, most nuclei are entangled in a very strong way that is precisely why the Bell inequalities are violated, so I would very much doubt that a hidden variable theory would work.

That, along with the fact that QM is literally the best, most comprehensive physical theory we have ever had and it is a non-causal theory is quite enough to show that causality isn't a 'law of thought', but is a scientific hypothesis that may or may not be true.

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Ergo, not every event (in physics, something that happens at a particular point in space at a particular time) has a cause; most, in fact, do not.

When discussing causality in theology, they are not talking only about efficient causes, which is what you're referring to.

Aitia (Greek: αἰτία), the word that Aristotle used to refer to the causal explanation, has, in philosophical traditional, been translated as "cause." This peculiar, specialized, technical, usage of the word "cause" is not that of everyday English language.

"The cause of X" in theology means something like "that which must be the case in order for X to be the case." All of the events in physics which you're talking about require something to be the case in order for them to happen. For example, the universe must exist. The laws of nature must be as they are. etc. etc.

Everything you're talking about has αἰτία. 

And exactly what 'has to be the case' for a nucleus to decay at a specific time? NONE of the laws of physics that we know of determine that. There is not even a *hint* that new laws of physics would have such.

Instead, ALL that we have is a probability of a decay in an interval of time.

So, if you want to say that the universe is 'the cause' of everything within it, then might have a concept that is at least coherent, but ultimately useless.

AND, it is far from obvious that everything that exists has a cause in this sense. For example, it could be quite possible for the universe to 'just exist' in which case *nothing* is required for it to be the case.

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If it can't be measured, then, it doesn't exist, or, at least it doesn't matter if it exists or not.

One can't measure stupidity.

If that were the case, we would never be able to determine if someone is stupid or not. The fact that we *can* do so  shows that we *are* measuring it and evaluating that measurement. it may not have as good of precision as a measurement of the fine structure constant, but *any* observation *is* a measurement.