The Case for Theism

[downbeatplumb]

If all you had was a lack of belief the reasonable case I've made from facts should give you reason to reconsider.

The sad part is that you think you have made a reasonable case.

[Mister Agenda]

Perhaps every gain in scientific understanding supports the idea that the whole of reality includes a non-contingent immaterial agent involved in all aspects of the natural world. At least that's how I see it.

You mean quantum foam?

[The Grand Nudger]

Perhaps every gain in scientific understanding supports the idea that the whole of reality includes a non-contingent immaterial agent involved in all aspects of the natural world. At least that's how I see it.

We all see things that aren't there Chad. We probably wouldn't see so many phantoms if our eyes (and the hardware behind them) were the product of a being with any knowledge of optics or logic whatsoever.

[Angrboda]

“Deep within the heart of every evangelist lies the wreck of a car salesman.”
— H.L. Mencken

[The Reality Salesman01]

@Joel

You minsunderstood the analogy. The universe constaining sentient beings and all that surrounds them is the jar. I need you to explain why the jar has something in it other than that what you clumsily assumed was the jar.

Why does one contain nothing, and the other one a God?

Try again.

I would reccomend reading and paying attention and not just typing the first idea that pops in your head this time.

[Drew_2013]

@Joel

You minsunderstood the analogy. The universe constaining sentient beings and all that surrounds them is the jar. I need you to explain why the jar has something in it other than that what you clumsily assumed was the jar.

Why does one contain nothing, and the other one a God?

Try again.

I would reccomend reading and paying attention and not just typing the first idea that pops in your head this time.

Reading your analogy doesn't help.

If I had 2 clear glass jars that both appeared to be empty.
I told you that one of them was infact empty but the other had a God in it that was responsible for every answer to every question you could have about anything.
But this God could not be seen or heard by you.
It lacked any attribute that you would associate with any actual being or thing whatsoever.
There was no experiment that you could do that shows that anything existed in the "God Jar" that didn't exist in the empty jar.
How then would I convince you of this claim?

What God is this supposed to be analogous to? I'm not defending the existence of a God to whom nothing is attributed to. I'm attributing the existence of the universe and life to God.

This goes back to the first post...

1. The fact the universe exists

That might seem like a paltry fact in support of theism. Suppose I was trying a case for murder, the first line of evidence I would produce is a dead body. After all, I couldn't accuse anyone of murder if there was no one deceased. If the universe didn't exist there would be no reason to invoke the existence of God. Moreover if a universe didn't exist there would in fact be as atheists claim no evidence God exists. In order for anyone to even think God exists a place for humans to exist must exist. There are certain facts that must be true for anyone to think God exists. For humans to have any reason to think God might exist, we must have a place that allows us to live. There are in fact several facts and conditions that must be true in order for there to be any reason to think the existence of a Creator is true. None of those facts needs to be true for atheism to be true. Atheism doesn't require the existence of a universe to believe atheism is true. If the universe didn't exist atheism might still be false (God might exist but not have created the universe) but there would be no evidentiary reason to raise the existence of God. Additional lines of evidence soon to follow...

[The Grand Nudger]

It's already been said Drew. All of that garbage must be equally true for atheism.

For humans to have any reason to think God doesn't exist, we must have a place that allows us to live. - etc.. etc...etc.

more amusingly.

God might exist but not have created the universe - this could also be true if the universe -did- exist.

In addition to the pathetic premise and assertions you do deign to mouth (but not establish) your "case" rests on a mountain of unspoken assumptions which you will be equally inept at elaborating upon.

[The Reality Salesman01]

@Joel

Again dude, you're firing from the hip and not realizing what the analogy is showing. Let me break it down.

Jar 1- The universe as seen through the eyes of an Atheist. It is what it is without inserting a God. There is no reason to believe that anything invisible that lacks evidence or any other attribute shared by all other observable things is inside Jar 1.

Jar 2- The same universe above, but seen through the eyes of an individual attempting to attribute all of it to a God that shares all the same attributes as a God that is made up. He lacks evidence and all other attributes shared by everything else in the universe. Jar 2 is exactly the same as Jar 1. They are both exactly as they appear. What method are you going to use to show that there is good reason to believe that the jars are anything but what they appear to be?

The universe without a God is exactly the universe we would expect if it were created by chance without a God. If you are to show that it is one that would be made by a God, I would live to hear it, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

The beginning of the universe was very harsh and unstable. It was anything but what I personally would expect a God of perfect power to make. Why all the mess? Why so many years of unstable particles and gasses just floating around?

Nothing you've said points to this being logically attributed to a God-like process.


It seems as though you just keep saying that the universe is complex and formed at some point so clearly a God made it!

I'm afraid this God of the Gaps philosophy is not as inviting to me.

Knock yourself out though.

---

God exists because the universe exists.

God created the universe.

Therefore God exists.


...huh?

[Drew_2013]

Again dude, you're firing from the hip and not realizing what the analogy is showing. Let me break it down.

You're mistaken, its not that I don't understand what you're attempting to point out, its that I don't agree with the premise or the conclusion and failure to agree doesn't constitute lack of comprehension on my part.

Jar 1- The universe as seen through the eyes of an Atheist. It is what it is without inserting a God. There is no reason to believe that anything invisible that lacks evidence or any other attribute shared by all other observable things is inside Jar 1.

Of course provided you assume that mindless, lifeless forces without plan or intent burped a universe into existence that supports and created something totally unlike itself, life and sentience. No one is contending that God is inside the jar just as when I am inside a car I don't expect to pop open the hood and find the Creator of the car inside the engine compartment. Even so I infer the existence of a creator of the car just the same.

The universe without a God is exactly the universe we would expect if it were created by chance without a God. If you are to show that it is one that would be made by a God, I would live to hear it, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Why would you love to hear it? Are you secretly hoping God exists? Suppose we observed a universe of utter and complete chaos with no discernable laws of nature, no life and no sentient life. Wouldn't such a universe be closer to what you would expect if it was the result of mindless lifeless forces that didn't care or intend life to exist? In contrast we observe ourselves in a universe that does have laws of nature and has the characteristics by the narrowest of margins not only to support life as we know it, but to support planets, solar systems, stars and galaxies. On what basis would we expect to find a universe that appears to be carefully crafted for the existence of sentient life if caused by forces that didn't plan or care if life came about?

The beginning of the universe was very harsh and unstable. It was anything but what I personally would expect a God of perfect power to make. Why all the mess? Why so many years of unstable particles and gasses just floating around?

What natural force caused the beginning of the universe? The beginning of the universe could have been far more unstable. If there have been equal parts matter to anti matter it would have all fizzled out before it began, there is no reason there was slightly more matter than anti matter. If there had been more mass the universe would have collapsed upon itself or if the force of gravity had been stronger. Several characteristics within an extremely narrow range had to occur in order for there to be planets, stars and galaxies. If there wasn't such a thing as dark matter, galaxies would fly apart. In order for us sentient beings to exist, the information required to produce that result had to be present when the universe began to exist, it couldn't be added later. Why would mindless forces that don't care about planets, stars or humans have such information? You claim the universe we observe is what you'd expect from mindless lifeless forces that didn't intend life or sentience to exist, would you expect such forces to create life and sentience? On what basis would that be your expectation? If the universe was purposely created to support sentient life then our expectation would be for the universe to fall within the characteristics (no matter how narrow) to allow such to occur.

---

Again dude, you're firing from the hip and not realizing what the analogy is showing. Let me break it down.

You're mistaken, its not that I don't understand what you're attempting to point out, its that I don't agree with the premise or the conclusion and failure to agree doesn't constitute lack of comprehension on my part.

Jar 1- The universe as seen through the eyes of an Atheist. It is what it is without inserting a God. There is no reason to believe that anything invisible that lacks evidence or any other attribute shared by all other observable things is inside Jar 1.

Of course provided you assume that mindless, lifeless forces without plan or intent burped a universe into existence that supports and created something totally unlike itself, life and sentience. No one is contending that God is inside the jar just as when I am inside a car I don't expect to pop open the hood and find the Creator of the car inside the engine compartment. Even so I infer the existence of a creator of the car just the same.

The universe without a God is exactly the universe we would expect if it were created by chance without a God. If you are to show that it is one that would be made by a God, I would live to hear it, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Why would you love to hear it? Are you secretly hoping God exists? Suppose we observed a universe of utter and complete chaos with no discernable laws of nature, no life and no sentient life. Wouldn't such a universe be closer to what you would expect if it was the result of mindless lifeless forces that didn't care or intend life to exist? In contrast we observe ourselves in a universe that does have laws of nature and has the characteristics by the narrowest of margins not only to support life as we know it, but to support planets, solar systems, stars and galaxies. On what basis would we expect to find a universe that appears to be carefully crafted for the existence of sentient life if caused by forces that didn't plan or care if life came about?

The beginning of the universe was very harsh and unstable. It was anything but what I personally would expect a God of perfect power to make. Why all the mess? Why so many years of unstable particles and gasses just floating around?

What natural force caused the beginning of the universe? The beginning of the universe could have been far more unstable. If there have been equal parts matter to anti matter it would have all fizzled out before it began, there is no reason there was slightly more matter than anti matter. If there had been more mass the universe would have collapsed upon itself or if the force of gravity had been stronger. Several characteristics within an extremely narrow range had to occur in order for there to be planets, stars and galaxies. If there wasn't such a thing as dark matter, galaxies would fly apart. In order for us sentient beings to exist, the information required to produce that result had to be present when the universe began to exist, it couldn't be added later. Why would mindless forces that don't care about planets, stars or humans have such information? You claim the universe we observe is what you'd expect from mindless lifeless forces that didn't intend life or sentience to exist, would you expect such forces to create life and sentience? On what basis would that be your expectation? If the universe was purposely created to support sentient life then our expectation would be for the universe to fall within the characteristics (no matter how narrow) to allow such to occur.

On a side note, Einstein was a great scientist couldn't you find a more flattering picture of him?

[The Grand Nudger]

In order for us sentient beings to exist, the information required to produce that result had to be present when the universe began to exist, it couldn't be added later.

Hardly, interaction is a very useful way of "creating" novel patterns and information. We see it at play all the time. Take an A, add a B, You have AB, Same A, add the AB - AAB/or B add AB BAB - we can rearrange all of this and continue to cram them together producing a massive array of new and novel patterns that didn't exist before their interaction with nothing but an A and a B. We can do the same with just the A, or just the B.

Why would mindless forces that don't care about planets, stars or humans have such information?

Why wouldn't they? We know that they do, you are entirely comprised of "mindless forces" called chemicals (we could go even further down the rabbit hole..but why?), who by interacting - stumbled upon "you".

You claim the universe we observe is what you'd expect from mindless lifeless forces that didn't intend life or sentience to exist, would you expect such forces to create life and sentience?

It is, they did, and yes, I would. "Create" is a loaded word, I suppose it;s okay for now. It's unlikely that you'll be able to conceive of life without the crutch of creation so I don;t mind running with it.

On what basis would that be your expectation?

The basis, firstly, that we are here and we can't find your sentient force (not for lack of looking either). We don't have to expect much, but knowing what we know about organic chemistry its readily apparent that no sentience need be involved. Tumblers in a lock drew

If the universe was purposely created to support sentient life then our expectation would be for the universe to fall within the characteristics (no matter how narrow) to allow such to occur.

Why would it have to be created to support life at all? Why would life need any supporting (perhaps you didn't realize this, but the very notion that life needs supporting lands you firmly in the territory of no god - just biology) ? In any case, it isn't a matter of "if"....but, if that's all you';re going for, you're merely attempting to create a scenario in which a universe created by god and a universe not created by god are entirely similar in every observable way. You're travelling uphill in the hopes of reaching me somewhere near the summit. Seeing as I don't have to invoke an unknown, un-evidenced, unproven - and ergo baseless-assertion...I think I'll stick with -no god-.

Understand?

(I'm going to keep reminding you that you really don't mind the lifeless bit, that's part of your little assertion as well. You don;t want god to be in the company of living things..because then I;m going to ask you all kjinds of questions about its biology...lol)