Atheism is unreasonable

[His_Majesty]

Finally, I took the time to hear what Vilenkin had to say...
Here's his last slide:


And the slides with Guth:

I suspect the universe "didn't" have a beginning.


It's very likely eternal - but nobody knows.

A distinction has to be made between just "our" universe, and the "entire cosmos", which would include all natural reality regardless of where it is. When Guth says "I suspect the universe didn't have a beginning", he is talking about the entire cosmos...all natural reality...but he does believe that OUR universe had a beginning.

Most scientists have test tubes so far up their asses that they are unaware of the philosophical implications of what they say..and as good of a scientist as Guth is, he falls into that category.

[pocaracas]

A distinction has to be made between just "our" universe, and the "entire cosmos", which would include all natural reality regardless of where it is. When Guth says "I suspect the universe didn't have a beginning", he is talking about the entire cosmos...all natural reality...but he does believe that OUR universe had a beginning.

He did say "Universe", not "the entire cosmos".
And as far as we know, "the entire cosmos" may be the Universe. Whatever lies beyond it, if anything, is unknown. This is a known unknown.

Even, granting your terminology correction, how does that change anything?
The entire cosmos, with its capacity to, somehow (quantum foam?), generate Universes, being of infinite space-time does what for the god hypothesis?

Are you wanting to propose that god is actually an extra-universal alien with the capacity to consciously generate and control a whole Universe?
Another god hypothesis... more things to prove. This is an unknown unknown.
If that would be the case, then it should, in theory, be possible to show that such a being exists.... and is possibly accompanied by other such beings. There we go back to polytheism! Actually... now it would be polyalienism.

[Cyberman]

Most scientists have test tubes so far up their asses that they are unaware of the philosophical implications of what they say..and as good of a scientist as Guth is, he falls into that category.

I recommended stronger poison for that well. The stuff you're using is shit.

[His_Majesty]

I'm more interested in what physicists have to say about the KGV than what apologists have to say about it. In what universe is 'Christian apologists use it' considered a reasonable defense for how a physics theorem is interpreted?

Again, WLC already released a quote from Vilenkin at which Vilenkin told him that he represented the theorem accurately, and we all know that WLC uses the theorem as scientific evidence that the universe began to exist. Plus, look at all the physicists that try to evade the theorem...it becomes apparent at where the evidence is pointing.

Bare assertion, dismissed as such.

Bare assertion?? Ok, how about this...I want you to explain the origins of your computer...can you do that? Of course you can...but here is the catch: the origin of your computer has to exist WITHIN the computer...you cannot use any external source to explain the computer's origin...can you do that?? No, you can't.

So think about what you are saying before you say it.

Another bare assertion. The supernatural is a force beyond scientific understanding. The origin of the universe is not beyond scientific understanding, there are a number of scientific explanations for the origin of the universe for which we currently lack sufficient evidence to confirm any particular one...although the quantum vacuum fluctuation hypotheisis seems to currently be the best supported one, mathematically.

What the hell are you talking about? I said "anything that can be explained or described by natural law has to exist within a universe, and anything beyond that (the natural realm) is supernatural".

So how does the above quote from you negate anything that I just said? It doesn't. You are just attacking without any merit whatsoever, and it is quite sickening.

The energy of quantum vacuum fluctuations are also a likely explanation for the increading rate of the expansion of the universe.

Irrelevant. The only requirement for the theorem to hold true is for the AVERAGE expansion rate to be greater than 0...and guess what, an "increasing rate of the expansion" is greater than 0, so the theorem applies.

People...please.

And the KGV does not address an infinite past, and this is from someone who leans towards the past being finite.

First off, what the hell is the KGV? It is called the BGV (Borde/Guth/Vilenkin), and it DOES address an infinite past, by proving that the past isn't infinite.

It may have begun to exist or it may have transformed from a previous state. No one actually knows. Either way, it does not impact on the probability of God existing.

Philosophical problems are brewing in that notion.

A finite universe means absolutely nothing. I'm indifferent to the universe being past infinite or past finite. As soon as we know the answer to that, I'm happy to go along with it. I don't start with the conclusion I want to reach and work backwards. Whatever it turns out to be is fine with me. But all we KNOW is that the universe was once in a very hot, dense state; and then it started expanding. We do NOT know how long it was in that state before the expansion, or the origin of that initial state, or even if the question of what was before the BB makes sense given that's when time started for the universe.

A finite universe means that the past is infinitely long...but again, there are some philosophical problems with that...and no physicist will be able to help you out in that regard...you know why? Because philosophical problems are independent of physics...so until you can successfully refute these problems, then your "hopes" of science figuring something out for you is futile.

Prove it.

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.

Prove infinity is a problem.

I did, with Esqualax (whatever his name is). But ok, I will pass the hot potato to you, because it is clear that he couldn't handle it.

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?

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

The math says otherwise. I know it's hard to wrap your head around, but quantum weirdness proves that not being able to wrap our heads around something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Quantum vaccuum fluctuations definitely exist within our space-time, and the math says they could exist even if there wasn't any. Your issue with an infinite past can only be resolved by invoking a cause to which time does not apply. That you want it to be God instead of quantum vacuum fluctuations doesn't mean it is. Whether God or quantum foam, there was never 'absolute nothingness, and if you define 'universe' as everything that exists, the universe is past eternal, even if once upon a time it only contained God.

I am talking about infinity, and you are talking about some damn quantum foam?

Care to present a syllogism that proves it absurd that doesn't contain the conclusion in the premises?

Answer the above analogy. If you can do that, then no syllogism is needed.

Or acknowledge that humans finding something absurd is not enough to make something untrue.

Logically absurd concepts are untrue. If you don't know that, then maybe I am wasting my time talking to you. I can talk to people that don't understand the fact that something that is logically absurd cannot "happen".

On reflection, it doesn't need a whole thread: An omnipotent being can do anything, and omniscient being can only do what it foresees itself doing. Done.

Makes no sense.

Universal and objective are not synonyms. It's easy to imagine an alien species with a different morality that is still based on objective standards derived from its own nature.

False. Objective moral values mean that things like rape and murder are wrong no matter how many people think that they are right. The "rightness" or "wrongness" transcends what man think or doesn't think.

The one whose brain is malfunctioning is wrong. A blind person lacking sight doesn't make green a matter of opinion.

So if you have one group of people that believe rape is wrong, and another group that believe that rape is right...which side prevails? And not only that, but again, where does moral values come from? Nature? Nature doesn't know right from wrong? Where does it come from in the first place?

Even most rapists will agree it's wrong to rape someone, and don't appreciate being raped themselves.

Well, Charles Manson was asked do he regret anything that he did. And his reply was "No, I wish I had done more."

A society that forbids rape is objectively better functioning than one that allows it.

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

No more or less subjective than the personal decision to follow the law of the Bible

If the Bible has within it the commandments and laws of a omnibenevolent Being who is just and holy, then there is no subjectivity to it.

...as the person who does so interprets it. You can't escape subjectivity, ultimately we are all responsible for our own choices and can't defend them by pointing to a dogma that we're following. We didn't have to follow it. We can't escape having to use our own judgment.

You just said above that moral values is objective, now you are down here talking about subjectivity?

I didnt' say it was based on nature. Something isn't good just because it's 'in nature'. I said it is based on OUR nature.

It is based on what is best for human beings, given our nature. Even malfunctioning humans tend to agree they don't like being raped, murdered, or robbed. Properly functioning humans feel empathy, compassion, have an instinct for fairness and reciprocity, form personal bonds, and can anticipate consequences. They also have a lot of impulses and urges that aren't compatible with those sentiments, which have to be managed if we want to live in any kind of harmony, said harmony being in our own best interest. We can figure out better ways to live together. We figured out that slavery is wrong, eventually, and that was a big step forward. We're figuring out that giving people room to be different is more compassionate than forcing conformity. We can make moral progress, but adhering to ancient scriptures as the be-all and end-all of morality can be a hindrance to that.

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?

Follow them for them to work. DNA doesn't need anyone to understand it for it to manufacture complex molecules with specific functions. It's not really a set of instructions, it's what DNA does.

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?

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.

Selection acting on variation. Just like we now use computer programs in imitation of evolution to design new molecules for us.

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.

Given enough time, anything possible can happen.

Right, given enough time, Jesus can/will return.

No amount of time can accomplish the impossible. Do you dispute that?

Oh, I believe it, I just don't believe that this is the case. You would need wayyyy more time (in my opinion), than the 13.7 billion years since the universe began. That isn't enough time.

And we find yet another thing, along with ghosts, that you consider qualifying as God. Are you a polytheist, or do you just enjoy making up things you want to claim other people believe? I don't see why you don't worship the quantum vacuum, if you buy ghosts and time as God, why not that?

I am a Christian theist.

If you're a determinist, there's no such thing as free will, and neither of us can help what we think. A designer that controls everything necessarily eliminates free will and choice. If you're not a determinist, you've no basis to claim everything is planned.

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.

Why would I say that something which clearly is a rare occurrence that happened under circumstances that can no longer be found in nature happens all the time. You can add what is and isn't science to the list of things you don't understand.

But yet if God doesn't exist then it had to have happened that way, right?

No one believes life started with a cell. It needed one self-replicating molecule, and it only had to form spontaneously once. RNA is not a protein, but it can catalyze reactions like protein enzymes. The first self-replicating RNA strand would not need proteins, it could replicate without them. RNA isn't as good as DNA for making proteins, but it's otherwise more versatile. And a form of 'metabolism' likely drove RNA reactions in concert with other molecules. When activated nucleotides were addes to a type of volcanic clay, RNA strands up to 55 nucleotides long formed. Experiments simulating those of early earth show that the building blocks of RNA (sugars, phosphates, and bases) would have formed naturally. RNA may not have been the first replicator, there are TNA and PNA scenarios that are plausible. But there was a lot of complex organic chemistry happening in the Hadean era, especially in clay, hydrothermal vents, and even ice.

All of that is irrelevant if you can't go in the lab and start biting, instead of being on internet forms every day barking. In other words, all bark and no bite. Everything that you just said sounds good. It sounds great. It sounds technical. Ok, take all of that information, go in the lab, and get some results that is on your side of things. Until then, keep on barking.

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?

Nope. All you need is to throw the cards on the floor enough times. Do you think that sequence won't show up if you throw the cards a billion billion times? What if there are a billion decks of cards being thrown every minute for a hundred million years...do you think that sequence won't show up without an intervening intelligent force then? When it comes to the first replicating molecule, we're talking about deep time and continuous opportunities in many places. The very unlikely can become nearly inevitable under those circumstances.

But you don't get that many chances. See, now we are talking about entropy, which is another problem for the naturalist. The entropy had to be low from the very moment of the big bang, and there was only one shot...one try...and it hit the jackpot. The constants that govern natural are all precise...all geared to be suited for intelligent life...all made with mathematical precision...and you don't get that kind of precision from a mindless and blind process which was derived from a spontaneous big bang with no intelligent hand guiding the process.

All Discovery Institute 'scientists' commit in advance to the proposition that their work must confirm creationism.

Genetic fallacy, and I could say the same thing. I can say that Richard Dawkins goes in the lab and perform experiments that confirms his atheism. How about that?

It's a very big deal. The process is still dumb, sloppy, and riddled with blind alleys, atavistic remnants, and flaws. Almost every species that has ever existed is now extinct. It's hard to imagine designing a more clumsy way to accomplish a goal. But it's tres' cool that it wound up leading to something that could understand it.

So a dumb, sloppy process created something more complex than a Boeing 757? Wow. Seems pretty smart to me.

We've only been at it for decades, rather than the hundreds of millions of years it took nature, yet we're within sight of that goal. We can make a whole genome from scratch. We're working on the first completely synthetic cell. It's an exciting area of research that is likely to yield enormously useful benefits. It's a good investment.

Yeah, hundreds of millions of years for a mindless and blind process. That time should be reduced drastically since you now have intelligent human beings at the wheel.

[Bad Wolf]

His Majesty, how about spending less time on this thread and more time writing up your opening statement.

[SteelCurtain]

Lol. I predict that he'll just be getting around to it when the 7 day window passes. Then he'll complain about unfair rules, then probably declare himself the de facto winner.

[His_Majesty]

Surely you're not too stupid to understand the difference between asking for corroborating evidence outside of one set of documents and asking for corroborating evidence outside of the region the events supposedly occurred iin?

You want corroborating evidence outside one set of documents. I want corroborating evidence outside of one tomb (King Tut's). I expect more evidence for the tomb thing than the document thing.

What goal post have I previously moved that justifies you making that assertion?

You will find the answer if you look at whatever I was responding to.

I lean towards Jesus being a real person, I'm more than happy to accept convincing corroboration. It's not like confirmation that there really was an apocalytiic preacher named Yeshua who ran afoul of the authorities whose teaching formed the basis of Christianity would mean he was really a miracle worker. I've got no more issue with Jesus existing than with Mohammed existing. Mohammed being a real person doesn't make Islam the one true religion, and Jesus being real doesn't make Christianity the one true religion. Having a confirmed founder isn't the criteria for religious truth.

Ok, I have a simple question for you...which will make or break the case. Do you believe that the disciples believed that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them..yes or no?

I'm aware of the internal evidence, that's why I lean to better than 50/50 odds of the man having existed. The external evidence is faint and of very doubtful authenticity and implication. Unless you've got something new we haven't heard before, which you're keeping to yourself for some reason.

Another thread

You misunderstand evolution so profoundly that you posit an event that would prove it wrong as evidence against it. No species EVER produces another species in one generation. No offspring is EVER different enough from its parents to constitute a new species. Evolution is built from small changes accumulating over hundreds or thousands of generations. A grade school understanding of biological evolution would be an improvement over the understanding that you currently possess. Blame the people who have been lying to you about what evolution claims for making you look so foolish. If you never heard of evolution, you would know more about it than you do now with all the misinformation you've aborbed.

See debate. Although the last sentence is kinda funny

An omnipotent being can do anything. An omniscient being can only do what it knows it will do in advance. A God concept that combines omniscience and omnipotence is a married bachelor, it can't exist. Omnipotence can't exist, because it necessarily includes the ability to omniscient if the omnipotent being desires to be so, and in that moment all of its future actions will be set; because perfect future knowledge is only possible if the future is immutable, but an omnipotent being must be able to change it.

Is it logically possible to be able to change the future is the question. Omnipotence means you can do anything that is LOGICALLY possible. I think the concept of changing the future is logically impossible since God cannot do something any different than what he knows that he WILL do.

Now, if you can prove that God can't do something that is logically possible, then yeah, you will be smokin'.

You know what would make it REALLY plausible? A confirmable prediction that can't be made with the current established theory that turns out to be confirmed. You know, doing science.

Once science fails to answer certain questions for me, I have no choice but to look elsewhere. If I go to the bank to borrow money and get denied...and I continue 9 or 10 times and still gets denied...eventually I will go to another bank and see if I can get money from there.

Evolution is the explanation for your features. Abiogenesis is a plausible hypothesis for what kicked it off. Your dissatisfaction with it not being the answer you want isn't my problem.

All bark..

There's only one nature, but many theistic creation myths. If you prove 'God did it', you've got miles to travel from there to 'the Christian God did it'.

That is why there is this thing called "The argument based on the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus" which is used to pinpoint exactly which God in the pool of the many theistic creation myths.

That was an awfully long sentence. And the distance from Jerusalem to Corinth is barely more than a third of the distance you cite. Kind of ironic considering how you're crowing about Esquilax being wrong. A little over 1200 miles would take a caravan about four months to cross.

Well, if I was wrong, then so was the internet "distance calculator" where I got the distance from. But even you said the distance between Corinth and Jerusalem was a four month trip...which is still astounding. That is how far Christianity spread.

[Bad Wolf]

Well just ignore me then.

[LostLocke]

Exactly!
So if an infinite regress does in fact happen, it's not illogical.

There is no "if's, and's, or but's" about it. It cannot happen in reality.

You can say "it cannot happen in reality" all you want, but reality doesn't care.

Some people can say "Time cannot travel at a different rate in orbit than it does on the surface of the earth. It's logically impossible." Guess what? It happens, and if anyone thinks it "cannot happen in reality", that's their problem, not reality's.
Same goes for infinite regress.

[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.