Exposing the Intellectual Bankruptcy of Atheists Criticizing Religion

[Thumpalumpacus]

You keep forgetting how simply referencing QM in a vague and general way can justify everything from precognition to Idealism. I'm asking for one specific QM experiment that makes impossible an umoved mover/first cause/necessary being/guiding intelligence.

And while you're at it, maybe you can name an outdated observation about reality in the Five Ways other than those examples used for illustration.

We have observed particles coming into existence which have no cause. That means that the observation that "everything must have a cause" is obsolete. This is a result of QM.

Now, you don't get to feign ignorance of this any more.  It undermines a key tenet of the Five Ways, and you have been made aware of it. I had expected that after my mentioning this upthread, you would have read up on it yourself or at least asked questions about why I thought it applied; but you went instead with pretending that the exchange didn't happen.

Tell me more about the "intellectual bankruptcy of atheists", Chad.

[TheRealJoeFish]

You keep forgetting how simply referencing QM in a vague and general way can justify everything from precognition to Idealism. I'm asking for one specific QM experiment that makes impossible an umoved mover/first cause/necessary being/guiding intelligence.

And while you're at it, maybe you can name an outdated observation about reality in the Five Ways other than those examples used for illustration.

We have observed particles coming into existence which have no cause. That means that the observation that "everything must have a cause" is obsolete. This is a result of QM.

Now, you don't get to feign ignorance of this any more.  It undermines a key tenet of the Five Ways, and you have been made aware of it. I had expected that after my mentinoing this before you would have read up on it yourself or at least asked questions about why I thought it applied; but you went instead with pretending that the exchange didn't happen.

Tell me more about the "intellectual bankruptcy of atheists", Chad.  

But, but, maybe there's some unknown force acting to cause those things! Like... it lives in the gaps... and makes stuff... like god... a... god of the... oh. Ohhhhh.

[ohreally]

The title of this thread is like many cheap online articles, sensational headline with no payout. As if asserting false information somehow creates actual doubt.

"Exposing the Intellectual Bankruptcy of Abigfootists Criticizing the Search for Sasquatch" has just as much of an impact.

[Esquilax]

First things first.

You are under the impression that “first” cause means the starting point of a temporal axis. In Latin term Aquinas used was ‘primus’.  Just as in English, first can mean a temporal beginning but it can also refer to what is primary and fundamental. The first Three Ways are based on a rejection of an infinite essentially ordered series. Events in time can be accidentally ordered and that is why the argument has nothing to do with time. Aquinas only mentions ‘time’ in the Third Way and even there it doesn’t refer to a specific starting point for creation. In the Third Way he is talking about any given point in time not a temporal beginning.

Oh, I'm sorry! Fool that I am, I thought you were finally discussing something real! You certainly were enamored with the importance of observations back when you thought that observations confirmed the five ways.

But it turns out instead that you just wanted to waffle on about abstract philosophical bullshit instead! I should have known, it's kind of your thing. You just wanted it both ways: before you were asserting that empirical observations bear out your claims, but the moment it's demonstrated that no, that's not true, you shuck observations completely in favor of vague "primary and fundamental" abstractions that have not only never been observed, but are contraindicated by the available evidence. Essentially, you were shown why a first cause isn't needed in an objective sense, and your response was to walk back the entirety of your last argument to say "yeah, but there's a first cause anyway because it has nothing to do with objectively real things like linear causality, the only framework we can observe through which causes occur, it's all about a... first cause."

Do you know what we call philosophical ideas that have no basis in objective reality and are contraindicated by all the available data, Chad? "Making shit up." Aquinas lived before the time when his ideas could be properly refuted by the evidence, before there was a scientific method and a recognition of how important evidence was in an epistemological sense, before the fallacies that inundate his work were formulated.

What the hell is your excuse?

If you don’t believe my interpretation of Aquinas is correct then you should at least know it is not unique to me. I refer you to the following paper: “There Must be a First: Why Thomas Aquinas Rejects, Infinite, Essentially Ordered, Causal Series” by Gavin Kerr. I can give you other references as well.

The trouble is that "infinite" or "finite, with a first cause," are not the only two options. They certainly are within a linear causal framework, but as we've established, such a thing isn't uniform across the entirety of reality.

It’s not whining if you really don’t understand Aquinas which is clearly the case. As shown above, you continue in your ignorance of what ‘first’ means, even when it is central to the argument, and even when the correct denotation was given to you more than once. Why would I would undertake to address all your other stubborn misconceptions?

Yes, I was mistaken. I was also giving you the benefit of the doubt and presuming that you were talking about something objective and empirically proven, when you were talking about how empirical observations demonstrate the claim. How was I supposed to know that all that talk of observation was a smokescreen and that, in reality, you were talking about something that has never been observed? And for that matter, why should I be chastised for my charity in assuming you were talking about something real, rather than just asserting your claim in some vague, ill defined conceptual terms that must exist objectively only because you say so?

Sorry, I'll try not to give you any credit in advance in future.

For a person that always cries about others making assumptions about him, you presume to know the extent of my education in the natural sciences. I do not need to prove to you that I have a reasonable layman’s understanding of modern cosmology. In your post you made no statements about cosmology with which I disagreed. They simply do not matter.

They matter if you're talking about something real. Since you're not, I guess the entire conversation is moot, since you were trying to prove that the five ways were objectively truthful, and your final resort is just to fall back on nothing.

Gee, that sure sounds like you did. The only wiggle room you have is the last part when you talk about something that is “not this universe” but that’s trading on an ambiguity that doesn’t distinguish between the physical universe and all of reality.

What I'm saying is that our observations are perfectly valid as uniform on Earth, within the timeframe that they were made in. There's nothing wrong with uniformitarianism within the scope that we are capable of observing. The problem is that you're taking those observations and seeking to extrapolate them out into areas that we've never observed, and thus can't necessarily make those assumptions about, and then going further and attempting to push them out beyond the boundaries of the physical universe as a whole, into a region of spacetime that we already know operates completely differently to anything we've ever observed. That's the problem: you're not aware of the limitations of uniformitarianism as an axiom in your rush to make simplistic blanket statements to confirm your presuppositions. Again, if we were to find physical evidence in new observations that contradicted uniformitarianism, then uniformitarianism would either need to expand to fit, or be rejected.

The big bang and the state of the universe prior to it represent exactly such evidence. You can't have uniform physical principles within a space that we've established does not behave like the universe that informs those principles in any way. This isn't... it's not exactly a controversial statement.

[LastPoet]

First things first.

You are under the impression that “first” cause means the starting point of a temporal axis. In Latin term Aquinas used was ‘primus’.  Just as in English, first can mean a temporal beginning but it can also refer to what is primary and fundamental. The first Three Ways are based on a rejection of an infinite essentially ordered series. Events in time can be accidentally ordered and that is why the argument has nothing to do with time. Aquinas only mentions ‘time’ in the Third Way and even there it doesn’t refer to a specific starting point for creation. In the Third Way he is talking about any given point in time not a temporal beginning.

Oh, I'm sorry! Fool that I am, I thought you were finally discussing something real! You certainly were enamored with the importance of observations back when you thought that observations confirmed the five ways.  

But it turns out instead that you just wanted to waffle on about abstract philosophical bullshit instead! I should have known, it's kind of your thing. You just wanted it both ways: before you were asserting that empirical observations bear out your claims, but the moment it's demonstrated that no, that's not true, you shuck observations completely in favor of vague "primary and fundamental" abstractions that have not only never been observed, but are contraindicated by the available evidence. Essentially, you were shown why a first cause isn't needed in an objective sense, and your response was to walk back the entirety of your last argument to say "yeah, but there's a first cause anyway because it has nothing to do with objectively real things like linear causality, the only framework we can observe through which causes occur, it's all about a... first cause."

Do you know what we call philosophical ideas that have no basis in objective reality and are contraindicated by all the available data, Chad? "Making shit up." Aquinas lived before the time when his ideas could be properly refuted by the evidence, before there was a scientific method and a recognition of how important evidence was in an epistemological sense, before the fallacies that inundate his work were formulated.

What the hell is your excuse?

If you don’t believe my interpretation of Aquinas is correct then you should at least know it is not unique to me. I refer you to the following paper: “There Must be a First: Why Thomas Aquinas Rejects, Infinite, Essentially Ordered, Causal Series” by Gavin Kerr. I can give you other references as well.

The trouble is that "infinite" or "finite, with a first cause," are not the only two options. They certainly are within a linear causal framework, but as we've established, such a thing isn't uniform across the entirety of reality.

It’s not whining if you really don’t understand Aquinas which is clearly the case. As shown above, you continue in your ignorance of what ‘first’ means, even when it is central to the argument, and even when the correct denotation was given to you more than once. Why would I would undertake to address all your other stubborn misconceptions?

Yes, I was mistaken. I was also giving you the benefit of the doubt and presuming that you were talking about something objective and empirically proven, when you were talking about how empirical observations demonstrate the claim. How was I supposed to know that all that talk of observation was a smokescreen and that, in reality, you were talking about something that has never been observed? And for that matter, why should I be chastised for my charity in assuming you were talking about something real, rather than just asserting your claim in some vague, ill defined conceptual terms that must exist objectively only because you say so?

Sorry, I'll try not to give you any credit in advance in future.  

For a person that always cries about others making assumptions about him, you presume to know the extent of my education in the natural sciences. I do not need to prove to you that I have a reasonable layman’s understanding of modern cosmology. In your post you made no statements about cosmology with which I disagreed. They simply do not matter.

They matter if you're talking about something real. Since you're not, I guess the entire conversation is moot, since you were trying to prove that the five ways were objectively truthful, and your final resort is just to fall back on nothing.

Gee, that sure sounds like you did. The only wiggle room you have is the last part when you talk about something that is “not this universe” but that’s trading on an ambiguity that doesn’t distinguish between the physical universe and all of reality.

What I'm saying is that our observations are perfectly valid as uniform on Earth, within the timeframe that they were made in. There's nothing wrong with uniformitarianism within the scope that we are capable of observing. The problem is that you're taking those observations and seeking to extrapolate them out into areas that we've never observed, and thus can't necessarily make those assumptions about, and then going further and attempting to push them out beyond the boundaries of the physical universe as a whole, into a region of spacetime that we already know operates completely differently to anything we've ever observed. That's the problem: you're not aware of the limitations of uniformitarianism as an axiom in your rush to make simplistic blanket statements to confirm your presuppositions. Again, if we were to find physical evidence in new observations that contradicted uniformitarianism, then uniformitarianism would either need to expand to fit, or be rejected.

The big bang and the state of the universe prior to it represent exactly such evidence. You can't have uniform physical principles within a space that we've established does not behave like the universe that informs those principles in any way. This isn't... it's not exactly a controversial statement.

There are many things that I dont regret leaving the staff for.This is one of them.

[Whateverist]

Exposing the Intellectual Bankruptcy of Atheists Criticizing Religion?!?

Just got the alarm in the bat cave. Who is on this? How bad is the breach? What secrets have gotten out?

[Neo-Scholastic]

You keep forgetting how simply referencing QM in a vague and general way can justify everything from precognition to Idealism. I'm asking for one specific QM experiment that makes impossible an umoved mover/first cause/necessary being/guiding intelligence.

And while you're at it, maybe you can name an outdated observation about reality in the Five Ways other than those examples used for illustration.

We have observed particles coming into existence which have no cause. That means that the observation that "everything must have a cause" is obsolete. This is a result of QM.

Now, you don't get to feign ignorance of this any more.  It undermines a key tenet of the Five Ways, and you have been made aware of it. I had expected that after my mentioning this upthread, you would have read up on it yourself or at least asked questions about why I thought it applied; but you went instead with pretending that the exchange didn't happen.

Tell me more about the "intellectual bankruptcy of atheists", Chad.  

I’m a layman so I’m not going to argue about the details of QM. I’m guessing that you think ‘virtual’ particles just pop in an out of existence for no reason at all from nothing at all. That’s not the impression I get from reading articles made for the lay public such as the following:

http://profmattstrassler.com/2011/10/10/...les-at-all

&
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...s-of-light

For some reason virtual particles are always placed in quotes like “virtual particles.” Likewise all the articles I read consistently point out that the vacuum out of which they come isn’t technically ‘nothing’, but an actual something.

There are other equally puzzling QM findings that cut the other way and put conscious observation as an actual causal agent:

http://discovermagazine.com/2002/jun/featuniverse

Backed by experiment…

http://www.gizmag.com/quantum-theory-reality-anu/37866

But this theory (creation of physical reality by observation) and confirming experimental evidence raise an even more interesting puzzle. How can physical reality be created by observers that were themselves created as a result of operations within the physical universe? Sounds perilously like an infinite essentially ordered sequence! It seems to me that the existence of all the potential & possible observers depends on an actual & necessary observer.

But that’s QM for you. It can be used to justify just about any version of woo to which one is partial, even atheistic woo.

[Angrboda]

There are other equally puzzling QM findings that cut the other way and put conscious observation as an actual causal agent...

"Of course the introduction of the observer must not be misunderstood to imply that some kind of subjective features are to be brought into the description of nature. The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration, i.e., the transition from the "possible" to the "actual," is absolutely necessary here and cannot be omitted from the interpretation of quantum theory."

Werner Heisenberg

In short, 'observation' doesn't mean observation by a conscious agent, only measurement. See for example the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_ch...tum_eraser

[Neo-Scholastic]

There are other equally puzzling QM findings that cut the other way and put conscious observation as an actual causal agent...

"Of course the introduction of the observer must not be misunderstood to imply that some kind of subjective features are to be brought into the description of nature. The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration, i.e., the transition from the "possible" to the "actual," is absolutely necessary here and cannot be omitted from the interpretation of quantum theory."

Werner Heisenberg

In short, 'observation' doesn't mean observation by a conscious agent, only measurement.  See for example the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_ch...tum_eraser

Suppose the observer is indeed an insensate apparatus and not a conscious observer, the existence of the measuring apparatus depends on the observations made by other measuring apparatuses the existence of which depends on the observations of another... and so on. Thus even apparatuses remain only possible & contingent until there is an actual & necessary apparatus of some kind.

[Thumpalumpacus]

But that’s QM for you. It can be used to justify just about any version of woo to which one is partial, even atheistic woo.

Except that atheistic "woo", as you put it, doesn't require further woo to justify its conclusions.

Parsimony, and all that.