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God and theists.
#71
RE: God and theists.
(May 19, 2017 at 2:56 pm)SteveII Wrote:
(May 19, 2017 at 11:15 am)Grandizer Wrote: Sean Carroll is one scientist who does not believe the universe is necessarily fine-tuned for life.

Some scientists that defend the reality of fine-tuning:

Barrow, Carr, Carter, Davies, Dawkins, Deutsch, Ellis, Greene, Guth, Harrison, Hawking, Linde, Page, Penrose, Polkinghorne, Rees, Sandage, Smolin, Susskind, Tegmark, Tipler, Vilenkin, Weinberg, Wheeler, and Wilczek.

I'm skeptical that all of them believe the unvierse is fine-tuned for life. But suppose this is so, doesn't matter. My response was directed to you claiming that it is a fact not in question that the unverse is fine-tuned for life, and that no serious scientist would think differently about this (e.g., necessary universe/multiverse, etc.). Brought up Sean Carroll as an example of a serious scientist who believes in many-worlds interpretation and says that it's not necessarily the case that the universe is fine-tuned for life (it's possible that the parameters could be adjusted somewhat and still allow for life of some sort). I'm sure there are a few more scientists who agree, but like I said, doesn't matter. At the end of the day, it's not the opinions/speculations of scientists that we should accept as gospel truth. It's what they discover and/or derive through the scientific method that we should seriously consider.
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#72
RE: God and theists.
(May 19, 2017 at 11:49 am)downbeatplumb Wrote:
(May 15, 2017 at 11:19 am)SteveII Wrote: Evidence and reasons to believe in God:

1. Person of Jesus is compelling.

No he isn't.

Quote:2. The NT describes actual events including the miracles, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

No it doesn't.
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vorlon comments:

Being crucified twice on consecutive days is pretty gosh darn compelling, ain't it ??   Tongue

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Quote:3. God works in people's lives today--changing people on the inside as well as the occurrence of miracles.

No it doesn't.

Quote:4. The natural theology arguments:

Fail when they encounter facts.

Quote:a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.

God is probably the worst possible explanation for "why things exist at all".
It supposes that an intelligent agency that consists of nothing at all and in with no time to exist in managed through means not gone into create everything including space and time and hates the gays.

Quote:b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.

Nope.
Quote:c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.

Nope.


Quote:d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.

Nope.

Quote:e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

Nope.
 The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it. 




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#73
RE: God and theists.
(May 19, 2017 at 3:03 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Balls in your court now, Grandizer. Who will win 'who's got the most scientists agreeing with them?'?

I guess I'll keep the balls in my court. Tongue
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#74
RE: God and theists.
(May 19, 2017 at 3:26 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: I'm just disappointed in not having being born in a universe of craft beer volcanoes. I'm growing tired of this crapsack world.
are you part of the church of the flying spaghetti monster? beer volcanoes are your reward in the after life.



You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.

Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.




 








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#75
RE: God and theists.
SteveII Wrote:I appreciate the discussion. Thanks. 

Likewise.
SteveII Wrote:1a/2. You said "Absolute nothingness is impossible and quantum foam has always (for any meaningful sense of 'always') existed." Neither of these are true. 

I gave one example of a natural explanation of the universe, of which you said there were none. I wasn't claiming it was correct, there is insufficient data to confirm it. All it really has going for it is math that works and being based on evidence rather than working backwards from the conclusion someone wants to be true.
SteveII Wrote:'Nothing' is not a void.

It really feels like I said that already.
SteveII Wrote:'Void' is in relation to something else.  There are no logical problems with this concept and despite Krauss and other's attempt to redefine it, nothing is just simply not anything. Attempting to claim there is no such thing is an obvious attempt to avoid the implications. 

So your response boils down to 'nuh-uh!'

SteveII Wrote:Quantum foam is something physical and as such cannot be past eternal because that is a logical absurdity.

If it's a logical absurdity, it should be possible to prove that it is such, unless it's actually only an intuitional absurdity (like Achilles and the Tortoise). If there were a Nobel Prize for math, I'm sure doing so would earn you one. And while you're at it, show how something being non-physical makes past-infinite no longer an absurdity.

SteveII Wrote:There cannot be an infinite number of successive events stretching off into the past because we would have never arrived at the present. From the other side of this absurd coin, the quantum foam woudl have generated our universe already--an infinite time ago.

It seems paradoxical, like Achilles passing the tortoise...yet he does. And any problem that applies to an infinite past situation applies to God as well. If God exists infinitely into the past, he'll never have gotten to the point where he creates our universe.

And our universe having been previously generated precludes it from being generated again how? With past-infinite quantum foam every possible universe has occurred an infinite number of times. Though I suspect that the solution to the paradox for the quantum foam hypothesis is that the foam itself is timeless, it's the universes that it generates that have time. Quantum foam would be the basic fabric of the multiverse, but not itself part of time and space. During the normal course of events in QF, virtual particles are generated and instantly annihilated, no change to the status quo. When there's a runaway expansion that generates a universe, that is no disturbance of the QF.

I'm not married to the hypothesis, it was just one of several possible examples, but I find it entertaining because QF has most of the properties typically assigned to a bare-bones Creator deity except consciousness and personhood. If it turns out that the universe came from QF, theists will have been right by about 90% of the attributes they claim a creator deity must have.

SteveII Wrote:I never said there was nothing before the universe (or multiverse). There was God. What I said was the universe (or multiverse) --both physical were created from nothing.

I can't help but notice that you chose not to address any of the objections I raised about how problematic 'absolute nothingness' is philosophically, so I don't see any point in raising them again.

SteveII Wrote:All of the best models of the universe can't avoid a beginning.

As rated by the FDA of cosmology? How did they determine to exclude the several cyclic models of the universe? Because, once again, there's a Nobel for the person who can prove they're invalid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model

SteveII Wrote:All of our reason and experience points to anything physical had to have a beginning. Anything that has a beginning has an explanation.

All our reason and experience tells us that we have never observed matter or energy beginning, only transforming. I'm sure there's an explanation for it, less sure that we'll never know. I do know that you claim to know but I think you're simply mistaken.

SteveII Wrote:God, by necessity (in the sense if God exists it could not be any other way) did not have a beginning. There is nothing necessary about anything physical--it is all contingent. 

We don't know if the universe in the larger sense of everything that exists began to exist. There's no evidence that our cosmos hasn't been cycling forever and no objection to that being the case that doesn't also apply to God. Past infinite sucks as a proposition and maybe you should talk to Neo about figuring out a way to have your cake and eat it to. I'm pretty sure he doesn't go with a past-infinite God but a timeless God. Timeless, but able to generate time, like Quantum Foam.

SteveII Wrote:1b. Science cannot help us with anything before space-time. If a theoretical physicist hypothesizes what may have been, it is metaphysics. This is just mater of definitions. 

You're missing the Golden Age of Cosmology.

SteveII Wrote:3. I don't think that is true. The Anthropic Principle is just the conclusion that observations of the universe must be compatible with the observer observing it. It does not follow that the existence of the observer is unremarkable. 

You can remark on anything you want, but the anthropic principle states that we should expect to find conditions that permit our existence. If you choose to be astounded by finding exactly what must be the case if our existence is natural, have at.

SteveII Wrote:Say you have been sentenced to be shot for treason. There are 100 marksmen with loaded guns aimed at your heart. The signal is given and they all fire. Now while it is true that the you should not be surprised that you do not observe you are dead, it is equally true that you should be surprised that you do observe you are alive.

That was not a bad analogy. And it's okay to marvel at the universe. But I would be way more surprised to find myself shot through the heart and alive, and if you had asked me in advance in what way could I still be alive after the order to fire was given I could have told you: everyone missed (perhaps deliberately), or some other eventuality in which me being alive doesn't involve multiple bullets in my heart.  
SteveII Wrote:4. The fact is that most cosmologists (Christian or not) think the universe shows remarkable fine-tuning. 

So if the consensus you perceive changes, you will go along with the majority of cosmologists?
SteveII Wrote:5. That's simply not true.

So a cumulative case, after it being shown that one of the elements it rests on is problematic, is as strong as a case with an otherwise equal amount of support in which none of the elements it rests on is problematic?
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
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#76
God and theists.
If the word "nothing" in "God created the universe from nothing" literally means the absence of ANYthing, then it can be rephrased as "God did not create the universe from anything" which means either the universe always existed or it was created by something other than God. Neither is keeping with what most religious believe when they read that biblical passage, so the faithful may need to re-examine the meaning of the concept.
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#77
RE: God and theists.
I am guessing but I think it was Feynman who said that discovering there is fine tuning in the universe is like discovering that the men's section in the department store sells jackets and ties.
God thinks it's fun to confuse primates. Larsen's God!






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#78
RE: God and theists.
(May 20, 2017 at 4:17 am)downbeatplumb Wrote:
(May 19, 2017 at 3:26 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: I'm just disappointed in not having being born in a universe of craft beer volcanoes. I'm growing tired of this crapsack world.
are you part of the church of the flying spaghetti monster? beer volcanoes are your reward in the after life.

The advantage of theism is they spew craft beer...hopefully a nice lambic ale.
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#79
RE: God and theists.
(May 21, 2017 at 8:34 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:
(May 20, 2017 at 4:17 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: are you part of the church of the flying spaghetti monster? beer volcanoes are your reward in the after life.

The advantage of theism is they spew craft beer...hopefully a nice lambic ale.

Granted some of the best! That is what sexual frustration can do. However, god is not necessary for a good brew. Recently I sampled a good IPA. Snake Dog. Today, the old standard Guinness Stout. Explained easily without a deity!
God thinks it's fun to confuse primates. Larsen's God!






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#80
RE: God and theists.
I will have to try Snake Dog although I'm getting a bit maxed out on IPA's. My favorite right now is "A little Crazy" by Revolution Brewing.
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