What do scientists say about existence?

[bennyboy]

Dude, you have the shittiest philosophical definitions ever. You are listing things you believe to exist, not explaining what existence is. That's like defining mammals as cats 'n' dogs 'n' sich.

[brewer]

Loo, loo, loo, I evade you. Loo, loo, loo, you have no guts too.

Na-ne na-ne boo boo, your god is full of doo doo. 

Concept schmoncept. You have nothing but a man made fantasy. 

I don't want to work with you (my guess is that you probably don't have the ability to tell). 

But keep posting Mario. You might get the poo out of your plumbing yet.

[Astreja]

What do scientists say about existence?

They point out the window and say, "Hey, look: Existence!"

Exactly.  There's stuff.  You analyze it and come up with theories to explain what it is and what it does.  If there's no stuff, there's nothing to experiment on.

Has there ever been pure nothingness?  I don't know, but I'm inclined to think that some form of matter/energy has always existed in some form or another.

[Kernel Sohcahtoa]

Are we talking about the same Craig here?

Yep, I'm pretty sure.  Anyone who thinks Craig is just a throwaway should go try to debate him.  I'm not saying he's got a good position, but as far as Christians go, he's one of the best at trying to defend a very difficult position.

IMO, Craig is a great debater and has a solid understanding of logic.  However, out of curiosity, when these types of debates occur, do they actually establish the truths and merits of the actual positions being argued (and possibly uncovering new truths which could improve humanity's understanding of reality), or do they simply establish who the better debater was?

[Losty]

How do you guys even read Mario's posts? I keep trying to read them but I don't know what they're saying.

[Mr.Obvious]

How do you guys even read Mario's posts? I keep trying to read them but I don't know what they're saying.

That's okay. Neither does Mario.

[Jehanne]

I suppose that a position that is intrinsically not true is one that is difficult to defend!

That's a can of worms you're opening there.

Craig's view of God, at least as he uses it in debates with atheists, is purely metaphysical.  Metaphysical views are extremely hard to subject to truth examination, pretty much by definition-- if it was explainable with observation, it wouldn't metaphysics, it would just be new physical discovery.

So to say that his position is "intrinsically no true" is overstepping the  truth of it, I think.  Few atheists claim that no God could exist; more say that specific definitions of God can't be true, and the evidence doesn't support others."

It is really, really hard to discriminate between things that are invisible for which we have no empirical evidence and "things" that simply do not exist.

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Yep, I'm pretty sure.  Anyone who thinks Craig is just a throwaway should go try to debate him.  I'm not saying he's got a good position, but as far as Christians go, he's one of the best at trying to defend a very difficult position.

IMO, Craig is a great debater and has a solid understanding of logic.  However, out of curiosity, when these types of debates occur, do they actually establish the truths and merits of the actual positions being argued (and possibly uncovering new truths which could improve humanity's understanding of reality), or do they simply establish who the better debater was?

Craig loves to equivocate, a logical fallacy, which, in Latin, means "to call by the same name".  For example:

Major Premise:  A bishop can only move diagonally.
Minor Premise:  The Pope is the bishop of Rome.
Conclusion     :  Therefore, the Pope can only move diagonally.

Craig, with respect to his Kalam argument, does the same thing with respect to the Universe, the fallacy of decomposition -- While it is absolutely true that in a flock of sheep that every member (individual sheep) has a mother, it does not therefore follow that the flock has a mother.  Ditto for the Universe.

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What do scientists say about existence?

They point out the window and say, "Hey, look: Existence!"

Exactly.  There's stuff.  You analyze it and come up with theories to explain what it is and what it does.  If there's no stuff, there's nothing to experiment on.

Has there ever been pure nothingness?  I don't know, but I'm inclined to think that some form of matter/energy has always existed in some form or another.

Nothingness is a non-sequitur; it's like asking, "What color is Saturday?"  Think of "nothing" as being like absolute zero; you can never, ever reach absolute zero; maybe, a millionth or a billionth of a degree above absolute zero, but never absolute zero.  Due to quantum indeterminacy, there will always be something, just as a changing magnetic field will give rise to an electric field, or a changing electric field will give rise to a magnetic field, and on and on and on.

[Mister Agenda]

It came to me: Yrreg or yrreg. Gerry backwards.

[bennyboy]

It is really, really hard to discriminate between things that are invisible for which we have no empirical evidence and "things" that simply do not exist.

If something has an intrinsic property, it is not dependent on discrimination or evidence, pretty much by definition. To say the God idea is intrinsically untrue, you'd have to demonstrate that the God idea is fundamentally illogical, not just lacking evidence.

Now, that doesn't mean the God idea is correct; and certainly as an atheist I'm not surprised you're taking this position. It will be WLC's burden to impress you enough with his brilliant logic that you'll start to seriously reconsider the issue. But we know that's very unlikely to happen.

[Jehanne]

dilemma

It is really, really hard to discriminate between things that are invisible for which we have no empirical evidence and "things" that simply do not exist.

If something has an intrinsic property, it is not dependent on discrimination or evidence, pretty much by definition.  To say the God idea is intrinsically untrue, you'd have to demonstrate that the God idea is fundamentally illogical, not just lacking evidence.

Now, that doesn't mean the God idea is correct; and certainly as an atheist I'm not surprised you're taking this position.  It will be WLC's burden to impress you enough with his brilliant logic that you'll start to seriously reconsider the issue.  But we know that's very unlikely to happen.

The concept of "God" is ill-defined, and many examples, such as the euthyphro dilimena, demonstrate the inconsistency of theism.  "Can God make a rock so big that he could not lift it?"  While Craig can answer all of these, it is because theism is so ill-defined, and hence, a concept that could not, in principle, ever be falsified.  It's like allowing division by zero in mathematics, 2 = 1 becomes a true statement, which means that any number can equal any other number, and as one mathematician demonstrated, one could "prove" that Winston Churchill is a carrot.