Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[no one]

Do flowers and chocolates count?

[Angrboda]

Has Klor argued one into existence yet............. anybody?

Has anything ever been argued into existence?

An argument?

[brewer]

Has Klor argued one into existence yet............. anybody?

Has anything ever been argued into existence?

Something that causes actions/interactions with the natural world? None that I can think off hand.

But anything, yes, example, math(s). Except for 1+1+1=1.

[LadyForCamus]

False.  We can't even say that our own universe required a beginning or else is past eternal, much less a universe we know nothing about.  

For any existing universe, the two propositions, P :"A universe began to exist" and Q :"A universe has an eternal past" are mutually exclusive,  one of them must be true, Q is simply non-P. This is the basic law of excluded middle. 

Unless you're willing to deny the most basic rules of logic and delve into sophistry, you are forced to pick one of these propositions. 

You are simply wrong in your claim that any universe that did not begin to exist must be past eternal.  How would you even know such a thing?

 Splash your face with water and re-read what's above.... I guess ?  

[emphasis mine]

As pointed out, the rule is not valid in this context and it doesn't justify thinking it unlikely that a malevolent deity would create the maternal instinct.

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth in more ways than one.  If the existence of evil is compatible with a benevolent deity, then the existence of good is compatible with an evil deity.  You can't carve out a greater likelihood for one or the other, as both depend upon the same argument.

You say, "You can't carve out a greater likelihood for one or the other", as if I didn't give plenty of reasons already for why the balance tilts towards benevolence.. This is not rocket science, we evaluate this "likelihood" based on what we observe. And what we observe is that peace, empathy, sense of community, our inner moral compass, our sense of justice, etc. are all the default state of our species. Going to war is an exceptional occurence, perpetrating genocide and other gravely immoral acts is exceptional, etc. 

My argument for compatbility serves only to prove that theism is coherent, regardless of its truth value. Proving that benevolence is the actual state of affairs -if God exists- can only be done by inference, i.e. by infering God's character based on his creatures'.

In order to sidestep the obvious problem of not having any evidence

As I explained repeatedly, countless observations about the world -that atheists recognize too- can, and are, used as premises in arguments in favor of God's existence.

Wrong. As been demonstrated in this very thread. Amazing that you think you’ve solved mysteries of reality that the greatest scientific minds in the world are still studying and debating. And even if we grant you those assumptions, that still only gets you to “a cause.” Not a god. You’ve yet to demonstrate that the cause of the universe must necessarily be supernatural. You can’t even explain what a supernatural thing is without invoking an argument from ignorance fallacy as @Angrboda mentioned a few pages back. You have failed on all fronts. But by all means, carry on with your show.

[R00tKiT]

We're a hyper social species, endowed with a great many adaptations to that effect..though...to be fair to all other life, none of that makes us particularly benevolent - and it causes some pretty serious issues between groups, too.

I want to ask, though, are you willing to account for all of humanities attributes when you propose benevolence through design?  We have flaws too..deep flaws.  Does this suggest the designer is flawed in the way that having some amount of benevolence would suggest the designer is benevolent?  We're flawed, and we can't have gotten what our creator didn't have to give..correct?

Well, there is a problem here. Flawness is the absence/lack of perfectness, not a character per se, we can't apply the same inference on a negative concept. Furthermore, there is no logical problem with a perfect being creating imperfect creatures. Even if one makes the very strong (and wrong) assumption that a perfect being must create the best of all possible worlds, it can still be imperfect beings enjoying perfect conditions.

The no boundary proposal?

The no boundary proposal entails that the universe began to exist,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartle%E2%...king_state

QUOTE :However, Hawking does state "...the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago."

If the universe has not existed forever, it began to exist. 

That's just a claim. For the third time: do you have any reference of what's above.....??


It doesn't follow that there is a law that describes causality. The word "law" is simply a label we put on have we describe repeatable phenomena around us, nothing tells us that are laws outside of the universe -assuming there is an outside.

And there is nothing logically incoherent about a lawless universe.

And in such a universe, there would be no causality.

There you go, dodging my request again:

I need a reference stating that causality is a physical law, as you said pages ago, and a demonstration of the assertion above: that a lawless universe could violate causality.

I can wait.

No, the universe is NOT an element of that causal chain. The causal chain happens *within* the universe.

Um, what are you even talking about? The entire discussion was about what caused the universe, which means the universe is the last element of the causal chain.

And what makes it impossible to have an infinite sequence of events preceding something? it seems like a perfectly sensible thing to me.

What makes it impossible is that this something will never happen. In order to get to this something(S), an infinite amount of events should occur, which takes, in turn, an infinitely long amount of time to get to S. And since an infinitely long period will never elapse, S will never exist.

That's why an eternal past is impossible, an eternal past is by definition an unending period in the past, and any unending period can't have a present moment occuring after it, because it takes eternity for this past to "end".

Yes, we absolutely observe the law of excluded middle at the classical level *and* its violation at the quantum level. it is a matter of observation whether logic with the law of excluded middle is helpful or not. There are versions of logic without it and, for example, quantum logic is found to be useful.

No, you're absolutely wrong. I assume you're referring to an object's ability to be in two places at once. This is not a violation of the law of excluded middle because, under QM, objects are by definition capable of being everywhere at once, therefore, classical logic still applies to properly formulated sentences about QM.

QM only shakes up our definitions of objects and how we label reality around us, but once our labels/definitions are accurate, or say, updated, then classical logic will work wonderfully on these definitions.

Quantum logic comes from the vast topic of interpreting quantum mechanics, it eventually fell out of favor. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_logic#Criticism
Quote : "The approach of quantum logic has been generally seen as unsuccessful. The eminent philosopher of science Tim Maudlin writes, “the horse of quantum logic has been so thrashed, whipped and pummeled, and is so thoroughly deceased that...the question is not whether the horse will rise again, it is: how in the world did this horse get here in the first place? The tale of quantum logic is not the tale of a promising idea gone bad, it is rather the tale of the unrelenting pursuit of a bad idea.” The entire mathematical complex structure of quantum mechanics is perfectly well-described and clear and understood using classical logic."

Read again: The entire mathematical complex structure of quantum mechanics is perfectly well-described and clear and understood using classial logic.

Yeah , classical logic works.

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For any existing universe, the two propositions, P :"A universe began to exist" and Q :"A universe has an eternal past" are mutually exclusive,  one of them must be true, Q is simply non-P. This is the basic law of excluded middle. 

Unless you're willing to deny the most basic rules of logic and delve into sophistry, you are forced to pick one of these propositions. 

You have presented neither deductive nor inductive argument for their mutual exclusivity.  

Tell me @Angrboda, what's the opposite of the word eternal ?

Gosh.

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Wrong. As been demonstrated in this very thread. Amazing that you think you’ve solved mysteries of reality that the greatest scientific minds in the world

Bickering about causality or the law of the excluded middle is not a "mystery of reality", it's sophism. The greatest scientific minds in the world aren't sophists, I hope.. for our sake....

And even if we grant you those assumptions, that still only gets you to “a cause.” Not a god. 

How generous of you. Tell you what, don't grant me anything, either accept causality or be more upfront about your denial of the simplest principles of thought.

[HappySkeptic]

FFS, Klorophyll, do you really think you've proved the existence of not only God, but a benevolent one at that?

Here is a hypothesis:

1) There was a time when there was nothing.
2) At some time the first thing that wasn't nothing came into existence.

Now, how would I go about determining this? I'm not even sure the hypothesis makes sense. Is true nothingness even a logical possibility? What is "time" when there is nothing? How long does "nothingness" last before there is something? Is it infinite, or does nothingness need to get created from "super-duper nothingness" at a finite time? If it requires a God, to create something from nothing, then what created the God? Oh, it was "outside time", or "eternal"? If a god can be eternal, so can a universe. If a cause can be outside time and space, then we might as well throw up our hands and admit that our ideas of causality make no sense, and invoking a deity doesn't solve anything.

[Angrboda]

You have presented neither deductive nor inductive argument for their mutual exclusivity.  

Tell me @Angrboda, what's the opposite of the word eternal ?

Gosh.

Merriam-Webster lists the following antonyms for eternal: ephemeral, evanescent, fleeting, fugacious, fugitive, momentary, passing, short-lived, transitory, interim, provisional, short-term -- none of which tells us anything prescient about the question. That you're reduced to arguing the meaning of words shows the level of thought in play. The meaning of words do not dictate physics nor logic and at times violate them. If you don't have a better argument then you are basically fucked, in addition to showing yourself not particularly clever. I take it from your response that you are unaware of any alternatives to the options which you claim are mutually exclusive. However, coherent alternatives to eternal and beginning to exist have been suggested and are sufficiently well known that they have drawn responses from theists such as William Lane Craig and Paul Copan. Regardless of whether any specific proposed alternative to the options you present is the case for our universe, it's clear that one can speculate about a universe with no beginning that is not past eternal without obviously entailing a contradiction and so the idea is coherent and therefore possible for this universe, or any other. Since a third possibility exists, what you have presented is, in addition to being unsupported and therefore fallaciously ipse dixit, an example of a false dichotomy. That you don't understand that both flaws doom your argument only shows that as far as this discussion goes, your arguments are the epitome of low-hanging fruit. I suggest you do some reading, or, at the least, do yourself the favor of making an argument that is not dependent upon your apparently poor grasp of what certain words mean. It is not an analytical truth of the concept of past eternity that its negation entails a temporal boundary; it does not. Nor is it analytically implied by the lack of a temporal boundary that a thing is past eternal. The only thing we've discovered here is that you're both ignorant and not particularly good at words or logic.

Since you have presented no argument that no alternatives to your two exists, your conclusion that I have violated the law of the excluded middle is baseless and thereby rejected.

ps. I notice you've shut up about benevolence. That's probably for the best as in addition to showing you to be a liar, it also shows your inability to keep one argument straight from another.

Now, unless you have an argument that is actually valid which answers what I have written, your complaints are dismissed as the groundless twaddle that they are.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

This must be a sexual thing for Kloro. Not that there’s anything wrong with masochism…

Boru

[Angrboda]

FFS, Klorophyll, do you really think you've proved the existence of not only God, but a benevolent one at that?

Here is a hypothesis:

1) There was a time when there was nothing.
2) At some time the first thing that wasn't nothing came into existence.

Now, how would I go about determining this?  I'm not even sure the hypothesis makes sense.  Is true nothingness even a logical possibility?  What is "time" when there is nothing?  How long does "nothingness" last before there is something?  Is it infinite, or does nothingness need to get created from "super-duper nothingness" at a finite time?  If it requires a God, to create something from nothing, then what created the God?  Oh, it was "outside time", or "eternal"?  If a god can be eternal, so can a universe.  If a cause can be outside time and space, then we might as well throw up our hands and admit that our ideas of causality make no sense, and invoking a deity doesn't solve anything.

Theists don't realize that their answers as to how the universe can require a creator and God not require a creator come up short. The classic answer to the complaint that if God had no beginning then he must be past eternal is that He is outside time, thus obviating the need for either a beginning or a past eternity. Yet theists like Chloroform here are so dimwitted that they fail to realize that if a god can evade the dichotomy by existing outside time, then in order to be consistent they must also accept that some other cause of the universe that is not God that exists outside time is also be possible. Unfortunately, positing that God is outside time doesn't work. If God created the universe and did not exist prior to the universe, then the existence of God and the universe's beginning are simultaneous and God cannot be the cause of the universe, as a cause must precede its effect in general. So in order for God to have created the universe, then there must have been a time other than the event of creation in which God exists, but the universe does not. That places God in time at those two points, as the existence of two mutually exclusive events necessitates a temporal relationship. So, can one place God outside time before that? No, because doing so would create another temporal relation and simply lead to an infinite regress. So God cannot both exist outside of time and be the creator of the universe. He can only create the universe simultaneous with his existing, which is incoherent and entails that God began to exist and therefore has a cause by the logic of the cosmological argument, or he can be past eternal in a temporal space that exists apart from this universe. In neither case is he "outside time."

[The Grand Nudger]

We're a hyper social species, endowed with a great many adaptations to that effect..though...to be fair to all other life, none of that makes us particularly benevolent - and it causes some pretty serious issues between groups, too.

I want to ask, though, are you willing to account for all of humanities attributes when you propose benevolence through design?  We have flaws too..deep flaws.  Does this suggest the designer is flawed in the way that having some amount of benevolence would suggest the designer is benevolent?  We're flawed, and we can't have gotten what our creator didn't have to give..correct?

Well, there is a problem here. Flawness is the absence/lack of perfectness, not a character per se, we can't apply the same inference on a negative concept.

Sounds like a no. Semantics won't help, I'll immediately ask you about perfection being the absence of flaws and..given the above, you'll immediately reverse your position on the matter. We can save ourselves the trouble.

Furthermore, there is no logical problem with a perfect being creating imperfect creatures. Even if one makes the very strong (and wrong) assumption that a perfect being must create the best of all possible worlds, it can still be imperfect beings enjoying perfect conditions.

Then it isn't actually a rule, as you asserted, that we can only get what our creator has to give - and even you don't believe as much.  Our proposed creator has perfection..but we don't, and our proposed creator has no flaws...but we do. In fact, you believe that we can get things our creator doesn't have. 

How does this fit with your belief that our claimed benevolence is evidence of a benevolent god?  Give-get.

How does it fit into your belief that nature cannot be the agent of human benevolence? Has-hasn't.

I'm sympathetic, here. I don't think that a god is responsible for mans natural state anymore than you do. Like I said...the term you're looking for is genetics. Then again, I don't assert discardable non-rules which would make a god responsible for mans state. If there's a good argument for the god you believe in, that obviously wasn't it, huh? I think the bar for a discussion about these things has to be that you believe it, but..there, you don't even believe your own assertions. Going forward, could you put in the effort to present only those arguments and inferences and rules which you, at the very least, find compelling? I almost certainly won't..but then we'll be talking about what you actually do believe.

What I think is fascinating about this stuff, is that a believer like yourself will tank their own god concept for attributes that aren't even important to them. It's not important to you that god played in the mud and here we are - a product of what that god had to give. Never was, never will be. That's not god-making for you or for me. If every human being on earth used their assumed benevolence to stop hating on this or that person..you'd say "nuh uh, that benevolence....not from god - god hates that shit."