Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[Angrboda]

The simple answer is that we don't know. Klor, as many do, is applying the logic of one class of numbers and entities to another class of numbers and entities for which those operations are not valid. You can't take operations like addition and subtraction, as you would apply them to scalars, and willy nilly apply them to infinities. We simply don't know how actual infinities should be expected to behave. William Lane Craig suggests that Hilbert's Hotel is an absurdity, because if the hotel were full, we could always create an additional reservation as if it were created on the nonce simply because it was required. That's certainly one way of imagining things. But it's also reasonable to suggest the hotel is never full, and that adding rooms isn't actually adding rooms, as the rooms are already there. I'm certainly no expert on infinities, but I suspect any speculations about how an actual infinite would work are just that, speculations, which themselves are based upon assumptions and premises that may not hold.

[Jehanne]

In math and science, paradoxes exist:

[Astreja]

If an eternal past is impossible, then wouldn't a god existing in an eternal past also be impossible?  

They will just whine that god is timeless as if that helps them 

And then you can point out that timeless = incapable of action.

And then they'll come up with another daft workaround.

Who says there's no such thing as infinite regress?  We see it all the time in apologetics.

[Fake Messiah]

This topic lost its credibility when it stopped being about peanut butter.

[R00tKiT]

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 ?  

It's possible to argue for benevolence on the grounds of the ability of creation to fulfill good deeds, our inner moral compass, the maternal instinct, etc. All these mundane observations can serve as premises to prove some property that a deity likely has. Something can't give or cause what it doesn't have, if this rule holds (or, at worst, is probable), then a malevolent deity is unlikely to have created mothers who instinctively protect their children.

[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.

If by evidence you mean repeatable phenomena, then this is simply a category mistake that should be avoided. That's because a deity purportedly intervenes through rarely occuring miracles, and rarely occuring events can't also be repeatable or reproducible....

[The Grand Nudger]

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. 

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?

[no one]

Wrong Nudger! Just plain wrong.

Did you miss the first and most important lesson?
god is god. All the goodness is then steeped in humanity.
All the bad comes from humans being weak and accepting the dark lord in to their lives.

Even though god created anything, and everything, no blame can be cast upon it.

[Jehanne]

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.

The no boundary proposal?

[polymath257]

No, it is exactly the other way around: causality depends on the existence of natural laws.

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

I think you are wrong here. They describe the workings of the universe, but to say it is the 'inner' workings, you must assume there is something outside of the universe. That amounts to either a multiverse or some other universe, which must have its own physical laws.

The *ultimate* laws *cannot* be caused. That is because if they are caused, there is some law that describes the process of that causality, and *that* law would be more fundamental.

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.

A flawed argument also used by Craig. It fails because of a lack of understanding of the nature of infinity and the non-contradictory aspects of infinite regress.

Yes, I think an actual infinite regress is possible. There is nothing contradictory about an actual infinity (in spite of what Aristotle and Aquinas thought).

It's a bit more than actual infinite regress, you have to take into account the fact that we exist, that our universe as an element of this causal chain really happened. It means an infinite duration of time (or sequences of events) preceded it -impossible.

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

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

So, the argument here is the impossibility of an eternal past, not infinite regress per se.

OK, what is impossible about an eternal past?

I'll answer. Noe of the above. it is also dependent on the assumptions of mathematics. Which rules of math actually apply to our universe can only be determined based on observation.

We apply the law of excluded middle for example, do we somehow observe this law in the universe...?
The proposition: "there are infinitely many prime numbers" is clearly of a different category than empirical propositons about the universe, it can't be falsified nor verified empirically.

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.

As for the infinity of prime numbers, that is not subject to observational testing. But it is a purely mathematical result and thereby only has truth value subject to some axioms. The axioms we choose for math determine which results are valid in that formal system. Whether that formal system is useful for understanding the universe is then a matter of observation and testing.

I know of no physics results that depend on the statement that infinitely many primes exist. Of course, since that would be an *actual* infinity, I suspect that you also have issues with it being true in the universe.

[Jehanne]

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.

It's a bit more than actual infinite regress, you have to take into account the fact that we exist, that our universe as an element of this causal chain really happened. It means an infinite duration of time (or sequences of events) preceded it -impossible.

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

Our friend is falling into the Fallacy of Decomposition -- While it is true that in a flock of sheep that every sheep has a mother, it does not therefore follow that the flock has a mother. Besides, events happen in our Universe that have no cause.