1.6% of the North American population refuses to accept the common sense, common knowledge positions:
. Whatever begins to exist has an external cause for its beginning to exist.
. Whatever begins to exist has an explanation of its beginning to exist - either in the necessity of its existence (it can’t NOT exist) or in an external explanation.
These people can’t give any example of things that have come into being without an external cause. They just maintain that not everything needs a cause (they’re only thinking of the universe) to begin to exist.
There is one reason and one reason only for the resistence that is generated in this cult. The reason is, if everything that begins to exist has a cause - Then God exists as the First Cause of everything.
Therefore people in this group say things that completely contradict what science tells us, eg.
. There can be an infinite regress of cause.
. There can be a material infinite.
People in this population must maintain their implausible position, not because of the evidence but in spite of the evidence. If they don’t resist this common sense, common knowledge position of cause and effect, their belief system will collapse.
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THE BOOBQUAKE - 911!
ReplyDeletehey, atheists don't even BELIEVE IN BOOBIES!!!
they thought BOOBIES had no effect... WRONG!
see, I just want to make it clear to the rest of you:
jen is unable to see that there is a CONFLICT BETWEEN EROS & SCIENCE....
________________
http://www.blaghag.com/2010/04/in-name-of-science-i-offer-my-boobs.html
ETA: follow-up
http://www.blaghag.com/2010/04/quick-clarification-about-boobquake.html
see how we take a term and convert it into its AUTHENTIC POLITICAL DIMENSION - THAT OF LIBERATION - not just merely harmless expression...
they thought BOOBIES had no effect... WRONG!
____________
Visit for the BOOBQUAKE:
http://dissidentphilosophy.lifediscussion.net/philosophy-f1/the-boobquake-911-t1310.htm
Ha ha! You believe in magic! I can't believe you can't see your entire "reasoning" as the argument from ignorance it is!
ReplyDeleteMaybe when you grow up a bit you'll come to your senses.
@Thesauros
ReplyDeleteI'll reply my comment here because you said the same thing again in this post. You claim, again, that
"Whatever begins to exist has an external cause for its beginning to exist."
When applied to matter/energy, this statement does not make sense as we have never seen something beginning to exist. But you don't seem to agree with that. So I have to ask again...
You had replied to my question with this:
Once the universe was brought into existence / created / began, the First Law of Thermodynamics came into effect.
That is not an answer.
Let me repeat the question, and write a full blog post on it if you prefer that to commenting, I don't care, but the question was:
Do you agree that we, humans, have never ever seen something being created?
Let me remind you that I asked that after you said yourself:
There is no QM model that involves a true origination ex nihilo.
By the way, I am not in any way trying to justify my world view and do anything I can to exclude gods from it, no, not at all, that's just not how my reasoning process works. If you ever care to know why it is the case, let me know... but you're someone who already believes a conclusion and does anything he can to prove it so I guess it makes sense to you to assume that everyone is like that to. This also makes you incapable of understanding that other belief system and thought process you think does not even exist.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of people checking their pockets for keys over and over again. I have once again fallen into the trap of thinking that atheists and Christians can communicate in a productive manner. It's a complete waste of time. So I am once again going to extricate myself from it as soon as possible.
ReplyDelete"Do you agree that we, humans, have never ever seen something being created?"
If you mean that all we are doing is changing one form of matter or energy to another, then I agree with you. It's a technicality but I agree.
I think however that you know what I mean and that you are using this technicality to avoid the real issue. What's more, this technicality does not apply to the Singularity.
At the singularity there is no earlier space / time point. Neither matter, nor energy existed prior to the singularity. Energy, matter were created in the fullest meaning of the term at the Singularity.
I have once again fallen into the trap of thinking that atheists and Christians can communicate in a productive manner. It's a complete waste of time.
ReplyDeleteDude, I know! Atheists are all like, facts evidence, dude.
You could always go the route most religions go and just censor everything.
ReplyDeleteThis is a response to the previous post, but that one is starting to fade into the background.
ReplyDelete@Hugo
"I would go a step further than that and say that it's actually because the current models point to a singularity that we have to be humble and say 'I don't know' at some point, because a singularity is conceptual. It represents the fact that our mathematical equations, as you said, break down at this point."
I agree... And that's all reasonable people ever say. So of course, we don't claim that we know the unknown physics of reality, but mak seems to. Mak talks about singularities like he knows them from high school, and that's a mistake. A singularity is predicted by general relativity, which has no domain over the very small. It's as simple as that. The equivalent might be to imagine a scenario where galaxies behave like virtual particles; to provide an analogy of the error. What kind of a universe might that look like? now, IF a unifying field theory allows a singularity, then a singularity may, in fact be the case. But we have to wait and see, and so does Mak.
@mak
ReplyDeleteI forgot to mention that I thought your Richard dawkins being an "atheist high priest" comment was funny, actually. I think because, since he's such a popular face in atheism, he would be a high priest, if there were atheist high priests.
Speaking of people checking their pockets for keys over and over again. I have once again fallen into the trap of thinking that atheists and Christians can communicate in a productive manner. It's a complete waste of time. So I am once again going to extricate myself from it as soon as possible.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is a lot of circular talking going on. That's why I thought it would be interesting to stick to one question at a time. To start a proof perhaps, or something both "sides" can agree on.
You then quoted my question:
"Do you agree that we, humans, have never ever seen something being created?"
You replied:
If you mean that all we are doing is changing one form of matter or energy to another, then I agree with you. It's a technicality but I agree.
I think however that you know what I mean and that you are using this technicality to avoid the real issue.
No.
It's not a technicality.
It is the real issue.
When you talk about a Creator God. You talk about creation in the sense of bringing everything into existence, at once, but that is...
What's more, this technicality does not apply to the Singularity.
... that IS a singularity. Your god, what you describe as a first cause, IS a singularity. There was nothing, and then, bang, everything! You don't know when that happened but you don't care, because you claim that it had to be the case, because matter had to be created at some point, at some time t=0.
That is where my one and only question is very important, because you claim that we, as non-believers, deny scientific observations. However, I am asking you to show me scientific observations that would point to matter/energy being created. We have yet to see that happening. The words 'cause' has never been applied to something causing something else to be created, out of nothing, in a 0 period of time.
When someone does so, like when describing how God created the universe, that person is describing a singularity, something we cannot test/observe or even describe in realistic terms. It is a conceptual construct, it is imaginary.
The scientific observations you say are denied by non-believers point to the universe having a beginning, not to a universe being created out of nothing, that's where you go a step farther than science and step in your religious shoes.
You confuse something that started with something that appeared, but it does not even matter anyway; because if God is what started everything and created everything, then it is still a singularity.
Now at this point, I have already written way too much, because you'll just reply, again and again, that everything needs a cause, and you will still fail to see that we have never seen something caused something else in the way you claim your god caused the universe to be.
ReplyDeleteWhat you do is that you claim that there must be a first cause because infinite material is impossible. Then, to explain how all the mater came into being, and how time started, you claim that it has to be caused by something. But that's where you fail to see the "technicality" of the creation ex nihilo.
You claim that at time t = 0, whatever or whenever the 0 was, it could be infinitely far back in the past, God brought everything into existence. Got was the first cause. To be the first cause means he is out of time, timeless, eternal, infinite... a singularity.
Ok, I think I said the same thing 5 times now, so I will just stop... because anyway it might be one of the last comment on that subject right? Because you said that we cannot discuss these things... you said that even if I boil down everything to one simple question, it does not work. You refuse to see the question for what it is, you prefer to consider it to be a "technicality" and prefer to move on...
What you need to realize is that your god could exist, but the way you describe it makes it inconceivable and unprovable by humans. The simple fact that you label it to be infinite should be enough to express this problem. Your god is like a singularity, it is not real, it is imaginary.
If you consider your god to be real, then by all means give reasons to think it is the case, because right now we are stuck with two choices... energy/matter have always existed (imaginary scenario #1), or energy/matter exist since an infinitely long time in the past, created in a 0 period of time, because time had to be created to, by an infinite thing (imaginary scenario #2).
Personally, I consider scenario #2 to be ridiculous and over-complicated for no reason, and I consider scenario #1 to be the mathematical representation of what we currently know about the universe. It is NOT what I believe to be true, because it's imaginary, and imaginary things only exist in the minds of humans.
Stick with your scenario #2 if you want, but each time you dare consider that scenario to be scientifically proven, ask yourself, how do I know that matter can be created? How do I know that there was nothing but God at some point? How do I know that something can 'cause' something else to happen without time being involved? How can something be both infinite and real?