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Post by Admin on Jun 25, 2022 19:27:22 GMT
You miss the point. An atheist lacks belief in God because there's no convincing evidence to warrant belief, Correct. Why do keep changing your tenses from positive to negative and vice versa? Why don’t you stay consistent so as not to muddy the waters? “Uncaused” is a negative terminology. Yet you’re comparing it to belief in God (a positive assertion). The correct way to state this (if you want to be consistent) is that an atheist may lack a belief that he is caused! And there is nothing contradictory about that if that atheist does not recognize any evidence for causation. And of course this is another strawman argument because I’m not aware of any atheist expressing this view (that he is uncaused). I was “caused” by my parents having sex. So it’s kind of a silly baseless assertion. The thing of which I am doubtful is your assertion that EVERYTHING has a cause, or that there was a FIRST CAUSE. Those are statements that are not supported by evidence. I know what you said. I don’t see how this is relevant to any argument any atheist here is making. I don’t care what you “call it”, I only care whether it’s TRUE. Labels are irrelevant! Nobody attempted to refute that. I just dismissed it as non-relevant. Saying that we CAN intuitively acknowledge an assertion doesn’t imply that we SHOULD. And you didn’t make an argument for why we should, you just made a bunch of assertions and then abandoned your argument immediately when faced with difficult questions that you couldn’t answer. You didn’t have a case before, and you still don’t. You’re just going right back to another straw man argument. You've also successfully demonstrated how atheism requires special exemptions from basic reason in order to maintain a pretense of scientific respectability. Thanks for the support!
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Post by captainbryce on Jun 25, 2022 22:08:41 GMT
You've also successfully demonstrated how atheism requires special exemptions from basic reason in order to maintain a pretense of scientific respectability. Care to elaborate? How exactly did I demonstrate this? What “special exemption” in reasoning are you claiming atheism requires?
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Post by Admin on Jun 25, 2022 22:12:45 GMT
You've also successfully demonstrated how atheism requires special exemptions from basic reason in order to maintain a pretense of scientific respectability. Care to elaborate? How exactly did I demonstrate this? What “special exemption” in reasoning are you claiming atheism requires? What's the matter, Bryce? Not enough words to tear up into little bite-sized pieces?
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Post by captainbryce on Jun 25, 2022 22:49:41 GMT
Care to elaborate? How exactly did I demonstrate this? What “special exemption” in reasoning are you claiming atheism requires? What's the matter, Bryce? Not enough words to tear up into little bite-sized pieces? What’s the matter “admin”, don’t actually have an argument? 😏
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Post by Admin on Jun 25, 2022 23:03:24 GMT
What's the matter, Bryce? Not enough words to tear up into little bite-sized pieces? What’s the matter “admin”, don’t actually have an argument? 😏 There's like 6 pages of it. Those aren't just random words, you know. If you keep them together, you'll see sentences, and those sentences form paragraphs, which is where you'll find what you claim isn't there.
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Post by rizdek on Jun 26, 2022 0:35:25 GMT
I would assume most folks do not think of proof as subjective, IN THAT most assume their own way of thinking is the right way and they believe themselves to be objectively considering the evidence. They likely believe that if the evidence was not sufficient to form a conclusion that they would reserve judgment. Why would anyone think otherwise, generally? I doubt anyone intentionally goes out of their way to misunderstand things in an effort to hold to one belief over another. Perhaps some do and I'm sure it may seem that way from another's POV. It's just that unless the issue is obvious...like what can be ascertained by immediate simple observation...eg your example of when someone cut's them self, they bleed or if I claim there is a cat in a room and someone else, based on close inspection (looking/touching) perceives what he considers to be a cat standing there will consider the point proven, there will often be different conclusions with the same set of 'evidence.' So for more obscure things for which lines of reasoning coupled with varied observations/data must be used to reach a likely conclusion...like so many of the more important and abstract scientific findings and what many consider to be supernatural beliefs, there will be a wide range of conclusions.
But I am NOT sure as many people understand how much of their worldview is 'filled in' assumptions/assertions...things, for all intents and purposes, taken on faith either out of necessity or because there seems little point to believe otherwise. That applies to someone accepting, for example, that we're not living in a matrix kind of existence or when refuting those who declare no one can prove that they aren't the 'only' person existing...ie some sort of solipsism. Most just resolve the issue by saying 'what is the point of even wondering those things?' At least I do.
Take me, for example. I don't think God or anything supernatural exists. But to maintain that world view, I have to overlook some, what seem to me (and others) to be, intuitive dilemmas. I do so by making assumptions about the natural world that cannot (yet) be corroborated by observation/evidence. And I do so because...I don't see the point of believing otherwise. It seems to me none of the dilemmas I envision are answered/explained by the existence of the supernatural (God) except by inventing features and qualities much as I do with the natural world. And I DO believe the natural world actually exists so at least I'm not positing a totally different kind of existence for which features must also be invented including its own explanation. Doing so seems to multiply the unknowns exponentially.
That is what I maintain theists do....they perceive intuitively or through argument some conundrum/inconsistency within what they consider to be the natural world, they think they know all (or enough) about the natural world to assure themselves the natural world cannot explain said conundrum and then they posit some sort of different/other existence and imagine it possesses all sorts of attributes and features that somehow solve those conundrums. I think many actually do understand they are doing that (ie making stuff up) and so own to taking them on faith, but it seems just as many don't really realize how much of their view of the supernatural and God is improvised. I interacted with someone the other day on another forum who claimed because God was simple, no explanation for his existence was needed and God didn't need to have been created. Despite that line of reasoning not being sound even if true, I suggested that the idea that God was simple was a faith based assertion. They responded emphatically that NO it was not a faith based assertion but was based on the Doctrine (capital D) of Divine Simplicity, as if that somehow changed the fact that simplicity was an imagined attribute/feature of God because someone called it a Doctrine. I had to show him that even many noted apologists and theologians reject the idea that God is 'simple' and some even think it incoherent. link I can tell you are smarter than me, so some of what you are saying I don't quite understand. I get the gist of what you are saying, but not entirely. The paragraph about God for example, I don't see the problem that you are trying to point out. I don't believe anything supernatural exists only because the evidence hasn't reached a level of believability and the evidence for there being only the natural world is very strong. I am not saying there is no supernatural, just that I am not convinced there is. I don't see how this includes me ignoring intuitive dilemmas. The supernatural and God don't solve those dilemmas either as far as I can tell. There is no proof involved in that though. I am not asserting anything one way of the other. This is why I said I only use proof for things like the effectiveness of medicine and things we can actually observe. I am sure you would agree there is proof that the Earth is a sphere and that the people who don't believe this are not believing this for bad reasons. I guess you can say it is all ultimately subjective, but I think in certain cases you and me would say that those people are flat out wrong. I don't say that when it comes to people who believe God exists, because I do understand why people would come to the conclusion a God exists, especially in a world where we are indoctrinated to believe that a God exists. Most people begin with God exists because this is such a strong element of society and that the belief offers comfort for people. How many people do you think would still hold onto that belief if there was no fear of death involved? Most people don't actually think about it in any deep way and are given bad information by the people they trust. Most aren't led by the evidence, they begin with the conclusion that God exists and then try and make the evidence fit the conclusion. That is backwards. I also began with "God exists" because that is what I was taught, but I could no longer justify a belief in a God. The proof just isn't there. I also don't think there is proof there is no God either though. I think there is proof that specific Gods can't exist based on logical contradictions, but there is no proof that the supernatural doesn't exist or that an indifferent deist God didn't start everything off. I just don't see any reason to believe that those things do exist. They haven't met their burden of proof. This is why most theists will use faith. If you have sufficient evidence to believe a claim, you don't need faith. Most theists don't mean faith in the trust way, they mean "I know there isn't any way to prove God exists, so I rely on faith to justify my belief." I want to talk more btw. I am most certainly NOT smarter than you. More than likely I just didn't explain myself adequately.
The problems I am pointing out have to do with explaining some basic things that we are all aware of given a natural world. link
For example, how does someone explain how the inanimate natural world produces consciousness? They call it the 'hard problem' of consciousness. And many theists claim the best or only explanation for consciousness is that God exists and 'endowed' us with consciousness. link So what do you think? Is God a better explanation for consciousness than naturalism?
The other issue is the origin of life. This site reasons.org/explore/blogs/voices/universes-beginning-naturalistic-mechanisms-or-creation spells out the dilemma as explained by someone who seems to think God is the best explanation for the origin of natural life and the author is certain that energy, time and chance alone cannot have produced life as we know it. "Again, the naturalist may object and say that this biblical account of complexity is not a mechanism, thereby rendering it invalid. However, energy, time, and chance alone cannot produce the level of specified complexity that we observe. The additional inputs of intelligence and an ordering mechanism are needed to specify the information content. Thus, naturalism seems to fall short in explaining the complexity of life." How do you feel about the complexity of life? Are you satisfied that life probably arose naturally over hundreds of millions of years and without God designing it?
The other puzzle that is raised is the origin of the universe. Many would like to believe everything physical began in the big bang. The assumption is that time/space, matter/energy all started from an infinitely dense point and expanded into the existence we see around us with planets orbiting stars in galaxies with other celestial bodies swirling about.
From the above site:
So...DID everything natural/physical begin in the big bang...and if so what caused/started it? Theists are happy to say God is the best explanation for the big bang and the resulting universe.
Another thing that is raised is the idea of free will. If anyone believes we have free will....and many make lots of arguments suggesting humans must have free will...then how can they explain that given a natural world. The problem is that we think of the natural world as being deterministic and that would seem to preclude freewill because if our brains and minds are just a part of and due to the natural world, then everything that goes on is determined by physical cause and effect and that would eliminate what someone might call free will. Do you think we have free will and if so...how do you explain it? If humans don't have free will, the how can we be held accountable for our actions?
Those are just a few of the dilemmas/conundrums that theists like to point out and claim the existence of God explains them better than naturalism.
I referenced a site that discussed naturalism but it seems a rather nebulous term. I think of the natural world as all things physical plus things like the mind that emerges from the brain (both human and animal) and the thoughts/concepts/ideas the mind forms. I also include an underlying reality that allows/supports such things as logic, math and reason. Some definitions claim the naturalist rejects supernaturalism. I don't so much reject supernaturalism as I simply don't see how positing it helps any of the above conundrums.
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Post by moviemouth on Jun 26, 2022 1:09:41 GMT
I can tell you are smarter than me, so some of what you are saying I don't quite understand. I get the gist of what you are saying, but not entirely. The paragraph about God for example, I don't see the problem that you are trying to point out. I don't believe anything supernatural exists only because the evidence hasn't reached a level of believability and the evidence for there being only the natural world is very strong. I am not saying there is no supernatural, just that I am not convinced there is. I don't see how this includes me ignoring intuitive dilemmas. The supernatural and God don't solve those dilemmas either as far as I can tell. There is no proof involved in that though. I am not asserting anything one way of the other. This is why I said I only use proof for things like the effectiveness of medicine and things we can actually observe. I am sure you would agree there is proof that the Earth is a sphere and that the people who don't believe this are not believing this for bad reasons. I guess you can say it is all ultimately subjective, but I think in certain cases you and me would say that those people are flat out wrong. I don't say that when it comes to people who believe God exists, because I do understand why people would come to the conclusion a God exists, especially in a world where we are indoctrinated to believe that a God exists. Most people begin with God exists because this is such a strong element of society and that the belief offers comfort for people. How many people do you think would still hold onto that belief if there was no fear of death involved? Most people don't actually think about it in any deep way and are given bad information by the people they trust. Most aren't led by the evidence, they begin with the conclusion that God exists and then try and make the evidence fit the conclusion. That is backwards. I also began with "God exists" because that is what I was taught, but I could no longer justify a belief in a God. The proof just isn't there. I also don't think there is proof there is no God either though. I think there is proof that specific Gods can't exist based on logical contradictions, but there is no proof that the supernatural doesn't exist or that an indifferent deist God didn't start everything off. I just don't see any reason to believe that those things do exist. They haven't met their burden of proof. This is why most theists will use faith. If you have sufficient evidence to believe a claim, you don't need faith. Most theists don't mean faith in the trust way, they mean "I know there isn't any way to prove God exists, so I rely on faith to justify my belief." I want to talk more btw. I am most certainly NOT smarter than you. More than likely I just didn't explain myself adequately.
The problems I am pointing out have to do with explaining some basic things that we are all aware of given a natural world. link
For example, how does someone explain how the inanimate natural world produces consciousness? They call it the 'hard problem' of consciousness. And many theists claim the best or only explanation for consciousness is that God exists and 'endowed' us with consciousness. link So what do you think? Is God a better explanation for consciousness than naturalism?
The other issue is the origin of life. This site reasons.org/explore/blogs/voices/universes-beginning-naturalistic-mechanisms-or-creation spells out the dilemma as explained by someone who seems to think God is the best explanation for the origin of natural life and the author is certain that energy, time and chance alone cannot have produced life as we know it. "Again, the naturalist may object and say that this biblical account of complexity is not a mechanism, thereby rendering it invalid. However, energy, time, and chance alone cannot produce the level of specified complexity that we observe. The additional inputs of intelligence and an ordering mechanism are needed to specify the information content. Thus, naturalism seems to fall short in explaining the complexity of life." How do you feel about the complexity of life? Are you satisfied that life probably arose naturally over hundreds of millions of years and without God designing it?
The other puzzle that is raised is the origin of the universe. Many would like to believe everything physical began in the big bang. The assumption is that time/space, matter/energy all started from an infinitely dense point and expanded into the existence we see around us with planets orbiting stars in galaxies with other celestial bodies swirling about.
From the above site:
So...DID everything natural/physical begin in the big bang...and if so what caused/started it? Theists are happy to say God is the best explanation for the big bang and the resulting universe.
Another thing that is raised is the idea of free will. If anyone believes we have free will....and many make lots of arguments suggesting humans must have free will...then how can they explain that given a natural world. The problem is that we think of the natural world as being deterministic and that would seem to preclude freewill because if our brains and minds are just a part of and due to the natural world, then everything that goes on is determined by physical cause and effect and that would eliminate what someone might call free will. Do you think we have free will and if so...how do you explain it? If humans don't have free will, the how can we be held accountable for our actions?
Those are just a few of the dilemmas/conundrums that theists like to point out and claim the existence of God explains them better than naturalism.
I referenced a site that discussed naturalism but it seems a rather nebulous term. I think of the natural world as all things physical plus things like the mind that emerges from the brain (both human and animal) and the thoughts/concepts/ideas the mind forms. I also include an underlying reality that allows/supports such things as logic, math and reason. Some definitions claim the naturalist rejects supernaturalism. I don't so much reject supernaturalism as I simply don't see how positing it helps any of the above conundrums.
Some people don't find it that difficult to believe consciousness comes from non-consciousness. Consciousness is a physical phenomenon. Of course I don't know that for certain and don't know how it happens, but I have never found it to be very confusing. Everything we know about reality points to consciousness being a result of physical things coming together in a specific way and causing something new. No, I don't believe we have free will. There are plenty of determinists that are much better at explaining it than me. We still have a will that is held accountable by other wills, but not accountable in the way you mean. The main reason people take issue with determinism is because they find the possibility very uncomfortable for obvious reasons. It would basically make us naturalistic robots. I'll address some of the other stuff in a little bit. You responded with a lot.
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Post by moviemouth on Jun 26, 2022 1:39:39 GMT
I can tell you are smarter than me, so some of what you are saying I don't quite understand. I get the gist of what you are saying, but not entirely. The paragraph about God for example, I don't see the problem that you are trying to point out. I don't believe anything supernatural exists only because the evidence hasn't reached a level of believability and the evidence for there being only the natural world is very strong. I am not saying there is no supernatural, just that I am not convinced there is. I don't see how this includes me ignoring intuitive dilemmas. The supernatural and God don't solve those dilemmas either as far as I can tell. There is no proof involved in that though. I am not asserting anything one way of the other. This is why I said I only use proof for things like the effectiveness of medicine and things we can actually observe. I am sure you would agree there is proof that the Earth is a sphere and that the people who don't believe this are not believing this for bad reasons. I guess you can say it is all ultimately subjective, but I think in certain cases you and me would say that those people are flat out wrong. I don't say that when it comes to people who believe God exists, because I do understand why people would come to the conclusion a God exists, especially in a world where we are indoctrinated to believe that a God exists. Most people begin with God exists because this is such a strong element of society and that the belief offers comfort for people. How many people do you think would still hold onto that belief if there was no fear of death involved? Most people don't actually think about it in any deep way and are given bad information by the people they trust. Most aren't led by the evidence, they begin with the conclusion that God exists and then try and make the evidence fit the conclusion. That is backwards. I also began with "God exists" because that is what I was taught, but I could no longer justify a belief in a God. The proof just isn't there. I also don't think there is proof there is no God either though. I think there is proof that specific Gods can't exist based on logical contradictions, but there is no proof that the supernatural doesn't exist or that an indifferent deist God didn't start everything off. I just don't see any reason to believe that those things do exist. They haven't met their burden of proof. This is why most theists will use faith. If you have sufficient evidence to believe a claim, you don't need faith. Most theists don't mean faith in the trust way, they mean "I know there isn't any way to prove God exists, so I rely on faith to justify my belief." I want to talk more btw. I am most certainly NOT smarter than you. More than likely I just didn't explain myself adequately.
The problems I am pointing out have to do with explaining some basic things that we are all aware of given a natural world. link
For example, how does someone explain how the inanimate natural world produces consciousness? They call it the 'hard problem' of consciousness. And many theists claim the best or only explanation for consciousness is that God exists and 'endowed' us with consciousness. link So what do you think? Is God a better explanation for consciousness than naturalism?
The other issue is the origin of life. This site reasons.org/explore/blogs/voices/universes-beginning-naturalistic-mechanisms-or-creation spells out the dilemma as explained by someone who seems to think God is the best explanation for the origin of natural life and the author is certain that energy, time and chance alone cannot have produced life as we know it. "Again, the naturalist may object and say that this biblical account of complexity is not a mechanism, thereby rendering it invalid. However, energy, time, and chance alone cannot produce the level of specified complexity that we observe. The additional inputs of intelligence and an ordering mechanism are needed to specify the information content. Thus, naturalism seems to fall short in explaining the complexity of life." How do you feel about the complexity of life? Are you satisfied that life probably arose naturally over hundreds of millions of years and without God designing it?
The other puzzle that is raised is the origin of the universe. Many would like to believe everything physical began in the big bang. The assumption is that time/space, matter/energy all started from an infinitely dense point and expanded into the existence we see around us with planets orbiting stars in galaxies with other celestial bodies swirling about.
From the above site:
So...DID everything natural/physical begin in the big bang...and if so what caused/started it? Theists are happy to say God is the best explanation for the big bang and the resulting universe.
Another thing that is raised is the idea of free will. If anyone believes we have free will....and many make lots of arguments suggesting humans must have free will...then how can they explain that given a natural world. The problem is that we think of the natural world as being deterministic and that would seem to preclude freewill because if our brains and minds are just a part of and due to the natural world, then everything that goes on is determined by physical cause and effect and that would eliminate what someone might call free will. Do you think we have free will and if so...how do you explain it? If humans don't have free will, the how can we be held accountable for our actions?
Those are just a few of the dilemmas/conundrums that theists like to point out and claim the existence of God explains them better than naturalism.
I referenced a site that discussed naturalism but it seems a rather nebulous term. I think of the natural world as all things physical plus things like the mind that emerges from the brain (both human and animal) and the thoughts/concepts/ideas the mind forms. I also include an underlying reality that allows/supports such things as logic, math and reason. Some definitions claim the naturalist rejects supernaturalism. I don't so much reject supernaturalism as I simply don't see how positing it helps any of the above conundrums.
Most physicists that I am aware of say that nothing can be said about the cause of the universe. It is a futile effort to even try to speculate about it. Theists say that God answers all these things, but God doesn't. Why does God exist? He is necessary. Why is God necessary? Because He is. That is not an answer. I can just say physicalism is necessary and physicalism produces consciousness, we just don't know how. All we have access to is a physical reality, so unless someone proves there is something besides a physical reality we have to assume the physical world is all that exists. As I said it is futile to speculate about "outside" of our time and space. There could be a meta time and space that is fundamental and functions much differently than the time and space that we experience. Theists say God is pure consciousness, but that makes zero sense imo. That means it exists in no time nowhere, which to me sounds a lot like something that can't possibly exist. How can something that exists for zero seconds exist at all? What was God doing before He created stuff? They say God is perfect and can't not be perfect, which would mean that the sentience of God isn't the dominant aspect, the nature of God is and is what is guiding his consciousness. God's actions would be determined by His nature. Theists try and wiggle their way out of this dilemma, but can't. God couldn't have complete free will either. This leads me back to physicalism being true. If the nature of God isn't His own sentience, then it has to be something else and that would have to be physicalism. At the very least, dualism. That is how some people get around the hard problem of consciousness, that the physical and the non-physical have always existed simultaneously. Theists argue from ignorance and incredulity and so do people who assert the material is all that exists. I don't do either. I say "it is unknowable," but I have no evidence of consciousness existing prior to the physical. It seems the other way around and it seems that when the physical brain dies the consciousness ceases to exist.
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Post by rizdek on Jun 26, 2022 13:31:30 GMT
I am most certainly NOT smarter than you. More than likely I just didn't explain myself adequately.
The problems I am pointing out have to do with explaining some basic things that we are all aware of given a natural world. link
For example, how does someone explain how the inanimate natural world produces consciousness? They call it the 'hard problem' of consciousness. And many theists claim the best or only explanation for consciousness is that God exists and 'endowed' us with consciousness. link So what do you think? Is God a better explanation for consciousness than naturalism?
The other issue is the origin of life. This site reasons.org/explore/blogs/voices/universes-beginning-naturalistic-mechanisms-or-creation spells out the dilemma as explained by someone who seems to think God is the best explanation for the origin of natural life and the author is certain that energy, time and chance alone cannot have produced life as we know it. "Again, the naturalist may object and say that this biblical account of complexity is not a mechanism, thereby rendering it invalid. However, energy, time, and chance alone cannot produce the level of specified complexity that we observe. The additional inputs of intelligence and an ordering mechanism are needed to specify the information content. Thus, naturalism seems to fall short in explaining the complexity of life." How do you feel about the complexity of life? Are you satisfied that life probably arose naturally over hundreds of millions of years and without God designing it?
The other puzzle that is raised is the origin of the universe. Many would like to believe everything physical began in the big bang. The assumption is that time/space, matter/energy all started from an infinitely dense point and expanded into the existence we see around us with planets orbiting stars in galaxies with other celestial bodies swirling about.
From the above site:
So...DID everything natural/physical begin in the big bang...and if so what caused/started it? Theists are happy to say God is the best explanation for the big bang and the resulting universe.
Another thing that is raised is the idea of free will. If anyone believes we have free will....and many make lots of arguments suggesting humans must have free will...then how can they explain that given a natural world. The problem is that we think of the natural world as being deterministic and that would seem to preclude freewill because if our brains and minds are just a part of and due to the natural world, then everything that goes on is determined by physical cause and effect and that would eliminate what someone might call free will. Do you think we have free will and if so...how do you explain it? If humans don't have free will, the how can we be held accountable for our actions?
Those are just a few of the dilemmas/conundrums that theists like to point out and claim the existence of God explains them better than naturalism.
I referenced a site that discussed naturalism but it seems a rather nebulous term. I think of the natural world as all things physical plus things like the mind that emerges from the brain (both human and animal) and the thoughts/concepts/ideas the mind forms. I also include an underlying reality that allows/supports such things as logic, math and reason. Some definitions claim the naturalist rejects supernaturalism. I don't so much reject supernaturalism as I simply don't see how positing it helps any of the above conundrums.
Most physicists that I am aware of say that nothing can be said about the cause of the universe. It is a futile effort to even try to speculate about it. Theists say that God answers all these things, but God doesn't. Why does God exist? He is necessary. Why is God necessary? Because He is. That is not an answer. I can just say physicalism is necessary and physicalism produces consciousness, we just don't know how. All we have access to is a physical reality, so unless someone proves there is something besides a physical reality we have to assume the physical world is all that exists. As I said it is futile to speculate about "outside" of our time and space. There could be a meta time and space that is fundamental and functions much differently than the time and space that we experience. Theists say God is pure consciousness, but that makes zero sense imo. That means it exists in no time nowhere, which to me sounds a lot like something that can't possibly exist. How can something that exists for zero seconds exist at all? What was God doing before He created stuff? They say God is perfect and can't not be perfect, which would mean that the sentience of God isn't the dominant aspect, the nature of God is and is what is guiding his consciousness. God's actions would be determined by His nature. Theists try and wiggle their way out of this dilemma, but can't. God couldn't have complete free will either. This leads me back to physicalism being true. If the nature of God isn't His own sentience, then it has to be something else and that would have to be physicalism. At the very least, dualism. That is how some people get around the hard problem of consciousness, that the physical and the non-physical have always existed simultaneously. Theists argue from ignorance and incredulity and so do people who assert the material is all that exists. I don't do either. I say "it is unknowable," but I have no evidence of consciousness existing prior to the physical. It seems the other way around and it seems that when the physical brain dies the consciousness ceases to exist. It seems we view things much the same way. It took me many years to formalize in words the problem with theism that I think I understood intuitively decades ago. Others probably caught on much sooner. That is, every single thing ANYONE has ever said about God is made up....purely and completely fabricated and even more importantly made up specifically to solve certain problems that plague humanity all the way from 'why is there something rather than nothing?' to 'what is the explanation for...?', to 'how can this (or that) have happened?' to 'morality' as in why would inanimate matter self organize into beings that thought at all, much less thought in terms of 'right and wrong?'
The first question I have for any theist is how they know that such a being CAN even exist. It's not for me to argue that it cannot exist, but for them to show it CAN exist. It may well be that the thing/being/God they are imagining is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE...ie it may be that in no way shape or form can a mind exist without a physical foundation...ie without emerging from something physical/material. So that would mean that no matter how unlikely or inexplicable they claim some things are...no matter the low odds of the supposedly fine-tuned constants of the universe, no matter the low probability that life could arise naturally, no matter that we can't and may never explain/understand consciousness, no matter the consequences if naturalism cannot support freewill etc. and no matter how puzzling that the natural world produces moral thinking animals, it may be that natural is all there is and whatever exists/happens/arises/emerges does so due to the natural world and we would just have to deal with it.
To me whether there is a god or not is actually academic. So what if some unknown/unknowable super mind exists? Because besides fabricating ALL characteristics/abilities/attributes of said God, they also further imagine they know what God wants/expects/desires/requires of people down to and including imagining said being wants people to believe in it. I am absolutely certain none of them know. So if there is a God and if it cares at all about humans, buying into this or that specific religion/doctrine is very likely futile and oddly enough may possibly make God displeased. Can we imagine for example, if God did NOT actually send his only begotten son to earth to die on a cross as a sacrifice for sins, what the real GodTM actually thinks of people who believe he would so such a barbaric thing? If you step back and think of any kind of substitution sacrifice where one person is punished for another person's misdeeds it seems not only barbaric and unjust it is downright impossible. Not even a god can transfer actual guilt from one person to another. Oh, for certain a God could ignore one person's sins and, for kicks and giggles or because it makes him feel better, punish another in a 'whipping boy' or 'sin-eater' fashion, but the guilty person is still guilty of his own wrongs...nothing has changed. That is as basic as reality itself...and even a god has to deal with reality.
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Post by Winter_King on Jun 27, 2022 8:03:00 GMT
When you open a box and the box happens it's empty we usually say there is nothing in there. But in reality, we know that there the empty box still contains air, possibly light and gravity is still functioning inside. The way I understand it, when Krauss says nothing he usually describing a vacuum. We have no indication that virtual particles apparently popping in and out of existence violates the "natural law". More likely, we don't have a full understanding of the Universe. This is especially true when dealing with stuff on the subatomic level where classical physics don't work the same way as they work on a macro scale. "A first cause is necessary to explain why the universe exists. Maybe it's nothing." A cause is necessary for the current state of the Universe. For all we know, the Universe as in "all the energy, time, matter" has always existed. Just in different states. One famous hypothesis is the Big Bounce. That the Universe is cyclical alternating between periods of expansion and contraction. A Big Bang followed by a Big Crunch followed by a Big Bang followed by Big Crunch, repeat ad infinitum. Why not Zeus? Because he is unnecessary for the explanation of lightning. This was in reply to your example of something appear to you without cause, you would call the Ghostbusters. The ancient people saw a phenomenon they didn't understand like lightning and they came up with all sorts of supernatural explanations, one of them being a god of thunder causing them. Sure, you might call the Ghostbusters if saw something you didn't understand, but the fact that you don't understand, doesn't mean that there isn't a natural explanation. Hell it might be an explanation that eludes the entire human race but even if that's the case, it doesn't mean it's something not bound by the laws of the nature. The "Big Bounce" would require an external agent. Every worldview ultimately includes some kind of prime mover, an ultimate reality upon which everything else depends. For Lawrence Krauss, the "first cause" is nothing (which is really something.) Thanks for the underscore. Why?
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Post by Admin on Jun 27, 2022 8:16:53 GMT
The "Big Bounce" would require an external agent. Every worldview ultimately includes some kind of prime mover, an ultimate reality upon which everything else depends. For Lawrence Krauss, the "first cause" is nothing (which is really something.) Thanks for the underscore. Why? Because it can't restart itself.
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Post by Winter_King on Jun 27, 2022 8:22:09 GMT
Because it can't restart itself. Says who? For all we know the bouncing back, and fort if correct is just a natural phenomenon that we don't understand.
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Post by Admin on Jun 27, 2022 8:59:03 GMT
Because it can't restart itself. Says who? For all we know the bouncing back, and fort if correct is just a natural phenomenon that we don't understand. Basic science says that. Even a perpetual motion machine requires an external agent to start (and build!) it, and it would have to be more than just something we don't understand; it would have to negate what we know today about the physics of the universe in which we live. If there's anything at all that can fuel itself, let alone repeatedly ad infinitum, then we're very wrong about a lot of things, and this serves as yet another example of how we must reject science just to contest the first cause argument. But there's some irony to be found here, given the implication that if there's not a first cause, the first cause must be the universe itself.
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Post by Winter_King on Jun 27, 2022 9:30:05 GMT
Says who? For all we know the bouncing back, and fort if correct is just a natural phenomenon that we don't understand. Basic science says that. Even a perpetual motion machine requires an external agent to start (and build!) it, and it would have to be more than just something we don't understand; it would have to negate what we know today about the physics of the universe in which we live. If there's anything at all that can fuel itself, let alone repeatedly ad infinitum, then we're very wrong about a lot of things, and this serves as yet another example of how we must reject science just to contest the first cause argument. But there's some irony to be found here, given the implication that if there's not a first cause, the first cause must be the universe itself. We're not dealing with basic science when it comes to the origin of the Universe, especially when per general relativity the normal laws of physics don't work inside of the singularity. But surely if you say science says that you should easily find a scientific paper explaining why the hypothetical Big Bounce requires an external agent.
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Post by rizdek on Jun 27, 2022 10:44:32 GMT
Says who? For all we know the bouncing back, and fort if correct is just a natural phenomenon that we don't understand. Basic science says that. Even a perpetual motion machine requires an external agent to start (and build!) it, and it would have to be more than just something we don't understand; it would have to negate what we know today about the physics of the universe in which we live. If there's anything at all that can fuel itself, let alone repeatedly ad infinitum, then we're very wrong about a lot of things, and this serves as yet another example of how we must reject science just to contest the first cause argument. But there's some irony to be found here, given the implication that if there's not a first cause, the first cause must be the universe itself. The problem with comparing the natural world as a whole with a perpetual motion machine is that with a perpetual motion machine there IS an outside world into which energy is leaked. Friction produces heat which seeps out to the surrounding air/materials. Energy is lost in that heat and so there is less motion. But with the natural world...assuming it is a closed system, there is NO other place/world/environment to which energy can leak, so all energy/motion is conserved. That would be the reason there is no contradiction if the natural world is all there is. In fact if the law of conservation of energy is correct, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it would have to be the case that the energy from one bounce...if the universe 'bounces'... to the next would be exactly the same. The natural world would be a perpetual motion machine by definition.
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Post by Admin on Jun 29, 2022 8:13:22 GMT
Basic science says that. Even a perpetual motion machine requires an external agent to start (and build!) it, and it would have to be more than just something we don't understand; it would have to negate what we know today about the physics of the universe in which we live. If there's anything at all that can fuel itself, let alone repeatedly ad infinitum, then we're very wrong about a lot of things, and this serves as yet another example of how we must reject science just to contest the first cause argument. But there's some irony to be found here, given the implication that if there's not a first cause, the first cause must be the universe itself. We're not dealing with basic science when it comes to the origin of the Universe, especially when per general relativity the normal laws of physics don't work inside of the singularity. But surely if you say science says that you should easily find a scientific paper explaining why the hypothetical Big Bounce requires an external agent. You, too, can easily find a scientific paper explaining how the laws of inertia and thermodynamics prevent perpetual motion. But is it really necessary? It's Physics 101, for crying out loud. Grade school stuff. Perhaps a cyclical universe can run for a very long time, but not forever. Sooner or later, an external force would be required to push it past its inevitable stopping point. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're asking for.
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Post by captainbryce on Jun 29, 2022 18:14:21 GMT
What’s the matter “admin”, don’t actually have an argument? 😏 There's like 6 pages of it. Those aren't just random words, you know. If you keep them together, you'll see sentences, and those sentences form paragraphs, which is where you'll find what you claim isn't there. No, that’s not an “argument”. You have “responses” that don’t address the counter-arguments (which amount to an absolute dismantling and refutation of your position). You gave excuses about why you wouldn’t address them and then continued to make straw man arguments. A straw man argument is not an argument my friend. That’s just verbal masturbation. When I ask you specific questions which you avoid (How exactly did I demonstrate this? What “special exemption” in reasoning are you claiming atheism requires?), you have no case!
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Post by captainbryce on Jun 29, 2022 18:35:21 GMT
Perhaps a cyclical universe can run for a very long time, but not forever. Sooner or later, an external force would be required to push it past its inevitable stopping point. You don’t know how long a cyclical universe could run (or even if that’s a logical question in the first place as temporal mechanics applies to time within the universe). Nobody knows the answer to this; this is all speculation! The laws of physics apply to the operational dynamics within “this universe”, not necessarily to universes themselves. You keep ignoring this fact and going right back to your original failed premise.
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Post by Admin on Jun 30, 2022 0:10:26 GMT
Perhaps a cyclical universe can run for a very long time, but not forever. Sooner or later, an external force would be required to push it past its inevitable stopping point. You don’t know how long a cyclical universe could run (or even if that’s a logical question in the first place as temporal mechanics applies to time within the universe). Nobody knows the answer to this; this is all speculation! The laws of physics apply to the operational dynamics within “this universe”, not necessarily to universes themselves. You keep ignoring this fact and going right back to your original failed premise. We've been over this already. It's not a premise, it's a conclusion that you have demonstrated several times in this thread. And now, here you are talking about "time within the universe" as if there's something outside the universe. As an added bonus, you're arguing that the lawmaker isn't subject to its own laws, which, when used as an argument for God, is summarily dismissed as "special pleading." Seems you want that cake you just ate.
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Post by captainbryce on Jun 30, 2022 3:34:20 GMT
You don’t know how long a cyclical universe could run (or even if that’s a logical question in the first place as temporal mechanics applies to time within the universe). Nobody knows the answer to this; this is all speculation! The laws of physics apply to the operational dynamics within “this universe”, not necessarily to universes themselves. You keep ignoring this fact and going right back to your original failed premise. We've been over this already. It's not a premise, it's a conclusion that you have demonstrated several times in this thread. And now, here you are talking about "time within the universe" as if there's something outside the universe. As an added bonus, you're arguing that the lawmaker isn't subject to its own laws, which, when used as an argument for God, is summarily dismissed as "special pleading." Seems you want that cake you just ate. It is your “conclusion” which LACKS AN ARGUMENT! What part about that do you not understand? You haven’t made an argument, you’ve only made an assertion. What I’ve demonstrated is that your conclusion is not justified by reason. And I haven’t mentioned anything about a lawmaker, you’ve just asserted one. My statements do not address a lawmaker, so this is yet another straw man argument. You have not demonstrated the existence of any lawmaker and you have no argument to justify the belief in one. That’s why it’s dismissed as special pleading. What you need to do is take a class on critical thinking and argumentation because you clearly aren’t able to follow some of the most basic concepts of rational argumentation.
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