Atheism (2)

[Gadarene]

er, not really. Everything has a cause, accept agents.

law of cause and effect

Are you claiming that humans are agents?

Must an agent be personal?

 

[createdtoworship]

Are you claiming that humans are agents?

Must an agent be personal?

humans are agents over certain actions yes. Not agents universally, because they have a cause (their parents).

But we don't know of agents that are not personal

I don't know of any

 

[sandwiches]

er, not really. Everything has a cause, accept agents.

law of cause and effect

And the universe couldn't be an agent, why?

 

[createdtoworship]

And the universe couldn't be an agent, why?

because it had a cause

 

[Gadarene]

humans are agents over certain actions yes. Not agents universally, because they have a cause (their parents).

So koukl's example is irrelevant.

But we don't know of agents that are not personal

We don't know of any universal agents full stop. We don't know of any agents that transcend time and space and are eternal either.

i don't know of any

Ok. I just don't see why we need an agent to start the universe.

 

[Gadarene]

because it had a cause

Again we don't know of any universal agents or naturalistic uncaused cause. To presume it must be an agent, let alone your specific god and none of the other deities out there rather than any alternatives is little more than bias.

 

[createdtoworship]

Again we don't know of any universal agents or naturalistic uncaused cause. To presume it must be an agent, let alone your specific god and none of the other deities out there rather than any alternatives is little more than bias.

never said it was MY God. This is a straw man argument :

A straw man is a type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position

wikipedia

 

[Gadarene]

never said it was MY God. This is a straw man argument :

A straw man is a type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position

wikipedia

Ok, my bad. My one to your two dozen or so that you accumulated while struggling to comprehend what the definition of atheism was for 20 pages.

You can respond to the rest of the point you dodged now.

 

[Belk]

because it had a cause

It did? Were is the evidence for this cause?

 

[sandwiches]

because it had a cause

How do you know?

 

[createdtoworship]

How do you know?

we see the universe expanding so therefore it had something explode (as in big bang) or some believe God did the Big bang, either way....point being that it's not how it exploded but THAT it exploded.

 

[Gadarene]

we see the universe expanding so therefore it had something explode (as in big bang) or some believe God did the Big bang, either way....point being that it's not how it exploded but THAT it exploded.

How is that the case?

(urgh)

Either way given that we have no evidence of either a universal agent or an acausal naturalistic cause, big fat 'I don't know and nor does anyone else' as far as I'm concerned. Well, for now at least.

 

[createdtoworship]

How is that the case?

(urgh)

Either way given that we have no evidence of either a universal agent or an acausal naturalistic cause, big fat 'I don't know and nor does anyone else' as far as I'm concerned. Well, for now at least.

what you mean?

 

[Gadarene]

what you mean?

I'm saying neither side has a particularly convincing case on this one. I'd still cast my lot in with science in terms of which I consider more likely to get an answer (as god of the gaps has been a losing stratagem since Galileo and has never turned up a single viable result) and the whole god thing is in trouble for me in general due to the lack of positive evidence - but who knows, it's not 100% certain and it may go differently this time. Either way, until it's resolved it has little bearing on my atheism.

 

[sandwiches]

we see the universe expanding so therefore it had something explode (as in big bang) or some believe God did the Big bang, either way....point being that it's not how it exploded but THAT it exploded.

We know that the universe is expanding. Got it.

So, how do we know it the explosion was caused?

 

[createdtoworship]

We know that the universe is expanding. Got it.

So, how do we know it the explosion was caused?

look up cause and effect will ya, save some time.

 

[Non sequitur]

er, not really. Everything we know has a cause, accept agents.

law of cause and effect

I just added that super important part you forgot, in red, to your post.



Every time I look up law of cause and effect, it never comes up as a law. I always get Causality - The deterministic world-view...

Either way, "scientists" came up with "laws" and we all know about how "far" we can "trust" them; always changing "their" "minds" and "whatnot".

That, right there, is immediate disqualification for this "law" or "causality" business...

Down with science!

 

[Dave Ellis]

okay, because of the sarcasm I will only reply to this:

agent causation:

the universe is caused by something that didn't have a cause.

the only thing this could be is an agent.

are you with me so far?

Sorry about the sarcasm, but sometimes the best way to deal with a ridiculous argument, is to ridicule it.

The flaw in your argument is that you don't know the universe was caused by something that didn't have a cause.

However, regardless it's reasonable to assume for the sake of argument that some form of agent caused the universe to come into existence.... However, there is no evidence at all for that agent to be intelligent, conscious or a God of any type. It could simply be a cause of nature.

 

[sandwiches]

look up cause and effect will ya, save some time.

So, how do we know this explosion, the Big Bang, was caused?

 

[Dave Ellis]

so is it a non squitur or a argument from ignorance, make up your fallacy mind

read it again:
agent causation = intelligent design
we have this thing called a seismograph, right? It's a little needle on a piece of paper that gets drawn across this needle that wobbles back and forth according to the vibrations of the earth and it makes a little squiggle, right? And by looking at this squiggle you can determine the force of an earthquake or what kind of seismic activity is going on. These are blind natural forces being recorded by this stylus on a seismograph.

What would happen, though, if you were looking at the etchings of the stylus on the seismograph and you saw these wobbly, side-to-side movements with an unbroken line of ink, and you saw someone's signature written in there and then it continued on with these wobbles. What would you conclude? Would you conclude that this was some really wacky earthquake? Of course not. You would see the unmistakable signs of agent causation and you would rightly conclude that someone got in there and made a conscious, intelligent choice to move the stylus and make the form of a signature. In other words, you don't explain that even on a scientific instrument by naturalistic causes. You explain it by agent causation.

above from greg koukl

Agent causation does not equal intelligent design at all.

As for the seismograph, It's far more likely to be a wacky earthquake, or a prank from someone else in the lab than an invisible magic man in the sky

There would be no reason to attribute that to a god at all.