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The apologia of the cosmos. Evidence of God

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I'm sorry but eli26 you strike me as one unwilling to be corrected. You seem to want to toot your own horn and seem to be on an agenda.

I could be wrong tho.

Bottom line, there may or may not be a god (Depending on your definition of 'god'). There is only ONE FACT that we know for sure. And that fact is that ultimately we don't know.

But to fill that vacuum of not knowing with 'there must be a god' is not the answer. I'm sorry, but it's not.
 
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Elioenai26

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I'm sorry but eli26 you strike me as one unwilling to be corrected. You seem to want to toot your own horn and seem to be on an agenda.

I could be wrong tho.

Bottom line, there may or may not be a god (Depending on your definition of 'god'). There is only ONE FACT that we know for sure. And that fact is that ultimately we don't know.

But to fill that vacuum of not knowing with 'there must be a god' is not the answer. I'm sorry, but it's not.

I am grateful for your reply.

When I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, I did not do so after reading an argument for His existence. I sought Him only once I saw myself as desperately needing Him in such a profound way.

Indeed it may be true for you that you do not know the answer to the question of life's origins, but I do.

I do know, and that is not bragging or boasting, that is the simple truth. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And I do not need to prove this for it to be true. It was true before I was born, and will be after I die.
 
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Elioenai26

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That doesn't mean what you think it means.


Let's look at your argument for this.


The Second Law doesn't state that the universe is running out of usable energy, nor that everything tends to become more disordered and chaotic. The Law states that, in a closed system, entropy tends to a maximum. Whether the universe constitutes a thermodynamically closed system, and whether the Law even applies, is an open question. Remember, the Law is a mathematically derived result from a number of premises.

The first law, by contrast, is an empirical observation historically called a 'law'. Many conservations laws have been proposed as a result of tenacious observations, and physics has done nothing if not shown them to be false (e.g., the conservation of parity).


A marvellous quote that once held pride of place in my signature. It carries such weight because it necessarily follows from its premises, and since its premises are so general, it applies pretty much everywhere. Of course, in those circumstances where those premises don't hold, the Second Law doesn't apply, not even in part.

So your attempt to use thermodynamics to prove the universe can't be eternal, relies on little more than a naive understanding of its laws. Simply put, it is unestablished whether the premises that imply the Second Law, hold for the universe at large. For all we know, it could well be an open system in a larger multiverse wherein the First Law doesn't apply.

I'll debunk the rest, while I'm at it.


Emphasis mine. This is a common misunderstanding of the theory. In truth, it merely postulates that the universe has been expanding for 13.5 billion years from a tiny, hot, dense state to its current form. Nothing in the theory, nor indeed anything in science, implies that the universe actually began then. Rather, neither quantum mechanics nor general relativity let us probe further beyond it - as good as they are, they simply don't accurately model such high-energy physics, so they don't work under such conditions. Again, one must be careful not to confuse technological or theoretical limitations, with an actual barrier.

It's a pretty common myth, mind you. Outside of theoretical physicists who've studied the theory in depth, it's convenient to think of the Big Bang theory as the 'start' of the universe, just as it's convenient to think of infinity as the 'largest number' or the second law of thermodynamics saying that 'everything decays'. But convenience is all it is.

Most of the confusion arises from physicists' oversimplification of the 'early' universe - indeed, such a phrase would make the layman think that the the Big Bang was the actual start of time. Hawking himself has taken pains to clarify this, saying that we are allow to colloquially call the Big Bang the start of the universe because it may as well be. A car's life 'begins' at the end of the factory line, that's merely a reference to form.

This is a nuance you don't seem to have grasp, Elioenai26. What more proof do you need of the colloquial nature of your 'expert testimony, than quotes like, ""Today scientists generally believe the universe was created in a violent explosion called the Big Bang."

In other words: the universe 'began' inasmuch as its current configuration traces its origins to the start of the Big Bang. But, there's no indication that space, time, and energy only came into existence at that moment.

Needless to say, no honest scientist will agree with you on these groundless assertions regarding thermodynamics.

From your posts, I am finding it increasingly hard to believe you are a physicist.

And I will yell you right now, im not going to take your word over the physicists and scientists who I know are actually physicists and scientists. Sorry, that's not going to happen.
 
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Davian

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I am grateful for your reply.

When I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, I did not do so after reading an argument for His existence. I sought Him only once I saw myself as desperately needing Him in such a profound way.

Indeed it may be true for you that you do not know the answer to the question of life's origins, but I do.

I do know, and that is not bragging or boasting, that is the simple truth. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And I do not need to prove this for it to be true. It was true before I was born, and will be after I die.
Just not in any way that you can demonstrate.
 
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Archaeopteryx

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Those attributes are discussable once there is a general consensus on the veracity of the first two premises.

You don't attack the premises of an argument by attacking it's conclusion. This should be common knowledge.

The veracity of the first two premises has little bearing on your later treatment of them. Accepting that the universe had a beginning some finite time ago does not commit one to supernaturalism. That should be common knowledge.

This is where the focus of our intention should be, and as for my part, is. That is, giving good reasons to think that that two premises are sound.

As above, even if sound they do not necessarily lead to the kinds of claims you are making regarding the nature of that beginning.

I have already responded in depth to this objection in a previous post to you.

And I have already responded to your objection in a previous post.

No I have not.

The entirety of this thread testifies otherwise.

Clearly it is not .

Of course it is. You could even say that dualism is your argument.

If you agree that the premises are sound, we can move to the conclusion.

As I said earlier, accepting that the universe began does not necessarily lead us to your dualist conclusions about its beginning.

Via logical inferrence to the best explanation.

Except that it's not an inference to the best explanation at all. It is an attempt to leverage the meaning of a commonly used word outside the constraints of the very domain in which it finds its meaning.

It must be those things because it cannot be logically anything else. I have already addressed this numerous times in previous posts to you and others.

Yes, I am aware that you enjoy repeating the same points.

Nothing material spatial or temporal. This is very evident and as long as you presupoose naturalism, you will never accept this argument. In fact, all of your replies are question begging for atheism/naturalism.

My replies are begging the question? ^_^

It should be evident to you that the word immaterial can have different connotations. One instance is when it is referred to as something that is not composed of matter, the other when it is used to refer to something as not pertinent to a topic or discussion. The context clues offer support in any case of ambiguity.

If something is not composed of matter then what is it composed of?

Everything about it identifies it as a cause. It caused the universe to come into existence, which in turn, is replete with cause and effect relationships. The Uncaused Cause is therefore the paradigm for all causal relations.

Nothing about it is shared by any other thing known as a "cause".

Science proves this is simply not tenable nor correspondant to the available data. It would also be question begging for atheism.

Science proves no such thing. Your philosophical wordplay has not shown us why the alien cause must be necessary nor why the universe must necessarily be contingent and cannot itself be necessary.

Ockham's Razor shaves off any excesses in the purported causal chain and brings us to a necessary being who is uncaused, and unmoved, who is timeless, spaceless, immaterial, and transcendant over all that is natural, for Ockham tells us that we should not unjustifiably multiply causes. Ockham’s Razor tells us not to posit causes beyond necessity. That is to say, we are justified in postulating only such causes as are necessary to explain the effect; any more would be gratuitous. In the case of the universe, Ockham’s Razor shaves away polytheistic explanations of the origin of the universe, since only one transcendent, personal Creator is necessary.


If we shouldn't multiply the number of causes beyond necessity, in light of the available data, then we need not posit a god at all. That would be adding another level of complexity beyond necessity.

Then where did the big bang come from? - YouTube

You assumptions are based on the view that "matter is all that there is". You keep saying nothing, nothing, nothing over and over again. I keep saying nothing material. You again say nothing nothing nothing. This is simply begging the question for atheims/materialism/naturalism.

You keep saying immaterial/material, time/timelessness, space/spacelessness, and so on. Isn't that begging the question of dualism? But then again you don't want us to discuss dualism...

This is your unsubstantiated opinion. Offer some good arguments as to why I, or anyone should accept this. Until you can, this is an opinion.

What immaterial entities do we observe that have causal powers?

A change from what to what? You missed the entire point of what I wrote. In order for there to be a temporal effect brought about by a timeless cause, the cause must possess volition. Otherwise, the effect would not be temporal but timeless along with the cause for once the sufficient conditions are given, the effect must be present.

That's like saying that systematic changes of states can only occur if there is a mind behind them. It's teleological rubbish.

Once again, this is an unsubstantiated assumption or assertion that begs the question for atheism. Provide some good arguments as to why the traditional dualistic view of humans which has been held for thousands of years should be discarded.

Neuroscience.

And you conveniently missed the point again. There can be no natural explanation for the instantiation of the universe, for there was nothing natural prior to it!

Prior to it? You are invoking time again, even though you claim time began with the universe?
 
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Davian

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I answered every question that has not already been answered in the numerous posts already typed. I shall refer you to them.

Perhaps you should have stipulated in the OP that you would only address objections that can be addressed by referring to reasonablefaith.org.

You can still do so now. It would save others the time and effort of posting.

Who or what I use as references has nothing to do with the veracity of the KCA.
As you have presented it, no. ^_^
Anything else?
I was just going to ask the same of you.
 
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The Engineer

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Thank you The Engineer, for taking your time to reply to these points.
Thank you Elioenai26 for not taking the time to reply to any of my points.

Most of your responses, are simple one or two sentence assertions based on unsubstantiated opinions and views and therefore shall be dismissed as such.
Considering you didn't even take the time to address a single point that I made, I will dismiss your post as well. I don't write four pages in Word only for you to dismiss them instantly with such a generalized, unsubstantiated statement.

I'm starting to think you didn't even read my post.

Thank you for participating and partaking in this discussion. I look forward to reading more from you.
The feeling isn't mutual.

Ad hominem. It simply does not matter who I use as a reference.
That's not an ad hominem. An ad hominem would be for Wiccan Child to tell you he will not respond to your posts because you're dishonest and lazy. He didn't do that.

What matters is the material and whether or not it is pertinent to the topic. I include citations and references so that I will not be accused of plagiarism.
You don't include the references we need, as I pointed out in a post that you didn't even bother to read, apparently. If you want to reference a scientific study, post the paper, not the reasonablefaith representation of it.

If you do not want to discuss this subject, feel free to disengage.
He discussed the subject in detail.

Its not substantiated?

Let me guess, the universe is a self-replicating physicality that is the exception to the rule, right?
Where did he state this property of the universe? And how would that be an exception to which rule?

This is question begging for atheim/naturalism and is simply dishonest.
Posting the names of formal fallacies doesn't make you right. It doesn't even make you sound smart.

1. Well for one, thermodynamics implies the universe is not eternal. Even if we had no philosophical arguments or any other scientific evidence, this alone would make it irrational and unreasonable to maintain that the universe was eternal.
Wow, that was one line, out of five! I'm not a physicist, so I won't comment on this, but I'm sure this statement was already refuted, anyway.

They imply that the universe came into being ex nihilo. So yes, the theological implications are enormous.
Theology has nothing to say on matters of astronomy.

Care for any expert corroborating testimony for this? Just refer to the end of the apologia at the beginning of the thread.
And again, you tell another user to just look at another post, without even referencing said post!

If you say so.

I still love you! :wave:
None of us cares about the love of a coward.

Needless to say, no honest scientist will agree with you on these groundless assertions regarding thermodynamics.

From your posts, I am finding it increasingly hard to believe you are a physicist.

And I will yell you right now, im not going to take your word over the physicists and scientists who I know are actually physicists and scientists. Sorry, that's not going to happen.
And again, you point out that a user makes unsubstantiated assumptions, without even pointing out what those assumptions are!

Tell us what those unsubstantiated assumptions are, or your post will be dismissed.
 
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Wiccan_Child

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Needless to say, no honest scientist will agree with you on these groundless assertions regarding thermodynamics.

From your posts, I am finding it increasingly hard to believe you are a physicist.

And I will yell you right now, im not going to take your word over the physicists and scientists who I know are actually physicists and scientists. Sorry, that's not going to happen.
Then you have shown you are not interested in honest debate. Instead of discussing ideas and theories, you are unable to critically analyse what people say: if they disagree with your quotes, or point out your fallacious quote mining, or clarifying the context of your quotes, you simply can't handle it, and your only retort is to end the discussion.

It saddens me to see someone so close-minded, someone so incapable of rational thought. If you want to engage in a real discussion, you know where to find me. At the moment, your rabid dependency on Craig and RF has crippled your ability to think rationally and logically. You'd have my pity, had you not brought it on yourself.
 
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The Engineer

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Thanks for the comments guys. They are much appreciated.
Again, the feeling isn't mutual.

For the sake of expediency, I shall only be addressing coherent objections to the KCA.
If so, then I suggest you actually address the coherent objections to the KCA that have been made. Both Wiccan Child and I wrote very long responses to the KCA, which you outright ignored under the pretense that they contained unsubstantiated assumptions, although you were incapable of pointing out even a single such assumption.

Thank you and I pray you all have a wonderful Sunday!
Doesn't seem to work, as you're still making the same worthless replies.

EDIT:
Still waiting for a reply to one of my posts about dualism that actually addresses the evidence that I present.

I'm not going to shut up about it until I get my reply.
 
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Wiccan_Child

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Thanks for the comments guys. They are much appreciated.

For the sake of expediency, I shall only be addressing coherent objections to the KCA.
Nonsense - you'll only address posts that can be responded to by copy-and-pasting from RF.
 
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Elioenai26

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Again, the feeling isn't mutual.

If so, then I suggest you actually address the coherent objections to the KCA that have been made. Both Wiccan Child and I wrote very long responses to the KCA, which you outright ignored under the pretense that they contained unsubstantiated assumptions, although you were incapable of pointing out even a single such assumption.

Doesn't seem to work, as you're still making the same worthless replies.

EDIT:
Still waiting for a reply to one of my posts about dualism that actually addresses the evidence that I present.

I'm not going to shut up about it until I get my reply.

This thread is not for discussion regarding Dualism, but the KCA.
 
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Elioenai26

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Nonsense - you'll only address posts that can be responded to by copy-and-pasting from RF.

I will respond to posts that contain coherent, intelligible, well thought-out, substantiated questions/objections.

If an assertion is unsubstantiated and or goes contrary to accepted scientific and philosophic conclusions, I will not be responding to them as it would be a misuse and inefficient use of time.
 
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The Engineer

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This thread is not for discussion regarding Dualism, but the KCA.
Then stop posting this Dr Goetz crap. You posted it twice!

I will respond to posts that contain coherent, intelligible, well thought-out, substantiated questions/objections.
If that's the case, why do you ignore all our objections?

If an assertion is unsubstantiated
Neither Wiccan Child nor I ever made such an assertion. You did, and we pointed it out. Instead of defending your position, you then ignored us.

and or goes contrary to accepted scientific and philosophic conclusions,
Accepted by whom? You? Us? Dr Goetz?

I will not be responding to them as it would be a misuse and inefficient use of time.
Errors in your opponents argument are to be pointed out and corrected in a debate, not ignored.
 
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Elioenai26

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If that's the case, why do you ignore all our objections?

Your objections/questions either do not fit the above criteria, or have already been answered.


Neither Wiccan Child nor I ever made such an assertion. You did, and we pointed it out. Instead of defending your position, you then ignored us.

The majority of your replies are unsubstantiated. And yes, I can substantiate this claim by referencing your numerous one or two line replies which are no more than your unsubstantiated opinions.


Accepted by whom? You? Us? Dr Goetz?

The general consensus of scientists and philosophers, physicists, cosmologists, and astrophysicists.


Errors in your opponents argument are to be pointed out and corrected in a debate, not ignored.

I am bound to do so one time, not numerous times to reworded phrases and questions and objections that have already been responded to.
 
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The Engineer

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Your objections/questions either do not fit the above criteria, or have already been answered.
If they don't fit the criteria, wouldn't it be better if you pointed the errors out and corrected them, instead of ignoring my objections?

The majority of your replies are unsubstantiated. And yes, I can substantiate this claim by referencing your numerous one or two line replies which are your unsubstantiated opinions.
Then do so, but reference the post numbers. I am not going to accept any of my supposedly unsubstantiated claims if I don't have the context.

The general consensus of scientists and philosophers, physicists, cosmologists, and astrophysicists.
In case you didn't notice, general consensus can't always be used to defend your argument. Doing so would be an argument by popularity, and that's a fallacy.

By the way, the claim that any of our responses goes against scientific consensus is a positive claim that has to be supported. So far, you failed to do so.

I am bound to do so one time, not numerous times to reworded phrases and questions and objections that have already been responded to.
It's funny how you claim to have a problem with repetitions in a debate, yet you posted Dr Goetz twice. Hypocrisy much?

The claim that you already responded to one of our objections has to be backed up, too. I'm certainly not going to take your word for it.
 
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Elioenai26

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If they don't fit the criteria, wouldn't it be better if you pointed the errors out and corrected them, instead of ignoring my objections?

I have. And being a man, I expect you to do your own research. You are not a child, at least I do not think you are, and since you are a man capable of making assertions, I will require you know what you are talking about at least to some degree.

Then do so, but reference the post numbers. I am not going to accept any of my supposedly unsubstantiated claims if I don't have the context.

The majority of your most recent posts, specifically #610, #607, and especially #594, contain mostly unsubstantitated assertions. #594 is composed of mostly if not all, short one sentence unsubstantiated quips that are in no way grounded or based on anything other than your opinion.

In case you didn't notice, general consensus can't always be used to defend your argument. Doing so would be an argument by popularity, and that's a fallacy.

Maintaining that that thermodynamics is built upon faulty premises is laughable. Maintaining that an actual infinite number of days can be traversed is even worse. I challenge you to substantiate these ridiculous assertions.
 
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Wiccan_Child

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I will respond to posts that contain coherent, intelligible, well thought-out, substantiated questions/objections.

If an assertion is unsubstantiated and or goes contrary to accepted scientific and philosophic conclusions, I will not be responding to them as it would be a misuse and inefficient use of time.
So, let's get this straight. Instead of discussing the hard philosophical and scientific questions, you instead are unable to comprehend that your own personal education on the matter (such as causality, contingency, teleology, statistical thermodynamics, and quantum physics) might be wrong.

Instead of discussing whether or not causality is a universally true law, your only retort is, "Nope, we've always believed it to be that way, I won't discuss it, nope, nope, nope".

Maintaining that that thermodynamics is built upon faulty premises is laughable. Maintaining that an actual infinite number of days can be traversed is even worse. I challenge you to substantiate these ridiculous assertions.
The onus is on you, not us. Come, now, this is elementary.

If that's the calibre of your argument, I'm happy we stopped where we did.
 
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The Engineer

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Have what? Ignored my points, or countered them? Certainly not the latter.

And being a man, I expect you to do your own research.
I do. That doesn't mean I will actively look for flaws in my argumentation just because you tell me something is wrong with it

You are not a child, at least I do not think you are, and since you are a man capable of making assertions, I will require you know what you are talking about at least to some degree.
I know what I am talking about. If you can point out any errors in my thinking or in the evidence that I present, then do so, but don't refuse to talk about them while pretending they are there.

The majority of your most recent posts, specifically #610, #607, and especially #594, contain mostly unsubstantitated assertions. #594 is composed of mostly if not all, short one sentence unsubstantiated quips that are in no way grounded or based on anything other than your opinion.
Thanks for linking to the posts! Oh, wait, you didn't. Neither did you point out what those unsubstantiated assertions are.

I'll start with post 594:
So according to Quentin Smith, spontaneous creation is not supported by quantum physics, but spontaneous change of condition is.

Either way, acausality is supported by quantum physics. The statement, every effect must have had a cause, is incompatible with quantum physics, as the change of condition is as much an effect as the spontaneous creation of particles.
That's not an opinion. I analyzed Quentin Smith's view on the topic, and if my analysis was wrong, you could have pointed it out.

That acausality is supported by quantum physics doesn't qualify as an opinion by a long stretch, either. I supported this claim by pointing out that a change of condition is an effect. You ignored this.

All this states is that there are problems with the Vacuum Fluctuation Models, not that the models are obsolete.
Not an opinion, either. It's an analysis of the source that you posted.

Furthermore, we don't know what the author said afterwards. For all we know, he could have then defended the Vacuum Fluctuation Models, or sung about dancing cats in the sunshine. Without you posting the whole article, this information is pretty worthless for your position.
Here, I criticize your handling of sources. Only the last bit is an opinion, and it's hardly unsubstantiated.

My debunking of your faulty analysis of Hilbert's Hotel is based on the Wikipedia article. Not quoting it, because it was mostly quoted from Wikipedia in turn.

How do you support your assumption that Wiccan Child does not understand what an argumentum ad verecundiam is?
Apparently, you don't. I still haven't seen you defend this claim with any evidence whatsoever, so I assume that it's unsubstantiated.

At first, I wanted to defend posts 607 and 610, too, but considering that they are not so much about the topic, but rather about how you handle the topic, I don't see how this would make sense.

Maintaining that that thermodynamics is built upon faulty premises is laughable. Maintaining that an actual infinite number of days can be traversed is even worse. I challenge you to substantiate these ridiculous assertions.
Wiccan Child already did. Of course you wouldn't know, considering you ignored all his posts.
 
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Wiccan_Child

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Wiccan Child already did. Of course you wouldn't know, considering you ignored all his posts.
It's quite transparent that he's not even trying to muster up his own arguments. If there isn't a post on RF that relates to what we're saying, he returns a programming error and shuts down the discussion.

It's most glaring with his treatment of the Hilbert Hotel - he thinks it somehow disproves, rather than highlights. Next he'll be saying that the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment is designed to disprove QM...
 
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