There is no Creation Debate

[DogmaHunter]

I think the point Hieronymus is trying to make is that nothing actually is nothing at all.

And what is that, exactly?
Where can we study it?
Where can we check to see if this "nothing" is not able to produce "something"?

Mind you, I'm not saying that it CAN produce something. I'm just challenging the truth-claim that it can NOT produce something...

It seems to me that the "nothingness" being talked about here is not something that actually exists. Or at least, not something that can be studied... so how can you make any assessment of what it can and can not do? How do you test that claim, if you don't have a "nothing" available for study?

It is, according to Aristotles' famous remark, "What rocks dream about." So, by definition, nothing cannot have any properties and cannot be the cause of any effect.

It also seems to me that that "nothing", by definition, can't exist either.
So what is the point of invoking it?

Hieronymus does not loose [sic] anything - all he has done is point out that the Atheistic world view does not have any idea for how the universe could have come into being without a deity and I don't care how loud people like Stephen Hawking and others like him want to shout otherwise.

First of all, this presents a false dichotomy... It assumes that the only options are "either the universe came from absolute nothingness" or "it came from a bronze age god". Which is, off course, ridiculous.

Secondly, I don't know any atheists who claim that the universe came from this kind of "absolute nothingness".

And hieronymus know this, since he stated himself that the "quantum" stuff is not really the "nothing" he is talking about - yet it IS the nothing that phycisists like Krauss talk about.

So please, why is any of this relevant?
It smells like a gigantic strawman, argued against with a false dichotomy and an argument from ignorance.

He may be a genius, but this is beyond even his power of reasoning and do you know why? The answer is in the Bible: Mat 11:25 At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children." or as it says in another part of the New Testament, 2Ti 3:7 "[They are] always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth."

I don't see why you think bible quotes are relevant in a discussion about what "nothing" is.

 

[DogmaHunter]

You can't disprove God or disprove that He created everything by trying to make out that it is unscientific to have that view;

And the same goes for disproving that it was the extra dimensional Cooky Monster that did it.

it's just as unscientific (more so, I would say) to believe that the universe sprang into existence all on its own from nothing or that life came from non-living chemicals without any divine intervention. So no, I don't have any worries about real science threatening my beliefs

I have a thought exercise for you.
What if tomorrow science proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that naturalistic processes are very capable of turning chemistry into biology, essentially showing abiogenesis to be a fact. How would you respond to that?

- in fact, the more I learn about this remarkable universe, the more I am convinced that it had to come from a being with supreme intelligence and power to match.

Funny. The more I learn about the universe, the more I am convinced that no gods had anything to do with it.

 

[dad]

And yet you can present none. Just your confected nonsense.

Jesus inside is evidence. From the outside we also have incredible prophesies and miracles and all that the real marytrs died to verify was true.

 

[dad]

So one has to believe before he will help us?

He also helps us believe and find Him if we seek and want Him.

 

[HitchSlap]

He also helps us believe and find Him if we seek and want Him.

Does he always play so hard to get?

 

[expos4ever]

Atheism has a 100% track record. No god, in any era, has ever been shown to exist.

This is a little misleading. At the risk of calling down the ire of my fellow Christians, I will say that, in this forum at least, you are often presented with an often incoherent caricature of what I would say is an otherwise perfectly rational worldview - an appropriately nuanced version of orthodox Christianity. I would offer this by way of response to what you have posted: I believe I can describe to you a Christian worldview that completely honours the facts of the world. In short, just because we may not need God to develop a seemingly workable worldview does not mean that other "God-based" worldview models do not equally well explain the facts.

 

[Laury]

So one has to believe before he will help us?

I used to believe in him.
He never showed himself or helped in any way.
So from personal experience, I have to go with a no.

 

[expos4ever]

There are at least some atheists who, whether they know it or not, are really in the same boat as the theist who invokes god as “first cause”. In this thread, or perhaps another related thread, a number of people have pointed out the error of seeing the so-called “laws” of nature as anything more than a description. I agree that this is indeed an error – when we think of the standard models of science as “instructing nature on how to behave”, I believe we commit a fundamental error. They are descriptions, not prescriptions.

Now consider the atheist who argues that the laws of quantum mechanics prescriptively “allow” the universe to spring into being from complete nothingness (assuming we agree that the very concept of nothingness is even coherent in the first place) and, on that basis, concludes that there is no fundamental mystery in respect to ultimate origins – that quantum mechanical principles “explain” the existence of the universe.

Well, there is indeed a problem and it can be expressed in at least two ways. If you are going to take the line (which, per the above, I think is misguided) that the “laws” of quantum mechanics are somehow the “rules” of nature that allow the universe to spring into being from nothingness, you still have problem of accounting for the existence of these laws in the first place. It seems to me, one simply has to assume their existence as a kind of initial condition. Just as the theist assumes the existence of a creator god.

On the other hand, if we, rightly I believe, see the principles of quantum mechanics as a description of nature, we get into a cart-before-the-horse mess: we cannot use a description of nature as a kind of “bootstrap” to get the universe rolling in the first place. Why not? A description of anything – whether it be the universe or a tree - is by definition a posteriori to (it follows rather than precedes) the thing that it putatively describes.

In short: I think ultimate origin is a complete mystery and will forever remain so, not least because, as I think Kant argued, the human mind cannot make sense of the world without the principle of cause and effect. And when it comes to origins, we will always be stymied by the “first cause” problem.

 

[Subduction Zone]

There are at least some atheists who, whether they know it or not, are really in the same boat as the theist who invokes god as “first cause”. In this thread, or perhaps another related thread, a number of people have pointed out the error of seeing the so-called “laws” of nature as anything more than a description. I agree that this is indeed an error – when we think of the standard models of science as “instructing nature on how to behave”, I believe we commit a fundamental error. They are descriptions, not prescriptions.

Now consider the atheist who argues that the laws of quantum mechanics prescriptively “allow” the universe to spring into being from complete nothingness (assuming we agree that the very concept of nothingness is even coherent in the first place) and, on that basis, concludes that there is no fundamental mystery in respect to ultimate origins – that quantum mechanical principles “explain” the existence of the universe.

Well, there is indeed a problem and it can be expressed in at least two ways. If you are going to take the line (which, per the above, I think is misguided) that the “laws” of quantum mechanics are somehow the “rules” of nature that allow the universe to spring into being from nothingness, you still have problem of accounting for the existence of these laws in the first place. It seems to me, one simply has to assume their existence as a kind of initial condition. Just as the theist assumes the existence of a creator god.

On the other hand, if we, rightly I believe, see the principles of quantum mechanics as a description of nature, we get into a cart-before-the-horse mess: we cannot use a description of nature as a kind of “bootstrap” to get the universe rolling in the first place. Why not? A description of anything – whether it be the universe or a tree - is by definition a posteriori to (it follows rather than precedes) the thing that it putatively describes.

In short: I think ultimate origin is a complete mystery and will forever remain so, not least because, as I think Kant argued, the human mind cannot make sense of the world without the principle of cause and effect. And when it comes to origins, we will always be stymied by the “first cause” problem.

To state categorically that the origin of the universe has been explained would of course be in error. What the idea of the start of the universe may be described by quantum dynamics shows is that the formation of the universe does not break any known physical laws. In some ways scientists probably do wish that they could observe a breaking of a scientific law. When a so called law is "broken" it often leads to a better understanding when that "breaking" of the law is explained. Einstein did that with his general relativity where his theory explained the precession of Mercury's perihelion. Mercury had been "breaking" Newton's Law of Gravity.

And you may be right about the ultimate formation of the universe, but you may be wrong too. The problem with assuming that a problem is unsolvable is that it is a mental dead end. It guarantees that you won't ever answer a question that you do not have the answer to right now. By continually probing and investigating scientists may not come up to the answer to that question, but they are almost guaranteed to come up with the answers of some other problems.

 

[expos4ever]

And you may be right about the ultimate formation of the universe, but you may be wrong too.

I believe that scientific models are descriptions. So, as "after-the-fact" descriptions (how can a description not require the prior existence of the thing described?), they do not have any explanatory power relative to the matter of basic existence. Yes, a scientific model can describe how event A leads to event B but that is not enough when it comes to the mystery of existence. It is the wrong tool for the job, I think. And I cannot see how we humans can possibly escape from thinking in terms of cause and effect. Yes, we can clench our teeth and say "the universe just is" or something similar, but I suggest that honest introspection reveals we cannot ultimately really accept this - the very structure of the human mind does not, I believe, allow for the concept of a first cause, or even for the concept of an uncaused eternal universe. So I think there is every reason to believe this will forever be a mystery.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I believe that scientific models are descriptions. So, as "after-the-fact" descriptions (how can a description not require the prior existence of the thing described?), they do not have any explanatory power relative to the matter of basic existence. Yes, a scientific model can describe how event A leads to event B but that is not enough when it comes to the mystery of existence. It is the wrong tool for the job, I think. And I cannot see how we humans can possibly escape from thinking in terms of cause and effect. Yes, we can clench our teeth and say "the universe just is" or something similar, but I suggest that honest introspection reveals we cannot ultimately really accept this - the very structure of the human mind does not, I believe, allow for the concept of a first cause, or even for the concept of an uncaused eternal universe. So I think there is every reason to believe this will forever be a mystery.

It may be. But my point is that to assume that it will forever be a mystery is a mental dead end.

 

[dad]

Does he always play so hard to get?

Those that seek Him find Him...every one.

 

[HitchSlap]

Those that seek Him find Him...every one.

Where should I start looking for him?

 

[The Cadet]

Those that seek Him find Him...every one.

...So what about the many Christians who sought and sought and sought for most of their lives, and gave up because they realized they could not justify their beliefs to themselves?

As Matt Dillahunty, a man who was a bible-believing Christian for most of his life and who was studying to become a minister when he lost his faith, put it:

My only goal was to be the best Christian I could be, and represent this to people who didn't believe. And what I found - because I actually cared about whether or not my beliefs were actually true rather than whether they felt good - was that my beliefs weren't justified. Try as I might and pray as hard as I could. No answer comes. No evidence is forthcoming. And when I talk to people about this, the only answer they ever offer is the one you did, which is 'Well, you just got to have faith.' Well sorry, but I don't. Well I'm not sorry that I don't, I'm sorry for others that think that I should have because faith is not a virtue. Faith is gullibility. It's evidence that determines whether or not your perception of reality is reasonable and in conjunction with the world as it is.​

 

[expos4ever]

My only goal was to be the best Christian I could be, and represent this to people who didn't believe. And what I found - because I actually cared about whether or not my beliefs were actually true rather than whether they felt good - was that my beliefs weren't justified.

I submit the following situation is at least plausible:

1. Christians misunderstand the nature of Christian experience as would be grasped by a careful investigation of the Scriptures informed by appropriate knowledge of the culture which gave rise to the books that comprise the Bible;

2. Naturally enough, people do not "experience" what they expect to experience based on that "incorrect" reading of the Bible;

3. So they, quite understandably, throw in the towel.

In short, it is at least plausible that the reason people do not see "evidence" of the correctness of the Christian worldview is that they are looking for the wrong evidence.

I am aware of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy and am confident my point here is not vulnerable to that counterargument.

 

[HitchSlap]

I submit the following situation is at least plausible:

1. Christians misunderstand the nature of Christian experience as would be grasped by a careful investigation of the Scriptures informed by appropriate knowledge of the culture which gave rise to the books that comprise the Bible;

2. Naturally enough, people do not "experience" what they expect to experience based on that "incorrect" reading of the Bible;

3. So they, quite understandably, throw in the towel.

In short, it is at least plausible that the reason people do not see "evidence" of the correctness of the Christian worldview is that they are looking for the wrong evidence.

I am aware of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy and am confident my point here is not vulnerable to that counterargument.

Or 4, apply the "outsiders" test to Christianity, and realize it's just another in a long line conventional belief systems.

 

[SteveB28]

This is a little misleading. At the risk of calling down the ire of my fellow Christians, I will say that, in this forum at least, you are often presented with an often incoherent caricature of what I would say is an otherwise perfectly rational worldview - an appropriately nuanced version of orthodox Christianity. I would offer this by way of response to what you have posted: I believe I can describe to you a Christian worldview that completely honours the facts of the world. In short, just because we may not need God to develop a seemingly workable worldview does not mean that other "God-based" worldview models do not equally well explain the facts.

No, its not misleading at all. For the myriad of gods that have been proposed down through the ages, not one proposal has ever been accompanied by even a scintilla of valid evidence. All we have ever been given are unsupported claims, usually in the form of personal anecdotes.

No evidence.

 

[expos4ever]

No, its not misleading at all. For the myriad of gods that have been proposed down through the ages, not one proposal has ever been accompanied by even a scintilla of valid evidence. All we have ever been given are unsupported claims, usually in the form of personal anecdotes.

No evidence.

You have not addressed my argument. My point was that I claim I can present to you a Christian worldview that is consistent with the known facts of the world. As such, it would be on equal footing with the mainstream "secular" worldview. The point is I can present a Christian model that makes predictions that are not violated by any of the "evidence".

 

[Loudmouth]

You have not addressed my argument. My point was that I claim I can present to you a Christian worldview that is consistent with the known facts of the world. As such, it would be on equal footing with the mainstream "secular" worldview. The point is I can present a Christian model that makes predictions that are not violated by any of the "evidence".

The trick is showing how the Christian model would make different predictions than non-theistic models. What we are ultimately interested in is how we could distinguish between the two models.

 

[HitchSlap]

You have not addressed my argument. My point was that I claim I can present to you a Christian worldview that is consistent with the known facts of the world. As such, it would be on equal footing with the mainstream "secular" worldview. The point is I can present a Christian model that makes predictions that are not violated by any of the "evidence".

So what. With enough special pleading, reinterpretation of scripture, and abeyance of common sense, I'm sure any religious dogma can be consistent with a "secular" worldview.