Argument for God's existence.

Eight Foot Manchild

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Because almost all beneficial mutations that allow for the small changes over time result in a net loss of genetic information

Nope. This is an ancient and necrotic creationist canard that anyone can debunk with a few minutes research.

so that eventually there is no more significant genetic information to bring about the large changes needed for macroevolution.

Macroevolution does not require 'large changes'. It is the cumulative effect of small changes. Just as walking a mile is the cumulative effect of taking one step at a time.

You have claimed to study evolution for forty years. What is your excuse for not knowing this?

The anthropic principle is a VERY well founded claim.

Except your claim is that the anthropic principle is evidence of a 'creator', which is absolutely not a 'very well founded claim'. As with all relevant fields of study, creationism in cosmology barely even qualifies as a fringe belief.
 
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Moral Orel

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No, you didn't choose to use your eyes to see. That is all you can use them for. You started using them to see unconsciously the day you were born. Because that is their purpose. Function and purpose are basically the same thing and all biologists agree that eyes are for seeing.
Meh, I don't care about this one so much anymore. It's just semantics. You can call it a forfeit on my end if that sort of thing is important to you, I don't really care. What I'd really like to explore is what your answer to my question from this post will be:
So I looked into Aristotle's four causes. You're saying the universe is the Final Cause, God is the Efficient Cause, and the laws of physics are probably the Formal Cause. What's the Material Cause?
 
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cvanwey

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Uhh we do know as well as science can tell us about anything, that the universe is not eternal.

Uhh no. We certainly do not know this. Tell that to such public figures as Alan Guth, Sean Carroll, and others. This response is not trying to 'appeal to authority'; but to instead demonstrate that scientists are divided - and that 'there is still a lot of work to be done.'


https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...ost-last-paper-putting-end-beginning-universe

ed: No, I refuted the infinite regress in my previous post. And as I stated earlier, we determine what caused something by studying the characteristics of the effect. This is exactly how black holes and dark matter were discovered.

Please see above... Again, if we don't know, we don't know. It's okay to say this, verses, to instead assert a comforting proposition which makes sense to us for now ;)

I would hardly call the existence and characteristics of the universe no evidence. There is no bigger piece of evidence than that.

As I have stated prior, 'the universe creating pixies did it.' Aside from books written by humans, there is no more evidence for Yahweh than from any other asserted God, written in books by humans.

No, this is called abductive reasoning, ever heard of it? If not look it up.

Again, please see above. We do not know if the universe is eternal? So it's okay to just state, we don't know yet, and may or may not ever... To instead invoke or assert an a priori, stems from the presupposition of your own personal 'faith' - which demonstrates an example of your own conformation bias. If you have not heard of this term, 'look it up'.

And yes, you are also applying an argument from ignorance, as you clearing demonstrated prior.


I cant prove you wrong, but I can say there is no evidence for it, unlike the Christian God.

Again, aside from humans writing in a book(s), what evidence is there for the Christian God specifically, that we cannot also present as 'evidence' from all the opposing God(s) you reject?

Again, I cant prove you wrong, but I can say there is no evidence for them, unlike the Christian God.

Again, aside from humans writing in a book(s), what evidence is there for the Christian God specifically, that we cannot also present as 'evidence' from all the opposing God(s) you reject?

Yes, we do, all those other gods do not have the right characteristics for creating a universe like this.

Prove it
 
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gaara4158

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so you cannot prove your assertion, so lets strike that entire comment from the record and move on. Do you have any other way to disprove that atheism is not a worldview, because as I see it a worldview is simply a way we view the world.
Even if you take atheism to mean “The belief or metaphysical claim that there is no God,” that’s not a worldview. That’s a view on exactly ONE topic. A worldview requires a collection of views, beliefs, or attitudes that influence how we take in new information. Atheism can be a PART of a worldview just like theism can, but a position on ONE topic can never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER be considered a world view. To argue otherwise is to suggest that there is a specific set of beliefs on ALL THINGS that NECESSARILY FOLLOWS from atheism, and I haven’t seen you post any evidence for that. So until you do that, which I very seriously doubt you can, I will continue to contradict your assertion that atheism is a worldview. Because it’s not.
 
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createdtoworship

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Even if you take atheism to mean “The belief or metaphysical claim that there is no God,” that’s not a worldview. That’s a view on exactly ONE topic. A worldview requires a collection of views, beliefs, or attitudes that influence how we take in new information. Atheism can be a PART of a worldview just like theism can, but a position on ONE topic can never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER be considered a world view. To argue otherwise is to suggest that there is a specific set of beliefs on ALL THINGS that NECESSARILY FOLLOWS from atheism, and I haven’t seen you post any evidence for that. So until you do that, which I very seriously doubt you can, I will continue to contradict your assertion that atheism is a worldview. Because it’s not.

so your saying that atheism does not affect your view of evolution, and those views don't intertwine in the least, and that those two subjects don't intertwine with humanism, naturalism or any other topic?

very optimistic of you to think atheism is so isolated.

Do you have evidence of that?

:wave:
 
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gaara4158

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so your saying that atheism does not affect your view of evolution, and those views don't intertwine in the least, and that those two subjects don't intertwine with humanism, naturalism or any other topic?

very optimistic of you to think atheism is so isolated.

Do you have evidence of that?

:wave:
I never said atheism is isolated within a worldview. In fact, I clearly said it can be a part of a worldview. For some, it can even be integral. But any way you spin it, you absolutely positively cannot label atheism itself as a worldview.

I know you’re just trying to save face by moving the goalposts here, but what would really impress us the most is if you’d just admit you made a mistake and let it go. Weren’t we leaving this thread alone anyway? Do the honorable thing.
 
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cvanwey

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First, how do you know? Are you a theologian? Second, in the example I provided regarding the cave fish that lost its eyes over time, this was an adaptation brought about by natural selection. Once God created an organism He gave them ability to adapt thru natural law. So He does not have to intervene every time there is a slight change in the environment. But the fossil record shows that if there are huge changes in the environment then He does intervene.

You need to prove these assertions. I mean really.... Does God speak about these specifically in the Bible anywhere at least?

My point is that theists argue for creationism, by using 'design' as one of their chief examples... Seems odd that an 'intentional designer' would knowingly leave traces of parts present, which are no longer needed at all or completely obsolete. Think if any actual known designer did as such with their updated models. You might question them, and for good reason.

No, contrary to popular belief, there are limits to what God can do, for example He cannot make a square circle and He cannot make a rock so heavy He cannot pick it up. We know from the bible that He created a universe that operates primarily by natural law and that contains intelligent free will beings. In order to have these things, this may be the only type of universe that can exist. And science in fact points in this direction.

This does not address my observation. If humans are the pinnacle of God's creation, seems odd that humans cannot inhabit the vast majority of His created space.

You stated
'And since God's goal was to make it habitable for humans using primarily natural law, the universe had to be this large and uninhabited.'

Your response seems to equivocate above. What does the logic of not being able to create a square circle have anything to do with pointing out the fact that God could have made humans with the ability to inhabit a much larger, if not all, of the known universe without dying almost immediately? Seems odd that humans are delicate and fragile, in relation to the elements of the known universe.

If God created the tenets of 'natural law' as you have asserted, not only do you need to actually account for this specific assertion, but also why natural law seems to demonstrate severe limitations to humans. You know, His most important creation.

So...

1. Demonstrate that God is the actual creator of 'natural law'. (Hint: you are begging the question)
2. Then, demonstrate why God could not create natural law in a way which seems to more favor humans, in relation to the existence of the known universe.


It is possible, but so far the evidence says otherwise.

We have yet to explore the vast majority of the known universe.

Yes, but so far the evidence points in the other direction.

We have yet to explore the vast majority of the known universe.


Yes and maybe the same God as we worship. But so far the evidence says otherwise.

We have yet to explore the vast majority of the known universe.


No, you failed to demonstrate fallacious reasoning.

"What else could it be", followed by invoking the Christian God is fallacious reasoning - using the argument from ignorance and conformation bias, which is not a failure in demonstration.


Because of the evidence derived from the characteristics of the universe/effect.

Nope. 'Universe creating pixies' created it. And as soon as there is a book, published by humans, the 'evidence' might then be equal, in relation to your asserted God.

My point being, anyone can invent practically anything imaginary. You can assert, at will, about a timeless, transcendent, all powerful, and all knowing agent; just like the person next to you.

The concept of cause/effect is your argument for the universe. But here is the crux of the matter...

I would assume you assert Yahweh is eternal. Thus, my question again is... What if the universe is eternal?


Of course I accept science, Christians invented modern science in case you didn't know. Actually, I am biologist that has studied evolution for 40 years. And in fact used to be an evolutionist, so I do know a little about it! And no it has not shaken my current faith. But I dont deny that God could have used evolution to create. My primary problem with macroevolution is based on science not my religious beliefs.

I'm aware that early scientists were Christian. But isn't it interesting, that the more that has been discovered through the scientific method, that the Christian number has vastly diminished? Just an observation, but again, interesting....

I only ask because you appear to reject the concept of macroevolution, and I wanted to know why.
 
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createdtoworship

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I never said atheism is isolated within a worldview. In fact, I clearly said it can be a part of a worldview. For some, it can even be integral. But any way you spin it, you absolutely positively cannot label atheism itself as a worldview.

I know you’re just trying to save face by moving the goalposts here, but what would really impress us the most is if you’d just admit you made a mistake and let it go. Weren’t we leaving this thread alone anyway? Do the honorable thing.
did I say you said atheism was isolated within a worldview? I love watching you wiggle and squiggle trying to make an argument. Do the honorable thing, and admit your error. By the way I am restarting this thread. You don't want to talk about the OP anymore, but I am more than happy to with others.
 
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gaara4158

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did I say you said atheism was isolated within a worldview? I love watching you wiggle and squiggle trying to make an argument. Do the honorable thing, and admit your error. By the way I am restarting this thread. You don't want to talk about the OP anymore, but I am more than happy to with others.
You said atheism was a worldview, I said it wasn’t, then you moved the goalposts from “atheism isn’t a worldview” to “atheism is totally isolated influencing nothing within a worldview,” which was never my position. If you’re willing to engage my actual position, you let me know. I’m not interested in your attempts at goading. But I do take your withdrawal as tacit admittance to your mistake, so good on you.

Start a new thread if you want to refresh the topic.
 
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createdtoworship

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You said atheism was a worldview, I said it wasn’t, then you moved the goalposts from “atheism isn’t a worldview” to “atheism is totally isolated influencing nothing within a worldview,” which was never my position. If you’re willing to engage my actual position, you let me know. I’m not interested in your attempts at goading. But I do take your withdrawal as tacit admittance to your mistake, so good on you.

Start a new thread if you want to refresh the topic.

Yes atheism affects the way we view the world. Thus it's a world view. then you said
Even if you take atheism to mean “The belief or metaphysical claim that there is no God,” that’s not a worldview. That’s a view on exactly ONE topic. A worldview requires a collection of views

then I said, do you have evidence that atheism is isolated from other concepts that affect world view, I never said isolated from a world view in general.

Anyway, I don't want to make a new thread. This thread is not done. I made some mistakes, and said some things that I am not proud of, but over all I like this thread.
 
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gaara4158

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Yes atheism affects the way we view the world. Thus it's a world view. then you said
That’s not a very good definition of world view. Shouldn’t a worldview be the actual way you see the world, not just something that affects it? For that matter, what doesn’t affect the way you see the world? Under that definition someone’s mood can be considered a worldview. Someone’s economic status can be considered a worldview. If that’s all you meant, fine, it’s a little transparent what you’re doing but it’s not incorrect. Just not a very useful definition.

then I said, do you have evidence that atheism is isolated from other concepts that affect world view, I never said isolated from a world view in general.
I never said it was isolated from anything. I said it was a position on one topic and I made no comment on how that opinion may or may not influence other topics. Just that it alone did not constitute a world view. I don’t know why this is so important to you.
 
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createdtoworship

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That’s not a very good definition of world view. Shouldn’t a worldview be the actual way you see the world, not just something that affects it? For that matter, what doesn’t affect the way you see the world? Under that definition someone’s mood can be considered a worldview. Someone’s economic status can be considered a worldview. If that’s all you meant, fine, it’s a little transparent what you’re doing but it’s not incorrect. Just not a very useful definition.


I never said it was isolated from anything. I said it was a position on one topic and I made no comment on how that opinion may or may not influence other topics. Just that it alone did not constitute a world view. I don’t know why this is so important to you.
well I originally said how we view the world is our world view, and athiesm affects the way we view the world, then you said no it doesn't because athiesm only talks about one thing, lack of God. Then I said, " do you have evidence that athiesm is isolated in a way that it does not affect our worldview." Then you said, no I never said athiesm does not affect our world view, I said it was not our world view. So then I go back to premise one. "athiesm affects the way we view the world, therefore athiesm is a world view."

so lets start the whole circle again.

lol
 
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Moral Orel

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well I originally said how we view the world is our world view, and athiesm affects the way we view the world

So then I go back to premise one. "athiesm affects the way we view the world, therefore athiesm is a world view."
Will you please just pick one definition of "worldview" and stick to it? You Moved the Goalposts on your Red Herring in the same paragraph, for Pete's sake!

Hey... Hey... Remember how important staying on topic was to you just a couple of days ago? I do...
 
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Yttrium

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I think the OP would be best served by referring to naturalism rather than atheism. Naturalism is a philosophy/worldview. It's atheist in nature, but atheism itself doesn't automatically imply naturalism. I've often seen creationists use terms like "evolutionist" or "atheist" in situations when they really mean "naturalist". An atheist might have a non-natural view of the origins of the universe, while a naturalist would consider only natural explanations.

I'm not a naturalist, and I don't consider myself to be an atheist. I'm a "soft" agnostic. I accept the Big Bang theory, which is not a natural explanation for the origin of the universe. It's an explanation for what happened after the universe came into existence. An intelligent creator could have brought the universe into existence with absolutely no change to the Big Bang theory. So Big Bang isn't an alternative to creation in general. It's an alternative to Young Earth Creationism.

Arguing that the universe couldn't have spawned naturally is an argument from incredulity. That's fine, though, since we don't know how the universe spawned.
 
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createdtoworship

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I think the OP would be best served by referring to naturalism rather than atheism. Naturalism is a philosophy/worldview. It's atheist in nature, but atheism itself doesn't automatically imply naturalism. I've often seen creationists use terms like "evolutionist" or "atheist" in situations when they really mean "naturalist". An atheist might have a non-natural view of the origins of the universe, while a naturalist would consider only natural explanations.

I'm not a naturalist, and I don't consider myself to be an atheist. I'm a "soft' agnostic. I accept the Big Bang theory, which is not a natural explanation for the origin of the universe. It's an explanation for what happened after the universe came into existence. An intelligent creator could have brought the universe into existence with absolutely no change to the Big Bang theory. So Big Bang isn't an alternative to creation in general. It's an alternative to Young Earth Creationism.

Arguing that the universe couldn't have spawned naturally is an argument from incredulity. That's fine, though, since we don't know how the universe spawned.
Thanks for the update. However isn't in more logical to say God made the universe than to say, it created itself out of absolutely nothing?
 
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gaara4158

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Thanks for the update. However isn't in more logical to say God made the universe than to say, it created itself out of absolutely nothing?
Being logical doesn’t make it true. It’s logical to say universe-creating pixies made the universe, too. Logic isn’t the sole factor in determining what’s true or likely true. It only sorts out what’s hypothetically possible.
 
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Moral Orel

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Being logical doesn’t make it true. It’s logical to say universe-creating pixies made the universe, too. Logic isn’t the sole factor in determining what’s true or likely true. It only sorts out what’s hypothetically possible.
Did you see NihilistVirus's thread on "Acting on Nothing"? He overextended himself by trying to prove that God must be doing something logically inconsistent, but in the process I think he successfully showed that all of the apologetic arguments about causation are invalid. I'm going to try it out on Ed's argument about "The Law of Causality" in this thread since he cited Aristotle specifically and see how it goes. Ed takes a long time to reply though, so it will take a while to see where it leads.

See, if all of our logic surrounding causation says that something needs to be acted on, and God can create without acting on anything and remain logically consistent, then we don't really understand the logic of causation and anything becomes possible. If nothing can become something, then nothing can cause nothing to become something. Why not?
 
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Yttrium

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Thanks for the update. However isn't in more logical to say God made the universe than to say, it created itself out of absolutely nothing?

It make sense that there was something rather than nothing. I don't know of anyone, including naturalists, who propose that something came from absolutely nothing. Someone might have said "nothing" but really meant "no matter", while there would still be energy of some form. After all, we do have that principle that energy is neither created nor destroyed, just converted into one form or another, including matter.

So I do feel that there was a creator of the universe. Whether that creator was intelligent, or a sequence of natural processes from some pre-existing condition, I don't know.
 
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gaara4158

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Did you see NihilistVirus's thread on "Acting on Nothing"? He overextended himself by trying to prove that God must be doing something logically inconsistent, but in the process I think he successfully showed that all of the apologetic arguments about causation are invalid. I'm going to try it out on Ed's argument about "The Law of Causality" in this thread since he cited Aristotle specifically and see how it goes. Ed takes a long time to reply though, so it will take a while to see where it leads.

See, if all of our logic surrounding causation says that something needs to be acted on, and God can create without acting on anything and remain logically consistent, then we don't really understand the logic of causation and anything becomes possible. If nothing can become something, then nothing can cause nothing to become something. Why not?
Yeah, arguments from the metaphysics of causation seem futile to me because so much of it relies on us having the right linguistic tools to describe it, and that’s a presupposition all on its own. It might not make sense for something to come “from nothing” or be “outside of time,” but as Neil Degrasse Tyson is fond of saying, “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us.” I’ll see what you and Ed manage to uncover in your discussion.
 
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Silmarien

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Did you see NihilistVirus's thread on "Acting on Nothing"? He overextended himself by trying to prove that God must be doing something logically inconsistent, but in the process I think he successfully showed that all of the apologetic arguments about causation are invalid.

Depends on the argument from causality, I think. If you ask the question of why causality holds true at all, why specific causes lead to specific effects, then you can put together a cosmological argument that works at a deeper level than positing God as another in a line of effects. If we're talking about the sort of thing that might bring about physical causality itself, then we're dealing with a very, very unique type of cause which lies outside of the normal order of things.

We can refer to this First Cause as "universe-creating pixies," if we'd like, but what we're talking about is still a traditional divine attribute.

See, if all of our logic surrounding causation says that something needs to be acted on, and God can create without acting on anything and remain logically consistent, then we don't really understand the logic of causation and anything becomes possible. If nothing can become something, then nothing can cause nothing to become something. Why not?

Is that really where our logic surrounding causality leads, though? Keep in mind that there are differences between a-priori and a-posteriori propositions. That causality involves things being acted upon is an empirical observation, not a logical principle. I don't see any deep logical problem in the possibility of a cause that does not have a physical component (in fact, I think this form of causality is unavoidable when questioning how physical phenomena can give rise to mental phenomena), but I do see serious logical problems in denying that contingent things require explanations.

Everyone knows that I'm all about PSR, though, lol.

Also, do check out Aristotle, but keep in mind that he's got a much more robust system of causality. The elements of Aristotelian casuality that are so powerful in cosmological arguments (formal and final causes) are very easily misunderstood these days, since we've been trying to eliminate them with mixed results for several centuries now.
 
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