Argument for God's existence.

[createdtoworship]

It follows the exact same line of reasoning you are attempting to implement - that if something is contained within the universe, it must also be part of the 'first cause'.

None of your objections answered this point.



So? Why does a 'positive character trait' present in the universe necessarily have to be part of the 'first cause', but other features of the universe do not?

Show your work. Show why your line of reasoning applies to 'intelligence', but not to other features of the universe. You don't get to just assert things, a propos of nothing, and expect get away with it.



No one is claiming that is what happened. Also, that's completely irrelevant to the point.

sir I already explained this, elephant dung was originated by something else that was created by a first cause. The ability to rationalize has no evidence of a natural causation, therefore it must have originated in the first cause. I know it's hard for you, I am sorry.

 

[gaara4158]

it's commits a fallacy of assuming the conclusion without evidence. Duh.

No, it doesn’t, because there is no conclusion. It’s a naked assertion.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

sir I already explained this

No, you already ignored the point that was being made, following your own line of reasoning.

The ability to rationalize has no natural causation,

So here, you abandon the line of reasoning from earlier and simply resort to blatant naked assertion.

You will have to substantiate this claim if you wish to be taken seriously in the slightest.

I know it's hard for you, I am sorry.

There is nothing remotely hard about this.

 

[createdtoworship]

No, you already ignored the point that was being made, following your own line of reasoning.



So here, you abandon the line of reasoning from earlier and simply resort to blatant naked assertion.

You will have to substantiate this claim if you wish to be taken seriously in the slightest.



There is nothing remotely hard about this.

Sir you quoted my old post, you need to adress my new post.
I know that you know for a fact that nature did cause our ability to rationalize, but us logical thinkers out here simply don't see the evidence. I know for a fact that you cannot provide evidence for it, or any one here, or any scientist, or any logical reasoner. But you can try. That doesn't mean it can't be done, I admit, but I am 99.99 percent sure that you cannot find the evidence needed. Therefore, it has an origin in the first cause. Take your time responding.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

Sir you quoted my old post, you need to adress my new post.
I know that you know for a fact that nature did cause our ability to rationalize, but us logical thinkers out here simply don't see the evidence. I know for a fact that you cannot provide evidence for it, or any one here, or any scientist, or any logical reasoner. But you can try. That doesn't mean it can't be done, I admit, but I am 99.99 percent sure that you cannot find the evidence needed. Therefore, it has an origin in the first cause. Take your time responding.

Once again, you are the claimant. You asserted that intelligence has no natural cause. The burden of proof is yours. Not mine. Not anyone elses. YOURS. In lieu of your meeting it, all you're doing is making an argument from ignorance.

This is an extremely basic concept that someone claiming to be a 'logical thinker' should understand automatically, yet you keep needing to have it pointed out to you, over and over again.

 

[createdtoworship]

Once again, you are the claimant. You asserted that intelligence has no natural cause. The burden of proof is yours. Not mine. Not anyone elses. YOURS. In lieu of your meeting it, all you're doing is making an argument from ignorance.

This is an extremely basic concept that someone claiming to be a 'logical thinker' should understand automatically, yet you keep needing to have it pointed out to you, over and over again.

when did I say that? Read my posts again. I said "evidentially" and apparently there is no "evidence" etc. So please provide some. I assume you can't so we are done. Unless you suprise me.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

when did I say that?

Your argument is predicated on it. You are right to abandon it, though, if you can't substantiate in any meaningful fashion.

Read my posts again. I said "evidentially" and apparently there is no "evidence" etc. So please provide some. I assume you can't so we are done. Unless you suprise me.

You're confused.

You are up against the entire field of neuroscience with your assertion that cognitive functions require the invocation of some magical 'supernatural' cause. The onus is yours to demonstrate why that is a necessary assumption.

 

[createdtoworship]

Your argument is predicated on it. You are right to abandon it, though, if you can't substantiate in any meaningful fashion.



You're confused.

You are up against the entire field of neuroscience with your assertion that cognitive functions require the invocation of some magical 'supernatural' cause. The onus is yours to demonstrate why that is a necessary assumption.

so again if you can't find where I said it, then stop putting words in my mouth.

Post refuted.

Next.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

so again if you can't find where I said it, then stop putting words in my mouth.

No one is putting words in your mouth. I'm trying my best to be as generous as possible to a very clumsy argument you made - that the existence of intelligence requires an intelligent 'first cause'.

You can say you were only making an evidential claim, and that's ok - in that case, the very best case scenario for you is that you are stuck having to substantiate the assertion that cognitive functions necessarily require some magical 'supernatural' element.

It's you versus the entire field of neuroscience. You have a lot of work ahead of you. So, get busy.

 

[createdtoworship]

No one is putting words in your mouth. I'm trying my best to be as generous as possible to a very clumsy argument you made - that the existence of intelligence requires an intelligent 'first cause'.

You can say you were only making an evidential claim, and that's ok - in that case, the very best case scenario for you is that you are stuck having to substantiate the assertion that cognitive functions necessarily require some magical 'supernatural' element.

It's you versus the entire field of neuroscience. You have a lot of work ahead of you. So, get busy.

sir you said something that was clearly wrong, and I proved it.

moving on,

next.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

sir you said something that was clearly wrong, and I proved it.

moving on,

next.

Why are you still here, wasting time talking to me?

Everyone in the field of neuroscience is waiting to hear your ingenious and profound insight on the subject of cognitive processes. Clearly, you have figured out some 'truth' that has eluded them for the past seventy years or so, and are ready to explain it to them.

Go now! They need to hear your brilliant insight.

 

[Moral Orel]

You asserted that intelligence has no natural cause.

when did I say that?

Right here:

The ability to rationalize has no evidence of a natural causation, therefore it must have originated in the first cause.

Bolding added by me for emphasis.

I said "evidentially" and apparently there is no "evidence" etc. So please provide some.

Once again, an Argument from Ignorance combined with Shifting the Burden of Proof is the only trick you know. Next.

 

[Ed1wolf]

d

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Because almost all beneficial mutations that allow for the small changes over time result in a net loss of genetic information

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

Fraid not, read Nachman and Crowell "Estimate of the Mutation Rate Per Nucleotide for Humans" Genetics, 156, (Sept. 2000): pp. 297-304. Also read "Genetic Entropy" by John C. Sandford, 2008.

Ed1wolf said: ↑
so that eventually there is no more significant genetic information to bring about the large changes needed for macroevolution.

efm; 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 fossil record says otherwise, why are there systematic gaps between genera and phyla? Why Gould and Eldridge come up with punctuated equilibrium?

Ed1wolf said: ↑
The anthropic principle is a VERY well founded claim.
efm: 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.

Fraid so, the probability that all the extreme fine tuning of the universe could happen by chance is basically zero.

 

[Silmarien]

Hmmm... A book seems like a good analogy. But I want to point out that I wasn't saying there's no distinction between the pages, I was saying that any one given page isn't more significant than another. I can imagine a book that has infinite pages in it. So you couldn't look back to a "beginning" page or an "end" page, but all of the moments exist. You wouldn't have to "wait" for a page to exist, which was the original problem I was asking about.

It's not as though page one is really linked to it's creation anyways. Moby Dick doesn't start, "I picked up parchment at the store today." It's just a moment like all the other pages. I don't see a reason there has to be a page one at all.

I agree that you wouldn't need to wait for a page to exist, but even on a B theory of time, one needs to account for why time appears to be passing. Time itself may not be ontologically real, but it certainly still seems like there's a sequence of interconnected events, where actions provoke reactions. If our sense of causality is off, and the effects bring the causes into being, then you can get a backwards infinite regression (but I would have to question whether you can get a forwards one), but otherwise I think there are still problems. Unless of course we want to toss out causality altogether and say that things only seem to be connected.

Ironically enough, I prefer eternal temporal regress on an A-theory than on a B-theory. If time is ontologically real, I don't see any more of a problem with infinite time than I do with the idea of an eternal God in general. If we have an eternal God eternally creating, then infinite time is the obvious conclusion, as mindboggling as it may be. B-theory seems to imply a more self-contained take on time, though, and I don't see that as compatible with infinity in the same way.

If you really want to get into infinite regressions, here's an article defending the Kalam on the B-theory that I found a while back. Haven't read through all of it, since the Kalam isn't something I'm particularly interested in, but it might be what you're looking for if you want to see a real defense.

 

[Moral Orel]

Ironically enough, I prefer eternal temporal regress on an A-theory than on a B-theory. If time is ontologically real, I don't see any more of a problem with infinite time than I do with the idea of an eternal God in general. If we have an eternal God eternally creating, then infinite time is the obvious conclusion, as mindboggling as it may be. B-theory seems to imply a more self-contained take on time, though, and I don't see that as compatible with infinity in the same way.

I'm still thinking about the rest of your post. But I thought the same thing that you wrote here while I was reading some of the link you posted. He and Craig both claim that actual infinites are impossible, but God has to be an actual infinite, doesn't He? Or at least some of his attributes must be.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

Fraid not, read Nachman and Crowell "Estimate of the Mutation Rate Per Nucleotide for Humans" Genetics, 156, (Sept. 2000): pp. 297-304. Also read "Genetic Entropy" by John C. Sandford, 2008.

You have an extremely poor track record of representing primary scientific literature in your favor. Last time you tried this, you tried to cite a 'study' from Cornell that didn't even exist.

I'll still read those sources when I get the chance, but I'm not exactly holding my breath.

The fossil record says otherwise, why are there systematic gaps between genera and phyla?

Because fossils are extremely rare. Why would you expect to find a complete fossil record of every living thing that hasn't ever existed?

Of course, if there were no fossils AT ALL, the evidence from genetics would still be more than enough on its own.

Why Gould and Eldridge come up with punctuated equilibrium?

Punctuated equilibrium is not 'large changes', individual to individual. It's relatively brief periods of rapid changes - still small, and still cumulative - that result in relatively 'fast' speciation, followed by stasis.

It's also not mutually exclusive to the concept of gradualism. They have exactly the same mechanisms, just different circumstances. They can both happen. Some scientists put more emphasis on one or the other, and as in all fields, there is ongoing debate.

There is no debate about whether evolution happens. There is only the overwhelming consensus, and a minuscule fringe of dissenters.

Fraid so, the probability that all the extreme fine tuning of the universe could happen by chance is basically zero.

You don't know that, of course. You have an extemely narrow experience of what constitutes 'life'. Given an infinite set of possible conditions, there is no telling how many of them could have resulted in a universe where intelligent life could exist, in forms that are unimagined by you or anyone else. It's a gussied-up argument from ignorance.

Which is all to say nothing of the theological implications. You are proposing a god whose intended purpose was to create life, who couldn't find a better way than to make a universe that is 99.99999999999999999999% deadly to us. This is gargantuanly wasteful. If hydrogen molecules could think, they would have a much better case than humans do, in thinking the universe was created with them in mind.

All of that is really beside the point, though. Your implication earlier was that the idea of the anthropic principle as evidence for Yahweh was 'well supported'. Which is false.

 

[createdtoworship]

Why are you still here, wasting time talking to me?

Everyone in the field of neuroscience is waiting to hear your ingenious and profound insight on the subject of cognitive processes. Clearly, you have figured out some 'truth' that has eluded them for the past seventy years or so, and are ready to explain it to them.

Go now! They need to hear your brilliant insight.

sir this is a bandwagon fallacy. Popular opinion is not what makes a logical statement true or not. Look up the history of bad science, to confirm this.

 

[gaara4158]

sir this is a bandwagon fallacy. Popular opinion is not what makes a logical statement true or not. Look up the history of bad science, to confirm this.

Nope, I’ve already explained to you that appeal to scientific consensus is not a bandwagon fallacy, twice now. You ignored it both times, of course, but you’re not getting away with it.

 

[HitchSlap]

sir this is a bandwagon fallacy. Popular opinion is not what makes a logical statement true or not. Look up the history of bad science, to confirm this.

The only bad science is creationism. That’s why it’s called pseudoscience. Real science is self correcting, provisional, and is the best explanation for what we see.

 

[Silmarien]

I'm still thinking about the rest of your post. But I thought the same thing that you wrote here while I was reading some of the link you posted. He and Craig both claim that actual infinites are impossible, but God has to be an actual infinite, doesn't He? Or at least some of his attributes must be.

Technically speaking, no. God is seldom conceived of as being temporal at all, so there is no infinite temporal regression. There's just eternity. If God is thought to be a being like others, something that "possesses" actuality like everything else, there are serious issues, but step beyond that into the ontotheological and most of them resolve. (Granted, it's still almost impossible to conceptualize.)

There are interesting problems here, though. Is God capable of change? I would think not, because a change of state implies temporality, and then we have to worry about divine temporal regression, amongst other things. I suspect Craig would disagree there, but I think this leads to him having to resort to a ton of special pleading as a result. (Of course, there are issues with the alternative view as well: does God undergo a change by creating a temporal world? Is his knowledge of reality now different than it was before?)

This is one of the deeper issues with theism, and the sort of thing I wish came up more outside of rarified theological circles.