Argument for God's existence.

InterestedAtheist said:

But how many universes do you have experience of? How much experience do you have outside of the universe? I imagine that the answers are, respectively, "one" and "none at all".

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There is still the problem of where the first universe came from.

InterestedAtheist said:

Now you may think I'm being ridiculous. What, do I imagine the universe poofed itself into existence out of nothing at all, for no reason? And my answer is, simply:
I don't know.

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Why would it do that and why is there space ?

I think that something is behind the beginning is a more plausible theory.

gradyll said:

the reason we don't apply the same argument for the universe itself, is that it's absurd to think the universe never had a beginning according to most science. It however is not absurd to believe there is no beginning to a being that supercedes time.

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The earth did have a beginning and both science and the religious communities agree on that. The difference is some sort of natural, yet unexplainable combustion ... or God spoke and Bang it happened.

About time measurement.

How light years are calculated

The distances between stars across the universe are very great, so astronomers use light years as a larger unit than miles or kilometers. To calculate the actual distance of a light year, you simply need to multiply the speed of light by the number of seconds in a year.

How a year is calculated

Calendar Calculations. The tropical year is the period of time required by the sun to pass from vernal equinox to vernal equinox. It is equal to 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, or 365.2422 days. ... So to correct (approximately), we add 1 day every four years (leap year).

vernal equinox

Also known as a solar year, a tropical year is approximately 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds long. The time between one March equinox and the next can vary by only a few minutes or by as many as 30 minutes each year.

In the Northern Hemisphere the vernal equinox falls about March 20 or 21, as the Sun crosses the celestial equator going north. In the Southern Hemisphere the equinox occurs on September 22 or 23, when the Sun moves south across the celestial equator.

So, here's a short article about a scientific finding.

Another Solar System Like our Own? - Universe Today

How would time be calculated on it? Would we apply our method of calculating time to it? How would we? It has it's own sun.

I dunno, but it don't make sense to me that we can apply how we measure time on earth to the rest of the universe .. when the rest of the universe (what we know of it so far) is't like our solar system at all and we are totally unique.

dougangel said:

You need to read this carefully to understand about yom. You said you did but you obviously don't.

As you can see, Yom is used in a wide variety of situations related to the concept of time. Yom is not just for days...it is for time in general. How it is translated depends on the context of its use with other words.

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Let's cut to the chase again...

My point is that apologists use the Yom argument to rationalize the Genesis account. Case and point, I asked you the 'specific context' for the Genesis account. So what is it exactly? Does Yom associate a time span in THIS case, or not? Because the English translated verses sure seems to think so. Thus, like I stated prior, God is then apparently good with such confusion of an otherwise benign point. But in this case, makes a huge difference when not 'properly' translating Yom in the 'correct' context....

The fact that science demonstrates that each 'creation day' would have to vastly differ in time span to make Genesis fit, is what now spurs up the "Yom argument' Otherwise, you would have to immediately concede the Genesis account, if you accept the science even under the most remedial of circumstances.

Silmarien said:

Honestly, I find this sort of dogmatic agnosticism strangely anti-intellectual. If people had historically been content to say "I don't know," and then use that as an excuse to not consider a question more deeply, we wouldn't have science, or philosophy, or really any form of knowledge at all. There is no moral victory in using the words "I don't know" to cut off inquiry--that's just another form of dogmatism.

Really, you are allowed to contemplate questions like whether the universe could have popped into existence uncaused. The fact that it's a question that moves past science into philosophy doesn't make it off-limits; it just means that the answers you come to are going to be of a different sort. It's entirely possible to come down on one side or the other while still admitting that you cannot truly know.

Never mind that if one truly goes down the path of genuine philosophical skepticism, the list of things that we cannot know basically becomes all-encompassing. No intelligible reality, no other minds, no self, no material universe, practically nothing at all. I've been all the way down that rabbit hole before, and I really don't recommend it, even if it is at least consistent.

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Not in the slightest, Silmarien. I'm happy to contemplate questions where I do not have any evidence, or insufficient evidence. But when Christians say to me "the universe must have been caused by God" all I do is point out that they have no evidence to support their conclusion, and so there is no reason to think they are correct.

In short: when we don't know what happened, I say I don't know, and don't make up an answer. If Christians have evidence - scientific, philosophical or otherwise - for there being a cause of the universe called God, then let them present it. If they don't, then please can they stop taking their religious answer and telling us that we have to believe it as well.

gradyll said:

Sorry sir here you admit evolution is proven. But where is the proof?

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Yawn. There's no point in me talking to you, gradyll, if you don't read my answers.
So tell me: did you actually read post #1757?

dougangel said:

There is still the problem of where the first universe came from.

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I don't know. I'd love to, but I don't. Maybe one day we will find some answers.

dougangel said:

Why would it do that and why is there space ?

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Again, I don't know. Maybe one day we will have evidence about this.

dougangel said:

I think that something is behind the beginning is a more plausible theory.

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Do you? And why is that? Because you need to have some kind of non-religious reason to think so.

cvanwey said:

Let's cut to the chase again...

My point is that apologists use the Yom argument to rationalize the Genesis account. Case and point, I asked you the 'specific context' for the Genesis account. So what is it exactly? Does Yom associate a time span in THIS case, or not? Because the English translated verses sure seems to think so. Thus, like I stated prior, God is then apparently good with such confusion of an otherwise benign point. But in this case, makes a huge difference when not 'properly' translating Yom in the 'correct' context....

The fact that science demonstrates that each 'creation day' would have to vastly differ in time span to make Genesis fit, is what now spurs up the "Yom argument' Otherwise, you would have to immediately concede the Genesis account, if you accept the science even under the most remedial of circumstances.

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I don't agree.
you have to go to my post # 1788 and answer the question for me to go on with you.

InterestedAtheist said:

Not in the slightest, Silmarien. I'm happy to contemplate questions where I do not have any evidence, or insufficient evidence. But when Christians say to me "the universe must have been caused by God" all I do is point out that they have no evidence to support their conclusion, and so there is no reason to think they are correct.

In short: when we don't know what happened, I say I don't know, and don't make up an answer. If Christians have evidence - scientific, philosophical or otherwise - for there being a cause of the universe called God, then let them present it. If they don't, then please can they stop taking their religious answer and telling us that we have to believe it as well.

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"The universe must have a cause, therefore God" is admittedly a pretty ridiculous jump of logic, but whether or not the universe could have come into existence uncaused is a separate question. One could take a number of different positions here--Creation, eternal universe/multiverse, eternal quantum vacuum that produces universes, etc. Each of these options is causal in nature, so no, you do not have to throw your hands up and say that you don't know, that universes magically popping into existence uncaused is as good an answer as anything else. It's frankly a terrible answer.

I think the more rational response from the atheist when cosmological arguments come up would be to allow for principles of causality (or to present a feasible alternative), and then to argue that the First Cause need not have divine attributes. That is admittedly a lot more difficult than retreating into ignorance, but at least you don't shut down conversation in the process. "I don't know" is not actually a counterargument; you are not identifying holes in logic that the the apologist needs to reconsider with that.

gradyll said:

time varies with mass, acceleration and some other things. So basically if you have no mass you don't have time, So God can't have a beginning under general relativity because he doesn't have mass. God is omnipresent, and He can't be everywhere at once if He had mass.

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ok so I've been doing some searching regarding general relativity and is the theory applicable to dark matter, talk about mind boggling LOL

I find this interesting

All the stars, planets and galaxies that can be seen today make up just 4 percent of the universe. The other 96 percent is made of stuff astronomers can't see, detect or even comprehend. These mysterious substances are called dark energy and dark matter.

There is more we do not see than we do see. (96%)

gradyll said:

ok, so evolution can be proven as much as any theory can...

so here you refute your first post with a later post. I guess you could call it moving the goal posts in a way that entirely refutes the first premise. But either way, I would like you to admit to the error you made in the first post, before addressing your next point. I notice you had a text wall of information that I cropped out of the second post, if you wish for me to address any of that let me know which 3 points you wish me to address, give your best ones. But not before admitting to moving the goal posts here, which is a fallacy.

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Oh. What does "moving the goalposts" mean?

Silmarien said:

It's frankly a terrible answer.

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Sorry you don't like it. But when I don't know something, I'm okay with admitting it. Is it better to make up an answer?
You say that I should admit that the universe must have had a cause. But that's the thing: I don't know that it did. All of our knowledge of cause and effect comes from inside the universe. Have you ever had experience of another universe? Or of this universe, from "the outside"? No? In that case, you have no way of knowing how cause and effect operates outside the universe - if, indeed, it does.

Silmarien said:

That is admittedly a lot more difficult than retreating into ignorance, but at least you don't shut down conversation in the process. "I don't know" is not actually a counterargument; you are not identifying holes in logic that the the apologist needs to reconsider with that.

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Time and place, Silmarien. Right now, we're in a thread called "Arguments for the Existence of God". The much-too-often-seen argument that God must have created the universe is occupying my attention at the moment.

Silmarien said:

Honestly, I find this sort of dogmatic agnosticism strangely anti-intellectual. If people had historically been content to say "I don't know," and then use that as an excuse to not consider a question more deeply, we wouldn't have science, or philosophy, or really any form of knowledge at all. There is no moral victory in using the words "I don't know" to cut off inquiry--that's just another form of dogmatism.

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"I don't know" doesn't cut off the inquiry. It opens the inquiry. It's when one jumps to a conclusion regardless of the evidence that the inquiry is shut down. I don't know, but I want to know, and I look for answers without deciding on an answer in advance. With an open mind, I can look at any possible answers and determine if they fit the evidence well. Or, if evidence is lacking (such as in the case of an origin for the universe), I'm motivated to look for some.

InterestedAtheist said:

Sorry you don't like it. But when I don't know something, I'm okay with admitting it. Is it better to make up an answer?
You say that I should admit that the universe must have had a cause. But that's the thing: I don't know that it did. All of our knowledge of cause and effect comes from inside the universe. Have you ever had experience of another universe? Or of this universe, from "the outside"? No? In that case, you have no way of knowing how cause and effect operates outside the universe - if, indeed, it does.

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I would reject this line of thought, as it relies upon a form of empiricism in which our formulation of logical categories occurs as a result of observation rather than being in some sense prior to it. I would consider the reality of causality to be a priori rather than a posteriori knowledge, and thus view experience as altogether irrelevant to the question at hand. So yes, for this and other reasons, I do think I'm fully justified in saying that whatever comes into being must have a cause in any possible reality.

Now, my question would be just how far your agnosticism stretches on the topic of causality. If we do not believe that causality is more fundamental than the universe, then it is unclear why it would always be required even within the universe. If things can come into being uncaused outside of the universe, can we really claim that they cannot come into being uncaused within the universe as well? Should we admit that we cannot know whether magic is possible, and that any given street magician may really be creating rabbits ex nihilo? There is a serious price to pay if you think that causality is merely a matter of observation.

InterestedAtheist said:

Time and place, Silmarien. Right now, we're in a thread called "Arguments for the Existence of God". The much-too-often-seen argument that God must have created the universe is occupying my attention at the moment.

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This is the time and place. In a thread about arguments for the existence of God, it's useful to provide better counterarguments than "I don't know."

Yttrium said:

"I don't know" doesn't cut off the inquiry. It opens the inquiry. It's when one jumps to a conclusion regardless of the evidence that the inquiry is shut down. I don't know, but I want to know, and I look for answers without deciding on an answer in advance. With an open mind, I can look at any possible answers and determine if they fit the evidence well. Or, if evidence is lacking (such as in the case of an origin for the universe), I'm motivated to look for some.

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I have two concerns with this. For one, people do not really look for answers without leaning in a specific way in advance. If they did, they would never be able to formulate a scientific hypothesis, since hypotheses tend to involve trying to determine whether particular solutions are correct. You need to have the potential solution first, even if it might be wrong--you can't toss up your hands and say you don't know.

Secondly, in this case, yes, I think inquiry was being cut off. The post I replied to didn't say, "I don't know; let's think about it further and see if we can't shed some light on the topic." There was no indication of any interest to contemplate the topic further, because it had been preemptively declared off-bounds.

I have two concerns with this. For one, people do not really look for answers without leaning in a specific way in advance. If they did, they would never be able to formulate a scientific hypothesis, since hypotheses tend to involve trying to determine whether particular solutions are correct. You need to have the potential solution first, even if it might be wrong--you can't toss up your hands and say you don't know.

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"I don't know" isn't a commitment to neutrality. It isn't a philosophy. It's a condition, hopefully a temporary one. I look at the evidence, and I try to fit an answer to it. I can and will start looking at answers that fit my biases. But I won't reject answers that don't fit my biases. I'll look at them later.

I don't know whether there's an intelligent supreme being or not. I can't say "I think there is one" or "I think there isn't one". My bias is that I'd like there to be one, so I look at possible answers along those lines first. I was raised by a Christian family, so I investigated versions of God along those lines first. And I moved on to other possibilities from there.

Evidence in the known universe implies that the universe came into existence somehow. I don't know how. Since I'm accustomed to the concept of cause and effect, I'll assume that there was a cause until demonstrated otherwise. That doesn't mean that I believe there was a cause. It's just the approach I start with.

Yttrium said:

"I don't know" isn't a commitment to neutrality. It isn't a philosophy. It's a condition, hopefully a temporary one. I look at the evidence, and I try to fit an answer to it. I can and will start looking at answers that fit my biases. But I won't reject answers that don't fit my biases. I'll look at them later.

I don't know whether there's an intelligent supreme being or not. I can't say "I think there is one" or "I think there isn't one". My bias is that I'd like there to be one, so I look at possible answers along those lines first. I was raised by a Christian family, so I investigated versions of God along those lines first. And I moved on to other possibilities from there.

Evidence in the known universe implies that the universe came into existence somehow. I don't know how. Since I'm accustomed to the concept of cause and effect, I'll assume that there was a cause until demonstrated otherwise. That doesn't mean that I believe there was a cause. It's just the approach I start with.

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Your approach strikes me as reasonable, though I'm not sure how you can simultaneously assume that there was a cause and not believe that there was a cause. A belief is just something that you think is true, so you've committed quite the psychological trick if you can assume something is true without thinking it's true.

In any case, what I'm critical of here is a particular use of the words "I don't know," one that's pretty ubiquitous in discussions like these. Rather than being a hopefully temporary condition, it's used as a rhetorical ploy, an escape route to avoid actually engaging with the argument at hand. I find this highly problematic behavior, and one that undermines rather than strengthens the atheist's position, since no genuine reason is given to reject an argument if all you can say is, "I don't know."

Ironically, I find this sort of behavior strangely similar to what you often get from Creationists. Technically speaking, all of scientific knowledge is provisional--our theories are only true insofar as they are the best bets we have to date, but atheists seldom view this problem as a reason to say "I don't know," and reject the whole field of science. Creationists, on the other hand, will claim that everything is just a theory, that we cannot know whether evolution is true, and then they use that as an excuse so that they can reject the results of scientific inquiry with impunity.

Stubbornly insisting that we cannot know if causality is true, especially to avoid the force of a cosmological argument, isn't very different. In fact, it's probably even worse, since evolutionary science being false is imaginable in a way that causality being false really isn't, so if someone is going to reject it, they ought to have a better reason for it than a sudden, selective recognition of their own epistemological limits.