Atheism (2)

[Gadarene]

trying to change the subject with
no evidence for athiesm, means you agree right?

athiesm has NO POSITIVE EVIDENCE,

POINT NOTED.

Just to make 100% certain you're clear as you still seem to be treating this as some kind of coup - atheism does not require positive evidence if we are taking the definition of a lack of belief in a god or gods as no claims regarding existence are made. To convince an atheist otherwise you will need positive evidence of the existence of a deity.

The burden of proof is on you - it has always been on you.

 

[Gadarene]

okay, lets start with a quote:

Agent causation is something that happens in the universe:

I suggest that agent to be an intelligent being....


Here is greg koukl to bring us up to speed on agent causation:

"If you look at the words on the printed page there in front of you…and you say, "Well, what caused those words to originate?" if we only talk about the chemistry and physics of the ink on the paper, we're missing an important aspect of the cause that produced those words….

We want to open people's minds to the whole of reality. The activity of mind acting on nature is part of reality, and the narrow definition of science that says that it's only a scientific explanation if you refer to a materialistic, or naturalistic, or physical cause, is missing an important aspect of reality. And intelligent design is saying mind is real, minds have causal powers, and we can detect the activity of mind….

We're simply inferring the cause that is known from our experience to produce the effect in question, rather than causes that are not known from our experience to produce the effect in question.

agent causation (the signature)

Now that same mentality can be applied to a lot of scientific examples. For example, we have this thing called a seismograph, right? It's a little needle on a piece of paper that gets drawn across this needle that wobbles back and forth according to the vibrations of the earth and it makes a little squiggle, right? And by looking at this squiggle you can determine the force of an earthquake or what kind of seismic activity is going on. These are blind natural forces being recorded by this stylus on a seismograph.

What would happen, though, if you were looking at the etchings of the stylus on the seismograph and you saw these wobbly, side-to-side movements with an unbroken line of ink, and you saw someone's signature written in there and then it continued on with these wobbles. What would you conclude? Would you conclude that this was some really wacky earthquake? Of course not. You would see the unmistakable signs of agent causation and you would rightly conclude that someone got in there and made a conscious, intelligent choice to move the stylus and make the form of a signature. In other words, you don't explain that even on a scientific instrument by naturalistic causes. You explain it by agent causation.


agent causation (the oreo)


Now to give you an illustration about how the game is fixed by the courts and by the educational system and by the scientific community, I have suggested what I have called the Oreo Experiment. You go to your chemistry teacher and ask if he is able to look at a solution and describe, based on his scientific testing, what is in the solution and how the solution, the precipitate, came to be. The precipitate is the heavy stuff that falls out, precipitates in the solution. In a beaker, for example. It seems that someone who is well-versed in the area of chemistry and well-versed in the area of physics can look and measure and test and describe what happened in a simple kind of thing.

Your chemist teacher takes the challenge and you say, "Okay, I'm going to put out a beaker full of stuff. There you see it, and now I'm covering it. Tomorrow we'll uncover it and you'll see something that has precipitated. Then it is your job to figure out how that happened." Sure. Fair enough. I know science. I know the laws of chemistry. We'll do it.

However, just before the chemist comes into the room the next morning to begin his experiments to look and observe the precipitate and begin to measure it to solve the problem, you lift the cover on the beaker and drop in an Oreo cookie. He walks in, you remove the cover to the beaker, and there is this discolored solution, but clearly visible is this rapidly decaying Oreo cookie. Very obvious. You can still see the word "Oreo" on it. And you say, "Okay, now using the laws of physics and chemistry, explain to me how that Oreo cookie got there." And he says, "Wait a minute, it's obvious that someone put it there because Oreo cookies don't just manufacture themselves out of nowhere in the middle of a beaker. You are playing a trick on me. Someone dropped it in there." And then you say, "Foul. You've broken the rules. You've inferred an outside agent here. You're not being scientific. It's your job to be a scientist. This is a chemistry lab. Let's stick with science. You are obliged to come up with some kind of explanation limited to the laws of chemistry and physics and time plus chance to explain how that Oreo cookie got there in the last twelve hours." Now, he would be hard pressed to do so. Why? Because it was put there. You know it was. The evidence indicates it was. There was an agent that caused that, but the rules have restricted him from concluding what it obvious in the circumstances."

What does the fact that a cookie is an object cooked by humans have to do with the origin of the universe?

Humans may be able to pull pranks like drop cookies in beakers, but they are not necessary for the universe to exist.

This is a pretty tenuous analogy, all in all - and even then, all it is recommending is God-of-the-gaps.

 

[createdtoworship]

What does the fact that a cookie is an object cooked by humans have to do with the origin of the universe?

Humans may be able to pull pranks like drop cookies in beakers, but they are not necessary for the universe to exist.

This is a pretty tenuous analogy, all in all - and even then, all it is recommending is God-of-the-gaps.

an agent causes:

1. cookies in beakers
   
2. the universe

 

[Gadarene]

an agent causes:


[*]cookies in beakers

[*]the universe

Non sequitur.

Like I said, for all of koukl's verbosity, all his little fable comes down to is - science can't explain it (at the moment), therefore goddidit. Argument from ignorance fallacy.

 

[sandwiches]

What people consider evidence varies.
I don't see how you can there is no such evidence available honestly

No such evidence for what?

 

[createdtoworship]

Non sequitur.

Like I said, for all of koukl's verbosity, all his little fable comes down to is - science can't explain it (at the moment), therefore goddidit. Argument from ignorance fallacy.

so is it a non squitur or a argument from ignorance, make up your fallacy mind

read it again:
agent causation = intelligent design
we have this thing called a seismograph, right? It's a little needle on a piece of paper that gets drawn across this needle that wobbles back and forth according to the vibrations of the earth and it makes a little squiggle, right? And by looking at this squiggle you can determine the force of an earthquake or what kind of seismic activity is going on. These are blind natural forces being recorded by this stylus on a seismograph.

What would happen, though, if you were looking at the etchings of the stylus on the seismograph and you saw these wobbly, side-to-side movements with an unbroken line of ink, and you saw someone's signature written in there and then it continued on with these wobbles. What would you conclude? Would you conclude that this was some really wacky earthquake? Of course not. You would see the unmistakable signs of agent causation and you would rightly conclude that someone got in there and made a conscious, intelligent choice to move the stylus and make the form of a signature. In other words, you don't explain that even on a scientific instrument by naturalistic causes. You explain it by agent causation.

above from greg koukl

 

[sandwiches]

What would happen, though, if you were looking at the etchings of the stylus on the seismograph and you saw these wobbly, side-to-side movements with an unbroken line of ink, and you saw someone's signature written in there and then it continued on with these wobbles. What would you conclude? Would you conclude that this was some really wacky earthquake? Of course not. You would see the unmistakable signs of agent causation and you would rightly conclude that someone got in there and made a conscious, intelligent choice to move the stylus and make the form of a signature. In other words, you don't explain that even on a scientific instrument by naturalistic causes. You explain it by agent causation.

Show us God's handwriting that can only be explained by the God idea and we'll talk.

 

[createdtoworship]

we see causation every day, cause and effect. If you throw a pen in the air, it hits you in the head (sort of thing)

 

[Dave Ellis]

okay, lets start with a quote:

Agent causation is something that happens in the universe:

I suggest that agent to be an intelligent being....

In some cases, intelligent beings are responsible for agent causation. However, that is not always the case. What is your justification for proposing the creation of the universe was caused by an intelligent being?

Here is greg koukl to bring us up to speed on agent causation:

"If you look at the words on the printed page there in front of you…and you say, "Well, what caused those words to originate?" if we only talk about the chemistry and physics of the ink on the paper, we're missing an important aspect of the cause that produced those words….

I'm with you so far

We want to open people's minds to the whole of reality. The activity of mind acting on nature is part of reality, and the narrow definition of science that says that it's only a scientific explanation if you refer to a materialistic, or naturalistic, or physical cause, is missing an important aspect of reality. And intelligent design is saying mind is real, minds have causal powers, and we can detect the activity of mind….

This is an assertion, which so far lacks any evidence. There's no reason to assume there is a mind acting upon nature.

If we can detect the activity of a mind, then we should be able to detect the activity of the mind behind nature. Can you show me where we conclusively detected that mind?

We're simply inferring the cause that is known from our experience to produce the effect in question, rather than causes that are not known from our experience to produce the effect in question.

I don't doubt that, however our "experience" is often laughably wrong and can't serve as evidence without something more solid backing it.

agent causation (the signature)

Now that same mentality can be applied to a lot of scientific examples. For example, we have this thing called a seismograph, right? It's a little needle on a piece of paper that gets drawn across this needle that wobbles back and forth according to the vibrations of the earth and it makes a little squiggle, right? And by looking at this squiggle you can determine the force of an earthquake or what kind of seismic activity is going on. These are blind natural forces being recorded by this stylus on a seismograph.

What would happen, though, if you were looking at the etchings of the stylus on the seismograph and you saw these wobbly, side-to-side movements with an unbroken line of ink, and you saw someone's signature written in there and then it continued on with these wobbles. What would you conclude? Would you conclude that this was some really wacky earthquake? Of course not. You would see the unmistakable signs of agent causation and you would rightly conclude that someone got in there and made a conscious, intelligent choice to move the stylus and make the form of a signature. In other words, you don't explain that even on a scientific instrument by naturalistic causes. You explain it by agent causation.

Actually, I would conclude it was a really wacky earthquake... or someone working in the lab was playing a prank.... probably the person who left their signature on the readout.

Both of those conclusions (especially the last one) are far more plausible than an invisible magic man in the sky did it.

agent causation (the oreo)


Now to give you an illustration about how the game is fixed by the courts and by the educational system and by the scientific community, I have suggested what I have called the Oreo Experiment. You go to your chemistry teacher and ask if he is able to look at a solution and describe, based on his scientific testing, what is in the solution and how the solution, the precipitate, came to be. The precipitate is the heavy stuff that falls out, precipitates in the solution. In a beaker, for example. It seems that someone who is well-versed in the area of chemistry and well-versed in the area of physics can look and measure and test and describe what happened in a simple kind of thing.

Your chemist teacher takes the challenge and you say, "Okay, I'm going to put out a beaker full of stuff. There you see it, and now I'm covering it. Tomorrow we'll uncover it and you'll see something that has precipitated. Then it is your job to figure out how that happened." Sure. Fair enough. I know science. I know the laws of chemistry. We'll do it.

However, just before the chemist comes into the room the next morning to begin his experiments to look and observe the precipitate and begin to measure it to solve the problem, you lift the cover on the beaker and drop in an Oreo cookie. He walks in, you remove the cover to the beaker, and there is this discolored solution, but clearly visible is this rapidly decaying Oreo cookie. Very obvious. You can still see the word "Oreo" on it. And you say, "Okay, now using the laws of physics and chemistry, explain to me how that Oreo cookie got there." And he says, "Wait a minute, it's obvious that someone put it there because Oreo cookies don't just manufacture themselves out of nowhere in the middle of a beaker. You are playing a trick on me. Someone dropped it in there." And then you say, "Foul. You've broken the rules. You've inferred an outside agent here. You're not being scientific. It's your job to be a scientist. This is a chemistry lab. Let's stick with science. You are obliged to come up with some kind of explanation limited to the laws of chemistry and physics and time plus chance to explain how that Oreo cookie got there in the last twelve hours." Now, he would be hard pressed to do so. Why? Because it was put there. You know it was. The evidence indicates it was. There was an agent that caused that, but the rules have restricted him from concluding what it obvious in the circumstances."

My first response is this: laugh harder - YouTube

This is possibly the most ridiculous argument I've ever heard.... I actually by instinct physically facepalmed and laughed out loud at the same time while reading this.

How on earth does this prove how the courts, educational facilities and scientific community have fixed the game? There's nothing even alluding to that in this entire argument?

If you knew the first thing about science, you would also know when the evidence has obviously been spoiled or tainted (like dropping an oreo in the beaker), you can not use that evidence. Your experiment has been spoiled.

The scientist is not breaking the rules at all in this scenario, the student is. He's poisoned the experiment, which the chemist properly discovered... and you're trying to assert the Chemist is not being scientific in discarding tainted evidence?

This is completely asinine. Furthermore, it's completely pointless to the idea that an agent caused the universe.

You have not demonstrated in any way that an agent created the universe at all... you have merely shown it's possible for intelligent beings to act as agents of causation.

That doesn't mean that all things that are caused are done by an intelligent force, and ties in no way to the formation of the universe.

 

[createdtoworship]

In some cases, intelligent beings are responsible for agent causation. However, that is not always the case. What is your justification for proposing the creation of the universe was caused by an intelligent being?




I'm with you so far



This is an assertion, which so far lacks any evidence. There's no reason to assume there is a mind acting upon nature.

If we can detect the activity of a mind, then we should be able to detect the activity of the mind behind nature. Can you show me where we conclusively detected that mind?



I don't doubt that, however our "experience" is often laughably wrong and can't serve as evidence without something more solid backing it.



Actually, I would conclude it was a really wacky earthquake... or someone working in the lab was playing a prank.... probably the person who left their signature on the readout.

Both of those conclusions (especially the last one) are far more plausible than an invisible magic man in the sky did it.




My first response is this: laugh harder - YouTube

This is possibly the most ridiculous argument I've ever heard.... I actually by instinct physically facepalmed and laughed out loud at the same time while reading this.

How on earth does this prove how the courts, educational facilities and scientific community have fixed the game? There's nothing even alluding to that in this entire argument?

If you knew the first thing about science, you would also know when the evidence has obviously been spoiled or tainted (like dropping an oreo in the beaker), you can not use that evidence. Your experiment has been spoiled.

The scientist is not breaking the rules at all in this scenario, the student is. He's poisoned the experiment, which the chemist properly discovered... and you're trying to assert the Chemist is not being scientific in discarding tainted evidence?

This is completely asinine. Furthermore, it's completely pointless to the idea that an agent caused the universe.

You have not demonstrated in any way that an agent created the universe at all... you have merely shown it's possible for intelligent beings to act as agents of causation.

That doesn't mean that all things that are caused are done by an intelligent force, and ties in no way to the formation of the universe.

okay, because of the sarcasm I will only reply to this:

agent causation:

the universe is caused by something that didn't have a cause.

the only thing this could be is an agent.

are you with me so far?

 

[Gadarene]

we see causation every day, cause and effect. If you throw a pen in the air, it hits you in the head (sort of thing)

There's confusion here alright, but not on our part.

Sure causation occurs. But just because it occurs in situation x doesn't mean you can presume it applies to situation y.

 

[createdtoworship]

There's confusion here alright, but not on our part.

Sure causation occurs. But just because it occurs in situation x doesn't mean you can presume it applies to situation y.

I already answered that in my last post.

 

[Gadarene]

okay, because of the sarcasm I will only reply to this:

agent causation:

the universe is caused by something that didn't have a cause.

the only thing this could be is an agent.

are you with me so far?

No.

This is an assertion. The only example you have given of causative agents is human beings and they have a cause themselves.

 

[Gadarene]

I already answered that in my last post.

No, you didn't. Koukl's silly example does not refer at all to uncaused causes.

 

[createdtoworship]

No.

This is an assertion. The only example you have given of causative agents is human beings and they have a cause themselves.

so the universe was not caused?

 

[Gadarene]

so the universe was not caused?

No, we've jumped the gun from talking about humans dropping cookies into jars, thus the courts hate Greg koukl, to a claim that uncaused causes are agents. Nothing has been presented to justify this. Why could it not be an uncaused cause without agency?

 

[createdtoworship]

No, we've jumped the gun from talking about humans dropping cookies into jars, thus the courts hate Greg koukl, to a claim that uncaused causes are agents. Nothing has been presented to justify this. Why could it not be an uncaused cause without agency?

google agent causation, it brings up this:

A presumed special category of causation whereby agents initiate sequences of events when they act, without the initiation being itself causally determined.

from
agent-causation: Definition from Answers.com


if you doubt that it is a legitimate view, here is stanfords website

Incompatibilist (Nondeterministic) Theories of Free Will (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[Gadarene]

google agent causation, it brings up this:

A presumed special category of causation whereby agents initiate sequences of events when they act, without the initiation being itself causally determined.

from
agent-causation: Definition from Answers.com

if you doubt that it is a legitimate view, here is stanfords website

Incompatibilist (Nondeterministic) Theories of Free Will (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Even if you dress it up in agent causation, it is still god of the gaps. You're finding something that you think science can't explain and then presuming that your specific agent did it. Even then, you're only presuming this based on some cookie analogy story but all that shows is a result for humans, not anything else.

 

[sandwiches]

so the universe was not caused?

Maybe. Couldn't it be?

 

[createdtoworship]

Maybe. Couldn't it be?

er, not really. Everything has a cause, accept agents.

law of cause and effect