Atheists and Christians

[aiki]

[FONT="]Isn't it equally an assumption to say that the beginning of the universe was completely random and purposeless?[/FONT]

[FONT="]From everything I have ever come to call fact about reality, nothing really has any purpose. [/FONT]

This doesn't answer my question, I'm afraid. I understand you feel there is some reason to assume the universe completely randomly popped into existence, but you make an assumption that this is true nonetheless.

[FONT="]There is no reason we have mountains for instance, they are a result of plate tectonics. [/FONT]

Couldn't one say that tectonic plate movement is the reason for mountains?

[FONT="]Or in other words, not comprehending how where the Big Bang came from does not imply a God, it implies there is another mystery waiting for answers.[/FONT]

This is what science limits you to. Logic, on the other hand, allows you to investigate further. And logic indicates that the Big Bang must have had a cause. This is what the arguments I gave you show. If one grants the premises of the arguments the conclusion logically follows. And if the conclusion is logically proven, then it is illogical to deny it.

[FONT="]Evolution has no purpose[/FONT]

Really? I thought its purpose was the improvement of the species.

[FONT="]The formations of the planets weren’t leading to life, it just so happens life can survive in the right circumstances.[/FONT]

This is an assumption. And the nature of the universe suggests that it was designed for life. The physical constants governing the universe function in an incredibly narrow range for life. Even a slight variation in any one of them makes life impossible anywhere in the universe. The chance that such a universe could exist accidently is, quite literally, right next to impossible. In light of this, it seems to me to require extraordinary faith to assert that it did.

Imagine if you were in a lottery where, if a black ball was drawn, you would be shot. Now, imagine that there is only one black ball in a machine holding tens of billions of white balls. It is equally improbable that any ball coming out of the machine is the one that came out, but it will be overwhelmingly probable that a white ball will come out rather than the single black one. If the black ball did exit the lottery machine, it would be perfectly reasonable, given the black ball is the only only one among tens of billions of white ones, to believe that it wasn't merely by chance that it did so.

In the same way, that a life-permitting universe exists at all is on par in the realm of probability with the black ball coming out of the lottery machine. It staggers reason to suggest such a universe came about randomly.

[FONT="]I think it requires a large assumption to assume anything was created for a purpose when nothing suggests this in reality.[/FONT]

Nothing suggests this? What about a painting by Monet? Or a sculpture by Michelangelo, or a can-opener? All of these things - the painting, the sculpture, the can-opener - were created for a purpose and all of these things exist within our universe. And I can think of thousands of other such examples.

[FONT="]Can you point out the specific circularity in my argument? And what are you thinking of when you use the term "God"?[/FONT]

[FONT="]Yes, you assume only something higher than the universe can be timeless. Or even that it is even necessary to be ‘timeless’. We really don’t understand the universe well enough to establish what’s finite or likewise to make any such assumption. So for the replies I have ignored please substitute ‘I don’t know’ as it’s all I can honestly say[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot].[/FONT]

Logic leads me to conclude that all things within the universe are bound by time, space, matter and energy. This is what it means to be in the universe. Nothing, then, within the universe can be timeless; for everything within the universe exists within time. Moreover, the universe began to exist a finite time ago, which also means it cannot be timeless. A truly timeless entity has no beginning.

It is also not an assumption to assert that that which caused the universe is necessarily timeless. I have given you my reasoning twice about this and neither time did I rely directly upon an assumption. How does time produce itself? Simple logic, not assumption, indicates that it cannot. Time would already have to exist in order to create itself. But this is obviously absurd! If time already existed, it wouldn't have to create itself! So, then, nothing within our time-bound universe could have created time, which includes time itself. This isn't a matter of assumption, but, as I've demonstrated, of simple logic.

You didn't actually point out where my reasoning was circular. You've suggested that I work from a basis of assumption, but this isn't the same, necessarily, as arguing circularly.

Oh, and by the way, "I don't know" is the position of an agnostic, not an atheist.

[FONT="]Actually, it is proven beyond any doubt. DNA mapping shows how we are linked and where we descended from and the ‘family tree’ all leads to a single point. [/FONT]

As I said in an earlier post, it is an assumption that similarities genetically among the species indicates common ancestry.

[FONT="]We contain much of the same genes as other animals (up to about 97%), many which lay dormant or are primitive, how can you explain our DNA without evolution?[/FONT]

God and mutation/natural selection are not mutually exclusive things. Why can't God use the natural processes He created to effect change among the species?

[FONT="]Why are we so similar to other life if we are unique?[/FONT]

I don't understand how being similar in certain respects to other species diminishes our uniqueness. Does any other species study higher algebra, or ponder matters of justice and ethics, or stand and admire the beauty of a sunset or the majesty of a mountain range? Do they even use concepts like beauty or majesty? What makes us different from all other species is what makes all the difference!

[FONT="]You can argue God created the first life and I can’t prove it wrong, but I can prove evolution is true. Why do the available fossils show the same?[/FONT]

I've never thought the fossil record was particularly on the side of evolution. Rather the reverse. Where are the millions of transitional fossils we'd expect to find if evolution were true? This question has so troubled evolutionists that they came up with Punctuated Equilibrium to answer it. But this theory is empirically-speaking identical to creationism. Sudden jumps to fully-formed new forms of life between long periods of form stasis is essentially a kind of creationism. And the handful of "transitional" fossils like the Archaeopteryx and the famous horse series are contested even by secular scientists.

[FONT="]The universe may very well be infinite and eventually will implode and start again, with no beginning or end much like the concept of God.[/FONT]

Maybe you're getting lost in all the stuff I'm writing, but I have noted in past posts that it has been well-established that the universe is not infinite. The Big Bang refutes this assertion, as does the impossibility of an actual infinite, and the Bord-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem also precludes the idea of an infinite universe. The oscillating universe theory has no concrete evidence in science for itself. It is entirely speculative and has some significant problems:

1. There is no known mechanism to explain how all the mass of the universe could converge simultaneously, reconvene into a dimensionless mathematical point, and bounce back into a new expansion with 100 percent efficiency. The Second Law of Thermodynamics defies the 100 percent efficient perpetual motion machine.

2. Even if such a mechanism could be conceived, the problems of an actual infinite would prevent an actual infinite number of past cycles.

3. The universe would have to be at least twice as dense as science indicates the universe to be for it to reach a point of expansion and then contract again.

Another way to look at it is to try and define what exactly is ‘timeless’ if ‘time’ hasn’t even begun? It isn’t infinite, it is precisely 0.

Timeless means without time. The opposite of time is not-time.

An argument I have yet to ask on here directed at those who can’t imagine ‘nothing’ after death and therefore justify an afterlife is this. Where were you before you were born? You were precisely nowhere, nothing and weren’t ‘waiting’ anywhere. You were again, precisely 0. So the concept of waiting doesn’t apply and neither does the concept time.

As I said in my last post, only something that exists and exists within time can wait. Do Christians suggest to you that they were waiting somewhere outside of the universe to be brought into being? The only place this could be so would be in the Mind of God.

It therefore is only assumption to assume there is only one such being, or that it requires any consciousness for a thing to be thus.

I have never tried to suggest through logical argument that God is unique. But logic does require that an effect that is not concurrent with its cause exists because its cause chose to bring it into being. Such a choice is only made by personal beings that have the capacity for choice.

There are many things only God is said to be, such as being two places at once. Particle physics shows electrons are doing precisely that! So I again suggest it requires assumption to suggest only a God could do such things.

No one has said only God can be in two places at once. I certainly haven't. But the similarity between God and an electron particle is far, far less than[FONT=&quot] the differences between them. What an electron is observed to do in Young's double-slit experiment is still within the confines of the time, space, matter and energy of our universe. An electron shows none of the transcendency of God.

[/FONT]

[FONT="]I think we can agree as that is pretty much what I am trying to say. God might very well be an explanation for everything, but without something more to suggest it is true then it isn’t something we can claim to know.[/FONT]

Well, there is more!

[FONT="]It’s the word ‘maybe’ which shows we are of the same thinking in the end. Maybe it shows the power of God, or maybe it shows the universe has no purpose at all? [/FONT]

I used the word "maybe" for your benefit. I don't think what I said is maybe true; I am certain of it. But out of respect for the fact that you don't, I didn't state myself too strongly.

[FONT="]I go for the latter as that is what the evidence suggests and it would take more than guessing the beginning of the universe to qualify as rational proof of a deity.[/FONT]

Logical argument is far from guessing. In its own way, logical argument is as certain as anything derived through the empirical method. And its evidence is as valid as that of science.

[FONT="]When a zygote is formed the process begins, it doesn’t necessarily point to any meaning or evidence of the divine. [/FONT]

When it is separated from the wider context of human existence, no, it doesn't.

[FONT="]We have created non-biological self-replicating organisms[/FONT]

How is a thing non-biological and an organism? This seems to me to be a contradiction in terms. Does it have purpose? It seems to me that it does - if for no other reason than to prove it could be done.

[FONT="]Morality is more rationally explained by biological and cultural evolution (as you can see we are certainly different from biblical times) [/FONT]
[FONT="]Are you sure about that? Are you aware of the serious philosophical problems with such assertions?[/FONT]

[FONT="]Yes I am sure of my beliefs. Morality isn’t real outside of humans, animals do not feel bad for the animal they kill for food. Morality stops us from mercilessly killing one another for our own selfish gains, as if that were the case the population would be unbalanced and wouldn’t be evolutionary stable. Computer simulations show how populations fluctuate from different extremes and come to an evolutionary stable balance. A good example is the psychological game where you can either both vote ‘share’ and share the reward, or vote to be selfish and get the full reward, whilst the other gets none. The only evolutionary stable method is to both share. This is a terrible explanation but I have rambled long enough in this thread! Please look it up if you care to.[/FONT]

Responding to what you've written here really requires its own thread, I think.

I came to this conclusion through a discussion with ‘razeontherock’ in a thread called ‘is death the end of the cycle?’. My point was regarding free will and if we have free will in heaven. If heaven is perfect and without sin, why do we need free will and sin on Earth?

We don't necessarily need it but we have chosen it.

It implies we have less free will in Heaven than on Earth and doesn’t make any sense.

I'm not sure I follow how you're coming to this conclusion...

Why do we need pain on Earth if it doesn’t exist in heaven?

Pain and suffering weren't part of God's initial creation. They were introduced into the world through human disobedience to God.

[FONT="]Ie my point being why did God create the Earthly life and no just skip to the good bits at the end. The only logical conclusion is that we need this life in order to suffer…[/FONT]

How is this conclusion logical? And why is it the only possible conclusion? Sin is the consequence of our freedom to choose, and pain and suffering are the consequences of our sin. Thus, pain and suffering are fundamentally the result of our freedom to choose. Would you want God to make you a puppet or a robot? How could He have us truly love Him if we were?

Selah.

 

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