Atheists: Why does theism still exist?

[Received]

I think reasoning based upon what you don't know simply limits the possibilities to that of your imagination.

You imagine a God because you can't imagine an alternative.

Does this help us?

That's the gap: you think we can't know. I'm claiming we can know, because if we have two options (eternal universe or universe with a beginning in time), we can make metaphysical reasoning like I've done to point to a more reasonable explanation being God.

 

[variant]

That's the gap: you think we can't know. I'm claiming we can know, because if we have two options (eternal universe or universe with a beginning in time), we can make metaphysical reasoning like I've done to point to a more reasonable explanation being God.

I'm saying we don't know, not that we can't.

I also don't believe your options are correct, time could have a beginning, which gives us timelessness not necessarily supernaturalism.

 

[Received]

I'm saying we don't know, not that we can't.

I also don't believe your options are correct, time could have a beginning, which gives us timelessness not necessarily supernaturalism.

Okay, and I respect that. But do you see how incredibly complicated the metaphysical assumptions we have about everything are regarding the universe and God's possible relationship to it?

But tell me more. Timelessness not necessarily supernaturalism.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

You can't see supernatural entities causing anything, because being "super" natural it means going beyond physical perception. My point is simply that we don't understand physical causality, and saying "we see X hit Y which moves" assumes causality, therefore we don't need to posit comprehension of causality at all for anything to allow it to exist, physical or supernatural.

Ah, the invisible dragon strikes again. If it goes "beyond physical perception," how can you know that the supernatural is even capable of interacting with the physical universe to produce physical effects? Not only are you unable to explain how this causal interaction takes place, but apparently you can't even detect it taking place at all! Yet you insist that it does.

But you do hear them describing God as timeless and spaceless. It's interesting how you would rather posit a timeless and spaceless matter with the incredible problem of *how* this timeless and spaceless matter *became* contained in time and space (which would otherwise imply intelligence in any other situation that causes this change) than God who fits the bill much easier as a creator.

Yes, understanding how matter transitioned from a timeless, spaceless state into spacetime is a problem. I don't know how it happened. I don't even know if that is how it happened. I offered it as a suggestion. However, doesn't a conscious creator suffer from the same problem? How can a mind exist in a timeless, spaceless state? In such a state, how can it make a deliberate decision to create?

Not at all. There is nothing more easy to understand than nothing, something, therefore someone. Just as we do this without thinking for a millisecond with creatio ex materia when we make cars (no car, car, therefore someone), so it's also the case with the exact same reasoning ability with ex nihilo (nothing, something, therefore someone).

You seem to fail to understand the basic difference between the two. The car doesn't come into existence from nothing. Certain materials are gathered together and arranged in such a way as to create the vehicle. That's what ex materia means: the car is caused to begin existing from previously existing material. "No car" is not the same as "nothing," at least not in the sense in which you've been using the word.

 

[variant]

Okay, and I respect that. But do you see how incredibly complicated the metaphysical assumptions we have about everything are regarding the universe and God's possible relationship to it?

I see a thousand factors we could change to set up the idea and no real reason to preference specific ideas.

God as an idea adds to these as it can literally do anything.

This is why I avoid imagination land.

But tell me more. Timelessness not necessarily supernaturalism.

If timelessness can exist it removes the problem of an eternal regression. The universe begins when time does. The previous state lacks time so it is both instantaneous and eternal.

If time can start we don't have to worry about a "before" the universe at all.

The question then becomes if we can say that a timeless entity is necessarily supernatural.

It is certainly not physical in the way I am used to physical things, but is it necessarily supernatural?

 

[Received]

Ah, the invisible dragon strikes again.

Ah, the hidden contempt for metaphysical possibilities shows itself again.

If it goes "beyond physical perception," how can you know that the supernatural is even capable of interacting with the physical universe to produce physical effects? Not only are you unable to explain how this causal interaction takes place, but apparently you can't even detect it taking place at all! Yet you insist that it does.

I'm not arguing that it does, but that it can, and more precisely that there's no reason to think that it can't, given that we can't even know how physical stuff interact with itself! All this is in response to your original implication that we can't accept the supernatural because we can't know how it interacts with matter; well, if we can't know how matter interacts with matter, the problem isn't at all present for matter or spiritual stuff interacting on it.

Yes, understanding how matter transitioned from a timeless, spaceless state into spacetime is a problem. I don't know how it happened. I don't even know if that is how it happened. I offered it as a suggestion. However, doesn't a conscious creator suffer from the same problem? How can a mind exist in a timeless, spaceless state? In such a state, how can it make a deliberate decision to create?

Which is a bigger problem: positing matter to be timeless and spaceless (which, actually, unless you're talking QM voodoo, isn't even possible with matter at all), or positing an intelligence that is timeless and spaceless? Let's start there. They are both umambiguously difficult, but whereas the former has the fatal problem of requiring an intelligence to go from spaceless/timeless to contained in time, the latter only requires that we admit that we don't know how intelligence in a timeless and spaceless sense could work. Are you saying we need to understand something before we can accept it? If so, do you reject QM?

You seem to fail to understand the basic difference between the two. The car doesn't come into existence from nothing. Certain materials are gathered together and arranged in such a way as to create the vehicle. That's what ex materia means: the car is caused to begin existing from previously existing material. "No car" is not the same as "nothing," at least not in the sense in which you've been using the word.

I agree with all of this, which tells me I'm not communicating clearly enough.

Again, we can understand the process of nothing, something, therefore someone very easily, whether ex materia or ex nihilo. Same reasoning, same application, totally intuitive, just that "nothing" here has different implications (slightly), given that with the car you have a physical universe and with ex nihilo you have no physical universe.

 

[Received]

I see a thousand factors we could change to set up the idea and no real reason to preference specific ideas.

God as an idea adds to these as it can literally do anything.

This is why I avoid imagination land.

No, there aren't a thousand factors, and this isn't imagination land. This tells me you just don't give a [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], which is totally fine, but don't waste time on metaphysics boards like these when the furthest you can go is assuming your metaphysical bias has more validity and everything else even approaching God is "imagination land".

If timelessness can exist it removes the problem of an eternal regression. The universe begins when time does. The previous state lacks time so it is both instantaneous and eternal.

If time can start we don't have to worry about a "before" the universe at all.

The question then becomes if we can say that a timeless entity is necessarily supernatural.

It is certainly not physical in the way I am used to physical things, but is it necessarily supernatural?

Yeah, we have to worry about a "before", just not a chronological before; rather, a logical before. That's an important difference, because like you say: it's instantaneous, which means there's no time "before" this incident, which means we need something...timeless. What is better fitting of timelessness, matter or God? It's necessarily super (beyond) natural in the sense that the "natural" stands for the physical universe, logically prior to which there is a cause that must by definition be in some sense above or beyond the thing it causes: supernatural.

 

[Deidre32]

I was reading some of the replies to madaz's thread "Ex-believers - what once convinced you of God's existence" and I didn't want to derail so I'll make my own thread.

I was struck by how many atheists responded by essentially saying, "Because my parents told me." Correct me if I'm over-simplifying, but it seems that most atheists on this site have never had anything that they would consider an "experience of God". They believed only because that's what their parents told them and, once reaching an age when they began to think for themselves, they didn't see any evidence for it and so gave it up. Is that a decent synopsis?

So, my question for atheists is then, why does theism still exist?

Everyone I know has had a similar trajectory: when you are a kid, you generally believe what you're told. During your teenage and young adult years, you question what you were told and reach your own, independent conclusions. Out of this questioning comes two groups: theists and atheists.

What is it that the theists did wrong to reach what is, in your view, the incorrect conclusion?

I've had an 'experience' of God, many actually, when I was a practicing Christian. I identify myself as an atheist now, and that is mainly because logically, I see no valid reason to believe in a god, however, there does seem to be a void of sorts lately for me. I changed my status from atheist to 'seeker' here, because I'm not quite sure that this void isn't coming from a place where I once prayed and yearned for a 'relationship' with a god.

I wanted to chime in because while I was indoctrinated into religion as a kid, I did have experiences. But, I wouldn't call my experiences objective proof of the existence of god.

 

[Deidre32]

Just something to add, going from a theist to an atheist, and now questioning some things again...perhaps, we are always questioning? And looking at an atheist from the perspective of a life-long theist, isn't always a fair assessment. Until you walk a mile in someone's shoes....etc...

I have now walked many miles as a theist, and a few as an atheist.

 

[variant]

No, there aren't a thousand factors, and this isn't imagination land. This tells me you just don't give a [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], which is totally fine, but don't waste time on metaphysics boards like these when the furthest you can go is assuming your metaphysical bias has more validity and everything else even approaching God is "imagination land".

I think you are getting frustrated because you thought you could narrow this down so easily.

There are indeed thousands of possible ways that I can imagine a universe starting. Would you like me to start dreaming them up? It will take a few days to give you 1000 imaginary scenarios.

Yeah, we have to worry about a "before", just not a chronological before; rather, a logical before. That's an important difference, because like you say: it's instantaneous, which means there's no time "before" this incident, which means we need something...timeless.

There isn't a logical "before" the start of time, it's the start of time. There isn't a before because time doesn't exist.

What is better fitting of timelessness, matter or God? It's necessarily super (beyond) natural in the sense that the "natural" stands for the physical universe, logically prior to which there is a cause that must by definition be in some sense above or beyond the thing it causes: supernatural.

How exactly could we tell what is the more "fitting" explanation here?

You have to know everything the physical universe is capable of to define something as supernatural in this case...

Do you know the physical universe is incapable of existing in a timeless state?

No, no you don't.

So, your assertion that there are only those two options is well, false.

This is of course the problem. Since we don't know everything that is possible with physical things we obviously can't conclude the supernatural because there is one event we don't yet have an explanation for.

Defining supernatural as something we don't normally experience, or can't normally experience within the physical universe would make the interior black holes supernatural.

 

[NamelessHero]

I'm not an atheist, but I think this question is so hilarious that I have to answer.
The answer is simple, people believe in it. If people didn't believe in it, there would be no theism.
Couldn't you figure this out on your own?

 

[Received]

variant, not frustrated, just calling it like I see it. There is a difference between logically prior and chronologically prior, and no, the former does not mean chronological -- just because it was logically prior does *not* mean chronologically prior, so you're not getting me here. And your appeal to a million questions tells me you're opening infinite skepticism toward metaphysical possibilities, an attitude of high skepticism lacking with your won beliefs. And yeah, we do know everything possible with the physical, because we know physics, and we assume causality; the alternative is quitting common sense (the principle of sufficient reason) and faithing it out by saying "we just can't know, there are a million possibilities."

Which reminds me of what Dostoevsky said about realists and miracles: realists would rather doubt their own senses than admit the possibility of a miracle even if it tapped them on the shoulder.

 

[variant]

variant, not frustrated, just calling it like I see it. There is a difference between logically prior and chronologically prior, and no, the former does not mean chronological -- just because it was logically prior does *not* mean chronologically prior, so you're not getting me here. And your appeal to a million questions tells me you're opening infinite skepticism toward metaphysical possibilities, an attitude of high skepticism lacking with your won beliefs.

There is no prior if time doesn't exist, not physically, not logically. If T=0 you are at the first event. I am not sure what is so hard for you to understand.

My skepticism is to you thinking you have narrowed down the metaphysical possibilities because you're not bright enough to think up others.

And yeah, we do know everything possible with the physical, because we know physics, and we assume causality; the alternative is quitting common sense (the principle of sufficient reason) and faithing it out by saying "we just can't know, there are a million possibilities."

An appeal to "common sense" when questioning the very basis of the universe and the possibilities of matter under the most extreme circumstances patently ridiculous.

Which reminds me of what Dostoevsky said about realists and miracles: realists would rather doubt their own senses than admit the possibility of a miracle even if it tapped them on the shoulder.

I'm not doubting my own senses, I am doubting your limited metaphysical imagination.

I doubt you have a full enough conception of the physical universe to rule it out and I doubt you have a full enough metaphysical understanding of the universe to limit the possibilities so that only the supernatural is left.

Your pretense at a mastery of these two VERY difficult subjects that NO ONE has a complete understanding of is mind boggling.

 

[Received]

So this is how it is so far (not a response but a psychological observation, since you're so keen on doing the same): when we get down to what is clearly two possibilities (a universe that began or a universe that always existed), then immediately you jump to a state of extreme skepticism never seen in any other facet of your argumentative character, and reflexively label anyone who would try to "simplify" things as ridiculous or not bright enough.

Each year I'm on this forum I see more and more that reason is only half of any serious argument we make, if even that much.

 

[variant]

So this is how it is so far (not a response but a psychological observation, since you're so keen on doing the same): when we get down to what is clearly two possibilities (a universe that began or a universe that always existed), then immediately you jump to a state of extreme skepticism never seen in any other facet of your argumentative character, and reflexively label anyone who would try to "simplify" things as ridiculous or not bright enough.

Each year I'm on this forum I see more and more that reason is only half of any serious argument we make, if even that much.

I reserve my best skepticism for what is clearly not in evidence.

I'm not accepting your arguments because they are poor.

Do go on about how you understand physics and metaphysics well enough to present evidence that the supernatural must be the cause of the universe because you have ruled out all other possibilities.

I see this argument as some serious hubris from you and I am calling you out on it, nothing more.

 

[variant]

Because falsifiability means something can be proven to be false. Falsifiability can't be proven to be false. It's an assumption or standard with no truth value.

We know that unfalsifiable assertions will explain every possible set of data, every rationalization, every extrapolation, so we know that we cant get to truth via them.

You can falsify this by demonstrating that an unfalsifiable assertion can be shown to be known, so what you say here is untrue.

 

[quatona]

Yes, I do. Let's do it, or at least admit an impasse. Before we do it, I want to know if you're capable of saying "impasse".

Do I have to send you a soundfile (German accent)?
This is not an impasse, though. You were claiming a substantial difference between "God exists" and "ISD exists". Epistemological nihilism won´t get you to substantiate this claim.

Falsifying falsification doesn't have to be taken completely literally, but the idea still stands. And remember that I'm speaking of falsification as the only standard for determining truth. So if that's the case, then you must ask, "was this previous statement falsifiable?

...but my argument neither stated nor implied "falsification as the only standard for determining truth". Not at all. So you still seem to talk to someone else.

No. Well, how did I come about in creating it," which opens up other criteria or standards for determining truth.

...and for the last five or so posts I have been asking you to present those standards/criteria.

Different supernatural claims with regard to what?

"God exists" vs. "ISD exists", for example.

 

[Received]

I reserve my best skepticism for what is clearly not in evidence.

I'm not accepting your arguments because they are poor.

Do go on about how you understand physics and metaphysics well enough to present evidence that the supernatural must be the cause of the universe because you have ruled out all other possibilities.

I see this argument as some serious hubris from you and I am calling you out on it, nothing more.

Always know that when the person who calls out is himself considered to be wrong that the call out has no validity to the person being called out.

Seriously.

 

[Received]

Do I have to send you a soundfile (German accent)?
This is not an impasse, though. You were claiming a substantial difference between "God exists" and "ISD exists". Epistemological nihilism won´t get you to substantiate this claim.




...but my argument neither stated nor implied "falsification as the only standard for determining truth". Not at all. So you still seem to talk to someone else.

...and for the last five or so posts I have been asking you to present those standards/criteria.


"God exists" vs. "ISD exists", for example.

I'm already lost in these exchanges. Two points:

1) See my "Venn Diagramming This Mess" thread for my views on knowledge.

2) When we define the ISD or God as a creator of the universe, then by definition we have qualities such as timelessness and spacelessness. My point is that once you consider the ISD to have these qualities, you're just choosing more emotionally-laden and ridiculous-sounding qualities instead of God, which is irrelevant because we're defining the same phenomena. And if you claim that the ISV didn't create the universe, then your use of the term is a red herring.

 

[variant]

Always know that when the person who calls out is himself considered to be wrong that the call out has no validity to the person being called out.

Seriously.

I don't consider myself wrong though, you are basically saying you know the outer limitations of physical things in an environment well outside your experience and have worked out the metaphysical implications there of, and to you this is all simple common sense!

So, you are either happen to be the greatest theoretical physicist on the planet who happens to also be the best philosopher of our time, or you are purely talking out of your anus.