God the middleman

[Ed1wolf]

Even if logic is a law of physical reality, that doesn't mean causality is a logical law. Use logic to sort your inclusion and exclusion.

In what way is causality not a logical law?

nv: You've been on these forums for years now. You know my position and the generic atheist position. Why would you say that I believe there is no God? And after lecturing me about logic, no less.

I dont know the position of every atheist on here. Merriam Webster definition of atheist:
Definition of atheist: a person who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods : one who subscribes to or advocates atheism

You certainly dont KNOW there is no God. So it is a belief. Is your view different?

 

[Tinker Grey]

^ Argument from personal incredulity. I noticed you didn't even bother asking questions.

Yet another phrase you don't understand: Argument from incredulity.

 

[gaara4158]

^ Argument from personal incredulity. I noticed you didn't even bother asking questions.

That’s me dismissing you, not firing back.

 

[Paulomycin]

You lean heavily on this “law” of causality, so I’m pasting an old rebuttal to shut it down now.

Doubting law of causality is either a misology, existential absurdism, or insanity. Take your pick.

The 'law of causality' is an apologetic assertion (not even an argument) that assumes that physics is still classical. It is advanced in ignorance of general relativity and quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics is indeterminate. You cannot pretend an indeterminate is a determinate truth to the contrary.

"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." —Richard Feynman

"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." —Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law (MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1995), 129.

Meaning that QM is never a determinate thing-in-itself.

Furthermore, we still landed on the moon with classical physics. Don't even pretend that it was ever magically "replaced" by an indeterminate.

It is not even original: it is a restatement of the demand for an Unmoved Mover or Uncaused Cause, demanding that the infinite regression of movement/causation be terminated in the past by an 'impossible' object not subject to the laws in action upon everything else, as specified by Aquinas. (Aquinas was making a serious argument, because at the time his ignorance was forgivable). That this exceptional object is a god, or the god of the Bible myths, is an automatic assumption smuggled in at the end; in a display of narcissism, many theists don't even feel the need to justify those steps, because they cannot imagine otherwise.

Those steps are justified and deliberately omitted ^ here.

Infinite regress is an infinite non-argument taken to infinitely extreme levels. It's never a rational justification, because it's infinitely never justified.

The LAC or UM/UC arguments could be used by primitive people only to suggest a very weird and exceptional object at the beginning of time - all else is typical conspiracy theory nonsense, turning mysterious sounds and footprints into 'proof of Bigfoot'. The specific choice of Jesus/Bigfoot to explain the mystery is never justified.

You're choking on Special Revelation here. This argument is to General Revelation in nature alone. Once Deism in nature is established, then atheism is falsified. The rest becomes a purely theological discussion.

This is also why I addressed your "word salad" comment first: God doesn't need a Bible in order to exist. I'm not a presuppositionalist. And neither was Thomas Aquinas.

Much has been learned since Aquinas. In quantum mechanics identical experiments can have different outcomes; these differences are spontaneous or 'uncaused', and they are mundane patterns of scattering electrons and photons, not gods.

Which is illogical, unresolved, and treated as-if it were a rational appeal to the contrary, when it is still pretty indeterminate. Again, you cannot behave as if indeterminacy were determinate. That's a contradiction. The double-slit experiment doesn't mean you can throw your hands up in the air and abandon reason altogether.

Worse yet, GR can feature solutions in which an object encounters itself in the past, called closed time-like curves, which would also assault causality.

Which is a red flag. Science that does not agree with logic/math is never the final answer on a given subject.

At the moment, you seem ignorant of the possible responses to infinite regress arguments such as infinitism.

So you've decided to double-down on infinite non-justification. Well, at least we know how far you're willing to take your turtles.

Naturalism isn’t an epistemology. I think I warned you against misusing philosophical jargon to dress up your pedestrian arguments.

And yet you failed to explain why it's not an epistemology. It remains one of at least six categories of epistemology. I can't be in error unless one has a specific correction to hit me with. I can only conclude that my opponents are faking it and just trying to intimidate me. With nothing.

Clearly, though, this and your continued insistence that my rejection of your apologetic makes me a dogmatic naturalist indicates that you’re not paying attention. I don’t have much more time for this sort of thing.

The rush to Infinitism to maintain the dogma is telling enough. That is, assuming you're even willing to commit to your Turtles, which I doubt. I just think you're trying to get rid of me by any means necessary.

Your deductive arguments are not sound, which is why your appeals to rationality only amount to appeals to your intuition.

You've merely asserted they are not sound. No worries.

How do you manage to misquote me with a copy-paste tool?

Oh, no problem. If you don't stand by the question, or if you didn't mean it that way, then we can abandon it.

 

[Paulomycin]

That’s me dismissing you, not firing back.

Then you admit it's an irrational dismissal, since you're not firing back.

This is about reason. It's not about you.

 

[gaara4158]

Doubting law of causality is either a misology, existential absurdism, or insanity. Take your pick.



Quantum mechanics is indeterminate. You cannot pretend an indeterminate is a determinate truth to the contrary.

"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." —Richard Feynman

"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." —Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law (MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1995), 129.

Meaning that QM is never a determinate thing-in-itself.

Furthermore, we still landed on the moon with classical physics. Don't even pretend that it was ever magically "replaced" by an indeterminate.



Those steps are justified and deliberately omitted ^ here.

Infinite regress is an infinite non-argument taken to infinitely extreme levels. It's never a rational justification, because it's infinitely never justified.



You're choking on Special Revelation here. This argument is to General Revelation in nature alone. Once Deism in nature is established, then atheism is falsified. The rest becomes a purely theological discussion.

This is also why I addressed your "word salad" comment first: God doesn't need a Bible in order to exist. I'm not a presuppositionalist. And neither was Thomas Aquinas.



Which is illogical, unresolved, and treated as-if it were a rational appeal to the contrary, when it is still pretty indeterminate. Again, you cannot behave as if indeterminacy were determinate. That's a contradiction. The double-slit experiment doesn't mean you can throw your hands up in the air and abandon reason altogether.



Which is a red flag. Science that does not agree with logic/math is never the final answer on a given subject.



So you've decided to double-down on infinite non-justification. Well, at least we know how far you're willing to take your turtles.



And yet you failed to explain why it's not an epistemology. It remains one of at least six categories of epistemology. I can't be in error unless one has a specific correction to hit me with. I can only conclude that my opponents are faking it and just trying to intimidate me. With nothing.



The rush to Infinitism to maintain the dogma is telling enough. That is, assuming you're even willing to commit to your Turtles, which I doubt. I just think you're trying to get rid of me by any means necessary.



You've merely asserted they are not sound. No worries.



Oh, no problem. If you don't stand by the question, or if you didn't mean it that way, then we can abandon it.

No, you’re done. I can’t have a conversation with someone who makes no effort to understand objections to their arguments. You’re wasting everyone’s time.

 

[gaara4158]

In what way is causality not a logical law?

Do you know what a law is, in terms of logic?

 

[Paulomycin]

I could easily just modify the OP:

Christians say that this is a reasonable statement which explains existence:

The universe exists because it was created by a God who exists with no cause.

But that this is not a reasonable statement and it explains nothing:

The universe exists with no cause.

*thumbs up*

That's actually better than before. I wish you'd have opened with this instead. Yes, it's true that an omnipotent being doesn't require a cause from outside Himself. However, a finite universe of finite and contingent materials does require a cause; especially after Big Bang falsified Steady State. You can't go back to Steady State; you can only go forward.

I could easily hijack your arguments for God's existence and apply them to the universe. With this modified OP, would you agree that Christians who hold this position are unreasonable?

I totally admit they're on the hook for answering it all the same.

No, probably not. I'm wasting my time. This is the last post I'm giving you.

Thanks for giving me the last word. Always appreciated.

I saw Sagan ask essentially the same question decades ago.

^ Video is 1:12 in length for those who don't like to read.

Quote:

“If the general picture of an expanding universe and a Big Bang is correct, we must then confront still more difficult questions. What were conditions like at the time of the Big Bang? What happened before that? Was there a tiny universe, devoid of all matter, and then the matter suddenly created from nothing? How does that happen? In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from. And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and decide that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God has always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?” -Carl Sagan (taken from the book)​

Answers:

1. If "God" is clearly and consistently defined as an omnipotent being, then an origin is not necessary, since an omnipotent being would not have a causal origin. This parallels Aristotle's Prime Mover argument. The claim of an omnipotent being is not the claim of a contingent effect.

2. Sagan's "Where does God come from?" is a variant of Bertrand Russell's question, who got it from John Stuart Mill, which is founded on a faulty definition of law of causality.

The law of causality is commonly truncated to, "everything requires a cause," but that's wrong. This definition for brevity's sake is twisted from the formal definition: "Every effect requires an antecedent cause," which is very different.

Therefore, the initial question posed by Mill, Russell, and Sagan implies that "God" is an effect. See response to #1.

3. We cannot currently conclude the universe has always existed (aka "steady state theory"), because shortly after Sagan said this, Stephen Hawking actually falsified Steady State. Current science favors that the universe had a cause.

Therefore, no matter how we feel otherwise, we are inevitably forced to deal with the 1st cause argument.

If we don't want to deal with the causal argument for God (as is the general case with such petulant knee-jerk incredulity), then we are forced to abandon at least one of the fundamental laws of logic. In that case, we have become total hypocrites in regards to reason. Or worse, misologists. <-- IOW, atheists claim to value reason until they're exposed for hating it all along.

Again, you don't understand the issue. Your universal set U is bounded. That is a strawman and has nothing to do with a set that represents God's omniscience. Any Russel set R in naïve set theory is not well-defined, nor would a set of all things be well-defined. That's the point. "Omni-" properties are not well defined. That is the whole reason we had to modify set theory. Set theoretical language with no limitations creates contradictions.

You're straight-up ignoring my reply and reduced to repeating yourself. Russell's paradox is not a paradox, has absolutely nothing to do with God; and represents only the limitations of what was known about the construction of set theory in Russell's time alone. You're trying to make set theory into a "theory of everything" in-order to disprove God. <-- Pretty wild and actually kind-of unique. Because you don't usually see atheists actually try to disprove God.

Speculative statement ignored.

Nothing "speculative" about PSR. I'm only arguing for an omnipotent being here. I'm not arguing for any contingent strawman concepts here.

It's omnipotence that is causing the problem. You don't understand set theory. You posted quotes that support my position and acted like you won. That's literally how confused you are.

Then you really don't understand Wittgenstein, and you were just projecting your own confusion onto others all along.

Thank you for conceding the point, even though you clearly don't understand that you did.

I clearly concede that you contradicted yourself. You evaded my (admittedly loaded) question: When did your proof by assertion fallacy suddenly make your statements magically come true? Omnipotence is "absurd" because you said so, ipse dixit.

 

[Paulomycin]

Yet another phrase you don't understand: Argument from incredulity.

It's fairly clear he doesn't understand it, therefore he concludes it's "word salad."

Argument from Incredulity: How We Mistakenly Dismiss Concepts We Don't Understand - Fallacy In Logic

But if he doubles-down and insists it's literally "word salad," then he's implying I'm suffering from schizophrenia or stroke, and that can be interpreted as grossly insulting.

There was a time when "The God of the Bible" existed prior to the Bible. Thus, a Bible isn't necessary to prove the existence of God.

General Revelation precedes Special Revelation. <-- Both are relevant Christian doctrines that you really should be aware of.

 

[Paulomycin]

No, you’re done. I can’t have a conversation with someone who makes no effort to understand objections to their arguments. You’re wasting everyone’s time.

In order for objections to be understandable, they must be rational. I highly doubt you're even bothering to read my objections. Maybe another atheist will come along and pick the flag up where you dropped it.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

In what way is causality not a logical law?

You're thinking of logical implication.

I dont know the position of every atheist on here. Merriam Webster definition of atheist:
Definition of atheist: a person who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods : one who subscribes to or advocates atheism

You certainly dont KNOW there is no God.

Right. I don't believe in a god. That doesn't mean I believe there is no god. So why did you misrepresent me earlier? You said, "Your belief that there is no God which is a non physical entity, even has a cause." Why would you misrepresent my views like that?

So it is a belief.

What? You just provided Definition of atheist and your own souce says that it is a person who does *not* believe. Now you're saying it is a belief. Why are you so confused?

Is your view different?

Different? We aren't even in the same galaxy.

 

[Tinker Grey]

It's fairly clear he doesn't understand it, therefore he concludes it's "word salad."

Argument from Incredulity: How We Mistakenly Dismiss Concepts We Don't Understand - Fallacy In Logic

But if he doubles-down and insists it's literally "word salad," then he's implying I'm suffering from schizophrenia or stroke, and that can be interpreted as grossly insulting.

There was a time when "The God of the Bible" existed prior to the Bible. Thus, a Bible isn't necessary to prove the existence of God.

General Revelation precedes Special Revelation. <-- Both are relevant Christian doctrines that you really should be aware of.

QED

 

[Paulomycin]

Do you know what a law is, in terms of logic?

It's not subject to doubt, for one thing. Subjectivism isn't a prevailing law of logic.

In terms of logic, a law is a fundamental axiom. If you demand proof of these axioms, then you reject logic. Simple.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Add QED to the list of terms.

 

[Paulomycin]

You're thinking of logical implication.

You're not answering Ed's question.

What? You just provided Definition of atheist and your own souce says that it is a person who does *not* believe. Now you're saying it is a belief. Why are you so confused?

Maybe because non-belief is the result of other peripherally positive claims. That's generally why I go after the non-evidence of blind faith claims in ontological naturalism. Or, belief in the myth of Conflict Thesis.

Different? We aren't even in the same galaxy.

Only the "why" counts. Either it's objectively justifiable, or purely an act of the subjective will. And if the latter, then it's no credible threat to theism at all.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

You're not answering Ed's question.

Yes I did.

Maybe because non-belief is the result of other peripherally positive claims. That's generally why I go after the non-evidence of blind faith claims in ontological naturalism. Or, belief in the myth of Conflict Thesis.

Or maybe because non-belief is the result of apologists not meeting the burden of proof.

Only the "why" counts. Either it's objectively justifiable, or purely an act of the subjective will. And if the latter, then it's no credible threat to theism at all.

And what does this have to do with the price of tea?

 

[doubtingmerle]

God is not self-causing, God has always existed, He is the uncaused cause

What is the difference between being self causing and being an uncaused cause? Whatever, why can't it be that the universe is an uncaused cause?

 

[Paulomycin]

Yes I did.

How is the Aristotelian law of causality (not mere statement implication) not logical?

Or maybe because non-belief is the result of apologists not meeting the burden of proof.

Failure to meet the burden of proof is never determined by atheists' ever-increasing level of personal incredulity.

And what does this have to do with the price of tea?

Subjectivism is non-dominant in logic.

 

[Paulomycin]

What is the difference between being self causing and being an uncaused cause?

"Self-caused" asserts a cause, even though it's circular reasoning.

vs.

An un-caused cause simply has zero cause.

Whatever, why can't it be that the universe is an uncaused cause?

1. Because Steady State was falsified.
2. Due to #1, the universe begs the question of its own existence. Question-begging fallacies are never rational. You are welcome to embrace misology or absurdism (as many atheists do), but you can't call it a logical conclusion.

 

[cloudyday2]

Why not? The demonstration should be something that is itself known.

Maybe there is no way for God to demonstrate how he knows something. Christians have stories of knowing things through the Holy Spirit with confidence yet being unable to explain. One possible definition of "faith" might be "knowing something is true without being able to explain why you know it". If humans can know truths without being able to demonstrate why they know these truths then maybe it is possible for God to know truths without being able to demonstrate why when it is impossible to demonstrate why. It seems that God's knowledge might be innate rather than a result of reasoning and reflecting and learning.

Creating the rules by which a system operates does not ensure that you know how the system will proceed to operate. If I personally create a SIMS-like game from scratch, and I'm the sole contributor to the project, that doesn't mean I know what state the game will be in after it simulates x amount of days.

If God's mind is greater than the simulation then he should be able to know everything that will happen in the simulation from the initial conditions.

I don't see that either. If another person makes their own SIMS-like game, it won't interfere with what I do or don't know about my own.

It depends how we define omniscient. I'm defining omniscient to include both God's simulation and Baal's simulation. You are defining omniscient for only God's simulation.

This could be true or false, depending on what precisely is meant by "random" - provided, of course, there are "random" aspects to the world.

I agree, and when I said "must be deterministic" I meant "must" as a requirement rather than an assertion.

One possible strategy for lack of omniscience of the future if the universe is non-deterministic even from God's perspective is to say that omniscience only requires knowing things that exist and the future does not exist until it happens. So God would not need to know the future, because the future doesn't exist.