"proofs" and "disproofs" of God's existence

michabo · Jun 21, 2006

TeddyKGB said:
Quantum fluctuations rely on something closer to energy 'borrowing.'

That's a metaphor. From what I've seen, there is no pool of energy to borrow from, and no equation uses this. I think popularizers use this to explain quantum fluctuations, but it isn't accurate.

If someone knows more about this, I would be indebted to them.

michabo · Jun 21, 2006

OObi said:
No, we can't observe it. But when can logically conclude it. You just don't want to recognize that crossing an infinte is impossible, so the universe can't be infinitely old.

Your argument says that everything which begins to exist has a cause. To support this claim, you provide only a single example whose beginning, if one exists, negates all descriptions of causality. From this one abberation, you try to draw general conclusions.

I'm sorry, but this is fallacious. You cannot draw generalizations.

The thing which is really puzzling me is this: since you can only come up with a single example of something beginning to exist, what is the purpose in generalizing to "everything which begins to exist"? If the only thing that you can think of which begins to exist is time and you've offered an alternate argument for it having a cause, then what is your purpose with this argument?

Sounds like you want to bait-and-switch, asking us to believe that the existence of matter and energy has a cause, when you only talk about time.

So, even though taking that step of accepting the universe had a beginning, therefore a cause, is very hard, it is one that we have to do.

I'd rather stick to the argument you posted earlier. Can you please stick to that? If you wish to disown that argument, then say so and we can look at your argument for time requiring a cause.

1. Can an infinte amount be crossed?

2. Was there an infinte amount of time before this present time?

Time may be infinite yet have a begining. That is, it may only be infinitely long in one direction. In that case, we may travel forwards in time and never come to the end, as per the definition.

2. No, there was not an infinite period of time before the present within this universe. We do not yet know enough about the cosmos to speculate about anything outside of our universe.

Smith, Q. (1986), "World Ensemble Explanations," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 67:73-86. (I'm pretty sure this is the right reference)

But yeah... even this guy admits that virtual particles don't have anything to do with acausality.

I'm not sure why you think a philosopher should be consulted on matters of quantum physics. Regardless, we can discuss issues with causality and its many violations if you wish. I don't know how it is relevant.

I didn't say that VPs violate causality as they are not an effect. Their existence is uncaused, however.

A quantum vacuum is thus far from nothing, and vacuum fluctuations do not constitute an exception to the principle that whatever begins to exist has a cause.

Your quote does not say they were caused. In fact, nothing was present to "cause" their existence.

If you like, can you do me a favour? Would you list what you think are the necessary and sufficient criteria for causality? That is, when given an event and some candidate causes, what relationships should there be between the candidate causes and the events? What would let us say that X caused Y? What would an uncaused event look like?

I know, I know, this isn't easy. Causality is like porn - most people know it when they see it. But humour me. Let me try to get you started. Here are some possible components:

1. Locality. The cause and the event should be physically close and there should be a physical connection between the two.

2. Temporality. The cause shoud preceed the event.

3. Predictability. With knowledge of the certain properties cause, we should be able to precicely determine the outcome. Or, with knowledge of the outcome, we should be able to determine properties of the cause.

Can you think of any others? I would like to get some necessary conditions, and it would be excellent if they were also sufficient. I would like us to agree that if, say, X occurs after Y, then X could not have caused Y. (If you're feeling very clever, you could relate locality with temporality using Einstein's light cone )

ReluctantProphet · Jun 21, 2006

OObi said:
I most certainly do not! I am rather proud ...

Then you wouldn't really qualify for being "blindly faithful", would you?

But then again, if not a bit blind still, you would have seen that, huh.

Being proud can do amazing things to the luster in the eyes.

TeddyKGB · Jun 21, 2006

michabo said:
That's a metaphor. From what I've seen, there is no pool of energy to borrow from, and no equation uses this. I think popularizers use this to explain quantum fluctuations, but it isn't accurate.

The phenomenon arises from the Uncertainty Principle, and it looks like there can be momentary violations of the Law of Conservation of Energy.

If someone knows more about this, I would be indebted to them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation

JGL53 · Jun 21, 2006

michabo said:
We do not yet know enough about the cosmos to speculate about anything outside of our universe

Oh? Not even enough to speculate? Well, then, maybe you will want to email this guy and tell him to cut it out:

http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/multiverse.html

michabo · Jun 21, 2006

JGL53 said:
Oh? Not even enough to speculate? Well, then, maybe you will want to email this guy and tell him to cut it out:

http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/multiverse.html

Okay, you've got me. Many physicists are actively speculating. Gotta propose some new ideas to know what research to pursue. I guess that string theories wouldn't qualify as much above speculation at this point.

OObi · Jun 21, 2006

Your argument says that everything which begins to exist has a cause. To support this claim, you provide only a single example whose beginning, if one exists, negates all descriptions of causality. From this one abberation, you try to draw general conclusions.

I'm sorry, but this is fallacious. You cannot draw generalizations.

The thing which is really puzzling me is this: since you can only come up with a single example of something beginning to exist, what is the purpose in generalizing to "everything which begins to exist"? If the only thing that you can think of which begins to exist is time and you've offered an alternate argument for it having a cause, then what is your purpose with this argument?

Sounds like you want to bait-and-switch, asking us to believe that the existence of matter and energy has a cause, when you only talk about time.

It is all the same proof. You can't cross an infinte amount. Why can't you just accept that? It is logic, logic does not change. You can't cross an infinte amount! If you say that there was an infinte amount of time before now, then you just crossed an infinte amount!! Will you please just accept that and quit trying to run around it.

As for the other thing: If time began to exist, that is when everything else began to exist. There can be nothing that is dependent on time before time exists. Everything in the physical universe is dependent on time. It's not bait and switch, it just happens that way.

I'd rather stick to the argument you posted earlier. Can you please stick to that? If you wish to disown that argument, then say so and we can look at your argument for time requiring a cause.

It is all the same proof. The whole infinte thing is just a proof for the 2nd premise. You are the one attacking that proof, so I am responding, I'm not switching the argument, we are just looking at a smaller peice of it right now.

Time may be infinite yet have a begining. That is, it may only be infinitely long in one direction. In that case, we may travel forwards in time and never come to the end, as per the definition.

...(?) You just said that time had a biginning? So... which position are you holding here? I agree, time had a biginning, and if you look at the first premise "everything that has a biginning has a cause" well... you get the point.

. No, there was not an infinite period of time before the present within this universe. We do not yet know enough about the cosmos to speculate about anything outside of our universe.

If you knew anything about it, then it would be speculation. We are using logic here to narrow down the options, not fact, not science, but logic. If 2+2=x, but we are never able to observe x, can we still conclude that x is 4? Yes. Just like we can't observe the biginning of the universe, but we can conclude it had one due to logic. Either it was infinite, or it wasn't. And we've already gone over why it can't be infinte.

I'm not sure why you think a philosopher should be consulted on matters of quantum physics.

He is a critic of this argument, and he has done research on vp's just to make a point against this argument. I was just saying that even the people who are heavy into this don't agree with you, and they are on your side.

What would an uncaused event look like?

Can you picture absolute nothingness? No matter or energy. No wave flucuations. Nothing. If anything came from that, then you have an uncaused event. Good luck.

Then you wouldn't really qualify for being "blindly faithful", would you?

But then again, if not a bit blind still, you would have seen that, huh.

Being proud can do amazing things to the luster in the eyes.

No, I'm not blindly faithful. I require evidence. I'm not just going to open to my favorite fairy tale and say, "ohh, this looks nice, I'll believe it..". I require proof of claims, ans so on. So no, I'm not blindly faithful.

Im_A · Jun 21, 2006

why hasn't anyone gotten into psychology in regards to giving proof or disproof of some being we call "God"?

michabo · Jun 21, 2006

OObi said:
If you say that there was an infinte amount of time before now, then you just crossed an infinte amount!! Will you please just accept that and quit trying to run around it.

I'm saying that I have no idea what the word "before time" might mean. It is nonsensical. There is a point, beyond which, we are no longer able to probe. At 10^-43 second, it no longer makes sense to ask what is before this.

It is like asking what distance there was between our universe and another - distance itself is only defined within our universe. Time, as fundamental and universal as it sounds, is still only defined within our universe.

Did time "begin" to exist? Unknown. Is there a time beyond which we can not probe? Yes, definately.

I think that we can talk about what might be outside our universe, and talk about possibilities of our universe's origins, but understand that little things like time, space, causality, the direction of time's arrow and things like this are not something that we can take for granted.

As for the other thing: If time began to exist, that is when everything else began to exist.

Matter did not begin to exist at the same point as the BB's start.

You just said that time had a biginning? So... which position are you holding here? I agree, time had a biginning, and if you look at the first premise "everything that has a biginning has a cause" well... you get the point.

I still see nothing which has proved that time has a cause, nor that time needs a cause. I see no argument that everything needs a cause

Yes. Just like we can't observe the biginning of the universe, but we can conclude it had one due to logic. Either it was infinite, or it wasn't. And we've already gone over why it can't be infinte.

We know that all of the matter within the universe began, and that our four dimensions were very small about 14 billion years ago. We can't conclude anything more.

I'm sure you'll agree that not everything needs a cause. So we need to have some evidence that the universe and time have a cause.

He is a critic of this argument, and he has done research on vp's just to make a point against this argument. I was just saying that even the people who are heavy into this don't agree with you, and they are on your side.

I've never heard of them, and you haven't presented any of their arguments, only a brief snippet which doesn't allow us to infer their conclusions.

Can you picture absolute nothingness? No matter or energy. No wave flucuations. Nothing. If anything came from that, then you have an uncaused event. Good luck.

Pshaw. If that's your logic, I think this'll be a short conversation. You don't seem to have any criteria at all for causation. It sounds like anything could cause anything, my typing this message could have caused the origin of life on earth, kicking a soccer ball could potentially cause the explosion of a star in another galaxy, 3 billion years ago.

Ridiculous.

If you aren't willing to exert any thought, what's the point?

ReluctantProphet · Jun 21, 2006

OObi said:
It is all the same proof. You can't cross an infinte amount.

[FONT=&quot]OObi, calculus is ALL about crossing an infinite path. In calculus you take an infinite number of steps and infinite number of times so that you get a finite result.

In order to cross an infinite path, you must merely take an infinite number of steps. The cyclic understanding of the past achieves this and thus allows for the possibility of an infinite past.

The fact that you can not ever know upon which point of that infinite journey or which of the finite number of cycles or steps that you are currently on, does not conclude that an infinite number of cycles had not been occurring for an infinite amount of time.

If one infinite can cancel the other, then you end up with the finite. You cannot then speculate that because I only see finite, the infinite must not exist.

Calculus is the performance of an infinite number of steps which are infinitely small. Your reasoning would conclude that calculus can not work or exist. And I'm certain that the Greeks really had trouble convincing anyone of it. Yet here it is, very accepted and proven time and time again.[/FONT] of an infinite past.

The fact that you can not ever know upon which point of that infinite journey or which of the finite number of cycles or steps that you are currently on, does not conclude that an inifite number of cycles had not been occuring for an infinite amount of time.

If one infinite can cancel the other, then you end up with the finite. You can not then speculate that because I only see fintie, the infinite could not exist.

Calculus is the performance of an infinite number of steps which are infinitely small. Your reasoning would conclude that calculus can not work or exist. And I'm certain that the Greeks really had trouble convincing anyone of it. Yet here it is, very accepted and proven time and time again.

tcampen · Jun 21, 2006

ReluctantProphet said:
The blindly faithful Christian who sees something that clearly indicates that this faith must be in error says, "The Bible can't be wrong. I must twist what I see into something that justifies my faith in my Bible."

The quantum physicist who sees something that clearly indicates that his faith in prior theories must be in error says, "Quantum physics can't be wrong. I must twist what I see into something that justifies my faith in my quantum theories."

Have they decided recently that indeed you CAN create and destroy energy? If so, doesn't that complicate the other laws - the very laws from which the notion of quantum physics sprang?

The difference is that the quantum physicist recognizes that such observations ARE in confict with what we previously held about matter and energy, and then seeks to figure out why. The true scientist does not throw up her arms in the air and say, "Gee, it must be God at work."

michabo · Jun 21, 2006

ReluctantProphet said:
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]And I'm certain that the Greeks really had trouble convincing anyone of it. Yet here it is, very accepted and proven time and time again.

The Greeks killed people for talking about irrational numbers, they would certainly have reacted worse to infinity. Even the concept of zero was fought very hard, well into the second millenium AD. If merchants hadn't taken to it (and not just astronomers), then it may never have been adopted. Numbers were divine (hence the "divine ratio") and were only considered as representations of geometry (hence holy spheres). Infinity does not fit well with this.

Interestingly, calculus caused a lot of problems when it first came out. It was many decades after the introduction of calculus before anyone understood why it worked, and many philosophers and mathematicians distrusted it because it involved dividing zero by zero to get a fixed number which, fortunately, happened to be th right number.

Anyway, a bit of a diversion...

To me, "pure logic" proofs just herald back to Decartes and his proof that the sum of interior angles in a triangle always is 180 degrees. Under some conditions, it isn't. This should caution us to confirm our deductions with observation.

Blackguard_ · Jun 21, 2006

The Greeks killed people for talking about irrational numbers,

Source? Not that I don't believe you, I like tales of wacky behavior. Didn't Pythagorus make someone jump off a boat for something like that?

dividing zero by zero to get a fixed number

michabo · Jun 21, 2006

Blackguard_ said:
Source? Not that I don't believe you, I like tales of wacky behavior. Didn't Pythagorus make someone jump off a boat for something like that?

It's hard to tell exactly what happened to the person that leaked the secret of irrational numbers. Pushing him off a boat is one story, yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_number
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/IrrationalNumber.html
http://www.stormloader.com/ajy/irrational.html

These stories may be apocryphal, but probably not far from the truth. The Pythagorean cult believed "all is number", and believed math was the secret to the divine. It's no co-incidence that the word "Logos" which is now translated as the word of God, is equally translated as "ratio" and "reason".

http://mb-soft.com/believe/text/logos.htm

They believed that numbers were pure and got as close to the divine as we could:

The Pythagoreans believed this ultimate principle to be the unit number. Aristotle was probably reading his own distinctions into the views of the Pythagoreans by saying that for them numbers constituted both the matter and the form of things. Yet, when Aristotle says that for the Pythagoreans "the whole heaven is numbers," he is undoubtedly reporting their genuine conviction. [Note 4] How the heavens could be made of numbers presented no great problem to the Pythagoreans. In their world view lines were derived from points or unit numbers, from lines surfaces, from surfaces simple bodies, from these the elements and the whole world. As an evidence of the explanation of the world by numbers, the Pythagoreans pointed to the strings of musical instruments and to the motions of stars and planets, thereby uniting music, poetry, matter, and mind into a harmonious whole. At least this was their ultimate dream. At any rate, as Philolaus [Note 5] tells us, they held a staunch belief that error and deceit are foreign to the world of numbers. They also held truth, intelligibility, and certitude to be cognate to numbers, which they contrasted with the erroneous world of the undefined, uncounted, senseless, and irrational.

(Source: http://www.rit.edu/~flwstv/presocratic.html)

<Is suddenly really, reeeallly glad I never made it past college algebra>

Pretty much, yeah. Let's say you have a curve and you want to know the tangent line at a point. This is useful for many applications - swing a rock around in a circle and let it go and you'll see that it travels out on a tangent line.

We know that, for the equation of a line we need a point and its slope, so now all we need to do is find the slope. If we take two points on the curve, X (the point at which we want the tangent), and X1 (some arbitrary point near to X), then we can find the slope as: (y1-y)/(x1-x). Of course, this won't be exactly the right slope, but as we bring X1 closer and closer to X, then the slope will get closer and closer to the true value. When finally XN = X, we will have the true slope.

But then our equation for slope looks like (yN-y)/(xN-x) = (y-y)/(x-x) = 0/0! Pure nonsense. Unfortunately for the philosophers at the time, it works

(To see why, you need to study infinite limits and other fun topics. Curiously the proof of why calculus works came about many decades after it had been commonly accepted )

Edit: I first learned about a lot of these ideas from a great book, "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife. It mixes some math with philosophy, theology, history, and culture - some of my favourite reading topics. It's well worth the read.

Blackguard_ · Jun 21, 2006

Thanks. I'll see if I can find that book.

ReluctantProphet · Jun 21, 2006

As to the original post...

You can't prove or disprove anything to the logically minded without very clear, unambiguous definitions of what you talking about else obviously they arn't logically minded.

"God exists" ..there only 2 words, come on now.

michabo · Jun 21, 2006

ReluctantProphet said:
As to the original post...

You can't prove or disprove anything to the logically minded without very clear, unambiguous definitions of what you talking about else obviously they arn't logically minded.

"God exists" ..there only 2 words, come on now.

Heh, yep. On this, I will heartily agree. Curiously, I've seen far more effort spent on providing "proofs" for the existence of God than I've seen spent on describing clearly just what "God" really is

jmsad07 · Jul 4, 2006

Plecto said:
I hope this thread doesn't get to be a faliure.

Please post "proofs" and "disproofs" of God's existence, about whether god made man or man made god and about religion. This is not a place to quote eachother or try to disproove the proofs, if you do... the thread would be endless

Ill start with some reasons to not believe in God.

There is no reason to believe in a God. People may say that they have gotten presonal evidence from God himselves, but then I wonder why this only happens to people in sertain contries? In for example the USA, children grow up to believe in a God, and it is hard to chake this off when they grow up. I think it is really strange that God only gives proof to people in some contries, this would in that case be different treatment from God's side.

There is no evidence of an all-mighty God. There is so many believers and religion is a so huge part of our world and still there is noone that can provide evidence. This is sertainly not supporting the fact that there is a God...

Religion occurs in countries and to people who is poor or sad. This showes that faith is a trust (to people who need it). This is very good, I agree, but this only support that man made God to serve himself.

This earth have seen ton's of different supernatural beeings and gods. They have by time beeing abandon and looked apon as myths and mythologies, there is few out there that believs in them now. So why believe in the ones that are today? All of them can't be right so why shoud anyone be? We are all atheists when it comes to all the creatures the planet have seen, i just believe that there is someone that takes it one God further.

Science evolves and since its hard to contrivict it (because its backed with evidence), faith is changed to support sciense. This also support that man made god. Many of the anicent God's has been disproven by science and left off. For example the nothern mythology God Thor. People truly believed (as sertain as the religion today) that Thor made thunder when he slammed his hammer. Sciense now know what the reason for thunder is and has truly dissproven Thor, Thor was made by man. Don't you think that people in a thousand years (if we live that long ) would point to the God we have today and laugh? "Don't blame them, they didn't know any better).

Another thing that matches "man made god" theory; God is a man. If someone would make a God, why a woman? Women are weak, it have to be a man (women were highly discrimmenated in the early days you know).

Good Day!

I think that you are not a good observer, historian, theologian, philosopher, thinker or commentator. Why? It is very simple those people that I have mentioned are thinking rationally, analytically, intelligently and professionally. If we are going to comment let us assure that we have a strong basis when it comes to history, geology, archeology, and some other fields of learning like philosophy, sociology, religion and spirituality. In short, we need not only to be a wide reader but rational reader who knows to discern whether what he is reading is fact or correct. There are only three divisions negative, positive and liberal thinkers if they are not in one side we can distinguish them to the opposite. Am I right? Also, there must be a strong evidence to prove our arguements if not it could be easily trampled or discarded. Where are your basis? The Science! Hey! that is debatable! Why? Some scientist are not atheist! Whom ideas do we need to accept of? since some of them believe in God. Hey brother think of it!
Even the Bible answered your question already prior to your birth!
As Psalm 53: 1 says,
The fool has said in his heart, " There is no God." They are corrupt and done abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.
That's it and the Scripture says,
The knowledge of this world is foolishness to God!
If you consider that you are well-knowing by refuting His existence then you are one of them!
I hope it helps!

azmurath · Jul 4, 2006

ReluctantProphet said:
P1. Jesus believed in God
P2. Jesus was reeeeeally freakin smarter than Asimov
P3. I mean really freakin smarter.

C. God must exist.

ACtually, Jesus was probably not that intelligent. He was in the lower class at that time, and it would be miraculous if he was even literate (which I doubt he was, afterall if he was literate, why arent any of his writings in the Bible?). He may have been wise... wait... nevermind... they drank wine and smoked marijuana.

azmurath · Jul 4, 2006

jmsad07 said:
Good Day!

I think that you are not a good observer, historian, theologian, philosopher, thinker or commentator. Why? It is very simple those people that I have mentioned are thinking rationally, analytically, intelligently and professionally. If we are going to comment let us assure that we have a strong basis when it comes to history, geology, archeology, and some other fields of learning like philosophy, sociology, religion and spirituality. In short, we need not only to be a wide reader but rational reader who knows to discern whether what he is reading is fact or correct. There are only three divisions negative, positive and liberal thinkers if they are not in one side we can distinguish them to the opposite. Am I right? Also, there must be a strong evidence to prove our arguements if not it could be easily trampled or discarded. Where are your basis? The Science! Hey! that is debatable! Why? Some scientist are not atheist! Whom ideas do we need to accept of? since some of them believe in God. Hey brother think of it!
Even the Bible answered your question already prior to your birth!
As Psalm 53: 1 says,
The fool has said in his heart, " There is no God." They are corrupt and done abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.
That's it and the Scripture says,
The knowledge of this world is foolishness to God!
If you consider that you are well-knowing by refuting His existence then you are one of them!
I hope it helps!

This is the easy way out. You are no longer worthy of my attention. Have a nice day

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