The Science that led me away from Atheism.

Bugeyedcreepy said:

lol!

^^ There it is!! ^^ Argument from Ignorance - Highlights and italics free of charge.

no, no - it's you, you are funny, not me - I'm laughing at you. As @Ophiolite mentioned, you're carving out a pithy defence in rock for all to see, my friend. It's an argument whether you intended to defend it vigorously or leave it rhetorical. Our work was done quite some time ago - everything else after is just entertainment now...

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That's it? You are just repeating your prior assertion. I waited 6 whole minutes for this?

It was neither rhetorical or intended to be defended - it was a statement of my belief. I rather think people find it preposterous to yell out ''argument from incredulity" over the expression of ones own beliefs. Then go on and on concocting phoney philosophy, abysmally applying definitions, changing ones initial objection to it's opposite, refusing to admit they were mistaken about the added objection, all over the statement of ones own beliefs and condition. Yeah, keep imaging a world where you're a hero.

Bugeyedcreepy said:

which is why most people speaking on the topic say it "appears" to have a beginning. Again, if something like the multiverse spawned our universe, then the multiverse could be eternal. Do you need me to link the scientific propositions for a multiverse too? There's so many ways for a universe to come about (or to be eternal, depending on your outlook) other than an enchanted ethereal mind - the God proposition is at a very distant bottom of that list.

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There were three popular 'eternal' or begetting from 'pseudo eternal' propositions I know of. All of which Alexander Vilenkin addressed:

In the Beginning Was the Beginning

Bottom line in his summary statement?

Speedwell said:

Those are articles of faith and, as such, are unfalsifiable propositions. I thought you were making a scientific argument.

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Perhaps we can discuss in the general theology thread how you view your own Articles of Faith as not based on evidence.

redleghunter said:

There were three popular 'eternal' or begetting from 'pseudo eternal' propositions I know of. All of which Alexander Vilenkin addressed:

In the Beginning Was the Beginning

Bottom line in his summary statement?

So how do you think the universe began?

I cannot really claim that I understand the beginning of the universe. We have a picture which kind of makes sense, which I think is an achievement. Because, if you think about it, you say, “OK, what happened before the Big Bang, before inflation?” It seems you can keep asking these questions and the answer is impossible.

But this quantum creation from “nothing” seems to avoid these questions. It has a nice mathematical description, not just words. There’s an interesting thing, though; the description of the creation of the universe from nothing is given in terms of the laws of physics. That makes you wonder, where are these laws? If the laws describe the creation of the universe, that suggests they existed prior to the universe. The question that nobody has any idea how to address is where these laws come from and why these laws in particular? So there are a lot of mysteries to keep us working.​

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Right. Well, perhaps one day we'll have more information and we'll be able to test his (along with the thousands of other competing) ideas for substance - until then, we have a plethora of conditions and reasons besides Vilenkin's that are all far more plausible for a universe coming about than a deity.

Also - not sure you read this part:

which of course is perfectly valid musing imho... too bad there's no Gods around to ask.

Bugeyedcreepy said:

Right. Well, perhaps one day we'll have more information and we'll be able to test his (along with the thousands of other competing) ideas for substance - until then, we have a plethora of conditions and reasons besides Vilenkin's that are all far more plausible for a universe coming about than a deity.

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Correct, the can is kicked down the road more and scientists are now dealing in the realm of metaphysics==welcome to the club.

Bugeyedcreepy said:

Also - not sure you read this part:
"Some people claim your work proves the existence of God, or at least of a divine moment of creation. What do you think?

I don’t think it proves anything one way or another.

I went to a meeting of some theologians and cosmologists. Basically, I realized these theologians have the same problem with God. What was He doing before He created the universe? Why did He suddenly decide to create the universe?"
which of course is perfectly valid musing imho... too bad there's no Gods around to ask.

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Oh I read it. I did not post that piece as some smoking gun, look this guy concludes YHWH created the universe. I posted it to demonstrate scientists may be curious about beginnings but have no answers for us. Why would they? Physical events have causes and they can't explain the cause for the very first physical event.

One must go Higher to find the answers. The only 'contender' out there Who has revealed He is the uncaused cause is “Ehyeh Who Ehyeh." It's all in the Name Yahweh the self-Existent or Eternal One.

Why did He suddenly decide to create the universe?"

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YHWH gives answers for such in His revelation to mankind. This is called purpose.

PsychoSarah said:

don't a lot of Christians like yourself pay tithes?

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Some do and many others give to support ministries which house, feed and clothe the poor. But my donations to my church does not rate a special meal with my pastor.

redleghunter said:

Some do and many others give to support ministries which house, feed and clothe the poor. But my donations to my church does not rate a special meal with my pastor.

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Yeah, I know. People that pay tithes don't get as many benefits as members of the "reason circle" or whatever got for $85 a month when that was still active. After all, churches aren't supposed to be "houses of merchandise", can't remember if that's exactly what Jesus called them when he was angry that one time in the bible but I am pretty sure I retained the meaning.

PsychoSarah said:

Yeah, I know. People that pay tithes don't get as many benefits as members of the "reason circle" or whatever got for $85 a month when that was still active. After all, churches aren't supposed to be "houses of merchandise", can't remember if that's exactly what Jesus called them when he was angry that one time in the bible but I am pretty sure I retained the meaning.

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Yes this:

Matthew 21:12-13 New King James Version (NKJV)
Jesus Cleanses the Temple
12 Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’”

Apologetic_Warrior said:

You have to know everything about everything to have absolute certainty of laws of logic like the law of non-contradiction? No, I know better than that, and anyone that claims "fact" also depends on certainty.

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I was talking about absolute certainty concerning explanations of phenomena of reality, which are explained through scientific theories - not about matters of abstract logic.

In one breath you deny absolute certainty, and in the next you depend on it to make a claim such as "logically impossible". So which is it? Please make up your mind.

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Again........ when i say that science doesn't deal in absolute certainties, I am talking about the explanations that science comes up with to explain phenomena of observable reality.
Theories.

Back to uncertainty, "absolute" uncertainty, but are you absolutely uncertain about that?

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Either you are playing dumb, or you really aren't getting it.
Not sure which.

Are the laws of logic which Science depends on real?

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They are assumed to the point of being usefull.
The laws of logic are based on empirical data, you know... We did't invent them out of thin air.

Logic, is informed by knowledge / data.

So how do you account for and justify those certainties?

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Evidence.
If I let go of my keys, they will drop to the ground due to gravity.
This "certainty" is accounted and justified by the basal assumption that physics is what it is and will work tomorrow like it works today.

ie, the "certainty" is dependend on the assumption that objects with mass will react to gravity tomorrow like it does today.

Am I absolutely certain about that? No. I'm not a fortune teller. I cannot know what will happen tomorrow. Nevertheless, considering ALL the evidence at our disposal, it seems like a safe assumption. The data supporting this assumption is so huge that we might as well call it a certainty that gravity is what it is and that it will continue working like it does now.

It is more reasonable to think the natural universe came into existence by an eternal uncaused Causer than to think the chains of cause for the universe regress infinitely, or to imply "spontaneous generation" of anything without a cause.

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It is not, because there is exactly zero reason to think that such a "causer" exists - or even CAN exist. In fact, it's so bad that the verbe "to exist" might not even make any sense if you remove the universe.

You know what is the most reasonable?
To simply acknowledge being ignorant on what the origins of the universe is. Because we don't know. I don't know, you don't know, scientists don't know.

The difference between theists and scientists, is that theists pretend to know. While scientists are working hard to find out, because they realise that they don't know, but they want to know.

It is more reasonable to think of a First Causer from which secondary causes created in a way to have the capability to continue the chain of cause and effect.

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Why?
What evidence do you have of this personified "first causer"?

Apologetic_Warrior said:

That there is universe and that there is a natural order (which implies certain things) should be more than sufficient evidence. By definition, "uncased" means just that, and it comes down to accepting the existence of a Supreme being a Creator, or the absurdities noted in the previous post. Or do you know of Science to back up anything that exists without a cause, anything that poofs into existence out of well...nothing?

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Note the bolded part. That, right there, is your fallacy. It's called the argument from ignorance.

I don't believe in magic, for every magic trick there is veiled slight of hand, props and such to disguise the masquerade. The slight of hand here is that we can reason meaningfully about this without first presupposing external eternal immaterial absolute laws of logic, such as the law of non-contradiction. That our reasoning does not depend on an absolutely rational mind outside of our own existence. So "my" Uncaused Causer is the justification and how I account for external eternal immaterial absolute laws of logic.

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And just how does such a "causer" justify those things?
Sounds like you are just asserting it.

This is infinitely more reasonable than infinite regress of causation or unguided meaningless purposeless chaotic "spontaneous generation" out of nothing.

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Positing an unsupportable, undemonstrable, unfalsifiable and undetectable entity ... is never reasonable.

And most certaintly not when positing it as "the alternative" in a false dichotomy.

redleghunter said:

1. Still does not address cause.

2. What premise would you base this on?

Kicking the can down the road seems to be the current defense of some skeptics.

Yet even the prevalent view still is the universe had a beginning.

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First of all, the phenomena of causality, is a phenomena of physics as it exists/works IN the universe. So, to invoke this phenomena in a context where no universe exists, seems absurd.

After all, why would the laws and processes of the universe apply "outside" of the universe?

mark kennedy said:

I don't think there is any question that evolution happens, traits do change over time. The problem with the fossils is they are arranged around the naturalistic assumptions of Darwinians. Comparing the chimpanzee to humans the first thing that should strike you is that the human brain is 2 1/2 times bigger and nearly twice as dense.

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And it took some 7 million years to accomplish that difference in brain capacity.
Your point?

DogmaHunter said:

Note the bolded part. That, right there, is your fallacy. It's called the argument from ignorance.

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No the part you emboldened is called; "prove it with Science", which is rhetorical in origin because I do not think it can proven with Science.

DogmaHunter said:

And just how does such a "causer" justify those things? Sounds like you are just asserting it.

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I have explained already in previous posts, currently not in the mood to rehash.

DogmaHunter said:

Positing an unsupportable, undemonstrable, unfalsifiable and undetectable entity ... is never reasonable.

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By your assertion the overwhelming vast majority of humanity throughout history have been irrational at the most fundamental level of reality, ultimate reality, is a rather high and lofty assertion. You may call this an ad populum argument, but regardless it is a fact, along with the mountain of evidences supporting the Judeo/Christian faith mentioned previously.

DogmaHunter said:

And most certaintly not when positing it as "the alternative" in a false dichotomy.

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Do tell of another alternative, do tell.

PsychoSarah said:

don't a lot of Christians like yourself pay tithes?

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Yes, a tithe isn't a purchase though. You give it away willingly. I wouldn't view it as a donation either. It is an imaging of the Son, like when we show kindness to another.

DogmaHunter said:

And it took some 7 million years to accomplish that difference in brain capacity.
Your point?

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That's not true, the cranial capacity does not approach the hominid range untill 2 million years ago. There is nothing gradual about it, any skull under 600 cc. shouldn't be classified in the genus Homo anyway, and wasn't, until Louis Leaky ontrived the stone age handy man myth.

DogmaHunter said:

It is not, because there is exactly zero reason to think that such a "causer" exists - or even CAN exist. In fact, it's so bad that the verbe "to exist" might not even make any sense if you remove the universe.

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If the universe is removed then what is left? Where were you 10 yrs prior to your conception? It sounds like you are asserting a universe and subsequent life from nothing is better than a universe from Something.

You know what is the most reasonable?
To simply acknowledge being ignorant on what the origins of the universe is. Because we don't know. I don't know, you don't know, scientists don't know.

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Appeals to ignorance. The start point for science today is assumed atheism.
There are the Davies, Richard Lewontin mandate which is atheistic and elevated to the status of unquestioned law. Quote

‘’The physicist Paul Davies tells us that “science takes as its starting point the assumption that life wasn’t made by a god or a supernatural being’’

No Divine footprint in the door.

That means God as first cause is eliminated from consideration deemed unscientific meaning scientifically false. God is demarcated. God refused to be considered. This is atheism.

If you are holding an empty hand (ignorance) then God wins by default. Atheists have not falsified God. That being since all your appeals to science means adherence to science method.

The difference between theists and scientists, is that theists pretend to know.

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Via abduction. See above. If there are two options then one needs to be eliminated. God exists by necessity. In the same manner as triangles, squares, equations, and nothing exists. They are abstract entities. Autonomous of human minds discovered not invented, outside time, space, and matter.

While scientists are working hard to find out, because they realise that they don't know, but they want to know.

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Get back to us when you falsify an intelligent designer. Let's not presuppose a level playing field when we all know atheists are playing a rigged game. If science does not deal with absolute certainty then the same or proximate should not be required for God. Humans are intuitively theistic, moral, and justice seeking. That means we are programmed and that implies a programmer.

mark kennedy said:

That's not true, the cranial capacity does not approach the hominid range untill 2 million years ago. There is nothing gradual about it, any skull under 600 cc. shouldn't be classified in the genus Homo anyway, and wasn't, until Louis Leaky ontrived the stone age handy man myth.

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This data compilation does not seem to help your case:

Fun with Hominin Cranial Capacity Datasets (and Excel)

dmmesdale said:

There are the Davies, Richard Lewontin mandate which is atheistic and elevated to the status of unquestioned law. Quote

‘’The physicist Paul Davies tells us that “science takes as its starting point the assumption that life wasn’t made by a god or a supernatural being’’

No Divine footprint in the door.

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That is a rather tortured paraphrase of a classic creationist out of context quote.

The Lewontin quote is actually 'divine foot in the door', but it is actually much longer than that. It is from a book review he wrote, not a treatise of any sort. But why would a creationist know or care about that?


All very true. Funny how creationists only like to quote that one part of one sentence...

Get back to us when you falsify an intelligent designer.

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Get back to us when you have valid, verifiable evidence FOR an intelligent designer.

Because as it stands, all we ever see are bible verses, quotes of dubious relevance and veracity, fallacious logic, attacks on evolution, etc.

Never anything to hang one's hat on.

You cannot win by default - you actually have to have some cards on the table.

tas8831 said:

That is a rather tortured paraphrase of a classic creationist out of context quote.

The Lewontin quote is actually 'divine foot in the door', but it is actually much longer than that. It is from a book review he wrote, not a treatise of any sort. But why would a creationist know or care about that?

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.​

All very true. Funny how creationists only like to quote that one part of one sentence...




Get back to us when you have valid, verifiable evidence FOR an intelligent designer.

Because as it stands, all we ever see are bible verses, quotes of dubious relevance and veracity, fallacious logic, attacks on evolution, etc.

Never anything to hang one's hat on.

You cannot win by default - you actually have to have some cards on the table.

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It was answered and ignored. If the appeals are to ignorance then God wins by default. Since when did ignorance equate to a winning hand?

Never anything to hang one's hat on.

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So you think ignorance is something to hang your hat on?

Apologetic_Warrior said:

No the part you emboldened is called; "prove it with Science", which is rhetorical in origin because I do not think it can proven with Science.

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-_- you shouldn't think it can be "proven" with science because proof is for math. But if you are going down that route, that's just a pointless semantics game that always ends up nowhere.

Apologetic_Warrior said:

By your assertion the overwhelming vast majority of humanity throughout history have been irrational at the most fundamental level of reality, ultimate reality, is a rather high and lofty assertion.

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Have you not ever interacted with members of your own species? People rarely act in a purely rational way, especially under stress. Heck, at the very least, it is plain to see that how people interpret reality cannot be objective by any means just because of the fact that everyone interprets it differently.

For example, I am well aware that earwigs are harmless to me, but that isn't enough to prevent me from freaking out if one crawled across my foot, even if I was able to process what it was before it touched me. I know spiders are an important part of the ecosystem and that the vast majority are entirely harmless to me, but my arachnophobia is such that I cannot tolerate a spider being in the same room as myself and must squish them or leave in order to feel safe again. That's irrational as all heck, and even being aware of how irrational it is isn't enough for me to willfully change my behavior.

Vending machines and jellyfish individually kill more people every year than sharks on average, but guess which one more people are scared of?

Apologetic_Warrior said:

Do tell of another alternative, do tell.

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-_- literally every other creation deity ever worshiped in the history of humanity as well as any potential ones that could feasibly exist that no one has thought of, for a ton of examples. There are some other ones as well. For example, the matter and energy in the universe wasn't created, but an intelligent force set off the Big Bang, and from then on didn't intervene whatsoever. The obvious view most atheists have that it was all unintelligent forces. Heck, the universe could be half created and half not by an unintelligent being that died billions of years ago. The possibilities are only as limited as your imagination.

All those possibilities which have a creator, however, have the same lack of evidence for said creator, so by default the null hypothesis that there wasn't any creator is considered the more well supported conclusion to make.