Prove that God doesn't exist.

[Dr.Who]

Nonsense.

You have belittled the beliefs of others -- calling them 'fairy tales' and 'fanciful fables'. That is not 'great respect', as you would want others to think.

That is true.

Furthermore his statements about what he sees as fairy tales is wholly his unproven opinion so he is belittling others based on his faith based beliefs.

 

[Dr.Who]

The Cosmoslogical Argument has been around forever, and has many refutations. It is neither universally accepted nor rejected.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/cosmological.html

And a host of other websites can be found, both supportive and non-supportive. Anyone can look them up. Numinus, you are presenting controversial POVs as established fact.

As far as I know all cosmological arguments fail to drive the final nail at some point. They may or may not add some credible weight to the discussion depending on how well they are thought out.

 

[PLC1]

Nonsense.

You have belittled the beliefs of others -- calling them 'fairy tales' and 'fanciful fables'. That is not 'great respect', as you would want others to think.

I am merely applying the same logical rigor to YOUR beliefs as you expect it applied to everything else. In the process, I have uncovered, from your own admissions, that not only is your belief inconsistent, it is also vague, nebulous and patently undefined. It certainly isn't agnosticism in the true sense of the word.

Duh?

Belittled the beliefs, or simply expressed skepticism?

Your post above is not disrespecting others, any more than labeling others' beliefs as "fairy tales" is disrespecting the believer.

What it is is expressing skepticism about someone's statement.

Adding the annoying "Duh!" every time is starting to cross the line.

This statement is crossing the line:

Your ignorance about the things you speak of is quite clear, really

We are all ignorant of many things. Calling someone "ignorant" is name calling, in my opinion.

 

[numinus]

Belittled the beliefs, or simply expressed skepticism?

Your post above is not disrespecting others, any more than labeling others' beliefs as "fairy tales" is disrespecting the believer.

What it is is expressing skepticism about someone's statement.

Adding the annoying "Duh!" every time is starting to cross the line.

This statement is crossing the line:

So, by your reckoning, 'silly fairytales' is an expression of skepticism, while 'duh' crosses the line, eh?

We are all ignorant of many things. Calling someone "ignorant" is name calling, in my opinion.

I agree. Everyone may be ignorant about a great many things.

But pretending to say things about something one is ignorant of -- like agnosticism, christianity and scientific paradigms as topgun had -- is another matter entirely.

Calling this sort of person ignorant about the things he is talking about, therefore, is a factual statement.

 

[numinus]

The Cosmoslogical Argument has been around forever, and has many refutations. It is neither universally accepted nor rejected.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/cosmological.html

And a host of other websites can be found, both supportive and non-supportive. Anyone can look them up. Numinus, you are presenting controversial POVs as established fact.

Did you wish to discuss any of the criticisms or were you merely pointing out that the cosmological argument is controversial? You might want to send those links to topgun. At least he would have something rational to say.

What you fail to notice is that the criticisms you imagine to be fatal to the cosmological argument are also fatal to EVERYTHING THAT WE KNOW.

For instance, bertrand russell states that the universe, as a whole, just is, therefore does not require any explanation for it. Clearly, that is fatal to the entire business of science. What is the point of stating laws governing parts of the universe when its entirety doesn't follow the same laws? Not to mention the fact that scientific laws and principles are supposed to be background-independent -- that is to say, what is true here, is true everywhere.

 

[numinus]

Irrelevant.

That is perhaps the most profound thing anyone has said to me in this forum.

Thank you.

 

[samsara15]

Did you wish to discuss any of the criticisms or were you merely pointing out that the cosmological argument is controversial? You might want to send those links to topgun. At least he would have something rational to say.

What you fail to notice is that the criticisms you imagine to be fatal to the cosmological argument are also fatal to EVERYTHING THAT WE KNOW.

For instance, bertrand russell states that the universe, as a whole, just is, therefore does not require any explanation for it. Clearly, that is fatal to the entire business of science. What is the point of stating laws governing parts of the universe when its entirety doesn't follow the same laws? Not to mention the fact that scientific laws and principles are supposed to be background-independent -- that is to say, what is true here, is true everywhere.

I think you rather over-state the case, Numinus, but if that's what you believe, you're welcome to it. The jury is still out on the issue, as best I can determine.

BTW, If everything has a cause, doesn't that negate Free Will? It would be interesting to hear exactly which of the many options commonly in use that you use to dance around that dilemma.

 

[numinus]

I think you rather over-state the case, Numinus, but if that's what you believe, you're welcome to it. The jury is still out on the issue, as best I can determine.

There is no over-statement. You are free to peruse the criticisms one by one, if you wish. I just stated bertrand rusell's take since it is, by far, the most sensible. If what he said were true, then it has a profound effect on everything that we know.

For one thing, it suggests to me that there is no knowledge outside demonstrable knowledge. The universe just is.

The consequence, of course, is that there is no more reason to believe in the first cause than there is to believe the sun will rise and set tomorrow.

BTW, If everything has a cause, doesn't that negate Free Will? It would be interesting to hear exactly which of the many options commonly in use that you use to dance around that dilemma.

No.

The first cause, itself, is creative will. It is the consequence of the law of inertia -- that something at rest or inertial motion will continue to be in that state UNLESS, an outside force acts upon it.

The idea is that all deterministic motion requires an action that precedes it. Rolling a ball at rest unleashes all the laws of classical mechanics that governs the motion of the ball, does it not?

However, rolling the ball or letting it stay in its inertial state is an act of will -- something that is not governed by determinism -- something that is entirely dependent on the will of the 'acting force'.

Why should the initial state of a space-time singularity go bang, and not remain as a singularity? Something made it go bang.

 

[Dr.Who]

BTW, If everything has a cause, doesn't that negate Free Will? It would be interesting to hear exactly which of the many options commonly in use that you use to dance around that dilemma.

Why don't you answer that question too?

Do we live in a mechanistic universe in which everything has a cause and obeys only the laws of physics? Or is there more to the universe than mechanistic forces? What would you call them if there are more?

When you make a choice is it free will? If in observing yourself you notice that you do not have free will could it be that you are the clay pot God has created for destruction while the other person who notices that they have free will is the clay pot that was made for a purpose? And if you are just a clay pot created for destruction and you truly have no free will of your own, if you are just a machine, then what is the harm in your destruction?

 

[samsara15]

So you reject the idea of a deterministic universe, a la Laplace?

Even in a caus and effect universe, we have short term unpredictables, such as weather, and the changes of Quantum states.

Perhaps the Cosmological Argument may best demonstrate that we live in a universe in which cause and effect is not always entirely valid.

I have not heard the idea of creative will before. Given my very limited intellectual capacity, I therefore cannot even comment on it, Luminus, until I have pondered it a while.

 

[Dr.Who]

So you reject the idea of a deterministic universe, Laplace?

Even in a caus and effect universe, we have short term unpredictables, such as weather, and the changes of Quantum states.

Perhaps the Cosmological Argument may best demonstrate that we live in a universe in which cause and effect is not always entirely valid.

I have not heard the idea of creative will before. Given my very limited intellectual capacity, I therefore cannot even comment on it, Luminus, until I have pondered it a while.

I too have limited intellectual capacity and have never heard of la Laplace.

I certainly reject a mechanistic universe! Is it just because I observe a mind in myself? Does the uncertainty principle rule out mechanism? Is it because a mechanistic universe must be without purpose? Is it because the universe appears to be teleological? Must there be a ghost in the machine? Is mechanism of necessity contradictory? I don't have all the answers. I don't believe a person with the opposite point of view has all the answers either. But a dualist can claim to believe based on faith while a mechanist must rely solely on logic. And it illogical to claim to not believe based on faith and also to believe something that can only be believed on faith. So the mechanist is stuck not believing in mechanism just as the atheist is stuck not believing that God does not exist. I might be wrong and they might be right in the end anyway, they just can't know they are right now.

Now I take a turn and stop talking about a mechanistic universe.

If a deterministic (that's the turn) universe included the concept that free will was one of the things that determined the outcome of events then why not? It would have both laws and free will? It would also be partly unpredictable until a set of laws to describe the actions of free will were formulated.

Yes I am a dualist. I believe, by faith, in both material and spiritual, mind and body, determinism and free will. Furthermore I believe that God is capable of allowing people complete free will AND (with apparent paradox) also fitting their actions into a determined plan for he universe. Judas betrayed Jesus of his own will AND as a part of God's plan. God did not cause Judas to act but he did know of it beforehand and used it for good. Some say that if God knows all then our actions must be determined. I say that He both knows virtually all AND our actions are free.

 

[samsara15]

I wad referring to the astronomer / physicist, Pierre Laplace (1749-1827). Pardon me for not being more clear. Laplace was the ultimate determinist.

http://everything2.com/title/Laplace%27s+Demon

 

[numinus]

So you reject the idea of a deterministic universe, a la Laplace?

Yes.

Everything in the physical sciences during the past century points to an undeterministic reality.

You have heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the chaos principle and the copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Surely, schrodinger's cat couldn't be alive and dead at the same time!

Even in a caus and effect universe, we have short term unpredictables, such as weather, and the changes of Quantum states.

Perhaps the Cosmological Argument may best demonstrate that we live in a universe in which cause and effect is not always entirely valid.

No one is seriously contemplating that causation doesn't work, or that it does only some of the time.

The fundamental distinction here is between DETERMINISTIC AND NON-DETERMINISTIC causes. When I mentioned the law of inertia, it qualifies 'UNLESS AN OUTSIDE FORCE ACTS UPON IT'. And this outside force not only means a force outside the body, but outside the laws of physics itself -- hence the logical relationship between an action and will.

I have not heard the idea of creative will before. Given my very limited intellectual capacity, I therefore cannot even comment on it, Luminus, until I have pondered it a while.

Free will implies choices. And choices, however complex they may be, implies 'to act or not to act'. Intutively, we know that these fundamental choices are not governed by any physical law, only our individual wills.

And when the choices involved in cosmology is for the universe to exist or not exist, then it is, for all intents and purposes, an act of creation -- hence creative will.

 

[numinus]

I wad referring to the astronomer / physicist, Pierre Laplace (1749-1827). Pardon me for not being more clear. Laplace was the ultimate determinist.

http://everything2.com/title/Laplace%27s+Demon

He was a mathematician whose work had various applications in physics.

And his determinism was pushed to its absurd limit in laplace's demon.

Of course, heisenberg's uncertainty and quantum theory completely demolished his mechanistic, clockwork universe paradigm.

 

[samsara15]

Yes.

Everything in the physical sciences during the past century points to an undeterministic reality.

You have heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the chaos principle and the copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Surely, schrodinger's cat couldn't be alive and dead at the same time!



No one is seriously contemplating that causation doesn't work, or that it does only some of the time.

The fundamental distinction here is between DETERMINISTIC AND NON-DETERMINISTIC causes. When I mentioned the law of inertia, it qualifies 'UNLESS AN OUTSIDE FORCE ACTS UPON IT'. And this outside force not only means a force outside the body, but outside the laws of physics itself -- hence the logical relationship between an action and will.



Free will implies choices. And choices, however complex they may be, implies 'to act or not to act'. Intutively, we know that these fundamental choices are not governed by any physical law, only our individual wills.

And when the choices involved in cosmology is for the universe to exist or not exist, then it is, for all intents and purposes, an act of creation -- hence creative will.

But from where do those individual wills come or emerge? How can will exist without an object within which to exist?