Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Michael Gage on May 17, 2011 at 1:58pm

How do we account for the first cause? Well...by not sticking in a deus ex machina of our own. We're all in the same epistemic position regarding the origin of the universe, and it's not a good position.

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Permalink Reply by Dale Headley on May 17, 2011 at 2:08pm

Inasmuch as we atheists have failed to provide a "first cause," then it must be the case that a 6'2", white, male with a long white beard and adorned in a white robe sitting on a throne somewhere in His creation must have created the universe.  On the other hand, maybe it's that cockroach I can't seem to kill.  Seriously though, why is it atheists are faulted for not providing a first cause for the universe, but religionists are exempted from finding a first cause for their god?

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Permalink Reply by Arcus on May 17, 2011 at 6:19pm

Because, when they want answers for somthing they can't possibly explain, they turn to atheist. Then they reject our answers because it isn't in their book, they keep repeating it ad nauseam until we give up.

Victory! (by xian standards) 

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Permalink Reply by the.plush.screen on May 17, 2011 at 3:26pm

"Your corrections are perhaps personal opinions you are very convinced of, but they are incorrect."

Sorry, not opinion. Scientific fact.

"It does not automatically follow from there being four known forces that all events are caused."

You may wish to go back and study your phisics: All events are caused by the four fundamental forces of nature.

"The example given was quantum fluctuations I believe. This is a consequence of the Uncertainty Relation between energy (mass) and time, but a single event, like the creation and/or annihilation of a single virtual pair is entirely unpredictable and has itself no (preceding) cause.

Incorrect. You may wish to brush up on your quantum mechanics see Casimir effect, vacuum energy, vaccum expectation value, and so on, or, just take a look at this wiki page:

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

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Mo Trauen on May 17, 2011 at 4:53pm

I forgot to mention in my first response to this that no one knows the answer to this question.  Anyone who claims to know the answer to such a question has to be a liar, a fool, a madman, or some combination of the three.

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Permalink Reply by Boothby171 on May 17, 2011 at 6:32pm

Remember Boothby's FIve Rules of Theological Debate...

RULE 1: Presume the existence of God. More specifically, presume the existence of your particular God. Don't say things like "I believe that God does this...", simply say, "God does this..." After all, everybody knows that God exists. Atheists are just wrong, and deep down inside they realize that. Yes, it's OK to pity them (just not yet--see RULE 5).


RULE 2: Never actually define what it is you mean by "God" or "Heaven," etc. If you define it, then it can be refuted. After all, you've already established that He exists (see RULE 1). Also, if challenged, you can always say, "That's not what I meant," or "I never said that He could do that..."


RULE 3: Once your opponent starts using observation and logic in his foolish attempt to refute what everybody already knows to be true, you can deny that both observation and logic are valid approaches to understanding. Typical responses are, "How can we ever really know anything," and "God does not operate under the rules of logic and rationality--He is beyond them." Never, under any circumstances, attempt to explain just what the hell any of that means, because it really doesn't mean anything (that's the beauty of it). More importantly, do not try and understand it yourself, as your head may actually explode. Your opponent may respond to your first statement by asking, "then how do you know if anything is true?" To which you simply respond, "I just know."

Some other good responses under RULE 3 include "But is there really any difference between the earth and the concept of the earth?" and "If I have no way of knowing if there are monsters under my bed (short of looking) but if I genuinely believe they are there, the fear of them is no different than if they really are there."

One of the other advantages of invoking RULE 3 is that you are no longer constrained to actually have to make sense in what you say or write. By discrediting logic and reason, you are no longer bound by them yourself. If you can keep this up, many times your opponent will just walk away, shaking his head, thereby handing you the "win."


RULE 4: As things start to go downhill, you may have to use the old reliable notion that "God exists because people believe that He exists." There are deep theological problems with this approach, especially if other religions have more believers in their God than yours (except you know, of course, that they're totally wrong, anyhow). But still, it keeps you away from RULE 5.


RULE 5: If all else fails, you may just have to reveal your opponent for what he really is. An idiot. A Godless, liberal, democrat, communist, baby-eating, tree-hugging idiot.


To which I guess I should add RULE #6: You know that thing we were discussing that was so important. It's not really that important after all. Why are you so hung up on it? It's like you're obsessing, or something.

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Permalink Reply by Heather Spoonheim on May 17, 2011 at 6:46pm

I had not run across those before - so much more makes sense to me now, thank you.

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Permalink Reply by Steven Broka on May 17, 2011 at 6:36pm

The first cause argument is based on Aquinas' cosmological argument, and as such it has a fundamental flaw:
It assumes rest, not motion, is the natural state. This is a false assumption, as we now know.

Also, he mentions that "nothing can give existence to itself." But a major component for religious philosophy is that God is self-existent, or rather, his existence is caused by his own nature.

So this is all just idiocy.

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Permalink Reply by the.plush.screen on May 18, 2011 at 2:46pm

"Same goes for radioactive decay. The half-life of a radioactive isotope is a statistical concept. For example the half-life Carbon 14 is about 5730 years. But a single C-14 could decay in a day or a picosecond or carry on undisturbed for another 10.023 years.

 

There is a probability curve that peaks at 5730 years, so that on average with a (very) great number of C14 atoms you'll find that half of it has decayed after 5730 years. The decay of a single atom however is entirely unpredictable and without cause."

 

Please explain how "unpredictable" (or random if you prefer) equals "uncaused." If you flip a coin and the coin lands on heads are you saying that becuase the coin landed on heads it was uncaused? If you flip a coin and the coin lands on tails are you saying that becuase the coin landed on tails it was uncaused?

 

Carbon 14, an unstable isotope, decays into Nitrogen 14, a stable isotope. What is different between the two? While Carbon 14 is decaying what is being emitted?

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Permalink Reply by Albert Bakker on May 19, 2011 at 1:13am

You seem so very sure and knowledgeable that I thought it not very useful to go on dwelling on it any further. And you are not entirely wrong either. (In certain quantum gravity theories, causality naturally follows from the way space-time evolves.) But this is a matter of interpretation of quantum mechanics and therein the principle of causality is problematic due to phenomena like entanglement, well non-locality more specifically. Non-standard interpretations seem to cause their own even larger problems. So, since you know this stuff better I thought you explain it to me.

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Palo on June 3, 2011 at 12:03pm

Well, the article is already absurd as it rejects both atheism and theism.  If you are not a theist, then you are an atheist, by definition.

 

The first cause argument is flawed, and has been addressed. Aside from some recent developments in quantum physics, which are still on the frontier, and not well enough substantiated or understood, we have never observed anything begin to exist. Matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change form. Cosmology tells us that all matter and energy was once condensed into a singularity, but before that time, they have no idea what the universe would like. Even the concept of 'before' might be invalid.

 

So the premise that the universe began to exist, or was caused, is not accepted.

And the premise that if something begins to exist, it must have a cause is also not accepted.

 

And even if the two premises were accepted, it would no more support the existence of a god than it would of a  kangaroo that lays eggs that hatch into universes.

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Permalink Reply by Steve on June 3, 2011 at 12:22pm

Even if, for the sake of the argument, you allow that some supernatural entity somehow created the universe, all you have is Deism. There is absolutely no way to go from Deism to theism.

 

They still haven't explained how they know that creator's wishes. Or if it has any explicit wishes about mankind at all. They still can't explain why that being would care about how we live our lives.

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