Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kir Komrik on January 11, 2012 at 12:22am

Hey Angelo,

 

the hipotheses that everything came from nothing would be the most extraordinary claim of all.

 

It isn't that everything came from nothing, it is that definition emerged from a lack of definition. And that is not semantics, that is a fact. And this is just repeating what has already been demonstrated repeatedly.

 

- kk

Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on January 11, 2012 at 12:24am

You want a universe that came from nothing Michael/Angelo? Here you go, not that you'll view it --

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/09/10076985-how-to-get...

pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
in-His-own-image.com

Permalink Reply by Kir Komrik on January 11, 2012 at 1:06am

Hey Archaeopteryx,

 

Thanks for that link. Krauss and Hawking are probably two of a very small list of scientists who are doing atheism a lot of good. I am grateful to them for their quiet, sobered and methodical approach to what amounts to mass deconversion. And Hawking is effective because his reputation is well established with the generla public; a critical factor almost all other scientists completely lack.

 

- kk

Permalink Reply by Angelo on January 11, 2012 at 6:44am

I don't know how many times i have seen atheists post this video as it would constitute compelling, rational evidence that the universe came from nothing. 

Just ridioulous....its sad that intelligent people do believe that such a pathetic explanation should be held reasonable and compelling. That isnst much more than science fiction. Dr.Spock included......

http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od172/cosmos172.htm

"The recent use of such vacuum fluctuations is highly misleading. For virtual particles do not literally come into existence spontaneously out of nothing. Rather the energy locked up in a vacuum fluctuates spontaneously in such a way as to convert into evanescent particles that return almost immediately to the vacuum. As John Barrow and Frank Tipler comment, ". . . the modern picture of the quantum vacuum differs radically from the classical and everyday meaning of a vacuum-- nothing. . . . The quantum vacuum (or vacuua, as there can exist many) states . . . are defined simply as local, or global, energy minima (V'(O)= O, V"(O)>O)" ([1986], p. 440). The microstructure of the quantum vacuum is a sea of continually forming and dissolving particles which borrow energy from the vacuum for their brief existence. 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." 

"In the case of quantum events, there are any number of physically necessary conditions that must obtain for such an event to occur, and yet these conditions are not jointly sufficient for the occurrence of the event. (They are jointly sufficient in the sense that they are all the conditions one needs for the event's occurrence, but they are not sufficient in the sense that they guarantee the occurrence of the event.) The appearance of a particle in a quantum vacuum may thus be said to be spontaneous, but cannot be properly said to be absolutely uncaused, since it has many physically necessary conditions. To be uncaused in the relevant sense of an absolute beginning, an existent must lack any non-logical necessary or sufficient conditions whatsoever." 

"As Barrow and Tipler comment, "It is, of course, somewhat inappropriate to call the origin of a bubble Universe in a fluctuation of the vacuum 'creation ex nihilo,' for the quantum mechanical vacuum state has a rich structure which resides in a previously existing substratum of space-time, either Minkowski or de Sitter space-time. Clearly, a true 'creation ex nihilo' would be the spontaneous generation of everything--space-time, the quantum mechanical vacuum, matter--at some time in the past."([1986], p. 441)." 

Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on January 11, 2012 at 10:31am

Michael/Angelo:

By your own quotation, "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," - "whatever begins to exist has a cause" - ergo, if your god exists, by your own (borrowed), "words," he/she/it must have a cause, which brings us back to the original question, who created god?

Deflect away, M/A!

(BTW, I couldn't help noticing, in your two original paragraphs above, how much your vocabulary and sentence structure has improved - how many of you little Fundies are there, hovering around the laptop, taking turns at playing Michael/Angelo?)

pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
in-His-own-image.com

Permalink Reply by Angelo on January 11, 2012 at 1:03pm

 which brings us back to the original question, who created god?

nobody. God exists without beginning, and without end.

Permalink Reply by Wintershade3001 on January 11, 2012 at 1:06pm

God exists without beginning, and without end.

Which logically proves that "he" cannot and does not exist at all. Bravo sir, you have answered your original question yet again.

Permalink Reply by Steve on January 11, 2012 at 1:15pm

To borrow a phrase from you and your ilk:

And you know this how? Were you there?

Permalink Reply by Kir Komrik on January 11, 2012 at 12:36pm

Hey Angelo,

 

....its sad that intelligent people do believe that such a pathetic explanation should be held reasonable and compelling

 

And it is equally sad that some adherents are so thoroughly mind controlled that they cannot acknowledge that every word out of their mouths is utterly meaningless because their terminology is undefined.

 

And most of them have more than enough intellect to understand why a statement based on undefined terms is itself meaningless. I'm asking you again to please define the terms I've proven in this thread to be undefined so that we can advance the covnersation.

 

- kk

Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on January 11, 2012 at 8:46am

There is absolutely no reason, other than emotionally driven imaginative conjecture, for the existence, outside of the human brains imagination,  of an entity that does not begin to exist, especially an entity with a personality and super but brainless intelligence.  In other words, it is necessary to use the logical fallacy of Special Pleading to make your argument. 

The argument is not based on any empirical or otherwise valid evidence that things that never begin to exist CAN and DO, in fact, exist.  It requires wishful thinking to imagine that they do.  Whatever the cause of this particular universe there is no GOOD reason to suppose that its laws were broken by the a unique, but empirically unprovable exception that has always existed outside of time and space but is, never the less, capable of interacting with whatever is in time and space while remaining invisible during any period when scientific methods of truth discovery are used.

Permalink Reply by Kir Komrik on January 10, 2012 at 11:56pm

Hey Michael,

Thanks, it is very useful for me. This kind of argumentation has been used in counter apologetics quite informally as its impact is pretty strong on adherents. Basically, as you read what are clearly fictitious, wacky narratives of other god's it soon becomes apparent to them that when you get to *their* sacred text you're pretty much reading the same thing. And of course, the narratives you select are quite similar. For example, I've read the Epic of Gilgamesh to adherents to describe a flood story. It is patently ridiculous to any modern reader. Then I read the Noah narrative. There are dozens of narratives I will read; one of my favorite being the Mithraic narrative duplications between Semele and Mary.

The follow-up question for each narrative is then to ask how you, the poor atheist the adherent is hoping to convert, can know which of these gods is the one, true, sacred god ... their god. And there's no way to tell, of course. You see all kinds of light bulbs going off at that point.

The formal argumentation comes up a lot here on TA and amongst atheists (because it is, after all, interesting) but is generally ineffective with adherents. The approach used in deconversion is completely different. It's all Socratic question afer question. There's more about this at my blog as well; kirkomrik.wordpress.com.

Thanks again

- kk 

Permalink Reply by Michael Gage on January 11, 2012 at 10:15am

Thanks.

My wife teaches Gilgamesh to her high school literature students. She says you can just see the light bulbs going off for the students as they realize, "Oh, that's the same story as Noah's Ark!"

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