Ah yes... developing new models and disagreement.. a sure sign of ontological weakness. People who do such things must never be trusted. Only people who have one model, preferably one where disagreement is a sin, can be trusted.

No. That would be a silly thing to say.

It is an obvious question.

You can state as an assumption that there was a first cause, but that doesn't make it true or even a reasonable assumption.

Given that something never ever comes from nothing, we are left with a quandary as there is a something. Adding in earlier something that caused the current something (aka a creator god) just kick the can down the road a bit.

For consistency's sake we must ask what caused the first cause. We can just throw our hands up and call it "god", but that is cheating.

Stop your whining and do something about the problems you observe.

I like how this is the one rgt thread where everyone admits they have no idea what they're talking about.

Why? Imagine you gave a conclusion predicated on the premise 'god did X and so Y'. Wouldn't it be reasonable of me to require assurance for that premise, how would you do that? Is god the one subject where we just all accept that there's an infinite regression and just ignore it for the purposes of having the debate?

You should say evil (at least partly) if the below is true.
That or modify that we can have an attribute God doesn't have, evil.

Yes, I'd also like to ask the same question w/r/t God being 1) cowardly, 2) mortal, 3) lazy.

To show that there must be a cause of everything, which could not even in principle have failed to exist, is the sole purpose of the argument. So to ask what caused the first cause is tantamount to asking: what caused that which cannot in principle have had a cause?

I am saying that positing that god creates an infinite regression is a silly thing to say.

Nothing more than that.

The questions you asked are red herrings and I don't feel compelled this instant to go down rabbit holes with you.* At some other time, I might feel like it might be fun.

*to mix metaphors horribly. I hope this caused some amusement for you.

Loads of atheists think that the big bang was the beginning, and others call it god, and many of them lead fulfilling lives without thinking about it too deeply.

I think that the question underlying is probably flawed in some way.

Devil's advocate: I have different concerns than my pets do. I am sure that my last dog wanted a different kibble to bit ratio than I gave him and probably didn't really want to be put down for trying to eat one of my neighbors.

I don't think devil's advocate means what you think it means.

No i believe in an eternal uncaused something. I just believe that this universe ain't that eternal something. I think the science is pretty solid that the universe is finite. So i just believe that the eternal something is at least one level above our universe. I'm not sure but u might think i defend a certain theory that i don't

I feel like everytime I have to say 'God' i have to spend 10 paragraphs defining 'God' lol. The attribute to do evil. I think that even the nicest people in the world have felt and understand that attribute, whether or not they resist or give into it. The main reason i believe the superior powers that be encourage good is because people know instinctively (barring extreme cases of lunatics) that it's good to be good and it's bad to be bad, even if they are bad (AND even if they won't admit it). Why would that be instinctive?

Can it all be a funny joke by a sick twisted higher being, i suppose but i doubt it. Can God be evil, i suppose but doubt it. This is actually the perfect place to make this point, a poker forum, like they say in poker you can't be CERTAIN of anything. The best u can do is take all the variables into account and come to a conclusion that is 'very unlikely' or 'somewhat unlikely' or 'somewhat likely' or 'very likely.' So i consider everything i've been defending to be very likely but i could be of course be wrong too.

Let's not worry about the limits of true knowledge for the moment. You have made an argument that an effect (us) cannot have properties that the cause (God) doesn't have. Therefore, by your own logic, either God must have all properties that humans have including evil, laziness, mortality etc OR your argument is invalid. (FWIW, your argument certainly doesn't hold for anything else in the universe e.g. a low temperature can cause water to become solid, but low temperature does not have the property of being solid)

What zumby said.

Your other post should be changed since we have attributes the source (if you prefer) lacks.

Before I go into specifics, I just want to say that the sort of arguments you make here used to be very compelling to me - even long after I have concluded that all religions were false. So I don't think your daft for having these ideas. That said:

We don't really know if there was ever "nothing" to begin with. We know the observable universe expanded rapidly from an extremely dense state about 14 billion years ago. But before that we don't have any really solid theories, though we have some promising hypotheses.

Also, as others have mentioned, this is an Argument from Personal Incredulity. This isn't just a phrase that we throw out so that we can stop listening to you. Assuming that one's intuitions are a reliable guide is a genuine problem with a long and embarrassing history. For example, Aristotle asserted that heavier objects fall to the ground faster than light objects. This seemed intuitively obvious, and remained unchallenged by even the brightest minds (and Artistotle was no slouch!) for well over a 1000 years when Galileo demonstrated that the speed of acceleration is independent of mass in the absence of an opposing force e.g. air resistance. There are many many other examples throughout history.

On the bright side, we have found a way of increasing our ability to accurately work out what is happening in the world and to test our intuitions to see if they are valid. We call it 'the scientific method'. By testing our guesses (hypotheses) against experiment we are able to be a lot more confident that we don't hold false beliefs. The problem for your argument is that those people using the scientific method to study the beginning of the universe are overwhelmingly atheist. If you are curious as to why that is the case, I suggest picking up a decent science book. Perhaps, "The Grand Design" by Stephen Hawking, which is nice and short.

But we know that complexity and order arise from disordered states all the time, quite naturally and explicably. The regular shapes of snowflakes that form from disordered blobs of water, for example, are simply natural consequences of chemisty and physics. To get a better grasp of how complexity can arise from simple rules, you might want to play The Game of Life, which has four extremely simple rules, but can in principle be used to make a Turing Machine.

Again, I understand how compelling your argument feels, but some decent reading up on science would (probably) change your mind, or at least open it to the idea that there is nothing magical about complexity in a naturalistic framework. It's been a few years since I read it, but I really enjoyed Turtles, Termites and Traffic Jams.

lol,



Ok, I was just curious, not trying to score any points or prove anything.

Nicely done.

I really have no idea what theory you have in mind. Probably doesn't matter because it would fail at some level to solve the problem.

Good movie.

Ok. Both sides of the debate exist completely in easily proving that the other side doesn't make sense.

I think there's a lot of side by side analogies going on in order to refute my 'top down' understanding. Dare i quote Jesus in here with all the atheist lol but it's kind of the best example, when Pilot says to Jesus 'Don't u understand that i alone can set u free' (paraphrase) and Jesus basically tells Pilot 'No you have absolutely nothing that has not been given to you from above!' So let me ask this DEEP question, perhaps the deepest, what is the great above? The top layer of literal reality?

I have no clue what that answer is myself! I will never try to B.S. an answer to it. But i do believe in a grand top layer/an 'Above' as in the Jesus conversation. Can anybody in here possibly tell me that an infinite regress is more logical than a top layer of a cohesive fabric of an absolute reality? And whatever the vastness & complexities of that top layer are IT is what gives birth to all of this 'Magical and invisible EVOLUTION.' The potential of the 'evolution' that happens around us is build into the system, it is not magically happening, the capability was already and always there.

I find it hypocritical that the same people who bash religious people for constantly saying 'God did it' can so freely turn around and cry out 'Evolution did it, case closed!' No, the 'Ability' of evolution was always there, eternally present. Don't tell me that the attributes of love & hate had no existence in reality, then they EVOLVED! Isn't that saying 'Evolution did it?' "I can't explain it so evolution did it!" That's the same thing as the hypocritical complaints that you people have against religious people for saying 'God did it!' Let me say this, God, evolution, mother nature, reality, etc., they're all just TERMS.

So anyway, when speaking of 'top layer down' (yes my made up TERM), as opposed to 'effects' of the top layer, it is unfortunately close to impossible to throw an analogy at it. Because any analogy you throw out will be 2 subordinate 'effects' from the top layer. Cold creates the attribute of ice but doesn't contain that attribute, to name 1 example given to me in here (both subordinate byproducts of the top layer). But even as i argue i myself am confused, because who can see or distinguish the top layer from it's effects? Nobody. Where does the eternal end and the finite effects begin? Nobody can know.

It's such an ambiguous and slippery attempt to define the top layer of reality. But the idea of an effect having any qualities/attributes whatsoever that are absent from the top layer of literal existance??? How??? That's all there is!! Now, this business of attributes existing that r not present in the superior forms are also being confused with application and manipulation of those attributes. For instance the attributes of ice are not attributes at all but results of certain conditions met with certain materials present at certains temperatures etc...'Ice' is not an attribute, so i can't say 'Aha 'Cold' which formed the ice lacks that attribute (as somebody has claimed).

As with the example of the snowflake so beatifully forming a complex design that is void of the 'Attributes' of it's creator (the unimpressive globs of water)...Hmm here we are on the ambiguous divide of the 'eternal' and the 'effects' again. I mean it's the 21st century and all of the sudden science is now uncovering this 'Dark matter' that now can explain so many problems. Or as another example, they now think that if u observe subatomic events under a microscope u can actually be causing the particles to act differently than they would act if u weren't observing them. In other words it's like on some level there is this magic built into the system. But it's not magic at all lol, we just are so far from comprehending how reality fully funtions, we're so far from being able to say 'Hey that snowflake just formed by itself!'

But let's put that ambiguous divide off to the side for now. Perhaps we should stop throwing thigs like - emotions, decision making, love, hate, etc on such a huge pedestal of 'Evolution'. Isn't it possible that the universe is absolutely teeming with such attributes? Billions of galaxies!! Perhaps billions of thinking and feeling beings (effects). We are going on & on in here about how the effects can or can not have attributes that are foreign from it's cause...But, what if those attributes are a dime a dozen in this vast universe!? How much MORE improbable would it be that the grand eternal cause of reality lacks attributes that are present in COUNTLESS life forms that are on countless planets? It makes this entire dispute seem less and less magnificent the more and more common emotions and higher cognitive functions are in this vast universe

The "top layer" that we know exists or a hypothetical "top layer" that we don't? There a bunch of things we believe are fundamental, which is probably approximately what you are talking about when you talk about a top layer of reality. For example, the laws of physics, electrons etc. I also assume you believe in those things too, you just believe in some other stuff on top. Your aim here should be to provide good evidence for such things, not to berate people.

"God did it" can never be an explanation, even if God actually did it. To put it very tersely, if you claim that God is omnipotent, then god can "explain" A and ~A, in which case God explains nothing. For example, YECs believe that "God did it" explains a 6000 year old universe. Meanwhile, sophisticated theologians believe that "God did it" explains a 14 billion year old "fine-tuned" universe. William Lane Craig recently admitted that "God did it" would explain a universe entirely populated by non-physical spirit-beings. God not only "explains" A and ~A, but B and ~B etc etc for an infinitely of possible states. This is an abuse of the word "explain".

Also, "evolution did it" (assuming you are using the term correctly and referring to explanation of the diversity of life) is a) supported by mountains of evidence b) has a fully-developed mechanism of cause and effect, neither of which the "God did it" hypothesis has.

Now, if what you are actually arguing is that you accept the mechanism of evolution is directly responsible for the diversity of life, but God engineered the states of the universe that would allow evolution to occur, then this is not such a big problem. It violates the rule of parsimony, but it's not demonstrably wrong.

Why are you alternating between asserting things as fact and retreating to 'in principle' agnosticism? I agree that we can't know basically ANYTHING for certain, but that is not the issue. The issue is plausibility. What is reasonable and rational to believe, given our limited knowledge? No atheist in this forum claims absolute knowledge, so you are addressing a strawman.

"Ice" is not an attribute, but "frozen" is.

The "eternal" is a speculative property, and speculation cannot be used as a premise in a deductive argument.

The key point is that in order to observe something we need some sort of interaction at the atomic level which changes the conditions of the experiment. For example, in order to observe the position of an particle, we need a photon to bounce off it and hit a suitable photon detector. This interferes with the position/velocity of the particle. There is nothing 'magic' about it, it doesn't have to be a conscious observer, you are being misled by charlatans I'm afraid.

This is almost the opposite of the more usual theist argument. Generally theists argue that the uniqueness of e.g. human-like intelligence is an argument for the existence of god. Here you argue that the ordinariness of human-like intelligence is an argument for the existence of God. Once again, a theory that predicts A and ~A explains literally nothing.

It might be helpful to note that he seems to be coming at things from an eastern religion point of view.

I actually read what he wrote, but you can usually identify this by noting wall of text rambling stream of conscious writing style that contains little or no actual information.

Further evidence can be found in the use of nonsense phrases like "eternal end" and random insertion of science words like "dark matter."

The problem with your critique is that the “top layer” we know isn’t sufficient to explain why it exists, and that’s the big question everyone is asking. When we ask “why is there something rather than nothing at all?” answering, because “the laws of physics, electrons etc.” isn’t a sufficient answer. Hence, we have grounds and good reason to posit a hypothetical “top layer” to explain what the known “top layer” cannot. And since you can’t answer the big question, either, without an appeal to some hypothetical top layer, it’s not really an issue of providing good evidence for such things, but rather what species of hypothetical “top layer” we’re justified asserting when attempting to answer the big question.

What we know from naturalism is how one state of affairs precedes from an antecedental state of affairs; not why there are states of affairs to begin with. So in that regard, naturalism has no greater claim to credulity than supernaturalism when confronting the big question. Now best I can tell there are probably only two types of answers to the big question: (1) brutalism (“I should say the universe is just there, and that is all” –Russell), or (2) some sort of necessitarianism (necessarily, something exists OR something necessarily exists). Now since versions of (1) aren’t classified as explanatory, the naturalist and the supernaturalist are left with positing some version of (2) when attempting to answer the big question. The theist will appeal to “God necessarily exists” and the naturalist will appeal to “a symmetrical quantum void necessarily exists,” or something to that effect.

So, unless we pull a Russell and stick our heads in the sand when confronted with the big question, the naturalist and the theist will need appeal to or posit something (or some state of affairs) that couldn’t fail to exist. In other words, the naturalist explanation needs an uncaused cause or a (logical) first cause every bit as much as the theist's. The only real difference is whether that uncaused cause is personal (a necessary being), or impersonal (mechanistic). And at least in that latter regard the theist can argue that the intelligibility of the universe and our intelligence has a common ground in God since most theists believe we’re created in the “image of,” and hence, at least offer some reason to suppose the universe and ourselves are understandable. Whereas the naturalist can do neither, i.e., he can’t provide any reason whatsoever as to why the universe is intelligible or why there are intelligent beings; intelligibility just happens to be the case, terminus.

This sounds like a justification for the 'god of the gaps' plus I would dispute your claim that 'naturalists' think that they have an explanation for why there isn't nothing, they have theories not certainty, and they're not including the supernatural.