Religious Questions of Logic

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
181

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
If there is a cause for everything then what caused the first cause (god).[/quote]

It’s called an uncaused cause because on that which is brought into existence needs a cause. God being eternal was never brought into existence so he does not need a cause.

This isn’t possible, 1) 2nd law of thermodynamics, 2) the universe shows that a personal and not a blind force created it.
[/quote]

You’re wrong. Point 1 would perhaps apply to THIS Universe, if this universe is in fact ever proven to be a closed system. As discussed ad nauseum elsewhere, there may be multiple universes, or universes popping from previous ones, and so forth. The case for an eternal cosmos is growing.

Number 2, please provide the scientific reference that concludes the universe was created by a personal force. [/quote]

Actually the case for an eternal cosmos is on the retreat…There’s a tiny problem that there is not a single solitary shred of evidence for it. It’s only possible in concept.
You’re still missing the point by a mile as to why this doesn’t matter. [/quote]

goodness you’re fucking arrogant. There’s a tiny problem that ther eis not a single solitary shred of evidence for the CA. It’s only possible as a logical exercise. So, you’re still missing the criticism of the CA, or being obtuse, “by a mile”.

i’m not missing the point. i’m not playing your game.

post reference to your declaration that an eternal cosmos is on the retreat. please refrain from the mistake you made with “yahoo answers” and the decay of an atom.

I understand perfectly well your logical exercise you’re so enamored with. You apparently do not understand or fully grasp the criticism. But you’re pretty damn good at name dropping and shoplifting references and pawning them as your own thought. Maybe that’s why you don’t acknowledge or understand the criticism of the CA.

It’s time to put this to rest. Post the scientific reference that declares the CA as irrefutable. Post the reference that proves the premise upon which the CA is based is fact. Either do that, or stop being a bore. Because right not, you’re being a patronizing stubborn bore.

By the way, the VERY FIRST time you trotted out this CA argument, I was not aware of it…but I instantly “grokked” all the problems with it. Lo and behold, I researched your references and others and voila, my intuitive objections to the CA parroted those already published. Just because I don’t go to a reference and shoplift it as my own, and use your circular philosophical nomenclature, doesn’t mean “I’m missing it by a mile”. The fact is, I’ve dismissed it, and it doesn’t even mildly interest me at this point.

It’s a clever logical exercise based on AN ASSUMPTION. Period. And philosophers have been bantering back and forth about it for as long as it’s old. There is NO new ground here.

Yawn. Seriously.

182

[quote]pat wrote:
Incorrect. You committing a fundamental misunderstanding. Your logic is:
If A can B, and C share a property with A then likewise it can ‘B’.[/quote]

Yes, yes it is. That is the flaw of your argument. You are arbitrarily stating that it cannot be so.

You cannot posit something without explaining why or how, or providing a way of finding how/why out. You are saying there must be a God due to your argument without providing a way to validate your assertion except by way of your thought experiment with conveniently placed rules that have no logical basis for existing.

Why can only a single thing be uncaused? Why does it have to be God? Why can it not be the universe?

It’s not my best trait, but I lose patience very quickly and tend to act like a tool to anyone I associate with the person I lost patience with. So yes, I tend to act like a tool, but trust me when I say I harbor no ill-will towards you.

183

No he does not.
Note that he hasn’t started the argument, you did, with the summoning of the extraobservable/exological.
To which logic doesn’t apply, since it is not bound by time and space.

All you do is produce verbal prestidigitation.

The moment you introduce supernatural aspects of an argument, the ball remains in your court unless you can actually score.

We can both agree on a cognitive deficit. And I’ll follow you gladly.
But there is nothing you can assert from that.

If it leaves our realm of physics, it can no longer be solved like an equation.

Let me ask you a question, which I often use with religious people:

Is it possible for you to accept the possibility that there is no god?
Just imagine someone proves it satisfactory to you, would you accept that (and how will you react)?
I think you know my answer.

184

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
If there is a cause for everything then what caused the first cause (god).[/quote]

It’s called an uncaused cause because on that which is brought into existence needs a cause. God being eternal was never brought into existence so he does not need a cause.

This isn’t possible, 1) 2nd law of thermodynamics, 2) the universe shows that a personal and not a blind force created it.
[/quote]

What about a perfect cycle: that over the course of a cycle (from Big Bang back to Big Bang), entropy stays constant.

“In classical thermodynamics, the concept of entropy is defined phenomenologically by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of an isolated system always increases or remains constant”

185

Pat, here…I read this (Edward Feser: So you think you understand the cosmological argument?), fully understand it, and finally and fully understand why you think “I don’t get it”. He is infinitely more elegant in his defense of the CA than you (or anyone else here, and I don’t mean that as a dig) and I now understand where you are coming from, and the error of my “approach” to the debate. However, my error is not one of not understanding the ultimate conclusions and pathways of the CA, but one of my failings at the nomenclature of the philosophical disciplines which, to me, at the end of the day and in my opinion amount to linguistic and philosophical masturbation. I understand your (or rather Feser’s) defense of the CA. I still do not accept it without question. And it brings nothing to the table for me personally as I’ve already gone on record as stating I’m not an atheist. That I cannot articulate my objection in your philosophical language is my shortcoming and I’m not interested enough (because like a chessmaster I already see or “grok” the stalemate at the end of this exercise, mo matter what discipline you apply, or nomenclature you use) to continue it’s study to “speak your language”. I’m just really not that interested. I know where it goes and I know where it DOESN’T go. I admit though I’ve been terrible at articulating that.

186

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
there is no misunderstanding of the CA here.
[/quote]
Yeah it is, a grotesque misunderstanding. If you don’t understand why eternity and indeed time itself is irrelevant to the issue, you don’t get it. [/quote]

You are still pulling out the same logical misstep. If God can exist without cause, then the universe can too. If God can “be” without coming into existence, the same applies for the universe. The universe is directly observable by everyone. God is not. You have inserted God into the equation from your own bias, instead of shearing the equation down to its simplest form.

Instead of perverting the scientific method by starting with a conclusion and ignoring anything that refutes said conclusion, do it properly and accept the outcome.[/quote]

Incorrect. You committing a fundamental misunderstanding. Your logic is:
If A can B, and C share a property with A then likewise it can ‘B’.
This is not the case. The way the argument form exists, there is no way that more than a single thing can be uncaused. It’s simply definitionally impossible. The argument does not speak to how an uncaused-cause can exist or why, it only posits that it must exist. Further, where your having issues, is that you are defining what it is that exists and why which by default makes it contingent. If you want to deal with actualities then we can take it even a step further and say that ‘something’ exists. Because of the limitations of epistemology and paradigm, we can simultaneously understand something about ‘it’s’ nature, but we cannot definitively prove it. So what you are left with is, dependent existence, and independent existence and a reason why both are what they are.
Even if the universe did not exist, the cosmological form would still be true. Existence, is what matters, not necessarily what it is that exists. Understanding existence is the key to understanding this argument. BUT existence isn’t obvious nor it is what it appears to be.
I am actually glad you are participating Mak, despite the fact that you are often a tool, your not stupid. [/quote]

Your argument is that there must be a cause for everything. What if the chain of events is circular? For instance, rain, then evaporation, then rain. It rains because it evaporated because it rained. Water is contantly made and broken apart by acids and bases in combination with so many substances. Time is relative to the view point and therefore may not be a concern in the grand scheme. What is wrong with the logic that the universe has alwqys existed and constantly remakes and rebreaks itself? I’m not saying I believe this, just that it’s as much of a logical possibility at this time, in my head, as God. Believe it or not, I do consider a creator a possible explanation. I just don’t see it as the only one.

187

[quote]maverick88 wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
If there is a cause for everything then what caused the first cause (god).[/quote]

It’s called an uncaused cause because on that which is brought into existence needs a cause. God being eternal was never brought into existence so he does not need a cause.

This isn’t possible, 1) 2nd law of thermodynamics, 2) the universe shows that a personal and not a blind force created it.
[/quote]

What about a perfect cycle: that over the course of a cycle (from Big Bang back to Big Bang), entropy stays constant.

“In classical thermodynamics, the concept of entropy is defined phenomenologically by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of an isolated system always increases or remains constant”

[/quote]

Darn it. I did not see this post.

188

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Pat, here…I read this (Edward Feser: So you think you understand the cosmological argument?), fully understand it, and finally and fully understand why you think “I don’t get it”. He is infinitely more elegant in his defense of the CA than you (or anyone else here, and I don’t mean that as a dig) and I now understand where you are coming from, and the error of my “approach” to the debate. However, my error is not one of not understanding the ultimate conclusions and pathways of the CA, but one of my failings at the nomenclature of the philosophical disciplines which, to me, at the end of the day and in my opinion amount to linguistic and philosophical masturbation. I understand your (or rather Feser’s) defense of the CA. I still do not accept it without question. And it brings nothing to the table for me personally as I’ve already gone on record as stating I’m not an atheist. That I cannot articulate my objection in your philosophical language is my shortcoming and I’m not interested enough (because like a chessmaster I already see or “grok” the stalemate at the end of this exercise, mo matter what discipline you apply, or nomenclature you use) to continue it’s study to “speak your language”. I’m just really not that interested. I know where it goes and I know where it DOESN’T go. I admit though I’ve been terrible at articulating that.

[/quote]

I hope you don’t mind if I steal the term “philosophical masturbation”. That’s awesome.

189

Also, the second law does not say that entropy can never decrease anywhere. It just says that the total entropy of the universe can never decrease. Entropy can decrease somewhere, provided it increases somewhere else by at least as much. The entropy of a system decreases only when it interacts with some other system whose entropy increases in the process.

What if our universe is an open system, part of a multiverse that it interacts with to decrease entropy.

190

groo wrote:
If there is a cause for everything then what caused the first cause (god

This I didn’t write I quoted a page that I felt gave a simple breakdown of the cosmological argument and its various critiques in a timeline fashion. The more sophisticated objections are farther along in the timeline of course and some of them have a lot of fun symbolic logic or math.

If I was trying to work on refuting it I would focus on that what we know about causes comes from us being in the universe and simply because everything in the universe has a cause this doesn’t mean the universe necessarily has one. I don’t think its particularly important to refute though since the cosmological argument as its iterated in the present says absolutely nothing about religion.

191

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Pat, here…I read this (Edward Feser: So you think you understand the cosmological argument?), fully understand it, and finally and fully understand why you think “I don’t get it”. He is infinitely more elegant in his defense of the CA than you (or anyone else here, and I don’t mean that as a dig) and I now understand where you are coming from, and the error of my “approach” to the debate. However, my error is not one of not understanding the ultimate conclusions and pathways of the CA, but one of my failings at the nomenclature of the philosophical disciplines which, to me, at the end of the day and in my opinion amount to linguistic and philosophical masturbation. I understand your (or rather Feser’s) defense of the CA. I still do not accept it without question. And it brings nothing to the table for me personally as I’ve already gone on record as stating I’m not an atheist. That I cannot articulate my objection in your philosophical language is my shortcoming and I’m not interested enough (because like a chessmaster I already see or “grok” the stalemate at the end of this exercise, mo matter what discipline you apply, or nomenclature you use) to continue it’s study to “speak your language”. I’m just really not that interested. I know where it goes and I know where it DOESN’T go. I admit though I’ve been terrible at articulating that.

[/quote]

That was a good read, BG, thanks.

192

[quote]ironcross wrote:

Your argument is that there must be a cause for everything. [/quote]

You need to read BG’s link above.

193

[quote]groo wrote:
groo wrote:
If there is a cause for everything then what caused the first cause (god

This I didn’t write I quoted a page that I felt gave a simple breakdown of the cosmological argument and its various critiques in a timeline fashion. The more sophisticated objections are farther along in the timeline of course and some of them have a lot of fun symbolic logic or math.

If I was trying to work on refuting it I would focus on that what we know about causes comes from us being in the universe and simply because everything in the universe has a cause this doesn’t mean the universe necessarily has one. I don’t think its particularly important to refute though since the cosmological argument as its iterated in the present says absolutely nothing about religion.[/quote]

You need to read BG’s link above.

194

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
You’re wrong. Point 1 would perhaps apply to THIS Universe, if this universe is in fact ever proven to be a closed system. As discussed ad nauseum elsewhere, there may be multiple universes, or universes popping from previous ones, and so forth. The case for an eternal cosmos is growing.

Number 2, please provide the scientific reference that concludes the universe was created by a personal force. [/quote]

How is my Point 1 wrong, that is the argument…therefore, I am not wrong. You’re misrepresenting the argument or create a straw man fallacy and I was correcting you.

Multiple universes violates occam’s razor, because multiple universes doesn’t answer where each of those universes came from, and the 2nd law of thermodynamics alone puts substantial evidence against eternal universe or your second suggestion as we would have reached heat death. Of course there is plenty of other evidence.

Are you saying that the universe was created by a non-directional force? Don’t say that in a physics classroom.

But, of course.

The universe possesses finely tuned physical constants that allow intelligent life to exist. This is due either to necessity, chance, or design. It is extremely unlikely it was due to chance or necessity. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is most likely the work of a designer.

In “Just Six Numbers” Martin Rees explains six universal physical constants that if changed by even a fraction of a percent, would destroy the possibility of intelligent life in our universe.

The weak gravitational force for example is currently at 10^36 times weaker than competeing electrical forces in an atom. If gravity was stronger gravity would overpower everything burning out stars and crushing everything.

The nuclear force, another example, when hydrogen atoms fuse they release .7% of their energy, if it was .6% the universe would be just hydrogen, if it was .8% we’d have zero hydrogen. Which would make life’s existence impossible.

Even more Hugh Ross, astronomer, calculated the odds off all these constants to a probability of 1 in 10^130. To put that into view the number of atoms is calculated at 10^78. Of course atheist philosophers and scientists both agree that fine-tuning is extremely unlikely: Luke Muehlhauser

Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is as improbable as randomly locating a particular atom in the known universe.

Now, we could be lucky. The other universes may be unlucky that never formed life like we did.

It’s sort of like saying winning the lottery isn’t a miracle because one person wins at the expense of lots of people losing. But in that example I know the other players in the lottery actually exist. Do you have any good evidence that these other multiverses exist?

195

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:
Nothing exists without a cause![/quote]

No, nothing that came into existence can exist without a cause. God never began to exist, nice try though.

If the universe never “began” to exist…

Ahh, see the problem there? [/quote]

So, you’ll ignore the 2nd law of thermodynamics and heat death?

196

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Sufficient reason and or dependence are not. You seem to have 2 dimensional grasp of causation.[/quote]

That’s rich coming from someone who thinks that because nothing can exist without a cause, something that exists without a cause must exist.[/quote]

Dear Jesus (pun intended) thank you for putting that in simple terms. If that doesn’t make you question this fairy tale, nothing will. [/quote]

Except both of you are missing that the argument isn’t just that nothing can exist without a cause, it is that which came into existence cannot exist without a cause. God not coming into existence but being eternal would dictate that he doesn’t have a cause. :)[/quote]

No. YOu’re missing my argument which has been, all along, the possibility, which is growing, that the cosmos is eternal. No beginning, no end, always existed.
[/quote]

So, you’re going to ignore the Big Bang theory, 2nd law of thermodynamics and heat death. Furthermore, that the universe is finely-tuned? Just curious.

197

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
If there is a cause for everything then what caused the first cause (god).[/quote]

It’s called an uncaused cause because on that which is brought into existence needs a cause. God being eternal was never brought into existence so he does not need a cause.

This isn’t possible, 1) 2nd law of thermodynamics, 2) the universe shows that a personal and not a blind force created it.
[/quote]

You’re wrong. Point 1 would perhaps apply to THIS Universe, if this universe is in fact ever proven to be a closed system. As discussed ad nauseum elsewhere, there may be multiple universes, or universes popping from previous ones, and so forth. The case for an eternal cosmos is growing.

Number 2, please provide the scientific reference that concludes the universe was created by a personal force. [/quote]

Actually the case for an eternal cosmos is on the retreat…There’s a tiny problem that there is not a single solitary shred of evidence for it. It’s only possible in concept.
You’re still missing the point by a mile as to why this doesn’t matter. [/quote]

Yeah, it started going out the window around when Einstein and other smart scientists started giving up on the fact that there was no evidence for an eternal universe.

198

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Sufficient reason and or dependence are not. You seem to have 2 dimensional grasp of causation.[/quote]

That’s rich coming from someone who thinks that because nothing can exist without a cause, something that exists without a cause must exist.[/quote]

Dear Jesus (pun intended) thank you for putting that in simple terms. If that doesn’t make you question this fairy tale, nothing will. [/quote]

Except both of you are missing that the argument isn’t just that nothing can exist without a cause, it is that which came into existence cannot exist without a cause. God not coming into existence but being eternal would dictate that he doesn’t have a cause. :)[/quote]

No. YOu’re missing my argument which has been, all along, the possibility, which is growing, that the cosmos is eternal. No beginning, no end, always existed.
[/quote]

So, you’re going to ignore the Big Bang theory, 2nd law of thermodynamics and heat death. Furthermore, that the universe is finely-tuned? Just curious.
[/quote]

What about a perfect cycle: that over the course of a cycle (from Big Bang back to Big Bang), entropy stays constant.

“In classical thermodynamics, the concept of entropy is defined phenomenologically by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of an isolated system always increases or remains constant”

199

[quote]maverick88 wrote:
What about a perfect cycle: that over the course of a cycle (from Big Bang back to Big Bang), entropy stays constant.

“In classical thermodynamics, the concept of entropy is defined phenomenologically by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of an isolated system always increases or remains constant”

[/quote]

“Thus, entropy is also a measure of the tendency of a process, such as a chemical reaction, to be entropically favored, or to proceed in a particular direction. It determines that thermal energy always flows spontaneously from regions of higher temperature to regions of lower temperature, in the form of heat. These processes reduce the state of order of the initial systems, and therefore entropy is an expression of disorder or randomness. This picture is the basis of the modern microscopic interpretation of entropy in statistical mechanics,”

Which is a glass of water with ice in which it experiences heat death on a micro level.

But also, even if entropy didn’t happen then the hypothesis of cycles of universes would have produce evidence against dark matter pushing itself away from each other meaning that the direction of the universe, at least the evidence shows this, that the universe is continually moving away from itself, from a focal point actually.

Also if we came from another universe there should be evidence that the light has folded upon itself when it collapsed, but none has been found.

200

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
groo wrote:
If there is a cause for everything then what caused the first cause (god

This I didn’t write I quoted a page that I felt gave a simple breakdown of the cosmological argument and its various critiques in a timeline fashion. The more sophisticated objections are farther along in the timeline of course and some of them have a lot of fun symbolic logic or math.

If I was trying to work on refuting it I would focus on that what we know about causes comes from us being in the universe and simply because everything in the universe has a cause this doesn’t mean the universe necessarily has one. I don’t think its particularly important to refute though since the cosmological argument as its iterated in the present says absolutely nothing about religion.[/quote]

You need to read BG’s link above.
[/quote]

I’d recommend it because it IS a more elegant defense of the CA than anything that’s been posted here. And it left me wondering if Pat has been inelegant in his defense of the CA or, if he’s purposefully been laying traps to say, “gotcha” - which, in my opinion is intellectually dishonest and really does nothing but fill pages upon pages with circular rhetoric.

Part of the problem with even discussing the CA is that you need to speak the same “language” because of the elegance of the construct (rooted in philosophical discipline, requiring that you debate it on those terms). It’s a philosophical construct, and as such you cannot attack it with science.

But I think Pat is smart enough to know (if he has done his homework as I suspect and if he removes all religious bias) that it still leads to a stalemate. However, no one (yet) has yet been up to the task to debate in the philosophical nomenclature and has thusly (like myself) been falling into the usual obstacles.

Falling into these philosophical sandpits does not mean your ultimate intuition about the CA is wrong (if you are indeed endowed with the ability to understand the argument, counterarguments, where it goes, and moreover where it does NOT go), it just means you’re not engaging from a position of equality (arguing within the philosophical discipline).

Pat would have you believe the CA to be “airtight” (it is not). But it is airtight from the perspective we have been trying to debate it. Pat has done enough homework to say “gotcha”. But it does not make for a very interesting discussion if that was his goal.

If you want to debate the CA with Pat (as I stated, I have no real desire…I know the end game and it doesn’t interest me), I suggest you start with my link and do some homework from there. The link is obviously supportive of the CA, but does acknowledge there is legitimate criticism, and at the same time nicely outlines the error some of us have been making in our resistance to its premise and conclusion. As I said, it’s an elegant defense of the CA, but moreover is an elegant explanation too and a good starting point for further study if it interests you.

If you’re going to debate it correctly, you’re going to have to engage him within the philosophical discipline, something which I have not seen someone do yet (and he very well knows this). All the science in the world (thus far) will not shake it.

And for the record, since the CA leads to no particular religion or God (or even Gods plural), and I’ve stated numerous times I’m not an atheist, I’m not heavily invested enough in the conclusion either way to care.