345 replies to this topic

[AdamSummerfield]

An Athiest would have to say, the universe came from nothing, by nothing, for nothing.

When one does not know something, and one admits it, that is not assuming that something "came from nothing". It is the absence of an assertion.
There is a difference between the absence of an assertion, and the assertion that something came from nothing.

Edited by AdamSummerfield, 19 May 2010 - 03:16 AM.

[chrwe]

After all my tons of research, I have become 100% agnostic in the way of "I don`t know anything" or, even "I know that I know nothing". The universe, the human consciousness, quantum physics, chaos theory, multiverse theories, the concept of time AND of eternity...all mind blowing. It`s defo too early to say "I know this and that". The only thing I know is that naive religious theories as well as convinced "I know everything" atheism is not what I believe. We have bits of knowledge, but we may be interpreting them totally wrong because other crucial bits are still missing.

Let us succeed here and with SENS, so we can all have part of the developments of knowledge which look very promising indeed for the next few centuries!

Agnostically yours

chrwe

[shadowhawk]

It is so basic a question but impossible to answer without faith.

"Both solutions are illogical since both violate causality. "
"It's actually impossible to answer without being illogical."

Each solution begs for causality.

Correct, and any solution for either also begs for causality.

Causality is not illogical to ask...

I did not say it was, I said it was illogical to violate causality.

What do you mean by "causality?" How are you logical in saying causality makes something illogical?

I think you've answered the former yourself:

(1) Whatever comes to be has a cause of its coming to be;

The latter: I didn't say causality "makes something illogical", I said it is illogical to violate causality.

Are you being logical rejecting causality as illogical given it seems to be a law of existence?

I didn't reject causality, I said it is illogical to violate it.

You are right.

[shadowhawk]

An Athiest would have to say, the universe came from nothing, by nothing, for nothing.

When one does not know something, and one admits it, that is not assuming that something "came from nothing". It is the absence of an assertion.
There is a difference between the absence of an assertion, and the assertion that something came from nothing.

You are again right. You don’t have to follow all the points to Atheism.

Here is another good article from the Cambridge- Companion of Atheism by William Lane Craig.
http://www.reasonabl...site/PageServer

azon.com/Cambridge-Companion-Atheism-Companions-Philosophy/dp/0521603676/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274295129&sr=1-1

Pages 69-88
Theistic Critiques Of Atheism
Introduction

The last half-century has witnessed a veritable revolution in Anglo-American philosophy. In a recent retrospective, the eminent Princeton philosopher Paul Benacerraf recalls what it was like doing philosophy at Princeton during the 1950s and '60s. The overwhelmingly dominant mode of thinking was scientific naturalism. Metaphysics had been vanquished, expelled from philosophy like an unclean leper. Any problem that could not be addressed by science was simply dismissed as a pseudo-problem. Verificationism reigned triumphantly over the emerging science of philosophy. "This new enlightenment would put the old metaphysical views and attitudes to rest and replace them with the new mode of doing philosophy."1

The collapse of the Verificationism was undoubtedly the most important philosophical event of the twentieth century. Its demise meant a resurgence of metaphysics, along with other traditional problems of philosophy which Verificationism had suppressed. Accompanying this resurgence has come something new and altogether unanticipated: a renaissance in Christian philosophy.

The face of Anglo-American philosophy has been transformed as a result. Theism is on the rise; atheism is on the decline.2 Atheism, though perhaps still the dominant viewpoint at the American university, is a philosophy in retreat. In a recent article in the secularist journal Philo Quentin Smith laments what he calls "the desecularization of academia that evolved in philosophy departments since the late 1960s." He complains,

Naturalists passively watched as realist versions of theism. . . began to sweep through the philosophical community, until today perhaps one-quarter or one-third of philosophy professors are theists, with most being orthodox Christians . . . . in philosophy, it became, almost overnight, 'academically respectable' to argue for theism, making philosophy a favored field of entry for the most intelligent and talented theists entering academia today.3

Smith concludes, "God is not 'dead' in academia; he returned to life in the late 1960s and is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments."4

As vanguards of a new philosophical paradigm, theistic philosophers have freely issued various critiques of atheism. In so short a space as this entry it is impossible to do little more than sketch some of them and to provide direction for further reading. These critiques could be grouped under two basic heads: (1) There are no cogent arguments on behalf of atheism, and (2) There are cogent arguments on behalf of theism.

No Cogent Arguments on behalf of Atheism

Presumption of Atheism. Theists have complained that the usual arguments against God's existence do not pass philosophical muster. One of the most commonly proffered justifications of atheism has been the so-called presumption of atheism. At face value, this is the claim that in the absence of evidence for the existence of God, we should presume that God does not exist. So understood, such an alleged presumption seems to conflate atheism with agnosticism. When one looks more closely at how protagonists of the presumption of atheism use the term "atheist," however, one discovers that they are sometimes re-defining the word to indicate merely the absence of belief in God. Such a re-definition trivializes the claim of the presumption of atheism, for on this definition atheism ceases to be a view, and even infants count as atheists. One would still require justification in order to know either that God exists or that He does not exist.

Other advocates of the presumption of atheism use the word in the standard way but insist that it is precisely the absence of evidence for theism that justifies their claim that God does not exist. The problem with such a position is captured neatly by the aphorism, beloved of forensic scientists, that "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." The absence of evidence is evidence of absence only in cases in which, were the postulated entity to exist, we should expect to have more evidence of its existence than we do. With respect to God's existence, it is incumbent on the atheist to prove that if God existed, He would provide more evidence of His existence than what we have. This is an enormously heavy burden of proof for the atheist to bear, for two reasons: (1) On at least Christian theism the primary way in which we come to know God is not through evidence but through the inner work of His Holy Spirit, which is effectual in bringing persons into relation with God wholly apart from evidence.5 (2) On Christian theism God has provided the stupendous miracles of the creation of the universe from nothing and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, for which events there is good scientific and historical evidence—not to mention all the other arguments of natural theology.6 In this light, the presumption of atheism seems presumptuous, indeed!

The debate among contemporary philosophers has therefore moved beyond the facile presumption of atheism to a discussion of the so-called "Hiddenness of God" —in effect, a discussion of the probability or expectation that God, if He existed, would leave more evidence of His existence than what we have. Unsatisfied with the evidence we have, some atheists have argued that God, if He existed, would have prevented the world's unbelief by making His existence starkly apparent. But why should God want to do such a thing? On the Christian view it is actually a matter of relative indifference to God whether people believe that He exists or not. For what God is interested in is building a love relationship with us, not just getting us to believe that He exists. There is no reason at all to think that if God were to make His existence more manifest, more people would come into a saving relationship with Him. In fact, we have no way of knowing that in a world of free persons in which God's existence is as obvious as the nose on one's face that more people would come to love Him and know His salvation than in the actual world. But then the claim that if God existed, He would make His existence more evident than it is has little or no warrant, thereby undermining the claim that the absence of such evidence is itself positive evidence that God does not exist. Worse, if God is endowed with middle knowledge, so that He knows how any free person would act under any circumstances in which God might place him, then God can have so providentially ordered the actual world as to provide just those evidences and gifts of the Holy Spirit which He knew would be adequate for bringing those with an open heart and mind to saving faith. Thus, the evidence is as adequate as needs be.

(In)coherence of Theism. One of the central concerns of contemporary Philosophy of Religion is the coherence of theism. During the previous generation the concept of God was often regarded as fertile ground for anti-theistic arguments. The difficulty with theism, it was said, was not merely that there are no good arguments for the existence of God, but, more fundamentally, that the notion of God is incoherent.

This anti-theistic critique has evoked a prodigious literature devoted to the philosophical analysis of the concept of God. Two controls have tended to guide this inquiry into the divine nature: Scripture and Perfect Being theology. For thinkers in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the Anselmian conception of God as the greatest conceivable being or most perfect being has guided philosophical speculation on the raw data of Scripture, so that God's biblical attributes are to be conceived in ways that would serve to exalt God's greatness. Since the concept of God is underdetermined by the biblical data and since what constitutes a "great-making" property is to some degree debatable, philosophers working within the Judaeo-Christian tradition enjoy considerable latitude in formulating a philosophically coherent and biblically faithful doctrine of God. Theists thus find that anti-theistic critiques of certain conceptions of God can actually be quite helpful in formulating a more adequate conception.

For example, most Christian philosophers of religion today are quite happy to deny that God is simple or impassible or immutable in any unrestricted sense, even though medieval theologians affirmed such divine attributes, since these attributes are not ascribed to God in the Bible (and seem even to be incompatible with the biblical descriptions of God) and are not clearly great-making. Should it turn out that certain notions like omnipotence or omniscience are inherently paradoxical under certain definitions, that no being could have all powers, say, or know all truths, this conclusion, while of considerable academic interest, would in the end be of little theological significance, since what God cannot do or know on such accounts is so recondite that no incompatibility is thereby demonstrated with the God described in the Bible.

In fact, however, a coherent doctrine of God's attributes can be formulated. Take omnipotence, for example. This attribute stubbornly resisted adequate formulation until Flint and Freddoso's analysis published in 1983. A key insight into the concept of omnipotence is that it should be defined in terms of the ability to actualize certain states of affairs, rather than in terms of raw power. Thus, omnipotence should not be understood as power which is unlimited in its quantity or variety. If we understand omnipotence in terms of ability to actualize states of affairs, then it is no attenuation of God's omnipotence that He cannot make a stone too heavy for Him to lift, for, given that God is essentially omnipotent, "a stone too heavy for God to lift" describes as logically impossible a state of affairs as does "a square triangle" and thus describes nothing at all.

Shall we say, then, that an agent S is omnipotent if and only if S can actualize any state of affairs which is broadly logically possible? No, for certain states of affairs may be logically possible but due to the passage of time may no longer be possible to actualize. Let us call past states of affairs which are not indirectly actualizable by someone later in time the "hard" past. Shall we say, then, that an agent S is omnipotent at a time t if and only if S can at t actualize any state of affairs which is broadly logically possible for someone sharing the same hard past with S to actualize at t ? It seems not. For counterfactuals about free actions raise a further problem. One has control over counterfactuals about one's own free decisions but not over counterfactuals about the free decisions of others. That implies that an adequate definition of omnipotence cannot require S to be able to actualize states of affairs described by counterfactuals about the free decisions of other agents, for that would be to demand the logically impossible of S. Shall we say, then, that S is omnipotent at a time t if and only if S can at t actualize any state of affairs which is broadly logically possible for S to actualize, given the same hard past at t and the same true counterfactuals about free acts of others? This seems almost right. But it is open to the complaint that if S is essentially incapable of any particular action, no matter how trivial, than S's inability to perform that action does not count against his omnipotence. Therefore we need to broaden the definition so as to require S to perform any action which any agent in his situation could perform. The following analysis would seem satisfactory: S is omnipotent at a time t if and only if S can at t actualize any state of affairs which is not described by counterfactuals about the free acts of others and which is broadly logically possible for someone to actualize, given the same hard past at t and the same true counterfactuals about free acts of others. Such an analysis successfully sets the parameters of God's omnipotence without imposing any non-logical limit on His power.

Or consider omniscience. On the standard account of omniscience, for any person S, S is omniscient if and only if S knows every true proposition and believes no false proposition. On this account God's cognitive excellence is defined in terms of his propositional knowledge. Some persons have charged that omniscience so-defined is an inherently paradoxical notion, like the set of all truths. But the standard definition does not commit us to any sort of totality of all truths but merely to universal quantification with respect to truths: God knows every truth. Moreover, the standard definition does not purport to give us the mode of God's knowledge but merely its scope and accuracy. Christian theologians have not typically thought of God's knowledge as propositional in nature but as an undivided intuition of reality, which we finite knowers represent to ourselves in terms of propositions. We express propositionally what God knows non-propositionally. On this view there do not actually exist an infinite number of propositions but only as many propositions as human beings have cognized. Indeed, if one is a fictionalist with respect to abstract objects like propositions, then propositions are just useful fictions which we employ to describe people's belief states, and the ground is swept from beneath any objections formulated on the basis of Platonistic assumptions concerning the reality of propositions. Finally, adequate definitions of divine omniscience are possible which make no mention of propositions at all. Charles Taliaferro proposes, for example, that omniscience be understood in terms of maximal cognitive power, towit, a person S is omniscient iff it is metaphysically impossible for there to be a being with greater cognitive power than S and this power is fully exercised.

Thus, far from undermining theism, the anti-theistic critiques of theism's coherence have served mainly to refine and strengthen theistic belief.

Problem of Evil.Undoubtedly the greatest obstacle to belief in God is the so-called problem of evil. During the last quarter century or so, an enormous amount of philosophical analysis has been poured into this problem, with the result that genuine philosophical progress on the age-old question has been made.

Most broadly speaking, we must distinguish between the intellectual problem of evil and the emotional problem of evil. The intellectual problem of evil concerns how to give a rational explanation of the co-existence of God and evil. The emotional problem of evil concerns how to comfort those who are suffering and how to dissolve the emotional dislike people have of a God who would permit such evil.

Contemporary thinkers recognize that there are significantly different versions of the intellectual problem of evil and have assigned various labels to them, such as "deductive," "inductive," "logical," "probabilistic," evidential," and so on. It may be most helpful to distinguish two ways in which the intellectual problem of evil may be cast, either as an internal problem or as an external problem. That is to say, the problem may be presented in terms of premises to which the theist is or ought to be committed as a theist, so that the theistic worldview is somehow at odds with itself, or it may be presented in terms of premises to which the theist is not committed as a theist but which we nonetheless have good reason to regard as true.

It is worth noting that traditionally atheists have presented the problem of evil as an internal problem for theism. That is, atheists have claimed that the statements

A. An omnipotent, omnibenevolent God exists.

and

B. The quantity and kinds of suffering in the world exist.

are either logically inconsistent or improbable with respect to each other. As a result of the work of Christian philosophers like Alvin Plantinga, it is today widely recognized that the internal problem of evil is a failure as an argument for atheism. No one has ever been able to show that (A) and (B) are either logically incompatible with each other or improbable with respect to each other.

Having abandoned the internal problem, atheists have very recently taken to advocating the external problem, often called the evidential problem of evil. If we take God to be essentially omnipotent and omnibenevolent and call suffering which is not necessary to achieve some adequately compensating good "gratuitous evil," the argument can be simply summarized:

1. If God exists, gratuitous evil does not exist.

2. Gratuitous evil exists.

3. Therefore, God does not exist.

What makes this an external problem is that the theist is not committed by his worldview to the truth of (2). The Christian theist is committed to the truth that Evil exists, but not that Gratuitous evil exists. Thus the atheist claims that the apparently pointless and unnecessary suffering in the world constitutes evidence against God's existence.

Now the most controversial premiss in this argument is (2). Everybody admits that the world is filled with apparently gratuitous suffering. But that does not imply that these apparently gratuitous evils really are gratuitous. There are at least three reasons why the inference from apparently gratuitous evil to genuinely gratuitous evil is tenuous.

1. We are not in a good position to assess with confidence the probability that God lacks morally sufficient reasons for permitting the suffering in the world. Whether God's existence is improbable relative to the evil in the world depends on how probable it is that God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil that occurs. What makes the probability here so difficult to assess is that we are not in a good epistemic position to make these kinds of probability judgements with any sort of confidence. Only an omniscient mind could grasp the complexities of providentially directing a world of free creatures toward one's pre-visioned goals. One has only to think of the innumerable, incalculable contingencies involved in arriving at a single historical event, say, the enactment of the Lend-Lease policy by the American Congress prior to the United States' entry into World War II. We have no idea of the natural and moral evils that might be involved in order for God to arrange the circumstances and free agents in them requisite to such an event. Certainly many evils seem pointless and unnecessary to us—but we are simply not in a position to judge. To say this is not to appeal to mystery, but rather to point to the inherent cognitive limitations that frustrate attempts to say that it is improbable that God has a morally sufficient reason for permitting some particular evil.

Ironically, in other contexts atheists recognize these cognitive limitations. One of the most damaging objections to utilitarian ethical theory, for example, is that it is quite simply impossible for us to estimate which action that we might perform will ultimately lead to the greatest amount of happiness or pleasure in the world. Because of our cognitive limitations, actions which appear disastrous in the short term may redound to the greatest good, while some short term boon may issue in untold misery. Once we contemplate God's providence over the whole of history, then it becomes evident how hopeless it is for limited observers to speculate on the probability that some evil we see is ultimately gratuitous. Our failure to discern the morally justifying reason for the occurrence of various evils gives very little ground for thinking that God—especially a God equipped with middle knowledge—does not have morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evils we observe in the world.

2. Christian theism entails doctrines that increase the probability of the co-existence of God and evil. The atheist maintains that if God exists, then it is improbable that the world would contain the evils it does. Now what the Christian theist can do in response to such an assertion is to offer various hypotheses that would tend to raise the probability of evil given God's existence: Pr (Evil/God&Hypotheses) > Pr (Evil/God). The Christian can try to show that if God exists and these hypotheses are true, then it is not so surprising that evil exists. This in turn reduces any improbability which evil might be thought to throw upon God. These hypotheses are various Christian doctrines, so that the Christian's claim is that the observed evil in the world is more probable on Christian theism than it is on mere theism (or, alternatively, that these doctrines should lead us to revise upward Pr (Evil/God) in light of the realization that Pr (Evil/Christian God) is not so low after all). Four Christian doctrines come to mind in this connection.

First, the chief purpose of life is not happiness, but the knowledge of God. One reason that the problem of evil seems so intractable is that people tend naturally to assume that if God exists, then His purpose for human life is happiness in this world. God's role is to provide a comfortable environment for His human pets. But on the Christian view, this is false. We are not God's pets, and the goal of human life is not happiness per se, but the knowledge of God—which in the end will bring true and everlasting human fulfillment. Many evils occur in life which may be utterly pointless with respect to the goal of producing human happiness; but they may not be pointless with respect to producing a deeper, saving knowledge of God. To carry his argument, the atheist must show that it is feasible for God to create a world in which the same amount of the knowledge of God is achieved, but with less evil—which is sheer speculation.

Second, mankind has been accorded significant moral freedom to rebel against God and His purpose. Rather than submit to and worship God, people have freely rebelled against God and go their own way and so find themselves alienated from God, morally guilty before Him, and groping in spiritual darkness, pursuing false gods of their own making. The horrendous moral evils in the world are testimony to man's depravity in this state of spiritual alienation from God. The Christian is thus not surprised at the moral evil in the world; on the contrary he expects it.

Third, God's purpose spills over into eternal life. In the Christian view, this earthly life is but a momentary preparation for immortal life. In the afterlife God will give those who have trusted Him for salvation an eternal life of unspeakable joy. Given the prospect of eternal life, we should not expect to see in this life God's compensation for every evil we experience. Some may be justified only in light of eternity.

Fourth, the knowledge of God is an incommensurable good. To know God, the locus of infinite goodness and love, is an incomparable good, the fulfillment of human existence. The sufferings of this life cannot even be compared to it. Thus, the person who knows God, no matter what he suffers, no matter how awful his pain, can still truly say, "God is good to me!", simply in virtue of the fact that he knows God.

These four Christian doctrines increase the probability of the co-existence of God and the evils in the world. They thereby serve to decrease any improbability which these evils might seem to cast upon the existence of God. In order to sustain his argument the atheist will have to show that these doctrines are themselves improbable.

3. There is better warrant for believing that God exists than that the evil in the world is really gratuitous. It has been said that one man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens. The atheist's own argument may thus be turned against him:

1. If God exists, gratuitous evil does not exist.

2*. God exists.

3*. Therefore, gratuitous evil does not exist.

Thus, if God exists, then the evil in the world is not really gratuitous.

So the issue comes down to which is true: (2) or (2*)? In order to prove that God does not exist, atheists would have to show that (2) is significantly more probable than (2*). As Daniel Howard-Snyder points out in his book The Evidential Problem of Evil, an argument from evil is a problem only for the person "who finds all its premises and inferences compelling and who has lousy grounds for believing theism."7 But if one has better reasons for believing that God exists, then evil "is not a problem."8 The Christian theist might maintain that when we take into account the full scope of the evidence, then the existence of God becomes quite probable, even if the problem of evil, taken in isolation, does make God's existence improbable.

Cogent Arguments on behalf of Theism

The renaissance of Christian philosophy over the last half century has been accompanied by a re-appreciation of the traditional arguments for the existence of God. Limitations of space permit mention of only four such arguments here.

Contingency Argument. A simple statement of the argument might run:

1. Anything that exists has an explanation of its existence (either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause).

2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.

3. The universe exists.

4. Therefore the explanation of the existence of the universe is God.

Premiss (1) is a modest version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. It circumvents the typical atheist objections to strong versions of that principle. For (1) merely requires any existing thing to have an explanation of its existence. This premise is compatible with there being brute facts about the world. What it precludes is that there could exist things which just exist inexplicably. This principle seems quite plausible, at least more so than its contradictory. One thinks of Richard Taylor's illustration of finding a translucent ball while walking in the woods. One would find the claim quite bizarre that the ball just exists inexplicably; and increasing the size of the ball, even until it becomes co-extensive with the cosmos, would do nothing to obviate the need for an explanation of its existence.

Premiss (2) is, in effect, the contrapositive of the typical atheist retort that on the atheistic worldview the universe simply exists as a brute contingent thing. Moreover, (2) seems quite plausible in its own right. For if the universe, by definition, includes all of physical reality, then the cause of the universe must (at least causally prior to the universe's existence) transcend space and time and therefore cannot be temporal or material. But there are only two kinds of things that could fall under such a description: either an abstract object or else a mind. But abstract objects do not stand in causal relations. Therefore it follows that the explanation of the existence of the universe is an external, transcendent, personal cause—which is one meaning of "God."

Finally, (3) states the obvious, that there is a universe. It follows that God exists.

It is open to the atheist to retort that while the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation lies not in an external ground but in the necessity of its own nature; in other words, (2) is false. This is, however, an extremely bold suggestion which atheists have not been eager to embrace. We have, one can safely say, a strong intuition of the universe's contingency. A possible world in which no concrete objects exist certainly seems conceivable. We generally trust our modal intuitions on other familiar matters; if we are to do otherwise with respect to the universe's contingency, then the atheist needs to provide some reason for such scepticism other than his desire to avoid theism. Moreover, as we shall see below, we have good reason to think that the universe does not exist by a necessity of its own nature.

Cosmological Argument. A simple version of this argument might go:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Conceptual analysis of what it means to be a cause of the universe then helps to establish some of the theologically significant properties of this being.

Premiss (1) seems obviously true—at the least, more so than its negation. It is rooted in the metaphysical intuition that something cannot come into being from nothing. If things could really come into being uncaused out of nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything and everything do not come into existence uncaused from nothing. Moreover, the conviction that an origin of the universe requires a causal explanation seems quite reasonable, for on the atheistic view, if the universe began at the Big Bang, there was not even the potentiality of the universe's existence prior to the Big Bang, since nothing is prior to the Big Bang. But then how could the universe become actual if there was not even the potentiality of its existence? It makes much more sense to say that the potentiality of the universe lay in the power of God to create it. Finally, the first premiss is constantly confirmed in our experience. Atheists who are scientific naturalists thus have the strongest of motivations to accept it.

Premiss (2), the more controversial premiss, may be supported by both deductive, philosophical arguments and inductive, scientific arguments. Classical proponents of the argument contended that an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist, since the existence of an actually infinite, as opposed to merely potentially infinite, number of things leads to intolerable absurdities. The best way to support this claim is still by way of thought experiments, like the famous Hilbert's Hotel9, which illustrate the various absurdities that would result if an actual infinite were to be instantiated in the real world. It is usually alleged that this sort of argument has been invalidated by Georg Cantor's work on the actual infinite. But Cantorian set theory may be taken to be simply a universe of discourse, a mathematical system based on certain adopted axioms and conventions. The argument's defender may hold that while the actual infinite may be a fruitful and consistent concept within the postulated universe of discourse, it cannot be transposed into the spatio-temporal world, for this would involve counter-intuitive absurdities. He is at liberty to reject Platonistic views of mathematical objects in favor of non-Platonist views such as fictionalism or divine conceptualism combined with the simplicity of God's cognition.

A second argument for the beginning of the universe offered by classical proponents is that the temporal series of past events cannot be an actual infinite because a collection formed by successive addition cannot be actually infinite. Sometimes the problem was described as the impossibility of traversing the infinite. In order for us to have "arrived" at today, temporal existence has, so to speak, traversed an infinite number of prior events. But before the present event could arrive, the event immediately prior to it would have to arrive; and before that event could arrive, the event immediately prior to it would have to arrive; and so on ad infinitum. No event could ever arrive, since before it could elapse there will always be one more event that will had to have happened first. Thus, if the series of past events were beginningless, the present event could not have arrived, which is absurd.

It is frequently objected that this sort of argument illicitly presupposes an infinitely distant starting point in the past and then pronounces it impossible to travel from that point to today, whereas in fact from any given point in the past, there is only a finite distance to the present, which is easily traversed. But proponents of the argument have not in fact assumed that there was an infinitely distant starting point in the past. To traverse a distance is to cross every proper part of it. As such, traversal does not entail that the distance traversed has a beginning or ending point or a first or last part. The fact that there is no beginning at all, not even an infinitely distant one, seems only to make the problem worse, not better. To say that the infinite past could have been formed by successive addition is like saying that someone has just succeeded in writing down all the negative numbers, ending at - 1. And, we may ask, how is the claim that from any given moment in the past there is only a finite distance to the present even relevant to the issue? For the question is how the whole series can be formed, not a finite portion of it. To think that because every finite segment of the series can be formed by successive addition the whole infinite series can as well is to commit the fallacy of composition.

A third argument for the universe's beginning is an inductive argument based on contemporary evidence for the expansion of the universe. The standard Big Bang model does not describe the expansion of the material content of the universe into a pre-existing, empty space, but rather the expansion of space itself. This has the astonishing implication that as one extrapolates back in time, space-time curvature becomes progressively greater until one arrives at a singularity, at which space-time curvature becomes infinite. It therefore constitutes an edge or boundary to space-time itself.

The history of twentieth century cosmology has, in one sense, been a series of failed attempts to craft acceptable non-standard models of the expanding universe in order to avert the absolute beginning predicted by the standard model. While such theories are possible, it has been the overwhelming verdict of the scientific community than none of them is more probable than the Big Bang theory. There is no mathematically consistent model which has been so successful in its predictions or as corroborated by the evidence as the traditional Big Bang theory. For example, some theories, like the Oscillating Universe (which expands and re-contracts forever) or the Chaotic Inflationary Universe (which continually spawns new universes), do have a potentially infinite future but turn out to have only a finite past. Vacuum Fluctuation Universe theories (which postulate an eternal vacuum out of which our universe is born) cannot explain why, if the vacuum was eternal, we do not observe an infinitely old universe. The No-Boundary Universe proposal of Hartle and Hawking, if interpreted realistically, still involves an absolute origin of the universe even if the universe does not begin in a singularity, as it does in the standard Big Bang theory. Recently proposed Ekpyrotic Cyclic Universe scenarios based on string theory or M-theory have also been shown, not only to be riddled with problems, but, most significantly, to imply the very origin of the universe which its proponents sought to avoid. Of course, scientific results are always provisional, but there is no doubt that one rests comfortably within the scientific mainstream in asserting the truth of premiss (2).

A fourth argument for the finitude of the past is also an inductive argument, appealing to thermodynamic properties of the universe. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, processes taking place in a closed system tend toward states of higher entropy, as their energy is used up. Already in the nineteenth century scientists realized that the application of the Law to the universe as a whole (which, on naturalistic assumptions, is a gigantic closed system, since it is all there is) implied a grim eschatological conclusion: given sufficient time, the universe would eventually come to a state of equilibrium and suffer heat death. But this apparently firm projection raised an even deeper question: if, given sufficient time, the universe will suffer heat death, then why, if it has existed forever, is it not now in a state of heat death? The advent of relativity theory altered the shape of the eschatological scenario predicted on the basis of the Second Law but did not materially affect this fundamental question. Astrophysical evidence indicates overwhelmingly that the universe will expand forever. As it does, it will become increasingly cold, dark, dilute, and dead. Eventually the entire mass of the universe will be nothing but a cold, thin gas of elementary particles and radiation, growing ever more dilute as it expands into the infinite darkness, a universe in ruins.

But this raises the question: if in a finite amount of time the universe will achieve a cold, dark, dilute, and lifeless state, then why, if it has existed for infinite time, is it not now in a such a state? If one is to avoid the conclusion that the universe has not in fact existed forever, then one must find some scientifically plausible way to overturn the findings of physical cosmology so as to permit the universe to return to its youthful condition. But no realistic and plausible scenario is forthcoming.10 Most cosmologists agree with physicist P. C. W. Davies that whether we like it or not we seemed forced to conclude that the universe's low entropy condition was simply "put in" as an initial condition at the moment of creation.11

We thus have good philosophical and scientific grounds for affirming the second premiss of the cosmological argument. It is noteworthy that this premiss is a religiously neutral statement which can be found in any textbook on astrophysical cosmology, so that facile accusations of "God-of-the gaps" theology find no purchase. Moreover, since a being which exists by a necessity of its own nature must exist either timelessly or sempiternally (otherwise its coming into being or ceasing to be would make it evident that its existence is not necessary), it follows that the universe cannot be metaphysically necessary, which fact closes the final loophole in the contingency argument above.

It follows logically that the universe has a cause. Conceptual analysis of what properties must be possessed by such an ultra-mundane cause enables us to recover a striking number of the traditional divine attributes, revealing that if the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and enormously powerful.12

Teleological Argument. We may formulate a design argument as follows:

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.

2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.

3. Therefore, it is due to design.

What is meant by "fine-tuning"? The physical laws of nature, when given mathematical expression, contain various constants, such as the gravitational constant, whose values are independent of the laws themselves; moreover, there are certain arbitrary quantities which are simply put in as boundary conditions on which the laws of nature operate, for example, the initial low entropy condition of the universe. By "fine-tuning" one means that the actual values assumed by the constants and quantities in question are such that small deviations from those values would render the universe life-prohibiting or, alternatively, that the range of life-permitting values is exquisitely narrow in comparison with the range of assumable values.

Laypeople might think that if the constants and quantities had assumed different values, then other forms of life might well have evolved. But this is not the case. By "life" scientists mean that property of organisms to take in food, extract energy from it, grow, adapt to their environment, and reproduce. The point is that in order for the universe to permit life so-defined, whatever form organisms might take, the constants and quantities have to be incomprehensibly fine-tuned. In the absence of fine-tuning, not even matter or chemistry would exist, not to speak of planets where life might evolve.

It has been objected that in universes governed by different laws of nature, such deleterious consequences might not result from varying the values of the constants and quantities. The teleologist need not deny the possibility, for such universes are irrelevant to his argument. All he needs to show is that among possible universes governed by the same laws (but having different values of the constants and quantities) as the actual universe, life-permitting universes are extraordinarily improbable.

Now premiss (1) states the three alternatives in the pool of live options for explaining cosmic fine-tuning. The question is which is the best explanation.

Now on the face of it the alternative of physical necessity seems extraordinarily implausible. As we have seen, the values of the physical constants and quantities are independent of the laws of nature. If the primordial matter and anti-matter had been differently proportioned, if the universe had expanded just a little more slowly, if the entropy of the universe were marginally greater, any of these adjustments and more would have prevented a life-permitting universe, yet all seem perfectly possible physically. The person who maintains that the universe must be life-permitting is taking a radical line which requires strong proof. But as yet there is none; this alternative is put forward as a bare possibility.

Sometimes physicists do speak of a yet to be discovered Theory of Everything (T.O.E.), but such nomenclature is, like so many of the colorful names given to scientific theories, quite misleading. A T.O.E. actually has the limited goal of providing a unified theory of the four fundamental forces of nature, but it will not even attempt to explain literally everything. For example, in the most promising candidates for a T.O.E. to date, super-string theory or M-Theory, the physical universe must be 11-dimensional, but why the universe should possess just that number of dimensions is not addressed by the theory. M-Theory simply substitutes geometrical fine-tuning for fine-tuning of forces.

Furthermore, it seems likely that any attempt to significantly reduce fine-tuning will itself turn out to involve fine-tuning. This has certainly been the pattern in the past. In light of the specificity and number of instances of fine-tuning, it is unlikely to disappear with the further advance of physical theory.

What, then, of the alternative of chance? Teleologists seek to eliminate this hypothesis either by appealing to the specified complexity of cosmic fine-tuning (a statistical approach to design inference) or by arguing that the fine-tuning is significantly more probable on design (theism) than on the chance hypothesis (atheism) (a Bayesian approach). Common to both approaches is the claim that the universe's being life-permitting is highly improbable.

In order to save the hypothesis of chance, defenders of that alternative have increasingly recurred to the Many Worlds Hypothesis, according to which a World Ensemble of concrete universes exists, thereby multiplying one's probabilistic resources. In order to guarantee that by chance alone a universe like ours will appear somewhere in the Ensemble, an actually infinite number of such universes is usually postulated. But that is not enough; one must also stipulate that these worlds are randomly ordered with respect to the values of their constants and quantities, lest they be of insufficient variety to include a life-permitting universe.

Is the Many Worlds Hypothesis as good an explanation as the Design Hypothesis?

It seems doubtful. In the first place, as a metaphysical hypothesis, the Many Worlds Hypothesis is arguably inferior to the Design Hypothesis because the latter is simpler. According to Ockham's Razor, we should not multiply causes beyond what is necessary to explain the effect. But it is simpler to postulate one Cosmic Designer to explain our universe than to postulate the infinitely bloated and contrived ontology of the Many Worlds Hypothesis. Only if the Many Worlds theorist could show that there exists a single, comparably simple mechanism for generating a World Ensemble of randomly varied universes would he be able to elude this difficulty.

Second, there is no known way of generating a World Ensemble. No one has been able to explain how or why such a collection of varied universes should exist. Some proposals, like Lee Smolin's cosmic evolutionary scenario, actually served to weed out life-permitting universes, while others, like Andre Linde's chaotic inflationary scenario, turned out to require fine-tuning themselves.

Third, there is no evidence for the existence of a World Ensemble apart from the fine-tuning itself. But the fine-tuning is equally evidence for a Cosmic Designer. Indeed, the hypothesis of a Cosmic Designer is again the better explanation because we have independent evidence of the existence of such a being in the other theistic arguments.

Fourth, if our universe is but one member of an infinite World Ensemble of randomly varying universes, then it is overwhelmingly more probable that we should be observing a much different universe than that which we in fact observe. Roger Penrose calculates that the odds of our universe's low entropy condition obtaining by chance alone are on the order of 1:1010(123), an inconceivable number. By contrast, the odds of our solar system's being formed instantly by random collisions of particles is, according to Penrose, about 1:1010(60), a vast number, but inconceivably smaller than 1010(123). If our universe were but one member of a collection of randomly ordered worlds, then it is vastly more probable that we should be observing a much smaller universe. Adopting the Many Worlds Hypothesis to explain away fine-tuning would thus result in a bizarre illusionism: it is far more probable that all our astronomical, geological, and biological estimates of age are wrong and that the appearance of our large and old universe is a massive illusion. Or again, if our universe is but one member of a World Ensemble, then we ought to be observing highly extraordinary events, like horses' popping into and out of existence by random collisions, or perpetual motion machines, since these are vastly more probable than all of nature's constants and quantities falling by chance into the virtually infinitesimal life-permitting range. Observable universes like those are much more plenteous in the ensemble of universes than worlds like ours and, therefore, ought to be observed by us if the universe were but one member of an ensemble of worlds. Since we do not have such observations, that fact strongly disconfirms the multiverse hypothesis. On atheism, at least, it is therefore highly probable that there is no World Ensemble. Penrose concludes that anthropic explanations are so "impotent" that it is actually "misconceived" to appeal to them to explain the special features of the universe.13 Thus, the Many Worlds Hypothesis fails as a plausible explanation of cosmic fine-tuning.

It therefore seems that the fine-tuning of the universe is plausibly due neither to physical necessity nor to chance. Unless the design hypothesis can be shown to be even more implausible that its competitors, it follows that the fine-tuning is due to design.

Moral Argument. Theists have presented a wide variety of moral justifications for belief in a Deity. One such argument may be formulated as follows:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.

2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.

3. Therefore, God exists.

Consider premiss (1). To speak of objective moral values and duties is to say that moral distinctions between what is good/bad or right/wrong hold independently of whether any human being holds to such distinctions. Many theists and atheists alike agree that if God does not exist, then moral values and duties are not objective in this sense.

For if God does not exist, then what is the foundation for moral values? More particularly, what is the basis for the value of human beings? If God does not exist, then it is difficult to see any reason to think that human beings are special or that their morality is objectively valid. Moreover, why think that we have any moral obligations to do anything? Who or what imposes any moral duties upon us? As a result of socio-biological pressures, there has evolved among homo sapiens a sort of "herd morality" which functions well in the perpetuation of our species in the struggle for survival. But there does not seem to be anything about homo sapiens that makes this morality objectively binding. If the film of evolutionary history were rewound and shot anew, very different creatures with a very different set of values might well have evolved. By what right do we regard our morality as objective rather than theirs? As the humanist philosopher Paul Kurtz puts it, "The central question about moral and ethical principles concerns this ontological foundation. If they are neither derived from God nor anchored in some transcendent ground, are they purely ephemeral?"14

Some philosophers, equally averse to transcendently existing moral values as to theism, try to maintain the existence of objective moral principles or supervenient moral properties in the context of a naturalistic worldview. But the advocates of such theories are typically at a loss to justify their starting point. If there is no God, then it is hard to see any ground for thinking that the herd morality evolved by homo sapiens is objectively true or moral goodness supervenes on certain natural states of such creatures. Crudely put, on the atheistic view humans are just animals; and animals are not moral agents.

If our approach to meta-ethical theory is to be serious metaphysics rather than just a "shopping list" approach, whereby one simply helps oneself to the supervenient moral properties or principles needed to do the job, then some sort of explanation is required for why moral properties supervene on certain natural states or why such principles are true.15 It is insufficient for the naturalist to point out that we do, in fact, apprehend the goodness of some feature of human existence, for that only goes to establish the objectivity of moral values and duties, which just is premiss (2) of the moral argument.

We therefore need to ask whether moral values and duties can be plausibly anchored in some transcendent, non-theistic ground. Let us call this view Atheistic Moral Realism. Atheistic moral realists affirm that objective moral values and duties do exist and are not dependent upon evolution or human opinion, but they insist that they are not grounded in God. Indeed, moral values have no further foundation. They just exist.

It is difficult, however, even to comprehend this view. What does it mean to say, for example, that the moral value Justice just exists? It is hard to know what to make of this. It is clear what is meant when it is said that a person is just; but it is bewildering when it is said that in the absence of any people, Justice itself exists.

Second, the nature of moral obligation seems incompatible with Atheistic Moral Realism. Suppose that values like Mercy, Justice, Forbearance, and the like just exist. How does that result in any moral obligations for me? Why would I have a moral duty, say, to be merciful? Who or what lays such an obligation on me? On this view moral vices such as Greed, Hatred, and Selfishness also presumably exist as abstract objects, too. Why am I obligated to align my life with one set of these abstractly existing objects rather than any other? In contrast with the atheist, the theist can make sense of moral obligation because God's commands can be viewed as constitutive of our moral duties.

Thirdly, it is fantastically improbable that just that sort of creatures would emerge from the blind evolutionary process who correspond to the abstractly existing realm of moral values. This seems to be an utterly incredible coincidence when one thinks about it. It is almost as though the moral realm knew that we were coming. It is far more plausible to regard both the natural realm and the moral realm as under the hegemony of a divine Creator and Lawgiver than to think that these two entirely independent orders of reality just happened to mesh.

Although theistic meta-ethics assumes a rich variety of forms, there has been in recent years a resurgence of interest in Divine Command Morality, which understands our moral duties as our obligations to God in light of His moral commands, for example, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," and so on. Our moral duties are constituted by the commands of an impartial and loving God. For any action A and moral agent S, we can explicate the notions of moral requirement, permission, and forbiddenness of A for S:

A is required of S iff an impartial and loving God commands S to do A.

A is permitted for S iff an impartial and loving God does not command S not to do A.

A is forbidden to S iff an impartial and loving God commands S not to do A.

Since our moral duties are grounded in the divine commands, they are not independent of God nor is God bound by moral duties, since He does not issue commands to Himself. Neither are God's commands arbitrary, since they are necessary expressions of His nature.

The question might be pressed as to why God's nature should be taken to be definitive of goodness. But unless we are nihilists, we have to recognize some ultimate standard of value, and God seems to be the least arbitrary stopping point. Moreover, God's nature is singularly appropriate to serve as such a standard. For by definition, God is the greatest conceivable being, and it is greater to be the paradigm of moral value than merely to conform to such a standard. More specifically, God is by definition a being worthy of worship. And only a being which is the locus and source of all value is worthy of worship.

Traditional arguments for God's existence such as the above, not to mention creative new arguments, are alive and well on the contemporary scene in Anglo-American philosophy. Together with the failure of anti-theistic arguments, they help to explain the renaissance of interest in theism.

Endnotes

1 Paul Benacerraf, "What Mathematical Truth Could Not Be—I," in Benacerraf and His Critics, ed. Adam Morton and Stephen P. Stich (Oxford: Blackwell: 1996), p. 18.

2 The change has not gone unnoticed even in popular culture. In 1980 Time magazine ran major story entitled "Modernizing the Case for God" in which it described the movement among contemporary philosophers to refurbish the traditional arguments for God's existence. Time marveled, "In a quiet revolution in thought and argument that hardly anybody could have foreseen only two decades ago, God is making a comeback. Most intriguingly, this is happening not among theologians or ordinary believers, but in the crisp intellectual circles of academic philosophers, where the consensus had long banished the Almighty from fruitful discourse" ("Modernizing the Case for God," Time [7 April 1980], pp. 65-66). The article cites the late Roderick Chisholm to the effect that the reason that atheism was so influential a generation ago is that the brightest philosophers were atheists; but today, in his opinion, many of the brightest philosophers are theists, using a tough-minded intellectualism in defense of that belief that was formerly lacking on their side of the debate.

3 Quentin Smith, "The Metaphilosophy of Naturalism" Philo 4/2(2001): 3-4. A sign of the times: Philo itself, unable to succeed as a secular organ, has now become a journal for general philosophy of religion.

4 Ibid., p. 4.

5 One of the most significant developments in contemporary Religious Epistemology has been so-called Reformed Epistemology, spearheaded and developed by Alvin Plantinga, which directly assaults the evidentialist construal of rationality. With respect to the belief that God exists, Plantinga holds that God has so constituted us that we naturally form this belief under certain circumstances; since the belief is thus formed by properly functioning cognitive faculties in an appropriate environment, it is warranted for us, and, insofar as our faculties are not disrupted by the noetic effects of sin, we shall believe this proposition deeply and firmly, so that we can be said, in virtue of the great warrant accruing to this belief for us, to know that God exists.

6 On Jesus' resurrection see N. T. Wright, Christian Origins and the Question of God, vol. 3: The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003).

7 Daniel Howard-Snyder, "Introduction," in The Evidential Argument from Evil, ed. Daniel Howard-Snyder (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1996), p. xi.

8 Ibid. The Christian theist will therefore insist that in assessing the external problem of evil we consider, not just the evil in the world, but all the evidence relevant to God's existence, including the contingency argument for a Sufficient Reason why something exists rather than nothing, the cosmological argument for a Creator of the universe, the teleological argument for an intelligent Designer of the cosmos, the axiological argument for an ultimate, personally-embodied Good, the no-logical argument for an ultimate Mind, the epistemological argument for a Designer of our truth-directed cognitive faculties, the ontological argument for a Maximally Great Being, as well as evidence concerning the person of Christ, the historicity of the resurrection, the existence of miracles, and, in addition, existential and religious experience.

9 The story of Hilbert's Hotel is related in George Gamow, One, Two, Three, Infinity (London: Macmillan, 1946), 17.

10 See survey of options in my "Time, Eternity, and Eschatology," in Oxford Handbook on Eschatology, ed. J. Walls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

11 P. C. W. Davies, The Physics of Time Asymmetry (London: Surrey University Press, 1974), p. 104.

12 See argument in my "Naturalism and Cosmology," in Analytic Philosophy without Naturalism, ed. A. Corradini, S. Galvan, and J. Lowe (London: Routledge, 2005).

13 Roger Penrose, The Road to Reality (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), pp. 762-5.

14Paul Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1988), p. 65.

15 Some philosophers seem to suppose that moral truths, being necessarily true, cannot have an explanation of their truth. The crucial presupposition that necessary truths cannot stand in relations of explanatory priority to one another is not merely not evidently true, but seems plainly false. For example, the proposition A plurality of persons exists is necessarily true (in a broadly logical sense) because God exists is necessarily true and God is essentially a Trinity. To give a non-theological example, on a non-fictionalist account 2+3=5 is necessarily true because thePeano axioms for standard arithmetic are necessarily true. Or again, No event precedes itself is necessarily true because Temporal becoming is an essential and objective feature of time is necessarily true. It would be utterly implausible to suggest that the relation of explanatory priority obtaining between the relevant propositions is symmetrical.
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[AdamSummerfield]

An Athiest would have to say, the universe came from nothing, by nothing, for nothing.

When one does not know something, and one admits it, that is not assuming that something "came from nothing". It is the absence of an assertion.
There is a difference between the absence of an assertion, and the assertion that something came from nothing.

You are again right. You don’t have to follow all the points to Atheism.

I'm an atheistic agnostic. My reasoning has led me to assume that God does not exist, in accordance with the principle of parsimony. I will not rule out the possibility of a God existing, since I have not found concrete proof of absence of It's existence.

[eternaltraveler]

You don’t have to follow all the points to Atheism.

There is a distinction between positive atheism, and negative atheism. Positive atheism regards the active "belief" that gods do not exist. Negative atheists do not hold such beliefs, they don't believe in gods, but don't actively believe the opposite either. Some negative atheists prefer to be called agnostics.

Its probably easier to convert a (strong)positive atheist as they hold at least one slightly irrational belief that they have no evidence for, which is more in line with the religious perspective of believing irrational things so they'll be some common ground. Although i suspect that long diatribe you just posted with tired arguments most would just find annoying if they read any of it at all (I skimmed very little of it).

Of course human religions are for the most part pretty ridiculous as most were invented thousands of years ago by primitive peoples who had very little understanding of how the universe actually works. So it probably isn't terribly irrational to actively disbelieve them just like we mostly disbelieve the existence of the egyptian gods. But who the hell knows whats hiding at the origin of the universe/multiverse (other than being pretty sure the Egyptians or the Israelites didn't know either.)

Edited by eternaltraveler, 20 May 2010 - 04:35 AM.

[ken_akiba]

"But who the hell knows whats hiding at the origin of the universe/multiverse"
Exactly. This is why no belief should be precluded.

If you are familiar with current 'scientific' theories of origin of the Universe, you will quickyl agree that all of them necessitate pre-Big Bang or pre-existing universe or multiverse. In other owrds, they are not theories of "origin" at all. None of them are even remotely touching any deeper than the first layer of onion skin, Not only that, string theory is actually adding more onion skins. So for now, Pink elephant theory is as valid as any 'scientific' theory of origin of the Universe.

What is ridiculous is using emotional words such as ridiculous to a matter that we have no answer, let alone a slightest clue.

[chrwe]

I voted Agnostic and I consider myself a true, 100% agnostic. I, too, think that fervent atheism is as much a belief as anything else, albeit a more rational one than most.

I know for a fact that the universe/multiverse is so vast, so complicated, so unexplored (quantum, quarks, strings etc.), yet working so well and undeniably existing despite no apparent rational reason that anything should exist at all. This means that, like Sokrates so long ago, we know that we know nothing. There could be some being or being(s) with a higher consciousness that we, from our point of view, would regard as something akin to a "God". Or there may not be. I don`t know.

Same goes for human consciuosness and the concept of an "immortal soul". Albeit this is extremely unlikely in the face of brain damage and it`s effects - the disappearance of "self" - it is not impossible. There are phenomena about the consciousness that we cannot explain (yet) and some things like NDE`s and "coming back" from Alzheimer for a while (then disappearing again) which do happen and which arent 100% explainable with our current model (yet). It is entirely possible and likely that future science with come up with totally materialistic explanations of all these, but it is not impossible that there is something to the idea that now goes around under "quantum consciousness" (although that is extremely likely to be the wrong explanation). In short, I don`t know and not just because of make believes, but because of clear evidence that science is not 100% "there" yet either.

Although, as I have stated many times, placing your bet on SENS, imminst.org and cryonics is the much much better option to save your soul given the current state of science.

Before you yell "eek, she said "soul"" - we do have a soul, even if it resides in our brains. It`s not a foul word one can only use in the context of abrehamitic religion(s) . And our souls are definitely worth saving!

So work work work, save our souls! Let`s do it, it`s possible or people would not start writing articles about why life extension should not happen (idiots).

Edited by chrwe, 20 May 2010 - 06:45 AM.

[Cameron]

While it is true that one must be open minded. It is also true that one cannot really take seriously ramblings from any drunk on the street, the pseudo scientific theories of quacks(often ignoring or actually going against the evidence), any random conspiracy theory or any mad man one happens across or basically any ridiculous unfounded idea. Things like Norse mythology, Greek Mythology, Egyptian mythology, can't be taken serious. If someone makes some thing up, and lots of people start believing in it, like say Scientology, the number of believers does not add validity to the extraordinary claims being made. If this same thing just happened to have occurred a very long time ago, that again does not add validity to their claims, being very old adds nothing.

If there is a cataclysm, and the texts of star wars or superman or what have you, survive and people start believing in them, that does not make it any more valid. Even if people think there were real jedis on earth in the past[and the earth was called something else], that does not make it any more bloody likely.

In my eyes pretty much all religions and their claims are unfounded beliefs, there simply is no real evidence to back up their extraordinary claims. And yes most of these believers deep down do require evidence for their faith, they require that at least someone actually witnessed some divine miracle or divine being, they just take the supposed 'witnesses' at their word. So they take it on their word, that someone actually did have SOLID direct evidence to back their claims, that is someone was actually exposed directly to the divine.

But just like we can't take the words of a random bum claiming the extraordinary to be true, we can't take the words of any random witness from the past without evidence. So any rational person that looks at this, should realize that while there may be other explanations to the world, the explanations that come straight out of the imagination, that is fiction, are not only practically infinite, but most are extremely unlikely to be true.

Is the flying spaghetti monster something we should take seriously? Oh, maybe it is real and they happened to coincidentally arrive at the real explanation through parody, making the whole ordeal truly ironic. But most likely it's not real and it really is just a joke. Just like it, most holy book, although not intended as parody or fiction, are exactly that[works of fiction.]. Even if we respected these religions, and assumed one of em must be true, we'd arrive at the same conclusion[as all the other competing religions would be fake and thus fiction]. Now in all likelihood they're most probably all equally fake.

Edited by Cameron, 20 May 2010 - 08:46 AM.

[Cameron]

...the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, for which events there is good scientific and historical evidence

There is no good scientific or historical evidence of an event of resurrection, the ramblings of old men in so-called 'holy' texts decades after the fact do not constitute real evidence. At most you have evidence suggesting Jesus existed.

On the Christian view it is actually a matter of relative indifference to God whether people believe that He exists or not. For what God is interested in is building a love relationship with us, not just getting us to believe that He exists. There is no reason at all to think that if God were to make His existence more manifest, more people would come into a saving relationship with Him.

The problem with this reasoning is that if all the evidence suggest a particular god does not exist, then people have no reason to start loving something that is seemingly fiction to many of them, being rational intelligent people. At least if a god revealed itself all religions would collapse to the one 'true' religion, and it would make the choice of loving or not loving one particular god evident and easier to more people. Merely providing this choice, by making it evident, should increase the number of people who choose love since it is all but guaranteed, not 100% of all new knowers will say no.

As for holy spirits somehow convincing people without evidence, well that is obvious BS. Many are those that would love a God if they could be convinced it existed, and unlike most religious who require the heaven carrot, some would probably love a God even if it hated everyone and sent everyone to hell(some people love hitler or even the devil, and some are actually massochists who wouldn't mind the torture from an evil being, and would actually love it... if only they knew it existed.).

We are not God's pets, and the goal of human life is not happiness per se, but the knowledge of God—which in the end will bring true and everlasting human fulfillment.

Ok, got me there. So god chooses to make it all but impossible to choose any one religion. Let alone convince all of his existence, and thus alllow all to know he exists, yet the purpose of life is to know god? One would think that a first step would be knowledge of its existence, before one could learn anything more. Furthermore if it provides such benefits irregardless of human choice, regarding love, it would be beneficial for it to provide evidence and thus allow this 'fulfillment' to take place in more people.

Third, God's purpose spills over into eternal life. In the Christian view, this earthly life is but a momentary preparation for immortal life. In the afterlife God will give those who have trusted Him for salvation an eternal life of unspeakable joy. Given the prospect of eternal life, we should not expect to see in this life God's compensation for every evil we experience. Some may be justified only in light of eternity.

And the mystery of heaven enters the picture.

Most people assume that they'll meet with family and friends and be able to continue a similar life in a paradise like condition. With or without family, so long as the person has the ability to act, the person will be able to do something to get kicked out, thus it won't be eternal. If there's family lots of sin can go on, even if there's no physical body, communication allows injuring, and all sorts of nasty things to go on. Even if there's no family, if the person is 'free' they should be able to stop loving god, and even start hating him. Obviously if you give it forever and people are 'free', there's a small probability of doing something wrong, an event with a small probability of happening given an eternity becomes a certainty. So the only conclusion is that if such a place exist, according to the stipulated rules, people are lobotomized and probably unable to even think.

An alternative is, if people remain 'free' and can act, then many sinful behaviors and thoughts are actually allowed in heaven, which begs the question: why such fuzz over them on earth if they're freely allowed to take place in heaven?

Edited by Cameron, 20 May 2010 - 10:36 AM.

[eternaltraveler]

What is ridiculous is using emotional words such as ridiculous to a matter that we have no answer, let alone a slightest clue.

Assuming "we have no answer, let alone the slightest clue" doesn't it follow that those who claim they know everything, make claims like the world was created in 7 days 5000 years ago, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, yet can't produce a shred of evidence for their claim, are in fact, ridiculous?

Would you prefer some other terminology? Misguided, deluded, confused, decieved, irrational? You behave as though letting absurdities go unchallanged is an entirely benign proposition, and ignorance and superstition should be encouraged.

Its good to have an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out.

[ken_akiba]

I'm surprised to hear someone who so value rationality resort to Reductio ad absurdum. It will not work, as you know and I know the Vatican threw that myth away, he*l, The Vatican even acknowledged evolution, albeit partially.
Regardless, so I take it that you are now open-minded enough not to bash New Testament anymore?

*gee I speak as though I were a Christian

It is absurd to think that being rational is and should be the utmost human value. If so, you wouldn't have come into existence, after all. Don't forget it was your parents' 'irrational' brain-falling-out falling in love that brought you here.

And one more thing. Have you considered how many sincere hours Shadowhawk must have devoted for his, as you put it, "long diatribe with tired arguments most would just find annoying if they read any of it at all (I skimmed very little of it)" ?
I seriously ask you, Are you reading what you write? have you ever read what you have poted? Why are you trying so hard to turn this forum into a mean spirited, colder-than-cryonic-coffin anger pit? You are a director here. Spread some warmth. Trust me, doing so will not have your brain fall out.

Edited by ken_akiba, 20 May 2010 - 04:59 PM.

[eternaltraveler]

I know the Vatican threw that myth away, he*l, The Vatican even acknowledged evolution, albeit partially.

the vatican does not rule christiandom. Many christians take the bible quite literally. The vatican changes its teachings as times change to maintain power and protects the occasional child molesting priest.

I take it that you are now open-minded enough not to bash New Testament anymore?

but bashing the old testament, the koran, and the Bhagavad Gita is ok?

Have you considered how many sincere hours Shadowhawk must have devoted for his, as you put it, "long diatribe with tired arguments most would just find annoying if they read any of it at all (I skimmed very little of it)" ?

my guess is somewhere around zero as he just copy pasted it from another source. And how is the time someone spent working on something relevant to whether or not it holds merit? Its a piece of propaganda written by people that don't care about evidence, nothing more.

You are a director here

No I'm not.

Spread some warmth

not my department. I spread cold scientific thinking. Why does that offend you? Don't you respect my beliefs?

[shadowhawk]

"But who the hell knows whats hiding at the origin of the universe/multiverse"
Exactly. This is why no belief should be precluded.

If you are familiar with current 'scientific' theories of origin of the Universe, you will quickyl agree that all of them necessitate pre-Big Bang or pre-existing universe or multiverse. In other owrds, they are not theories of "origin" at all. None of them are even remotely touching any deeper than the first layer of onion skin, Not only that, string theory is actually adding more onion skins. So for now, Pink elephant theory is as valid as any 'scientific' theory of origin of the Universe.

What is ridiculous is using emotional words such as ridiculous to a matter that we have no answer, let alone a slightest clue.

I have said before that 100 years from now, we won’t even recognize what ever scientific paradigms exist. (Plural) Yet, the very existence of the cosmos calls out the questions. "The Wonder of the World" is one of the most profound books I have ever read on just this point.

http://www.thewonderoftheworld.com/

"Is the matrix (i.e., womb) of modern science a religious view of the world formulated most clearly by the four greatest thinkers of Judaism, theistic Hinduism, Christianity and Islam? What did the pioneers and prophets of science think of God? And what does science tell us about the origins of energy, autonomous intelligent agents (life-forms), consciousness, language, reproduction and the laws of nature? What happened “before” the Big Bang? Does the universe have an IQ measured by the progressive manifestation of intelligence in its history? Who holds the patent on quantum fields and the genetic code? How do electrons and photons, cells and proteins, “know” what to do and what keeps them ticking? How do thoughts “cause” brain events? Is there a supra-scientific Theory of Everything"

I disagree that “all” believe currently in a pre big Bang cosmology. Give it 10 years and it will again change for those who believe in a pre Big Bang. Science is a process not a position.

One way or another it changes nothing concerning the great questions of existence. In the end it is about "faith," and everyone has one. As the topic asks, What is your faith? It did not ask for reasons but I suppose it is naturally a part of the process.

[ken_akiba]

"not my department. I spread cold scientific thinking. Why does that offend you? Don't you respect my beliefs? "
What led you think that I was offended? What is offended is this forum by your mean spirited-ness. Anyway, you finally admit that scientific thinking is also a form of belief, congrat, because it is very true, if you are familiar with experiments cleary showing that consciousness affects quantum outcome i.e. there is a good possibility that science after all, may not be objective at all.

Edited by ken_akiba, 20 May 2010 - 07:58 PM.

[shadowhawk]

I know the Vatican threw that myth away, he*l, The Vatican even acknowledged evolution, albeit partially.

the vatican does not rule christiandom. Many christians take the bible quite literally. The vatican changes its teachings as times change to maintain power and protects the occasional child molesting priest.

The Roman Catholic Church is the largest Church in the world. It has a population larger than any country in the world. (No I am not a Catholic) In a population that size, you are sure to find all kinds of problems. To give perspective, Google “Teachers who Molest,” or something like that. Who does not change as time goes on as we all try to make sense of everything. Your expressions here sound more like bigotry than a thought out criticism.

I take it that you are now open-minded enough not to bash New Testament anymore?

but bashing the old testament, the koran, and the Bhagavad Gita is ok?

Where did he say that?

Have you considered how many sincere hours Shadowhawk must have devoted for his, as you put it, "long diatribe with tired arguments most would just find annoying if they read any of it at all (I skimmed very little of it)" ?

my guess is somewhere around zero as he just copy pasted it from another source. And how is the time someone spent working on something relevant to whether or not it holds merit? Its a piece of propaganda written by people that don't care about evidence, nothing more.

I did copy it from a source which I gave. I thought it was good. Covers most of the classic arguments. I couldn't have done better myself.

I have twelve full years of College and Graduate work. I read four or five books a week and have a personal library of tens of thousands of books from all perspectives. And what is your evidence that I don’t care about evidence? You are simply a flamer, despite your fake denials.

You are a director here

No I'm not.

Spread some warmth

not my department. I spread cold scientific thinking. Why does that offend you? Don't you respect my beliefs?

Science? The ones you have expressed so far? Haha You spread something beside science.

Boring

[eternaltraveler]

your mean spirited-ness

I am not mean spirited. I am direct.

experiments cleary showing that consciousness affects quantum outcome

what experiments are those? The (apparent) collapse of the wave function has many interpretations. New age mystics have latched on to one without much support where consciousness is the cause of collapse. There is certainly no experiment that proves your contention.

[shadowhawk]

your mean spirited-ness

I am not mean spirited. I am direct.

experiments cleary showing that consciousness affects quantum outcome

what experiments are those? The (apparent) collapse of the wave function has many interpretations. New age mystics have latched on to one without much support where consciousness is the cause of collapse. There is certainly no experiment that proves your contention.

You are directly mean spirited. Proof is in the consciousness (eye) of the beholder. ("has many interpretations.") ("There is certainly no experiment that proves your contention.") Are there any that prove yours?

This is all off topic.

[eternaltraveler]

In a population that size, you are sure to find all kinds of problems

that's true

Who does not change as time goes on as we all try to make sense of everything.

well presumably divine truths passed down by God shouldn't need to change, but honestly I haven't really tried very hard to look into them or interpret them to fit the world we live in because I don't think they were ever passed down by a god in the first place.

Your expressions here sound more like bigotry than a thought out criticism.

I'm sorry you are offended by frankness. If my responses have been a bit brief its only because this is certainly not the 1st or 50th time this conversation has repeated itself here. You can't expect to come to a science based forum, spread biblical messages, and expect to be unchallenged.

Where did he say that?

he didn't. it was an attempt at humor

I guess it wasn't very funny. There goes the stand up comedy career option.

I did copy it from a source which I gave. I thought it was good. Covers most of the classic arguments. I couldn't have done better myself

It does appear to cover most theistic arguments. Is it ok if I copy/paste canned atheist responses?

I have twelve full years of College and Graduate work

ok. But you still still spent no more time than it took to copy paste that article on the particular post in question. There is no personal attack there. Ken was mistaken that you put effort writing that article. That's all.

And what is your evidence that I don’t care about evidence?

I never stated that you didn't care about evidence. I said whoever wrote that long diatribe didn't care about evidence. That wasn't you.

You are simply a flamer, despite your fake denials.

aside from the embedded flame in your flame accusation above please bring to my attention one flame in this thread.

You really shouldn't take challenges to your ideas personally. I'm not attacking you. Ideas must be open to challenge. I do my best to not make personal statements about anyone in particular on this forum (even when warranted). I am human though and I do slip up from time to time.

[eternaltraveler]

Are there any that prove yours?

my contention that there is no proof that the consciousness induced collapse of the wave function is the correct interpretation? There is no proof of any of the interpretations. they are all guesses. There is no real contention on my part there.

see http://en.wikipedia....antum_mechanics

Edited by eternaltraveler, 20 May 2010 - 10:08 PM.

[eternaltraveler]

You are directly mean spirited

How's that?

I'm certainly not a PR guy. Would you prefer I dance around issues rather than confronting them?

[shadowhawk]

You are directly mean spirited

How's that?

I'm certainly not a PR guy. Would you prefer I dance around issues rather than confronting them?

I see little real confrontation here and a lot of dancing. For example you think William Lane Craig has no concern for evidence! Where is your evidence? The article I quoted by him was in an Atheist source, "The Cambridge Companion to Atheism," and evidence is all he deals with!

http://www.cambridge...n=9780521842709

I doubt you even read it and from what I know of Craig you couldn't be more wrong. Since you have never read hin, let me refer you to his web page

http://www.reasonabl...site/PageServer

Why don't you read outside your prejudice?

I don't want to continue this. No one else who has tried to share in this poll has had this kind of bigotry thrown at them. Let me finish with citing a excellent book by a professor at Oxford University in England. "Simply Christian." by N T Wright. This is my faith.

http://www.amazon.co...r...5538&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co...H...&sr=1-2-ent

Edited by shadowhawk, 20 May 2010 - 11:24 PM.

[eternaltraveler]

you think William Lane Craig has no concern for evidence

well. He appears to mostly cherry pick whatever suits his evangelical christian prejudice like most christian apologists. I suppose that qualifies as "concern". I stand corrected.

I doubt you even read it

I did read it. Now again.

Why don’t you read outside your prejudice?

I've read the christian bible, the koran, and numerous other theological materials. I once did believe in the christian god. I've had to read outside of my prejudice to get where I am.

bigotry

what bigotry? I disagree with your contention regarding gods. There is no need to become emotional or personally insulting

Edited by eternaltraveler, 20 May 2010 - 11:30 PM.

[chrwe]

About quantum physics:

Ok, I`m no physicist. But in all the interpretations of the experiments with Schroedinger`s cat (a thought-experiment as yet) and the double-slit experiments, the spectator is becoming an important part of the experiment, whereas in classical physics the results can be measured "objectively".

The interpretations of that fact are still ffa at the moment .

[ken_akiba]

It is evident the particular navigator above knows little of quntum physics, knows less of common sense and knows even lesser of basic decency.

[shadowhawk]

you think William Lane Craig has no concern for evidence

well. He appears to mostly cherry pick whatever suits his evangelical christian prejudice like most christian apologists. I suppose that qualifies as "concern". I stand corrected.

I doubt you even read it

I did read it. Now again.

Why don't you read outside your prejudice?

I've read the christian bible, the koran, and numerous other theological materials. I once did believe in the christian god. I've had to read outside of my prejudice to get where I am.

bigotry

what bigotry? I disagree with your contention regarding gods. There is no need to become emotional or personally insulting

I am not an evangelical Christian but William Lane Craig’s Article is a good example of a contemporary philosophers defense of the classical arguments for the existence of God, from an Atheist source. Being an Evangelical Christian has nothing to do with anything, except perhaps to a bigot. I have the source in my library and don’t see any cherry pickling from any contributor Christan or Atheist. He has debated leading Atheists all over the world. (If he was a Jew I bet you would be just as dismissive. It is called bigotry)

He was one of those that caused Antony Flew, the world famous atheist to become a Theist. He was there when Flew got an honorary doctorate a couple years ago.
“There Is A God” How the world’s most notorious atheist changed his mind.
http://www.amazon.co...=There is a god

Give me an example where he “cherry picked “. You impugn “most” Christian thinkers of doing this, Who?

[Cameron]

About quantum physics:

Ok, I`m no physicist. But in all the interpretations of the experiments with Schroedinger`s cat (a thought-experiment as yet) and the double-slit experiments, the spectator is becoming an important part of the experiment, whereas in classical physics the results can be measured "objectively".

The interpretations of that fact are still ffa at the moment .

From what I understand even a random particle interacting with it can constitute an act of observation/measurement and lead to decoherence, thus even if there's no human around the mere instruments can affect the system.

I'm not entirely sure how the hidden variables interpretations deal with this, but they do away with many worlds.

[shadowhawk]

About quantum physics:

Ok, I`m no physicist. But in all the interpretations of the experiments with Schroedinger`s cat (a thought-experiment as yet) and the double-slit experiments, the spectator is becoming an important part of the experiment, whereas in classical physics the results can be measured "objectively".

The interpretations of that fact are still ffa at the moment .

From what I understand even a random particle interacting with it can constitute an act of observation/measurement and lead to decoherence, thus even if there's no human around the mere instruments can affect the system.

I'm not entirely sure how the hidden variables interpretations deal with this, but they do away with many worlds.

I am no physicist either but I am aware of this interesting observation and idea. Science is a process, not a position. We can expect some fascinating developments here in the future. May support Big Bang cosmology.

[eternaltraveler]

He has debated leading Atheists all over the world.

whats a leading atheist? we aren't a religion.

I bet you would be just as dismissive

I would be dismissive of anyone's viewpoint in regard to anything that isn't based on evidence (not of other rational viewpoints they might have). I fail to see how that is a bad thing. Nonsense should be dismissed as nonsense.

It is called bigotry

I've reviewed some of your posts. I see you like calling people who disagree with you bigots. It must be your strategy to marginalize the opposition.

I'm done with you.

Edited by eternaltraveler, 21 May 2010 - 11:28 PM.

[shadowhawk]

He has debated leading Atheists all over the world.

whats a leading atheist? we aren't a religion.

Just because you can't recognize a leading atheist does not mean there aren't any. There are many. I never called you a religion. Geez!!!

I bet you would be just as dismissive

I would be dismissive of anyone's viewpoint in regard to anything that isn't based on evidence (not of other rational viewpoints they might have). I fail to see how that is a bad thing. Nonsense should be dismissed as nonsense.

Good you admit it. You are dismissive of others with a different viewpoint . Your misconception is it is based on what you call "evidence." You have yet to produce any evidence. We have nolthing but nonsense here.

It is called bigotry

I've reviewed some of your posts. I see you like calling people who disagree with you bigots. It must be your strategy to marginalize the opposition.

I have meet only one other bigot here and he approached me much the same way you have. He was a bigot, flamer, also attacking me because of my faith. In my face. Read your past posts here. That is the only other time and there are lots of people (most) who disagree with me, even most friends. Check out how many other Christians are on ImmInst. Not many but I suspect they don't know about it. Two bigots in the last year and a half isn't that many though you make it sound like it is all the time. Evidence? Like everything else, you have none. I have made lots of postings about other things beside, "Faith."

I'm done with you.

I wish you well.

Edited by shadowhawk, 22 May 2010 - 12:47 AM.