Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Log in or create an account to join the discussions on the Atheist Republic forums.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
FREE E-BOOKS
Get the book "Why There Is No God" and one more book for FREE!
Sign up below for the Atheist Republic Newsletter to get the books.
Record Your Message!
Record your voice here for it to be aired on the Atheist Republic Voicemails Podcast.
Send us your views and opinions, your personal stories, messages of support, comments on recent news, or any comments you would like to share about your part of the world.
Note : By clicking record you are allowing us to broadcast your message on any of our platforms.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Links to atheist related books, shirts and movies and other atheism related products are affiliate links.
All proceeds will go to keeping the Atheist Republic website up and running; providing resources, advocacy, community tools and encouragement to atheists all over the world.
It seems like basically the argument gets boiled down to:
"My god is eternal and doesn't need a cause."
"What about the universe?"
"The universe is not eternal."
"We don't know that. It may be eternal."
"Even if it's eternal it still needs a cause."
"Why?"
"Because I said so."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Also add,
"Can you prove god exists before we even go any further"
*word salad*
No, you provided a slipshod argument for a necessary cause.
please, let that moron speak for himself, i wanna know what he has to say and how he would address that slipshod argument.
as for you, i think you're the only one here that has a clear sight of what those terms mean through our discussions. so, based on the definitions i have presented to you for contingency. don't you see that the assertion 'contingent things must have a cause' is self-evident?
Didn't I already answer this question? Well here goes again: of course; but that is because that is more or less how you defined them (you are kind of just repeating your definition). Use any other definition and all bets are off.
I'm more interested in seeing the argument for why when we apply your binary sort (necessary vs contingent things) to the universe, it must be a contingent thing.
-------------------------------------
That kind of talk isn't likely to win you any friends here.
-------------------------------------
edited to add:
Basically you have created a framework by fiat; where you sort objects into either necessary or contingent. Now its OK that it is fiat; you have to start somewhere; but you must realize that if people don't accept your postulates, they aren't going to accept the conclusions of the argument. A hallmark of a good argument is its postulates will be something your audience is going to accept. This is also why it is very important to limit the number of postulates.
But then to make matters worse, you start sorting stuff into these piles by fiat. As I mentioned above; why did you sort the universe into one of those pigeon holes, and a deity into the other? Surely there are worlds where gods are contingent (Greek gods come to mind); and a universe that is necessary (eternal universe comes to mind).
Actually My whole argument is based on that all things around are contingent and then Deduce, not sorting by fiat, that there must be a necessary being. I thought that the universe being contingent is something we agree on. I think i should have to start From the beginning without presupposing anything and prove every statement im writing.
"Surely there are worlds where gods are contingent (Greek gods come to mind); and a universe that is necessary (eternal universe comes to mind)."
what do you mean by surely there are? are you saying that because Greeks thought there are more than one god and are contingent then there is no need to say that god must be contingent?
Right, that is a monster of a postulate to try to get people to swallow.
-------------------------------------------
Oh no; I don't agree with that.
-------------------------------------------
Great idea! How long have I been nagging you do essentially that?
-------------------------------------------
I don't understand you final question.
You said "Surely there are worlds where gods are contingent (Greek gods come to mind)"
what do you mean by that? are you saying why god must be necessary while there were people who thought that he can be contingent?
Right.
Fear not, it doesn't bother me in the slightest with this retard.
My point after the entirely long winded OP was that it was essentially an argument from incredulity.
Just because you can't understand something or it seems absurd, it doesn't make it false.
I merely claimed that to disregard all the scientific evidence and latest theories that accurately explain the nature of the cosmos is completely fallacious and displays an astonishing amount of ignorance.
Also if you make that assertion, you really ought to do it with some credible evidence.
If dumb ox can provide links to peer review papers that dismiss that something cannot come from nothing as proposed by say.. prof Lawrence Krauss, then I will humbly apologise.
But I stand by what I said,
Both posters made assertions that neither can substantiate with actual evidence...
"he's a necessary being so he wouldn't need a cause for its existence."
Prove he exists, simple as that.
I like to believe everything was already there and rather than being "created", it just changed form or function.
Works just as easily as Ra the sun god created it without actually requiring him.
Just started school again so I have been busy. I just read a pretty good and concise article on this subject.
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-are-some-physicists-so-bad-a...
Here is what a physics professor, Ethan Siege, said and a response by Dr. Feser:
"Arguments for God as cause of the universe rest on the assumption that something can’t come from nothing. But given the laws of physics, it turns out that something can come from nothing. "
Dr. Feser:
"Is this guy serious? The laws of physics aren’t “nothing.” Ergo, this isn’t even a prima facie counterexample to the principle that ex nihilo, nihil fit. That’s just blindingly obvious. Is this guy serious? "
Basically what I am getting at is that if the laws of quantum mechanics show that particles can go in and out of existence, then they aren't coming from nothing but from physical laws which represent how physical reality functions.
Btw, I am not arguing for Gods existence in this thread, but just for a basic metaphisical and common sense principle.
D.O.: "Basically what I am getting at is that if the laws of quantum mechanics show that particles can go in and out of existence, then they aren't coming from nothing but from physical laws which represent how physical reality functions."
This doesn't make any sense to me. It sounds like you are saying that if a particle pops into existence then it is produced by our a human's descriptions of physics. After all, what we call physical laws are just our best guess at how things work.
It's not our discription that does it, but the actual phenomena which acts in accordance with that discription. My language may have been inexact.
You are back to trying to have your cake and eat it too:
The really funny part is you managed to do both in the same sentence!
---------------------------------------------------
You should avoid common sense like the plague in this genre. It is worse than useless, it is dangerous. The world is not a reasonable place; common sense is almost universally wrong when you investigate how the world works. In fact, one of the best ways to convince me that X is false; is to tell me that common sense demands that X is true.
Okay I used sloppy language. Those physical laws which predict or allow for particles going in and out of existence represent or discribe (or at least should) a physical reality. That reality is not nothing and that reality is what causes/allows for the particles to go in and out of existence.
Dumb Ox
How do you know that science is wrong about particles appearing and disappearing? The physical laws could be wrong. If the particles don't come from nothing, where do they come from?
I am not denying that the particles appeer and disappear. It does not really matter per se if they are right or wrong in this discussion. If the particles don't come from nothing then it is not s counter example to the principle nothing comes from nothing.
That is not a principle, it is seat of the pants rank speculation. Doubly so since everytime someone suggests an exception you just declare that exception does not involve nothing. So apparently in your worldview; it is impossible for "nothing" to exist; therefore you have no idea what can come from it, since you have no examples of it.
That was echoed in a debate recently by Matt Dillahunty, the same argument was put forward and he simply asked can we even recognize absolute nothingness.
It's interesting to consider that it is highly improbable that we could ever fully conceptualize absolute nothingness.
Pages