How To Construct a Creationist/Theistic Argument (page 5)

Deputy Dog

Darkl1ght3r

First of all, 'universe' can be simply defined as "all that exists". So there really is no "outside" of this universe, there are only portions we are unaware of.

That is your presupposition not mine or those who ascribe to string theory.

Deputy Dog

Burn

You really have no idea what "natural" and "supernatural" mean, do you?

Don't you love it when they start talking down to us.

bohm

I feel this discussion is getting sidetracked. Darklighters original statement was:

*********

Step 1

Come up with a supposed self-apparent, universal, unbreakable, and yet ultimately unprovable "law".

For example:

All effects require a cause. Therefore, there must be a first cause.
All complex life-forms require a designer. Life cannot come from non-life.

Step 2

Come up with a being that the law created in Step 1 does not apply to.

For Example:

God

*********

The assertion is that this is a general characterization of theistic arguments. What is quite unclear to me is how DD and BTS stand on this type of arguments, or how their formulation of such an argument would be. I believe that without such specification it is hard for the conversation to proceed in a meaningfull way.

As i read the discussion DD believe "All effects require a cause. Therefore, there must be a first cause." is a statement that is worth to defend, however as we saw his definition of 'Cause' and 'Effect' (or rather, the most common definition in the dictionary since he would not provide such one) make the first part of the statement a tautology, and therefore reduce to "therefore there exist a first cause". That is not an argument, it is just an unproven assertion!

This leaves "Step 2", which is also unproven and (as it stand) reduce the entire argument to an argument from definition.

I believe EVERYONE can agree that Darklighters argument (as it stand) does not prove anything at best. Hence talking meta-physics and distracting the conversation to some tiny corner of it is non-sensial since there are problems in every part of the argument.

The problems are so large i would claim the only possible way to refute Darklighters conclusion is to show his argument is a straw man, and i very much hope that DD or BTS would attempt to do that by providing what they feel is a proper theistic argument that we can then discuss.

I would like to provide the observation that the last time we had this type of discussion pretty much the same thing happened.

Man up, theists! instead of taking pot-shots at the small stuff, put forth your arguments for all to see and discuss!

PSacramento

There is no reason NOT to reconcile science and faith, they are quite compatable, at least for some.

If you truly want to know about how some of the best minds in the world do just that, there are a few books you can read and you can start at the Biologos website, its a good starting point form many peole that have an honest appreciation for science and religion.

If you have, however, made up your mind, one way OR another, then it probably isn't worth looking into.

BurnTheShips

Don't you love it when they start talking down to us.

Makes me drool.

BTS

BurnTheShips

Man up, theists! instead of taking pot-shots at the small stuff, put forth your arguments for all to see and discuss!

MMkkay.

Come up with a supposed self-apparent, universal, unbreakable, and yet ultimately unprovable "law".

Not a law. Logic.

Logic underpins what we deem as "Laws", not the other way around. First comes logic, and we use logic to come up with natural laws.

Regarding:

All effects require a cause. Therefore, there must be a first cause.

An infinite regression is illogical in and of itself because we end up with the problem of transgressing an infinite past. If everything that ever happened before today lacked a moment of time where T = 0 then an infinite past brings about the impossibility of ever getting to the present date.

And no, no special pleading here. If an uncaused cause did not begin to exist (i.e. is eternal) then it doesn't need a cause; and exactly the same applies for the Universe. If the Universe is eternal, then it doesn't need a cause either. This is why the argument is actually not special pleading for "God", because this reasoning has been used by many atheists for the natural Universe itself.

You don't grapple with this Bohm, so you call it small stuff. It isn't small stuff. It's big stuff.

And there was light--BTS

bohm

PSacramento: Assuming your remark was made to what i wrote -

I dont promote any anti-theist arguments ala '... therefore God does not exist QED' and never will. I think it is quite a silly thing to attempt and not something i connect with atheism.

The reason i have an interest in these kinds of threads is that there seem to be some who believe it is possible to create arguments that 'demonstrate' a God exist. The arguments are, as Darklighter noted, based some physical structure they believe could only occur because God made it, or an philosophical argument such as the Cosmological Argument.

No arguments of these types i have seen hold water, and most are truly horrible. I dont even argue them because i dont believe in God, i argue them because when you study mathematics you get a deep aversion towards poor logic, it really make me cringe! :-).

Shooting down all those arguments does not in my eyes proove that God does not exist.

bohm

BTS: And no, no special pleading here. If an uncaused cause did not begin to exist (i.e. is eternal) then it doesn't need a cause; and exactly the same applies for the Universe. If the Universe is eternal, then it doesn't need a cause either. This is why the argument is actually not special pleading for "God", because this reasoning has been used by many atheists for natural Universe itself.

Thank you for taking the challenge.
The bold passage, if i understand you right, is exactly my point: I dont see what prevents our universe (energy, space-time, laws, etc) to exist in a much larger universe that IS eternal.

This is my most important question. However, i have to ask one more:

A n infinite regression is illogical in and of itself because we end up with the problem of transgressing an infinite past

I am not quite sure what you mean by 'regression'. Do you just mean an ordered number of points x1,x2,x3... such that x(n+1) = f(xn) where f is some transformation function? (the x does not have to be numbers)?

PSacramento

PSacramento: Assuming your remark was made to what i wrote -

I dont promote any anti-theist arguments ala '... therefore God does not exist QED' and never will. I think it is quite a silly thing to attempt and not something i connect with atheism.

The reason i have an interest in these kinds of threads is that there seem to be some who believe it is possible to create arguments that 'demonstrate' a God exist. The arguments are, as Darklighter noted, based some physical structure they believe could only occur because God made it, or an philosophical argument such as the Cosmological Argument.

No arguments of these types i have seen hold water, and most are truly horrible. I dont even argue them because i dont believe in God, i argue them because when you study mathematics you get a deep aversion towards poor logic, it really make me cringe! :-).

Shooting down all those arguments does not in my eyes proove that God does not exist.

It was actually made in "general" and not aimed in specififc, but you make a valid point and it has been addressed by far more inteligent and lucid writers than I, have you read those arguments for God? or have you already "made up your mind" ?

BurnTheShips

I dont see what prevents our universe (energy, space-time, laws, etc) to exist in a much larger universe that IS eternal.

OK. Let's assume that this Universe, is part of a larger one (and to use the word Universe in this sense is oxymoronic).

How have you solved your problem of infinite regress?

Do you just mean an ordered number of points x1,x2,x3... such that x(n+1) = f(xn) where f is some transformation function? (the x does not have to be numbers)?

I mean the fact that there are no actual infinities. When we deal with infinities, we only deal with them as potentialities. In the real world, they do not exist.

This link will hopefully clarify it a bit. You can't construct an actual infinity through successive addition.

If we assume that the world has no beginning in time, then up to every given moment an eternity has elapsed, and there has passed away in that world an infinite series of successive states of things. Now the infinity of a series consists in the fact that it can never be completed through successive synthesis. It thus follows that it is impossible for an infinite world-series to have passed away, and that a beginning of the world is therefore a necessary condition of the world's existence. —Immanuel Kant, First Antinomy, of Space and Time

BTS

PS, I missed your bolding here:

If the Universe is eternal, then it doesn't need a cause either .

It clearly can't be, because it is a series of causal events. See Kant's quote above.

BTS

How To Construct a Creationist/Theistic Argument

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