Hi, Shining One,
I do have some honest questions about one of the articles (it is proof of Gods existence). I would accept God if you can prove it of cause. However I find many things and arguments in this article not valid, or I do not understand....
Ignoring Atheists' Questions If you were standing on a railroad track and a train was heading your way, closing your eyes and ignoring the locomotive will not make it go away. ; If an atheist asks a question and you ignore it repeatedly, it would be fair for him to conclude you were incapable of answering the objection.
Shining one, as I quoted from your links also, you should answer these questions. Here is teh article with my remarks in bold....
Entropy and Causality used as
a proof for God's existence
Definition: The second law of thermodynamics states that the amount of energy in a system that is available to do work is decreasing. Entropy increases as available energy decreases. In other words, the purely natural tendency of things is to move toward chaos, not order, and available energy necessary for work is lost in this process. Eventually, the universe will run down and all life and motion will cease. This is the natural tendency of all things. Batteries run down, machines break, buildings crumble, roads decay, living things die, etc. Left to the natural state, all things would eventually cease to function.
It is a bit more complicated then this. it is only valid for a closed system, and then there is also the law of conservation of energie, which means that energie can not be lost. For the sake of the following argument, it is dealing with an expanding universe, I will not continue on this.
(Note: this argument can not be used against evolution, because that is not a closed system)
- The universe is not infinitely old because it has not "run down."
- If the universe were infinitely old, it would have reached a state where all usable energy is gone.
- But, we are not in this state; therefore, the universe is not infinitely old and must have had a beginning.
There are valid ways around this. There could be somethings as continious creation for instance. This argument is not full prove. However most scientists indeed believe that the universe had a beginning around 14 biljion years ago.
Because the universe has had a beginning it is not infinite in size.
- It would require an infinite amount of time to become infinite in size. Since the universe had a beginning, it has not had an infinite amount of time to expand, therefore it is finite in size.
You assume here that the universe is expanding. Most scientist do indeed think it is. (not all though)
Also this argument is not full prove. Can an infinite universe not expand? But I can agree. Sciensists believe that the universe has no borders but is limited in size.
- All events have causes.
- There cannot be an infinite regress of events because that would mean the universe were infinitely old.
- If it were infinitely old, the universe would be in a state unusable energy, which it is not.
- If it were infinitely old, the universe would be infinitely large, which it is not.
Why do all events need to have a cause? Scientists have found a lot of evidence that this is not the case.
A lot of things happen, that have no cause.
This argument is not valid, it is not true!
The next point also, why can't there be an infinite regess of events?
Imagine for example an universe collapsing, which gives cause to a new universe with a big bang. This can be an infinite regress of events.....
Since the universe is finite and had a beginning and there cannot be an infinite number of regressions of causes to bring it into existence, there must be a single uncaused cause of the universe.
- A single uncaused cause of the universe must be greater in size and duration than the universe it has brought into existence.
- Otherwise, we have the uncaused cause bringing into existence something greater than or equal to itself.
I do not understand why an uncause cause must be greater then what it causes. Why? I do not understand.
This does not apply for caused causes. A very small thing, can casue a big thing.
The point by c). I think it would be better to say: Would not have any time or space, since time and space are properties of the universe that it caused to exist.
- This uncaused cause is supernatural.
- By supernatural I mean it is completely 'other' than the universe is not natural to it.
- This would make the uncaused cause supernatural.
- This uncaused cause is God.
If you devine the uncaused cause to be God, and only so, I could maybe agree with this reasoning. But with God people have much more thoughts.
Every cause would satisfy here, because everycause is outside the universe, it is supernatural in definition, it is not part of space-time. So if every cause would satisfy here, why jump to God?
At this point I admit to making a leap of logic and assert that the supernatural, uncaused cause is the God of the Bible.
- The Bible teaches that God infinite in time and scope and is wholly other than the universe of which He created.
- God is defined as being infinite in size, duration, and power.
- Therefore, the God of the Bible is the uncaused cause of the universe .
Hmm, indeed a far jump champion. With this logic you can just as easily conclude that it is the God of the Qu'oran. Or Zeus, or any other God.
There is totally no logic in this last statements. it is something like, proving that the alphabeth exists, and then concluding that the exact contence of the works of Shakespear follow from this conclusion.
Can you tell me where I am wrong, what better arguments are?
Danny