Jairzinho:

I respectfully request to take part in this discussion of intellectuals. I believe in God,howeverI suspect this may be an act in futility,because:

3. Scientists no matter how great,have always left space for the unexplainable (or miraculous), which is the is the same uncharted area I think this thread  delving into.

You are welikom brother, does it surprise you that even lightening was uncharted waters a few years ago?

Jairzinho:



3. Scientists no matter how great,have always left space for the unexplainable (or miraculous), which is the is the same uncharted area I think this thread  delving into.

I think by "unexplainable" u mean "unexplained". Does unexplained, or even enexplainable, in your opinion necessarily mean "miraculous" or "spiritual"?

Krayola2:

I think by "unexplainable" u mean "unexplained". Does unexplained, or even enexplainable, in your opinion necessarily mean "miraculous" or "spiritual"?

Thanks it shld read 'unexplained' . . .  . . . . not all unexplained circumstances are necessarily spiritual or miraculous. . . . . . . . . . ,  but from the rational/logical point of view all miraculous/spiritual issues are unexplained. . . .  .

Maths & Physics happen to fall under 'rational/logical' reasoning hence the contradiction ^{unless Deep Sight proves me wrong}

toneyb:

How true is this really? All scientific investigations into therapeutic touch has shown that no such thing exist as far as I know.

which particular studies are u referring to. Have you ever come across any write-up on 'near death ' experiences?

Jairzinho:


which particular studies are u referring to. Have you ever come across any write-up on 'near death ' experiences?

Studies done by christian doctors themselves here is one study. I have read a lot about near death experience and it does not show that therapeutic touch works either.

toneyb:

Studies done by christian doctors themselves here is one study. I have read a lot about near death experience and it does not show that therapeutic touch works either.

I don't want to divert from the main topic ,but the attached looks at prayer before heart surgery and 2 quotes from the article
"One conclusion from this is that the role of awareness of prayer should be studied further," said Dr. Charles Bethea, a cardiologist at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City and a co-author of the study."

"The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion," said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and author of a forthcoming book, "Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine."

The issue of 'near death' experience falls under the 'unexplained' I was referring to.

Jairzinho:

I don't want to divert from the main topic ,but the attached looks at prayer before heart surgery and 2 quotes from the article
"One conclusion from this is that the role of awareness of prayer should be studied further," said Dr. Charles Bethea, a cardiologist at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City and a co-author of the study."

"The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion," said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and author of a forthcoming book, "Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine."

The issue of 'near death' experience falls under the 'unexplained' I was referring to.

Prayer has been studied, you do not know of the great prayer experiment?
The result was a land slide, prayers do not work!

Chrisbenogor:

Prayer has been studied, you do not know of the great prayer experiment?
The result was a land slide, prayers do not work!

back up. . .pls !

Jairzinho:



"The problem with studying religion scientifically is that you do violence to the phenomenon by reducing it to basic elements that can be quantified, and that makes for bad science and bad religion," said Dr. Richard Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia and author of a forthcoming book, "Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine."[/b]

I disagree with the premise of this professor, If therapeutic touch or prayer results in something then it can and should be studied scientifically to see how it works. Since people claim that they can heal cancer and malignant diseases through prayers and the results can be seen then that same process can be studied.

The issue of 'near death' experience falls under the 'unexplained' I was referring to.

OK. It is my understanding that some studies have been done into that field and some aspects of it(what causes it) has been explained.

Where the hell is Deep Sight? I did ask some question which he has singularly failed to addrress. Here they are again:

1) What is Something?

2) What is Nothing?

Once we think we know what these terms are, can we apply them to tghe concept of god?

3) Is God Something or is God Nothing?

And crucially

[size=16pt]
4) If God is Something, then from what "Something" did god come?[/size]

Huxley,

The answers to your question are embedded and implicit in my previous posts.

1. What is nothing? Nothing is zero.

2. What is something? Something is any quantity other than the zero quantity.

3. Observably, the universe is something, since it contains matter, and creatures.

4. Since we understand that for anything top exist, there must be a cause, we can see clearly that the universe had a cause. We cannot speak of an endless regression of causes, because that would mean that there is no cause for all that exists, and this is impossible because of the law of cause and effect. Accordingly, we can only see that there must perforce be an ultimate cause: a cause that is itself its own cause, that is in and of itself and that accordingly needs no external cause.

5. It may seem difficult to conceive such a thing but hang on a second. Is it not true, for example, that the idea "1" exists in itself and that even if the universe were to implode, it would still exist. It needs no cause to exist, and cannot be created. It is what it is, observed or unobserved. These are thus elements of the ultimate cause: an idea that cannot not exist, an idea which simply is, thereby permitting everything else to exist.

6. Given the fact that intelligent beings exist (e.g: humans) we can see based on the law of replicatiom (think dna) that the ultimate cause must perforce have the element of intelligence as no element can give to another element a factor that it does not have.

So do not think about some big daddy sitting in the skies, think an idea, a principle, an element or an equation possessing observable attributes of intelligence, law, order, and beauty. When you think this, then you are staring God right in the face, however defined.

pastor, tudor, i know i've won you over,

why can't "something" be the default? why "nothing"?

yes, something is actually the default: the something thats the ultimate cause as defined above

Deep Sight:

yes, something is actually the default: the something thats the ultimate cause as defined above

As far as I am concerned you have said nothing.

Deep Sight:

Huxley,

The answers to your question are embedded and implicit in my previous posts.

1. What is nothing? Nothing is zero.

2. What is something? Something is any quantity other than the zero quantity.

3. Observably, the universe is something, since it contains matter, and creatures.

You seem to be making a huge category error here.  Zero, one, two, three, seventeen, ten billion - these are abstract constructions of the mind (possible only human mind).  Think about it this way:

- Did numbers exist 10 billion years ago?


Even if I grant you that numbers are concrete things, they are at best representation of AMOUNTS of other things.  Think of it this way;

Depending on how you define a thing, there is probably a finite amount of such things in the universe at any given time.  For instance, at any given time there is a finite amount of electrons, or stars, or grains of sand, or bacteria in the universe.  But there is an infinite amount of numbers such that if you were to make a one-for-one link between the things and the numbers, you would run out of things but never run out of numbers, depicted below;

ELECTRON-A  --> 1
ELECTRON-B  --> 2
ELECTRON-C  --> 3
--
--
--
ELECTRON-last --> n (The last electron in the whole universe)
                         --> n + 1
                         --> n + 2
                         --> n + 3

This show numbers are simply abstraction or representation of quantity or amounts of things, but are NOT in themselves the things they represents. So to assert that "Nothing" is Zero is a huge caterogy error.

Deep Sight:

4. Since we understand that for anything top exist, there must be a cause, we can see clearly that the universe had a cause. We cannot speak of an endless regression of causes, because that would mean that there is no cause for all that exists, and this is impossible because of the law of cause and effect. Accordingly, we can only see that there must perforce be an ultimate cause: a cause that is itself its own cause, that is in and of itself and that accordingly needs no external cause.

No, we are not agreed on that.   How have you demonstrated that for anything to exist it MUST have a cause?  If this were true,  how would you justify the existence of God?


I was hoping you would address the question of whether God is Something, which I repeat below;
[size=16pt]
If God is Something, then from what "Something" did god come?[/size]

Deep Sight:

yes, something is actually the default: the something thats the ultimate cause as defined above

How does this something constitute god?

Sometimes, people who call themselves theists, or who attempt to defend a theistic worldview make the mistake of not being very precise with their statements. One of the areas that shows this inattention to language is in statements about the metaphysical existence of God.

When an atheist asks a question like "If God is something, then from what "something" did God come from?", it shows that such an atheist is very attentive and has caught a theist flatfooted because such a theist has said something like "everything has a cause" or "for anything to exist, there must be a cause".

Once again, the way to say it, and which no serious theist should ever make the mistake of misrepresenting is:

"Whatever begins to exist has a cause or explanation".

By this statement, no sensible atheist who has understood the premise will begin to ask "what caused God?" or "from what something did God come from?" etc.

The reason is fairly obvious: God is not said to have begun to exist. In other words, we are talking about entities which exist necessarily and are not contingent - they exist by a necessity of their own selves. These necessary entities  did not begin to exist at any finite time in the past. It is useful to remember that this was the way atheists thought about the universe (well at least until that was debunked). To ask what caused God is to presuppose that God started to exist at some point and thus needed a cause or explanation.  It is rather amusing how a point so simple continues to elude people here. You can only ask "what caused" or "what came before" type questions of things which began to exist at a finite time in the past. You cannot ask that of things which exist by necessity and not by contingency. The two examples that are clear to me would be God (an unembodied mind) and numbers. These entities transcend the physical realm and thus have no material, temporal or spatial component.

After we have established that the universe is not eternal but started to exist a finite time in the past, the explanation for the cause of the universe has to be something which is spaceless, timeless and immaterial for space, time and matter came into existence with the Big Bang or with the universe.  God, by definition, transcends the universe and as such has no spatial, material or temporal component. The much we can do in cosmology is investigate the earliest moments of this Big Bang creation - and how the rest has fallen into place since this supernatural act of creation since contemporary physics breaks down at a certain point when you start extrapolating back in time.

Indeed, if one is to follow astrophysics and cosmology carefully, the universe was created out of literal nothingness (which is to say that there was no material substance from which the universe was created).  This remarkable insight can lead any serious seeker of the truth to the fact that there is a God even if it doesn't lead such a person to understand the way in which that God actually created ex nihilo. All physical phenomena came into existence with the creation of the universe and that includes space, time, matter, energy, dark matter, dark energy, gravitation, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force and a number of initial conditions and constants which were remarkably fine-tuned for the universe to have continued expanding instead of recollapsing. As a matter of fact, that large scale structures like planets, stars or galaxies appear at all in the universe seems to have been a function of this remarkable fine-tuning.

But of course there are other theories which are being worked on that aim to show that the Big Bang is not the absolute beginning. These theories are welcome as well. Apart from the fact that many of these theories have not been proven, observed and in some cases cannot even be falsified there is the additional headache that these theories make no predictions not to talk about predictions which there is the faintest glimmer of hope that they can be scientifically discovered.  But the biggest worry that some of these models have is that even if one is to grant that the Standard Big Bang model is not the absolute beginning, there is still the uncomfortable fact that none of these other alternatives can be proven to be eternal in the past. One still has to confront the specter of a cosmic beginning. It is no wonder that people of the hard core sciences like Physics are seldom as fanatically atheistic as people of the softer sciences like evolutionary biology.

spot on!

Prizm:

Sometimes, people who call themselves theists, or who attempt to defend a theistic worldview make the mistake of not being very precise with their statements. One of the areas that shows this inattention to language is in statements about the metaphysical existence of God.

When an atheist asks a question like "If God is something, then from what "something" did God come from?", it shows that such an atheist is very attentive and has caught a theist flatfooted because such a theist has said something like "everything has a cause" or "for anything to exist, there must be a cause".

Once again, the way to say it, and which no serious theist should ever make the mistake of misrepresenting is:

[size=18pt]"Whatever begins to exist has a cause or explanation".[/size]

By this statement, no sensible atheist who has understood the premise will begin to ask "what caused God?" or "from what something did God come from?" etc.

The reason is fairly obvious: God is not said to have begun to exist. In other words, we are talking about entities which exist necessarily and are not contingent - they exist by a necessity of their own selves. These necessary entities  did not begin to exist at any finite time in the past. It is useful to remember that this was the way atheists thought about the universe (well at least until that was debunked). To ask what caused God is to presuppose that God started to exist at some point and thus needed a cause or explanation.  It is rather amusing how a point so simple continues to elude people here. You can only ask "what caused" or "what came before" type questions of things which began to exist at a finite time in the past. You cannot ask that of things which exist by necessity and not by contingency. The two examples that are clear to me would be God (an unembodied mind) and numbers. These entities transcend the physical realm and thus have no material, temporal or spatial component.

After we have established that the universe is not eternal but started to exist a finite time in the past, the explanation for the cause of the universe has to be something which is spaceless, timeless and immaterial for space, time and matter came into existence with the Big Bang or with the universe.  God, by definition, transcends the universe and as such has no spatial, material or temporal component. The much we can do in cosmology is investigate the earliest moments of this Big Bang creation - and how the rest has fallen into place since this supernatural act of creation since contemporary physics breaks down at a certain point when you start extrapolating back in time.

Indeed, if one is to follow astrophysics and cosmology carefully, the universe was created out of literal nothingness (which is to say that there was no material substance from which the universe was created).  This remarkable insight can lead any serious seeker of the truth to the fact that there is a God even if it doesn't lead such a person to understand the way in which that God actually created ex nihilo. All physical phenomena came into existence with the creation of the universe and that includes space, time, matter, energy, dark matter, dark energy, gravitation, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force and a number of initial conditions and constants which were remarkably fine-tuned for the universe to have continued expanding instead of recollapsing. As a matter of fact, that large scale structures like planets, stars or galaxies appear at all in the universe seems to have been a function of this remarkable fine-tuning.

But of course there are other theories which are being worked on that aim to show that the Big Bang is not the absolute beginning. These theories are welcome as well. Apart from the fact that many of these theories have not been proven, observed and in some cases cannot even be falsified there is the additional headache that these theories make no predictions not to talk about predictions which there is the faintest glimmer of hope that they can be scientifically discovered.  But the biggest worry that some of these models have is that even if one is to grant that the Standard Big Bang model is not the absolute beginning, there is still the uncomfortable fact that none of these other alternatives can be proven to be eternal in the past. One still has to confront the specter of a cosmic beginning. It is no wonder that people of the hard core sciences like Physics are seldom as fanatically atheistic as people of the softer sciences like evolutionary biology.

How do you come to know that "Everything that begins to exist has a cause or an explanation"?   How did you come to this knowledge?


You say that God transcends the universe, etc, etc, . How did you come to know this? It is possible for an entity that transcends the universe and has no spatial, material or temporal component to inter-act with material components of that universe? By what mechanism does such inter-action occur?

@Prizm

Who created the god you were told exists? How do you seem to make an exception only for the eternal existence of your god and give all excuses to show that he exist outside time, space and the universe as a whole when the bible says that the same god occupies space in the universe and some part of him lives in people minds.Religion is believing and accepting what OTHER MEN tell you about what they know nothing about.Religion is people pretending they know what they know actually nothing about and ascribing all their theories and hypothesis to invisible and imaginary deities.

Prizm:

Sometimes, people who call themselves theists, or who attempt to defend a theistic worldview make the mistake of not being very precise with their statements. One of the areas that shows this inattention to language is in statements about the metaphysical existence of God.

When an atheist asks a question like "If God is something, then from what "something" did God come from?", it shows that such an atheist is very attentive and has caught a theist flatfooted because such a theist has said something like "everything has a cause" or "for anything to exist, there must be a cause".

Once again, the way to say it, and which no serious theist should ever make the mistake of misrepresenting is:

"Whatever begins to exist has a cause or explanation".

By this statement, no sensible atheist who has understood the premise will begin to ask "what caused God?" or "from what something did God come from?" etc.

The reason is fairly obvious: God is not said to have begun to exist. In other words, we are talking about entities which exist necessarily and are not contingent - they exist by a necessity of their own selves. These necessary entities  did not begin to exist at any finite time in the past. It is useful to remember that this was the way atheists thought about the universe (well at least until that was debunked). To ask what caused God is to presuppose that God started to exist at some point and thus needed a cause or explanation.  It is rather amusing how a point so simple continues to elude people here. You can only ask "what caused" or "what came before" type questions of things which began to exist at a finite time in the past. You cannot ask that of things which exist by necessity and not by contingency. The two examples that are clear to me would be God (an unembodied mind) and numbers. These entities transcend the physical realm and thus have no material, temporal or spatial component.

After we have established that the universe is not eternal but started to exist a finite time in the past, the explanation for the cause of the universe has to be something which is spaceless, timeless and immaterial for space, time and matter came into existence with the Big Bang or with the universe.  God, by definition, transcends the universe and as such has no spatial, material or temporal component. The much we can do in cosmology is investigate the earliest moments of this Big Bang creation - and how the rest has fallen into place since this supernatural act of creation since contemporary physics breaks down at a certain point when you start extrapolating back in time.

Indeed, if one is to follow astrophysics and cosmology carefully, the universe was created out of literal nothingness (which is to say that there was no material substance from which the universe was created).  This remarkable insight can lead any serious seeker of the truth to the fact that there is a God even if it doesn't lead such a person to understand the way in which that God actually created ex nihilo. All physical phenomena came into existence with the creation of the universe and that includes space, time, matter, energy, dark matter, dark energy, gravitation, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force and a number of initial conditions and constants which were remarkably fine-tuned for the universe to have continued expanding instead of recollapsing. As a matter of fact, that large scale structures like planets, stars or galaxies appear at all in the universe seems to have been a function of this remarkable fine-tuning.

But of course there are other theories which are being worked on that aim to show that the Big Bang is not the absolute beginning. These theories are welcome as well. Apart from the fact that many of these theories have not been proven, observed and in some cases cannot even be falsified there is the additional headache that these theories make no predictions not to talk about predictions which there is the faintest glimmer of hope that they can be scientifically discovered.  But the biggest worry that some of these models have is that even if one is to grant that the Standard Big Bang model is not the absolute beginning, there is still the uncomfortable fact that none of these other alternatives can be proven to be eternal in the past. One still has to confront the specter of a cosmic beginning. It is no wonder that people of the hard core sciences like Physics are seldom as fanatically atheistic as people of the softer sciences like evolutionary biology.

cool shit!! Nice read.

I think "God" is a highly loaded term and we might be better off finding an alternative if we want to avoid unnecessary gridlock.

huxley:
How do you come to know that "Everything that begins to exist has a cause or an explanation"?   How did you come to this knowledge?

Notice that I said, "Whatever begins to exist has a cause or explanation" and not “everything that begins to exist has a cause or explanation”. I said that because I know that sometimes dogmatic atheists may start to quibble with the definitions of even simple words like "something" "everything" etc in a manner that they wouldn't even dream of doing in the real world.  Just take a look at the thread to see how some have even started asking for the meaning of "something" or "nothing". Can anyone reasonably conclude that the persons asking such questions are conspicuously mired in ambiguity when these terms are used? Can it be said that they have no conception of what it means to say that there is "something" or "nothing"? It kind of reminds one of the way Bill Clinton reputedly asked for what the word 'is' really meant during his Monica Lewinsky sex  scandal investigation. Who really has the time or the desire for such inconsequential hair-splitting?

Now to come to this question, the statement "Whatever begins to exist has a cause or an explanation" is a properly basic statement about existence [/b]which is confirmed rationally, philosophically, logically, scientifically or otherwise. It is like saying "there is an external world (to myself) which exists".

For example, if I allege that you are simply a brain connected by electrodes in a vat stimulated by some mad scientist somewhere; OR that you are a character existing in a virtual reality like the Matrix, and [b]therefore that you are not real, there is no way, you can get out of your sense organs to confirm the validity and reliability of your sense organ data. Think about it: Assuming I made that allegation and you countered with the reply that you can sense the external world, then what sort of answers would you give when I charge that you are simply wired in this vat or virtual reality to perceive the vat or virtual reality as real? How can you prove without/outside your sensory data the validity or reliability of sense data to be able to refute my allegation? It is just not possible. That doesn't mean that you begin to doubt the existence of the external world, does it? I hope not. At any rate, it is not like I am saying that the statement is some scientific law which you have to swallow whole and entire - it is a premise which has been demonstrated true without fail.

Nevertheless, you can disagree with that premise. You can posit, at a serious penalty to your own rationality, that the statement is not true. You are then faced with the insurmountable task of showing the evidence that your position is true. Do you want to try?

huxley:
You say that God transcends the universe, etc, etc, .  How did you come to know this?   It is possible for an entity that transcends the universe and has no spatial, material or temporal component  to inter-act with material components of that universe?   By what mechanism does such inter-action occur?

That is what it means to talk about necessary beings/entities. Things that exist out of a necessity of their own nature are timeless, spaceless, immaterial and uncaused. To say this is to say that these necessary entities transcend the universe. This is not a difficult thing to understand. Once again, if you remember the Cosmological Argument, as I laid it out, these inferences or deductions are unmistakably subsequent from the premises. One doesn't even have to appeal to any special knowledge or revelation here. If you disagree with that premise, you are then faced with the task of demonstrating with unassailable evidence any assertion of yours that refutes a premise that is already painfully obvious with boring consistency and tiresome repetitiveness.

Now, assuming that we are settled on "Contingent vs Necessary" entities, you may want to ask why God is by that definition able to interact with the universe.

That is a very good question.  But before one gets to that point, there has to be some agreement that God or at least something like God exists. I am afraid, with you, we are not there yet. So we have to keep the conversation right at the fore--which is whether a God exists or not. You are the one stating the proposition that God does not exist, remember? I am still waiting for some other counterargument to the Cosmological Argument that we were engaged in elsewhere.

You see, the definition of God is that God is a transcendental unembodied mind. A mind has attributes like freewill, intelligence, reasoning, etc. This is what it means to say that God is a person or is personal - He can freely choose to create or not. As an incorporeal being/mind, he has no physically complex parts; he is NOT said to be composed of an infinite number of finite particulars. He is just a mind--remarkably simple. But as a mind, he is capable of complex thoughts. As a matter of fact, his attributes are just infinite and superlative extensions of our own limited personal attributes - and thus he is omniscient, he is the embodiment of the loftiest logic and power, and exists beyond time, space and matter. Being personal does not mean that he has physical human parts or limitation. Note that this in no way limits a being that transcends all physical reality – he is a self-conscious, rational, necessary and superlative being; and the efficient cause of the universe or physical reality.

Numbers, on the other hand, though necessary (i.e. not contingent), are causally effete. They do not and cannot stand in causal relations. Another way to say this, is to say they are causally inert and cannot cause or create anything.

I have mentioned somewhere before that this definition of God is independent of the name God. So to answer Krayola, the God concept does not depend on the word ‘God’ for its validity. If you understand the Cosmological Argument and arrive at its logical and inescapable deduction, it shouldn’t matter whether you call that Uncaused Cause by the name God or not. God is simply what the theists call that reality. You can call it “The Primordial Peculiarity”, “The First Mover”, “The Uncaused Cause”, “Z1 Alpha 3 Q”, “tomtom”, or anything else that suits your fancy but which in its proper use conveys the adequate infinite and transcendental attributes of such a necessary being.

This is all speculative and ambigous. The arguments by the theists so far point to the universe having began to exist it does not prove god or creation.
Infact for all we know there might be billions of other universe out there.
The universe as we know it now might be a continuation of a previously uncreated body that imploded. . . .can't it?

@ Prizm, reading your write ups is better than having sex. Super stuff. I have a suspicion, pls confirm: you are a Cross Bearer, yes?

@ Tudor: i see the debate seems to have out raced you such that you are now constricted to asking defensive questions only. By the way it does not matter how many universes exist, the premises for a prime mover of all things in existence would remain the same. If as we say God has always been, i imagine that there are probably zillions of universes in existence.

Maybe the word "God" is what you have a problem with. think "first mover" or "uncaused cause"

Does thnat help?

Deep Sight:

@ Prizm, reading your write ups is better than having sex. Super stuff. I have a suspicion, pls confirm: you are a Cross Bearer, yes?

@ Tudor: i see the debate seems to have out raced you such that you are now constricted to asking defensive questions only. By the way it does not matter how many universes exist, the premises for a prime mover of all things in existence would remain the same. If as we say God has always been, i imagine that there are probably zillions of universes in existence.

Maybe the word "God" is what you have a problem with. think "first mover" or "uncaused cause"

Does thnat help?

Ha haHa. . . .there's nothing "out racing" about this debate you've said nothing new that i've never heard before. Infact if I had a penny for each time, i'd be a millionaire. . .

Yes I've got a problem with the word god and as you described it as a "being" we all agreed that the universe as we know it probably stemed from something what you're yet to prove is that this something is "god" as you defined it earlier.

Prizm:

Notice that I said, "Whatever begins to exist has a cause or explanation" and not “everything that begins to exist has a cause or explanation”. I said that because I know that sometimes dogmatic atheists may start to quibble with the definitions of even simple words like "something" "everything" etc in a manner that they wouldn't even dream of doing in the real world.  Just take a look at the thread to see how some have even started asking for the meaning of "something" or "nothing". Can anyone reasonably conclude that the persons asking such questions are conspicuously mired in ambiguity when these terms are used? Can it be said that they have no conception of what it means to say that there is "something" or "nothing"? It kind of reminds one of the way Bill Clinton reputedly asked for what the word 'is' really meant during his Monica Lewinsky sex  scandal investigation. Who really has the time or the desire for such inconsequential hair-splitting?

Thankz for the correction - I erred to have miss-quoted you and I understand your zeal for such pedantry as any productive debate can bearly get off the ground if there is ambiguity in the substantive terms, words or notions of the questions at hand.

But you do not seem to want to practise what you preach.  You call me to task for using the word "Everything"  instead of "Whatever, yet you evince cavalier interest to some of the core terms of the question. 

Deep Sight formulated a line of arguments, using the words "Something" & "Nothing" along some pseudo-logical reasoning.  He ascribed the number zero to "Nothing" and non-zero to "Something".  Now, is this a line of argumentation that you agree with?  How could we even proceed with this line of reasoning when no definition of the terms has been made?

Although there are many terms, notions or concept that we may be content with from an everyday, common-sense perspective, when doing philosophical debate we must be wary of that approach, as I am sure you will apreciate.  We must ensure that the terms or concept we use convey exactly the meaning we intend - hence the necessity for precise defintions.

Incidentally I notice early just how you were calling him on his being loose with his argumentation; 

Prizm:

Sometimes, people who call themselves theists, or who attempt to defend a theistic worldview make the mistake of not being very precise with their statements. One of the areas that shows this inattention to language is in statements about the metaphysical existence of God.

When an atheist asks a question like "If God is something, then from what "something" did God come from?", it shows that such an atheist is very attentive and has caught a theist flatfooted because such a theist has said something like "everything has a cause" or "for anything to exist, there must be a cause".

Once again, the way to say it, and which no serious theist should ever make the mistake of misrepresenting is:

"Whatever begins to exist has a cause or explanation".

By this statement, no sensible atheist who has understood the premise will begin to ask "what caused God?" or "from what something did God come from?" etc.

The reason is fairly obvious: God is not said to have begun to exist. In other words, we are talking about entities which exist necessarily and are not contingent - they exist by a necessity of their own selves. These necessary entities  did not begin to exist at any finite time in the past. It is useful to remember that this was the way atheists thought about the universe (well at least until that was debunked). To ask what caused God is to presuppose that God started to exist at some point and thus needed a cause or explanation.  It is rather amusing how a point so simple continues to elude people here. You can only ask "what caused" or "what came before" type questions of things which began to exist at a finite time in the past. You cannot ask that of things which exist by necessity and not by contingency. The two examples that are clear to me would be God (an unembodied mind) and numbers. These entities transcend the physical realm and thus have no material, temporal or spatial component.

[size=14pt]What a shame that you do not take your own medication.[/size]

Prizm:


[size=15pt]Now to come to this question, the statement "Whatever begins to exist has a cause or an explanation" is a properly basic statement about existence [/b]which is confirmed rationally, philosophically, logically, scientifically or otherwise. It is like saying "there is an external world (to myself) which exists". [/size]

For example, if I allege that you are simply a brain connected by electrodes in a vat stimulated by some mad scientist somewhere; OR that you are a character existing in a virtual reality like the Matrix, and [b]therefore that you are not real, there is no way, you can get out of your sense organs to confirm the validity and reliability of your sense organ data. Think about it: Assuming I made that allegation and you countered with the reply that you can sense the external world, then what sort of answers would you give when I charge that you are simply wired in this vat or virtual reality to perceive the vat or virtual reality as real? How can you prove without/outside your sensory data the validity or reliability of sense data to be able to refute my allegation? It is just not possible. That doesn't mean that you begin to doubt the existence of the external world, does it? I hope not. At any rate, it is not like I am saying that the statement is some scientific law which you have to swallow whole and entire - it is a premise which has been demonstrated true without fail.

No, I do NOT agree.  This premise is not a priori knowledge and there are many empirical facts that belies this premise.  By the way, what do you mean by CAUSE or CAUSATION? And in view of you definition of causation, can you explain what causes the following events:

1)  The decay of a radioactive nucleus


I asked:

You say that God transcends the universe, etc, etc, .  How did you come to know this?   It is possible for an entity that transcends the universe and has no spatial, material or temporal component  to inter-act with material components of that universe?   By what mechanism does such inter-action occur?

And you responded with the following:

Prizm:

That is what it means to talk about necessary beings/entities. Things that exist out of a necessity of their own nature are timeless, spaceless, immaterial and uncaused. To say this is to say that these necessary entities transcend the universe. This is not a difficult thing to understand. Once again, if you remember the Cosmological Argument, as I laid it out, these inferences or deductions are unmistakably subsequent from the premises. One doesn't even have to appeal to any special knowledge or revelation here. If you disagree with that premise, you are then faced with the task of demonstrating with unassailable evidence any assertion of yours that refutes a premise that is already painfully obvious with boring consistency and tiresome repetitiveness.

Now, assuming that we are settled on "Contingent vs Necessary" entities, you may want to ask why God is by that definition able to interact with the universe.

You seem to be making unjustified and adhoc assertion.  How is the concept of contingency/necessity connected with the question I asked.  I asked by what mechanism was a transcendent being capable of inter-acting with the universe. 

You have a habit of brandishing some philosophical concepts (such as contingency and necessity) about without making any connections between your arguments.  Can you explain how a NECESSARY transcendent disembodied being inter-acts with a physical universe?  BY WHAT MECHANISM?

Prizm:

That is a very good question.  But before one gets to that point, there has to be some agreement that God or at least something like God exists. I am afraid, with you, we are not there yet. So we have to keep the conversation right at the fore--which is whether a God exists or not. You are the one stating the proposition that God does not exist, remember? I am still waiting for some other counterargument to the Cosmological Argument that we were engaged in elsewhere.

This is an extremely bizarre way to argue.  Remember that it is the theist that is making the POSITIVE claim that a God exists.  So the onus is on the theist to present the evidence for his God.  All the atheist need do is examine such evidence as presented by the theist and see if they make sense in the light of our knowledge of the nature of reality. For this the atheist wil surmon succor from sciences, logic mathematics philosophy, etc, etc, as deemed fit.

So it make no sense for me to accept the existence of an entity whose very nature and existence is at question before you can advance your arguments.  This is back-to-front argumentation - it would be tantamount to accepting the guilty of a defendant before seeking to prove him quilty.

Isn't this discussion part of the (Kalam) Cosmological Argument (KCA)?  I hope you remember that I have issues with the very premise of the KCA and my response to your posts and to Deep Sight's have been about the CA.   In fact, I would rather we discuss it here, as it stands to benefit more people interested in such matters, rather than moving the discussion to your private website with only a small audience of people.

Prizm:

You see, the definition of God is that God is a transcendental unembodied mind. A mind has attributes like freewill, intelligence, reasoning, etc. This is what it means to say that God is a person or is personal - He can freely choose to create or not. As an incorporeal being/mind, he has no physically complex parts; he is NOT said to be composed of an infinite number of finite particulars. He is just a mind--remarkably simple. But as a mind, he is capable of complex thoughts. As a matter of fact, his attributes are just infinite and superlative extensions of our own limited personal attributes - and thus he is omniscient, he is the embodiment of the loftiest logic and power, and exists beyond time, space and matter. Being personal does not mean that he has physical human parts or limitation. Note that this in no way limits a being that transcends all physical reality – he is a self-conscious, rational, necessary and superlative being; and the efficient cause of the universe or physical reality.

Now, an epistemological question.  You said God is "a transcendental unembodied mind. A mind has attributes like freewill, intelligence, reasoning, etc. This is what it means to say that God is a person or is personal - He can freely choose to create or not. As an incorporeal being/mind, he has no physically complex parts;"

How did you come to know this?  By what mechanism did this transcendent being (with no spatial, material or temporal component) inter-act with you (or other material humans) such that you ended up with this knowledge?


How do you know God has a mind but no body?  Which rules or laws are contravene if god were to have a body?  (Note that I am not gonna insist that all minds MUST reside in a body)

@ deep sight and prizm.

I'm not sure but i think this is what i understand from all this. . .

The  line of argument is pretty much that - because it seems obvious that something cannot come from nothing, and space time and matter began to exist, then the cause must transcend these, and the ONLY explanation that makes sense is that an unembodied mind with infinitely abundant qualities of the human mind (and possibly more) "created" whatever exists (within space time  etc) to be. Because this seems to make perfect sense based on everthing we know about cause and effect, anyone that rejects this argument is being stubborn and unreasonable and/or incapable of grasping the "technicalities" used to justify this claim of urs.

That is pretty much the same argument we have been hearing for a long time, except articulated in some very elaborate prose, and it is, in my opinion, only confusing the reader (in my case) rather than to clarify anything that is in contention.

There are a lot of leaps in the argument and claims that are justified simply by an appeal to "what seems obvious", whateva that means. EVen though we know that a lot of things that seem obvious to the human mind are not in fact true,  eg. black athletes are better than white ones. . . if there is no race gene as far as we know (we haven't identified one), how can we say this is true. What seems obvious is different from what we know to be true. To claim that the burden of proof is on someone arguing against "what seems obvious", especially in claiming the existence of something we do not have much reason to believe exists in the first place, except that your argument requires it to, seems to just be bonkers,IMHO.

I'm not trying to be stubborn, and i really wanna understand what u guys are saying (some of the stuff is pretty new and intriguing to me so i probably don't grasp all of it), so if u think i just don't understand what your argument is, please explain whateva i'm missing and i'll try to be as reasonable as possible. But that something must be true because it seems obvious just doesn't do it for me. Something must be true if it is absolutely impossible for it to be false, not because it seems obvious.

Sorry for the delay Huxley. Man must whack, no be so? Let us consider your reply.

Prizm: Notice that I said, "Whatever begins to exist has a cause or explanation" and not “everything that begins to exist has a cause or explanation”. I said that because I know that sometimes dogmatic atheists may start to quibble with the definitions of even simple words like "something" "everything" etc in a manner that they wouldn't even dream of doing in the real world.  Just take a look at the thread to see how some have even started asking for the meaning of "something" or "nothing". Can anyone reasonably conclude that the persons asking such questions are conspicuously mired in ambiguity when these terms are used? Can it be said that they have no conception of what it means to say that there is "something" or "nothing"? It kind of reminds one of the way Bill Clinton reputedly asked for what the word 'is' really meant during his Monica Lewinsky sex  scandal investigation. Who really has the time or the desire for such inconsequential hair-splitting?

Then you replied:

huxley:

Thankz for the correction - I erred to have miss-quoted you and I understand your zeal for such pedantry as any productive debate can bearly get off the ground if there is ambiguity in the substantive terms, words or notions of the questions at hand.

But you do not seem to want to practise what you preach.  You call me to task for using the word "Everything"  instead of "Whatever, yet you evince cavalier interest to some of the core terms of the question. 

Deep Sight formulated a line of arguments, using the words "Something" & "Nothing" along some pseudo-logical reasoning.  He ascribed the number zero to "Nothing" and non-zero to "Something".  Now, is this a line of argumentation that you agree with?  How could we even proceed with this line of reasoning when no definition of the terms has been made?

Although there are many terms, notions or concept that we may be content with from an everyday, common-sense perspective, when doing philosophical debate we must be wary of that approach, as I am sure you will apreciate.  We must ensure that the terms or concept we use convey exactly the meaning we intend - hence the necessity for precise defintions.

Incidentally I notice early just how you were calling him on his being loose with his argumentation; 

[size=14pt]What a shame that you do not take your own medication.[/size]

I am not exactly sure why you seem peeved by the fact that I drew your attention to the nuances of my statement. As far as I am concerned, the statement “Everything that begins to exist has a cause or explanation” can stand in lieu of what I actually said and I would not have a problem with that statement. I merely amplified my nuanced statement to forestall a retort that would lead to red herrings or unprofitable hairsplitting. So I must respectfully disagree with your characterization of that effort on my part as pedantic. I have no desire for the sort of pointless exchanges where discussants intentionally strive as it were to misunderstand each other. And sadly, you have been guilty of this severally. One might conclude based on your questions and assertions that you have no real desire for an honest exchange of ideas – just unvarnished dogmatic skepticism. If your complaint is that some of the terms used are not clear, I suppose a brief research on your part, or an honest request for clarification will help. If your strategy is to dig in your heels and quibble over every word or sentence when they undercut some of your arguments or positions, then I am sorry to inform you that I have no stomach for that sort of merry-go-round. Anybody can sit in his/her easy chair and play the role of the unflinching skeptic.

Prizm: Now to come to this question, the statement "Whatever begins to exist has a cause or an explanation" is a properly basic statement about existence which is confirmed rationally, philosophically, logically, scientifically or otherwise. It is like saying "there is an external world (to myself) which exists".

For example, if I allege that you are simply a brain connected by electrodes in a vat stimulated by some mad scientist somewhere; OR that you are a character existing in a virtual reality like the Matrix, and therefore that you are not real, there is no way, you can get out of your sense organs to confirm the validity and reliability of your sense organ data. Think about it: Assuming I made that allegation and you countered with the reply that you can sense the external world, then what sort of answers would you give when I charge that you are simply wired in this vat or virtual reality to perceive the vat or virtual reality as real? How can you prove without/outside your sensory data the validity or reliability of sense data to be able to refute my allegation? It is just not possible. That doesn't mean that you begin to doubt the existence of the external world, does it? I hope not. At any rate, it is not like I am saying that the statement is some scientific law which you have to swallow whole and entire - it is a premise which has been demonstrated true without fail.

You replied with this:

huxley:
No, I do NOT agree.  This premise is not a priori knowledge and there are many empirical facts that belies this premise.  By the way, what do you mean by CAUSE or CAUSATION? And in view of you definition of causation, can you explain what causes the following events:

1)  The decay of a radioactive nucleus

What exactly is your objection here? Have I argued that the premise is a prior[/i]i? This is one of those situations where you strive to misunderstand what has been said. If you remember, I dealt with exactly this objection in my reply to your objection to the Cosmological Argument. Some people may feel that the first premise “Whatever begins to exist has a cause or explanation” is reasonably a priori knowledge and I have no problem with that. But let us grant that it is [i]a posteriori knowledge to satisfy you. That little distinction on your part totally aligns with the way I see it and it is the way I want you to consider the premise.

Nevertheless that minute distinction does not obviate or undercut the first premise at all. So when you say that there are many empirical facts that do so, I’ll have to strongly disagree with you and ask for your evidence. Now, it seems to me that you are trying to undermine the first premise of the Cosmological Argument by talking about radioactive decay? Am I right?

Here’s how we are going to do this. Rather than asking me what I mean by “cause”, I’ll allow you to explain what Radioactive decay is and how it supposedly subverts the first premise. The reason why I am doing it this way is because I want this to be conversational in nature. You don’t get to simply assert that Radioactive Decay belies the premise. To me this is the main crux of this entire post. Besides, I do not want a situation where I demonstrate initially that the premise is intact only for you to recline in your comfortable skeptical chair to declare it some unjustified adhoc assertion. So, here’s your opportunity to take a crack at physics to show us that Radioactive Decay destroys the first premise. It may be that this little exercise may help to fully illuminate the depth and scope of the first premise though as I said previously, it has been constantly confirmed philosophically and scientifically.

huxley:
I asked: "You say that God transcends the universe, etc, etc, .  How did you come to know this?   It is possible for an entity that transcends the universe and has no spatial, material or temporal component  to inter-act with material components of that universe?   By what mechanism does such inter-action occur?"

And I responded with the following:

Prizm: That is what it means to talk about necessary beings/entities. Things that exist out of a necessity of their own nature are timeless, spaceless, immaterial and uncaused. To say this is to say that these necessary entities transcend the universe. This is not a difficult thing to understand. Once again, if you remember the Cosmological Argument, as I laid it out, these inferences or deductions are unmistakably subsequent from the premises. One doesn't even have to appeal to any special knowledge or revelation here. If you disagree with that premise, you are then faced with the task of demonstrating with unassailable evidence any assertion of yours that refutes a premise that is already painfully obvious with boring consistency and tiresome repetitiveness.

Now, assuming that we are settled on "Contingent vs Necessary" entities, you may want to ask why God is by that definition able to interact with the universe

Then you answered with this:

huxley:
You seem to be making unjustified and adhoc assertion.  How is the concept of contingency/necessity connected with the question I asked.  I asked by what mechanism was a transcendent being capable of inter-acting with the universe. 

You have a habit of brandishing some philosophical concepts (such as contingency and necessity) about without making any connections between your arguments.  Can you explain how a NECESSARY transcendent disembodied being inter-acts with a physical universe?  BY WHAT MECHANISM?

I am not exactly sure what you are asking me here. When you asked how one knows that a necessary entity (like God) transcends the universe, I gave my answer. I also contrasted it with another type of necessary entity like numbers.

At any rate, I may be wrong, but it seems that you are asking me the mechanism or physics by which God (here you can substitute the word ‘God’ with any appropriate synonym for this necessary first mover) created the universe. In other words, you are asking me to speak on exactly how God created ex nihilo. If this is what you are asking, the answer is that I don’t know and no one can possibly know how this supernatural event happened. There is no physics for this event. No one is equipped to pronounce on how such a metaphysical event occurred. Our human physics can only probe or go back to the first few moments after this event. There is a limit to what we can actually postulate or verify scientifically because our contemporary physics break down at certain barriers. So we may need a whole new physics to probe even further than we currently know.

But here’s a point to consider: no matter what advances we make, there is no chance that we can ever get to a model that is eternal in the past. Here I am reminded of how nebulous or metaphysical some of these new areas in physics like the String Theory are—there is always the specter of a cosmic beginning even if we can get ourselves to not only picture deeply counterintuitive things like 11 dimensional hyperspace but to actually show that it exists. In the end, there are boundaries even to the string theory model assuming we decide that it successfully unifies all fundamental physical interactions. And so no physics could speak about what happens in that transcendental domain.

Physics picks up and makes sense only after the universe is created along with it every physical quantity or phenomena.  Indeed the way I see it, the theories or the models of the Origin of the Universe can indeed be revised as time goes on, but in any and all revisions, there is no chance or possibility that any viable and experimentally verifiable model will be shown to have been eternal in the past. So, you can push back the origin of the Universe as far as you want, but you will always be confronted with the specter of a cosmic beginning. That cosmic beginning cries out for an explanation. This is where, as I have demonstrated over and over again, the necessary existence of God becomes very evident. So, the possible existence of multiple universes in some Mother Universe does not even affect the argument. Nevertheless, I am by no means dogmatically wedded to any model. We’ll go with where the evidence points.

Prizm: That is a very good question.  But before one gets to that point, there has to be some agreement that God or at least something like God exists. I am afraid, with you, we are not there yet. So we have to keep the conversation right at the fore--which is whether a God exists or not. You are the one stating the proposition that God does not exist, remember? I am still waiting for some other counterargument to the Cosmological Argument that we were engaged in elsewhere.

Then you replied with:

huxley:
This is an extremely bizarre way to argue.  Remember that it is the theist that is making the POSITIVE claim that a God exists.  So the onus is on the theist to present the evidence for his God.  All the atheist need do is examine such evidence as presented by the theist and see if they make sense in the light of our knowledge of the nature of reality. For this the atheist wil surmon succor from sciences, logic mathematics philosophy, etc, etc, as deemed fit.

So it make no sense for me to accept the existence of an entity whose very nature and existence is at question before you can advance your arguments.  This is back-to-front argumentation - it would be tantamount to accepting the guilty of a defendant before seeking to prove him quilty.

First of all, this assumption is Wrong. This is a burden of proof fallacy on your part. But before I show how that is the case, allow me to briefly explain the terms theist, atheist and agnostic. An agnostic is one who confesses ignorance on the question of whether God exists or not. An agnostic therefore makes no claims on whether God exists or not. Theists and atheists on the other hand, make knowledge claims about the existence or non-existence of God. An atheist maintains that a God does not exist while a theist maintains that a God exists. The only party that has the luxury of sitting complacently to weigh the evidence on both sides of this issue is the agnostic. Now, if an agnostic is sufficiently persuaded, he may decide that some kind of God exists even if he does not think that his feeble human reason can fully understand that God. He becomes an agnostic theist. On the other hand, there are equally agnostic atheists and they maintain that not only does God not exist, if such a thing as God did in fact exist, that God cannot be accessed by human reason.

With the term atheist defined as I did, you can see that I do not subscribe to some newly revised definition of atheism which merely seeks to present atheism as “the absence of belief in the existence of God.” This loose redefinition absolves the atheist of a responsibility or burden in any discussion and squarely puts all the responsibility on the theist. By this definition then, an atheist becomes synonymous with non-theist - a broad term which would include not just traditional/strong Atheists but Agnostics and Verificationists.

As far as I am concerned this redefinition trivializes the discourse because by this definition, atheism ceases to be a viewpoint. It becomes a psychological state which is shared by people who hold a wide range of views or no views at all. With this definition, babies who hold no opinion on the issue would also have to be called atheists; people who suffer some deep and irreversible brain damage will automatically have to be reclassified atheists since they have no demonstrable belief or opinion on the matter. We can even stretch that definition to include your pets - suddenly your pets would qualify as atheists since they have no belief in the existence of God. Consequently a theist may equally loosely define theism as “the belief in the existence of God” and be equally absolved of any responsibility or confirmatory burden. The result is that everyone will sit tight in their domain of belief or disbelief and no God debates/discussions will ever arise; neither will any answers arise.

For there to be the sort of discussions that have raged for centuries on whether God exists or not, we have to understand that the atheist is not just stating some innocuous absence of a belief in the existence of God, but he is making a  positive knowledge claim that a God as a matter fact doesn’t exist. He needs to provide justification for that position.

For example, I do not know whether extraterrestrials exist or not. I have not visited all of the vastness of the universe to be able to say with any degree of confidence that there are no aliens in Andromeda or anywhere else. As far as extraterrestrials are concerned, I am agnostic about their existence or non-existence. They may or may not exist and I’ll openly confess my ignorance on that matter. However, there might be people who are deeply convinced that there are extraterrestrials and may have good reasons for such a conviction. Equally, there are people who are convinced that there are no such things as extraterrestrials. In any discussion on whether extraterrestrials exist or not, both sides which affirm or deny the existence of extraterrestrials have to present good arguments why their side should be believed. As an agnostic, all I get to do is weigh the evidence. In the end, I may be unconvinced that extraterrestrials exist OR I could be convinced that they do exist even if before that point, I have never actually witnessed an extraterrestrial. Before this can happen though, I have to be willing and receptive to the evidence offered for or against. If I am dogmatically set against one side of the discussion then it may be that no countervailing evidence from that side will convince me.

A person who posits that extraterrestrials do not exist cannot say that the inability of the other side to show evidence that would suggest the existence of an extraterrestrial is a positive proof of his own claim that extraterrestrials do not exist. That would be logically fallacious. All this would show in this example is that the person proposing that extraterrestrials exist has not proven his own case or has not shown evidence that would strongly suggest so – NOT that the denier of the proposition has been proven right! From the denier of the proposition, we need to hear a positive case that would suggest that their side is to be believed. Such a person, for example, may provide authoritative evidence of having traversed the entire universe and seeing no evidence of such extraterrestrials. In the absence of such strong positive disconfirming evidence, anyone is still completely within his rational rights to believe in the existence of extraterrestrials.

Thus, we are not in some law court where a person is assumed innocent if the prosecution cannot demonstrate some palpable guilt. This is more or less an academic exercise and each side of this conversational divide has to show with positive reasons why their side ought to be believed. Each side in essence has to build up a case that argues for the truthfulness of their knowledge claims. It is utterly fallacious therefore to think that in this scenario, you bear no responsibility or burden of proof for adopting your position, and as such, you can claim the possible lack of evidence for theistic positions as positive proof of atheistic positions. This false reasoning simply reduces to a fundamental presumption of atheism because “Absence of evidence” [/b]is not [b]“Evidence of Absence”.

So it is entirely possible for instance for a theist not to be able to present any proof at all for his position. Nevertheless, it would be deeply illogical to assume that that necessarily proves the assertions or positions of the atheist.  Atheism is not the default position here. The default position is agnosticism, a confession of nescience, which essentially says “I don’t know whether God exists or whether God does not exist”.

You have to demonstrate or show why any reasonable person has to conclude with you that God does not exist. You have to make your case; the theist has to make his case: and reasonable people can judge for themselves. So, in this exercise, you have to be willing and ready to bear your own burden of the argument. Anyone can afford to sit comfortably in his/her easy chair and play the role of the implacable skeptic.

huxley:
Isn't this discussion part of the (Kalam) Cosmological Argument (KCA)?  I hope you remember that I have issues with the very premise of the KCA and my response to your posts and to Deep Sight's have been about the CA.   In fact, I would rather we discuss it here, as it stands to benefit more people interested in such matters, rather than moving the discussion to your private website with only a small audience of people.

I gave a reply to the issues you raised. But you may be right about the fact that this discussion need not be private. On that basis, I’ll repost the Cosmological Argument, your objections and my reply here as well.

Prizm: You see, the definition of God is that God is a transcendental unembodied mind. A mind has attributes like freewill, intelligence, reasoning, etc. This is what it means to say that God is a person or is personal - He can freely choose to create or not. As an incorporeal being/mind, he has no physically complex parts; he is NOT said to be composed of an infinite number of finite particulars. He is just a mind--remarkably simple. But as a mind, he is capable of complex thoughts. As a matter of fact, his attributes are just infinite and superlative extensions of our own limited personal attributes - and thus he is omniscient, he is the embodiment of the loftiest logic and power, and exists beyond time, space and matter. Being personal does not mean that he has physical human parts or limitation. Note that this in no way limits a being that transcends all physical reality – he is a self-conscious, rational, necessary and superlative being; and the efficient cause of the universe or physical reality.

Then you replied with:

huxley:
Now, an epistemological question.  You said God is "a transcendental unembodied mind. A mind has attributes like freewill, intelligence, reasoning, etc. This is what it means to say that God is a person or is personal - He can freely choose to create or not. As an incorporeal being/mind, he has no physically complex parts;"

How did you come to know this?  By what mechanism did this transcendent being (with no spatial, material or temporal component) inter-act with you (or other material humans) such that you ended up with this knowledge?

This is evident from the Cosmological Argument which is just one of a family of arguments that strongly suggest that a God exists. So, to answer your question loosely, this knowledge is apparent from pure reason alone based on the full understanding and appreciation of the Cosmological Argument. I hope this is not becoming tedious. One does not necessarily need the transcendent or necessary entity to interact with him or her first before gaining this knowledge or insight. Nevertheless, I am not going to deny the existential reality of personal experiences or revelation (an appeal to knowledge that is anathema to atheists and naturalists). So, on the strength of reason alone, one can deduce or infer the existence of this necessary entity. For a better and closer understanding and appreciation of God, one has to be willing and open to the evidence that God does exist. Perhaps, by so doing would such an honest seeker come to a deeper awareness.

huxley:
How do you know God has a mind but no body?  Which rules or laws are contravene if god were to have a body?  (Note that I am not gonna insist that all minds MUST reside in a body)

If God had a body, he’ll merely be a subset of this universe and therefore logically he ceases to be a necessary entity. In other words, he would not even qualify for the name God. To have a body is to have finite parts or to be composed of matter, and necessary entities do not possess finite physically instantiated particulars. Does it make the issue simpler if instead of the word ‘mind’ you substituted the word ‘intelligence’?

As an omnipotent being however, he can interact and directly impact the physical realm/universe. So I see no logical inconsistency in saying that God for example, to show himself in the universe, may temporarily assume some material form. I see no logical inconsistency also in saying that after establishing the laws and properties of the universe or natural realm, a God that transcends the universe may from time to time directly impact it. Such interventions would appropriately be supernatural interventions since by definition, a supernatural event is not simply an ‘implausible’, ‘impossible’ or counter-intuitive event, BUT an event that in its proper context cannot be adequately explained by a simplistic recourse to naturalistic explanations.

Let us carry out this thought experiment.

Imagine a 2 dimensional universe. Take a piece of paper for example, and place it on the table. Draw some fishes on that piece of paper to represent intelligent creatures living in this 2-dimensional universe. So these creatures can only exist in a plane. They can swim forwards, backwards and side to side on this xy-plane. Just like we cannot possibly imagine 5-dimensional space, these 2-dimensional creatures cannot comprehend 3-dimensional space. For example, you cannot imagine a curved 2-dimensional space. Any time you imagine curved 2-D space, you are imagining 2-dimensional surface floating around in three dimensions – you will inevitably trespass in the third dimension. 

Supposing you were watching these creatures swimming around and having intelligent discussions, you may note for example that they’ll never have any conception of the third dimension. They will never understand the concept of “up” or “down”. As far as some of these 2-dimensional creatures are concerned, there is no unfathomable third dimensional space and thus there can be no powerful dweller in that third dimensional space.

As the creator of this 2-dimensional universe, you’ll be tickled pink at their reasoning. You exist independently of the fact that these creatures can never approach or comprehend your existential dimension. The fact that you transcend 2-D space means that the creatures living in the 2-D reality you created cannot describe you in 2-D terms; in 2-D physics. You have some attributes of the 2-D dimension that you created, but altogether you cannot be analyzed with very limited 2-D worldview.

Does this mean that you cannot directly interact or impact this 2-dimensional reality? Of course not. You could stay at your table for instance detached and oblivious of the work of your hands. But if you do decide to interact or impact this reality, it is very important to realize that such an event would only be perceived in a 2-D world with a 2-D understanding. So if you take a finger and put it directly unto this 2-D space, you’ll be perceived in the 2-D world, won’t you? Of course you will. Will the 2-D creatures perceiving your finger thrust in their universe understand the three-dimensional spatial attribute of your finger? Definitely not. In choosing to do so, you’ll be intentionally interacting or impacting that world in ways that might even be deemed natural (natural to this 2-D universe). So in that example your finger will simply be perceived by these 2-D creatures as another entity in the xy-plane.


In all of these endless internet debates, the atheist has yet to present a convincing case to argue for the merits of his or her position. You have not presented any evidence or positive rational argument which one would consider and inescapably arrive at your conclusions. I suspect that the reason for this is that you realize that you cannot sustain your own fair share of the burden in this discourse. Therefore, you are essentially reduced to the role of a nitpicker who has simply refused to be convinced by any undercutting theocentric evidence.

Can the atheist then get away by anchoring his disbelief in God by pointing at the different perceptions of God/gods that richly dot the theistic terrain? Can he essentially say that the multiplicity of deities present in the theistic landscape somehow logically proves that there is no God? Certainly not – the suggestion is absurd. I would remind such an atheist to leave the disagreements on the nature and attributes of God to the theists as such disagreements do not enhance or illuminate his position at all. The atheist’s job in any discussion is to show that God does not exist.

For example, if a certain cup under examination has a liquid in it, people can argue whether the liquid is water or poison (not water). They essentially agree that there is a cup with some liquid in it but they may be in disagreement over the nature or attribute of the liquid in the cup. This disagreement should not concern someone who maintains that there is no cup to start with.

Can the atheist then get away by splitting hairs with the theist on whether God is personal and/or conscious or not? Well, before anyone has to start showing you whether God can be considered personal or not, one has to first of all convince you that a God exists. This means that you have to first concede to the arguments for a transcendental being. Thus far, my position is that you have not refuted the Cosmological Argument. At any rate, I am not pressing for some concession. I am willing to live with the fact that for some atheists, there is a degree of inflexibility and resistance that one may not be able to overcome by pure reasoning alone. Only when you are convinced that such a being exists can you reasonably discuss or argue about the personal or impersonal nature of such a being. For example, if you do not believe that dinosaurs ever existed, you have no grounds for objecting to some or any attributional claims about dinosaurs. As far as the topic of dinosaurs is concerned, by your original position, you should be nescient. It will be the height of absurdity, for example, to assert or insist that dinosaurs lack a certain proposed attribute and that, by some weird logic, is evidence that dinosaurs never existed.

As promised, here's a redacted but concise formulation of the Cosmological Argument:

1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2) The Universe began to exist.
3) Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

What this means quite plainly is that the universe along with space, time, matter and energy [/b]came into being. The universe is not a necessary entity; it is a contingent entity. It does not have an infinite past. The only necessary being/entities one can think of are  a) [b]numbers b) an unembodied personal mind. This is the conception of God that theists work with—a personal, unembodied, spaceless, infinite, eternal mind. It goes without saying that numbers though necessary, do not have any creative ability; they do not stand in causal relations. They are causally effete. It follows that the cause of the universe is a mind greater than the universe—by which we mean something that is immaterial, boundless, spaceless and eternally pre-existent,

Another argument an atheist may make when confronted with the Cosmological Argument is to suggest that “the universe is uncaused” which is a patently false idea given its finitude in the past. An atheist is left with the worst option of declaring that the “universe just popped out of nothing, from nothing and by nothing” and that I suggest is even worse than magic. Nothing pops out of nothing, from nothing, by nothing. To suggest otherwise is to be painfully irrational. Not even radioactive decay; or virtual particles which merely arise and disappearfrom fluctuations in the quantum vacuum—a veritable ‘sea’ of energy. So Being does not come from Nonbeing. Nothing spontaneously pops out of nothing, from nothing, by nothing. That is the full explication of the first premiss.

To refute the argument, you have to shoot down or falsify the premises. Otherwise, you'll arrive at the painful conclusion whether you want to or not.


Your objections came in two separate posts.

Post 1:

Now, let's examine your formulation of the Cosmological Argument;

1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause. 2) The Universe began to exist. 3) Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

The key to this argument is the phrase "begins to exist". But is this premise justified and is it true that whatever begins to exist has a cause? How do we come to know this? I submit that this premise is unjustified and cannot be accepted uncritically.

The only way premise 1 can be justified is by inductive inference, that is by observing that in this universe (of space and time) things that begin to exist tend to have a cause. But the conditions that obtains in this universe CANNOT be the same as the conditions that obtained in the pre-universe (note that I did not say before the universe as there existed no time before the time & space were created in the Big Bang event).

This premises falls foul of what is know as The Problem of Inductive Inference and as I have just shown above you seem to have drawn a pretty unsave conclusion by comparing two very dissimilar conditions.

There are other problems with the Cosmological Argument which I shall address later, but for now I would like to see how you deal with my objection.



Post 2:

On my earlier posts about the CA on this thread, I attempted to cast doubt on the reasonableness of making an inductive inference about the conditions that obtains in the present universe with respect to conditions that obtained "before" this universe came into being. I call this the Boundary Conditions refutation of the premiss that every thing that begins to exist has a cause. Another way to put this refutation is to ask whether the properties or attributes internal to the universe are the same as the properties of the universe. This remains to be demonstrated.

On this post, I intend to examine the concept of "Begin to Exist". What does it mean for something to begin to exist? I contend that the CA, especially this Kalam variety, has gotten a lot of mileage recent, thanks to William Lane Craig, mainly as a result of the general illiteracy of metaphysical and ontological matters by the general public. Granted, metaphysic and ontological analysis are very difficult subjects to contemplate and I claim no expert knowledge in these myself. But it should be obvious even to the most casual observer that the idea of "begin to exist" is not as trivial a matter, meriting no further explication, as seems on the surface. Advocates of Kalam CA, maybe knowingly exploit the public ignorance of metaphysics to sell to the public a defect argument.

Now, let's examine what exactly it means for something to "begin to exist". There are two ways one could examine this:

1) The general examination of "begin to exist" which relates to the ontology of things 2) The particular case of "begin to exist" as used in the CA, which relates to the theory of causation.
On this post, I shall only examine 1) and will look at 2) in a subsequent post. I shall start by asking the following questions:

i) Can anyone think of something that "begins to exist" and point out the exact time and space when the existence began?

ii) When does a painting begin to exist? Is it in the painter's head? Is it when the paint was manufactured? Is it when the canvass was stretched out on a wooden frame?

iii) When does a child begin to exist? Is it when her parents were themselves born, noting that her mother would have been born with near all her eggs in place? Is it when that particular sperm that fertilised her mothers eggs was made in her father's body? Is it when her parents had sex? Is it when the eggs and sperms fused? etc, etc?

iv) When did the sun begin to exist? Was it when the matter that accreted into the sun 5 billion years ago? Was it about 10 billion years ago when most of this matter was initially made?

I hope with the above question, it is possible to see that this is not a trivial questions with no trivial answers. As far as we know from science, things around us are simply forms of energy and things don't just "begin to exist", but matter/energy is transformed from one form of energy or state into another form of energy or state, invariably with no finite abrupt phase change time, but with slow imperceptible transitions.
I contend that premise 1 of the CA is not a cast-in-stone premise and should really not be accept as a logically unassailable premise.

Huxley


My Reply:

Hello Huxley: Sorry for the delay. Good to hear from you again.

In replying your first and second objections, there are different approaches that one could take, but I am going to make it a little bit conversational in style so as to help us to more closely focus the objection. It seems to me that after reading the Cosmological Argument (CA henceforth), you have decided to attack the first premiss. That is fine. But we have to ask ourselves, are you really attacking the first premiss as it was stated, or could you be addressing some basic but common misinterpretation of the first premiss? Furthermore, we have to ask ourselves whether the objections raised are anchored on sound plausible deductions.

[b]Before I continue, I have to remark that the CA is a simple syllogism that leads unapologetically to a deductive inference. One does not need to know the conclusion a priori; all that one has to do is follow the step-by-step premises to logically and rationally arrive at the conclusion. The CA or indeed any other form of syllogism can be refuted or falsified however if it can be demonstrated that one of the premises are false. In other words, the premises of syllogistic statements are designed in logical reasoning to aid us flesh out certain truths which one may be led to assert without much evidence. They are not inductive in nature but rather deductive. So, it is not like when someone writes out a simple syllogism, such a person is writing a Law in Physics or some other generally agreed upon law in some other fields of expertise. It becomes the duty of anyone opposing the syllogism to state and demonstrate why he disagrees with any of the premises. The burden of proof lies on anyone who wants to demonstrate that the premises are unsound (or that the conclusion is unsound) to show why he or she ought to be believed.
[/b]
Like I wrote elsewhere, “The first premiss is not to be understood as saying “everything has to be caused” instead it is saying that an entity needs a cause or explanation if and only if it has a beginning. To further expatiate on the first premiss, nothing comes out of nothing, from nothing, by nothing; or to simply state it “Being does not come from non-being.” So we are not talking of material causes here only but efficient causes as well. If things could really spontaneously pop into existence from nothing by nothing then there is no reason why any and everything doesn’t spontaneously pop into existence all the time.

So, there is no fear that while you are busy typing away at your pc, jackals could be popping into existence in the room next door and defiling the carpet or furniture. Indeed, there is no reason to believe that horses, watches, Darwin, erasers could pop into existence anywhere, anytime out of nothing, from nothing and by nothing. To argue against this will be to strain credulity. The first premise is more plausible than its negation. This is empirically confirmed constantly in science.”

So then you declare, in objection to the causal principle: “The only way premise 1 can be justified is by inductive inference, that is by observing that in this universe (of space and time) things that begin to exist tend to have a cause. But the conditions that obtains in this universe CANNOT be the same as the conditions that obtained in the pre-universe (note that I did not say before the universe as there existed no time before the time & space were created in the Big Bang event).”

But what exactly can you tell us about this pre-universe that you allude to? Do you know anything about this pre-universe that you declare rather emphatically cannot be subservient to the first premiss? Supposing I ask you on what basis one is to believe you when you talk about the pre-universe, what will your answer be? Current physics (science) cannot pronounce on that issue, so one is left with the conclusion that it is an empty assertion unless you can demonstrate efficiently why one should doubt a principle that is universally valid.

On your second submission, I studied the nature of your second response and it seems to me that it was just a simple misunderstanding of the first premise. I hope the explication given in this reply effectively addresses that. If you feel like they do not, I’d like for you to spell out exactly how they have disconfirmed the fuller and proper understanding of the first premise. The reason why I am returning that question back to you is because it is fairly obvious to me (and any informed person whether theist or atheist) that for each of those questions you asked, there are clear causes or explanations for them since they began to exist at a finite time in the past. If you claim not to have any good explanation for these questions, I can readily suggest very logical causes/explanations in my next reply.

But upon closer examination, it seems to me that the objections you raised in your second post are simply aimed to make the point that one cannot, with any degree of certainty, declare that things which exist in this world began to exist at a finite time in the past. That to me is patently wrong. There was a time in the historical past when the painting you alluded to was not in existence. If it begins to exist now, the first premise posits that it did not just pop into existence of nothing, from nothing and by nothing. It had to have had a cause or explanation for its very existence. The same applies to your question whether you are talking about a child, the earth or the sun. Indeed, the first premise is constantly confirmed in science regardless of the increasing size or configuration of matter. So the truth holds whether you are talking about a tiny marble ball, a basket ball, a ball the size of a car, the entire earth, the sun or other fireballs (stars), the entirety of a galaxy or the universe at the largest scale.

At this juncture, I will hastily point out that I do not think that your objections are trivial or that they deserve trivial answers. But what if you take the view that nothing can be said to BEGIN to exist, but that rather whatever we have in existence are just reconfigurations of previously existing matter? This is a great argument if one presupposes that matter itself is eternal. But are matter, space, time and energy which came into being (came into existence) at the creation/beginning of the universe eternal?

There are still many people who believe, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the universe was eternal in the past. This idea predominated for quite some time in academia. Unfortunately that is no longer the case now. There are powerful philosophical and scientific reasons to believe that there are no physically instantiated actual infinites. The universe (and matter by extension) had a beginning judging by its finitude in the past. Therefore, anyone who wants to believe that nothing in the universe could be said to have begun to exist on the assumption that whatever exists is merely is a reconfiguration of previously existing matter has to confront the veridicality of the finite and temporal boundary to matter’s existence itself.

Besides, it is not even a satisfactory answer to anyone seeking an explanation or the cause for the existence of any finite particulars to tell him or her not to probe any deeper because physically instantiated entities are simply reconfigurations of prior matter. Nevertheless, given this wobbly objection, the skeptic is then simply faced with the tougher task of explaining the origin of matter since we both agree that matter is a contingent entity and is furthermore, not eternal in the past. Such a person may have to start appealing to some unknown and empirically unverifiable Physics. Since such a person cannot say that the universe did not begin to exist (the existence of which brought into existence all matter, space, time and energy), such a person is then left with the deeply radical, irrational and implausible option of declaring without any evidence that the Universe created itself out of nothing uncaused or that it simply popped out of nothing, from nothing and by nothing. That, I submit, is worse than magic.

It is only the looming inference to theism, I suspect, that will make any atheist abandon overwhelming logic and scientific evidence to make special appeals to an unconfirmed, deeply implausible prior state of affairs. Such equivocations--such remorseless but baseless skepticism is a palpable double standard evident in atheists for we do not witness such empty contrarian speculations or dogmatic skepticism when the theory of evolution, for instance, is under consideration.

Cheers.

Double Post.

Double Post

LOL,

For some reason my last post would not show up here. Posted it three times, and yet, it keeps disappearing. Looks like the spambot or whatever monster that trolls the site is on full alert.

Oh well, to fulfill my promise of relaying my discussions with Huxley on the Cosmological Argument, you can check this link.

http://anaedo.blog-city.com/the_ca.htm

Cheers.