₦airaland Forum

Kay 17: I do feel that all matter and energy hold information. Seeing them as persons, they communicate and inform us on the world.

I've read of experiments they did on a mother rabbit and her offspring.
The idea was to separate the rabbits and on an agreed time, the offspring of the mother rabbit was killed while the mother rabbit was hooked up to machines to detect signs of distress.

At the agreed upon time the offspring was killed several miles away from the mother and the mother was said to have registered signs of distress.

I cant take the story seriously because I read it in an occult book, but that does not mean the story is untrue.

Deep Sight: Thanks Jay. I dont know if you are an atheist, but I was wondering. . . .IF it is proven that indeed for example, thoughts could create beautiful water crystal shapes. . . I was wondering if such a thing could or would be decisive or irrelevant in the mind of the atheist, regarding the existence of God.

Atheists?

In the sense that I am not convinced of the existence of god, yes I am an atheist.

To the issue at hand, supposing it is proven for a fact that thoughts could positively or even negatively affect water crystals, I see no reason for it being decisive in the eternal debate about the existence of god.

Once an explanation can be found for it there would be no need to invoke god as we would know exactly how it works. It will simply be a fact.

I have read in some occultic books that humans radiate certain frequencies which can be transmitted and then picked up by others who are "tuned" in.
ASSUMING, this is proven it will simply be an established fact. Nothing else.
It will no more point to the existence of god than the "conscience" does.

^^ I've heard about this before but I think more research is needed.

The grail message and many other "faiths" or "movements" (for lack of a better word at the moment) place high premium on thoughts, the mind, the power of positive thinking or the laws of attraction. The grail movement also holds that thoughts gather and form some kind of field and you can tap into that field when you think similar thoughts. This ideology is not exclusive to the grail message.


The jury is still out on that. I think there may be some substance to that, but I think it works in a different manner than the way it is portrayed.
In my opinion, if it works, it does so in a far more simple and natural manner than merely thinking positive thoughts.

The above is not about water crystals et al, but it is related somewhat.

It seems lost on you that that assertion is debatable and you are likely on the loosing side of the debate.

A word of caution for you in the future. Avoid wide generalizations unless you are absolutely sure of the veracity of that which you set forth.

You may now go back to dreaming about ancient aliens and all the other funny stuff which accord with your common observation et al.

Before you do, some more reading for you. If you like make a hash out of it again. It is taken out of a preface to a book.

Since the book's publication cosmology has moved on apace, and I have also become
aware of the need for a somewhat more extensive range of material, hence this second edition.
To summarize the differences from the first edition, there is more stuff than before,
and the stuff that was already there is now less out-of-date.

Cosmology is an interesting course to teach, as it is not like most of the other subjects
taught in undergraduate physics courses. There is no perceived wisdom, built up over a
century or more, which provides an unquestionable foundation, as in thermodynamics,
electromagnetism, and even quantum mechanics and general relativity.

Within our broadbrush
picture the details often remain rather blurred, changing as we learn more about the
Universe in which we live. Opportunities crop up during the course to discuss new results
which impact on cosmologists' views of the Universe, and for the lecturer to impose their
own prejudices on the interpretation of the ever-changing observational situation.

Andrew Liddle, An Introduction to Modern Cosmology, 2d ed,(United Kingdom: Wiley, 2003)

(Liddle is a professor of astrophysics. On his site he introduces himself thus:
My research is on various aspects of cosmology and astrophysics. In particular I am interested in the origin and evolution of structure in the Universe, with special focus on models and observational constraints on the inflationary cosmology, physics of the cosmic microwave background, and the use of galaxy clusters as cosmological probes.)
http://astronomy.sussex.ac.uk/~andrewl/andrewl.html

Deep Sight: ^ ^ ^ Lolz. Convince yourself bro. You wrote out the "as far as we know" version, didnt you?

Good! So As far as we know, the CA is right and valid and your suppositions are wrong.

This borders on the dishonest. Here is the relevant part.

jayriginal: I will kindly ask you to quote me on "accepting" the law of cause and effect not once, but twice. If you cant, please bring it up no more.

I do not recall saying "as far as we know" denotes an argument from ignorance. Kindly quote that also so I may set the record straight. Indeed, the path my argument has taken is not to rubbish such provisos but to point to you that such a proviso can only mean that the information is not yet wholly conclusive. As such, there may yet be new discoveries that may completely verify the information, strengthen it, or even discard it.
If you disagree with me, you may cast your CA in the following form

AS FAR AS WE KNOW, Whatever begins to exist has a cause
AS FAR AS WE KNOW, the Universe began to exist
therefore AS FAR AS WE KNOW, the Universe has a cause.

Im sure you dont like the look of this new CA though quite frankly that is what you are saying.

Reading through this it is clear that this is what you are saying and I put it to you. You subsequently agreed that that works for you.
Clearly then, you have ceded the debate. Because put in that form, the CA is no longer absolute. It is not the same one as you started with.
There is a clear limitation on the premises.

Wake me up when we know different.

Until we "know", keep the CA in the cupboard.

*snorring* zzzzzzzzzzzz

[Dreaming]: Oh dear, this fellow still evades the "nothingness" which has properties such as instability. This fellow still celebrates those who say that. This fellow is yet to give an example of a single. . . yawn, this dream is boring. . . .

Oh dear, this fellow is still playing make believe scientist.
Good luck with that.

Sister fatie: I want u guys to recommend some atheists books to me ,i want to help my friends see the truth.

I wouldnt bother if I were you as typically, people cannot be persuaded to see the "truth" on religious matters.
I think you would do better to arm yourself with more plausible answers to the inevitable questions they ask and on which most hinge their basis for believing in god.
Such questions include "what is the origin of life", "how did the Universe come about" etc

Very importantly, if you dont know something, say so. They may wish to use god to fill in that gap but you must assure them that the fact that something is not known does not mean that "god did it".

In my opinion, whereas there are several atheist books available, what you need most is the religious texts themselves. Read them critically.


EDIT:
I see that Bayo has put it quite elegantly.

^^^
The matter is clear whether you see it or not. You unwittingly ceded the point. In actual fact it has been clear ever since you wrote out the CA.
After constructing all kinds of strawmen, you have convinced yourself that you have made a point.
You havent.

Well I was going to make this post a What I am saying and What I am not saying thing, but since you have unwittingly conceded the point, I'll make it much shorter.

We started with


WHATEVER begins to exist has a cause
The Universe BEGAN to exist
The Universe HAS a cause.

Several posts later, we have a different version which you admit works for you.

The revised/extended version as accepted by you is

AS FAR AS WE KNOW, Whatever begins to exist has a cause
AS FAR AS WE KNOW, the Universe began to exist
therefore AS FAR AS WE KNOW, the Universe has a cause.

They are different animals.

One is absolute and unconditional. It excludes every other possibility. The word "whatever" ensures this.

The other is conditional in the sense that the knowledge is said to be inconclusive presently.
The proviso "as far as we know" ensures this.

As such, in no way can the CA be the best or even a suitable argument for god. Not currently at the very least.

However there is one thing I must say. At no point in this thread have I said that the premises of the CA are false. Rather I have asked for proof of their truth and the best proof offered is an assumption.

An assumption that what happens on our limited scale applies universally.

Deep Sight: This is actually one of the strangest conversations I have ever had on this forum. I doubt that I have ever been confronted with a greater degree of bizarre suppositions and willfull ostrich-playing than I have seen on this thread. At this point it is obvious that we are not in a thousand years going to see eye-to-eye on this issue

Well I warned you about that. Unfortunately, it has been worse than I expected.

To be honest, I don’t think that I can successfully mention all the gravely strange and terrifyingly illogical suppositions which you have advanced in this discussion.

If anyone has been "illogical" its you. You cannot or refuse to see the obvious. Your preferred mode of argument is construction of strawmen and other assorted fallacies. I remember cautioning you on at least one thread that you tend to assume what you seek to prove.

Compounded by the, might I say, cowardly, and at times contradictory refusal to support that which you say. In one breath you say you have no need to rely on science for anything that you say: this informs your refusal up till date to advance even a single example of an uncaused material thing. I think that this is most cowardly and even unsporting. But it pales into insignificance beside the fact that in another breath, the self-same YOU, produce for me the writings of Stenger, in which he makes mention of supposedly uncaused physical phenomena. When I ask you to discuss these: you again balk, and say that you are not interested. Well then, kind sir, please refrain from cutting and pasting things to me which you then proceed to state you are not interested in discussing! That comes across as both cowardly and dishonest, and I sincerely mean no insult there bro. It is rather unseemly that we would have a discussion which devolves on these self same issues: and you would repeatedly claim that you have no need to give a single example of that which you advance: you would then subtly do so by quoting someone else; and then bluntly refuse to discuss that which you have quoted.

On the contrary, I have not "said" anything. I have merely asked for proof. It is infact you who has been cowardly by asking for examples when your own case cannot stand.
I have quoted the bible several times on this forum. This hardly means I believe in it. Some christians quote the Quran in their debates with muslims. This also does not mean they believe in or agree with it. I have also sometimes been found on the muslim side of a debate and because of that someone ignorantly referred to me as boko haram. That is the kind of thing you are doing here.

I gave my reasons for quoting Stenger and Mills.
You need to show me where I relied upon them. Then and only then would you have a point. I am not interested in discussing these things and I can understand your frustration and not being able to go off on a tangent with the pseudo-science you love so much but understand this clearly; in matters of religion, science plays a minor role.

I read science literature when I feel like, not to start debating the finer points of evolution or cosmology or any such thing.

I hope you get the point. The fact that I put material is not by default an endorsement of such material. You are free to disagree and put forth your reasons for so doing and I am content to leave it at that unless your disagreement is a misinterpretation of what the passage/author/article is saying.

I have had a lot of trouble on this forum with people who have conducted themselves in a similar manner. In all cases they end up saying the very same things about me which you are now saying: namely that I am deliberately misconstruing their words, and other such. In my view, the truth is simply that people do not like the appearance of that which they themselves have uttered once I show them the logical implications of their very own words.

Oh good. Its not just me. Well, if a lot of people are saying that, why dont you look inward then ?
You arent showing logical implications, you are setting up strawmen and knocking them down.
While it is possible that these "many" people are wrong and you are right, the truth is that you are more likely to be wrong.

There are many things which you have said explicitly on this thread: and which you now are appearing to deny. In this post, I will not bother to quote them: once I am done in this post, I will reserve my next post to extracting those quotes and shewing them unto thee, that thou mayest behold for thyself that which thou hast done and said.

I would very much like that.

For my part, let me here accept that yes, you were right that I said the Cosmological Argument was the best argument. I didn’t remember my exact words, and I accept that.

No big deal. It happens.

At all events, it is an excellent argument in my view: and it stands to common reason and logic.

It is not an excellent argument but if you say in your view, you are entitled to that.

And yes, I do emphatically reject your notion that it is based on assumptions – that is in itself an eminently absurd notion – and your notion that it is “junk” is beyond untenable: it is unintelligible.

It is based on assumptions for the simple reason that you do not "know" the truth about the premises.
About the "junk", you keep hammering on that. Was that the first thing I said ? No it wasnt. Thats a pretty weak thing to hold on to you know. Junk/bad argument/unsound argument/rubbish whatever. It doesnt matter because you set out to prove and you have failed to do that.

The Pith of the Discourse

You assert that the Cosmological Argument is based on ‘assumptions.’ I say that it is not. I say that it is based on that which we observe as common place in all that we see.

Which you "assume" applies universally because you do not know for a fact that it does.

You assert that we cannot rely on that which we observe and know because it is possible that we may know differently tomorrow.

Another strawman. Please quote me on this. I clearly did not say that.

I assert that until we know differently, we cannot assume that which we currently observe to be false. This only stands to reason.

Another example of you misconstruing my position. I am not assuming anything. I have been thinking in possibilities and you have been thinking in certainties. I do not assume that anything we currently observe is false. I simply ask how you know that which you assert and on what basis you rule out other possibilities.
We are not talking of water molecules here, we are talking about the Universe. An immense subject even with the intellectual and technological advance of mankind today.
No assumptions on my part here.

The only person working with assumptions here is the person who hinges his argument on an imagination about futuristic knowledge which he knows nothing of. His basis for assuming that current knowledge could be rendered false tomorrow is the fact that some pieces of knowledge have been rendered false in the past. He is making assumptions. But he alleges that the man who stands firmly on currently observed and commonsensical knowledge, is the one arguing from ignorance. This is frankly unbelievable.

I am not assuming anything. You are the one so doing. Its really sad the way you twist these things and make it seem like you are saying something tangible. It makes no sense to say I "assume" that current knowledge "could" be rendered false. That is not an assumption. Let us be specific (before you construct another straw man).

All I have said is that concerning your first two premises (since the Universe is a vast subject) common observation is not sufficient proof. I gave examples on simpler subjects where common observation and current knowledge were discarded.
This, any objective person should see.
Also you argue from ignorance when your basis of believing something is that it has not been disproved. So yes, you are arguing from ignorance.

Now lets take it step by step again.

Ok

In discussing the validity of the Cosmological Argument, we naturally assess the premises upon which it is built. Those very premises are what you describe as assumptions. It beggars belief for you to be able to sit poker faced and call basic principles observed in everyday existence “assumptions.” It seems to me that the weight of your very absurd statement is lost on you. You fail to recognize that your very existence is predicated on the so called ‘assumption’ that you now deride. Because the fact of the matter is that you, Mr. Jayriginal, and every single thing, person or process that you have known and interacted with since you were born – ALL operate within causative chains. As such the law of cause and effect is hardwired into all that we know of and observe. As such it is staggering that anyone would refer to the law of cause and effect in material phenomena as “as assumption.”

I do describe the premises as assumptions for the very elementary reason that they are not "known" to be true. You may wish to search the posts and quote me if I said they were not true.
You on the other hand positively and widely assert them to be true. I'm sure you do not "know" this. Nobody does. So when you exclude every other possibility on the basis that no one has proven the contrary, you argue from ignorance and make assumptions. In addition, you have thrown in a compositional fallacy as well.
You've served up a rich salad of logical fallacies.
Sure we observe things that are caused/have beginnings. No one can argue otherwise. The issue is how much have we observed ? How far and wide do our observations apply ?
What percentage of the secrets of the Universe have we discovered. On an issue as wide as the Universe, you feel very comfortable asserting what you do not know on the grounds of your common and limited experience ?

It is sad, that people force themselves into making such eminently absurd statements simply on account of a desperation to deny causality in the universe: and therewith perhaps deny the existence of God.

I'll tell you whats sad. The inability to conform with basic logic in an ironic attempt to logically and empirically prove the existence of god. You need to show where I have denied causality.

This argument will not bring god into existence or take it out of existence. For one, even if we accept the premises and conclusion, all it shows is that the Universe was "caused". When you get to trying to associate the cause with god, the hurdles you will meet will be very steep indeed.
However the main point is to show you the insufficiency of the evidence you adduce in favour of the CA.

My friend: If I’ve said it once, i’ve said it a thousand times; the first premise of the cosmological argument is nothing but the law of cause and effect. The same law operative in the fact that nothing may move without a triggering factor. These are so basic, and so unfathomably commonsensical, that I still cannot believe I am writing pages and pages in trying to make a fellow man see that he cannot sit back and deride these as assumptions. These laws are so intrinsic to the nature of reality, and so commonsensical that you must understand my strain, when I am then called upon to “adduce proof” of same! It is frankly staggering, that you cannot see that any person making suggestions against basic causality is rather the person who needs to adduce proof.

Oh you have adduced "proof" quite alright and your proof is "common sense", "common observation", "as far as we know" etc.
I can understand your reasons for being swayed by these. It is natural. However much of science is not common sense or common observation. Your common phenomena is limited. This you cannot disagree with. My point is simple. You cannot take your limited knowledge and apply it to a subject as vast as the Universe and call that proof. Thats bad.

All he needs to do is produce one single example of an uncaused material thing.

Now rather than do that, you, who are arguing against basic and commonly observed causality, sit back and state that you have no need to adduce even a single example!

Astonishing!

Argument from ignorance.
I'd have thought by now you would drop some of these horrible "points' you make.
Listen, for the umpteenth time I will tell you. The onus is not on me. Its on you to prove your premises. You have sought to do that and your premises are insufficient. I am questioning, not asserting. You cannot shift the burden.
For some reason you cannot grasp what I am saying though it is very simple indeed.

However it is obvious that the sources you cite do not agree with you on that score. They clearly recognize the need to adduce examples of their staggering claims. That is why you have had various people citing examples such as virtual particles, radioactive decay, and proton decay, as uncaused phenomena. I said, very well, let us discuss this, and what’s your reaction? No! “I don’t rely on science! I have no need for examples! Etc!”

Agree with me on what score ? That there are uncaused things ? Have I said that anywhere ? Quote me directly if I have.
I do not need to argue with you on anything regarding science. I'm sure you wont find a single scientific argument in my posts on nairaland. I may post the occasional article, make a comment or two (particularly when people take it out of context) but argue on science, not me.
And no, I dont need any examples. I'm not the one that is touting the premises of the CA as fact based on common observation etc.
Again I would remind you that you are no expert in the sciences. You will not be the first to raise these issues which is why I was asking you to do your research and look at it from both angles. These issues have been raised before and will continue to be raised. Its not my field of expertise and neither is it yours.
If you want to play make believe scientist, you have to find another playmate. It wont be me.

Say what you will, but that just amounts to throwing in the towel and shirking the debate.

Another Deep Sight specialty.

I retreat from nothing: you repeatedly retreating from discussing these casts your position in very poor light – it makes it abundantly obvious that you simply dread the fact that these would be shown up to be nonsensical propositions in the same way as virtual particles being uncaused has been shown to be not just nonsensical, but frankly ediotic.

Beyond ridiculous. You are no scientist. All you do is read up spurious stuff that supports your claim and come here and spew over the pages. Spare me abeg.
I'm not dreading anything. For someone who keeps talking about common sense, you cant see it when you read it.

I opened a thread to discuss the radioactive decay thing, again, you balked. You say you are not interested. And in the OP there, I showed that I could not see how that adds up.

You are a funny chap. I dont want to play make believe scientist.

Silence from you when the science comes up. And yet you quote for me the credentials of others and expect me to thereby take your argument seriously?

Well, you will need to show me where I said I relied on those pages. I gave them to you not to persuade you but to see something different from your preferred reading material.
And as I told you, providing Stengers credentials was in response to you calling him mediocre and a joker etc. As I noted, while you had the right to disagree with whatever he writes, your choice of words were very inappropriate seeing as you are a layman while he is very accomplished in his field. It just so happened you unwittingly called a Nobel Laureate a joker.

The truth is that you have said one big fat nothing throughout this thread! “I don’t need examples. I don’t rely on science. I don’t need proof” etc. That amounts to zero over ten, son. You aint said nada. Probably because your argument is nada.

Listen lad, better nothing than a cacophony of meaningless noises.
Of course its nothing to you because you let your emotions and sentiments cloud your judgement (I sincerely hope that thats the real problem).
It would be nothing to you again because I'm responding to nothing.
There you have it boy.

So that is the first and most basic point in this discussion: namely that the first premise of the Cosmological Argument is nothing but a repetition of the law of cause and effect: the self same rule observable in all motion about us. If you wish to call it an assumption, then you necessarily call the law of cause and effect an assumption. You necessarily also call the laws of motion nothing but assumptions. The second premise follows naturally and holds true: it holds true even if one argues that the singularity always existed: it holds true for the simple reason that, whatever it was, the expansion called the big bang was movement. As such, it required a trigger.

Strawman alert. You make up stuff like this all through the thread and then say I have said nothing. Its like we are three people arguing here. Or possibly you are using an interpreter because I do not see how you generate these strawmen so efficiently.

That is not my position.
Thank you.

Now I am painfully struck by the fact that the atheistic scientist who derides mythical religious notions, in his desperate bid to deny the existence of a primordial causative factor, proceeds to tender the most magical and unscientific notions imaginable: movement without any trigger, expansions without any causation, voodoo and black magic of the most laughable kind: and you sit here and expect me to take these notions seriously. What do you do? You begin to cite to me the academic qualifications of the people who say these things. And by the way, yes, that is nothing but appealing to authority. I see no reason why else you would set out their academic or other qualifications within the context of this debate.

I took the liberty of bolding that line. You see no reason even when I told you the reason ? Im sorry but you must either be a mind reader or you are even less objective than I thought you to be.
I quote something does not mean I endorse it. When I say I endorse it, then I endorse it. Until I say so, it simply means I quoted it. I did so for a reason. To show you something different. Surely it has infused new life into you, unfortunately you use that energy in erecting strawnen.

No my friend, that IS NOT an appeal to authority. Until you show me where I said I endorsed Stenger because he is Stenger, then and only then will you have a chance of claiming an appeal to authority. In addition, you will need to prove that he is not an appropriate authority.
Remember, I have said (and not just on this thread alone) that I do not rely on science for my position. As much as you will like to think I quoted Stenger and Mills as an endorsement you are wrong.

Frankly, their qualifications are useless. If they peddle ridiculous notions such as these, they are dunderheaded dolts who have wasted their time being educated in the first place. YES: NA ME TALK AM.

Whatever you call them, they are vastly more qualified on the subject than you are. I hope you see the implication of that.
Makes me wonder what you know about the scientific method.
Write a science paper yourself and have it peer reviewed. Then I can listen to you too. Possibly quote you one day as well.

Now when these things are put to you, you assert that one is advancing an argument from ignorance. You fail to make the most elementary distinction between proven concepts and unproven concepts. In the notion that you advance, every single piece of knowledge in mankind’s history is nothing but arguments and statements from ignorance. Because you fail to recognize that everything we know, and will ever know, is “as far as we know”. That is so simple, I honestly don’t know how it could elude you. We can only know as far as we know. As such, the term “as far as we know” is a valid prefix to every single statement that we can make. In your rendition of things, this means that every statement that we can make is only made from ignorance. That is wrong: the statements are made from that which we know: if you know differently, dunk the proof on the table son, it’s that simple.

Na wa. This is tortuous. I mentioned that it is debatable to say "every single piece of knowledge in mankind’s history is nothing but arguments and statements from ignorance". It is your habit to make grand statements without due consideration. You need to revise your statement.
I have not and do not support that notion.

Also quote me where I say that as far as we know "means that every statement that we can make is only made from ignorance." This is yet another strawman. I believe I made it clear that the problem is in how you formulate your argument.

Now look here boy, I dont mind correcting you, but I expect to do it only once.
Pay attention !

Having said this, yes, I accept your rendition of the CA as you wrote it –

AS FAR AS WE KNOW, Whatever begins to exist has a cause
AS FAR AS WE KNOW, the Universe began to exist
therefore AS FAR AS WE KNOW, the Universe has a cause.


Simples.

Beautiful.

Works for me!

Good.

That simply means that “As far as we know, your position is and remains wrong.”
Until and unless proven otherwise.

Argument from ignorance. A common theme here and in many "god" arguments.

What it actually means is that we can toss the CA in the cupboard until such a time as we actually "know" the premises to be true.
I thank you for conceding the point albeit unwittingly.

Curiously, you do not want to admit the "best current scientific knowledge" on "nothing". Why na ?

Just so you recognize how tedious you are being, I once advanced the simple equation 0 + 0 = 0 to an atheist on this forum. Such a simple and obviously true equation. He raked up a storm about it – screaming that that was only “as far as we know” and could be wrong elsewhere. Quaint! Now its your turn I guess.

Oh I'm aware of that thread. You've been itching to try it out havent you ?

Perhaps if I tell you that I am typing this text using my fingers on a keyboard, you will remind me that that is only as far as we know. Ride on.

If it soothes your ego to make a caricature argument, ride on.

Now just a postscript on “nothingness”. “Nothingness” is not “the simplest state of things” or some other such hogwash recalibrated in different words. Nothing is exactly what the word states: nothing at all. By very definition, it is non existent. It is thus beyond absurd to ascribe properties such as instability to “nothingness.” It’s nonsensically silly. I don’t care who wrote it or how many prizes they won. Its dirty, empty, clueless frog spin, and I will not have it.

Tragedy is, you, who wish to sit with science (whilst refusing to discuss science), are the one who offers up this pot of ludicruous voodoo whilst attempting to debunk simple commonsense, and calling such common sense “assumptions”.

Says Deep Sight, the man who has accomplished what in science now ?
My dear, all that is irrelevant to me I assure you.
You can do better. Take it up with Stenger or the Nobel Laureate himself.
You should have no difficulty showing them the error of their ways.
They have spent years in the "lab" for nothing.

Deep Sight: ^ ^ ^ You cannot say that that which is observed in every single thing about us (causative chains) is "unproven" or "an assumption". That is the fundamental falsehood which you peddle which is shocking and untenable.

Another strawman. I didnt say that. Quote me if I did. If you cant, then you are the one peddling falsehood.
It has been the unfortunate trend in this argument for you to distort and misconstrue what I say. The issues I raised are very simple to understand. I have tried to make myself as clear as possible yet you continually erect straw men as you go along. I'm finding it hard to believe you arent doing this deliberately as I do not want to consider the fact that these things are beyond your scope.

And, Stenger's definition of "nothing" is, and remains, frankly nonsensical. You cannot run away from that simply by citing his credentials.

Oh citing his credentials was for you to see how cheeky it is for you with a laymans knowledge of the sciences to call an expert in his field mediocre. You the layman, call the expert nonsensical/mediocre et al. Bravo !

More on this later.

That's just an appeal to authourity.

You are so predictable.
You really should look up the definition of appeal to authority.

APPEAL TO AUTHORITY
An appeal to authority is an argument from the fact that a person judged to be an authority affirms a proposition to the claim that the proposition is true.

Appeals to authority are always deductively fallacious; even a legitimate authority speaking on his area of expertise may affirm a falsehood, so no testimony of any authority is guaranteed to be true.

However, the informal fallacy occurs only when the authority cited either (a) is not an authority, or (b) is not an authority on the subject on which he is being cited. If someone either isn’t an authority at all, or isn’t an authority on the subject about which they’re speaking, then that undermines the value of their testimony.
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/appeals/appeal-to-authority/

So my good friend, apart from that, you would need to quote me where I asserted that what Stenger wrote was true because he wrote it. Then you will have an appeal to authority.
I didnt appeal to authority, I simply showed you that you cannot hold a candle to the man in the field of science and so while you are free to disagree, your choice of words are inappropriate.
That is all.

I asked you directly if "nothing" can have properties? You shied away from that and began to cite his credentials. That joker described "nothingness' as being "unstable". That is spin: and lousy spin at that; and you ought to have the courage to call it out for what it is.

Well, I gave you a hint. I asked you if you could define nothing.
Take it up with Stenger if you wish to argue the properties of nothing. I gave you the reason why I posted the articles. I made the point earlier that I do not need science for my views. Also, to me, it is a derailing point (this nothing issue). It is another debate on its own and not a side issue.
You seem eager to put across your own "views" of science. However, I cannot take you seriously until you publish some peer reviewed papers which puts dents in the works of these "jokers" and "mediocre" scientists.

And now I find myself in the rather unfortunate but familiar place of having to correct you again. Behold, it is not Stenger that described nothing as unstable in the first place. Rather the "joker" as you refer to him is "Nobel laureate physicist Frank Wilczek" . A view which Stenger seemingly supports.

Oh by the way there was something I thought you'd jump on, but you probably missed it. In the part where Stenger talks about "nothing" he does so "based on our best current knowledge of physics and cosmology". If you didnt miss it, you probably ignored it because you dont want to be arguing with yourself. Anyway, the below excerpts refer

In fact, we can give a plausible scientific reason based on our best current knowledge of physics and cosmology that something is more natural than nothing!

. . . many simple systems of particles are unstable, that is, have limited lifetimes as they undergo spontaneous phase transitions to more complex structures of lower energy. Since "nothing" is as simple as it gets, we cannot expect it to be very stable. It would likely undergo a spontaneous phase transition to something more complicated, like a universe containing matter.

The transition of nothing-to-something is a natural one, not requiring any agent. As Nobel laureate physicist Frank Wilczek has put it, "The answer to the ancient question 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' would then be that 'nothing' is unstable." In the non boundary scenario for the natural origin of the universe I mentioned earlier, the probability for there being something rather than nothing actually can be calculated; it is over 60 percent.

The reasoning is very clear. You argue against yourself when you now reject something based on the "best current knowledge of physics and cosmology".
Let me explain for you very simply what the passage conveys.

As far as we know, nature builds from simple to complex.
As far as we know, "nothing" is as simple as it gets
As far as we know, the progression will then be from "nothing", to something simple and complexity will ensue eventually
As far as we know, this progression is a NATURAL one not requiring any intervention
As far as we know, "nothing" remaining "nothing" would require supernatural intervention because the natural process would have been altered/violated.

Now feel free to reject the above if you wish. That is simply what the passage conveys.

Later.

Ciao.

Finally just some thoughts.

On god
I hardly think we can argue god into or out of existence. If there is a god, there is one or many of them. If there isnt, there isnt. If there WAS, there was. Those are my thoughts on the matter.


On Arguments
Flowing from the above, we are free to argue and debate the existence or otherwise of god or gods. However, it is my firm conviction that logic cannot be used to prove gods existence. As such it is necessary to see things in perspective.

Let me assume there is/was a god. If we treat the assumption as fact, what can change that?

The CA is an UNSOUND ARGUMENT. It is unsound because the premises are not known to be true. They are assumed and the proof for this assumption is an argument from ignorance and also a compositional fallacy.

The CA may actually be true, but for now, that truth is not known. Because that truth is not known, the CA premises are assumptions stacked together.
Assumptions do not make a good argument.

On Interpretation
I have seen a shocking display of poor comprehension and misinterpretation, not just on this thread but on nairaland as a whole.
Once on another thread I stated that an agnostic was an atheist and someone turned it around and said that I said they were the same thing.

Many people think only in black and white and are blind to the full spectrum. For instance if someone asks me if I'm happy and I say "no", most people take it that since I am not happy, I must be sad. This is wrong.

When it comes to atheism, there is also a very very strong misconception. When I say I do not believe in god, I am not saying I believe there is no god.
This in particular is extremely difficult for people to get. Indeed some atheists believe there is no god but not all take that stance.

Its very difficult to argue with someone who keeps misunderstanding you every step of the way, particularly when you are not sure if it is deliberate or unintentional.



And now, this whole exercise is to show the CA for what it is a BAD/UNSOUND ARGUMENT for the existence of god. Even if I was staunchly religious, I would see through the CA immediately.
Actually on second thoughts, maybe I wouldnt. Maybe my bias for wanting a god to be would cloud my cognitive faculties and make me immune to obvious logic.

Demolishing the CA would not mean god does not exist, it just means that "the best" (in reality a bad argument) for the existence of god has been demolished.



Ironically, the CA does not actually prove god (which is where another set of problems probably more serious than those of the CA will emerge).

Deep Sight: This last, is the most amazing piece of illogic I have ever encountered in my life.

In the first place, the writer has ZERO understanding of the concept of "nothing." He has assigned properties to "nothingness" - such as that it is "unstable"! Wow. I didn't know that "nothingness" could have properties! He goes further to say that the probability of something versus nothing even has a calculation.

This is spin: and pathetic spin at that. Do tell me you recognize spin when you see it. I certainly hope you dont have a knee-jerk approval of every pseudo-scientific write-up that simply is anti-God's existence.

It's simply horrible, twisted and also very ignorant. If you agree with that which is written here, do let me know, and we can then see further.

Good grief.

I did not post it because I agreed with it. I posted it because I wanted you to read something different from an expert in his field. I could care less for such things as I've explained before. You of course are free to disagree with it for various reasons. At least you read it.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but your field of expertise seems to be Law.
Lets look at the man who you selected your choice of words against.

Victor Stenger

Education and employment

In 1956, Stenger received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Newark College of Engineering (now the New Jersey Institute of Technology). He then moved to Los Angeles on a Hughes Aircraft Company fellowship. At UCLA, he earned a Master of Science in 1958, and a Ph.D. in 1963, both in physics.

Stenger was a member of the Department of Physics at the University of Hawaii until his 2000 retirement. He has held visiting positions on the faculties of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, Oxford University (twice), and has been a visiting researcher at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in England, the National Nuclear Physics Laboratory in Frascati, Italy, and the University of Florence in Italy. He is currently an Emeritus Professor of physics at the University of Hawaii, and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado. He is a fellow of CSICOP and a research fellow of the Center for Inquiry.

Scientist

Stenger's research career, which ran from the 1960s through the late 1990s, involved work that determined properties of gluons, quarks, strange particles, and neutrinos. Stenger was a pioneer in the emerging research focused on neutrino astronomy and very high-energy gamma rays. His final research project prior to retirement as an experimental physicist was participating in the Japan-based Super-Kamiokande underground experiment. This work demonstrated that the neutrino was massive. Masatoshi Koshiba, the leader of the project, won a share of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics for his efforts.

Philosopher and skeptic

Stenger is now mainly known as an advocate of philosophical naturalism, skepticism, and atheism. He is a prominent critic of intelligent design and the aggressive use of the anthropic principle. He maintains that consciousness and free will, assuming that they in fact do exist, will eventually be explained in a scientific manner that invokes neither the mystical nor the supernatural. He has repeatedly criticized those who invoke the perplexities of quantum mechanics in support of the paranormal, mysticism, or supernatural phenomena, and has written several books and articles aiming to debunk contemporary pseudoscience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_J._Stenger

Take note of the last line before you accuse him of pseudoscience again.

And now your encyclopaedia based knowledge of the sciences doesnt seem to stack up nicely against Stenger does it ?

"As far as I know" Stenger is vastly more qualified than you on this matter.
That is all.

Deep Sight: ARGUMENT FROM IGNORANCE


1)Actually, reading this definition of "Argument from ignorance" its very obvious that you are the one it applies to; for you are the one declaring that we do not know what may be disproven tomorrow. That is surely a cute argument from ignorance is it not?

2)Note also that it refers to relying on the fact that a proposition is not disproven yet.

3)That infers a sort of argument where a non-proven assertion is made, and then backed up with the fact that it is not disproven yet. You have to understand that it cannot refer to proven and observed phenomena.

4)Because if it does, then there is no use in saying or writing or even thinking anything at all, as all such will be branded statements or thoughts from ignorance.

You have interpretedx this very very very wrongly, my friend.

1) Wow, I cant believe you wrote that. The passage wasnt that difficult to comprehend.
Im not arguing from ignorance. I am asking for proof. I place no high value in common experience and common observation as proof of your premises. Rather you argue from ignorance when you positively assert that since common experience and observation have not been disproved, then they must hold true. And then you try to escape your burden of proof by asking for a counter example when I have not asserted anything.

2) YOU are the one relying on the fact that a proposition (whatever begins to exist has a cause) has not been disproven yet.

3) Your first two premises of the CA fall within this category of none proven assertions. When I ask for proof, you refer to "as far as we know", "common experience and observation" and the fact that they have not been disproved.
I on the other hand have made no assertion.

4) As I have stated on other posts, this is incorrect.

Deep Sight: Finally, your answers completely evaded the core contradictions I pointed out. You simply issued denials and then wrote on non-related matters. Address the contradictions squarely. One of them is -

1. You accept the law of cause and effect for material things

2. You accept that the universe is a material thing

3. You reject the first premise of the cosmological argument as a baseless assumption

4. And yet the first premise of the cosmological argument is simply a repetition of the law of cause and effect - which you say you accept!

I am mildly surprised on your reaction to the water analogy. You totally missed it. The analogy was directed at showing your mis-use of the "as far as we know" qualification.

There might be a version of me in your head that you argue with hence the mix up.
You continually distort my position and I'm not sure why.

Ive asked you to quote me on 1 ie that I accept the law of cause and effect. When you do that, we can address 2-4.

The water analogy I told you, was bad. I believe I addressed it appropriately. You must have missed the point because I also "assumed" and went into the "as far as we know" point (despite the analogy being a bad one).

All knowledge, my friend, will eternally remain "as far as we know".

You've said that before and my response is that it is debatable. Very debatable. I say so because I can see both sides of the argument. It is debatable.

That cannot render all knowledge "arguments or statements from ignorance."

If that were the case, my saying that "As far as we know, Jayriginal is a human being" will simply be a statement from ignorance, no?

I never said "as far as we know" renders all knowledge "arguments or or statements from ignorance".
You must distinguish between knowledge and an argument.
If we must argue, please do not distort my position. I will thank you gladly for that.

Deep Sight: The primary reason I discard the entire write-up is that it states that it is addressing itself against the view that the universe must have required a super-natural miraculous event to have caused it.

This is pointless for me because I do not believe in any supernatural or miraculous events.

I believe that everything is natural and follows logic, including God itself.

You think god is natural and logical ?
I'm sorry but one does not get this impression from you. Not in the least.

This is shocking reasoning actually. It often surprises me the way people dig up very mediocre writings with very poor logic and then refer to such as some sort of authourity. Much the way people point to Richard Dawkin’s writings – which are frankly kindergarten-ish discourses.

Says the lawyer with no training in the sciences. You do not have the academic right to call Dawkins or Mills or Stenger mediocre. You can disagree with them all you want though.
Obviously whatever disagrees with you is mediocre and what you read actually nourishes some of the spurious ideas you dump on this forum.

Just look at the above. I will break it down and comment on it.

It says –

“In his writings, Craig takes the first premise to be self-evident, with no justification other than common, everyday experience. That's the type of experience that tells us the world is flat.

Just look at this, and for the sake of Helen of Troy, please bring out your honest hat. This statement infers that observations based on common, everyday experience are not to be trusted. Is this your view, Jay?

*Puts on honest hat and winks in the mirror*
It infers no such thing. That is a very narrow and simplistic (not to mention wildly incorrect) interpretation of the statement.
What it says is the same thing I've been trying to tell you. Our "common everyday experience" is very limited. Let me repeat that. Our "common everyday experience" is very limited.
One cannot make sweeping assumptions regarding the Universe with no verification except our "common everyday experience".
That is all.

Do you think for example that our common everyday observation that people need to breathe in order to survive should perhaps be derided as an argument or statement from ignorance?

Not necessarily. It depends on how you make your argument. Interestingly, someone once quipped "what if oxygen was really poisonous and takes an average of seventy years to kill us".
Of course, that is not to be taken seriously, but think about it all the same.

This writer is inferring that relying on common everyday experience leads to conclusions such as a flat earth. Is this correct? I think verily not. In the first place, the flat earth notion was wrong not because people relied on common experience – it was wrong because they didn’t rely on the proper common experience. The proper common experience would simply have been something like looking round at the circular horizon, and several other apt common experiences that ought to have shown a flat earth notion to have been wrong. As such, the mere fact that people sometimes select wrong experiences to decide their conclusions and therefore come to wrong notions DOES NOT IN ANYWAY MEAN THAT IT IS BAD, WRONG, OR ILLOGICAL TO RELY ON COMMON EXPERIENCE AND OBSERVATION IN DRAWING CONCLUSIONS

It is easy to say this in retrospect and considering the age you live in. Knowledge grows and past wisdom seems like folly, yet we build on the knowledge of the past to progress. Doctors of the recent past may laugh at the concept of humours and the leeching of blood yet leeching has gained some new respect in modern medicine today. Even maggots are used in medicine today.
If you were there in the times when the earth was flat, the chances that you would have been one of the believers in a flat earth are extremely high.
Even if we assume that people selected bad experiences, that was the truth "as far as they knew". Curiously, it raises the question how do you know your premises are correct.
Your answer is ; as far as we know, we see the laws of cause and effect around us and our common observation and common logic support the premise.

How do we know you arent selecting bad experiences ?
How ?

Converning your last line, I have neither said and nor has he, that "IT IS BAD, WRONG, OR ILLOGICAL TO RELY ON COMMON EXPERIENCE AND OBSERVATION IN DRAWING CONCLUSIONS" .
No Sir. Stop changing the argument.

Indeed, I might ask you what is to be relied on, if not such?

Subtle strawman you have set up there. I havent said "common every day experience", "common knowledge", "as far as we know" etc are useless to us. I have tried to impress on you the limited nature of such things especially juxtaposed with the vastness of the Universe.

Your write further states –

“In fact, physical events at the atomic and subatomic level are observed to have no evident cause. For example, when an atom in an excited energy level drops to a lower level and emits a photon, a particle of light, we find no cause of that event. Similarly, no cause is evident in the decay of a radioactive nucleus.”

I would invite you that we should take this up in a thread I opened some days ago specifically for such –

https://www.nairaland.com/906545/radioactive-decay-as-argument-existence

I saw the thread. Not interested. I've said before that science isnt exactly relevant to my lack of beliefs. I did say earlier you should do some research and that I'd only cut and paste here for you if I found it necessary or thought it useful.
I posted those chapters for you to see something different from what you prefer to read.
If you wish to debate the points, its not with me. You can do so by private correspondence with the authors. I will only highlight points you misunderstand as I did above.

I think this is wrong for the simple reason that it leaps over the first and most fundamental question of the creation riddle: why something instead of nothing? There must be a something in existence – of whatever nature – before things can happen “accidentally” to such a “something.” This is why I say these write-ups are kindergartenish. Do accidents happen to, within, or from a “nothing”?

I see the final installment has some thoughts on this question, but you will agree it simply attempts to wish the question away and does not in anyway answer it! Indeed the final paragraphs are the worse pieces of spin, illogic and pseudo-science I have ever seen in my life. Its not necesasry to believe in God, but its shameful for people to go to the length of such twisted spin and obvious illogic simply to murder the God they anyway claim is non-existent.

You think !!!
Very good my friend. Very good. A remarkable step forward. You are free to hold an opinion and share it till you are asked to stop.
However when you convert an opinion to fact and attempt to ram it down peoples throats then "yawa go gas".

I hope it was not a typo on your part. You have made me pause twice today. First when you referred to god as logical and natural and now saying "I think".

Anyway to the issue why something instead of nothing ?
Well the writer has written and you arent forced to accept his answers. They are clear enough. Call it a spin if you will. Thats not my problem.
I wonder if however you thought of defining "nothing".
Just a hint . . .

Deep Sight: @ Jayriginal,

I am in the middle of preparing a response to you. But something just occured to me regarding one of your responses, and I'd just like to get it quickly out of the way.

Can you answer these two sets of quick questions for me?

First Set

1. You affirmed twice that you accept the law of cause and effect for material things. Confirm again please.

2. Is the universe a material thing?

Second Set

1. You stated that the qualification "As far as we know" denotes an argument from ignorance.

2. Do you agree that this qualification applies to ALL knowledge of mankind?

3. Does it not therefore follow that everything mankind knows and says simply amounts to arguments and statements from ignorance?

Thanks.

I will kindly ask you to quote me on "accepting" the law of cause and effect not once, but twice. If you cant, please bring it up no more.

I do not recall saying "as far as we know" denotes an argument from ignorance. Kindly quote that also so I may set the record straight. Indeed, the path my argument has taken is not to rubbish such provisos but to point to you that such a proviso can only mean that the information is not yet wholly conclusive. As such, there may yet be new discoveries that may completely verify the information, strengthen it, or even discard it.
If you disagree with me, you may cast your CA in the following form

AS FAR AS WE KNOW, Whatever begins to exist has a cause
AS FAR AS WE KNOW, the Universe began to exist
therefore AS FAR AS WE KNOW, the Universe has a cause.

Im sure you dont like the look of this new CA though quite frankly that is what you are saying.

Deep Sight: I am sure I did not say that it was the most convincing argument for the existence of God. I said it was one of the most convincing. Now the key point which you seem to be missing is that in discussing the issue, we perforce consider the premises on which the cosmological argument is hinged.

You are right. You didnt actually say it was the most convincing argument. You actually said it was the BEST argument. I reproduce your post in full below. The fact that you have changed your stance might indicate that I am making some progress with you. Read your post in full.

Deep Sight: Jayriginal -

The best argument for the existence of God is simple. Its called the cosmological argument. It goes largely as follows -

1. Whatever BEGINS to exist has a cause

2. The Universe BEGAN to exist

3. The Universe has a cause

The foregoing can be summarized as an offshoot from the laws of motion. Nothing can move without a triggering factor. NOTHING. The big bang was a major movement. It thus required a triggering factor. This CANNOT be disputed.

The only question therefore remains the NATURE of the triggering factor.

For that - I advance to you the argument that nothing can evolve from anything that does not bear elements of the succeeding thing within it. This wraps up the existence of God.

Also, the experiments of Louis Pasteur - life can only come from pre existing life.

Olaadegbu may make a caricature of proper arguments in the way he goes about it - but the fundamental sensing of a pre-existent purposeful cause is definitively correct.

What is this horrible new format on NL by the way, YUCK! Mods, remove it!
MY EDIT:
Quoted For Truth

Those premises are in line with common observation and common logic.

I havent denied that "as far as we know". I dont think however that the second premise "the Universe began to exist" is exactly in line with "common observation and common logic". I think the point is debatable.

A person such as you, who contradicts them by referring to them as baseless assumptions, will have to show exactly why they are so: given the fact that in all that we observe, nothing moves without a triggering factor. The onus to show why this is a “baseless assumption” or “junk” as you put it, must rest squarely on you. because you are the one advancing a notion contrary to common observation and common logic

Well, I'm pretty sure I didnt call them baseless assumption (feel free to quote me if I did). I'm pretty sure I said somewhere I could understand your reasons for the assumptions and also I'm pretty sure I had no quarrel with the "as far as we know" presumption.

Nevertheless I will not make heavy weather of this point: wherever the burden of proof rests is not so important: readers will at all events be able to decide for themselves that which is in line with logic, based on what is put forward.

Fine.

As such, you may either put forward your foot, or withhold it: it’s your choice. No matter.

Fine again.

This is a very disturbing thing for you to argue or state! I hope you realize that all knowledge that mankind has – and will ever have, - will always remain “as far as we know” – as such – everything that mankind will ever know – in your summation, kind sir – will simply eternally be statements of ignorance!

Again, this point is debatable. Very very debatable but it is too much of a distraction here. I indicated earlier that I do not have a problem with the "as far as we know" proviso.
It simply shows that the knowledge is inconclusive. When you now argue universal application of a statement limited by the "as far as we know clause" then, you argue from ignorance. Simple !

Clap for yasef!

As soon as you see the obvious.

I hope you can see the meaning in this: that it makes no sense to deride statements made on the basis of known observation as being arguments from ignorance.

You argue in a funny way. Do you know what it means to be "known". If it were "known", you wouldnt say "as far as we know".

This is especially so when the statements made are based on very simple knowledge which it is fair to say is conclusive: such as the composition of water for example. Thus, when the most simple and fundamental laws of motion are used in concluding that everything that moves requires a triggering factor, it is very strange, and even absurd, I think, to describe such as an argument or statement from ignorance.

There you go again. Water molecules and the Universe. A very bad comparison as I have tried to show you.

It is actually an argument or statement based on current knowledge - which knowledge has NOT YET been disproven, and which may not be disproven.

ARGUMENT FROM IGNORANCE. Really !

Accordingly, there isn’t one single bit of concluded knowledge anywhere in mankind’s history, because, as I already told you, all knowledge is only “as far as we know.”

Again this point is very debatable.

I hope you can see how terribly tedious and untenable your “argument from ignorance” idea is, with regard to this discussion.

The reverse actually.

And yet, I say to you again, that since in ALL that we observe, we see causative chains – it behoves you to bring to the table even just one example of an uncaused material thing – and then and only then, can your declaration that we are making assumptions be taken seriously.

The old "I cant prove my case, so let him disprove mine or I win" trick. It wont happen.
You asserted, you prove !



Reading your other responses will reply when I'm done.

debosky: @ Jay do you have a link to the article you posted?

Unfortunately I do not have a link. Its actually the fourth chapter from his book (Victor Stenger) God, The Failed Hypothesis (New York: Prometheus Books, 2007).
There is much more in the book. If you wish I could mail you a pdf copy of the book if you provide me an email address.

Cheers.

EDIT:

OLAADEGBU: Have you quickly forgotten that you were the one who avoided answering the question as to the ultimate cause of the universe by saying you do not know?

Although the above was directed at Debosky, you should know that "I don't know" is a perfectly valid and honest answer. In no way does this answer avoid the question. It is better than making up stuff.

^^ Final installment

WHY IS THERE SOMETHING RATHER THAN NOTHING

If the laws of physics follow naturally from empty space-time, then where did that empty space-time come from? Why is there something rather than nothing? This question is often the last recourse of the theist who seeks to argue for the existence of God from physics and cosmology and finds that all his other arguments fail. Philosopher Bede Rundle calls it "philosophy's central, and most perplexing, question." His simple (but booklength) answer: "There has to be something."28

Clearly many conceptual problems are associated with this question. How do we define "nothing"? What are its properties? If it has properties, doesn't that make it something? The theist claims that God is the answer. But, then, why is there God rather than nothing? Assuming we can define "nothing," why should nothing be a more natural state of affairs than something? In fact, we can give a plausible scientific reason based on our best current knowledge of physics and cosmology that something is more natural than nothing!

In chapter 2 we saw how nature is capable of building complex structures by processes of self-organization, how simplicity begets complexity. Consider the example of the snowflake, the beautiful six-pointed pattern of ice crystals that results from the direct freezing of water vapor in the atmosphere. Our experience tells us that a snowflake is very ephemeral, melting quickly into drops of liquid water that exhibit far less structure. But that is only because we live in a relatively high-temperature environment, where heat reduces the fragile arrangement of crystals to a simpler liquid. Energy is required to break the symmetry of a snowflake.

In an environment where the ambient temperature is well below the melting point of ice, as it is in most of the universe far from the highly localized effects of stellar heating, any water vapor would readily crystallize into complex, asymmetric structures. Snowflakes would be eternal, or at least would remain intact until cosmic rays tore them apart.

This example illustrates that many simple systems of particles are unstable, that is, have limited lifetimes as they undergo spontaneous phase transitions to more complex structures of lower energy. Since "nothing" is as simple as it gets, we cannot expect it to be very stable. It would likely undergo a spontaneous phase transition to something more complicated, like a universe containing matter.

The transition of nothing-to-something is a natural one, not requiring any agent. As Nobel laureate physicist Frank Wilczek has put it, "The answer to the ancient question 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' would then be that 'nothing' is unstable."29 In the non boundary scenario for the natural origin of the universe I mentioned earlier, the probability for there being something rather than nothing actually can be calculated; it is over 60 percent.30

In short, the natural state of affairs is something rather than nothing. An empty universe requires supernatural intervention— not a full one. Only by the constant action of an agent outside the universe, such as God, could a state of nothingness be maintained. The fact that we have something is just what we would expect if there is no God.

Victor Stenger, God, The Failed Hypothesis (New York: Prometheus Books, 2007)

^^ Continued

THE ORIGIN

Nevertheless, another nail in the coffin of the kalâm argument is provided by the fact that the second premise also fails. As we saw above, the claim that the universe began with the big bang has no basis in current physical and cosmological knowledge.
The observations confirming the big bang do not rule out the possibility of a prior universe. Theoretical models have been published suggesting mechanisms by which our current universe appeared from a preexisting one, for example, by a process called quantum tunneling or so-called quantum fluctuations.20 The equations of cosmology that describe the early universe apply equally for the other side of the time axis, so we have no reason to assume that the universe began with the big bang.

In The Comprehensible Cosmos, I presented a specific scenario for the purely natural origin of the universe, worked out mathematically at a level accessible to anyone with an undergraduate mathematics or physics background.21 This was based on the no boundary model of James Hartle and Stephen Hawking.22 In that model, the universe has no beginning or end in space or time. In the scenario I presented, our universe is described as having "tunneled" through the chaos at the Planck time from a prior universe that existed for all previous time.

While he avoided technical details in A Brief History of Time, the no boundary model was the basis of Hawking's oft-quoted statement: "So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end; it would simply be. What place then, for a creator?"23

Prominent physicists and cosmologists have published, in reputable scientific journals, a number of other scenarios by which the universe could have come about "from nothing" naturally24. None can be "proved" at this time to represent the exact way the universe appeared, but they serve to illustrate that any argument for the existence of God based on this gap in scientific knowledge fails, since plausible natural mechanisms can be given within the framework of existing knowledge.

As I have emphasized, the God of the gaps argument for God fails when a plausible scientific account for a gap in current knowledge can be given. I do not dispute that the exact nature of the origin of the universe remains a gap in scientific knowledge
But I deny that we are bereft of any conceivable way to account for that origin scientifically. In short, empirical data and the theories that successfully describe those data indicate that the universe did not come about by a purposeful creation. Based on our best current scientific knowledge, it follows that no creator exists who left a cosmological imprint of a purposeful creation.

WHERE DO THE LAWS OF PHYSICS COME FROM

We have seen that the origin and the operation of the universe do not require any violations of laws of physics. This probably will come as a surprise to the layperson who may have heard otherwise from the pulpit or the media. However, the scientifically savvy believer might concede this point for the sake of argument and then retort, "Okay, then where did the laws of physics come from?" The common belief is that they had to come from somewhere outside the universe. But that is not a demonstrable fact. There is no reason why the laws of physics cannot have come from within the universe itself.

Physicists invent mathematical models to describe their observations of the world. These models contain certain general principles that have been traditionally called "laws" because of the common belief that these are rules that actually govern the universe the way civil laws govern nations. However, as I showed in my previous book, The Comprehensible Cosmos, the most fundamental laws of physics are not restrictions on the behavior of matter. Rather they are restrictions on the way physicists may describe that behavior.25

In order for any principle of nature we write down to be objective and universal, it must be formulated in such a way that it does not depend on the point of view of any particular observer. The principle must be true for all point of views, from every "frame of reference." And so, for example, no objective law can depend on a special moment in time or a position in space that may be singled out by some preferred observer.

Suppose I were to formulate a law that said that all objects move naturally toward me. That would not be very objective. But this was precisely what people once thought—that Earth was the center of the universe and the natural motion of bodies was toward Earth. The Copernican revolution showed this was wrong and was the first step in the gradual realization of scientists that their laws must not depend on frame of reference.

In 1918 mathematician Emmy Noether proved that the most important physical laws of all—conservation of energy, linear momentum, and angular momentum—will automatically appear in any model that does not single out a special moment in time, position in space, and direction in space.26 Later it was realized that Einstein's special theory of relativity follows if we do not single out any special direction in four-dimensional space-time. These properties of space-time are called symmetries. For example, the rotational symmetry of a sphere is a result of the sphere singling out no particular direction in space. The four space-time symmetries described above are just the natural symmetries of a universe with no matter, that is, a void. They are just what they should be if the universe appeared from an initial state in which there was no matter—from nothing.

Other laws of physics, such as conservation of electric charge and the various force laws, arise from the generalization of spacetime symmetries to the abstract spaces physicists use in their mathematic models. This generalization is called gauge invariance, which is likened to a principle I more descriptively refer to as point-of-view invariance.

The mathematical formulations of these models (which are provided in The Comprehensible Cosmos) must reflect this requirement if they are to be objective and universal. Surprisingly, when this is done, most of the familiar laws of physics appear naturally. Those that are not immediately obvious can be seen to plausibly arise by a process, mentioned in chapter 2, known as spontaneous symmetry breaking.

So where did the laws of physics come from? They came from nothing! Most are statements composed by humans that follow from the symmetries of the void out of which the universe spontaneously arose. Rather than being handed down from above, like the Ten Commandments, they look exactly as they should look if they were not handed down from anywhere. And this is why, for example, a violation of energy conservation at the beginning of the big bang would be evidence for some external creator. Even though they invented it, physicists could not simply change the "law." It would imply a miracle or, more explicitly, some external agency that acted to break the time symmetry that leads to conservation of energy. But, as we have seen, no such miracle is required by the data.

Thus we are justified in applying the conservation laws to the beginning of the big bang at the Planck time. At that time, as we saw earlier in this chapter, the universe had no structure. That meant that it had no distinguishable place, direction, or time. In such a situation, the conservation laws apply.

Now, this is certainly not a commonly understood view. Normally we think of laws of physics as part of the structure of the universe. But here I am arguing that the three great conservation laws are not part of any structure. Rather they follow from the very lack of structure at the earliest moment. No doubt this concept is difficult to grasp. My views on this particular issue are not recognized by a consensus of physicists, although I insist that the science I have used is well established and conventional. I am proposing no new physics or cosmology but merely providing an interpretation of established knowledge in those fields as it bears on the question of the origin of physical law, a question few physicists ever ponder.

I must emphasize another important point, which has been frequently misunderstood. I am not suggesting that the laws of physics can be anything we want them to be, that they are merely "cultural narratives," as has been suggested by authors associated with the movement called postmodernism.27 They are what they are because they agree with the data.

Whether or not you will buy into my account of the origin of physical law, I hope you will allow that I have at minimum provided a plausible natural scenario for a gap in scientific knowledge, that gap being a clear consensus on the origin of physical law Once again, I do not have the burden of proving this scenario. The believer who wishes to argue that God is the source of physical law has the burden of proving (1) that my account is wrong, (2) that no other natural account is possible, and (3) that God did it.

Last installment below

^^ Continued here . . .

BEGINNING AND CAUSE

The empirical fact of the big bang has led some theists to argue that this, in itself, demonstrates the existence of a creator. In 1951 Pope Pius XII told the Pontifical Academy, "Creation took place in time, therefore there is a Creator, therefore God exists."9 The astronomer/priest Georges-Henri Lemaître, who first proposed the idea of a big bang, wisely advised the pope not make this statement "infallible."

Christian apologist William Lane Craig has made a number of sophisticated arguments that he claims show that the universe must have had a beginning and that beginning implies a personal creator.10 One such argument is based on general relativity, the modern theory of gravity that was published by Einstein in 1916 and that has, since then, passed many stringent empirical tests.11

In 1970 cosmologist Stephen Hawking and mathematician Roger Penrose, using a theorem derived earlier by Penrose, "proved" that a singularity exists at the beginning of the big bang.12 Extrapolating general relativity back to zero time, the universe gets smaller and smaller while the density of the universe and the gravitational field increases. As the size of the universe goes to zero, the density and gravitational field, at least according to the mathematics of general relativity, become infinite. At that point, Craig claims, time must stop and, therefore, no prior time can exist.

However, Hawking has repudiated his own earlier proof. In his best seller A Brief History of Time, he avers, "There was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe."13 This revised conclusion, concurred with by Penrose, follows from quantum mechanics, the theory of atomic processes that was developed in the years following the introduction of Einstein's theories of relativity. Quantum mechanics, which also is now confirmed to great precision, tells us that general relativity, at least as currently formulated, must break down at times less than the Planck time and at distances smaller than the Planck length, mentioned earlier.

It follows that general relativity cannot be used to imply that a singularity occurred prior to the Planck time and that Craig's use of the singularity theorem for a beginning of time is invalid. Craig and other theists also make another, related argument that the universe had to have had a beginning at some point, because if it were infinitely old, it would have taken an infinite time to reach the present. However, as philosopher Keith Parsons has pointed out, "To say the universe is infinitely old is to say that it had no beginning—not a beginning that was infinitely long ago."14

Infinity is an abstract mathematical concept that was precisely formulated in the work of mathematician Georg Cantor in the late nineteenth century. However, the symbol for infinity, " ," is used in physics simply as a shorthand for "a very big number." Physics is counting. In physics, time is simply the count of ticks on a clock.
You can count backward as well as forward. Counting forward you can get a very big but never mathematically infinite positive number and time "never ends." Counting backward you can get a very big but never mathematically infinite negative number and time "never begins." Just as we never reach positive infinity, we never reach negative infinity Even if the universe does not have a mathematically infinite number of events in the future, it still need not have an end. Similarly, even if the universe does not have a mathematically infinite number of events in the past, it still need not have a beginning. We can always have one event follow another, and we can always have one event precede another.

Craig claims that if it can be shown that the universe had a beginning, this is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of a personal creator. He casts this in terms of the kalâm cosmological argument, which is drawn from Islamic theology.15 The argument is posed as a syllogism:
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
[/b]The kalâm argument has been severely challenged by philosophers on logical grounds,16 which need not be repeated here since we are focusing on the science.

[b]In his writings, Craig takes the first premise to be self-evident, with no justification other than common, everyday experience. That's the type of experience that tells us the world is flat. In fact, physical events at the atomic and subatomic level are observed to have no evident cause. For example, when an atom in an excited energy level drops to a lower level and emits a photon, a particle of light, we find no cause of that event. Similarly, no cause is evident in the decay of a radioactive nucleus.

Craig has retorted that quantum events are still "caused," just caused in a non predetermined manner—what he calls "probabilistic causality." In effect, Craig is thereby admitting that the "cause" in his first premise could be an accidental one, something spontaneous—something not predetermined. By allowing probabilistic cause, he destroys his own case for a predetermined creation.

We have a highly successful theory of probabilistic causes— quantum mechanics. It does not predict when a given event will occur and, indeed, assumes that individual events are not predetermined. The one exception occurs in the interpretation of quantum mechanics given by David Bohm.17 This assumes the existence of yet-undetected subquantum forces. While this interpretation has some supporters, it is not generally accepted because it requires superluminal connections that violate the principles of special relativity.18 More important, no evidence for subquantum forces has been found.

Instead of predicting individual events, quantum mechanics is used to predict the statistical distribution of outcomes of ensembles of similar events. This it can do with high precision. For example, a quantum calculation will tell you how many nuclei in a large sample will have decayed after a given time. Or you can predict the intensity of light from a group of excited atoms, which is a measure of the total number of photons emitted. But neither quantum mechanics nor any other existing theory—including Bohm's—can say anything about the behavior of an individual nucleus or atom. The photons emitted in atomic transitions come into existence spontaneously, as do the particles emitted in nuclear radiation. By so appearing, without predetermination, they contradict the first premise.

In the case of radioactivity, the decays are observed to follow an exponential decay "law." However, this statistical law is exactly what you expect if the probability for decay in a given small time interval is the same for all time intervals of the same duration. In other words, the decay curve itself is evidence for each individual event occurring unpredictably and, by inference, without being predetermined.
Quantum mechanics and classical (Newtonian) mechanics are not as separate and distinct from one another as is generally thought. Indeed, quantum mechanics changes smoothly into classical mechanics when the parameters of the system, such as masses, distances, and speeds, approach the classical regime.19

When that happens, quantum probabilities collapse to either zero or 100 percent, which then gives us certainty at that level. However, we have many examples where the probabilities are not zero or 100 percent. The quantum probability calculations agree precisely with the observations made on ensembles of similar events.
Note that even if the kalâm conclusion were sound and the universe had a cause, why could that cause itself not be natural?
As it is, the kalâm argument fails both empirically and theoretically without ever having to bring up the second premise about the universe having a beginning.

Continued below . . .

Deep Sight, yet more reading.

COSMIC EVIDENCE

From a modern scientific perspective, what are the empirical and theoretical implications of the hypothesis of a supernatural creation? We need to seek evidence that the universe (1) had an origin and (2) that origin cannot have happened naturally. One sign of a supernatural creation would be a direct empirical confirmation that a miracle was necessary in order to bring the universe into existence. That is, cosmological data should either show evidence for one or more violations of well-established laws of nature or the models developed to describe those data should require some causal ingredient that cannot be understood— and be probably not understandable—in purely material or natural terms.

Let us proceed to look for evidence of a miraculous creation in our observations of the cosmos.

CREATING MATTER

Until early in the twentieth century, there were strong indications that one or more miracles were required to create the universe. The universe currently contains a large amount of matter that is characterized by the physical quantity we define as mass. Prior to the twentieth century, it was believed that matter could neither be created nor destroyed, just changed from one type to another. So the very existence of matter seemed to be a miracle, a violation of the assumed law of conservation of mass that occurred just once—at the creation.

However, in his special theory of relativity published in 1905, Albert Einstein showed that matter can be created out of energy and can disappear into energy. What all science writers call "Einstein's famous equation," E = mc2, relates the mass m of a body to an equivalent rest energy, E, where c is a universal constant, the speed of light in a vacuum. That is, a body at rest still contains energy.

When a body is moving, it carries an additional energy of motion called kinetic energy. In chemical and nuclear interactions, kinetic energy can be converted into rest energy, which is equivalent to generating mass.3 Also, the reverse happens; mass or rest energy can be converted into kinetic energy. In that way, chemical and nuclear interactions can generate kinetic energy, which then can be used to run engines or blow things up.

So, the existence of mass in the universe violates no law of nature. Mass can come from energy. But, then, where does the energy come from? The law of conservation of energy, also known as the first law of thermodynamics, requires that energy come from somewhere. In principle, the creation hypothesis could be confirmed by the direct observation or theoretical requirement that conservation of energy was violated 13.7 billion years ago at the start of the big bang.

However, neither observations nor theory indicates this to have been the case. The first law allows energy to convert from one type to another as long as the total for a closed system remains fixed. Remarkably, the total energy of the universe appears to be zero. As famed cosmologist Stephen Hawking said in his 1988 best seller, A Brief History of Time, "In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that the negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.4 Specifically, within small measurement errors, the mean energy density of the universe is exactly what it should be for a universe that appeared from an initial state of zero energy, within a small quantum uncertainty.5

A close balance between positive and negative energy is predicted by the modern extension of the big bang theory called the inflationary big bang, according to which the universe underwent a period of rapid, exponential inflation during a tiny fraction of its first second.6 The inflationary theory has recently undergone a number of stringent observational tests that would have been sufficient to prove it false. So far, it has successfully passed all these tests.

In short, the existence of matter and energy in the universe did not require the violation of energy conservation at the assumed creation. In fact, the data strongly supports the hypothesis that no such miracle occurred. If we regard such a miracle as predicted by the creator hypothesis, then that prediction is not confirmed.

This example also serves to once more refute the assertion that science has nothing to say about God. Suppose our measurement of the mass density of the universe had not turned out to be exactly the value required for a universe to have begun from a state of zero energy. Then we would have had a legitimate, scientific reason to conclude that a miracle, namely, a violation of energy conservation, was needed to bring the universe into being. While this might not conclusively prove the existence of a creator to everyone's satisfaction, it would certainly be a strong mark in his favor.

CREATING ORDER

Another prediction of the creator hypothesis also fails to be confirmed by the data. If the universe were created, then it should have possessed some degree of order at the creation—the design that was inserted at that point by the Grand Designer. This expectation of order is usually expressed in terms of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the total entropy or disorder of a closed system must remain constant or increase with time. It would seem to follow that if the universe today is a closed system, it could not always have been so. At some point in the past, order must have been imparted from the outside.

Prior to 1929, this was a strong argument for a miraculous creation. However, in that year astronomer Edwin Hubble reported that the galaxies are moving away from one another at speeds approximately proportional to their distance, indicating that the universe is expanding. This provided the earliest evidence for the big bang. For our purposes, an expanding universe could have started in total chaos and still formed localized order consistent with the second law.

The reason for this is that the maximum entropy of a sphere of a certain radius (we are thinking of the universe as a sphere) is that of a black hole of that radius. The expanding universe is not a black hole and so has less than maximum entropy. Thus, while becoming more disorderly on the whole as time goes by, our expanding universe is not maximally disordered. But, once it was. Suppose we extrapolate the expansion back 13.7 billion years to the earliest definable moment, the Planck time, 6.4 x 10-44 second when the universe was confined to the smallest possible region of space that can be operationally defined, a Planck sphere that has a radius equal to the Planck length, 1.6 x 10-35 meter. As expected from the second law, the universe at that time had lower entropy than it has now. However, that entropy was also as high as it possibly could have been for an object that small, because a sphere of Planck dimensions is equivalent to a black hole.
This requires further elaboration. I seem to be saying that the entropy of the universe was maximal when the universe began, yet it has been increasing ever since. Indeed, that's exactly what I am saying. When the universe began, its entropy was as high as it could be for an object of that size because the universe was equivalent to a black hole from which no information can be extracted. Currently, the entropy is higher but not maximal, that is, not as high as it could be for an object of the universe's current size. The universe is no longer a black hole.

I also need to respond here to an objection that has been raised by physicists who have heard me make this statement. They point out, correctly, that we currently do not have a theory of quantum gravity that we can apply to describe physics earlier than the Planck time. I have adopted Einstein's operational definition of time as what you read on a clock. In order to measure a time interval smaller than the Planck time, you would need to make that measurement in a region smaller than the Planck length, which equals the Planck time multiplied by the speed of light. According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, such a region would be a black hole, from which no information can escape.

This implies that no time interval can be defined that is smaller than the Planck time.8 Consider the present time. Clearly we do not have any qualms about applying established physics "now" and for short times earlier or later, as long as we do not try to do so for time intervals shorter than the Planck time. Basically, by definition time is counted off as an integral number of units where one unit equals the Planck time. We can get away with treating time as a continuous variable in our mathematical physics, such as we do when we use calculus, because the units are so small compared to anything we measure in practice. We essentially extrapolate our equations through the Planck intervals within which time is unmeasurable and thus indefinable. If we can do this "now," we can do it at the end of the earliest Planck interval where we must begin our description of the beginning of the big bang. At that time, our extrapolation from later times tells us that the entropy was maximal. In that case, the disorder was complete and no structure could have been present. Thus, the universe began with no structure. It has structure today consistent with the fact that its entropy is no longer maximal.

In short, according to our best current cosmological understanding, our universe began with no structure or organization, designed or otherwise. It was a state of chaos. We are thus forced to conclude that the complex order we now observe could not have been the result of any initial design built into the universe at the so-called creation. The universe preserves no record of what went on before the big bang. The Creator, if he existed, left no imprint. Thus he might as well have been nonexistent.

Once again we have a result that might have turned out otherwise and provided strong scientific evidence for a creator. If the universe were not expanding but a firmament, as described in the Bible, then the second law would have required that the entropy of the universe was lower than its maximum allowed value in the past. Thus, if the universe had a beginning, it would have begun in a state of high order necessarily imposed from the outside. Even if the universe extended into the infinite past, it would be increasingly orderly in that direction, and the source of that order would defy natural description.

Continued below

OLAADEGBU: If you claim to be an atheist then the spiritual realm is unknown to you. Stick with the known physical realm for now as this will give you a clue as to what the spiritual realm is like.

Keep deluding yourself.

Deep Sight, I saw your post and thats one perspective.
I just wondered about it and if anyone had given it some sort of consideration. You obviously have whether your views are right or wrong is an entirely different matter.

Image123, you did not address the question

Calloti, I am not sure what that question has to do with the topic but the UN recently predicted we would hit the 7 billion mark some months ago. Therefore, I can guesstimate that there are close to 7 billion bodies today.

buzugee, that still does not address the problem because the question was about souls and how they come about. The major religions believe in souls and so if we accept that, then there are close to 7 billion souls on earth.
Even if god made several men and women in genesis, he didnt make anything close to 7 billion. However many he made, they all had souls.
The question is where did the other people who were "made" by procreation get their souls from.

So far only Deep Sight has answered the question from his own perspective.

Deep Sight: @ Jayriginal.

Welcome. I could scarcely wait. Hope your endeavours were productive.

Thank you.

Now let me ask you just one question -

Does it not stand to reason that any person questioning a default position/ suggesting anything contrary to a default or commonly observed position - should be the person required to adduce reasons for such questions - notwithstanding that the default position may or may not be wrong?

Agree?

Questioning, no! Suggesting, possibly.
Anyone can make a claim and present evidence. I am not forced to believe it. I can only weigh the evidence. If upon looking at the quality of the evidence I see that it does not support the claim, then I have no reason to believe it and there is no onus on me to adduce reasons for not believing other than the insufficiency of the evidence.

Edit: As in: if we were to say, "As far as we know, water consists of hydrogen and oxygen" - if any person will state to us: "That is only as far as you know. The earth was once thought to be flat, and so what you know about water today may be proven wrong tomorrow" - THEN -

1. The mere fact that previous knowledge has been proven wrong in the past cannot by itself alone debunk current knowledge and -

2. The person alleging that we cannot be sure about the composition of water - or as you say - the person stating that we are making assumptions on the composition of water - will have to show reasons why he advances such a question.

Do you agree with this?

No I dont. I do agree though with the bolded. I never said that the fact that "truths" have been proven false is enough to debunk current knowledge. Rather I am saying that you should be cautious of making such wide claims based on current knowledge especially as current knowledge has only uncovered a fraction of the secrets of the Universe.

Who has the burden to prove the composition of water? He who states that which is currently commonly observed - that it consists of hydrogen and oxygen - or he who declares such to be an assumption or statement from ignorance which may be proven wrong tomorrow?

Again water is water. The Universe is the Universe. You cannot compare the two. Water is a far less complicated subject to study than the Universe.
Also, you have removed an element from your earlier reference to water ( ie as far as we know water is Hydrogen and Oxygen).


If you state your claim and back it up with evidence and the evidence matches your claim, then you have no problem. Other than that, two things are possible.
One possibility is for your audience to suspend belief in your claim due to insufficient evidence.
Another is to provide a counter claim.

In this argument, you have insufficient basis for your first two premises. I cannot accept that, nor should anyone else on the basis of what we currently know.

More reading for you.

ASSUMPTION
In logic an assumption is a proposition that is taken for granted, as if it were true based upon presupposition without preponderance of the facts.
In logic, more specifically in the context of natural deduction systems, an assumption is a proposition that may be used to prove further propositions, in the expectation that the assumption will be discharged in due course by proving it via a separate argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption

ARGUMENT FROM IGNORANCE
Argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam or "appeal to ignorance" (where "ignorance" stands for: "lack of evidence to the contrary" ), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false, it is "generally accepted" (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to prove the proposition satisfactorily to be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four, (1) true, (2) false, (3) unknown between true or false, and (4) being unknowable (among the first three). In debates, appeals to ignorance are sometimes used to shift the burden of proof.
BASIC ARGUMENT
Arguments that appeal to ignorance rely merely on the fact that the veracity of the proposition is not disproven to arrive at a definite conclusion. These arguments fail to appreciate that the limits of one's understanding or certainty do not change what is true. They do not inform upon reality. That is, whatever the reality is, it does not “wait” upon human logic or analysis to be formulated. Reality exists at all times, and it exists independently of what is in the mind of anyone. And the true thrust of science and rational analysis is to separate preconceived notion(s) of what reality is, and to be open at all times to the observation of nature as it behaves, so as truly to discover reality. This fallacy can be very convincing and is considered by some[2] to be a special case of a false dilemma or false dichotomy in that they both fail to consider alternatives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

I hope its now obvious to you what has been clear from the beginning. Like I said before, god cannot be proven by logic. You must necessarily run into problems when you attempt it. As an outro, I'd like to quote one of my favourite passages from Douglas Adams

The Babel fish is small, yellow, leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the NON-existence of God.
The argument goes like this:
`I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'
`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
`Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly disappears in a puff of logic.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I wonder if this question has been asked before or if it has occurred to anyone else.

The issue at stake is how many souls exist.
If we take the biblical account of creation, after creating man and woman, god did not create anymore. He apparently created humans with a soul. He made man and then blew "breath" into him after which the "body" of man became animated.
Same apparently goes for woman.
Obviously the reproductive process ensured that all god needed to do was create male and female and they would take care of themselves.
The question now is that seeing that god apparently only created two souls, where did the rest of the souls come from ?
Is god blowing breath into every baby in the womb ?

This question seems important when you think about the concept of re-incarnation. Where did all these souls come from to be recycled ?

If you consider the grail account of the virgin birth, it is held that Jesus was not literally born of a virgin, but rather his soul was a virgin soul. In other words his soul had never been incarnated and he was thus free from any karma that would weigh his soul down.
This of course brings fresh perspective to the term "the second Adam".

So the question in a nutshell is; apart from the souls of Adam and Eve (created by god) where did the rest of the souls come from. The population keeps increasing. Say we have 500 people in one generation, say all of them have bad karma and need to reincarnate (500 souls), by the next generation, there will be more than 500 people. Lets say double that figure. Where did the extra souls come from ?

debosky: Good you said 'all known' - meaning there are things unknown. If by your admission there are things unknown, how can you attempt to claim to know all the possibilities of how the universe came to be?

Thank you. Sincerely, this is a simple matter to comprehend.

OLAADEGBU: Today is their day let them celebrate it.

Better once a year than forever.
It just so happened that it happened to be your Palm Sunday as well.

Let me restate in very simple terms.
Your argument

Whatever BEGINS to exist has a cause
The Universe BEGAN to exist
The Universe has a cause.

That sounds very nice and logical. Just because it sounds so, doesnt make it so.
I ask, how do you know the truth of the first and second premise. You reply, "as far as we know" and as shown by common sense, logic and observation.
Unfortunately, common sense, logic and observation have been set aside by new scientific discoveries throughout the advance of mankind.
It is therefore unwise to take finite knowledge and apply it universally. All you have is a strong conviction but I maintain that you do know KNOW this.

Some reading for you.

Einstein's original equations in general relativity predicted that the universe should be expanding. Interestingly, however, Einstein later inserted into his equations an arbitrary "cosmological constant" to negate the necessity of cosmic expansion. Einstein later described his cosmological constant as "the biggest blunder of my life." It is incredible to contemplate that, in addition to his other extraordinary contributions to science, Einstein could have provided theoretical evidence for the Big Bang before any experimental or observational evidence suggested its occurrence. Unfortunately, Einstein was influenced by the popular belief of his time that the universe was more or less static. Einstein, like those of us of lesser ability, could hardly display more intellectual independence than his time permitted.

David Mills, Atheist Universe, (Berkley, CA: Ulysses Press, 2006)

The so-called "Law of Cause-Effect," often employed by creationist writers and speakers, is a philosophical and theological plaything, rather than an established law of the physical sciences. Likewise, the "Law of Cause-Effect" provides no explanation to any scientific problem or question. Suppose, for example, that my car fails to run properly, and I have it towed to a garage for repair. I ask the service technician why my car will not operate. If the service technician replied, "It's just the law of cause-effect again," I would certainly feel that he was giving me the run-around, and that his "explanation" was totally empty. A realistic scientific explanation might be that my spark plugs are disconnected; that the gasoline therefore cannot be ignited; that the engine therefore cannot rotate the drive shaft; that the rear axle, attached to the drive shaft, cannot be rotated; and that the wheels, connected to the axle, have no current means of forward propulsion. A genuine scientific explanation, then, incorporates specific mechanistic relationships and interactions. Any argument, thus, that appeals blindly to the "Law of Cause-Effect," without filling in the blanks, is likewise an argument totally empty of scientific content.

Psychological Roadblocks

That the universe's building blocks always existed is, for most of us, a difficult and mind-boggling idea to accept. In our day-to-day affairs, all material objects certainly seem to have a beginning and ending to their existence. The new car we purchased today did not exist before the auto manufacturer designed and built the car last autumn. The vegetables we eat today did not exist a few short months ago, before the planting season. A human being appears to be created inside the mother's womb. The embryo begins as a single cell, yet, at birth, the child's body consists of billions of cells, all of which seem to have come into existence for a carefully designed purpose.

It is no wonder, therefore, that our "common sense" tells us that the universe itself must have had a beginning, and so must have been created by God. Our "common sense" is formulated by our observations of locally occurring events, and virtually everything we observe on Earth does indeed seem, at one point, to come into existence and, later, to disappear forever into nothingness. Yet, when considering the existence of the universe, let us recall two relevant facts: 1) Our observation of locally occurring events does not necessarily establish within our minds a "common- sense" judgment that can be applied to the universe as a whole; 2) A careful observation of locally occurring events will show that terrestrial objects do not truly emerge ex nihilo as "common sense" tells us. Science, by its very definition, disregards "common-sense" notions and relies solely upon experimental data to construct scientific law. It is wholly irrelevant whether we feel comfortable with the results of our experiments. These experimental results, if repeatable and independently verifiable, must be accepted, regardless of our cherished "common-sense" theories to the contrary.

Suppose, for example, that a man is standing in the middle of a vast plain. Six feet above the ground, at eye level, he points a handgun in a perfectly horizontal attitude across the plain—not angled up, not angled down, but perfectly horizontal in aim. In his other hand, likewise at eye level, the man holds a fifteen-pound bowling ball. Suppose now that, at the same precise instant, the man both fires a bullet horizontally across the plain and drops the bowling ball straight down to the ground. According to your common-sense judgment, which object will touch ground first: the bullet or the bowling ball? Do you predict that the bowling ball touches ground before the bullet does? Most people are surprised to learn what Galileo discovered centuries ago: that all objects accelerate to earth at the same rate, regardless of their differing weights or their simultaneous propulsion toward the horizontal. In other words, if there are no external intervening factors, the bullet and the bowling ball will touch ground at the same instant. Whether our "common sense" feels comfortable with this conclusion is of no concern to science. The experimental results must be accepted.

Likewise, a science-minded attitude requires us to accept the cosmological implications of the mass-energy conservation law whether or not we feel comfortable with those conclusions. Very often, our "common sense" will lead us astray if it is utilized to formulate scientific law. Many pre-Renaissance scholars thought it was common sense that the Earth was flat and motionless. If Einstein's special and general theories of relativity had been tested by common sense, Einstein would have been committed to a psychiatric hospital. Where, may I ask, is the common sense in Einstein's time dilation or in his proposition that empty space can be bent? Ideas based only upon "common sense" are of little use to science.

You may disregard any references to ex nihilo creation as that is not yet important.

The point has been made that the using your limited observation as backing for the cosmological argument is an exercise in futility.
Unless you know for sure, you cannot propose the CA authoritatively. You can only do so tentatively like this

IF whatever begins to exist has a cause
IF the Universe began to exist
the Universe has a cause.

The word "whatever" in your argument renders the whole argument problematic because you clearly have no proof other than your limited observation.,
That is the point that kills your CA.
Advance it when you have proof better than "common sense".
There is no need to go into long discussions if you can see this point.
If you cant, too bad !

Deep Sight: Where is Jayriginal? I cannot wait for April. Come back here and untie the knots you left hanging all over the place.

Back. There were no knots anywhere. You simply refuse to see the obvious.

Alright. As you are going away, let me also summarize my points.


1. On the burden of proof, I believe it rests with you because -

(x) You did make a statement, which is what I am reacting to. You stated that the CA was "junk". I need you to substantiate that, because it is a very bold statement.

(y) Assuming but not conceding that (x) above fails, I contend that the burden of proof still rests with you because causality is in line with common observation. We observe causative chains in all that we see and all that happens around us. Thus anyone who will ask a question in doubt of causality will have the burden of proof on him - as causality is indeed the default position that we know of in material phenomena around us.

X
This is very misleading. The burden of proof cannot rest with me. YOU are the one who advanced the CA as the most convincing argument for the existence of god. The burden is therefore on you. You might write pages fro here to Jupiter and the burden will not shift until you effectively discharge it which you have failed to do.
X fails.


Y.
I have only asked you for proof. How does questioning something shift the burden of proof to the questioner? That is absurd if you think about it.
Asking for proof or expressions of doubt do not in anyway shift the burden of proof from the one who asserts (you). Indeed, if I agreed with you, there would be no burden to discharge and we wouldnt have this argument.

2. On Contradictions - I believe you contradict yourself as follows -

(x) You say you accept the law of cause and effect for material phenomena

(y) BUT you then say that we cannot assume that it applies to particular material phenomenon

Dont put words in my mouth.
Your position is that as far as we can see and observe, things that "begin to exist" were caused. I have no problem with that statement as long as it contains that very important proviso "as far as we can see . . .".
There is no contradiction there.

3. On Assumptions

(x) You accept that in our knowledge and observation, material phenomena are caused

(y) You yet say that it is possible that this may be disproved tomorrow

(z) This indicates that you accept that the argument from causality remains true as we know for TODAY

(zz) You ASSUME that it may become false tomorrow, without having presented any evidence therefore

(x) comes with the proviso as far as we know.
(y) is indeed possible until we know otherwise
(z) You are putting words in my mouth again. If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to see it or observe it, did it really fall ?
Is something true because you dont know that it isnt true ?
All your emphasis on "as far as we know" and "for today" highlights the weakness of your argument. Cant you see that ?
Lets suppose you become convinced tomorrow of things beginning to exist without being caused, would you stop believing in god ? I dont think so.

4. On the Argument from Ignorance which you allege

(x) You accept that causality operates in material phenomena

(y) You state that that is what we know so far

(z) You yet conclude that this is an argument from ignorance

(zz) You thus imply that making statements based on our observatory knowledge is arguing from ignorance: e.g: If I say, "As far as we know, water is composed of Hydrogen and Oxygen" - since I have said "as far as we know" - your position would mean that this too, is a statement from ignorance. Whereas it is simply the current proven knowledge which we accept until proven otherwise.

Nice try but I will not allow it.

Comparing water to the Universe is just bad. Even if I allow it, it still will not work. Picture if you will, a scientist observing water for the first time. Someone asks him "what is the water composed of ?". The reply comes back immediately "well as far as I know, it is composed of hydrogen and oxygen".
All the scientist is saying is "as far as I can tell". That is not conclusive.
However when he goes from that to arguing that everything that is liquid must have water in it, then he is arguing from ignorance and cannot expect to be taken seriously.
The problem is amplified immensely when you compare water and the Universe. Anytime the phrase "as far as I know" or its equivalent is used, it points out to the inconclusive nature of the statement/evidence/proof etc

5. On The Law of cause and effect and the cosmological argument

(x) You say you accept the law of cause and effect

(y) You yet state that we cannot know the 1st principle of the Cosmological Argument to be true - notwithstanding that it is simply a reference to the law of cause and effect - which you say you accept!

Putting words in my mouth yet again. I believe I agreed with you "as far as we know". Our difference stems from what we conclude based on our "common current knowledge". Whereas you are willing to go out and stake everything on this, I am not so hasty. For one our common knowledge is just that; common knowledge! What you know about the Universe is minimal compared to dedicated researchers. What they know is insignificant compared to what is out there.
You therefore cannot conclude that on a vast subject like the Universe that what you see in your everyday life applies universally. Even if you are convinced that it does, that is your own personal conviction. A good argument it does not make.

6. On the Part-Whole Fallacy which you allege -

(x) You accept the law of cause and effect for material things

(y) You accept the universe to be material

(z) You then reject the law of cause and effect for the universe!

https://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-shocked019.gif
This really has to stop. You make sweeping statements and you try to turn my position into something else. Let me clarify for you.
You cannot apply the limited scope of your common observations to the universe and take them as an absolute.
Simple. Do not distort my position again.

7. On the inherent absurdity of your position: A beginning connotes that the element referred to did not exist in that form prior. As such it is illogical and unscientific to suppose a re-organization of the form of an element which occurs spontaenously, purposelessly, and with no cause or triggering factor whatsoever. As it happens, the initial expansion called the big bang was at least such a re-organization of the pre existing singularity. As such, it must have required cause.

So every time something changes form, it has begun to exist ?
Am I missing something ?
If you accept the big b@ng model then at the point of the singularity, would you say there was no Universe ?

Also referring to the expansion of the Universe (which suggests to you that we are in an open system) does it mean the Universe is also changing form with each expansion (thus beginning to exist constantly ?)

Again, on to the expansion of the Universe, you may be familiar with the theory that given the apparent density of the Universe, gravity will eventually slow down, then stop the expansion and finally reverse and start a retraction. This collapse of the Universe will eventually bring us to the singularity again. Suppose this is true, would the Universe have stopped existing at the point of singularity ?

Deep Sight: I want to assure you that there was no insult or denigration there: if you read the context you will see that by "unlawyerly" I was not referring to any ethics but simply to the general fact that it behoves a lawyer to argue his points and discharge his burden of proof. That's sincerely all I meant there bro.

Trust me, I got your meaning the first time and I still feel it is inappropriate considering the fact that you wish to shirk your responsiblity to prove your claims.

And now my good friend I am going to make things simple for you. I am going away and I will not return here until probably the 4th of April (for reasons I adduced earlier).

Let me spell this out for you.

Whatever BEGINS to exist has a cause.
The Universe BEGAN to exist.
Therefore the Universe has a cause.

CONCERNING THE FIRST PREMISE
You do not KNOW that whatever begins to exist has a cause. You only think so based on what your limited observation tells you. For something as complex and intricate as the Universe, you cannot assert the veracity of the first premise unless you are omniscient. Just like how you assert that atheists need to be omniscient to not believe in god. Indeed flowing from that assertion about atheists and omniscience, its clear that you are even undecided on the matter (but thats another story).
All you can say is "as far as we know". That is an argument from ignorance. Your other proof which is that we observe the laws of causality, is not good enough as it applies to the whole, the attributes of the parts. So for example

things in the Universe are caused
therefore the Universe is caused

This does not work either.

Shockingly you claimed that god can be empirically proven yet your arguments in themselves are fallacious.

You have to scale the hurdle the first premise sets before you approach the second

Note: I have not asserted anything. I have only asked you to prove your point. Asking me to prove that which I am yet to assert will not help you.

I will be back in April.

Deep Sight: In my understanding of space – which differs from the model set forth by scientists - No.

This is a fine point: and my meaning when I refer to "boundaries" in answering your question, I think, may differ from your meaning in asking the question. So perhaps it is apt that I ask exactly what you mean by boundaries. For me, I simply mean that space is infinite - and thus - logically open. Only the finite could be otherwise. But please, mark well that I do not see space the same way scientists do. Nor time. We can discuss this further.

I'll start from here since it will seem we are somewhat in consonance here. What I mean by boundaries is to say, is there an end to space. Theoretically speaking, is it possible to say "this is where space ends/begins" ?

On what basis do you assert that time does not change ?

I really must say at this point that I am not sure you have paused to contemplate the unceasing nature of infinite time and infinite space. If you had, you would not say that eternity is our imagination. It is rather a self evident continuum.

I never said that eternity is our imagination. I constructed an argument to show that whatever exists (as opposed to "begins to exist" ) has a beginning. I also showed (following your example ) that this is grounded in logic, common sense and observation. So contrary to the above, I havent said eternity is in our imagination. I have acknowledged that we can indeed IMAGINE an eternal being. What I said was that the basis for this eternal being is not grounded in logic, common sense or observation. I say so strictly based on the argument set forth

Anything that exists has a beginning
(If) god exists
god MUST have a beginning.

This argument certainly meets your tripartite criteria of logic, common sense and observation. Curiously you will not accept it. You seek instead to distort my meaning by trying to make it look as if I am arguing against eternity.

No, actually, because we observe that reality continues irrespective of our own deaths for example.

But that is not something I should stand firmly on: I should rather tell you that you must realize that if the singularity preceding the universe had not been caused as you say might be possible - then it is uncaused - and therefore does not "begin" - which means that it is eternal in the past already. As such your very own suppositions do show that eternity should not be mere imagination?

As I have said, I never argued against eternity. Your point therefore has no bearing. I NEVER SAID ETERNITY WAS IN THE IMAGINATION.

I tire of telling you that this can only apply to material finite things. It logically could not be otherwise.

If you will add the word “material” to your sentence, it would become more correct, and of course will then exclude anything immaterial.

Capisce?

Fine. You can reconstruct the sentence so I can see your angle.

I similarly ask you how you know that they will? Or even that they may?

Oh no you dont! It doesnt work that way. You assert, you prove !

O, the assumption of the laws of cause and effect and laws of motion? If these are assumptions, they are pretty respectable ones.

Maybe so, but it was pretty respectable at a time to assert that the earth was flat.

You cant ask me to prove causality because that is what is observed by default in everything and every motion around us. The person who denies it should be the one to prove the denial.

I'm not sure you have considered the import of your statement. EVERYTHING ! What is everything ? Have you left the earth ? What do you know other than your everyday observation ? In any case I havent denied it. I have only asked for proof. You persist with the habit of erecting straw men. I havent asked you to prove causality, I have asked you to prove that causality applies throughout the Universe.

Maybe I also need omniscience to know what principles enables an autocar to move?

I dont think you do. Another strawman. Comparing the Universe with an "auto car" will not work.

I hope you know that this contains a concession that causality remains true today. Thank you for your humility. When it becomes false tomorrow, then and only then can we hear you out. Its falseness must be proven first – which you have refused to even attempt to – for glaring reasons.

You are clutching at straws here. You have also erected another straw man. You commit a fallacy of composition. A part (or parts) of the Universe is caused, therefore the Universe is caused. I do not need to prove any falseness since I have not asserted that anything is false. You on the other hand have asserted what you cannot possibly know. You cannot prove it and then you seek to erect strawmen as you go. This cannot work.

Where? Please don't give a dog a bad name to hang it. I advance my position forcefully and in strong terms does not amount to insulting you or anybody, my friend. If people see it that way, I can only conclude they are wetting their pants because of the creeping fear of the inherent absurdity of that which they argue. That has little to do with me, my brother.

Given the above, you have absolutely no reason to feel insulted. I have only matched your tone. It is hardly my style to draw first blood. Indeed on threads I have monitored, I have spoken of your arrogance and ill concealed contempt for others.

Merely stating that knowledge has been reviewed or discarded in the past is not enough to assume that all knowledge will be discarded, is it?

No! I never said so. Another straw man. You will soon have an army.

This is getting boring. Look at this horrendous contradiction. He says he has not denied cause and effect and yet claims that we cannot know that the first premise of the Cosmological Argument is correct - notwithstanding that it is hinged on cause and effect. What astonishing self-contradiction.

Obviously, you have not reflected on that which you so contradictorily advance.

I tire o.

Where is the contradiction ? You need to slow down, read and think carefully. You say whatever BEGINS to exist has a cause. I ask how you know this. You say you know this from observation of the world around us. I tell you that it is both an argument from ignorance and a fallacy of composition. You cannot deny the vastness of the Universe. This is your very first premise and since we are talking about the Universe, you cannot expect your limited views to reign supreme on this issue. It would take omniscience for you to assert the truth of the first premise (and second one for that matter). There is no contradiction here. I simply ask how you know. The truth is YOU DONT KNOW. You simply base your understanding of the CA on your limited understanding based on your experiences.
I say YOU CANNOT KNOW you just intuit it. There is no contradiction there.

Yeah yeah. There's been no insults from my side. Stop being so sensitive. Address the points, flip out your example of an uncaused material thing, and I will shut my trap for once. If you cannot do that, then you simply have no case and no point.

No insults from my side either. You can stop whining. I am addressing the points cogently. I need not prove until I assert. You on the other hand undertook a task. Unfortunately, you cannot prove your argument and you seek to escape by asking me to prove that which I have not asserted.

Yeah, yeah. Escapist. You simply have no science to rely on, and that is why you dribble about on this score. That much is obvious. I am not afraid to rely on science because science centres around causality ab initio.

In fact, saying that you don’t need to rely on science beggars belief because this is a scientific discussion to the extent that we are looking at causality in matter!

I never needed science to make me stop believing in god. I dont need it now. There is actually plenty of science that should make you reconsider at the very least, but that is of no concern to me. Your CA is an Ostrich pinned to the ground. Its never going to fly.
I am not dribbling, I am being factual. You rely on your limited understanding to explain the Universe.

Actually you must give an example. If you do not, then you must accept that you are the one making assumptions.

No I dont. He who asserts must prove. You must win on the strength of your case.

Let me attempt to clarify this point a little bit. In everything, we proceed from what we know and observe. In all that we have observed in material things, we do not see uncaused things magically hapenning around us. We see the laws of nature and physics in operation, and these laws show cause and effect in all things.

Surely you cant be omniscient enough to have examined "all things" ?
What you have above is a fallacy of composition.
We can suppose the following

Things in the Universe are caused
therefore the Universe is caused.

Does that help you see the problem ?

As such, it is dishonest to claim, for example, that we do not know of a law of cause and effect. That is surely disingenuous. We do know of a law of cause and effect, just as we know of many other laws which we have observed in the universe. We certainly don't know everything, but saying that we do not know of causality in the material universe is an out and out falsehood. It is a plain and evident fact of reality.

Its amazing the way you go about this. I have not said anywhere that there is no law of cause and effect. Kindly drop this.
Thank you kindly.

Now, you need to understand that I have no problems with anyone asserting a contrary position. I simply state to you that in so doing, you will be required to adduce proof, because the default position is observed causality.

Refusing to adduce proof, and being starkly unable to produce a SINGLE example of such, after so much jaw-jaw, is just embarrasing.

You have written alot on this thread. It would have been frankly easier to just cite examples or adduce proof. Rather than shirking that obligation - which arose from your suggestion against a default and commonly observed position. And getting all emotional about the issue doesn't help. Just adduce your proof, kind and benevolent sir.

I'm not the one getting emotional (wetin concern me) you are, in fact. I will match your tone. If you are polite, I will be too. However if you arent, I see no reason to accord you respect.

Now you must hear for the umpteenth time that I have not asserted anything. You cannot arbitrarily define the default position. Default position in what ?
Let me tell you what is embarrassing. The fact that I have shown you clear as day the assumptions built into the CA. The fact that you argue from ignorance and assert that as the truth. The fact that you have been very loud mouthed on this thread and you are yet to move past your basic assumption. The fact that you advanced the CA even after the subtle hints I gave you.
You make me wonder if deep down you are only arguing for the sake of argument or if you really cant see the obvious.

You want me to cite examples, surely if you did your research you wouldnt ask for such. I do not need examples. I only need to show that the argument is fallacious and it fails.

Surely, even you will not dispute this contention which I set forth to you:

1. Any person who challenges a default position must adduce proof against the default position

2. Causality is the default position regarding material phenomena

3. Ergo, any argument for uncaused material phenomena must be proven first

If I had told you "hey, I want to to refute the CA" the above proposition might work. Since you undertook to prove it, prove it you must. Only you mustnt use your limited knowledge to do so. Your knowledge has to be all encompassing to truly assert your first 2 premises.

So its very simple and clear: the burden rests squarely with you. Do not shirk it. That would be cowardly, and might I add, unlawyerly!

There ! You had to bring the profession into this. If I respond in like manner you will play the victim. I will be the bigger man here and let it slide. I have respect for the profession and for that reason I have sought in my own way (right or wrong) to correct you. I will ignore this for now.

Indeed if the burden did not rest with those who seek to claim that material things could be uncaused, they would never have made the argument about virtual particles in a quantum vacuum!

In your mind, people report genuine observations to refute silly theistic arguments ? Get real man!

Now, that is the principal argument that has been made in favour of the idea that things may proceed from nothing, or that things may be uncaused. It is sad that you are not able to comment on the flag-ship argument so far made by physicists, you shy away from "dealing with science", you REFUSE to give an example of your own, and YET you sit back and claim that the other party - who is sticking by known causality - is the one making assumptions! ! !

My dear, I dont need science for this. Its easy enough to deal with without involving science If I didnt need science to realise that in all likelihood there is no god, then I dont need science to refute the CA or any claims about god. Its clear enough that the first two premises are assumptions. That is enough to render the cosmological argument still born. I gave you subtle hints at the beginning. The fact that you continue to assert the CA is pitiful indeed.

That is beyond funny, my friend! - People have observed and daily observe causative chains. As such it yet makes sense to assert causality. NO ONE HAS OBSERVED ANYTHING UNCAUSED! - And yet - YOU, who advance the possibility of a question of that unobserved claim - are stating that YOU are not the one making assumptions! Incredible! This beats all imagination, noble and lofty sir!

Argument from ignorance.

^^
I need not give one example when you have not proven your point yet. Arguing from ignorance does not shift the burden.

I also do not need to rely on science per se. I can if I feel like but I am not compelled to.

You speak of insults yet I am fairly certain that I have only matched your tone throughout this discussion. If you cant take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Speak with respect if you want to be respected. Grow up man. Stop being emotional because your argument is failing.

I have not denied cause and effect here. Your attempt to make it look so will not work. I have asked you a question and your answer is insufficient. I asked you how you know that the first two premises are correct. Your answer is "as far as we know" from observations.
My position is to say that your "observations" are but microscopic compared to the vastness of nature. I also gave examples of past observations that were regarded as truths which have now been either discarded or reviewed.

We cannot magically jump out of our common experience and observation and assert things to be otherwise without proof: if you believe that material things in this realm may be uncaused, simply adduce proof for same and stop backing away from that challenge with insults only. It does your position no good whatsoever.

Does this not give you away ? I have repeatedly told you that I am asserting nothing. I am rather challenging your assertions.
You started the disrespect. Why get upset when I match your tone ? I can dish as well as I can take. Speak with civility and see what happens.

All you have stated since we started this discussion is simply that what is true today may be false tomorrow - and there are no qualms about that - the proof that what we know to be true today is false, simply needs to be adduced, and we will at once embrace the new "truth". You cannot refuse to adduce same and then sit back and ask me to do such! That makes no sense - because I do not believe that material things can be uncaused. Since you believe that such may be possible, then surely you must be the once to prove same or adduce proof, bro. Nothing else will do.

This is wrong. I have indeed stated that what is true today maybe false tomorrow and on the basis of that, I have asked how you can be absolutely sure of the first two premises. It would take a lot on your part to POSITIVELY assert the correctness of the first two premises. Nothing short of omniscience would probably suffice. If you are not absolutely sure then you make an assumption. No matter how likely that assumption seems to be, it is still an assumption. I do not have to provide proof for the simple reason that I am asking YOU to prove yours. If I make a claim, I then need to prove it. I am yet to make a claim.

As I have stated above, I will do no such thing. You are the one with the fantastical claim against causality, and as you YOU have the responsibility to adduce proof. If you will not, then you ought to slink quietly away with your tail between your legs and have the honesty to acknowledge that you said nothing and proved nothing.

I claimed nothing. It is you who asserts an assumption as fact. You be honest enough to admit that your argument is a non starter.

Oh yes, I need none, as I take great pride in having shot down the example given about virtual particles. I notice you are curiously silent on that. Could you not seize it and use it for your argument? Afterall, the self same "physicists" have used such for same argument - with calamituous results!

Nope, it has no bearing on me. I sense that this is where a major part of your frustration comes from. Anyone who wants to argue from a scientific perspective is free to do so. I am content to show you that by starting with assumptions, you kill your argument. I see no calamity other than the fact that the physicists do not agree with you. I cannot believe that you know more than them. If you wish to think so, that is your wahala.

The phrase "as far as we know" - was simply to rebutt your statement that the CA awas based on assumptions. We do know of causality. We do know the laws of motion. If you seek to call these things assumptions, then YOU have to show exactly why they are assumptions. You have not done so. All you have said is that "maybe tomorrow we may know different". And you call that a serious argument? It simply emerges that you are the one making the assumptions. You are assuming that simple principles of causality will necessarily be proved wrong tomorrow. That is an assumption - and you have yet to table a single reason for it.

This is exactly why I asked you to do research. I'll advice you to always consider both sides. Two things I know about you; you are neither a physicist nor omniscient. I am not assuming that principles of causality will be proven wrong tomorrow. I am asking how you know they wouldnt. FOCUS! If we knew everything we wouldnt inquire anymore would we ?
You need to engage in critical thinking here. You claim, I ask how you know, you appeal to ignorance and composition, then ask me to prove something I am yet to claim.
Do you consider that as proof ? If you claim and you cannot prove, you must fail. The earth is but a speck in the Universe and from your limited understanding, you seek to make such a claim.
Just an aside, going beyond the obvious assumptions the fun begins when you start to argue for god because then you begin to eat and deconstruct your own arguments in favour of the CA.

It is also NOT true that as far as we know, nothing can exist without a beginning. Precepts of self-existent things are as old as man himself. What is rather asserted is a very common sensical notion that things that begin, have a cause. God is not said to have had a beginning

No god is not said to have had a beginning. This is of course because we wish to avoid infinite regress, so we put god in a special category of "self existent" things in order to make our assumptions work. How do you know this ? I ask again. You come to an argument thinking that once you write something, it is true. Have you seen god ? Have you even seen one single Universe beginning ? If you put stock in the so called singularity, have you considered what was there before then ?
Now let me break it down for you because you dont seem to get the point here. You must have been in too much of a hurry to argue that you didnt read properly. I called this a "tweaking" of the CA. That however may not have been the appropriate term to use. However, in no way did I intend to convey that this was the same as the CA. Let me explain for you.

Anything that exists has a beginning
(If) god exists
god MUST have a beginning.

Nothing can exist without a beginning. AS FAR AS WE KNOW and in accordance with common sense, logic and observation, anything that we know exists has a beginning. Feel free to call this an assumption because by doing so, maybe you will understand what I have been trying to show you.

Having accepted premise one as sound and irrefutable, if you say god exists, then the conclusion necessarily is that god must have a beginning.
The problem will take us to the infinite regress and to avoid that we have to say that god was uncaused and always was. The problem is that this very notion is not in accord with our everyday observation. From our everyday notion nothing can be eternal. We can certainly imagine eternal beings but we cannot observe that to happen. Surely then, the concept of anything being eternally existing is a product of the imagination and not of observation,logic or common sense.

I specifically told you the reason for that. The universe must indeed be contingent because necessary things are constant and immutable. The universe is not. It is therefore not a necessary thing. Simplicita, amigo.

Well let me ask you this. Does time change ?

Also, where you sought to counter that by stating that matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed, I ought to correct you that that is only with respect to a closed system. We do not know the universe to be a closed circuit. This is not proven. I say to you rather that given the fact of its initial expantion (commencement) from the point of a singularity, it is an open circuit

So indeed, you do not know everything about the universe.
Does space have boundaries ? If it doesnt can it be asserted that the system is either open or closed ?

Steady on, no need to get emotional or all worked up.

Far from it.

Even you cant fail to get the idea here.

"Three Blind Men and an Elephant"
One day, three blind men happened to meet each other and gossiped a long time about many things. Suddenly one of them recalled, " I heard that an elephant is a queer animal. Too bad we're blind and can't see it."

"Ah, yes, truly too bad we don't have the good fortune to see the strange animal," another one sighed.

The third one, quite annoyed, joined in and said, "See? Forget it! Just to feel it would be great."

"Well, that's true. If only there were some way of touching the elephant, we'd be able to know," they all agreed.

It so happened that a merchant with a herd of elephants was passing, and overheard their conversation. "You fellows, do you really want to feel an elephant? Then follow me; I will show you," he said.

The three men were surprised and happy. Taking one another's hand, they quickly formed a line and followed while the merchant led the way. Each one began to contemplate how he would feel the animal, and tried to figure how he would form an image.

After reaching their destination, the merchant asked them to sit on the ground to wait. In a few minutes he led the first blind man to feel the elephant. With outstretched hand, he touched first the left foreleg and then the right. After that he felt the two legs from the top to the bottom, and with a beaming face, turned to say, "So, the queer animal is just like that." Then he slowly returned to the group.

Thereupon the second blind man was led to the rear of the elephant. He touched the tail which wagged a few times, and he exclaimed with satisfaction, "Ha! Truly a queer animal! Truly odd! I know now. I know." He hurriedly stepped aside.

The third blind man's turn came, and he touched the elephant's trunk which moved back and forth turning and twisting and he thought, "That's it! I've learned."

The three blind men thanked the merchant and went their way. Each one was secretly excited over the experience and had a lot to say, yet all walked rapidly without saying a word.

"Let's sit down and have a discussion about this queer animal," the second blind man said, breaking the silence.

"A very good idea. Very good." the other two agreed for they also had this in mind.
Without waiting for anyone to be properly seated, the second one blurted out, "This queer animal is like our straw fans swinging back and forth to give us a breeze. However, it's not so big or well made. The main portion is rather wispy."

"No, no!" the first blind man shouted in disagreement. "This queer animal resembles two big trees without any branches."

"You're both wrong." the third man replied. "This queer animal is similar to a snake; it's long and round, and very strong."

How they argued! Each one insisted that he alone was correct. Of course, there was no conclusion for not one had thoroughly examined the whole elephant. How can anyone describe the whole until he has learned the total of the parts.

^^ Me bitter ? Not at all. There are no surprises here. You are actually easy to predict which is why I didnt want to get into this in the first place.
I'm not asking you to do "my" research. You wanted an argument. What type of argument you were hoping to get is what I am not sure about. The situation is very clear to me and I have tried to show you same. Asking you to do research is simply because volumes have been written on the cosmological argument (for and against). It has been continually refined/revised and rebutted. You should go and read up on the rebuttals. Simple. There is no need for me to start repeating word for word what others have said. It is widely available on the internet. You are the lazy one if you will not arm yourself properly.

Saying that whatever begins to exist has a cause is an assumption. SIMPLE! It is an assertion that you cannot prove. You cannot seek to prove your case by asking me to disprove yours. Logic does not work like that. You must win on the strength of your case. Again you are the same individual that tried to shift the burden of proof to the atheist. Cant exactly say I am surprised.
If you then say that because everything we have so far observed has X attributes then the Universe must have the same attributes, that is both a compositional fallacy and a fallacy from ignorance. I question the source of your knowledge. I have not said that things are uncaused. In anycase, even if I did, you would still have to prove your case which would require omniscience on your part. Once you have done that, the burden would shift to me. As it is, you are still bearing the load albeit ungracefully.

So who is asserting? You ! I am questioning the assertion and your defence is an appeal to ignorance and a fallacy of composition. Your knowledge is limited. Face it.

You have a talent for constructing straw men.
If I am making a case, my case is that you have no case since your case is based itself on assumptions you cannot prove.