OKOATA:
Broz I didn't finish reading your write up but one thing you should understand about the universe is that while you were in your mother's womb you didn't know how you grew till you were birthed, when you began sucking your mom's milk till you were probably around 4 or 5 years old and you began to fill you are existing on the planet earth, you can't explain how your brain was formed, you can't explain all the components that formed all your body parts, there are so many things that can't be explained in this world we are living. It's a mystery itself. If you can't explain how this things came to be then how do you expect to explain on God's existence. The knowledge of spiritual phenomenon isn't limited to anyone in life let alone the physical things. You can't explain how the physical came about then how is it possible to explain the spiritual? There are some things that needs to be left alone or else someone will over think till he becomes mad. I hope you do understand.

hiddendude:


Yes, I understand that there are people who come up with excuses not to learn. Actually, science has helped us understand most of what you claim we can't explain.

OKOATA:
I hope you aren't referring to me about excuses not to learn, what's there to learn when what you wrote was what you learnt yourself. You didn't bring this knowledge from birth I suppose, you probably read all of this from somewhere and that someone also got the knowledge from another. I know that science has done a great deal in the universe we live in presently and infact if not for science me and you won't even be on nairaland, but when it comes to the things of God which is the supernatural, it's so hard to explain because the physical things around us are somehow still a mystery to us. When I was a child I used to think this things you wrote about who is God, who gave birth to him, who were is parents? Who gave birth to God's parents etc. Bro you will think this thing and you can't explain it. Your theory's might be cool and am not disputing your facts or contribution but try and understand that the case of God shouldn't even be contemplated or someone will just overthink for nothing.

Arsenella007:
My only question is how come out of all the planets that were formed out of the big bang, only earth supports life?

hiddendude:
1. The universe couldn't have always existed as this is inconsistent to how we experience it. Cause and effect work with a forward computation of time from a possible point (a possible infinity).
There are two kinds of infinity (possible infinity and actual infinity). A possible infinity begins with a point in the past and continues infinitely into the future. An actual infinity exists infinitely in the past and continues infinitely into the future (e.g integers on a number line).

2. If the universe were an actual infinity, then the present epoch would be logically impossible. How? Like I posited in the first argument, cause and effect work with a forward computation of time from a possible point. We understand this because we get to present times by successive additions. To understand this, think of the number line. The number 0 stands for the present epoch/point in time, negative numbers represent past epochs and positive numbers represent future epochs. Think of a hypothetical situation in which you have to traverse the number line from negative numbers to 0 (you do this by making successive additions e.g -3, -2 (-3+1), -1(-2+1), 0 (-1+1)). Such an addition is only possible if you have a starting point from which such additions can be made. If you traverse infinitely into the negative part of the number line (i.e numbers before 0 on the number line), you'll never make successive additions because it would be impossible to pick a starting point, hence you'll never get to 0.

3. If the universe existed infinitely in the past, there can be no cause and effect because a forward computation of time would be impossible within the universe.

4. The universe must have a beginning for cause and effect to be possible.

5. If the universe had a beginning, then itself is an effect of a greater cause. Whatever caused the universe must itself not be caused as this would lead to an infinite regress which we must reject because we know it is possible to make forward computations of time which would not be possible with an infinite regress as demonstrated using the number line. This thus leads us to infer that this cause is itself actually infinite.

6. This actually infinite cause transcends the universe because it precedes it.

7. Thus God is the best possible explanation for this as the concept of God assumes actual infinity is a feature of God.

I'm open to counterarguments with logic.

hiddendude:

Another excuse! Even if I read this from somewhere, ..

FatherOfJesus:


No1 is a fallacy of God is the gaps, because we don’t know how the universe started is not evidence for the existence of God. Just simply say we don’t know.
And because we don’t know today doesn’t mean we won’t know tomorrow.

No2 is a fallacy of strawman, you ended creating another argument that doesn’t in anyway provide evidence for the existence of a God.

No3 is another strawman, the argument that the universe existed infinitely is still an hypothesis, it doesn’t in anyway provide evidence for the existence of a God. Nobody knows for sure what happens before the Big Bang, everyone is hypothesizing. You can’t base your conclusion in philosophical arguments alone, this is why even Aristotle was wrong many times.

4. If the universe needs to have a beginning then your God must also have a beginning. If you God cannot have a beginning then the universe can also not have a beginning. If you think the universe must have a beginning and your god doesn’t then it’s going to be a fallacy of special pleading. If your God has a beginning then it will lead to an infinitesimal beginnings which creates numerous philosophical problems.

5. There’s not evidence that the universe has a beginning, your have not proven that it has a beginning. So this argument has a deducted error.

7. The God of Gaps fallacy. Because we don’t know then God must have done it. That doesn’t hold any water in a philosophy. This also boiled down to which God you are talking about in particular. We have 4200 of them, which one does fit all the description you made

Dtruthspeaker:

hiddendude:
1. The universe couldn't have always existed as this is inconsistent to how we experience it. Cause and effect work with a forward computation of time from a possible point (a possible infinity).
There are two kinds of infinity (possible infinity and actual infinity). A possible infinity begins with a point in the past and continues infinitely into the future. An actual infinity exists infinitely in the past and continues infinitely into the future (e.g integers on a number line).

2. If the universe were an actual infinity, then the present epoch would be logically impossible. How? Like I posited in the first argument, cause and effect work with a forward computation of time from a possible point. We understand this because we get to present times by successive additions. To understand this, think of the number line. The number 0 stands for the present epoch/point in time, negative numbers represent past epochs and positive numbers represent future epochs. Think of a hypothetical situation in which you have to traverse the number line from negative numbers to 0 (you do this by making successive additions e.g -3, -2 (-3+1), -1(-2+1), 0 (-1+1)). Such an addition is only possible if you have a starting point from which such additions can be made. If you traverse infinitely into the negative part of the number line (i.e numbers before 0 on the number line), you'll never make successive additions because it would be impossible to pick a starting point, hence you'll never get to 0.

3. If the universe existed infinitely in the past, there can be no cause and effect because a forward computation of time would be impossible within the universe.

4. The universe must have a beginning for cause and effect to be possible.

5. If the universe had a beginning, then itself is an effect of a greater cause. Whatever caused the universe must itself not be caused as this would lead to an infinite regress which we must reject because we know it is possible to make forward computations of time which would not be possible with an infinite regress as demonstrated using the number line. This thus leads us to infer that this cause is itself actually infinite.

6. This actually infinite cause transcends the universe because it precedes it.

7. Thus God is the best possible explanation for this as the concept of God assumes actual infinity is a feature of God.

I'm open to counterarguments with logic.

FatherOfJesus:


No1 is a fallacy of God is the gaps, because we don’t know how the universe started is not evidence for the existence of God. Just simply say we don’t know.
And because we don’t know today doesn’t mean we won’t know tomorrow.

No2 is a fallacy of strawman, you ended creating another argument that doesn’t in anyway provide evidence for the existence of a God.

No3 is another strawman, the argument that the universe existed infinitely is still a hypothesis, it doesn’t in anyway provide evidence for the existence of a God. Nobody knows for sure what happens before the Big Bang, everyone is hypothesizing. You can’t base your conclusion in philosophical arguments alone, this is why even Aristotle was wrong many times.

4. If the universe needs to have a beginning then your God must also have a beginning. If you God cannot have a beginning then the universe can also not have a beginning. If you think the universe must have a beginning and your god doesn’t then it’s going to be a fallacy of special pleading. If your God has a beginning then it will lead to an infinitesimal beginnings which creates numerous philosophical problems.

5. There’s no evidence that the universe has a beginning, your have not proven that it has a beginning. So this argument has a deductice error.

7. The God of Gaps fallacy. Because we don’t know then God must have done it. That doesn’t hold any water in philosophy. This also boiled down to which God you are talking about in particular. We have 4200 of them, which one does fit all the description you made

Ihedinobi3:


Hi again.

I quite agree. I often mention, however, that philosophy is weak in these matters. It is immediately apparent even to someone who is not particularly bright that the universe is subject to change in quality, therefore, it cannot be eternal. If it is not eternal, it cannot be infinite. If it is not infinite, its existence must depend on something outside itself.

I think that every atheist who has given it any thought has come to the same conclusion, that is why they come up with all kinds of hare-brained theories and excuses to deal with the impossibility of its self-existence. There is the theory of the multiverse, for example; the theory of the nothing that is not nothing (to explain how a big bang could produce a universe out of nothing); and the cop-out of "nobody knows how."

This universe's lack of self-existence is unavoidable to everyone. This is why Psalm 19 and Romans 1 make so much sense. Both passages are unequivocal about how the very universe declares the existence of God. It is only someone mentally deficient who can look at it all and still believe that there is no God. That is why the Bible calls such people "fools." According to the Bible, a fool is really someone who willfully rejects wisdom, that is, who rejects reality and pretends that what is isn't and what isn't is. In that sense, we are all fools to one degree or another, but since the most emergent or apparent reality of life is the existence of God, it is a fool of fools who thinks that God does not exist.

The weakness of philosophy here is that the arguments made for the universe's contingency can be forced to apply to the Cause of the universe. Not reasonably, of course, but one might insist that we know nothing of this Cause and must therefore ask why what is true of the universe is not true of it too. If we go there, we end up in infinite regress, and while I completely agree that such an argument is patently insane, anyone determined to remove God from the equation will never admit its insanity. For them, a self-existing entity that is not the universe is no better than an infinitely regressing chain of causes and effects.

Believe me, the arguments can get plenty sophisticated as they get more and more hare-brained.

Ihedinobi3:


Hi again.

I quite agree. I often mention, however, that philosophy is weak in these matters. It is immediately apparent even to someone who is not particularly bright that the universe is subject to change in quality, therefore, it cannot be eternal. If it is not eternal, it cannot be infinite. If it is not infinite, its existence must depend on something outside itself.

I think that every atheist who has given it any thought has come to the same conclusion, that is why they come up with all kinds of hare-brained theories and excuses to deal with the impossibility of its self-existence. There is the theory of the multiverse, for example; the theory of the nothing that is not nothing (to explain how a big bang could produce a universe out of nothing); and the cop-out of "nobody knows how."

This universe's lack of self-existence is unavoidable to everyone. This is why Psalm 19 and Romans 1 make so much sense. Both passages are unequivocal about how the very universe declares the existence of God. It is only someone mentally deficient who can look at it all and still believe that there is no God. That is why the Bible calls such people "fools." According to the Bible, a fool is really someone who willfully rejects wisdom, that is, who rejects reality and pretends that what is isn't and what isn't is. In that sense, we are all fools to one degree or another, but since the most emergent or apparent reality of life is the existence of God, it is a fool of fools who thinks that God does not exist.

The weakness of philosophy here is that the arguments made for the universe's contingency can be forced to apply to the Cause of the universe. Not reasonably, of course, but one might insist that we know nothing of this Cause and must therefore ask why what is true of the universe is not true of it too. If we go there, we end up in infinite regress, and while I completely agree that such an argument is patently insane, anyone determined to remove God from the equation will never admit its insanity. For them, a self-existing entity that is not the universe is no better than an infinitely regressing chain of causes and effects.

Believe me, the arguments can get plenty sophisticated as they get more and more hare-brained.

FatherOfJesus:
You cannot say that only those who are mentally deficient would harbor the believe that no God exists, that’s a fallacy of ad hominem and also there are several reasons to believe that God doesn’t exist which has not should be addressed.

I agree with you that philosophy is a weak point of view to address the existence of God, that’s why evidence is the best way to do that.


You cannot quote the Bible to proof the existence of your God. It’s a fallacy of petitio prinicpii or begging the question because the Bible has already reached the conclusion that God exists even without measurable methods to confirm that.

Again, there’s so many logical and empirical reason so to doubt the existence of a God -Lehigh have not been addressed. The cause and effect argument is so weak as this will also apply to the existence of any diety.

Quoting the Bible creates the impression that the Christian God is the God which we are referring to and that’s faulty and immitiately limits the concept of God by disregarding other religious concepts. We have to prove first of all that a diety exist before proving that the concept of a Christians isn’t actually the correct one.

FatherOfJesus:
You cannot say that only those who are mentally deficient would harbor the believe that no God exists, that’s a fallacy of ad hominem and also there are several reasons to believe that God doesn’t exist which has not should be addressed.

I agree with you that philosophy is a weak point of view to address the existence of God, that’s why evidence is the best way to do that.


You cannot quote the Bible to proof the existence of your God. It’s a fallacy of petitio prinicpii or begging the question because the Bible has already reached the conclusion that God exists even without measurable methods to confirm that.

Again, there’s so many logical and empirical reason so to doubt the existence of a God -Lehigh have not been addressed. The cause and effect argument is so weak as this will also apply to the existence of any diety.

Quoting the Bible creates the impression that the Christian God is the God which we are referring to and that’s faulty and immitiately limits the concept of God by disregarding other religious concepts. We have to prove first of all that a diety exist before proving that the concept of a Christians isn’t actually the correct one.

hiddendude:

Know when to use a fallacy claim. No 1 doesn't immediately infer God. It is simply inference from how we understand the universe. So, this isn't a God of the gaps fallacy. Moreso, if we do entirely understand the universe, it doesn't still rule out a creator.

I know how it works ≠ It had no cause

This is a fallacy of false equivalence.



Again, know how to use fallacy claims or understand fallacies first. A strawman intends to undermine an interlocutor's argument by attacking a similar argument. This is simply me raising a new argument not attacking another.



Errm, this isn't a strawman even if I intended attacking the hypothesis. A strawman aims to undermine an argument by attacking a different but somewhat similar argument.

I. I didn't intend to attack the hypothesis.

II. That it is a hypothesis doesn't mean it precludes a counterargument. Even if I did attack it, I am attacking it as it is without attacking a different argument in the course.



Errm, our understanding of cause and effect demands that there be a forward computation of time which in turn demands that the universe have a beginning. This argument has been debunked over and over. If the universe had a beginning, then it must beg a cause which is an actual infinity. We must by necessity reject an infinite regress because we know the universe is already here and an infinite regress cannot be the case.



Wrong! The Big Bang theory itself posits that the universe had a beginning. The inflationary model of the universe proves it had a beginning. A redshift in light frequencies from distant galaxies point to a beginning from an infinitely dense point.



I have addressed this up there. It is simply inference from a possibility. You should know when to claim something is a fallacy. You yourself commit one here. It is called the red herring fallacy. This thread aims to establish the existence of God (as a grand concept), which God he is is an entirely different case.

hiddendude:


Actually it is permissible to use the bible as evidence of God's existence. It only begs the question when one uses the bible to attempt to prove the truth of Christianity. If I quote say, the apostle Paul in an argument for God's existence, it is no different from quoting Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, Stuart Mill, William James or any other philosopher.



Errm, yes that's the point. We employ such arguments to establish the existence of a deity and we care less which deity it is as that's an entirely different problem. The concept of God goes beyond mere religious beliefs. It is very grand and if we can establish the existence of just one of the numerous deities, then we have established that there's a God.



Here you have destroyed your own argument. If you can by some way prove that Christianity isn't true, you'll still have to prove that other religions aren't true and hence the problem of God's existence proves to be beyond mere religious beliefs. It is a broad concept. Quoting the bible does imply that the Christian God is true but it still is an evidence for a God anyways.

Ihedinobi3:


Hello.

Suffice to say that I don't believe you meant to respond to my post. Very little of what you say here appears to account for what I said.

For example, I most certainly did not try to prove the existence of God by referring to the Bible. That was not in my post at all.

FatherOfJesus:
The problems with providing evidence for a god is in myriads.

I’m going to tackle this using a recent model of a Russel’s teapot analogy. Even if we asume existence of a God, then why wouldn’t it be the Flying Spaghetti Monster? On what basis would you say that the Christian God is true and the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn’t.

You should care about that problem because it argues in favour of saying that theconcept of the existence of a God, since it doesn’t have any measurable method to confirm it, is a fiction of the mind. The way someone in 2005 created the Flying Spaghetti Monster can also explain how a Jew in several years back created the Christian God.

hiddendude:


Of course, same old rebuttals that have been debunked. Russell's teapot is aimed at attacking irrational faith in a God. It isn't to attack the concept of God.
The Flying Spaghetti monster doesn't exist because as a concept, it is mostly a parody. God on the other hand could possibly exist because it is a concept drawn from observation. It is simply a heavily anthropomorphic concept of whatever caused the universe to exist.

FatherOfJesus:
You should know what fallacies are by yourself.

I will address them one by one.

You argument for cause and effect Is fallaciously excluding your God from the cause and effect rule. It’s a special pleading fallacy.

Your argument against the infinite nature of the universe is totally out of the question. You tried to argue against the possibility of the universe not being infinite and not directly for the existence of any deity. It’s a strawman, no one has asked whether the universe is infinite or not, you do not have to create that argument to distract everyone rather focus on logical providing evidence for the existence of your deity because whether or not the universe is Infinite, it’s not an automatic yes for a God if you can’t fill the gaps.

You need to understand the Big Bang, seems you have a crude knowledge of what it says. The Big Bang theory explains that the universe started from a singularity then started expanding Until this point, it only explains the age of the universe as from the point the universe started expanding and accelerating. It doesn’t explain what instigated that singularity. This leads to the question; what started that singularity? The Big Bang doesn’t answer that.
There have been many hypotheses to explain the start of that singularity that lead to our current universe, one which I find most interesting is the “Big crunch” which says that the universe is expanding like an elastic material and when the force driving this expansion reaches its limits, the universe will contract back into a singularity then will starts again to expand leading to multiple big bangs. This gives the impression that this current universe we preserve might have been a product of multiple expansions and contractions.

The issue with what happened before the Big Bang is a big problem for the existence of any deity. Stephen Hawking said in book “brief answers to big questions” (I won’t quote him verbatim); the space-time continuum we perceive today couldn’t have existed before the Big Bang, so time couldn’t have even existed to create anything since specetime is a product of our current perception of the universe , it brings a lot of problems to creationists who says that God must be existing outside of space and time, the problem now is that there’s no method to confirm this hypotheses hence becomes unscientific.

Ultimately, you have to end up committing a special kind of appealing to ignorance called God of the gaps.

hiddendude:


*sigh

I have explained this before. We know that an infinite regress couldn't have been the case and the universe itself must by necessity, begin for there to be cause and effect.


You're strawmanning by blowing my argument out of proportions. What part of this being an argument from inference was lost in translation? Since no one asked whether or not the universe exists or not or raised an argument, then this isn't a counterargument but an argument. It is possible to imagine the universe is infinite without anyone making that claim.



You keep accusing me of fallacies when you're the one employing them. You immediately assume I have no perfect knowledge of the Big Bang and still employ another debunked theory. The infinite contraction and expansion of the universe is itself regressive.



How is it a problem to a deity's existence?

FatherOfJesus:
I am quoting you here “This universe's lack of self-existence is unavoidable to everyone. This is why Psalm 19 and Romans 1 make so much sense“

That’s using the Bible to prove the existence of God. I read those passages briefly before replying you

Ihedinobi3:


You might not believe me, but I've been in apologetics publicly for nine years now. I no longer find it meaningful to teach people basic reasoning. So I acknowledge my limits.

If you call that proving the existence of God with the Bible, I can do absolutely nothing to help you there.

chandini435:
:My only question is how come out of all the planets that were formed out of the big bang, only earth supports life? Compulsory! 40 Marks!

chandini435:
:My only question is how come out of all the planets that were formed out of the big bang, only earth supports life? Compulsory! 40 Marks!

FatherOfJesus:
Your cause and effect analogy has already concluded that the universe must have been caused by something meaning it has a beginning. I did not commit any fallacy here. And we not know if the universe is be by necessity, that’s some sort of religious assumptions looking for a way to put God in the equation.

How can cause and effect and infinite regress disproves God already. How do you want to solve the problems presented by infinite regress?

Well, I think I have ended up letting you know that the Big Bang doesn’t explain the ultimate start of the universe.

In all these, I have not seen evidence for a God. We still do not know a lot, we cannot begin to start reaching hasty conclusion that a God must have been responsible because by we have gaps. You should work on that fallacy. It’s better to say “we don’t know” than to say a God did it