₦airaland Forum

LordReed:
There is reasonable expectation that the further you are away from an event in time the less data you will be able to have about such an event. The confidence level of scientists based on the available evidence is expectedly not a 100% but here come people without a shred of evidence positing a 100% assurance that a god exists. A god who is unobserved and unobservable, untested and untestable. By the parsimonious assumptions you are referring to I see no reason to accept this god as a valid hypothesis, none at all.

None of my post here suggest or indicate a fact -based evidence. It is simply an hypothesis at best and it is subjected to falsifability if it can be observed objectively. But currently as it stands ...the hypothesis surrounding his existence is much more compelling than his non existence.

Parsimonious assumption is simply an intuitive explanation of an idea that seems to be more rigid or far to directly fetched. For example, A: theory X and theory Y can propose functionally equivalent explanations of a phenomenon, yet if X relies on two unproven assumptions and Y only relies on one, then X has two potential errors in its formulation while Y only has one. Thus, the potential for X being wrong in some respect is double that of Y, therefore we should, in general, prefer Y to X - precluding any additional information.

Even Scientific inquiry operates according to this crucial criterion too. because it reduces the potential for error as much as possible while maintaining the explanatory efficacy of the interpretations it produces.

They are free to speculate all they want but in the fields of science were actual data is translated into useful knowledge, this god speculation is irrelevant. Who cares if beyond the boundaries of the universe nature acts irrationally if it doesn't show an effect on the universe itself. There is no difference between doesn't exist and nothing as far as we are concerned.

speculation itself is the bedrock of science and those who do that are doing and working toward the scientific method as lay down by Aristotle the father of modern science.

As a physicist. it is part of your discipline to research on what practically go on in your universe.The understanding of those phenomena can open up a new discovery or breakthrough for we the humans and our relative's. So we care to know. it is even an interesting question to even ask why does universe act reasonable.A satisfactory answer to this may open new door.

In this case of God acceptance.. .It is your personal choice to reject the idea or accept it but you do not have any scientific or logical claim that he did not exist .

LordReed:
This doesn't answer the question, "show how it strengthens your position". How does doubt strengthen your position that there is a god?

None of my post here indicate or suggest that God existence is fact- based. I am only raising the insinuation that God hypothetically exist and the question on what created God is illogical at best.

It will have make more sense if you ask me, how does my doubt bring me into this hypothetical premises.

darkhorizon:
Their descendants exists among us, every non-African is a descendant of the Neanderthal.

Yes to some degree have enough present of DNA in them except sub Saharan African....

But Caucasoid race, particularly Northern Europeans, share the highest rating of Neanderthal DNA through genotype and phenotype.


Check this.......... picture and links below....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaic_human_admixture_with_modern_humans

DeSepiero:
In essence, what created God?

As promised.....i think it's improper to lump God with his creation. God has revealed himself to us as a process. Hence this question is paradoxical.

It can even be argued that this question is irrelevant if the Universe is presumed to have circular time instead of linear time.

Biode:
My odu IFA is ogundabede. Does it mean if I consult another Babalawo for my IFA divination, it Will not change to another odu IFA? Please enlighten me further.

how do you know your odu ifa that is ogubdabede elewe obi...

Now back to why infinite regress is impossible or not pratical.. .

""If there is not to be any (system of human knowledge dependent upon an absolute first principle) two cases are only possible. Either there is no immediate certainty at all, and then our knowledge forms many series or one infinite series, wherein each theorem is derived from a higher one, and this again from a higher one, et., etc. We build our houses on the earth, the earth rests on an elephant, the elephant on a tortoise, the tortoise again--who knows on what?-- and so on ad infinitum. True, if our knowledge is thus constituted, we can not alter it; but neither have we, then, any firm knowledge. We may have gone back to a certain link of our series, and have found every thing firm up to this link; but who can guarantee us that, if we go further back, we may not find it ungrounded, and shall thus have to abandon it? Our certainty is only assumed, and we can never be sure of it for a single following day.""" Johann gottlieb .

LordReed:
Well then explain how inciting doubt about how we arrive at truth strengthens your position.

Arriving at the truth starts when you doubt everything and think critically and rationally stripping off all cognitive biases and prejudices and build up hypotheses only from the essential naked facts..

You may think theologians are biased to themselves by not doing this to their own existing conclusion.. i will honestly say you are wrong if you have such opinion.

self-identified theists (much like self-identified atheists) are free-thinkers, and they question their faith pretty deeply because, although they may participate in an organized religion, they don't identify with it very strongly, ideologically speaking, at least.


For example the Islamic prophet advice his members to seek knowledge even if it will take them to China. ( mecca is in South Asia while China is in east Asia. You can imagine how far it is.) Yet muhammed says they should seek knowledge which is to show how much knowledge is emphasized in Islam.

There was a bible verse which state that we should seek for every evidence and hold on to the truth.

And in case of ifa(pagan), there is so much information regarding the seeking and acqusation of knowledge.


In honesty some theologians do question their faith and are ready to adjust as new evidence suffice.

There is a particular Muslim hadith which says, search for my knowledge before you worshiped me.

budaatum:
You are simply pointing out the difficulty it poses. The fact some people want to insert a god into the gap in order to avoid an infinite regression does not mean it does not exist. Nor does the fact that one has limited time make it disappear. It simply means some wish to avoid it!

The presumptions in op's question alone should point this out. It is after all based on what you might probably refer to as the axiomatic "original cause", and, "all things are created", which are not valid axioms to begin with. But if one were to go along with that premise, then the universe was created, or caused, and what created or caused the universe was created or caused and so. And if you can't accept that regression, you could just have not stated that "all things are created or caused" to start with, since your uncreated or uncaused god itself falsifies that premise. Or you would have to move on to the conclusion from the premise which is an infinite regression of creators or causators and go wherever it leads to. The fact that a person wishes to cover one's eyes in order to avoid it does not in anyway make it disappear, even if some have managed to do so for their own biased reasons or the limitations of their knowledge, as the case was for most scientists pre-18th century or thereabouts. Only the intellectually dishonesty or ignorant would fly such kites in this modern age.

If, as you seem to be implying, evolution is an example of an infinite regression, that, provided you accept evolution is a valid idea, means infinite regressions do exist.

i think this is a bad logic....every existing information we know or debate about today has their rich foundation from time memorial among this Greek philosophers. In fact some of them were even smarter than their time.

The Greek philosophers are influential today because they were curious about the permanent conditions of human nature. Such questions have existed and will continue to exist as long as human civilization exists. This is why they are relevant regardless of what age people examine them in.


So saying discarding them is like saying discarding western education which has its root from these phiolopshers.



Well, my first post on this page aready answer your response .you may need to go give it a read.

Ensure you read this as well.. .

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover#First_cause

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down


I Am giving you two links so that you can rationalize your own findings and come to your own conclusion on infinite regress....

LordReed:
For a physical universe, an undemonstrable God is no different from one that doesn't exist so therefore remains irrelevant to explaining the universe.

Have You ever traveled to the wall part of the universe where certainity is established?

What we have is parsimony of assumptions( at least using the occam razor which makes lot of sense)for example, Quantum mechanical world (waves) showed that equations are insufficient naturally observed phenomena at the level of atoms and bellow. It employed Schrodinger's equation and wave functions. Which will means This world is inaccessible to our common senses..though many cosmologists had attempted to demonstrate it but mostly due end up in borrowing idea from eastern cosmologists which is not entirely science.


Parsimony assumptions does not mean that we know this for sure. In fact, there really is no way of knowing. What is beyond the limits of the observable universe is, what We can logically assumed is there is a reasons why the universe behave as he does since it is not under any obligation to behave in such.

Yes I do. Again if you want to use a God to explain the physical universe and then say he is undemonstrable then he remains irrelevant. It is almost like saying God expended

Like i said nature is under no obligation, after all, to behave in a manner that we humans call reasonable.

But in our experience, Nature by and large does behave reasonably, and we might expect it to continue behaving reasonably even beyond the boundaries of the observable universe. That expectation, combined with the observation that the universe appears to have some mathematical principle made us logically assumed that indeed an undemonstrable knowledge exist ....



The word irrelevant here is optional.....if theologians found it sensible to acknowledge such a phenomenon, there shouldn't be any objection...

budaatum:
I can't say I have come across any contemporary philosophers who say infinite regression is an impossibility! Some may decide to fill the gap and stop, but the search for knowledge cannot avoid someone coming up with one more regression.

Actually they are philosopher who justify sufficient explanation as best position ever rather than infinite regression.. I know of Gottfried Leibniz and philosophers who are there before him like Aristotle, Spinoza , aveccena and the rest.....

Infinite regress has its own problem like I said. when people ask for justification for accepting something as true, they are asking for an answer which terminates in some compelling fashion. But answers which result in an infinite regress by definition never terminate, and as such aren't found to be rationally compelling.


Infinite regression has two outcomes, it is either it is endless or you posit that there must be an original cause. The latter is the justification many rationalist philosophers used to justify the existence of God. The former is used to negate the latter, after all there is no real basis upon which to claim an original cause, to do so Is a logical leap. To negate the very concept of an infinite regression, well, you cannot because a person is in fact able to trace regressions almost infinitely. You could spend your entire life doing just that and you would still end up unfinished. Evolution is a perfect example.

DeSepiero:
Vaxx has a way of typing a lot and saying little. The question 'what created god' still hasn't been addressed. It's a poor attempt at perhaps dismissing the question as illogical.

The whole of this thread is about that. And I shall answer you specifically as I said.....sincerly speaking ....the op is dismissing the questions as illogical and flawed.

budaatum:
You do say "if we try to probe further, we will encounter the problem of induction".

Are you suggestion therefore that we shouldn't probe further to avoid the "problem of induction"?

Infinite regression is possible. The question is simply whether one wishes to entertain it or not!

The op and evidence from contemporary philosophers disagree with that..

Rather they advocate for sufficient explanation.

Yes we will encounter the problem of induction since we will abandoned the technicality of how logical reasoning and scientific research should operate.

LordReed:
Then it's a misnomer to say it strengthens your position.

I don't think so.

LordReed:
If he is untestable then he is not exerting any influence on the universe and is therefore irrelevant.

This opinion is flawed for two main reason.1..not all knowledge are demosratable..

2 ....Not all knowledge has being justify.....

You cannot make an assertion like all things begin then leave God out of it. If all things have a begin then God has a begin and is therefore not the origin of all.

Then you are not reading my post.....i have answer this with sufficient explanation approach.....take your time and read it bro.

But to make it more interesting, we all agreed that physical universe must have been a product of some energy transformation...which means the transformation itself is a process..

The question here is what causes the process of the transformation of the energy into the big bang that created the process...,?


with this acceptance. Nothing comes from nothing.. Therefore the process that spark the transformations of the energy must have been spark by another process...with this we could enter into long chain of infinite process.

So what if i say God is this process and it is this process that birth everything but known and unknown elements ...

It seems you want to hold a physical grip of God.

budaatum:
So, you admit that we should look at things anew and from different perspectives, (and the fear of induction and infinite regressions should not bar one from doing so?)

If that is the case, why plug the gaps with gods?

None of my post suggest this. I only ascertain that infinite regression is a stopping block to hold on to the truth. And if we try to probe further, we will encounter the problem of induction.....these are my arguments.

The changes here is an example of that , since the basics of knowledge can itself change overtime . It is an evidence to prove no absolute truth exists ..snd likewise infinite regression itself will be impossible.

And likewise none of my writing indicate God is filling in the gap......

LordReed:
Anytime a person attempts to incite doubt as to how we arrive at truth then they inadvertently demolish their own foundations for truth claims, even when they think they only undermine the other party or seek to make all truth claims equal.

i think being in doubt is a good starting point to the truth. because being in doubt will forces you to analyze, strategize, and ultimately seek the truth. I think that having doubt is a natural byproduct of being an open-minded individual.

LordReed:
The problem with this track is, it ends with "Why must we accept that God is uncreated or his origins are beyond comprehension but deny this for the universe itself?".

I think the problem is simple ....atheist simply lack the understanding of God. God is not an entity , a thing that can be measure or one old man with white bear sitting on the throne.. To me ....God trannceds that. I prefer to say he is A process that birth everything....everything has its elements.

A position where we accept that the universe is uncreated or its origins are beyond comprehension is even more logical (given our observations of our universe) than inserting a being with similar characteristics.

I think this position is illogical, If you can't probe the flow of matter to its origin, then you shouldn't pin the universe to any truths. Suffice to say, all things begins with a starting point. To be accurate in thesis, it requires a thorough understanding of process, and its origins as its indicative of how things come to be, without the holistic understanding of all these put together, whatever ideologies put forward would be like that of a young baby leaning on how to walk. just like how Albert Einstein put it.. ......

budaatum:
"Enough"? Newton was "enough". That didn't stop us searching however, and see how far we've come.

Are you suggesting we shouldn't bother, because we should fear induction?

According to five agrippa troops

Numbers 3 of the troops answer your question too., (Relation) – All things are changed as their relations become changed, or, as we look upon them from different points of view.

vaxx:
Let's look at principle of sufficient reason as a way to justify the knowledge of trancedent order that the believer holds to be true.

Sufficient reason has a variety of expressions, all of which can be summarized as following.

For every entity X, if X exists, then there is a sufficient explanation for why X exists.

For every event E, if E occurs, then there is a sufficient explanation for why E occurs.

For every proposition P, if P is true, then there is a sufficient explanation for why P is true.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_sufficient_reason



This is one of the logical argument Spinoza push forward ... and it justify the knowledge of transcendent order that can not be demonsrated but hold enough explanation to be true.


To be continue........ Budaatum....this is an explanation to the question you raises concerning Newton.. ..

This is the response to the question you raises concerning Newton

budaatum:
Since you admit that
I must admit I don't quite get your point in relation to the topic of the thread since what you posted Agrippa said can also be invoked in an argument against gods.

An understanding of gods is however sufficient to make it possible to propel certain knowledge about gods, except by a tortoise who refuses to perform modus ponens of course, which it is permitted to do where conventionalism and the such like is concerned but not when considering what is observed i.e. simply determining when to cross a busy road. Though, I do recall you equivocating when defining a table.

I am not arguing for the proof of God in this thread Buda, I am invalidating the questions raised by atheist . What created God...

Of course the tortoise game too can be played on me.

Let's look at the four root of sufficient explanation according to Arthur Schopenhauer....


First Form: The Principle of Sufficient Reason of Becoming (principium rationis sufficientis fiendi); appears as the law of causality in the understanding.

Second Form: The Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing (principium rationis sufficientis cognoscendi); asserts that if a judgment is to express a piece of knowledge, it must have a sufficient ground or reason, in which case it receives the predicate true.

Third Form: The Principle of Sufficient Reason of Being (principium rationis sufficientis essendi); the law whereby the parts of space and time determine one another as regards those relations.[18] Example in arithmetic: Each number presupposes the preceding numbers as grounds or reasons of its being; "I can reach ten only by going through all the preceding numbers; and only by virtue of this insight into the ground of being, do I know that where there are ten, so are there eight, six, four."

"Now just as the subjective correlative to the first class of representations is the understanding, that to the second the faculty of reason, and that to the third pure sensibility, so is the subjective correlative to this fourth class found to be the inner sense, or generally self-consciousness."

Fourth Form: The Principle of Sufficient Reason of Acting (principium rationis sufficientis agendi); briefly known as the law of motivation. "Any judgment that does not follow its previously existing ground or reason" or any state that cannot be explained away as falling under the three previous headings "must be produced by an act of will which has a motive."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schopenhauer......

Still on sufficient explanation.

Leibniz one of the brightest mind in philosophy admitted contingent truths on the basis of infinitary reasons, to which God had access but humans did not:

""In contingent truths, even though the predicate is in the subject, this can never be demonstrated, nor can a proposition ever be reduced to an equality or to an identity, but the resolution proceeds to infinity, God alone seeing, not the end of the resolution, of course, which does not exist, but the connection of the terms or the containment of the predicate in the subject, since he sees whatever is in the series"""

LordReed:
No it does not strengthen your position, it weakens all positions. LoL

might need to know? Remember we are dealing with the possibility why sufficient explanation must be enough unless we want to enter into problem of induction.

budaatum:
"God knowledge" may be "sufficient for the theologians" but we are not all theologians in need of filling gaps to erase infinite regressions away.

Occam would say "plurality should not be posited without necessity". So why fill gaps in knowledge with a god when, a simple " I don't know" would be a more accurate response?

An italian word ""Se non è vero, è ben trovato"" ("Even if it is not true, it is well conceived" have you read anti ocam response by Karl merger.

I myself use to be a lover of Occam, not until I was exposed to strong rebuttal that I cannot denied.

LordReed:
Oh please stop being coy. This:

So if personally theologians belief that his hos created the initial conditions for the Big Bang, no athiest should say he is wrong. Even if scientists come up with solid evidence for a pre-existing, eternal mutiverse, the believer could still believe that the multiverse was created by God. Or even consider that God is the reason why the universe keeps existing from moment to moment.These are not testable, physical ideas. They truly are matters of faith. It is simply a sufficient reason.

Is a full blown assertion with a subtle "Bleep off" slapped on top of it.

Anyways I await your answer.

Even when I said it can become a problem if the theologians choose to elevate this belief above observational evidence..... common

Five troops of Agrippa that validate the sufficient explanation . It is way of telling questionier how it is impossible to propel some certain knowledge.

The five troops are as follows.


1 Disecent. The uncertainty demonstrated by the differences of opinions among philosophers and people in general.

2 Progress ad infinitum – All proof rests on matters themselves in need of proof, and so on to infinity.

3 Relation – All things are changed as their relations become changed, or, as we look upon them from different points of view.

3. Assumption – The truth asserted is based on an unsupported assumption.

4 Circularity – The truth asserted involves a circularity of proofs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrippa_the_Skeptic

Read further from there...

LordReed , budaatum ...I think this strengthen my response better ....


To be continue

LordReed:
You said said you won't answer my first post but decided to assert here that God is the unexplainable cause of the universe. So then explain why I shouldn't similarly assert that no god created the universe, that it created itself and ask you not to question my position?

I am not answering your question. I am opening you up to the twin possibility of how or if . That is hypothesis.

I never assert that God is unexplainable. I said God knolewdge for the theologians is sufficient...


I am not a fun of tortoise game , I will.have play the game with you. But will still answer your question as promised

I have never attempt to prove God here....but red hearing candidate will not see that I am only making an attempt to invalidate the questions of the atheist. But welcome to my thread anyway.....

LordReed:
My understanding is the big bang is the event that set our universe into motion

There is so much scientific evidence for this which make it plausible. .

What came before the event is unknown as at this time

Many cosmologists have attempted to proffer solution to this . And their preferred hypotheses—explanations that they personally find especially plausible or mathematically elegant is the idea that our universe is just one part of an infinite and eternal universe of universes, often called a multiverse. This is simply a belief anyway as it currently does not have compelling evidence to be called a theory..

And as it is known scientific beliefs must be subject to testing and falsification. In fact, there is a bit of a ruckus among cosmologists right now because some critics argue that the string theory/multiverse model of how the universe began is not properly testable, and so cannot be considered a true scientific hypothesis. There is a Wikipedia articule on this. I will check for it.

So if personally theologians belief that his God created the initial conditions for the Big Bang, no athiest should say he is wrong. Even if scientists come up with solid evidence for a pre-existing, eternal mutiverse, the believer could still believe that the multiverse was created by God. Or even consider that God is the reason why the universe keeps existing from moment to moment.These are not testable, physical ideas. They truly are matters of faith. It is simply a sufficient reason.

But it can only become a problem only if theologians choose to elevate it above observational truths. That can lead to illogical, even destructive behaviors.


Atheist therefore needs to be truthful to themselves that the theologian idea of God is sufficient until it violate observational truths. Which it has not done since time memorial.

The theologians may play the tortoise game too with the athiest you know.

LordReed:
The problem with this track is, it ends with "Why must we accept that God is uncreated or his origins are beyond comprehension but deny this for the universe itself?". A position where we accept that the universe is uncreated or its origins are beyond comprehension is even more logical (given our observations of our universe) than inserting a being with similar characteristics.

.....This is not a direct response to your question. I will answer you in the next two page..

But let's have a discussion. Do you honestly believe that the universe get started(i mean had a begining )? Current valid science report says it was powered by the big bang. Let me tell you my position earlier. I subscribe to this concept.

Let's look at principle of sufficient reason as a way to justify the knowledge of trancedent order that the believer holds to be true.

Sufficient reason has a variety of expressions, all of which can be summarized as following.

For every entity X, if X exists, then there is a sufficient explanation for why X exists.

For every event E, if E occurs, then there is a sufficient explanation for why E occurs.

For every proposition P, if P is true, then there is a sufficient explanation for why P is true.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_sufficient_reason



This is one of the logical argument Spinoza push forward ... and it justify the knowledge of transcendent order that can not be demonsrated but hold enough explanation to be true.


To be continue........ Budaatum....this is an explanation to the question you raises concerning Newton.. ..

Now back to the question......


The Athiest are demanding for what created God . They are not satisfy that God will get a free pass..... If everything has a cause according to the believers. So in an effort to discredit this theory . They demand an explanation for God origin as well?

In order to answer such questions, we first need to clarify what we mean by “God.” The athiest needs to first understand the definition of God. Is it just another one of the causes within the system of causes that science explains? If so then we would need not to search for a cause for God. And the athiest will be right to fully say the believer are bridging the empty gap. Which they normally called ignorance of the gap""

But if God is something fundamentally different from the created order (what theologians call "transcendent", then God's definition as a being is truly confused and misapplied by the atheist.


I repeat again....""Aristotle argued that knowing does not necessitate an infinite regress because some knowledge does not depend on demonstration "".

So let's see if what theologians call transcendent order can be a form of knowledge and if it is enough to really rely on .