John A. Broussard

Thank you. That is indeed, a unique explanation. To the best of my knowledge, no one else has even hinted at it. I'm sure no one will come up with any better.

Hedshaker

This is the crux of the matter and exactly what Valz refuses to accept. I, and others, have explained it to him in a variety of ways, even linked to a full and succinct explanation of what the the fallacy of special pleading means, yet still he doesn't get it ...or refuse to get it more like.

The apples and oranges analogy is not only irrelevant but rediculous since both fruits exist without faith and neither require a special case for their existance.

Such is the nature of apologetics. If all else fails just deny everything and slip back into the comfort zone of faith, where God can do, and be, anything you want, regardless of reason and obvious logical fallacies.

Anything's better than the ugliness of cognative dissonance I guess :huh:

Orbit

show_no_mercy

The problem is that "existence exists therefore God exists" is NOT rational. "Existence" can't be used to prove anything (existence is not a predicate - is there an echo in here?)

"Existence exists therefore the Invisible Pink Unicorn exists".

Refute that statement while somehow not refuting your very own.

Evoken

This topic has gone nuts! (lots of replies)

So instead of replying to each one individually as I have been doing so far, I'll speak more generaly.

The question in this thread has boiled down to two paths: an eternal Universe or an eternal God. I had been contending for an eternal God with a universe that was created ex nihilo (out of nothing) by God. And the other participants for the eternal universe.

Alright, it seems to me that creation ex nihilo is not a coherent concept and that it has some flaws, because it appears that the universe has always been in one way or the other, at least to the best of our knowledge and as far as science has shown in the theory of the big bang. And it also demands some implausible rationalizations and special pleading, as has been told to me a couple of times in this thread.

Creation ex nihilo also presents a couple of problems which I have been thinking about during the course of this thread. The first one I see, is that it denies or limits God's omnipresence by positing a universe that is independent of God, or that exits outside of God, which to me appears to be an impossibility. It also seems to pose problems with God's interaction with the universe by putting God both independent of the universe and also in a different frame of eternal/time which raises more problems than what it solves, specially when it comes to prayers and miracles.

So with both the eternal God and the (apparently) eternal universe in one form or the other which may have always existed but started to change in form from the big bang on (and continues to this day), there appears to be a contradiction between the two.

But I think that the two need not be mutually exclusive, as such I decided to drop the creation ex nihilo position and hold what is called "Panentheism" instead, which seems to be a more coherent and consistent position with both science and theology.

So, yes, the universe has always existed, like God, the universe is in fact part of God(not just God like pantheism says) and God is the creative force behind it and sustains everything while still being sentient and having his own mind which allows him to act.

Well, I think that pretty much sums everything up.

Thanks for the exchange, good to learn something new and correct my position

Hopefully you took something positive out of it.

Have a good one,
Valz

Skeptical

That would be true, if we knew that God created the Universe, which we don't. My point was, all else being equal without making a priori assumptions about the need for God, then it is clear that the simpler explanation is that hte Universe has always existed and does not need a creator.

Not to try to play semantical games, but I would consider a reliance on faith to be epistemlogically equivalent to an a priori assumption. Neither relies on evidence, so from a rational argument perspective they are indistinguishable. Reason alone will not get you to a belief in God, despite attempts to do so.

I am infintely familar with the so-called "proofs" of God and the "unmoved mover", I have read Aquinas and his ilk. It is rubbish. Like I said above, a material Universe is much easier to explain than a non-material creator absent any a priori assumptions, which is what you are making.

What I meant was that Theists come to trust faith _because_ it is the only remaining step once a point of doubt is reached beyond which empirical evidence will take you, and this is true in spades of religion. I can't speak for others, but the reason I personally do not take "leaps of faith" is because I don't feel a need be "certain", and secondarily the experience of history shows that intuition/faith/feeling is often wrong. I have heard Theists say that they would rather have a comforting error than know whether they were right or not. I would not.

Refusing to allow emotion to cloud your judgement can hardly be called "resfusing to make a decision". If forced to make a choice absent evidence, the only rational choice is to choose that which requires the least amount of a priori assumptions, i.e. the Universe is uncaused. Any other decision is not warranted by evidence and is not rational. You can't just wish it to be otherwise.

I've seen what you said, and to be frank your assertion that your belief is rational is anything but. You are of course entitled to your opinion, but as I have stated, it is not rational. The weight of the evidence is for an uncaused Universe. It is only if one accepts non-empirical evidence, which I don't consider relevant, that this is not true. It's just that simple.

[QUOTE=Valz]
Like I pointed out about the Razor some posts ago, the simplest is not necessarily the best explanation. The best explanation or actually, the true explanation could be the most complex and still be true while the most simplest can be false.[/quote

That is true. But the point of Ochams razor is that when you have 2 possible explanations and ALL OTHER THINGS ARE EQUAL, then the simplest is the best. You would have to show why the explanations are not equal. A "unmoved mover" is a more complex explanation and does not explain more about the state of the Universe than an uncreated Universe of impersonal forces. Any other conclusion is not based on the available evidence and is, therefore, not rational.

You seem to be arguing that because you are "right", therefore your belief is rational. That is not true. It is quite possible to be correct (if you are, which I doubt), and have come to ones belief for entirely faulty and illogical reasons.

A correct answer does not imply a correct flow of logical argument. Your conclusion _could_ be right, but your reasons for reaching it are not rational.

That sort of loose namby/pamby logic may work in Freshman Philosophy, but its not a good argument. First, we have experience with the Universe as it stands, we don't know what happened before the Big Bang (assuming the theory is correct), so we don't know what sorts of laws of physics prevailed. Effects could have preceded causes, Quantam Mechanics could have behaved entirely differently, and no, I am not pulling this out of the air, these sorts of things have been theorized by Physicists.

The point is, we don't know _what_ happened "before" the Big Bang, we only have experience with _this_ Universe and the way it behaves. We can't take our experience of the forces of physics as it works today and extrapolate it back "before" the Universe got going.

The bottom line is the argument becomes invalid at the singularity. It may become invalid again at the "Big Crunch", if it ever comes. And don't get me started on whether cause/effect laws exist at the Quantam Level.

Which means we're right back where I said we were, 2 possible explanations that both could explain everything about the Universe and needing to pick the simplest explanation.

Intuition is only useful as a guide to lead to experimentation to discover if your intuition is correct through empirical means. I didn't say intuition is useless, I just said it's often wrong. The only way to know if your wrong is through empirical evidence. The pre-Socratics were pretty sharp and had some good ideas, but most of their detailed musings were wrong, not beause they did not use good arguments, but because they couldn't test their intuitions.

Lots of things fall outside the realm of the empirical, and all of those things are areas we cannot "know" in the usual sense of the term.

To the degree that you mean that all knowledge is suspect to disproof and probablistic only, then I agree.

No, actually I'm not. The point is that I reject that anything other than empirical information is reliable enough to make a rational judgement. I think this point is so fundamentally clear that I don't see why I would have to explain it.

I did not claim, nor do I now, that empirical evidence shows God does not exist. Empirical evidence says we have no evidence for God, which is not at all the same thing.

You are arguing 2 different things. You first want to argue that faith leads you to believe that God exists. Fine and dandy. But then you want to turn and argue that therefore since God exists it is rational to believe in God. Not so.

Bottom line, your belief may be correct, but if it is not based on empirical evidence, it is not rational.

Not trying to "prove" that. My only point was that the simplest conclusion based on empirical evidence is that the Universe is uncaused. Therefore, the only _rational_ conclusion is that the Universe is uncaused. You were the one arguing that your belief was rational, my point was that it ain't.

I have no need or desire to consider whether God might in fact exist and you might be right despite the lack of a rational reason for such belief. That conclusion can only come from inuition/faith which I regard as to unreliable to be useful to reason. I have no personal need for faith, though I acknowledge that others do.

Yes, and your wrong. You seem to be relying on the whole "umoved mover" thing which quite frankly I thought had gone out of vogue decades ago. All physics and properties of matter/energy, including generic cause/effect, were created with the Big Bang. We can't know what was going on "before" that, so the argument disappears at the singularity.

Science make no claims about God, I agree. God is not empirical, I agree. Where we part ways is that you refuse to accept that your belief is not rational.

Unless you can show how the use of non-empirical evidence can be considered rational, I don't see how you have a leg to stand on. I can accept that your belief is non-rational and be quite happy with it. Why can't you?

Intuition is only useful when it leads to an ability to determine if it is correct. In almost every situation in daily life, what we call "intuition" is actually based on some limited set of facts, however small, and we also have the ability to test if our "intuition" is correct. Absent the ability to discover truth through empirical means, inutition is epistemologically useless.

I'm well aware. Like I said, inutuition is useful if it can lead to verification through empirical means. If it can't, than it's not.

Which leads us right back to my point. What happened "before" the Big Bang is unknowable. Since a intelligent creator requires more of an explanation than the Universe itself, the simplest explanation all else being equal is for an uncaused Universe. That is the only _rational_ belief.

You are of course free to believe otherwise, but you can't say its rational. I'll settle for calling it non-rational if irrational is unacceptable and call it a day.

maddog

This is a fine example of question-begging. The OP asks, what would we see if there was a universe that was NOT CREATED. As far as the OP is concerned, then, for Valz, the thread is over. He is incapable of imagining a universe that was NOT "created" -- so much so that he *assumes* creation in the question, even though creation was specifically excluded from the OP.
OK, so now you want it both ways. God doesn't micromanage, except where he does.This is Valz's answer to the OP, however. The universe "with" and "without" God doesn't look any different. No perceptible (empirical) difference.But now you want to have it both ways again. It's no different with or without God, BUT you want to say the universe -- which it LOOKS LIKE God DOESN'T intervene in -- is nevertheless "sustained by God" and that it owes its existence to God. But you have never given any REASON for this position -- you just wish or hope it is that way.

BTW, throughout the thread, you keep saying "own" -- it's "owe". The universe "owes" its existence to God.

#1040

John A. Broussard

[QUOTE=Skeptical]

inutuition is useful if it can lead to verification through empirical means. If it can't, than it's not.

QUOTE]

This is a crucial difference which separates science from faith. Science deals with falsifiable issues and is continually examining, correcting, rejecting and moving on.

Faith examines issues in order to support that faith. The issues, from the viewpoint of a believer are simply not falsifiable. E.g., The efficacy of prayer. If it seems to work, how do we know it was because of the prayer? If it doesn't, how can we know it wasn't for the best for it not to have worked? In other words, the results of any study are in no way a test of faith.

Evoken

How is it question begging? Something that is created presupposes a creator just like a work of art presupposes an artist and a building men to build it. They do not come on their own.

So what we would expect if dieties (or God) didn't exist? Nonexistence, we would not exist(nor the universe for that matter). That's my answer.

No, it is just the same with free will, if God micromanaged everything there would not be any free will. God is the primal cause per his act of creation and we and other sentient beings are "causa secunda" per our ability to make decisions and choose.

And just how do you know that the universe looks like God doesn't exists? Have you seen a universe in which God does or does not exists to be able to compare and draw this conclusion? No, you haven't and you are stepping outside of science in claiming one or the other. That was my point in saying that the question of God existing or not is not inside the scope of empirical science. The same goes with ethics, aesthetics, etc, etc.

Ah, thanks for the spelling correction, English is not my native language.


Valz

P.S. By the way read my previous post, the question has shifted a bit, since I changed my position on ex nihilo creation.

DMC

Saying there was a cause isn't the same as saying that cause is "God". Really elementary analogy here, so forgive me, but I set a saucer of milk on my porch, and the next day it's clean, empty, all that. I can say it was caused to be that way and be correct. I have no reason to say "God" caused it to be that way however, nor do I have a reason to say any specific animal did it, if I don't know. I can just say it's gone, and something caused it to be gone. It seems that you are coming to a conclusion about the cause without any reason to.