Charles Darwin

Likewise.

DMB

CD: You did not reply to my last post. No matter.
The core of your argument seems to be that because a strong atheist asserts that no god(s) exist(s), s/he must have an alternative explanation for the existence of the universe.

I do not regard myself as a strong atheist, but I simply don't see how the one implies the other.

You dismiss Santa in a perfunctory fashion. Is this really metaphysical? Strong atheists, in my experience, dismiss gods in much the same fashion, i.e. they are not worthy of serious belief or even investigation, since the evidence for their existence is of such poor quality.

I cannot see, however, why it is necessary to have any belief in a cause for the universe, just because someone has come up with a ridiculous one.

You made the following remark about Hawking:
Perhaps you would care to elaborate: in what way is this a fallacy? To me it seems pretty obvious that intelligent design (and I take it that that is what you mean) is untestable and hence a science stopper. Perhaps you could explain what sort of experiments would verify or falsify this hypothesis.

Charles Darwin

Because Santa can be dismissed on the basis of empirical evidence. I suspect that dismissing God (let's say Christianity) will involve metaphysics, but that is not really the topic of this thread. In this thread, I'm suspecting that there are no non metaphysical alternatives to certain questions. Which leads to your next comment ...


Yes, and that is what BBT has claimed. So in that sense, he is not making a metaphysical claim. But I have made the point in this thread that one's position can *entail* a claim even if one doesn't think it through. If one denies the existence of God, then there are certain implications. So I'm talking about strong atheism. BBT would probably say he is a weak atheist.


That's easy. the design hypothesis predicts that certain phenomena cannot be explained by the mere play of natural laws and forces. So compelling explanations of phenomena via naturalism falsifies design.

As a side note, "untestable" does not = "science stopper." The demarcation problem is subtle. While there are serious philosophers at work on the problem of defining just what is and is not science, I marvel at how often folks are oblivious to their work, and feel no trepidation at boldly declaring just what is and isn't science.

JCS

Beyond the obvious implication of nonbelief, what else is there?

Charles Darwin

CD quote:
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If one denies the existence of God, then there are certain implications.
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Well we've talked about it quite a bit in this thread. Nothing profound; just the basic fact that the claim there is no god necessarily entails the claim that things like existence and consciousness arose via some other means. Aside from the fact that, I suspect, there are no compelling explanations for these phenomena, at the very least those explanations are probably metaphysical (my contention in this thread).

ComestibleVenom

Neuroscience and evolution provide by far the most compelling accounts of both. God explains nothing.

JCS

As I said before in this thread, I claim there are no gods and I make no other claims concerning existence or consciousness beyond I don't know.

I apparently fail to meet your presumption that- the claim there is no god necessarily entails the claim that things like existence and consciousness arose via some other means. since I make no such claims beyond I don't know.

The god-did-it explanation explains nothing and as it is, may just as well be a I don't know response also. The idea that rejection of one unsubstantiated claim necessarily entails another is quite silly and frankly unsupported beyond your claim it is necessary.

To be clear, when I say there are no gods, I mean no gods have been physically or arguably demonstrated to my satisfaction. The very nature of the claims concerning gods, precludes any evidence unless said gods were or able to provide it themselves. Since they can't/won't there is no reason to even consider such claims. If you are going to consider one god you would have to consider all gods/creation stories and just how many does all include and what method would/could be used to verify?

Charles Darwin

Well we're rapidly approach a stalemate situation here, but I'll try once more. Earlier I used the analogy of the weather. If you say you believe it won't rain today, then you are making claims about the weather today. You are saying some other type of weather will transpire. Likewise, if you claim there is no God, then you are simply fooling yourself to think that you make no "claims concerning existence or consciousness beyond I don't know." Of course you are making a claim concerning existence or consciousness beyond I don't know -- you are claiming those phenomena arose without God.

You then write: "The very nature of the claims concerning gods, precludes any evidence unless said gods were or able to provide it themselves. Since they can't/won't there is no reason to even consider such claims." I understand your position is that there is no God, but you are simply begging the question here when you say God can't or won't provide evidence. There are mountains of evidence making it painfully obvious. I understand you would reject that evidence, but that doesn't mean God can't or won't provide it. Maybe I'll start another thread based on your claim that there is no evidence.

Charles Darwin

Why does the God hypothesis explain nothing? Presumably because God is sovereign. He can create beauty, harmony, and perfection according to our sensibilities, but he can also create the stubbornness of the donkey. He can make a man be born blind. So when we look at an observable, it is difficult for us to say God would have done that, or that God would not have done that. Because God is sovereign, and we only know a bit of the mind and will of God, we are not able to test God as we would a scientific theory which is (presumably) constrained to specific mathematical or logical claims. Bottom line: we cannot test God, and therefore the God hypothesis explains nothing.

Note that we have now reached the height of absurdity. God's very power works against Him. Presumably the only God that would be acceptable would be one that is constrained to certain universal criteria (eg, Liebniz's God who optimizes the good-to-evil ratio). But of course, that wouldn't be God, because He wouldn't be sovereign. So now we're using the word "God" for something else.

In other words, let us imagine for a moment that there is a God. By your logic, He would be rejected a priori, for invoking Him, according to you, would explain nothing. Atheism becomes the right answer, regardless of what the truth is.

And where does this absurdity lead us to? To evolution, and the absurd claim that it is compelling. It would be hard to imagine a more inverted view of reality. *Evolution* (!?) is a compelling explanation for biology? You've got to be kidding. Have you been living in a cave or something?

enfant terrible

Nonsense. I don't know anything about you, so I don't know (with absolute certainty) that you are not capable of creating the world. To be precise, I am pretty sure you are not capable of it, but I am at least equally sure "God" (however you want to define him) is not capable of it. (In your case, at least there is evidence you exist.)

Can you provide any argument why "God" would be more likely than you to have created the Universe?

No strawmen please. I did not say it was spontaneous. That would imply there was something before it. I will repeat, very slowly, what I said. There are exactly two possibilities:

(1) The Big Bang started from a singularity. In that case, it is the boundary of time, and there is no "before". That means it did not "occur" at all - when we think of something (X, say) "occurring", we think of a change from not-X to X, which happens in time; there must be "before" and "after". In the case of BB there is only "after" and no conventional notion of "occurring" applies. And, if something did not "occur" in the first place, it is meaningless to ask whether it "occurred spontaneously" or "was caused by something".

(2) The Big Bang started from an extremely dense state which, however, was not a singularity. Then there is "before" even though space-time is so jumbled around that point that perhaps even a hundred Hawkings and Einsteins won't figure out how it worked. But the issue of "creation" is obviously moot in this case, as BB is here, by definition, a consequence of natural causes.

I gave you the reasoning. I don't even think it is complicated, and every physicist certainly understands what a singularity is. So where exactly is there a religious belief in it?

ROTFL. My two scenarios are exact complements, you cannot deny that (1 OR 2) is true - that does not need any empirical support. (I am not under an impression that you challenge empirical evidence of BB itself, so I assume we agree it's there.) Under scenario 1, all I am discussing is whether a question is logically meaningful; that does not depend on empirical evidence either. Under scenario 2, there is nothing metaphysically (let alone theologically) special about BB: the argument that "God" created the world at the BB time is no more compelling than that "God" created the world at any other arbitrary time (including 1 minute ago).