thomaq

agreed. i was assuming you meant "purely empirical". false assumption on my part.

thomaq

cool, i respect that. i think your name threw me off.

Just_An_Atheist

Don't get me wrong, I'm still a "strong" atheist concerning "omnimax" as some members of this board have called him. I disbelieve in a very common conception of God, so I call myself an atheist.

thomaq

then what about the original dilemma? do you still think it is rational to hold that the universe came into being from nothing?

Just_An_Atheist

However, I do enjoy a good debate.


"you are supporting my point, i was illustrating the absurdity of just_an_atheists reasons for justifying that something could come from nothing.

What do you mean that if there is a begining, then it came from nothing. Just some points to make: First off what do you mean by "coming", and what do you mean by nothing? It seems that both notions presupposse the universe. For instance, when you talk about "coming from" somewhere, we usually suppose something is leaving one place and arriving at another; however, if big bang cosmology is to be believed, there is no space, which means it didn't come from anywhere. The notion of refering to "nothing" as a possible state of affairs may even be incoherent. Just try to imagine nothing as nothing (and not as empty space.)

Just_An_Atheist

"then what about the original dilemma? do you still think it is rational to hold that the universe came into being from nothing?"

That's irrelavent to whether an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being exists. It's seems possible to suspend judgement on naturalism, and believe that a specific conception was false.

thomaq

Yes! exactly. this illustrates the incoherence of something coming from nothing. a state of reality described as "nothing" is incoherent and thus the universe coming from "it" is incoherent.
if the universe is defined as "everything that exists anywhere" and this had a beginning, then the naturalist or atheist, holds that "nothingness" is logically (not temporally) prior to "everything that exists as a whole (somethingness)". and it is this which seems to be irrational.

thomaq

once again, who said anything about an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being? i didnt ask anything about that.

Just_An_Atheist

"once again, who said anything about an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being? i didnt ask anything about that."

When I said that I was still an atheist concerning a deity that is commonly worshiped, you asked me "what about the original delimma?" I got the impression that you thought that being an atheist concerning a God entailed that I face a dilimma. Now I think that that was a mistaken impression.


"Yes! exactly. this illustrates the incoherence of something coming from nothing. a state of reality described as "nothing" is incoherent and thus the universe coming from "it" is incoherent.

Yes, but you havn't responded to my contention that one can concede your point that something can't come from nothing, and still mantain that the universe had a begining.

"if the universe is defined as "everything that exists anywhere" and this had a beginning, then the naturalist or atheist, holds that "nothingness" is logically (not temporally) prior to"

This needs clarification. Isn't the term "prior to" a temporal term. How can one use a word that implies temporality, and at the same time hold that it is prior in a logical sense. This doesn't make sense.

thomaq

2 is the answer to 1.

here is a quote from comestible venom
"You cannot speak of a time at which there was no law, because physical laws are logically prior to time."
i mean "logically prior to" in the same sense he says it. it is a tough concept to explain. the best i can come up with is that it means a sort of metaphysical supercedence. let me try an example, existence is logically prior to identity. identity has no meaning unless something exists that can possess that identity. yet there is no temporal connection between the two.