luvluv

Well, I think what Craig specifically argued against was the notion that quantum fluctuations do not produce small portions of matter to appear "out of nothing". Rather, energy ocassionally fluctuates in such a way that at a particularly high spike small bits of matter may be produced. Now, we cannot predict when or why these fluctuations occur, but that does not mean that the matter produced by these fluctuations has no cause.

I'm probably butchering his point so I am going to try to re-find this link...

the_cave

If it's the cause of all nature, it can't itself be natural, by definition.

But if you're saying it's the cause of all nature besides itself, I suppose you could call it natural. In my opinion, calling God "supernatural" is somewhat misleading.

Quote:

And how do we make such a huge leap from a first cause to a God?

That's a very good question. I'd start by saying that whatever it is, I'm going to call it "God". Who objects?

Jayhawker Soule

Certainly not me. On your side of the Looking Glass you get to call things whatever you wish. But tell me, do you permit some the_cave(God) to lack both intentionality and immortality, i.e., might it be some long dead Unicorn Fart from another dimension?

SanDiegoAtheist

I do.

If this 'first cause' doesn't have volition, intelligence, or any of the other characteristics normally associated with "God", then you're simply redefining the word to suit your own purposes.

While this isn't too much of a problem (after all, most of us atheists are perfectly willing to define atheism as "without a belief in God" no matter how many dictionaries define it otherwise), it leads to equivocation, which IS a problem.

Why not just call it a 'first cause' or 'uncaused cause', and eliminate the potential problem of equivocation cropping up until you've managed to show (if possible) that this 'first cause' has the properties normally associated with a deity?

After all, I don't think you'd consider a 'quantum foam' multiverse to be a very useful "God", but I have little doubt that many of us atheists (myself among them) suspect something very much like that may be the 'uncaused cause' behind all of this (please note, I said 'suspect' - I certainly don't claim to know, and I'm perfectly open to changing my opinion based on reasoned claims made from solid evidence).

Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist

Asha'man

I object.

The word "God" has some enormous semantic baggage with it, especially if you might be talking in the context of Christian belief.

That baggage is entirely unwarranted, given the evidence.

You have made an enormous leap from a question of physics into a very specific ancient myth structure.

If your physics demand that there are no uncaused events, that something must be "first," then your physics must also stop there. From that information alone, no other conclusions are valid, they are more wishful thinking that logical conclusion. Anything else requires more evidence, which you simply don't have.

the_cave

No, because a) unicorns don't fart, and b) if they did, it wouldn't spawn a universe. I challenge you to provide me with an authoritative text demonstrating otherwise.

In regards to your serious question, I would say that I don't know whether such a God would be immortal; but I would probably term it eternal, i.e. existing, in part or in whole, without a dimension of time. As for intentionality, it may be a figure of speech. What do call an intention on _your_ side of the looking glass?


No, I'm using an appropriate term for an appropriate concept. We now know that what we call "energy" also includes what we call "mass". This has not always been so; we have redefined the word to suit our own purposes. And so far we haven't decided whether this first cause has volition or intelligence; therefore, according to your argument, I have not yet redefined the word. What purposes exactly do you think I am suiting?



To me, "first cause" is a paltry word for the cause of, gee, _everything that is_. It serves its purpose for a philosophical discussion, but I just couldn't use it everyday. "God", however, is a grand term for what you must admit is a grand thing. If you want to turn "first cause" into a grand term, you can try, but wouldn't you then be defining a word to mean what you want it to mean?



Don't be too sure on that point.



I understand, and wouldn't hold to you anything else.




But it's baggage I'm willing to live with. If I find it too heavy, I shall leave it behind. I'm very generous, and I won't ask you to carry more than you want to.

"myth structure" I'll buy. "specific" and "ancient" I won't. But then, I believe in Myths. I believe that we all live our lives according to Myths, even atheists. Like the Myth of the Freethought Freedom Fighters destroying the Temple of Unreason, for example. That's a Myth. Or the Myth of the Slow Rise of Liberty From the Dark and Grimy Past. That's another Myth. Now Myths are certainly based on real things--real events, real lives, real definitions. But then I think the same way about God. I think that God is a pretty good Myth (at least, if not more), based on real events, real lives, real definitions. I don't think that discussions about God's existence is just a game of Who's Got the Telescope. If we can agree on anything, maybe we can start there. If you think this is a bogus, or cheesy, or lame and unhelpful attitude, now is the time to say so.

I don't understand this the way it's phrased, and in case I don't, I'll leave it be.


the_cave

K

xianseeker:

Quantum events are uncaused, but occur in statistically predictable ways. The statistical tendencies are what we observe at the macroscopic level. It's the typical cause and effect we're used to seeing.

My undergraduate degree is in physics, but I certainly wouldn't call myself a physicist.

Biff the unclean

Yeah, I have to object too. Before it was called "Gravity' it was known as "Holy Spirit Force" which was not only misleading it was intentionally misleading.
Calling "first cause" God is also intentionally misleading since you don't know what "first cause" is and you already have a definition for the word God that includes a hell of a lot more than just "first cause". It lacks a degree of honesty.

Silent Acorns

To borrow an analogy that might be a bit more concrete to most people, what we call "Air Temperature" is just the macroscopic effect of billions upon billions of nitorogen and oxygen molecules bumping into things at very high speeds. Temperature is nothing more than a convenient measure of the average kinetic energy of these molecules.

Consider the scale of a single molecule and "zoom out" to the scale of a room. At the individual molecule scale, everything looks completely random - a single oxygen molecule zooming around and continually bouncing of other moelcules. As we zoom out to the scale of a few billion molecules we notice that these "random motions" follow a distinct statistical pattern. At any given moment, the same number of molecules are moving at any given speed (although which ones are the fastest and the slowest is constantly changing). Most importantly, the average speed stays the same. Based on this information, we can calculate the average kinetic energy of the molecules, and we call this "temperature". By the time we get to the scale of a room, we are no longer thinking about individual moelcules, we just notice that it's slightly warmer close to the radiator and slightly cooler next to the window. The same sort of link exists between the statistical properties of air molecules and such fundamental macroscopic quantities as Pressure and Viscosity.

The same kind of link exists between random quantum fluctuations and such macroscopic effects as Gravity and Electro-Magnatism. At least that's the theory.

Baloo

If, in some multi-dimensional space, 5-dimensional objects are constantly colliding, and each collision results in 4 dimensional objects with properties (aka physical constants) that depend on the collision itself, and just one member of all of these uncountable 4 dimensional objects happened to have a set of physical constants that allowed it to unfold into our puny universe, is it a good use of our language to call a simple collision of 5-d objects "God"? Or would you agree that the semantic baggage associated with "God" detracts slightly from the theory of "Two 5-d things that bumped into each other"?