haverbob

Yeah, I know. Most people would say "are you kidding me?". Maybe I am, and maybe I am kidding myself as well, but what the hell, I'll give it a shot. I'm not well studied so I often put stuff in a rather plain fashion.

An integral part of the cornerstone of atheistic scientific belief is that everything MUST have an origin. Whether we can determine that origin or not is irrelevent. Nothing can appear out of thin air, you cannot pull a rabbit out of a hat. I think I would get unanimous agreement on that from all atheists, and mixed agreement from theists.

However, this inherent need for origin creates a problem in of itself. It eats itself, chases it's tail. Upon acceptance of this need one is immediately catapulted to the concept of "infinite origin". This sounds strange. It uses infinite as an adjective for origin. Although the meanings of these words are not completely the opposites of each other, they are kind of close to being so or at least I could say that they are quite foreign to each other.

So it seems to come down to 3 choices (and if there are more, please inform me, I would like to be aware).

1) Infinite origin
2) The rabbit in the hat
3) God

2) The Rabiit in the hat -- This one is silly. I don't think anyone would agree with it so why bother? This is thrown out immediately.

one choice
3) God -- Allow me to clarify. God can be simply a timeless entity, with a capability to create and love (all very general, abstract words). So I want to stay general and cut off the religious path and all of their descriptions here. I will note to the Christians the story of St. Thomas Aquinus where after he came in to contact with God (maybe felt, heard, experienced...whatever, they're just words) and after doing so refused to speak of (describe) God ever again because he knew that he could do nothing but lie about an indescribable entity, thing, concept...whatever.

and another choice
1) Infinite origin -- I've already mentioned how peculiar that sounds. This is a concept that can never truly be understood. I suppose I would not call it an impossibility, only because they are mere words anyway. The concept itself is outside of human reason and therefore can never be proven. Infinite and origin just don't go together well. We just made that concept up to explain the unexplainable but nobody can ever truly envision or understand this concept. So this now falls in to the same little playpen as the theists have. So I will use the same logic as the atheist and say "I don't believe in infinite origin because I have no reason to, and nobody has shown me any reason or proof to do so". In fact, I would like atheists to tell me why they DO believe in infinite origin and if they don't, then tell me what explanation they have.

So pick a card, any card at this point because belief in God (the way I spoke of it) is no more ridiculous then belief in infinite origin.

Hey, you may not agree with me, but at least I didn't go through the pointless exercise of yelling "FAITH".

Rhaedas

I've always found an infinite universe (ie, no origin needed) easier to contemplate than a sudden creation (whether that creation be from some god or just a sudden big bang). At least you avoid the "something from nothing" dilemma...

haverbob

Well you might not be quite getting my point or maybe you are. It comes down to whether you subscribe to scientific principles or not. If you do, then you cannot make the statment "no origin needed" because you would be violating one of the major pillars of science that I pointed out in my post.

Remember, I didn't say we had to know the origin, I just said that there must be one for EVERYTHING. A sudden big bang has nothing to do with this discussion because that must have an origin or cause as well. So when you say "no origin" you are either saying the "rabbit out of the hat" or you are really meaning to say "infinite origin" or you are really meaning to say that you don't agree with scientific principles which then nudges you over to the God side.

fishbulb

No it isn't, and no you won't.

First of all, atheism and science are not intertwined. There are atheists who are not scientific and vice versa.

Second, atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of a god or gods. Nothing more.

Third, science is not a belief; it is both a set of methods for investigating the natural world and the body of knowledge arising from that investigation.

Not only that, but scientists (physicists and astronomers to be precise) routinely observe things appearing out of thin air.

None of this has any bearing at all on the question of the origin of everything (or " the origin of existence"). The question of whether the Universe always existed or came into existence at some point and, if the latter, how that happened, are probably beyond empirical investigation and are therefore outside of the domain of science. Which is to say that scientists don't have an answer to that question and probably never will. As for atheists, we are simply unconvinced that there is any credible evidence that a god created the Universe, or that a god even exists. I personally don't know if the universe was created, began to exist spontaneously, always existed, or has a nature that completely defies human understanding. And, while the question is interesting, I really don't care too much if I never find out; it isn't important with respect to the manner in which I live my life.

The idea that the Universe must have had a beginning because everything inside the Universe had a beginning is a fallacy of composition. As an analogy:

1. My body is made of cells.
2. Cells reproduce by dividing into two identical cells.
3. Therefore, my body reproduces by dividing into two identical bodies.

Moreover, it is hardly clear that everything in the Universe had a beginning. We are formed from elements, but those elements used to be hydrogen that was converted into more complex elements inside of a star. But before that, the hydrogen was just floating around in space until it condensed into a star. Before that, the hydrogen was condensed, along with the rest of the universe, into a tiny ball of matter, or perhaps pure energy (I don't remember my cosmology as well as I once did). But what about before that? Was there a point where the matter/energy actually didn't exist? Nobody knows, but we have no real reason to think that there was ever a point when the stuff simply didn't exist.

haverbob

The first part of your response were word technicalities. I think you knew what I was essentially saying. I said that I put things in a plain fashion so if it's not technically correct, then I appreciate your correction. However it doesn't change the essential point of logic. Just a factual correction.
Well maybe I could learn something here. I haven't seen the nature of these "rabbits out of a hat" that you are speaking about, so I'll reserve judgement until further investigation or if you want to pop me a link, that would be fine. Maybe there is matter that comes from anti matter (or something like that). That's fine. Then in that case "anti matter" can be seen as the origin or cause for the sudden appearance of matter from no matter. So what is the origin of anti matter or do anti matter and matter share the same origin or cause? No matter anyway, I guess. Bad joke.
Yes, and neither will the theists ultimately represent the concept of God properly, but atheists seem to demand proof for God but don't need proof for the infinite origin answer. One of the two has to be right as far as I see it. Let me know more about those things that appear out of thin air and have absolutely no origin or cause.
Well this IS a philosophy forum. That's all. Nobody's asking you to do anything.
All of this stuff and the exercise with the cells can be summed up by saying "infinite origin". That is what you were explaining. There can't be a nothing or a point where stuff simply didn't exist because then nothing can be created and obviously we got some stuff around us, not sure what it is but it sure looks like something.

fishbulb

There are others here who are more knowledgable about this, but as I recall, protons and anti-protons are known to spontaneously appear. Usually, they anihilate one another shortly thereafter, so they go as fast as they come, but sometimes it this occurs on the edge of a black hole's event horizon, which makes things a little different. I suspect that physicists would call this a spontaneous transformation of energy into matter, though I really don't have a background in that sort of thing.

I think you are attributing conclusions to people who don't necessarily draw those conclusions. An atheist is someone who does not believe in god, nothing more. The reasons for lack of belief are particular to each individual.

Some people are skeptical of some things but don't apply the same skepticism to other things. I am sure you could find someone who demands proof if he is to believe in god but takes the notion of an eternal universe on faith, but you can't generalize to a whole group based on a cherry picked sample. I, for one, am an atheist and I would sum up my two positions thusly: There is no good evidence to suggest that there exists a god, nor is there even a coherent and concrete definition of what it means to be a god (of the transcendental type commonly accepted by modern Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc.) that we could evaluate. There also exists no good evidence to suggest that the Universe is eternal, nor is there even a coherent and concrete definition of what it means for the Universe to be eternal. (After all, the way we reckon time is a function of the universe; time is internal to the Universe and there is no coherent explanation of an inverted situation where the Universe exists inside of time.)

You might assume that, but I suspect you have nothing other than common sense and principle to back up your assertions. Common sense and principles are valuable because they are usually right under typical conditions but they tend to break down in extreme or degenerate cases. The origin, or lack thereof, of the entire Universe is about as extreme and degenerate a case as one can get. I wouldn't put much faith in an appeal to common sense to explain it.

You don't really know that, as a matter of fact, the Universe did not just spontaneously appear where before absolutely nothing existed. At any rate, the entire concept would seem to be beyond human comprehension, as it refers to events occurring completely outside our frame of reference. The same thing can be said of a Universe that exists without beginning or end. But the exact same contradictions appear when you assign these characteristics to a god rather than the Universe. I think it is foolish to believe in any of these possibilities, or to believe that these are the only possibilities. I think that the only sensible thing to say is "I have no idea."

Clutch

That this conflates science with atheism has already been pointed out. I don't know, in any case, what it is to be an integral part of a cornerstone.

This is not (just) a reaction to uncareful or flowery wording. It's a concern that we not confuse a methodological principle for some absolute metaphysical dogma. To the extent that scientists would agree with what you write here, it would simply be as a default methodology -- that is, we always ought to assume that, for every phenomenon, there is an explanation. (This is not quite the same as assuming that for everything there is an origin.)

Why? Because it's scientifically or metaphysically necessary that every phenomenon has an explanation? No -- it's because the alternative, deciding that some phenomena are inexplicable, is a recipe for not doing science at all. We always look for explanations, not because of some a priori commitment to their existence, but because the alternative is to be satisfied with ignorance.

As for the rest, I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by "infinite origins", nor by the "rabbit from a hat" idea. In any case, such ruminations are of dubious import. One thing that emerges from the advance of scientific understanding is that our pre-theoretic intuitions about what is or could be a good explanation frequently turn out to be overturned. So arming yourself with slogans like "Nothing can come from nothing", for example, is of little value, since you can pretty much count on things becoming too nuanced or refined for such a blunt instrument. Don't be surprised if it turns out the reply is something like, "It depends what you mean by nothing!"

haverbob

I am not really making much of an asseretion here, except the fact that atheists shouldn't believe in the "infinite origin" explanation either because they have no reason or proof to do so. So what's the next thing to believe? Logically speaking, I have seen no reason to believe that things have "no origin at all", so again it's either infinite origin or God.

I would love to copy and paste this on to a post from a theist. No one would ever suspect that the theist didn't actually say this.
Okay, so you are resurrecting the "rabbit out of the hat" choice. I guess I shouldn't have thrown that out so quickly. This contradicts your last post when you said "but we have no real reason to think that there was ever a point when the stuff simply didn't exist."
Well, actually I disagree. That is what the concept of God is supposed to be. The uh...uh... unexplainable force or entity. The timeless and miraculous qualities that are the explanation for the unexplainable. There are no contradictions if God actually existed. Everything would fit perfectly in to place There are only possible contradictions when one trys to describe or prove God. That I will grant.
I agree. If this is your first answer to a theist who asks you whether you think God exists or not, then you would be giving a very justifiable answer. Somehow, I don't think this is the first answer that alot of Atheists would give in this forum. It takes alot of mining to get that answer.

fishbulb

I agree with you on your first point, but I fear it is a straw man argument, since it seems to be you who are putting words in the mouths of atheists. Atheists are not a monolithic group; the only core belief we all share -- or rather lack -- is in the existence of god. As to your second point, you beg the question: something cannot have no origin at all because it is illogical for something to exist without having began. Your conclusion: that everything must have a beginning, is the same as your premise.

Fair enough; lots of things sound remarkable taken out of context.

But I am sure you can think of at least a handful of more mundane cases where the common sense answer is wrong. Common sense would lead a casual observer to conclude that the sun and moon circle the Earth, since that is exactly what they appear to do, and both common sense and general principle tell us things are usually what they appear to be. But in this case, things aren't as they appear, at least not to a casual observer. More careful calculation and observation reveals a different set of facts. You cannot rely on common sense to divine the truth, though it may point you in the right direction most of the time.

No it doesn't. We have no real reason to suspect that there was ever a time when matter/energy did not exist. But we also have no reason to suspect that there wasn't ever a time when none existed. We have no empirical reason to suspect either of the two options. That doesn't mean that one of the two isn't, in fact the case. All that I am saying is that we have no basis on which to prefer one explanation over the other, or even to conclude that they are the two and only reasonable explanations.

You can't explain something by positing an inexplicable force. Saying that there is a god which defies detection, understanding, and explanation, but is somehow responsible for how things got to be the way they are is just a more fanciful--and less honest--way of saying you don't know how things got to be the way they are. God is just the "I don't know" that you worship and in whose name you occasionally do stupid and downright destructive things.

Clutch

Really, now.

If that's a generic "you", it's very ill-phrased (and an overgeneralization in any case).

If it's directed at haverbob, it seems a pointless flame.