Secular Elation

I found this at a review at amazon.com

I'm an amateur, of course, so I am not knowledgeable of the whole debate very well, but I am one of those who as generally accepted that the universe is without a cause. But in this paragraph, this theist moves to debunk that claim. What do you have to comment on it?

[ May 08, 2002: Message edited by: Secular Elation ]</p>

Philosoft

Now that's the most grotesque caricature of the 2LOT I've ever seen. Have these people never heard of Einstein? e=mc^2?

Mageth

So god can be uncaused and necessary, but the universe can't?

And I would argue that "time stretches infinitely into the past" is a strawman. The way I understand it, time a property of the universe, and "started" when the universe did.

Ender

From Thomas Aquinas' 2nd way in Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia 7.2:
"In the observable world causes are found ordered in series: we never observe, nor ever could, something causing itself, for this would mean it preceded itself, and this is not possible. But a series of causes cannot go on forever, for in any such series an earlier member causes an intermediate and the intermediate a last (whether the intermediate be one or many). Now eliminating a cause eliminates its effects and unless there's a first cause there won't be a last or an intermediate. But if a series of cause goes on forever it will have no first cause, and so no intermediate causes and no last effect, which is clearly false. so we are forced to postulate some first agent cause, to which everyone gives the name God."

Causality is a psychologically imposed effect of the mind, not a law unto itself. If we assume that every event is dependent, then there would be actually a long chain of beings or causes. This chain lacks a beginning, so there is no "first cause" whose existence remains unexplained.
Other objections:

• just because every event in the chain requires an explanation that does not necessarily mean the entire chain needs a cause. This is the fallacy of composition.
• Given that every effect in the chain is dependent, that doesn't mean the chain is itself dependent. Again, the fallacy of composition
• By explaining the existence of every event in the chain is to explain the existence in the chain. This satisfies the principle of sufficient reason, and a "self-determining being" need not be posited.

Anything conceivable as an existent implies its non-existent contrary. Ergo, there is no being whose non-existence that implies a contradiction. Therefore, there is no being whose existence is demonstrable.

How outdated is this book? The big bang model is being questioned among physicists these days. The second law of thermodynamics only states that heat energy will flow from a hotter object to a colder one, not that entropy is the irrevocable destiny of the universe. Furthermore, the universe is a closed system. Entropy stays the same, or increases. There is no reason to believe that an "equilibrium state" couldn't be in a constant state of flux reduction (big bang or crunch) of the entire universe, nor that the universe couldn't be a series of smaller "mini-verses" that are in different states of birth and decay.

The reviewer also is ignoring the "quintessential energy", which is a concept called "anti-gravity" that increases in mass and energy the further the universe expands...

There is no evidence that time is not finite. The French mathematician Poincare proved a Recurrence Theorem that entails that recurrence is necessary for pretty much every physical system where the 2nd law of thermodynamics applies.

~WiGGiN~

DarkBronzePlant

No, athiests don't need reading lessons. Theists need to realize that we don't buy this "everything must have a cause--unless we're talking about something whose cause would be inconsistent with our beliefs" crap.

Theli

Secular Elation...

eh... yes they have, several times.
Moving on...

The problem with this is that no matter wich theory you use, you will eventually reach a point where 'nothing' existed before 'something'.

Now, this is where it gets silly. Why is "god" necessary? Wich "god" is the only necessary god? I think we should choose the simpliest explaination, and not go adding unknowable attributes to a being outside our scope of existence.

It is very easy to claim that something "has no begining" but it doesn't get so plausable when you start working on that assumption.

If god was inanimate prior to big bang then his action of creating the universe was an uncaused event since it had to prior events to trigger it.
If god was animate (allways changing) and had no begining there would be an infinite number of events prior to big bang. In wich the big bang would never take place.
When I think about it, the events prior to big bang would never take place either since there was an infinite amount of event before them aswell.

Yes, the energy of the universe is finite.
Does anybody here claim that the universe is indeed infinite?

Typical me not to read ahead before replying.
This was excacly the point I was making.
However by admiting this, he renders his "god" inanimate and indeed dependent on a cause in order to initiate his first event wich would lead to the creation of the universe.

His god would be no more living/active/creating than vacuum. Wich is ofcourse my point.
Ockhams Razor exist for a reason. So that we don't duplicate or add entities beyond what is necessary to explain data wich is presented to us.

We cannot apply attributes to an unnecessary being since those attributes leave no data behind for us to "collect" and apply to that being.

Collected/measured data is like loose wires, we want to connect them to a theory that fits. But this "god" of his has a large number of holes where no wires fit in, plus it leaves a number of wires unconnected. I say, "Please try again, with a different theory".


Thanks Secular Elation for the post.

bd-from-kg

Secular Elation:

Like all arguments purporting to prove the existence of God, the ones offered in your quoted passage are full of fallacies and non sequiturs.

Of course theists don’t claim that “everything” has a cause. They say that everything but God must have a cause. As for the claim that they say only that everything that has a beginning must have a cause, that depends on which version of the argument you’re looking at. Some versions do indeed claim that everything (but God) must have a cause, period. Other versions that say only that everything that has a beginning must have a cause, but they go on to say that everything but God must have had a beginning. In both cases they simply make an unsupported assertion about how things “have” to be, and then assert that there is one and only one exception, namely God. Not much of an argument.

A more popular choice (for those who think this kind of argument has to be countered at all) is to appeal to the inflation theory, which implies that an indefinitely large number of “universes” should exist (although whether “before” or “after” ours seems to be a meaningless question). Since the 2LOT doesn’t apply during the inflationary epoch, this wipes out the objection based on it.

We would never have arrived from what point in time? The beginning? But the hypothesis under consideration is precisely that there was no beginning. Similarly, what would we have had to pass through an infinite series to do? Why, to get here from the beginning! These arguments are logically incoherent.

Look. When a theist offers this argument, just ask him whether God could create a universe “all at once” – past, present, and future all at one go. Surely the answer must be “yes”, since He could not have been working “in time” before the universe existed, since time is a property of the universe. But then, what would have stopped Him from creating a universe with no “first” time? Obviously nothing. So God could have created a universe that “stretches infinitely into the past”. But even God can only do things that are logically possible. Thus, such a universe is logically possible. But what the argument above purports to show is that such a universe is not logically possible. So it must be fallacious.

Also, you should always keep in mind that arguments of this sort, even if valid, would show only that there was a first cause (or a designer for the ID argument). They do not come within a million miles of showing that this supposed entity has the remotest resemblance to anything that would commonly be given the appellation “God”. It need not be a “being”; it need not be conscious; it need not be omnipotent; it need not be omniscient, or indeed know anything at all; it need not be benevolent. And it certainly need not be the Christian God.

Secular Elation

I need you guys around whenever I meet an apologist.

For reasons of limited intelligence, I'll have to study your arguments quite a bit, but hopefully I won't meet any laymen in my city who is capable of using the arguments from the quoted review.

(I really wish there was an 'existence of God' debate class.)

HRG

&lt;raises hand&gt;

I'd say that the question whether the universe - and not just the patch we can observe - is finite or infinite is by no mwans settled. General relativity allows for both, including situations where the total energy of the universe is not finite.

Regards,
HRG.

Skepticwithachainsaw

Ah the wonderful first cause… It’s one of my specialities… :evil
Well aside from the blatantly obvious “Where did god come from?” bit there are a number of other problems, here are some very brief and stripped down versions:

Mind of God...
If God preceeds everything, where did he get the idea’s to create the world from?
One of my favorite arguments, and i've got an expanded version of this on <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000230" target="_blank">this previous thread</a>.

God is a logical necessity...
Well surely if he is “required” this implies that something has laid down the rulebook "before" “him”, how can there be any form of "necessary" without pre-set rules, and therefore how can a necessary being "make up" the rules in the "first" place?

God transcends space and time
In my perspective at least, for something to change there needs to be an alteration in some form of Spatial (space) or temporal (time) dimension, either it’s own structure of the thing in question needs to change or it’s relation to something else needs to change.
So if God transcends and “precedes” time and space (which he is meant to) how then can “he” change? “He” will be in a perpetual state of stasis and so be unable to perform a temporal act such as thinking (which in someway causes a change to his interior structure) and creation.


These maybe aren’t strictly logical proofs for the non-existence of God but they do rather show that the arbitrarily inserting God doesn’t solve the 1st cause argument (if the problem actually exists).

'existence of God' debate class?
Hehe, come do a Religious Studies A-Level in England, otherwise known as the "rip ancient theological arguments to shreds while shouting at the lecturer" A-Level.
At the end of the 1st year only the Atheists were turing up.