God and the World, what do you think? [Does God Exist II]

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

i must be in the wrong place i swear i was heading for general discussion

For discussion and debate about anything.

[Sun Wukong]

Not a scientific theory.

theory is not proof if one experiment disproves it

Nothing is proof if something disproves it.

[Sociobiology]

theory is not proof if one experiment disproves it

Nothing is proof if something disproves it.

in science nothing is proof, only evidence.

[Sun Wukong]

Nothing is proof if something disproves it.

in science nothing is proof, only evidence.

Yes, but specifically, if something is disproven, it cannot be proof.

Our furry friend seems to be a big fan of tautology.

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

Yes, but specifically, if something is disproven, it cannot be proof.

Our furry friend seems to be a big fan of tautology.

He seemed to be suggesting that there was an important theory he could disprove with one experiment.

Assuming that this wasn't bullshit, I'd be eager to hear about it.

I suspect it's bullshit.

[The Foxes Swamp]

so not 50 billion years not 15 billion years its 13.798±0.037 billion years old and proof of this is where again?

Astronomers use the distance to galaxies and the speed of light to calculate that the light has been traveling for billions of years. The expansion of the universe gives an age for the universe as a whole: 13.7 billion years old.

so really its just an educated guess on what we think we know about the universe from our small corner of this massive universe ?

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

so really its just an educated guess on what we think we know about the universe from our small corner of this massive universe ?

Just like everything else is ever? Yes.

It's just a matter of how educated the guess is.

For all you know, everything you believe could be a lie.

You think that's air you're breathing right now?

We're more certain of the age of the universe than of a great many things on which you rely for your daily survival.

[The Rich Port]

Humanity's biggest delusion is it's certainty about anything.

[Sun Wukong]

Humanity's biggest delusion is it's certainty about anything.

Are you sure?

[The Rich Port]

Humanity's biggest delusion is it's certainty about anything.

Are you sure?

... Dammit.

[Conscentia]

so really its just an educated guess on what we think we know about the universe from our small corner of this massive universe ?

Because "calculate" means "guess"?

[Risottia]

You should. Because it's not a theory, it's a nonsensical hypothesis.

Why should it? There is a thing that caused everything, that's pure logic.

1.It's not a theory because you don't have an experiment that could verify it or falsify it.
2.What you call "pure logic" (that is, YOUR OWN attempt at logic) is a category of human thought. The Universe isn't a part of human thought; human thought is a part of the Universe.
3.Also, already disproven WITHIN FORMAL LOGIC. What caused the First Cause? If it was caused (as implied by your claim about "everything must have a cause"), then it's not the First Cause. Also, what warrants the First Cause to be a deity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument

One objection to the argument is that it leaves open the question of why the First Cause is unique in that it does not require any causes. Proponents argue that the First Cause is exempt from having a cause, while opponents argue that this is special pleading or otherwise untrue.[1] Critics often press that arguing for the First Cause's exemption raises the question of why the First Cause is indeed exempt,[19] whereas defenders maintain that this question has been answered by the various arguments, emphasizing that none of its major forms rests on the premise that everything has a cause.[20]

Secondly, it is argued that the premise of causality has been arrived at via a posteriori (inductive) reasoning, which is dependent on experience. David Hume highlighted this problem of induction and argued that causal relations were not true a priori. However, as to whether inductive or deductive reasoning is more valuable still remains a matter of debate, with the general conclusion being that neither is prominent.[21] Opponents of the argument tend to argue that is unwise to draw conclusions from an extrapolation of causality beyond experience.[1]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_o ... _Existence
The Cosmological Proof considers the concept of an absolutely necessary Being and concludes that it has the most reality. In this way, the Cosmological Proof is merely the converse of the Ontological Proof. Yet the Cosmological Proof purports to start from sense experience. It says, "If anything exists in the cosmos, then there must be an absolutely necessary Being. " It then claims that there is only one concept of an absolutely necessary object. That is the concept of a Supreme Being who has maximum reality. Only such a supremely real being would be necessary and independently sufficient without compare, but this is the Ontological Proof again, which was asserted a priori without sense experience.

Summarizing the Cosmological Argument further, it may be stated as follows: "Contingent things exist—at least I exist; and as they are not self-caused, nor capable of explanation as an infinite series, it is requisite to infer that a necessary being, on whom they depend, exists." Seeing that this being exists, he belongs to the realm of reality. Seeing that all things issue from him, he is the most necessary of beings, for only a being who is self-dependent, who possesses all the conditions of reality within himself, could be the origin of contingent things. And such a being is God.

This proof is invalid for three chief reasons. First, it makes use of a category, namely, Cause. And, as has been already pointed out, it is not possible to apply this, or any other, category except to the matter given by sense under the general conditions of space and time. If, then, we employ it in relation to Deity, we try to force its application in a sphere where it is useless, and incapable of affording any information. Once more, we are in the now familiar difficulty of the paralogism of Rational Psychology or of the Antinomies. The category has meaning only when applied to phenomena. Yet God is a noumenon.

Second, it mistakes an idea of absolute necessity — an idea that is nothing more than an ideal — for a synthesis of elements in the phenomenal world or world of experience. This necessity is not an object of knowledge, derived from sensation and set in shape by the operation of categories. It cannot be regarded as more than an inference. Yet the cosmological argument treats it as if it were an object of knowledge exactly on the same level as perception of any thing or object in the course of experience.

Thirdly, it presupposes the Ontological argument, already proved false. It does this, because it proceeds from the conception of the necessity of a certain being to the fact of his existence. Yet it is possible to take this course only if idea and fact are convertible with one another, and it has just been proved that they are not so convertible.

If only people studied a bit of the history of philosophy...

[Land Der Volkeren]

The thing is that, according to the big bang, the theory DID exist because before the big bang there only was the material energy in which everything would come later out of. Therefore cause and effect MUST have been existed otherwise the laws our own universe exist in could not manifest.

You are wrong about the Big Bang. There are some models that argue for something 'before' the Big Bang in the way we would understand 'before' - such as cyclic or inflationary models - but most models lean towards either 'uncaused' or non-event 'events' defining the limit of the paradigm.

Suffice it to say, in most understandings of the Big Bang model - as I've already repeatedly pointed out - what we UNDERSTAND as 'cause and effect' are irrelevant to anything that came after.

Wouldn't a non-caused event be prove of a transcendent being?

Why should it? There is a thing that caused everything, that's pure logic.

1.It's not a theory because you don't have an experiment that could verify it or falsify it.
2.What you call "pure logic" (that is, YOUR OWN attempt at logic) is a category of human thought. The Universe isn't a part of human thought; human thought is a part of the Universe.
3.Also, already disproven WITHIN FORMAL LOGIC. What caused the First Cause? If it was caused (as implied by your claim about "everything must have a cause"), then it's not the First Cause. Also, what warrants the First Cause to be a deity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument

One objection to the argument is that it leaves open the question of why the First Cause is unique in that it does not require any causes. Proponents argue that the First Cause is exempt from having a cause, while opponents argue that this is special pleading or otherwise untrue.[1] Critics often press that arguing for the First Cause's exemption raises the question of why the First Cause is indeed exempt,[19] whereas defenders maintain that this question has been answered by the various arguments, emphasizing that none of its major forms rests on the premise that everything has a cause.[20]

Secondly, it is argued that the premise of causality has been arrived at via a posteriori (inductive) reasoning, which is dependent on experience. David Hume highlighted this problem of induction and argued that causal relations were not true a priori. However, as to whether inductive or deductive reasoning is more valuable still remains a matter of debate, with the general conclusion being that neither is prominent.[21] Opponents of the argument tend to argue that is unwise to draw conclusions from an extrapolation of causality beyond experience.[1]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_o ... _Existence
The Cosmological Proof considers the concept of an absolutely necessary Being and concludes that it has the most reality. In this way, the Cosmological Proof is merely the converse of the Ontological Proof. Yet the Cosmological Proof purports to start from sense experience. It says, "If anything exists in the cosmos, then there must be an absolutely necessary Being. " It then claims that there is only one concept of an absolutely necessary object. That is the concept of a Supreme Being who has maximum reality. Only such a supremely real being would be necessary and independently sufficient without compare, but this is the Ontological Proof again, which was asserted a priori without sense experience.

Summarizing the Cosmological Argument further, it may be stated as follows: "Contingent things exist—at least I exist; and as they are not self-caused, nor capable of explanation as an infinite series, it is requisite to infer that a necessary being, on whom they depend, exists." Seeing that this being exists, he belongs to the realm of reality. Seeing that all things issue from him, he is the most necessary of beings, for only a being who is self-dependent, who possesses all the conditions of reality within himself, could be the origin of contingent things. And such a being is God.

This proof is invalid for three chief reasons. First, it makes use of a category, namely, Cause. And, as has been already pointed out, it is not possible to apply this, or any other, category except to the matter given by sense under the general conditions of space and time. If, then, we employ it in relation to Deity, we try to force its application in a sphere where it is useless, and incapable of affording any information. Once more, we are in the now familiar difficulty of the paralogism of Rational Psychology or of the Antinomies. The category has meaning only when applied to phenomena. Yet God is a noumenon.

Second, it mistakes an idea of absolute necessity — an idea that is nothing more than an ideal — for a synthesis of elements in the phenomenal world or world of experience. This necessity is not an object of knowledge, derived from sensation and set in shape by the operation of categories. It cannot be regarded as more than an inference. Yet the cosmological argument treats it as if it were an object of knowledge exactly on the same level as perception of any thing or object in the course of experience.

Thirdly, it presupposes the Ontological argument, already proved false. It does this, because it proceeds from the conception of the necessity of a certain being to the fact of his existence. Yet it is possible to take this course only if idea and fact are convertible with one another, and it has just been proved that they are not so convertible.

If only people studied a bit of the history of philosophy...

1) The thing is that the material universe, or physical universe, operates by law. The law of cause and effect and that energy cannot be lost or created are two of them. These laws had to be there since the ''beginning''. if not before, the creation of the physical universe.
2) Yes, but the laws are not. The physical universe is based on laws.
3) A transcendent being that is NOT limited to the physical universe as something outside the physical universe as it's the only way to get out of the system of laws in the physical universe.

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

Wouldn't a non-caused event be prove of a transcendent being?

Nope. It could just as easily be more analogous to a force of nature. Maybe the great transcendent world tree brings about new universes as fruit in its branches. We have no means by which we may differentiate such claims.

[Land Der Volkeren]

Wouldn't a non-caused event be prove of a transcendent being?

Nope. It could just as easily be more analogous to a force of nature. Maybe the great transcendent world tree brings about new universes as fruit in its branches. We have no means by which we may differentiate such claims.

In that case, you are still talking about a transcendent being.

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

In that case, you are still talking about a transcendent being.

Not necessarily a being.

And frankly the sticking point is whether the thing that caused the universe thinks, has a purpose, and has the desire and ability to enforce this purpose in some way. The world tree I posit has none of these things. It merely exists.

[Salandriagado]

And they're not justified in believing.

Don't forget that part.

As you are not justified in not believing.

Your logic is not quite applicable to anything with two sides.

Can you elaborate on why it is the Christian one, rather than any other?

Specifically: I was in a discussion involving the Christian deity in particular at the time, so that's the example that I chose.

In terms of evidentiary grounds and logic, we are absolutely justified in not believing.

It's unreasonable to assume God exists.

If other religious people can deal with that, you deal with it, because you have nothing else, as ironic as it is.

... He said almost any specific deity, the Christian God among them.

>It's unreasonable to assume God exists
And it is also unreasonable to assume that a God does not exist,

No it isn't, null hypothesis.

since the core fundamental traits of God is a being not bound to the third dimension.

I prove that things that aren't "bound the the third dimension" don't exist all the time. For example: there does not exist a locally compact infinite dimensional Hausdorff space.

>you deal with it, because you have nothing else
Your extrapolation informed me a lot.

>He said almost any specific deity

Vague?

Not at all. The "almost" is there pretty much just to get rid of deist options.

OK.

Claim: There is no god.
Basis: There is no evidence for the existence of a god.
Evidence: It is a claim in the negative, and so doesn't need evidence.
Conclusion: There is no god.

Shah mat, theists.

And yet you did not cover one single point about an extra-dimensional being's mechanics or influences.

Nice dodging.

They are not relevant. Nor, indeed, are there any such mechanics that would have even the slightest impact on his argument. Stop blathering about things you don't understand.

Unless you're going to absolutely, ridiculously claim you can see beyond this dimension, I have no idea what the fuck you're on about.

Jesus Christ, do you know the fourth dimension? And higher dimensions?

Google is your medical assistant.

How many dimensions you're working in has no impact on any of this. In fact, all finite dimensional spaces behave pretty similarly. Adding more doesn't change much.

Yeah. "X is true" is a positive claim. "X may be true" is not.

Actually, phrased like that, it still is. A positive claim is merely a claim which asserts something. In this case you are asserting that X has a non-zero probability.

Formal logic would then demand that you show your math.

I'm going to be pedantic here and point out that "zero probability" and "can't happen" aren't the same thing (for example: if you pick a (uniformly) random decimal expansion of finite length between 0 and 1, you have a zero percent probability of picking an expansion that does not contain the digit three, but it's clearly possible to do so: you could pick the expansion 0.4, for example.

In the same way that "there are no black swans" would be a positive claim.

Isn't that a negative claim as well?

You're probably more knowledgeable on this than I am, so I'll try to avoid snark.

Err actually pretantia there is a pretty big difference between claiming that something doesnt' exist and claiming that something can't exist. Claiming that something can't exist assumes there is a logical reason as to why it cannot exist. The lack of evidence to support it's existence is insufficient to make a negative claim about the possibility of it's existence. Stated frankly, you cannot make this claim logically.

It's the opposite claim to,"X can exist." I still don't see how it's positive.

It's (nearly) equivalent to the statement that "there exists a proof that X does not exist", if that helps.

I am sorry but I have said nothing bad about atheism or humanism! I'm not the one jumping down your throats saying,"You'll go to Hell if you don't believe!" I am simply saying that I'll respect your beliefs if you respect my beliefs, so f*ck you for saying that I'm ignorant, just f*ck you.

Beliefs don't get respect. People's rights get respect and people get respect, but concepts don't, unless they've earned it.

100% you know?

+/- 0.037 billion years. Yes.

And entropy always wins in the end. Heat death is inevitable.

To be fair, heat death isn't really the end of the universe, just the end of anything happening in the universe.

Your whole "universe is alive, universe is eternal" mumbo jumbo.

thats just an idea i presently have in my head...in all reality i know as much as you...nothing

what is your alternative?

See: all of modern cosmology.

It is a fallacy that someone must present an alternative hypothesis when discounting your hypothesis.

Your hypothesis needs to stand on its own.

what is the universe?

Universe: definition: the totality of everything that exists.

I'm quite certain that the "nothing" I know is more voluminous then the "nothing" you know.


That the universe is 13.798±0.037 billion years old, and will die of heat death. As indicated by all the best evidence available.

Evidence, as opposed to, you know, "just an idea i have in my head."

thats a theory isnt it?

Theory is the highest accolade that science can give to an explanation of observed data. What you have presented is nowhere near being a theory. It's not even much of a hypothesis, making no testable claims.

You are wrong about the Big Bang. There are some models that argue for something 'before' the Big Bang in the way we would understand 'before' - such as cyclic or inflationary models - but most models lean towards either 'uncaused' or non-event 'events' defining the limit of the paradigm.

Suffice it to say, in most understandings of the Big Bang model - as I've already repeatedly pointed out - what we UNDERSTAND as 'cause and effect' are irrelevant to anything that came after.

Wouldn't a non-caused event be prove of a transcendent being?

No. There's no particular reason why anything needs to have a cause, a priori. That cause certainly doesn't need to be a "transcendent being" (whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean).

1.It's not a theory because you don't have an experiment that could verify it or falsify it.
2.What you call "pure logic" (that is, YOUR OWN attempt at logic) is a category of human thought. The Universe isn't a part of human thought; human thought is a part of the Universe.
3.Also, already disproven WITHIN FORMAL LOGIC. What caused the First Cause? If it was caused (as implied by your claim about "everything must have a cause"), then it's not the First Cause. Also, what warrants the First Cause to be a deity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument

One objection to the argument is that it leaves open the question of why the First Cause is unique in that it does not require any causes. Proponents argue that the First Cause is exempt from having a cause, while opponents argue that this is special pleading or otherwise untrue.[1] Critics often press that arguing for the First Cause's exemption raises the question of why the First Cause is indeed exempt,[19] whereas defenders maintain that this question has been answered by the various arguments, emphasizing that none of its major forms rests on the premise that everything has a cause.[20]

Secondly, it is argued that the premise of causality has been arrived at via a posteriori (inductive) reasoning, which is dependent on experience. David Hume highlighted this problem of induction and argued that causal relations were not true a priori. However, as to whether inductive or deductive reasoning is more valuable still remains a matter of debate, with the general conclusion being that neither is prominent.[21] Opponents of the argument tend to argue that is unwise to draw conclusions from an extrapolation of causality beyond experience.[1]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_o ... _Existence
The Cosmological Proof considers the concept of an absolutely necessary Being and concludes that it has the most reality. In this way, the Cosmological Proof is merely the converse of the Ontological Proof. Yet the Cosmological Proof purports to start from sense experience. It says, "If anything exists in the cosmos, then there must be an absolutely necessary Being. " It then claims that there is only one concept of an absolutely necessary object. That is the concept of a Supreme Being who has maximum reality. Only such a supremely real being would be necessary and independently sufficient without compare, but this is the Ontological Proof again, which was asserted a priori without sense experience.

Summarizing the Cosmological Argument further, it may be stated as follows: "Contingent things exist—at least I exist; and as they are not self-caused, nor capable of explanation as an infinite series, it is requisite to infer that a necessary being, on whom they depend, exists." Seeing that this being exists, he belongs to the realm of reality. Seeing that all things issue from him, he is the most necessary of beings, for only a being who is self-dependent, who possesses all the conditions of reality within himself, could be the origin of contingent things. And such a being is God.

This proof is invalid for three chief reasons. First, it makes use of a category, namely, Cause. And, as has been already pointed out, it is not possible to apply this, or any other, category except to the matter given by sense under the general conditions of space and time. If, then, we employ it in relation to Deity, we try to force its application in a sphere where it is useless, and incapable of affording any information. Once more, we are in the now familiar difficulty of the paralogism of Rational Psychology or of the Antinomies. The category has meaning only when applied to phenomena. Yet God is a noumenon.

Second, it mistakes an idea of absolute necessity — an idea that is nothing more than an ideal — for a synthesis of elements in the phenomenal world or world of experience. This necessity is not an object of knowledge, derived from sensation and set in shape by the operation of categories. It cannot be regarded as more than an inference. Yet the cosmological argument treats it as if it were an object of knowledge exactly on the same level as perception of any thing or object in the course of experience.

Thirdly, it presupposes the Ontological argument, already proved false. It does this, because it proceeds from the conception of the necessity of a certain being to the fact of his existence. Yet it is possible to take this course only if idea and fact are convertible with one another, and it has just been proved that they are not so convertible.

If only people studied a bit of the history of philosophy...

1) The thing is that the material universe, or physical universe, operates by law.

Says who? Laws are literally just patterns that we've found in the data. There is no a priori reason why they have to be followed outside of where they have been checked.

The law of cause and effect and that energy cannot be lost or created are two of them.

The second is certainly untrue, the first probably so.

These laws had to be there since the ''beginning''.

On what basis?

if not before, the creation of the physical universe.

"Before the universe" doesn't even make sense.

2) Yes, but the laws are not. The physical universe is based on laws.

See above.

3) A transcendent being that is NOT limited to the physical universe as something outside the physical universe as it's the only way to get out of the system of laws in the physical universe.

The only difference between "Outside the physical universe" and "doesn't exist" is that the former takes longer to type.

[Land Der Volkeren]

In that case, you are still talking about a transcendent being.

Not necessarily a being.

And frankly the sticking point is whether the thing that caused the universe thinks, has a purpose, and has the desire and ability to enforce this purpose in some way. The world tree I posit has none of these things. It merely exists.

With a being I am refering to a force, thing, in whatever sense, as we do not know what transcendent things actually look like.

[Federal Afrikun Republic]

#BoycottIndiana

Just thought i'd say something since we are on this subject.

Ps....If God existed, the World would be a whole different place/experience!
Sucks that ge doesn't EXIST!!!!

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

With a being I am refering to a force, thing, in whatever sense, as we do not know what transcendent things actually look like.

The point is that if it was just a force of nature that caused the universe without purpose, that fact would have little relevance to you or me.

[Finland SSR]

I believe in a God.
He is currently working out on my flag.

[The Nexus of Man]

#BoycottIndiana

Just thought i'd say something since we are on this subject.

Ps....If God existed, the World would be a whole different place/experience!
Sucks that ge doesn't EXIST!!!!

Are you okay?

[The Creepoc Infinite]

#BoycottIndiana

Just thought i'd say something since we are on this subject.

Ps....If God existed, the World would be a whole different place/experience!
Sucks that ge doesn't EXIST!!!!

Are you okay?

why would you WANT god to exist?

i'm not exactly gonna be excited if there is an all powerful genocidal asshole in a bad mood dictating what happens in my life.

[Jute]

Are you okay?

why would you WANT god to exist?

i'm not exactly gonna be excited if there is an all powerful genocidal asshole in a bad mood dictating what happens in my life.

Uh... Christianity says God gave humans free will, so he is anything but dictating what happens in your life. Most terrible things in the world are either man-made (wars and hate, for example) or naturally caused (illnesses, natural catastrophes etc.) Would you rather have God change everyone's mind so they are like characters on a children's show, where arguments usually are about harmless things (like how to organize a party or what do at a sleepover) and all the villains are either not human and can be defeated and destroyed, or reformed to be "good"?

[The Creepoc Infinite]

why would you WANT god to exist?

i'm not exactly gonna be excited if there is an all powerful genocidal asshole in a bad mood dictating what happens in my life.

Uh... Christianity says God gave humans free will, so he is anything but dictating what happens in your life. Most terrible things in the world are either man-made (wars and hate, for example) or naturally caused (illnesses, natural catastrophes etc.) Would you rather have God change everyone's mind so they are like characters on a children's show, where arguments usually are about harmless things (like how to organize a party or what do at a sleepover) and all the villains are either not human and can be defeated and destroyed, or reformed to be "good"?

god is ultimately to blame for both man made awful shit and naturally caused awful shit, becaus ehe created them with full knowledge of their proclivity of being able to cause awful shit!

tolerating and condoning evil is still an evil in and of itself.