Atheism Discussion Thread:Tipping the Fedora

[Antityranicals]

But there is one difference. There must be an uncaused cause. This is a definite fact. God, however, is so completely different from the rest of reality that is not too very absurd to suppose that God could do something so seemingly nonsensical as causing himself. The universe, however, cannot cause itself, as it follows certain laws, and is thus a limited reality.

This is an argument from ignorance. It has a basic structure of "we don't know, therefore we know."

We don't know what caused the universe. Or if it was caused. Therefore we know that your God did it. This does not follow.

This argument doesn't state that "my God caused the universe." It only states that something outside of the universe, with a completely foreign nature, caused it. I'm calling that something "God" because we don't have a better name for it.

[Neanderthaland]

The belief in an uncaused god is just the belief in an uncaused universe with extra steps.

Nay. The cases are different -- the universe exists within the confines of space and time, and from our experience of things within space and time, there must be causation. The same cannot be said of that which exists timelessly.

Ergo, it follows that presuming there must be causation of all things within space and time (I would challenge you to provide a counter-example!), the first cause must be timeless.

Atomic decay. The cause, in a general sense, is that "certain atoms are unstable." But the specific incidence of an atom breaking down is uncaused and random, and can only be predicted probabilistically. All sorts of weird stuff happens at the quantum scale.

But this does not really matter. Because causation applies within the universe does not mean that causation applies to the universe.

[Alvecia]

Yes. Because it did not exist before it existed and therefore does not require a cause.

There is no "Before," because time did not exist, either. Therefore, there was no "before causuality".

That statement disproves itself.

Causality cannot exist without time. Time is a fundamental component of it. So if there was a point at which time did not exist, then necessarily neither could causality.

[Antityranicals]

There is no "Before," because time did not exist, either. Therefore, there was no "before causuality".

We don't know that.

Yes, we do. Science has definitely told us that time is a native function of our universe. However, we do not know whether or not causality is native to the universe.

[United Massachusetts]

Can causality come to exist without a cause?

Yes. Because it did not exist before it existed and therefore does not require a cause.

How, then, does something come out of nothing?

Given two options, one of which flies implies a universe springing out of nothing (which requires some logic bending to justify its self-creation), and the other of which implying an uncaused cause external to the universe itself, the latter seems more reasonable.

[Antityranicals]

There is no "Before," because time did not exist, either. Therefore, there was no "before causuality".

That statement disproves itself.

Causality cannot exist without time. Time is a fundamental component of it. So if there was a point at which time did not exist, then necessarily neither could causality.

A cause does not strictly have to happen before the effect, it just has to happen.

[Neanderthaland]

This is an argument from ignorance. It has a basic structure of "we don't know, therefore we know."

We don't know what caused the universe. Or if it was caused. Therefore we know that your God did it. This does not follow.

This argument doesn't state that "my God caused the universe." It only states that something outside of the universe, with a completely foreign nature, caused it. I'm calling that something "God" because we don't have a better name for it.

But you don't treat your "god" as though it's some unknowable outside could-be-anything probably-isn't-even-alive whatever, do you?

No. You have specific ideas about it. And you can't get from one position to another. There's no way to make that leap. Even Aquinas had to give it up.

[Neanderthaland]

That statement disproves itself.

Causality cannot exist without time. Time is a fundamental component of it. So if there was a point at which time did not exist, then necessarily neither could causality.

A cause does not strictly have to happen before the effect, it just has to happen.

Demonstrate simultaneous causation in the Universe.

Because now you're inventing new natural laws to explain a being that you invoke to get around natural laws.

[Alvecia]

Yes. Because it did not exist before it existed and therefore does not require a cause.

How, then, does something come out of nothing?

Given two options, one of which flies implies a universe springing out of nothing (which requires some logic bending to justify its self-creation), and the other of which implying an uncaused cause external to the universe itself, the latter seems more reasonable.

You're running into a similar problem by trying to apply the laws of the universe (logic) to a point outside of it.

Logic as we know it might be completely different outside of the universe.

Short answer is, we don't know.
Maybe we never will.

[Alvecia]

That statement disproves itself.

Causality cannot exist without time. Time is a fundamental component of it. So if there was a point at which time did not exist, then necessarily neither could causality.

A cause does not strictly have to happen before the effect, it just has to happen.

A cause does strictly have to happen before the effect, within it's own perspective of time, else it is not causality.

[Neanderthaland]

A cause does not strictly have to happen before the effect, it just has to happen.

A cause does strictly have to happen before the effect, within it's own perspective of time, else it is not causality.

If simultaneous causation is possible, then the universe could have created itself. At the same time the universe was created.

[United Massachusetts]

There is no "Before," because time did not exist, either. Therefore, there was no "before causuality".

That statement disproves itself.

Causality cannot exist without time. Time is a fundamental component of it. So if there was a point at which time did not exist, then necessarily neither could causality.

I agree with this. Having said that, one need not rely on causality to establish a first cause external to the set of things caused. A beautiful demonstration of this comes from Avicenna's Proof of the Truthful.

[Neanderthaland]

Yes. Because it did not exist before it existed and therefore does not require a cause.

How, then, does something come out of nothing?

How did your god come out of nothing? Apply whatever answer you give to reality.

Given two options, one of which flies implies a universe springing out of nothing (which requires some logic bending to justify its self-creation), and the other of which implying an uncaused cause external to the universe itself, the latter seems more reasonable.

Your intuition about what "seems more reasonable" is unlikely to have any correlation to what reality is at extreme scales. Quantum mechanics are unimaginably counter-intuitive, but nonetheless accurate.

However, I renew my objection that an external cause does not have to be a "god" or anything like a "god." And that calling it such is begging the question.

[Alvecia]

A cause does strictly have to happen before the effect, within it's own perspective of time, else it is not causality.

If simultaneous causation is possible, then the universe could have created itself. At the same time the universe was created.

Alternatively, if reversed causality is possible, then the cause of the universe might not have happened yet

[Alvecia]

That statement disproves itself.

Causality cannot exist without time. Time is a fundamental component of it. So if there was a point at which time did not exist, then necessarily neither could causality.

I agree with this. Having said that, one need not rely on causality to establish a first cause external to the set of things caused. A beautiful demonstration of this comes from Avicenna's Proof of the Truthful.

I had a quick scan (currently in transit) but honestly it just sounds like fancy word play. It posits some things must exist without really supporting that assertion.

But like I said, only a quick scan. I’ll give it another look later

[Salandriagado]

Yes. Because it did not exist before it existed and therefore does not require a cause.

How, then, does something come out of nothing?

Given two options, one of which flies implies a universe springing out of nothing (which requires some logic bending to justify its self-creation), and the other of which implying an uncaused cause external to the universe itself, the latter seems more reasonable.

That's just passing the problem along: if that's the case, you need to do exactly the same "logic bending" to justify your "uncaused cause".

And there's nothing wrong with something coming out of nothing, so long as anti-something comes out of nothing at the same time. Notably, the total net energy of the universe is, as close as we can measure it, exactly zero. That is: it's precisely what we'd expect if it spontaneously came out of nothing.

[Vivolkha]

We don't know that.

Yes, we do. Science has definitely told us that time is a native function of our universe. However, we do not know whether or not causality is native to the universe.

The Universe begins and ends where math breaks. There is no point to think before the Big Bang or what caused it. There is no point in thinking what will happen when entropy is maximized. It is literally impossible to know.

On the other hand, why would (certain) religious practices be harmful to human health or contradict basic human biology? How do you justify that if God exists? Why God would design us in a way that the practices that want us to follow harm us? Why would God want us to believe outdated and outright false science?

[Estanglia]

Yes, atheism is the baseline but for parental and societal influence.

Atheism is not the baseline. Agnosticism is the baseline. In order to be an Atheist, one must make the religious statement: "There is no God." Whatever Atheists say, Atheism is a religion.

I'd be glad if someone were to try to change my mind. I think that would make for an interesting discussion.

I have no idea how Atheism is a religion seeing as the only thing it 'teaches' is "there is no god".
Which, in that case, makes all the 'stop x' campaigns religions.

It is as much of a religion as abstinence is a sex act. It is the act of saying that the whole concept of religion and god is stupid.

Which requires an act of faith, since you cannot prove it.

Or an act of logic.

If somebody claims something exists, it is up to them to prove it. If they cannot, then their claim is false as, if it was true, there would be evidence for it and they would have proof of it (otherwise, they're believing it's true based on faith alone).

God is either unproven, unprovable or the evidence provided is insufficient to prove it (for an atheist), thus claims that god exists are false and, if 'God exists' is false, logically God doesn't exist (as the claim of its existence is a false one).

On a completely different aspect of Atheism, how exactly does reality exist without a cause? The simple fact that everything within the realm of our experience has a cause leads one to conclude that something completely different from the rest of reality caused reality, and what is that something other than God?

a) Why can't reality itself be that cause? As in, why can't reality be self-caused?
b) How does it make any sense to say 'everything we know of has a cause, therefore reality itself has to have a cause', then propose as a solution an uncaused entity?
Why is it that reality (something we don't fully understand) has to have a cause, yet the entity outside of reality (which we don't even know whether or not it exists) doesn't have to be caused?
Unless you're saying that there's an infinite chain of entities beyond reality that created God (i.e entity A created God, entity B created entity A etc.), in which case, what makes God the special one in the chain?

But there is one difference. There must be an uncaused cause. This is a definite fact.

It isn't.

[Alvecia]

I agree with this. Having said that, one need not rely on causality to establish a first cause external to the set of things caused. A beautiful demonstration of this comes from Avicenna's Proof of the Truthful.

I had a quick scan (currently in transit) but honestly it just sounds like fancy word play. It posits some things must exist without really supporting that assertion.

But like I said, only a quick scan. I’ll give it another look later

I think my first reading was about right. The very premise is that some things inherently must exist, and offers their existence as proof of this. Which honestly is just circular logic.
The rest of it, being built on this premise, falls apart fairly quickly.

The problem is it too relies on causality existing before causality. It's pretty, but it can't escape the human perspective.

[Page]

The belief in an uncaused god is just the belief in an uncaused universe with extra steps.

But there is one difference. There must be an uncaused cause. This is a definite fact. God, however, is so completely different from the rest of reality that is not too very absurd to suppose that God could do something so seemingly nonsensical as causing himself. The universe, however, cannot cause itself, as it follows certain laws, and is thus a limited reality.

Our observable universe as we know it requires every effect to have a cause, but the laws that govern our observable universe only came into being in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang. Before that, forces like gravity and electromagnetism may not have existed or they could have been one force together or there was a different force entirely. Spacetime was made by the expansion of the universe.

The reason we can't know what happened before the Big Bang is because our laws of physics didn't apply back then. We need the laws of physics to backtrack but we can't backtrack to a point where those physics don't work.

So it may be that there never was an original cause, or that there was one but it is one beyond comprehension. Could that be a god? It could be, but there are infinitely more possibilities so it doesn't make sense to assume an omnipotent God deliberately creating the universe is so likely

[Attempted Socialism]

I think the question of "cause" when it comes to the universe is a bad way to go for theists, for several reasons.
First, because it concedes that your god cannot be the cause of the universe. The Christian god, for example, didn't cause the big bang and the universe; rather, he created the flat disc with a dome that is Earth, and the plants and animals, and then later sun, moon and stars etc. He then spent a lot of his time inside the universe, doing physical stuff (Wrestling with Jacob, chatting with Moses, getting whales to swallow Jonah, knocking up Mary etc.). This god, clearly, is not outside of time and space, doesn't know the Earth is an oblate spheroid, has no special knowledge of medicine, physics, chemistry, and has incredibly poor moral instructions.
Second, it is a fallacy of composition. Every individual atom in my body is invisible to me. My body is still visible. I exhibit consciousness, yet no individual part of me is conscious. Applying rules of causality from within the universe to the universe as a whole is simply a non-starter.
Third, it's a fallacy of equivocation. The argument of the charlatan William Lane Craig, for example, relies on equivocating "come into existence" ex materia (When it happens inside of our universe) with ex nihilo (When it happens for the universe as a whole).
Fourth, there are quantum events where positive and negative particles come into existence without a cause (Or rather, as a function of probability). I think it was Lawrence Krauss in A Universe From Nothing who put it something like "in the lack of a universe, a universe will come into being spontaneously" - but with a total energy of 0 (Since as many anti-particles have been created as have particles). This, Krauss argues, is true for our universe. I'm not a physicist, but if this is possible, there are literally zero gaps left for any god.
Fifth, it is special pleading on behalf of your favourite made-up deity, which apparently gets to be uncaused, while the universe is not allowed to be uncaused.
Sixth, it is misunderstanding that time is an innate thing to our universe; causal chains within our universe depends on that time. In the absence of our universe, time and thus causality is nonexistent. Even if a deity outside of time exists, they couldn't have caused our universe. To talk of a "cause" to a universe prior to time to establish that causal link is incoherent.


On another note, things that are religions:

A religion is, quite simply, a belief held through faith. It has a broad definition.

"I will win the lottery" is a religion. "My team will win Champions League" is a religion. "When I ask her out, she'll say yes" is a religion. "The police won't catch me" is a religion. "I hold no positive belief in a religion" is a religion. "My TV is set to the channel 'off'" is a religion. "My hobby is to not collect stamps" is a religion.
This suggestion is clearly preposterous. If you completely refuse to use words in a way that can be made sense of, your "arguments" will always necessarily end up like absurdities like this. Your attempt to communicate fails because you refuse to learn the meaning of words; you don't even get to the point where you made an actual argument.

[Neutraligon]

Define faith, is theism a religion?

Deism is.

You did not answer my questions. I will add third to, what religion is deism given there is no shred tenant between various deists beyond a god existed at some point? As for the discussion of cause, what evidence do you have that something ex-nihilo needs a cause? What evidence do you have that anything ex-nihilo has ever happened?

[Nakena]

I like how I introduced the idea of the observable Universe here first before the entire current debate even started.

[Esheaun Stroakuss]

The uncaused cause must have a cause. Just because.

[North German Realm]

The hypocrisy behind "Everything must have a cause except for god" is something everyone can see as long as they're not trying to "prove" god should exist.