You started out your last affirmative by saying that if theories of quantum
mechanics say that matter/energy can come from nowhere without a cause, then
they are illogical. This is simply not true. Mathematics is really another
form of logic. And there are some pretty heavy mathematical proofs of quantum
mechanics. However, I'm not going to present the mathematics to you. Instead,
I'm going to explain why you are wrong on a philosophical level. The truth
of the matter is that we really have no idea what the origin of anything
is all about. We've never seen the origin of matter or energy. Well, I take
that back. We have seen something come from nowhere -on the quantum level.
I'll direct you immediate attention to Scientific
American, December 1997 issue, article entitled "Explointing Zero-Point Energy"
pg 83. Your claim that science drove you to believe in God is not true. I
think you've deceived yourself with that line. Real science has not provided
you with any reason to believe in God. But this is really a moot point. Where
did God come from? Nothing? If so, you're in the same predicament that you're
trying to put me in, now. Most likely, though, you'll claim that God has
always existed. Of course this line of reasoning can also be applied to the
universe. The universe has always existed. Philosophically speaking, you've
failed to provide any causal reason for the existence of a God. Now, we come
to the scientific standpoint. It appears as though the universe did have
an origin. Not only did this origin create matter, but it also created time.
Thus any causal argument of the universe for the existence of the universe
becomes a moot point because there was no time dimension for a cause to function
inside of. This causal line of argumentation was fundamentally flawed from
the begining. Now, though, with recent advances in science, the premises
is stands on have been discovered to be false. And we're back where we started.
There is no reason to believe a god exists. Of course you may wish to ascert
that that is how we know God is 'outside' of time. Now I find this argument
rather amusing. We simply have no idea what it means to be outside of time.
Now, we know what outside means. You can be outside a house. You can be outside
a country. But then again, we can picture what those mean. Can we picture
what it means to be outside of time? No. We can't. We have no idea what 'outside
of time' means. 'Outside of time' is really just three words in a correct
gramatical order. At first glance it appears to have a meaning, but under
any scrutiny, the three words have no refferent. We simply do not know what
we're talking about. You're using what I call God-talk. You have the illusion
you know what you're talking about, but you don't.
Secondly, you completely missed my point about the still. I was trying to
demonstrate that you can't have indirect evidence unless direct evidence
is also possible. That's why I said in the previous post that I don't know
whether or not smoke rising up is good indirect evidence, but let's assume
it is. The point I'm trying to make is that you can't indirectly observe
something that is not also in theory directly observable. Many Christians,
I don't know if you do (which leads to another ironic point, no Christians
believe the same thing), claim that God is transcendent. Anything transcendent,
by definition, is unobservable. All the examples you give (such as amount
of smoke, hidden by the curtain, etc) you can say because you have observed
similar things in this world. You've observed things of less energy producing
less smoke. You've observed that things larger than a curtain can't fit behind
a curtain (ironically, if it were God behind the curtain, I suppose he could
be larger than the curtain -just another one of those things that we have
no idea what we're talking about). You haven't observed a thing about God,
so you're using examples that don't fit the scenario.
You say:
What I'm saying is that to look at the universe and deduce that there
is some sort of timeless, supernatural, creative, intelligent force behind
it is a logical conclusion, and to suppose that the 'God of the Bible' is
this being is faith, but a logical faith. But for someone to tell me that
the universe appearing out of nothing (and giving me theories as to how this
is possible) would be illogical for anyone to believe.
This is dead wrong. I have yet to see your argument saying that something
can't come from nothing. You just simply deny it. Besides, something is not
something is not really coming from nothing. There is no nothing. Only the
absence of something. When we use the word nothing, we aren't talking about
space with nothing in it or time ticking away while nothing's going on, we're
talking about nothing. No space, no time. Nothing for anything to exist in.
Time before the Big Bang is nonexistent. There were no dimensions. Also,
I have yet to see your deductive argument saying that a timeless, supernatural,
creative, intelligent force exists. I've shown you that 'timeless' is nothing
more than a word. No such thing as timeless exists. Supernatural things are
also unnecessary. What you're doing is looking at the universe around us,
and when you can't find the answers, you're assuming something other than
the universe must exist to help account for the universe. That's not science.
Nothing supernatural has any place in the realm of science. What does it
mean to be supernatural? Well, it means something outside of nature or outside
of the natural universe. Well, what does that mean? Give me an example. There
is none. Those are words, not concepts. Not science. Creative? Nope. Why
do we think that a creative force exists? You'll say the universe isn't infinitly
old, and that it had a begining. Thus something must have made it. This logic
is wrong because of how we perceive origins. When we 'create' something IN
the universe, we are really just rearranging molecules, atoms, or subatomic
particles. That's a completely different concept than creation OF the universe
unless, of course, you want to say that God arranged preexisting stuff to
make the universe. You're comparing apples and oranges. Furthermore, we know
very little about creation OF the energy/matter. However, we have detected
it coming from nowhere. Your logic fails and you're again stuck with no reason
to think God is there.
Now, this talk about God and the devil is humorous in my eyes. Everyone is
not born with the knowledge that God is good and the devil is bad. If everyone
was born with that knowledge, why are there other religions? Everyone is
born with morality encoded in their DNA. I won't deny that. Some behaviors
seem good because if they don't, then the person doesn't do them (for instance
sex) and doesn't reproduce. By the way, Satanists aren't 180 degrees from
Christianity. It's the same belief system. God still exists. The devil still
exists. The afterlife still exists. It's the same belief system with different
consequences desired from it. Atheism is the 180 degree difference from
Christianity. Satanism is still just a ridiculous myth with no evidence to
back it up.
You continue in your post to us the causal arguments. Or at least put down
my refutations of them. Take an introductory philosophy class. I mean, all
educated philosophers see the flaws in the causal arguments for the existence
of God. Philosophy 110 is the class I remember. That line of argumentation
is fundamentally flawed. And I've shown why above. Just think about it.
You also say, in regards to the universe "Without a purpose, it would not
be here. If you're going to believe otherwise, that's your choice, but it
means that you have way more faith than I do." Not true. All you've got to
do is look around you with a desire to figure out what's going on. It takes
way more faith to believe in something that there is no reason to believe
it exists than what we can observe around us.
Anyway, we've got no evidence of a god's exists. We've got no reason to believe
in a god. We don't really have a clue what god is. When we start talking
about gods, we're really just looking for an explanation that explains
everything. For instance, what makes the planets orbit the way they do? 800ad
-God. 1900ad -gravity. What makes gravity? God? God is what we use as the
next step of understanding until we figure it out. Why don't we just despense
of the myths and accept the uncertainty that we have? There may always be
uncertainty, but there will never be a god.
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