Re: Atheists are the biggest fools on Earth

On 11 Apr 2006 20:58:58 -0700,
Jim Spaza <spaza9@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

AC wrote:
On 1 Apr 2006 14:26:28 -0800,
Jim Spaza <spaza9@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip>

Actually, yes. I would like to "usher" in God's existence at this
point.

This isn't really an issue of the existence of such a being, which is
ultimately beyond science's abilities to demonstrate or disprove.

It's an issue of whether the origins of the Universe are, at some point, the
product of something that we cannot explain through a set of universal laws.

It seems to me that this points to a very critical divide between you and I,
and possibly between you and even those scientists who believe in God. In
our case, we want to understand the origins of the Universe, how they
influenced how it came to be what it is today, and possibly what will happen
in the future.

I don't have a problem with that.

But if you start inserting an omnipotent being, then there is no way to
realistically determine if any particular explanation is better than any
other. God can do it any way He pleases.



You seem to want to evangelize, to use a hole in our knowledge to bring up
how well God explains things, even if, in reality, inserting God in fact
explains nothing at all. The fact that you've already admitted that God can
produce any kind of universe and make life to fit it eliminates even that
need for someone who will tinker with the early conditions. Sure you can
talk at length about how your particular God's personality is such that he
doesn't want to do it any way but the way you claim the Universe was
produced, but surely even you can see that this little more than a bit of
special pleading.

Yes, to discuss this design or plan on God's part, we'd have to get
into the less-scientific, more-philosophical fields of argument.

No, it means abandoning science entirely.





So, all this verbiage means we're back at the start. God does have
limitations. Only a small number of possible universes can sustain life.
It's just SAP, with a slight wrinkle that you don't seem to like overt
amounts of pixie dust to keep everything motoring along.

Well, the only limitations on God are those that He imposes on Himself
by deciding to do things in certain ways.

So then God could create any possible universe and have it sustain life. So
all this bafflegab about the strong nuclear force vs. gravity, etcetera and
so on really is meaningless. Since God can create any universe and have it
support life, noting the nature of physical interactions that make life as
we understand it possible is a pretty useless exercise.

It's not useless in the analysis of THIS universe and the way things
are here.

Which we don't fully know yet.

Postulating other universes is nice academically, but does
nothing for us scientifically.

That is not strictly true. Postulating other possible universes can help us
model what goes on in our own. That's the point, for instance, of Flatland
and other alternate-dimensional universes.

Uh-oh. And if I were to postulate the existence of a dimension where
there might be beings of pure energy/spirit who humans call angels...I
would be dismissed as introducing religion. Yet, when science does it
(without the angel part), it is scientific postulation for modeling
purposes. I don't understand the rationale here.

Damn it Jim. Are you intentionally trying to miss the point. Flatland and
other multi-dimensional models are not simply inventions, but *thought
exercises*, ways of breaking problems down. Why you equate Flatland with
inventing mythologies is quite beyond me. I thought you had a mathematics
background. I'm becoming increasingly dubious.



Theorizing other universes and
factoring in their possible existence when we look at the statistics of
this universe having life on its own is like my postulating the "God
did it" cause.

I'm not letting you sneak that "statisical" nonsense past, Jim. You don't
have any way of calculating the statistics any more than anyone else, so
it's simply a way to try to lend weight to what is really just handwaving.

No different than handwaving in the idea of other universes without any
scientific evidence to counter the argument that the statistical
unlikeliness of this universe the way it is points to an Intelligent
Designer.

And as I repeatedly state, the main proponents of these sorts of ideas are
not claiming that they are currently testable science. They will readily
admit it's conjecture, and may or may not have anything to do with reality.
Why do you keep making the same baseless accusations over and over?



Beyond that, where precisely do you want to insert the "God did it". Be
specific here.

If the Big Band theory is accurate, then I'd like to insert "God did
it" at any time before t=0.

How can there be a before t=0?

If the Big Band theory is not
accurate...if this universe just appeared in one form already expanded
and developed somewhat over time, then I'd like to insert "God did it"
at the moment before it appeared.

Is there any emperical reason to do so? Can you provide some evidence?











However, God is not as fickle and variable in His ways as you
might think. There is reason and structure behind the design of
everything that He creates. Thankfully, He designed this universe with
unvarying gravity and strong nuclear forces.

So, in other words, we're back to "it's this way because it is" as opposed
to "it's this way because it has to be".

We're straddling a line here where we're looking back forth between God
and nature. We'd have to first determine how much of our existence can
continue just fine without intercession from God. I believe that God
has created this universe whereby life can continue to sustain itself
naturally.

That's very nice, Jim, but really not terribly useful to the conversation.
You seem to be trying to wiggle out of the most severe flaw in your variant
of SAP, which is that there are constraints on the kinds of universes out
there.

No. They're can be ANY kind of universe in ANY amount. But, there
cannot be any just any kind of life in any universe without
supernatural intercession.

So God is limited. He does not have entire freedom in the universes he
creates. Some will require more pixie dust than others.

Can God create a universe that requires no pixie dust for life to develop?

Yes. But, it is apparent that this universe needed some "pixie dust"
for life to develop.

It's not that apparent at all, Jim.

It's quite possible that a generic Supreme Being
other universes where intelligent life developed NATURALLY. The God of
the Bible, however, seems to reserve certain events for His own direct
intervention.

And yet the Bible really doesn't tell us what events, now does it? Did God
play around with the decoupling of primordial forces? Is it God that did
that, or was that inevitable and he just needed to crank the wheel?

The Bible states the creation of various life forms before Adam and
Eve, including pre-modern humans.

Really? Where does it say anything about pre-modern humans?

Whether God literally "poofed" these
lifeforms in existence or let them develop from a proto-bacteria is a
separate discussion. The Bible indicates that God involved Himself in
the destiny of those life forms.

I don't know if God interceded in the workings of the primordial
universe.

If I had to guess right now, I'd say that God just cranked the wheel,
as you put it.







So, God designed the cosmos (it's initally this way because it is) and
then let it run with some interaction along the way (it's this way now
because it has to be). But, the interaction has to do with life being
created, not necessarily sustained.

And yet, God is limited in the universes he can create that will support
life with minimal involvement.

Yes, because of self-imposed ways of doing things.

Before we go much further with this, is there any reason you can think of
that would convince me that I should take your word for it. You seem to be
doing an awful lot of talking for God and on topics which simply aren't
addressed in the Bible at all.

There is no objective reason that you should take my word for it. You
don't know me. You don't know my life's experiences. There is no
reason for you to trust me on this topic and just start believing.

A great deal is not discussed in the Bible, and I am forced to
speculate about much of this. This speculation comes after praying
about these questions and hoping that God supernaturally provides the
answers and the style in which to respond. There are a few answers
which have been...bestowed to me over the years in a much more black
and white manner. Angels do exist, AC. But, I certainly don't expect
you to just believe me concerning this. :-)

It goes without saying why I simply cannot accept your answer, Jim.

I know. It's OK.






Tell me, could God create a universe even a little better than the one you
think we live in, where He wouldn't need to do anything at all?

Yes.

So why couldn't this be that universe?

I don't know. It would be nice. When I get to the universe which is
perfect in every way, then I'll ask God.

What does perfection have to do with anything? What precisely is
perfection, Jim?

Well, in a perfect universe, there is no lacking of anything needed,
including wisdom. Perfection is where everything is as it should be.

This seems so nebulous as to be meaningless. I really don't know what
Christians mean by perfection. I don't think Christians even know what they
mean by perfection.









If, as you say, God's potential actions and capabilities are unlimited, then
that defeats the whole "fine tuning" argument.

Well, it does get into theological aspects of His will and how He runs
the cosmos. Fine tuning makes it sound like God is doing trial and
error. Let's think of it more like God tuning the cosmos for unknown
reasons.

Call it what you will, but it looks like God is less than omnipotent to me.







As to the odds, I'm not sure what Jim even means. How does one even come up
with a means of calculating such odds? If this is truly a case of something
before the universe began, then how does one even determine the sorts of
variables.

Then let's not be so quick to proclaim that science has shown us, at
least in some general terms, how the universe began.

But we haven't, Jim. You seem to insist this, but what science has is a few
possibilities, and directions for future generations of physicists to
pursue. You have once again created a strawman of what scientists are
saying, and in part, I suspect, it's because you really have very little
idea what scientists are saying.

I was just paying attention to what is asserted in this forum and sites
like talkorigins.com. Perhaps I believed that the Big Bang theory was
promoted heavily as scientific fact when in reality it was only
conditionally asserted as the best theory for what little information
there is.

That the universe was once very hot and very dense and then began to expand
is as much a fact as anything else we have. The earliest moments are an
open question, but the Big Bang theory still holds, and whatever comes along
to fill this hole at the initial moments, whether it be brane theory or
something else entirely will still have to explain this observation. In
short, if the Big Bang disappears as a theory, it will be because it has
been subsumed into some more comprehensive theory, just as Newtonian
mechanics was subsumed into General Relativity.

OK.

So can we finally get off this "you guys are making up a singularity"
nonsense? Do you finally understand Big Bang cosmology and why we have
problems at the earliest moments trying to wrap everything together?

Yes. I never thought that you guys were just pulling this singularity
out of thin air. I just tend to look more critically on those theories
which demand a purely natural cause or conclusion.

I think the root of the problem, Jim, is that you had a rather SciFi view of
what a singularity is.

Maybe. But, you are doing a good job of helping me unlearn those SciFi
views.

It's already been explained to you. A Singularity is a point where current
mathematical models break down. It points to a point where there's a hole
in our understanding. The classic example is a black hole. We know pretty
well how they form, and we have some ideas behind what ultimately happens to
them, but because we lack a quantum theory of gravity, the singularity
remains. Once we have such a theory, the singularity, which is not some
entity, but rather a point at which mathematical models start giving
impossible answers to the numbers plugged into them, will go away.

It would be very interesting to know what happens at the center of a
black hole. Maybe nothing. Maybe the center is just one big mess of
energy and matter.












Frankly, I find the Anthropic Principle in either formulation rather silly.
It's no different than finding a penny on the sidewalk and then asking "What
are the odds of me finding this exact penny at this exact place on this
exact sidewalk at this exact moment".

If the physics, chemistry, and astrological conditions of the universe
(which could not support life at all if many of those conditions were
even slightly different) depended on that one penny in question, then
how and why the penny got there is more than just a legitimate
question.

So it's back to SAP, is it?

Well, we exist, don't we? So, unless some intelligent process
interceded, then the universe must have had the conditions for our
creation through wholly naturalistic processes.

But you just finished saying a few lines ago that God could create any
possible universe and have it produce intelligent life. Now suddenly we're
back to the "fine tuning" argument.

Which is it, Jim? Can life exist only a narrow set of physical conditions
or can it exist in many conditions?

Life, as we see it now, can naturally (no divine intercession) exist on
within a very narrow set of physical conditions. But, when God
designed the cosmos, including planning for our existence, He could
have designed it in any way that He wanted. God apparently desires for
all known life forms to exist only if the universe has very specific
constants.

So we're basically down to two possibilities; either God can't do
everything, or he's just plain fickle.

The fickle-type answer. Given His infinite knowledge, it would be more
accurate to say that there are perfect reasons for everything that He
does. But, that's only if the God of the Bible really is the Supreme
Being.

Well, if you add one unevidenced entity, why not a whole bunch?

If we assume a generic Supreme Being, then yes. You could add many.
Although, I would think that Ockham's Razor would shred any theories
which have more than one Big Boy on the Block.

Ockham's razor isn't terribly kind to even a single Big Boy. You claim the
universe requires an uncreated Creator, I claim that if you can postulate an
uncreated Creator then why not a universe that is uncreated. Neither one of
our claims is really all that legitimate, but mine at least has one less
unevidenced entity.

If you knew me before I accepted Jesus as Lord and know me today, then
you'd rethink the idea that there is no evidence that the Creator
exists.

Yes, if I accepted your claims, it would all make sense. But I don't accept
your claims at face value.

It is a supernatural miracle that I'm still alive and how I
have changed. Not much good as evidence for you on the other end of
this internet connection, but it is for me. :-)

Fair enough. But that still doesn't explain to me why I should accept the
claim that your god is uncreated, but that somehow necessity requires the
universe's creation. You almost seem to be admitting, in an evangelist way,
that there is no logical reason to accept your claim.

<snip>

--
Aaron Clausen
mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxxxx

.

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