Re: Atheists are the biggest fools on Earth


TomS wrote:
"On 20 Mar 2006 18:56:10 -0800, in article
<1142909770.606915.282760@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Jim Spaza stated..."


TomS wrote:
[...snip...]
Whatever benefits there are to your hypothesis ... and I am *not*
denying it, and I am not denying its benefits ... it doesn't work as
an alternative (or supplement) to science. And I hasten to point out
that it's OK for something not to be a science, and it's OK not to
offer an explanation.

I know. It's cool.


Even if science is not able to give an explanation for something-
or-other, the "Supreme Being hypothesis" most assuredly doesn't. Even
if there is no conceivable scientific explanation for the singularity
of the Big Bang, the "Supreme Being hypothesis" doesn't fill that gap.

Well, perhaps it does in this respect. Let's take the hypothesized
singularity at t=0 just before the Big Bang happened. If not for a
Being of infinite power, what power or system created the singularity?
It would have to be something/someone that had a great deal more power
than all the matter, energy, time, and space of this universe
combined...

...unless someone is now going to assert that laws of entropy no longer
apply either. So, scientists painted themselves into a corner with the
necessary demands and consequences of placing the entire universe into
something smaller than a dime. To get out, they dismissed all laws of
physics and chemistry and through out continuum of time as well. I
wonder if they'd do the same with entropy.

Since every law of the universe would be completely violated, isn't it
far more likely that either this mystical singularity never existed to
begin with or it took an infinite Being to create it?

Your assumption ... which, for the sake of discussion, I will
not dispute ... is that there is no possible scientific explanation
for something or other. (The Big Bang.)

From this, you say, if there is no scientific explanation, then
the only thing available is a Being Of Infinite Power.

Yes.


Again, I'm not going to dispute that.

My question is whether such a Being offers an explanation. Or
whether, with such a Being, we aren't in the same fix as to having
no explanation.

Well, from the aspect of scientific exploration, the conclusion that a
Supreme Being created the universe would seem to be an end of sorts of
any endeavors of discovery.


To suggest something as an explanation, there ought to be
some connection between the properties of the explanatory factor
and the properties of the thing being explained. There ought to
be some way of telling "why this, and not something else" results
from the explanatory factor.

As to the first: What is there about a Being Of Infinite Power
that would lead to a Big Bang, or anything else in the world? What
do we know about such a Being that would lead to something about
the world? How could we predict, from our knowledge about that
Being, that there would be a Big Bang? (And, I include in this,
"retrodiction", too. Now that we know that there was a Big Bang,
what is there about this Being that would make a Big Bang a
plausible result?)

Well, if a Supreme Being created the universe and it wasn't a natural
process, then we can look at the created universe and infer the
character of the Supreme Being from the characteristics of the
creation.

For example, the existence of physical laws would infer that this
Supreme Being likes order over chaos.

We wouldn't know anything about this generic Supreme Being apart from
an analysis of the universe...assuming that some direct communication
never occurs. So, we would look at the creation first to learn about
the Creator.

We wouldn't be able to predict a Big Bang event simply by guess at the
character of this Supreme Being. Now, we might be able to guess at a
Big Bang event AFTER looking at the rest of the universe first and
making assessments about the Supreme Being.

Actually, the existence of the Supreme Being might just point away from
a natural process via the Big Bang expansion and point toward a simple
creation event.


As to the second: Why not - rather than a Big Bang - a Steady
State Universe, or a Multiverse, or an Infinite Cycle Of Returns,
or, lots of other logically possible situations; what about No
Material World?

Steady State? Multiverse? Why couldn't you ask an easier question?
:-)

OK. A Steady State universe is more of what I believe in, given my
belief that God just creation the universe already mostly expanded.

A multiverse? Sure, why not? Actually, I believe this too.

Infinite cycle of returns? There would seem to be nothing in the
Supreme Being's character as inferred by analysis of this universe to
indicate an infinite cycle of returns as opposed to a single beginning
and infinite future.

No material world? You mean, everything is actually energy when we
look beyond the subatomic level? It may be, although I can see nothing
in this universe to indicate such a thing would be God's design.




Aside from all of that, think for a moment about the idea that a
Supreme Being "tweaked something because he wants it just so". Does
that mean that the Supreme Being was presented with a universe in
which things were not "just so", and then decided that it wasn't to
his liking, so he tweaked it?

No. It means that He might have designed something, place it into
existence, and then changed it after the fact for whatever reason.
You're assuming that a perfect Being never changes anything that He
creates. Maybe God purposefully created imperfection, let it run for a
few milliseconds, and changed it just because He felt like it. It's
not like He had to answer to anyone for doing it.

And all of this is, simply, to say that you don't intend to
offer an explanation.

I'm willing to admit that, when it comes to the Supreme Being, a living
entity that has always existed, somethings will always remain unknown.


Which is fine. I'm not offering an explanation, either.


--
---Tom S. <http://talkreason.org/articles/chickegg.cfm>
"It is not too much to say that every indication of Design in the Kosmos is so
much evidence against the Omnipotence of the Designer. ... The evidences ... of
Natural Theology distinctly imply that the author of the Kosmos worked under
limitations..." John Stuart Mill, "Theism", Part II

.

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