Naturalism and human faculties...

King Mob

kelly1 wrote: »

But there is evidence for God and I find it quite convincing. Examples:

All of these have been trotted out on this forum many times before and they are all lacking when you apply even a scrap of skepticism to them.

kelly1 wrote: »

- scientifically verified miracles e.g. Lourdes.

There are no scientifically verified miracles. There are no such occurrences that have happened under conditions where other natural explanations can be completely excluded. For instance: Why can't God cure amputees? That would be rather easy to verify and impossible to explain with natural means.
For Lourdes specifically, when you compare the tiny handful of "verified" cures accepted by the church to the number of visitors to the shrine, the rate of miracles is actually much lower than the average rate of spontaneous remission for a lot of illnesses. Statistically, you are less likely to be cured if you go to Lourdes.
Further, this leads to problems of a God who's only selectively interventionist...

kelly1 wrote: »

- Scientific studies done on "near death experiences". e.g congenitally blind people being able to "see" during their NDE.

Again, no such studies have shown any such occurrence in the absence of natural explanations. All objective tests on this phenomenon have failed to show it's a case of a soul leaving a body.
Also, the reports of these things should be dubious for you since they are not compatible with the Christian view of the afterlife.

kelly1 wrote: »

- The elegance of the laws of nature and the beauty of nature (general revelation)

This is a value judgement with no baring on whether something exists or not.
I think that Spider-man is cool. But why would that make him suddenly exist?

And on top of that, it's selective cherry picking. You can wax lyrical about the beauty of a flower or the practicality of the banana (Both being the result of human selective breeding btw). But can you say the same about something like the Ebola virus. Or how about that fly who's life cycle involves laying eggs in the eyes of African children. Or cancer... Or AIDS... Or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome... Or...

kelly1 wrote: »

- Philosophical arguments for God's existence e.g the Kalam cosmological argument. Or the mathematical argument that time can stretch infinitely into the past because actual infinities cannot exist, implying that the universe must have had a beginning.

Kalam is bunk and has been long shown to be.
The universe having a begining does not imply a god, and that argument seems to exclude a God in the first place.
If time can't stretch back infinitely, how can God always exist? Some things can stretch back infinitely?

kelly1 wrote: »

- The philosophical argument from morality.

Ignoring how God is not moral, nor an explanation for morality nor a good basis for morality: it's irrelevant.

kelly1 wrote: »

- Fine-tuning of the universe and multiverse models.

- Apparent intelligence behind the design of the universe and biological life.

More cherry picking arguments. Leaving aside Tsetse flies and cancer etc. 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999*% of the volume of the observable universe would kill us pretty much instantly. I fail to see how this is finely tuned.

kelly1 wrote: »

- The fact the every culture in history appear to have a strong need to find transcendent meaning in life.

Leaving aside how this isn't actually the case: Most other religions are completely and utterly incompatible with your beliefs to the point that you cannot believe both, both cannot be true and both cannot be talking about the same thing. For example: Religions that believe in multiple gods or religions that believe in reincarnation.

You reject these religions as being completely wrong, so you can't really then also claim they support your beliefs. It's a bit self contradictory as well as a bit ethnocentric and ignorant...

smacl

kelly1 wrote: »

ok, gotcha. A process of elimination can be applied here. Any religion which claims something illogical must be eliminated.

e.g lets say science proves that the universe had a beginning but some religion e.g. Hinduism says that the universe had no beginning, the we can rule it out.

Another religion e.g Islam says that Jesus was never crucified but the historical records show that he was, then we can rule Islam out as being false.

Then we takes what left and weigh them up based on evidence for their truth claim.

Christianity is constantly at odds with science though, whether its from the more obvious creationist guff such as Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, the age of the Earth, or simply insisting that miracles are real, e.g. water to wine, people getting turned into pillars of salt, transubstantiation involving the body of Christ or whatever.

As for Jesus and the Crucifixion, the historicity of Jesus thread might be worth a read as would Bart Ehrman. Religions are prone to invent their own history to fit in with their mythology and Christianity is no exception.

Blowfish

kelly1 wrote: »

Yes, this is a problem. So I think the sensible approach is to start with 'general revelation' i.e what we can deduce about God from nature and what He has created and then consider the 'special revelations' from each religion and decide which, if any, is the most plausible.

Even starting with that shows your confirmation bias. Why are you starting with the assumption of a God, rather than multiple Gods? Why couldn't each bit of (your claimed) evidence be evidence from a different God?

Further, why are you assuming that the 'special' revelations have to fit into Earth's existing religions? In other words, why do you presume that God(s) gives a shit about us?

To use the general/special revelation for evidence of anything, you have to squeeze so many assumptions into the required narrative that far from being the explanation that makes the most sense, you end up jumping through so many hoops to explain it that it borders on absurdity.

kelly1

King Mob and BlowFish, I didn't start this thread to argue for God's existence so I not going to get dragged into that topic.

I started this thread to argue that a materialistic view of the universe:

1) has nothing to offer in terms of explaining consciousness.

2) leads to the conclusion that free will does not exist and any semblance of it can only be an illusion.

3) has nothing to offer in terms of explaining the human ability to reason. We have no reason to suppose that thoughts produced by matter/energy have any relationship to truth.

On point 1, all I've heard is that conscious must come from matter because that's all that exists. But I don't accept the materialistic view. This is an assumption. I don't think we're going to make any progress on this one.

On point 2, everybody here seems to accept there is no actual free-will, but only the illusion.
Again I don't agree, because my experience of life tells me otherwise.

On point 3, I've had very little engagement. Nobody seems to be quite grasping this one.

Now if we could focus on point 3, and the leave out the God debate, that would be great.

King Mob

kelly1 wrote: »

On point 1, all I've heard is that conscious must come from matter because that's all that exists. But I don't accept the materialistic view. This is an assumption. I don't think we're going to make any progress on this one.

But we explained that it is not an assumption, it is a conclusion based on observation. Nothing non-material or supernatural has been observed.
Please point to an example of something non-material that you can show for a fact is real and is not fictional.
You also have failed to explain how materialism will fail to explain consciousness other than your assumption that there is some supernatural element, which you have also not explained at all.
I have also pointed out that on top of this, using supernaturalism, you fail to actually explain consciousness since "ooooh magic" is not an explanation.

kelly1 wrote: »

On point 2, everybody here seems to accept there is no actual free-will, but only the illusion.
Again I don't agree, because my experience of life tells me otherwise.

Yet, by your own definition of free will, you cannot have it if God exists. You keep dodging this.

kelly1 wrote: »

On point 3, I've had very little engagement. Nobody seems to be quite grasping this one.

This is because your point is based on flawed reasoning and assumptions stemming from other points.
I have addressed this directly. If reason and rationality are not reliable, how is it possible that objective scientific predictions can be made with any accuracy?
Like for example: Einstein's predictions of gravitation lensing. Halley predicting his comet's return. Predicting and detecting the Higgs Boson.

None of these required faith or supernaturalism, yet they produced firm, testable, accurate and verifiable predictions that were shown to be true.

How would the universe being only materialistic effect this? How does God/magic explain this?

RichieO

Sorry kelly but I am NOT apologising, there is a reason you will not get the answers you are looking for if you start from the premise that god made humans a few thousands years ago, if you study evolution in great depth, you will find some answers... If you were half as smart as you think you are, you would have realised that man made gods, and not vice versa... Religion is THE greatest legal con on the planet and only brainwashing kids can achieve that... This is not just my opinion, but that of almost all of the greatest intellectuals ever born...

smacl

kelly1 wrote: »

King Mob and BlowFish, I didn't start this thread to argue for God's existence so I not going to get dragged into that topic.

Unfortunately though you're on an atheist forum and your point of view is predicated on the existence of God. People here don't accept that predicate so your argument has no real merit.

Now if we could focus on point 3, and the leave out the God debate, that would be great.

You believe you have free will based on your subjective experience. Now imagine you could think as you do but didn't have free will, how would you know?

kelly1

King Mob wrote: »

But we explained that it is not an assumption, it is a conclusion based on observation. Nothing non-material or supernatural has been observed.

I agree that supernatural "things" can't be observed directly (most of the time). i.e. you can't create an experiment to detect the supernatural. But I would claim that we can see the effects of supernatural activity, for example:
- Miracles
- Near death experiences
- Exorcisms
- Paranormal activity

King Mob wrote: »

Please point to an example of something non-material that you can show for a fact is real and is not fictional.

Love, mercy, justice, rights, freedom, mathematics etc.

King Mob wrote: »

You also have failed to explain how materialism will fail to explain consciousness other than your assumption that there is some supernatural element, which you have also not explained at all.

My point is that people here are assuming that consciousness emerges from matter and the only evidence being offered is a lack of evidence for the supernatural. It's a big assumption!

Maybe science will someday discover the mechanism, who knows.

King Mob wrote: »

Yet, by your own definition of free will, you cannot have it if God exists. You keep dodging this.

I don't understand this. How does God deny free will?

King Mob wrote: »

This is because your point is based on flawed reasoning and assumptions stemming from other points.
I have addressed this directly. If reason and rationality are not reliable, how is it possible that objective scientific predictions can be made with any accuracy?
Like for example: Einstein's predictions of gravitation lensing. Halley predicting his comet's return. Predicting and detecting the Higgs Boson.

None of these required faith or supernaturalism, yet they produced firm, testable, accurate and verifiable predictions that were shown to be true.

How would the universe being only materialistic effect this? How does God/magic explain this?

Again, there is an *assumption* here that reason somehow emerges from matter/energy. Matter is assumed to be the source because there is no scientific evidence for the supernatural. Isn't reason the ability to arrive at truths by means of cognitive processes? If reasoning is driven by physical processes, how can we assume those processes arrive at any kind of truth? Something similar could be said about evolution of the brain. If the goal of evolution is survival and survival is not necessarily dependent of truth, why assume evolution produces a brain whose goal is truth?

Is that not a reasonable point?

King Mob

kelly1 wrote: »

I agree that supernatural "things" can't be observed directly (most of the time). i.e. you can't create an experiment to detect the supernatural. But I would claim that we can see the effects of supernatural activity, for example:
- Miracles
- Near death experiences
- Exorcisms
- Paranormal activity

Nope. No supernatural events have ever been shown to happen in conditions that exclude delusion, trickery or other natural explanations.
Exorcisms on top of being not paranormal, they are disgusting abuses of people with mental health issues.

Also, if you cannot create an experiment to detect something, that means it does not interact with reality, therefore it cannot produce physical effects. If it does interact with reality, then you can detect it and devise an experiment.

If you can't detect it at all, then how is it different than something that is fictitious?

kelly1 wrote: »

Love, mercy, justice, rights, freedom, mathematics etc.

All of which only exist as much as humans decide they are a thing.
Please point to, say a supernatural entity that exists independent of humans.

kelly1 wrote: »

My point is that people here are assuming that consciousness emerges from matter and the only evidence being offered is a lack of evidence for the supernatural. It's a big assumption!

It's not an assumption. It's a conclusion based on the observed evidence.
The other option you are proposing is simply not taken seriously or accepted because 1. it is not supported by evidence. 2. It has lots of evidence against it. And 3. it lacks detail or explanatory power.

kelly1 wrote: »

Maybe science will someday discover the mechanism, who knows.

You did apparently because you declared several times that it could not.
Were you wrong when you claimed this.

kelly1 wrote: »

I don't understand this. How does God deny free will?

Your definition:

kelly1 wrote: »

My definition would be one's ability to freely make decisions i.e. without any coercion, force or pre-determined outcome.

First and formost, God knows the outcome of your decisions, therefore they would be predetermined.
Secondly, by using eternal rewards and punishments, he is using both coercion and force.
Thirdly, the God in the Bible liberally applies both coercion and force as well as blackmail, abuse of authority and often mind control. He often boasts about having the ability to know the future.

So by your own definition...

kelly1 wrote: »

Again, there is an *assumption* here that reason somehow emerges from matter/energy. Matter is assumed to be the source because there is no scientific evidence for the supernatural.

This is a bit nonsensical. please try again.

kelly1 wrote: »

Isn't reason the ability to arrive at truths by means of cognitive processes? If reasoning is driven by physical processes, how can we assume those processes arrive at any kind of truth?

Because as i have explained several times now: independent verification of falsifiable predictions.

kelly1 wrote: »

Something similar could be said about evolution of the brain. If the goal of evolution is survival and survival is not necessarily dependent of truth, why assume evolution produces a brain whose goal is truth?

Is that not a reasonable point?

No it is not a reasonable point because evolution does not have a "goal".

You are not making a whole lot of sense with a point you seem to think is a killer.
What do you believe a universe without god would look like with regards to truth or whatever it is you are getting at?

RichieO

Here is a video about conscious reality that does explain a lot...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyu7v7nWzfo&list=WL&index=10

kelly1

RichieO wrote: »

Sorry kelly but I am NOT apologising, there is a reason you will not get the answers you are looking for if you start from the premise that god made humans a few thousands years ago...

You're quite wrong in inferring that I'm a young earth creationist. I claimed that God created/creates souls in human bodies, nothing more.

RichieO

kelly1 wrote: »

You're quite wrong in inferring that I'm a young earth creationist. I claimed that God created/creates souls in human bodies, nothing more.

REALLY? SERIOUSLY? That makes so much more sense, I am convinced you are trolling, why else would a Christian be on an atheist thread?

Samaris

I did give a potential explanation for conciousness that I think has been skipped, kelly.

MrPudding

RichieO wrote: »

REALLY? SERIOUSLY? That makes so much more sense, I am convinced you are trolling, why else would a Christian be on an atheist thread?

He is an old earth creationist, which is a least 40% less ridiculous than YEC.

And we have plenty of believers that post in this forum, and that is, in my view, one of the reasons this forum is so interesting. I don't agree with a lot of what kelly1 says, and I think a lot of what he says and what be believes is nonsense, am sure he feels the same of me, but I am fairly sure he is not a troll.

MrP

kelly1

King Mob wrote: »

Nope. No supernatural events have ever been shown to happen in conditions that exclude delusion, trickery or other natural explanations.

This is the problem with the atheist's position, as I see it. You presuppose that nothing but physical matter can and does exist. So any mention of anything supernatural is immediately dismissed without any due consideration. There is evidence but you won't find it if you don't look or deny it before you even start.

King Mob wrote: »

Also, if you cannot create an experiment to detect something, that means it does not interact with reality, therefore it cannot produce physical effects. If it does interact with reality, then you can detect it and devise an experiment.

If you can't detect it at all, then how is it different than something that is fictitious?

You're thinking only in terms of physical matter. You can't force spirits to interact with you because they have a choice to respond or not.

King Mob wrote: »

It's not an assumption. It's a conclusion based on the observed evidence.
The other option you are proposing is simply not taken seriously or accepted because 1. it is not supported by evidence. 2. It has lots of evidence against it. And 3. it lacks detail or explanatory power.

I can't come to any other conclusion but that it's an assumption.

1) There is no evidence that consciousness is a property of matter. There is not even a theory as to how that might work.
2) Scientists afaik, believe that individual atoms, molecules etc don't by themselves have the property of consciousness. They don't accept that inanimate objects are conscious.
3) The assumption is that only living beings have consciousness. This consciousness is assumed to arise from the complexity of the brain which it's neurochemical processes. But afaik, there is no working theory as to how firing snapses/neurons etc could produce consciousness.

King Mob wrote: »

First and formost, God knows the outcome of your decisions, therefore they would be predetermined.

I admit this is a tricky question but I think it can be answered by saying that just because God knows what decisions we will make, that knowledge does not cause those decisions to be made. It is only knowledge, not causitive.

King Mob wrote: »

Because as i have explained several times now: independent verification of falsifiable predictions.

Again, you're only thinking in terms of matter/energy. What about philosophical/theological thinking/reason?

e.g. can God make a square circle or a rock so heavy that he can't lift it?
Is infinity just a concept or can actual infinities exist? This is pure reason, not tied to anything physical.

Can reason in this sense be explained in material terms?

smacl

MrPudding wrote: »

I am fairly sure he is not a troll.

Ah but he is more wilful that the rest of us mundane types

Blowfish

kelly1 wrote: »

1) There is no evidence that consciousness is a property of matter.

That's blatantly not true. Scientists have plenty of evidence that it's a property of matter and are getting closer to understanding exactly which parts of the brain produce it.

What they don't yet understand is why it's a property of matter.

smacl

Blowfish wrote: »

That's blatantly not true. Scientists have plenty of evidence that it's a property of matter and are getting closer to understanding exactly which parts of the brain produce it.

What they don't yet understand is why it's a property of matter.

Not so much a property as a state I'd imagine, much like a program running on a computer at a specific point in time is a state which combines matter and energy. Remove the energy and the state is lost.

kelly1

King Mob wrote: »

There are no scientifically verified miracles. There are no such occurrences that have happened under conditions where other natural explanations can be completely excluded.

I don't accept this argument. The laws of nature are called laws because matter behaves consistently across the entire universe. The same must apply to the human body.

Let's take an example of Louis Bouriette from Lourdes.

"...he had been afflicted with a complete loss of vision in the right eye for two years. This serious disturbance resulted from an accident in the mine, which 19 years before had irreversibly injured his eye..." and later

"When the chance came to use this water, l started to pray to Our Lady of the Grotto, and humbly begged her to be with me when I bathed my eye with the water from the fountain.

I bathed and rebathed my right eye repeatedly in the space of a short time, and after these ablutions my sight was excellent, just as it is now".

Let's assume the man was checked out by a doctor and the doc say, yes, his sight is back to normal and we have no way of explaining this.

Why assume there was a natural explanation when we all know that eyes damaged by trauma don't just start working again for no apparent reason.
Why did his cure coincide with his praying at the grotto and bathing of his eyes? Is such an external action on the eyes likely to fix inner physical damage? And the atheist/naturalist response is "we have no explanation but it must be natural". Why must it be? Were the laws of nature suspended? Have we ever seen this happen in a scientific experiment? Did gravity ever repel instead of attract?? It just doesn't happen.

King Mob wrote: »

Again, no such studies have shown any such occurrence in the absence of natural explanations. All objective tests on this phenomenon have failed to show it's a case of a soul leaving a body.

Studies have been done on people who were blind from birth and died on the operating table and when they somehow were able to see in a new hyper-real reality. They were able to describe what's was in the operating theatre. Congenitally blind people can't even see in dreams!

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread483913/pg1

This is a value judgement with no baring on whether something exists or not.
I think that Spider-man is cool. But why would that make him suddenly exist?

King Mob wrote: »

Kalam is bunk and has been long shown to be.
The universe having a begining does not imply a god, and that argument seems to exclude a God in the first place.
If time can't stretch back infinitely, how can God always exist? Some things can stretch back infinitely?

Debunked, is that a fact? The universe coming into existence out of nothing most definitely requires an explanation and it can't be a natural explanation since "nothing" does not include nature.

How does the argument exclude God, considering God is not defined to be "natural" in the first place?

Lots of scientists find it very hard to accept that the universe had a beginning because of the implications that entails. So they proposed that the universe always existed eternally to the past.

But there are philosophical arguments against actual infinities (of time) because actual infinities lead to absurdities e.g Hilbert's Hotel argument.

Then there is the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem which says that *any* mathematical model of the universe which is expanding on average, must be past finite. Now William Lane Craig used this argument and Lawrence Krauss tried to debunk that argument rather dishonestly. See the vid below for details.

King Mob wrote: »

Ignoring how God is not moral, nor an explanation for morality nor a good basis for morality: it's irrelevant.

The argument demonstrate that objective morality cannot exist under a naturalistic worldview and that morality must be grounded in God:

King Mob wrote: »

Leaving aside how this isn't actually the case: Most other religions are completely and utterly incompatible with your beliefs to the point that you cannot believe both, both cannot be true and both cannot be talking about the same thing. For example: Religions that believe in multiple gods or religions that believe in reincarnation.....

The point is that humans have an obvious in-built need for transcendence or to find meaning through a higher power(s). This demands an explanation. I don't think evolution has anything to offer here.

kelly1

Blowfish wrote: »

That's blatantly not true. Scientists have plenty of evidence that it's a property of matter and are getting closer to understanding exactly which parts of the brain produce it.

What they don't yet understand is why it's a property of matter.

ok, so people who are conscious show activity in the brainstem. We've known for a long time that thoughts are associated with brain activity. The question is whether this brain activity produces consciousness or if it's caused by "mind" operating on the brain. I don't think science has settled this. We see the brain activity but we don't know how consciousness arises. Honestly I find it hard to even get my head around these ideas.

King Mob

kelly1 wrote: »

Let's assume the man was checked out by a doctor and the doc say, yes, his sight is back to normal and we have no way of explaining this.

No... let's not assume this. Let's check this first.

kelly1 wrote: »

Why assume there was a natural explanation when we all know that eyes damaged by trauma don't just start working again for no apparent reason.
Why did his cure coincide with his praying at the grotto and bathing of his eyes? Is such an external action on the eyes likely to fix inner physical damage? And the atheist/naturalist response is "we have no explanation but it must be natural". Why must it be? Were the laws of nature suspended? Have we ever seen this happen in a scientific experiment? Did gravity ever repel instead of attract?? It just doesn't happen.

Why do we assume that his problem with his eye was permanent?
How do we how that his cure coincided with his visit to the grotto?
How do we know that his eye was actually damaged in the first place?
How do we know this was an actual person who actually existed and actually went to Lourdes at all?

How come the instance of "cures" are so low at Lourdes? Why does God not magic everyone better there?
How come you can't point to any examples of amputees regrowing their limbs at Lourdes? Can God not do that?

kelly1 wrote: »

Studies have been done on people who were blind from birth and died on the operating table and when they somehow were able to see in a new hyper-real reality. They were able to describe what's was in the operating theatre. Congenitally blind people can't even see in dreams!

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread483913/pg1

Sorry, you're going to have to find a more reliable source that that cesspool of abject nonsense.
Please link to a study in a reliable, recognised journal.

kelly1 wrote: »

Debunked, is that a fact? The universe coming into existence out of nothing most definitely requires an explanation and it can't be a natural explanation since "nothing" does not include nature.

How does the argument exclude God, considering God is not defined to be "natural" in the first place?

The argument is self contradicting and self defeating.
Every rule you lay out is immediately broken by the idea of God.
"Everything has to have a beginnning, except God doesn't"
"Nothing can be infinite, except God can be."
"Nothing can exist without a cause, but God doesn't need a cause."
It's special pleading.

Secondly, even if you ignore that problem, the argument does not support the idea of an intelligent cause nor does it support the idea of the God you believe in. The problem can still be answered by inserting a natural, unintelligent first cause.
So yea, dumb debunked argument.

kelly1 wrote: »

Lots of scientists find it very hard to accept that the universe had a beginning because of the implications that entails. So they proposed that the universe always existed eternally to the past.

Um... Most scientists today accept the Big Bang model...
Scientists haven't accepted the idea of an infinitely existing universe since the turn of the 20th century...
You might need to update the old news feed there...

kelly1 wrote: »

The argument demonstrate that objective morality cannot exist under a naturalistic worldview and that morality must be grounded in God:

Even if this argument held (it doesn't). It's irrelevant. Whether or not objective morality exists, it has no baring on the other questions at all. If objective moral can't exist without god, then I guess that means there's no objective morality...

kelly1 wrote: »

The point is that humans have an obvious in-built need for transcendence or to find meaning through a higher power(s). This demands an explanation. I don't think evolution has anything to offer here.

But again, this is just your ignorant ethnocentrist view of other religions. They all do not attempt to answer the same questions you assume they do. Lots don't believe in "higher" powers. Lots don't make claims about life's meaning. Lots don't have an afterlife.
And again, not every single culture has a religion.

And even then, you believe every single other option is completely and utterly wrong. So how could their belief support yours? Does your belief in your religion support their beliefs?
How could they have gotten it so completely wrong while you and the small number of people who share your specific beliefs have gotten it exactly right?
Bit arrogant, no?

King Mob

kelly1 wrote: »

ok, so people who are conscious show activity in the brainstem. We've known for a long time that thoughts are associated with brain activity. The question is whether this brain activity produces consciousness or if it's caused by "mind" operating on the brain. I don't think science has settled this. We see the brain activity but we don't know how consciousness arises. Honestly I find it hard to even get my head around these ideas.

This is called an argument from ignorance and an argument from incredulity.
Just because you don't know the answer or can't understand the answer, it doesn't follow that God did it.

Can you personally explain every detail of the process that causes lightning?
No?
Then I guess it's a safe conclusion that it's Thor fighting the frost giants of Jotunhiem again right?

kelly1

I'm leaving the miracles argument out, it's going nowhere. You're taking your skepticism way too far. It's a wonder you belief yourself!

King Mob wrote: »

The argument is self contradicting and self defeating.
Every rule you lay out is immediately broken by the idea of God.
"Everything has to have a beginnning, except God doesn't"
"Nothing can be infinite, except God can be."
"Nothing can exist without a cause, but God doesn't need a cause."
It's special pleading.

Not special pleading at all. It's the only thing that makes sense!

If the universe had no beginning, then we have an infinite chain of cause and effect. And I think we agree that you can't go back forever, it makes no sense and actual infinities are arguably impossible.

If that's the case, then as you go back in time, you have to stop at something which has no cause. Nothing else makes sense. Let's not do as Richard Dawkin's has done by asking, what caused God. It's nonsense. Abject nonsense even. (Atheists seems to be very fond of the abject nonsense phrase).

According to the Kalam argument, everything which begins to exist must have a cause. But the argument is that God had no beginning. If God had a beginning, then you have to keep going back along the infinite chain.

King Mob wrote: »

....The problem can still be answered by inserting a natural, unintelligent first cause.
So yea, dumb debunked argument.

No, no, no, not debunked. Not so fast! There's your bias popping up again.

If the universe had a beginning, then "before" the beginning, there was nothing and nowhere. Not even zilch. So you can't offer an natural/physical explanation where there is nothing physical there to explain it!

King Mob wrote: »

Um... Most scientists today accept the Big Bang model...
Scientists haven't accepted the idea of an infinitely existing universe since the turn of the 20th century...
You might need to update the old news feed there...

Pretty sure you're wrong on that score. e.g this article. A universe with a beginning is not a comfortable proposition for a scientist.

King Mob wrote: »

....How could they have gotten it so completely wrong while you and the small number of people who share your specific beliefs have gotten it exactly right?
Bit arrogant, no?

1) knowledge about God must be based on divine revelation.
2) 2.2 billion Christians is not a small number.
3) I don't know for certain that Christianity is true. But I think it's the most plausible religion based on the historical evidence.
4) There's no arrogance is a well-founded belief.

kelly1

So here we are at post #115 and nobody has budged an inch. No concessions whatsoever. Nothing exists but physical matter, end of discussion.

Tough crowd!

pauldla

On post #114 above, would kelly1 like to give examples of 'historical evidence'?

King Mob

kelly1 wrote: »

I'm leaving the miracles argument out, it's going nowhere. You're taking your skepticism way too far. It's a wonder you belief yourself!

It's the most basic level of skepticism.
If not immediately believing random unverifiable fantastic claims from anonymous sources quoting anonymous sources using century old medical records is too much skepticism...

Again, you keep dodging this question: Why can you not point to any amputees who have been cured by miracle?
Can God not cure them?

kelly1 wrote: »

Not special pleading at all. It's the only thing that makes sense!

It's exactly special pleading. You are making up and assuming rules then in the same sentence saying that God is excluded from your rules.

kelly1 wrote: »

If the universe had no beginning, then we have an infinite chain of cause and effect. And I think we agree that you can't go back forever, it makes no sense and actual infinities are arguably impossible.

Why is it impossible?
Why can't it be an infinite chain?

Why can God go back forever?

kelly1 wrote: »

Let's not do as Richard Dawkin's has done by asking, what caused God. It's nonsense. Abject nonsense even. (Atheists seems to be very fond of the abject nonsense phrase).

It's not nonsense, you just don't get what the question is asking.
You say that everything must have a cause. But then at the same time, claim that God has no cause.
These things are a contradiction.
So either god has a cause, or things don't always need a cause.
Which is it cause it can't be both.

kelly1 wrote: »

According to the Kalam argument, everything which begins to exist must have a cause. But the argument is that God had no beginning. If God had a beginning, then you have to keep going back along the infinite chain.

But this has two baseless assumptions.
1. Everything that begins must have a cause.
2. God has no beginning.

It also has the baseless assumption that any such prime cause is anything like a God ie, intelligent, magic, moral etc...

kelly1 wrote: »

If the universe had a beginning, then "before" the beginning, there was nothing and nowhere. Not even zilch. So you can't offer an natural/physical explanation where there is nothing physical there to explain it!

Then how does god explain it?
How does he actually make something out of nothing?
Magic?

kelly1 wrote: »

Pretty sure you're wrong on that score. e.g

No. I'm right on this. One article about fringe theories does not say anything about the beliefs of a majority of scientists.

kelly1 wrote: »

1) knowledge about God must be based on divine revelation.
2) 2.2 billion Christians is not a small number.
3) I don't know for certain that Christianity is true. But I think it's the most plausible religion based on the historical evidence.
4) There's no arrogance is a well-founded belief.

All religions claim divine revelation. You believe they are all wrong.
There are 7 billion people on the planet. That's 4.8 billion people who do not accept Christianity. So you can't really use an argument from authority...
Further of those 2.2 billion, not all of them believe in your specific flavour of christianity. And of those who do, you probably disagree a lot with them...
Also I wouldn't be so confident about the historical basis for your beliefs either. Lots of people have come here sure of the same thing until a poster called oldrnwisr blew them out of the water. You should have a read of his posts concerning the historical claims of the bible.

And yea, it's arrogance to claim that everyone who disagrees with you somehow supports your particular belief.
It's arrogance to claim that your particular belief is superior because the creator of the universe magically talks to you personally...

smacl

kelly1 wrote: »

And I think we agree that you can't go back forever, it makes no sense and actual infinities are arguably impossible.

Pretty sure you're wrong on that score. e.g this article. A universe with a beginning is not a comfortable proposition for a scientist.

You do realise that the article you linked directly contradicts your own previous point in the same post. Are you trying to make Dan Quayle look well informed?

King Mob

kelly1 wrote: »

So here we are at post #115 and nobody has budged an inch. No concessions whatsoever. Nothing exists but physical matter, end of discussion.

Tough crowd!

I'm sorry we don't believe something when someone doesn't provide any good reason to believe it.

Maybe it's not because we're being stubborn, but rather you aren't very convincing...?

So far all you have provided is your own belief and then unverified supernatural claims supported only by a link from a conspiracy theory website, which you have now abandoned...

So tell you what. You provide a single example of a miracle that you can show for an absolute fact happened, can confirm the details to a reasonable degree and for which the only possible explanation is something supernatural.
If that holds up, then maybe you can convince people.

If you can't provide this or have to avoid the challenge, then maybe you should start asking yourself why this is the case...

King Mob

smacl wrote: »

You do realise that the article you linked directly contradicts your own previous point in the same post. Are you trying to make Dan Quayle look well informed?

It also contradicts the point they were making there.
Kelly1 claimed that most scientists don't believe the universe has a beginning. The article explains how the majority of scientists believe in the big bang.

smacl

kelly1 wrote: »

So here we are at post #115 and nobody has budged an inch. No concessions whatsoever. Nothing exists but physical matter, end of discussion.

Tough crowd!

You've had pretty much every point you've made soundly rebutted and yet you continue to plough on regardless. Then you come and accuse us of intransigence? C'mon now Ted, if its shifting you're looking for, look no further than your own position.