INDISPUTABLE Rational Proof That God Exists (Or Existed)

[Thief]

Ah, more belief presented as fact.
At least you are consistent.

No...really....
We all take a turn...
We let it out...and it never comes back.

But I see no reason to say...this is the end.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I did not claim it was an explanation of everything. No theory is. Why is that a criteria for anything. It is however the most accepted model of cosmology and it contains a finite universe. So does BGV, and every other reliable theory based on good evidence. All these infinite things are fantasies that nothing real testifies to.

Fantasy and theory are two very different things. There is a lot of math, science and thought behind all of those theories. No one is proposing them as pure fact but don't demean them with the word "fantasy"
Although the reason why many use finite universe views in their modles is because we haven't the capability to work with infinity in modles. Its a human limitation not a limitation set on the universe per se.

The BBT says that the initial expansion is creating the space it is growing into. Of course there are questions. That is true of any theory.

Yes.

The theory is not said by me or anyone to directly suggest God. It does however suggest the universe began to exist and that it does not contain the cause of its self within its self. That does posit a creator. Philosophy takes over at that point and tells us what type of a creator the universe mandates. Theology steps is and compares the God of the Bible with what the Philosophers resolved form the science and they match perfectly. There is no way to know if it is correct this side of the dirt but it has no known flaw in its logical progression either. There is no flaw in the logic from what we have back through the BBT and BGV and eventually to God.

There are flaws. Quite a few. I'll focus on the few.
1) The idea that the universe began to exist does not mean it had to be created from something outside itself.
2) We don't know enough to say without a doubt that the universe was "created" as time only started when the universe began by our current modles (which may be dead wrong).
3) Even if it did start, and was started by something outside our universe it dose not give any weight to the god argument. It does not have to be a god and it supports the multiverse thoery just as much if not significantly more.

So there are the logical hiccups in your argument that are shining the most glaring.

My argument is A + B + C = X. The claim I used for A stands as A and perfectly fulfills its roll in that equation. I think you must be saying well A does not prove X, but I was not using A to prove X alone. It is a simple causal progression and each link in it's chain is the best fit for it's link position known.

Causality isn't not required in several different aspects of physics and nature. Also your argument is A+B+C=X however the B, C and X parts don't necessarily follow.

A is "The unvierse is finite", B is "so there must have been another outside source to create it". The B hinges on the idea that the universe has to have a cuase. This is not proven and is every bit as "fantasy" as the multiverse or any infinity. The C in your argument is "There is no physical explination for the begining in science that can be proven ergo---" which brings us to your point in X, "god did it". Which by itself even if the A,B and C were viable is still not viable.

You are using causality, which can only exist in the presence of "time", as proof for something that happened in a situation where time didn't exist. Thats like me trying to use Florida Law to impose something in China.

How do you know if there are infinite anything. Their infinite you can't count them. No division of anything contains an infinite. Nothing with attributes not KNOWN to be infinite can produce infinite results. The Quantum is a black hole where maybe 1% of the best scientists understand 5% of it so far. Stating any certainty about the Quantum is meaningless. What it is not known to do it produce its self. Quantum is anew type but still natural law. Natural law can't create nature. It can't bring anything into existence of any type. The quantum is part of the finite universe and needs a cause just as much as the rest and even if it did not you would have no way to know that.

The fact we cant count them means its infinite. So thats how I know they are infinite.

Then after that you kind of fell into a bunch of pseudo-science that is a mix of incorrect and baseless.

Theoretical cosmology as it concerns infinites actualities, multiverses, oscillation universes, bubble universes, M theory, maybe even string theory to a point. In short every single scientific claim that is used or misused to contend with God comes from the least reliable part of an unreliable field of science. The fictional end of theoretical cosmology. I did not use science to get directly to God though God is the best explanation for many natural things and events. I used science for what it can do. Show the universe began to exist and could nit have created its self. Se the above for he steps. This same cosmological argument has been bulletproof since the Greeks. No matter how much ado is made about nothing it is still standing as tall as ever and has no known flaw and the more about the universe we learn the more absolute it gets. I made no God design argument so I did not understand that question.

I didn't say you used a god design argument. But you did take a bunch of missteps.
"Can't prove"/"hasn't proven"/"has yet to be proven" does not mean "Impossible".

You have not proven that the universe didn't create itself nor have your provided a full argument that supports the idea that God is the best logical answer.

 

[cottage]

1. We know we have a single universe that is almost certainly finite in all respects.

.We do not ‘know’ there is a single universe. And we don’t ‘know’ that the universe is finite either. In 1779 David Hume asked ‘Why may the world not be the Supreme Being, since we know not all the qualities of matter?’ The question is as relevant today as it was then. In classical theism God is immanent, that is to say he is both transcendent and within his creation. If that is possible then by the same reasoning so is an infinite self-existent universe not limited by its form and matter. As a matter of plain fact the universe has more going for it since unlike God it actually exists and unlike God it cannot be denied without self-contradiction.

2. We only have two choices for what created it. Nature and things beyond nature.

There are three possibilities! Creation is an arbitrary term. No things in the physical world, automobiles, computers, tables and chairs etc, begin to exist as if there was nothing there in the first place for we do not create anything in the physical world, not objects, not thoughts, not even children; we just apply, adapt, or respond to what is already there. This synthesis doesn’t occur with the introduction of something that didn’t previously exist and then began to exist but comprises a change or variation in the form of existent physical matter or our ideas. Even our most fantastic imaginings, for example, are not created from nothing but compounded from general experience. Therefore all change and motion is subject to a causal principle applying to the cause of every effect and its preceding cause, but while all things changing and in motion need to be caused in that respect they are not created. So the possibilities are that the world is 1) self-existent*; 2) caused to exist by an external agent; 3) uncaused and finite. All three are contingent upon causation in order to be sustainable, which fits with what we know and understand about the world, but (2) is dependent upon causation in order to come into existence. So an external causal agent (2) doesn’t fit with what we know of the world because causation isn’t synonymous with ‘creation’. And the second point is that the external agent cannot be the Supreme Being if it is absurdly dependent upon a contingent principle. Now unlike the putative external agent a self-existent world invites no such contradiction because causation is internal to the concept. The last possibility (3): as there is no logical necessity for the principle to exist other than in the material world the principle itself is rejected as a cause of its being. Hume explains it thus: “’Tis sufficient only to observe that when we exclude all causes we really do exclude them, and neither suppose nothing nor the object itself to be the causes of the existence; and consequently can draw no argument from the absurdity of these suppositions to prove the absurdity of that conclusion.” *Please note that ‘self-existent’ does not mean does not mean a thing is the cause of its own existence but simply that it sustains itself and answers to no other thing.

3. We have no reason to think nature produced its self. Natural law has no creative potential.

Indeed, there are no known instances of anything being created by anything!

4. We only have the realm beyond nature left to produce what we have.

And where is this realm to be found, might I ask?

5. We know from the philosophy of sufficient causation, that whatever created time is independent from it, whatever created matter is independent from it, whatever created space is independent from it, it must be personal, it must be unimaginably powerful, unimaginably intelligent, rational, and maybe even benevolent.

The principle of sufficient causation, as the name implies, does not require a cause to be ‘unimaginably powerful’ for we can only infer what is exactly sufficient to produce the effect (Hume). And nor must it be ‘unimaginably intelligent’. In fact it doesn’t even make proper sense to say your God is ‘intelligent’ since all references to intelligence are founded in mind, that is to say a cognitive ability to reason, plan and form ideas. Our understanding of intelligence is, as Alan Turing said: ‘to respond like a human being’. So to say God shares this similarity with man is to say God has human traits. But clearly in the case of an omniscient Being there is no learning from experience, no problem solving, no gaining of knowledge and no coping with adverse situations. Is it really being said with a straight face that an omniscient being has to learn and understand in order to deal with new or surprising situations. And nor can it mean the planning and forming of ideas, as there is no cognition involved, for by its very definition the concept of Supreme Being doesn’t reason: it is reason. To sum up, then, if we say God is ‘intelligent’, we are saying he is like humans, and so if this anthropomorphic God responds like a human being, even an omnipotent one, then it is a notion that contradicts the concept of all sufficient, necessary being.
And there is nothing in form or matter, space and time or causation itself that implies benevolence, something that everyday experience also confirms for us.

6. I find the Bible posits a God with those characteristics thousands of years before the questions were known to fabricate an answer for, and a universe that is an exact match for this one, long before they had the instruments to determine this

1. - 5. are simplistic, consistent with all known observations and logic, and have no known exceptions. 6. Is the best and most accurate candidate for the cause of 1 - 5 known. It may be argued the only known candidate but I will keep it simple.

As I’ve explained nothing in this world is created and that is a case with no known exceptions. People die and do not return from the grave after several days while retaining the integrity of their corporeal forms – again with no known exceptions. And nor has it ever been shown that there are other-worldly beings, never mind a Supreme one that supposedly created us while impossibly having to borrow from its creation’s features in order to achieve that end. A total absurdity!
There is also a perfectly legitimate question to which I never receive an answer, other than an argumentum ad ignorantiam such as God being God must have his reasons or some other obfuscated reply. Leibniz said that even if the world has always existed there must be a sufficient reason to explain its contingent existence. And this sufficient reason he said will be God, an intelligent being that freely chose to bring the world into existence. According to the principle of sufficient reason nothing happens by chance and a thing that doesn’t have to exist but does exist needs a reason for its existence. Perhaps Leibniz overstates the principle on a question of chance, but that needn’t trouble us here and in any case his argument backfires on him for it is immediately evident that to say an intelligent, personal being freely chose to bring the world into existence is to assign a purpose to the act of creation. And there can only be two answers to that question. God created the world for himself, or for the benefit of others. Both possibilities appear incoherent. For it seems obvious that an omnipotent Supreme Being, who is sufficient in all things, cannot have needs, unfulfilled wishes or desires. He has everything and is everything by definition. And nor can it be said that he created the world for the benefits of others, since it is nonsensical to imply that creatures that didn’t formerly exist can benefit from anything. So it may be argued that neither God nor the world existing from eternity need a reason for being, since there will be nothing external to them, but if the world is created then there must be a reason and a purpose for its being brought into being. So what is it?

 

[cottage]

Well lets see. [/font][/color]

How would you know since you have no idea what I meant by mountain? It is enough and of a quality that compels the most intelligent and ration men in history by the millions to adopt non-intuitive and extraordinary things that have the potential to ostracize them. Many of which like me came to faith begrudgingly and kicking and screaming. In fact it seems to delight God in conquering those most opposed to him. Rome was trying to wipe Christianity out, in the end God converted the empire its self, Chesterton, Greenleaf, Lewis and many other set out to prove the Bible wrong, gave it up as impossible and converted.

Your arguments from authority, from fellow believers, are meaningless quite regardless of their number. And it is obvious from the way you are wedded to arguments from authority that you are not seeing the fundamental problem here; so allow me to demonstrate it with an analogy.


Take the Moon Landing in 1969. There are those that believe it did not take place, according to the usual conspiracy theorists and those that say it was a ploy that the US used in the cold war to display their technological superiority to the Russians. However the received wisdom is that it did take place, and that the rock samples, photographs and the film of the event are all accepted as genuine.


Now we could say why must we accept the account of the Moon Landing simply on the say so of others and not the Resurrection of Christ? Well we’ll leave aside the living witnesses and the plethora of modern data in the case of the former to give the one, single, fundamental, and crucial element that settles the difference between the two claims. Now even if we go against the received wisdom and decry the Moon Landing as a hoax it remains the case that it is still plausible in possible experience; we know there is a moon and rocket science is hardly a new discovery, and there is nothing theoretically or practically impossible in the notion of space exploration.


But now let’s return to God, a supernatural concept, and ask who, in all there professed eminence is claiming to go beyond experience, having knowledge of other worlds? The answer is none! And that’s because it is only from this world that they can speak.

 

[1robin]

Fantasy and theory are two very different things. There is a lot of math, science and thought behind all of those theories. No one is proposing them as pure fact but don't demean them with the word "fantasy"
Although the reason why many use finite universe views in their modles is because we haven't the capability to work with infinity in modles. Its a human limitation not a limitation set on the universe per se.

We do have the capacity to work with infinity in mathematics and abstract reasoning. What we do not have is evidence or any reason to think they exist in nature. Our brains are finite but that is not the reasons we can't find anything that is infinite anywhere. We can't find them because they do not exist and very good reasons exist to think they are impossible. I have a degree in math and work in a scientific field, but this isn't rocket science. It is simplistic. Find me an actual infinite actuality in nature or quit claiming their existence is not a fantasy. No there are not good mathematic reason to think multiverses exist, there are no observations of oscillating universes, what is more is that probably never could be any evidence of them known even if they did exist. However we have mountains of data on the one finite universe we have any reason to believe exists. Everything else is faith and fantasy.

1) The idea that the universe began to exist does not mean it had to be created from something outside itself.

It most certainly does. Not one thing ever known contains the reason for its existence within its self. This is a philosophical law. Laws have no known exception. Until you find me a self created thing that law and my point stand.

2) We don't know enough to say without a doubt that the universe was "created" as time only started when the universe began by our current modles (which may be dead wrong).

Everything that begins to exist has a cause. Every one ever checked, every theory ever demonstrated, every piece of reliable data proves this every single time. Nothing has no causal potential. It is the absence of something, it is no-thing. Nothing. Out of nothing, nothing comes. Are you trying to say Models? You keep saying Modles. Modal being has nothing to do with this if that is what you meant. Find me an example of what you claim here or as I said it is faith and fantasy.

3) Even if it did start, and was started by something outside our universe it dose not give any weight to the god argument. It does not have to be a god and it supports the multiverse thoery just as much if not significantly more.

Yes it does. There are only two types of reality known or believed to exist. The natural and the supernatural. The universe contains the totality of the natural. That is what the term means. Now at one point it did not exist or almost certainly didn't. It can't possibly bring its self into existence. That leaves only the supernatural available. But you can ever get closer than this. The laws of sufficient causal potential means other characteristics must be true of the cause.

1. It must be independent of time.
2. Of space.
3. Of matter.
4. Must be personal.
5. Must be more powerful than everything else combined.
6. Unimaginably intelligent.
7. Omnipresent.
8. Most likely benevolent.

Now because you do not like what these add up to you will try and dismiss them. However you cannot do so unless you can point to a known example where this was not true in a cause and effect relationship. I have run out of patience with these attempts to hand waive away an argument that has withstood scrutiny for thousands of years and has no known flaw or exception in principle. So I want proof of any failure it is claimed to have please.

So there are the logical hiccups in your argument that are shining the most glaring.

There is nothing you mentioned that even applies or is a problem if applied. That is why that argument has buried every critique it ever had and is still has no demonstrable flaws. BTW are you familiar with the argument and it's professional history? You seem to be winging it on your "objections".

Causality isn't not required in several different aspects of physics and nature. Also your argument is A+B+C=X however the B, C and X parts don't necessarily follow.

There is no known exception to causality. Ever. Please present one if you wish to claim this.

A is "The unvierse is finite", B is "so there must have been another outside source to create it". The B hinges on the idea that the universe has to have a cuase. This is not proven and is every bit as "fantasy" as the multiverse or any infinity. The C in your argument is "There is no physical explination for the begining in science that can be proven ergo---" which brings us to your point in X, "god did it". Which by itself even if the A,B and C were viable is still not viable.

Everything that begins to exist has a cause. No exceptions known. There are not even any theoretical exceptions based on actual math or physics. Not even the quantum violates that law. You have a false premise to begin with, everything built on it only makes it worse. It is proven, there are no exceptions. Find one or please stop claiming they exist.

You are using causality, which can only exist in the presence of "time", as proof for something that happened in a situation where time didn't exist. Thats like me trying to use Florida Law to impose something in China.

No, simultaneous causes have no know fault. I never mention them because they are hard to debate but no causation doe snot require time.

The fact we cant count them means its infinite. So thats how I know they are infinite.

You just are not getting this. That is exactly not true. If you can count them then they are not infinite. That is why infinity in the only place it does exist (abstract thought) is a symbol not a number. Because it can't be counted.

Then after that you kind of fell into a bunch of pseudo-science that is a mix of incorrect and baseless.

Look I was trying to be generous and considerate. However hypocrisy is where I draw the line. You are obviously not familiar with any of these issues and get most completely wrong. Not one scrap of evidence did you provide for one thing you claimed. I use advanced math every at work. I have taken calculus I, II, III, IV, advanced calculus, DE, PED, Discrete math, Cal physics I, II, II, Linear Alg, Bolean algebra, Boolean diff Calc, etc... X about 30. Infinity does not even work in math very often. It either makes equations blow up or serves as a boundary condition (asymptotic) that a function can't cross or get to, ever.

I would have been emphatic but civil even though I knew from the first statement you were out of your depth, but when you accuse me of not knowing about these issues, that is just too much.

Find me a single example of anything you claimed, or find an exception to anything I did or the debate is unnecessary. Do you want some links to the formal arguments and responses from a pure mathematics professor from Oxford or a Dean of philosophy from Cambridge to at least familiarize your self with the issue a bit more? I can put up with simply being wrong for a long time (I am wrong myself at times), but wrong + arrogant, or wrong + judgmental, or wrong + hypocritical does not deserve patience.

 

[1robin]

.We do not ‘know’ there is a single universe. And we don’t ‘know’ that the universe is finite either. In 1779 David Hume asked ‘Why may the world not be the Supreme Being, since we know not all the qualities of matter?’ The question is as relevant today as it was then. In classical theism God is immanent, that is to say he is both transcendent and within his creation. If that is possible then by the same reasoning so is an infinite self-existent universe not limited by its form and matter. As a matter of plain fact the universe has more going for it since unlike God it actually exists and unlike God it cannot be denied without self-contradiction.

That is probably why I said we almost certainly know instead of we know. I am happy to leave the possibility open. However, how is considering everything that is not proven impossible (or even at times that is) science? It is not even faith. It is pure preference. There exists no reliable evidence nor reason to think anything other than a finite single universe exists.



Vilenkin’s verdict: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.” | Uncommon Descent

I keep giving this link because it also contains very good reasons to think all the major theories that include infinities are impossible but I can't ever get a non-theist to even read it. Wonder why that is?

No Hume is of the generation of atheists that had meaningful argumentation. Nietzsche, Hume, Flew, and others have been replaced by the modern phenomena of militant atheism (which is emotionally based). However Hume was not correct many times. I can say the universe is not the supreme being because the supreme being is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. He is in philosophical and theological circles a maximal being in all great making properties. The universe is not. The universe does not even contain its own explanation. But it does contain this:

Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."
—Fred Hoyle[6]

Before I invest a lot of time in this. I want to know your here. You seem to pop in and out and that is certainly your right but you take a lot of time to debate. Send me a PM or something if you wish me to continue responding to this, please.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

This is a philosophical law.

"philosophical law"...What's that?

 

[McBell]

"philosophical law"...What's that?

um...
A statement that the rest of the bull **** balances upon?

 

[withoutcharge]

That's not proof of anything. That's just a biased point of view that, if you break it down, means you're agnostic (and that we probably all are).

 

[Monk Of Reason]

We do have the capacity to work with infinity in mathematics and abstract reasoning. What we do not have is evidence or any reason to think they exist in nature. Our brains are finite but that is not the reasons we can't find anything that is infinite anywhere. We can't find them because they do not exist and very good reasons exist to think they are impossible. I have a degree in math and work in a scientific field, but this isn't rocket science. It is simplistic. Find me an actual infinite actuality in nature or quit claiming their existence is not a fantasy. No there are not good mathematic reason to think multiverses exist, there are no observations of oscillating universes, what is more is that probably never could be any evidence of them known even if they did exist. However we have mountains of data on the one finite universe we have any reason to believe exists. Everything else is faith and fantasy.

I don't really remember laying claim to much of anything. I'm simply saying you don't have the authority or evidence to back up your assertation that they are "fantasy". When what you mean is "un-confirmed theory". You act as if there is no evidence supporting the theories. quit calling it fantasy. Now by asking you to quit calling it fantasy it does not follow that I support them as absolute truth either.

Understand tht first.

And as an example I already gave you one that you ignored. How many numbers are between 1 and 2?

It most certainly does. Not one thing ever known contains the reason for its existence within its self. This is a philosophical law. Laws have no known exception. Until you find me a self created thing that law and my point stand.

I can find you all kinds of things that happen without causality. Pretty much all of M-theory. And your talking about the creation of all these laws. If something exists in a situation without these laws then why do you still try to bind them to it? Most of science acknowledges that it doesn't know and that the begining of our universe is not something that we have been able to pin down. The Big Bang theory supposes that we were once in a singularity but there are many scientists that still support the theory that question this as even being a possiblity.

Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

Provide evidence. Because your pulling stuff out of nowhere with this accusation. We have never witnessed something comming into existence. We don't know its properties or how it would even occur. We assume that the mass of the universe is the same or "finite" as you would call it. So bring me an example that "caused" something to come into existence.

Every one ever checked, every theory ever demonstrated, every piece of reliable data proves this every single time. Nothing has no causal potential. It is the absence of something, it is no-thing. Nothing. Out of nothing, nothing comes. Are you trying to say Models? You keep saying Modles. Modal being has nothing to do with this if that is what you meant. Find me an example of what you claim here or as I said it is faith and fantasy.

I don't have to bring you anything. I haven't made a claim. I'm simply correcting you in your assumption that theories are simply fantasy.

Yes it does. There are only two types of reality known or believed to exist. The natural and the supernatural. The universe contains the totality of the natural. That is what the term means. Now at one point it did not exist or almost certainly didn't. It can't possibly bring its self into existence. That leaves only the supernatural available. But you can ever get closer than this. The laws of sufficient causal potential means other characteristics must be true of the cause.

This is a load of superstitious and unsupported crap. The supernatural has no scientific backing.

1. It must be independent of time.
2. Of space.
3. Of matter.
4. Must be personal.
5. Must be more powerful than everything else combined.
6. Unimaginably intelligent.
7. Omnipresent.
8. Most likely benevolent.

1 and 2 make sense. Everything else does not follow. Its all random qualities you tacked on because it seems to fit your god idea. Even if there was a god. Even if everything you said was true why would it have to be personal, powerful, omnipresent within the universe, intelligent or at all benevolent?

Now because you do not like what these add up to you will try and dismiss them. However you cannot do so unless you can point to a known example where this was not true in a cause and effect relationship. I have run out of patience with these attempts to hand waive away an argument that has withstood scrutiny for thousands of years and has no known flaw or exception in principle. So I want proof of any failure it is claimed to have please.

Failure to what? And it has not held up to scrutiny for thousands of years. I don't give a rats *** if there is a god or not it dosen't make your argument logical or valid. You have proposed a lot of leaps in logic and filled in the holes with fluff.

I have no discorse with god. I wanted there to be a god and honestly I still do wish there was a god. I simply can't believe it is the problem. So its not that I dismiss it on personal grounds.

There is nothing you mentioned that even applies or is a problem if applied. That is why that argument has buried every critique it ever had and is still has no demonstrable flaws. BTW are you familiar with the argument and it's professional history? You seem to be winging it on your "objections".

I don't have to. My objections still stand. You have yet to refute them.

There is no known exception to causality. Ever. Please present one if you wish to claim this.

I've already given you several in the back and forth.

Everything that begins to exist has a cause. No exceptions known. There are not even any theoretical exceptions based on actual math or physics. Not even the quantum violates that law. You have a false premise to begin with, everything built on it only makes it worse. It is proven, there are no exceptions. Find one or please stop claiming they exist.

We have never observed antyhing begining to exist. We have only observed change in the alreading existing. We have no data on "comming into existence". The only exception we have is particals like the higgs but even then they already "existed".

No, simultaneous causes have no know fault. I never mention them because they are hard to debate but no causation doe snot require time.

Actually it does. I am not talking about time between them. Time is required for change. Inversely chane is required for time. If time doesn't exist then "change" doesn't exist.

You just are not getting this. That is exactly not true. If you can count them then they are not infinite. That is why infinity in the only place it does exist (abstract thought) is a symbol not a number. Because it can't be counted.

Count the number of numbers between 1 and 2. Or the decimal places of 1/3 transfered to decimal form.

Look I was trying to be generous and considerate. However hypocrisy is where I draw the line. You are obviously not familiar with any of these issues and get most completely wrong. Not one scrap of evidence did you provide for one thing you claimed. I use advanced math every at work. I have taken calculus I, II, III, IV, advanced calculus, DE, PED, Discrete math, Cal physics I, II, II, Linear Alg, Bolean algebra, Boolean diff Calc, etc... X about 30. Infinity does not even work in math very often. It either makes equations blow up or serves as a boundary condition (asymptotic) that a function can't cross or get to, ever.

I would have been emphatic but civil even though I knew from the first statement you were out of your depth, but when you accuse me of not knowing about these issues, that is just too much.

Find me a single example of anything you claimed, or find an exception to anything I did or the debate is unnecessary. Do you want some links to the formal arguments and responses from a pure mathematics professor from Oxford or a Dean of philosophy from Cambridge to at least familiarize your self with the issue a bit more? I can put up with simply being wrong for a long time (I am wrong myself at times), but wrong + arrogant, or wrong + judgmental, or wrong + hypocritical does not deserve patience.

Except you haven't. I don't care if you have a Doctorate in astrophysics. It doesn't make you correct.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

um...
A statement that the rest of the bull **** balances upon?

Sounds about right. But he couldn't call a spade a spade, because then the jig is up- so he had to find something better to call it; hence, "philosophical law" (despite the fact that there truly are no such things, but hey- at least it was a valiant effort)...

 

[McBell]

Sounds about right. But he couldn't call a spade a spade, because then the jig is up- so he had to find something better to call it; hence, "philosophical law" (despite the fact that there truly are no such things, but hey- at least it was a valiant effort)...

He is most definitely a W.C. Fields fan...

'If you can't dazzle them with brilliance,
baffle them with bull ****.'​

 

[cottage]

That is probably why I said we almost certainly know instead of we know. I am happy to leave the possibility open. However, how is considering everything that is not proven impossible (or even at times that is) science? It is not even faith. It is pure preference. There exists no reliable evidence nor reason to think anything other than a finite single universe exists.

It isn’t ‘preference’. The object is very simply to demonstrate that there isn’t a single hypothesis that must be accepted to the exclusion of others. And the difference is that I'm open to all possibilities and don’t require any paticular hypothesis to be true, since I have no ideological beliefs to be jacked up and thus my scepticism allows for me to be proved wrong.

Vilenkin’s verdict: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.” | Uncommon Descent

I keep giving this link because it also contains very good reasons to think all the major theories that include infinities are impossible but I can't ever get a non-theist to even read it. Wonder why that is?

Well I’ve read it and it is no less than what I expected; in fact it is exactly what I expected from a theist website. The pattern begins interestingly with informed scientific knowledge, exploring various hypotheses to make valid critical points. But no sooner have those critical points been raised than we go full steam ahead into dogma and ideology. The usual apologists are quoted such as Craig and Anscombe, and science is forgotten, having served its purpose, to be superseded by the supernatural. It seems lost on the apologists (who are ready with the answer prior to the question) that even if the world did have a beginning, a view that may very well be true, we are not led to any external cause - and especially not the one that takes the form espoused here by Craig:

"Professor William Lane Craig goes on to argue that this supernatural cause of the cosmos must be personal. According to Craig, every kind of explanation is either a logico-mathematical explanation (which, because it is abstract, is incapable of explaining the fact that something comes into existence), a scientific explanation (which can explain events occurring within the universe, but not the coming-to-be of the universe itself) or a personal explanation, involving an agent doing something for a reason. Personal explanation is the only schema that can explain the coming-to-be of the cosmos, reasons Craig."


Now please consider again my recent post on this question with reference to the emboldened words above:

“There is also a perfectly legitimate question to which I never receive an answer, other than an argumentum ad ignorantiam such as God being God must have his reasons or some other obfuscated reply. Leibniz said that even if the world has always existed there must be a sufficient reason to explain its contingent existence. And this sufficient reason he said will be God, an intelligent being that freely chose to bring the world into existence. According to the principle of sufficient reason nothing happens by chance and a thing that doesn’t have to exist but does exist needs a reason for its existence. Perhaps Leibniz overstates the principle on a question of chance, but that needn’t trouble us here and in any case his argument backfires on him for it is immediately evident that to say an intelligent, personal being freely chose to bring the world into existence is to assign a purpose to the act of creation. And there can only be two answers to that question. God created the world for himself, or for the benefit of others. Both possibilities appear incoherent. For it seems obvious that an omnipotent Supreme Being, who is sufficient in all things, cannot have needs, unfulfilled wishes or desires. He has everything and is everything by definition. And nor can it be said that he created the world for the benefits of others, since it is nonsensical to imply that creatures that didn’t formerly exist can benefit from anything. So it may be argued that neither God nor the world existing from eternity need a reason for being, since there will be nothing external to them, but if the world is created then there must be a reason and a purpose for its being brought into being. So what is it?”

No Hume is of the generation of atheists that had meaningful argumentation. Nietzsche, Hume, Flew, and others have been replaced by the modern phenomena of militant atheism (which is emotionally based). However Hume was not correct many times. I can say the universe is not the supreme being because the supreme being is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. He is in philosophical and theological circles a maximal being in all great making properties. The universe is not. The universe does not even contain its own explanation. But it does contain this:

Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."

—Fred Hoyle[6]

There is no contradiction in saying the world as existence itself is the Supreme Being, since something exists necessarily in order for it to be denied. And there is evidently cogent reasoning in that hypothesis. Firstly we have the clear advantage of knowing that the world actually exists, which is rather more than can be said of God! And secondly we know that the principle of causation belongs to the world, whereas we have no knowledge of any external world, and even if there were such a thing it could not be the Supreme Being without involving a contradiction since it would be dependent upon a feature of the actual world.


And then consider this alternative:

In Hume’s Dialogues there are two characters, Philo and Demea, in discussion.
Philo says the fabric of the world has more in common with vegetable matter than it does with intelligence. Demea objects that if the world possesses a vegetable quality, sowing seeds into chaos out of which new worlds arise (according to philo’s hypothesis), then how can order come from a non-ordered world? To this Philo replies ‘just look around you’: trees bestow order and organisation upon the trees that comes from their seeds without knowing order. And he says instances of this kind are far more frequent in the world than order arising from ‘reason and contrivance’. And for Demea to say order in animals and vegetable matter are caused ultimately by design is begging the question and can only be known by proving a priori that order in nature is inseparably attached to thought and that order can never belong to matter.

Did you read my own comments on intelligence and a supposed deity?

Before I invest a lot of time in this. I want to know your here. You seem to pop in and out and that is certainly your right but you take a lot of time to debate. Send me a PM or something if you wish me to continue responding to this, please.

I realise that some people are here almost everyday but I have a life and commitments outside this forum. For me this is recreation, not an obsession. However, I will always reply to your posts as soon as I am able when we are in discussion.

 

[1robin]

"philosophical law"...What's that?

Laws are things with no known exceptions. Law its-self is a division of philosopher.

The question that has received the most substantial attention from philosophers of law is What is law? Several schools of thought have provided rival answers to this question, the most influential of which are:

• Natural law theory asserts that there are laws that are immanent in nature, to which enacted laws should correspond as closely as possible. This view is frequently summarized by the maxim: an unjust law is not a true law, in which 'unjust' is defined as contrary to natural law.

Philosophy of law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[McBell]

Laws are things with no known exceptions.

Please present a law that has no known exception.

 

[1robin]

I don't really remember laying claim to much of anything. I'm simply saying you don't have the authority or evidence to back up your assertation that they are "fantasy". When what you mean is "un-confirmed theory". You act as if there is no evidence supporting the theories. quit calling it fantasy. Now by asking you to quit calling it fantasy it does not follow that I support them as absolute truth either.

Yes I do. Things are fantasy when they have no reliable evidence. However I do not care what word you wish to assign to it. Do purple fairies become any more real and less fantastic if I called it the unconfirmed theory of purple fairies?

All the evidence we have is consistent with a finite universe.

Understand tht first.

I understood that semantic technicalities would be the only place you can contend with what I claimed long before you said it. Because there exists no rational reason to contend with what I claimed, yet for some bizarre reason my claims are thought inconvenient so some rational must be contrived to sidestep the obvious, it is almost always semantics.

And as an example I already gave you one that you ignored. How many numbers are between 1 and 2?

A finite amount. When you actually present evidence of an actual set of infinite things then you have a basis for what you claimed. Apparently I am talking to people who do not understand the difference between theories concerning abstract ideas and actual things. Actually get your existent natural infinity, then you can claim they exist.

I can find you all kinds of things that happen without causality. Pretty much all of M-theory. And your talking about the creation of all these laws.

Good Lord as Penrose said, M-theory is not even a good excuse for a theory. It might not have any foundation but it has sure never pointed out an actual thing with no cause. You cannot find single thing of any type in any reality that does not have a cause and a cause that has the characteristics dictated by the effect. Claiming you could but not actually doing so is proof you can't. I do not have to have a set of laws that govern nothing, because it can not have any. It is the absence of being. The absence of something has no law. It has no potential of any kind. It is not causal. It is what it's name suggest, NO - THING. I do not care about singularities no one understands one way or the other. They are meaningless for the discussion. There is not any evidence and no reason to think their will ever be that whatever a singularity is has any infinite property. There are many reasons to think infinities in nature are impossible. If you wish to leave open the possibility there are then fine but call it faith or fantasy and not science, you are contradicting all of science with no science of your own. I do not care what you believe but do not insist you are going with the evidence when the evidence contradicts your claims.

Provide evidence. Because your pulling stuff out of nowhere with this accusation. We have never witnessed something comming into existence. We don't know its properties or how it would even occur. We assume that the mass of the universe is the same or "finite" as you would call it. So bring me an example that "caused" something to come into existence.

My statement has no known exception. I am going with the evidence and you against it. Your claims require more faith given less evidence that the Bible does.

I don't have to bring you anything. I haven't made a claim. I'm simply correcting you in your assumption that theories are simply fantasy.

You can't correct things that have no exceptions known. To do so is to to contradict science not use it.

This is a load of superstitious and unsupported crap. The supernatural has no scientific backing.

What you have claimed has no scientific backing. It is not even reasoned faith, it is pure fantasy. Every statement I made is either a scientific observation with no known exception or a derivative from it using Philosophical principles which have no exceptions know. You must bring evidence or justified theories at least. You can't just bad mouth things with no exceptions into oblivion. Or you shouldn't anyway.

Continued below:

 

[1robin]

1 and 2 make sense. Everything else does not follow. Its all random qualities you tacked on because it seems to fit your god idea. Even if there was a god. Even if everything you said was true why would it have to be personal, powerful, omnipresent within the universe, intelligent or at all benevolent?

Everything I said is derived form Philosophical principles that have no known exceptions. They are not may be, they must be. Nothing known about anything of any type any where violate those principles. In fact the principle used in the first 2 is identical to the rest. You can't contend with any of them but if you allow on there is no basis for even attempting to deny another one. You entire argument seesm to be, Nu-nuh. No evidence, no reasons, no observations, no reliable theories, just negation of things that have no negation.

Failure to what? And it has not held up to scrutiny for thousands of years. I don't give a rats *** if there is a god or not it dosen't make your argument logical or valid. You have proposed a lot of leaps in logic and filled in the holes with fluff.

That argument was used in Greece and is still one that both sides assign credibility to even today at Oxford, Cambridge, and a hundred other think tanks. One side invents and contrives semantic reasons to short circuit it God step but no has any actual reason to negate anything in it and your post is yet another example.

I have no discorse with god. I wanted there to be a god and honestly I still do wish there was a god. I simply can't believe it is the problem. So its not that I dismiss it on personal grounds.

Take it from the only one of us that has been on both sides of the equation, and one who has spoken with hundreds more on both sides. No one is neutral about God, even if they sincerely think they are.

I don't have to. My objections still stand. You have yet to refute them.

What objections? This has been one solid denial without justification. I do not even see an incorrect attempt to negate anything I said. I see only declarations something was wrong and not even a single false reason to justify what is pure dismissal.

I've already given you several in the back and forth.

No you have not, no one has, there are no exceptions known.

We have never observed antyhing begining to exist. We have only observed change in the alreading existing. We have no data on "comming into existence". The only exception we have is particals like the higgs but even then they already "existed".

Things have come into existence. That is what the big claim to fame about the Quantum is. Atoms literally appear that were not there. What they do not do is appear without a cause. The BBT its self contains the theory that everything (even space) began to exist. We have stuff, it can't be eternal, it did not create its self. Every single atom in the universe began to exist.

Actually it does. I am not talking about time between them. Time is required for change. Inversely chane is required for time. If time doesn't exist then "change" doesn't exist.

That is not what scholars say. There are a few of their theories I can't understand. Modal being one, simultaneous causation being another. I won't explain what I do not know but I do claim that experts say there is no reason it can't occur even if it is non-intuitive.

Count the number of numbers between 1 and 2. Or the decimal places of 1/3 transfered to decimal form.

If I could count them then first they must exist, if I can count them they are finite. You have real trouble distinguishing between what actually exists in nature and what is true of mental abstract hypotheticals. However you can't even imagine an infinite string of anything either. That is probably the root of all your other mistaken claims to counter evidence and logic.

You have still not given the slightest evidence any actual infinite exists or is even possible.

Except you haven't. I don't care if you have a Doctorate in astrophysics. It doesn't make you correct.

You have said you do not care about the exact same way things are predicted to be true in every subject on earth. Why don't you try and care enough to present some evidence, some rational theories about actual things. This is not an argument it is an groundless objection. Since it is not based in evidence or reliable theory that leaves only preference as motivation.


Vilenkin’s verdict: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.” | Uncommon Descent

I keep giving this link because it also contains very good reasons to think all the major theories that include infinities are impossible but I can't ever get a non-theist to even read it. Wonder why that is?


Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."
—Fred Hoyle[6]

There is no reliable evidence, principle, or justification for a single "objection" in your entire post.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

Laws are things with no known exceptions. Law its-self is a division of philosopher.

The philosophy of law is the branch of philosophy that deals with questions pertaining to legality and legislation, just like the philosophy of mathematics deals with questions pertaining to mathematics. It doesn't consist of "philosophical laws", anymore than the philosophy of mathematics gives us "philosophical math".

The question that has received the most substantial attention from philosophers of law is What is law? Several schools of thought have provided rival answers to this question, the most influential of which are:

• Natural law theory asserts that there are laws that are immanent in nature, to which enacted laws should correspond as closely as possible. This view is frequently summarized by the maxim: an unjust law is not a true law, in which 'unjust' is defined as contrary to natural law.

• 
  Perhaps the notion of natural law was "the most influential", but it is certainly not a viable position which any credible professional philosopher endorses anymore. Natural laws are fictions created to reassure ourselves that our own values are mandated by nature or the universe in some bizarre way. And in any case, natural law pertains to ethics, not cosmological first principles, which is what you appeared to be talking about, so this is all irrelevant anyways.

 

[Thief]

Please present a law that has no known exception.

While at the same time maintaining a sense of belief?

How about walking on water?....raising the dead?.....wine to water?

oh...that's right....you don't 'believe'.

But that ok.....I'm not sure if belief in miracles is required.

How about....?
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

I have expectation.
The angels are waiting to do unto each one of us.....as we have done unto others.

Oh my bad.....maybe I am answering the wrong guy.....

 

[1robin]

Please present a law that has no known exception.

In classical logic, the law of non-contradiction (LNC) (or the law of contradiction (PM) or the principle of non-contradiction (PNC), or the principle of contradiction) is the second of the three classic laws of thought. It states that contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time, e.g. the two propositions "A is B" and "A is not B" are mutually exclusive.


Can we get past this semantic diversions and back to the science and what is consistent with it? Every conversation is the same. The science all goes in a direction consistent with God and so to avoid that unallowable fact, I have to spend thousands of words on what the definition of is, is. Or counter theories who's only merits are that they can't be proven absolutely false. Something has gone wrong terribly wrong when the faith guy is the only person going with the best evidence. If you do not like the term law, then use principle, perfectly consistent theory, or even beige unicorn hippocampus. I do not care. The issue is that effects always have causes without any known exception.