Looking for a debate with creationists (I am an atheist)

[Sean1843]

You do realize that this is a futile issue to debate as most folks on both sides already have their minds made up.

I used to be christian. My life was defined by my religion. I had no freedom. I thought that when people tried to convince me God didn't exist that they were evil and deserved to burn in hell for all eternity. I was completely convinced God existed and there was no other possible explanation whatsoever. But once I became atheist I realized that if people stopped trying to convince me, I would still be held back by the chains of religion. I now realize that people can change, so arguing with them does have a point.

 

[Sean1843]

I'll play along for the debate sake.

I once shared your POV. life taught me otherwise.
Let's try and make this debate clean and ridicule free so we can actually accomplish something.
I will never try to convince you that there is a God. It is not my goal nor do i have the ability to do so.
I truly believe that once (and if) you will discover YOUR truth about God, it will be on your terms and only by your own mind and feelings.

I can only try and point you to some directions that will maybe help you understand the concept and "logic" behind creationism.

I put the word logic in quotes as logic is a subjective or collective concept.
Please do not mistake this with a secular logic that is only one type of logic we apply to try and understand our reality.

For the debate, lets decide that creationism is a term that mean the universe was created by an intelligent thought behind it and it is more than odds and physical probabilities.

The term God will be replaced with "creator" so it will not be related to any religious concept, rather the broad idea of a "random" universe versus a "designed" universe.

There are several options to the way the universe was created.
What i can think of are the ones listed below:

I will try and explain what i mean when i use a term that can be interpreted in several ways each first time i use the term.

1. The universe[observable universe, the one we can see, measure and feel] manifested from absence of anything. by that i mean a literal nothing. nothing that can not be measured, observed or even described. Nothing is a very delicate term to use, as a scientific "Nothing" is not an actual nothing.
2. The universe was manifested by a chain of events that might have caused many other universes to emerge. we are just one of an unknown number of universes, each has its own laws, its own timeline and its own "fate".
3. Same as 2, but the universe is one of many that are the same, but with a different timeline. this is many times described in the movies as a parallel universe(s). this is the same as the second option, but we share the same physical laws, the same energy and the same overall structure.
4. The universe was initiated with a specific purpose (it can be any purpose you might think of), meaning there was a reason or a goal for its creation. once created, the universe is no longer "governed" by an intelligent "observer", rather it has its own "algorithm" that keeps it up and running. in our case, it means the laws (physics) were set, and everything simply keeps following those laws and work based on them
5. The universe was initiated withe a specific goal and it is in a continuous state of "monitoring" and maintenance.

There is one fact we know and agree on. The universe exists.
It doesn't matter which of the above is right or wrong, we all experience the universe.

My life experience led me to believe that the 5th option is probably correct.
Your life experience led you to believe that 1 - 3 are probably correct.

(there are probably more ideas you can come up with, but i think the above 5 are enough to understand the concept for our debate).

As this post can take many more pages, can you in the meantime agree and the above?
If not, i would love to hear what i have left out.

cheers

Well actually, the universe didn't come into existence. It is eternal, never starting, never ending. A lot of creationists get the big bang mixed up with the beginning of everything. The big bang did not create matter, laws etc. It simply distributed them out. The actual source matter is eternal. But after adding that to the list, then yes, I would agree.

 

[We Never Know]

Oh my, basic logic fail. No if they do not succeed it only would show that they do not know the likely path of abiogenesis, assuming that is how life began. If one wants to say "a god could have done it" that is true. A god could have created the universe last Thursday. So what? That does not lead to increased knowledge. When people say "god did it" it is usually because they ran into a dead end mentally. They could not answer the question given to them and they jump to an unjustified conclusion. It is always better to simply say "we don't know yet".

Logic fail? Hardly. I had already answered the question before you did in a similar way. At most it's a comprehension fail from you.
OTOH you say "if" they can create life it will show life from nature is capable but if we can't create life it shows nothing more than "we don't know"(hence my name). You seem to be one-sided on the "if's" even though an "if" is just an "if" either way.
Yes some people simply claim god did it. I can't show them wrong and neither can you. It doesn't make them right, it doesn't make them wrong, it makes them indoctrinated and lead by their faith.
"We don't know" you say. Lol check my name, "we never know" because on many things the how, when, etc may lead to "we never know" how it all works but we keep trying to figure it out.

 

[We Never Know]

The whole basis of the argument is that *everything* comes from something hence the universe requires a creator. But if *everything* comes from something, then that creator also needs a creator. Hence, the infinite regress in this case. Which is a possibility, but not very helpful for explanations.

The obvious answer is that *some* things don't 'come from' anything else. In that case, it isn't unreasonable that the universe itself is such a thing.

It seems here are two options..
-everything comes from something
-everything comes from nothing

Yet keep in mind from my earlier post, everything we know of that does exists or ever has existed has came from something else, us included.

 

[We Never Know]

The whole basis of the argument is that *everything* comes from something hence the universe requires a creator. But if *everything* comes from something, then that creator also needs a creator. Hence, the infinite regress in this case. Which is a possibility, but not very helpful for explanations.

The obvious answer is that *some* things don't 'come from' anything else. In that case, it isn't unreasonable that the universe itself is such a thing.

Can you name one thing that didn't come from any thing else that can be shown by evidence?

 

[We Never Know]

Well, there are several possible options:

1. Infinite regress: there is a string of causes going infinitely back in time. many people seem to dislike this option, but there is no logical reason it can't be the case. There are variants of this where there is an infinite regress in a finite amount of time.

2. There are uncaused causes: because of quantum effects, this seems to be the case. In fact, there are probably many uncaused causes (even within the universe). Many deists want to limit there to be only one uncaused cause, without proof.

3. The concept of causality loses its meaning: when applied to the whole of spacetime, this seems to be the case: causality only makes sense *within* spacetime.

The problem is that we simply don't know, at this point, whether it is even meaningful to talk about 'before the Big Bang'. it may well be that time simply cannot be extended past that point and the word 'before' is nonsense at that point (sort of like 'north' at the North pole).

Even if it is possible for time to make sense prior to the Big Bang, it is far from clear what sort of causal properties (laws of physics) would apply. And, even if there are such laws, it is far from clear there isn't simply an infinite regress.

Why adding a creator solves any of these problems is beyond me.

Agreed.
Disregarding or adding to any is done by bias and nothing more.

 

[Polymath257]

Can you name one thing that didn't come from any thing else that can be shown by evidence?

Particle-antiparticle pairs in a vacuum.

 

[Polymath257]

Well actually, the universe didn't come into existence. It is eternal, never starting, never ending. A lot of creationists get the big bang mixed up with the beginning of everything. The big bang did not create matter, laws etc. It simply distributed them out. The actual source matter is eternal. But after adding that to the list, then yes, I would agree.

Not necessarily true, based on the actual physics. In fact, it is quite possible that the universe is NOT eternal in the sense of time existing infinitely backwards. And, in the standard BB model, that is how it works.

Furthermore, the BB is NOT simply a 'distributing out' as you seem to think.

 

[We Never Know]

Particle-antiparticle pairs in a vacuum.

Touche. I forgot about that. Yet they have to come from and go somewhere when they pop in and out of existence. It's almost like magic.

 

[We Never Know]

Not necessarily true, based on the actual physics. In fact, it is quite possible that the universe is NOT eternal in the sense of time existing infinitely backwards. And, in the standard BB model, that is how it works.

Furthermore, the BB is NOT simply a 'distributing out' as you seem to think.

Where does the BB fit into multi-universe theory where there is a possibility there could be billions of universe's?

 

[PruePhillip]

Ultimate special pleading cop-out!

View attachment 34086
Replace "god" with literally anything your imagination can produce, including non-existing things, and watch how the merrit and validity of your argument remains completely intact.
And they didn't.

Quote - "And they didn't"
Just this week Jerusalem Post article on the diggings at Shiloh. This was "capital" of Israel
before the Philistines destroyed it (Read book of Samuel) Here was evidence of the cultic
center - the "horn of the altar" and the symbolic pomegranate and evidence for where the
priests would cut off the flesh of the young sacrificial animal, on the right side only. It's all
here. Skeptics claim this Shiloh story of Eli, Samuel, the Philistines and the ark of the
Covenant was made up a thousand years later. No. Wrong. Fail.
And we know who are the priest's descendants - the tribe of Levi, from Moses down is
revealed through DNA. And now we have the evidence for King David. And new tech is
helping us see Israel was far more populous than we first thought.

So yeah, I am happy that bit by bit, the bible's "mythic" account is slowly been revealed
through science.

As for Special Pleading. This is super-special pleading because if God made the universe
then by definition god is not within the universe, and subject to its laws. But Genesis tells
us that God created the world we see, not directly through His agency, but by his laws or
"command."

 

[SA Huguenot]

You are trying to get Genesis to agree with reality. And no, scientists did not believe that in the 70's.

Oh but they did.
It was the general idea of the hadean theory that was beginning to show errors as more observation were discovered on the formation of the earth.
Nigel Henbest was one of the scientists (when he was still a scientist and not this alien hunter nowadays) who traced the theories of the origins of the Universe and solar sustem and gave a description of Swedenborg, Kant and Laplace's explanations.
He himself noted that Kant was the only one that was correct, and scientists are moving towards the Kantean nebular theory and rejecting Laplace's Hadean theories where the planets were slung out of the sun.
I am amaized that you do not know about these facts.
Oh, and as for Kant.
He took the theory from the Bible pal, frm Genesis.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I think a scientist might see it differently that complex mathematical laws and algorithms are involved and that things don’t ‘just happen’.

No.

Again, the process of evolution is an inevitable result when you have systems that replicate with variation and which are in competition with peers over limited resources in an ever-changing environment.

It's not like something "special" has to happen for it to occur...
It simply occurs as the inevitable and inescapable result of certain conditions.
Just like "falling" is the inescapable result of gravity.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It’s only because we live in a world of time that we think like this but in the world of eternity God always existed.

"to exist" is a temporal phenomenon. It implies a flow of time.

Eternity means no beginning and no end. So God always was and is when you bring eternity into the equation,

What equation? What eternity?

I could just as well declare the universe as being eternal.
Or posit an eternal multi-verse.
Or an eternal universe pooping unicorn.

And it would have the same merrit.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I believe in both creationism and evolution. They are not contradictory. Basically an All Knowing God put in place the process of evolution. This is very reasonable.

Things that aren't supported by evidence are never "reasonable" - especially not if the nature of the claims are extra-ordinary and outlandish, like the "god" claim surely is.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

]Where do we draw the line and say this is "it", this is where everything came from and nothing came before it and can we show it correct with evidence?

That line isn't drawn by our imagination or by making stuff up. It's drawn by the evidence at our disposal.
Evidence that we currently not have. Not conclusive anyway.

So where is the line now? In "we don't know".
Not in "god dun it".
Not in "multiverse dun it"
Not in "strings dun it".

Although things like the multiverse at least have some scientific rational motivation behind them.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

If we become successful in creating life in a lab, we then become the creator

Only if the living thing was assembled piece by piece, based on some specific blueprint created in advance.

Not so much if it consists of a controlled experiment in which an environment is created which triggers a spontanously chemical reaction, the output of which is a living thing.

In that case, we didn't "create life".
In that case, we rather discovered the chemical process by which life can originate.

Surely you understand the difference.

Consider a freezer. You take a cup of water and put it in the freezer. 3 hours later, it turned into ice.
Did you "create" the ice? Is it really technically correct to say that?

Does that then mean we have a creator or simply just we became a creator?

It would depend entirely on what exactly happened in said lab.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

And if they don't succeed does that show a god could have been the creator?

No. Then it would just mean that life doesn't, or can't, originate in the specific way that was tested in the experiment.

Of course not. It just shows what we can and cannot create.

It shows what a specific chemical process can and can not result in under certain specific conditions..

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So basically, you're gonna troll people and call them stupid.

This would be like me going into a mosque and saying, "Prove Allah is real, and I'll tell you why you're an idiot." (For the record, I don't even like Islam, and I still know this is not done).

Should I explain how incredibly rude and condescending this is, or does someone else what to take a crack at it?

Because I can't help but to quote Dr Sheldon Cooper here....


"It's not arrogance if you are correct"

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It seems here are two options..
-everything comes from something
-everything comes from nothing

Yet keep in mind from my earlier post, everything we know of that does exists or ever has existed has came from something else, us included.

I posit that you have NEVER witnessed ANYTHING "beginning to exist".
That just doesn't happen in our universe. Every object that every-day language would refer to as "beginning to exist", really only is just a reconfiguration of things that already existed.

My body didn't exist 40 years ago. But EVERYTHING that makes up my body sure did. Every single atom. Nothing about my body is "new", aside from the particular order the atoms are configured in.

When I die, not a single atom of my body will disappear. They will all be recycled. Atoms that are now part of my left hand, might in the future be part of a car engine, or the brain of a new Einstein, or part of a new rover that we will send to Mars or some moon around Jupiter or whatever.

The lesson here, is that our experience of energy and matter and the things they can do WITHIN the space-time continuum, isn't necessarily representative of the way things work absent that space-time continuum.

So whenever one starts to list "the only options" about where stuff comes from, all kinds of alarm bells are going off.