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Arguments for or against god

leroy

Well-Known Member
I really believe that science will one day prove God. Science has begun to understand dimensions. When science can access the other dimensions, God will be found. We are simply quite primitive at the moment no matter how technologically advanced we think we are.

I would say that science will never completely prove (nor disprove) God , but there are many potential discoveries and observations that could be made in the future that would ether strongly refute or support the existance of God..

For example as a theist I predict that: more fine tuning problems will be discovered as new discoveries are made. Atheist would predict that new discoveries would solve this problems

Or if we ever get to print a human in a 3D printer, this clones would have the exact same atoms in the exact same order than the original human.... But I predict that this clone will not have will, nor conscience , nor morality, nor any other of the atributes commonly atributes to the soul. ....(3D printers can only replicate the material stuff, not the inmaterial substances )
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Yes, but from that doesn't follow any specific God other than a Creator God, the first unmoved mover.
Nope but it follows that we are not here by chance.

This argument by itselve refutes all "chance" hypothesis regarding the origin of the universe.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Nope but it follows that we are not here by chance.

This argument by itselve refutes all "chance" hypothesis regarding the origin of the universe.

Not quite. The first unmoved mover is one way. The other is to have an infinite meta-universe, where we are just one roll of the dice among an infinite amount of rolls of the dice.
 

calm

Active Member
Yet not everyone has faith and believes that. Many do though. I haven't seen any evidence for a god to give me any reason to accept that.
Look at creation, that's proof enough.

He who thinks only halfway does not believe in God, but he who thinks rightly must believe in God.
Isaac Newton
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Not quite. The first unmoved mover is one way. The other is to have an infinite meta-universe, where we are just one roll of the dice among an infinite amount of rolls of the dice.

An infinite meta-universe would be dominated by Boltzmann brains*

It would me statistically more probable that we live in a simpler universe (say a universe with just 1 solar system) and the complexity that we observe is just a dream or an illusion.

In an infinite meta-universe Observers that live in a simple universe that are currently having a dream of them being in a complex universe are more common than observers that are really living in a real and complex universe.

So statistically speaking you would have to conclude that you live in a simple universe and currently having a dream of you living in a complex universe.... You will wake up in a few minutes and wonder about this strange dream where you where suppose to live in a complex universe with many stars and galaxies.

Or even worst statistically speaking you are more likely to be a bolzmann brain that happens to be in the illusion of being a human in a complex universe. Soon you will vanish.
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
Nope but it follows that we are not here by chance.

This argument by itselve refutes all "chance" hypothesis regarding the origin of the universe.

No, it doesn't. Low entropy is improbable, not impossible. A decrease in entropy becomes inevitable given enough opportunity - just like you will eventually get 6000 sixes in a row, if throw dice for long enough. It also depends on the phase space of the system. If you rescale the phase space, such as in Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, then a high entropy in the initial space can become very low in the new space.

All this talk of entropy as an argument for a god is also a double standard - just how low an entropy or how improbable do you think a god would be?
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
An infinite meta-universe would be dominated by Boltzmann brains*

It would me statistically more probable that we live in a simpler universe (say a universe with just 1 solar system) and the complexity that we observe is just a dream or an illusion.

In an infinite meta-universe Observers that live in a simple universe that are currently having a dream of them being in a complex universe are more common than observers that are really living in a real and complex universe.

So statistically speaking you would have to conclude that you live in a simple universe and currently having a dream of you living in a complex universe.... You will wake up in a few minutes and wonder about this strange dream where you where suppose to live in a complex universe with many stars and galaxies.

Or even worst statistically speaking you are more likely to be a bolzmann brain that happens to be in the illusion of being a human in a complex universe. Soon you will vanish.

Correct, that is why I believe in a fair Creator God, where I am not a Boltzmann Brain. But that is not evidence against that I am a Boltzmann Brain.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Correct, that is why I believe in a fair Creator God, where I am not a Boltzmann Brain. But that is not evidence against that I am a Boltzmann Brain.
Te point is that any model that predicts that the universe is dominated by Boltzmann brains should be dropped on the basis of reductio ad absurdum

One shouldn't conclude that we are BB, one should conclude that the model is wrong
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Te point is that any model that predicts that the universe is dominated by Boltzmann brains should be dropped on the basis of reductio ad absurdum

One shouldn't conclude that we are BB, one should conclude that the model is wrong

That is in your brain and will not decide, whether you are a Boltzmann Brain or not. That it is absurd, is in you and will not cause you not to be a Boltzmann Brain. It is a form of magical thinking where your thinking causes you not to be a Boltzmann Brain.
BTW magical thinking is not limited to religious humans, you can also find it in some non-religious humans.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
No, it doesn't. Low entropy is improbable, not impossible. A decrease in entropy becomes inevitable given enough opportunity - just like you will eventually get 6000 sixes in a row, if throw dice for long enough. It also depends on the phase space of the system. If you rescale the phase space, such as in Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, then a high entropy in the initial space can become very low in the new space.

All this talk of entropy as an argument for a god is also a double standard - just how low an entropy or how improbable do you think a god would be?

But you are much more likely to have dream where you got 6000 sixes in a row, that actually getting them by chance.

In the same way you are vastly more likely to be a worm-like alien that lives in a simple universe (a universe with just 1 solar system) that is currently dreaming to be a complex being living in a complex universe with many stars and galaxies. Than a real complex organism living in a complex universe with many stars and galaxies ( low entropy).

Or even more likely you are a Boltzmann brain.




In what way would God have "low entropy" ?
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
But you are much more likely to have dream where you got 6000 sixes in a row, that actually getting them by chance.

In the same way you are vastly more likely to be a worm-like alien that lives in a simple universe (a universe with just 1 solar system) that is currently dreaming to be a complex being living in a complex universe with many stars and galaxies. Than a real complex organism living in a complex universe with many stars and galaxies ( low entropy).

Or even more likely you are a Boltzmann brain.

If we just take what we currently know and simplistically apply it to an infinite time, yes. However, that in itself is making a lot of assumptions. My point was that you can't just rule out chance - even in the simplistic situation, in an infinite time you would get any configuration you can dream up.

The other point was just as important - entropy is about volumes in phase space and phase space depends on the characteristics of the system. If they change, so does entropy.

In what way would God have "low entropy" ?

There are two options here.
  1. You apply the same logic as you do to the universe and a god would have to be at least as complex as its creation in order to hold the idea of said creation in its mind - and would therefore have lower entropy / be less probable than the universe.

    In this case, you have a bigger problem with entropy than you started with and any entropy arguments for god are clearly invalid.

  2. You somehow exempt the concept of god from such considerations.

    In this case, you have a "god" that doesn't follow the known law of entropy but by some means can explain how the universe is how it is now. In fact, the arguments from entropy do not lead to a god at all - just anything we don't understand that can explain the way the universe is now.
In fact, we don't know why the universe has low entropy, or more specifically, why the state immediately after the BB had a specific type of low entropy (gravitationally very uniform) and that leads us to conclude, if we are being rational about it, not that there is a god, but that there is something we don't know about yet. That should not be news to anybody.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
If we just take what we currently know and simplistically apply it to an infinite time, yes. However, that in itself is making a lot of assumptions. My point was that you can't just rule out chance - even in the simplistic situation, in an infinite time you would get any configuration you can dream up.

The other point was just as important - entropy is about volumes in phase space and phase space depends on the characteristics of the system. If they change, so does entropy.



There are two options here.
  1. You apply the same logic as you do to the universe and a god would have to be at least as complex as its creation in order to hold the idea of said creation in its mind - and would therefore have lower entropy / be less probable than the universe.

    In this case, you have a bigger problem with entropy than you started with and any entropy arguments for god are clearly invalid.

  2. You somehow exempt the concept of god from such considerations.

    In this case, you have a "god" that doesn't follow the known law of entropy but by some means can explain how the universe is how it is now. In fact, the arguments from entropy do not lead to a god at all - just anything we don't understand that can explain the way the universe is now.
In fact, we don't know why the universe has low entropy, or more specifically, why the state immediately after the BB had a specific type of low entropy (gravitationally very uniform) and that leads us to conclude, if we are being rational about it, not that there is a god, but that there is something we don't know about yet. That should not be news to anybody.


1 I don't see how conformal cyclic cosmology solves the problem

2 the point is that one can't abuse of chance hypothesis, because some events (like the low entropy of the big bang) are so improbable that it becomes more probable and therefore more reasonable to conclude that our observations are just a dream .... For example according to the laws of quantum mechanics it is possible for humans yo walk through a wall but this event is so improbable that if you observe yourself walking through a wall, you can savelly conclude that you are dreaming.

3 the fact that the universe is "complex" doesn't imply that the cause of the universe has to be complex. You can have a simple cause for a complex effect
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
1 I don't see how conformal cyclic cosmology solves the problem

It's to do with rescaling phase space when you lose track of the scale of real space. If all massive particles eventually decay into massless ones, then the final state of the universe would resemble the initial big bang in all but the scale - and if there were no massive particles, there is no way to define time or distance.

Additionally the entropy of the universe is not a simple thing to calculate and the very low entropy of the BB does not imply complexity - it was quite a simple state.

2 the point is that one can't abuse of chance hypothesis, because some events (like the low entropy of the big bang) are so improbable that it becomes more probable and therefore more reasonable to conclude that our observations are just a dream .... For example according to the laws of quantum mechanics it is possible for humans yo walk through a wall but this event is so improbable that if you observe yourself walking through a wall, you can savelly conclude that you are dreaming.

Only because we know the context. The probability is so low as to make the chance vanishingly small in the context of the total amount of time since the BB and the size of the observable universe.

We have no idea of the context of the BB or even if it had one in any meaningful way.

3 the fact that the universe is "complex" doesn't imply that the cause of the universe has to be complex. You can have a simple cause for a complex effect

Yes you can - but you can't have a simpler intelligence that deliberately conceives of, plans and creates a universe.

We also don't know if the universe has a cause.

The fact remains that all arguments about entropy tell us is that there is something about the universe and its existence that we don't understand yet. There is no way they can argue for a god.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Don't ask a skeptic. The short answer is as long as humans remains humans it will be unknown. IFF God exists, then God Knows.
I believe God is responsible for causing everything to come into existence, but how that happened is not something humans can understand and I don't really care because I have many more important things to discover.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
A god cannot be proven or disprove.
So every single person who's ever said - or will ever say - "I know my god exists and here's how!" (or "your god doesn't exist and here's how I know") is necessarily wrong?

The knowledge claims of every religion and believer about its deities are all baseless?

How did you manage the clairvoyance and precognition to know all this? Personally, I have to have at least heard a claim before I can say that the claim is true or false.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
Look at creation, that's proof enough.

He who thinks only halfway does not believe in God, but he who thinks rightly must believe in God.
Isaac Newton

Newton also believed in alchemy.
That people have to reach so far back into
the mists of the increasingly deep past
to find a noted scientist to quote in
support of "god" is what the french
might call tres amusant.

"Proof enough" for the already-decided
dont take much.

As in the day I was strolling across campus
with another girl, and a nice autumn leaf
fluttered to our feet. She picked it up;
look she said, "Look it has three parts
God sent it to us as a symbol
of the Trinity!"

Pretty shallow dippy thinking

"So why does it have three big and two
small parts?" I asked.

I pointed out that i
 

Audie

Veteran Member
So every single person who's ever said - or will ever say - "I know my god exists and here's how!" (or "your god doesn't exist and here's how I know") is necessarily wrong?

The knowledge claims of every religion and believer about its deities are all baseless?

How did you manage the clairvoyance and precognition to know all this? Personally, I have to have at least heard a claim before I can say that the claim is true or false.

"Cannot prove" and "Wrong" are not equivalent.
 
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