Words are given their meanings for a reason, and in a debate forum such as this, they are the only thing you have. If you're going to reject an argument based on semantics only, they we have no reason to be here.
Even in modal logic, how is the statement "the universe exists" not a trivial...
I think you're confusing necessary and sufficient conditions. Take the two conditional statements:
the universe exists
I exist
Saying that 'A' is necessary means that 'B' cannot be true unless 'A' is true. Since there is no evidence that I can exist outside of this universe, 'A' is a...
Look up the word "always" and note that all definitions involve time. If time came into existence along with the universe, then by definition the universe has always existed.
That was an example how being finite and being unbounded are not mutually exclusive concepts. The opposite, being...
That would be bizarre because unlike the universe, those other things are not necessary for your existence.
You are necessary if you're the one asking the question, aren't you?
And I have explained how something can have existed for all of time and yet not be infinite. If no universe existed, then you wouldn't be able to ask the question why does it exist, would you?
Isn't the question "does God exist" a binary one? Either God exists or it doesn't, there is no in-between. Either the theist or the atheist is correct, and while saying you're undecided is perfectly acceptable, it will never be the right answer.
Atheism doesn't have to be a 'religious minority group' to be discriminated against religiously when the person doing the discriminating because of their own religious beliefs and not the beliefs of others.
Does it discredit the claim that blacks are being discriminated against if the...
The problem with a universe that doesn't have a beginning is that we can never get to the present. One way to eliminate this problem is to realize that time is nothing more than a human concept for measuring change and not a physical property of the universe. An unchanging universe could exist...
Phil Plait at Slate took a shot at explaining this a couple of weeks ago.
Infinite series: When the sum of all positive integers is a small negative fraction.
If the universe didn't exist, you wouldn't be here to ask what created it, would you?
So what is your argument for a cause universe?
Nor are the required by a necessary universe.
No, there are mountains of claims that the supernatural exists but none of them are backed by evidence...
This proposition is only valid if one considers the universe itself to be contingent. While everything inside our universe is contingent upon something else, the universe itself must exist by necessity. Otherwise there would be no "you" to consider it's non-existence. You try to get around this...
While CMB today is very uniform and very close to a perfect black body, that was not always the case. At the time of the Big Bang, temperatures were in the 10^15 K range, so those few 1/10,000ths of a degree differences in the image would have been much, much larger. And I would really like to...
I don't think you understand what "reproducible" means in this context. While only a handful of people have taken the time to experience Pluto themselves, the processes through which they can are documented and can be experienced by anyone. Millions may share supernatural experiences similar to...
I'm not normally one to question Mr. Hawking on physics, but which of the following would "common experience" say is more disordered and chaotic?
Cosmic Background Radiation (remnant of the Big Bang):
Hubble Deep Field:
Unless your body is accelerated along with the ship. Then like an astronaut orbiting Earth, you would feel any g's.
While relativistic mass increases with speed, the mass seen from the ship's frame of reference stays constant. So the trick is to accelerate without appearing to, which is what...
Assuming there was a beginning, the question is what can we know about it? If science tells us that the universe is becoming ever more organized and complex, then would the beginning have been the least organized and least complex state possible?
Astronomers over 100 years ago were able to detect the gravitational effect of Pluto on the orbits of Uranus and Neptune and in 1915 were able to record images of Pluto. You could do the same if you were so inclined.
What personal experience do you have that the world is an oblate spheroid? If...