If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out...

[Felix007]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

All that follows from God's foreknowledge of what you will choose to do is that you shall choose to do it. Not that you could not choose otherwise. If God were to know A, you are not choosing A because God knows it, God just knows what your choice will be. If you were to choose B, then God's knowledge would be different, but you are still choosing. It does not follow that if God knows absolutely what you were to do then you are not choosing to do it. How God knows a choice before it happens is not the issue, this isn't a contradiction.

Yes, it clearly is a contradiction. We are attempting to make the assumption that God is omniscient, and therefore knows everything that has happened and everything that will happen in the future. If God knows all of our actions in the future, we are no longer free to change from that course, as it would prove God to not be omniscient. Hence, we cannot deter from God's preordained plan, and we have no free will.

Regardless of the reasons for choosing, the fact that God ultimately knows our choice negates any freedom we have to choose the opposite.

Of course there would be no natural laws applied to supernatural realities. You can deduce the supernatural realm with deductive arguments and evidence. For instance the universe beginning to exist. Dawkins is a joke when it comes to philosophy, so wouldn't even mention him.

I never contended he was a genius at philosophy; his strongpoint is biology, really. However, the objection still stands, and there is no ultimate reason to assume that a God was the first cause, or even that there WAS a first cause. Time as we know it began to exist, but we have no evidence that there was nothing prior to our Universe (big bang/big crunch), or that we aren't part of a chain of circular causality.

Evidence? What would that be, exactly? Most of the deductive arguments I am aware of have been torn apart. Can you cite one, that I might look over it?

Something that does not have a nature cannot bring itself into existence because it has no nature to do so. Something beginning to happen without a cause contradicts experience.

Experience has not always been proven to be correct, unless you want to make an appeal to tradition, which is a logical fallacy. We have evidence of things "coming" from nothing, both cited in the Casimir effect and parts of Quantum Mechanics.

If the universe came to exist out of nothing and for nothing when nothing else we see does, why do assume it would have come out of nothing, uncaused?

As I said before, we do not know that the Universe never existed in a different form, was infinite (potential infinites, not actual infinites, such as Zeno's Paradox), or was brought into existence via circular causality.

Also, we do see other things coming into existence without apparent cause, and merely because we do not know the current cause of the Universe (if it has one), that does not mean it is ultimately "causeless". Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

If this were the case why doesn't everything and anything pop into being out of nothing all of the time? After all, there should be no probability rate on something which has no nature whatsoever. If you would never assume this for something else, say like a dog coming around the corner, why just the universe?

The laws of physics were likely incredibly different in the "far" past, as the result of a singularity. It then logically follows that we do not know if things could "pop" into existence in that aforementioned past, nor do we know if the singularity DID pop into existence or not. The Big Bang theory states only what happens milliseconds after the rapid expansion of space-time, not what happened before.

 

[Kix]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

Yes, it clearly is a contradiction. We are attempting to make the assumption that God is omniscient, and therefore knows everything that has happened and everything that will happen in the future. If God knows all of our actions in the future, we are no longer free to change from that course, as it would prove God to not be omniscient. Hence, we cannot deter from God's preordained plan, and we have no free will.

It does not follow that you cannot choose otherwise, only that you shall not. For if you were to choose otherwise, then God's knowledge would be different. You really are introducing some mystery here that is constraining free will as God's absolute knowledge does not force you to make a choice, and God's foreknowledge merely reflect the choice you will freely choose to make.

God's plan may take into consideration the choices that humans choose to make. You just don't understand how God could know them when they have yet to happen from our view.

Regardless of the reasons for choosing, the fact that God ultimately knows our choice negates any freedom we have to choose the opposite.

No it does not. It merely means that we shall make the choice, not that you could not make another one. Again, God's foreknowledge does not make force you to make the choice but reflects it, so if you were to choose B, different propositions would be true and God's knowledge would be different.

I never contended he was a genius at philosophy; his strongpoint is biology, really. However, the objection still stands, and there is no ultimate reason to assume that a God was the first cause, or even that there WAS a first cause. Time as we know it began to exist, but we have no evidence that there was nothing prior to our Universe (big bang/big crunch), or that we aren't part of a chain of circular causality.

Well that's blatantly obvious thanks to how he embarrasses himself often when he speaks publicly about philosophy and also the central argument of his book "The God Delusional" in which what he describes as his central argument is clearly invalid because the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises.

There clearly is an obvious reason to assume God is the first cause as if current science is correct, the universe began to exist, including time and matter. Most models include a mathematical singularity point at which no matter and time existed prior. If the universe began to exist, and therefore nature, it follows that nature could not bring itself into existence when it did not exist. This points to a transcendent cause, and therefore the supernatural.

What do you mean that the universe could circularly cause itself? If events regress into the past, this not only seems to not make sense but would not ultimately solve your problem as there would still be an absolute beginning, but I want this one explained a bit more.

Evidence? What would that be, exactly? Most of the deductive arguments I am aware of have been torn apart. Can you cite one, that I might look over it?

Well you're wrong. For one the Kalam Cosmological argument. I would like to know how it has been torn apart. I watch debates on the subject and also notice that most people don't even understand it that try to refute it. This is actually what we're actively talking about.

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Second argument is called the Transcendental argument in which the laws of logic cannot be explained by mere human invention, collective opinion, or the physical universe. The argument states that these are true regardless of the universe and that they are concepts that can only be accounted for by a mind that is transcendent and absolute.

Now even though arguments exist about how best to explain the fine tuning of our universe and such things as objective moral values, I want to know why these are invalid. Also I think it is important to establish similarly good reasons for believing that nature is all that exists and that God does not exist.

Experience has not always been proven to be correct, unless you want to make an appeal to tradition, which is a logical fallacy. We have evidence of things "coming" from nothing, both cited in the Casimir effect and parts of Quantum Mechanics.

Ask yourself the question of why you assume at this situation, on a much larger scale is different from a turd or a duck appearing out of nowhere, or anything for that matter, all the time? There is nothing that comes out of nothing and if you are referring to the virtual particles that come from the sea of energy in a vacuum, they are not caused out of nothing by nothing, so that isn't correct even though this is the only example I've seen used.

As I said before, we do not know that the Universe never existed in a different form, was infinite (potential infinites, not actual infinites, such as Zeno's Paradox), or was brought into existence via circular causality.

While I would still like you to explain circular causality, and why a transcendent cause is not a rational position to take, I am asking you what the best position is to take based on the available evidence. What I see from people like Borde, Guth, Vilenkin and Hawkings is that what you are saying is not the case. I'm not going to claim to understand how they reach their conclusions, but this is an argument from the current consensus among cosmologists.

Also, we do see other things coming into existence without apparent cause, and merely because we do not know the current cause of the Universe (if it has one), that does not mean it is ultimately "causeless". Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I want an example of something that comes out of absolutely nothing by nothing. To avoid a infinite regress it would make sense to have an uncaused cause. Besides this, there is no reason to think that a transcendent cause needed a cause. We don't see that it would begin to exists whereas it is different for the universe.

The laws of physics were likely incredibly different in the "far" past, as the result of a singularity. It then logically follows that we do not know if things could "pop" into existence in that aforementioned past, nor do we know if the singularity DID pop into existence or not. The Big Bang theory states only what happens milliseconds after the rapid expansion of space-time, not what happened before.

I don't know where you pulled this one from. The Big Bang would be a result of what happened with the physics going back in the past. I don't see how they would likely be incredibly different. What do you even mean by this?

Of course the Big Bang does not explain what happened prior to it. That's where philosophy comes in. It isn't like we are going to go grab it or something to figure out. That's why I think that God makes the most sense for the cause of the universe.
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Yes, it clearly is a contradiction. We are attempting to make the assumption that God is omniscient, and therefore knows everything that has happened and everything that will happen in the future. If God knows all of our actions in the future, we are no longer free to change from that course, as it would prove God to not be omniscient. Hence, we cannot deter from God's preordained plan, and we have no free will.

It does not follow that you cannot choose otherwise, only that you shall not. For if you were to choose otherwise, then God's knowledge would be different. You really are introducing some mystery here that is constraining free will as God's absolute knowledge does not force you to make a choice, and God's foreknowledge merely reflect the choice you will freely choose to make.

God's plan make take into consideration the choices that humans choose to make. You just don't understand how God could know them when they have yet to happen from our view.

Regardless of the reasons for choosing, the fact that God ultimately knows our choice negates any freedom we have to choose the opposite.

No it does not. It merely means that we shall make the choice, not that you could not make another one. Again, God's foreknowledge does not make force you to make the choice but reflects it, so if you were to choose B, different propositions would be true and God's knowledge would be different.

I never contended he was a genius at philosophy; his strongpoint is biology, really. However, the objection still stands, and there is no ultimate reason to assume that a God was the first cause, or even that there WAS a first cause. Time as we know it began to exist, but we have no evidence that there was nothing prior to our Universe (big bang/big crunch), or that we aren't part of a chain of circular causality.

Well that's blatantly obvious thanks to how he embarrasses himself often when he speaks publicly about philosophy and also the central argument of his book "The God Delusional" in which what he describes as his central argument is clearly invalid because the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises.

There clearly is an obvious reason to assume God is the first cause as if current science is correct, the universe began to exist, including time and matter. Most models include a mathematical singularity point at which no matter and time existed prior. If the universe began to exist, and therefore nature, it follows that nature could not bring itself into existence when it did not exist. This points to a transcendent cause, and therefore the supernatural.

What do you mean that the universe could circularly cause itself? If events regress into the past, this not only seems to not make sense but would not ultimately solve your problem as there would still be an absolute beginning, but I want this one explained a bit more.

Evidence? What would that be, exactly? Most of the deductive arguments I am aware of have been torn apart. Can you cite one, that I might look over it?

Well you're wrong. For one the Kalam Cosmological argument. I would like to know how it has been torn apart. I watch debates on the subject and also notice that most people don't even understand it that try to refute it. This is actually what we're actively talking about.

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Second argument is called the Transcendental argument in which the laws of logic cannot be explained by mere human invention, collective opinion, or the physical universe. The argument states that these are true regardless of the universe and that they are concepts that can only be accounted for by a mind that is transcendent and absolute.

Now even though arguments exist about how best to explain the fine tuning of our universe and such things as objective moral values, I want to know why these are invalid. Also I think it is important to establish similarly good reasons for believing that nature is all that exists and that God does not exist.

Experience has not always been proven to be correct, unless you want to make an appeal to tradition, which is a logical fallacy. We have evidence of things "coming" from nothing, both cited in the Casimir effect and parts of Quantum Mechanics.

Ask yourself the question of why you assume at this situation, on a much larger scale is different from a turd or a duck appearing out of nowhere, or anything for that matter, all the time? There is nothing that comes out of nothing and if you are referring to the virtual particles that come from the sea of energy in a vacuum, they are not caused out of nothing by nothing, so that isn't correct even though this is the only example I've seen used.

As I said before, we do not know that the Universe never existed in a different form, was infinite (potential infinites, not actual infinites, such as Zeno's Paradox), or was brought into existence via circular causality.

While I would still like you to explain circular causality, and why a transcendent cause is not a rational position to take, I am asking you what the best position is to take based on the available evidence. What I see from people like Borde, Guth, Vilenkin and Hawkings is that what you are saying is not the case. I'm not going to claim to understand how they reach their conclusions, but this is an argument from the current consensus among cosmologists.

Also, we do see other things coming into existence without apparent cause, and merely because we do not know the current cause of the Universe (if it has one), that does not mean it is ultimately "causeless". Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I want an example of something that comes out of absolutely nothing by nothing. To avoid a infinite regress it would make sense to have an uncaused cause. Besides this, there is no reason to think that a transcendent cause needed a cause. We don't see that it would begin to exists whereas it is different for the universe.

The laws of physics were likely incredibly different in the "far" past, as the result of a singularity. It then logically follows that we do not know if things could "pop" into existence in that aforementioned past, nor do we know if the singularity DID pop into existence or not. The Big Bang theory states only what happens milliseconds after the rapid expansion of space-time, not what happened before.

I don't know where you pulled this one from. The Big Bang would be a result of what happened with the physics going back in the past. I don't see how they would likely be incredibly different. What do you even mean by this?

Of course the Big Bang does not explain what happened prior to it. That's where philosophy comes in. It isn't like we are going to go grab it or something to figure out. That's why I think that God makes the most sense for the cause of the universe.

 

[Felix007]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

It does not follow that you cannot choose otherwise, only that you shall not. For if you were to choose otherwise, then God's knowledge would be different. You really are introducing some mystery here that is constraining free will as God's absolute knowledge does not force you to make a choice, and God's foreknowledge merely reflect the choice you will freely choose to make.

Mystery? Certainly not, merely logic stemming from having your choices removed to be in accordance with omniscience. God's knowledge is not reflective, as it is actually foreknowledge, which is simply stating that the choice was known in advance.

If God knows the choices that will be made in the future, then the future is fixed, and there is nothing we can conceivably do to change it. The ability to know what I will do in the future constitutes my free will, and by already knowing what it is, I cannot conceivably alter from that course. God's knowledge cannot "change", as he is thought to be perfect, and having to "change his mind", as it were, denotes the glaring flaw that God may have been wrong.

The only way I could see you making much sense is if you introduced the concept that God does not experience time as we do, or that his omniscience is not perfect.

God's plan may take into consideration the choices that humans choose to make. You just don't understand how God could know them when they have yet to happen from our view.

God does not take things into consideration, he knows because merely because he is divine. His knowledge is arbitrary at best, and stemming from poor logic at worst, much like his objective moral code.

No it does not. It merely means that we shall make the choice, not that you could not make another one.

If I made the opposite choice, I have either changed God's mind (hence losing his status as perfect), or shown him to not be omniscient.

Well that's blatantly obvious thanks to how he embarrasses himself often when he speaks publicly about philosophy and also the central argument of his book "The God Delusional" in which what he describes as his central argument is clearly invalid because the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises.

First off, it's "The God Delusion".

You're making a rather broad swathe against Dawkin's arguments. Can you be slightly more concise, or are you making the contention all of his assertions are logically flawed?

If it's the latter, I'd love to see you pull it off.

There clearly is an obvious reason to assume God is the first cause as if current science is correct, the universe began to exist, including time and matter. Most models include a mathematical singularity point at which no matter and time existed prior. If the universe began to exist, and therefore nature, it follows that nature could not bring itself into existence when it did not exist. This points to a transcendent cause, and therefore the supernatural.

The Universe as we understand it began to exist. We do not know whether it existed in a different form, or whether it is a potential infinite (and before I get the Second Law of Thermodynamics thrown at me, the Universe is an open system).

Regardless, invoking God into the equation would only exacerbate the problem of infinite regression, unless you delve into special pleading and ignore the possibility of an infinite/circular/spontaneous Universe.

What do you mean that the universe could circularly cause itself? If events regress into the past, this not only seems to not make sense but would not ultimately solve your problem as there would still be an absolute beginning, but I want this one explained a bit more.

Unfortunately I am not a physicist, I'll attempt to explain it as best as possible.

Much of circular causality is based on Cramer's Transactional Interpretation, which states "...at such a time as the wave function of a given quantum mechanical object such as a subatomic particle 'collapses' due to its having assumed a definite state, that particle emits a 'retarded wave' which travels backward in time to the instant of the particle's creation and determines its future course. The present, then, is determined not only by the past, but by the future as well."

This, in addition to Andrei Linde's self-replicating inflationary theory (big bang/big crunch repeating ad infinitum) makes the contention that there is a certain "final stage" of the Universe, for any number of reasons (heat death via thermodynamic equilibrium), and it has the capability to "bud off" another Universe.

Then we get into the idea of multiverses and an "Omniverse", but again, I doubt I could explain that to a reasonable degree. Forgive me if any of the above contains flaws.

Well you're wrong. For one the Kalam Cosmological argument. I would like to know how it has been torn apart. I watch debates on the subject and also notice that most people don't even understand it that try to refute it. This is actually what we're actively talking about.

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Oooh, the Kalaam. This is a fun argument to tackle, though it inherently contains a fallacy of composition. I'll explain by beginning with an analogy.

NOTE - Not all of the work I am about to present is completely original, as I borrow in part from a colleague of mine. It's a fairly long refutation, so I'll attempt to include a tl;dr at the end.

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There are a number of problems with this argument. First, we must look at P1. It asserts that everything which begins to exist has a cause. On which basis do we suggest such? It is perhaps perceived that things which begin to exist have causes, but this is not a logically necessary truth. This truth arrives at us a posteriori, or from our sensory experience. It is, at best, a naturalistic observation. Is is ironic here that naturalistic observations are often rejected by fundamentalist theists (not accusing Craig as being such), but is then utilized when in support of their own conclusion.

I’ve stated that the statement “everything which begins to exist has a cause” is not a statement of a priori knowledge, or a necessary truth. It is perhaps ‘common sense’, but we must also remember here that common sense told us that the Earth was flat and that the Sun revolved around it. With that said, it must first be established that P1 is a logical necessity.

P1 also commits the fallacy of stating that a set of things inherits the characteristics of the individual parts thereof. This is to say that they are stating that because things within the Universe have causes, the Universe too much have a cause. The argument, when depicted as a syllogism would be as follows:

Things within the Universe require causation.

Therefore, the Universe requires causation.

This is obviously fallacious.

Consider the following example. There is a classroom of students who are all under 200 pounds. This is a characteristic of the individual sums of the entire set of children in the classroom. It does not stand to reason that simply because all the students are under 200 pounds, that the SET in it’s entirety will be under 200 pounds. It’s obviously not going to be the case.

There is no logical principle to suggest that because something is true for the individual existents, it is true for the set in which the individuals exist.

The common rebuttal to this argument is the following:

“Well, where is there a set instead of no set?” or “Why is there something instead of nothing?”

This question has immense problems, even more so when the Theist asks, why is there something instead of nothing? No reason, therefore God.

What is nothing? We’ve never perceived nothing to exist, and in all places we’ve perceived something to exist. Nothing has never been conceived of, even in the mind when one thinks of nothing there is a something which is doing the perception of said nothing. If nothing were able to be cognitively discovered, it would, at that moment, cease being nothing and become something.

What are the properties of nothing? If nothing has properties, then it is not nothing, but rather something.

It is fallacious to presume that the state of nothing is the default state of existence, when in all places we have never witnessed this to be the case. We have witnessed that the default state of existence is actually SOMETHING.

What is the property of nothing that makes it more powerful than something, wherein if there were no God, nothing would win the battle over something and plunge us into nothingness? There can be no such property because as soon as nothing has a property it ceases to be nothing.

When the Theist asks this question, one should simply reply, “Why is there God instead of no God?”. You will most likely get an answer stating that it is God’s very nature to exist, as a qualification of his perfection. Why then, is it not the nature of the Universe to just exist? To apply the principle to God, and not to the alternatives is a form of ’special pleading’ which is logically fallacious.

tl;dr - The Universe is a set of existents, and attempting to apply characteristics from the individuals to the whole is a fallacy of composition, much like assuming that because everything in the alphabet is a letter, then the alphabet must also be a letter.
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Second argument is called the Transcendental argument in which the laws of logic cannot be explained by mere human invention, collective opinion, or the physical universe. The argument states that these are true regardless of the universe and that they are concepts that can only be accounted for by a mind that is transcendent and absolute.

Forgive me if I sound selfish, but I am not about to tackle the Transcendental Argument at 2 in the morning with a raging headache. Reading up on Kant, who is far more eloquent than I, presents a reasonable refutation to the TAG.

Now even though arguments exist about how best to explain the fine tuning of our universe and such things as objective moral values, I want to know why these are invalid.

You know they are wrong, but you want a refutation anyways? While I won't necessarily argue against objective moral values (Humanitarian), the fine tuned argument holds little water.

First, we have to ask the question, what are comparing fine tuning to? How can you understand what a fine tuned universe is, and under what basis do you assume that our Universe is actually fine tuned? You have no basis for comparison, and deductive logic cannot save this argument (perhaps P.E.A.R.L., but that is a different question entirely). Also, you would need to show that design and consciousness can exist before objective complexity.

If you contend the strong force of the Universe makes it possible for us to exist, then you fail to understand that we are fine tuned to exist in the Universe, not the other way around. Should any fundamental forces change, we would be unlikely to exist in our present form, but we understand that we would exist as something else entirely.

It is much like the water creating a puddle in the sidewalk. The puddle may contend the hole was made for him, but as we are able to understand that analogy on a grander scale than the non-sentient puddle, we can see that it is not the case.

Also I think it is important to establish similarly good reasons for believing that nature is all that exists and that God does not exist.

The primary reason is that we have never observed the supernatural to exist, or that the physical laws of the Universe have bent themselves for no explainable reason.

It is quite possible that the supernatural exists, but there is little to no evidence for it.

Ask yourself the question of why you assume at this situation, on a much larger scale is different from a turd or a duck appearing out of nowhere, or anything for that matter, all the time? There is nothing that comes out of nothing and if you are referring to the virtual particles that come from the sea of energy in a vacuum, they are not caused out of nothing by nothing, so that isn't correct even though this is the only example I've seen used.

What is "nothing"? Have we ever perceived nothing to exist? As I stated in the response to the Kalaam, I do not believe we have, primarily because as soon as you perceive nothing, you must have given it qualities in order to come to that conclusion. If you do that, you are no longer contending there is "nothing" in front of you, for if it were, you would not recognize it as such.

I am stating there is no inherent cause for the Casimir effect, hence the idea that there is no inherent cause for the Universe beginning to exist, if that is truly how it came about.

While I would still like you to explain circular causality, and why a transcendent cause is not a rational position to take, I am asking you what the best position is to take based on the available evidence. What I see from people like Borde, Guth, Vilenkin and Hawkings is that what you are saying is not the case. I'm not going to claim to understand how they reach their conclusions, but this is an argument from the current consensus among cosmologists.

I explained circular causality to the best of my ability (read: my brain is fried) earlier in this thread. While I can't "prove" the nonexistence of a a transcendental cause, I can say there is not enough evidence to justify it as rational. That does not mean it does not exist, or that there is no justifying principle behind it, but as far as we are aware today, supernatural causes are not backed empirically.

I want an example of something that comes out of absolutely nothing by nothing. To avoid a infinite regress it would make sense to have an uncaused cause. Besides this, there is no reason to think that a transcendent cause needed a cause. We don't see that it would begin to exists whereas it is different for the universe.

This looks like a variation of the Kalaam, to assert that the set must contain the properties of its existents.

To be honest, God really does not solve infinite regress as a first cause. Theists typically claim that everything must have a cause in order to exist, but then turn back around and stating that God is free from this logical constraint, which is a form of special pleading, and thusly fallacious at heart.

I don't know where you pulled this one from. The Big Bang would be a result of what happened with the physics going back in the past. I don't see how they would likely be incredibly different. What do you even mean by this?

My statement merely contends that in a singularity, there is evidence to assume that the laws of physics did not behave in the same fashion, much as it does in black holes.

Sorry if I'm not being overwhelmingly clear. I've had a migraine since I woke up this afternoon, and I believe it is affecting my clarity.

Of course the Big Bang does not explain what happened prior to it. That's where philosophy comes in. It isn't like we are going to go grab it or something to figure out. That's why I think that God makes the most sense for the cause of the universe.

Which leaves God with his own set of problems, ranging from pitting his omnipotence against his omniscience, the idea that God exacerbates the problem of infinite regression, or so on.

God is typically the easiest explanation for the cause of the universe, but that does not grant it additional credibility, as it utterly fails when we compare it to Occam's Razor.

Sorry for the block of text (or if anything is inherently false, I blame lack of sleep), you asked some fairly complex questions that required an in-depth answer. I doubt I'll respond to anything else this evening (morning?), as I just popped some sleep medication.

Cheers, I enjoy the discussion.

 

[Kix]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

Mystery? Certainly not, merely logic stemming from having your choices removed to be in accordance with omniscience. God's knowledge is not reflective, as it is actually foreknowledge, which is simply stating that the choice was known in advance.

If God knows the choices that will be made in the future, then the future is fixed, and there is nothing we can conceivably do to change it. The ability to know what I will do in the future constitutes my free will, and by already knowing what it is, I cannot conceivably alter from that course. God's knowledge cannot "change", as he is thought to be perfect, and having to "change his mind", as it were, denotes the glaring flaw that God may have been wrong.

Your choices are not removed! You merely make a decision and God knows it, whether is be A, B, C, D, etc. Since if you can pick a certain thing in a given situation, God simply knows that choice. Obviously if you were to choose A, you cannot choose both A and not A at the same time. So because God accurately predicts what you shall pick, it does not mean you couldn't have chosen B, just that you did not, or shall not. If an infallible barometer were to exist, the weather isn't in anyway forced to be that way, just is accurately known beforehand.

What you are saying does not follow. God's understanding of the future could include our choices just that God knows will happen. They do not happen because God knows them, so what I was saying is that you were placing an utterly mysterious constraint because God's foreknowledge of a choice does not make it any less of a choice. One last thing is that when I say God's knowledge would have been different if you were to pick B instead of A, that doesn't mean that he would change his mind but just that his knowledge would have been different in the first place.

The only way I could see you making much sense is if you introduced the concept that God does not experience time as we do, or that his omniscience is not perfect.

Well this is something that I'm currently studying that is really complicated on how God exists outside of time and perhaps stepped into time to relate to what he created. Either way what you were thinking doesn't actually follow although it does seem to make sense at first.

God does not take things into consideration, he knows because merely because he is divine. His knowledge is arbitrary at best, and stemming from poor logic at worst, much like his objective moral code.

"Consideration" was not the best word, but it would have been better said "God knows". I don't know how God's knowledge would be arbitrary, but I also don't think you would be able to fully understand it, especially based on the limits we experience. This does not keep God from being the best explanation.

God has no "objective moral code" which if it did exist would be arbitrary. This leads us back to the good old Euthyphro argument and is easily gotten through by saying that what God gives as moral dictates come from God's necessary nature. This makes sense specifically for what the Christian God is supposed to be, but I don't want to get sidetrack on Christian particularism at this point.

If I made the opposite choice, I have either changed God's mind (hence losing his status as perfect), or shown him to not be omniscient.

Well the point is that you yourself will choose what you are going to choose and that God knows it. If you choose the other choice then it is just "God knows that Felix will freely choose B" absolutely.

First off, it's "The God Delusion".

You're making a rather broad swathe against Dawkin's arguments. Can you be slightly more concise, or are you making the contention all of his assertions are logically flawed?

If it's the latter, I'd love to see you pull it off.

I knew that, that is a typo. Yes I can be more concise. When he speaks at conferences about how he confronts top theologians and philosophers and beats them with parodies of arguments that he does not understand, he makes a fool of himself. When his main argument is

"1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises.

2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself.

3. The temptation is a false one because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer.

4. The most ingenious and powerful explanation is Darwinian evolution by natural selection.

5. We don't have an equivalent explanation for physics.

6. We should not give up the hope of a better explanation arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology.

Therefore, God almost certainly does not exist."

Really? Does that follow? He needs to go back to biology and stay there.

The Universe as we understand it began to exist. We do not know whether it existed in a different form, or whether it is a potential infinite (and before I get the Second Law of Thermodynamics thrown at me, the Universe is an open system).

Regardless, invoking God into the equation would only exacerbate the problem of infinite regression, unless you delve into special pleading and ignore the possibility of an infinite/circular/spontaneous Universe.

"Nothing existed prior to the Big Bang" seems to tell me that they do not think it existed in another form. When you say that we do not know if it is a potential infinite, that would seem to infer that it still had a finite past and thus a beginning.

Why would God need to begin to exist? Time doesn't exist prior to the Big Bang, so how God exists would be something entirely 'other'. The universe began to exist, based on the classic example of God, God did not begin to exist so it doesn't complicate things further. At any rate the Kalam argument is a deductive argument. The conclusion follows from the premises necessarily if they are true.

Unfortunately I am not a physicist, I'll attempt to explain it as best as possible.

Much of circular causality is based on Cramer's Transactional Interpretation, which states "...at such a time as the wave function of a given quantum mechanical object such as a subatomic particle 'collapses' due to its having assumed a definite state, that particle emits a 'retarded wave' which travels backward in time to the instant of the particle's creation and determines its future course. The present, then, is determined not only by the past, but by the future as well."

This, in addition to Andrei Linde's self-replicating inflationary theory (big bang/big crunch repeating ad infinitum) makes the contention that there is a certain "final stage" of the Universe, for any number of reasons (heat death via thermodynamic equilibrium), and it has the capability to "bud off" another Universe.

Then we get into the idea of multiverses and an "Omniverse", but again, I doubt I could explain that to a reasonable degree. Forgive me if any of the above contains flaws.

I don't see how this avoids an absolute beginning, is that what this is supposed to do? It seems like, even though I don't fully understand what it is totally getting at, that it still works within time. If the particle did not exist prior to the singularity then there is nothing to go back to.

Inflationary models don't seem to avoid an absolute beginning either. Vilenkin admits this even though he is for multiverse which uses inflationary models. So the problem is that none of these avoids the beginning, but multiverse attempts to explain fine tuning.

Oooh, the Kalaam. This is a fun argument to tackle, though it inherently contains a fallacy of composition. I'll explain by beginning with an analogy.

NOTE - Not all of the work I am about to present is completely original, as I borrow in part from a colleague of mine. It's a fairly long refutation, so I'll attempt to include a tl;dr at the end.

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There are a number of problems with this argument. First, we must look at P1. It asserts that everything which begins to exist has a cause. On which basis do we suggest such? It is perhaps perceived that things which begin to exist have causes, but this is not a logically necessary truth. This truth arrives at us a posteriori, or from our sensory experience. It is, at best, a naturalistic observation. Is is ironic here that naturalistic observations are often rejected by fundamentalist theists (not accusing Craig as being such), but is then utilized when in support of their own conclusion.

Well first of all, logically when something does not have a nature it does not bring itself into existence because it has no nature. So basically you need to contradict what you and I see in reality by saying that something, namely just the universe, came out of nothing. Why? Why don't you believe anything and everything come out of nothing, and why doesn't it happen all the time? You aren't afraid of a boulder dropping on top of your house out of nowhere, or an RE5 chainsaw appearing in the room with you. Why is the universe any different? Well it isn't unless you want to be inconsistent.

It isn't ironic that Craig uses experience for his arguments? Since when did he or other theologians deny their existence?

I’ve stated that the statement “everything which begins to exist has a cause” is not a statement of a priori knowledge, or a necessary truth. It is perhaps ‘common sense’, but we must also remember here that common sense told us that the Earth was flat and that the Sun revolved around it. With that said, it must first be established that P1 is a logical necessity.

It certainly doesn't make sense to deny P1, unless you are an inconsistent atheist.

P1 also commits the fallacy of stating that a set of things inherits the characteristics of the individual parts thereof.

What?

This is to say that they are stating that because things within the Universe have causes, the Universe too much have a cause. The argument, when depicted as a syllogism would be as follows:

Things within the Universe require causation.

Therefore, the Universe requires causation.

This is obviously fallacious.

The reason why it isn't fallacious is because the same reason applies to both.

Consider the following example. There is a classroom of students who are all under 200 pounds. This is a characteristic of the individual sums of the entire set of children in the classroom. It does not stand to reason that simply because all the students are under 200 pounds, that the SET in it’s entirety will be under 200 pounds. It’s obviously not going to be the case.

There is a problem with this analogy. It isn't the nature of a classroom of students to be under 200 pounds, it has to do with human nature which allows for them to be more than that. That is why not all students would necessarily be under 200 pounds. There isn't a nature constraining them to it.

There is no logical principle to suggest that because something is true for the individual existents, it is true for the set in which the individuals exist.

He is talking about different natures entirely. I am talking about the nature of existence alone, which applies by logic to anything that exists and thus has a nature. When something does not exist and nothing puts it into existence, there is no nature for it to come into existence. This remains true for the turd spontaneously appearing in your room, the RE5 chainsaw guy and even the universe.

The common rebuttal to this argument is the following:

“Well, where is there a set instead of no set?” or “Why is there something instead of nothing?”

This question has immense problems, even more so when the Theist asks, why is there something instead of nothing? No reason, therefore God.

The universe began to exist, it was not always there. The question is what best explains how the universe began to exist.

What is nothing? We’ve never perceived nothing to exist, and in all places we’ve perceived something to exist. Nothing has never been conceived of, even in the mind when one thinks of nothing there is a something which is doing the perception of said nothing. If nothing were able to be cognitively discovered, it would, at that moment, cease being nothing and become something.

Nothing is non-existence, simply put.

What are the properties of nothing? If nothing has properties, then it is not nothing, but rather something.

What is this guy going on about?

It is fallacious to presume that the state of nothing is the default state of existence, when in all places we have never witnessed this to be the case. We have witnessed that the default state of existence is actually SOMETHING.

When the universe does not exist and begins to exist, it becomes something, but why?

What is the property of nothing that makes it more powerful than something, wherein if there were no God, nothing would win the battle over something and plunge us into nothingness? There can be no such property because as soon as nothing has a property it ceases to be nothing.

When the Theist asks this question, one should simply reply, “Why is there God instead of no God?”. You will most likely get an answer stating that it is God’s very nature to exist, as a qualification of his perfection. Why then, is it not the nature of the Universe to just exist? To apply the principle to God, and not to the alternatives is a form of ’special pleading’ which is logically fallacious.

All this does is sidetrack the issue into "Why does God exists" when this argument is a very proof for God's existence! It doesn't even go anywhere or respond to the premises.

tl;dr - The Universe is a set of existents, and attempting to apply characteristics from the individuals to the whole is a fallacy of composition, much like assuming that because everything in the alphabet is a letter, then the alphabet must also be a letter.
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What is with this guy's logic? Who said that if something consisted of many of the same thing that it itself is one unit of the same thing of what it contains (multiples of what it is supposed to be a single unit of?) even though that makes no sense at all? Let's say there are three apples, who said that three apples is one apple? What does this even apply to? This guy needs to stop drinking. I don't even remember if he even mentioned the premises since that was such a trip.

Forgive me if I sound selfish, but I am not about to tackle the Transcendental Argument at 2 in the morning with a raging headache. Reading up on Kant, who is far more eloquent than I, presents a reasonable refutation to the TAG.

You said give me something and I did. I also doubt refutations of TAG actually refute it given all of them that I have seen. I want to make sure you understand that it isn't a valid evidence for God's existence.

You know they are wrong, but you want a refutation anyways? While I won't necessarily argue against objective moral values (Humanitarian), the fine tuned argument holds little water.

It holds fine water as even the atheists will use multiverse theories to try to explain it away (showing that it does actually bother them). The problem is that they think they are applying to science when this isn't testable at all and it doesn't explain why we are in the position we are in. Also it does not avoid an absolute beginning as even people like Vilenkin state.

As for objective moral values, how do you explain them, and how are they not arbitrary and meaningful?

First, we have to ask the question, what are comparing fine tuning to? How can you understand what a fine tuned universe is, and under what basis do you assume that our Universe is actually fine tuned? You have no basis for comparison, and deductive logic cannot save this argument (perhaps P.E.A.R.L., but that is a different question entirely). Also, you would need to show that design and consciousness can exist before objective complexity.

Easily because it either comes from physical necessity or it doesn't. From what I see is that cosmologists do not think that it comes from necessity. Even so, how does something without a nature just come out so well anyway? Considering how ridiculously small changes in pretty much anything would make us end up with a universe that is just helium or something, it cries out for explanation and that's why the attempt with multiverses was even brought up. What I find funny is that the fine tuning itself is not even debated by cosmologists, it's how it is best explained.

What do I need to show?

If you contend the strong force of the Universe makes it possible for us to exist, then you fail to understand that we are fine tuned to exist in the Universe, not the other way around. Should any fundamental forces change, we would be unlikely to exist in our present form, but we understand that we would exist as something else entirely.

This just shows a misunderstanding of what happens with the small changes. If the universe collapses back into a fireball we don't exist. If the universe exists only of helium and star formation never occurs we never exist in ANY form.

It is much like the water creating a puddle in the sidewalk. The puddle may contend the hole was made for him, but as we are able to understand that analogy on a grander scale than the non-sentient puddle, we can see that it is not the case.

Kh'thanks!

The primary reason is that we have never observed the supernatural to exist, or that the physical laws of the Universe have bent themselves for no explainable reason.

It is quite possible that the supernatural exists, but there is little to no evidence for it.

Yet the deductive arguments don't matter even though the conclusion is unavoidable. Maybe the supernatural does have decent evidence but it just isn't what you like?

What is "nothing"? Have we ever perceived nothing to exist? As I stated in the response to the Kalaam, I do not believe we have, primarily because as soon as you perceive nothing, you must have given it qualities in order to come to that conclusion. If you do that, you are no longer contending there is "nothing" in front of you, for if it were, you would not recognize it as such.

I am stating there is no inherent cause for the Casimir effect, hence the idea that there is no inherent cause for the Universe beginning to exist, if that is truly how it came about.

Do properties come from nothingness?

I explained circular causality to the best of my ability (read: my brain is fried) earlier in this thread. While I can't "prove" the nonexistence of a a transcendental cause, I can say there is not enough evidence to justify it as rational. That does not mean it does not exist, or that there is no justifying principle behind it, but as far as we are aware today, supernatural causes are not backed empirically.

What kind of evidence do you need? Is it unreasonable to believe that something that begins to exist has a cause? What about everything else? Is there any good reason for believing that atheism is true?

This looks like a variation of the Kalaam, to assert that the set must contain the properties of its existents.

To be honest, God really does not solve infinite regress as a first cause. Theists typically claim that everything must have a cause in order to exist, but then turn back around and stating that God is free from this logical constraint, which is a form of special pleading, and thusly fallacious at heart.

More like non-being does not become being without a cause. It makes sense on a common-sense scale, as your friend admitted, that that which begins to exist has a cause. The question is if the universe could come out of nothing by nothing, which is logically invalid, then why doesn't anything and everything anywhere do the same? Why do you never suspect it? What property causes nothing to become something out of nothing?

The claim is not that something must have a cause in order to exist, but that that which begins to exist needs a cause. Your reasoning is wrong-headed.

My statement merely contends that in a singularity, there is evidence to assume that the laws of physics did not behave in the same fashion, much as it does in black holes.

Sorry if I'm not being overwhelmingly clear. I've had a migraine since I woke up this afternoon, and I believe it is affecting my clarity.

? More like the laws of physics began.

Wow I'm surprised you survived through this, I've seen the bad effects of migraines. (I've never actually had one myself)

Which leaves God with his own set of problems, ranging from pitting his omnipotence against his omniscience, the idea that God exacerbates the problem of infinite regression, or so on.

God is typically the easiest explanation for the cause of the universe, but that does not grant it additional credibility, as it utterly fails when we compare it to Occam's Razor.

Sorry for the block of text (or if anything is inherently false, I blame lack of sleep), you asked some fairly complex questions that required an in-depth answer. I doubt I'll respond to anything else this evening (morning?), as I just popped some sleep medication.

Cheers, I enjoy the discussion.

You do not need to explain an explanation in order for it to be the best explanation. That is the case is science, archeology, you name it. I don't think there is a valid argument against omnipotence either. God doesn't infinitely regress because there is no regression.

Occam's Razor states not to multiply explanations past necessity, but it doesn't at all say not to explain something when it is necessary! This might be an argument for example against multiple gods or something.

I hope you feel better man, migraines are a nightmare I'm sure! Get some rest.

 

[StrayDogStrut]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

The above is why I never get involved with religious threads online.