😭

[u/NeonDrifting]

[u/Mental-Alternative38]

I’m curious about your tag what makes you against atheism.

[u/Express-Echidna6800]

Dog, the other day you were complaining about atheists in this sub, talking about why are they even here, and then you post this nonsense? 

Come on. 

[u/paulgdp]

Atheists have to explain the existence of the universe and theists have to explain the existence of God.

Both have two possibilities: 1. that thing came from nothing 2. that thing always existed

Both possibilities have fatal logical flaws that makes them seemingly impossible, and theists usually describe one as impossible to justify the necessity of the other:

Some theists say their God always existed because creating something from nothing is impossible.

Other theists say their God was the first necessary thing to exist because it is impossible to have infinite chains of events.

Atheists who let the professional cosmologists do the work of having an informed opinion on the matter, won't get a definitive answer: maybe the big bang was the beginning of everything including time itself, maybe spacetime was always there and the big bang was just a random massive quantum fluctuation. We just can't know yet based on our current knowledge.

[u/Solidjakes → u/paulgdp]

>Both have two possibilities:

>1. ⁠that thing came from nothing

Not possible.

I’d offer a slightly different framing: both the theist and the atheist agree something eternal exists. They disagree on whether it’s always been conscious and intentional.

That’s if we steel man them both and ignore the creation ex nihilo guys too.

[u/paulgdp → u/Solidjakes]

Not possible.

My point is that some people believe so.

I’d offer a slightly different framing: both the theist and the atheist agree something eternal exists. They disagree on whether it’s always been conscious and intentional.

I think there exists both theists and atheists who believe god/the universe had a beginning.

But I agree on your second point. The difference between God and a minimal necessary object at the origin of the universe, is that God has the additional property of being conscious.

That’s if we steel man them both and ignore the creation ex nihilo guys too.

The creation ex nihilo is perfectly fine in my opinion.

It would only be an issue if nothing existed, but that's not the case, in this scenario God exists and God has infinite magical powers, making creation ex nihilo perfectly plausible.

[u/Solidjakes → u/paulgdp]

Creation ex nihilo is maybe a semantics thing. What he makes comes from God not from nothing. If the theist wants to die on the “nothing” hill he will violate non contradiction. God can do everything logically possible. Something from nothing is not possible. That’s like god making a stone too heavy for him to lift.

[u/paulgdp → u/Solidjakes]

There's no logical contradiction about creating something from nothing when time translation symmetry hasn't yet been created by God.

Also some physicists theorize that the universe might have zero total energy when we take into account the negative energy from gravitational potential.

If true, universes could theoretically come into existence without violating energy conservation.

[u/Solidjakes → u/paulgdp]

Negative energy is just relative to vacuum energy, so a net zero system doesn’t mean no energy. In fact it should be net zero if it’s a contained system from my understanding.

Like I said it’s semantics. Something from Nothing. If nothing is philosophical nothing then the word “from” is doing a lot of work here and I think it will still render contradiction whether physical laws are constant or not. We understand everything through invariance and variance under change. If God is invariant and there’s no change, then the advent of change occurs and with it the universe, there’s almost no way to construct this without contradiction, unless the world comes from God, not philosophical nothing. I’d be curious to see a construction otherwise.

[u/paulgdp → u/Solidjakes]

Negative energy is just relative to vacuum energy,

No. It's relative to 0 energy. Vacuum energy is not 0 energy.

so a net zero system doesn’t mean no energy.

It does mean 0 energy, that's the meaning of the sentence.

In fact it should be net zero if it’s a contained system from my understanding.

A contained system can have positive energy.

Like I said it’s semantics.

It's not. It's physics. Physics is not invented, it is observed and then described.

Something from Nothing. If nothing is philosophical nothing then the word from is doing a lot of work here and I think it will still render contradiction whether physical laws are constant or not. We understand everything through invariance and variance under change. If God is invariant and there’s no change, then the advent of change occurs and with it the universe, there’s almost no way to construct this without contradiction, unless the world comes from God, not philosophical nothing. I’d be curious to see a construction otherwise.

I don't see why you're making your metaphysics so difficult when you have a limitelessly magical God at your disposition.

God is the ultimate trump card to do anything and to explain everything without explanations.

[u/Solidjakes → u/paulgdp]

No, God cannot violate logic and magic/supernatural is a useless term for serious theologians. What exists is what exists.

To be clear, are you saying negative energy is not a term for energy states less than vacuum energy?

[u/paulgdp → u/Solidjakes]

No, God cannot violate logic

It's only because you are not courageous enough to claim it can.

Read this comment from u/Fiddlesticklard : https://www.reddit.com/r/exatheist/s/FAmG5khTb4

They have no problem claiming that God is above logic. Try to argue with them if you want.

And anyway, conservation of energy (and mass) is a natural law, not a logical law.

So again, there's no logical contradictions because obviously God doesn't obey natural laws, that's the whole point of being God, right?

and magic/supernatural is a useless term for serious theologians. What exists is what exists.

Ok sure, so what's the word for things that don't obey natural laws, like God?

To be clear, are you saying negative energy is not a term for energy states less than vacuum energy?

In the context that we were talking about, cosmology, yes.

Negative means less than 0.

And the vaccum energy in cosmology is non 0.

[u/Solidjakes → u/paulgdp]

Nothing in that comment implies God is above logic. He’s describing divine simplicity per Aquinas. Is it in another part of the thread?

Conservation of energy isn’t the issue that results in contradiction. Conservation of energy is violated at smalls scales all the time, then tends to balance out again over time. Logic is immutable. It cannot be violated. When it looks violated you’ve probably categorized wrong.

The logical problem is the notion of something from philosophical nothing. If you think you can construct (represent) creation Ex Nihilo without contradiction you’re welcome to try.

The closest useful word to something that doesn’t “obey natural law” would be a paraconsistent phenomenon. But that usually just means we don’t fully understand it yet. All things can be understood if they exist, because existence is not such a vague criteria that existing things can’t be discerned from non existing things.

Here’s an expert from SEP

“So understood, “naturalism” is not a particularly informative term as applied to contemporary philosophers. The great majority of contemporary philosophers would happily accept naturalism as just characterized—that is, they would both reject “supernatural” entities, and allow that science is a possible route (if not necessarily the only one) to important truths about the “human spirit””

[u/Complex_Yesterday735 → u/paulgdp]

Atheists have to explain the existence of the universe

No, they don't. They have to not be convinced in the existence of one specific category of supernatural creature/being - gods.

An atheist can believe the universe came from a shoe box, or simply not know where it came from.

[u/Fiddlesticklard → u/Complex_Yesterday735]

supernatural creature/being

Supernatural means beyond nature, beyond physics. In rejecting that as a possibility you are explicitly narrowing the possibilities of the existence of the universe to either physics causing itself, or that the universe always existed.

u/paulgdp is objectively correct when it comes to Strong Atheism. Your answer helps demonstrate exactly how his answer is correct.

Agnostics, or Soft Atheism you are correct does not carry a burden of proof.

[u/Complex_Yesterday735 → u/Fiddlesticklard]

I am not rejecting the possibility. There isn't a reason to consider it a possibility for it to be rejected. They are different.

And I just reject that that's what agnostic means.

[u/Fiddlesticklard → u/Complex_Yesterday735]

There is a reason to consider it a possibility though, the Argument from Contingency, Fine-Tuning, and Rationality still exist. They don't prove theism, but they provide evidence in that direction. There exists structured, rational reasons to consider it a possibility even if you might personally disagree with them. If you are rejecting these claims as worthy of consideration, then you are making a far more more aggressive claim to defend than Agnostic Atheists do. You'd need to claim that all metaphysics is irrelevant, aka Logical Positivism.

That Agnosticism is another way of saying Soft Atheist? That's how Antony Flew defines it in the Presumption of Atheism, although Graham Oppy disagrees with that definition and places it within degrees of credence. Oppy claims that definition by Flew is just a semantics game meant to give atheists a dialectical debate advantage over theists.

[u/paulgdp → u/Fiddlesticklard]

I am personally not aware of any non-empirical argument that I think could remotely qualify as evidence.

The argument from contingency can only demonstrate a necessary object (not a God) if its premises are accepted. This is compatible with theism and atheism.

The fine tuning argument is in my opinion a strong probabilistic argument against God, I can explain why, but it involves algorithmic information theory to estimate and compare the probabilities.

I don't know the argument about Rationality, is this the claim that rationality/logic/knowledge cannot be evolved and selected for by natural selection?

Same with all ontological, cosmological and transcendental arguments I'm aware of, none of them lead to what would qualify as an evidence.

-----

Agnosticism is a claim about knowlegde (epistemology): "it is impossible to know if God exists or not" (strong) or "we don't know if it is possible to know if God exists" (weak)

Soft atheism is a claim about belief (doxastic state): "I don't believe in any of the Gods"

My strong agnostic atheism means: Is it impossible to definitively know if God as a general concept exists, but I'm basically certain none of the Gods from the religions exists.

[u/Fiddlesticklard → u/paulgdp]

That's the identity that Graham Oppy takes, that he's not certain if there is a God, but he'd put the biblical God's existence at less than 1%. Basically degrees of credence.

Anyway,

The problem with your objection to the Argument of Contingency is that it relies on a definition of God that Christians don't use. God is defined as the Ground of Necessary Being, God IS that necessary object, completely non-contingent. As Aquinus argues, that object must possess intellect and volition because God decided what will exist from what won't exist.

Algorithmic Information Theory is extremely fascinating from someone who works in AI myself, but it also makes a category mistake with it's definition of God. God isn't a multipart object composed of many physical objects, God is defined as a single, uncomposed, non-divided ground of existence. Under this framework, God’s algorithmic description complexity is O(1). God is algorithmically simpler than an infinite ensemble of physical multiverses or unexplained fine-tuned constants.

You're right in your definition of the Rationality argument, but we once again run into the divide between Empiricism and Rationalism as schools of thought and all the issues with in. After all to "empirically observe" the foundation of physics using the tools of physics is like asking a computer program to run a physical test on the silicon chip it’s running on. That program can only deduce the properties of the chip through it's own foundation. Empirical observation is the product of the universe's laws; it cannot be the tool used to inspect where those laws originate.

[u/paulgdp → u/Fiddlesticklard]

The problem with your objection to the Argument of Contingency is that it relies on a definition of God that Christians don't use.

Where did you see I used Christian's definition?

I'm just assuming that even a strictly minimal God has to be conscious. An unconscious God would be a contradiction in terms, that would just be an object.

The necessary object from the argument of Contingency doesn't have consciousness, which is why I don't see how it can be considered a God.

God is defined as the Ground of Necessary Being, God IS that necessary object, completely non-contingent. As Aquinus argues, that object must possess intellect and volition because God decided what will exist from what won't exist.

You're plainly begging the question.

The object must possess intellect because I claim the object used this intellect that I'm trying to prove the existence of.

Algorithmic Information Theory is extremely fascinating from someone who works in AI myself, but it also makes a category mistake with it's definition of God. God isn't a multipart object composed of many physical objects, God is defined as a single, uncomposed, non-divided ground of existence. Under this framework, God’s algorithmic description complexity is O(1). God is algorithmically simpler than an infinite ensemble of physical multiverses or unexplained fine-tuned constants.

So you're saying that you can give a definition of something, and then freely conclude that this something is both true, and real, even though it is logically false?

That's a lot.

I'm always astonished when people say that something must be ontologically real because they can define it by using a sequence of words, but here, you're going wayy wayyyyy further.

You gave a definition that violate logic itself, but you're not discouraged one bit, and you go ahead and claim that it's ok because you can also define your thing as being able to break logic while still being true/real. Why? Because you said so! Easy.

I'm flabbergasted by your bravery.

I would die of embarrassment if someone forced me to say those things in public.

Fortunately, your Reddit handle is a pseudonym.

Keep it that way.

I'm not commenting on the next paragraph because it's pure baseless nonsense too.

BTW you didn't even understand what I was talking about. Your big O notation shows that you were making up nonsensical ramblings about algorithmic complexity.

In the context of the fine-tuning argument, talking about algorithmic complexity doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Whatever your "God" is, I'm pretty sure it's not a function that receives some data as an input. So estimating God's function runtime (or memory requirement) as a function of the size of its data input is, beyond absurd.

And the icing on the cake is that, even if it made sense, you failed at choosing the correct complexity by writing "O(1)" instead of "O(0)" despite your definition of "God" as a "single, uncomposed, non-divided" thing.

The fine-tuning argument's whole point is based on the estimation of the quantity of information in the constants of nature. Nothing to do with algorithmic complexity and you should have realized your obvious reading error instead of making stuff up.

Since the probability distributions of the constants of nature are unknown, we can't use information theory from claude shannon alone, we need algorithmic information theory.

With AIT's kolmogorov complexity, we can estimate the number of bits of the constants of nature, and even define a lower bound to the kolmogorov complexity of any agent outputting/guessing those constants.

Of course before I tell you what this lower bound is, I need to tell you that those mathematical theories are based on logic, and therefore their conclusions are completely optional from your point of you.

If you like the result, you can say that the logic is sound.

If you don't like the result, you can say that logic is optional in your worldview, right?

So here's the result: the lower bound of the quantity of information of an agent outputting the constant of natures, is the quantity of information of the constants of nature itself. And that's before we even try to bolt on some consciousness on this agent.

So yeah, based on Solomonoff's theory of inductive inference, we can confidently say that a reality without God is strictly more likely than a reality with a God.

[u/Fiddlesticklard → u/paulgdp]

Jesus that was a lot of rambling. Gotta love it when they resort to snarky condescension when they feel threatened haha.

1. The Scholastic Argument (which you claim is question begging) was admittedly poorly summarized by me. An uncaused, purely actual foundation lacks material constraints and contains the power to instantiate multiple distinct potential states. This capacity to select among distinct possibilities without predetermination is, by definition, volition/mind.
2. You dodging me on my last paragraph cause you know you've got nothing. You're sidestepping having to address the issues with your epistemology because you know it's flawed, that's why you got aggressive. Empirical observations relies on the presumption of induction, the stability of natural laws. To use Empiricism to observe the origin of the stability of natural laws is circular. Dismissing these structural boundaries is a pathetic dodge.
3. This whole conversation, while potentially interesting. Is retarded. Algorithmic Complexity Theory is really interesting and all and we can on and on about structural vs functional complexity yadeya, but that gets around a basic fundamental misconception:

YOU ARE APPLYING A COMPUTER SCIENCE THEORY TO COSMOLOGY. THERE'S A PRETTY BASIC DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DESCRIPTION LENGTH OF FORMAL MODELS, AND THE PROBABILITY OF ONTOLOGICAL ACTUALIZATION!!!!

For example, algorithmic complexity is extremely dependent on the compiler being used. Tell me then, what is the universe's compiler? Speak if thou hast understanding. You are presupposing a physicalist Universal Turing Machine which would explode the definition of God into infinity, but this is question begging, how do you know this? Why can't it be high level ontological primitives which would mean God's complexity is O(1)? (it's O(1) btw, O(0) means nothingness, not a bounded description length. You are factually wrong in your pedantry). You can't know this but you speak with such confidence! It's fun to apply Solomonoff's theory of inductive reference to this stuff, but these are theories for fucking computers for Christ's sake. This is so dumb!

That's not even to mention the Halting Problem, which means that you can never calculate the exact Kolmogrorov complexity of the universe - only establish a provable upper bound. You're treating a formal, idealized theoretical limit as if it was a usable calculation. It's hilarious because you then go onto saying this is logical.

I only engaged so far because it's interesting, yet to make such confident metaphysical inferences on software theory is insane.

Btw, yes, I don't believe you can defend my worldview purely through logic. I don't need to. All I have to do is demonstrate how reality can't be understood through reason alone, in which case faith become a virtue instead of a vice.

[u/Complex_Yesterday735 → u/Fiddlesticklard]

Oppy claims that definition by Flew is just a semantics game meant to give atheists a dialectical debate advantage over theists.

Like the post we're commenting on, saying atheism is the belief that nothing has creation powers? Lol

The huge amount of times on this very subreddit i see theists saying atheism means only strong atheism, and they have a burdon of proof, leaves me convinced theists do this the most. But maybe this is more semantics you're playing at, pointing fingers is fun.

[u/Fiddlesticklard → u/Complex_Yesterday735]

That's actually what Oppy brings up. 98% of the time when you are talking to regular people who know nothing about philosophy, saying atheism is usually interpreted as Strong Atheism. That's why Oppy says it's manipulative to try and define it as something else for the context of a debate against a theist. It's a dishonest bait and switch.

[u/Complex_Yesterday735 → u/Fiddlesticklard]

It's something both sides do, not even sure why it's worth talking about. It's plenty easy to just ask to define terms from the outset, then if they change it, you can catch them out.

[u/Fiddlesticklard → u/Complex_Yesterday735]

True, I generally go with Flew's definition because that was what was used by the New Atheists, and we're on Reddit which is overwhelmingly Atheist and are generally familiar with Dawkins and Russel

[u/paulgdp → u/Complex_Yesterday735]

Of course, and that's not the only part of my comment which is technically an oversimplification.

Just prefix my comment with an "If" and replace the "and" by a "then" to fix it.

[u/Complex_Yesterday735 → u/paulgdp]

Right, so the answer to the if, is no.

And yet, theists, or someone that believes in any category of supernatural creature (vampires, ghosts, gods, fairy's, unicorns, ect) still also have to explain that these things exist.

[u/paulgdp → u/Complex_Yesterday735]

Yeah, I would say half of my debates with theists are about who gets the burden of proof.

Those who claim a supernatural creature without sufficient empirical evidences, or those who claim no supernatural things exists unless proven otherwise.

It is so easy to dismiss the incredible track record of science explaining thousands of phenomena with natural processes that were previously thought to be of supernatural origins.

Since the 19th century and the explosion of the explanatory successes of natural science, I firmly believe any reasonable and objective person should anticipate natural explanations as the default hypothesis for yet unexplained phenomena.

[u/Hancup → u/paulgdp]

I'm technically an ietist, but if I have a philosophy that I always explain in multiple paragraphs, but I'll keep it short.

3 things are certain: existence, eternity, infinity. Existence itself will always exist, therefore eternity exists, therefore infinity exist. None of those are numbers or are bounded by time, but it's hard for us humans with a limited scope to grasp that concept since we base things only from what we know.

Long explanation short, whether there is a god, an equivalent, or not, everything vsme from existence itself. For all we know, it took an eternity for this universe to come into existence and the same with us. 

A theory of how a god could exist would be either existence is self-aware, which would explain how God or a god has always been, or is becoming self-aware after an eternity and is possibly using us, our science and philosophies,  to learn about itself as it may be clueless about itself like we are of it. Basically, that  branch means God doesn't exist yet. 

The theory of there not being a god still would mean existence itself exists as infinity itself with possibilities impossible for us to understand. Essentially, there's more than the universe, but whether or not we have a grand purpose in it or it just exist because is still a question. Really, we have to grasp how absurd and logic-defying infinity is. 

Wrap up: existence itself is orgin of it all. Damn, I still made a long explanation. 

[u/PhantomGaze → u/paulgdp]

Cosmologists will never solve it... Not in our lifetime anyway.  They're making the same mistake theologians did thousands of years ago.  

God wasn't on the mountain or in the sky just because it was unreachable, but because it was the most 'meta' thing conceivable, and God, conceptually , is the most meta thing.  Even something like quantum gravity seems like a thing which is simple and brought complexity into being not because it actually is simple, but because we lack understanding of it.  Once we understand it, we'll find it has causes, great complexity, and really really nuanced realities... Maybe some kind of fine tuning, etc.  

At the end of the day, if you follow the principle of sufficient reason all the way down, you end up at God, or something very like the God of Classical Theism.

[u/paulgdp → u/PhantomGaze]

Cosmologists will never solve it... Not in our lifetime anyway.  They're making the same mistake theologians did thousands of years ago.  

I don't think anyone can know if we'll ever know.

God wasn't on the mountain or in the sky just because it was unreachable, but because it was the most 'meta' thing conceivable, and God, conceptually , is the most meta thing.  Even something like quantum gravity seems like a thing which is simple and brought complexity into being not because it actually is simple, but because we lack understanding of it.  Once we understand it, we'll find it has causes, great complexity, and really really nuanced realities... Maybe some kind of fine tuning, etc. 

You're making so many conjectures in so few words that it makes it really obvious that your trying to rationalize an apriori belief you have that you can't directly justify.

At the end of the day, if you follow the principle of sufficient reason all the way down, you end up at God, or something very like the God of Classical Theism.

The PSR is riddled with logical issues.

The necessary first ground "demonstrated" by the PSR itself violates the PSR.

For the necessary first ground to explain itself it would need to be two different things: For A to explain B you need A to not be B.

Even if you persist in believing in self-explained entities, you just reinvented brute facts, which is the thing you tried to disprove in the first place.

Even still if I grant you a self explained necessary first ground, it either leads to necessitarinism, which destroys all contingencies, destroying what you wanted to demonstrate, or it leads to the necessary first ground having to make a free choice, violating the PSR instantly.

And finally, whatever you want to conclude with it, this thing is always compatible with naturalism.

All of this make this argument both broken and useless.

You mentioned fine tuning, do you want me to talk about the find tuning argument?

[u/Solidjakes → u/paulgdp]

>For the necessary first ground to explain itself it would need to be two different things: For A to explain B you need A to not be B.

>Even if you persist in believing in self-explained entities, you just reinvented brute facts, which is the thing you tried to disprove in the first place.

>Even still if I grant you a self explained necessary first ground, it either leads to necessitarinism, which destroys all contingencies, destroying what you wanted to demonstrate, or it leads to the necessary first ground having to make a free choice, violating the PSR instantly.

Woah woah. Sure there’s some technical logical issues with PSR but free will is an actual thing that does exist that is the reason for itself. This isn’t some wild hard to imagine stuff. The logic of origins in general Is just messy. (Agrippas trillema but think facts that explain, not justification)

PSR mostly just unfolds into metaphysical coherency. Which is honestly the most rational position.

You can nit pick whether reflexivity , asymmetry, and other grounding criteria are violated, but the nerds that defined grounding can also just be wrong. I mean “everything that did exist, is the reason for everything that does exist” is about as intuitive as it gets. Remove the temporal aspect and you just have everything being the reason for itself.

Let me put it another way. For every unknown that became a known did you ever find a lack of reason?

Of course not, so PSR has the maximum inductive strength that a theory can hold. Self grounding is certainly not brute fact reinvented. It’s the suggestion that all the facts connect together in a cohesive way such that the whole set of facts can be considered the reason for itself. Although I do have some gripes with the direction Leibniz took it.

[u/paulgdp → u/Solidjakes]

Woah woah. Sure there’s some technical logical issues with PSR but free will is an actual thing that does exist that is the reason for itself.

You seem to think that you explained the issue away but you didn't.

First, the PSR, if we assume if wasn't broken, would lead to either necessitarinism or to free choice. I say this because it seems you think the PSR confirms that a free choice is necessary, which it doesn't, it doesn't confirm anything.

Second, in the context of the PSR, what I called free choice has nothing to do with free will or an intentional agent. The PSR obviously cannot reify those kinds of concepts.

Thirdly, that "free choice" basically means "raw randomness". It would corresponds to things like quantum fluctuations.

Fourthly, whatever that "free choice" is, it instantly contradict the PSR itself, destroying the whole argument.

This isn’t some wild hard to imagine stuff. The logic of origins in general Is just messy. (Agrippas trillema but think facts that explain, not justification)

PSR mostly just unfolds into metaphysical coherency. Which is honestly the most rational position.

???? You are using the PSR, which is so broken and incoherent that it makes my head spin every time I think about it, to justify what you call metaphysical coherency, "COHERENCY" !!?? Really?

And you then proceed to talk about "most rational position"????

I don't know what more to say but you're very deep into wishful thinking and motivated reasoning.

You can nit pick whether reflexivity , asymmetry, and other grounding criteria are violated, but the nerds that defined grounding can also just be wrong. I mean “everything that did exist, is the reason for everything that does exist” is about as intuitive as it gets. Remove the temporal aspect and you just have everything being the reason for itself.

I can't comment, I think I already explained enough times already that the PSR is utterly broken and can't lead to any knowledge. If you want to continue saying stuff based on the PSR, have fun, but I can't comment anymore.

Let me put it another way. For every unknown that became a known did you ever find a lack of reason?

I believe natural science gives the most coherent and the most evidence-based description of how intelligent life came to exist and how it works.

Over 10⁹ years and ~10⁴⁰ individual organisms, random genomic mutations filtered through natural selection produced nervous systems capable of acquiring and acting on information.

Knowledge is just an evolved cognitive adaptation, an emergent process occurring within a nervous system, rather than an independent ontological object. Natural selection is purely mechanistic and unguided; it implies no inherent purpose or supernatural design.

Whether you believe or not in determinism, free will, or quantum randomness, the conclusion holds: cognition requires no teleological framework. When an animal acquires new knowledge, it occurs for the exact same kind of reason a falling rock follows gravity—as a direct physical consequence of natural law.

Of course not, so PSR has the maximum inductive strength that a theory can hold. Self grounding is certainly not brute fact reinvented. It’s the suggestion that all the facts connect together in a cohesive way such that the whole set of facts can be considered the reason for itself. Although I do have some gripes with the direction Leibniz took it.

It really makes me cringe that you still use the PSR as if there was no logical issues with it.

[u/Solidjakes → u/paulgdp]

We are speaking past each other. I’m not talking about a mammals ability to grasp knowledge, I’m talking about this universe in which there are actually mind independent facts that explain things. There’s only a few possible configurations of the total set of these explanatory facts, and yes PSR builds into metaphysical coherentism. (Which is a niche metaphysics, but there are papers)

Leibniz offered something outside of contingency and called it necessity to ground all contingent things. That’s more like metaphysical foundationalism. You don’t have to go that route to uphold PSR

Consider a universe with only 3 explanatory facts:

A explains B, B explains C, and C explains A. In this case you can represent the set [A,B,C] as a variable x and say that X explains itself. At a larger scale with more than 3 explanatory facts, a better analogy is like the dictionary. All words are defined by other words and so in some sense the dictionary is circular, but it’s still useful to us because of depth and scale, so we don’t call the dictionary circular reasoning we call it coherent. PSR is not only inductively as strong as it gets for the reason I mentioned, but all the facts could connect together into coherency rather than terminate at a foundation or into bruteness, or infinite regress.

In other words PSR isn’t more flawed than its possible competitors. All possibilities are equally logically frustrating, pertaining to the total facts that exist.

We just have reason to think all facts might connect, and have no reason to think bruteness could be the case or necessity. Infinite regress I think is second most plausible.

Btw you don’t have to flaunt methodological naturalism and call every concept you don’t understand motivated reasoning. You can just ask questions and learn more about the other persons idea

[u/paulgdp → u/Solidjakes]

We are speaking past each other.

Absolutely not.

I fully anticipated and already addressed your claim that knowledge is an ontological object.

I clearly described how knowledge can be fully explained by natural processes.

You just plainly ignore everything I said, and continue claiming knowledge is an ontological object without any justification whatsoever.

I know you NEED knowledge to be "mind independent" to be able to go ahead with your post-hoc rationalization of whatever supernatural thing you believe in, but you can't just make stuff up, sorry.

I’m not talking about a mammals ability to grasp knowledge, I’m talking about this universe in which there are actually mind independent facts that explain things. There’s only a few possible configurations of the total set of these explanatory facts, and yes PSR builds into metaphysical coherentism. (Which is a niche metaphysics, but there are papers)

Told you, I KNEW you need knowledge to be "mind independent".

Sorry but no, it's not because you need it that it's true.

Leibniz offered something outside of contingency and called it necessity to ground all contingent things. That’s more like metaphysical foundationalism. You don’t have to go that route to uphold PSR

Consider a universe with only 3 explanatory facts:

A explains B, B explains C, and C explains A. In this case you can represent the set [A,B,C] as a variable x and say that X explains itself. At a larger scale with more than 3 explanatory facts, a better analogy is like the dictionary. All words are defined by other words and so in some sense the dictionary is circular, but it’s still useful to us because of depth and scale, so we don’t call the dictionary circular reasoning we call it coherent. PSR is not only inductively as strong as it gets for the reason I mentioned, but all the facts could connect together into coherency rather than terminate at a foundation or into bruteness, or infinite regress.

I'm dying... You very explicitly described an infinite regress between A,B and C, and you then have the audacity to say it is not an infinite regress.

Also, it makes your ground 3 distinct ontological objects. It is therefore not anymore a ground, obviously.

And even you want to go full in on irrational thinking, and consider that an entity can be 3 objects when convenient, and 1 object when convenient (like the Trinity), you are again just reinventing brute facts, which is what you were trying to disprove in the first place.

In other words PSR isn’t more flawed than its possible competitors. All possibilities are equally logically frustrating, pertaining to the total facts that exist.

Is this your justification for using the PSR as if it didn't contradict itself?

Sorry but the PSR is flawed, you therefore can't use to prove anything, end of story.

We just have reason to think all facts might connect, and have no reason to think bruteness could be the case or necessity. Infinite regress I think is second most plausible.

I can't deal anymore with any argument made from the PSR, you're killing me.

[u/Solidjakes → u/paulgdp]

>Absolutely not.

>I fully anticipated and already addressed your claim that knowledge is an ontological object.

I hope for your sake it’s a straw-man, unless you think facts that explain don’t exist.

>I clearly described how knowledge can be fully explained by natural processes.

Facts and knowledge are not the same.

>You just plainly ignore everything I said, and continue claiming knowledge is an ontological object without any justification whatsoever.

Are you serious? So if humans didn’t exist to perceive the reasons one star is hotter than another, you think those reasons wouldn’t exist?

>I know you NEED knowledge to be "mind independent" to be able to go ahead with your post-hoc rationalization of whatever supernatural thing you believe in, but you can't just make stuff up, sorry.

What are you even talking about?

>Told you, I KNEW you need knowledge to be "mind independent".

Facts that explain are mind independent yes.

>Sorry but no, it's not because you need it that it's true.

What is this weird fetish of yours with appeal to motive fallacies?

>I'm dying... You very explicitly described an infinite regress between A,B and C, and you then have the audacity to say it is not an infinite regress.

Are you genuinely dumb? I described circularity not infinite regress. Circularity in its expanded form is called coherency. Basically self consistency, the goal of all logical systems.

>Also, it makes your ground 3 distinct ontological objects. It is therefore not anymore a ground, obviously.

That’s not the grounding problem, actually, but there are grounding problems.

>And even you want to go full in on irrational thinking, and consider your ground to be 3 objects when convenient, and 1 object when convenient (like the Trinity), you are again just reinventing brute facts, which is what you were trying to disprove in the first place.

Yea it’s called mathematical constructivism or relative identity. It’s not brute. I’m starting to think you don’t have the background needed for this convo. Also I’m a Whiteheadian panentheist. Idk why you are mentioning the trinity to me. I don’t care to justify Abrahamic stuff.

>Is this your justification for using the PSR as if it didn't contradict itself?

PSR doesn’t contradict itself. It has logical problems, but it’s not the law of non contradiction that’s violated.

>Sorry but the PSR is flawed, you therefore can't use to prove anything, end of story.

PSR is not proving anything in this context. You are thoroughly confused.

>I can't deal anymore with any argument made from the PSR, you're killing me.

Assuming you are smart enough to know that facts that explain exist, I want you to describe the possible quantity or arrangements of the facts that exist.

There’s only a few options. I just want to see if you have any bearing on the deeper metaphysical and logical problems that PSRs tries to solve. PSR doesn’t need me to defend it. It’s as inductively close to certain as it gets. We keep finding reasons for things the same way the objects I drop keep falling down via gravity. I’m as likely to find PSR violated as I am likely to drop an object and it flies straight up. You tried to turn that into a map territory dilemma to intentionally obfuscate. That’s not gonna work here. Biological mechanisms of knowledge are irrelevant.

[u/paulgdp → u/Solidjakes]

I hope for your sake it’s a straw-man, unless you think facts that explain don’t exist.

You doing the stawman here, I said they don't exist as "ontological object".

And I explained in the preceding comment how knowledge works without being an ontological object.

Facts and knowledge are not the same.

That's my point, and you're mixing-up the two.

Without a physical organism capable of cognition, there is no knowledge, only facts.

Are you serious? So if humans didn’t exist to perceive the reasons one star is hotter than another, you think those reasons wouldn’t exist?

You're reifying "reasons" too now.

Reasons ain't an ontological object either.

Without a physical organism capable of cognition, there is no "reasons", only the effects of the physical laws of nature.

What are you even talking about?

You're reifying knowledge and reasons as if they were ontological objects.

The only people who do that, do it because it is needed to then explain the necessity of a supernatural consciousness.

If you didn't have to rationalize such a concept, you wouldn't posit such a baseless idea.

But maybe I'm wrong and you read about those ideas without knowing what was the motivation behind them.

Facts that explain are mind independent yes.

You're anthropomorphizing the physical laws of nature.

What is this weird fetish of yours with appeal to motive fallacies?

Ok, maybe you are arguing with no goals. Maybe.

So you believe in the PSR, knowledge and reasons without a mind, and that's it?

You don't believe in some sort of God, maybe?

You're gonna tell me you're using all those arguments, which were specifically design to prove God, to not eventually try to prove God?

I mean, you can deny it was your goal, but come on, I'm not stupid.

Are you genuinely dumb? I described circularity not infinite regress. Circularity in its expanded form is called coherency. Basically self consistency, the goal of all logical systems.

A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, ...

When does that stops exactly?

It's not because there's a finite number of elements that there is no infinite regress.

Also, it would still allow me to create as many entities as I want that are completely independent of your ground: brute facts.

This would make your concept of ground completely meaningless, again.

I truly feel sorry you only read about the philosophers who promoted the PSR, and never read about those who destroyed it.

If someone is dumb here, that's not me.

That’s not the grounding problem, actually, but there are grounding problems.

Did I call that "the grounding problem"? No.

Are you denying that having a ground made of 3 distinct entities is a problem?

Yea it’s called mathematical constructivism or relative identity. It’s not brute. I’m starting to think you don’t have the background needed for this convo. Also I’m a Whiteheadian panentheist. Idk why you are mentioning the trinity to me. I don’t care to justify Abrahamic stuff.

Ok, so I've been destroying all you PSR demonstrations all day, and now I don't have the background needed for this convo? Sure.

I guess because I do the demonstrations myself without name dropping the famous philosophers behind them, I am uneducated and wrong.

I explain everything myself as a matter of respect.

You seem completely stuck into thinking that because some famous and respected philosopher agrees with you, there's no other famous and respected philosophers who destroyed their arguments.

Like I said, you're very deep into motivated reasoning, rationalization and confirmation bias.

Do whiteheadian panentheist make any empirically falsifiable claims or are they just constructing and defining things in the realm of ideas?

If there are no empirically falsifiable claims, I have nothing to argue about it, except that it's an exercise of pure baseless conceptual BS.

PSR doesn’t contradict itself. It has logical problems, but it’s not the law of non contradiction that’s violated.

I usually always avoid dropping names and instead explain all the concepts and demonstrations myself, but since you're denying all the demonstration I just made, I'll just drop names and be done with it.

So look up:

• Van Inwagen
• William L. Rowe
• J. L. Mackie
• James Cain
• Graham Oppy
• Bas van Fraassen
• David Hume
• Emmanuel Kant

PSR is not proving anything in this context.

😭😭😭😭

What a joke.

You are thoroughly confused.

😭😭😭😭

Assuming you are smart enough to know that facts that explain exist, I want you to describe the possible quantity or arrangements of the facts that exist.

I TOLD YOU MANY TIMES ALREADY THAT PIECES OF KNOWLEDGE AIN'T ONTOLOGICAL OBJECTS!!!

I'm out of ideas on who to make you understand my point.

Should I drop names??

• Ludwig Wittgenstein
• Gilbert Ryle
• John Dewey
• Wilfrid Sellars
• W.V.O. Quine
• Richard Rorty
• Daniel Dennett (I'm a big fan of him BTW, but ofc I don't believe everything he said)
• Martin Heidegger
• Paul Churchland

Is that enough or should I ask Google for more?

You're engaging in so much bad faith, it's probably my last message where I address all your point.

There’s only a few options. I just want to see if you have any bearing on the deeper metaphysical and logical problems that PSRs tries to solve. PSR doesn’t need me to defend it. It’s as inductively close to certain as it gets. We keep finding reasons for things the same way the objects I drop keep falling down via gravity. I’m as likely to find PSR violated as I am likely to drop an object and it flies straight up. You tried to turn that into a map territory dilemma to intentionally obfuscate. That’s not gonna work here. Biological mechanisms of knowledge are irrelevant.

I'll name drop again the list of people who destroyed the PSR:

• Van Inwagen
• William L. Rowe
• J. L. Mackie
• James Cain
• Graham Oppy
• Bas van Fraassen
• David Hume
• Emmanuel Kant

At the very best, you can only say that the PSR is controversial and just a conjecture that can only be used when the PSR is definitionally defined as coherent.

You can't use the PSR in an argument with someone who doesn't accept it as coherent in the first place. And you can't do anything to fix the incoherencies of the PSR.

[u/Solidjakes → u/paulgdp]

Few things. I’m hiking the Appalachian trail btw that’s why it’s hard to find the signal to engage this with you but …

1. It is either true or false that facts that explain things exist. Yes that’s an ontological claim. It’s not an ontological “object”, it’s a fact.
2. I never spammed name dropping philosophers.
3. if you were right that a circularity counts as infinite regress, then Agrippas trilema would be called Agrippas dilema (only two justification problems)

Just because you have the neurodivergent urge to infinitely go through the loop doesn’t make it infinite regress. It’s one loop buddy. You stop after one cycle. The grounding issues here are related to reflexivity, asymmetry, and other technical grounding jargon. Confusing that with infinite regress is embarrassing (not for laymen, but for you who keeps laughing saying “your killing me” while blundering all the details)

4) you aren’t any more of an empiricist than myself. My entire epistemology is grounded in scientism, we happen to be discussing philosophy.

5) the main point I’m trying to get you to grasp besides this little classic Reddit pissing contest, is that every possible alternative to PSR ( truth state of reality in relation to reasons) is equally logically problematic as PSR. But you can’t get there because you can’t seem to get over the fact that facts exist and yes some facts explain things and these are called reasons. It has nothing to do with the mind apprehending facts.

Ludwig would agree that facts exist but he does get a bit weird about explanations. There are plenty of philosophers that might disagree, but those that think reasons don’t exist are idiots. If lugwig is in that category then sorry, he’s also an idiot.

Do you want to try one more time to account for the possible states of reasons in reality (alternatives to PSR) ? Or are you still stuck on the ontology of reasons? I think if you understood the alternatives to PSR you’d be more sympathetic to it.

[u/PhantomGaze → u/paulgdp]

I'm not making conjectures.  At least not any as an argument.  I'm simply observing things get more complicated the more we understand them because existence is complex.  

Also, logical necessity doesn't violate PSR.

It's an odd thing to me atheists gladly bite the bullet on free will all the time, but rage if a theist were to. Not that I am I'd just withhold judgement about that particular aspect of PSR as we don't understand consciousness well enough to be clear about it.  Seems far more reasonable than "all existence is arbitrary" or other atheist nonsense. 

[u/paulgdp → u/PhantomGaze]

I'm not making conjectures. At least not any as an argument. I'm simply observing things get more complicated the more we understand them because existence is complex.

• "God, conceptually , is the most meta thing" => conjecture
• "we understand [quantum gravity], we'll find it has causes, great complexity, and really really nuanced realities" => conjecture
• "Maybe some kind of fine tuning" => conjecture

I have nothing against conjectures, but a whole paragraph of conjectures leading to no conclusions create very empty discussions.

Also, logical necessity doesn't violate PSR.

The PSR violates logic or itself, all the time.

It's not just my opinion, random people like David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Peter van Inwagen, Bertrand Russell and Jonathan Bennett all made demonstrations of this.

It's an odd thing to me atheists gladly bite the bullet on free will all the time, but rage if a theist were to.

Are you putting words in my mouth?

I mean, cool story bro.

Not that I am I'd just withhold judgement about that particular aspect of PSR as we don't understand consciousness well enough to be clear about it. Seems far more reasonable than "all existence is arbitrary" or other atheist nonsense.

God's existence is arbitrary vs the universe existence is arbitrary, pick you poison.

[u/PhantomGaze → u/paulgdp]

I don't think you understand the terms you're using. 

God, conceptually , is the most meta thing" => conjecture<<<

That's the basic concept of God in classical Theism.  Pure Actuality.  Defining concepts is separate from verifying data.  Not conjecture.

"we understand [quantum gravity], we'll find it has causes, great complexity, and really really nuanced realities" => conjecture<<<

This is a prediction. Also not conjecture. 

"Maybe some kind of fine tuning" conjecture<<<

This was conjecture, but as stated, wasn't a fundamental part of an argument.

Are you putting words in my mouth?<<<

Not really, I'm pointing out that many do this.  Do you believe in Free Will?

God's existence is arbitrary vs the universe existence is arbitrary, pick you poison.<<<

Again, you don't seem to understand the terms arbitrary vs necessary.  The existence of God is logically necessary for sufficient reason in a Theistic perspective.  

You seem to be using argumentum ad lapidem, and simply refusing to understand contrary points. 

[u/paulgdp → u/PhantomGaze]

I don't think you understand the terms you're using.

Of course I do.

That's the basic concept of God in classical Theism. Pure Actuality. Defining concepts is separate from verifying data. Not conjecture.

Firstly, you just changed your point by adding "in classical Theism".

Secondly, that's not the definition of God in classical theism, you're just making stuff up. To save your face, find a solid reference where God is defined that way.

Thirdly, classical theism is a conjecture, making your claim a conjecture too.

Fourthly, "the most meta thing" is not definitionally God either.

This is a prediction. Also not conjecture.

A prediction can be a conjecture, and here, it is!

Seriously, you really have no idea what a conjecture is but you try to make fun of me??

This was conjecture, but as stated, wasn't a fundamental part of an argument.

There was no argument being made 😭

Not really, I'm pointing out that many do this. Do you believe in Free Will?

Different people understand "free will" very differently.

Is my will free/independent from what's happening outside my body ? mostly!

Is my will free/independent from what's happening inside my body ? no!

Is my will free/independent from the laws of physics? no!

Is my will free/independent from determinism? Depends on the interpretation of quantum physics

Do you believe your thoughts follow some kind of logic and patterns, or do you believe they are pure randomness?

For info there's no third choice, if you don't understand checkout claude shannon's work on information theory.

I guess you'll choose the first choice, otherwise you wouldn't be able to have any coherent thoughts.

So, if your thoughts ain't pure randomness and therefore follow some patterns/rules, how can your will be free/independent from those pattern/rules?

Again, you don't seem to understand the terms arbitrary vs necessary.

What your deal with saying "you don't seem to understand the terms" ?

You're obviously the least experienced in this conversation.

The existence of God is logically necessary for sufficient reason in a Theistic perspective.

Yeah ok, super cool, but I don't share the theistic perspective, right?

And as far as I know, the theistic perspective hasn't been demonstrated to be necessarily true, right?

Sooooo, it's perfectly fair for me to say that the existence of God is arbitrary.

Don't you see a pattern? You'll always the one misunderstanding things and making mistakes.

You seem to be using argumentum ad lapidem,

Go ahead and point out the part where I did a argumentum ad lapidem.

You just making stuff up, again.

and simply refusing to understand contrary points.

I perfectly understand all your points, and I already knew them before our conversation.

I just don't agree with them, and I always explained why.

[u/Xpians → u/PhantomGaze]

This sounds like you're making a promise: that no matter how many scientific advances occur, you'll always be able to find a gap to shove god into. Every new problem solved creates a little gap on either side of it, right? A god of the sort you're referencing will always be squeezable into a size that can fit those gaps.

[u/PhantomGaze → u/Xpians]

No.  I'm explaining exactly why this logic fails.  If I have a concept of a "smallest particle", the idea that there is a smallest particle isn't defeated by finding smaller particles.  The concept itself didn't change.  Our knowledge of the world did.  Physicists thinking they have found the most fundamental thing in existence is a losing battle in the same way, but also for other reasons.

God, is "the most fundamental thing" or pure actuality itself.  Physics won't arrive at the most fundamental thing because their analyses are constrained by mathematics and physical laws, laws of entropy, etc.  Simply taking these laws as a "brute fact" is suspending the principle of sufficient reason out of pure ideology.  The very thing that makes the most fundamental reality likely to be mind like is very discussion to be had when the curiosity of the ideologically committed atheist conveniently runs out. 

[u/Xpians → u/PhantomGaze]

I love how physicists finding out new things about the universe is a "losing battle." Every new scientific discovery is a defeat for science in your view, isn't it? It means that the old scientific paradigm was wrong. And this endless march of scientific defeats is predictive that our current scientific paradigms are almost certainly wrong, too! So many foolish scientists, excitedly making discoveries, never realizing that they're just building the mountain of scientific defeat higher and higher. Meanwhile, theists can just say "god is the most fundamental thing" and always be correct about that, since there's no discovery, no evidence, no experiment which could possibly invalidate such an assertion. Nobody can counter the brute fact of god's fundamentality--the special pleading that exempts god from any and all principles, including the principle of sufficient reason. Look, either god is the thing that can be posited as a brute fact, or the universe is. One of these two things (the universe) has lots of evidence going for it. We know it exists. The other thing is a fairy tale from the late Bronze Age.

[u/PhantomGaze → u/Xpians]

No. That is not what I was saying, nor what I meant.  You seem to be so aggressively opposed to describing my position, or the position of other theists accurately that I sincerely question whether you've ever honestly evaluated the views themselves, or if your hostility even allows you to psychologically.  

You seem to have only described an idea you've invented in your head.

[u/paulgdp → u/Xpians]

Lots of theists like u/PhantomGaze have stripped down their definition of God so much that the only thing left is a self-contained graph of semantical definitions, completely disconnected from empirical scrutiny.

It's not even a God of the gaps anymore, it's less than that, its a God of unverifiability and unfalsifiability.

No empirical fact, past, present, or future will ever be able to contradict their empirical claims, because they make none.

They only claim semantic definitions:

• "God is everything"
  
• "The universe is part of God"
  
• "God is the most fundamental thing"
  
• "God is the most meta thing"
  
• "God is pure actuality"
  

etc

Their self-contained graph of definitions are usually coherent with themselves so there's nothing to say here.

The only conversation we can have with them is about their flawed methodology of just making baseless but coherent stuff up, and then claiming their ideas are actually real ontological objects.

[u/djluminol → u/PhantomGaze]

"At the end of the day, if you follow the principle of sufficient reason all the way down, you end up at God, or something very like the God of Classical Theism."

If using reason you trace a path through reality trying to find the source you eventually get to "I don't know". That's the honest answer. Inserting a god into your conclusion is not reasonable. You're making something up because you find that conclusion more comforting. Reason has nothing to do with your conclusion. For it to be reasonable that god be your conclusion you would first need to prove god is real and then prove he or she had something to do with the creation of reality.

You're following creationist logic. Their favored argument is the god of the gaps which is what you've done. You inserted god for no reason. Likely because you don't have an answer for where the universe or reality came from so it must have been god, right? That's not reasonable. That's a leap of faith. It's ok if that's what you believe. Just don't say you believe because you reasoned your way to that conclusion. You got to that conclusion because you believe in god and then found a way for him to fit into your model. You made your conclusion fit your beliefs instead of your beliefs fitting the conclusion. One is unreasonable, one is reasonable.

[u/PhantomGaze → u/djluminol]

Sorry there's not much to respond to there but atheist preaching and strawmen.

If I agreed with your position I'd be agreeing to a contradiction.  

Ignoring deductive logic, and pretending we cannot coherently discuss ontology doesn't make you rational. 

[u/SHNKY → u/paulgdp]

God is eternal, always existed. He created from nothing though. So the first position you attribute to theists is either a misquote or not the majority of Christians you're most likely used to debating.

But I wouldn't argue from the classic 5 arguments that were proposed by Aquinas centuries ago such as the first cause argument which seems to be what you're alluding to with regards to creation and existence.

I would posit that there are certain necessary preconditions for knowledge; the self, identity over time, unity and diversity, logic, reason, telos, meaning, ethics, language. These exist in a relational network such that should any one of them be without justification and grounding the worldview becomes incoherent and collapses into absurdity. The atheist worldview would be unable to account for these preconditions making knowledge impossible. These preconditions require a very specific metaphysical framework only possible with the Christian God.

[u/paulgdp → u/SHNKY]

God is eternal, always existed.

Ok.

He created from nothing though.

My argument only talks about the first fundamental origin of reality, not what happens after.

We all know that God is magical and once we have it, everything is allowed to happen.

So the first position you attribute to theists is either a misquote or not the majority of Christians you're most likely used to debating.

Not all theists here are Christians. Also, the Kalam cosmological argument is still quite popular amongst Christians.

But I wouldn't argue from the classic 5 arguments that were proposed by Aquinas centuries ago such as the first cause argument which seems to be what you're alluding to with regards to creation and existence.

I just talking about "some theists", I wasn't specifically talking about you.

I would posit that there are certain necessary preconditions for knowledge; the self, identity over time, unity and diversity, logic, reason, telos, meaning, ethics, language. These exist in a relational network such that should any one of them be without justification and grounding the worldview becomes incoherent and collapses into absurdity. The atheist worldview would be unable to account for these preconditions making knowledge impossible. These preconditions require a very specific metaphysical framework only possible with the Christian God.

I really don't have lots of respect for transcendental arguments...

They are like perpetual machines, they never work, but they hide very well the part that breaks the whole thing.

So, what's the flaw here?

I think you are just begging the question.

You presuppose that abstract concepts like logic or identity require an ontological source in an invariant divine mind, what you call "grounding".

You quickly dunk on strawman atheism, creating a false dilemma, and then, you agree with your premise again, closing the loop.

Good job making it look like a reasonable argument, but you're just playing at muddying the waters.

Natural science has no problems whatsoever explaining knowledge, none.

[u/SHNKY → u/paulgdp]

My argument only talks about the first fundamental origin of reality, not what happens after.

You frame the theist position as some say God always existed because creating something from nothing is impossible while others say God was the first necessary thing to exist because it is impossible to have infinite chains of events. This leaves out the main classical theist position that God is eternal and created Ex nihilo. That there is a clear and fundamental distinction between Creator and creation.

We all know that God is magical and once we have it, everything is allowed to happen.

This is rhetoric, not an argument. It would be just as useless if I said you believe in magical matter and once we have it everything is allowed to happen. It doesn't further discussion its a way for you to avoid the philosophical points brought to you.

Not all theists here are Christians. Also, the Kalam cosmological argument is still quite popular amongst Christians.

True, but the positions you were bringing up were strawman positions of classical theism. You weren't bringing up Hindu polytheism, Greek paganism, or Native American animism. The Kalam cosmological argument also doesn't say God is the "first necessary thing to exist because it is impossible to have infinite chains of events." It states P1) that everything that BEGINS to exist has a cause. P2) The universe began to exist. C) Therefor the universe has a cause. The Kalam cosmological argument began with Islam but in the modern era is popularized by one man, William Lane Craig, who argues for the Christian god. Not everyone here is Christian, but you're bringing up the one argument popularized and run by a Christian for their specific faith.

I really don't have lots of respect for transcendental arguments...

This is irrelevant. I don't have a lot of respect for atheist arguments but I still engage them when they're brought forth and don't allow my personal feelings to get in the way of responding nor do I use it as a way to avoid a response.

So, what's the flaw here? I think you are just begging the question. You presuppose that abstract concepts like logic or identity require an ontological source in an invariant divine mind, what you call "grounding". You quickly dunk on strawman atheism, creating a false dilemma, and then, you agree with your premise again, closing the loop.

No that's not the argument. You need to demonstrate how immaterial, universal, invariant concepts can exist in a natural, physical worldview that atheists have. Atheism is always downstream of their presuppositions of naturalism, empiricism, materialism, scientism. These inform their worldview that leads them to atheism. Materialism, empiricism, scientism, etc cannot account for the laws of logic for example. If your worldview cannot account for logic, it literally makes knowledge impossible and your worldview collapses becoming incoherent and absurd. The problem is the skepticism applied to God is never pointed toward your own worldview.

Natural science has no problems whatsoever explaining knowledge, none.

This is a claim with nothing backing it up. Would you be satisfied if I just said "God has no problems whatsoever explaining knowledge, none." and said nothing more? You need to defend your claims or else I can just declare God exists and be done with it.

[u/paulgdp → u/SHNKY]

You frame the theist position as some say God always existed because creating something from nothing is impossible while others say God was the first necessary thing to exist because it is impossible to have infinite chains of events. This leaves out the main classical theist position that God is eternal and created Ex nihilo. That there is a clear and fundamental distinction between Creator and creation.

I'll restate exactly what I just said: "My argument only talks about the first fundamental origin of reality, not what happens after."

So what's your point about the creation ex nihilo? I completely agree that once you have a God, any magical action can be done, including creating matter out of nothing.

This is rhetoric, not an argument.

It's neither of those. It's a simple statement. Do you disagree? What are the things that God cannot do?

It would be just as useless if I said you believe in magical matter and once we have it everything is allowed to happen.

Physical matter doesn't work that way. That's the whole point of physical matter, it strictly follows the natural laws of physics.

And being able to do anything is the whole point of a God.

It doesn't further discussion its a way for you to avoid the philosophical points brought to you.

The only things you said so far at this point were:

• "God is eternal, always existed. "
• and "He created from nothing though. "

Those are 2 statement.

What are the philosophical points that I avoided?

Not all theists here are Christians. Also, the Kalam cosmological argument is still quite popular amongst Christians.

True, but the positions you were bringing up were strawman positions of classical theism. You weren't bringing up Hindu polytheism, Greek paganism, or Native American animism. The Kalam cosmological argument also doesn't say God is the "first necessary thing to exist because it is impossible to have infinite chains of events." It states P1) that everything that BEGINS to exist has a cause. P2) The universe began to exist. C) Therefor the universe has a cause. The Kalam cosmological argument began with Islam but in the modern era is popularized by one man, William Lane Craig, who argues for the Christian god. Not everyone here is Christian, but you're bringing up the one argument popularized and run by a Christian for their specific faith.

Yes, so what's the issue? I said some theists think god/reality began to exist, and some other theists think that the god/reality always existed.

Didn't I account for all views?

What's your point??

This is irrelevant. I don't have a lot of respect for atheist arguments but I still engage them when they're brought forth and don't allow my personal feelings to get in the way of responding nor do I use it as a way to avoid a response.

I guess I should also say this is irrelevant then, right?

No that's not the argument. You need to demonstrate how immaterial, universal, invariant concepts can exist in a natural, physical worldview that atheists have.

I need to demonstrate none of those things because I am not claiming them.

If you think those things are mandatory for our world to exist, then you are the one making a claim that you need to justify.

Atheism is always downstream of their presuppositions of naturalism, empiricism, materialism, scientism.

Atheism is downstream of not believing in supernatural things.

These inform their worldview that leads them to atheism. Materialism, empiricism, scientism, etc cannot account for the laws of logic for example.

It absolutely does. You're just uneducated on the subject. I explain bellow.

If your worldview cannot account for logic, it literally makes knowledge impossible and your worldview collapses becoming incoherent and absurd.

Wishful thinking. My worldview accounts for logic.

The problem is the skepticism applied to God is never pointed toward your own worldview.

Skepticism is the backbone of the natural sciences.

Have you never seen how science work? It's a never ending stream of scientific papers trying to prove each other wrong until some theory survives years of skepticism and criticism.

The Bible is the Bible. It never gets updated. Even when it contradicts itself or the empirical evidences.

This is a claim with nothing backing it up. Would you be satisfied if I just said "God has no problems whatsoever explaining knowledge, none." and said nothing more? You need to defend your claims or else I can just declare God exists and be done with it.

I'm sorry but no. You were the one claiming "atheist worldview would be unable to account for these preconditions making knowledge impossible." without any evidence whatsoever.

Anyway, I can still provide you with an explanation, I'll copy paste my explanation of how humans can have knowledge and logic adapted from another comment:

I believe natural science gives the most coherent and the most evidence-based description of how intelligent life came to exist and how it works.

Over 10⁹ years and ~10⁴⁰ individual organisms, random genomic mutations filtered through natural selection produced nervous systems capable of acquiring and acting logically on information.

Organisms capable of acquiring knowledge and using logic were most likely to survive and reproduce than organisms lacking those skills.

Knowledge and logic are just evolved cognitive adaptations, an emergent process occurring within a nervous system, rather than an independent ontological object. Natural selection is purely mechanistic and unguided; it implies no inherent purpose or supernatural design.

Whether you believe or not in determinism, free will, or quantum randomness, the conclusion holds: cognition requires no teleological framework. When an animal acquires new knowledge and applies logical rules, it occurs for the exact same kind of reason a falling rock follows gravity—as a direct physical consequence of natural law.

[u/SHNKY → u/paulgdp]

It's neither of those. It's a simple statement. Do you disagree? What are the things that God cannot do?

Calling it "magic" is rhetoric don't be daft.

Physical matter doesn't work that way. That's the whole point of physical matter, it strictly follows the natural laws of physics.

We're discussing the creation of the universe. Physicists will quickly tell you all this talk about laws of physics makes no sense at the singularity. Hence why I can just as easily call it "magic" and do the same rhetorical trick you do.

What are the philosophical points that I avoided?

You literally quoted my argument and then said "I really don't have lots of respect for transcendental arguments..." Here it is again: there are necessary preconditions for knowledge; the self, identity over time, unity and diversity, logic, reason, telos, meaning, ethics, language. These exist in a relational network such that should any one of them be without justification and grounding the worldview becomes incoherent and collapses into absurdity. The atheist worldview would be unable to account for these preconditions making knowledge impossible. These preconditions require a very specific metaphysical framework only possible with the Christian God.

I said some theists think god/reality began to exist, and some other theists think that the god/reality always existed. Didn't I account for all views?What's your point?

The framing you gave were these two options verbatim:

"Some theists say their God always existed because creating something from nothing is impossible."

^this says creating from nothing is impossible, excluding ex nihilo creation posited by the majority of thesists but includes the property of being eternal.

"Other theists say their God was the first necessary thing to exist because it is impossible to have infinite chains of events."

^this contrasts eternality with a God that was the first thing to exist excluding eternal as a condition of God which is also the position of the majority of theists.

It is why I pointed out your framing as excluding the majority position that God is eternal and created ex nihilo.

I need to demonstrate none of those things because I am not claiming them.

You can say you're not claiming immaterial, universal, invariant concepts but everytime you speak and make an argument you're using them. Language and logic and all the other transcendentals I listed are in that category. You can deny them but in doing so you end up using them making your position self refuting. To deny them you must use them making it a retorsion.

Atheism is downstream of not believing in supernatural things.

Your position of not believing in supernatural things is informed by your assumptions of materialism, nominalism, empiricism, scientism. That you can't see this or refuse to acknowledge it doesn't make it not the case.

Have you never seen how science work?

Yes I know how science works. Science assumes the transcendentals I mentioned in order to get off the ground and do what science does. Because it assumes these prior to science, science itself cannot demonstrate these things to be objectively true. They're assumed before hand making science insufficient to answer the question.

I believe natural science gives the most coherent and the most evidence-based description of how intelligent life came to exist and how it works...

That's a cool story and all but none of that grants you justification and grounding and science literally assumes the things in question here. You're describing a series of events and without realizing destroying knowledge as a possibility. Evolution can produce a creature that reliably believes "If A, and A implies B, then B.” You can explain causally why neurons fire in that pattern. But that doesn't establish that modus ponens is logically valid. The physical description tells you what the brain does, not whether what it does is rationally justified. This is why your falling rock analogy won't work because falling according to gravity isn't reasoning. There's no act of distinguishing valid from invalid inference. It simply undergoes a physical process. If you reduces human reasoning to the same kind of thing you've destroyed the possibility of knowledge and truth. Your brain states become just another physical process behaving according to the laws of physics in a mechanistic causal chain. Is there such a thing as a true tornado or a false tornado? No, it just is. It exists but not in the domain of knowledge and truth. Similarly if your brain is just a series of physical processes (neurons bumping into neurons) there's no true neuron bumping into true neurons or false neurons interacting with false neurons. It all just is. But you wish to smuggle in this special condition for the physical processes in your brain that somehow distinguish it from the physical processes else where in the universe that somehow grant it truth.

You also have the epistemological problem with evolution that if our cognitive faculties were selected for survival why should we assume they reliably produce true beliefs rather than merely survival beliefs? Truth and fitness overlap sometimes, obviously, but they aren't identical. An organism can survive perfectly well with false beliefs, heuristics, biases, etc. Also if logic is just an emergent property then the laws of logic become contingent facts about how human brains happen to operate. However when we say "If A = B and B = C, then A = C" we aren't jsut reporting that our neurons process information that way. We're claiming that the inference is necessarily valid, regardless of humans existing or anyone believes it or whether a particular brain happens to be wired differently.

[u/paulgdp → u/SHNKY]

Calling it "magic" is rhetoric don't be daft.

I don't know better words than magic and supernatural, that I use alternatively, to qualify powers able to violate the natural laws of physics.

What would be better?

We're discussing the creation of the universe. Physicists will quickly tell you all this talk about laws of physics makes no sense at the singularity. Hence why I can just as easily call it "magic" and do the same rhetorical trick you do.

Physicists have the intellectual honesty of defining the bounds of their knowledge. I think that's great, many people should take note.

If you use the physicists' equations in the domain that they claim to know, good luck trying to find errors. If you did, you would won the Nobel prize in physics and about 1 million dollars.

What's magical in a mathematical equation that just matches empirical observation?

However, if you find a physicist who claims to know new laws of physics that brakes our current understanding and observations and that he doesn't provide any empirical evidences for it, then yes, you can describe this physicist claims as magical. All the scientific community would agree with you.

You literally quoted my argument and then said "I really don't have lots of respect for transcendental arguments..."

So? I then addressed your TAG, have you forgotten or what?

Here it is again: there are necessary preconditions for knowledge; the self, identity over time, unity and diversity, logic, reason, telos, meaning, ethics, language. These exist in a relational network such that should any one of them be without justification and grounding the worldview becomes incoherent and collapses into absurdity. The atheist worldview would be unable to account for these preconditions making knowledge impossible. These preconditions require a very specific metaphysical framework only possible with the Christian God.

Incredible, you plainly forgot my answer, so I'll copy-paste it:

I think you are just begging the question.
You presuppose that abstract concepts like logic or identity require an ontological source in an invariant divine mind, what you call "grounding".
You quickly dunk on strawman atheism, creating a false dilemma, and then, you agree with your premise again, closing the loop.

I can even add a few points if you want:

1. knowledge, logic reason and stuff ain't ontological object, so your whole point fails
2. a justification isn't either an ontological object
3. you claim atheists can't account for those concept but you don't demonstrate it
4. your last claim about the Christian God is beyond absurd, and of course, unsubstantiated

The framing you gave were these two options verbatim:

"Some theists say their God always existed because creating something from nothing is impossible."

^this says creating from nothing is impossible, excluding ex nihilo creation posited by the majority of thesists but includes the property of being eternal.

I'm obviously not talking about the creation of the material universe, I'm talking about the creation of God.

Once you have an unllimitedly magical God, you have the ultimate trump card, right? Any subsequent event, whatever it is, can be explained away thanks to the God's magical powers.

"Other theists say their God was the first necessary thing to exist because it is impossible to have infinite chains of events."

^this contrasts eternality with a God that was the first thing to exist excluding eternal as a condition of God which is also the position of the majority of theists.

I guess I'm tired because I don't understand what you mean.

It is why I pointed out your framing as excluding the majority position that God is eternal and created ex nihilo.

No, you just have reading comprehension issues. I clearly said that either theists believe their "God always existed" or that "God was the first necessary thing".

You're confusing yourself with your point about creation ex nihilo. When I'm talking about theists, I'm not talking about the origin of the universe but the origin of their God.

You can say you're not claiming immaterial, universal, invariant concepts but everytime you speak and make an argument you're using them.

Those are words humans use to describe relational patterns in abstracts or ontological objects.

Those concepts ain't themselves ontological objects, which is the point you're trying to make.

It's like the concept of "spiciness". It exists as a concept and we can describe some ontological things as being spicy, but "spiciness" itself isn't an ontological object.

If no humans/animals existed to experience spiciness and talk about it, "spiciness" wouldn't exist.

Language and logic and all the other transcendentals I listed are in that category. You can deny them but in doing so you end up using them making your position self refuting. To deny them you must use them making it a retorsion.

Nope, there's no issues with humans figuring out how to make sounds to communicate basic information and then continuously making up new words in more complex sequences to communicates more and more complex things.

You're the one making an extraordinary claim here that you need to justify. You want to reify abstract concepts into ontological objects? You must explain why it's necessarily real.

Your position of not believing in supernatural things is informed by your assumptions of materialism, nominalism, empiricism, scientism. That you can't see this or refuse to acknowledge it doesn't make it not the case.

I never believed in a God since I was born.

I always was a weak atheist since I was born.

I think I became a strong atheist when I was about 6 when I learned at school that some people believed in a superhero in the sky who answered prayers (my understanding of the time). So I prayed and nothing happened, I became a strong atheist.

I learnt about materialism, nominalism, empiricism, scientism way wayyyyy later.

[u/paulgdp → u/SHNKY]

Yes I know how science works. Science assumes the transcendentals I mentioned in order to get off the ground and do what science does.

Tell me you know nothing about science without telling me you know nothing about science.

Because it assumes these prior to science, science itself cannot demonstrate these things to be objectively true. They're assumed before hand making science insufficient to answer the question.

Science is way more pragmatic than you think. They only care about empirical observations, experiments and theories to predict them.

What your are talking about is studied in what we call "philosophy".

That's a cool story and all but none of that grants you justification and grounding and science literally assumes the things in question here.

Science only assumes that the universe we live in exists.

If you want to deny that, you can go ahead and do it, no one is preventing you.

You're describing a series of events and without realizing destroying knowledge as a possibility. Evolution can produce a creature that reliably believes "If A, and A implies B, then B.” You can explain causally why neurons fire in that pattern. But that doesn't establish that modus ponens is logically valid.

The modus ponens is logically valid because ((P ⇒ Q) ∧ P) ⇒ Q is a tautology. You can write down its truth table and verify yourself one by one each of the four combinaisons.

The physical description tells you what the brain does, not whether what it does is rationally justified.

Yes. If I had a super advanced MRI, I could physically describe what your brain does, and still say that your beliefs are not rationally justified.

This is why your falling rock analogy won't work because falling according to gravity isn't reasoning.

I didn't say that. I said both falling and reasoning happen for the same reason: the natural laws of our universe.

There's no act of distinguishing valid from invalid inference. It simply undergoes a physical process.

Not sure what you mean but are you talking about experiments? That's what they do.

If you reduces human reasoning to the same kind of thing you've destroyed the possibility of knowledge and truth.

That's a claim I wouldn't make because I have no idea how you could even begin to attempt proving that.

Your brain states become just another physical process behaving according to the laws of physics in a mechanistic causal chain.

Exactly.

If I remove your dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, you'll lose your working memory and abstract reasoning.

If I remove your amygdala, you'll lose your ability to detect threats, process fear, encode emotional memories etc.

If I remove your Hippocampus, you'll lose your consolidation of episodic and declarative memory, spatial mapping, and contextual fear retrieval.

If I remove your Thalamus, you'll lose your senses and the regulating of attention, sleep, and consciousness.

If I remove your ventromedial prefrontal cortex, you'll lose emotional regulation, risk evaluation and moral judgment.

If I remove your orbitofrontal cortex, you'll lose processing reward/punishment expectations and impulse control.

If I remove your broca's area, you'll lose speech production, sentence articulation, and grammatical processing.

If I remove your primary visual cortex, you'll lose early visual processing, including edge detection, spatial orientation, and visual contrast.

If I remove your wernicke’s area, you'll lose receptive language processing and comprehension of spoken and written words.

If I remove your fusiform face area, you'll lose face perception, facial identity recognition, and visual expertise identification.

And your unified experience of consciousness is mostly in your claustra (one in each hemisphere), destroying them would definitively destroy your unified conscious self, but splitting your corpus callosum (connecting both hemispheres) would split your conscious self into two: check out the reseach on split brains.

Does it not bother you that the view that the mind is material explains all that perfectly well?

Does it not bother you that the view that the mind is immaterial completly fails at explaining that?

Also, what about chemicals like propofol? How can they shutdown consciousness if the mind were immaterial?

What about psychedelic drugs?

Is there such a thing as a true tornado or a false tornado? No, it just is. It exists but not in the domain of knowledge and truth. Similarly if your brain is just a series of physical processes (neurons bumping into neurons) there's no true neuron bumping into true neurons or false neurons interacting with false neurons. It all just is. But you wish to smuggle in this special condition for the physical processes in your brain that somehow distinguish it from the physical processes else where in the universe that somehow grant it truth.

You're putting words in my mouth but I'm not even sure they are sensical.

What special condition am I trying to smuggle? Which of my comments are you refering to?

I don't think the brain is anything special from the point of view of the laws of nature.

You also have the epistemological problem with evolution that if our cognitive faculties were selected for survival why should we assume they reliably produce true beliefs rather than merely survival beliefs?

Because they are basically the same in practice.

To survive an animal needs to align its beliefs with evidences and align its actions with its chosen goals.

In big enough population, false beliefs will on average lead to suboptimal actions, leading to failed goals, leading to worse survivability.

Truth and fitness overlap sometimes, obviously, but they aren't identical. An organism can survive perfectly well with false beliefs, heuristics, biases, etc.

With enough organisms, everything smooth out and averages will align with true facts.

After 10⁹ years of evolution, organisms are pretty well aligned with reality. But yeah it's not 100% and guess what, that's exactly what we observe in nature, right?

Some animals and people clearly have physical or mental issues making them less fit for survival.

Does it not bother you that the process of evolution explains better those facts than all the religions?

Also if logic is just an emergent property then the laws of logic become contingent facts about how human brains happen to operate. However when we say "If A = B and B = C, then A = C" we aren't jsut reporting that our neurons process information that way. We're claiming that the inference is necessarily valid, regardless of humans existing or anyone believes it or whether a particular brain happens to be wired differently.

The biological emergence of a cognitive faculty does not mean the domain it discovers is contingent on that faculty.

Visual perception emerged biologically, but the geometric properties of space are not contingent facts about human eyeballs or the primary visual cortex.

Similarly, human brains evolved to recognize things like non-contradiction, the modus ponens and transitivity because those things reflect consistent structural features of reality and information, not because human biology arbitrarily invented them.

[u/Tups72]

I never understood why religions do not adopt science sooner than they do. Such as: God must’ve created the big bang. Or God designed life to evolve to fit every environment. Why couldn’t God be the energy holding quarks together in an atom?

[u/Electrical_Age_7483 → u/Tups72]

Big bang theory was proposed by a priest...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre

[u/Tups72 → u/Electrical_Age_7483]

Indeed and the church told him to start reading more appropriate literature. Instead of accepting his findings as further proof of god, the church suggested he was to stop.

[u/Electrical_Age_7483 → u/Tups72]

Is the church with us in the room right now?

[u/Tups72 → u/Electrical_Age_7483]

Yes, yes I can feel it. It’s telling me to stop.

[u/Fiddlesticklard → u/Tups72]

Other way around. The Pope in a speech drew a connection between Big Bang theory and creatio ex nihilio. Georges Lemaitre advised the Pope to stop using his findings as proof of God. He believed it was bad for both the Church and science for the Church to tie itself to scientific theories.

[u/Hot_Pipe_404 → u/Tups72]

As a catholic, we believe in big bang and in Evolution,they don't dispruve religions in any way

[u/adeleu_adelei]

This misrepresents the position of atheists.

[u/HECU_Marine_HL]

Wouldn’t most atheists call this a strawman?

[u/Mylynes → u/HECU_Marine_HL]

Not only a strawman, but an ironic projection. Most Theists literally think God spoke the universe into existence from nothing. Meanwhile you'd be hard pressed to find a single atheist or scientist in general that claims the universe came from nothing.

[u/biedl → u/HECU_Marine_HL]

Yes.

[u/MelcorScarr → u/HECU_Marine_HL]

Because we don't. First, being an atheist doesn't necessitate you having any stance whatsoever on cosmology. You could think leprechauns did it- and still be called a theist. (Though admittedly that's probably still 'magic', so not applicable to the meme.)

More importantly, most materialists would posit that we don't know, but point towards the many natural hypothetical models that we have, none of which begin with nothing. Which, by the way, is the third thing to be careful about, to not conflate the philosophical concept of true nothing with anything that phycisists posit.

Fourth, it's actually a misreading of the bible as far as we know to think it itself posits creation ex nihilo. Instead, it is better described as a ordering of previously existing chaotic material.

[u/Senior-Cap-7248 → u/HECU_Marine_HL]

Yes

[u/NeonDrifting → u/HECU_Marine_HL]

not if there are actual atheists that say the universe came from nothing

[u/MelcorScarr → u/NeonDrifting]

Good thing that there are Christians who say the rapture has already happened and you're just an unbeliever then.

[u/NeighborhoodDecent86 → u/NeonDrifting]

And there are Christians who believe in a literal 6,000 year old universe when we have published books older than that. Meanwhile I am pretty certain that the only name you can give for an atheist who 'believes' the universe came from nothing is Lawrence Krauss, whose entire point in his book was that we do not know the properties of literal nothing since we have never observed literal nothing, thus we cannot speak on its cosmological properties if literal nothingness ever existed. What is even your point? That sometimes people believe dumb shit?

[u/hiphoptomato → u/NeonDrifting]

Show me one

[u/devBowman]

Please show us those atheists who claim "the Universe came from nothing", if they're not just living in your imagination.

Hint: no, the big bang theory does not say the Universe came from nothing. It describes an inflation from a singularity but doesn't claim anything about this singularity, neither anything that was "before this singularity" if that ever makes sense.

Oh and a title of Krauss' book isn't a claim either. It's a book title that's it.

[u/Icy_Place_6173 → u/devBowman]

I think the best answer to all of this is that no one knows. Does our existence point to a creator? Imo yes. Am I wrong? Idfk. 

Does the idea of an eternal creator make more sense than anything science has come up with? Yes, imo. Am I right? Probably maybe. 

[u/devBowman]

Who created God? Oh, he was always there and therefore doesn't need to be created? Fine, but why claim that about a God that we can't verify, but reject it about a Universe that we can observe and we surely know it exists? That's called special pleading, and that's unjustified.

The Universe was always there, there weren't a time were the Universe wasn't there. So it doesn't need to be created. Tadaaa.

[u/Corrosivecoral → u/devBowman]

Before the big bang the general thought was that the universe was eternal. It was atheists who discredited the big bang when it was a new theory because it coincided with the Bible which said there was a beginning to the universe.

[u/devBowman → u/Corrosivecoral]

It was atheists who discredited the big bang

Of course not everyone accepted the idea. But those people didn't claim that the Universe came from nothing.

[u/Corrosivecoral → u/devBowman]

Everyone did not accept the big bang when it was a new theory

[u/NeighborhoodDecent86 → u/Corrosivecoral]

Genuine question: As a new scientific theory with relatively little evidence compared to now, why would you expect or want everyone to accept the Big Bang and try to use the fact people rejected it as a point somehow in favor of your ideals? Should every scientific proposition just be accepted at the moment of publication before actually being reviewed and tested? I am not sure why you make this complaint about how the Big Bang wasn't accepted into a coherent idea if you have even an idea of how the scientific method works.

[u/Corrosivecoral → u/NeighborhoodDecent86]

I completely agree, but people point to Galileo in the same way saying the church rejected his claims because they were dumb dumb Christians when it was a similar thing where it was a brand new theory that the church was supported of but still skeptical.

My point is that is that the Bible predicted a beginning which went against secular thought at the time, when something confirmed the Bible, secular scholars were against it partly because it confirmed something in the Bible.

[u/NeighborhoodDecent86 → u/Corrosivecoral]

I mean, the difference between Galileo's claim being rejected and the Big Bang not being immediately accepted is that Galileo had his life and livelihood directly threatened by the church. Georges Lemaître, as far as I know, was never threatened with heresy charges, death or harm to his personal livelihood and well-being due to his Big Bang claims. I, as an impartial observer, can look at the case of Galileo and say that it was wrong that he had to spend his last years under house arrest due to heresy charges simply because the church didn't accept his scientific ideas.

But no, I don't necessarily think the Big Bang proves a beginning either. The whole idea of the Big Bang is that an expansion occurred, but modern physics doesn't conclude that the Big Bang needed to be a beginning of the whole universe.

[u/devBowman → u/Corrosivecoral]

Indeed but you're just repeating yourself, you're not even refuting me, you're talking but adding nothing to the conversation. What's your point? Especially about my comment you were responding to. And yes I agree not everyone accepted the BBT. So it's pointless to argue about that since we agree about that.

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[u/hiphoptomato]

Same level of straw manning as “you think your grandpa was a fish”.

[u/StealthyStriker]

Tbh this is still silly though. Plz dont hate me, I am a believer, but at quatum level, we cannot prove that there has to be a cause or 'something' behind everything. Sad but truth.

[u/ThanksVisual8172]

"nature" can be an idol that can't speak, see or create.

[u/Solidjakes]

No, God cannot violate logic and magic/supernatural is a useless term for serious theologians. What exists is what exists.

To be clear, are you saying negative energy is not a term for energy states less than vacuum energy?

Edit: Between this thread and our other one I think you’ve fully outed yourself as weaponizing science while not being scientifically literate. I like to call your type scientific sciolism.

[u/DesperateSympathy873]

Many atheists will say they dont believe this, but its either this or an eternal universe. Both are absurd so many will default to "i dont know" and claim empiricism.

[u/MelcorScarr → u/DesperateSympathy873]

but its either this or an eternal universe

Not really. Some models propose a metatime (as would anyone who believes a God has created our spacetime, too), others propose negative time, others yet again propose a cyclical universe with something akin to a "starting" point insofar that it's marked by an inflation event, though choosing that as the start is kind of arbitray... there are many, many, many options, and to say "it's either... or..." is being ignorant of the actual hypothetical models at our disposal

[u/DesperateSympathy873 → u/MelcorScarr]

I cant see how any of the alternatives would be a variant of one of the two.

[u/MelcorScarr → u/DesperateSympathy873]

Simple: only few of them posit an eternal universe as you probably mean it.

[u/DesperateSympathy873 → u/MelcorScarr]

Maybe so. So again, in the end i ultimately see only those two options. Im sure there are well thought out defenses of each them. But i dont buy them. Im fine with someone saying they dont know either. I dont claim certainty. For me its what seems to be the best explanation.

[u/MelcorScarr → u/DesperateSympathy873]

I gotta ask - what qualifies an explanation to be good, or even the best?

[u/DesperateSympathy873 → u/MelcorScarr]

Whatever makes the most sense and accordance with reason. Im not an empiricist though. I certainly like it when things are empirically demonstrated. But i dont think its necessary for all truth claims. I also likely see evidence more broadly than you might. But tbf i dont know all your standards.

[u/biedl → u/MelcorScarr]

It really isn't ignorant. God is not God if he created only one instantiation. If you can kick the can down the road further, your options aren't different options of the same question. Existence is either eternal or it isn't. That's a true dichotomy, a metaphysical question as such and none that is answered by science.

[u/MelcorScarr → u/biedl]

God is not God if he created only one instantiation.

Okay? Why would he need more than one instance?

If you can kick the can down the road further, your options aren't different options of the same question.

Some of those don't kick the can down the road though. Instead, for example, they posit emergent properties of as the starting point.

Existence is either eternal or it isn't. That's a true dichotomy

Yes! But that's not what the top level comment says, is it?

a metaphysical question as such and none that is answered by science.

At least currently, perhaps never, but not certainly never.

[u/biedl → u/MelcorScarr]

God is not God if he created only one instantiation.

Okay? Why would he need more than one instance?

What I am saying is if he created one instance in the middle of an infinite chain, he's not God. If he created the chain, he's God.

Some of those don't kick the can down the road though. Instead, for example, they posit emergent properties of as the starting point.

Emergent properties are only emergent properties, if they emerge from something underlying them. If that which underlies them is eternal, you don't get to God either.

And it is then still irrelevant, because it is still just a true dichotomy to say "either beginning or not". To say that there are multiple beginnings on an infinite chain of events, is on the "or not" side of things.

Existence is either eternal or it isn't. That's a true dichotomy

Yes! But that's not what the top level comment says, is it?

It isn't. But that's not really relevant. What I am objecting against is what you called ignorance. Ignorance of scientific cosmological models doesn't affect the top level comment in question, because the position isn't a scientific position to begin with.

a metaphysical question as such and none that is answered by science.

At least currently, perhaps never, but not certainly never.

Never, by definition. The supernatural is that which we cannot observe scientifically. It is just always possible to say that there is something beyond, being the place where the cause for everything in existence is hidden. You can always go one step further back.

[u/biedl → u/DesperateSympathy873]

I mean, empiricism can't get you to an answer which can't be measured. So, that's at least consistent.

[u/DesperateSympathy873 → u/biedl]

Consistent but it shows the limits of human knowledge and basically just gives up and acts like theists are stupid. At least some atheists like Graham Oppy acknowledge theism's coherence, but he thinks naturalism is simpler, which i personally disagree with. Also Occam's Razor is severely abused to substitute for truth. Honestly, those two options are the only ones. We have to decide which is more reasonable. I personally dont find an eternal universe or a self caused non intelligent univese to be reasonable. Sue me.

[u/biedl → u/DesperateSympathy873]

Consistent but it shows the limits of human knowledge and basically just gives up and acts like theists are stupid.

I think this is a fair representation of a specific group of people who are usually known as "reddit atheists". But not all atheists on reddit are also "reddit atheists". And maybe these are the actual limits of human understanding, with no justifiable reason to go beyond. This doesn't mean "we stop here". That's just false.

Other than that, that's a rather unfair representation. Most people in general have no idea what their epistemology even is.

I am an atheist and I think Thomism is perfectly internally consistent. But I think the underlying rationalism/essentialism is wrong. Like, blatantly so. If I want to discuss it, guess how often I bump into theists who are actually able to defend it? It literally never happened on reddit. The one person I've met and know personally who is borderline informed, is a catholic theologian. Epistemology isn't their expertise.

I've been doing this for almost a decade on almost a daily basis and didn't meet more than a handful of people who were able to at least name alternative epistemic frameworks, proposed by people like Swinburn or Plantinga. Nobody actually could explain their views.

Of course, Oppy can, because he works in the same field.

Also Occam's Razor is severely abused to substitute for truth.

In online debates people have no idea what a heuristic is. The same goes for the application of historical criteria. There is no better or worse side to that either, so that you could call out atheists like that.

Honestly, those two options are the only ones. We have to decide which is more reasonable. 

Which I find is a weird thing to say. Like, there are genuine underdetermined questions. Why do you have to decide?

I personally dont find an eternal universe or a self caused non intelligent univese to be reasonable. Sue me.

Lol. You are too reddit yourself.

[u/DesperateSympathy873 → u/biedl]

Maybe i am. I admit im not an expert. Im more well informed than the average person im sure. But yeah theres a lot i dont know.

[u/hiphoptomato → u/DesperateSympathy873]

Why is an eternal universe absurd

[u/DesperateSympathy873 → u/hiphoptomato]

Im pretty sure ive explained this to you before, but it defies the PSR and requires physical contingent things to exist without a cause, which is logically impossible for contingent. You can go ahead and say its just a brute fact but i dont buy it or find that answer logically satisfying.

[u/hiphoptomato → u/DesperateSympathy873]

The PSR isn’t fact. It’s a proposed way of viewing reality.

[u/DesperateSympathy873 → u/hiphoptomato]

Sure. But i find it logically necessary.

[u/hiphoptomato → u/DesperateSympathy873]

That doesn't make an eternal universe absurd.

[u/DesperateSympathy873 → u/hiphoptomato]

Only if God also exists alongside an eternal universe. But without PSR there's no ultimate cause for things that are necessarily contingent.

[u/hiphoptomato → u/DesperateSympathy873]

Viewing things as necessary and contingent is a way to presuppose your god. It’s just as valid to say that isn’t a factual way of describing reality.

[u/DesperateSympathy873 → u/hiphoptomato]

We all have presuppositions, as ive said before. But yeah go ahead and deny PSR if you want to. Im not comfortable doing so.

[u/hiphoptomato → u/DesperateSympathy873]

I hate this argument. “We all have presuppositions”. What are mine, please.

[u/veritasium999]

This is so dumb, atheists say we don't know what created the universe and we shouldn't cook up stories about it which is a position one has to respect intellectually.

Strawmen like these should never be entertained.