ANSWERS TO ATHEIST NONSENSE

[Neomalthusian]

However - you are not being reasonable in dismissing the possibility of God.

Just because you criticized the fine-tuning................................doesn't make them "REBUTTALS" to the evidence of FINE-TUNED universe.
Look at the way you reason.

You're open to the possibility of a ludicrous series of ACCIDENTS, in the face of evidence that we have a fine-tuned universe (cosmos, earth and biology)!
What's the stats on having a fine-tuned universe as the result of a series of accidents?
EVERYTHING coming together to create themselves! From the most basic!

Four simple questions:

1) Roughly how old do you think the universe is?
2) Roughly how old do you think the Earth is?
3) Roughly how long ago do you suppose single-cell life came into existence?
4) Roughly how long ago do you think anatomically modern humans came into existence?

Maybe you've directly answered these questions elsewhere, but if there is any way to really respond to your post, we should first clarify what you believe regarding deep time.

 

[watsup]

They can't handle the idea there are factual reasons to support the belief in a Creator because that would justify belief in religion which I believe is the main source of their angst.

Again, another lie. Why do you spend so much time in making false accusations towards atheists. How does that contribute to the topic. You are the one who is always complains about the inputs, and yet you spend more time in ad hom than any ten or twenty atheists combined. Physician, heal thyself!

The alternative: atheists have carefully considered all of the arguments for a God/Creator and found them to be lacking. Why not just admit that instead of making ad hom false accusations?

 

[watsup]

How old do you think the universe is, and how old do you think the Earth is, and very roughly or approximately how long ago do you suppose single-cell life came into existence?

Stand by for a Gish Gallop of nonsense!

 

[DrewPaul]

"Everything" (ie the Universe) and "everything else" (ie the fraction of the Universe we have observed) are qualitatively different things.

You can't deny this. Your hypothetical god is a phenomenon without cause. God violates the principle of causality. Infinite regression then. You're aware that it violates causality too?

I don't deny it. I don't deny the universe exists and came into existence about 13.8 billion years ago. I discussed this earlier but whatever problems posed by infinite regression were somehow over come whether by unguided natural causes or intentionally caused by a Creator. Unless you're suggesting the universe poofed into existence uncaused out of nothing. A natural cause would face the same issue of infinite regression in addition to a second problem, what initiated the sequence of events that led to the universe? Natural forces we observe don't initiate anything. A star doesn't go supernova because it made a decision to go supernova. Sentient humans can wake up one day and decide to build a house. Sentient beings can autonomously cause something to exist.

I believe we bump our heads against this conundrum because we project the limitations of our reality into whatever reality caused the universe. Our reality (according to me) is an artificial reality. You say it violates causality. If cosmic inflation theory is true, a force outside of time-space violated all kinds of rules imposed upon our reality. Yet this is considered a solid scientific theory that accounts for several anomalies within our universe. In fact its really the only viable explanation. Yet think of the ramifications. One of the things many atheists are opposed to is the existence of anything 'outside' of the universe. Or anything not tethered to the laws of physics. Yet this force is said to expand the universe faster than the speed of light. This theory presupposes and infinitude of singularities exist in some medium (not space-time) that are continuously being expanded.

But no, multiverse theory is not the only alternative to "god did it". When it comes to the origin of the Universe (and its constants) scientists are practically alchemists. I'm sure you're aware, that cosmology is quite a young science. Compared to physics for instance. And we don't even have a full grasp of physics (gravity is not unified with the three other forces). Theories like "quantum gravity" are unsatisfactory.

No the other alternative against all odds is 'nature did it'. Which really ends up meaning that nature caused nature to exist. Thanks to Isaac Newton gravity's affects are calculable to nearly a precise degree but knowing its effect isn't the same as knowing why mass in space-time bends space causing objects to attract. We look at is as an inexplicable, but real property of space time and move on. But we also have to note like many conditions were it stronger or weaker or non-existent we wouldn't be here to discuss gravity.

Not an expert, but it seems to me that the balance of constants is something that was established very early in the history of our Universe.

From the very beginning many events which would lead to our existence happened. There are innumerable ways in which things could have gone south (for us). If we assume what atheists believe there was no blue print no sentient being was involved, how do we explain why natural unguided forces would blindly cause the conditions for our existence? One explanation would be the conditions and the universe was intentionally caused. The other is this is one of an infinitude of universes. Only atheists seem to believe we just got lucky and don't look a gift horse in the mouth theory. Which is a philosophic position not a scientific one as they would like us to believe.

We don't know the cause, and so we can't rule out god or gods. But it does not follow that we should believe in god or gods: that is a very speculative theory which just kicks the can down the road: if gods existed then what is the cause of gods?

There is no explanation (except the universe that poofed into existence) that doesn't kick the can down the road. So what? We should stop looking for an explanation because that explanation needs an explanation? No, that's called making scientific progress.

 

[watsup]

I don't deny it. I don't deny the universe exists and came into existence about 13.8 billion years ago. I discussed this earlier but whatever problems posed by infinite regression were somehow over come whether by unguided natural causes or intentionally caused by a Creator. Unless you're suggesting the universe poofed into existence uncaused out of nothing. A natural cause would face the same issue of infinite regression in addition to a second problem, what initiated the sequence of events that led to the universe? Natural forces we observe don't initiate anything. A star doesn't go supernova because it made a decision to go supernova. Sentient humans can wake up one day and decide to build a house. Sentient beings can autonomously cause something to exist.

I believe we bump our heads against this conundrum because we project the limitations of our reality into whatever reality caused the universe. Our reality (according to me) is an artificial reality. You say it violates causality. If cosmic inflation theory is true, a force outside of time-space violated all kinds of rules imposed upon our reality. Yet this is considered a solid scientific theory that accounts for several anomalies within our universe. In fact its really the only viable explanation. Yet think of the ramifications. One of the things many atheists are opposed to is the existence of anything 'outside' of the universe. Or anything not tethered to the laws of physics. Yet this force is said to expand the universe faster than the speed of light. This theory presupposes and infinitude of singularities exist in some medium (not space-time) that are continuously being expanded.


No the other alternative against all odds is 'nature did it'. Which really ends up meaning that nature caused nature to exist. Thanks to Isaac Newton gravity's affects are calculable to nearly a precise degree but knowing its effect isn't the same as knowing why mass in space-time bends space causing objects to attract. We look at is as an inexplicable, but real property of space time and move on. But we also have to note like many conditions were it stronger or weaker or non-existent we wouldn't be here to discuss gravity.

From the very beginning many events which would lead to our existence happened. There are innumerable ways in which things could have gone south (for us). If we assume what atheists believe there was no blue print no sentient being was involved, how do we explain why natural unguided forces would blindly cause the conditions for our existence? One explanation would be the conditions and the universe was intentionally caused. The other is this is one of an infinitude of universes. Only atheists seem to believe we just got lucky and don't look a gift horse in the mouth theory. Which is a philosophic position not a scientific one as they would like us to believe.


There is no explanation (except the universe that poofed into existence) that doesn't kick the can down the road. So what? We should stop looking for an explanation because that explanation needs an explanation? No, that's called making scientific progress.

Repetition #5. Still the watchmaker argument.

 

[DrewPaul]

Well, I'm not inclined to just make something up because there is a lack of evidence....

What scientists do is imagine an explanation for the facts observed (like in the case of cosmic inflation) then do their damnedest to prove or disprove the explanation. Sometimes the jury is out for a long time. If figuring out our existence was easy we'd all have it figured out.

 

[watsup]

What scientists do is imagine an explanation for the facts observed (like in the case of cosmic inflation) then do their damnedest to prove or disprove the explanation. Sometimes the jury is out for a long time. If figuring out our existence was easy we'd all have it figured out.

But what the scientists don’t do, that you won’t admit, is to simply overlay an extranatural entity on top of the science and claim that to be the “explanation”.

 

[devildavid]

What scientists do is imagine an explanation for the facts observed (like in the case of cosmic inflation) then do their damnedest to prove or disprove the explanation. Sometimes the jury is out for a long time. If figuring out our existence was easy we'd all have it figured out.

If they actually do that, they are not doing science. Science is not about imagining an explanation, it is about following observation, evidence, and facts to a sound conclusion which is the best explanation at the time. You don’t start with an imagined conclusion and then try to back it up. You follow the evidence to the conclusion it leads to.

 

[DrewPaul]

If they actually do that, they are not doing science. Science is not about imagining an explanation, it is about following observation, evidence, and facts to a sound conclusion which is the best explanation at the time. You don’t start with an imagined conclusion and then try to back it up. You follow the evidence to the conclusion it leads to.

The world doesn't spin around your imaginations. They observe data and propose solutions, then think of experiments that can test said solutions.

 

[devildavid]

Fortunately, most adults can conceptualize among multiple ideas without having to categorize those ideas because they share some similar feature, e.g. supernatural.

In fact, your daily arguing against "God believers" should (however I'd bet you miss the point) communicate to you that the concept of an invisible God has more philosophical weight than an leprechaun, for example. In other words, you protest too much. That is, unless you also spend countless hours on leprechaun message boards arguing against the existence of "leprechaun believers" as well. Do you?

No, the concept of gods does not have more philosophical weight at all. The only matter of philosophical weight is the question of why we exist and why does anything exist. That some use gods as a shortcut ”answer” doesn’t give the concept of gods more weight. The problem is that there has not been one single agreed upon philosophical agreement about the concept of gods. There were beliefs in gods before philosophy was ever invented by human beings. And there was belief in other supernatural things that were taken quite seriously at different times in human history. The concept of the supernatural has as much weight as human beings give to any of the things believed to inhabit it.

 

[devildavid]

The world doesn't spin around your imaginations. They observe data and propose solutions, then think of experiments that can test said solutions.

Your previous post did not describe the scientific method. It doesn’t imagine things first and work backward to support them. It is not about solutions, but about explanation and description of physical reality.

 

[Galactic Spin]

1) Roughly how old do you think the universe is?
2) Roughly how old do you think the Earth is?
3) Roughly how long ago do you suppose single-cell life came into existence?
4) Roughly how long ago do you think anatomically modern humans came into existence?

Hold on... let me check my book of mythology written 2000 years ago....

 

[Gordy327]

Hold on... let me check my book of mythology written 2000 years ago....

The obvious answer to all those questions is 6000 years. Everybody knows that.

 

[Neomalthusian]

Hold on... let me check my book of mythology written 2000 years ago....

tosca1 has brought up (all on her own) reference to a Pleistocene elephant to try (in vain) to make some sort of point about taxonomic classification being flawed. This species of elephant showed up in the fossil record in Europe approximately 800,000 years ago.

tosca1 has also shared a link to newdinosaurs.com with information regarding the Dorudon, an Eocene whale that lived 40-34 million years ago.

You would think that in light of this, we can assume she's be willing to concede that life on Earth is as old as the scientific community generally accepts that it is. But we can't confirm she actually thinks that until or unless she says so. I've directly asked tosca1 before how old she thinks the Earth is, and never got a reply.

In order to know how best to respond to her claims about the alleged "fine-tuning" of the world for our benefit as a challenge to notions of macroevolution, it's of critical importance to know what she actually believes about the length of time living things have been vying for survival on this planet.

 

[tosca1]

Four simple questions:

1) Roughly how old do you think the universe is?
2) Roughly how old do you think the Earth is?
3) Roughly how long ago do you suppose single-cell life came into existence?
4) Roughly how long ago do you think anatomically modern humans came into existence?

Maybe you've directly answered these questions elsewhere, but if there is any way to really respond to your post, we should first clarify what you believe regarding deep time.

What I believe, is irrelevant to what you've quoted.

Furthermore - this thread isn't about me.
Let's stick to the topic.
Let's not try to change the channel.

 

[DrewPaul]

Your previous post did not describe the scientific method. It doesn’t imagine things first and work backward to support them. It is not about solutions, but about explanation and description of physical reality.

I didn't say they imagine things first. They observe things first and seek an explanation for their observations. That's where creativity and thinking outside the box comes from. The successful explanation of a phenomenon is the solution.

 

[watsup]

I didn't say they imagine things first. They observe things first and seek an explanation for their observations. That's where creativity and thinking outside the box comes from. The successful explanation of a phenomenon is the solution.

Unfortunately, you seem to think that “thinking outside the box” means simply overlaying an imaginary entity (Creator) onto the valid research and calling it a “solution”. It’s not. It’s superstition, at best.

 

[devildavid]

I didn't say they imagine things first. They observe things first and seek an explanation for their observations. That's where creativity and thinking outside the box comes from. The successful explanation of a phenomenon is the solution.

They observe things and then they gather information next. They don’t make any assumptions from their initial observations. Wherever the evidence leads becomes a description and explanation of physical phenomenon. It is not a solution to anything. There isn’t a successful explanation to an observation because the initial observation does conclude anything; it is just an observation. Their observations are not the same as scientific theories, but they may or may not be the starting point to one.

 

[Gordy327]

They observe things and then they gather information next. They don’t make any assumptions from their initial observations. Wherever the evidence leads becomes a description and explanation of physical phenomenon. It is not a solution to anything. There isn’t a successful explanation to an observation because the initial observation does conclude anything; it is just an observation. Their observations are not the same as scientific theories, but they may or may not be the starting point to one.

As I always say, "follow the evidence to where it leads. Not to where you want it to go."

 

[tosca1]

As I always say, "follow the evidence to where it leads. Not to where you want it to go."

Christians can follow credible evidence to where it leads.
It's atheists, who can't. As shown, so many times.


Funny thing is, God wants us to use critical thinking (that includes follow credible evidence)................................because He knows, it will lead to Him.

 

[watsup]

Christians can follow credible evidence to where it leads.
It's atheists, who can't. As shown, so many times.

We can always count on you for psychological projection. Every single day of the year.

 

[devildavid]

Christians can follow credible evidence to where it leads.
It's atheists, who can't. As shown, so many times.


Funny thing is, God wants us to use critical thinking (that includes follow credible evidence)................................because He knows, it will lead to Him.

You have never presented any credible evidence that leads to anything. All you have presented is your beliefs.

 

[Gordy327]

Christians can follow credible evidence to where it leads.
It's atheists, who can't. As shown, so many times.


Funny thing is, God wants us to use critical thinking (that includes follow credible evidence)................................because He knows, it will lead to Him.

Apparently some Christians do not know what "credible evidence" really is. Not to mention you already start with an assumption and equate it as a conclusion too. That is neither credible nor scientific.

 

[tosca1]

Why all the nonsense from atheists?

Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method, Prizewinning Physicist Says​

I believe we should take a much humbler approach to knowledge, in the sense that if you look carefully at the way science works, you’ll see that yes, it is wonderful — magnificent! — but it has limits.
And we have to understand and respect those limits. And by doing that, by understanding how science advances, science really becomes a deeply spiritual conversation with the mysterious, about all the things we don’t know.
So that’s one answer to your question. And that has nothing to do with organized religion, obviously, but it does inform my position against atheism.
I consider myself an agnostic.


I honestly think atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method. What I mean by that is, what is atheism? It’s a statement, a categorical statement that expresses belief in nonbelief.
“I don’t believe even though I have no evidence for or against, simply I don’t believe.” Period. It’s a declaration.

But in science we don’t really do declarations. We say, “Okay, you can have a hypothesis, you have to have some evidence against or for that.”
And so an agnostic would say, look, I have no evidence for God or any kind of god (What god, first of all? The Maori gods, or the Jewish or Christian or Muslim God? Which god is that?)
But on the other hand, an agnostic would acknowledge no right to make a final statement about something he or she doesn’t know about.
“The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” and all that.


And so, what do I say? I say be honest. There is a quote from the physicist Frank Oppenheimer that fits here: “The worst thing a son of a bitch can do is turn you into a son of a bitch.” Which is profane but brilliant.
I’m not going to lie about what science can and cannot do because politicians are misusing science and trying to politicize the scientific discourse.
I’m going to be honest about the powers of science so that people can actually believe me for my honesty and transparency.

If you don’t want to be honest and transparent, you’re just going to become a liar like everybody else.
Which is why I get upset by misstatements, like when you have scientists—Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss among them—
claiming we have solved the problem of the origin of the universe, or that string theory is correct and that the final “theory of everything” is at hand.
Such statements are bogus. So, I feel as if I am a guardian for the integrity of science right now; someone you can trust because this person is open and honest enough to admit that the scientific enterprise has limitations—
which doesn’t mean it’s weak!

Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method, Prizewinning Physicist Says

In conversation, the 2019 Templeton Prize winner does not pull punches on the limits of science, the value of humility and the irrationality of nonbelief

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[BabaVoss]

Why all the nonsense from atheists?

The nonsense comes from those who believe in magical stuff.

I honestly think atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method. What I mean by that is, what is atheism? It’s a statement, a categorical statement that expresses belief in nonbelief.
“I don’t believe even though I have no evidence for or against, simply I don’t believe.” Period. It’s a declaration.

But in science we don’t really do declarations.

I get that. But this deliberately mixes opinions and science - and pretend they are the same thing. When you ask someone if they believe in god or gods and they say, “No. I’m an atheist” they are telling you what they believe - as an opinion. If you ask if they believe science says anything at all about god or gods, they will readily tell you “no”. Science says nothing at all about supernatural stuff, by definition. Science cannot prove or disprove supernatural stuff.

Kind of a silly argument.