God doesn't explain why there is not nothing.

Sure, but that also means the arguments *for* God do not apply.

Do you treat any other uncertainty the same way? Is it acceptable to say "there is a teapot among the rings of Saturn" in the absence of any information to that effect?

 

Actually it does not apply. For or against arguments are moot. Just as the soda can argument is moot.

Christianity clearly talks about having faith. This is because it also describes God as something humans cannot comprehend because of our own limitations. That is just the reality of the situation and has proven itself over time.

 

Ok, this doesn't sound at all like a reason to believe it. If that sort of argument was persuasive, then we could just as easily believe Islam or Taoism, or even any religion that doesn't already have a following. We could make up a religion from scratch and give that religion the clause that faith is important, and I don't see why such a religion would be any less persuasive than what you have presented here.

 

I am not arguing to believe it. I am arguing why the atheist argument is wrong.

 

Are you referring to the atheist argument in the OP?

 

I would say any atheist argument. I asked before "what kind of evidence is required to prove God exists?" No one answered the question is a clear way. What few answers I did get was a jumble of words that made no sense while others refused to answer. It seems they were afraid to answer.

 

It seems to me this thread had a stated argument in the beginning, and it wasn't "prove god", it was (I paraphrase) "the cosmological arguments are not persuasive", and your argument doesn't seem to address that. So your point does not argue against any atheist argument, and in particular, not against the argument which was brought up in this thread.

The amount of evidence necessary depends on how sure you want to be, and it will depend on a lot of context as well. For a certain level of confidence, I'm not sure that level of evidence exists.

However, just like with Russel's teapot, that should leave us indifferent to the proposition, giving it no credence over other propositions, including many which we haven't even thought of.

Of course, in practice, maybe there is a level of evidence that would be persuasive. I don't know what it would be, I'm not required by logic to present such a level.

 

This is off subject, but Trump is a buffoon parading before a bunch of fools. He is not the capitalist hero he believes himself to be, just another wannbe without even understanding what capitalism is. He is the latest step towards an authoritarian dictatorship that began with Lincoln when he instituted the draft and the income tax, and was greatly accelerated with FDR's presidency, and further accelerated by the Bushes and Obama.

I despise the jerk. Tax cuts are meaningless, it's the spending cuts that count. All entitlement programs must end in a reasonable, timely, and humane manner. Then abolish the IRS; it won't be needed. And repeal the income tax and the draft.

As to the subject, God doesn't explain anything. He's a delusion created to ease the human fear of living a life of their own direction. An early attempt to explain the forces of nature that Man faced. We should have out grown God by know, especially after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the launch of Gemini 1 with John Glenn.

I find it incredulous that psychics are still making a living in the 21st century, and that astrology still exists. It appears we never really out grew the gargoyles of the dark ages when Christianity ruled the political and cultural world.

There was the Age of Enlightenment or as otherwise known, the Age of Reason, but it appears do have died an early death, and it remains to be seen if we will have another rebirth. If we do, it will be because of intellectual leaders of the Objectivist movement, specially, Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute, as well many others of the Objectivist movement.

Yaron Brook: Ayn Rand's Philosophy and Objectivism--


Ayn Rand: "They claim that they perceive a mode of being superior to your existence on this earth. The mystics of spirit call it “another dimension,” which consists of denying dimensions. The mystics of muscle call it “the future,” which consists of denying the present. To exist is to possess identity. What identity are they able to give to their superior realm? They keep telling you what it is not, but never tell you what it is. All their identifications consist of negating: God is that which no human mind can know, they say—and proceed to demand that you consider it knowledge—God is non-man, heaven is non-earth, soul is non-body, virtue is non-profit, A is non-A, perception is non-sensory, knowledge is non-reason. Their definitions are not acts of defining, but of wiping out."



This is my God, Reason--speaking metaphorically, of course, not literally.
Sense of Wonder by Bryan Larsen at http://cordair.com/artists/larsen/works/sense-of-wonder/index.html


On display @ http://cordair.com/, the best Art Gallery in world, according to my tastes. And with works of Art light years ahead of anything Van Gogh, Monet, or Picasso ever created.

And lastly, nothing can't exit, because its nothing, meaning, non-existence. Has reason and logic totally died and been replaced by Post Modern lunacy? It would appear so.

 

The argument in the OP is an old debunked one.

Atheists usually require scientific evidence for their arguments. As I have explained, science is not qualified to answer any question regarding God.

The reason I use the soda can example is to illustrate how limited humans are to know anything about how our universe came about. That is speaking from a scientific standpoint. There is much more to the human experience than science.

But as to why the universe requires a cause seems self evident from observation. What little science can provide on that is that the universe is expanding. In a cause and effect existence this suggests by extrapolation (in reverse) there had to be a beginning. To have a beginning suggests a cause and the expansion is the effect.

 

Meh, Trump is off topic here so I will not address that. Interesting post though.

 

I'm not fully convinced you have read the argument as intended. In the absence of scientific knowledge, we are left without a justification to believe. If science is not qualified, how can we be justified in choosing Christianity (or whatever other religion)?

I'm not questioning that so much as I am discussing what stance we should take given that we don't have the info.

If it's evident from observation, then it is science, which, according to you, might not be valid at the edges of our existence. You are right in that there had to be a beginning, but the idea that that requires there to be a cause is no stronger than the idea that for there to be a god, it needs to have a cause.

 

Ahh, I am just establishing that it is a valid position to believe God exists. No need to even discuss Christianity just yet.

Science is not qualified to completely prove God exists but from observation one can see some evidence the universe was created by an intelligent being.

Since God would exist outside our existence He is not bound by cause and effect, so no need to be created.

 

but regardless both don't take the time to see if there really is any validity to their beliefs. They know that the topic of God is very important to many but they don't find the topic of God as important as the others..

 

How can they be both? They have always had different definitions, different qualities. Each term have different meanings. One, the atheist claims to know the truth. The agnostic says he does not know the truth. I think you are doing the Kipling monkey dance here..."we all say so, so it must be true". So how many other monkeys can you find here that will agree with your incoherent thought processes on this issue?

So, you, if you are an atheist, claim to know that god does not exist. If you flop into agnosticism, you have to do it at the quantum level, where two states can exist at the same time. But you cannot shrink yourself up to be that small, to visit that reality.

 

Fair enough, one can replace "Christianity" with "belief in god" in my argument, I think.

If science is not qualified, how can we be justified in choosing to believe in god?

That is a completely different argument though. This pertains only to the argument of a first mover or contingency or cosmology.

Well, if you're not bound by cause and effect, then you still don't resolve the question implied in the OP, why is there something rather than nothing? If there wasn't a why, then how can it be?

And more importantly, why is God allowed to circumvent the rule if nothing else is? God is arbitrarily complex, wouldn't it make more sense to say that the universe was not bound by cause and effect? If cause and effect is only needed inside the universe, then the "start" or the cause of the universe took place outside of the universe, and in that case, it was not bound by cause and effect, so no god was needed. Inserting god as a middle hand seems arbitrary and unnecessary.

 

One can be justified in believing in God. Science is not necessary.

If one is not bound by the laws of this universe then there is no need to be created. It is possible God is eternal. Cause and effect as well as time applies to our existence so a multidimensional being like God does not need to go by them. This is a trick used by atheists. They apply the same laws and morality to God that apply to man. It is a false equivalency.

Well, the universa had a beginning, hence cause and effect. Also, time is unique to our existence. Humans can only go forward in time. It does not stand still and we cannot time travel. We are restricted by this. God is a superior being because He is not bound by the same laws of our universe.

 

I agree that the universe had a beginning, but why does that mean it had a cause? The universe does not exist inside another universe, so why would the process which created the universe (and which therefore is not limited by cause and effect, just like God) need a cause?

 

When you see a computer do you believe it was designed and built or just spontaneously popped into existence?

Things in our universe do not just pop into existence.

 

You seem confused about why folks can't come to some agreement on who God is and what He is capable of doing. Here in this meme, you find your answer. Philosophers have forced folks to consider what is true, rather than having faith. Faith is replaced by greed. Charity is replaced with self-interest. Love of God is replaced with love of self. We believe we are all there is and after we are gone, there is nothing. How small minded that is...don't you think?

Demanding is what the very folks you rail against in your post are doing, and what you want to replace with your very own demands. Yet you speak of morals with pride and honor, of humans as gods, and of others ideas as unworthy of your consideration.

In truth, you speak like a god hater, not someone who believes there is no god(s).

 

But our universe isn't in our universe. Whatever process that gave rise to the universe must have taken place outside of the universe. If God is not bound by cause and effect, then nor is that process.

 

So what does that prove? What "process" are you speaking of?

Here is what it comes down to. The universe had a beginning. We seem to agree on that. Now, one can believe that an intelligent Agent was the cause or it was done by magic. Atheists seem to believe in magic.

 

The process by which the universe came to be. We don't know what it was, maybe it was God speaking it into existence, maybe it just appeared out of necessity, we don't know what it was, but whatever happened happened. And if we are willing to consider the idea that God isn't bound by cause and effect, then we should be as willing to consider the idea that that process is just as unbound by cause and effect as God is.

Basically, as far as the logic is concerned, God is just a middle hand. His role in the coming-to-be of the universe can just as easily be played by the universe itself. The only think that would make more sense if God did it than the universe doing it on its own, is if God's personhood somehow is important. Now, I don't believe it is (indeed, I think personhood in humans is merely a by effect of our intelligence) and I have yet to find an explanation of this whole transcendence thing that I can even understand.

I don't see why having it done by an intelligent agent makes it any less magic. It's not like Harry Potter is any less magical just for being a person/intelligent.

As far as I'm concerned, there could have been nothing, but there is not. There should (could?) be some explanation. To me, the presupposition of a personal god capable of producing a universe is more of a stretch than just a universe.

 

Then your position is agnostic not atheist. But it sounds like you would consider the universe being created by an intelligent being. But either way, whatever process caused the universe can be called God if one chooses to. Evidence for such is observational. From what we know about the early stages of the universe the odds of it being accidental is very high. The simplest solution would be an intelligent creator. This is like the computer example I spoke of earlier.

 

I don't worry so much about my own position at this point. My criticism of your idea is not the full extent of my position. Technically, I'm a theological non-cognitivist, but that's a term that is more boring than informative.

In this context, being ready to consider this or that is not very interesting. I readily consider a slew of positions which are not persuasive in the end.

I agree, but I have yet to see a reason to call it a being, or personal/conscious/intelligent. I don't have a problem with considering a god which is not intelligent/personal, but it is a rare debating point.

Why is that simplest? To me it seems like God is more complicated than the universe. Going via God seems like the roundabout way of explaining it.

I have not read the rest of the thread, I don't know the example.

 

If there was nothing you wouldn't even ponder such a question. God Created for his enjoymemt and that included "relationship".