Spook said:
"This is an example of "Hume's Guillotine" going on (Treatise On Human Nature). My statement is an "is" statement. Your response is an "ought" statement. If I introduced normative language it wouldn't mean much unless we had first agreed on what we "ought" to do. If there isn't an absolute "ought" about what we should do, that's fine be me, I'm not defending absolute normative judgements. My statement stands as an asessment of the natural world which is almost uncontestable or at least as broadly accepted as any idea could reasonably be. I'd prefer not to use normative language here."
If you (and other Atheists/Skeptics) are not trying to say that your worldview is the best, or most reasonable, and you're not trying to say that everyone should subscribe to your worldview, then why even present arguments for it? Why have discussions at all with Christians about your beliefs?
In fact, according to the Naturalistic Worldview, why would an Atheist even care about telling others about his beliefs? Why would he try to convince others about the reasonableness of his beliefs?
Why would an Atheist believe that it is important to know the truth about the world, let alone important to tell other people the truth about the world?
Since people (as far as I can tell) are born with an "unsure" worldview, and are neither for, nor against God, and don't know one way or the other whether a God exists, or whether Nature is all that exists, how does one arrive at the conclusion that Nature is ALL that exists, and NOTHING ELSE besides Nature can possibly exist?
How and why do people subscribe to those presuppositions that the Universe is ALL that exists, and NOTHING ELSE exists? Is that belief based upon scientific evidence?
Is the belief that there absolutely is NO GOD, and nothing beyond our Universe, arrived at by using the scientific method?
How can you know for a fact that NO GOD exists, and NOTHING beyond Nature exists, if you have limited knowledge of the Universe? In order to know for a fact that there is no God, wouldn't you have to know all things?
Spook said:
"Here are some facts to consider: 1. That anything has "come into existance" is very different than thinking in terms of "cause." Words like "physical" tend to confuse what is at issue. For example, does your definition of "Physical" include energy? Does it include non-theistic metaphysical concepts?"
My definition of "physical" includes anything that scientists (and Atheists) have recognized as being part of our Universe that exploded at the Big Bang.
Spook said:
2. Premise (3) does not follow from premise (1), even if premise one were true. Your usage of cause has many implications theists don't usually deal with. By cause, we generally mean that any state of affairs characterized by the set of situations {Sa, Sb, Sc...Sn} at time Tn, had a temporally prior state of {S-a, S-b,S-c....S-n} at T-n. In general, if something "had to have a cause" then it "had to have a prior state." If it didn't have a prior state, it didn't have a cause. Inserting a metapysical entity which "exists" but "doesn't exist" in any common understanding of words will always be an argument from ignorance or a case of special pleading. That the universe had some state {Sa0, Sb0, Sc0....Sn0} in no way entails that this state was non-existance. I also falsifies the claim that it could have a prior "cause."
Let me make sure I understand what you are saying. I do not want to misrepresent your statements or beliefs, so I'm going to rephrase what I think you're saying here:
Even if the Universe (Time, Matter, and Space) did come into existence out of nothing, this does not mean that it has a cause. In general, when scientists speak of some "thing" as having a "cause," they mean that something happened in that "thing's" prior state to cause its present state. If it did not have a prior state, then it did not have a "cause."
Am I correct? Is that what you are saying?
Is it a scientific statement based on the scientific method when you say: "If it didn't have a prior state, it didn't have a cause" ? My question to you is, if every physical effect that we observe has a cause, then wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume that the Singularity and the Big Bang had a cause than the belief that they had no cause?
Can science explain how something can BEGIN to exist without having a cause? Is that even logical at all, to believe that the Singularity and Big Bang had no cause?
Now, about the claim that the Universe did have some prior existence before it existed, scientists say that the Universe, before the Singularity, did not exist.
Stephen Hawking said:
"Almost everyone now believes that the Universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big Bang."
Physicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler said this:
"At this Singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the Singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a Singularity, we would truly have a creation out of nothing."
Henry F. Schaefer III said:
"A dictionary definition of the Hot Big Bang Theory is "The entire physical Universe, all the matter and energy and even the four dimensions of time and space, burst forth from a state of infinite or near infinite density, temperature, and pressure." [...] The nearly unanimous view among cosmologists: That there was an origin to the Universe approximately 15 billion years ago."
If those scientists (and many, many other) are correct (that the physical Universe did NOT exist before the Singularity), AND if what you claim is true (that the Universe did have a physical cause), then the Universe would have had to have existed before it actually came into existence, which makes no sense whatsoever.
Like I said, I don't have enough faith or trust in the claims of the Naturalists to believe that the Universe either (1) came into existence out of nothing without a cause, or (2) the Universe existed before it existed, and thus caused itself to come into existence.
Now, if all of the scientific evidence was pointing toward an Eternal Universe (and the evidence was proven and sound and logical), which has always existed, and thus did not need a cause because it had no beginning, then I would believe that.
Spook said:
"What we know about the early history of the universe is tentative and abstract to a profoucnd degree. If the theist wants to latch on to this as some certain scientific conclusion, then by their same judgements I would hold that they have to accept biological evolution, in general. Because the latter is much better supported by any standard of evidence than any of the claims about the early history of the universe. If we can't know the latter, we can't know the former."
You may have a valid point there. I do agree with you 100% that Christians should examine the evidence for evolution far more than a lot of them do.
With that said, it is my understanding that the Big Bang Theory is one of the strongest scientific theories of the 20th and 21st Centuries, and there is an abundance of scientific evidence to back this theory up.
Can you show me where the leading scientists are doubting the standard Big Bang Theory?
I realize that our understanding of anything about the Universe (or evolution) is limited. We do not have unlimited knowledge. We don't know all things. But that doesn't mean we know nothing, and that doesn't mean we can't form reasonable beliefs based on what we do know.
Spook said:
"On the language, feeling we have a responsibility is different from a metaphysical responsibility actually existing. Feeling like we have "absolute" or "objective" moral values is different than them existing. I don't have to account for the existance of something which I don't think exists."
You don't "have" to do anything. You can deny the existence of anything, even the existence of the world, or the existence of your body. Color-blind people could deny the existence of colors, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
Tonight, I'm somewhat sleepy and I'm not going to go too deeply into this Moral Argument, but I do have much more I'd like to write on this subject.
Spook said:
"Further we already agreed there is more evidence for naturalism, unless you're recounting that. Your claim entails the assumption that the magnitude of one or a few lines of evidence is so great that the majority of evidence should be ignored. I have demonstrated that we don't know or can't know that."
I never said that there is more evidence for the Total Worldview of Naturalism. In fact, I do not believe you have shown ANY evidence in support of believing that NO GOD exists, and that NOTHING beyond our Universe exists. If you have, I must have missed it.
Let me ask you again, did you arrive at the belief that NO GOD EXISTS by using the scientific method only? If not, what else contributed to this belief?
Spook said:
"You are still right to say: "If the universe began to exist and it is possible for something else to exist not included in the universe, then it is possible that this something is God." But if you assume that, then it is just as possible, in this state of complete hypothetical ignorance, that any number of hypothetical non-theistic possibilities could equally answer this dilemma."
I don't see how other hypothetical possibilities could "equally" answer it.
With the design in the Universe, and the design within animals and humans, in addition to the Moral Law (I will write more in support of the Moral Law later), and our consciousness, and our reason and rational inference, this would be much better explained by the existence of an All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Moral, Rational Being, than by any other alternate explanation I can think of.
Spook said:
"1. Since we all get our information from either the external environment or else existential personal experiences, we cannot be fully confident in the truth of anything.
2. Any "knowledge" claim therefore involves a degree of trust in others or ourself.
3. (For some reason) It is more legitimate to trust one's own personal experiences than it is to trust the consensus of empirical information as conveyed by others because the former involves trusting one person (yourself) while the latter involves trusting many people."
No, I was not saying that I was going to only trust myself, and not trust the "consensus of empirical information as conveyed by others."
What I was saying is that I do not trust the Atheist's Naturalistic Worldview (the belief that ONLY the physical Universe exists). That Atheistic belief (that NO GOD EXISTS) is NOT the "consensus of empirical information as conveyed by others."
Spook said:
"The naturalist, even if absolute standards of right and wrong don't exist can still falsify the theists argument for TWO reasons: 1. He can use the theists own definitions as contained in the argument to internally falsify the claim. 2. He can argue EVIDENTIALLY from more/less better/worse in objective terms. LESS suffering is different from "no" suffering. This is stronger because then theists often have to defend why we have the "optimum" level of suffering according to God's highest priority."
Granted, the naturalist can attempt to do so, but how can a naturalist use the "Argument from Suffering" against the God described in the book of Job? This God is described as follows:
* God is an All-Powerful, All-Good, All-Just Being who is All-Just and All-Good even while He allows suffering for His own good purposes which are beyond our limited human understanding (but, which purposes include proving Satan a liar and punishing sinners).
You cannot possibly successfully use the "Argument from Suffering" against the God that is described in the Bible (especially in the Book of Job).
