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**Robert** · September 2, 2012, 22:42

Originally posted by Wezil View Post

"Atheism is just another religion" is a tired canard.

Fortunately then nobody was saying that.

**Robert** · September 3, 2012, 04:37

Originally posted by kentonio View Post

It's faith based on nothing material, verifiable or supported by anything we know to be true. How can it be anything other than blind faith?

so only scientific truths could make faith not to be blind?

I have no idea why you would think that is true. I find it a genuinely confusing statement.

You never trust people?
You never do something while ahead you're not sure how things are going to turn out?
You've never visited a movie b/c you thought it was going to be good?

Such as?

I can list some stuff, and you're most probably going fully scientific on it (still claiming that apparently everything you do in life is scientifically based), but well, that's apparently the way it has to be.

- what christianity teaches about humanity seems to be right imo
- what christianity teaches about me seems to be right
- I am basing myself on the 'testimonies' of people in the Bible who claim to have encountered God/Jesus, and I am trusting these people b/c of what I read from them and what I read about them.
- rationally I can't believe that 'our system' can exist in itself, so there must be some mystery beyond the boundaries of our system.
- I need a saviour, and I believe that the one the Bible offers me is exactly the one I need. (yes, I write it down like that on purpose, I am very aware that this may be or at least seem to be projection)

I don't find it anywhere near the most important question of our lives. In fact apart from the natural curiousity of the beginnings of the universe, I find it a question that is basically meaningless. I think its a case of the questions that have importance to us being deeply dependant on our pre-conceptions.

You mistake your answer to the question with the value of the question.
Of course the question of the purpose of life is of major importance to you, your answer defines the way you live your life.
If you would have answered this question to yourself the Amish way you would have been totally someone else.
Now you apparently have answered that question with something alike that there's no meaning/purpose in life, you have chosen to live it this way.

In fact apparently the question is even now of importance to you b/c you're trowing yourself into debates about the answer, trying to convince others that your answer is the best.

In my eyes the scientific evidence points directly at that. We don't know how life started yet, but we have a nice clear chain of evidence showing the development of species through evolution. There is no evidence of anything supernatural anywhere in that process, the only ground you have at all for it is our lack of knowledge about how things started, I.E. god of the gaps. I don't believe humans are any more special in the evolutionary chain than ants, bacteria or dinosaurs, so why would I believe there is some great plan to it all? Instead I think we're simply incredibly fortunate and should spend our lives appreciating what we've been fortunate enough to have rather than spending it worrying about some fantastical idea of what might come after.

With all due respect, and it may be a cliche, but science is not proving that there is no god and no higher purpose in life.
You're abusing science if you claim it to be your fell based foundation for your view on life.

the theory of evolution is a poor reason to not believe in any god. it's a good reason to reject 6 day creationism or young earth views.
it may therefore even be a very good reason to reject christianity or any of the monotheistic religions.

and 'a great plan for all' being the only alternative for atheism is quiet a stretch as well.
Neither do I understand why humans being like other animals directly makes the existance of any godhood impossible.

Of course you can still appreciate life and feel very fortunate while believing in the Force of Luck and Fortune that caused our entire system into existence without giving it any purpose.

But it's all a poor base, I would even say a blind ground, for atheism.
And regarding the fairly often abused god of the gaps argument; this argument can only be applied to people who need a god to explain their lack of knowledge about the laws of nature. Ie. a god of the gaps operates within the system. I am as a matter of fact believing in a God that's not a part of the system and I am believing in a system that is fully capable to keep running without the intervention of anything from the outside. (I would even say that the creation of a system that needs outside support is not as awesome or perfect as a system that doesn't)

The two things are not really comparable. The atheists aren't the ones building a belief system on an artificial construct. My life does not revolve around the idea that there is no god, it makes basically no difference to me whatsoever. The same is not true of someone who does base their lives around the concept of a god.

I know that atheists like you are very allergic to the very idea of their view/opinion being even closely compared to a religion or a faith, but yet you have to understand that I am only human and can only use words to try to pass my opinion through.
So bear with me for using words that may cause red spots in your neck, those are all the words I have.

But yes, your opinion on life has a huge impact on the way you live your life.
Your life does revolve around the idea that there is no god. Not actively, by stating every morning that you're not worshipping any god, but just by the fact that you consider yourself to be the highest authority in your life.

You have an opinion system (believe system) yourself on how your death will be the end, how you will have to make the best of it before you get there, how you have to find the best values for life and try to live good according to your own standards. The difference between a theist and you is most probably that you retrieve your standards from your own mind, while a theist gets them from a supposed godhead.

So your view that there is no godhead to retrieve your standards from defines your life, and it is build upon the non-scientific reasons you have for thinking that there is no such a godhead. Let me be clear: I think those reasons are valid, and I would not name them 'blind'. I would name you a hypocrite though for claiming that people with other opinions and reasons are blind while their grounds aren't scientifically better or worse then yours. In fact it all comes down to the silly idea many people have that people with a different opinion are stupid and dumb and their reasons and arguments are all worthless. I have learned however that my opponents oftenly have many valid arguments and reasons, though yet I do not value their arguments to be good enough to convince me, or I consider my own arguments to be of a higher value.

My friends has good reasons to love his wife and stick to her. I however prefer to stick to mine and have good reasons for that.
While most of us are able to value the reasons others have to love their wife, many of lost the capability to value the reasons others have to come to a different opinion. I think that it's a sign of incertaincy. If one is uncertain about his opinion he's less likely to see some good in the arguments of the opponent, scared someone may be to lose his opinion.

**Robert** · September 3, 2012, 04:40

In addition to the 'first cause' debate;
Why is it that everything we do in life is based on causation and result.
Even the entire scientific method is build on causation and observing the results.
We would not have science without causation.

And yet people who think that everything we know needs a cause are silly? Why is that?
Why is suddenly 'there is no cause' acceptable as the final answer to all our science, ratio and doings? (or at least the default option we should stick to as long as we can't know for sure)

**Aeson** · September 3, 2012, 05:55

Originally posted by Robert Plomp View Post

I state that everything in the universe, as far as we know, needs a cause.
You can counter that by giving me some examples of stuff that doesn't need a cause.

Asking to prove a negative is bad form. If something doesn't have a first cause (like God) then it's impossible to prove they don't have a first cause because any proof requires a causal process or reproduceable method ... and the "given" here is that there wasn't a causal process and then there was. It is not reproduceable, and necessarily must not have a reproduceable method.

God (omnipotent, eternal) can't be intelligently addressed this way. Neither can the universe as a whole (as of yet at least). Neither can physical laws.

As for things we don't yet know if they had a first cause: everything (AFAIK). Yes, there are causal processes in the universe we can observe, and we can even create abstract "starts" and "ends" to these processes ... but we can't say that there had to be a first step in any those processes. Even one's which on an abstract level seem to have a "start" and an "end" are really just continuations of other causal processes.

If you agree that everything we know so far has need of a cause, then the next question is if the universe is not just the sum of all elements in the universe. If you agree with that as well, then we have the conclusion that the universe needs a cause as well.

You keep jumping between using "cause" as "causation" and "first cause" or "cause from outside itself". Every interaction we've ever been able to map out is causal AFAIK. That would make sense because if there were non-causal processes, we couldn't map them out. However, just because there is causation doesn't mean there was a first cause or outside cause. (In fact, proving a first cause would have to break causation, meaning we can't prove it.)

Even if we assume the universe is just the sum of all parts we've observed and that everything we've observed had a first cause, we can't do so for the universe itself at this time.

You don't get my analogy. An analogy always goes wrong somewhere, b/c otherwise it wouldn't be an analogy but the exact same situation. The purpose of this analogy is to make clear that you can't be sure that the factory has to live up to the same conditions/laws/properties/whatever as the stuff it produces.

You're the one claiming that the universe has to have a cause outside itself. You analogy is to support that general claim, which it doesn't do. It obfuscates some problems by conflating various uses of "cause".

Do you agree with that? That a factory doesn't have to live up to the same conditions/laws/whatevers as the products it produces?

Yet then you go and state the universe has to be the same as portions of it.

It's not a lack of evidence. It's the fact that all evidence leads us to believe that the universe needs a cause, because everything we encounter inside the universe needs a cause.

What is the cause of gravity? What is the cause of the inflationary period? What is the cause of energy existing in the universe? What is the cause of space existing? What is the cause of existence?

There may very well be answers to these questions that we haven't found/fully explored yet, but we're not there yet. Certainly not to the point we can say "this was the first cause" or even "it needed a first cause" or "it needed a cause outside itself".

If all people I meet have a head, then it's safe to conclude that all people have a head.

Would you conclude that the universe had a head? The universe is not just it's parts, and certainly cannot be treated as one of it's parts. The universe is all things that exist. Obviously smaller sets of things which exist will be acted upon by other things which do not belong to that set. But the set of all things that exist would seem to not have that issue, since anything we attempt to place outside the set is existing, and thus in the set in the first place.

Why would that be a hypocrisy?

Because there is no evidence to suggest the universe had a first cause or an outside cause. Just as their is no evidence to suggest that God would need a first cause or outside cause. If you try to promote an argument which relies upon one unknown being positive while the other analog unknown is negative, you are behaving hypocritically.

The fact that my daughter needs help to walk doesn't mean that I need help to walk.
Wait, now that's a hypocrite claim to make, why would one need help to walk while the other doesn't?

Again, you are horrible with analogies. A proper analogy to this would be to ask if person A and/or B can walk, without knowing whether they can or not. In this analogy, you are the person claiming that A can walk and B can't, without any evidence to actually support your assertions. Your reasoning is that you see lots of people walking, and thus A must walk ... but then you don't apply the same reasoning to B, you just assume they can't walk.

The universe and God are at this time in exactly the same boat as far as a "first cause" or "cause outside themselves".

The entire concept of something existing entirely in itself without any external causation is something I can't grasp. All logic I have in my mind always comes to the same conclusion that the existence of our system can only be explained from something that's not a part of our system.

Now you're back to using "cause" as "outside itself". Doesn't have any bearing at all on what actually is. There is no evidence to support your conclusion.

What I do know is that with our current knowledge we need something outside of our system to explain the existence of our system.

This is not something we can know. You "think" so or "believe" so without any evidence that actually leads to that conclusion. So far, every last verifiable explanation of the existence of any portion of the universe has come from within the universe. To assume it must come from outside the universe without ever actually having a verified example of an explanation of anything originating from outside the universe is just silly.

That doesn't lead us to God or god or gods or whatever. It just leads to the conclusion that there must be something beyond the limits of our knowledge.

The universe as a whole probably isn't limited based on our knowledge of it. Equating "the universe as it is regardless of whether we currently understand it or not" to "the universe I know" in the question of whether "the universe" needs a cause "outside itself" is just bad sophistry. What you are saying is that the universe isn't likely what you think it is. Which of course casts doubts on your positive claims about what it must be.

Now you've chatted enough about the analogy, just simply answer the question: do you believe that the cause always needs to live up to the same rules/laws/properties/etc. as the thing it produces?

You're wording on that question isn't very good. The answer would be, "in every case I can think of, it seems that physical laws are pretty constant". Of course you're getting at something else. I think you are after something more like: "does Y, the cause of X, have to have the same cause as X". Which of course is no. Or maybe "if X,Y,Z had causes, can we assume A has a cause". Which is "not for sure" and confuses with your use of "cause" to really mean "cause from outside itself", which confuses your use of "outside itself" with "outside what we know of it".

All of which is just a lot of confusion you are using to obfuscate the reality that neither God nor the universe can be shown to need an outside cause. You want to claim the universe needs an outside cause, and so define "outside" as "inside, but not what we think it is" and hope no one notices.

(and to make things even worse, my analogy was that a totally red product doesn't necessarily have to come from a totally red factory. the analogy was made to explain the cause thing, but the cause thing itself wasn't in the analogy)

No ... you had another analogy about factories too.

**Aeson** · September 3, 2012, 05:56