Is it logical to assume that nothing created the universe?

[Starcrash]

Scientific Method is a logical fallacy

Big bang cosmogony doesn't believe nothing created the universe, but it came from another universe, and so on like the Who created God argument.

who created God - a bigger God, a bigger bigger God, a bigger bigger bigger God

it's the eternal universe bit that tripped up Newton, and people in his day

The "scientific method" is a logical fallacy? I'm not even sure where to start with this.

I don't think you know what the scientific method is, because it's hard to imagine someone who doesn't use it daily. The scientific method is to take 2 groups that have everything in common except one single thing (the "variable"). If there is a difference between those 2 groups, then you know that the variable is responsible for that difference because there's nothing else to attribute it to -- if something besides the variable caused a change in one group, then it would change the other group in the same way because that's how things work.

An example of common use of the scientific method is to decide that you don't like the taste of beets. You compare it to others things you've eaten and enjoyed (ice cream?) and, because the experience of eating is otherwise similar except for the outcome to your taste buds, you decide that the taste of beets isn't pleasurable. It's not the fact that you used a fork, because you've eaten things with a fork and you liked them. It's not the fact that you're wearing a red shirt, because you've eaten things while wearing a red shirt and enjoyed them. It's obvious that the difference in taste in because of the difference in foods, and you know this intuitively. We all use the scientific method, and we use it a lot.

I don't think you understand "big bang cosmology" either, but you're not entirely wrong. There are theories that another universe created ours, or that it came from a singularity, etc. But no one knows for certain because we can't use the scientific method -- there's no universe to compare ours to and say "oh, that universe was created using such and such a method, so maybe ours was, too". All we have is guesses at the moment. So it would be a logical fallacy to say that you're certain about how the universe was created, because it's untestable and unverifiable. Many of us who don't believe in a god are skeptics, and we don't believe in god because of the lack of evidence, rather than a belief in a competing theory.

The question of "who created God" is a good question. The question of "original creation" creates an infinite regression, whether you believe in universes creating universes or gods creating gods. One way to resolve that is to declare that something has no creator (as Christians regularly argue about God), but there's no logical reason to assume that the regress stops there simply because you say it does.

The eternal universe didn't trip up Newton -- he was a Christian, after all -- nor does it trip up anyone today because it isn't necessary to answer given the insufficient evidence to make a conclusion about it.

 

[Starcrash]

I would say, my faith is based on facts. the myth of evolution is based on irrationality. The FACTS of creation and the FACT of my conversion is a fact. The Bible is based on facts, proven history. even the miracles in Jesus are proven facts. the resurrection of Jesus is a proven fact. I believe the unseen promises of GOD, because of my faith in the facts. Love for all, Hoffco

Well, you can say it all you want, but that doesn't make it true. There are Scientologists who say that alien life forms bombed volcanos, leaving Thetans in their wake, but no amount of faith makes that true.

The "miracles in Jesus" aren't proven facts, nor could they possibly be. If I told you that my brother breathed fire, how would you verify that as true? You could take my word for it, but we know that people lie and it's entirely possible that I am doing that, so that certainly wouldn't "prove" it's true. You could see the evidence for yourself, but how exactly would I show you that an event happened? It would be more believable if he could replicate it for you, but the fact that he can't doesn't necessarily mean that it didn't happen the one time. The "miracles in Jesus" are exactly like this -- they're claims that something beyond natural occurrence happened, and the only evidence remaining for them are alleged eye-witness reports in the bible. And because people lie, it can never be proven.

Now you might argue that these eye-witness reports must be believed because they're in the bible, but I would refer you again to the fact that Scientology's claims are in holy book form, but that doesn't cause you to take them seriously.

 

[megaman125]

Some people want to believe nothing created the universe. It all just magically happened. Nothing made it all happen.
Is that logical? Please explain.

Even when I was an atheist, that wasn't logical to me. Then again, I also rejected the big bang after it was dogmatically taught to me and I was told to stop asking questions (because my questions where making the big bang theory look foolish, but that wasn't the intent of my questions).

 

[Nick01]

...

The "miracles in Jesus" are exactly like this -- they're claims that something beyond natural occurrence happened, and the only evidence remaining for them are alleged eye-witness reports in the bible. And because people lie, it can never be proven.

Now you might argue that these eye-witness reports must be believed because they're in the bible, but I would refer you again to the fact that Scientology's claims are in holy book form, but that doesn't cause you to take them seriously.

I think there are good reasons to think that the Gospels in particular (as well as Acts, the sequel) can be trusted as accurate reporting of events, on textual bases but also also on circumstantial/sociological grounds. One of the big questions, of course, is if the writers lied, why did they lie?

 

[CoooCaw]

Did... did you not get the joke? Are you truly unable to understand how you would react if a Muslim declared these same things to you? Do you lose sleep over the possibility of going to Muslim Hell?

i sleep the sleep of the justified'; the muslim does not

 

[APebbleThrown]

That's not atheism. Also, yes, virgin birth is quite possible. Happens a lot in biology, actually.

No I iz cirhstian, i iz stoopid.

Yeah it's called Parthenogenesis. Never happens in humans, mostly happens with plants, and if it happens in the animal world then only females are the offspring.

 

[Starcrash]

I think there are good reasons to think that the Gospels in particular (as well as Acts, the sequel) can be trusted as accurate reporting of events, on textual bases but also also on circumstantial/sociological grounds. One of the big questions, of course, is if the writers lied, why did they lie?

Because they were promoting a belief system. This seems pretty obvious when you see the phrase "and this was done in order that the prophecies might be fulfilled". Why would they write about Jesus in such a way that he "fulfills prophecies"? Because the writers wanted you to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. After all, if you believe that Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon, what motive do you think he had for lying? Isn't it obvious?

But it intrigues me that you think that the gospels can be "trusted as an accurate reporting of events". The events they report don't have a comparative basis with events that we have established could or would happen. When you're told about a couple loaves of bread feeding 5,000 people, you don't think "oh, like that other time that I personally observed thousands of people get fed with an absurdly small amount of food". From what we've experienced, that's impossible. So why should we believe that it was possible just because it's in the bible? You're giving the bible the benefit of the doubt that you wouldn't give a similar book. I'm fairly certain that you don't think the Qur'an "can be trusted as an accurate reporting of events", even though it makes many fewer miracle claims, has verification from more non-holy-book sources than the bible, and is believed by over a billion people. Nor do I trust the Qur'an as true, but at least I can claim that I'm consistent in disbelief of religious propaganda without real-world evidence.

 

[Starcrash]

i sleep the sleep of the justified'; the muslim does not

And this is true because... you strongly believe it? Nearly everyone rationalizes and self-justifies his or her own behavior in order to sleep peacefully. That shady salesman that sold you a car for way more than it was worth? He feels he did it for his family, and so it becomes the *right* thing to do. That guy who cut you off in traffic? He had to do it to get to work on time, so he doesn't even feel a twinge of regret. That lady who killed her own children out of neglect? She feels that she is entitled to her own peace of mind and thinks the kids are responsible for taking it away. And those Muslims who kill in the name of their religion? They feel they are doing the duty of Allah, and there's no way that Allah could have commanded them to do something evil. Everyone rationalizes their behavior, even that guy who continues to threaten non-Christians with hell even though he was shown that the bible commands him to treat his enemies with kindness rather than threats (more than once now).

 

[jimmydiggs]

Yeah it's called Parthenogenesis. Never happens in humans, mostly happens with plants, and if it happens in the animal world then only females are the offspring.

Ah, so virgin birth isn't exactly a totally radical notion. There are known examples of it occuring. Now, as per the human side of it, human virgin birth is much easier to defend at a logical/philosophical point of view than atheism. The reason I say this, is because the existance of a god such as a monotheistic god, means the god in question has the power to perform such an act. The atheist, however, has a much harder case to make. Not only must he argue a negative in the affirmative, but his case itself is lacking. The atheist not only rejects the proposition that there is a god, but also must establish an entirely new epistemology that isn't circular logic (empiricism is ciricular logic without any modification to it), must develop a metaphysical view, and must deal with the issue of morality. So for example, using the last, you have set yourself on the moral high horse which is highly ironic, given that anything short of a soft theism cannot sustain an objective morality.

 

[SweetSavour]

Not argument ad populum. I'm not claiming a majority believe it therefor it is.

I'm just statin' facts. As far as your demand for evidence, evidence is kewl n' all but I don't peddle in bankrupt epistemologies.

The moon is made of cheese. That's a fact because I said so.
I also have a bridge in New York to sell you. Very low price!

 

[jimmydiggs]

Everyone rationalizes their behavior, even that guy who continues to threaten non-Christians with hell even though he was shown that the bible commands him to treat his enemies with kindness rather than threats (more than once now).

I was wondering if you could explain further how, telling a person about what the bible says of their condition is "Threatening with hell".

 

[SweetSavour]

Ah, so virgin birth isn't exactly a totally radical notion. There are known examples of it occuring. Now, as per the human side of it, human virgin birth is much easier to defend at a logical/philosophical point of view than atheism. The reason I say this, is because the existance of a god such as a monotheistic god, means the god in question has the power to perform such an act. The atheist, however, has a much harder case to make. Not only must he argue a negative in the affirmative, but his case itself is lacking. The atheist not only rejects the proposition that there is a god, but also must establish an entirely new epistemology that isn't circular logic (empiricism is ciricular logic without any modification to it), must develop a metaphysical view, and must deal with the issue of morality. So for example, using the last, you have set yourself on the moral high horse which is highly ironic, given that anything short of a soft theism cannot sustain an objective morality.

Do you know how many mythical figures were supposedly
born of a virgin? It's not unique to Christianity.

Only way out of that is special pleading.
''Those miracles aren't true but Christian miracles are!''

 

[jimmydiggs]

The moon is made of cheese.

Must have been resurfaced lately. Last time I was there, it was made of pork. Do you know what kind of cheese?

That's a fact because I said so.

Naw dawg, appeal to authority. You brainfarted all ova this forum.

I also have a bridge in New York to sell you. Very low price!

Good, I've been looking for a property trade. I've got ocean front property in Kansas, but it's very pricey. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find an ocean in Kansas.

 

[jimmydiggs]

Do you know how many mythical figures were supposedly
born of a virgin? It's not unique to Christianity.

Archaya S. did a lot of claims, but they're nearly impossible to evidence.

Acharya S - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia <--- click

If that's the route you're going, just know I'm well prepared.

Only way out of that is special pleading.

Special pleading would be uneccesary.

''Those miracles aren't true but Christian miracles are!''

Miracles aren't "Christian", they're from God.

 

[CoooCaw]

you clearly understand neither christian theology nor muslim theology

And this is true because... you strongly believe it? Nearly everyone rationalizes and self-justifies his or her own behavior in order to sleep peacefully. That shady salesman that sold you a car for way more than it was worth? He feels he did it for his family, and so it becomes the *right* thing to do. That guy who cut you off in traffic? He had to do it to get to work on time, so he doesn't even feel a twinge of regret. That lady who killed her own children out of neglect? She feels that she is entitled to her own peace of mind and thinks the kids are responsible for taking it away. And those Muslims who kill in the name of their religion? They feel they are doing the duty of Allah, and there's no way that Allah could have commanded them to do something evil. Everyone rationalizes their behavior, even that guy who continues to threaten non-Christians with hell even though he was shown that the bible commands him to treat his enemies with kindness rather than threats (more than once now).

 

[SweetSavour]

Archaya S. did a lot of claims, but they're nearly impossible to evidence.

Acharya S - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia <--- click

If that's the route you're going, just know I'm well prepared.

Let me google that for you

Miraculous births - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Of Course Jesus Was Born of A Virgin &#8211; it happened a lot back then
How many Gods were born of virgin mothers in the various religions? - Yahoo! Answers

It's seems virgin births were commonplace in ancient times. A lot even predate Christianity.

 

[Nick01]

Zombie thread...

Because they were promoting a belief system. This seems pretty obvious when you see the phrase "and this was done in order that the prophecies might be fulfilled". Why would they write about Jesus in such a way that he "fulfills prophecies"? Because the writers wanted you to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. After all, if you believe that Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon, what motive do you think he had for lying? Isn't it obvious?

I realised I never replied to this, and only spotted it going through old threads and updates. I'll put one down here, do what you like with it. Not expecting a reply, but if you'd like to roll with, so am I

For your first par to hold, you'd have to establish why the writers of the gospels would be in a comparable position of gain to Joseph Smith. I'll give a couple of reasons for why that comparison is suspect, to start discussion -

the beliefs depicted in the gospels were immediately worthy of execution. It is almost intentionally designed to offend both Romans and Jews, and did indeed do both. Church history records all but one of the twelve apostles being executed at one stage or another, and certainly Christian persecutions during Roman rule and the eviction of Christian Jews from the synagogue in the first few generations of its existence are beyond question historically. It was a theology designed to impress nobody except those who thought the person of Jesus was someone worth following to death, for whatever reason.

-the gospels are fundamentally records of contemporaneous events, with potential witnesses (or nothing-witnesses) still alive at the writing of certainly 3, and quite possibly four, of the gospels, as well as of Acts, as well as at least the Pauline letters. The Book of Mormon (and the Qur'an for that matter) are essentially rewrites of ancient history, and so the only testable aspect is the visionary experience itself. The witness of the NT can potentially live or die (and indeed could have been killed at conception) on the accuracy of reportage of public events, not private individual revelation (i.e., to J Smith or Muhammed).

But it intrigues me that you think that the gospels can be "trusted as an accurate reporting of events". The events they report don't have a comparative basis with events that we have established could or would happen. When you're told about a couple loaves of bread feeding 5,000 people, you don't think "oh, like that other time that I personally observed thousands of people get fed with an absurdly small amount of food". From what we've experienced, that's impossible. So why should we believe that it was possible just because it's in the bible?

I'm not sure what you mean here. There are a host of things we read about that we have no private analogical experience of. You and I have never experienced a Big Bang of the energy to create a universe, but that doesn't necessarily impinge on our capacity to believe such a thing happened. Certainly no one has observed the thing itself, only echoes.

Besides, the point of the feeding was that it was not a regular experience. It's supposed to be out of everyday experience in scale (though not in substance, obviously we all can know what it's like to give loaves of bread to people. If everyone could dole out 5000 loaves of bread on a routine basis, Jesus would have made himself an irrelevancy). Whether it has happened before or regularly is utterly irrelevant to whether a thing can happen - I have never been dealt a natural royal flush in poker, but whether I have before or not says nothing about whether or not I will be dealt one in my next hand. Gambler's fallacy. Only the specifics of the cards themselves determine the probability, but even probability only takes you so far, because it assumes a random allocation, with all external factors at bay, and all internal factors being equal. It brings no weight to an argument of whether something is impossible or not - simply whether it is, assuming a randomly occurring event, probable or not.

So we need to look to factors historical, rather than simply philosophical or probable, in order to make determinations here.

You're giving the bible the benefit of the doubt that you wouldn't give a similar book. I'm fairly certain that you don't think the Qur'an "can be trusted as an accurate reporting of events", even though it makes many fewer miracle claims, has verification from more non-holy-book sources than the bible, and is believed by over a billion people.

I've given you a couple of thoughts on this already, if you want to go into this point more, I'm happy to, but I feel it's probably a distraction, given I'm certain you don't believe in the Qur'an either, so it's a devil's advocate argument that doesn't deal any which way with evidences on the Bible, or for that matter, the beginning of the universe (having said that, zombie'd thread).

I will ask what you mean by "verification from more non-holy-book sources" (verification in non-Islamic sources that Muhammed's visions are accurate? that would astound me!), and point out that Christianity technically has more adherents than Islam, but that you know as well as I do that populism is a complete fallacy of an argument to begin with anyway.

 

[DragonSlayer]

View attachment 55891

Da planet thingies rotape around da big thingie in da midow and in da circle and dat proves we came from nothing.
da end and like that.

Well, I didn't understand what you wrote here ! I guess it's a slang dialect.
But I only know pure English.
May I ask you what did you wrote in pure English here ?

 

[DragonSlayer]

The First Cause Argument, or Cosmological Argument, is internally contradictory and raises the following questions: Who or what created god?, Why should a hypothetical ‘cause’ have any of the common attributes of a god?, Why is the ‘cause’ a specific god?, Why can’t the universe be causeless too? and, most importantly, Why rule out all other possible explanations?

It is fundamentally a ‘god of the gaps’ approach. Our current lack of understanding concerning the Universe’s origins does not automatically mean ‘god’ holds any explanatory value. Metaphysical and theistic speculation are not immediately justified or correct simply because we lack a comprehensive scientific model. Uncertainty is the most valid position and one can honestly say “We just don’t know yet”.

The argument ignores the fact that our everyday understanding of causality has been arrived at via a posteriori inductive reasoning – which means it might not apply to everything. Time, for instance, appears to have begun with the Big Bang, so there might not have been any ’cause’ for the Universe to be an ‘effect’ of since there was probably no time for a ’cause’ to exist in. Applying concepts like time and causality to the Big Bang might be comparable to asking “What is north of the North Pole?” –ultimately nonsensical and incoherent. Furthermore, even if causality could be established it would not immediately imply the existence of a god, much less any particular one, as the properties and nature of the ’cause’ could forever remain a mystery or be naturalistic.

In fact, something can come from nothing and we are able to observe it in the form of virtual particles and quantum vacuum fluctuations. They explain why the early universe lacked uniformity and provided the seeds for the emergence of structure. These quantum phenomena are also causeless in the sense that they are objectively and irreducibly random, a fact confirmed by tests of non-local realism and Bell’s Theorem.

Note: Theists often state “God is outside of time”. This claim does not actually make their speculation correct. Instead, it brings with it a whole host of problems and may be immediately dismissed as being without basis and a type fallacy known as special pleading.

The humanistic philosophical approach that claims everything could be explained, and everything could be contained within the limits of human intelligence is in itself erroneous from the beginning. The very foundations and principles of humanism's philosophy deny from the start the true definition of God !
Just think about it, if god had a cause, it would mean he would just be a mortal creature just like the rest of us, and that would mean God would not exist !

The true definition of God is an infinite and eternal God. This is an infinite mystery and in no way limited human intelligence could comprehend it ! The fact that limited human intelligence cannot comprehend this infinite mystery of God's eternal existence is just an indubitable proof of His Existence !
For God is Infinite and Eternal,
and a limited human intelligence cannot comprehend this infinite mystery !

 

[DragonSlayer]

Saying that the Universe popped out of nothing is the same thing of saying the earth is flat !
It just doesn't make any sense ! And that big bang thing is just another big lie !

Think about it, it's the same scientists who firmly believe someday,
somehow, they would be able to bring the dead back to life with their "miraculous "technology.
So they believe they could be like Gods and they would never die ? Sounds familiar ?