The Case for Theism

[DrewM]

It's not a question of silencing the dissenters but sliencing those who come here with the same dated arguments that we have debated and debunked literally a thousand times.

What did you expect in this forum?

Religion General Discussion

Challenges to the general concept of deity. Would include deism, and the myriad of thousands of gods man has created throughout the years.

For instance pulling a real rabbit out of thin air, or moving mount Everest to Washington DC, IOW, phenomena that no known laws of physics could ever, ever, ever explain!

Provided such things don't occur you'll say such is a supernatural feat...unless it were to occur in which case it would be a naturalistic mystery because by definition the supernatural can't happen (unless it does).

Show me one instance when the goal post was moved.

200 hundred years ago the notion of traveling in time was pure fantasy. It wasn't something that could happen because time was believed to be a constant everywhere. The notion a person could travel forward in time would be no different than the idea MT Everest could wind up in DC or a rabbit could materialize out of thin air. That was before it was discovered time could dilate, then it became 'natural'.

You keep repeating the same thing over and over like a broken record. There is nothing that led to QM that could even barely qualified as "supernatural". The two-slit experiment? No way, QM has the equation to describe it adequately. So what it is you have in mind that you think could ever qualify as "supernatural"? So far, a lot of postering on your part but little in detail.

I keep repeating because you keep missing the point. No matter how bizarre or anti-intuitive a phenomena might be or whether it might be classified as supernatural if it in fact occurs...it then becomes natural. Remember it can only be supernatural if it doesn't happen. If it were to turn out that a Creator caused the universe to exist, it will be reclassified as natural. 

Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated or interact in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently â€" instead, a quantum state may be given for the system as a whole.

Measurements of physical properties such as position, momentum, spin, polarization, etc. performed on entangled particles are found to be appropriately correlated. For example, if a pair of particles is generated in such a way that their total spin is known to be zero, and one particle is found to have clockwise spin on a certain axis, then the spin of the other particle, measured on the same axis, will be found to be counterclockwise. Because of the nature of quantum measurement, however, this behavior gives rise to effects that can appear paradoxical: any measurement of a property of a particle can be seen as acting on that particle (e.g. by collapsing a number of superimposed states); and in the case of entangled particles, such action must be on the entangled system as a whole. It thus appears that one particle of an entangled pair "knows" what measurement has been performed on the other, and with what outcome, even though there is no known means for such information to be communicated between the particles, which at the time of measurement may be separated by arbitrarily large distances.

[DrewM]

Okay, but much the same thing was said in the paper itself, had you read it. Sure, Jefferys and Ikeda might not have used my exact words, but their own layman's summary is very much parallels mine. Or my summary parallels theirs. (Hell, even the "prong of their argument" phrase is pretty much lifted directly from the paper.)

Admit it. Your eyes just glazed over when you read that paper, didn't they?

My degree is in computer technology. I've taught computer technology and witnessed my students eyes glazing over when I discuss programming or network segmentation. I admit I don't have the training to read papers like that and understand what they are getting at.

[Solitary]

Time travel for a sentient being is not possible period! Time is just a way of measuring change. At the speed of light the measure of time stops. Also, the world of mathematics is not the world of reality, it just is an abstract way of understanding the change of events. Feynman himself said that if one says they understand quantum mechanics they are wrong. When we don't understand something it is not knowledge but ignorance. And to replace that ignorance with something supernatural is even more ignorant. Solitary

[DrewM]

Hi Johan,

Welcome back into the fray.

You claim that you've argued from those facts. But so far  your only argument that these facts alone support the existence of a creator is because you think they do. Since you seem to be so in love with (incorrectly) using the standard of evidence in a hypothetical murder as your example, lets try this.

Lets say you're prosecuting this hypothetical murder case. You present evidence of a body to the jury and argue that because there is a body, there has been a murder (you've made this claim in this thread). Then you argue that because a knife was found in the body, there was definitely a murder (again, you've said this). Finally you argue that the murderer was the victims wife and the reason you believe it was victims wife is because you think so.

What are the odds the jury is going to convict the wife based only on your 'because I think so' argument?

Odds would be extremely poor but you never know. I thought OJ would be convicted and to this day I still can't believe that bitch Casey Anthony wasn't convicted. How the jury came back with not guilty is beyond me. In contrast I have seen cases where there seemed to be a great deal of reasonable doubt but to no avail.

Theism vs atheism isn't a criminal case it would be a civil case (not that the participants are very civil) thus a simple preponderance of evidence is all that's required. You may feel the case I have made thus far isn't very strong but considering most atheists themselves no longer deny God exists (they just lack that belief) how strong does it need to be? BTW I haven't seen a very strong case in favor of the belief that mindless forces could or did without plan intent or a degree in physics caused a universe that caused and maintained sentient life.

[DrewM]

Hello Solitary

Time travel for a sentient being is not possible period! Time is just a way of measuring change. At the speed of light the measure of time stops. Also, the world of mathematics is not the world of reality, it just is an abstract way of understanding the change of events. Feynman himself said that if one says they understand quantum mechanics they are wrong. When we don't understand something it is not knowledge but ignorance. And to replace that ignorance with something supernatural is even more ignorant. Solitary

It is possible. If someone traveled close to the speed of light (assuming that's possible), they would no longer be traveling in time they'd be traveling in space. If they came back to earth time would advance much faster on earth relative to the space traveler.

[Hakurei Reimu]

I've submitted three facts into evidence thus far.

1. The fact the universe exists
2. The fact life exists
3. the fact sentient life exists

I have argued from those facts why they favor the existence of a Creator as opposed to the counter belief that we owe our existence to mindless forces that fortuitously caused our existence.

And it's no wonder you fail. The only thing those three facts tell us is:

1. The universe exists.
2. Life exists.
3. Sentient life exists.

That is it. This is all these three facts, out on their own, tell you. You cannot go further than this using just these facts. You need additional facts in order for you to conclude a Creator exists, like the following:

1. If the universe exists, then it requires a creation event.
2. A creation event requires an agent.
3. The creative agent must have existence prior to and not dependent on the created object.

And maybe some others I haven't thought of yet. You need these premises to be likely true to even conclude a Creator from your first fact. This is what's called a non sequitor (it does not follow) fallacy. None of these facts has been demonstrated to be true or even likely true. You have no math or logical chain of reasoning to show this is the case. Each of these additional premises require additional evidence to establish. Without them, your hypothesis cannot move forward from what I have stated above.

In the end, nobody disputes that the universe exists, that life exists, and that sentient life exists. The only thing we dispute is your analysis of these facts, an analysis that depends on unstated premises that we absolutely do not subscribe to. It is very, very wanting.

[Johan]

Odds would be extremely poor but you never know.

So you admit your argument is piss poor. Well I'll give you credit for that at least.

Theism vs atheism isn't a criminal case it would be a civil case (not that the participants are very civil) thus a simple preponderance of evidence is all that's required.

It wouldn't be a civil case either. If you want to argue that bigfoot exists, you don't go to civil court to do it. You do it by going out and finding bigfoot or lacking that, you do it by going out and finding scientifically sound verifiable evidence that bigfoot exists.

You don't do it by going into civil court and arguing that bigfoot is hairy and hair exists, bigfoot lives in the forest and the forest exists and bigfoot has feet and feet exist therefore bigfoot exists because you think so. But I do encourage you to try just you might finally realize just how lame your argument is.

You may feel the case I have made thus far isn't very strong but considering most atheists themselves no longer deny God exists (they just lack that belief) how strong does it need to be?

Pretty fucking strong. Most athiests will cite the complete lack of any scientific verifiable evidence of the existence of god as the reason they are athiest. If you want to argue otherwise to athiests, the burden of proof is yours. So either you've got a pretty fucking strong case, or you've got nothing. By your own admission, your case is not strong. So by your own admission, you've got nothing.

BTW I haven't seen a very strong case in favor of the belief that mindless forces could or did without plan intent or a degree in physics caused a universe that caused and maintained sentient life.

The fact that you choose to be blind to existing readily available scientific evidence is neither my fault nor my problem.

[Nam]

A little philosophy (according to me)

We'll see if it's actual "philosophy".

The truth is something that is so whether some all or none believe it. In our attempts to determine the truth of a matter we have several degrees of certitude. Arguably the highest level of certitude is when something is established as a scientific fact. This is usually accomplished over a long period of time when several scientists assess it usually by experimental confirmation. In some instances scientific validation isn't possible. For example in the case of accusing someone of murder. Though many aspects of such a trial may have scientific facts submitted as evidence it would be rare if ever someones conviction is established as a scientific fact. In that case the standard of truth invoked is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. The accused is deemed innocent unless that criteria is met. In a civil dispute a mere preponderance of evidence (in the eyes of impartial folks) suffices. I don't think either side of our dispute can prove it scientifically or beyond a reasonable doubt at least not with the available information. There are no witnesses. When a judge or jury render a verdict, they render an opinion not a fact.

So far no philosophy.

The problem with most theist/atheist debates is they submit theories in favor of their theory God doesn't or does exist. I wanted for the sake of this discussion limit evidence to accepted indisputable  facts, then argue from those facts. Facts aren't proof but if a fact tends to support a contention then it will be submitted as valid evidence. For many atheists the rock hard core foundation of their justification for claiming God doesn't exist is the claim there is no evidence in favor of God's existence. For many, this is not negotiable, its a dogmatic truth that there is no evidence that comports with the belief in the existence of God. Facts alone don't prove the truth of a matter. For example, a knife in the back of the deceased is unquestionably evidence of murder...but its not proof. Maybe someone stuck the knife in after the person was already dead. Even if it's discovered that in fact the knife was stuck in after death, the knife in the back is still valid evidence. A classic example is the Jon Bennet case (for those of us who remember). In that case there was very compelling evidence the parents committed the murder, but there was also compelling evidence an intruder committed the crime.

Where's this philosophy?

I've submitted three facts into evidence thus far.

1. The fact the universe exists
2. The fact life exists
3. the fact sentient life exists

I have argued from those facts why they favor the existence of a Creator as opposed to the counter belief that we owe our existence to mindless forces that fortuitously caused our existence. Of course I don't have a snow balls chance in hell of winning the case for theism in an atheist court.

That's because the three facts you list is all the facts you have the rest is just your opinion based on those facts. Just because those are facts does not mean that your opinions based on those facts therefore are facts.

You have provided no evidence. Your opinions are not evidence.

The best I can hope for is that some will acknowledge there are valid reasons to subscribe to the belief. 

That is not a philosophy. Do you make up definitions for all your words?

[Mr.Obvious]

I'm fed up with this courtroom/circumstantial-evidence analogy. It was piss-poor when Casparov used it. It is piss-poor now.
Your murder metaphor is highly biased and thus, to us, wrongly interpreted.

You suggest something allong the lines of; we have a universe, so we have a dead body in the metaphor. We have (sentient) life; therefore it is obvious that this entire state of being was intentional. In the metaphor this would mean we clearly have a murder. From this it is obvious that an outer agent has forcibly willed and formed the universe and life into the way (s)he wanted to. This would be the murderer in the analogy.
From this you seem to think that you've presented a clear case that it is very likely that God exists.

But your basic metaphor is flawed.

All you've presented so far is three dead bodies. One in each of the three claims.
We find a dead body. We know there are natural processes in the world that allow for death to occur 'naturally'. It is also possible that death is instigated by an outer agent, i.e. a murderer. (Let aside the fact that death through natural processes is much more common than through murder.) What do scientists, i.e. coroners do? They examine the body (of evidence) into the cause of death. In all three claims the coroner is still examining the body and has yet found no knife, no strangulation marks, nothing obvious. Every sign on the bodies, for now, are in accordance to natural processes terminating the body. It is still possible that there is a murder(er); perhaps through a poison that is very hard to detect; and further examination of the bodies will clearify this, hopefully. But as of yet, we have no reason to think there is 'ill-intent' regarding this dead body. And even after that; there are ways of killing someone without it being noticable at all by the coroner. But if that's the case; we also have no reason to think this murder has actually happened. And there would be no courtroom because there would be no scientific evidence to warrant such a thing.

It's not that the universe is a dead body and that (sentient) life is a dead-give-away of it being a murder. They are in a proper analogy; all three dead bodies. And all three have natural causes. It isn't untill we find scientific evidence indicating they are murders that we start finding 'murder' a likely cause; not if we have all these natural processes. But in any case, you don't get to lump these three 'facts' together in the way you are doing.

[josephpalazzo]

What did you expect in this forum?

Religion General Discussion

Challenges to the general concept of deity. Would include deism, and the myriad of thousands of gods man has created throughout the years.

As a newbie, you should have the courtesy to find out what has been already discussed instead of barging in with the same idiotic arguments. So don't be surprised if members here don't treat you respecfully. Any insult, you probably deserve it.

Provided such things don't occur you'll say such is a supernatural feat...unless it were to occur in which case it would be a naturalistic mystery because by definition the supernatural can't happen (unless it does).

If there is a natural explanation for any phenomenon then it wouldn't be supernatural. But if God would appear at the UN in front of 100+ countries, he should be able to show who he is, since he knows everything, he surely knows how to convince each and every one of us that he is God. Otherwise, he isn't God.

200 hundred years ago the notion of traveling in time was pure fantasy. It wasn't something that could happen because time was believed to be a constant everywhere. The notion a person could travel forward in time would be no different than the idea MT Everest could wind up in DC or a rabbit could materialize out of thin air. That was before it was discovered time could dilate, then it became 'natural'.

Time dilation has nothing to do with time travel.

Quantum entanglement  is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated or interact in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently â€" instead, a quantum state may be given for the system as a whole.

Measurements of physical properties such as position, momentum, spin, polarization, etc. performed on entangled particles are found to be appropriately correlated. For example, if a pair of particles is generated in such a way that their total spin is known to be zero, and one particle is found to have clockwise spin on a certain axis, then the spin of the other particle, measured on the same axis, will be found to be counterclockwise. Because of the nature of quantum measurement, however, this behavior gives rise to effects that can appear paradoxical: any measurement of a property of a particle can be seen as acting on that particle (e.g. by collapsing a number of superimposed states); and in the case of entangled particles, such action must be on the entangled system as a whole. It thus appears that one particle of an entangled pair "knows" what measurement has been performed on the other, and with what outcome, even though there is no known means for such information to be communicated between the particles, which at the time of measurement may be separated by arbitrarily large distances.

Quantum entanglement has nothing to do with the supernatural. Try again.

[Mister Agenda]

I presume Drew is still here because he is following the forum rules.

Drew, I see you've added Argument from Incredulity to Affirming the Consequent to your Case for Theism. The fact that theists can't construct an argument for God that isn't based on a logical fallacy or absurd premises is one of the reasons I believe the Case for God fails. When someone like yourself comes along, I'm always rooting for you. If there is a God, I want to know. You might want to study up on objections to arguments for God before you bring your next argument, I'd really like to see something new.

[PopeyesPappy]

Drew, I see you've added Argument from Incredulity to Affirming the Consequent to your Case for Theism.

The problem with Drew and many of the other theists that bring this argument to the table is they refuse to address the logical fallacies in their argument when they are pointed out. 

[The Skeletal Atheist]

I'm fed up with this courtroom/circumstantial-evidence analogy. It was piss-poor when Casparov used it. It is piss-poor now.
Your murder metaphor is highly biased and thus, to us, wrongly interpreted.

You suggest something allong the lines of; we have a universe, so we have a dead body in the metaphor. We have (sentient) life; therefore it is obvious that this entire state of being was intentional. In the metaphor this would mean we clearly have a murder. From this it is obvious that an outer agent has forcibly willed and formed the universe and life into the way (s)he wanted to. This would be the murderer in the analogy.
From this you seem to think that you've presented a clear case that it is very likely that God exists.

But your basic metaphor is flawed.

All you've presented so far is three dead bodies. One in each of the three claims.
We find a dead body. We know there are natural processes in the world that allow for death to occur 'naturally'. It is also possible that death is instigated by an outer agent, i.e. a murderer. (Let aside the fact that death through natural processes is much more common than through murder.) What do scientists, i.e. coroners do? They examine the body (of evidence) into the cause of death. In all three claims the coroner is still examining the body and has yet found no knife, no strangulation marks, nothing obvious. Every sign on the bodies, for now, are in accordance to natural processes terminating the body. It is still possible that there is a murder(er); perhaps through a poison that is very hard to detect; and further examination of the bodies will clearify this, hopefully. But as of yet, we have no reason to think there is 'ill-intent' regarding this dead body. And even after that; there are ways of killing someone without it being noticable at all by the coroner. But if that's the case; we also have no reason to think this murder has actually happened. And there would be no courtroom because there would be no scientific evidence to warrant such a thing.

It's not that the universe is a dead body and that (sentient) life is a dead-give-away of it being a murder. They are in a proper analogy; all three dead bodies. And all three have natural causes. It isn't untill we find scientific evidence indicating they are murders that we start finding 'murder' a likely cause; not if we have all these natural processes. But in any case, you don't get to lump these three 'facts' together in the way you are doing.

You phrased it much better than I could have. A body is a body. Please present us with evidence that the body was murdered.

[DrewM]

Greetings all,

Thanks for all your responses and what seemed to be a lively debate among some of you. However I've been told by management to come up with something new or be banned. I intended to present a few more lines of evidence and then summarize with a closing argument however I assumed that would be deemed nothing new. I'm not leaving of my own accord and would be happy to continue in the debate if management changes its collective mind.

I realize none of the lines of evidence or arguments would persuade the majority of atheists who are firmly convinced of their belief. This question, whether theist or atheist is an opinion, an opinion is what you think is true minus conclusive evidence to prove it. I never claimed to have proof we are the result of a Creator, only lines of evidence that leads me to that opinion. Atheists don't have conclusive proof either but they also have lines of evidence that can be used to make their case. Its not theists or atheists who decide the merits of our respective cases since we are the decided only the undecided can say whose arguments proved more persuasive.

Ciao

[Simon Moon]

I'm fed up with this courtroom/circumstantial-evidence analogy. It was piss-poor when Casparov used it. It is piss-poor now.
Your murder metaphor is highly biased and thus, to us, wrongly interpreted.

You suggest something allong the lines of; we have a universe, so we have a dead body in the metaphor. We have (sentient) life; therefore it is obvious that this entire state of being was intentional. In the metaphor this would mean we clearly have a murder. From this it is obvious that an outer agent has forcibly willed and formed the universe and life into the way (s)he wanted to. This would be the murderer in the analogy.
From this you seem to think that you've presented a clear case that it is very likely that God exists.

But your basic metaphor is flawed.

All you've presented so far is three dead bodies. One in each of the three claims.
We find a dead body. We know there are natural processes in the world that allow for death to occur 'naturally'. It is also possible that death is instigated by an outer agent, i.e. a murderer. (Let aside the fact that death through natural processes is much more common than through murder.) What do scientists, i.e. coroners do? They examine the body (of evidence) into the cause of death. In all three claims the coroner is still examining the body and has yet found no knife, no strangulation marks, nothing obvious. Every sign on the bodies, for now, are in accordance to natural processes terminating the body. It is still possible that there is a murder(er); perhaps through a poison that is very hard to detect; and further examination of the bodies will clearify this, hopefully. But as of yet, we have no reason to think there is 'ill-intent' regarding this dead body. And even after that; there are ways of killing someone without it being noticable at all by the coroner. But if that's the case; we also have no reason to think this murder has actually happened. And there would be no courtroom because there would be no scientific evidence to warrant such a thing.

It's not that the universe is a dead body and that (sentient) life is a dead-give-away of it being a murder. They are in a proper analogy; all three dead bodies. And all three have natural causes. It isn't untill we find scientific evidence indicating they are murders that we start finding 'murder' a likely cause; not if we have all these natural processes. But in any case, you don't get to lump these three 'facts' together in the way you are doing.

And to add to your already great post destroying this false analogy , the 3 dead bodies are being examined by someone that already presupposes they were murdered.