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Careful... "Common Sense" is not a reliable guide to fact.
As a matter of fact, I can, but, even if I couldn't, that still leaves No options rather than just One.
OK, let's hear another option.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER
Very well, don't use "Accident". Use the term commonly applied to the workings we do know about that drive everything from nuclear physics to tectonic plate movement, and from stellar formation to evolution.
"Natural physical processes".
Then it's not an accident. It was put in place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER
"I don't know" is honest. "A creator" is actually dishonest because it is either making a claim without any real support or it is (though I doubt this) referring to the natural processes we know but which can only explain so much.
Why do you feel a creator has no support? Everything we see and know has a source.
Indeed. The debate is actually logically pointless (there is a theist apologetics point and jimmie knows it well enough) because if one even concedes a Creator (by no means the only option) then we are left with two options - either natural processes (which have only limited evidence) or a divine intelligence, for which there is neither mechanism nor sound evidence.
But even if we conceded the divine intelligence, that only gives us the two options - a deist god of the kind you mention or a hands - on god, for which a lot of objections have to be explained away before it even looks possible, let alone probable.
But supposing we opted for a hands -on God, that only leaves us with three options:
Biblegod
one of the others,
one we haven't thought of.
And I think that anyone with a a bit of nous will have cottoned by now that this line of argument gets Jesusgod nowhere at all.
P.s
Of course I know at such a point we will get the Leap of Faith. Having wangled (or so they hope) a "Creator" (aka "God") into acceptance by a rather more sophisticated gambit than this clumsy ploy of jimmie's, and the 'Which God?" question comes up, then the Leeeaaaap to the Bible and the verified history and science in the Bible and "Smoke marks on Jebl Laws proves the exodus" is supposed to make Biblegod (and specifically Jesusgod) the only option.
That's why we have to be prepared to fight on two fronts - against the efforts to wangle a "God" by any other name into some sorta acceptance (1) and against the efforts to claim the Bible as "True" to any kind of acceptance up to and including metaphorically true, morally true or true because it has been translated into more languages that you ever heard of.
Fortunately we havehgeavy enough weaponry that we can fight n three or four fronts, if necessary. Just so we don't allow ourselves to be cowed and shamed into shutting up and going away by those complaining about how woude and nasty we are.
(1) the apologetics gimmics, rhetorical swindles and philosophical fiddles are endless from "God - Morality" to "God = something of supreme importance". The insolence of these cheap tricks is surpassed only by the supreme insolence of trying the same tricks even when they have been exposed as mere attempts at bamboozlement.
This is all a bunch of nonsense, since I have made no mention of any particular creator. You spout this nonsense because you have no other viable source for the universe/life.
Last edited by Horn of ‘83; 07-05-2016 at 10:31 AM..
Well, as I and others have pointed out, the creator is no option with any sort of explanatory power. In other words, if your explanation doesn't even explain how, then it may as well be called "poof, magic did it!".
Matter is actually made on nothing acting as though it was something. Thus nothing acting like something could come from nothing not acting like something.
Quote:
Then it's not an accident. It was put in place.
Yes it was. Either by other natural processes or by intent. I know of no other possible options.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmiej
This is all a bunch of nonsense, sine I have made no mention of any particular creator. You spout this nonsense because you have no other viable source for the universe/life.
Then, if none of that is relevant to your particular argument, take it that it is relating to hypothetical arguments in favour of a non -intelligent creative source, which is the only option you can now be arguing for.
Quote:
Why do you feel a creator has no support? Everything we see and know has a source.
Bunch of nonsense, eh. You telegraph your agenda in Neon red. Look at what I said.
"it is either making a claim without any real support or it is (though I doubt this) referring to the natural processes we know"
The remark about no real support which you leap to defend is the Intelligent creator. That is the one we all guessed you were trying to slip under the door by disguising it as some start to everything, and snappishly denied when you realized you'd been rumbled.
Ok, I correct myself. I do not only feel that an Intelligent Creator has no real support (and the burden of proof would fall on you to show there was) but I claim that there is evidence against an intelligent Creator.
The universe does not in fact support life other than in the miniscule crust on this boiling ball of lava
We needed two major extinctions to give mammals a chance
We are a species that show signs of having evolved in an ad hoc way from a four legged form and we supper all the aches and pains that go with a poorly adapted body.
Now, jimmie, mate, you can either defend an Intelligent creator or you can say that all happened by natural processes and we can discuss whether the initial cosmos of matter is better explained by an Intelligent creator of by natural processes.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 07-05-2016 at 10:28 AM..
Matter is actually made on nothing acting as though it was something. Thus nothing acting like something could come from nothing not acting like something.
Yes it was. Either by other natural processes or by intent. I know of no other possible options.
Then, if none of that is relevant to your particular argument, take it that it is relating to hypothetical arguments in favour of a non -intelligent creative source, which is the only option you can now be arguing for.
Bunch of nonsense, eh. You telegraph your agenda in Neon red. Look at what I said.
"it is either making a claim without any real support or it is (though I doubt this) referring to the natural processes we know"
The remark about no real support which you leap to defend is the Intelligent creator. That is the one we all guessed you were trying to slip under the door by disguising it as some start to everything, and snappishly denied when you realized you'd been rumbled.
Ok, I correct myself. I do not only feel that an Intelligent Creator has no real support (and the burden of proof would fall on you to show there was) but I claim that there is evidence against an intelligent Creator.
The universe does not in fact support life other than in the miniscule crust on this boiling ball of lava
We needed two major extinctions to give mammals a chance
We are a species that show signs of having evolved in an ad hoc way from a four legged form and we supper all the aches and pains that go with a poorly adapted body.
Now, jimmie, mate, you can either defend an Intelligent creator or you can say that all happened by natural processes and we can discuss whether the initial cosmos of matter is better explained by an Intelligent creator of by natural processes.
So, you believe we came to be through natural processes, with no source? Did I get that right? If so, why couldn't that "natural process with no source" be our creator? Many of you dismiss a creator because you ask, "who created the creator?" Yet, you have no problem saying nature has no source.
So, you believe we came to be through natural processes, with no source? Did I get that right? If so, why couldn't that "natural process with no source" be our creator? Many of you dismiss a creator because you ask, "who created the creator?" Yet, you have no problem saying nature has no source.
Physicists such as Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss have attempted to explain how the universe came from nothing. Basically, we live in a zero energy universe because all the energy from matter is cancelled out by all the energy from gravity. Such a universe could spontaneously come from nothing and exist forever because it is a flat universe, or so the argument goes.
Physicists such as Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss have attempted to explain how the universe came from nothing. Basically, we live in a zero energy universe because all the energy from matter is cancelled out by all the energy from gravity. Such a universe could spontaneously come from nothing and exist forever because it is a flat universe, or so the argument goes.
Read up on it, if you're interested.
I have read some of Stephen Hawking's books, as I have an interest in astronomy. Still, none of that negates a creator "igniting" the process.
So, you believe we came to be through natural processes, with no source? Did I get that right? If so, why couldn't that "natural process with no source" be our creator? Many of you dismiss a creator because you ask, "who created the creator?" Yet, you have no problem saying nature has no source.
I "believe" nothing for certain about the origins of the matter from which our universe was made. I don't know. And nobody knows. It seems a reasonable suggestion that there was an origin of matter, though using the term 'Creator' seems premature when we don't know. An appearance of next to nothing out of nothing seems to demand less invention, but that's all I can say. Though you can describe it as a creator having no creator, if you like.
Agreed. So what is the need for an explanation that doesn't explain how?
Mankind has always looked for it's source. It's just natural to want to know where we came from. Doesn't interest you?
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I know at such a point we will get the Leap of Faith. Having wangled (or so they hope) a "Creator" (aka "God") into acceptance by a rather more sophisticated gambit than this clumsy ploy of jimmie's, and the 'Which God?" question comes up, then the Leeeaaaap to the Bible and the verified history and science in the Bible and "Smoke marks on Jebl Laws proves the exodus" is supposed to make Biblegod (and specifically Jesusgod) the only option. 
