Trying to understand the something from nothing belief... (born, Christ, beliefs)
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"I don't know" is an honest answer, "god dunnit" isn't an answer, it is merely a diversion from "I don't know either, and I believe fairy tales are true."
I don't know. I simply believe that our entire existence is the result of a higher power in the spiritual realm. I don't know how that spirtual realm came to exist, ...
Then just say 'I don't know'. Why the hell 'invent' something to cover what you don't know? Inventing something to answer what you don't know doesn't help at all. An archaeologist can discover a building and determine that it is from ancient Rome but not know what the hell it was used for. You can come along and claim that it was where the Hobbits lived and then give your entire account of the Lord of the Rings. Your 'invented' answer may sound better to you than the archaeologist's 'I don't know.......but it would be baseless Moderator cut: deleted
Except that,that which has always been would not have been created....it would just 'be'
Therefore no need for a creator.... My point exactly.
As I've said before I think faith should have no room in science, whether theism, polytheism, or atheism. Thinking you already have the solution clouds your vision and causes you to warp data to support your position rather than to create it.
Last edited by Simplefool; 05-29-2011 at 03:19 PM..
Well I figure if great scientists have demonstrated through experiments and mathematics that matter and energy can not be created or destroyed then I believe that matter and or energy has always existed.
The only observable pattern that we have in nature upon which to make an inductive leap in relation to living things in our visible universe is that living things always proceed from livng things. Therefore all life proceeds from a living source of life. That is the only justifiable conclusion that inductive reasoning provides. Any other conclusion violates the principles of inductive reasoning and therefore becomes illogical and unjustified.
Quote:
PS 36:9
For with You is the fountain of life;....
Ps 104:40
You send forth Your Spirit, they are created....
The only observable pattern that we have in nature upon which to make an inductive leap in relation to living things in our visible universe is that living things always proceed from livng things. Therefore all life proceeds from a living source of life. That is the only justifiable conclusion that inductive reasoning provides. Any other conclusion violates the principles of inductive reasoning and therefore becomes illogical and unjustified.
Inductive reasoning is not reliable or necessarily logical.
Induction reasoning is employed, for example, in the following argument:
Every life form we know of depends on liquid water to exist.
All life depends on liquid water to exist.
Inductive reasoning allows for the possibility that the conclusion is false, even where all of the premises are true. For example:
All of the swans we have seen are white.
All swans are white.
Inductive reasoning is not reliable or necessarily logical.
Induction reasoning is employed, for example, in the following argument:
Every life form we know of depends on liquid water to exist.
All life depends on liquid water to exist.
Inductive reasoning allows for the possibility that the conclusion is false, even where all of the premises are true. For example:
All of the swans we have seen are white.
All swans are white.
Inductive reasoning has no premise my friend. What you are referring to is deductive reasoning via a syllogism. Inductive reasoning is merely observation of patterns be they behavioral or phenomenological and a reaching of a conclusion based on those
observations. THEN we take that conclusion and use it as a premise for the deductive reasoning that you are mistaking with induction in order to reach a deductive conclusion. They are inextricably interrelated but not the same.
Well, anyway,
The inductive leap has to be sound and justifiable in order to provide a high degree of certainty. Otherwise we get a false premise leading to untrue deductive conclusion. Justifiability depends on the number of times that the observation has been made and it's geographical scope. In harmony with this we can either make a universal generalization involving the quantitative "all" or a qualified generalization involving "most" "few" "seldom" and our conclusion can use such qualifier as "probably" "usually" "almost always".
However if our observation of patterns is global and invariable, then we are fully justified in making an inductive leap involving a generalization indicating certainty or approximate certainty. In the case of life proceeding always from life we are fully justified in making that inductive leap.
BTW
You are describing deductive reasoning not inductive reasoning with that all life depends on water example. The swan example is inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is the observation of patterns and conclusions based on those observations provide the basis for a deductive premise in a deductive syllogism.
The conclusion to an observation of patterns is called an inductive leap. If that leap or conclusion is unjustified then our premise will be faulty. If our premise is faulty then our deductive conclusion will be false or untrue or out of kilter with reality.
However, if the inductive leap is justified, then our deductive main premise will be sound and will provide not only a valid conclusion but a true one. It takes just one exception to make a premise false.
In the case of swans just one observed or existing black swan would make the conclusion false. So the most that could be said is most swans are white and if Pam is a swan then she is probably white. The more extensive and frequent the observation the more justified our inductive leap becomes until it can very well approximate certainty.
For example, after millenia of observation of life on earth we only have seen life proceeding from life. Therefore we are justified in concluding that life on earth only proceeds from life. That is the justifiable inductive conclusion. That conclusion becomes the main premise for our deductive syllogism.
Life always proceeds from life
There is life on earth
Life on earth proceeded from life.
If indeed we say most life, or some life, we are being illogical since we have absolutely no observable pattern upon which to base that conclusion since we haven't seen any exception to that rule.
Whereas we do have thousands of years of observation and billions of examples all demonstrating that life always proceeds from life.
So the inductive conclusion or leap is that life always comes from life. Which provides us with the premise for the deductive syllogism is the logical one.
If the "big bang" was the so called beginning of the universe, where did the matter come from that allowed the big bang to happen?
.[/QUOTE]
Let's see...the law in physics states that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, it can be altered.
The matter had always been, much like the religious folks claim that god has always been. Space also, has always been, thus also with matter. Force equals mass times acceleration has always been true, even before that physical law was understood. Over time, in spans beyond imagination, matter collected and formed a singularity, and BOOM!!!! The first instance of a "critical mass". Physics does not create laws, it explains them. e equals (m) x (c)squared, has always been true, Einstein was the one who figured it out. The difference between Science and religion is, in science, one can prove that matter exists.
Life does not always come from life. Life has been by created in a lab just last year. Scientists have created the world's first synthetic life form in a landmark experiment that paves the way for designer organisms that are built rather than evolved. Craig Venter creates synthetic life form | Science | The Guardian
This subject has been done to death (though maybe not so much as evolution) and yet it was a good thread to start, Boomer (may I call you Boomer?). Since it again looks at some misconceptions about the atheist stance, even from atheists themselves.
This thread was a good one because it ended up in 'not knowing' how it all got started. Or even whether it did.
Setting aside the logical, scientific or philosophical points, whether there is anything in or about the start of the universe that one might call 'god' is not really the issue.
Atheism can afford to be agnostic about such things because agnosticism is the basis of atheism - what you don't know (that is what you don't have good enough evidence to accept as proven) you don't believe.
And that's all one needs to be an atheists. An agnostic who doesn't know and yet believes is being illogical and irrational. They are taking a Faith position over an evidential position. And that's all one needs to be a theist.
That aside, what atheists are really attacking is established religion, personal gods and man - made myth presented as fact.
And here we are on firmer grounds than the murky waters of the beginnings of the universe. On logical, rational and evidential grounds, those theist claims can be given a justifiably good kicking.
There ought not to be any connection between the speculations about the Big bang and demolishing the Bible as authority, but often there is. We often get the possible 'sortgod' coming out of the unknown start of the universe and by a leap of faith 'It' gets turned into an invisible thinking entity which is then claimed to validate all the various religious takes without having to prove any kind of case at all.
It beautifully establishes a precedent which (the theists can than claim with the air of finding the Holy Grail) the atheists then have to disprove.
Which you can never do to a theist, no matter how god the evidence.
So that's why we have to pay so much attention to this First cause argument, because, if it can be presented as establishing anything which even looks like 'god' then theism can claim that the burden of proof then falls to atheism.
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