Let's start at the beginning...How can something come from nothing?

[cncracer]

Your lack of ability to see nothing is an aspect of our limited knowledge not conformation of there being a void of matter in any period of time. Knowledge of dimensions and physics will in time give us deeper understanding of where we evolved from, and might give us a clue to where we are going. It has already given us enough knowledge to recognize mythical gods did not make us.

[rifleman]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

1) The degree of knowledge necessary to fully comprehend the scientific basis for my synthesis is well beyond that of the typical college graduate. I make no apologies for that . . .

2)it took me decades to make any sense of what I encountered in deep meditation and to make it fit with what we know about the nature of the universe.

3) the number of people ever likely to engage in such serious scholarship is far too limited for it to be a necessary process for understanding God or our purpose.

4) ...the understanding is readily available within all of us and we must be sincere enough to wish to know it.Let's face it . . . it would be monumentally stupid to create an organism with a specific purpose in mind and then limit, in any way, the ability of that organism to understand and achieve that purpose.

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

You apparently do not even recognize the existence of the relevant philosophical issues. All you see is I have information you do not that provides a certainty to my investigations and hypothesis about the aspects of reality you can only ignore because we "don't know." Pathetic.

Hmmm. What's that smell in here? Just why you deign to show up then is a mystery to me. Probably to others as well. Why not just let us muddle on in our ill-thought-out ignorance?

BTW, no matter how much time you spent in your considerations, you cannot have investigated every possible branching of the options, now could you? Perhaps I or others were climbing about on another branch of the same tree, over on the sunnier side, or better yet, in another tree entirely? On another continent perhaps?

Do not be in such an all-fired hurry to hand-wavingly dismiss the conclusions or experiences of others, Mystic. What you have concluded, frankly, only applies to you. How do I know this? Because I had vastly different, and I suspect far more "natural" observations and experiences than you. Unless that was you making smoke over in the next lonely valley of the Brooks Range....

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by rifleman

Hmmm. What's that smell in here? Just why you deign to show up then is a mystery to me. Probably to others as well. Why not just let us muddle on in our ill-thought-out ignorance?

Because in ways you are too averse to introspection to see . . . you are as dangerous to civil society in your unwarranted extreme rejection and abreactions to your extremist counterparts in the religious arena. Ignorance (we don't know) is an excuse only for ignorance . . . not rejection and deconstructing societal foundations in the mistaken name of rationality and objectivity. A nation that asserts a Creator that endows all humans with inalienable rights is NOT irrational (as Gldnrule so vainly attempted to suggest). RELIGION is a separate issue that you seem to have the most difficulty separating from the generic principle of a Creator . . . for which you have nothing to justify rejection. Keeping RELIGION (of any kind) out of our society's governance is appropriate. Kicking generic references to GOD out is NOT.

BTW, no matter how much time you spent in your considerations, you cannot have investigated every possible branching of the options, now could you? Perhaps I or others were climbing about on another branch of the same tree, over on the sunnier side, or better yet, in another tree entirely? On another continent perhaps?

I make no such assertions . . . but I have covered the relevant scientific and spiritual landscape pretty thoroughly.

Do not be in such an all-fired hurry to hand-wavingly dismiss the conclusions or experiences of others, Mystic. What you have concluded, frankly, only applies to you. How do I know this? Because I had vastly different, and I suspect far more "natural" observations and experiences than you. Unless that was you making smoke over in the next lonely valley of the Brooks Range....

You are free to adopt your views just as I am . . . but to pretend you have a scientific basis for your rejection of God is ludicrous on its face. Your rejection of religious absurdities in the beliefs about God are an entirely separate matter . . . which justifies rejecting RELIGIONS, period.

[rifleman]

Mystic pronounced:

"...the generic principle of a Creator . . . for which you have nothing to justify rejection."

Actually I, and the rest of us, do have such justification for disbelief for essentially the same reasons you may well reject The Flying Spaghetti Monster. To wit:

1) there's absolutely no existing evidence or need for Him. And in the past 100 or so years, much evidence that directly refutes His spiritual presence and involvement with man has arisen.

2) the only supporting arguments for your God (which are in and of themselves not valid evidence in the strict definition of the word) are all from ancient, oft-revised and contradictory documents. Those in turn suffer from multiple and very creative translations and interpretations depending on which "sect" one belongs to. Which KoolAide one drinks, as it were.

3. other equally valid (or imaginative, take your pick) religions and beliefs, based on the invented spiritual background, the inventor's geo-physical setting and the tribal needs of the day, abound.

While you choose to move your thinking and conclusions away from the mundane consequences of your belief by those less intellectually endowed, it nonetheless still requires the same base beliefs. And it thus founders.

If you've branched off into the more esoteric, the more ethereal, that's a personal choice. Perhaps to purposefully distance yourself from the unrealistic, irrational and oft-embarrassing interpretations of the hoi polloi? Perhaps it's an internal mechanism by which you defend yourself from the built-in ambiguities and illogic of any artificial belief system?

Unfortunately, the original, ancestral and highly unstable base upon which you build your final determinations still remains exactly that.

Heaven help us if we were all to face up to an open-ended (non-) system with unanswerable questions loitering at each end, huh? (but of course with many well-answered solutions in it's vast and growing middle ground.)

Don't you find it even a bit odd that we atheists can get along so very well in the total absence of any interaction with, or demands on, a spiritual advisor or Father Figure? If it were so absolutely integral, why then not for us? Is this a classic co-dependency relationship for some?

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by rifleman

Mystic pronounced:

Actually I, and the rest of us, do have such justification for disbelief for essentially the same reasons you may well reject The Flying Spaghetti Monster. To wit:

1) there's absolutely no existing evidence or need for Him. And in the past 100 or so years, much evidence that directly refutes His spiritual presence and involvement with man has arisen.

2) the only supporting arguments for your God (which are in and of themselves not valid evidence in the strict definition of the word) are all from ancient, oft-revised and contradictory documents. Those in turn suffer from multiple and very creative translations and interpretations depending on which "sect" one belongs to. Which KoolAide one drinks, as it were.

3. other equally valid (or imaginative, take your pick) religions and beliefs, based on the invented spiritual background, the inventor's geo-physical setting and the tribal needs of the day, abound.

I may have to re-evaluate your perspicacity, rifleman . . since you are so obsessed with the religious BS and rationales you seem completely unable even to countenance the concept of a GENERIC Creator/God. Pity. Keep up your fight against religious idiocy . . . but stay out of serious philosophical discussions . . . you seem not to get it.

While you choose to move your thinking and conclusions away from the mundane consequences of your belief by those less intellectually endowed, it nonetheless still requires the same base beliefs. And it thus founders.

It only requires the same base beliefs you use to justify your faith in your "Nature" God . . . not the easy to refute disputable religious ones that are in the same category as your indifferent, mindless, and purposeless ones . . . i.e., unprovable. You seem unable to even contemplate the reality that your God is the same as mine with regard to the scientific basics . . . the unprovable attributes beyond the base evidence of His/Its EXISTENCE . . . are equally speculative. At least I have a scientifically plausible and consistent hypothesis based on known phenomena for mine . . . you do not.

[The Matrix]

I've been busy, so it's taken me a while to respond. Anyone else, feel free to join in (though it might be a while before I can post again). The main question I'm discussing is "why is there something rather than nothing?"

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

If you're amazed that one outcome out of many possibilities actually comes true as the result of some physical processes, I'd suggest you avoid gambling. It would blow your mind.

Anyway, what sort of reason would you accept from an atheist given that as best we know, time, space and matter didn't exist before the universe came into being? Can you even give us a hint of what a valid answer might look like?

But that's what I'm saying: the atheist account leaves no room for there being a possible answer.

And I already mentioned what is required: necessary being. Otherwise, I don't see how there is an answer.

Though, I do find it interesting that you say, from what we know, time, space and matter didn't exist "before the universe came into being." First, the "fact" that (from what we know) time, space and matter have a beginning is a deeply interesting thing, which is consistent with the existence of a God who brought it into existence. This quite clearly suggests a God. Does it "prove" a God? No. (Though one could make an argument of it). At the very least, such a fact--that the universe had a beginning--if it is a fact, would seem to make belief in a God rational. Of course, it doesn't necessitate such a belief, for one could still say, "well, we don't know, since it might not be a God after all." This is correct, since we could be wrong, but if the universe has a beginning, then belief in a God is rational. I fail to see how this cannot count as evidence for belief in God. A person might not believe in a God, even if the universe has a beginning (perhaps because they believe there really isn't a beginning, or they believe that science will discover something else, or there is a multiverse, etc). Though, simply because a person doesn't accept this as evidence, or doesn't accept it as strong evidence, doesn't imply that someone else cannot rationally hold that the beginning of the universe points to a God.

Here's something that may be important to call attention to. One of the issues that has been discussed and argued over for centuries is the relation between God and the world. There seem to be two basic camps (but this is oversimplifying). One view is that God created everything ex nihilo (from nothing), and he sustains everything through his power. This is consistent with traditional theism, or deism. Another view is that God's relation with the world is much more intimate, where he is not the creator in the above sense, but more like the Logos of existence, and there is no sharp ontological division between God and the world. This is consistent with panentheism (and probably other forms of theism). The stuff we're talking about now is neutral with respect to these views.

So, in other words, what I have been saying does not in any way rely on whether the universe had a beginning. The question, "why is there something rather than nothing?" holds even if the universe is eternal. For all it matters, we can assume the universe is eternal.

Also, your gambling example misses the point. We're not talking about one outcome out of many possibilities actually coming to pass--we're not talking about an effect following "randomly" from a cause or number of causes. Such possibilities are statistical probabilities, ultimately grounded in the laws of physics. But why are there any laws of physics at all? Even though they do exist, there is no reason why they should on the atheist model. It's not as though we're just lucky the world exists, when it's possible for the world to have not existed. Throwing dice, spinning the wheel, flipping a coin, these all have causes, have reasons, explanations. Gambling is intelligible. But a world that exists for no reason--that is ultimately unintelligible. On the atheist model, there is no answer for why the world exists--whether the world is eternal or came into being at some point, there can be no explanation. Existence is simply a brute unintelligible fact. If this isn't the most amazing of all things to believe, I don't know what is. This is no different than "magic" or "turtles all the way down." If you can believe, unflinchingly, unblinkingly, without even the slightest tremor, that the world exists for absolutely no reason whatsoever, well, I don't know what to do with that, other than to suggest: think it through. There is no more major commitment than to claim, "the world exists for no reason at all, no explanation for it--it could have not existed, but it does and nothing caused it to exist, nothing brought it to exist, nothing absolutely nothing explains it." It's not simply a mystery: it's unintelligible. This is far, far different from the theist, who claims that the world is intelligible at its roots, that there is a reason why it exists, even though we might not be privy to that reason. The atheist model, in contrast, ends in unintelligibility.

Maybe the world is ultimately unintelligible. I don't know. But the fact that so much of it is understandable, that so much of the world makes sense, this suggests to me that the world IS intelligible. Of course, I don't know, and I'm not arguing for it. But this is consistent with our observations of the world up until now. It is not a stretch, and fits with the general scientific model, that the world exhibits an understandable order to it that we can discover. The atheist model simply has nothing to say to the existence and order of the world, other than "it just IS." Such an absolute lack of an answer is completely consistent with everything popping right out of existence at any moment, or all the seeming order melting into absolute chaos. After all, there is no ultimate reason for it, so there is no reason for it to continue. "It just IS" could turn at any moment to "it just is NOT". So even the continued existence of the world, and the continued seeming order of the natural laws, point to an intelligible, rather than an unintelligible, foundation for reality. This is something I think many atheists have not sufficiently dealt with (Nietzsche may be an exception, but he doesn't post here).

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

A "possibility" isn't a physical process, it's just a way we describe the possible outcomes of an event which we can't predict for whatever reason.

I'm not sure this makes sense. You use the word "possibility" to explain what we mean by "possibility." I know it can sometimes be difficult to adequately define our terms. But I would suggest: don't try to explain possibility; it may be too difficult.

In any case, your attempt to define "possibility" was in response to my saying, "Can a possibility simply bring itself into existence?" And your comments (more or less) demonstrate my point. A possibility does not bring itself into existence, but a prior actuality seems to be always responsible.

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

But semantics aside, unless you're a believer in strict determinism (and the evidence would be against you if you did) then lots of things which are not guaranteed to happen do actually happen. See an example below.

Correct. And I'm not a strict determinist. But that's out of the realm of what we're talking about (we're not talking about things that are merely "not guaranteed," but a far bigger problem).

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

A coin I flipped came up heads. Is is bizarre that it did, given that it was possible that it could have come up tails instead?

No. If you think this is some sort of counterexample to what I'm talking about, then you need to rethink it.

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

It would be a great disservice to leave a question like this to philosophy, given its track record.

Really? What does this mean? What "track record" are you talking about? Perhaps you mean the track record that gave birth to modern science? And because you presumably view philosophy as some sort of epic failure, you want science to answer the question "why is there something rather than nothing?" That's silly. Undergirding your claim that science is better suited to answer this question, we will undoubtedly find philosophical commitments (both epistemic and metaphysical). And I don't see how science (divorced from philosophy) can even answer the question. Or perhaps the answer science gives us is that the universe had a beginning, as you said earlier?

I'm not sure I understand the thinly veiled hostility against philosophy. Philosophy (at times) can be a problem for "scientifically" minded atheists, "concrete thinkers," since the questions raised in philosophy are often not answerable by (pure) science, which in turn calls into question the epistemic authority of science. Keep in mind that this is not, NOT an attack on science, and it is regrettable that what I say here might be interpreted that way. This is probably because the epistemic authority given to science today is mistaken FOR science, when it is actually a philosophical position. You CANNOT escape philosophy--trying to do so merely entangles you deeper in philosophy. I tend to see science as a branch or close cousin of philosophy (maybe it's an applied branch of philosophy). I think we need to stop seeing science and philosophy as standing at odds with one another. One of the best things a scientist can do, in my opinion, is to develop an understanding and appreciation for philosophy; the same holds for philosophers. Back in the "old days" they were not seen as so distinct. There was one category, "natural philosophy," which covered all this stuff. We should bring this back.

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

Anyway, why is this a more interesting than resolving the discrepancies between GR and QM, to pick an open question at random? There are practical applications for the this, but an answer to your question would just prompt to to ask "why" again - apparently adding a god is the only thing which can stop this infinite regress of questions.

Basically, that's right. The infinite regress ends with a necessary being. This holds even if the world is eternal.

It's more interesting because it's a bigger question, and it potentially can have a direct impact on ALL the facets of human existence. If the atheist model is right, and there is no ultimate reason or explanation, then nothing ultimately grounds the meaning of our lives, or the moral way of life. Meaning and morality become optional. If there is an ultimate explanation, then it is possible for our lives to have ultimate significance. Whether the world is Logos or Chaos is of ultimate concern. This is the central divide between the religious view and the non-religious view of life, of existence.

Now, if you don't care about these things, if you find it worthless, or if you prefer to have a world that has no ultimate meaning, no ultimate explanation, then you will stay atheist, and you will continue to ignore these bigger questions, as if they were not important. But anyone who thinks this through is going to end up in a very uncomfortable place. Doesn't mean you will become a theist, or that you will change your mind. But to ignore this mystery is myopic, and the only purpose of devaluing these questions would seem to be to cling to atheism.

So it comes down to value, to value judgment. That to say "who cares if there is no answer" (as rifleman said) is to make a value judgment about what is important and what isn't. But if you are to say that questions science can answer are the questions and answers that are valuable, and questions science cannot answer are not valuable, then you're very notion of "rationality" is based on a value-judgment, and not on something objectively rational. Why isn't the fact that atheism has no answer to why the world exists important for human life, or human meaning, or rationality itself? It comes down to a value judgment about which questions and answers are important. And even if you don't care about it, then why shouldn't someone else care? Why shouldn't someone else find such a question valuable, and the lack of an answer truly disturbing, or the fact that theism provides the possibility of such an answer important? This is inescapably a question of value, as we can clearly see in the response, "who cares?"

And if a person says, "who cares if there is no answer", then they are ALSO saying "who cares if there is a God?" They don't care if there is or isn't a reason for existence, or whether there is a God. This is really already assuming the atheist framework.

I seem to remember a while back in a different thread that I suggested the differences between being an atheist and a theist had, at its core, nothing to do with how intelligent a person is, but rather, it came down to how the person valued the answers to these questions. I think this discussion here supports my thesis.

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

Don't confuse the evolution of life in a universe will well established natural laws with the origin of those laws themselves. They're very different disciplines. This kind of basic misunderstanding of the natural world is why this question should be researched by people with a background in the relevant sciences instead of philosophers.

Actually, you're the one who is misunderstanding. Obviously they are different questions, reserved for different disciplines within science (but this says nothing whatsoever about why they shouldn't also be tackled by philosophers). But recall that your comments here are in response to what I said: "If that holds for the existence of the world and everything in it, then WHY CARE about the existence of life, or physical laws?" My point has nothing to do with pitting one discipline against another, since I'm talking about the value judgment itself: why care. My point is that if you don't care about the big question of existence, then why care about any other discipline? Why should you care? There is no reason, on the atheist model, TO care. Maybe you do, but that's optional.

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

Not in the sense you're using it here. Science is pragmatic and gets work done, as opposed to asking ultimately unanswerable questions like you're doing here.

And here your valuation comes out clearly. Only questions science can answer are worthwhile. But then you appear to say incompatible things. Earlier you said this question should be answered by science, but here you say it is unanswerable. So science should answer questions that are unanswerable?

Anyway, science "gets work done." Why do these discussions so frequently come down to a "science vs philosophy" disjunction? The disjunction is false. But I suspect that a "science", carefully guarded from having to answer to the larger philosophical questions, is the implicit strategy, since this safely deflects questions that even remotely suggest a God.

Why shouldn't "unanswerable questions" have value (assuming they are "unanswerable")? Why limit the value of a question to whether we know it is answerable? (And I don't think this question is impossible to answer, for saying it is absolutely impossible could involve assuming the truth of the atheist model) Why would "getting work done" have more value than a big, difficult question? Furthermore the pragmatic, "get work done" approach is NOT necessarily the same as seeking for truth. And to simply rule out any question that we don't see as answerable to science is really to banish the mystery of the world, and shrink everything down to a safe, manageable model of reality. But this is the very thing in question. Is the world ultimately intelligible? Maybe we don't know, but that is hardly a reason to say the question has no value.

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

Why would anyone have a problem with "we can observe the universe, more or less, and see some patterns"? There's no need to describe how these patterns came about from first causes or whatever to understand that they exist.

That's right. There is a difference between understanding how something works and understanding why it exists. But we're talking about why there is ANYTHING at all, rather than nothing. WHY? If there is no answer, if there is no reason at all why the world exists, then there is no ultimate reason why the patterns make sense. As I said above, if there is no reason, and the world "just is," then the patterns we trace in the world mean very little, since the patterns themselves have no reason, and could just as easily change, or cease to exist.

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

There's no need to have intimate knowledge of every minute detail of a system before using what knowledge you do have. Unless you can build anything you use from scratch you do exactly the same thing every day. It's special pleading to single out atheists as the only ones who do this when you're guilty of the very same offense. It's simple not that big a deal to admit we don't know everything, and probably never will. That's simply part of not being omnipotent - and that doesn't take away from the things we do know.

I don't think you have grasped the issue. We're not talking about the limits of our knowledge, as you suggest here. The issue is that on the atheist model there is no reason for existence--there is no possible reason. And if existence is ultimately unintelligible, then understanding the universe is something like understanding a square circle. You can give cogent descriptions of the features--it has four angles, it has four sides of equal length, it's round, etc.--but ultimately these features won't really make sense. We can "understand" a universe that is ultimately unintelligible similar to the way in which we can "understand" a square circle.

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

What is the answer theism provides, specifically?

Note that I'm going to keep asking "why" and "how do you know" to any answer you give just like you're doing to those from other belief systems, so give as much or as little detail as you like initially. I'll also assert that each subsequent "why?" "is one of the most penetrating questions one can ponder, one of the deepest questions in philosophy", just to make it look like theism is philosophically naive, since that's apparently how this game is played.

The general answer of theism is that there is a necessary being. The salient point is this: the atheist model rules out the very possibility of there being an answer, while the theist model holds aloft the possibility that there is a reason for existence, and by extension, there is the possibility for true meaning and happiness.

You can sure keep asking "why" if you want, but that really misses the point, and seems more of a deflection than anything else. You can play your game, as you said. But the question raised here is "why is there something rather than nothing?" I don't know the answer. But as I've said, atheism rules out the very possibility of an answer. And I think atheists could at least attempt to deal with that. It's a pretty big matzah ball hanging out there (quote from Seinfeld). Some atheists wants to say that there doesn't have to be an answer, or "who cares if there is no answer." The universe could be all that there is. That's true. For all we know, this is it. But deal with it, intellectually, existentially. Think it through.

And I hope if anyone has made it to the end of this, that you kind of enjoyed my post. I know it's long.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by The Matrix

I've been busy, so it's taken me a while to respond. Anyone else, feel free to join in (though it might be a while before I can post again). The main question I'm discussing is "why is there something rather than nothing?"



But that's what I'm saying: the atheist account leaves no room for there being a possible answer.

And I already mentioned what is required: necessary being. Otherwise, I don't see how there is an answer.

Though, I do find it interesting that you say, from what we know, time, space and matter didn't exist "before the universe came into being." First, the "fact" that (from what we know) time, space and matter have a beginning is a deeply interesting thing, which is consistent with the existence of a God who brought it into existence. This quite clearly suggests a God. Does it "prove" a God? No. (Though one could make an argument of it). At the very least, such a fact--that the universe had a beginning--if it is a fact, would seem to make belief in a God rational. Of course, it doesn't necessitate such a belief, for one could still say, "well, we don't know, since it might not be a God after all." This is correct, since we could be wrong, but if the universe has a beginning, then belief in a God is rational. I fail to see how this cannot count as evidence for belief in God. A person might not believe in a God, even if the universe has a beginning (perhaps because they believe there really isn't a beginning, or they believe that science will discover something else, or there is a multiverse, etc). Though, simply because a person doesn't accept this as evidence, or doesn't accept it as strong evidence, doesn't imply that someone else cannot rationally hold that the beginning of the universe points to a God.

Here's something that may be important to call attention to. One of the issues that has been discussed and argued over for centuries is the relation between God and the world. There seem to be two basic camps (but this is oversimplifying). One view is that God created everything ex nihilo (from nothing), and he sustains everything through his power. This is consistent with traditional theism, or deism. Another view is that God's relation with the world is much more intimate, where he is not the creator in the above sense, but more like the Logos of existence, and there is no sharp ontological division between God and the world. This is consistent with panentheism (and probably other forms of theism). The stuff we're talking about now is neutral with respect to these views.

So, in other words, what I have been saying does not in any way rely on whether the universe had a beginning. The question, "why is there something rather than nothing?" holds even if the universe is eternal. For all it matters, we can assume the universe is eternal.

Also, your gambling example misses the point. We're not talking about one outcome out of many possibilities actually coming to pass--we're not talking about an effect following "randomly" from a cause or number of causes. Such possibilities are statistical probabilities, ultimately grounded in the laws of physics. But why are there any laws of physics at all? Even though they do exist, there is no reason why they should on the atheist model. It's not as though we're just lucky the world exists, when it's possible for the world to have not existed. Throwing dice, spinning the wheel, flipping a coin, these all have causes, have reasons, explanations. Gambling is intelligible. But a world that exists for no reason--that is ultimately unintelligible. On the atheist model, there is no answer for why the world exists--whether the world is eternal or came into being at some point, there can be no explanation. Existence is simply a brute unintelligible fact. If this isn't the most amazing of all things to believe, I don't know what is. This is no different than "magic" or "turtles all the way down." If you can believe, unflinchingly, unblinkingly, without even the slightest tremor, that the world exists for absolutely no reason whatsoever, well, I don't know what to do with that, other than to suggest: think it through. There is no more major commitment than to claim, "the world exists for no reason at all, no explanation for it--it could have not existed, but it does and nothing caused it to exist, nothing brought it to exist, nothing absolutely nothing explains it." It's not simply a mystery: it's unintelligible. This is far, far different from the theist, who claims that the world is intelligible at its roots, that there is a reason why it exists, even though we might not be privy to that reason. The atheist model, in contrast, ends in unintelligibility.

Maybe the world is ultimately unintelligible. I don't know. But the fact that so much of it is understandable, that so much of the world makes sense, this suggests to me that the world IS intelligible. Of course, I don't know, and I'm not arguing for it. But this is consistent with our observations of the world up until now. It is not a stretch, and fits with the general scientific model, that the world exhibits an understandable order to it that we can discover. The atheist model simply has nothing to say to the existence and order of the world, other than "it just IS." Such an absolute lack of an answer is completely consistent with everything popping right out of existence at any moment, or all the seeming order melting into absolute chaos. After all, there is no ultimate reason for it, so there is no reason for it to continue. "It just IS" could turn at any moment to "it just is NOT". So even the continued existence of the world, and the continued seeming order of the natural laws, point to an intelligible, rather than an unintelligible, foundation for reality. This is something I think many atheists have not sufficiently dealt with (Nietzsche may be an exception, but he doesn't post here).



I'm not sure this makes sense. You use the word "possibility" to explain what we mean by "possibility." I know it can sometimes be difficult to adequately define our terms. But I would suggest: don't try to explain possibility; it may be too difficult.

In any case, your attempt to define "possibility" was in response to my saying, "Can a possibility simply bring itself into existence?" And your comments (more or less) demonstrate my point. A possibility does not bring itself into existence, but a prior actuality seems to be always responsible.



Correct. And I'm not a strict determinist. But that's out of the realm of what we're talking about (we're not talking about things that are merely "not guaranteed," but a far bigger problem).



No. If you think this is some sort of counterexample to what I'm talking about, then you need to rethink it.



Really? What does this mean? What "track record" are you talking about? Perhaps you mean the track record that gave birth to modern science? And because you presumably view philosophy as some sort of epic failure, you want science to answer the question "why is there something rather than nothing?" That's silly. Undergirding your claim that science is better suited to answer this question, we will undoubtedly find philosophical commitments (both epistemic and metaphysical). And I don't see how science (divorced from philosophy) can even answer the question. Or perhaps the answer science gives us is that the universe had a beginning, as you said earlier?

I'm not sure I understand the thinly veiled hostility against philosophy. Philosophy (at times) can be a problem for "scientifically" minded atheists, "concrete thinkers," since the questions raised in philosophy are often not answerable by (pure) science, which in turn calls into question the epistemic authority of science. Keep in mind that this is not, NOT an attack on science, and it is regrettable that what I say here might be interpreted that way. This is probably because the epistemic authority given to science today is mistaken FOR science, when it is actually a philosophical position. You CANNOT escape philosophy--trying to do so merely entangles you deeper in philosophy. I tend to see science as a branch or close cousin of philosophy (maybe it's an applied branch of philosophy). I think we need to stop seeing science and philosophy as standing at odds with one another. One of the best things a scientist can do, in my opinion, is to develop an understanding and appreciation for philosophy; the same holds for philosophers. Back in the "old days" they were not seen as so distinct. There was one category, "natural philosophy," which covered all this stuff. We should bring this back.



Basically, that's right. The infinite regress ends with a necessary being. This holds even if the world is eternal.

It's more interesting because it's a bigger question, and it potentially can have a direct impact on ALL the facets of human existence. If the atheist model is right, and there is no ultimate reason or explanation, then nothing ultimately grounds the meaning of our lives, or the moral way of life. Meaning and morality become optional. If there is an ultimate explanation, then it is possible for our lives to have ultimate significance. Whether the world is Logos or Chaos is of ultimate concern. This is the central divide between the religious view and the non-religious view of life, of existence.

Now, if you don't care about these things, if you find it worthless, or if you prefer to have a world that has no ultimate meaning, no ultimate explanation, then you will stay atheist, and you will continue to ignore these bigger questions, as if they were not important. But anyone who thinks this through is going to end up in a very uncomfortable place. Doesn't mean you will become a theist, or that you will change your mind. But to ignore this mystery is myopic, and the only purpose of devaluing these questions would seem to be to cling to atheism.

So it comes down to value, to value judgment. That to say "who cares if there is no answer" (as rifleman said) is to make a value judgment about what is important and what isn't. But if you are to say that questions science can answer are the questions and answers that are valuable, and questions science cannot answer are not valuable, then you're very notion of "rationality" is based on a value-judgment, and not on something objectively rational. Why isn't the fact that atheism has no answer to why the world exists important for human life, or human meaning, or rationality itself? It comes down to a value judgment about which questions and answers are important. And even if you don't care about it, then why shouldn't someone else care? Why shouldn't someone else find such a question valuable, and the lack of an answer truly disturbing, or the fact that theism provides the possibility of such an answer important? This is inescapably a question of value, as we can clearly see in the response, "who cares?"

And if a person says, "who cares if there is no answer", then they are ALSO saying "who cares if there is a God?" They don't care if there is or isn't a reason for existence, or whether there is a God. This is really already assuming the atheist framework.

I seem to remember a while back in a different thread that I suggested the differences between being an atheist and a theist had, at its core, nothing to do with how intelligent a person is, but rather, it came down to how the person valued the answers to these questions. I think this discussion here supports my thesis.



Actually, you're the one who is misunderstanding. Obviously they are different questions, reserved for different disciplines within science (but this says nothing whatsoever about why they shouldn't also be tackled by philosophers). But recall that your comments here are in response to what I said: "If that holds for the existence of the world and everything in it, then WHY CARE about the existence of life, or physical laws?" My point has nothing to do with pitting one discipline against another, since I'm talking about the value judgment itself: why care. My point is that if you don't care about the big question of existence, then why care about any other discipline? Why should you care? There is no reason, on the atheist model, TO care. Maybe you do, but that's optional.



And here your valuation comes out clearly. Only questions science can answer are worthwhile. But then you appear to say incompatible things. Earlier you said this question should be answered by science, but here you say it is unanswerable. So science should answer questions that are unanswerable?

Anyway, science "gets work done." Why do these discussions so frequently come down to a "science vs philosophy" disjunction? The disjunction is false. But I suspect that a "science", carefully guarded from having to answer to the larger philosophical questions, is the implicit strategy, since this safely deflects questions that even remotely suggest a God.

Why shouldn't "unanswerable questions" have value (assuming they are "unanswerable")? Why limit the value of a question to whether we know it is answerable? (And I don't think this question is impossible to answer, for saying it is absolutely impossible could involve assuming the truth of the atheist model) Why would "getting work done" have more value than a big, difficult question? Furthermore the pragmatic, "get work done" approach is NOT necessarily the same as seeking for truth. And to simply rule out any question that we don't see as answerable to science is really to banish the mystery of the world, and shrink everything down to a safe, manageable model of reality. But this is the very thing in question. Is the world ultimately intelligible? Maybe we don't know, but that is hardly a reason to say the question has no value.



That's right. There is a difference between understanding how something works and understanding why it exists. But we're talking about why there is ANYTHING at all, rather than nothing. WHY? If there is no answer, if there is no reason at all why the world exists, then there is no ultimate reason why the patterns make sense. As I said above, if there is no reason, and the world "just is," then the patterns we trace in the world mean very little, since the patterns themselves have no reason, and could just as easily change, or cease to exist.



I don't think you have grasped the issue. We're not talking about the limits of our knowledge, as you suggest here. The issue is that on the atheist model there is no reason for existence--there is no possible reason. And if existence is ultimately unintelligible, then understanding the universe is something like understanding a square circle. You can give cogent descriptions of the features--it has four angles, it has four sides of equal length, it's round, etc.--but ultimately these features won't really make sense. We can "understand" a universe that is ultimately unintelligible similar to the way in which we can "understand" a square circle.



The general answer of theism is that there is a necessary being. The salient point is this: the atheist model rules out the very possibility of there being an answer, while the theist model holds aloft the possibility that there is a reason for existence, and by extension, there is the possibility for true meaning and happiness.

You can sure keep asking "why" if you want, but that really misses the point, and seems more of a deflection than anything else. You can play your game, as you said. But the question raised here is "why is there something rather than nothing?" I don't know the answer. But as I've said, atheism rules out the very possibility of an answer. And I think atheists could at least attempt to deal with that. It's a pretty big matzah ball hanging out there (quote from Seinfeld). Some atheists wants to say that there doesn't have to be an answer, or "who cares if there is no answer." The universe could be all that there is. That's true. For all we know, this is it. But deal with it, intellectually, existentially. Think it through.

And I hope if anyone has made it to the end of this, that you kind of enjoyed my post. I know it's long.

Good to see you again, Matrix . . . hope things are going well for you. It takes your youth and vigor to engage these issues with the depth and tenacity that these antagonists seem to require . . . and they still don't get it. I plead intellectual fatigue (senioritis) . . . for my brevity and intolerance.

[Konraden]

That is a serious wall of text, Matrix. I look forward to reading it. For brevity, can you give me main point?

[Gplex]

Originally Posted by The Matrix

But that's what I'm saying: the atheist account leaves no room for there being a possible answer

So I must leave room for there being a possibility that zeus is real? That any number of magical beings that like to kill humans are real? No. The fact is, I don’t believe any of those mythological creatures.. and most people are the same. This is the default position.

Originally Posted by The Matrix

Though, I do find it interesting that you say, from what we know, time, space and matter didn't exist "before the universe came into being." First, the "fact" that (from what we know) time, space and matter have a beginning is a deeply interesting thing, which is consistent with the existence of a God who brought it into existence. This quite clearly suggests a God. Does it "prove" a God? No. (Though one could make an argument of it). At the very least, such a fact--that the universe had a beginning--if it is a fact, would seem to make belief in a God rational. Of course, it doesn't necessitate such a belief, for one could still say, "well, we don't know, since it might not be a God after all." This is correct, since we could be wrong, but if the universe has a beginning, then belief in a God is rational. I fail to see how this cannot count as evidence for belief in God. A person might not believe in a God, even if the universe has a beginning (perhaps because they believe there really isn't a beginning, or they believe that science will discover something else, or there is a multiverse, etc). Though, simply because a person doesn't accept this as evidence, or doesn't accept it as strong evidence, doesn't imply that someone else cannot rationally hold that the beginning of the universe points to a God.

Anyone making claims before the big bang is only guessing. No, it just you guessing that a god brought it into existence.
You just said it yourself. It could have been an alien ejecting faeces that cause this universe to begin, yet somehow you keep insisting it must be a “god”.
You can interpret the evidence anyway you want because there is NONE!

Originally Posted by The Matrix

Here's something that may be important to call attention to. One of the issues that has been discussed and argued over for centuries is the relation between God and the world. There seem to be two basic camps (but this is oversimplifying). One view is that God created everything ex nihilo (from nothing), and he sustains everything through his power. This is consistent with traditional theism, or deism. Another view is that God's relation with the world is much more intimate, where he is not the creator in the above sense, but more like the Logos of existence, and there is no sharp ontological division between God and the world. This is consistent with panentheism (and probably other forms of theism). The stuff we're talking about now is neutral with respect to these views.

And this is what pretty much what has been happening over the centuries.

YouTube - An argument with someone from a different faith

Originally Posted by The Matrix

So, in other words, what I have been saying does not in any way rely on whether the universe had a beginning. The question, "why is there something rather than nothing?" holds even if the universe is eternal. For all it matters, we can assume the universe is eternal.
Also, your gambling example misses the point. We're not talking about one outcome out of many possibilities actually coming to pass--we're not talking about an effect following "randomly" from a cause or number of causes. Such possibilities are statistical probabilities, ultimately grounded in the laws of physics. But why are there any laws of physics at all? Even though they do exist, there is no reason why they should on the atheist model. It's not as though we're just lucky the world exists, when it's possible for the world to have not existed. Throwing dice, spinning the wheel, flipping a coin, these all have causes, have reasons, explanations. Gambling is intelligible. But a world that exists for no reason--that is ultimately unintelligible. On the atheist model, there is no answer for why the world exists--whether the world is eternal or came into being at some point, there can be no explanation. Existence is simply a brute unintelligible fact. If this isn't the most amazing of all things to believe, I don't know what is. This is no different than "magic" or "turtles all the way down." If you can believe, unflinchingly, unblinkingly, without even the slightest tremor, that the world exists for absolutely no reason whatsoever, well, I don't know what to do with that, other than to suggest: think it through. There is no more major commitment than to claim, "the world exists for no reason at all, no explanation for it--it could have not existed, but it does and nothing caused it to exist, nothing brought it to exist, nothing absolutely nothing explains it." It's not simply a mystery: it's unintelligible. This is far, far different from the theist, who claims that the world is intelligible at its roots, that there is a reason why it exists, even though we might not be privy to that reason. The atheist model, in contrast, ends in unintelligibility.

This is just a straw man mixed in with an argument from ignorance and the claim that atheism doesn’t even attempt to explain the world, thus it must be wrong.
First off, science has explained the reason why earth is here. Coalescing under gravity, after the death of a massive star. Which spent millions, maybe billions of years fusing the higher elements that our bodies are made. This is far more interesting then the myths written about earth’s creation.
We know that every claim about god cannot be right. But every claim can be wrong!

Originally Posted by The Matrix

Maybe the world is ultimately unintelligible. I don't know. But the fact that so much of it is understandable, that so much of the world makes sense, this suggests to me that the world IS intelligible. Of course, I don't know, and I'm not arguing for it. But this is consistent with our observations of the world up until now. It is not a stretch, and fits with the general scientific model, that the world exhibits an understandable order to it that we can discover. The atheist model simply has nothing to say to the existence and order of the world, other than "it just IS." Such an absolute lack of an answer is completely consistent with everything popping right out of existence at any moment, or all the seeming order melting into absolute chaos. After all, there is no ultimate reason for it, so there is no reason for it to continue. "It just IS" could turn at any moment to "it just is NOT". So even the continued existence of the world, and the continued seeming order of the natural laws, point to an intelligible, rather than an unintelligible, foundation for reality. This is something I think many atheists have not sufficiently dealt with (Nietzsche may be an exception, but he doesn't post here).

Let’s clear up a huge misunderstanding. Atheism doesn’t have a model, or a world view, it is the disbelief in gods. I have a humanistic and a materialistic world view.
There appears to be a reason for everything. But just because you don’t like these reasons, doesn’t mean you can superimpose your ideas on top of them.
Everything so far in this universe is consistent, and everything in this universe points to a process of mechanisms which have so far shaped the universe the way it is. No indication of outside help or interference. Are these mechanisms perfect, or well design? No.

YouTube - Stupid Design

I’m not answering anymore, I’m disappointed.

[KCfromNC]

Originally Posted by The Matrix

But that's what I'm saying: the atheist account leaves no room for there being a possible answer.

What's the "atheist account", exactly? Where can I read the universally approved atheist description of everything? I think you're vastly oversimplifying this to try to make a point and the net effect is you're beating up on strawmen.

And how does saying "we don't know yet" leave no room for a possible answer in the future. That's never been a limitation in the past.

And I already mentioned what is required: necessary being. Otherwise, I don't see how there is an answer.

Argument from ignorance. Stuffing gods into the gaps in our knowledge like this doesn't exactly have a great track record.

Anyway, why not infinite regress? It's no more arbitrary than pretending that a god magically appears to stop it.

Though, I do find it interesting that you say, from what we know, time, space and matter didn't exist "before the universe came into being." First, the "fact" that (from what we know) time, space and matter have a beginning is a deeply interesting thing, which is consistent with the existence of a God who brought it into existence. This quite clearly suggests a God. Does it "prove" a God? No. (Though one could make an argument of it). At the very least, such a fact--that the universe had a beginning--if it is a fact, would seem to make belief in a God rational.

That's not a particularly high bar - everything's consistent with an omnipotent creator. The steady state universe was consistent with an omnipotent god, an ever-expanding universe is consistent with an omnipotent god, a universe which will collapse back on itself is consistent with an omnipotent god, no universe at all is consistent with an omnipotent god (not that we'd be there to say anything about it though), as is every other possible idea of the makeup of the universe. You're making a big deal that the universe is in a state that an omnipotent god could put it in ... but an omnipotent god could do anything. It doesn't matter what we observe, because no matter what we saw you'd tell us it is consistent with god. That's not evidence, that's post hoc rationalization.

Get back to me when this god idea starts making actual predictions - that's when you get to start talking about evidence fitting or not. Until you can lay out concrete guidelines for what observation does and doesn't fit with god, it's premature to claim specific observations agrees with it. For a prediction to have any value, it has to be specific enough that it narrows down what we'd expect to see. An unbounded omnipotent god acting however it chooses is the exact opposite of a specific prediction.

So, in other words, what I have been saying does not in any way rely on whether the universe had a beginning. The question, "why is there something rather than nothing?" holds even if the universe is eternal. For all it matters, we can assume the universe is eternal.

Yep, this is what I'm talking about. Gods don't provide any explanatory power, they're just rationalizations. We see what we see, therefore god did it. If we saw the exact opposite, the "explanation" would be the same.

It's not as though we're just lucky the world exists, when it's possible for the world to have not existed.

How do you know this?

Throwing dice, spinning the wheel, flipping a coin, these all have causes, have reasons, explanations. Gambling is intelligible. But a world that exists for no reason--that is ultimately unintelligible. On the atheist model, there is no answer for why the world exists--whether the world is eternal or came into being at some point, there can be no explanation.

You're confusing "explanation" and "discovery of an ultimate purpose from an almighty creator god". They're totally different things. Of course an atheist model isn't going to include god - but unless you're already assuming god, that doesn't mean that it rules out explanations.

The atheist model simply has nothing to say to the existence and order of the world, other than "it just IS."

That's false. There are a number of explanations for this phenomenon which don't involve gods or magic. I'm curious why you're ignoring them and focusing on something else as THE atheist model, as if there were some sort of monolithic atheist manifesto out there that everyone had signed off on.

In any case, your attempt to define "possibility" was in response to my saying, "Can a possibility simply bring itself into existence?" And your comments (more or less) demonstrate my point. A possibility does not bring itself into existence, but a prior actuality seems to be always responsible.

This is pretty much word salad. Possibilities are just our understanding of the possible outcome of an event - they're a description of what could happen, not an explanation or cause of the result. The possibility of a die coming up 6 doesn't bring the die into existence, but that doesn't mean that the workings of dice are magical.

Anyway, please explain how cause and effect works before time existed. Once you do that, then you can go on to show how "actualities" must "cause" things to happen.

No. If you think this is some sort of counterexample to what I'm talking about, then you need to rethink it.

Assertion isn't argument. Try again.

Really? What does this mean? What "track record" are you talking about?

The lack of generating concrete answers about questions relating to the natural world.

And because you presumably view philosophy as some sort of epic failure, you want science to answer the question "why is there something rather than nothing?" That's silly.Undergirding your claim that science is better suited to answer this question, we will undoubtedly find philosophical commitments (both epistemic and metaphysical). And I don't see how science (divorced from philosophy) can even answer the question.

Argument from ignorance isn't particularly convincing. What's your professional background in cosmology and what are you currently researching? If we're going to have to rely on your assertions we might as well know what your credentials are.

And just because people doing research have philosophical commitments (both epistemic and metaphysical) doesn't make the research philosophy. My garbagemen have philosophical commitments (both epistemic and metaphysical) - that doesn't mean they're doing philosophy when they pick up my trash each week.

Basically, that's right. The infinite regress ends with a necessary being. This holds even if the world is eternal.

Why must the infinite regress end somewhere? Pretending there's an arbitrary necessary being is, well, arbitrary. Why must the theist model assume it?

If the atheist model is right, and there is no ultimate reason or explanation, then nothing ultimately grounds the meaning of our lives, or the moral way of life. Meaning and morality become optional.

You'll need to show your work here. Lots of people think there's no ultimate god-based purpose to life and yet still seem to have morals. How do all of them have it wrong?

But to ignore this mystery is myopic, and the only purpose of devaluing these questions would seem to be to cling to atheism.

Not making up answers when we have none isn't the same as devaluing the question.

And if a person says, "who cares if there is no answer", then they are ALSO saying "who cares if there is a God?" They don't care if there is or isn't a reason for existence, or whether there is a God. This is really already assuming the atheist framework.

Or concluding it, more likely.

I seem to remember a while back in a different thread that I suggested the differences between being an atheist and a theist had, at its core, nothing to do with how intelligent a person is, but rather, it came down to how the person valued the answers to these questions. I think this discussion here supports my thesis.

I agree, but not in the way you meant. You're the one emotionally connected to finding ultimate meaning where ever you can possibly squeeze it in to rationalize your religious assumptions, while others are saying we don't know, we'd like to know, but it just isn't possible to know now and might not be possible even in theory. Some people make up comforting answers in that case, other people accept reality and move on.

But recall that your comments here are in response to what I said: "If that holds for the existence of the world and everything in it, then WHY CARE about the existence of life, or physical laws?"

Because we can learn useful tricks for surviving by studying how the natural world works. You're basically questioning why people, regardless of their religious views, might find science useful. Hopefully you know the answer to that.

I think your confusion is that you've convinced yourself that you're living for your god. That's great, you seem happy about the lifestyle you've chosen. But you then assume that people without god don't have anything to live for. Surely you see the problem with that logic.

And here your valuation comes out clearly. Only questions science can answer are worthwhile.

Funny, I thought I wrote that my objection was to wasting time on unanswerable questions. That's much different from what you're responding to here.

But I suspect that a "science", carefully guarded from having to answer to the larger philosophical questions, is the implicit strategy, since this safely deflects questions that even remotely suggest a God.

Until theists can come up with a testable model for god, it's hardly the fault of science that the field ignores it.

That's right. There is a difference between understanding how something works and understanding why it exists. But we're talking about why there is ANYTHING at all, rather than nothing. WHY? If there is no answer, if there is no reason at all why the world exists, then there is no ultimate reason why the patterns make sense. As I said above, if there is no reason, and the world "just is," then the patterns we trace in the world mean very little, since the patterns themselves have no reason, and could just as easily change, or cease to exist.

Assuming an omnipotent god that acts in ways unimaginable to humans leaves us with the same problem.

And again, do you understand how to create a car from its base materials? No, no one does in minute detail. That doesn't make cars useless - just like a lack of knowledge about the absolute cause of the patterns we see doesn't make the knowledge of those patterns we do see useless. You seem to have a problem confusing "don't value the same things I do" with "objectively useless".

I don't think you have grasped the issue. We're not talking about the limits of our knowledge, as you suggest here. The issue is that on the atheist model there is no reason for existence--there is no possible reason.

Why not? The problem here is you're defining the only possible "reason" as "god did it" and then saying disagreement on the specifics of the reason means rejection of the very concept of possibly having a reason.

The general answer of theism is that there is a necessary being. The salient point is this: the atheist model rules out the very possibility of there being an answer

No, it just says that there's currently no reason to think the answer involves gods. The reasons for believing this vary with each atheist.

You can sure keep asking "why" if you want, but that really misses the point, and seems more of a deflection than anything else. You can play your game, as you said. But the question raised here is "why is there something rather than nothing?" I don't know the answer.

Wait, I thought theism provided answers that atheism couldn't. Sounds like that's not the case here. I'm not sure why you're so upset with the "atheist model" since both it an theism seem to lack insight into this problem.