Comments on Deism, theism, and miracles H2H

[otseng]

This thread is for people following the Arguments and evidence for deism, theism, and miracles head-to-head debate between no evidence no belief and otseng. Feel free to post general comments here, but please avoid any debating. Start a new thread in a debate subforum if you wish to debate an issue.

[Divine Insight]

Thank you. This is a very interesting debate topic, but in all honestly I don't think your approach is very strong. You're basically appealing to the idea that, for you, it seems most reasonable to hypothesize that some intelligent agent designed the universe. But that's really not a very strong argument at all and can easily be shut down.

It also has many alternative possibilities. For example, even if an intelligent agent caused the universe to exist, there's really no reason to suggest that this agent caused the universe to come into existence from nothing. What is far more reasonable, I think, is that the entity itself simply transformed to become the universe. But then we would be that entity ultimately since we are this universe.

In fact that would be my argument.

Maybe I'll debate a similar topic with NENB after you're done if he's willing.

[Divine Insight]

I've been following the arguments in your head-to-head debate.

I have the following comments to make. (these are not arguments) I would be glad to debate these issues in another thread. But here I am just commenting on why I'm finding the current head-to-head debate to be uninteresting (even though the topic itself may be interesting)

Otseng wrote:

If you believe that people should accept evolution because pretty much every expert in the world accepts it, I found it surprising that you do not believe that the universe had a beginning, because pretty much every expert in the world accepts it.

This statement is simply not true. It also appears to be quite strawman.

This just represents a gross misunderstanding of how physicists actually think of the Big Bang. (like I say, I would be glad to debate this in another thread)

Moreover, to suggest that someone accepts evolution just because every expert in the world accepts it is also a very false statement. Most people who are educated in the science of biology and evolution understand it because it makes perfect sense and the evidence for it is overwhelming. (again, I would be more than happy to actually debate this in another thread.)

Otseng wrote:

There being a beginning to the universe is so universally accepted among scientists that I'm surprised you don't accept this. You think I'm the only one to make this claim? But, if you really wish, I can provide evidence that the universe had a beginning.

No one is saying that the universe came from "nothing" except perhaps Lawrence Krauss, but even he confesses that his "nothing" it not nothing in the layman's meaning of the term.

What scientists agree on is that the fabric of spacetime apparently took on it's current properties during the process of the Big Bang. Time as we experience it may well have come into being with the Big Bang, but that doesn't mean that there was no "time" prior to the Big Bang. It simply wouldn't be dependent upon entropy prior to the Big Bang.

It seems to me that your arguments that the universe came from nothing is based on gross misunderstandings of what scientists are actually saying. In fact, as NENB had already pointed out in his arguments, scientists have proposed hypotheses that suggest something may have indeed existence prior to the Big Bang.

The Big Bounce theory is certainly one of them.
Loop Quantum Gravity is another.
M-Theory suggests that preexisting "branes" may have collided.
Quantum Theory postulates that quantum fields preexisted the physical universe as we know it.

So to argue that science is claiming that the universe came from nothing is wrong. Unless of course you are talking about the claims of Lawrence Krauss. But even he his "cheating" because he's calling Quantum Fields "nothing". Yet he requires these to exist before his theories can work.

So even Lawrence Krauss is misrepresenting science to claim that a universe can start from nothing.

That is not the position of physicists today in general.

So your claim that this is the majority of scientific consensus is wrong.

You are presenting "evidence" for your claim which is not "evidence" at all.

And like NENB has pointed out, even if you got that far, you'd still be a very long way from showing why a preexisting intelligent agent would be required. In fact, to even propose the existence of such a being would be to violate your claim that nothing existed prior to the Big Bang. Your intelligent agent would need to preexist the Big Bang. So your universe would not have started from "nothing" anyway.

So even if your argument were to be accepted, it would be totally circular.