Bad Math Used in Apologetics

[Jagella]

Recently I've noticed that some apologists like William Lane Craig are using mathematics-based arguments to assure us that the Christian god exists. I would like to explain why those arguments use poor logic.

A very broad argument is that mathematics in general seems to explain the cosmos in a way that seems to work unreasonably well. An intelligent designer like Yahweh is then required to explain this apparent mathematical basis for the universe. He is "the great mathematician in the sky."

Not really. The reason math works so well to explain the world--in at least some cases--is because we humans created math to describe the cosmos. There is no mystery here. We are the mathematicians describing the universe.

Also, many apologists like to wow us with enormously improbable events that they say cannot be attributed to chance. Since chance is ruled out, "God musta done it."

Wrong again. The only probability that rules out an event happening by chance is an event with a probability of zero. Extremely improbable events--like the conception of any of us--happen all the time.

Also, to state how improbable a natural event might be doesn't say much if you don't know the probability of an alternate event. So if apologists wish to argue that an event like the apparent fine-tuning of the universe by chance is only one out a a gazillion, they must compare that probability to the probability that "God musta done it." If they cannot say that the probability of God fine-tuning the cosmos is greater than chance, then they haven't proved anything.

Finally, a really laughable argument is that the universe cannot be infinitely old because if it was infinitely we could never have reached the present! Such apologists must have slept through their high-school algebra. Consider the number line with numbers increasing infinitely with positive numbers to the right and negative numbers to the left. All you need to do is have any point on that line represent a moment in time with zero being the present, points on the positive direction are the future, and points on the negative direction are the past. See that? You're at 0 (the present), but the past is infinite. You can go back as far as you want to with no limit.

I can go on, but for now let me ask the...

Question for Debate: Are apologists sloppy mathematicians, or are they deliberately trying to deceive people with numbers?

[Bust Nak]

1. Supernatural (order, agenda, purpose)
2. Natural (disorder, no agenda, purposeless)

Please give me a viable third option, so I can add it to the list.

3. Natural (order, no agenda, purposeless)

So, the days leading up to today wasn't a countdown from past days to the present day?

Of course It is a countdown from past days to the present day, as opposed from a countdown from a day that is infinity far away.

That's the point; of course it is incoherent, because it is analogous to an incoherent concept (a past eternal universe).

It is not analogous though. A past eternal universe does not involve any thing like counting down from infinity.

So you can reach infinity, taking one step at a time?

No, that's impossible.

But you can't count down ALL of the finite integers in the set and successfully arrive at zero.

Someone bad at math might not be able to, I don't have that problem. Name me a finite integer that you think I cannot count from to reach zero

We did? Ohhh, I remember you; Bust Nak..you are the guy that I owned at least three different times on this very subject...

Oh yes, the infamous face-to-foot style.

[For_The_Kingdom]

[Replying to post 102 by For_The_Kingdom]

For clarification, you believe that although we are a product of a universe that had a beginning but expect that you will live on into infinity?

Pretty much, yeah.

[For_The_Kingdom]

[Replying to post 106 by marco]

You can have the last word, my man. I will take the dub.

[For_The_Kingdom]

1. Supernatural (non-existent, imaginary, woo)
2. Natural (all that exists in reality)
There. Fixed it for you.

I guess evidence for #1 and #2 is too much to ask for.

[rikuoamero]

1. Supernatural (non-existent, imaginary, woo)
2. Natural (all that exists in reality)
There. Fixed it for you.

I guess evidence for #1 and #2 is too much to ask for.

This is rich, coming from a person who has insisted in the past that his evidence are a series of logical, philosophical arguments.

[Tcg]

I guess evidence for #1 and #2 is too much to ask for.

You mean this #1 and #2?

1. Supernatural (order, agenda, purpose)
2. Natural (disorder, no agenda, purposeless)

You'd have to answer this question.





Tcg

[For_The_Kingdom]

We have no way of truly knowing the probabilities involved.

10^10^123 is the probability involved. You are later than a 1972 missing library book (Seinfeld).

Everything that us theists claim that God "did"..naturalists claim that nature "did". So I will tell you the same thing you just told me...feel free to give Mother Nature whatever qualities you want.

We can study the natural and see how it works. Over the centuries we have replaced countless attributions of unusual phenomena to gods with natural explanations. It has never been the other way around.

Have we replaced questions involving the origin of the universe from gods to natural explanations? Nope.

With gods, there is nothing to study.

I take it you've never heard of the field of theology, have you?

You can make up anything you like and hide it behind the supernatural curtain.

So can naturalists..behind the natural curtain.

People use the scientific method to distinguish between the imaginary and the real.

You can't use the scientific method to explain the origins of the universe, and that is what naturalists fail to understand. The scientific method depends on a preexistent universe of which it can be applied.

You follow where I am going with this?

There is far too much to know to naively expect that we can gain that knowledge all at once. Look at the progress we have made in the last couple of centuries and ask why we didn't manage that all two hundred years ago. To say that it can't/won't explain everything is rather a dismissive way of trying to squeeze magic into the current gaps.

In other words; science of the gaps.

God did it is not an explanation of anything.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. I will share mines; Nature did it is not an explanation of anything.

It is no more than an invented answer. If you invent a God that can do anything, every question that we do not have an answer for yet can be answered with absolutely no explanatory power.

I will play this game, too...."If you invent a mindless/blind process that can do anything, every question that we do not have an answer for yet can be answered with absolutely no explanatory power".

See that? All I did was replace my religion with yours (naturalism), and wound up with the same implication to you, that you wound up with to me.

If you simply attributed everything to the Great Pumpkin, that works just as well as any other god. That is because the process is useless.

I go where ever the evidence takes me. Plain and simple.

[For_The_Kingdom]

3. Natural (order, no agenda, purposeless)

So in a world full of playing cards floating around in the cosmos, are you saying that eventually, card houses will begin to formulate?

If no, then we ain't talking about the same kind of "order"...if yes, then your position goes against observational evidence and everything that we know about entropy.

But this won't surprise me with you, Bust Nak...since you are king of the "anything but God" approach.

So, the days leading up to today wasn't a countdown from past days to the present day?

Of course It is a countdown from past days to the present day, as opposed from a countdown from a day that is infinity far away.

Nonsense. If you can't countdown from a day that is infinitely far away, then an infinitely far away "future" day can't be reached.

You can't have it one way and not the other, because it is literally the same concept either way.

That's the point; of course it is incoherent, because it is analogous to an incoherent concept (a past eternal universe).

It is not analogous though. A past eternal universe does not involve any thing like counting down from infinity.

Nonsense...what is a "past eternal" universe, BUT an infinite amount of "days"? And second, if each past day was traversed, then each past day can be counted.

So you can reach infinity, taking one step at a time?

No, that's impossible.

So, we've reached today...how many days were traversed to arrive at today, sir?

But you can't count down ALL of the finite integers in the set and successfully arrive at zero.

Someone bad at math might not be able to, I don't have that problem. Name me a finite integer that you think I cannot count from to reach zero

Never mind counting down...I will make it even "easier" for you...count ALL of the integers in the numbers set..with the last integer counted being zero. Can you do that for me?

Let me know once you've counted all of the numbers in the set and zero is the only number which remains uncounted.

Handle that.

[For_The_Kingdom]

I guess evidence for #1 and #2 is too much to ask for.

You mean this #1 and #2?

1. Supernatural (order, agenda, purpose)
2. Natural (disorder, no agenda, purposeless)

You'd have to answer this question.





Tcg

Um, I meant whatever it was that I quoted...which looks nothing like what you quoted.

[postroad]

[Replying to post 111 by For_The_Kingdom]

Doesn't seem reasonable considering that time is a quality of the universe that had a beginning. Will the universe exist forever as well?