Evidence for God #1

[DaveD49]

Two of the constant things I have heard from atheists on other sites is that first "There is no proof of God" and "There is no evidence for God". The first can be dismissed because to the total impossibility of there being "proof". The ONLY things that can be scientifically proven are within the universe. Anything outside of the universe or non-physical can only be theorized about, but NO "theory" is proof of anything. So, just as there can be no "proof" for God, nor can there be proof of alternate universes, membranes producing endless universes, etc. etc. In as far as the second assertion, that there is no evidence for God, that one is blatantly false as evidence for Him exists in many, many different categories. It is my intention to list some of them one at a time so as to get everyone's reaction as to the viability or lack thereof of the evidence presented. I realize that some, if not all, of these you have heard before and may have actually responded to. I already listed a few of the in a response to a earlier question, but I think that they will only get the attention they deserve if listed individually.

Topic for Debate: Do you agree or disagree with the following being evidence for the existence of God?
In answering please state clearly whether you agree or disagree
Your reasoning for doing so
Please rate from 1 to 10 with 10 being the strongest what you feel the strength of the evidence is.
If you have something further to add please let me know.

#1 The Existence of Scientific Laws

Everything about mathematics involves intelligence. One cannot add 1+1 without the intelligence to do so. Randomness cannot produce intelligence. No matter how many monkeys you have banging away on typewriters for whatever length of time, it is highly unlikely that any of them will ever produce the complete works of Shakespeare. They won’t produce even one of his sonnets. But even if they did that would be a semblance of intelligence, not the real thing. Intelligence would only be shown if the task could be repeated many times.

Therefore, the very existence of scientific LAWS, such as the Law of Gravity or the Law of Thermodynamics, is firm evidence of an intelligent being who is in some way responsible for the existence of everything. In our society are human laws just random words on a piece of paper? No. They show purpose and meaning which positively proves an intelligence behind them. In reality man-made "laws" are not laws at all, but rather rules which can be broken. However scientific laws can not be broken thus making them unlike civil laws. But they BOTH show a purpose. But in the case of scientific laws without them the universe could never exist. There is no reason why a universe created by randomness should be compelled to obey ANY laws, let alone display complex mathematics. Intelligence is absolutely necessary.

[William]

As you may recall, something from nothing is a logical absurdity, which is a gigantic step down from just having more than one unexplained.

Just how logically absurd is it though?

Consider the ‘logical absurdity’ of superposition (something being in two places at the same time), or of quantum entanglement (‘spooky action at a distance’) as described here.

It’s more truthful to say, “we observe quantum entanglement, but cannot fully explain it”, than to say it’s ’logically absurd’. I suggest ‘something from nothing’ should be treated in a similar fashion.

I think that superposition and quantum entanglement are part of the "something" and that they are thought of as strange, has to do with observations of the behavior of things not regarded as strange - whereas - the idea of "everything that exists coming from something which doesn't exist" does fit into "logical absurdity" in that we do not observe anything coming from nothing, nor can we observe 'nothing' in any fundamental manner.

Therefore, I do not see how we should treat these things in a similar fashion.

Even if we accepted that the existence of this universe is a "logical absurdity" - I still don't think we can treat the idea of nothing bringing it into existence as logical or sensible.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to William in post #131]

I'm not so sure about that. Remember that at one time, it was argued that it was impossible that people could live on the' underneath' of the earth because of course they would fall off. Made logical sense, but they had something to learn about gravity.

Similarly indeterminacy seemed utterly counter intuitive when it came out but it is beginning to make sense now. So something from Nothing, though counter -intuitive, can't be ruled out. We simply do not know. This means that cosmic origins is No evidence for God. It is just unexplained.

[JoeyKnothead]

...
But any natural "origin" needing an origin of its own undermines that case.

That same problem applies to supernatural origins as well.

We gotta remember, we observe an expansion of the universe and infer that expansion as coming from some smaller previous point, so we date the expansion, not the prior condition. Any attempt to declare how long that smaller point existed, whether eternal or not, has yet to be confirmed.

[DaveD49]

As you may recall, something from nothing is a logical absurdity, which is a gigantic step down from just having more than one unexplained.

Just how logically absurd is it though?

Consider the ‘logical absurdity’ of superposition (something being in two places at the same time), or of quantum entanglement (‘spooky action at a distance’) as described here.

It’s more truthful to say, “we observe quantum entanglement, but cannot fully explain it”, than to say it’s ’logically absurd’. I suggest ‘something from nothing’ should be treated in a similar fashion.

Excuse me for butting in, but just a comment... Diagoras with the quantum entanglement you are talking about THINGS which, however small they are, which already exist. It does not apply to the birth of the universe which had absolutely nothing to start from. If there was "something" then where did that something come from? No matter how far back you go with something caused this and then something caused that, the inevitable result will be the absolute need for a "first" cause that needed nothing else for its own existence, which means it could not be something physical. You cannot have an infinite number of causes because without a starting point there would be infinite nothingness.

[William]

[Replying to DaveD49 in post #134]

First causes only apply to things which have a beginning, and along an infinite line, beginnings
and ends occur as 'time' and the line becomes a series of 'timelines' which have been going on infinitely along/branching from infinities line.

Therefore, it can be said that timelines are finite, and they are an aspect of an infinite timeless line.

The infinite timeless line. has a series of begin/end lines popping in and out of it.

The infinite timeless line is in this sense, 'uncaused source of all caused things' and caused things have both a beginning and an end, unless they are caused not to end, but to branch out alongside/with the infinite timeless line.

Agreed?

[Diagoras]

[Replying to DaveD49 in post #134]

Something can be in two different places at once.

Entangled atoms can transfer information about their respective states faster than the ‘speed limit’ of the universe.

A month for you is the same as a week for me (when I’m moving very fast relative to you).

…

The universe is self-caused?

My point is that some things that we have discovered about the universe were at first glance, absurd and illogical. But they have been verified through experiment to be real properties. Wholly relying on logic would have set us back scientifically by many decades. So it seems prudent for cosmologists to keep working the problem.

[Purple Knight]

Then the indication is weak in that the evidence can only show that Bluey did it, not the Bluey didn't do it.

Right. That's all I'm saying. It's very weak evidence. Laws, order, and logic do indicate a creator. I concede that.

But very, very weakly because we can never look at the other side where there are no laws, rules, and order. It's the difference between saying, "Where there are swans, there's probably water," on a planet where there are sometimes swans and sometimes not, as well as sometimes water and not... and in saying that same thing when we've never and can never have the experience of being away from swans because we need them to breathe or some such thing. Laws, order, and logic are even more fundamental. We can't even look outside of them.

If there are chaos universes that do have creators, which is what we'd need to observe to falsify laws indicating designers, we can't know about that even if we could jump universes because we couldn't exist there.

So if we find 19 universes with laws, and 12 of them have designers, we think that's strong evidence that order and reason indicate a creator. But for all we know there are 27 chaos universes and only 2 of them had no designer. We can't see that 2nd half of the equation. Ever. Even with 100% of the information we could possibly gather.

Imagine having a jar of blue, green, yellow and red mice, and testing their intelligence, then saying that the smartest mice are probably not red, when we know the red mice are invisible and we have no way to test them.

[we can discard the idea that no crime was committed, right?]

In the analogy I didn't mean for that, but in the situation for which I'm constructing the analogy it's not only possible that the universe was created but not by anything intelligent, but that it didn't need to be created at all because it's always been.

What are your thoughts on the following statement;

In order for justice to be fair, fairness has to be just.

I would say that follows but I think justice, like law, is simply codified morality and I don't think you can always have both. If you make it like this: In order for justice to be fair as much as possible, fairness has to be just as much as possible. ...then I agree with it completely.

And I think if you have to pick, the call has to be morality/justice. Even if that's not fair.

For example, let's say we have a collapse scenario. The excrement hits the fan, so to speak. You have a small group of people barely surviving. This group is struggling to take care of the children and babies it has, and it has determined that it would be a massive hardship for any more babies to be born right now, so the elders tell the women not to get pregnant because the group just doesn't have the resources. Maybe in 1-2 years. And you have these two women, Mary, who already has a 1-year-old and doesn't work very hard. The other, Molly, has no children, is in the last reproductive few years of her life, and has done everything possible for this group, and desperately wants a baby. Mary goes against the elders and gets pregnant. If the group doesn't let her baby starve, this will not only mean immense hardship, it will also mean Molly never gets a baby.

Letting Mary's baby starve is not morality, and it is unjust, because the baby didn't do anything wrong.

Damning Molly, the harder worker who obeys the elders, to never have any baby because Mary disobeyed, and rewarding Mary, is not fair to Molly.

Sometimes you can't have both justice and fairness, mainly in situations where individualism doesn't accurately describe everything, and/or someone has already broken a rule and the only way to compensate those who followed the rule and make them equal to the one who broke it would be to allow an injustice.

I honestly think this is where the conservative/liberal divide is. Conservatives will select fairness while liberals will select justice and morality.

[Athetotheist]

As you may recall, something from nothing is a logical absurdity, which is a gigantic step down from just having more than one unexplained.

Just how logically absurd is it though?

Consider the ‘logical absurdity’ of superposition (something being in two places at the same time), or of quantum entanglement (‘spooky action at a distance’) as described here.

It’s more truthful to say, “we observe quantum entanglement, but cannot fully explain it”, than to say it’s ’logically absurd’. I suggest ‘something from nothing’ should be treated in a similar fashion.

When you observe superpositioning or quantum entanglement, you're starting with something, which isn't in the same league with trying to get to something by starting with nothing.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #132

Similarly indeterminacy seemed utterly counter intuitive when it came out but it is beginning to make sense now. So something from Nothing, though counter -intuitive, can't be ruled out. We simply do not know. This means that cosmic origins is No evidence for God. It is just unexplained.

I submit that a creator is counter-intuitive but not logically absurd, while something from nothing is "counter-intuitive" and logically absurd.

[Athetotheist]

...
But any natural "origin" needing an origin of its own undermines that case.

That same problem applies to supernatural origins as well.

We gotta remember, we observe an expansion of the universe and infer that expansion as coming from some smaller previous point, so we date the expansion, not the prior condition. Any attempt to declare how long that smaller point existed, whether eternal or not, has yet to be confirmed.

We may apply causality to a creator after applying it to the universe, but we can't apply causality to a creator instead of applying it to the universe.