Is the god of the gaps a sound argument?

[Difflugia]

But a intelligent engineer can preset the dials to get the results that he wants.

An "intelligent designer" in the way Christian apologists define one can do anything at all. It's taking "I don't know" and assigning it to a god. Like I said, if you don't understand why that's insufficient, I'll start a new topic.

Do what you gotta do.

A number of posters, particularly in the Science and Religion forum, repeatedly offer what they think are arguments against scientific principles and present them as evidence for their particular conception of a god. This is informally known as "the god of the gaps."

Is the god of the gaps argument logically sound? If not, what changes must be made to such an argument to rescue it?

[Clownboat]

Christ is what I have to offer.

Will you accept?

Will you provide evidence that will separate Christ from the rest of our available god concepts?

No silly, birds are reptiles.

Sure, according to the theory.

I provided evidence. Your reply does not address it and yet you want me to accept what you offer. How strange.

Followers of Christ are Christians. Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and other Christian denominations all evolved from the belief in a single common person, Jesus Christ. In other words, all Christian denominations are more closely related to each other on the tree of Christianity than to any other monotheistic religion. We have historical evidence of Jesus' Resurrection.

This reply also fails to address the evidence I provided. I cannot accept what you offer unless you start doing better.

Evolution-Gospel.

This also fails to address the evidence I provided for my claims. I cannot accept what you offer as taking you seriously is a challenge already. Perhaps your God can assist you in debating. If so, I guarentee that it will be noticed how you all of a sudden start debating in place of throwing out claim after claim while ignoring your debate opponents.

The difference is I can supply evidence for my beliefs and I'm willing to change them.
You offer claims and a seeming unwillingness to alter your beliefs.

I have evidence for my beliefs too.

So you claim, but until you show otherwise, my words are correct.

Logically, something must first begin to exist before it can evolve. Evolution ONLY has to do with change. It does NOT have anything to do with how life arose. The truth is, we don't know how life arose.

In the grand scheme of things, this is precisely my point.

False. You clearly laid out your point and it was: "Well then, evolution is about origins."

Please show that you speak the truth.

Since I can detect the genuine sincerity in the way you talk, I'll engage you in this discussion...if you create an Abiogenesis/Evolution thread, where both can be discussed.

This is NOT you showing that you speak the truth. I'll will assume you cannot.
Feel free to start such a thread though. I'll see you there.

Natural selection is one of the basic mechanism of evolution.
Natural Selection
Natural selection is one of the basic mechanisms of evolution, along with mutation, migration, and genetic drift.
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolutio ... selection/

No. Natural selection doesn't create, it selects.

You need to re-read the words above, notice that it doesn't address creating and then try to make a valid response. The response you supplied is not valid.

Copy/paste to save time: "This is nothing but an empty claim. Please explain to us as to why this is the case. Perhaps your argument will be convincing and I'll need to amend my thinking?"

It ain't about convincing, as I said before.

It's as if you understand that you are not making convincing arguments and you just don't care. On a debate forum no less!

On a percentage scale...how convinced are you in the likelihood that a God exists?

Greater than 0%. Since we don't know how the universe came about, we cannot rule out beings that we might consider to be Gods. Do you have anything that might suggest that gods are real?

[SiNcE_1985]

Will you provide evidence that will separate Christ from the rest of our available god concepts?

I'll do my best.

I provided evidence. Your reply does not address it and yet you want me to accept what you offer. How strange.

I've said on more than one occasion that I have no desire to discuss/debate evolution, yet, the discussion is being forced upon me. How strange.

This reply also fails to address the evidence I provided. I cannot accept what you offer unless you start doing better.

Hey, you were kind enough to share your religion (evolution) with me, so I returned the favor by sharing mines (Christianity) with you.

No harm, no foul.

This also fails to address the evidence I provided for my claims. I cannot accept what you offer as taking you seriously is a challenge already. Perhaps your God can assist you in debating.

Perhaps your responses will evolve to become better, from simple to more complex argumentation

If so, I guarentee that it will be noticed how you all of a sudden start debating in place of throwing out claim after claim while ignoring your debate opponents.

I'm just not in an evolution mood nowadays.

The subject is boring to me. And my responses reflect it.

So you claim, but until you show otherwise, my words are correct.

I don't expect you to think any different.

False. You clearly laid out your point and it was: "Well then, evolution is about origins."

Um, no. I also laid out my point that Abiogenesis is also false...so Abiogenesis is the grand scheme of things.

But both are ultimately false, no matter how you put it.

Please show that you speak the truth.

This is NOT you showing that you speak the truth. I'll will assume you cannot.
Feel free to start such a thread though. I'll see you there.

Will you engage with me, via PM?

You need to re-read the words above, notice that it doesn't address creating and then try to make a valid response. The response you supplied is not valid.

My point was...natural selection is to evolution, what hot dogs and beer is to professional baseball.

Hot dogs and beer is associated with baseball, but it isn't part of the actual game, itself.

It's as if you understand that you are not making convincing arguments and you just don't care. On a debate forum no less!

No, it's like fighting Mike Tyson in his prime, even though you know the chances of you winning are slim.

But, you give it a shot anyway...you just may be able to pull off a Buster Douglas upset.

Greater than 0%. Since we don't know how the universe came about, we cannot rule out beings that we might consider to be Gods. Do you have anything that might suggest that gods are real?

Greater than 0% is anything from 1%-100%.

What is it?

[Difflugia]

Greater than 0%. Since we don't know how the universe came about, we cannot rule out beings that we might consider to be Gods. Do you have anything that might suggest that gods are real?

Greater than 0% is anything from 1%-100%.

What is it?

A value that asymptotically approaches zero, but is nonetheless not zero. Mathematically, this is often referred to as epsilon, an arbitrarily small, nonzero value. It's used in calculus a lot as the size of a slice of a function whose area under the curve is integrated from 0 to ∞.

If we think about the probability space for something, in this case, the various cosmological theories for the origin of the universe, we can assign probability values based on the evidence that we have for each. If we make a pie chart with each probability marked in the chart, then whatever's left over is the probability that the origin is something other than the ones we have evidence for and includes every made-up explanation that is otherwise identical to "I don't know." There are an infinity of made-up explanations, each of which has its own tiny slice. The gods are in there. No matter how big the overall space is that's devoted to "I don't know," each god shares the space with the infinite number of other made-up answers, all of them jostling with each other for their slice. Gods, leprechauns, and magic hats are all in that space, every one of them competing on even ground with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. The probability of each of those things is epsilon. The difference between 0 and epsilon is that infinity times zero is nothing, but infinity times epsilon is something.

That's the probability that a god did it: something divided by infinity.

[William]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #106]

Do you agree with P1?

Do I agree with P1?

The KCA, as traditionally presented, relies on a false order of premises that prioritizes assumptions about causality and beginnings over the observable reality of the universe itself. A logically sound version of the argument must begin with the premise "The universe exists" to ensure clarity and transparency. By doing so, it becomes clear that the KCA hinges on unstated assumptions about the nature of the universe, causality, and beginnings—assumptions that demand justification before reaching any conclusions.

Until these assumptions are clarified, I cannot agree with P1.

I define "The Universe" as the totality of all the space, time, matter, energy, and the physical laws and constants that govern this reality.

[SiNcE_1985]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #113]

Say all of that 10x fast.

The certainty I have of God existing is also greater than 0...which is 100%.

So now what?

[Clownboat]

Will you engage with me, via PM?

I'm sorry, but you have not earned that.
Luke 16:10 “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities."

Have you amended your thinking yet about how evolution doesn't have anything to do with how life might have originated?

[Clownboat]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #113]

Say all of that 10x fast.

The certainty I have of God existing is also greater than 0...which is 100%.

So now what?

Now what? The same as all along, which is: Your certainty of a thing means nothing. Being able to provide evidence or at least sound reasoning for the thing is what matters.

Here we are to debate. Street corners are for shouting at people what your beliefs are, which is all you are offering us here sadly. We get it, you have beliefs and your proud of them. You don't seem to want to debate, but you sure do love telling us what you believe. I'm sorry, but that just isn't interesting here on a debate platform.

I wish you would debate though, perhaps you have a perspective we haven't heard yet.

[SiNcE_1985]

Will you engage with me, via PM?

I'm sorry, but you have not earned that.

Say no more.

[SiNcE_1985]

Now what? The same as all along, which is: Your certainty of a thing means nothing. Being able to provide evidence or at least sound reasoning for the thing is what matters.

Here we are to debate. Street corners are for shouting at people what your beliefs are, which is all you are offering us here sadly. We get it, you have beliefs and your proud of them. You don't seem to want to debate, but you sure do love telling us what you believe. I'm sorry, but that just isn't interesting here on a debate platform.

I wish you would debate though, perhaps you have a perspective we haven't heard yet.

I don't have a perspective you haven't heard yet.

Now, how bout that?

[The Tanager]

Sort of, yes, but the point you're talking about is where the uncertainty principle butts up directly against the conservation of energy. From this page, we get this:

There is another consequence of the uncertainty principle for energy and time. If energy is uncertain by ΔE, then conservation of energy can be violated by ΔE for a time Δt. Neither the physicist nor nature can tell that conservation of energy has been violated, if the violation is temporary and smaller than the uncertainty in energy. While this sounds innocuous enough, we shall see in later chapters that it allows the temporary creation of matter from nothing and has implications for how nature transmits forces over very small distances.

Again, and I'll keep saying this, there are circumstances under which matter seems to appear in our universe without cause. There are some physicists that argue that it's not really without a cause, but any such theories are necessarily speculative because all of our experiments must necessarily take place inside of our universe; we don't have anywhere outside of the universe to use as a control.

The uncertainty principle leaves room for the possibility of violating the conservation of energy, but it doesn’t give us reason to think it actually does. Possibility is not enough for us to rationally conclude that matter seems to appear in our universe without cause. When comparing “everything that begins to exist has a cause” and “some things that begin to exist don't have a cause”, this possibility is not enough to reject the KCA’s first premise.

He can assert that, but his appeal is based on his own incredulity. Experimentally, premise 1 looks very likely to be false. It's possible it's true, but it's probably false.

No, it’s based on that, plus, the logic of ‘nothing’, plus all known scientific evidence. Why do you think premise 1 looks false, experimentally? What I just responded to? If so, all that shows is that it is possibly false, but not probably.

I don't know what you're talking about. This just looks like handwaving to me.

I don’t see how it is just hand waving. You are arguing that P1 is unfalsifiable. I’m questioning the basis for that. One, why, in principle, if something popped into existence uncaused, and was bigger than what the uncertainty principle covers, why we couldn’t scientifically test for that? Two, even if we couldn’t scientifically test for it, there are other ways to reach truth, such as philosophical arguments built off of science, history, etc., so why couldn’t such an argument like that falsify P1?

I’m not saying science is philosophy. I’m saying that you are making a philosophical statement about science. Starting with the reliability of science as an axiom is not a scientific move; it’s a philosophical one. And a bad one because it is pure assumption.

Is it, though? It seems empirically true. Do you have a reason why that's unreliable in some meaningful way?

Do you have scientific evidence that scientific evidence is true? If not, then what evidence do you have? “It seems” is too vague to be helpful.

But you don’t have to settle for that for the reliability of science, because a philosophical case can be made that this is the inference to the best explanation. Only then can science be meaningful in rational discussion (as it should be).

If you say so. It looks to me, though, like you're trying to make a philosophical argument based on a premise that's probably false.

Here, specifically, do you mean for the reliability of science? Or is this just restating your view about the KCA?

Logic doesn't rule that out, but a fallacious argument from personal incredulity would seem to.

I don’t see why this isn’t logic. Nothingness is the complete lack of anything positive whatsoever. It’s an absence. How can the absence of everything include something within itself (when there is no “self/thing”) to determine what will pop out of “it” (when it isn’t an it at all)? And if there is something outside of nothing making something happen “out of nothing,” then the nothing isn’t the cause because it is just a concept about how there was an absence of anything before the something made something happen.