Is this a theistic or atheistic universe?

[harvey1]

When I first started debating with atheists many moons ago, I was actually surprised that there were atheists. The reason is because I sincerely thought the discovery of the big bang and all those cosmic coincidences sort of finished off atheism for good. After having come to see the atheists perspective, I've enjoyed looking at the world from both perspectives. I can see the world through the eyes of a theist, and I can see the world through the eyes of an atheist.

The atheist looks at the world, and sees it as WYSIWYG world. There's cruelity, tsunamis, supernovas destroying multiple worlds, natural selection where more than 99% of all species that lived are no longer here, and the huge time-lengths and spatial scales from the history of world since the big bang. In their eyes, things just sort of happen without any meaningful reason, at least one that would satisfy most of us when we look for answers to life's tragedies. (We should be grateful that there atheists and not jumping off buildings given their outlook!)

The theist looks at the world, and doesn't see WYSIWYG. The theist sees the beauty of the universe. A theist knows that things like chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, babies that cry for mama, blue sunny skies, majestic mountain ranges, the touch of a loving hand, the taste of water on a hot day, and so many other pleasures are not the result of a slot machine. The theist sees a unity in the world that indicates something Good is overseeing the world, and doesn't much get the atheist who simply ignores the beauty of the world and looks only at the grime which, although it exists, doesn't take away from the splendor of the beautiful world in which we live. The theist hears of news of cosmic coincidences in the origin of life and the physical universe with a smile. No surprise to the theist. An undesirable surprise to the atheist.

So, here's my question, what is it about the world that requires one to have a WYSIWYG view of it and what is it about the world that requires us to look deeper and find God? I realize that WYSIWYG is compelling if things are really that simple, but hasn't the world taught us already that nothing is as it appears? Why be so easily fooled by WYSIWYG?

[harvey1]

The instinct for spirituality has been in existence then for hundreds of thousands of years, yet today your good reasons to be a theist seem to stem from the cosmological argument:

The design argument is the long-standing argument for God. However, atheists have challenged this argument with regard to the universe by citing the anthropic principle, and this particular argument is defeated by cosmological and ontological arguments.

[Curious]

Although some branches of pantheism hold that the universe itself is identical with God and it's structure is not created by God but is God in the same way that your brain structure is "you".

The pantheist is not restricted that the material structure of the universe is self-sufficient. In fact, traditional pantheism (e.g., Taoism, Spinoza's pantheism, etc.) have metaphysical principles play a causative role in determining the existence of matter.

My point is that pantheists have many beliefs and it is not possible to generalise as such. While theists believe in God, it is not true that all theists believe in the same god or that they all believe their gods have the same attributes or intentions. Similarly, many pantheists have very different views as to what God really is.

[Curious]

The instinct for spirituality has been in existence then for hundreds of thousands of years, yet today your good reasons to be a theist seem to stem from the cosmological argument:

1. Everything that exists or begins to exist has a cause. The universe exists and began to exist.

2. The universe must have a cause.

3. The cause of the universe is God.

Is this a fair assessment of a theistic universe?

This is a fair assessment but the argument which leads to this is flawed. If we look at the first premise here, due to observation this should be
1.Everything that exists or begins to exist has a cause which also has a cause . The universe exists and began to exist.

We see here that if the original premise is corrected, the argument seems to be slightly less convincing. The use of only half an observation cannot really be used to formulate a valid logical argument.

[QED]

The design argument is the long-standing argument for God. However, atheists have challenged this argument with regard to the universe by citing the anthropic principle, and this particular argument is defeated by cosmological and ontological arguments.

Please link me up so I can check out this defeat. From what I understand of it Hawking's universal wave-function theory assigns numbers to all possible universes whereby all the numbers cancel out except for a universe like ours. This provides us with a near 100% probability of our universe being uncaused -- hence Atheistic. Is there a rebuttal of this that I have not seen?

[harvey1]

Please link me up so I can check out this defeat. From what I understand of it Hawking's universal wave-function theory assigns numbers to all possible universes whereby all the numbers cancel out except for a universe like ours. This provides us with a near 100% probability of our universe being uncaused -- hence Atheistic. Is there a rebuttal of this that I have not seen?

In the Hawking-Hartle and Hawking-Turok universe, our universe does not have a material cause (due to the statistical nature of quantum mechanics). However, there is an Aristotlean efficient cause (the wave-function equation) which is a probablistic cause and a Aristotlean final cause (the pantheistic God, namely a mathematical (platonic) universe that brings about order to the world).

This does not help the atheist cause since it smacks of pantheism. There is a tremendous unity in the world in terms of the wave function exploring out all modal possibilities of its actuality.

[QED]

Pantheism, Shmantheism! No material cause is good enough for me. You will always insert god into the equation so I will always point out that if god can exists without cause, so can a wavefunction. Nothing is solved by invoking something infinitely more complex than the universe itself uncaused.

[harvey1]

Pantheism, Shmantheism! No material cause is good enough for me. You will always insert god into the equation so I will always point out that if god can exists without cause, so can a wavefunction. Nothing is solved by invoking something infinitely more complex than the universe itself uncaused.

So, are you saying that you are fine with pantheism thereby making yourself an agnostic? Would you be prepared to tell all your friends and family that you are no longer an atheist?

[QED]

Pantheism, Shmantheism! No material cause is good enough for me. You will always insert god into the equation so I will always point out that if god can exists without cause, so can a wavefunction. Nothing is solved by invoking something infinitely more complex than the universe itself uncaused.

So, are you saying that you are fine with pantheism thereby making yourself an agnostic? Would you be prepared to tell all your friends and family that you are no longer an atheist?

OMG What have I done! Hold on, Shmantheism... I better Google that up and see what it means. No, it must be the "No material cause is good enough for me" that got you all excited. Well, you see there is nothing wrong in my mind with there being inevitable, immutable logic. Where we diverge is where you anthromorphize this into "mind" -- a very obvious fallacy to me, brought on by an inability to decouple the hammer from its world of nails.

[harvey1]

No, it must be the "No material cause is good enough for me" that got you all excited. Well, you see there is nothing wrong in my mind with there being inevitable, immutable logic. Where we diverge is where you anthromorphize this into "mind" -- a very obvious fallacy to me, brought on by an inability to decouple the hammer from its world of nails.

So, you are in effect saying that pantheism is okay with you. Why don't you then admit that you are an agnostic? Pantheism is not atheism, you do not reject pantheism, therefore you are an agnostic.

As for as the mind issue, just how does a wavefunction produce worlds if there is no mind? That is, why doesn't the wavefunction become like the old LP records which get stuck on a track? For example, imagine our H-H wavefunction is about to inistaniate the second world and suddenly it forgets that it already instantiated the first world. So, it keeps instantiating the first world over and over again. It never gets to instantiate the next probable world since it has no mind in place which makes it realize that it doesn't have to re-instantiate the first world again.

[Curious]

As for as the mind issue, just how does a wavefunction produce worlds if there is no mind? That is, why doesn't the wavefunction become like the old LP records which get stuck on a track? For example, imagine our H-H wavefunction is about to inistaniate the second world and suddenly it forgets that it already instantiated the first world. So, it keeps instantiating the first world over and over again. It never gets to instantiate the next probable world since it has no mind in place which makes it realize that it doesn't have to re-instantiate the first world again.

You have lost me on this one Harvey1. If we put marbles into a bag one at a time, we eventually get a bag full of marbles don't we? If I forget how many marbles I put in, it does not alter the number of marbles. If I put another marble in the bag, it will now contain one more marble than previously. How is a mind necessary in this example? The fact of placing a marble in the bag itself changes the final result even though each action of putting a single marble into the bag is in effect identical.