The existence of the universe requires a god

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 136 here:

...
The universe could not exist in the form that it is in unless there was an omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient God.
...

For debate:

Please offer some means to confirm the referenced claim is true and factual.

[Difflugia]

By any reasonable standard, though, it's impossible for dead people to come back to life.

How does one decide what is a "reasonable standard"?

Pick one. Statistical odds of one in a million? One in a billion? One in a trillion? We have no verifiable reports of anyone dead coming back to life. I put some back-of-the-envelope numbers to it in this thread and further argued definitions in this thread, but it doesn't really matter what the "reasonable standard" is as long as we stick to it.

Perhaps your argument will be different, but nearly every apologetics argument I've seen that hinges on "possible" turns into equivocation followed by a slippery slope. "Possible" is first invoked in an "anything's possible" sense, but then it subtly shifts definition to become "possible" in the sense that it statistically might happen within this universe. If it's conceptually possible, then who are any of us to say that God didn't do it? Therefore, He did. Pick any standard and stick to it. If your bar is too low ("anything's possible"), then the resurrection is possible, but so are other made-up things, the stereotype being invisible unicorns. If the bar is too high, then the resurrection fails immediately because all we have is a story against no verified resurrections ever. The Christian argument can only succeed through sleight-of-hand.

As I said elsewhere by any reasonable standard Newton was correct about time and space yet was found to be wrong, therefore the reasonable standard was misleading and people were misled.

You're already sliding into equivocation and slippery slope territory. "Newton was wrong" doesn't use the same definition of "wrong" that we use in other situations. The differences between the Newtonian and relativistic calculations for the moon landing differ by a half inch, which means he was correct to ten decimal places. Who did that mislead and under what circumstances?

The "reasonable standard" is simply extrapolation, attributing to the general case what has been established from the special case, we do this all the time, there's nothing inherently wrong or unreasonable about doing it, I do it we all do, but one must be careful about then objecting to claims that run counter to the reasonable standard, such claims might very well be true.

This again is the embodiment of shifting definitions and the slippery slope. "Possible" in the "anything's possible" sense is not the same as "might very well be true." Invisible unicorns "might very well" exist? Not by most people's definitions of "might very well." If that's the kind of hill you're standing on, all you have to do is define your standard when you start. In fact, I'd say that if your claim hinges on the exact definition of "possible" (let alone requires it to remain undefined), you may need to rethink your argument.

Is it possible that it will rain tomorrow? Sure. That I'll win the lottery? Maybe, especially if I bought a ticket. That space men from the twelfth dimension will bring me a space cake and space ice cream? Not so much. Ballpark where on the scale you think returning from the dead fits and we can skip a bunch of the socratic nonsense.

[brunumb]

Is it possible that it will rain tomorrow? Sure. That I'll win the lottery? Maybe, especially if I bought a ticket.

To four decimal places, the probability than you will win Lotto is the same whether you buy a ticket or not.

[Sherlock Holmes]

By any reasonable standard, though, it's impossible for dead people to come back to life.

How does one decide what is a "reasonable standard"?

Pick one.

OK - anything is possible in principle unless we can prove without question that it is not.

Statistical odds of one in a million? One in a billion? One in a trillion?

So extremely rare events are to be regarded as an impossibility?

We have no verifiable reports of anyone dead coming back to life.

How do you know? how could you verify a report that was written, say, 2,000 years ago? If Christ did rise from the dead, what options would witnesses have to create a "verifiable report"? what would you have done back then, had you witnessed such an event?

I put some back-of-the-envelope numbers to it in this thread and further argued definitions in this thread, but it doesn't really matter what the "reasonable standard" is as long as we stick to it.

Perhaps your argument will be different, but nearly every apologetics argument I've seen that hinges on "possible" turns into equivocation followed by a slippery slope. "Possible" is first invoked in an "anything's possible" sense, but then it subtly shifts definition to become "possible" in the sense that it statistically might happen within this universe. If it's conceptually possible, then who are any of us to say that God didn't do it? Therefore, He did. Pick any standard and stick to it. If your bar is too low ("anything's possible"), then the resurrection is possible, but so are other made-up things, the stereotype being invisible unicorns. If the bar is too high, then the resurrection fails immediately because all we have is a story against no verified resurrections ever. The Christian argument can only succeed through sleight-of-hand.

Well I'd rather not deviate from what we're discussing. Rare events do happen, furthermore rare events driven by an intelligent agency rather than naturalistic (deterministic) laws would never satisfy a standard based on naturalistic laws.

In short one must keep a truly open mind, rather than try to force our beliefs about realty upon that reality.

As I said elsewhere by any reasonable standard Newton was correct about time and space yet was found to be wrong, therefore the reasonable standard was misleading and people were misled.

You're already sliding into equivocation and slippery slope territory. "Newton was wrong" doesn't use the same definition of "wrong" that we use in other situations. The differences between the Newtonian and relativistic calculations for the moon landing differ by a half inch, which means he was correct to ten decimal places. Who did that mislead and under what circumstances?

Is: 1 = 2 wrong? hugely wrong? slightly wrong? right perhaps?

The "reasonable standard" is simply extrapolation, attributing to the general case what has been established from the special case, we do this all the time, there's nothing inherently wrong or unreasonable about doing it, I do it we all do, but one must be careful about then objecting to claims that run counter to the reasonable standard, such claims might very well be true.

This again is the embodiment of shifting definitions and the slippery slope. "Possible" in the "anything's possible" sense is not the same as "might very well be true." Invisible unicorns "might very well" exist? Not by most people's definitions of "might very well." If that's the kind of hill you're standing on, all you have to do is define your standard when you start. In fact, I'd say that if your claim hinges on the exact definition of "possible" (let alone requires it to remain undefined), you may need to rethink your argument.

Yes I agree, the harsh reality is then that we simply cannot ever really know if some event is or is not possible, that's the problem. If you want to live in a manufactured reality that gives you a degree of comfort by allowing you put things into one of two categories "possible" and "impossible" then that's your choice but it is artificial.

Is it possible that it will rain tomorrow? Sure. That I'll win the lottery? Maybe, especially if I bought a ticket. That space men from the twelfth dimension will bring me a space cake and space ice cream? Not so much. Ballpark where on the scale you think returning from the dead fits and we can skip a bunch of the socratic nonsense.

Is it possible for life to emerge from inert matter? is it possible for a universe governed by deeply intricate mathematical laws to just appear? is it possible for laws to arise without that process itself being governed by laws?

If you claim yes, these things are possible then surely anything less than that is also possible by extension?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #69]

The absence of evidence to the contrary does not serve as proof either, if it does then on what basis does the atheist object to claims about the supernatural? I could argue "we have yet to find any reason to believe that God does not exist".

This atheist objects to claims about the supernatural on the simple basis that the supernatural has never been demonstrated to exist at any time in any form. I see no point point in imagining that a supernatural entity of any type exists until at least one instance of such an entity has been demonstrated. If that happens in a manner that convinces me, I'll change my mind.

The absence of a counter example is not the same as the presence of an example, you made a claim and seem to have no basis for it.

The basis for my claim that no human has came back to life once genuinely dead is the lack of even one verified example of this actually happening. I asked you to provide such an example, which would negate my claim. But your response was to imply I have no basis for the claim, rather than providing the "presence of an example."

Yet it is you who wrote "A (genuinely) dead person coming back to life has never been observed in the history of humankind" that is what you claimed and you have no evidence yet expect it to be respected as it if had evidence, once again just because one cannot prove the non-existence of something does not allow us to make such assertions.

You're asking me to prove a negative again. What evidence could possibly be presented to confirm that no dead person has ever came back to life? On the other hand, all you have to provde to negate my claim is an example of just one dead person who was confirmed to have become living again once genuinely dead. You're asking me for the impossible, and I'm asking you for just one example.

No, I do not believe one should believe that nothing behaves rationally, I also never suggested that so this is a strawman. It is clear I think that someone in the past could have observed a dead person returning to life, if they had they might have tried to record what they saw to so that others could be made aware, do you think such a record could be regarded as evidence?

You said: "... one of these beliefs is that what we've observed to be the case in the past must also be the case in the future", and suggested that this is an axiom which can lead to the conclusion that the dead cannot be made to live again. It can also lead to countless other conclusions that derive from past observations which are then used to predict future behavior. It is how a great deal of science works as well as everyday activities. I'm about to head to the grocery store for some items that I expect to be available for purchase because every time I've been there in the past these items have been present, and I expect to drive there along the same roads I've used in the past on the assumption that these roads are also still present.

If someone in the past observed a dead person returning to life, and produced a record of it, I'd want to have this highly unusual and very unexpected event be corroborated by other people and/or methods comtemporary with the person making the record. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I disagree, Newtons claims about the nature of time and observers has been proven completely false, predictions arising from it contradict what we observe, this is called falsification.

The equation: 1 = 2 is false is it not? or would you argue it is not completely false?

And who decides what "accurately enough" means? one the one hand Newton stands falsified and on the other you hand he has not - please make up your mind.

I agree that 1 = 2 is "completely" false. But I don't agree that Newton's accomplishments are "completely" false. We use them every day in many areas and they work just fine. The fact that he didn't conceive of Special and General Relativity 300 years before Einstein and incorporate those results does not falsify what Newton did in the areas of mechanics, optics, astronomy, etc. His amazing accomplishments put him among the top scientists to have ever lived. If anyone could come back from the dead, I sure hope it would be someone like Newton.

Accurately enough depends on what you are talking about. If you're at the drag strip trying to determine a winner then a clock accurate to 0.1 ms is fine, but if you're punching a time clock at work then an accuracy 10,000 times worse is probably OK. Newtonian mechanics is adequate for nearly all of the oridinary, everyday things people do. If the GPS they use requires relativistic corrections to the satellite data we know how to do that thanks to Einstein. But this doesn't make Newtonian mechanics "completely false."

... but pretending claims that have not been proven false are the same as truths is the very thing the atheist objects to in theism yet here you are advocating the very same thing!

No ... I'm simply arguing that Newtonian mechanics is not "completely" false. If that were the case it would have zero applicability, and that is very clearly not the case.

I'll try again, an assumption whether it has no basis or a huge basis, is still an assumption, Newton had a huge basis yet was wrong, so this is something we need to be aware of at all times when making general claims about what we think reality is.

Newton wasn't "wrong" ... his work was just updated as new information and new observational capability became available. This is how all of science works.

[Purple Knight]

This atheist objects to claims about the supernatural on the simple basis that the supernatural has never been demonstrated to exist at any time in any form.

I wonder about claims like this being definitional and tautological. I'm not saying they are, I'm saying I have to wonder because if someone could demonstrate something, wouldn't it cease to be supernatural at all and come into the realm of the natural?

In other words, if I go and kill God and bring you his corpse and we dissect it together, record it on video, document it and catalogue it and organise the pieces and place them in formaldehyde, the claim that such an entity existed is no longer cryptozoology; it becomes regular zoology because the thing is now properly catalogued and recorded.

In a universe with magic, isn't magic natural as long as it performs logically and with respect to some sort of laws?

[brunumb]

In a universe with magic, isn't magic natural as long as it performs logically and with respect to some sort of laws?

The way I see it, behaving logically according to some sort of laws seems to contradict the notion of magic.

[Difflugia]

OK - anything is possible in principle unless we can prove without question that it is not.

That's fine. That puts belief in resurrections in the same class as believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. I agree, so there's not much to debate.

So extremely rare events are to be regarded as an impossibility?

I guess we're not done with the socratic nonsense. Yes.

We have no verifiable reports of anyone dead coming back to life.

How do you know? how could you verify a report that was written, say, 2,000 years ago?

We couldn't. That's why reports from antiquity aren't verifiable. If resurrection were a thing, though, we should also expect reports from a more recent era under circumstances that we could trust as verified.

If Christ did rise from the dead, what options would witnesses have to create a "verifiable report"? what would you have done back then, had you witnessed such an event?

From two thousand years ago that are acceptable now? None that I can think of. No evidence is still no evidence, but we can do statistical analysis. We have zero verified reports of resurrection compared to many verified reports of fictional stories about resurrections.

Well I'd rather not deviate from what we're discussing. Rare events do happen,

Winning the lottery rare, struck by lightning rare, or Santa Claus being real rare? This is the equivocation at the top of the slippery slope.

furthermore rare events driven by an intelligent agency rather than naturalistic (deterministic) laws would never satisfy a standard based on naturalistic laws.

In order for this to be relevant, you'd have to support in some way that God defies statistical analysis. We have no verified resurrections at all, whether natural or divine. As far as we can tell, even God doesn't bring people back from the dead, or at least not when anyone's looking. Maybe He's like Bigfoot and only resurrects people in the presence of really blurry cameras.

In short one must keep a truly open mind, rather than try to force our beliefs about realty upon that reality.

So, your argument for Christianity is that atheists should be more credulous? That sounds about right.

You're already sliding into equivocation and slippery slope territory. "Newton was wrong" doesn't use the same definition of "wrong" that we use in other situations. The differences between the Newtonian and relativistic calculations for the moon landing differ by a half inch, which means he was correct to ten decimal places. Who did that mislead and under what circumstances?

Is: 1 = 2 wrong? hugely wrong? slightly wrong? right perhaps?

That's exactly the shifting definition of "wrong" I was talking about along with a slippery slope so steep we have to use a logarithmic scale.

To keep perspective, you're arguing that because Newtonian physics differs from General Relativity by one part in ten billion, you're justified in claiming that people sometimes come back from the dead.

Yes I agree, the harsh reality is then that we simply cannot ever really know if some event is or is not possible, that's the problem. If you want to live in a manufactured reality that gives you a degree of comfort by allowing you put things into one of two categories "possible" and "impossible" then that's your choice but it is artificial.

You're the one that keeps trying to frame the argument in binary terms of possible and impossible. The discussion is much more interesting when it's framed in terms of probabilities. Quantifying data makes it much more difficult to hide the equivocation, though.

Is it possible for life to emerge from inert matter? is it possible for a universe governed by deeply intricate mathematical laws to just appear? is it possible for laws to arise without that process itself being governed by laws?

If you claim yes, these things are possible then surely anything less than that is also possible by extension?

I suppose that tu quoque is at least a different fallacy. Now try for an argument that isn't fallacious at all.

Even so, if the dead Jesus had a billion or so years in an anoxic environment, then your argument might be applicable in principle. I'm pretty sure he didn't.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #75]

I'm saying I have to wonder because if someone could demonstrate something, wouldn't it cease to be supernatural at all and come into the realm of the natural?

Exactly! If a god being were to make itself known in some way that is tangible and real (to me), I'd cease to believe that gods don't exist. If a truly dead person were to come back to life and this was a confirmed event then I'd accept that dead people can (via whatever mechanism caused this to happen) indeed come back to life. But the hurdle in showing that something has transitioned from the realm of the supernatural to the realm of the natural seems to be a very high one that has yet to be cleared when it comes to gods and resurrections and the like.

There are lots of examples of phenomena once thought to be caused by supernatural action that are now well explained by science and not even discussed in those terms now (thunder and lightning, volcanic eruptions, famines, plagues, etc.). But I don't think the existence of gods, or resurrection from the dead, have crossed that barrier yet and transitioned into the realm of the natural, because they have not been demonstrated.

[Sherlock Holmes]

[Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #69]

The absence of evidence to the contrary does not serve as proof either, if it does then on what basis does the atheist object to claims about the supernatural? I could argue "we have yet to find any reason to believe that God does not exist".

This atheist objects to claims about the supernatural on the simple basis that the supernatural has never been demonstrated to exist at any time in any form. I see no point point in imagining that a supernatural entity of any type exists until at least one instance of such an entity has been demonstrated. If that happens in a manner that convinces me, I'll change my mind.

That claim is unsupported by evidence, how can you show that "the supernatural has never been demonstrated to exist at any time in any form" I think the only rational claim you could make is that you have never experienced anything that you regard as evidence for the supernatural.

The absence of a counter example is not the same as the presence of an example, you made a claim and seem to have no basis for it.

The basis for my claim that no human has came back to life once genuinely dead is the lack of even one verified example of this actually happening. I asked you to provide such an example, which would negate my claim. But your response was to imply I have no basis for the claim, rather than providing the "presence of an example."

You are again extrapolating your subjective experiences and reasoning to the status of a universal truth, your statement is one of personal belief nothing more.

Yet it is you who wrote "A (genuinely) dead person coming back to life has never been observed in the history of humankind" that is what you claimed and you have no evidence yet expect it to be respected as it if had evidence, once again just because one cannot prove the non-existence of something does not allow us to make such assertions.

You're asking me to prove a negative again. What evidence could possibly be presented to confirm that no dead person has ever came back to life? On the other hand, all you have to provde to negate my claim is an example of just one dead person who was confirmed to have become living again once genuinely dead. You're asking me for the impossible, and I'm asking you for just one example.

If you are making assertions that you cannot prove then don't object when I call you out for that, it matters not why you can't prove it, what matters is that you cannot prove it, it is a belief nothing more.

No, I do not believe one should believe that nothing behaves rationally, I also never suggested that so this is a strawman. It is clear I think that someone in the past could have observed a dead person returning to life, if they had they might have tried to record what they saw to so that others could be made aware, do you think such a record could be regarded as evidence?

You said: "... one of these beliefs is that what we've observed to be the case in the past must also be the case in the future", and suggested that this is an axiom which can lead to the conclusion that the dead cannot be made to live again. It can also lead to countless other conclusions that derive from past observations which are then used to predict future behavior. It is how a great deal of science works as well as everyday activities. I'm about to head to the grocery store for some items that I expect to be available for purchase because every time I've been there in the past these items have been present, and I expect to drive there along the same roads I've used in the past on the assumption that these roads are also still present.

If someone in the past observed a dead person returning to life, and produced a record of it, I'd want to have this highly unusual and very unexpected event be corroborated by other people and/or methods comtemporary with the person making the record. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

It doesn't matter what you'd "want". The fact is that such an event could have occurred and then not recorded in a way or to a standard that you demand, that obviously does not mean such an event never occurred only that it could have and you are not satisfied by what remains, again this is all about your subjective view of reality.

I disagree, Newtons claims about the nature of time and observers has been proven completely false, predictions arising from it contradict what we observe, this is called falsification.

The equation: 1 = 2 is false is it not? or would you argue it is not completely false?

And who decides what "accurately enough" means? one the one hand Newton stands falsified and on the other you hand he has not - please make up your mind.

I agree that 1 = 2 is "completely" false. But I don't agree that Newton's accomplishments are "completely" false. We use them every day in many areas and they work just fine. The fact that he didn't conceive of Special and General Relativity 300 years before Einstein and incorporate those results does not falsify what Newton did in the areas of mechanics, optics, astronomy, etc. His amazing accomplishments put him among the top scientists to have ever lived. If anyone could come back from the dead, I sure hope it would be someone like Newton.

Well as you are aware then science does not use terms like "completely false" (I used that term) it instead says "falsified" and Newtonian celestial mechanics has been falsified yet there was a time when even to doubt Newton would have led to one being laughed out of the room.

I'm sure you do understand what I'm driving at here, it is that despite being very very very confident that we understand, that we have masses and masses of supporting evidence, we can still be wrong and at a very deep and fundamental level. Past successes of a theory are no guarantee to future success. So do not use the past and experiences of it and patterns derived from it, to imply that the future must be in harmony with those patterns.

Accurately enough depends on what you are talking about. If you're at the drag strip trying to determine a winner then a clock accurate to 0.1 ms is fine, but if you're punching a time clock at work then an accuracy 10,000 times worse is probably OK. Newtonian mechanics is adequate for nearly all of the oridinary, everyday things people do. If the GPS they use requires relativistic corrections to the satellite data we know how to do that thanks to Einstein. But this doesn't make Newtonian mechanics "completely false."

You seem to want to use the scientific method when it suits you and dismiss it when it does not. Newton was completely wrong about the natural world, it is non-Euclidean, time and space observations can differ based on the situation of the observer, Newtonian mechanics asserts the opposite, absolutely incompatible. So yes we can discuss the utility of these theories and argue that because Newton's has a great deal of utility then he was not wrong, but theoretical physics is not concerned with utility that's for the engineer.

... but pretending claims that have not been proven false are the same as truths is the very thing the atheist objects to in theism yet here you are advocating the very same thing!

No ... I'm simply arguing that Newtonian mechanics is not "completely" false. If that were the case it would have zero applicability, and that is very clearly not the case.

I'll try again, an assumption whether it has no basis or a huge basis, is still an assumption, Newton had a huge basis yet was wrong, so this is something we need to be aware of at all times when making general claims about what we think reality is.

Newton wasn't "wrong" ... his work was just updated as new information and new observational capability became available. This is how all of science works.

If two models of nature are used to predict the future state of a system and one generates a prediction that is extremely close to what we observe and the other generates a prediction that is clearly at odds with observation, then surely that latter model is what most people would label "wrong"?

Newton was wrong, nature really does seem to adhere to a non-Euclidean 4D geometry, surely you must agree with this? If Newton says nature does not adhere to a non-Euclidean 4D geometry when we can see that it does, then Newton is very obviously wrong!

[Sherlock Holmes]

In a universe with magic, isn't magic natural as long as it performs logically and with respect to some sort of laws?

The way I see it, behaving logically according to some sort of laws seems to contradict the notion of magic.

No it does not actually. The very presence of laws cannot be attributed to laws, it can only be attributed to something that is not law, that is will, intent, magic if you will.