The All-Powerful Creator

[nebula]

Which one is ignoring you Nebula, the Swede or the other?

Viole

Oh no Nebula! Sorry, sorry, sorry. I am not ignoring you! I know you are a good person and prayed for me and trying to help. And I do not forget...

But I am very stressed at the moment, lots of travels and meetings. I have not listened to your songs yet :-(

I will do it ASAP and come back to you. Promised

Hi -

Just reminding you that you promised.

[LuftWaffle]

The problem is that all of this cannot be proven neither logically nor empirically, and therefore

cannot be plugged into a syllogism that intends to prove universe's causation. The Kalam

arguments makes too many unproven assumptions (that might, nevertheless, be true) to deduce

a sort of theorem, and I do not think that this is legit.

I'd say one would have to have a pretty strong bias to argue premise 1 of the KCA makes 'too many unproven assumtions'. Fact is all the emprical data that we have at our disposal and all our life experiences shows that things that begin to exist have causes. In fact I'd say that apart from speculations about the universe, no rational person will in their day to day lives expect things to happen without a cause and for no reason.

If I program my computer to generate random letters, It will eventually generate a sequence

of letters that corresponds to all Shakespeare's work.

Are we allowed to say that this highly complex work has been caused?

If yes, then we must admit that random processes can generate low entropy (highly ordered) structures

If no, then we have to accept that highly ordered things can be uncaused

Hang on, you say that you program a computer to generate random letters which ultimately corresponds to all Shakespear's work. How does it follow that the end result is uncaused? The way you've used programming and generation in the context refers to causation? And going along with the analogy, would one get an answer if one asked, "What caused the Shakespear novels?" indeed one would. "A computer did it" would be the correct reply.

...And if one asked, "Who programmed the computer?" then "Viole" would be the correct reply.

I can for instance imagine a timeless Metaverse consisting of an actual infinite set of

random events...

Many people can imagine lots of things. Why are materialist's imaginings acceptable, but theist's beliefs not? You take it on FAITH, that there is some mysterious timeless metaverse out there that randomly produces universes. And ofcourse I have to say, the reason you need multiple often unlivable universes is to increase the probabilistic pool of universes so that you can have atleast one that's fine tuned, so that you can have an answer for the teleological argument.

Just pause for a second, and think about the fanciful things that is necessary for you to be an atheist? You need causation, one of the most basic laws upon which much of our knowledge is based to somehow break down at some point in the past. Time itself must alter. That the cause of the universe is either 'nothing' or a timeless metaverse (depending on whether you're trying to refute the cosmological argument or the teleological argument)

That this unobservable and mysterious metaverse spews multiple chaotic universes into existence, which also cannot be observed, may not be explained and the governing rules of which are totally unfathomable. You believe in woman's rights yet you think at all people are mere aggregates of particles, and that reason and meaning and life and morality can emerge from non-reason, non-meaning, non-life and non-morality, purely by chance and the blind, pityless indifference of physical processes.

...Or you can believe in God. Just God, that's it.

C'mon Viole. Honestly!

I wonder what atheists would say if Christians had to come up with such ideas...

There is a LOOONG process, before we can logically say:

1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause

2) The universe begins to exist

3) The universe has a cause

...

100) The cause is one

Hold on, the KCA isn't meant to conclude a specific type or quantity of God/s and the fact is whether there is one God or a thousand, your atheism is refuted either way, so this point is as irrelevant as cheese.

1050) The cause is conscious

See my previous post. Basically if the cause is unconscious and the necessary and suffient conditions for making a universe has existed eternally, then the universe would have already existed for an eternity.

1000000) The cause has a Son who died for our sins

Again, the KCA isn't meant to be a proof for the passion of Christ. It's a proof for the existence of what's called the 'minimalist definition of God'.

and we are still stuck on 3)...

And you probably will be for a very very long time as long as you keep offering imagined proofs for the unvalidness of premise 1 or 2 is invalid.

No proof can withstand a stubborn person's will, so what is your point really? That because you don't find the argument compelling, it therefore isn't compelling? Surely you know better, Viole

Recently I became a fan of eternalism. This is probably due to my admiration for the theory

of relativity (and a geometric approach to reality) and my studies on differential manifolds.

For an eternalist, our universe is a big 4-dimensional block (geometric entity) which does

not evolve, was not born, will not die, but simply exists in a a-temporal way. This universe

consists of space and time as a whole, including all the events that took place and the ones that

will. If I could see this universe from the outside I will see everything that happened and that will happen,

at a glance. It is a bit like God, just I cannot change or influence anything in it.

For such a static a-temporal entity, there is no need to look for a causation principle.

I'm not at all familiar with this idea, so I can't comment apart from saying that this idea, just like any other will need to deal with the evidence that the universe had a beginning. I'm not sure how the Block-Universe idea stands up to scrutiny, or why precisely it is exempted from us asking, "What caused the block universe?"

Edited March 8, 2011 by LuftWaffle

[MorningGlory]

If I program my computer to generate random letters, It will eventually generate a sequence

of letters that corresponds to all Shakespeare's work.

Can you prove this.....with numbers?

I can for instance imagine a timeless Metaverse consisting of an actual infinite set of

random events. This will contain an infinite number of ordered islands that could generate

ordered universes with a clearly defined time arrow. This could also explain why

the constants of Nature are so finely tuned for life in our Universe: we just happen to

live in one of those that has this constants

.

You are blessed with a vivid imagination.

Recently I became a fan of eternalism. This is probably due to my admiration for the theory

of relativity (and a geometric approach to reality) and my studies on differential manifolds.

For an eternalist, our universe is a big 4-dimensional block (geometric entity) which does

not evolve, was not born, will not die, but simply exists in a a-temporal way.

It 'just exists'? Where did it come from? Who put it here? Surely you are a better thinker than that.

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

This doesn’t suggest that outside the temporal frame effects have causes – it suggests nothing about what’s beyond the temporal frame, except that the cause of the temporal frame must have come from that which transcends the space-time frame and the limits thereof (space and time, leading to immaterial and timelessness of the cause).

I really have problems to follow your line of reasoning.

Of course you do. You dismiss the immaterial and logic is immaterial. How could you follow what you reject?

I think you are contradicting yourself.

I'm not.

How can you say that this does not suggest that outside the temporal frame effects have causes,

and in the same sentence state that the temporal frame has one cause for sure?

Because we know from the properties of the temporal frame that a transcendent cause was needed because the temporal frame is insufficient to account for the cause, ergo the necessity of the cause being transcendent of the temporal frame.

But just because we can see that the temporal frame must have been caused by an immaterial cause, doesn't mean that cause and effect applies outside the temporal frame.

Think of it this way, cause and effect is a principle that applies to the material universe. If you transcend the temporal frame, you could possibly transcend that law, but regardless, if something that transcended the temporal frame (free from the law of cause and effect) interacted with the temporal frame, the temporal frame is still bound by the law and would be effected by the interaction, which would then be labled a cause (because of the constraints of the temporal frame).

It's the about the modal properties we can establish here that we can make these deductions.

Where else could time frame have been generated if not outside itself?

No where else.

That's why I have to be right, because time had to originate outside of time, and material outside the material, since neither time nor matter are eternal.

Edited March 8, 2011 by OldEnglishSheepdog

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

Recently I became a fan of eternalism.

It must have been pretty recently, hey? You feed your sons dinner, they feed you Dennett, and then you become a fan of eternalism.

Your husband must be just blown away with the changes, hey?

This is probably due to my admiration for the theory

of relativity (and a geometric approach to reality) and my studies on differential manifolds.

For an eternalist, our universe is a big 4-dimensional block (geometric entity) which does

not evolve, was not born, will not die, but simply exists in a a-temporal way. This universe

consists of space and time as a whole, including all the events that took place and the ones that

will. If I could see this universe from the outside I will see everything that happened and that will happen,

at a glance. It is a bit like God, just I cannot change or influence anything in it.

For such a static a-temporal entity, there is no need to look for a causation principle.

Interestingly enough, this hypothesis rejects all of the evidence. It's built on nothing but counter-intuitive speculation which rejects the observable causation principle we all experience, and therefore would necessarily deny the methods of scientific investigation itself. There would be no reason whatsoever to suppose that there could by any consistency to such a universe.

"The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good. The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any that act wisely, that seek after God. They have all gone astray, they are all alike corrupt; there is none that does good, no, not one" (Psalm 14:1-3).

We've provided a good cumulative argument that you reject on demonstrably fallacious basis, and once the fallacies are demonstrated (as Luftwaffle did very well) you summarize by pretending there's no logical reason to support all of the things we've demonstrated logically, and instead you opt for something for which there is no good evidence, and plenty of evidence to reject.

You're fleeing the evidence, as MorningGlory pointed out, while paying lip service to empiricism and logic, which are themselves contradictory to your worldview. Your worldview lacks even the necessary preconditions to make any intelligible use of itself, would itself be nothing more than chaos, and would therefore relegate all philosophy to the random neurological firings of chance accidents. Reason, order can't exist for you, and if they could you'd have no reason to trust them.

I have a faith, and I have good evidence to support my faith. This is a Chrisitan forum, which represents that faith.

Can you refresh my memory as to why you're here championing these chaotic speculations as though they have something to offer, under the guise of being a Christian in distress?

Edited March 8, 2011 by OldEnglishSheepdog

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

Many people can imagine lots of things. Why are materialist's imaginings acceptable, but theist's beliefs not? You take it on FAITH, that there is some mysterious timeless metaverse out there that randomly produces universes. And ofcourse I have to say, the reason you need multiple often unlivable universes is to increase the probabilistic pool of universes so that you can have atleast one that's fine tuned, so that you can have an answer for the teleological argument.

Just pause for a second, and think about the fanciful things that is necessary for you to be an atheist? You need causation, one of the most basic laws upon which much of our knowledge is based to somehow break down at some point in the past. Time itself must alter. That the cause of the universe is either 'nothing' or a timeless metaverse (depending on whether you're trying to refute the cosmological argument or the teleological argument)

That this unobservable and mysterious metaverse spews multiple chaotic universes into existence, which also cannot be observed, may not be explained and the governing rules of which are totally unfathomable. You believe in woman's rights yet you think at all people are mere aggregates of particles, and that reason and meaning and life and morality can emerge from non-reason, non-meaning, non-life and non-morality, purely by chance and the blind, pityless indifference of physical processes.

...Or you can believe in God. Just God, that's it.

C'mon Viole. Honestly!

I wonder what atheists would say if Christians had to come up with such ideas...

Craig has a good point on this too:

[enoob57]

Think of it this way, cause and effect is a principle that applies to the material universe. If you transcend the temporal frame, you could possibly transcend that law, but regardless, if something that transcended the temporal frame (free from the law of cause and effect) interacted with the temporal frame, the temporal frame is still bound by the law and would be effected by the interaction, which would then be labeled a cause (because of the constraints of the temporal frame).

You are saying that the cause/effect principle applies in the physical world, and

can be violated in the immaterial world.

I am not sure that it even applies in the physical world. But let us keep quantum

mechanics out of the eqution.

Let us suppose that what you say is true. Why do you say that? I guess you want

to defend this position to avoid to explain the causer's cause. Since in the

immaterial world this principle does not apply, then we do not need to discuss

about God's cause.

But this comes at high prize. If the cause/effect principle applies only to the

physical world, then universe creation, if definetely caused, needs to have taken place

in a pre-existing physical world. In other words, universe is caused because

it was born in the universe.

And then you come up with this interaction theory to solve this obvious problem.

I have to admit this is a cool move. But it smell a bit as being ad-hoc, just

to solve this contradiction and allow the universe to regain its causality.

But can you prove, on logical grounds, that such an interaction actually took place?

But the main qestion is: when did this interaction take place? When the universe

was existing, or when it was not existing?

You cannot think into eternity unless you can think yourself Here-

Eph 1:4-6

4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

NKJV

You see all that your mind has witnessed is bound by sin (the entire system as to persuasion of thought) and thus corrupted to the realities of That Which is Not Bound (infinite) Example:

You cannot set forth in your mind that the very least (electron microscope) is as the greatest (Hubble telescope)! Size, quantity, time are all self oriented inwardly in reference to self! For if

God is not =Then you are and if you are not= then God is (sin has set forth this division) surely you know enough about congruency to know this is a true statement in the commutative aspects of

mathematics (multiplication addition) however this is positive increase and the negative side (division and subtraction) and therefore laws are set forth to maintain their distributive properties as well!

The basic blocks of beginning reveal this truth that the advance of the positive aspect of logic-> freedom is seen with less laws regarding their aspect of equality and placement. This is the truth of God that is

woven into the beginnings.... we the children of eternity see in the very simple the truth that is hidden from you and no one can deny this logic of witness!.... That is how we as children of God

can be set free from the bindings of this world to the infinite realties of Our Lord... Love Steven

[MorningGlory]

You are blessed with a vivid imagination.

Logic can only take you from A to B. Imagination takes you everywhere.

A. Einstein.

That's a great quote from Einstein but.....you didn't answer any of my questions.

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

You are saying that the cause/effect principle applies in the physical world, and

can be violated in the immaterial world.

No, I'm saying it's irrelevant to the Kalam Cosmological argument whether it is or isn't.

Outside of time there could be an infinite regression of past events, or maybe cause and effect work differently, or whatever.

It doesn't make any difference.

The point is that we know what must be the case for the physical world, so we have our physical answer and don't need to start exploring metaphysics to realize that physics requires a transcendent explanation.

What the explanation is, is another argument, and therefore a red herring, at this point.

I am not sure that it even applies in the physical world. But let us keep quantum

mechanics out of the eqution.

Let us suppose that what you say is true. Why do you say that? I guess you want

to defend this position to avoid to explain the causer's cause.

First, analyzing why I'm saying something is either an ad hominine fallacy or a genetic fallacy.

Second, let's keep in mind this line of investigation is built on the premise above, which I've already demonstrated to be faulty.

Third, there is no need for a causers’ cause outside of time, where the causer can be eternal.

Remember what Luftwaffle just told you? The reason atheists use to be able to deny the necessity of God was because it was believed that the universe could be eternal.

Now that's demonstrated to be false: "It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning" (Alexander Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One, pg. 176).

So then, first we can see that the eternality card has passed back to the hands of the theists who don't need to demonstrated a cause since the cause is outside of time (timeless) and the concept of a cause existing eternally is totally reasonable, and second we can turn this line of investigation on motive back on you, asking why atheism changes it's tactics and attacks things it formerly accepted as rational, while accepting things it formerly attacked.

Since in the immaterial world this principle does not apply, then we do not need to discuss

about God's cause.

That's not why. The reason why is because the concept of an eternal being outside of time is not in any way self contradictory, but we know that eternal matter is self contradictory.

We don't even need to appeal to the laws you keep trying to insist upon - you're simply continuing a strawman fallacy.

But this comes at high prize. If the cause/effect principle applies only to the

physical world, then universe creation, if definetely caused, needs to have taken place

in a pre-existing physical world. In other words, universe is caused because

it was born in the universe.

This is simply an incoherent, strawman fabrication.

This problem only exists for the materialist, because a cause could come out of a system that isn't bound by cause and effect. The cause would only be a cause within the system which is bound by that law.

And then you come up with this interaction theory to solve this obvious problem.

It isn't a problem. You've ascribed attributes of the material universe to that which by are not by any necessity bound by such rules, and if they were they by necessity have attributes which would permit them to be consistent when in that material universe they would be contradictory.

This is what's happening here - imagine that our worldviews were different colours of paint (yours red and mine blue) and we're trying to decided what colour to paint a room, and you say, "We need to paint it red."

To which I reply, "I think we should paint it blue because I've already painted the whole rest of the house blue. In order to match the cumulative and consistent theme it needs to be blue. The drapes are blue, blue goes with the carpet, the house is going to be occupied by raging bulls that need to be pacified by blue... we need to maintain the consistency of blue or else we have to throw all the established conventions out the window."

Your replies here are like you're saying, "No, we can't paint it blue, because it is red."

To which I reply, "No, right now it's only white, but in order to be consistent we need to paint it blue."

And you said, "Look, I can see plain as day that this paint is red." and pointed to your paint can.

OES: "But it isn't even on the walls yet, and it doesn't make sense with the carpet that we both agreed on."

Viole: "Look if we paint it blue, it will come out purple, because if you mix blue over red it will be purple."

OES: "Forget the red. There is no red. No one has established red. It can only go purple if you put the red down first, against the scheme of everything else that goes with blue."

Viole: "*Sigh* How can I put this that you'll understand? OK red plus blue makes purple. I don't know why you deny the simple physics of colour mixing, but that's what happens."

OES: "Of course, but only if you mix the two approaches, and that's crazy. Blue is blue and red is red, but red is wrong so keep it out of the blue, and then the physics aren't a problem for my blue. The blue works just fine."

If you try to restrict a system according to the rules of an opposing system then of course it's going to be contradictory, but that's senseless since it couldn't follow those rules.

I have to admit this is a cool move.

Of the two of us, one of us is clearly playing games here, and it's evidently not me.

But it smell a bit as being ad-hoc,

Right, the guy with the cumulative argument, whose worldview acknowledges immaterial concepts like logic, consistence of reality to allow for empiricism, induction and the rest of the scientific method, and give no reason to call into question the brain's ability to discern truth is the one being ad-hoc?

Please.

just to solve this contradiction and allow the universe to regain its causality.

First, it's not a contradiction.

Second, it wouldn't be "just to solve..." since there's a powerful cumulative argument built on a teleological, modal and cosmological foundation, that validates logic, scientific investigation, and reason (the methods for determining truth), and you've given us nothing.

Third, you're the one who's proposing the violation of causality, remember.

Your worldview is utter chaos.

But can you prove, on logical grounds, that such an interaction actually took place?

I already have.

But the main qestion is: when did this interaction take place? When the universe

was existing, or when it was not existing?

Not existing, by absolute necessity.

Now, I've demonstrated evidence for my worldview that's logically consistent and you have none to support yours, yours is totally incoherent, self-contradictory, and would be completely unreliable, and since it's totally just made up in spite of the evidence and denies causation (and by extension science) and the immaterial (and by extension logic), while paying pseudo-scientific lip service, so you've got a system that's far, far worse than L. Ron Hubbard's fantasy.

We can call your worldview "Science-ology", from this point on, OK?

Edited March 9, 2011 by OldEnglishSheepdog

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

You are blessed with a vivid imagination.

Logic can only take you from A to B. Imagination takes you everywhere.

A. Einstein.

That's a great quote from Einstein but.....you didn't answer any of my questions.

What Viole fails to recognize (rejecting the immaterial like logic as 'she' does) is that you can't side-step the logic part, and still expect to be right.

Notice they accuse us of God-of-the-gaps thinking and excuse their fantasy using 'imaginiation' as their authority.

Yikes.