"I don't know" is not an "escape route." It is an admission of the lack of facts available to us.
I don't know any scientist who has ever said the universe sprang "out of nothing." Frankly, we don't precisely know the nature of things at the point of creation, nor prior to it. At most, some will claim with pompous certainty that it was a "singularity" or some other creative represtation, but the truth is: we can't be sure right now, given the information we have.
Another problem with this line of thinking is that we think of (and even define) the universe as "everything," but we don't know that it is everything. We have guessed that something came into existence at some point billions of years ago during a violent event that left what little evidence we have, and we define this something as "the universe." This isn't religion's fault, this is just sloppy naming on the part of science.
"...everything that begins to exist has a cause..." What a carefully worded way of avoiding the explanation of God's genesis. An adorable attempt.
How does one jump from "there must be a cause" to "there must be a transcendent, personal cause?" He really needed to rev his engines and floor it before he hit the ramp to make this logical leap.
Specified complexity... I haven't heard that in a while. So because we exist, everything in the entire universe must have been fine-tuned solely for us? In psychology, this is called "egocentrism."
Atheism has little to say about anything; it is merely a rejection of the theory of gods. Christianity is about as unscientific as you get. Christianity cannot provide evidence beyond third-hand accounts. Even worse, they have stood in the way of scientific breakthrough after scientific breakthrough. If we listened to Christianity, we'd still be in Europe, briefly, before riding our horses off to the Middle East to fight in the 500th Crusade.
Ginx, " 'I don't know' is not an 'escape route'." Dr. Craig agrees with you. Listen to the first 12 seconds again.
"I don't know" is also not preferable to some explanation. "I don't know" cannot be tested. An explanation can be tested. You seem to think that ignorance is superior than attempting to pose an explanation.
Do you have a reasonable objection to the "adorable attempt" to "escape God's genesis"? Do you actually understand the Christian God or are you just parroting Richard Dawkins' insistence that God must have a beginner? Do you realize that every theory must incorporate an uncaused cause (be it God or the naturalistic multiverse)?
The "jump" that you describe would be valid if and only if Dr. Craig was appealing to a single argument or line of evidence. He is not. He is appealing to many arguments and many lines of evidence. This is called a "cumulative case" and is used in courts of law. A prosecutor does not expect to get a conviction based on one line of evidence, (s)he provides many and posits that guilt best explains ALL the evidence provided.
Just because you call "fine tuning" egocentrism does not make it bad or invalid. If you wish to say that we are egocentric (in the bad sense), then I can say the same about you every time you kill a bug or swat a house fly. According to the naturalistic evolutionary paradigm we have no more value than the house fly. Someone who kills a house fly is guilty of murder at the same level as if they had killed you or your child.
You may want to say that atheism may have little to say about anything, but atheists sure say a lot about a lot using atheism. How do you reconcile that?
Are you a-priori committed to the idea that Christianity is "unscientific" or would you be willing to examine evidence provided by reputable Christian scientists (or do you a-priori reject "reputable Christian scientists" as an oxymoron?)?
Can you support your conclusion about where we would be "if we listened to Christianity"?
Ginx, when you post comments on this blog, please refrain from the use of rhetoric and ad-hominem attacks to marginalize a position you do not agree with. Instead please provide reasonable arguments so that we may have an academic (rather than sophomoric) discussion.
If there was a debate, it would not be between you and I but between truth and falsity regarding the cosmological argument. Such is the nature of philosophical debate.
But alas there is no debate. One must evaluate the criticisms of arguments for themselves.
The founders of modern empirical science appealed to God and to creation, as revealed in Scripture, as the basis of the scientific endeavor. “There is a transcendent personal God who created the universe and who sustains it. He makes it to function in a regular manner according to laws which He has intended us to study and come to an understanding of.” This was their axiom. Pull out this scriptural foundation and science is undermined.
Contrarily, most of today's Christian apologists appeal to science to validate the existence of God. Pull out the axiom of Big Bang cosmology or the latest theory they have latched onto and God, creation, the Bible and Christianity are undermined! It is backward thinking that starts with sense perception and human intellect and seeks to prove God. This approach puts God and his revelation at the mercy of the capricious thinking of scientists and the changeableness of mainstream scientific consensus.
This video is titled, “Atheism Undermines Science.” I wish that the title was an accurate representation of the video's content. As it is, a better title would be--to quote Dr. Craig's conclusion--“Mainstream science goes to suggest that there is a designer of the universe.”
"I don't know" is not an "escape route." It is an admission of the lack of facts available to us.
ReplyDeleteI don't know any scientist who has ever said the universe sprang "out of nothing." Frankly, we don't precisely know the nature of things at the point of creation, nor prior to it. At most, some will claim with pompous certainty that it was a "singularity" or some other creative represtation, but the truth is: we can't be sure right now, given the information we have.
Another problem with this line of thinking is that we think of (and even define) the universe as "everything," but we don't know that it is everything. We have guessed that something came into existence at some point billions of years ago during a violent event that left what little evidence we have, and we define this something as "the universe." This isn't religion's fault, this is just sloppy naming on the part of science.
"...everything that begins to exist has a cause..." What a carefully worded way of avoiding the explanation of God's genesis. An adorable attempt.
How does one jump from "there must be a cause" to "there must be a transcendent, personal cause?" He really needed to rev his engines and floor it before he hit the ramp to make this logical leap.
Specified complexity... I haven't heard that in a while. So because we exist, everything in the entire universe must have been fine-tuned solely for us? In psychology, this is called "egocentrism."
Atheism has little to say about anything; it is merely a rejection of the theory of gods. Christianity is about as unscientific as you get. Christianity cannot provide evidence beyond third-hand accounts. Even worse, they have stood in the way of scientific breakthrough after scientific breakthrough. If we listened to Christianity, we'd still be in Europe, briefly, before riding our horses off to the Middle East to fight in the 500th Crusade.
Watching.
ReplyDeleteDoing cosmological argument this week.
Turtles all the way down.
Ginx,
ReplyDelete" 'I don't know' is not an 'escape route'."
Dr. Craig agrees with you. Listen to the first 12 seconds again.
"I don't know" is also not preferable to some explanation. "I don't know" cannot be tested. An explanation can be tested. You seem to think that ignorance is superior than attempting to pose an explanation.
Do you have a reasonable objection to the "adorable attempt" to "escape God's genesis"? Do you actually understand the Christian God or are you just parroting Richard Dawkins' insistence that God must have a beginner? Do you realize that every theory must incorporate an uncaused cause (be it God or the naturalistic multiverse)?
The "jump" that you describe would be valid if and only if Dr. Craig was appealing to a single argument or line of evidence. He is not. He is appealing to many arguments and many lines of evidence. This is called a "cumulative case" and is used in courts of law. A prosecutor does not expect to get a conviction based on one line of evidence, (s)he provides many and posits that guilt best explains ALL the evidence provided.
Just because you call "fine tuning" egocentrism does not make it bad or invalid. If you wish to say that we are egocentric (in the bad sense), then I can say the same about you every time you kill a bug or swat a house fly. According to the naturalistic evolutionary paradigm we have no more value than the house fly. Someone who kills a house fly is guilty of murder at the same level as if they had killed you or your child.
You may want to say that atheism may have little to say about anything, but atheists sure say a lot about a lot using atheism. How do you reconcile that?
Are you a-priori committed to the idea that Christianity is "unscientific" or would you be willing to examine evidence provided by reputable Christian scientists (or do you a-priori reject "reputable Christian scientists" as an oxymoron?)?
Can you support your conclusion about where we would be "if we listened to Christianity"?
Ginx, when you post comments on this blog, please refrain from the use of rhetoric and ad-hominem attacks to marginalize a position you do not agree with. Instead please provide reasonable arguments so that we may have an academic (rather than sophomoric) discussion.
Samuel,
ReplyDeleteThe other day you posted that you did not want to debate with me anymore. Have you changed your mind?
If so, what do you mean by "turtles all the way down"?
If not, why are you providing a claim if you do not want to defend it?
No debate above, no debate here.
ReplyDeleteIf there was a debate, it would not be between you and I but between truth and falsity regarding the cosmological argument. Such is the nature of philosophical debate.
But alas there is no debate.
One must evaluate the criticisms of arguments for themselves.
In Ginx's post there wasn't a single ad hominem.
ReplyDeleteThe founders of modern empirical science appealed to God and to creation, as revealed in Scripture, as the basis of the scientific endeavor. “There is a transcendent personal God who created the universe and who sustains it. He makes it to function in a regular manner according to laws which He has intended us to study and come to an understanding of.” This was their axiom. Pull out this scriptural foundation and science is undermined.
ReplyDeleteContrarily, most of today's Christian apologists appeal to science to validate the existence of God. Pull out the axiom of Big Bang cosmology or the latest theory they have latched onto and God, creation, the Bible and Christianity are undermined! It is backward thinking that starts with sense perception and human intellect and seeks to prove God. This approach puts God and his revelation at the mercy of the capricious thinking of scientists and the changeableness of mainstream scientific consensus.
This video is titled, “Atheism Undermines Science.” I wish that the title was an accurate representation of the video's content. As it is, a better title would be--to quote Dr. Craig's conclusion--“Mainstream science goes to suggest that there is a designer of the universe.”