Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
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Date Posted: 06/15/05 10:04am
In reply to:
Ben
's message, "My final word on the matter" on 06/15/05 8:04am
>Wade,
>
>This will be my final word on the matter.
If so, then this will be my final rebuttal.
>"First I must commend you for acknowledging ex nihilo
>nhil fit. However, I must point out that the last half
>of your sentence is a non sequitur."
>
>I continue to disagree with this point. You sometimes
>seem to feel that by using logic, you can make people
>agree with your points, but that isn't the case.
Sometimes that's the case, thought it's been my experience in these kinds of debates that logic does not persuade as often as I'd like it to.
I'm still puzzled why you disagree with it. I presented a logical alternative, a logical possibility, and thus your claim that "we know that there must be something or things that have always existed [emphasis mine]" is false. You may not like the alternative or think it has no evidence, but it is a logical possibility and if so your claim is not true (and my claim of non sequitur is).
>Logic isn't a magician's trick, and it will only work
>if it is built on something with evidence. There is
>no evidence to support your idea of "existence outside
>time," and I have seen you present absolutely zero
>evidence on this matter.
Pretending it doesn't exist (e.g. see here and here) doesn't make it go away...
>Your only evidence seems to
>be that an infinite universe (according to you) is
>impossible, so there must be some alternative, so you
>need to make up something that no one has ever seen
>any reason to think exists. That isn't evidence.
What I presented is evidence. You see, once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains--however improbable--must be the truth.
From the evidential arguments, we know that an infinite past is metaphysically impossible. Therefore, the universe had a beginning. However, we also know that a violation of ex nihilo nihil fit is impossible. Therefore, the universe had a cause. But since we are dealing with the beginning of time itself, the agency that caused the universe must be atemporally timeless.
Like it or not, but this is a reason to believe that this atemporally timeless agency exists.
>I continue to think that an infinite universe may in
>some form or fashion be possible, but beyond our
>current field of scientific knowledge. Even if it
>isn't, just because you can create "logical"
>alternatives doesn't mean I have to give them serious
>consideration unless they have some evidence to
>support them.
True, but (1) if other alternatives exist my claim of non sequitur is still true; (2) I did present evidential arguments to justify my claim. Ignoring them doesn't make them go away.
>It reminds me of the way some
>Christians automatically attribute anything they don't
>understand to the workings of God. Then science will
>fill in that hole, so they have to move God to some
>other mystery.
This kind of idea is oft repeated but ill founded. Why see theism and science as competing worldviews? The founding fathers of science did not, and attributed the existence of mathematically orderly natural processes to be evidence of God's existence. Most Christians see them as complementary, not competing.
And there will always be some things outside the realm of science; e.g. ultimate origins, the existence of the soul, and the existence of objective moral values.
>I think that eventually, we may gather
>enough scientific evidence to either (a) understand
>how an infinite universe really is possible, or (b)
>see how something really can come from nothing.
Eventually maybe (though I consider it unlikely), but you seem almost hypocritical, accepting an alternative we have zero evidence for and have no reason to even think is possible (particularly with (b)).
>Basically, whether one thinks as I do above or the way
>you do, one is forced to believe that some part of our
>current scheme of the universe is wrong...
Why is that the case? My worldview is far more consistent with the current scheme of the universe (the 10-20 billion year age, not to mention cause-and-effect and ex nihilo nihil fit etc.). Theism is something outside the realm of science, thus not exactly contradictory to the "current scheme of the universe" as accepted by science.
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