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Merged A Proof of the Existence of God / Did Someone Create the Universe?

JayUtah said:
No, you promised a deductive proof of the existence of God. You didn't say anything about that God being the creator of the universe. The two concepts are not synonymous. This is a bait and switch.



No, this is the same stunt everyone pulls who can't actually prove his proposition. "Here, I've disproved one or more competing straw men via some flimsy contrivance, therefore [fill in blank]." It's especially hilarious that your contrived system conveniently requires two of your assumed-sufficient hypotheses to be falsifiable, but your desired belief ends up not being. So you have no way of proving that your system is sufficient, which is the primary requirement of any indirect proof.



...or Micky Mouse, or the gray alien from Close Encounters, or whatever you want to fill in the blank with. It's a purely attributional proof. It's not deduction. It's a tautology. Very disappointing, but certainly not unexpected. As I said early on, people who claim they have logical proofs for such things as their supernatural beliefs generally end up proving only that they don't understand logic.
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The purpose of my article was to prove that the universe was created by some. "God" in this case is nothing more than a title.
As a positivist, I do not accept the concept of falsifiability. We could debate it at some other thread. I wouldn't call my first two hypotheses falsifiable. My proof is not a deduction either. The positivists do not use the methods of deduction, they use the methods of induction. Popper used the methods of deduction, he called his doctrine "deductivism" I suggest you familiarize yourself with Popper's book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. To me his book is pathetic, but I might find it useful. Once you finish reading it, get back to me and we will discuss it.
 
IanS said:
]"Proof" has nothing to do with it ... we should be talking about evidence, not "proof".
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Right. "Burden of proof" is just an expression to describe who has the onus to supply evidence. "Proof" in the sense of an (unattainable) standard that must be met is not what is meant. We are talking about evidence, not proof. Well, we are. I don't know what Buddha is talking about. He's off in the pseudo-philosophical weeds.
 
The Norseman said:
I may deal with this part later, but for now...





Why does it then have to be in this order? Why not

1) someone produced the universe

2) the universe was not created, it always existed

3) the universe came to be by itself, as a result of some process

Now how would you come to the same conclusion?
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If you wish, I could start with this, "Someone produced the universe" Let's assume that this statement is false. Then either the statement "The universe was produced by itself" or the statement "The universe always existed" is true. This method is called ad adversum,, it is used in mathematics.
 
abaddon said:
Dunno, 1, 2 and 3 are not mutually exclusive. They could all be simultaneously true, or false, or any combination. On top of that, none can be demonstrated either way so that gets Buddha exactly nowhere.
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That is an interesting observation, to say the least. Show me how all these statements could be all true.
 
Buddha said:
As a positivist, I do not accept the concept of falsifiability.
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Than you're wrong and aren't worth listening to about anything.

You just functionally said "I have a philosophy, ergo I get to make stuff up."

We could debate it at some other thread.
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We will do no such thing. Your nonsense will not be used to create multiple threads.
 
Buddha said:
The purpose of my article was to prove that the universe was created by some. "God" in this case is nothing more than a title.
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But that's not what you told us you could prove. You told us you could provide deductive proof of the existence of God. What you gave us was a pseudo-logical exercise in which you concluded that the universe "must" have been created. From that you assumed the existence of a God.

As a positivist, I do not accept the concept of falsifiability. We could debate it at some other thread. I wouldn't call my first two hypotheses falsifiable.
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You're not a positivist. Your proof is not an exercise in logical positivism. Your proof relies entirely on falsifying the first two of three hypotheses so that you can assert the third. And you don't need to keep starting a new thread every time you want to talk about a new element of your proof.

My proof is not a deduction either.
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Yes, it is. Which is to say, it is based on categorical propositions which you claim partition all the possibilities. You deduce one must be true from the premises of all the others being false. That's a deductive pattern of reasoning. It fails, of course, because while you say the proof works by falsifying everything except your desired conclusion, you actually failed in your attempt to falsify them. There's a big difference between eschewing falsification and mounting a failed proof that requires it.

Your proof is a deduction. it's a failed deduction.

The positivists do not use the methods of deduction, they use the methods of induction.
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And it has been described how your proof fails to make the inductive leap from "The universe has finite age," to "God is God because he created the universe." Why, if you're such the expert in logic, would you promise a deductive proof and then insist upon induction? Do you not understand the difference?

I suggest you familiarize yourself with Popper's book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery.
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Don't be condescending. Many of us here are professional scientists or otherwise professionally engaged in scientific-type inquiry. Others have considerable academic achievement in the relevant fields.

To me his book is pathetic, but I might find it useful. Once you finish reading it, get back to me and we will discuss it.
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No, this is not an exercise where you are the master and everyone else is the student. You can throw around these names and words, but as we discovered from your attempt to falsify evolution, you really don't know what you're talking about.
 
I Am The Scum said:
Completely wrong.

Let us consider three contradictory statements:

A. I am Abraham Lincoln's assassin.
B. James Randi is Abraham Lincoln's assassin.
C. You, Buddha, are Abraham Lincoln's assassin.

I can show that A and B are false. Both myself and James Randi were born years after Lincoln's death, so that rules us out. The only remaining option is you, Buddha. I hope you feel really bad about what you've done.



Completely, embarrassingly false. There are all kinds of truths about the universe that are unverifiable. The quantity of electrons on Mars right now is either an even number or an odd number. We have no way of knowing either of those. Must it then be the case that the quantity is neither even nor odd?

Either we're on the verge of completely upending some very basic mathematical concepts, or some unverifiable things are true. Take your pick.
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I like people who have sense of humor. Now, moving on to more serious topics. A statement regarding the number of electrons on Mars is meaningless because it cannot be verified -- the number is in a state of flux due to the external factors such as meteor showers, etc. According to Carnap, a statement that cannot be verified is meaningless, it is neither true nor false. FYI" Carnap called certain propositions put forward by the theologians as meaningless. I would call them meaningless too, they include the statements that God knows everything in advance, God is omnipotent, etc.
 
IanS said:
Without looking at your 2nd and 3rd reasons, the first reason is obviously wrong to begin with. In fact that first statement does not even make any sense … the “person as old as the universe” and his “videotape” are totally irrelevant to, and have zero to do with your conclusion which simply claims “it is of infinite length and it cannot be reviewed in its entirety. Being unverifiable, this statement is false”.

Firstly which statement (of your own) do you say is false? Secondly, just because a universe might (hypothetically in your words) have been like an “infinitely long videotape”, that does not mean it is “unverifiable" (what exactly do you say is unverifiable? ... what do you mean by "unverifiable"?), and that supposed “infinite length” (as you just called it) does not make the existence of this universe “false”.

Your first and most obvious problem is that you have a very mixed-up, confused, set of ideas about what you imagine to be the nature of, and possible origin of, the universe that we live in.

But if you really want to know the true answers to all such questions about this universe, then modern science has shown itself to be by far the best and most accurate way of doing that. In fact, science has shown that it is the only known accurate way for us to learn about the origin and properties of this universe.

And whilst we do not yet have a complete “Theory” of exactly how and why our universe exists, or what existed “before” the earliest phases of the Big Bang, the most likely explanation which most cosmological physicists now seem to agree on, is that the energy which produced the Big Bang (i.e. energy released by the "Bang"), always existed (i.e. various interacting energy fields existed for an unknown and/or indefinite (“infinite” if you like) “time” before the Big Bang itself).

Now, in that brief explanation I put a number of key words in parenthesis, e.g. words like “before” and “time”, and that's to indicate that those words are just shorthand for a situation where as far as we can tell, there really was no “time” (or space) before the Big Bang, and hence there really was also no “before” in that sense of an earlier "time".

I could actually explain all of that to you, in a way that any reasonable educated honest person should be able to easily understand. However, I know from previous experience that it's a complete waste of time trying to explain such concepts to theists who simply refuse to believe anything that rules out their belief in God.
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Unverifiable means that it cannot be confirmed by experiment. Instead of infinite videotape could use the term "infinite memory" and other terms. I chose this terminology at random, it doesn't matter which term I use in reference to an experiment that cannot be completed in a finite period of time.

You are right about Big Bang -- the time didn't exist before it. But this remark has nothing to do with my presentation.

It appears you tried to convince the theists that God doesn't exist, and they rejected your arguments. My goal is different -- I am not trying to convince the atheists that God exists, I know this is next to impossible, so I am not wasting my time on something useless. My goal is to get a feedback from the atheist members of this board, and sharpen my arguments before I present them to a scientific audience. I want to see how my opponents react to my ideas so I could present them in a clear and concise form. So far I am moving towards my objective.
Now, about personal attacks -- there is something about people with extremely high sell-esteem like me you should now -- they mean nothing to us. If you and some other individuals prefer to attack me personally, by all means go ahead. Just remember this is a waste of time.
 
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Buddha said:
A statement regarding the number of electrons on Mars is meaningless because it cannot be verified...
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Yeah, that was the point. It's a physical fact which has an objective truth value despite your inability to discover it. The number of electrons must be either odd or even because no other possibility exists. Your inability to discover the fact does not alter its factuality. Facts exist that you cannot transform into knowledge. That's closer to what Popper was trying to say.

According to Carnap, a statement that cannot be verified is meaningless, it is neither true nor false.
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Irrelevant. According to mathematics the number of electrons must be either odd or even. Your inability to discover whether it's odd or even does not create some new kind of number that's neither odd or even. You're conflating the notion of knowledge with the notion of fact.

I would call them meaningless too, they include the statements that God knows everything in advance, God is omnipotent, etc.
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Irrelevant. You said you had a deductive proof for a proposition you're now categorizing as meaningless. Where does that leave you?
 
Buddha said:
You are right about Big Bang -- the time didn't exist before it. But this remark has nothing to do with my presentation.
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Your presentation ignores actual verifiable knowledge in order to substitute comical contrivances. And the only factors that make your competing propositions "unverifiable" arise from the contrivance, not from the actual state of affairs. If your proof ignores what's happening in the universe, it can't really be said to prove anything about the universe.

My goal is to get a feedback from the atheist members of this board, and sharpen my arguments before I present them to a scientific audience.
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And what part of that entails you being condescending and assuming your critics are not already well read in the philosophy of science and in Christian theology?

If you and some other individuals prefer to attack me personally, by all means go ahead. Just remember this is a waste of time.
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No, you're not being attacked and persecuted. You've made lofty claims you cannot support. The reception you're getting is appropriate to that condition. Further, if you are here -- as you claim -- to receive valuable criticism from knowledgeable debate opponents, why is your response to their criticism an admonition that they are not as familiar as you with the philosophy of science, and that they need to do some remedial reading before they are worthy enough to continue a debate with you? How is that a consistent approach?
 
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Buddha said:
Unverifiable means that it cannot be confirmed by experiment.
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Then on what basis do you conclude that the proposition, being unverifiable, must therefore be false? That's the entire underpinning of your proof. You're conflating verification with testability. You dismiss the first two of your hypotheses by saying the proffered evidence is not testable, therefore the hypothesis it allegedly supports must be rejected. Then after deducing that the third must therefore be true, you flip-flop on the requirement of testability and say it's okay to hold that despite its being untestable. Untestability means different things in your proof depending upon what you desire to be true.
 
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And yet, still no explanation of why it might matter that the universe was created by a creator. It isn't evidence of Buddha's definition of "god." It isn't evidence of anything except that there was a creator at some point who, through some means, did some creating.

What does any of this matter, Buddha?

How does the existence of a creator get you any closer to any sort of "god," not to mention the "god" of the New Testament (the thing you said you could prove)?
 
jrhowell said:
Well done. This proof of the creation of the universe certainly makes your prior disputation of evolution appear logical and well reasoned in comparison.
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Indeed, one wonders how many evolutionary biologists he consulted before submitting that book to a candid world and how seriously he took their criticism.
 
One would think that if an omnipotent whatever wanted me to believe it exists, it would just make me believe rather than futz around with any sort of external evidence.

All one can gather from this thread is that if there is such a thing, it doesn't care what people believe.

Or that there isn't such a thing in the first place.
 
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