Theism VS Atheism 1on1 Debate COMMENTS

[LoneMateria]

Wow I didn't think I was off this site for that long.  Thanx Arctonyx you answered his questions pretty much the same way i would have.  I think Reginus is trying to point out what is wrong with the logic of the argument (brax's argument) which was the point of the example.  There are between seconds are an infinite number of fractions of seconds.  For example between 3 and 4 there is 3.5, 3.7744, 3.453749587349857394857394875, and so on.  It is flawed to say well theres an infinite number of time before what time it is now therefore it can't be infinite because it would never come.  There is an infinite number of time between the 3rd and 4th second of the minute does that mean that the 4th second will never come?  Answer is no, the argument from infinite is a flawed argument.  But even if the infinite theory for time is wrong it doesn't mean his god is right.  This is because he is saying the universe either happened this way or god did, which is another flawed argument since he is excluding all other possabilities.  In order for him to conclude god did it with no tangible evidence then he would have to systematically disprove all other possible theories which can't be done.  Say for example that all of our current models for how the big bang occurred were wrong but it happened by some other means we haven't thought of yet, it would be ridiculous (at least premature) to say well I reject all the current theories so god did it.  It turns into an argument from ignorance (I can't think of any other possible way it could have happened so god did it case closed).

[Reginus]

On the contrary, in Eastern culture dogs are kept as pets maybe not as commonly as they are here in the west, but there are several Korean breeds of dog. Also it has been suggested that the first domesticated wolves arose in Eastern cultures. And how would dog eating become the norm if morality was objective? If people inherently saw eating dogs as wrong, it wouldn't become a social norm. In evolutionary terms this is rather easily explained, Eastern cultures exploited dogs as a food source primarily and as companions second, whereas western cultures did the opposite. Leaving you with a situation today where western cultures see eating dogs as wrong, and eastern cultures see at as a part of society.And what objective morality goes against eating dogs? None to my knowledge, our behaviour toward the consumption of dogs has been conditioned by a society with subjective morals.

I don't think we are making much progress on this issue, so I will ask you this question: Pork is a common source of meat in our society. By your reasoning, since pig eating is socialy acceptible in our society, everyone should be completely fine if they saw a pig being slaughtered. Acording to your social norm=moral theory, they would consider it moraly all right. However, I would be willing to bet that this would not be the case at all. Perhaps a small minority would be ok with it, but these will most likely be the people who consider pigs to be stupid, low order animals, which again has to do with the "difference between knowledge" concept I was talking about earlier.

No it is not. Seriously, this is the God of the gaps argument. An explanation with no evidence is not better then no explanation at all, pretending you know what happened is a wilful admittance to ignorance. You are pretending to know more then the cleverest people on Earth. By saying God did it, you're professing to know more then Stephen Hawking does about his particular field of Physics. I realise this could be misconstrued as an argument form authority, but I am pointing out that by making up explanations you are claiming to know more then the foremost experts in many fields.

It's as stupid as me saying 'I don't understand the stock market, therefore Leprechauns make it work.'. I would be pretending to know more then stock brokers who have devoted their entire lives to discovering the intricacies of the stock market. My idea that leprechauns make it work gives me no advantage to investment, it simply provides me a psychological teddy bear, by pretending to know more then I actually do.

Making up an explanation is irrational, superstitious, idiotic and I would say morally wrong, because you are wilfully lying to people.

Whoa, whoa, let's slow down the train. First of all, I personaly don't think that the "something must have created the big bang" argument is particularly convincing. That doesn't mean that I can't defend it, however. Secondly, I think the "something can't begin to exist from nothing" argument is more of a philisophical problem than a scientific problem. Even if we made some sort of gigantic cosmoligical discovery on this topic, it would likely just bring us to a conclusion of what happened before the big bang, but probably could not explain how the universe could begin to exist out of nothing. If Stephen Hawking or some other scientist has an idea as to how this could have happened, then I would be extreamly interested to hear it.

(Reginus: numbers are hypothetical, are they not?) No they are not.

If they are not hypothetical, than can you physicaly demonstrate that there are an infinite number of numbers between 1 and 7?

[Will]

This thread seems to becoming a debate on it's own, so to heck with impropriety.

There are innate moral tendencies, which are then interpretedâ€"or even occasionally ignoredâ€"because of a given social structure. Not murdering in some countries means no capital punishment, but capital punishment is not seen as murder by most Americans. The tendencies are there, as most people on death row are guilty of murder, but the interpretation of that tendency is different because of the social structure.

I'd never eat dog because I was raised in a culture that reveres and befriends dogs as companions. Had I been born in a culture where dogs are eaten, though, it's entirely possible that even though I was born with the same moral tendencies, I would gladly have a warm plate of spaghetti al Spaniel.

[iNow]

I wonder if anyone would be willing to give Brax a tutorial on the quote feature.  His last post is damn near incomprehensible since I have to keep scanning up and down/back and forth between posts to determine which question he's responding to (further, he used numbers, where Will did not, which strangely makes it even harder to follow).  

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=3820#p49300

[LoneMateria]

I don't think we are making much progress on this issue, so I will ask you this question: Pork is a common source of meat in our society. By your reasoning, since pig eating is socialy acceptible in our society, everyone should be completely fine if they saw a pig being slaughtered. Acording to your social norm=moral theory, they would consider it moraly all right. However, I would be willing to bet that this would not be the case at all. Perhaps a small minority would be ok with it, but these will most likely be the people who consider pigs to be stupid, low order animals, which again has to do with the "difference between knowledge" concept I was talking about earlier.

Eating pig in our society is acceptable but killing pigs for fun isn't.  However it doesn't stop people from raising pigs for food.  If we don't see it we don't care unlike during Pagan times where you would often have to take your prized animals and cut their throats, burn their flesh and serve them to everyone.  It was morally acceptable then just as it was in the bible OT.  They considered it morally okay as well as their duty to the gods to sacrifice their best animals to the gods and give a snack to everyone.  That should demonstrate by itself that morals are subjective not objective.  Also morals evolve over time, my morals and your morals are better than those of the bible and of Jesus (especially considering he preached Jewish law).  If I missed the point you were trying to make please correct me.

Whoa, whoa, let's slow down the train. First of all, I personaly don't think that the "something must have created the big bang" argument is particularly convincing. That doesn't mean that I can't defend it, however. Secondly, I think the "something can't begin to exist from nothing" argument is more of a philisophical problem than a scientific problem. Even if we made some sort of gigantic cosmoligical discovery on this topic, it would likely just bring us to a conclusion of what happened before the big bang, but probably could not explain how the universe could begin to exist out of nothing. If Stephen Hawking or some other scientist has an idea as to how this could have happened, then I would be extreamly interested to hear it.  

Reginus are you playing Devil's advocate?  I disagree on the notion that its a philosophical problem.  We can show, through science, that matter cannot be created or destroyed.  No created matter means no creator.  Also about the big bang have you heard of String Theory for the origins of the universe?  It basically says what we perceive as the universe was caused by a collision of 2 strings (I don't remember the name it gave for the giant string) however you are right and it doesn't solve the problem of infinite regress just like a god doesn't.  Some theists claim it completely solves the problem but "First Cause argument" what caused the god?  We may never know the solution to the infinite regress but we don't claim we have the solution.

If they are not hypothetical, than can you physicaly demonstrate that there are an infinite number of numbers between 1 and 7?

Can you demonstrate that numbers can only be hypothetical or physical?



Well I had to do that.  Now I just read brax's latest post.  Maybe he thinks if he puts enough numbers in there Will will just give up.  Considering he made a few flawed points in the first few numbers and no points in the rest it was a very boring post.  C'mon brax you have to do better to convince us there is a god.  The sad thing is even if brax stalemates Will brax has lost since he failed to prove a god is real.  The affirmative position must suck.

[Reginus]

I'd never eat dog because I was raised in a culture that reveres and befriends dogs as companions. Had I been born in a culture where dogs are eaten, though, it's entirely possible that even though I was born with the same moral tendencies, I would gladly have a warm plate of spaghetti al Spaniel.

Exactly. I think we are all born with a moral tendency that says "do not eat companions." Its up to society to decide who's a companion to man and who's not.

[Reginus]

Eating pig in our society is acceptable but killing pigs for fun isn't.  However it doesn't stop people from raising pigs for food.  If we don't see it we don't care unlike during Pagan times where you would often have to take your prized animals and cut their throats, burn their flesh and serve them to everyone.  It was morally acceptable then just as it was in the bible OT.  They considered it morally okay as well as their duty to the gods to sacrifice their best animals to the gods and give a snack to everyone.  That should demonstrate by itself that morals are subjective not objective.  Also morals evolve over time, my morals and your morals are better than those of the bible and of Jesus (especially considering he preached Jewish law).  If I missed the point you were trying to make please correct me.

If eating pigs is socialy acceptable, then how can killing pigs for food be socialy unacceptable? You can't have one without the other. By the way, what makes our morals better than those of the bible? It sounds an awful lot like you are compairing them to a set of meta-morals. How can this be if morality is just an invention by mankind that is closely linked to culture?

Reginus are you playing Devil's advocate?  I disagree on the notion that its a philosophical problem.  We can show, through science, that matter cannot be created or destroyed.  No created matter means no creator.  Also about the big bang have you heard of String Theory for the origins of the universe?  It basically says what we perceive as the universe was caused by a collision of 2 strings (I don't remember the name it gave for the giant string) however you are right and it doesn't solve the problem of infinite regress just like a god doesn't.  Some theists claim it completely solves the problem but "First Cause argument" what caused the god?  We may never know the solution to the infinite regress but we don't claim we have the solution.

Yes, i have heard of the string theory, but I've never really looked into it, so thanks for telling me about it. Anyway, even if it true, it doesn't solve the problem of how the strings came into existance. I do not think the "first cause argument" is very convincing, because it fails to explain how God came into existance. Anyway, we have a paradox where the universe must have come into existance at some time, but it could not have come into existance from nothing. Is there really any possible naturalistic solution?  

If they are not hypothetical, than can you physicaly demonstrate that there are an infinite number of numbers between 1 and 7?

Can you demonstrate that numbers can only be hypothetical or physical?

Arct said that there are an infinite amount of numbers between 1 and 7. I said that in this case, the infinite is hypothetical. If the universe has existed for an infinite amount of time, than this would be an instance of a "real", not "hypothetical" infinity, because any measurement of time (seconds, for example,) has essence and is not infinatly small. In other words, if there are an infinate number of numbers between 1 and 7, than the difference between one to the next is infinitly small. If the universe has been here for an infinite amount of time, then the time between one second to the next is not infinitly small.

[LoneMateria]

If eating pigs is socialy acceptable, then how can killing pigs for food be socialy unacceptable? You can't have one without the other. By the way, what makes our morals better than those of the bible? It sounds an awful lot like you are compairing them to a set of meta-morals. How can this be if morality is just an invention by mankind that is closely linked to culture?

Would tell your kid that you are hungry to go kill a pig?  Regrettably things have to be done to ensure our survival.  However I can demonstrate how our morals our better, and yes i'm the judge I have to be just like you have to be the judge for your morals.  I don't know if you have kids but i'm sure you can imagine you do if you don't, in the bible OT it says that unruly children must be stoned to death.  Homosexuals must be killed.  Slavery is okay and you can sell your daughter into slavery if you want.  If a woman is raped (and shes a virgin) she must marry her rapist as gods punishment to him and he must pay her father 50 shackles.  If she wasn't a virgin then she committed adultery and must be put to death.  All this is of course sanctioned by the god of the bible.  None of this today would be deemed remotely acceptable (at least not in the U.S.).  

Our morals have evolved as our knowledge has expanded.  We realize now that slavery is wrong even though it's endorsed by the supposed creator of morals.  We don't kill unless we have to, I doubt if someone broke into your home and was going to kill you or your family and the only way to stop him was to kill him, that you would say killing is wrong and you would rather die then kill someone.  You would shoot them dead and deal with any reprocussions later.  There is no black and white moral right and wrong there are a ton of grey areas just look at killing.  Our laws have to define killing specifically because it isn't black and white like you are trying to make it.  There are charges such as 1st degree murder, involuntary man slaughter and so on.

The thing is our morals have evolved and have been refined in such a way to help benefit our society.  Our societies survival is dependent on general "morals" of our people.  Our society wouldn't survive if everybody thought that murder was right, in order for us to operate in a cooperative society we must behave in a way to support it.  We now know that stoning the newer generations for not behaving (though it may make some people happy) is detrimental to the growth of our society.  If we stoned nearly all of our children to death our population would shrink considerably because the death rate would be higher then our birth rate, we would be a dying species.  Did I answer your question?

Yes, i have heard of the string theory, but I've never really looked into it, so thanks for telling me about it. Anyway, even if it true, it doesn't solve the problem of how the strings came into existance. I do not think the "first cause argument" is very convincing, because it fails to explain how God came into existance. Anyway, we have a paradox where the universe must have come into existance at some time, but it could not have come into existance from nothing. Is there really any possible naturalistic solution?  

No problem, if you are lazy like me there is a NOVA movie on String Theory, I think you can watch it here.   I never did say it solved the problem of how everything came into existence.  We may never know how everything that exists got here but it doesn't lend credit to a magic man hypothesis nor does it mean we should give up and put a non-answer (god) in the spot to what caused everything.  We may live in a paradox who knows the universe is a strange place.  The naturalistic solution could be even more bizarre then us living in a paradox.  The universe is full of surprises and wonders none of which are normal.  Look at our perspective, we live on a rock mostly covered in gas circling a giant fireball.  We consider this normal.

Arct said that there are an infinite amount of numbers between 1 and 7. I said that in this case, the infinite is hypothetical. If the universe has existed for an infinite amount of time, than this would be an instance of a "real", not "hypothetical" infinity, because any measurement of time (seconds, for example,) has essence and is not infinatly small. In other words, if there are an infinate number of numbers between 1 and 7, than the difference between one to the next is infinitly small. If the universe has been here for an infinite amount of time, then the time between one second to the next is not infinitly small.

Again that doesn't answer my question.  Can numbers only be physical or hypothetical?  I say no and i'm going to throw conceptual out there because infinite is a concept.  I'm sorry in order for me to understand the rest of what you are saying here I need you to define "real" to me.

However I think I can tackle your last sentence without your definition of real.  The time between one second and the next is one second.  Between each second is an infinite number of fractions of seconds.  Same can be said if the age of the universe is infinitely there is an infinite number of fractions of the universe that we can measure.  I guess the best way to conceptualize this is to imagine a circle from a math text book (or any closed shape triangle, trapezoid, hexagon whatever) we can measure bits and pieces of it.  We can take a pencil and trace over it but we can't say where it "started" you can't ask where did this triangle start.  You can see a set of points and label one beginning like we have for time.  We consider the start of time 14 billion years ago at the singularity of the big bang.  Thats where we decide to make our starting point and we measure from it, in reality we don't know if there was a starting point we just take the oldest significant point for us and decide to start there.  Just like you would choose the point where an angle starts of a triangle or rhombus or whatever and start measuring from there.  We can cut the shape up into an infinite number of smaller segments (because infinite is a numerical concept) and then measure one segment to the next.

Again don't get me wrong i'm not positive this is how time even works we don't have a good grasp on the concept of time.  Even if this theory is wrong it doesn't lend credibility that a god did it, much less a specific god.  Just like the failure of that theory doesn't lend credibility to the theory that magic leprechauns created the universe.  When you try to blend the realm of science and pseudoscience you cannot discredit all possabilities to find the truth.  For example brax says a god created the universe and specifically his god.  I say the flying spaghetti monster created his god with the illusion of having him create the universe and thus we can do that infinitely (or at least until one of us gives up or dies).  If you knock pseudoscience like god out of the equation then you can eliminate all possabilities until you are left with the truth.  Saying god created everything is saying I give up lets go look for something else to do.

[Will]

This thread is making my hungry.

[LoneMateria]

This thread is making my hungry.

making your what hungry?  :-p  Chinese is sounding good to me right now, mmm cashew cat or sweet and sour dog.  Tasty.

[Will]

Gah, I've been typing way too much tonight. Leads to typos.  

[LoneMateria]

Gah, I've been typing way too much tonight. Leads to typos.  lol thats okay just typing leads to typos with me.  It doesn't matter my state of mind.  I'm just glad I use google chrome because it has a built in spell check.  Now when I mispell shit I can correct it so I don't look like a complete retard.  Just a minor one

[Arctonyx]

It appears LoneMateria got in there before me   ).

It just goes to show that there is no objective source for morality. If there was morality would be black and white, but it isn't there is a huge swathe of grey between some very thin streaks of black and white. And the existence of those small streaks is debatable.

[Reginus]

Would tell your kid that you are hungry to go kill a pig?  Regrettably things have to be done to ensure our survival.  However I can demonstrate how our morals our better, and yes i'm the judge I have to be just like you have to be the judge for your morals.  I don't know if you have kids but i'm sure you can imagine you do if you don't, in the bible OT it says that unruly children must be stoned to death.  Homosexuals must be killed.  Slavery is okay and you can sell your daughter into slavery if you want.  If a woman is raped (and shes a virgin) she must marry her rapist as gods punishment to him and he must pay her father 50 shackles.  If she wasn't a virgin then she committed adultery and must be put to death.  All this is of course sanctioned by the god of the bible.  None of this today would be deemed remotely acceptable (at least not in the U.S.).

All that I am saying is:
1. We all have innate morals, which can be slightly modified by culture.
2. If you are suggesting that our modern morals are better than those in the OT, then you must be compairing both of them to a "best" morality. How can there be a "best" morality if morals are just a creation of man?  

Our morals have evolved as our knowledge has expanded.  We realize now that slavery is wrong even though it's endorsed by the supposed creator of morals.  We don't kill unless we have to, I doubt if someone broke into your home and was going to kill you or your family and the only way to stop him was to kill him, that you would say killing is wrong and you would rather die then kill someone.  You would shoot them dead and deal with any reprocussions later.  There is no black and white moral right and wrong there are a ton of grey areas just look at killing.  Our laws have to define killing specifically because it isn't black and white like you are trying to make it.  There are charges such as 1st degree murder, involuntary man slaughter and so on.

Of course natural law (innate morality) doesn't say "never kill for any reason." I think we can all agree that there are times where killing is the moraly right thing to do. However, I also think we can agree that simply killing random people for no reason goes strongly against our sense of innate morality. Again, I am simply saying that natural law is not simply an invention of mankind (though I am not yet contesting that it is not a result of evolution).

No problem, if you are lazy like me there is a NOVA movie on String Theory, I think you can watch it here.   I never did say it solved the problem of how everything came into existence.  We may never know how everything that exists got here but it doesn't lend credit to a magic man hypothesis nor does it mean we should give up and put a non-answer (god) in the spot to what caused everything.  We may live in a paradox who knows the universe is a strange place.  The naturalistic solution could be even more bizarre then us living in a paradox.  The universe is full of surprises and wonders none of which are normal.  Look at our perspective, we live on a rock mostly covered in gas circling a giant fireball.  We consider this normal.

Case closed. My argument was that Brax's argument has some truth to it, in that god creating the universe is the only way we can imagine it came into existance from nothing. However, like you just said, perhaps the truth is stranger than anything we can imagine.

Again that doesn't answer my question.  Can numbers only be physical or hypothetical?  I say no and i'm going to throw conceptual out there because infinite is a concept.  I'm sorry in order for me to understand the rest of what you are saying here I need you to define "real" to me.

Numbers are conceptual mathmatical objects. Numerals are physical representations of numbers. Infinity is a concept and does not exist any where in nature. By "real" examples of infinity, I mean examples where the unit that supposivly goes on for infinity, actualy exists, and is not infinity small.  

However I think I can tackle your last sentence without your definition of real.  The time between one second and the next is one second.  Between each second is an infinite number of fractions of seconds.  Same can be said if the age of the universe is infinitely there is an infinite number of fractions of the universe that we can measure.  I guess the best way to conceptualize this is to imagine a circle from a math text book (or any closed shape triangle, trapezoid, hexagon whatever) we can measure bits and pieces of it.  We can take a pencil and trace over it but we can't say where it "started" you can't ask where did this triangle start.  You can see a set of points and label one beginning like we have for time.  We consider the start of time 14 billion years ago at the singularity of the big bang.  Thats where we decide to make our starting point and we measure from it, in reality we don't know if there was a starting point we just take the oldest significant point for us and decide to start there.  Just like you would choose the point where an angle starts of a triangle or rhombus or whatever and start measuring from there.  We can cut the shape up into an infinite number of smaller segments (because infinite is a numerical concept) and then measure one segment to the next.

First of all, the circle started in an ink factory   . Anyway, there an infinite number of inifinitly small (non-existant) units of time in a second. If time goes on for infinity, then there are an infinite number of minutes, but minutes are not infinitly small. You also cannot cut a paper triangle up into an infinite number number of segments, as quirks cannot be cut up. Even if they could, it would still be impossible to cut it up into an infinte number of pieces. As for imagining time as going around the edge of a circle, I admit that that is a very interesting concept, but I don't know of any evidence for something like that.

Again don't get me wrong i'm not positive this is how time even works we don't have a good grasp on the concept of time.  Even if this theory is wrong it doesn't lend credibility that a god did it, much less a specific god.  Just like the failure of that theory doesn't lend credibility to the theory that magic leprechauns created the universe.  When you try to blend the realm of science and pseudoscience you cannot discredit all possabilities to find the truth.  For example brax says a god created the universe and specifically his god.  I say the flying spaghetti monster created his god with the illusion of having him create the universe and thus we can do that infinitely (or at least until one of us gives up or dies).  If you knock pseudoscience like god out of the equation then you can eliminate all possabilities until you are left with the truth.  Saying god created everything is saying I give up lets go look for something else to do.

The first cause argument says that a god must have created the universe, since there is no possible naturalistic solution to how the universe began. The nature of this "god" is still up for grabs, so based on the first cause argument alone(and apologists have many arguments), this god could have just as easily been the FSM.

[Arctonyx]

Anyway, there an infinite number of inifinitly small (non-existant) units of time in a second. If time goes on for infinity, then there are an infinite number of minutes, but minutes are not infinitly small. You also cannot cut a paper triangle up into an infinite number number of segments

Sorry, but seriously? A minute is only not infinitely small, relative to you. If the universe goes on for infinity then a minute would be infinitely small. Arguably a minute in terms of the universe is a much smaller method of measurement compared to the time periods in a second.