"Is There Evidence for God?" Craig v Krauss

[freeservant]

Let me do a quick and dirty response to some of the issues addressed to be.  I beg your forbearance if I don't properly use the quote system.

"Actually, Dr. Krauss gives a basis for his assertion from current thought in physics and cosmology; it's not bald at all. Did you just ignore that, or do you have another reason for thinking that Krauss made a "bald assertion"?" --Recusant

I see some interesting things coming from physics and cosmology. Facinating stuff in fact but this does not give weight to Dr. Krauss in effort to explain things in a better way then the natural theology evidence presented.  

"You seem to be making an argument from incredulity; because you find the statements of a well qualified and knowledgeable speaker hard to swallow, you dismiss them. Quantum fluctuations are an established reality in physics. As Krauss pointed out, this fact may mean that our space-time is a necessary result of the nature of reality. We don't know that our space-time is all that there is. The universe may actually be an eternal multi-verse; there is nothing in our current understanding of cosmology which prevents that from being the case." --Recusant
Excellent point but if this is the case then it will still just be begging the question in that what started the multi-verse?  The multi-verse may be true and yet this does not dismiss the possibility that a timeless and space-less Mind loves to create a more excellent playground in which we get to have a future eternity in as adopted children of God.  May on it's face sound ridiculous to you but I hope there is a multi-verse.  My incredulity may have a reason given the weightlessness of some of Dr. Krauss's responses.

"Who (other than yourself) says that a necessary condition of atheism is certainty? There are some atheists who are certain of their position that there is no god or gods, and others who assert that they are open to considering any reasonable evidence to the contrary. As you can see, I'm trying to avoid getting into a definition dispute about whether atheism is a lack of belief or not." --Recusant

I would say that the laws of logic and criteria for truth are guides.  Given that I as an atheist was open to reasonable evidence I hope their will be others.  I also can currently be wrong and would hope to explore this if there is proof and evidence an atheist can use to give validation for that viewpoint.  I don't think I need go much further then the semantics some atheist use to say that Christians have a burden to give evidence while an atheist apparently needs or has no such burden.  Either there is no equal footing in the open marketplace of ideas or there is.

"Please define the term "noetic effect."" --Recusant  Try googleing the term Noetic Science

"He then makes a statement that Scientists have concluded that an expanding universe has a beginning. But he avoids expanding on what is meant by the beginning. I have found in my experience of debating with theists that they often perform this trick. They know that a word has multiple meanings and they use this to confuse their audience. They discuss one point implying a definition of the word but arguing a different definition. This way they twist reality." --Stevil  
I need some help here if you could explain more about how the fallacy of composition is committed?  It is reasonable to think from causality that the universe needs a cause.  It is also a valid inference to say an actual infinite like one is intending to get out of a chair does not ever result in one actually getting out of the chair.

"He then bizarrely extrapolated this to a multiverse, as if a multiverse is expanding or if all the universes within a multiverse had some kind of correlation to each other with regards to their respective beginnings. How does this relate to SpaceTime reality? How does it point to a beginning of SpaceTime reality? It simply does not. Anything referring to universes outside our own is pure speculation since other universes are beyond our ability to observe." --Stevil

I will try and explain conceptually.  The first nanoseconds of spacetime are bizarre to say it best and needed physics to be different.  So I don't know that a singularity is needed any more then any issue of a multi-verse.  We can not prove that the universe was not started on 12/31/1969?  All knowledge and memories could have started on this date that is considered to be the start date of the Internet.  A timeless and spaceless Mind could start things as an expanded point by forming the prerequisite quantum vacuum first so that there was no bang only an appearance of photons collapsing the wave like saying let there be light.

"His conclusion is that god's existence must be more likely given the beginning of the universe that without it. I struggle to see, even if the universe had a beginning that this makes god more probable."  --Stevil

I have to say that you devolve into circular arguments after this point but let me try and address this part from the post-mortem of Dr. Craig.  

By contrast, as I explained, when one asks, “Is There Evidence for God?” all that means is “Is the probability of God’s existence greater given certain facts than it is just on one’s background information alone?”  That question makes the debate a cakewalk for me (contrary to Krauss’s assertion that I was brave or foolhardy).  In a court of law, of course there is evidence for the guilt of the accused, even if that evidence isn’t sufficient to convict.  So here, to say there is evidence for God isn’t to say that that evidence is sufficient to show God exists.  In order to determine that, one would need to discuss as well the probability of God’s existence on the background information alone. That’s why, as Krauss stated, this wasn’t a debate on the existence of God.  It was merely on whether there is any evidence for God’s existence.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/reasonabl ... 5275604375

You see there is evidence for many things.  I can say that there is evidence of UFO's.  You see even a good debater like Michal Shermer will say that there is evidence but that he feels it not sufficient enough.  I just love the ignorance of some who make the bald assertion that there is no evidence for God.  And thus from the probability that this universe does exist and is fine tuned for life one can certainly draw a simple inference of a God.  You may not like the mere mention that there is evidence but I am sorry to tell you that this theist is not operating on magical thinking or wish fulfillment.

[The Magic Pudding]

You see there is evidence for many things.  I can say that there is evidence of UFO's.  

I suppose that's true, mad bastards claiming to be Napoleon could be seen as evidence Napoleon lives, to me though it's just evidence that there are a lot of mad bastards out there.

[Stevil]

I just love the ignorance of some who make the bald assertion that there is no evidence for God.  And thus from the probability that this universe does exist and is fine tuned for life one can certainly draw a simple inference of a God.

There is evidence that we don't know how our Universe began. There is lack of evidence to suggest that our Universe had a beginning, there is lack of evidence to suggest how or why our Universe began.
There is lack of any evidence of any god.
There is no clear definition of a god creature that could lead to a positive finding of evidence in support of gods.
What is a god, and what destinguishes it apart from all other creatures?

If I point to the ocean and say look lots of water, is that evidence that King Neptune exists?

[Recusant]

Let me do a quick and dirty response to some of the issues addressed to be.  I beg your forbearance if I don't properly use the quote system.

Actually, Dr. Krauss gives a basis for his assertion from current thought in physics and cosmology; it's not bald at all. Did you just ignore that, or do you have another reason for thinking that Krauss made a "bald assertion"?

I see some interesting things coming from physics and cosmology. Facinating stuff in fact but this does not give weight to Dr. Krauss in effort to explain things in a better way then the natural theology evidence presented.

Let me see if I understand this correctly.  You seem to be saying that you would rather look to theology than cosmology when exploring ideas and attempting to increase your knowledge of cosmogony. Thus you find that the statements of a physicist who has worked in the field of no weight when compared to those of a Christian apologist.  If I do understand your position correctly, I really can't dispute your right to follow that path.  I'll simply register my disagreement with your position.  Dr. Krauss was attempting during the debate to devote at least some of his time to educating the audience regarding current thinking in scientific cosmology in the course of his speeches responding to Dr. Craig.  It seems that his tutelary efforts fell on deaf ears in at least one case.

You seem to be making an argument from incredulity; because you find the statements of a well qualified and knowledgeable speaker hard to swallow, you dismiss them. Quantum fluctuations are an established reality in physics. As Krauss pointed out, this fact may mean that our space-time is a necessary result of the nature of reality. We don't know that our space-time is all that there is. The universe may actually be an eternal multi-verse; there is nothing in our current understanding of cosmology which prevents that from being the case.

Excellent point but if this is the case then it will still just be begging the question in that what started the multi-verse?  The multi-verse may be true and yet this does not dismiss the possibility that a timeless and space-less Mind loves to create a more excellent playground in which we get to have a future eternity in as adopted children of God.  May on it's face sound ridiculous to you but I hope there is a multi-verse.  My incredulity may have a reason given the weightlessness of some of Dr. Krauss's responses.

I bolded one thing you seemed to miss entirely in your response.  Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my first effort, but by "eternal" I mean just that.  In this case, "eternal" means "without beginning or end."  Again you make a bold stand for ignoring the statements of a scientist who works in the field being discussed on the basis that you judge them to be "weightless."  Maybe you could explain why you feel that Dr. Krauss's responses are weightless?

Another issue.  I'm not clear on how a "timeless" entity interacts in a universe that seems to be a fabric of space and time.  Is that just one of those imponderable transcendent deals where the deity gets to act in ways "beyond our understanding"?  If so, again, I won't dispute your right to hold with such ideas. However, in this case, I think that I'll be the one considering a response "weightless."

...Either there is no equal footing in the open marketplace of ideas or there is.

No, the footing probably isn't equal, as far as I'm concerned.  Given the somewhat mundane quality of a non-supernatural view of the world when compared to the extraordinary qualities exhibited by a supernaturalist view, I would consider that ideas pertaining to both require some falsifiable evidence to make them worthy of serious consideration, but that the burden on the supernaturalist view may be greater.

Please define the term "noetic effect."

Try googleing the term Noetic Science

I'm aware of the idea of noetics.  I wasn't clear enough in my request apparently. I was asking you to define the term in relation to the subject at hand.  "Noetic" is a somewhat nebulous term, in my opinion, and I was hoping you would clarify what you intended to say when you used the term "noetic effect."

A timeless and spaceless Mind could start things as an expanded point by forming the prerequisite quantum vacuum first so that there was no bang only an appearance of photons collapsing the wave like saying let there be light.

I'm not actually responding to this; I want to give Stevil the opportunity to elaborate on his response to your post if he wants to before I consider jumping in. I just thought I'd compliment you on some nice imagery, even if I don't agree with it.

[freeservant]

I just love the ignorance of some who make the bald assertion that there is no evidence for God.  And thus from the probability that this universe does exist and is fine tuned for life one can certainly draw a simple inference of a God.

There is evidence that we don't know how our Universe began.

I don't know what you are trying to say here.  Is the universe static or is it expanding?  What about the cosmic background radiation?  What about the laws of thermal dynamics?  Do you know that by the second law alone we know that that matter and energy are not eternal.

There is lack of evidence to suggest that our Universe had a beginning, there is lack of evidence to suggest how or why our Universe began.

Have you studied cosmology much?  I would encourage you to study science more as you will find that this there is evidence that goes counter to what you are saying.  Again do some research about entropy.

There is lack of any evidence of any god.

Nope this is just not true but if this makes you happy then cling to this as all the contempt prior to investigation that you will ever need.

There is no clear definition of a god creature that could lead to a positive finding of evidence in support of gods.
What is a god, and what distinguishes it apart from all other creatures?  

You have not explored the information available have you?

If I point to the ocean and say look lots of water, is that evidence that King Neptune exists?

Yeah... And with this dogma of the strawman you may feel this makes your case but keep educating yourself and try not to have contempt prior to investigation that is only a formula for ignorance.

EDIT:  Let me give you a website that you should explore:  http://www.ted.com/

[freeservant]

Let me do a quick and dirty response to some of the issues addressed to be.  I beg your forbearance if I don't properly use the quote system.

Actually, Dr. Krauss gives a basis for his assertion from current thought in physics and cosmology; it's not bald at all. Did you just ignore that, or do you have another reason for thinking that Krauss made a "bald assertion"?

I see some interesting things coming from physics and cosmology. Fascinating stuff in fact but this does not give weight to Dr. Krauss in effort to explain things in a better way then the natural theology evidence presented.

Let me see if I understand this correctly.  You seem to be saying that you would rather look to theology than cosmology when exploring ideas and attempting to increase your knowledge of cosmogony. Thus you find that the statements of a physicist who has worked in the field of no weight when compared to those of a Christian apologist.  If I do understand your position correctly, I really can't dispute your right to follow that path.  I'll simply register my disagreement with your position.  Dr. Krauss was attempting during the debate to devote at least some of his time to educating the audience regarding current thinking in scientific cosmology in the course of his speeches responding to Dr. Craig.  It seems that his tutelary efforts fell on deaf ears in at least one case.  

I was limiting my comment to the issue of the debate.  Is there evidence for God

I did not mean to sound like I was dismissing cosmology for theology but if the two magisteria do cross then I was saying that Dr. Krauss was making a poor effort and that is all.  The arguments Dr. Craig presented do have weight or he would not have presented them and this is born out by the multiple efforts to try and refute it.  I grant that some feel there has been sufficient refutation but I don't see this is true.

The universe may actually be an eternal multi-verse; there is nothing in our current understanding of cosmology which prevents that from being the case.

I bolded one thing you seemed to miss entirely in your response.  Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my first effort, but by "eternal" I mean just that.  In this case, "eternal" means "without beginning or end."  Again you make a bold stand for ignoring the statements of a scientist who works in the field being discussed on the basis that you judge them to be "weightless."  Maybe you could explain why you feel that Dr. Krauss's responses are weightless?

We may both have a problem of faith here.  Look at m-theory and you will see the problem in that it is still cooking and yet how do we really verify a multiverse?  Is there a way we can interact with it?  Does the quantum realm have strange attractors and such?  By what means do we show this?  You can obviously see that there is work to be done.  My bold stand if you will is to say that we do have competing theories and given entropy can you have an eternal mulitverse seed bed?  Given our understanding of thermal dynamics what kind of strange physics are entailed in an eternal multiverse that would need to have energy created regardless of if it is destroyable or not?

Another issue.  I'm not clear on how a "timeless" entity interacts in a universe that seems to be a fabric of space and time.  Is that just one of those imponderable transcendent deals where the deity gets to act in ways "beyond our understanding"?  If so, again, I won't dispute your right to hold with such ideas. However, in this case, I think that I'll be the one considering a response "weightless."

Okay... Yet it does stand to reason that a Creator and a Beginner of the universe would need to be outside of it.  A cause of all the spacetime and matter we have around us should be able to interact with His creation.  Also it would follow that God is a personal God who knows you or why else cause anything that you want to interact with.

See this weblink to try and understand why I give it weight.  

http://www.perrymarshall.com/articles/r ... s-theorem/

In 1931, the young mathematician Kurt Gödel made a landmark discovery, as powerful as anything Albert Einstein developed.

Gödel’s discovery not only applied to mathematics but literally all branches of science, logic and human knowledge. It has truly earth-shattering implications.

Oddly, few people know anything about it.

At least give it a try.  It may seem a bit esoteric to the case I am presenting about a personal God but understand that it does give me some greater clarity in my own personal epistemic journey.

...Either there is no equal footing in the open marketplace of ideas or there is.

No, the footing probably isn't equal, as far as I'm concerned.  Given the somewhat mundane quality of a non-supernatural view of the world when compared to the extraordinary qualities exhibited by a supernaturalist view, I would consider that ideas pertaining to both require some falsifiable evidence to make them worthy of serious consideration, but that the burden on the supernaturalist view may be greater.

I would say that given Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem it may be a bigger burden on your part.  Go with me here:  Try and understand that the falsification dogma is self refuting as it can not falsify it's self.  And if you define the supernatural as outside of this universe then this has been proven mathematically in the above theorem.  You do understand that some things just stand and can't be provable or testable in the sense you are talking about.  

By the mundane quality of a non-supernatural view do you mean a theory of everything like materialism?

In 1931 this young Austrian mathematician, Kurt Gödel, published a paper that once and for all PROVED that a single Theory Of Everything is actually impossible.

You may be fighting a lost cause?  This is where it is important for the atheist to come up with new attempts at logical argumentation.  The old tried and true pat answers just don't do it anymore.  I even see atheism slipping into a religion called secular humanism or neo-paganism.

Please define the term "noetic effect."

Try googleing the term Noetic Science

I'm aware of the idea of noetics.  I wasn't clear enough in my request apparently. I was asking you to define the term in relation to the subject at hand.  "Noetic" is a somewhat nebulous term, in my opinion, and I was hoping you would clarify what you intended to say when you used the term "noetic effect."

I use the term to imply that your brain is working IE: there can be no such thing as non-belief for you have to believe in something or have a functional brain thus non-belief is a nebulous and useless term.  I can't express with language a non-belief because it is a vacuum of any noetic effect.
It is like the problem with the term reverse racism.  There is only racism as a reverse condition would not be racism would it.

A timeless and spaceless Mind could start things as an expanded point by forming the prerequisite quantum vacuum first so that there was no bang only an appearance of photons collapsing the wave like saying let there be light.

I'm not actually responding to this; I want to give Stevil the opportunity to elaborate on his response to your post if he wants to before I consider jumping in. I just thought I'd compliment you on some nice imagery, even if I don't agree with it.

Thank you.  The picture at this website is the inspiration for that imagery.  http://www.daviddarling.info/encycloped ... _Bang.html

[Stevil]

I just love the ignorance of some who make the bald assertion that there is no evidence for God.  And thus from the probability that this universe does exist and is fine tuned for life one can certainly draw a simple inference of a God.

There is evidence that we don't know how our Universe began.

I don't know what you are trying to say here.  Is the universe static or is it expanding?  

Huh, did you read my sentence? It has nothing to do with the static or expanding nature of our Universe.

We know that our Universe is currently expanding, we can tell by observing the red shift of nearby galaxies. What this has to do with whether our Universe began or how it began is a mystery. Even the term Universe is ambiguous. Craig's definition is all encompassing of all of reality, all that exists. The definition I go with is with regards to the collection of energy/matter that is expanding from a central point (the big bang theory). How my definition and Craig's definition differ is that I think it is highly likely that there are many Universes within space.
When you say the beginning of the Universe do you mean the beginning of all the energy and matter or do you simply mean the begining of the expansion?
Science has theories with regards to the expansion upto a small amount of time after it started. Science doesn't know how or why it started and science does not know what was there before it started. Did all the energy exist within a massive black hole which took billions of billions of years to grow? Was the Universe as a result of the total energy exceeding some critical point, was it the result of multiple black holes colliding? Was there an intelligence that created it using advanced science? Science doesn't know.

What about the cosmic background radiation?

Science thinks this is a result of the begining of the expansion of the energy/matter within our Universe. It does not have a reflection of the beginning of the energy within our Universe.

What about the laws of thermal dynamics?  Do you know that by the second law alone we know that that matter and energy are not eternal.

You are somewhat confussed here.

There is lack of evidence to suggest that our Universe had a beginning, there is lack of evidence to suggest how or why our Universe began.

Have you studied cosmology much?  I would encourage you to study science more as you will find that this there is evidence that goes counter to what you are saying.  Again do some research about entropy.

I have already explained my answer above, I feel you position takes on board many assumptions

There is lack of any evidence of any god.

Nope this is just not true but if this makes you happy then cling to this as all the contempt prior to investigation that you will ever need.

We could argue this one till we are blue in the face. What you deem as evidence, I deem as assumptions, myth and superstition.

There is no clear definition of a god creature that could lead to a positive finding of evidence in support of gods.
What is a god, and what distinguishes it apart from all other creatures?  

You have not explored the information available have you?

From my understanding there is no clear definition.
Christain's simply point to their bible and say YHWH is god. This is a description of a personality, not the underlying noun god.

If I point to the ocean and say look lots of water, is that evidence that King Neptune exists?

Yeah... And with this dogma of the strawman you may feel this makes your case..

How about this for a strawman?
The Universe exists therefore God created it.

Please quit with your BS.

[Stevil]

A timeless and spaceless Mind could start things as an expanded point by forming the prerequisite quantum vacuum first ...

This is quite funny actually.
Your god created nothing first.
Your god that is made of nothing created nothing.
YHWH, the nothing god.
Hmmm, much to think about.
I'd actually like to throw theJackle's standard set of (nothing god that created everything including space) questions at you.

[freeservant]

A timeless and spaceless Mind could start things as an expanded point by forming the prerequisite quantum vacuum first ...

This is quite funny actually.
Your god created nothing first.
Your god that is made of nothing created nothing.
YHWH, the nothing god.
Hmmm, much to think about.
I'd actually like to throw theJackle's standard set of (nothing god that created everything including space) questions at you.

A mind is not nothing is it?  God is one being with three persons.  The bible does give a meaningful definition and incite into the character of God.  A trinitarian God gives explanation to how we have the richness of the creation we experience all around us.  Understand that just because you have a mind does not mean there can not be a timeless spaceless mind who gives anchor to our properly basic beliefs....

http://www.leaderu.com/truth/3truth06.html

Q. But at least we can be certain that we are having an apparent perception.

A. It's logically possible that these other things are so. I don't for a minute think that they are so, and I don't think that the fact that these are logically possible means that we don't know any of these. One question is whether you know these things. And another question is what's your evidence or how do you prove these things. I think you know something when that belief is true and when it's produced in you by your faculties working properly. God has created us with a lot of faculties and I know a perceptual belief is a true proposition when I believe it and it's true and it's produced in me by my faculties working the way they were designed to work. But that doesn't mean I can prove it to some sceptic. That's a whole different question. Knowledge is one thing, being able to prove it to a sceptic is a wholly different thing.

http://thinkingmatters.org.nz/2011/04/i ... oth-fairy/

UCLA law professor Daniel Lowenstein interviews Oxford mathematician John Lennox about the truth of Christianity and the grounds for faith.

[Stevil]

A mind is not nothing is it?

A mind is a conceptual definition of a physical system (the brain).
There is no evidence to suggest that the concept of the mind can exist and perform thought without an underlying physical system.  

God is one being with three persons.

You know this because your favourite story book tells you so? Can you present some evidence?

The bible does give a meaningful definition and incite into the character of God.

Please enlighten me, this should be a very simply exercise for you to merely paste the definition of a god creature as posed by the bible.
As an example here are some attempts by online services

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/god
god (gd)
n.
1. God
a. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
b. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
2. A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.
3. An image of a supernatural being; an idol.
4. One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed: Money was their god.
5. A very handsome man.
6. A powerful ruler or despot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions (and other belief systems) who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism.[1]

God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe. Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. The most common among these include omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence.

God has also been conceived as being incorporeal (immaterial), a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent"

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/god
Godâ€, â€,/gÉ'd/  Show Spelled
[god]  Show IPA
 
â€"noun
1. the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe.
2. the Supreme Being considered with reference to a particular attribute: the God of islam.
3. ( lowercase ) one of several deities, especially a male deity, presiding over some portion of worldly affairs.
4. ( often lowercase ) a supreme being according to some particular conception: the god of mercy.
5. Christian Science . the Supreme Being, understood as Life, Truth, love, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Principle.
6. ( lowercase ) an image of a deity; an idol.
7. ( lowercase ) any deified person or object.

As you can see there is no singular concise definition. None of these definitions could lead to a positive finding of evidence in support of gods. For example
take definition 5 from dictionary.com
"the Supreme Being, understood as Life, Truth, love, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Principle"
How would we recognise evidence of this? It's all very abstract and conceptual. At best you could only point to your god and say "look - Life, Truth, love, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Principle". But you refer to those as absolute truths and anything contrary must be interpreted. e.g. "God has said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die." To suggest God did not lie but told the truth one must interprete this "God was accurate and truthful when he said that Adam or Eve would die if they ate the apple. However, it must be interpreted symbolically as a spiritual death, not a physical death" - http://www.religioustolerance.org/sin_gene.htm.

Please can you provide your succinct, concise, acurate definition of god based on the bible that could lead to a positive finding of evidence in support.

Understand that just because you have a mind does not mean there can not be a timeless spaceless mind who gives anchor to our properly basic beliefs....

There is no evidence to suggest that a mind can exist without a physical system, that this mind could be timeless and spaceless. Without time how could a thought even be formulated? There would be no concept of sequence? Without existence of physical energy/matter how could data/information/knowledge and intelligence be formed? Your plea is baseless and hence no more than wishfull thinking

[Stevil]

I'm not actually responding to this; I want to give Stevil the opportunity to elaborate on his response to your post if he wants to before I consider jumping in. I just thought I'd compliment you on some nice imagery, even if I don't agree with it.

Hey Recusant, thanks very much for your approach to this. I don't have any problems with you stepping on my toes. I don't really care who points out the issues with his thinking. I'd much rather focus on analysing the actual debate being referenced.

[Recusant]

I was limiting my comment to the issue of the debate. Is there evidence for God

I did not mean to sound like I was dismissing cosmology for theology but if the two magisteria do cross then I was saying that Dr. Krauss was making a poor effort and that is all. The arguments Dr. Craig presented do have weight or he would not have presented them and this is born out by the multiple efforts to try and refute it. I grant that some feel there has been sufficient refutation but I don't see this is true.

When speaking of the topic of cosmogony, which after all is the subject of the Kalam, there is no question that I would prefer to hear the views of a physicist who works in the field of cosmology to those of a Christian apologist.  Not only is the physicist more qualified to speak on the subject, but in this case I happen to agree with his position. The arguments of Dr. Craig seem very weighty to you; enough to dismiss those of Dr. Krauss as "weightless." I strongly suspect that your reason for this is identical with that emphasized above. I think we've established our respective views on this question, and further discussion along these lines will prove fruitless.

We may both have a problem of faith here. Look at m-theory and you will see the problem in that it is still cooking and yet how do we really verify a multiverse? Is there a way we can interact with it? Does the quantum realm have strange attractors and such? By what means do we show this? You can obviously see that there is work to be done. My bold stand if you will is to say that we do have competing theories and given entropy can you have an eternal mulitverse seed bed? Given our understanding of thermal dynamics what kind of strange physics are entailed in an eternal multiverse that would need to have energy created regardless of if it is destroyable or not?

I don't have to have faith in the speculations of physicists and cosmologists, because I acknowledge that is exactly what they are.  What these speculations give us is an alternative view to that expressed in the Kalam cosmological argument for the existence of a god which is at least as valid as the Kalam, and contradicts it.  This alternate view (especially in conjunction with the circularity of the argument, and other purely philosophical issues with the Kalam) means that there is no good reason to accept the Kalam as a valid argument. As for your question of the energy of the universe, I offer yet another speculation:

From Creation ex nihilo - Without God by Mark I. Vuletic:

Astronomers can measure the masses of galaxies, their average separation, and their speeds of recession. Putting these numbers into a formula yields a quantity which some physicists have interpreted as the total energy of the universe. The answer does indeed come out to be zero within the observational accuracy.

No energy gained or lost overall.

Okay... Yet it does stand to reason that a Creator and a Beginner of the universe would need to be outside of it. A cause of all the spacetime and matter we have around us should be able to interact with His creation. Also it would follow that God is a personal God who knows you or why else cause anything that you want to interact with.

See this weblink to try and understand why I give it weight.

http://www.perrymarshall.com/articles/r%20...%20s-theorem/

Actually, I'm on the subscription list for Marshall's apologetics e-mails.  Not because I think he's outstanding; quite the contrary. I'm a subscriber because I like to get a regular inoculation of theistic thought to keep up my immune response. :shake:

Marshall:

Faith and Reason are not enemies. In fact, the exact opposite is true! One is absolutely necessary for the other to exist. All reasoning ultimately traces back to faith in something that you cannot prove.

This is a canard, and disingenuous at best.  The "faith" required to accept axioms in logic, for instance, is on an entirely different order than the faith required to accept that Jesus is the Son of God (and God Himself at the same time). If that were not the case, there would be very very few atheists.  Marshall must know this, but blithely glosses it over. The thing is, the axioms of logic and the premises upon which the scientific method is based may not be directly subject to proof, but we have strong evidence that they are true: Every time science provides us with something that works, it is further evidence that the premises upon which it's based are true.  Similarly with logic.  What evidence of that sort does one see which shows that the "God hypothesis" is true?

I could go on dissecting the Marshall page you linked, but I think I addressed the issues you were referring to. I see nothing in the page which shows conclusively that the universe is subject to Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem.

I would say that given Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem it may be a bigger burden on your part. Go with me here: Try and understand that the falsification dogma is self refuting as it can not falsify it's self. And if you define the supernatural as outside of this universe then this has been proven mathematically in the above theorem. You do understand that some things just stand and can't be provable or testable in the sense you are talking about.

As I pointed out above, the premises on which science is based, (including falsifiability as described by Popper) cannot be directly subject to proof, but there is strong evidence that they are true.  So indirectly, falsifiability is falsifiable, if you see what I mean.  Thus not completely self-refuting.  Also pointed out above is why I don't accept Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem as applicable to the universe.

Some things are indeed not testable, but that doesn't mean we have no other option than to accept them. There's no way to test whether Sagan's dragon exists, but on the other hand we have no good reason to accept that it does.  There are some reasons offered to accept that the Christian god exists even though we can't test for his existence, but I do not judge them to be of sufficient weight to convert to Christianity.

By the mundane quality of a non-supernatural view do you mean a theory of everything like materialism?

The mundane quality of the non-supernatural is self evident; a tautology even. I don't need to invoke materialism for that.

You may be fighting a lost cause?

 You wish.

This is where it is important for the atheist to come up with new attempts at logical argumentation. The old tried and true pat answers just don't do it anymore.

You have not shown that to be the case.

 

I even see atheism slipping into a religion called secular humanism or neo-paganism.

Yes, some atheists do adopt secular humanism or neo-paganism, or any number of other modes of thought such as Buddhism which can be described as a type of religion. LaVey Satanism is a religion which is explicitly atheist. None of this points to a defeat of atheism, if that's what you're implying.

I use the term to imply that your brain is working IE: there can be no such thing as non-belief for you have to believe in something or have a functional brain thus non-belief is a nebulous and useless term. I can't express with language a non-belief because it is a vacuum of any noetic effect.

I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow.  I believe that if I jump off a three story building, I'm  guaranteed to get injured.  You're right, none of us can function without beliefs.  However, non-belief in a god or gods does not detract in any way from functioning properly in the world.  You might wish to deprecate it as "nebulous and useless" but by doing so you merely express a personal judgment which does not have any great significance to me. Your premise is quite flawed to begin with, being  based on semantics rather than analysis of reality.

It is like the problem with the term reverse racism. There is only racism as a reverse condition would not be racism would it.

Again with the semantic games.  Reverse racism is a concept that's not hard to understand, and signifies a sociological phenomenon which exists.

(EDITED to correct spelling errors.)

[Recusant]

To Stevil:  Cool.  I'm trying to avoid duplication of effort as much as anything, but I also want to respect your arguments by not second-guessing them in this thread.  We'll have plenty of opportunity to cross swords directly if the occasion arises.  

[Recusant]

Dr. Craig has penned a response to Dr. Krauss's post debate essay.  It can be found on his website here.

I would say that I'm disappointed in Craig's condescending, smug sniping, but I'm not. This is the sort of attitude I've noticed him adopting in his debates as well. Thus I find it neither surprising nor disappointing.

[Davin]

What's more than just his smug sniping is that he is pretty good at trying to dodge things like:

Dr. Krauss caricatures my arguments as "God of the gaps" reasoning. But, as I explained, whatever scientific evidence I presented was not for God but for religiously neutral statements like "The universe began to exist" or "The fine-tuning is not due to physical necessity or chance."[...]Rather than misconstrue my arguments, Dr. Krauss needs to engage directly with the evidence I presented for these two premisses.

The god of gaps that he was being accused of wasn't those two premises, it was his implied premises that they must been done by a god. I really think the guy is intellectualy dishonest at best and just plain dishonest at worst.