· 8 years ago · Apr 26, 2018, 12:52 PM
1***
2refutation of major points in theism
3***
4
5---
6
7(Preface):
8
9For the informative disclaimer to readers, I am am Agnostic Naturalistic Scientific-Pandeist; Secular Humanist.
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11I equally support the stances of both Pandeism and Atheism.
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13I wrote this article as a generally informed layman for other laymen, particularly those who are ridiculous enough to have irrational beliefs based on feelings, personal conviction, and woo.
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15Though it is true that the "Burden of Proof" falls upon the claimant, in this case deists/theists, you can silence them with the rational proofs and factual evidence against their claim, which are provided to a great degree in this article.
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17The arguments presented in this article are strong as possible and when possible backed with theories as well as proofs, which are held to a logical and scientific standard.
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19This article is "open-source" that I compiled and wrote. Both sides are encouraged to read and dissect it, and potentially argue and improve upon it. For "lazy" atheists, here is a platinum opportunity to have your arguments "made for you" and fully formulated, making for easy copy-pastas to silence ignorance surrounding "the possibility or existence of god".
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21To sum up my article, math is the construct that all else descends from, and it is the "structure" of mathematics and geometrical relations/proportions that enabled any universe to exist at all, which actually made an (un-tuned) eternal oscillating meta-verse instead of a ("tuned") one-go thermodynamic-death single-stage ["big-bang"] [literal] "universe".
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23If you read my first section titled "The impossibility of a universe/multi-verse being created by a God, as well as a God "outside" of the multi-verse, time, and rules of mathematics or physics:"
24
25I say in the first paragraph:
26"A universe consisting of energy/matter, time, and space must precede or instantaneously arise simultaneously with the existence of a deity, otherwise there is nothing for it to be composed of and no place for a deity to reside; The necessity of a universe and energy/matter preceding rather than instantaneously arising simultaneously with the existence of a deity is obviously apparent when considering the synthesis of a "God" by the mechanism of Boltzmann Brains. God, if it exists, must either be the multi-verse or universe/s, or exist within them; Any supposition to the contrary is a violation of Information Theory."
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28This in itself disproves any "God" as a first cause, which is only expanded and compounded the more you read in my article.
29
30It specifically addresses some prominent claims in Gnostic Deisms, particularly focusing on supposed attributed of the Jewish and Christian "God" Eloa/Elohim and their "Sun" Yeshua Ben Yosef or Jesus Christ. It also falsifies the claims of Islam and basically through inference also that of the Hindus religions. It does not specifically address the claims of for example Egyptian, Norse, and Babylonian mythology, but I the author believe the work extends to disprove these as well. Hypothetically, it also disproves most other extra-terrestrial or "alien" religions which invoke a Deity or [Alpha]-Omega, meaning the beliefs of a foreign organism from another place in the universe other than our own planet or solar system. It does not specifically attempt to debunk any Pandeisms but may infact affect and/or reduce the number of plausible Pandeisms. Pantheism and implicit Panpsychism is largely un-addressed, though the author does believe that only natural scientific explanations of these "phenomena" should be considered and given credit when/where due. The author intrinsically discredit any explanation that is not at a minimum physically plausible which implies its conformity to the definition of logic as directed by mathematics.
31
32BT - FIBONACCI SEQUENCE
33https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa0IJmSBW08
34
35---
36
37The impossibility of a universe/multi-verse being created by a God, as well as a God "outside" of the multi-verse, time, and rules of mathematics or physics:
38
39-
40
41A universe consisting of energy/matter, time, and space must precede or instantaneously arise simultaneously with the existence of a deity, otherwise there is nothing for it to be composed of and no place for a deity to reside; The necessity of a universe and energy/matter preceding rather than instantaneously arising simultaneously with the existence of a deity is obviously apparent when considering the synthesis of a "God" by the mechanism of Boltzmann Brains. God, if it exists, must either be the multi-verse or universe/s, or exist within them; Any supposition to the contrary is a violation of Information Theory.
42
43Some theists may say, "Why do you think God needs a place to reside within; That premise is not accurate/true". I have never seen or been given a single example other than their conjecture of god that consists of a "thing" ( as opposed to non-thing, which is so relational to nothing) without a place to reside in. How is god not subject to the formality of nouns but is used as one? It is simple, they do not conform to any rationality. Resting ones faith in such a god is delusional. Provide them with a logical/rational explanation for the conclusion, and they will have the burden of proof to say otherwise.
44
45https://webhome.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Philosophy/god_theorem/god_theorem/node27.html
46https://webhome.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Philosophy/god_theorem/god_theorem/node6.html
47
48The likelihood of a Boltzmann brain arising would, on average, take vastly longer than the current lifetime of the Universe. If it is indeed true that the universe conforms to the cyclic model, this is more likely to eventually happen at least once, given the increased span of time for the event to occur.
49
50https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain
51http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/forum/Thread-Thought-Experiment-God-as-a-Boltzmann-Brain
52
53Time is a Prerequisite of any universe, such as in the meta-verse. Many theists have posited that time was created by "God", and that it is not an aspect of their existence. Please consider though that time cannot be created. Why not? Because creation means going from non-existence to existence, which itself is a sequence of before and after. And any before and after sequence requires time. Time therefore is a precondition of any and all universes. Thus time itself cannot be created. Christian doctrines may describe a "God" creating matter and space, light and life, but not of time. BBC begins their "Before the Big Bang" program acknowledging that the notion of time coming into existence, "may be a logical contradiction." The scientific fad, with its ubiquitous acceptance, of claiming that time came into existence with the big bang, could effortlessly disappear if not needed by the next fad, the multiverse. For although the statement that "time came into existence" launched a million words in its defense, men have no way of even thinking about the notion. Why not? Because it is meaningless. If God indeed were atemporal and could experience no sequence and hence, no change, it could never decide to create time, nor could it ever move from a decision to the actual act of creating time. If such an irrationality were plausible, God would have had to always have created time, and all of creation, from eternity past. Yet this is all gibberish. Further, because time does exist, even if that time had been created, an atemporal deity who experiences no succession and no change in His knowledge could therefore only know Himself as co-existing with time. Thus for theologians to say that God exists apart from time would be positing something of them that it itself could not know. Instead, the simple truth is that a timeless God could not create time and does not exist.
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55God "outside" of time is not logically possible; How can it proceed in any action if it is not bound by the progression of time? Would not any and all changes occur simultaneously and be instantaneous? How would it be capable of evaluating anything if there is no perception or experience in progression from one state to another?
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57Theists will often say that because our universe and the multi-verse must have had an origin (it does not have to by the way), and that the multi-verse consists of space, time, and material, the "first cause" can consist of neither of these. They invoke "God". Math (geometric relations by this extension) is spaceless, timeless, and immaterial. Math from everything I have ever observed is strictly secular. It is wise to say that math (including geometric relations) and not "God" is responsible for the existence of the universe, being the "construct initiator".
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59Theists may invoke hypothetical dimensions that are purely imaginary and "un-defined" for their deity to operate out of. Supposing that there is are some other type of dimension than energetic, spacial, or time is contrary to our experience in the universe and has no bearing over anything in our reality.
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61God "outside" the rules of mathematics or physics is fundamentally impossible; How can such a being ever be considered logically consistent?; Would it not need to obey a set of rules and have consistency just to be able to engage in actions or to recall an accurate memory? How would it be capable of existing if there is no defining rule or criteria for any aspect of its existence?
62
63---
64
65Origin of existence:
66
67-
68
69Theists often insist that the universe/multi-verse and matter had a beginning, and that God begat the rest.
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71I do have doubts about that sentiment, understanding the concept of an eternal multi-verse, a consequence of a zero-energy universe. It is about equally probable in my mind that the multi-verse either has a point of origin or always existed. If the universe/multiverse had a point of origin, then it may inevitably end up receding back to nothingness for another aeonic cycle.
72
73https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument
74
75Problems With The First Cause Argument
76https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqarf1QFxfs
77
78Atheist Destroys The "Kalam Cosmological Argument"
79https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u9ZIQ33a8c
80
81There may have never been a beginning, reality may overall be infinite.
82
83Pandeism vs theism: the Cosmological Argument
84https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBDJ7DMjLek
85
86Where did the energy from the big bang come from?:
87
88Introducing the oscillating universe model. Also, something can come from "nothing" in a zero-energy summed universe. Also, let us not negate the fact that there is zero-point vacuum energy in our observable universe.
89
90Sum and Difference Frequencies
91http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Audio/sumdif.html
92
93https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universe
94https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model
95
96Ab nihilo: [apart] from nothing, as in 'the universe/multiverse was created from nothing'
97https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_nihilo
98
99The result might seem to be, that out of nothing nothing is done, in exchange for nothing, and from nothing nothing has been separated. You can see the product of existence which is generated from nothing, for nothing, is separated from nowhere. What was wanted was to seem to be out of nothing something can be done, for nothing, and from nothing, nothing is at least two separate considerations, zero-sum or "0" and zip/zilch (absolutely nothing). You can see existence is a product which seems to be generated from nothing; We experience entities existing within reality because there is nowhere to be separated from it.
100
101On the Stability of Our Universe
102http://file.scirp.org/Html/13-7500783_23090.htm
103
104It is safe to say that the Universe is singularity-free, and was created ab-nihilo; in particular, zero-time infinite energy-density singularity are impossible.
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106My supposition is that existence is actually nothing, it is the form in which nothing is possible, and there is not any other type of nothing than as determinable by empirical methods such as mathematics as well as information/data gathering from experimental evidence consistent with the maximum possible amount of materialist observationalism and at a minimum at all times maintaining scientific realism. It does seem to me that any other kind of nothing, say absolute or pure nothing, is not a testable or falsifiable hypothesis.
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108If nothing simply means zero, then we have some mathematical proofs in favor "creation" without any need for a "creator".
109
1101+(-1) = 0
111x/0 = infinity-x = infinity
1120/0 = infinity-infinity = infinity
113infinity/infinity = 0-0 = 0
114
115The sum of energy across all universes may equal out to zero. Consider them all, add them together; This is their sum. It does not cancel out, however, it sums up over all the universes as zero. Universes do not interact with eachother in a way that subtracts or adds their energy, but that does not negate the possibility of their overall sum of energy equaling out to zero. This means that there may be diametrically opposed symmetric partner to our universe, an anti-universe that is the polar opposite but is otherwise equal in energy content to ours, and that together they are considered to sum out to net zero energy. Consider the energy values off all parallel universes and the multi-verse as a whole. There is evidence in favor of the zero-energy sum hypothesis in the form of correlations with virtual particle pair production.
116
117On the Zero-energy Universe
118https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0605063.pdf
119
120blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/12/28/why-are-atoms-mostly-empty-space/
121http://www.physics-astronomy.com/2017/06/if-atoms-are-mostly-empty-space-why-do.html
122
123Empty Space is NOT Empty
124https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3xLuZNKhlY
125
126https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation
127https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy
128
129The vacuum energy is a special case of zero-point energy that relates to the quantum vacuum. The effects of vacuum energy can be experimentally observed in various phenomena such as spontaneous emission and the Casimir effect. Although the Casimir effect can be expressed in terms of virtual particles interacting with the objects, it is best described and more easily calculated in terms of the zero-point energy of a quantized field in the intervening space between the objects.
130
131http://bigthink.com/dr-kakus-universe/can-a-universe-create-itself-out-of-nothing
132https://www.astrosociety.org/publication/a-universe-from-nothing/
133
134Before the Big Bang 6: Can the Universe Create Itself?
135https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79LciHWV4Qs
136
137https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-merely-vacuum-fluctuations/
138
139https://phys.org/news/2011-06-researchers-create-light-from-almost.html
140https://phys.org/news/2010-12-theoretical-physics-breakthrough-antimatter-vacuum.html
141https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/physicists-make-something-from-nothing-with-virtual-particles
142
143Alan Watts On Nothingness - FULL
144https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmjFdnP7qCY
145
146You Can't Have Something Without Nothing
147http://www.debate.org/forums/philosophy/topic/20394/
148
149
150---
151
152Some extensions of our existence that are not immediately apparent/intuitive:
153
154-
155
156https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation
157https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/multiverse-the-case-for-parallel-universe/
158
159Pandeism and Multiverse theory
160https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni0QfFUlswU
161
162Many Interacting Worlds theory: Scientists propose existence and interaction of parallel worlds
163https://phys.org/news/2014-10-interacting-worlds-theory-scientists-interaction.html
164
165The theory of parallel universes is not just maths – it is science that can be tested
166https://phys.org/news/2015-09-theory-parallel-universes-maths-science.html
167
168Hard Evidence for the Multiverse Found
169http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=5907
170
171The Basics of String Theory
172https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-string-theory-2699363
173
174Making sense of string theory | Brian Greene
175https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtdE662eY_M
176
177Super string theory may be possible without invoking any additional dimensions:
178
179The standard model and the four dimensional superstring
180https://arxiv.org/abs/1102.0129
181
182Four-Dimensional Superstring Models
183https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9511456
184
185Physicists are working on experimentally testing the multi-verse and string theories. This work is complementary to the field of string phenomenology. A scientific theory can be proven false but never true.
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187Scientists find a practical test for string theory
188https://phys.org/news/2014-01-scientists-theory.html
189
190Physicists Develop Test for 'String Theory'
191https://phys.org/news/2007-01-physicists-theory.html
192
193https://www.universetoday.com/12615/method-to-test-string-theory-proposed/
194
195String Theory Finally Does Something Useful
196https://www.wired.com/2010/09/stringy-quantum/
197
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199
200All dimensions exist simultaneously to eachother and are directly inter-connected. They are not the same as alternate universes; Everything within a universe probably exists within all of its dimensions at a time. Energy is a 1-dimensional string, which exists concurrently in time and space. Time and space are inter-relational and inseparable. More information about this can be found by investigating relativity and string theory.
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202Scientists suggest space-time has no time dimension
203https://phys.org/news/2011-04-scientists-spacetime-dimension.html
204
205If there are indeed extra dimensions, it follows to suit that their number and configuration will be based on a radix with optimal economy undergoing a proportional geometric relation yielding the value. One of the first dimensions to add to any physical theory is a second dimension of time, making it holographic, and enables the existence and explanation of parallel timelines. The "lines" that are traced within this 2D plane should be considered a type of fractional dimensions or fractal [extension] of 1D lines which are in some sort of periodic "waviness" for "propagation" [forward] through time.
206
207https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radix_economy
208
209It is reasonable to suppose the number of possible dimensions that make up reality are based on the ternary radix, and are (n-base)*([{n-base}-{n-base/n-base}]*[{n-base}-{n-base/n-base}]) or (n-base)^(n-base), so that when three is chosen as the n-base (for reasons of balanced ternary and more), these dimensional values end up being 12 or 27 respectively. These numerical values are of geometric and computational importance.
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211Though technically a conjecture of mine about string theory, but worth quickly presenting and minimally explaining is my 27D TOP and 12D bottom string hypothesis, which together are a "Merger" or M-theory. 12D = 1De 2Dt 9Ds AND 27D = 1De 2Dt 24Ds, where e, t, and s represent energy, time, and space, respectively. The theory uses 2D "slices" as its basic consideration of dealing with higher dimensions through what I can only describe as "hyper-surface bounding". The power of 27D TOP theory immediately is that 3D reality we observe is the "hyper-bound" configuration of energy across all dimensions of space and time. The 12D BOTTOM theory so far seems to give up on the 2D slice technique in favor of a 3D slice technique due to its use of 9Ds instead of 24Ds, that is unless using fractional dimensions of exactly 1.5D. This paragraph serves as just a basic and brief outline of my string conjecture, which is exactly as I stated, a conjecture, and at best a hypothesis, which is in no way formal, and is definitely not a physics theory or theorem.
212
213The Physics of Extra Dimensions
214https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0512182
215
216How To Test for an 11-Dimension Universe?
217https://www.wired.com/2007/09/how-to-test-for/
218
219Hints of extra dimensions in gravitational waves?
220https://phys.org/news/2017-06-hints-extra-dimensions-gravitational.html
221
222-
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224Retrocausal effects been observed in quantum mechanical experiments; They have been filmed happening on a macroscopic level using laser bursts.
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226The significant result was that after the path change occurred, a laser appeared from no where and struck the detection area where normally it would have been sent by the beam splitter. However, there was no laser that had been fired at the time, so this is evidence of the laser behaving as though it had been sent by the beam splitter, after the fact. Of great significance is the fact that when the path is changed, a laser appears out of nowhere and strikes the detection area, even though no laser was fired. This result causes a discontinuity from that moment and the time period before, showing the universe split. It is the first table top experiment clearly showing that parallel universes, from quantum mechanics, exist.
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228However, as the author states in the paper, this is not a case where the past has been changed, so much as it is a new universe splitting off that has a different past - one where the laser did strike the beam splitter. Also, I argue that particles - whether they be photons or whatever, have no conscious awareness and it is the omniverse or whatever mechanism that causes decoherence, that is responsible. This ties everything together, using the work of John Archibald Wheeler, to explain the entire phenomena without violating causality.
229
230Retrocausality is a true phenomena but it most likely is a misinterpretation. The idea is that a photon or some other particle, can change its direction after the fact. This has been proven through a large number of repeated experiments. However, I believe that the past isn’t changed. What occurs is that, just as in Schrodinger’s Cat experiment, the universe splits. In this case, however in the present one - where the evidence of the path change is recorded, the universe is a new one, separate from the original where the path wasn’t changed.
231
232All the details are in the paper below, along with photos from the film:
233
234Retrocausality, Wheeler's Delayed Choice, and Simulation Theory Reinterpreted Via The Participatory Universe, 'it from bit', Time Travel and the Everett/Wheeler Hypothesis
235http://vixra.org/pdf/1612.0254v1.pdf
236
237---
238
239Refuting the finely tuned argument?:
240
241Pandeism explains the stars and galaxies
242https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2wpSmjIHFw&t=43s
243
244It is conceivable that different types of multi-verse exist within the meta-verse due to differences in their values of e0 (vacuum permitivity) and u0 (vacuum permeability) or other constants; It is not known if this is indeed possible; We do not have enough information about how possible universes may vary.
245
246The Speed of light is derived by taking one divided by the square root of vacuum permitivity times vacuum permeability:
247c = 1/sqrt(e0*u0)
248
249Even pandeism is modest in its own supposition of an active creation by a deity, stating that it would would only need create a universe/multi-verse with minimal attributes to achieve a maximum effect; According to pandeism, evolution is not only possible but inevitable because of these minimal attributes.
250
251Let’s suppose that we allow, for argument’s sake, that the universe is intelligently designed. There are things that we can infer from the past, present, and future of the observable universe that speak to what this designer may be like. First, the designer seems to have wasted a lot of space. The observable universe is approximately 93 billion light years in diameter, most of this is relatively empty space, with approximately 100 billion galaxies consisting of an average of 100 billion stars per galaxy. Many of these stars have planetary systems. Yet most advocates of finely tuned argument seem to think that we humans are central to the designer’s plan. If that is the case, one has to wonder why the majority of the universe would not support our life. Our planet in our solar system is just a tiny, tiny fraction of the universe that we can see. So, why is the universe as large as it is?
252
253Second, our universe began about 13.8 billion years ago. From this beginning, it took about 9 billion years for our solar system to form. It took about 10 billion years for life to begin on our planet. It took about 13.5 billion years for humans to evolve. This incredibly long period of time for the supposed goal of creation to appear doesn’t seem to support the importance of our species to this designer.
254
255Third, there are apparent imperfections in the design of life itself. For example, the sensory systems of humans are not optimized to accurately sense the environment around us. Our eyes have a hole in the retina, where the optic nerve travels from the eye back into the brain. We fill these holes in from the surrounding scene in the visual field during the perception stage. We are not even aware that these holes are there. To be able to articulate the sounds of our language, our risk of choking increased beyond that of most other animals, because the entrance of our esophagus and our trachea are so close together. There are other examples, but these should suffice.
256
257Finally, the most problematic aspect of our experience for the type of designer that we’d like to imagine is the apparent fact that this designer is trying to kill us. Since the advent of life on Earth, there have been 5 major near extinction events, plus many other smaller but still devastating catastrophes. It is estimated that over 99% of all species that have existed have gone extinct. With the exception of plants, that get their energy straight from the Sun, life on earth must take energy from other life by eating plants and/or animals. This sets up a miserable existence of struggle and death for the majority of animals. Today, in our experience, we face many different natural disasters that take tens, hundreds, and even thousands of lives.
258
259From the former body of evidence, it seems that any designer that may exist is wasteful in both space and time, inefficient in designing, and at best absent from its design or capricious, and at worst bloodthirsty.
260
261---
262
263Heraclitus calls the entire cosmos "an ever-living fire". Fire is his first principle; all things are exchanged for fire and fire for all things. Fire changes into various other elements in a cosmic cycle, although the details of this cycle are unclear. Heraclitus equates Fire and God/Zeus as the divine ruling order in by referring to "the thunderbolt that stirs all things." He equated God to the ire. Fire is dependent on its change for its existence.
264
265Heraclitus - an inspiration to Pandeism
266https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNAGslC8YJY
267
268---
269
270Creationism after the beginning of the universe/multi-verse:
271
272-
273
274In order for God to have specifically created everything, it either had to have perfectly conceived initial conditions to direct chaos theory or intervene later as the random or psuedo-random progression of the universe/multi-verse unfolds.
275
276Sol, the sun of our Earth, is an entirely average star with the bulk of photons emitted comprising the green portion of the light spectrum.
277
278Size and location of earth is not unique to our star system. The position of planets in our star system is not special and can be explained well by astro-physical processes. It makes sense that Venus and Mars are other planets which would be suitable for terra-forming and colonization, given their proximity to earth and similar masses as well as incoming solar radiation, but they are not the only candidate bodies within our solar system suitable for for some form of human habitation; One other such place is a moon of Jupiter called Europa, which consists primarily of water.
279
280https://www.futurity.org/our-solar-systems-not-so-unique/
281
282https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstellar_habitable_zone
283
284Chemical evolution may refer to: Cosmochemistry (or astrochemistry), the study of the chemical composition of matter in the universe, including complex organics, and the processes that led to those compositions; Stellar nucleosynthesis, the creation of chemical elements by stellar thermonuclear fusion or supernovae; Abiogenesis, the transition from nonliving elements to living systems; Molecular evolution, evolution at the scale of molecules.
285
286https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_evolution
287https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment
288
289Life In The Universe; Organic Chemical Evolution
290https://history.nasa.gov/CP-2156/ch1.2.htm
291
292What is Chemical Evolution?
293https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRzxTzKIsp8
294
295Abiogenesis is the natural process by which life arises from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The transition from non-living to living entities was not a single event but a gradual process of increasing complexity. Abiogenesis aims to determine how pre-life chemical reactions gave rise to life.
296
297https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
298
299Systems can be designed or self-organize to form protocells, which behave in certain manners similar to life.
300
301https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocell
302https://www.popsci.com/researchers-make-artificial-cells-that-can-replicate-themselves
303
304The theory of protocells and abiogenesis explains how life came to be anywhere in the universe/multi-verse without invoking any creation by a deity.
305
306Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection explains the diversity and development of life that we encounter on earth, and conceivable life anywhere else in the universe/multi-verse without invoking any direction by a deity.
307
308https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution
309https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection
310
311How Evolution works
312https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOfRN0KihOU
313
314An introduction to genetic mutations | Biomolecules | MCAT | Khan Academy
315https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g02RnGXCXrQ
316
317Gene duplication and its effects on evolution
318https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmqHY4opHOM
319
320Richard Dawkins Explains Natural Selection
321https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc2kFmJR2SI
322
323Alot of theologists will exclaim that they eye is too complex and sophisticated to have come about by "accident of evolution". The eye is obviously not an accident to anybody who understands evolution by natural selection:
324
325Richard Dawkins demonstrates the evolution of the eye
326https://youtu.be/2X1iwLqM2t0
327
328Pandeism vs Creationism: Evolution IS Intelligent Design
329https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFNA8Tmh-wU
330
331Life is not impossible without a god to create it, nor does it have to conform with the conditions we have on earth; It does not need to consist of or resemble much of anything like life on earth.
332
333https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrobiology
334https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenobiology
335
336It is likely that not only other life but intelligent and Sapient extra-terrestrials exist.
337
338Fermi's paradox: a more probable solution
339http://www.nobeliefs.com/Fermi.htm
340
341https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
342
343If we see life as a by-product of the universe being in certain states, then there is nothing left that requires explanation.
344
345The geologic record including fossil evidence of evolution along with radiometric dating disprove creationism as set forth in the Judaic account of Genesis in the Old Testament, and presumably most if not all other creation myths.
346
347A lot of the time theologists will refute the geological record and scientific method of attaining dates and timescales from them, often citing religious creationist websites as a references to inaccuracies such as instances of rapid petrification. They are not exactly reputable sources of unbiased and factual information.
348
349Scientists can accelerate the process of petrification and fossilization in a lab
350https://www.livescience.com/110-presto-instant-petrified...
351
352Because it is possible to accomplish petrification and fossilization in short timescales, should we discredit and throw out the entire established criteria and time involved in the process? Of course not. Exceptions to the rule do not become the norm.
353
354To them, evidence is not evidence. Because there can be exceptions to the rule, there is always a gap in knowledge for their god to fill.
355
356
357---
358
359There have been around five thousand gods worshiped in various religions in human history, but only yours is right? Then consider the possibility of aliens existing and their potential list of gods. How would you know that only your species has worshiped the real god? It is highly improbable that any conception of God is correct, infinitely more so if it does not conform to the rules governing the whole of the universe or multi-verse, as determined by secular mathematicians and physicists, and as illustrated by scientific testing and discovery along with the successes of engineering.
360
361---
362
363How can a god know how and what to create? There is a serious issue with assuming that it has infinite knowledge and wisdom; How can it have knowledge and wisdom if there is nothing other than it to gather and compare information from and with?
364
365According to many theologies, "God" knows all that has, is, and will come to pass... This is called omniscience. How can "God" have knowledge of the future if there is no past or parallel existence for an event to be correlated with or tied to?
366
367---
368
369The difference between Determinism & Pre-determination
370http://lesswrong.com/lw/i2r/the_difference_between_determinism/
371
372If God specifically created everything, having perfectly conceived initial conditions to direct chaos theory, it is required that they also are entirely responsible for any and all existences and events, including perceptions and experiences, that occur within their creation/s.
373
374If God specifically created everything by occasionally deliberately intervening with their creation as events unfold, they are to varying degrees (however, less than perfect conceived initial conditions) directly responsible (until entropy devolves their intervention) for subsequent existences and events, including perceptions and experiences, that occur within their creation/s.
375
376It is pretty obvious that this means they would be completely responsible for the entire experience of anybody in the entirety of existence. Would they be held accountable?
377
378Evolution and pre-decision along with pre-determination and pre-destination means that there is no being other than God that can have engaged in "original sin".
379
380Pandeism and the Free Will Paradox
381https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjrPwN3u890
382
383Pandeism vs Theism: The Unevangelised
384https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CugVgOdaSvI
385
386-
387
388pre-determinism and predictability quantum
389
390It is a scientifically established fact that consciousness occurs within a body, particularly being rendered by neurons within a nervous system and better yet in conjunction to a brain. The brain and memory works in a holographic fashion. The brain is a type of computer that works like a classical machine.
391
392https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_theory_of_mind
393
394https://www.livescience.com/47240-ibm-computer-chip-simulates-brain.html
395
396Scientists scan brain using a machine interface to determine a persons actions before they happen, even before the person is consciously aware of the choice, and the method which determines decisions is about eighty percent accurate.
397
398Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences reveal by experiment that our decisions are made seconds before we become aware of them. In the study, participants could freely decide if they wanted to press a button with their right or left hand. The only condition was that they had to remember when they made the decision to either use their right hand or left hand. Using fMRI, researchers would scan the brains of the participants while all of this was going on in order to find out if they could in fact predict which hand the participants would use BEFORE they were consciously aware of the decision. By monitoring the micro patterns of activity in the frontopolar cortex, the researchers could predict which hand the participant would choose 7 seconds before the participant was aware of the decision.
399
400“Your decisions are strongly prepared by brain activity. By the time consciousness kicks in, most of the work has already been done,†- John-Dylan Haynes, a Max Planck Institute neuroscientist
401
402Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain
403https://www.charite.de/fileadmin/user_upload/portal/Haynes_UnconsciousDeterminants_NN2008.pdf
404
405It is possible to stimulate the brain to have profound experiences such as psychic interactions.
406
407Neuroscience and Free Will - Libet's Experiment
408https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJPwULN7cYo
409
410This Is Your Brain on God; Michael Persinger uses electromagnetic fields to stimulate the brain's temporal lobe to produce psychic experiences
411http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.11/persinger.html
412
413Stimulating brain cells can make false memories
414http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/scientists-have-discovered-how-to-implant-false-memories
415
416How Physics and Neuroscience Dictate Your "Free" Will
417https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/finding-free-will/
418
419So there is no free will. Now what?: Robert Speth at TEDxNSU
420https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH_VG_aqwoc
421
422-
423
424Human beings are not very good at coming up with random numbers. predictability of behavior
425
426
427-
428
429Everybody is different, but nobody is completely unique. If everyone is special, then nobody is. When everybody is somebody, then nobody is anybody.
430
431Let us consider that consciousness is common among groups but unique to each individual. Each individual has uniqueness, but it is well known there are practical limits on physical entities, and that would include the number of unique consciousness within that variety of entity. So it is possible that a another entity will have a similar familiar conceptions and even personal experiences of existence as you. Does this qualify as an afterlife? In parallel [timelines and] [in particular] universes, you have a double or doppleganger who is not only performing the same exact actions of you but just about to and just finished doing the exact same thing as you, though everything is shifted about forward and backward in time.
432
433Sam Harris: The Self is an Illusion
434https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fajfkO_X0l0
435
436---
437
438No evidence of objective meta-physical attributes to reality
439
440---
441
442The Case for Moral Nihilism
443
444-
445
446The unit of ethics is values. Values are things that one must work to gain or keep (a simple example of that is nutrition). These values are short-handed ways of expressing moral principles (ex. “we need to eat because otherwise we dieâ€), and moral principles are short-handed way of expressing scientific or social facts (such as the facts about metabolism).
447
448The basis of ethics is causality: everything has consequences, and so do actions. Actions have consequences, and our role is to find those consequences and act accordingly.
449
450By evaluating what values are being effected by a given action in its context, we can express a sound moral judgment on that action (this was a good thing to do, this was a bad thing to do). This is true regardless of your actual moral system – we all have values, implicitly or explicitly. The real argument is about those scientific and social facts and what values they entail. There cannot be any argument on whether there are objective moral principles: it’s a discussion about as ridiculous as asking whether the Earth exists. We all need to act to survive.
451
452Evolution is the origin source of moral standards, our sense of right and wrong evolved biologically and are the answer to moral questions. Morality has a lack of consensus; Most people do not follow objective standards of morality which are identical.
453
454If there is no God, is everything permitted?
455https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKGcZacCnls
456
457Game Theory and Ethics
458https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-ethics/
459
460Is Morality Subjective? | Nihilist vs. Philosopher!
461https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7CjHg9CV8o
462
463Pandeism answers the problem of good and evil
464https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agw-mArUWys&t=105s
465
466Dawkins on religion: Is religion good or evil? - Head to Head
467https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0Xn60Zw03A
468
469---
470
471The subject of heaven and hell, and of the possibility of an afterlife:
472
473There is no evidence to support a belief in heaven or hell. There is no reason to believe in heaven because imperfection is everywhere around us. Mutations may be the key to innovation in evolution but they are also route for new illness and disease. Even though there can be an ample supply of resources to ease a burden and cause a general feeling of comfort, issues can still arise, even without people using power plays over resources or eachother. The closes that we can get to angelic existence is to respect mutual non-aggression principle. There is no evidence that a place like hell exists.
474
475https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_Hell
476
477It is a scientifically established fact that consciousness occurs within a body, particularly being rendered by neurons within a nervous system and better yet in conjunction to a brain. When we are alive, we are capable of interacting with the world, thinking about the world and planning our actions, intuition and ingenuity, and retrospection.
478
479Let us consider that when people die, their brains release DiMethylTryptamine (DMT). The time compression and deep experience felt about the same time as death is due to this chemical release by the pineal gland. It is possible to stimulate the brain to have profound experiences such as psychic interactions. When your brain dies, you loose consciousness in your body at at minimum. What is your consciousness consisting of without a body and specific organ to orchestrate it?
480
481This Is Your Brain on God; Michael Persinger uses electromagnetic fields to stimulate the brain's temporal lobe to produce psychic experiences
482http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.11/persinger.html
483
484Each individual has uniqueness, but it is well known there are practical limits on physical entities, and that would include the number of unique consciousness within that variety of entity. So it is possible that a another entity will have a similar familiar conceptions and even personal experiences of existence as you. Does this qualify as an afterlife? In parallel universes, you have a double or doppleganger who is not only performing the same exact actions of you but just about to and just finished doing the exact same thing as you, though everything is shifted about forward and backward in time.
485
486Let us consider that consciousness is common among groups but unique to each individual. This individual progresses through their life, gaining information and insight. Could they transfer information and insight to a further progression of their kind? It all depends if something known as a memory field or M-Field actually exists. At this point, it sounds like woo.
487
488Some theists will cite a piece of misinformation, that the human body fully replaces all of its cells and atoms within every ten years or so (This is not true), and their particular interest to this claim is to state that this means the brain is fully replaced too, therefore consciousness must transcend the brain. In fact, neurons in the cerebral cortex are never replaced. There are no neurons added to your cerebral cortex after birth. Any cerebral cortex neurons that die are not replaced.
489
490Indeed, there is no evidence of any type of transcendence of consciousness in the context of natural processes. The only type of transcendence that is scientifically reasonable is the cloning and subsequent porting of consciousness from one body to another.
491
492Supposing that consciousness can transfer to another body though a woo mechanism, it would need a body to reside in, particularly a functioning nervous system and brain to operate out of. We suppose it may be possible to port consciousness into clones and machines, but this is all dependent on them having a functioning body for the consciousness to reside and furthermore operate within. You could render them as a future hive mind universe with segmentation of separateness though all would be interconnected like a universal sized brain. That universe is entirely unlikely to exist, particularly in a naturally occurring (non-constructed) way.
493
494Richard Dawkins & Steven Pinker debate: "Is Science Killing The Soul?"
495http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dawkins_pinker/dawkins_pinker_index.html
496
497Pandeism and the Afterlife
498https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5U7w2ggzLU
499
500---
501
502A delusion is a mistaken belief that is held with strong conviction even when presented with superior evidence to the contrary. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, or some other misleading effects of perception.
503
504They have been found to occur in the context of many pathological states (both general physical and mental) and are of particular diagnostic importance in psychotic disorders including schizophrenia, paraphrenia, manic episodes of bipolar disorder, and psychotic depression.
505
506The God Delusion is a non-fiction book by English biologist Richard Dawkins. In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence.
507
508The real God Delusion is vainly believing that the Creator of our vast Universe is especially interested in only one species in a minute place and time.
509
510The Real God Delusion
511https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0-CsHBCuBA
512
513"When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion." - Robert Pirsig, Lila (1991)
514
515---
516
517The God of the Philosophers, Part I
518https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZg9UCmRxE0
519The God of the Philosophers, Part II
520https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAWaKdQw5oo
521
522Five Easily Deniable "Proofs" of Jesus's Divinity
523https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkfm0DKboas
524
525How theists know about their god(s).
526https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA8eh5t19A0
527
528
529
530---
531
532God is Logically Impossible; The Argument for Atheism from Incoherence:
533
534-
535
536There is no direct evidence that any god/s exist. Likewise, there are no purely theoretical arguments that prove any gods either. In addition to the lack of reasons for a God's existence, the Argument from Incoherence holds that the very concept of god is self-contradictory and impossible, therefore, theism is false and atheism is true. Omnipotence and omniscience contradict free will and themselves are logically impossible; Its omniscience is impossible for it to validate and there are questions about its own being that it itself cannot answer (therefore, nothing can be omniscient). If it is a perfect being, then, there is no need to do any creating. If it is eternal and immutable, then its very thoughts are eternal and immutable - in other words, it has no mental states. If its basic emotional, behavioral and instinctive drives are all fixed (i.e., not created by itself, therefore, not under its own control, and unchanging), then it is hard to imagine how the being, existing in a world without stimulation nor change, can be conscious at all. Without free will, morality, omniscience the remaining "god" is only an automaton: a being that follows necessity and logic. But the concept of a creator god is even more problematic - for this 'creator of everything' must have inherent traits that it itself did not create. It must be intelligent and rational (therefore, it can't have created intelligence nor logic). It must have desire, drives, motivations, an amazing omniscient thinking mechanism, and it can't have created itself. So it seems impossible and untrue to say that "everything must have a cause, therefore there is a god". Each property of god is itself a contradiction of the idea that god is the sole creator. All those uncreated self-traits lead to an impossibly unlikely situation where a complicated and multi-faceted being is invoked in order to explain a universe that is said to be too complex to have self-created. The very concept of a creator god contradicts itself, and is impossible as well as incoherent. The First Cause of everything is not a god at all, it is merely the natural laws of an atheistic universe.
537
538-
539
540God Cannot Have Free Will:
541
542It is known by four strong arguments that God cannot have free will, as other features and properties of God contradict the possibly of god being able to make choices.
543
544An omniscient being cannot have free will because it is predestined by its own knowledge of its future actions.
545
546A perfectly benevolent God cannot have free will because there is only one perfect course of action, which God, being perfectly good, must follow.
547
548The creator of time cannot have free will: if God exists outside of time then it is immutable, unchanging, and as such it has no mental states except one everlasting and perfect state. Choices require changes in mental states over time. An eternal being that created time cannot have free will.
549
550If God created free will then it cannot itself already have had free will before it done so: yet, an omniscient being already knew (before it created free will) everything it would do. Therefore any creator-god cannot have free will about any of its actions.
551
552-
553
554God Cannot Be All-Knowing (Omniscient):
555
556How Can God Verify Its Own Creator-God Status?:
557
558If you knew everything, then you should know that you know everything. If you do not know if you know everything, then you don't know everything. So, would a god know everything? How would it know? There are some questions that even a god could not answer. One question proceeds from a possible being that God could create. God could create a solipsistic being and make that being so that it thinks it created the universe. It could give such a being all knowledge except knowledge that it itself was created. Such a being would have no idea that it was, in fact, a created being and that there was another, higher, creator. If God wanted to create such a deluded being, it could do so. The problem is, our theorized God itself does not know if it exists in such a state of ignorance. In short, God cannot know if it does actually know everything. There is no way for it to even verify that it is indeed the true creator god.
559
560How Can God Verify That Its Knowledge is Complete?:
561
562All intelligent sentient beings must realize that without verification from other beings than itself or from science, it cannot know if it is correct in its world view. It doesn't matter how intelligent or knowledgeable a being is - if that being wants to verify its knowledge to make sure that it is correct then it needs to look to something more intelligent than itself, or to science. But what if you are the creator of science? You couldn't then use your own construct to test if your own construct was true, it would be a circular and invalid test. If god attempted to find out if it did indeed know everything, it would realize that it has no way to know. How does it know it knows everything? It merely thinks it does. God has no test, method or possibility of finding out if it does indeed know everything. God could itself be a created being, with another creator hiding secretly behind it. It wouldn't know. In short, it does not and cannot know if this is true. Also, what if God uses its power to intentionally forget something? For Christians, this is exactly what the Bible says God can do, in Isaiah 43:25. If an omniscient and omnipotent being has chosen not to know something, then it may, or may not, know that it doesn't know. The worst possibility is when it erases its own knowledge of self-forgetting. It can therefore never know that it doesn't know something. It can't check. God does not know everything and is not omniscient. In fact, no being can know everything because no being, however creative or perfect, can verify that its own knowledge is complete.
563
564Thinking Beings Do Not Know Their Own Substance:
565
566"I think therefore I am" is as true for God as it is for any being. But: God cannot account for its own nature. Whatever facet of personality, willpower or desire it examines about itself, it will find that it cannot find out why it is like it is. Why does God know everything? Why is god good-natured, or, creative, or loving? (If it indeed it is those things, of course). It seems that all-knowing is not an attainable state. Immanuel Kant says that it is impossible, through self-reflection, to know your own substance. He adds:
567
568“For as he does not as it were create himself, and does not come by the conception of himself a priori but empirically, it naturally follows that he can obtain his knowledge even of himself only by the inner sense and, consequently, only through the appearances of his nature and the way in which his consciousness is affected.†- Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals by Immanuel Kant
569
570An omniscient being is in the same boat: it cannot self-verify. Gassendi came to the same conclusion, as reported by Voltaire:
571
572“'It is true,' says Gassendi, 'that you know what you think; but you are ignorant of what species of substance you are, you who think. Thus although the operation of thought is known to you, the principle of your essence is hidden from you; and you do not know what is the nature of this substance, one of the operations of which is to think.'†- Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire (1764)
573
574Potential Self-Willed Ignorance:
575
576Assume that God does know everything. For some reason god chooses not to know something. It erases something from its own knowledge, and, makes it so that it hasn't known about it for all of time so it can't simply look into a different time when it did know. It then removes its own memory of having intentionally forgotten something. I argue in "The Four Dimensions and the Immutability of God" by Vexen Crabtree (2007) that God can't do such things. But I might be wrong, so here's the clincher:
577
578How would god know now if it had intentionally chosen not to know something? It wouldn't be able to contradict its own will in choosing not to know, but if it destroyed the memory of making such a choice, it also wouldn't know if it had actually forgotten anything. This is another (admittedly tenuous) class of self-knowledge that any being lacks and can never know. Without an answer to this potential source of agnosia, no being that aspires to omniscience can be truly omniscient.
579
580-
581
582God Cannot Be All-Powerful (Omnipotent):
583
584“Omnipotency is the state of being "all-powerful". In monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam God is said to be omnipotent many times in their scriptures. Omnipotency implies other super-powers too: if you are all-powerful then you have the means to instantly uncover any and every fact, so, it also implies omniscience. It also requires omniscience.
585
586However omnipotency has such theological and philosophical difficulties that it seems to be a self-contradictory and impossible concept. God itself is constrained by the laws of logic and rationality - it can't make a square circle or create an object that it can't destroy. Most people cede that "omnipotent" means only the ability to do any logical thing4,5. Indeed, in order to create anything at all then you must first be able to think rationally, in an ordered way, and therefore, to be subject to logical cause-and-effect6. Therefore, omnipotent beings can't be the creators of the fundamental laws. Omnipotency contradicts being the "first cause" of all reality. And if an all-powerful being created pain, suffering, the cycle of life (wherein most living beings must kill and eat other beings to survive) whilst it has the all-powerful ability to create eternal happiness for everyone, then, such a being cannot be benevolent (morally good). Millennia of theological and philosophical debate has not resulted in these contradictions being resolved.â€
587
588Also, as omniscience has a number of problems, there can be no omnipotent beings (as omnipotency requires omniscience).
589
590-
591
592God Cannot be Perfectly Benevolent or Morally Good:
593
594That "God is Good" is a common assumption made by theists yet God could exist and be neutral (amoral) or malevolent (evil and immoral). But it cannot be "morally good". It if it perfectly good then it always makes the most perfect choices and therefore has no free will. A being with no free will cannot be morally good as it makes no moral choices; it can only be morally neutral like a robot. Also, if God's actions and wishes are automatically good by definition, then its morality is arbitrary and we ourselves have no moral reason to follow it, and may do so only out of fear of the consequences or of selfish want of reward. If God's actions are not by definition good, then, there must be an independent source of the definition of goodness. If God has always been good then God can't have been the creator of goodness; yet if it wasn't, then what was? The idea of a good god causes contradictions. If you do not accept purely logical, philosophical or theological arguments that god cannot be benevolent, then, the real-world existence of evil and suffering (of babies, etc) is also evidence that the world was not created by a perfectly good god. Natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanoes appear to be universal and not linked to Human free will, yet they cause much destruction. It seems that morality and God are contradictory. God cannot be the author of morality nor can it itself be moral.
595
596-
597
598The Immutable Creator of Time: Robotic, Emotionless and Unthinking:
599
600To be an eternal being that is responsible for creating the flow of time itself, is to be immutable and unchanging. God has existed for all eternity before the creation of the world, and all of eternity after the demise of the world. The created world - from beginning to end - is like an object in the hands of God, that can be rotated and examined. God can view every timeline from start to finish, and knows the conclusion of every test. This First Cause of the Universe sits on the outside of time, looking it, effectively omniscient. But God is not subject to the laws of the Universe that it created. It holds all of time and space in its hands but it is not itself subject to time. For this reason, God doesn't change. And for another reason, too: God is a perfect being. Any change away from a perfect state in order to achieve some aim or goal must be a step towards a good purpose: but, god, in being perfect, has already attained all good ends. God doesn't consist of an eternal series of mental states: God is one mental state, unchanging, perfect and eternal7.8
601
602The conclusions that God is unchangeable has been reached by some of the leading historical Christian theologians. St Thomas Aquinas in the second book of his Summae Theologiae concludes that god cannot change itself, or repent, or undo the past. This is because these things are temporal events that require God to be subject to time itself; but as time is a dimension created by god, God is above and outside it. The Bible supports this in Malachi 3:6, Numbers 23:19 and James 1:17.
603
604The result is that God is immeasurably cold and emotionless; much more like an automatic process, rather than like the God that many people wish exists. It seems the very concept of God verges on being self-contradictory: It is more of a principle, unconscious and non-thinking. These and other theological problems have led many to the conclusion that God simply doesn't exist.
605
606-
607
608The Features and Properties of God Were All Non-Created, Which Contradict the Idea of a God as the Sole Creator:
609
610If god created anything according to a thought-out logical plan, or, if God had a desire to create anything that wasn't pure random chaos, then, god's thoughts must have been framed around logic. This logic allowed god to think and create, and, gave motivation to God. Logic must have been the first cause; but if logic is a requirement for God and existed before God could create, then God cannot be the First Cause, and therefore, creator-god theism is false, and atheism is true.
611
612We have seen how many of the properties of God contradict each other, and themselves turn out to be impossible. There is no possibility of any being existing with the properties that we would recognize as godly.
613
614But the concept of a creator god is even more problematic, for this 'creator of everything' must have inherent traits that it itself did not create. It must be intelligent and rational (therefore, it can't have created intelligence nor logic). It must have desire, drives, motivations, an amazing omniscient thinking mechanism, and it can't have created itself. So it seems impossible and untrue to say that "everything must have a cause, therefore there is a god". Each property of god is itself a contradiction of the idea that god is the sole creator. All those uncreated self-traits lead to an impossibly unlikely situation where a complicated and multi-faceted being is invoked in order to explain a Universe that is said to be too complex to have self-created. The very concept of a creator god contradicts itself, and is impossible and incoherent.
615
616-
617
618The Unwarranted Assumptions of Theism:
619
620An uncaused God is more complicated than an uncaused Big Bang. When it comes to comparing arguments where there is no hope of actually getting any physical evidence, there is a long-standing heuristic to help distinguish between theories, called Occam's Razor: it turns out that when all evidence is accounted for, the theory with fewest assumptions is more likely to be true. God requires many properties and complexities such as consciousness, thought, personality, creative drive, love, an internal logic ordering its thoughts so that it can think coherently and rationally, memory, etc: All of these properties must have been derived from somewhere. It turns out that God is a vastly more complicated thing than the Big Bang and the fundamental laws of the Universe.
621
622Theists and atheists both believe in some universal laws of logic and/or nature which exist as the first cause. But the theist position adds on a list of personality traits to this first cause, and, calls the result "God". Whether these additional assumptions are warranted or not is hard to prove, hence why we say that the additional assumptions under theism are based on faith. These theistic assumptions include attributes about God: it is all-powerful, omniscient, benevolent, it has memory, it has rational and ordered thoughts running along logical lines, it is emotional, it wants to be worshiped and other particular assumptions of various religions. Even if it was found that the First Cause must be a conscious god, then, it is not reasonable to assume that all those other assumptions are true too. In comparison to all that, atheists make far fewer assumptions about reality, meaning that their position is more likely to be correct.
623
624“The scientist, however, may wish to challenge the assumption that an infinite mind (God) is simpler than the universe. In our experience, mind only exists in physical systems that are above a certain threshold of complexity. [...] While it is possible to imagine a disembodied mind, there must be some means of expression of the pattern, and the pattern itself is complex. So it could be argued that an infinite mind is infinitely complex and hence far less likely than a universe. [...]
625
626According to our best scientific understanding of the primeval universe it does indeed seem as though the universe began in the simplest state of all - thermodynamic equilibrium - and that the currently-observed complex structures and elaborate activity only appeared subsequently. It might then be argued that the primeval universe is, in fact, the simplest thing that we can imagine.†- God And The New Physics by Paul Davies (1984)
627
628---
629
630If god exists and has a plan, as well as it being a given that god is un-comprehendable and their plan is un-knowable, how can anybody understand what they do not have knowledge or comprehension of?
631
632What is the point of engaging in any theological discussion if "God" is infinitely complex and un-knowable?
633
634---
635
636"Science can't throw a supernatural god-like being out of the realm of possibilities because science only deals with the natural"
637
638I do not believe that anything is possible which does not obey the laws of nature, including inventions/technology, even if they are an anomaly, like being a god.
639
640What is the point in a non-falsifiable hypothesis, such as the existence and properties of a god?
641
642Why would god be subject to different laws than our own, and be excluded from our laws? At the minimum basis, any existence must obey mathematics, and it follows that they must be logically consistent.
643
644Theists tend to discard all evidence and reason in favor of their superstitious belief and explanations which which consist of and provide neither.
645
646"Out with the sturdy the logic and evidence, in with the flimsy contention and beliefs. God did it! You are just here to test my faith!"
647
648https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps
649
650Pandeism vs Atheism: The God of the Gaps
651https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1WUhR2mEKY
652
653---
654
655Philosophical Failures of Christian Apologetics, Part 6: Terrible Teleology
656https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD4eAMrkIlM
657
658---
659
660In the Thomistic cosmological argument for the existence of God, everything requires a cause. However, proponents of the argument then create a special case where God doesn't need a cause, but they can't say why in any particularly rigorous fashion.
661
662The argument:
6631) Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
6642) The universe began to exist.
6653) Therefore, the universe has a cause (and then they take it from there to "God" by showing the logical necessity of the properties of such a cause; that's a different story).
666
667The argument can be simplified to:
668P1) Everything that exists has a cause.
669P2) The universe exists.
670C) Therefore, the universe has a cause.
671
672What the argument really means:
6731) Everything has a cause except for my "God".
6742) The universe had a cause.
6753) Therefore, "God" caused it.
676OR
6771) The universe at one point started to exist.
6782) There is a reason why the universe started to exist.
6793) Let's call that reason "God".
680OR
6811) Every event is part of a causal chain
6822) Causal loops and infinite causal chains are impossible.
6833) When following the causal chains back in time, they all converge to a single point; the beginning of all causal chains.
6844) Let's call that point "God".
685
686One response to this argument, beyond pointing out the fallacy, would be to point out that nature itself could have existed eternally in some form just as they say God had existed eternally before creating nature. One modern philosopher who has applied this argument is Carl Sagan, though he wasn't the first to do so.
687
688That being said, such a special pleading when discussing a "First Cause" may have some degree of merit; as any computer scientist will tell you, the root of a nested hierarchy may need to be handled as a special case anyway, although said computer scientist can probably also add that there are plenty of directed acyclic graphs that have multiple roots.
689
690It is special pleading to say "God" didn't "begin to exist." That, in itself, is special pleading. Why does "God" not need a beginning? If God doesn't need to begin to exist, then neither does the meta-verse.
691
692Theologists in general haven't really justified why "God" is exempt from the rules. Definitions and appeals to history don't cut it. They may respond that "it is simple. 'God' is not a thing that begins to exist. The issue is they need some [adequate] justification/s for that assertion, which on the whole they do not and perhaps cannot provide. If we can just define what we like, I can say the Universe is not a thing that begins to exist. No need for God. See how silly this is?
693
694I think my biggest issue with the argument (and is certainly classified as special pleading) is the unspoken assumption that the uncaused cause must take the form of a sentient agent, and not only that but a "super-capable sapient" one. It seems to me, even if we were to accept the necessity of an uncaused cause, this seems a bizarre and untenable assumption to make. If we take "Everything that begins to exist has a cause" and then argue there was an actor of the first cause, then we do need special pleading for that first actor.
695
696If something is required to fill a gap due to "everything in the universe" not fitting it then it is, by definition, special pleading. "This is totally unique and doesn't have to fulfill a/many criteria the rest of the universe does"
697
698If causality is not a hard relationship (cause TO effect, past TO present AND present TO future) which certain observations suggest, then it's possible that the effect can proceed a cause, or that an effect can occur without a cause. Additionally, we don't know enough about the universe yet to say infinite regress is impossible. Maybe it is possible simply because 'something' has always existed and just keeps changing. Bottom line, though our minds 'require' a beginning it doesn't mean there actually is one.
699
700https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special_pleading
701
702http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Kalam#Special_pleading_that_the_universe_is_not_necessarily_existent
703
704---
705
706Objectivity in science is a value that informs how science is practiced and how scientific truths are discovered. It is the idea that scientists, in attempting to uncover truths about the natural world, must aspire to eliminate personal biases, a priori commitments, emotional involvement, etc. Objectivity is often attributed to the property of scientific measurement, as the accuracy of a measurement can be tested independent from the individual scientist who first reports it. It is thus intimately related to the aim of testability and reproducibility. To be properly considered objective, the results of measurement must be communicated from person to person, and then demonstrated for third parties, as an advance in understanding of the objective world. Such demonstrable knowledge would ordinarily confer demonstrable powers of prediction or technological construction.
707
708Problems arise from not understanding the limits of objectivity in scientific research, especially when results are generalized. Given that the object selection and measurement process are typically subjective, when results of that subjective process are generalized to the larger system from which the object was selected, the stated conclusions are necessarily biased.
709
710Abductive reasoning or retroduction is a form of logical inference which starts with an observation then seeks to find the simplest and most likely explanation. In abductive reasoning, unlike in deductive reasoning, the premises do not guarantee the conclusion. One can understand abductive reasoning as inference to the best explanation, although not all uses of the terms abduction and inference to the best explanation are exactly equivalent.
711
712Critical thinking is the objective analysis of facts to form a judgment. The subject is complex, and several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, unbiased analysis, or evaluation of factual evidence. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposed assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command to their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities, as well as a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.
713
714In logic and philosophy, an argument is a series of statements typically used to persuade someone of something or to present reasons for accepting a conclusion. The general form of an argument in a natural language is that of premises (variously propositions, statements or sentences) in support of a claim: the conclusion. The structure of some arguments can also be set out in a formal language, and formally defined "arguments" can be made independently of natural language arguments, as in math, logic, and computer science.
715
716In a typical deductive argument, the premises guarantee the truth of the conclusion, while in an inductive argument, they are thought to provide reasons supporting the conclusion's probable truth. The standards for evaluating non-deductive arguments may rest on different or additional criteria than truth, for example, the persuasiveness of so-called "indispensability claims" in transcendental arguments, the quality of hypotheses in retroduction, or even the disclosure of new possibilities for thinking and acting.
717
718The standards and criteria used in evaluating arguments and their forms of reasoning are studied in logic. Ways of formulating arguments effectively are studied in rhetoric. An argument in a formal language shows the logical form of the symbolically represented or natural language arguments obtained by its interpretations.
719
720Argumentation theory, or argumentation, is the interdisciplinary study of how conclusions can be reached through logical reasoning; that is, claims based, soundly or not, on premises. It studies rules of inference, logic, and procedural rules in both artificial and real world settings.
721
722The Dunning-Kruger effect, named after David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University, occurs where people fail to adequately assess their level of competence, or specifically, their incompetence, at a task and thus consider themselves much more competent than everyone else. This lack of awareness is attributed to their lower level of competence robbing them of the ability to critically analyze their performance, leading to a significant overestimation of themselves. In simple words it's "people who are too stupid to know how stupid they are". The inverse also applies: competent people tend to underestimate their ability compared to others; this is known as impostor syndrome.
723
724Empirical evidence, also known as sensory experience, is the knowledge received by means of the senses, particularly by observation and experimentation. It is common to call the knowledge gained a posteriori knowledge (in contrast to a priori knowledge).
725
726Logical consequence or entailment is a fundamental concept in logic, which describes the relationship between statements that hold true when one statement logically follows from one or more statements. A valid logical argument is one in which the conclusion is entailed by the premises, because the conclusion is the consequence of the premises. The philosophical analysis of logical consequence involves the questions: In what sense does a conclusion follow from its premises? and What does it mean for a conclusion to be a consequence of premises? All of philosophical logic is meant to provide accounts of the nature of logical consequence and the nature of logical truth.
727
728Logical consequence is necessary and formal, by way of examples that explain with formal proof and models of interpretation. A sentence is said to be a logical consequence of a set of sentences, for a given language, if and only if, using only logic (i.e. without regard to any personal interpretations of the sentences) the sentence must be true if every sentence in the set is true.
729
730Logicians make precise accounts of logical consequence regarding a given language L , either by constructing a deductive system for L, or by formal intended semantics for language L. The Polish logician Alfred Tarski identified three features of an adequate characterization of entailment: (1) The logical consequence relation relies on the logical form of the sentences, (2) The relation is a priori, i.e. it can be determined with or without regard to empirical evidence (sense experience), and (3) The logical consequence relation has a modal component.
731
732Philosophical Failures of Christian Apologetics, Part 3: The Null Hypothesis
733https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAR29P6L4rM
734
735"Burden of proof" in English or "onus probandi" in Latin is the duty of a party in a trial to produce the evidence that will prove the claims they have made against the other party. In a legal dispute, one party is initially presumed to be correct and gets the benefit of the doubt, while the other side bears the burden of proof. When a party bearing the burden of proof meets their burden, the burden of proof switches to the other side. Burdens may be of different kinds for each party, in different phases of litigation. The burden of production is a minimal burden to produce at least enough evidence for the trier of fact to consider a disputed claim. After litigants have met the burden of production and their claim is being considered by a trier of fact, they have the burden of persuasion, that enough evidence has been presented to persuade the trier of fact that their side is correct. There are different standards of persuasiveness ranging from a preponderance of the evidence, where there is just enough evidence to tip the balance, to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, as in United States criminal courts.
736
737The burden of proof is usually on the person who brings a claim in a dispute. It is often associated with the Latin maxim semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit, a translation of which in this context is: "the necessity of proof always lies with the person who lays charges."
738
739The party that does not carry the burden of proof carries the benefit of assumption of being correct, they are presumed to be correct, until the burden shifts after presentation of evidence by the party bringing the action. An example is in an American criminal case, where there is a presumption of innocence by the defendant. Fulfilling the burden of proof effectively captures the benefit of assumption, passing the burden of proof off to another party.
740
741Some individuals will discredit a statement, argument, or thesis as "Gish Gallop". Making reasonable assumptions based on theory and observed reality as well as being concise does not make something a Gish Gallop.
742
743The Gish Gallop (also known as proof by verbosity) is the fallacious debate tactic of drowning your opponent in a flood of individually-weak arguments in order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument collection without great effort.
744
745Any statement, argument, or thesis may be inaccurately labeled as a Gish Gallop to discredit the author or the content.
746
747Labeling something including a tactic as logically fallacious does not mean the label is deserving and/or correct. Without providing specific examples with proof, it can be waved off as conjecture by the applicator.
748
749Does God exist? - Neil deGrasse Tyson and Michio Kaku Debate
750https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB90bBL2pxk
751
752How do theists attack pandeism?
753https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maLJq9QE3sw
754
755Pandeism vs theism and atheism: Where are the counter-arguments?
756https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnkFAenB1Qs
757
758The Burden of Proof as applied to Pandeism
759https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGxWpQSJ1Qo
760
761https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop
762
763---
764
765"Logic is convenient. Logically there must be a cause of the universe (literally in this case the "one universe" which you and I exist within), since it began to exist. [Perhaps] there is a creator. If this god is not the god of the bible, it may be another."
766
767Logic is at its core mathematically concise. Mathematics is logically a requisite of reality, as all of physics itself is mathematically concise. There is no need to invoke god in an eternal meta-verse, particularly when one understands this premise, which I have covered in my article.
768
769Not reading the article "fully", and then "refuting" itself [as a refutation of theology], only to invoke "God" as the "best explanation", and argue about the article and its authors "logical fallacies", while simultaneously invoking "appeal to supernatural" fallacy, among countless others, is intellectually dishonest, and in itself, logically inconsistent, as the holder must be selective in their search for truth and discredit good arguments in favor of a personal conviction, furthermore, when they accept a piece of information which may conflict with their world view, they "seek God" to "ease" their cognitive dissonance, which actually in and of itself re-enforces that dissonance at a future point in time when they re-ponder the conflicting information. Excuse making and magical thinking is not a sturdy ground to occupy or tread.
770
771---
772
773In the end, any discussion of the supernatural is meaningless, but we assume that it is meaningful for the sake of discussing the argument.
774
775Though it is not possible to disprove the existence of a God, it is possible to disprove the existence of certain attributes this God would possess, and furthermore we may rule out others as improbable, on top of the improbability of there being any kind of God. It follows that an intellectually honest atheist will also be an agnostic.
776
777---
778
779Definitions and clarifications:
780
781--
782
783I once got in an argument with somebody over the use of the words "Ex nihilio" over the words "Ab nihilio". I told them that they are synonymous. They accused me of etymological fallacy because I do not research the ancient meanings of words in dead languages (I just look for a translation with a modern definition and I am good to go).
784
785They were arguing about the proper use of a word, the true definition, but all they would provide is the words "from nothing" for Ab nihilio. They insist that this is a great difference and correct over "out of nothing". The meaning of "out of nothing" is synonymous with "from nothing". "I got my argument out of the dumpster" VS "I got my argument from the dumpster". They said "they are not synonymous, There is a serious difference that should never be allowed to be conflated when talking about physics". Ridiculous.... See for yourself:
786
787-
788
789http://membean.com/wrotds/ab-away
790https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ab-
791latin Prefix "Ab": apart, away from
792From Middle English of, from Old English of (“of, fromâ€), an unstressed form of af, æf (“from, off, awayâ€), from Proto-Germanic *ab.
793
794Definition of "apart"
7951. (a) : at a little distance
796(b) : away from one another in space or time
7972. (a) : as a separate unit : independently
798(b) : so as to separate one from another
7993. : excluded from consideration : aside
8004. : in or into two or more parts : to pieces
801Definition of "apart from"
802: other than : besides, except for
803Definition of "away from"
804: not at : at a distance : become detached : abandon
805does not contain xxx, xxx does not reside, disconnected,
806
807Extension of latin "ab" as greek and english prefix, "apo":
808
809"apo" Prefix Greek
810ἀπο- • (apo-)
8111. Indicating movement: away, from, off
8122. Indicating breaking one part from another: un-, asunder, apart, off
8133. Indicating ending or finishing, or almost like the negative á¼€- (a-, “notâ€), especially in adjectives
8144. back, again
8155. Simply emphasizing the meaning of the verb
8166. because of, owing to
817
818"apo" Prefix English
819apo-
8201. away from, or separate
8212. without, or lacking
8223. (chemistry) derived from, or related to
8234. (biochemistry) the apoprotein form of the protein
824
825-
826
827http://membean.com/wrotds/ex-out
828https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ex-
829latin Prefix "Ex": out, away, throughout, (intensive) thoroughly, denoting achievement, up, denoting privation
830
831Definition of "out of":
8321 [a] (1) —used as a function word to indicate direction or movement from within to the outside of
833(2) —used as a function word to indicate a change in quality, state, or form
8341 [b] (1) —used as a function word to indicate a position or situation beyond the range, limits, or sphere of
835(2) —used as a function word to indicate a position or state away from the usual or expected
8362 —used as a function word to indicate origin, source, or cause
8373 —used as a function word to indicate exclusion from or deprivation of
8384 —used as a function word to indicate choice or selection from a group
8395 —used as a function word to indicate the center of an enterprise or activity
8406 -beginning at, coming out of, deriving out of, originating at, starting with, (by the whole of), in association with, in connection with, xxx
841
842Extension of latin "ex" as greek and english prefix, "ex":
843
844"ex" Prefix Greek
845á¼Î¾ • (ex) (governs the genitive case: Expresses possession or relation, equivalent to the English of.)
846
847"ex" Prefix English
848From Latin ex (“out of, fromâ€), *eǵʰs. Cognate with Ancient Greek á¼Î¾ (ex, “out of, fromâ€)
849out of
850outside
851former, but still living (almost always used with a hyphen); ex-husband, ex-president, ex-wife
852(biology) Lacking.; excaudate, exstipulate
853
854-
855
856"out of" and "(apart/away)from" are synonyms, "out of" matching at "away from", "apart from", "apart", and "(far) away" and "from" matching at "out of". Everything points towards these being interchangeable terms.
857
858Definition of ex nihilo
859: from or out of nothing
860First Known Use: 1656
861
862Further linguistic information can be induced from other romance based languages:
863
864https://www.linguee.es/espanol-ingles/search?source=auto&query=ab+nihilo
865https://www.linguee.es/espanol-ingles/search?source=auto&query=ex+nihilo
866
867https://www.linguee.pt/portugues-ingles/traducao/ex+nihilo.html
868https://www.linguee.pt/ingles-portugues/traducao/ab+nihilo.html
869
870-
871
872I have looked high and low for a definitive definitional difference to the words used in conjuction "Ab"+"Nihilo" and "Ex"+"Nihilo" and may have discovered something. It is clear that "Ab" implies the additional attribute of being apart, away, or separated from. "Ex" does not attribute this, and it could be implied within this context that it is the possessive opposite of "Ab", so it additionally means component of, present, and throughout.
873
874I intend to convey "out of nothing", not "apart from nothing". One conveys that it "arose from", the other just says that it is "independent from". You can drop the "apart" from "apart from", leaving only "from", but according to the lingual purist who convicted me of etymological fallacy, you can't do that and get away with it, only original meaning, not living definitions... XP
875
876If you change the meaning of "Ab" a bit by removing the context of it meaning away or apart, it really comes down to preference in sentence structure, for example either "are generated out of nothing" or "comes into existence from nothing", or "generantur ex nihilo" and "ab nihilo existit" respectively. I see no good reason to prefer the use of "Ab Nihilo" over "Ex nihilo" except in the case of Ab Nihilo to say that the universe is a independent separate entity than nothing, but the Ex Nihilo zero-energy sum universe/multiverse origin I tout for my theorem is based on the supposition that nothing and reality are the same thing or that reality is of nothing, so there is no such thing as a state of existence consisting of true nothingness. Everything I have seen verifies that their shared operator is synonymous.
877
878-
879
880It does seem possible that Ab Nihilo should come first in a statement, followed by the conclusion of Ex Nihilo if appropriate: "To be made from nothing, from which a thing separated out of nothing." "Esse factum ab nihilo, unde aliquid re separari ex nihilo".
881
882The opposite can be true though: "Which product can be seen to be generated out of nothing, for nothing in return, which is separated from nothing" translates in spanish to "Qué producto se puede ver que se genera de la nada, a cambio de nada, que se separa de la nada" and in latin to "Quod videtur esse generarentur productum potest esse ex nihilo, quia nihil mutuo poscentes, in quo separata est ab nihilo".
883
884-
885
886According to them, "From nothingness" and "no input of energy" are not the same. In this manner, ex nihilo is not appropriate substitute for ab nihilo in cosmology." They provide no other explanation than this for their dispute of the proper use of a ambiguous word in latin.
887
888Here is the only partially scientific article I can find with the DuckDuckGo search engine that uses the word Ab Nihilo instead of Ex Nihilo:
889https://medium.com/@rloldershaw/there-is-always-an-alternative-to-creationism-49fcd61eece7
890
891-
892
893I have thoroughly researched the disputed words and have found that the preference of the person who raised the argument does not dictate other peoples freedom of speech, and furthermore that their claim of inaccuracy (and incompetence) is without basis in context of my use of the word, which is precisely what I mean to convey.
894
895-
896
897There is no such thing as a total "nothingness" in physics. There is always "something" even in an "empty" vacuum. "Nothingness" is physically impossible but still a word worth using as a simple abstract term in the layman's context of the discussion of how the universe/multiverse exists. The very notion of nothing is idealistic. The scientific method cannot work with things than have no definition. As soon as you define "nothingness" then you ascribe it properties and it's no longer "nothing".
898
899Nothing is in itself a paradox.
900
901My proof is basically:
902
903Nothing = 0 things
904
905For generic reasoning, there are three primary states of information: yes (known) OR 1, no (known) OR 0, un/not-known OR -1.
906
907What is the state of things when there is only nothing? it is 0
908
909nothing itself having the state of 0, therefore requires information to exist, as in a trit, being 0 out of balanced ternary.
910
911Therefore, even when nothing exists, there is one bit existing within an information system, and this "invokes" at least one universe to contain this information state. Not to mention that mathematics is "omnipresent" for this same reason.
912
913https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_ternary
914
915"Absolute nothing" cannot exist, namely the example I gave above and the fact that an "empty" vacuum is teeming with quantum fluctuations or "foam".
916
917There is literally 0 need to invoke a creator deity or any other creator to explain why there is something instead of nothing.
918
919-
920
921Some may say that this article relies heavily on arguments from ignorance. I have read about the "argument from ignorance", and while this may be true for some arguments and in articles of this nature, the fact that a thorough general knowledge has been attained by myself, the writer of the article, and that a meta-analysis of this information (which is regarded as fact to the highest degree attainable) yields a strong conclusion, [which at least at first pass] comes to a conclusion that agnosticism is intellectually honest while atheism is a reasonable position to take for general discussion; The equal possibility of "God" being completely improbable and never coming about in any variety, and "God" being greatly improbable and coming about in some specific variety which is actually possible, requires naturalism and scientific explanation as well as mathematical logical consistency. In fact the very article I read on "Argument from ignorance" specifically stated "This fallacy can be very convincing and is considered by some to be a special case of a false dilemma or false dichotomy in that they both fail to consider alternatives. A false dilemma" AND "these arguments ignore the fact, and difficulty, that some true things may never be proved, and some false things may never be disproved with absolute certainty."
922
923I do not say with absolute certainty that god does not or cannot exist, just that the probability of its existence can be drastically reduced when you constrain its properties to "greater powers" or "Omega point" [of a Zeno machine] and especially when making a special pleading of a modified "first cause". In fact, my only strong concluding arguments are that any God that does exist must conform to naturalistic scientific and mathematically logical constraints, or it is literally impossible, as well as that agnosticism is the only intellectually honest position to take whether one is a [pan]deist/[pan]theist or an adeist/atheist.
924
925"Absence of evidence that it rained (i.e. water is the evidence) may be considered positive evidence that it did not rain. Again, in science, such inferences are always made to some limited (sometimes extremely high) degree of probability and in this case absence of evidence is evidence of absence when the positive evidence should have been there but is not."
926
927Hey, don't get me wrong, though I think they are mis-applying their skepticism skills here by labeling, I can appreciate the reminder to double check my arguments and pick my battles better, as well as know my strengths. The thing is, there is the counter argument that this label is evoked by a type of ignorance gap, which I happen to have the "answers" to, but any attempt to answer either way is always heavily disputed. How can logical fallacies be evoked if God itself requires violations of mathematical logic and has "appeal to supernatural", and requires evocation of "God of the gaps". It seems like they disagree that "God exists as/in an ever receding corner of scientific ignorance", and I basically as an agnostic agree that the only God/s that can/[and/or]/do exist are the one/s that are "physically possible".
928
929One slightly un-intentional purpose of this article is to affect the choice of pascals wager, and to weigh the decision with adequate information fitting the criteria of the "question at hand". It does not say which "pool to jump/dive into", just that you should not jump into any "Gnostic" pools, and that a "secular" worldview is entirely beneficial in any regard.
930
931I agree that with our current state of knowledge about the universe and meta-verse, and with extension by philosophical rhetoric, that "we can never know for sure" if God does or does not exist for 100% certainty. In balanced ternary we would basically say that this piece of information is in a perpetual state of -1, and is not only un-known but "impossible to determine" any further than the -1 state.
932
933This does not necessarily translate into "un-certainty" of a real "object", and if it indeed does is basically also stuck in perpetual -1 balanced ternary informatic state.
934
935Pleading that God uses Quantum effects to evade detection is ridiculous. In fact implying their [intentional] use in a way similar to the capabilities of their implementations as understood currently and in the not so distant future by our physical theories basically makes "God" un-able to affect this or any other universe, since their state and interactions are intrinsically "un-detectable", or particularly in this proposition "un-knowable", which some would say is a type of strawman argument, which is really oh so useful for the purpose of discussion and discourse. Of course, there are LOADS of individuals who would make special pleads for Quantum woo to attempt and salvage any of their irrational beliefs.
936
937Stating that I am making an argument from ignorance is basically breaking itself down because Godel's incompleteness theorem will say that all axiomatic systems are incomplete and will never be fully complete, and in this way, all is simply a state of -1, because we can never really know, as our measurements will never be "plank resolution" as well as "meta-verse resolution", and even if they were, no computer that a sapient being could make could operate to produce a usable output of some calculation using this kind of massive data; Simply importing the data into the machine would violate conservation of information, I am about ~99.999999999999% certain of that, and any "workaround" would be extreme and most likely not even plausible on any workable timescale, even if it was somehow physically possible.
938
939I am well aware that much of my counter-arguments are perhaps perceived as heavily lain/sewn with confirmation bias, but I am fairly certain that I have been objective as one can be.
940
941Absence of Evidence and Evidence of Absence
942https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dntFBWfWMU4
943
944Mathematical Proof that Absence of Evidence *IS* Evidence of Absence
945https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiNiW4_6R3I
946
947-
948
949Arguing semantics like this is not really useful in discourse over this kind of article; It is only frivolous or nit-picky;/ It does not serve to further or diminish the propositions within it.
950
951--
952
953Could your views on God and immigration be changed by using MAGNETS? Study claims brain stimulation can alter beliefs:
954http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3272289/Could-views-God-immigration-changed-using-MAGNETS-Brain-stimulation-alter-beliefs-study-claims.html
955
956A new study performed at the University of York used targeted magnetism to shut down part of the brain. The result: belief in God disappeared among more than 30 percent of participants.
957
958The specific part of the brain they frazzled was the posterior medial frontal cortex—the part associated with detecting and solving problems, i.e., reasoning and logic. In other words, when you shut down the part of the brain most associated with logic and reasoning, greater levels of atheism result. Sounds to me it takes less effort to be an atheist then the additional brain power you need for confirmation bias when you believe in a god.
959
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961
962The [ignorant] [typically] "Gnostic" theists/deists will poke holes in this type of article or just ignore it. They will say "God doesn't work like that". There is no reasonable standard of "evidence" for them, nor adequate proof or affirmation, except that of "God" itself and of the sentiment that "[my] [']God['] is real".
963
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965
966Additional resources:
967
968-
969
970Logical Possibility - Where Do I Even Begin? (1)
971https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Swsi9J5oQc
972
973List of common fallacies
974http://www.nobeliefs.com/fallacies.htm
975
976The problems with beliefs
977http://www.nobeliefs.com/beliefs.htm
978
979Problems with Creationism
980http://www.nobeliefs.com/Creationism.htm
981
982The General Anti-Creationism FAQ
983http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-meritt.html
984
985Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution
986http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html
987
988THOMAS JEFFERSON ON CHRISTIANITY & RELIGION
989http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm
990
991The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense founded on the Christian religion
992http://www.nobeliefs.com/Tripoli.htm
993
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995
996This article has a companion article:
997
998countering anti-scientific individuals
999xxx (pastebin)