Wait... rewind.... pause. The simple cause argument

[Silver Guard]

Beautiful isn't it? But thats not the point, look at its complexity, how intricate and multi-faceted it is. The bithplace of stars. The Crab Nebula.
EVerything in existance has a cause, its one of the basics of science. Of course theres now quantum jargon, but having limited knowledge of this i'll press onwards.
Everything has a cause, in all cases the infinite cause is far simpler then the product.
A watch
Human makes watch (human more complex)
Human has need for time-keeping (simpler)
Human has need to be on time (more complex)
Certain elements of Human life have specific times (simpler)
Humans have need for organisation of events (simpler)
we can keep going, but the end is quite simply a bunch of reactions in sea water leading to the production of a cell, which evolves ect ect. Everything to do with life stems from these reactions, some of the basest occurances in the unierse. These themselves stem from creation, which is where most deists stick in their pretty worthless God.

But here lies a problem.
Scientific theory has not yet worked out WHY things came to be. However, once they come to be, science has it sorted how everything else worked out. Creation is a very simple process, proceeding from the most basic elements of physics slowly (or very fast, I'm not sure of the universe's time scale) producing the wonder you see above.

The Deist God is placed there as a placeholder, until physics works out how it all started. This makes it not only a God of gaps, but a rejection of logic as follows.
The original cause is always simpler then the final effect
The creator must always be more complex then the creation
Therfore the creator cannot be the original cause, as he would need a cause himself until the simplest cause.

This is one of the many Dawkins arguments against the deist design argument, reworded with my interpretation, myself lacking the book (having lent it to a friend)

[Cluny the Scourge]

The problem with saying that everything has a cause, and that causes must have causes in turn, is that it isn't true. The idea of causation is dependent on chronology - "Here is the time when this event happened, and here at a time BEFORE it is the event that CAUSED it."

It seems that way to us because our perception time remains static. As we now understand, however, the flow of time is not constant, but rather it is tied to the shape, size and expansion patterns of the universe over the course of hundreds of billions of years.

If you tried to follow all events back from cause to cause to the beginning of the universe and then to say 'HERE' is the point there there must be an ineffable Uncaused Cause - which you could name 'God' as a placeholder - you would fail. Because before the universe there was no 'time before' in which any causal events could happen.

The concept of causation which we take for GRANTED as being natural and inevitable as a property of the universe BREAKS DOWN and becomes meaningless. The human mind is so dependent on this idea - causation - for everything that we understand about the world around us, that we can't conceive of such a state...which is where God emerges.

In short, there is no reason to think that an explanation for existence is even necessary, never mind possible.

[Elfdude]

*Cough* The universe is finite in both size and time people. We know this for a fact.

[Cluny the Scourge]

*Cough* The universe is finite in both size and time people. We know this for a fact.

*Cough* No-one disagrees with you on that, but does that have to do with it?

[Elfdude]

It means that there is a cause and effect that exists.

[David Deas]

This question always turns out the same way.

Scientist: The Universe never had a beginning. It simply always was.

Theist: Everything has a beginning. How can something not have a beginning? How can the universe not have a beginning?

Scientist: It's possible

Theist: No it isn't possible. It's not possible for something to have no beginning. Thats why God created the Universe.

Scientist: ????!??!!!!

Theist: All you have to do is look around. This was obviously no accident. Somebody had to create this thing.

Scientist: So then who created God?

Theist: ???!?!!!!!??

Scientist: If everything has a beginning, then who created God?

Theist: Nobody. He simply always was.

[Last Roman]

heh, that's a very good way at looking at it David.

A vicious cycle it is.

Anyhoo, this is one of the reasons I've recently decided no longer to call myself a "deist" Inserting "God" seems like a easy way out, though it's understandable given the era Deism was really popular. It certainly showed a progression from organized religion, but with today's science, it really seems to have no place.

[David Deas]

heh, that's a very good way at looking at it David.

A vicious cycle it is.

Anyhoo, this is one of the reasons I've recently decided no longer to call myself a "deist" Inserting "God" seems like a easy way out, though it's understandable given the era Deism was really popular. It certainly showed a progression from organized religion, but with today's science, it really seems to have no place.

Yeah. And our friend Zenith found it necessary to repeat the summary of this argument nearly verbatim. I'm not sure why he appears to think he's saying anything different.

Anyways. It's simply a remnant left over from an era of ignorance. But I have a better question. Why is it that the only God in the history of mankind that is taken even *half* way seriously is the Christian one?

[Big War Bird]

But I have a better question. Why is it that the only God in the history of mankind that is taken even *half* way seriously is the Christian one?

Nonsense, people have taken their gods seriously since anyone can remember. You just happen to live in a time and place where one certain god is most discussed. Also, the christian gods is as good a proxy as any for the debate on creation.

[PacSubCom]

From an outside perspective, theists believe not in God, but in belief. Belief exists, and that is what they are talking about, and which they are unable to differentiate from "God", which doesn't exist. It's all pretty clever. God is dead. My condolences.

[Ragabash]

Humans born to an enviorement of life and death so we pressume that everything must have a start and end. Planets born, stars turn to supernova, but does that mean universe must have some sort of starting point, perhaps, perhaps not.

And how does the evolution and science fit to Dawkins arguments, as we are all part of smaller, simpler comonents, and evolve even more complex, isn't that against the base idea of more complex "creator".

[Zenith Darksea]

The concept of causation which we take for GRANTED as being natural and inevitable as a property of the universe BREAKS DOWN and becomes meaningless. The human mind is so dependent on this idea - causation - for everything that we understand about the world around us, that we can't conceive of such a state...which is where God emerges.

So far this argument is the most intelligent that I've seen from a non-theistic point of view. The idea of time being tied to shape is intriguing - as is the possibility that lack of time before negates the requirement for a cause. However, I still have trouble buying into it. This is why.

If we accept that when there is no time there can be no causes, it would also be logical to accept that when there is no time there can be no effects. However, we have a major event - the creation of the universe and of time. Now, if we accept that time follows as a result of the universe, then we have a paradox - apparently we got a physical universe (however small) before it was possible to have causes and effects. If we believe that time and physical space occurred simultaneously, then we have another paradox - the whole logical concept of cause and effect becomes one grand effect in itself when, as we have seen, it was already impossible to have cause and effect. The 'just popping out of existence' argument really does not seem very sound, scientific or logical to me - you end up claiming that the natural laws that we see today are random and unnecessary (because clearly there was a point before the concept of time that had no natural laws), and thus you end up eroding the basis for scientific observation.

What we end up surmising is that the beginning of the universe is always going to be a logical paradox. Always.

Now let's consider the alternative: God. It is often asked that, "If God caused the universe, what caused God?" Well it seems that God has pre-empted this question. You may well be familiar with the phrase, "I am the Alpha and the Omega" - God is in effect the quintessentially uncreated being, the beginning and the end (alpha and omega being, for those who aren't aware, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet). Being of a different essence to nature, God requires no natural cause.

Hang on though, isn't that a bit of a cop-out on a par with the 'just popping out of existence' theory? Well no, not quite. God is immaterial and super-natural. Since the super-natural cannot be measured by natural standards of science, we have not yet the knowledge to factor it into our logical perception of the world. We know that nature must have causes, but what about super-nature?

In effect, the argument between theistic and non-theistic models of creation boils down to two options - admitting an unknown element (God, or as I prefer to say for the purposes of this argument, super-nature) that would make logical sense of the natural world and neatly sidestep a paradox, or falling headlong into that same paradox and undermine the intellectual concept of being able to know anything with any certainty.

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

The 'just popping out of existence' argument really does not seem very sound, scientific or logical to me

Of course not - because the things that determine "soundness", "science" and "logic" don't and can't apply to that event. How on Earth could it "seem very sound, scientific or logical" to you? Or to anyone?

This reminds me of Stephen Hawking's dry response to someone who asked him what was "before" the universe: "What is north of the North Pole?"

- you end up claiming that the natural laws that we see today are random and unnecessary

No you don't - the laws "we see today" are irrelevant to "then".

... (because clearly there was a point before the concept of time that had no natural laws) ...

So? What's that got to do with the laws "we see today"?

and thus you end up eroding the basis for scientific observation.

Not at all.

What we end up surmising is that the beginning of the universe is always going to be a logical paradox. Always.

Sure. But your other conclusions from that don't follow at all.

Now let's consider the alternative: God.

No thanks. No need. And "God" isn't "THE alternative" anyway, any more than the "Great Spirit Umgapu" was "the" alternative to the prehistoric mystery of what earthquakes happened or volcanoes erupted. The more reasonable alternative is to admit the truth - we don't know. (And, in this instance, we probably can't know).

Invoking imaginary beings is usually only an alternative to being intellectually honest about our ignorance and resorting to a "God of Gaps" to plug the hole.

[Darth Wong]

So far this argument is the most intelligent that I've seen from a non-theistic point of view. The idea of time being tied to shape is intriguing - as is the possibility that lack of time before negates the requirement for a cause. However, I still have trouble buying into it. This is why.

If we accept that when there is no time there can be no causes, it would also be logical to accept that when there is no time there can be no effects. However, we have a major event - the creation of the universe and of time. Now, if we accept that time follows as a result of the universe, then we have a paradox - apparently we got a physical universe (however small) before it was possible to have causes and effects.

Your argument goes off the rails right here. Time is not a "result" of the universe; it is an attribute of the universe, like "brown" is an attribute of a football.

If we believe that time and physical space occurred simultaneously, then we have another paradox - the whole logical concept of cause and effect becomes one grand effect in itself when, as we have seen, it was already impossible to have cause and effect. The 'just popping out of existence' argument really does not seem very sound, scientific or logical to me - you end up claiming that the natural laws that we see today are random and unnecessary (because clearly there was a point before the concept of time that had no natural laws), and thus you end up eroding the basis for scientific observation.

Your problem is that you can't remove yourself from your instinctive comprehension of time, hence you ask how it can occur "simultaneously", as if time itself must occupy space on some kind of larger timeline. You still think of time as an external element.

What we end up surmising is that the beginning of the universe is always going to be a logical paradox. Always.

No it won't. You are just failing to grasp what it means.

Now let's consider the alternative: God. It is often asked that, "If God caused the universe, what caused God?" Well it seems that God has pre-empted this question. You may well be familiar with the phrase, "I am the Alpha and the Omega" - God is in effect the quintessentially uncreated being, the beginning and the end (alpha and omega being, for those who aren't aware, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet). Being of a different essence to nature, God requires no natural cause.

Derive the laws of nature from the concept of an undefined incomprehensible God. Can't do it, can you? Hell, you can't derive anything from the concept of God. That's why God can't explain anything. God is nothing more than a name for a mystery, and you can't explain a mystery with a mystery.

Hang on though, isn't that a bit of a cop-out on a par with the 'just popping out of existence' theory? Well no, not quite. God is immaterial and super-natural. Since the super-natural cannot be measured by natural standards of science, we have not yet the knowledge to factor it into our logical perception of the world. We know that nature must have causes, but what about super-nature?

In effect, the argument between theistic and non-theistic models of creation boils down to two options - admitting an unknown element (God, or as I prefer to say for the purposes of this argument, super-nature) that would make logical sense of the natural world and neatly sidestep a paradox, or falling headlong into that same paradox and undermine the intellectual concept of being able to know anything with any certainty.

See above. Your "paradox" is imaginary. Your God is useless. Your argument is a non sequitur.

It is also true that people have been thought they were smarter than previous generations, when all they really were was a different kind of stupid.

Which is why it's so important that science provides an empirical method for evaluating the accuracy of ideas without relying on popular opinion. And that's why science has accomplished more in 400 years than religion did in the preceding 4000.

[Garbarsardar]

Although I am an agnostic, it really pleases me to live in a world where this argument could exist:

I close my eyes and see a flock of birds. The vision lasts a second, or perhaps less; I am not sure how many birds I saw. Was the number of birds definite or indefinite? The problem involves the existence of God.

If God exists, the number is definite, because God knows how many birds I saw.
If God does not exist, the number is indefinite, because no one can have counted.
In this case I saw fewer than ten birds (let us say) and more than one, but did not see nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, or two birds.I saw a number between ten and one, which was not nine, eight, seven, six, five, etc.
That integer---not-nine, not-eight, not-seven, not-six, not-five, etc.---is inconceivable.

Ergo, God exists.

[Silver Guard]

Zenith, you neatly sidestepped the very argument this thread is based on. If the universe is God's creation, then God is far more complex then the universe. If so then God cannot get away from the fact that he must have had a cause, even more so then the universe itself.
Note that here we are not debating the theistic god, but the deistic one, as such all holy texts are not relevant. The deistic God does not interferre past creation, he creates, then leaves. What in this more logical God proclaims him immaterial and super-natural?
I see no reason why God should be slotted into this Gap in scientific knowledge anymore then a nothingness. Ok, science dosn't cover it, we don't know what the first cause was. That is no reason to brand the first cause as God.
And as so many theists claim their God to be the creator, pray explain why your God is more likely to be the one then the hini God, or the flying spaggeti monster perchance.

[Ummon]

Did someone read Paul Davies recently? This thread seems an excerpt...

Anyway, one small problem. The universe cannot exist indefinitely, as matter is subject to decadence. God on the other hand may be postulated as permanent, though obviously this is all conjecturing.

[Zenith Darksea]

If the universe is God's creation, then God is far more complex then the universe.

Why is that then? Considering that we've never observed the super-natural in a natural way, how do you know how to measure the complexity of God? In a physical sense? That seems unlikely. In a mental sense? Actually, I've always been of the view that God is quite a simple concept, really.

At any rate, we know that the complexity argument only applies to physical, natural matter. We don't know what argument applies to God, do we?

The deistic God does not interferre past creation, he creates, then leaves. What in this more logical God proclaims him immaterial and super-natural?

Well, I'm not a deist, so perhaps I'm the wrong person to try and answer that.

What in this more logical God proclaims him immaterial and super-natural?

Well actually I was not arguing for God per se but for the super-natural. A more pertinent question on your part would have been, "Why should the super-natural be God?"

I see no reason why God should be slotted into this Gap in scientific knowledge anymore then a nothingness.

It's a simple choice between admitting an unknown that would allow science to proceed (as happens frequently in fields such as theoretical physics, mathematics, history etc.) or admitting that scientific knowledge is futile and impossible to achieve.

And as so many theists claim their God to be the creator, pray explain why your God is more likely to be the one then the hini God, or the flying spaggeti monster perchance.

This is of course a different question, as you noted earlier. Once we establish the probability of theism as opposed to atheism, then we can start exploring the different types of theism to establish which of those is the more probable. But let's not try to run before we can walk, eh?

[Zenith Darksea]

No you don't - the laws "we see today" are irrelevant to "then".

I don't know how you can accept that. If a law is a law today but not yesterday, then it can't be a law! There must be an underlying law explaining why it is a law now but wasn't before. Knowledge resides in knowing the underlying law, because if you don't know that then you can't be said to know anything - what you think you know today (eg. objects are subject to gravity) might turn out to be false tomorrow if we accept that laws can just change!

No thanks. No need. And "God" isn't "THE alternative" anyway, any more than the "Great Spirit Umgapu" was "the" alternative to the prehistoric mystery of what earthquakes happened or volcanoes erupted. The more reasonable alternative is to admit the truth - we don't know. (And, in this instance, we probably can't know).

Sure, sure. I'll just point you to what I said in my previous post though:

Once we establish the probability of theism as opposed to atheism, then we can start exploring the different types of theism to establish which of those is the more probable.

And thanks to our inability to scientifically observe these problems, as you say, we are reduced to making a philosophical choice based on logic. This philosophical choice is essentially between accepting what is necessary (the super-natural) to allowing the certainty of knowledge or accepting a logical paradox and the futility of knowledge.

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

I don't know how you can accept that. If a law is a law today but not yesterday, then it can't be a law!

Sorry, but that's like saying "there just has to be something north of the North Pole!"