Thursday, February 3, 2011

Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? -- Closing Remarks

Ben's arguments against God creating the universe in this debate haven't stood up. His arguments about how a theistic worldview can't account for the features of our universe was based on a straw man of what theism (and in particular, Christianity) actually teaches, his contention that naturalism can account for the universe was based on a single statement from Stephen Hawking which is logically incoherent and widely contested by his colleagues, and his argument about God requiring a cause for Himself is based on attributing complexity to a being which is in fact quite simple.

He attempted in his rebuttal to show that since time began at the Big Bang, the universe requires no cause, and incorrectly summed up my position as, “since the universe began to exist at a certain point in time, and therefore had not existed at some point in time, it requires a decision-making agent in order to bring it into existence.” However, this is not my contention. It is my contention that the universe began to exist, and this moment of beginning was the FIRST moment in time. Just because there was not time before this moment, it does not follow that universes can pop out of nothing without a cause. Ben has to either demonstrate that they can, or refute my assertion that everything which begins to exist has a cause.

If the universe began to exist, this entails that something brought it into existence. Since an effect is dependent upon its cause, and in the case of the universe, the effect includes time itself, its cause must be timeless. The only candidate is God. God, unlike the universe, would not require a cause, if only because God is not held by time.

Of course, if the atheist can provide an explanation which better fits the facts, he is welcome to propose it. However, Ben did not give a reasonable answer to how the universe could begin to exist without God. Thus, he was not able to show that atheistic answers are better or have more explanatory power than theistic ones. The universe still began to exist, and God did not. At the end of the day, only one of these requires an explanation of what caused it, and I don't see that such an explanation was successfully provided by the opposing viewpoint.

4 comments:

  1. Casimir effect:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
    Something out of nothing, with no god required.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Ben's arguments against God creating the universe in this debate haven't stood up"

    Yeah.That can be disputed...

    In any case, even if Ben failed miserably (which he didnt) your case is NOT strengthened at all by that. You have the burden of proof to present an argument FOR the creation of the universe by a god.

    You can have ten million or no atheists failing to disprove that motion and it would not make a difference.

    "His arguments about how a theistic worldview can't account for the features of our universe was based on a straw man of what theism (and in particular, Christianity) actually teaches"

    We are still waiting for your explanation that will demonstrate that the bible is admissible in this discussion. You have to prove that a god exists FIRST and then tell us which god you think that might be.

    You are starting with the presupposition that, out of all the creation myths out there, the bible alone should be used as an authority on the issue. But you have not given us a good reason to do this. Why go with the biblical creation myth? Why not the Mayan? Why not the Greek myth?

    Genesis, like those myths I just mentioned, do not correspond with the science any more than yours does, specially when taken metaphorically like "modern" christians so often do.

    You cannot just shrug and dismiss it as a silly objection. Its a serious issue since the majority of your arguments and their apologetics are based on christianity.

    You need to give us a reason to single out your myth over the others and take it seriously because you forgot to do that and its pretty important.

    "The only candidate is God. God, unlike the universe, would not require a cause, if only because God is not held by time"

    There are other candidates just as qualified as your god is. The FSM.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Who or what created God ? When and why ?
    Who or what created the creator of god.? When and why.?......ad nauseum.
    If there was a beginning ?????? when and what will be the end.?

    I am because I think I am.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have enjoyed reading this debate, but, unfortunately, I have not found it particularly illuminating. Clearly the chasm between the theistic and atheistic view remains much too large to make any real progress in mutual understanding.

    To suggest that the universe came into existence essentially by magic by a supernatural being that transcends time and space (thus does not require an explanation for it existence) seems to me rather ludicrous. In this respect, I think Cody has failed to win the debate and I have learned very little as a result. I think it is fair to say that we simply do not know how the universe came into being. In one case, we have what is essentially one of many fairy tales creation stories, and in the other, we have the proposition that quantum fluctuations in a singularity resulted in the Big Bang and the beginning of both space and time. Which seems more plausible? I will let the reader decide. However, I am happy to point out that the former suggests to be the truth, simply because that is what the Bible teaches, while the other arises from our current understanding based on mathematical and physical evidence. It is almost certain that both are actually not correct, but at least the later recognises this, and is willing to be modified as further evidence arises. This is what is called science.

    ReplyDelete