tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-750106298387934686.post7285363058666331595..comments2018-02-17T17:42:00.181-08:00Comments on Argue With a Christian: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? -- RebuttalCody Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14950752954807801161noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-750106298387934686.post-71689683216856766722011-02-11T18:26:43.266-08:002011-02-11T18:26:43.266-08:00I must say that I am quite disappointed with Cody&...I must say that I am quite disappointed with Cody's response. I would have liked a more convincing rebuttal than simply stating that (and I paraphrase), the universe exists because God wished it so, and that God's existence needs not be explained, as he/she/it transcends both time and space, and thus has always existed and will always exist. This is far from compelling.<br /><br />But more specifically, I am very confused about some of Cody's responses. Ben stated that the universe is much too vast and inhospitable to have been created for the benefit of man. Your response was both flippant and confusing. It is certainly unclear to me what the quotations of the Bible were supposed to argue. That God made the earth for us, and that the heavens are for him? Is heaven in the sky? I know this is what I was taught as a child, but as I have matured I have come to realise that the concept of heaven in the Bible occupies a realm that is beyond the natural world. Cody goes onto suggest that the purpose of the vastness of the universe is simply to make us marvel in the power and goodness of its creator. Is this sort of why the Sistine Chapel is so large and beautiful as well? This is far from compelling. Indeed it is incredibly anthropocentric to suggest this, as either directly or indirectly, the creation of the vastness of the universe would have had a function that involves us.<br /><br />It looks like Theoretical Mechanics has already pointed nicely the vastness of habitable zones in the universe, but also hammered home the considerably greater vastness of space which is completely uninhabitable and could be considered little more than a vacuum with temperatures hovering just above absolute zero. Thus Ben's point that the universe is mostly incompatible with life is true, but also that there is nevertheless vastness of space in the universe that is habitable, making life inevitable (again, not necessarily requiring the postulation of a supernatural creator). <br /><br />It is certainly intriguing that life on earth started a mere 500 million years after its birth, yet it took nearly 3.5 billion years for multicellular life to evolve. So clearly metazoan life may not be as easy as unicellular life to evolve (or alternatively, it took God a long time to figure multicellular life out!). Finally, it is only in the last couple of million years that some rudimentary level consciousness and "higher" intelligence have arisen. I write higher in quotes, as we must resist being (again) anthropocentric and thinking that we are really intelligent. In reality, we aren't. We know and understand almost nothing, of what there is to know. However, this does not mean that we should postulate a supernatural being to explain that which we do not understand. This seems to me a backward step from gaining a true mechanistic and deep understanding of the world around us.eosimiashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04284629306670045450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-750106298387934686.post-21584176876720964602011-02-11T17:10:17.217-08:002011-02-11T17:10:17.217-08:00Who is David?Who is David?eosimiashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04284629306670045450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-750106298387934686.post-65163328538017219792011-01-30T11:07:15.902-08:002011-01-30T11:07:15.902-08:00I thought your response was effective, David!I thought your response was effective, David!Mark Birdhttp://wesleyantheology.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-750106298387934686.post-21166958601321525032011-01-29T07:14:49.721-08:002011-01-29T07:14:49.721-08:00Hawking's books are not science textbooks. He ...Hawking's books are not science textbooks. He is working on the very difficult problem of quantum gravity and his books are a way of explaining the relevant science to non-scientists. They include metaphors, philosophy, and his personal worldview along with pure science.<br /><br />IF "God" exists, IF "God" is a "being", and IF the Bible is authoritative, you present a very <br />good case. However, your theistic viewpoint requires that you accept these as truths, which is not very imaginative when trying to answer difficult questions. The Bible portrays the very anthromorphic god who represents the beliefs of people who lived thousands of years ago, before they had much in the way of scientific inquiry. Maybe there is a cause/purpose for the universe, maybe some sort of intelligence exists, but defining this as your concept of "God" who is a "being" with a "mind" is very anthropomorphic, restrictive, and belittling.SueThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16124849805202937682noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-750106298387934686.post-62904468600208298442011-01-28T21:22:42.104-08:002011-01-28T21:22:42.104-08:00Theoretical Mechanics--
Thanks for taking the time...Theoretical Mechanics--<br />Thanks for taking the time to respond. When you've finished, I'd be happy to put in editorial notes making corrections, so long as they're genuine corrections and not just, "well, a lot of physicists disagree but I think Hawking is totally right on."<br /><br />Of course you are correct that the circumstellar habitable zone is an area based on distance from the sun where a planet can have liquid water (though I understand that it has been theorized that some planets outside of this zone may be able to have water below the surface). I should have made a clear distinction between this point and others that have been suggested to allow for complex life to exist outside of just the ability to have liquid water. Of course, this is really a sidepoint in my argument. I understand that this argument is a little too tentative and could be based on our ignorance of what preconditions need to exist for life. That's why I mainly dealt with Ben's argument by pointing out his strawman, and only briefly touched on the fact that there could be another option he hadn't considered.Cody Cookhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14950752954807801161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-750106298387934686.post-90858174113491252252011-01-28T20:41:58.070-08:002011-01-28T20:41:58.070-08:00I promised to clear up some physics here, but I...I promised to clear up some physics here, but I'm tired so I'm going to approach one point at a time and get to the rest tomorrow.<br /><br />On the Habitable Zone. First, so we're all clear, the habitable zone is the area where liquid water can exist in a solar system. It is dependent on a few things like atmospheric density, but mostly on the orbiting distance from the star. In the case of a sun-like star, the habitable zone is about 25,000 times the width of the Earth. For larger stars this zone is slightly larger, and for smaller stars the zone is slightly smaller. The position of the Earth in this zone is not what you should call precise. Mars is in the habitable zone, though its magnetic field is all but gone allowing the solar wind to carry away much of its atmosphere. Again, the position of the Earth is not an act of precision.<br /><br />Another thing is the galactic habitable zone (GHZ) for spiral galaxies. It's an old idea that's losing ground quickly. Back before the days infrared astronomy, very little was known about the galaxy in detail. That is, the dust obscured our view into the plane of the galaxy. We could see about 1kpc in any direction. It was at this time we thought the GHZ was the 2kpc strip surrounding our sun. In infrared astronomy, we were able to see farther into the dust and so the GHZ grew in size again. As we began to learn about the dynamics of the inner galaxy, we began to see that GHZ is likely only limited by the strong tidal environment of the bulge or from young massive star clusters. Open clusters, which are more numerous, are the types of environments that our sun was born in. Obviously the tidal forces here are not enough to break up sun-planet systems. The more evidence we can get, the better constraint we can put on the size of GHZ.<br /><br />Now this is the important part here. Every Star has a habitable zone. Stars less than about 5 solar masses will live long enough allow life (taking Earth as a reference). About 1/3 of stars are binaries, and the dynamics may not allow for planets to stay bound to the stars. We see a power law mass distribution of stars of about 2. This means that somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% of all stars have habitable zones where planets can be found. This is an ENORMOUS number of stars. There's 100 billion stars in a galaxy, and 100 billion galaxies THAT WE KNOW ABOUT, and we know there's more that we cannot see even if we don't know how many more. This means that there are on the order of 10^22<br />stars with habitable zones that can hold a planet. Let me write this out:<br /><br />10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000<br /><br />Imagine if this were dollars. If you spent the US GDP everyday for a million years you still wouldn't reach this number. <br /><br />What, I think, Ben's point is that as large as the habitable zone for the universe is, it pales in comparison to the amount of space we cannot possible think of living. Let me take to the average place in the universe. Imagine a place where there the next atom is many light years away. The temperature is only couple degrees above absolute zero. You cannot feels this faint heat; you cannot see any light. If you had a telescope, you might catch the stray photon that came your way. If the Outer Darkness is any physical place, then this is it--the most common place in the universe, more common than any other by many, many orders of magnitude.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15351941299028146996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-750106298387934686.post-62761159189977785462011-01-28T14:22:35.404-08:002011-01-28T14:22:35.404-08:00"Particles don't come into being out of n..."Particles don't come into being out of nothing but out of the quantum vacuum, which is, according to philosopher William Lane Craig, "a sea of fluctuating energy. [An] arena of violent activity, and it is governed by physical laws."<br /><br />Where did you get the idea of asking a theologian a question you should be asking a physicist or a cosmologist? Craig has no credentials to make him an authority in physics. <br /><br />You dont have science on your side. You are going to lose this one dude.godlessguitarmaestro078https://www.blogger.com/profile/09959999587663695577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-750106298387934686.post-40884748135280043632011-01-28T11:40:51.668-08:002011-01-28T11:40:51.668-08:00In "The Grand Design" Hawking says that ...In "The Grand Design" Hawking says that we are somewhat like goldfish in a curved fishbowl. Our perceptions are limited and warped by the kind of lenses we see through, <i>“the interpretive structure of our human brains.”</i> Albert Einstein rejected this subjective approach, common to much of quantum mechanics, but did admit that our view of reality is distorted.<br /><br />Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity has the surprising consequences that <i>“the same event, when viewed from inertial systems in motion with respect to each other, will seem to occur at different times, bodies will measure out at different lengths, and clocks will run at different speeds.”</i> Light does travel in a curve, due to the gravity of matter, thereby distorting views from each perspective in this Universe. Similarly, mystics’ experience in divine oneness, which might be considered the same "eternal" event, viewed from various historical, cultural and personal perspectives, have occurred with different frequencies, degrees of realization and durations. This might help to explain the diversity in the expressions or reports of that spiritual awareness. What is seen is the same; it is the <i>"seeing"</i> which differs. <br /><br />In some sciences, all existence is described as matter or energy. In some of mysticism, only consciousness exists. Dark matter is 25%, and dark energy about 70%, of the critical density of this Universe. Divine essence, also not visible, emanates and sustains universal matter (mass/energy: visible/dark) and cosmic consciousness (f(x) raised to its greatest power). During suprarational consciousness, and beyond, mystics share in that essence to varying extents. [quoted from my e-book on comparative mysticism]Ron Krumposhttp://www.suprarational.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-750106298387934686.post-17240145636726692542011-01-28T07:13:19.093-08:002011-01-28T07:13:19.093-08:00If I made any errors, I would certainly like to ha...If I made any errors, I would certainly like to have them pointed out to me. As I said, physics is not my area of expertise, but I have heard both theists and atheists who have specializations in this field offer critiques of Hawking somewhat similar to what I attempted to lay out. I would not have felt the need to go here at all (after all, it is not an area of my expertise and I try not to talk about things that I know little about) if Ben had not made the claim that Hawking had demonstrated this to be true, which I understand that even in the field of theoretical physics is highly contentious. I wanted to make sure that people were aware of this fact.Cody Cookhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14950752954807801161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-750106298387934686.post-71533093692746097072011-01-28T06:01:14.518-08:002011-01-28T06:01:14.518-08:00Good show, Cody. You saw a weakness in Ben's ...Good show, Cody. You saw a weakness in Ben's argument and exposed. Your first 3 paragraphs were a great tactical move there. Bringing the debate out of the realm logical argument and into the realm of biblical authority gives you the temporary advantage. Now Ben will be forced to address those points, which will cost him precious word-space in the next round.<br /><br />But (and this is a very big BUT), you made a grave error yourself. With the exception of using the term Habital Zone correctly, everything you wrote about physics is either misinterpreted or just plain wrong. (side note: don't use the term Goldilocks Zone. You don't need Ben accusing you of making references to fairy tales anymore than he probably will.) I have never seen so many wrong statement about physics, and I've graded freshman lab reports before! I fear that you will not be able to recover from dropping your guard like this. I predict that the debate will be won, quite anticlimactically, by Ben--which is disappointing. I was hoping that some people would walk away from this debate with the seeds of truth in their hearts. <br /><br />The only way I can see you recovering is to backtrack from this slippery slope. Admit your mistakes, and grant Ben all of his physical arguments and fight from there. You probably won't be able to argue Christ over any other religion, but it's a start.<br /><br />Now I have to regroup my thoughts and get ready for work. I figure that I'll have to address all of your and Ben's physics mistakes later.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15351941299028146996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-750106298387934686.post-18167080558650283222011-01-28T02:05:43.329-08:002011-01-28T02:05:43.329-08:00At the end of the day, if I want you to believe in...At the end of the day, if I want you to believe in vampires, i need to demonstrate a vampire. I can show you all the empty coffins and bats and people with teeth marks in them, as these items could also be explained by other means. To speak of a god without demonstrating one is as useless as saying jhjususesyat45's exist, and behave in this way, and are responsible for "x" and "y". <br /><br />Until one can provide a demonstration of a God, there is no reason we can be expected to believe in one...<br />Cody, or any theist, I present the challenge to you to demonstrate your God, if it is so obvious that he exists, you would have done it by now....<br />Name a place and time, and demonstrate him...He is everywhere right? He is always there for us right? Until a God is demonstrated, you cannot expect us to say "I believe in God" without lying...<br />If such a demonstration is performed, I would very likely believe in a God. This does not mean I would necessarily find him/her/it to be a pleasant character though. If the Bible is in fact a representation of God's character, then he/she/it has some explaining to do, if they want me in their camp.<br /><br />As for the "fine tuning" argument, this is a "self-defeated" argument.<br />Theists want to believe that their God is capable of anything, and that our universe was fine-tuned for us. However , if God is omnipotent, he could make corn grow on Venus, or make life that can only exist in the Sun as well. The point is, Cody is selectively observing our life and as Ben said "looking at it backwards"... If there were life in the Sun that could not exist outside of it, would this be a "fine tuned" environment for that particular life form too?<br /><br /><br />What would it take to make me believe in a god? <br />A God, until then I will not lie to myself or anyone else and claim to believe in one...<br /><br />"I have never been to Australia, but I know what it would take for me to not believe in it...."<br /><br />As always, i enjoy these discussions and wish to thank you and Ben for providing this new outlet (or maybe a Doubtlett?)<br />I posted this on Ben's blog as well....Sunil Mungurnoreply@blogger.com