Questions for Atheists

[Necrosis]

i was kidding about the super intellect thing i dont know my ass from my elbow.

[NeoSeminole]

you completely ignored everything i said as i demonstrated why there is cause and effect in quantum physics and it is obvious is daily life. i wrote a marathon post to completely destroy your notion of no cause and effect, by showing you what top physicist have to say and why there is cause and effect. your equation is explained away above if you can decipher what i said.

I wrote my objections to the law of cause and effect b/c your theological argument is built on it. In philosophy, all you need is one unanswered counter-example to refute any argument.

listen science rests on the assumptions of meta physics this is a fact, you can cry that it does not but that doesnt change the fact and i have demenstrated why while you refer to and equation that is descriptive, which i have already explained why it shows cause  and effect, if you cant comprehend that then i dont know how this can continue, you've been proven wrong, and you say im wrong, i got my material from three different books on quantum mechanics, about combined seperate conclusions about cause and effect and you proclaim there wrong hahahah, you dont have a clue what your talking about or what cause and effect entail.

You are still blowing smoke out of your ass. Science doesn't rest on the notion of cause and effect. Please show me one credible science website that claims without the law of cause and effect, there would be no science. It is nothing more than a philosophical concept that you keep trying to pass off as fact. If this law is so important that all of science rests on it, then how come it's never taught in school? I've already explained to you that science attempts to understand the relationships between variables. For example, the equation f = ma tells us that force, mass and acceleration are related; it does not say that acceleration causes force or vice versa.

[Necrosis]

you are wrong science has assumptions it must accept in order to conduct science, this is metaphysics, the reason it is not taught is that it cant be proven but assumed, just like the world is set up in  a rational way. i already wrote about scienctists who accept the law of cause and effect read the book if you want.

[Necrosis]

go to a philosophy class if you want to see were it is taught

[NeoSeminole]

the law of cause and effect has been refuted by logic. Therefore, it cannot be assumed like you say in science.

[Necrosis]

it is not refuted by logic, read my marathon post.

[NeoSeminole]

I read your post. The law of cause and effect is a philosophical concept which you assume is true. So I wrote a list of objections - 1 empirical, 3 logical - that disprove causality. In philosophy, all you need is one unanswered counter-example to refute any argument. I have 4 of them.

[Necrosis]

your refutations have been delt with. your formula is descriptive, read above. cause=effect, cause does not have to have a cause hence uncaused cause. and the others were delt with.

what is the mechanism that has been shown to work in punctuated equilibrium, i mean empiracally.

[NeoSeminole]

you haven't refuted anything. It would be like me saying your counter-arguments to my objections have already been dealt with. All talk and no show. The example I provided f = ma is an accurate representation of science as a whole. Science attempts to understand the realtionships between variables. Cause and effect are just labels we give to observations that meet the causality principle. In nature, there are many examples where no independent cause is responsible. For instance, rain appears to be associated with temperature and humidity. Yet none of these variables "cause" rain. It's the balance between temperature and humidity that results in rain.

[Necrosis]

but you are wrong i talked about how descriptive entities are in fact causality and non-locality has re-introduced causality thus establishing cause and effect in science.

[Necrosis]

also, the nobel prize winner julius schwinger obs that both classical and quantum physics assume the law of cause and effect, since they both hold that knowledge of the state of a system at one time gives knowledge of its state at a later time. so follow me, in any case, the principle that every phenonmenon and event has an explanation is as fundamental in quantum physics as it is in the rest of physics, it is not simply a presupposition of science or a thesis to be proven, it is rather a condition that has to be accepted if we are to do science. like it or not, the quantum physicist cannot say anything about a quantum state taht is not implicitly an attempt to explain it. even to say that there are no causes at the quantum level is to give an explanation, albeit a mistaken one, for quantum phenomena. when bohr offered his principle onf complementarity, he was trying to explain quantum phenomean. it could be said that this was a description not an explantion, but then it was a description that sought to explain. all quantum experiments and fomalisms are attempts  to explain quantum pheenomena. quantum theorists are often, in fact, driven by the search for symmetry. bizarre quantum phe like non-locality  my be bizarre from the viewpoint of conventional science but the non locality experiments actually re-introduce causality. we do not understand how one photon affects the other at such distances but we do know that one has an effect on the other.

now cause and effect is actually a meta scientific priciple like you have eluded to. science cannot prove it;science simply operates on the assumptions that it is valid. in the einstein-copenhagen debate on measurement and causality, capenhagen had the right premise but the wrong conclusion. einstined adopted cop conclusion as his premise and reached an equally flawsd conclusion. from the premise that exact measurement is not possible at the quantum leverl(uncertinty principle), copenhagen concluede that the law focause and effect does not apply there. this process of reasoning is obciously flawed because the exsitence of cause and effect between two phenomena does not requie us to believe that this relationship can be demonstrated by the rules of classical physics. einsteing, on the other hand, stated off with the premise that there can be no caus and effect if there is no exact measurement and concluded that acceptance of indeterminacy at the quantum level eliminateds causality and objectivity. here he fell into the copenhagen trap becasue he took exact observation, measurement  and prediction as criteria for cause and effet and reality.

[Necrosis]

you describe what copenhagen got wrong and try to re-introduce it as doing away with cause and effect. so explain rain without humidity etc. it is clear there is cause and effect or a chain that leads to cause i dont understand your point. yes they do cause rain, go to the quantum level, then micro to macro and you will see a cause and effect, sorry i dont know a ton about the hydrological cycle, but rain could not occur without these variables, since this is accepted cause and effect, much like julius said is inferred.

[NeoSeminole]

you still haven't refuted my objections.

[Necrosis]

sure i never, what is the mechanism of punctuated equilibirium again? i forgot.

[NeoSeminole]

if you cannot refute my objections, then your argument is no longer valid b/c it rests on the assumption of cause and effect. I don't have to explain the mechanism for punctuated equilibrium since it doesn't have anything to do with this discussion (note: I know the mechanism responsible). I don't want to stray off-topic from your argument that God exist. By the way, I'm still waiting for your "proof."

[Necrosis]

what are you talking about i havent even posted the argument, then i make a post on getbig to show you that essence does equal exsistence and that a vaccum is not a example of nothing(vaccum is not nothing) creating something. then i say how rain is not possible without humidity temp but you assume no causal relationship. i then say cause=effect, cause does not have to have cause. and explain why descriptive statements or formula=causation from my marathon post. you are getting delusional my friend what point havent i specifically refuted.

I DONT KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT, YOU HAVE BEEN REFUTED, TOP PHYSICIST HAVE SPOKE ABOUT NON-LOCALITY RE-INTRODUCING CAUSALITY, AND HOW QUANTA HAVE EFFECT ON EACH OTHER. RAIN IS NOT POSSIBLE WITHOUT THE OTHER TWO VARIABLES THUS ITS EFFECT RAIN IS INHERENTLY CAUSED BY IT.

the god equation over at avant is enough to prove god"s exsistence like nightop said, anyone who has reflected on it will come to this conclusion. to deny god is to deny exsistence, and section 8 concurs, and so do aquinas, madchryaya, acivenna, and moses moaidems four seperate philosophers who arrived at the exact same conclusion. you have been refuted, and atheism is the most ignorant position possible, there never was nothing bucko.

[NeoSeminole]

what are you talking about i havent even posted the argument, then i make a post on getbig to show you that essence does equal exsistence and that a vaccum is not a example of nothing(vaccum is not nothing) creating something. then i say how rain is not possible without humidity temp but you assume no causal relationship. i then say cause=effect, cause does not have to have cause. and explain why descriptive statements or formula=causation from my marathon post.

You used causality in your premise. I don't need to listen to the whole argument to show why it rests on faulty assumptions. Earlier, you claimed that everything that happens must have a cause. You also said cause = effect. Therefore, it logically follows (according to you) that each cause must have an earlier cause. I mentioned quantum fluctuations to give an example of an uncaused cause. You claim they are still caused by something else. Now you have contradicted yourself by saying a "cause does not have to have a cause." I'm not sure even you know what the hell you are talking about.

you are getting delusional my friend what point havent i specifically refuted.

this post:

"objection 1: some effects do not require a cause. Quantum mechanics tells us that particles at the sub-atomic level behave without causation. You claim something must be responsible. However, no evidence for sub-quantum forces has ever been found. The forces ARE the result of quantum particles (e.g. strong forces are caused by gluons, not vice versa)."

"objection 2a: if everything that happens must have a cause, then each cause must have an earlier cause and so on. This means the chain of causes of your future actions extend backwards to before you were born. In essence, your whole life is predetermined and free will doesn't exist. If you object that any of these causes is an isolated event, then you are implying an uncaused cause which violates the "law of cause and effect."

"objection 2b: if everything that happens must have a cause, then each cause must have an earlier cause and so on. This chain of causes may be traced back to the first cause. A familiar paradox arises - what caused the first cause? According to the "law of cause and effect," every cause must be caused by something else. If we assume there is an uncaused cause, then its premise is violated and the whole argument fails."

"objection 3: the "law of cause and effect" postulates that a specific cause always leads to a specific effect (i.e. there may be some attribute X which always leads to some attribute Y). However, we have never observed two instances of X which led to two instances of Y. Every X is different in some respect from every other X. Likewise, every Y is different from every other Y. If you object that we may infer the same outcome when each X is exactly the same, then you are creating a definition for cause and effect that cannot be falsified. Since all you would have to do whenever someone challenges you is propose additional 'unknown' causes, this is not really a valid argument. It would be like me claiming "the universe was created by a black hole. We just don't understand all the factors that were involved" no matter how many objections are raised. Although this argument can never be falsified, it doesn't necessarily follow that it's true."

the god equation over at avant is enough to prove god"s exsistence like nightop said, anyone who has reflected on it will come to this conclusion. to deny god is to deny exsistence, and section 8 concurs, and so do aquinas, madchryaya, acivenna, and moses moaidems four seperate philosophers who arrived at the exact same conclusion. you have been refuted, and atheism is the most ignorant position possible, there never was nothing bucko.

ha ha ha, whatever helps you sleep at night.

[NeoSeminole]

I will let you get the last word in, and I promise I won't respond until you post your whole argument. I'm looking forward to reading your "proof" of God's existence.

[Necrosis]

i dont care if you give me the last word, i stop arguing with you when you dont make sense, like abiogenesis happened cause were here, or the utter improbability of evolution by random mutations is close to impossible see the wister symposium were mathmeticians confronted biologists about this, the biologists reply i quote was "evolution must have happened were here" haha delusion. no such thing as speciation, fully formed fossils indicating whole species not halfway mutants=punctuated equilibria. this theory has no water because its mechanism has never been demonstrated ever, at all. the bacteria in the fossil record date back to 3.8 billion years(some recent studies date the world at 1.9 billion by the way) this is basically instant catalysis of bacteria/ 34 phyla appear all at once in the fossil record, guess random mutations occured all at once haha.dont kid yourself they make whole fucking skeletons from a cheekbone and half the time they are fucking frudulent, desperate .wait a minute mutations just scramble information not add anything and 99% of the time it is a negative mutation this has led nobel laureate de Duve to say "eternity would not suffice".

the funny thing is that the improbability has been growing do to the recent increase found in the complexity of the biosphere. dr gerold schoeder notes that as lona the intricate workings of the cell are disregarded, "theres no problem for steven pinker, gould, or dawkins to talk of  random reactions producing the good of life". "the little charts had me fooled too, then i studied molecular biology" to which he holds a phd in.

then you go on to state that nothing can produce something which has been refuted by even atheist, and the boys at avant agree for good measure. hint a vaccum is something, therefore anything produced by it or in it are governed by laws that do not exsist in nothing, and nothing truly isnt in exsistence. simply accept this so we can move on, i accept hovind makes some dumb points and makes his own definition, when everyone is saying your wrong just accept it.

then you attack cause=effect to which i specifically write about equations and use the example of radio active decay supplied by a physicist and how quantum mechanics and non-locality establish causation. then you talk about laws being broken when cause equals effect not vice versa they are not interchangeble it merely states that all effects have causes that effects are not self sufficient.
your thrid objection is ludicris as alpha decay is not understood but we realize that the decay has a cause as noted above. then you refrain to the rain argument which is not a good argument at all and you have abandoned it.

then you deny the god equation, and laugh at me for being delusional, trust me people smarter then you and me combined have spent there lifes at this and this is as far as logic will take you. atheism is so stupid it is beyond beleif. to deny a non-material world is to deny this world, the world of energy, and to deny consciousness or thoughts, it is too easy to discredit. just cause you dont understand my marathon post and then post and equation doesnt mean i have to keep responding.

[Necrosis]

not my argument at all by the way so post away when i post the argument you can have at er. but it might be a while as i have some schoolwork to do and a few things to flesh out, but im not adonis so i will supply. if you dont beleive me then doesnt matter, i will post it anyway.

[Necrosis]

here im attacking evolution again

In 1978 Dr. Colin Patterson (senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History) published a book called "Evolution". A reader wrote to Dr. Patterson asking why he did not put a single photograph of a transitional fossil in his book. In a reply dated April 10, 1979, Dr. Patterson wrote: "... I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic licence, would that not mislead the reader?" ... "You say that I should at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.' I will lay it on the line -- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no, there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test."

So the person in charge of one of the largest fossil collections in the world says that even 120 years after Darwin, no undisputed transitional forms had been found. Similar statements have come from Dr. Niles Eldredge, head of the fossil collection of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and Dr. David Raup, leading paleontologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, among others. Collectively these three scientists have been in charge of at least 50% of the major fossil collections of the world. Given their close proximity to, and inherent familiarity with, the ACTUAL fossil evidence, I'm inclined to give much more credence to their conclusions than to Dr. Collins.

In subsequent years (i.e. since 1979), when a new supposedly transitional fossil is discovered, it typically still makes headlines in Time, National Geographic, Scientific American, The New York Times, etc. as the new smoking gun missing link that finally proves evolution once and for all. But if prior fossil discoveries have already conclusively proven evolution, wouldn't any new fossil discoveries just be yesterday's news? Why do they continue to receive front page treatment - why should anyone care? Or to put it another way, Charles Lindbergh made headlines all around the world after his first non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927, but who cares to hear about a successful transatlantic crossing today? Here's a recent example: a discovery occurred last April when scientists found a reportedly transitional fossil named "Tiktaalik" in northern Canada. An article in the April 5, 2006 "New Scientist" entitled "First fossil of fish that crawled onto land discovered" included the statement: "As Shubin's team studied the species they saw to their excitement that it was exactly the missing intermediate they were looking for. 'We found something that really split the difference right down the middle,' says Daeschler." Now whether or not Tiktaalik is judged to be a true transitional fossil is beside the point. Notice that the excitement and newsworthiness of this discovery is due to the hope that Tiktaalik may finally be able to fill in the missing gap. This reaction clearly reveals the "transitional forms" gap is still a very real problem today. So if Dr. Collins' claim is true regarding the variety of transitional forms in existence today, what's the big deal about another discovery? The truth is, there are still no indisputable samples, so each new discovery elicits the usual celebratory back-slapping with the hope that "maybe this will be the one!"

haha to easy, funny that you act as if evolution is fact. my argument has nothing to do with evolution by the way or antropomorphism at all. just want some factual evidence before we go calling evolution fact. abiogenesis=nothing, dont care what you say about it, it is the starting point, you must talk about how evolution began before you talk about how it carries on. punctuated e=nothing. fossils=nothing concrete or that can even be proven to be intermideate. also, molecular biology has unlocked pandoras box

[Necrosis]

"[M]ajor discontinuities simply could not, unless we are to believe in miracles, have been crossed in geologically short periods of time through one or two transitional species occupying restricted geographical areas. Surely such transitions must have involved long lineages including many collateral lines of hundreds or probably thousands of transitional species. To suggest that the hundreds, thousands or possibly even millions of transitional species which must have existed in the interval between vastly dissimilar types were all unsuccessful species occupying isolated areas and having very small population numbers is verging on incredible" micheal denton molecular biologist.

bro, argue against me, i enjoy the debate, i will post a comprehensive argument for god in sometime, until then argue away.

[NeoSeminole]

alright, you asked for me to respond.

You are confusing fact with theory. Abiogenesis is the process by which life originated from non-living material. There are several theories that attempt to explain this process. Whether these theories are correct or not is irrelevant. The fact remains abiogenesis did occur. We had to come from something. The only way abiogenesis can be disproven is if life spontaneously popped into existence out of nothing. Even the Bible claims that man was created from non-living material.

Genesis 2:7 (KJV) "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

The Wistar Symposium was held 50 yrs ago. Needless to say, using such an outdated source doesn't exactly strengthen your argument. The theory of evolution is better understood today than it was half a century ago. A decision was never reached at the conference as far as I know. Regarding the fossil record, evolution theory predicts that there have been millions of transitional organisms. It does not predict that all these organisms were preserved as fossils. Just b/c there are gaps in the fossil record does not mean we can jump to the conclusion that no more fossils are left to be discovered.

Speciation has been observed. For example, a new species of mosquito, the molestus form, has speciated from Culex pipiens. Several new species of plants have arisen via polyploidy such as Primula kewensis.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB910.html

Your comments about punctuated equilibrium reflect a misunderstanding of what the theory says. Punctuated equilibrium is the process by which evolution continues through periods of rapid change alternating with periods of relative stability. It is based on positive evidence from independent geological sites. The theory is supported by the stability of morphology in widespread species, the distribution of transitional fossils, and the apparent morphological differences between ancestral and daughter species. Punctuated equilibrium occurs when a small sub-population is isolated from the parent population. Mutations in the gene pool of the isolated population accumulate faster. The result is speciation takes place over tens or hundreds of thousands of years instead of millions of years.

http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~theobal/PE.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/punc-eq.html

I have already explained why your definition of 'nothing' is a philosophical concept that only exist in the mind. How do we know there was ever truly nothingness (as you put it)? Maybe space has always existed but was empty. This may be viewed as a form of nothing. All you have done is come up with 1 definition of 'nothing' and ignored other interpretations. It would be like me saying "unless God is omnipotent and omniscient, then he's not really a god." We know from logic that such a god is not possible. However, he might not be omnipotent and omniscient yet still be a god. I don't know how to make this concept any simpler for you to understand.

[NeoSeminole]

You still haven't refuted my objections.

objection 1: some effects do not require a cause. Quantum mechanics tells us that particles at the sub-atomic level behave without causation. You claim something must be responsible. However, no evidence for sub-quantum forces has ever been found. The forces ARE the result of quantum particles (e.g. strong forces are caused by gluons, not vice versa).

objection 2a: if everything that happens must have a cause, then each cause must have an earlier cause and so on. This means the chain of causes of your future actions extend backwards to before you were born. In essence, your whole life is predetermined and free will doesn't exist. If you object that any of these causes is an isolated event, then you are implying an uncaused cause which violates the "law of cause and effect."

objection 2b: if everything that happens must have a cause, then each cause must have an earlier cause and so on. This chain of causes may be traced back to the first cause. A familiar paradox arises - what caused the first cause? According to the "law of cause and effect," every cause must be caused by something else. If we assume there is an uncaused cause, then its premise is violated and the whole argument fails.

objection 3: the "law of cause and effect" postulates that a specific cause always leads to a specific effect (i.e. there may be some attribute X which always leads to some attribute Y). However, we have never observed two instances of X which led to two instances of Y. Every X is different in some respect from every other X. Likewise, every Y is different from every other Y. If you object that we may infer the same outcome when each X is exactly the same, then you are creating a definition for cause and effect that cannot be falsified. Since all you would have to do whenever someone challenges you is propose additional 'unknown' causes, this is not really a valid argument. It would be like me claiming "the universe was created by a black hole. We just don't understand all the factors that were involved" no matter how many objections are raised. Although this argument can never be falsified, it doesn't necessarily follow that it's true.

[NeoSeminole]

usmokepole, just a reminder that it's been a week since you responded.