An Objectivist's Stance on The Origin of The Universe and The Afterlife

[kiaer.ts]

They truly are clever. I saw a documentary on them once and it showed how they were one of few of the animals in the animal kingdom to use tools. I do believe they are highly intelligent. Lol, clever calimari

Maybe you are talking about the Octopus that opened the screwed on lid of a jar? Manipulation, but not really tool use. Our luck they only live two years and die when they reproduce.

[basimpson22]

They truly are clever. I saw a documentary on them once and it showed how they were one of few of the animals in the animal kingdom to use tools. I do believe they are highly intelligent. Lol, clever calimari

Maybe you are talking about the Octopus that opened the screwed on lid of a jar? Manipulation, but not really tool use. Our luck they only live two years and die when they reproduce.

I actually don't remember the jar. But it was something to that effect. I think it was an octopus using various objects as cover or armor.

[basimpson22]

I'm not sure how you feel about using youtube as a reference but there are several interesting videos on octopus there

[Xray]

Just yesterday I had a meeting with a campuse minister. We discussed the origin of the universe, the afterlife, the evidence of a designer. I would love love love to convert him to objectivism. Or atleast to rack his mind.

Minister's arguments for origin of the Universe:

1) the minister brought up a theory from thermodynamics that all bodies are cooling off. He asked, well if everything naturally cools off, where does the heat come from? Implying that God must be the source

2)Newton's 1st law and expansion of the universe: Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. The minister said that the universe, instead of oscillating in size, has been proven to be expanding exponentially or at a growing rate and if Newton's 1st Law holds true the universe must be having a force acting on it in order for it to grow at an increasing rate, implying that God must have been the one who initiated this constant force. Otherwise, in his theory, the universe could only be growing at a constant rate or declining rate. A declining rate would suggest a finite universe since if its declining it must be converging to a limit.

for the afterlife:

his arguments for the afterlife did not have any scientfic basis. He posed a typical argument and that is that its better to live you're life as a Christian in case there is an afterlife since if you don't you're risking an eternity of anguish. I said that the probability of an afterlife is highly subjective. And then he said it was 100% but started talking about how if you decide to live as a christian you will choose the right path 100% of the time. I know! Illogical right?! Completely changed the subject. (Maybe that'll give you an idea of what I'm dealing with. I don't know if that was meant as an intential diversion to what I was talking about or what?

evidence of a designer:

he said that there is a moral code among men that is universal. I really don't have an argument to that. I believe that as an objectivist one can observe that in fact there seems to be a core of morals common among all men. He said that this couldn't have happened by chance, and that this "code" must exist by design. He also talked about the complexity of the human eye and how that couldn't have been the sum of random events. He also said that, since when something is designed it has a purpose, that we (humans) must have a purpose that serves our creator.

Ok, that's the gist of it. I'm hoping to get an abundance of feedback.

Hi Aristocrates,

I'm no Objecitivst; I'm an ex-theist turned agnostic currently leaning, belief-wise, more toward the atheist side of the fence. My agnosticism is anepistemolgica postion since I can't claim knowledge of something which one cannot know. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

My criticism of Ojectivism when it comes to the god question goes toward the premise verbatim voiced by its founder Ayn Rand: "No supernatural dimension exists." The fallacy of the premise lies in stating a mere belief as fact.

But still, Ayn Rand has provided us with a tool the effectiveness of which cannot be praised enough: "Check your premises". So if you want to refute an argument, always go straight for the premises, examine them and see if you can expose them as false.

Often, you will see that, in testing your opponent's premise applying them to concrete examples, the premise will collapse itself because of incompatible contradictions in the application.

Always try to get you opponent down to earth by demanding concrete examples; don't allow him/her to hide behind floating abstractions which often only sound good in theory.

Now to the arguments of your minister. Since I myself was once successfuly challenged by an atheist to check my theistic premises, I have a pretty good idea what works.

1) the minister brought up a theory from thermodynamics that all bodies are cooling off. He asked, well if everything naturally cools off, where does the heat come from? Implying that God must be the source.

One could call this the "argument from helplessness" which arbitrarily posits some prime mover. Problem is, it solves nothing, but only pushes the "causal chain" one step further back. It looks like even six-year-olds can grasp this, for it was a six-year-old kid who once asked me: "If God made the world, then who made God?" That a god "always was", or was self-created or whatever else, is as inexplicable as the physcical singularity necessary for the Big Bang to have occurred.

Now you can apply the principle of Occam's razor which says that entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity (Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate).

More later.

Edited March 5, 2011 by Xray

[sjw]

Just yesterday I had a meeting with a campuse minister. We discussed the origin of the universe, the afterlife, the evidence of a designer. I would love love love to convert him to objectivism. Or atleast to rack his mind.

Minister's arguments for origin of the Universe:

1) the minister brought up a theory from thermodynamics that all bodies are cooling off. He asked, well if everything naturally cools off, where does the heat come from? Implying that God must be the source

Never a miscommunication.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/370183/january-06-2011/bill-o-reilly-proves-god-s-existence---neil-degrasse-tyson

Supposing that something had to be the source, then that's all you have evidence for. Call it "God" if you want, just like the ancients called the Sun "God," but all you're talking about is a heat source. It's a truly silly argument. Why waste time talking to the ignorant bastard?

2)Newton's 1st law and expansion of the universe: Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. The minister said that the universe, instead of oscillating in size, has been proven to be expanding exponentially or at a growing rate and if Newton's 1st Law holds true the universe must be having a force acting on it in order for it to grow at an increasing rate, implying that God must have been the one who initiated this constant force. Otherwise, in his theory, the universe could only be growing at a constant rate or declining rate. A declining rate would suggest a finite universe since if its declining it must be converging to a limit.

Same stupid argument.

for the afterlife:

his arguments for the afterlife did not have any scientfic basis. He posed a typical argument and that is that its better to live you're life as a Christian in case there is an afterlife since if you don't you're risking an eternity of anguish. I said that the probability of an afterlife is highly subjective. And then he said it was 100% but started talking about how if you decide to live as a christian you will choose the right path 100% of the time. I know! Illogical right?! Completely changed the subject. (Maybe that'll give you an idea of what I'm dealing with. I don't know if that was meant as an intential diversion to what I was talking about or what?

Supposing there is a God, and supposing that he meant to give you a brain, and that he meant for you to use it, then the reasonable person must conclude that all these religions are temptations to sin against your nature, and that the most such a God will tolerate is deism, and if you go beyond that you will Burn In Hell!

Hey, I can make shit up too!

evidence of a designer:

he said that there is a moral code among men that is universal. I really don't have an argument to that. I believe that as an objectivist one can observe that in fact there seems to be a core of morals common among all men. He said that this couldn't have happened by chance, and that this "code" must exist by design.

It's obviously not universal according to him, because on his view, you're supposed to have faith, but on our view, you're supposed to use reason. Also, on his view, the State can usurp your rights, whereas on our view, it should not. So clearly he does not believe in a universal code.

In order for the code to actually be understood as universal, it has to be understood. And he doesn't understand it, because he uses the wrong method.

He also talked about the complexity of the human eye and how that couldn't have been the sum of random events. He also said that, since when something is designed it has a purpose, that we (humans) must have a purpose that serves our creator.

Ok, that's the gist of it. I'm hoping to get an abundance of feedback.

Dawkins has answered this stuff over and over.

Shayne

[kiaer.ts]

They truly are clever. I saw a documentary on them once and it showed how they were one of few of the animals in the animal kingdom to use tools. I do believe they are highly intelligent. Lol, clever calimari

Maybe you are talking about the Octopus that opened the screwed on lid of a jar? Manipulation, but not really tool use. Our luck they only live two years and die when they reproduce.

I actually don't remember the jar. But it was something to that effect. I think it was an octopus using various objects as cover or armor.

Yeah, some octopuses use mollusc and coconut shells as armor.

[Selene]

Ted:

I would have lost a bet on your plural of octopus, but I know better than to think you would make this type of an error which, of course, you did not!

Octopus

There are three plural forms of octopus: octopuses [ˈɒktəpəsɪz], octopi [ˈɒktəpaɪ], and octopodes [ˌɒkˈtəʊpədiːz]. Currently, octopuses is the most common form in the UK as well as the US; octopodes is rare, and octopi is often objectionable.^[7]

The Oxford English Dictionary^[8] lists octopuses, octopi and octopodes (in that order); it labels octopodes "rare", and notes that octopi derives from the mistaken assumption that octōpūs is a second declension Latin noun, which it is not. Rather, it is (Latinized) Ancient Greek, from oktṓpous (ὀκτώπους), gender masculine, whose plural is oktṓpodes (ὀκτώποδες). If the word were native to Latin, it would be octōpēs ('eight-foot') and the plural octōpedes, analogous to centipedes and mīllipedes, as the plural form of pēs ('foot') is pedes. In modern Greek, it is called khtapódi (χταπόδι), gender neuter, with plural form khtapódia (χταπόδια).

Chambers 21st Century Dictionary^[9] and the Compact Oxford Dictionary^[10] list only octopuses, although the latter notes that octopodes is "still occasionally used"; the British National Corpus has 29 instances of octopuses, 11 of octopi and 4 of octopodes. Merriam-Webster 11th Collegiate Dictionary lists octopuses and octopi, in that order; Webster's New World College Dictionary lists octopuses, octopi and octopodes (in that order).

Fowler's Modern English Usage states that "the only acceptable plural in English is octopuses," and that octopi is misconceived and octopodes pedantic.

The term octopod (plural octopods or octopodes) is taken from the taxonomic order Octopoda but has no classical equivalent. The collective form octopus is usually reserved for animals consumed for food.

Adam

learn and live on OL

[Mike Hansen]

Thanks Mike. I go to Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, TN. We're considered apart of the Bible belt. And there's good reason for that. I was discussing the origin of the universe with a girl in a coffee shop and toward the end of the conversation this older gentleman chimed in, arguing her creationist theory. Quite frustrating. What is it he said.... he said that since it can be observed that so many cultures have a creation story that there must be some merit to the idea of there being a God. Something to that affect. I just didn't say anything to him.

Nice. What are you majoring in?

We're in similar situations. You've got the Bible Belt believers, I've got the mormons. The University of Utah isn't really that bad in that regard (it's not BYU, thank god!), but there's good reason as to why I knew exactly how to respond to your minister's argument! Do you ever get people talking about how "the spirit manifested itself" when something cool happens? Oh man I hate that one.

Refuting losers like this would be a full-time job. You know when they start taking that older gentleman's argument that they're really grasping for straws. Remember that your goal should be the defense of your own ideas, not the "conversion" of these lunatics. I've found that the first question shouldn't be "how do I deal with this fool?" It should be "do I deal with this fool?" Most of them aren't worth your time and mental energy.

Mike

[Selene]

Thanks Mike. I go to Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, TN. We're considered apart of the Bible belt. And there's good reason for that. I was discussing the origin of the universe with a girl in a coffee shop and toward the end of the conversation this older gentleman chimed in, arguing her creationist theory. Quite frustrating. What is it he said.... he said that since it can be observed that so many cultures have a creation story that there must be some merit to the idea of there being a God. Something to that affect. I just didn't say anything to him.

Nice. What are you majoring in?

We're in similar situations. You've got the Bible Belt believers, I've got the mormons. The University of Utah isn't really that bad in that regard (it's not BYU, thank god!), but there's good reason as to why I knew exactly how to respond to your minister's argument! Do you ever get people talking about how "the spirit manifested itself" when something cool happens? Oh man I hate that one.

Refuting losers like this would be a full-time job. You know when they start taking that older gentleman's argument that they're really grasping for straws. Remember that your goal should be the defense of your own ideas, not the "conversion" of these lunatics. I've found that the first question shouldn't be "how do I deal with this fool?" It should be "do I deal with this fool?" Most of them aren't worth your time and mental energy.

Mike

Mike:

You are way ahead of your peers on the wisdom scale. Just like football and chess, you pick your spots.

First order of business is, as you noted, "do I deal with this person?" Tai chi taught me a lot about not being at the point of confrontation and it applies to your situations also.

By the way, that website has some great instructional videos on tarp camping and setting up your tarp with simple knots.

Carry on. lol

Adam

[kiaer.ts]

Note that the dictionary lists octopi before octopodes, even though the first is incorrect. The theory is that dictionaries "should" be descriptive, rather than prescriptive, describing what people actually do rather than telling them what they should do. Of course this leaves unanswered the question of why dictionaries should do this. The effect is to enshrine common mistakes as the new standard for the mere fact of their being common mistakes. The effect is not fairness, it is an active bias against clarity, logic and correctness.

[Selene]

Note that the dictionary lists octopi before octopodes, even though the first is incorrect. The theory is that dictionaries "should" be descriptive, rather than prescriptive, describing what people actually do rather than telling them what they should do. Of course this leaves unanswered the question of why dictionaries should do this. The effect is to enshrine common mistakes as the new standard for the mere fact of their being common mistakes. The effect is not fairness, it is an active bias against clarity, logic and correctness.

Ted:

That is what surprised me also. I am considered a wordsmith by my friends and clients and I rely heavily on the dictionary denotations of words. It stunned me to realize that as you aptly stated, this "practice" leads to unfairness and establishes an "...active bias against clarity, logic and correctness."

Did not make me a happy camper!

Adam

[kiaer.ts]

BTW, that picture above is a cuttlefish, a type of squid, not strictly an octopus, but one of the most intelligent cephalopods.

[BaalChatzaf]

Note that the dictionary lists octopi before octopodes, even though the first is incorrect. The theory is that dictionaries "should" be descriptive, rather than prescriptive, describing what people actually do rather than telling them what they should do. Of course this leaves unanswered the question of why dictionaries should do this. The effect is to enshrine common mistakes as the new standard for the mere fact of their being common mistakes. The effect is not fairness, it is an active bias against clarity, logic and correctness.

Dictionaries are indicators of usage, not declarators what is Right and True in language. There is no Right and True in language. It is a convention from beginning to end.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

1) the minister brought up a theory from thermodynamics that all bodies are cooling off. He asked, well if everything naturally cools off, where does the heat come from? Implying that God must be the source.

One could call this the "argument from helplessness" which arbitrarily posits some prime mover. Problem is, it solves nothing, but only pushes the "causal chain" one step further back. It looks like even six-year-olds can grasp this, for it was a six-year-old kid who once asked me: "If God made the world, then who made God?" That a god "always was", or was self-created or whatever else, is as inexplicable as the physcical singularity necessary for the Big Bang to have occurred.

Now you can apply the principle of Occam's razor which says that entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity (Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate).

More later.

Continued: Occam's razor means that if the introduction of an additional element is not necessary for solving an issue, the element can be discarded as irrelevant.

When Napoleon asked Laplace which role God played in his scientific theory, Laplace answered: "I don't need a god for my hypothesis."

2)Newton's 1st law and expansion of the universe: Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. The minister said that the universe, instead of oscillating in size, has been proven to be expanding exponentially or at a growing rate and if Newton's 1st Law holds true the universe must be having a force acting on it in order for it to grow at an increasing rate, implying that God must have been the one who initiated this constant force. Otherwise, in his theory, the universe could only be growing at a constant rate or declining rate. A declining rate would suggest a finite universe since if its declining it must be converging to a limit.

But if a god were scientifically necessary to act as a "force" here, then why are many astrophysicists atheists? This allows the inference that there must be something wrong with your minister's theory.

for the afterlife:

his arguments for the afterlife did not have any scientfic basis.

As you said, there is no scientific basis whatsoever to assume any afterlife. Whenever theists get on epistemological terrain, their unsubstantiated premises will drown in quicksand there fast. That's why it is always a good move to argue with theists from an epistemological standpoint, because the theists have nothing at all to counter there. That's why all attempts at "proving" the existence of a god had to fail.

He posed a typical argument and that is that its better to live you're life as a Christian in case there is an afterlife since if you don't you're risking an eternity of anguish. I said that the probability of an afterlife is highly subjective. And then he said it was 100% but started talking about how if you decide to live as a christian you will choose the right path 100% of the time. I know! Illogical right?!

Again, you minister is completely wrong in assuming that "going Christian" is any safeguard. This is a situation where you can argumentatively remain in the theist's terrain and confront them with the contradictions between the faith systems themselves.

You could reply to the minister: "I'm afraid you are not safe at all. For suppose it is not the Christian god who rules, but some other god, a god who may be irate at those who did believe in him, then your Christian faith may even contribute to your eternal damnation by this other god. Do you really want to run that high a risk?"

Arguing like that is also another epistemological attack on faith, for of course no believer can be certain that what he believes is true, despite all the dogmatic faiths proclaiming the contrary. That's why doubt is often considered as sin in dogmatic religions. For the religious dogmatists are well aware of epistemological weakness of their systems, and they know that doubt can finally lead to the abandonment of the faith.

In addition, you can argue that with such an erratic, unjust type as the Biblical god, even if you are Christian, you are not safe.

George H. Smith has pointed this out in all radicaltiy in his "Smith's wager":

George H. Smith: "Suppose there exists an unjust god, specifically the god of Christianity, who doesn't give a damn about justice and who will burn us in Hell, regardless of whether we made honest mistakes or not. Such a god is necessarily unjust, for there is no more heinous injustice we could conceive of, than to punish a person for an honest error of belief, when he has tried to the best of his ability to ascertain the truth. The Christian thinks he's in a better position in case this kind of god exists. I wish to point out that he's not in any better position than we are because if you have an unjust god. The earmark of injustice is unprincipled behavior, behavior that's not predictable. If there's an unjust god and He really gets all this glee out of burning sinners and disbelievers, then what could give him more glee than to tell Christians they would be saved, only to turn around and burn them anyway, for the Hell of it, just because he enjoys it? If you've got an unjust god, what worst injustice could there be than that? It's not that far-fetched. If a god is willing to punish you simply for an honest error of belief, you can't believe He's going to keep his word when He tells you He won't punish you if you don't believe in Him because He's got to have a sadistic streak to begin with. Certainly He would get quite a bit of glee out of this behavior. Even if there exists this unjust god, then admittedly we live in a nightmarish universe, but we're in no worse position than the Christian is."

The complete article will give you a lot of 'fodder' for your argumentation from an atheistic standpoint.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/george_smith/defending.html

This unpredictable, partial, unjust, tyrannical god of the Bible was clearly modeled after the Oriental potentates the deprived desert nomads of those past times had been familiar with.

In your place, I would print out the article, give the minister a copy and suggest that he goes through it with you in detail.

Tell him you want to do that, and then wait for the reaction. I'll bet hell will freeze over before he agrees to that. Instead he will try to wriggle out, using some lame exuses.

Completely changed the subject. (Maybe that'll give you an idea of what I'm dealing with.

One can get a pretty good picture, yes.

I don't know if that was meant as an intential diversion to what I was talking about or what?

It was an intentional diversion. The reason being that he dit not want to enter a terrain where potential danger for his faith lurks.

evidence of a designer:

he said that there is a moral code among men that is universal.

One has to be more precise here. Connecting the discussion of biological "design" with moral ideas is mixing up epistemology with ethics.

he said that there is a moral code among men that is universal.

I really don't have an argument to that.

As an Objectivist, you are indeed in weak position here. Since Objectivism shares the same premise of a unversal moral code, you can't attack the misiter's premise as fallacious without at the same time collapsing your own premise.

All you can do is to try to convice him that Objectivism's moral code is the "true, objective" one, but this does not erase the evident problem all advocates of objective morality have: each proclaims their moral code to be objective, but the moral codes themselves quite obviously vary. So we have got a contradiction there. How to deal with it?

Imo the idea of objective morality is a fallacy.

Doesn't that go against objectivism since pantheism is a speculative concept.

Pantheism is incompatible with Objectivism because Objectivism rejects any form of faith in transcendence as irrational.

I believe that as an objectivist one can observe that in fact there seems to be a core of morals common among all men. He said that this couldn't have happened by chance, and that this "code" must exist by design.

Again, your minister makes a comletly unsubstantiated argument. Moral codes exist because we are group beings and cannot not survive without rules. How the rules look like is another story altogher. Moral codes are subject to evolvement and permanent change.

But if your minister absolutely wants to argue from desgin, tell him that what one can observe is that the world sems to be "designed" as one big restaurant (as Woody Allen put it) where living beings can only exist by killing other life, and where e. g. so-called parasites are perfectly well equipped by nature for their job.

The intelligence of a biological programme and the idea of a "benevolent" universe clearly do not match. In fact most of what one can observe in nature collapses any idea of a benevolent creator.

He also talked about the complexity of the human eye and how that couldn't have been the sum of random events. He also said that, since when something is designed it has a purpose, that we (humans) must have a purpose that serves our creator.

It looks like rationality is not your minister's long suit. Notice how he again inserts moral ideas ("serve our creator") into a mere issue of an organism's successful adaptation to biological survival.

Eventually the last star will cease to shine and that will be The End.

Bleak prospects for any religious concepts of the end of the world where on a Final Judgement Day the dead will rise from their graves. For there won't exist any graves anymore from which any dead could rise.

Edited March 6, 2011 by Xray

[kiaer.ts]

There is no Right and True in language.

That statement is neither right nor true.

[BaalChatzaf]

There is no Right and True in language.

That statement is neither right nor true.

Language is a convention, socially developed. That is why there are so many languages that are spoken or written. Perhaps Stephen Pinker is right and there is an underlying language common to our species, mentalese. But that is a speculation and so objective evidence has been found to support it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[kiaer.ts]

There is no Right and True in language.

That statement is neither right nor true.

Language is a convention, socially developed. That is why there are so many languages that are spoken or written. Perhaps Stephen Pinker is right and there is an underlying language common to our species, mentalese. But that is a speculation and so objective evidence has been found to support it.

You are a broken record, Bob, without even the benefit of, like a clock, being correct by accident twice a day. For someone who talks of his racial literality disease you sure qualify and deny the plain meaning of your words a lot.

I could tell you that something's being a convention (like Morse Code) doesn't mean that there's not a proper way to use it. You obviously nbgyhu your whsgat so that pheg wydnf understood. But I won't. I'll just take you at your word that there is no right way to understand you.

Edited March 6, 2011 by Ted Keer

[BaalChatzaf]

I could tell you that something's being a convention (like Morse Code) doesn't mean that there's not a proper way to use it. You obviously nbgyhu your whsgat so that pheg wydnf understood. But I won't. I'll just take you at your word that there is no right way to understand you.

A convention comes not only with content, but a set of rules for its exercise. Language is not just letters. It has grammatical rules and association rules that associate words with things and actions.

There are thousands (perhaps tens of thousands, historically) of languages which indicate its conventional nature. You will notice that there are very few mathematical systems (in comparison) because the inner structure of mathematics is tied to the objective world. So mathematics, while it has some conventional elements, also has an internal reality. Ditto for logic. There are very few systems of logic, compared to languages. Pardon me for be my mathematical-Platonist self in this discussion.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[kiaer.ts]

I could tell you that something's being a convention (like Morse Code) doesn't mean that there's not a proper way to use it. You obviously nbgyhu your whsgat so that pheg wydnf understood. But I won't. I'll just take you at your word that there is no right way to understand you.

A convention comes not only with content, but a set of rules for its exercise. Language is not just letters. It has grammatical rules and association rules that associate words with things and actions.

There are thousands (perhaps tens of thousands, historically) of languages which indicate its conventional nature. You will notice that there are very few mathematical systems (in comparison) because the inner structure of mathematics is tied to the objective world. So mathematics, while it has some conventional elements, also has an internal reality. Ditto for logic. There are very few systems of logic, compared to languages. Pardon me for be my mathematical-Platonist self in this discussion.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I am sorry, but I just can't hygoiquest any right way to nubblinmaster anything you gyith.

[jac1216]

1) Heat occurs when molecules are compressed or excited. If all matter was at one point compressed into one source, the heat would invariably come from that compression and the subsequent excitement of molecules after the Big Bang. This is the most logical explanation that I can think of. God does not need to exist for this to happen.

New theories pertaining to gravitons and taceons interacting in 4-d space can easily explain how mass gets concentrated by the gravitons and expanded by the taceons. One theory would go something like this:

A mass of Gravitons develops in 4-d space (this is easy to understand since Gravitons would attract each other. The mass of gravitons then starts attracting taceons as well (which would repel eachother). Eventually this mass of gravitons would amass so many taceons that the mass of gravitons begins to destabilize and explode. This would create our universe. A slightly higher number of taceons than gravitons would explain why the universe would be expanding.

This over-simplified explanation would sufficiently counter the minister's God theory.

For the record, I am no physicist, I am a data analyst with a Masters in Security Management and a BA in Intelligence Studies. However, using reason and logic, I would say that the above explanation is just a plausible as God, if not more so.

2) There is clearly NOT a universal moral code in this world. There IS a rational moral code that I believe most decent people would accept. Do not murder, do not steal, do not lie... blah blah. If one looks at the Ten Commandments, you can see that most of them refer to how humans interact with each other. This would seem to indicate that they were derived from reason and not from God.

The ten commandments protects individuals, property rights, the right to live, the nobility of earning your own living, etc... These are not universal, because not all humans act rationally. But those who do would find that most of these "commandments" are perfectly rational ways to interact with other humans.

I would say that reason is the core source of such commandments and the "universal moral code" that the minister speaks of. This is more plausible than God being the source of a universal code which is clearly not universal as evidenced by totalitarian governments, murders, theft, and other heinous acts committed by humans.

[BaalChatzaf]

1) Heat occurs when molecules are compressed or excited. If all matter was at one point compressed into one source, the heat would invariably come from that compression and the subsequent excitement of molecules after the Big Bang. This is the most logical explanation that I can think of. God does not need to exist for this to happen.

New theories pertaining to gravitons and taceons interacting in 4-d space can easily explain how mass gets concentrated by the gravitons and expanded by the taceons. One theory would go something like this:

A mass of Gravitons develops in 4-d space (this is easy to understand since Gravitons would attract each other. The mass of gravitons then starts attracting taceons as well (which would repel eachother). Eventually this mass of gravitons would amass so many taceons that the mass of gravitons begins to destabilize and explode. This would create our universe. A slightly higher number of taceons than gravitons would explain why the universe would be expanding.

Do you have any empirical evidence to support your notions. And, by the way, show us the math.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[jac1216]

You need empirical evidence that matter heats when compressed? That is basic high school chemistry .

As far as Tachyons go (which I spelled incorrectly before) there is no empirical data that supports the existence of tachyons. In fact there is no evidence whatsoever. There is just as much evidence for tachyons as there is for God.

My pseudo-scientific explanation involving tachyons is just as absurd as someone claiming that God is the force behind all creation. So, to counter the minister's conclusion that God must exist (because no one can prove that he can't) one can also assert that tachyons exist. And in this way the claim that there is no other explanation, other than God, can be proven false.

I was not Actually making the claim that these particals exists, I was demonstrating the absurdity of saying that because there is no rational answer at this time, one must conclude that "God did it."

Edited March 6, 2011 by jac1216

[kiaer.ts]

You need empirical evidence that matter heats when compressed? That is basic high school chemistry .

As far as Tachyons go (which I spelled incorrectly before) there is no empirical data that supports the existence of tachyons. In fact there is no evidence whatsoever. There is just as much evidence for tachyons as there is for God.

My pseudo-scientific explanation involving tachyons is just as absurd as someone claiming that God is the force behind all creation. So, to counter the minister's conclusion that God must exist (because no one can prove that he can't) one can also assert that tachyons exist. And in this way the claim that there is no other explanation, other than God, can be proven false.

I was not Actually making the claim that these particals exists, I was demonstrating the absurdity of saying that because there is no rational answer at this time, one must conclude that "God did it."

The rest of us understood your point. Bob, however, (Ba'al, that is - "Lord Bullshit" if you don't know the Hebrew) brags on even numbered days about suffering a genetic defect which has deprived him of a mind. On odd numbered ones fancies himself a scientician and mathematist. He contradicts himself at every turn but demands extravagant and irrelevant proofs from everyone else.

[basimpson22]

We're in similar situations. You've got the Bible Belt believers, I've got the mormons. The University of Utah isn't really that bad in that regard (it's not BYU, thank god!), but there's good reason as to why I knew exactly how to respond to your minister's argument! Do you ever get people talking about how "the spirit manifested itself" when something cool happens? Oh man I hate that one.

Refuting losers like this would be a full-time job. You know when they start taking that older gentleman's argument that they're really grasping for straws. Remember that your goal should be the defense of your own ideas, not the "conversion" of these lunatics. I've found that the first question shouldn't be "how do I deal with this fool?" It should be "do I deal with this fool?" Most of them aren't worth your time and mental energy.

Mike

I am majoring in accounting. Before accounting I had three years of engineering. Its disappointing that accounting barely even touches linear algebra. What about you?

You bring up a good point. Do I deal with this fool?.... Well, the guy in the coffee shop was an easy no but I am friends with the minister. I actually care about the arrogant prick. I see a man who is trapped by his religion. I doubt there is any turning back for him though. His entire adult life has been spent on his religion. He is obviously not happy. He is employed by a church of christ. Job security for him is in keeping his mouth shut and the occasional "I agree". I do wonder how Rand would look on Ministers and the way they make a living. To me these people are to be greatly pitied. Something else he said to me which was outrageous was "yeah, i've been in your position before but I have 13 years of studying and knowledge behind my decision to be a christian." Oh, so many implications in that statement. The biggest one probably being that he is a fool I should stay away from.

[basimpson22]

1) the minister brought up a theory from thermodynamics that all bodies are cooling off. He asked, well if everything naturally cools off, where does the heat come from? Implying that God must be the source.

One could call this the "argument from helplessness" which arbitrarily posits some prime mover. Problem is, it solves nothing, but only pushes the "causal chain" one step further back. It looks like even six-year-olds can grasp this, for it was a six-year-old kid who once asked me: "If God made the world, then who made God?" That a god "always was", or was self-created or whatever else, is as inexplicable as the physcical singularity necessary for the Big Bang to have occurred.

Now you can apply the principle of Occam's razor which says that entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity (Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate).

More later.

Continued: Occam's razor means that if the introduction of an additional element is not necessary for solving an issue, the element can be discarded as irrelevant.

When Napoleon asked Laplace which role God played in his scientific theory, Laplace answered: "I don't need a god for my hypothesis."

2)Newton's 1st law and expansion of the universe: Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. The minister said that the universe, instead of oscillating in size, has been proven to be expanding exponentially or at a growing rate and if Newton's 1st Law holds true the universe must be having a force acting on it in order for it to grow at an increasing rate, implying that God must have been the one who initiated this constant force. Otherwise, in his theory, the universe could only be growing at a constant rate or declining rate. A declining rate would suggest a finite universe since if its declining it must be converging to a limit.

But if a god were scientifically necessary to act as a "force" here, then why are many astrophysicists atheists? This allows the inference that there must be something wrong with your minister's theory.

for the afterlife:

his arguments for the afterlife did not have any scientfic basis.

As you said, there is no scientific basis whatsoever to assume any afterlife. Whenever theists get on epistemological terrain, their unsubstantiated premises will drown in quicksand there fast. That's why it is always a good move to argue with theists from an epistemological standpoint, because the theists have nothing at all to counter there. That's why all attempts at "proving" the existence of a god had to fail.

He posed a typical argument and that is that its better to live you're life as a Christian in case there is an afterlife since if you don't you're risking an eternity of anguish. I said that the probability of an afterlife is highly subjective. And then he said it was 100% but started talking about how if you decide to live as a christian you will choose the right path 100% of the time. I know! Illogical right?!

Again, you minister is completely wrong in assuming that "going Christian" is any safeguard. This is a situation where you can argumentatively remain in the theist's terrain and confront them with the contradictions between the faith systems themselves.

You could reply to the minister: "I'm afraid you are not safe at all. For suppose it is not the Christian god who rules, but some other god, a god who may be irate at those who did believe in him, then your Christian faith may even contribute to your eternal damnation by this other god. Do you really want to run that high a risk?"

Arguing like that is also another epistemological attack on faith, for of course no believer can be certain that what he believes is true, despite all the dogmatic faiths proclaiming the contrary. That's why doubt is often considered as sin in dogmatic religions. For the religious dogmatists are well aware of epistemological weakness of their systems, and they know that doubt can finally lead to the abandonment of the faith.

In addition, you can argue that with such an erratic, unjust type as the Biblical god, even if you are Christian, you are not safe.

George H. Smith has pointed this out in all radicaltiy in his "Smith's wager":

George H. Smith: "Suppose there exists an unjust god, specifically the god of Christianity, who doesn't give a damn about justice and who will burn us in Hell, regardless of whether we made honest mistakes or not. Such a god is necessarily unjust, for there is no more heinous injustice we could conceive of, than to punish a person for an honest error of belief, when he has tried to the best of his ability to ascertain the truth. The Christian thinks he's in a better position in case this kind of god exists. I wish to point out that he's not in any better position than we are because if you have an unjust god. The earmark of injustice is unprincipled behavior, behavior that's not predictable. If there's an unjust god and He really gets all this glee out of burning sinners and disbelievers, then what could give him more glee than to tell Christians they would be saved, only to turn around and burn them anyway, for the Hell of it, just because he enjoys it? If you've got an unjust god, what worst injustice could there be than that? It's not that far-fetched. If a god is willing to punish you simply for an honest error of belief, you can't believe He's going to keep his word when He tells you He won't punish you if you don't believe in Him because He's got to have a sadistic streak to begin with. Certainly He would get quite a bit of glee out of this behavior. Even if there exists this unjust god, then admittedly we live in a nightmarish universe, but we're in no worse position than the Christian is."

The complete article will give you a lot of 'fodder' for your argumentation from an atheistic standpoint.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/george_smith/defending.html

This unpredictable, partial, unjust, tyrannical god of the Bible was clearly modeled after the Oriental potentates the deprived desert nomads of those past times had been familiar with.

In your place, I would print out the article, give the minister a copy and suggest that he goes through it with you in detail.

Tell him you want to do that, and then wait for the reaction. I'll bet hell will freeze over before he agrees to that. Instead he will try to wriggle out, using some lame exuses.

Completely changed the subject. (Maybe that'll give you an idea of what I'm dealing with.

One can get a pretty good picture, yes.

I don't know if that was meant as an intential diversion to what I was talking about or what?

It was an intentional diversion. The reason being that he dit not want to enter a terrain where potential danger for his faith lurks.

evidence of a designer:

he said that there is a moral code among men that is universal.

One has to be more precise here. Connecting the discussion of biological "design" with moral ideas is mixing up epistemology with ethics.

he said that there is a moral code among men that is universal.

I really don't have an argument to that.

As an Objectivist, you are indeed in weak position here. Since Objectivism shares the same premise of a unversal moral code, you can't attack the misiter's premise as fallacious without at the same time collapsing your own premise.

All you can do is to try to convice him that Objectivism's moral code is the "true, objective" one, but this does not erase the evident problem all advocates of objective morality have: each proclaims their moral code to be objective, but the moral codes themselves quite obviously vary. So we have got a contradiction there. How to deal with it?

Imo the idea of objective morality is a fallacy.

Doesn't that go against objectivism since pantheism is a speculative concept.

Pantheism is incompatible with Objectivism because Objectivism rejects any form of faith in transcendence as irrational.

I believe that as an objectivist one can observe that in fact there seems to be a core of morals common among all men. He said that this couldn't have happened by chance, and that this "code" must exist by design.

Again, your minister makes a comletly unsubstantiated argument. Moral codes exist because we are group beings and cannot not survive without rules. How the rules look like is another story altogher. Moral codes are subject to evolvement and permanent change.

But if your minister absolutely wants to argue from desgin, tell him that what one can observe is that the world sems to be "designed" as one big restaurant (as Woody Allen put it) where living beings can only exist by killing other life, and where e. g. so-called parasites are perfectly well equipped by nature for their job.

The intelligence of a biological programme and the idea of a "benevolent" universe clearly do not match. In fact most of what one can observe in nature collapses any idea of a benevolent creator.

He also talked about the complexity of the human eye and how that couldn't have been the sum of random events. He also said that, since when something is designed it has a purpose, that we (humans) must have a purpose that serves our creator.

It looks like rationality is not your minister's long suit. Notice how he again inserts moral ideas ("serve our creator") into a mere issue of an organism's successful adaptation to biological survival.

Eventually the last star will cease to shine and that will be The End.

Bleak prospects for any religious concepts of the end of the world where on a Final Judgement Day the dead will rise from their graves. For there won't exist any graves anymore from which any dead could rise.

Wow! Thank you so much for your time. I've been busy this weekend and this is the first chance i've had to look at the forum. I like the part about they cruel and unjust God. I grew up in church and through middle school we went through the Old Testament. Even then I could see that God was unjust. I remember the story of the ark of the covenant where anyone who touched it would die immediately. And also, I believe if it was allowed to touch the ground it would be punishable by death as well. Well, they were carrying it on the back of a donkey and it started to fall so a guy tried to save it from touching the ground but he broke the first rule and POOF! he died. What the hell GOD?! SMITE ME OH MIGHTY SMITER! Even children can see these holes. As a child I asked, why would god create man and then allow him to suffer. The explanation to the unexplainable was always that we would find out in the afterlife, that all knowledge would be made of access to us then. "Children don't worry, if you're good, death will be the answer to all your problems." LOL! I just thought of something else. He is a racist GOD (I mean obviously he only fancied Jews). Oh Lord....religion is definitely the great enemy of logic. Again, thank you so much for your reply. You were very considerate in your reply and its been so refreshing reading this. You put everything into excellent perspective.