Instigator / Pro
12
1488
rating
1
debates
0.0%
won
Topic
#2801
This house believes: Motion in the universe points to the existence of God.
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
6
Better sources
6
6
Better legibility
3
3
Better conduct
0
3
After 3 votes and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...
Sum1hugme
Tags
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Two weeks
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- Two weeks
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
18
1627
rating
37
debates
66.22%
won
Description
By "exist" I mean to have objective being in reality.
By God I mean an omnipotent, eternal being.
By motion, I mean the actualization of a potential, in other words, change.
Round 1
Pro
#1
First and foremost a huge thank you to my opponent, for not only accepting this debate, but for the many helpful exchanges in the forum prior to this debate. I am not a fan of huge walls of text, and the argument I will be employing is a bit in depth, so I will try to be concise as possible. Firstly, some definitions.
1. Exist: To have actual being. 1
2. God: For our purposes, God in this debate will be defined as a being who created all things which were created, this being is eternal and all powerful. This specificity is most useful for the argument at hand. Does my opponent accept this definition? If so, great, we shall continue.
3. Motion: The word motion as employed today means change with respect to location. However, the Thomistic argument I am employing uses a slightly more antiquated definition, and that is simply change.
4. CHANGE: This is important to define, as the argument at hand defines change in a very specific way. That is, change is the actualization of potential. i.e., the coffee in your cup grows cold, the potential for it to be cold was actualized. The glass falls off the counter and shatters, the potential for the glass to exist as broken pieces became actual.
Any qualms? If not, we shall continue right into the argument. The syllogism is actually quite simple, but needs much expounding.
1. There exist in the world entities in motion (i.e. things which have potentials actualized)
2. Whatever is in motion is set in motion by another. (i.e. whatever potential becomes actual is actualized by another, that "another" is something itself actual, as mere potential cannot actualize anything.)
3. An infinite regress of movers carries with it no explanatory power for how any entity was set in motion. Therefore this chain of movers must terminate with a prime mover, in other words, an entity with the principle of motion in itself. An unmoved mover, or, more specifically, an unactualized actualizer.
This is where we need to do some analogical thinking, and get to the heart of the argument.
Suppose I have a series of dominoes. Domino A falls and knocks over domino B. Domino B falls and knocks over domino C. C falls and knocks over domino D, D in turn knocks over the next one, and the next one knocks over the next one, on and on. Now supposed I asked, why are these dominoes in motion? (why is their potential to fall over actualized?) Since the dominoes have no power to actualize their own potential to fall over (they do not have the principal of motion in themselves) it stands to reason they were pushed over by an entity that had the principle of motion in itself, namely my hand.
Now let's say, one objects, "no, the domino chain is infinite, domino 5 trillion was set in motion by the one before it, and that by the one before it." One could argue this, but, because the nature of dominoes is such that they do no set themselves in motion, you could have infinite upon infinite numbers of dominoes. One does not arrive at an explanation for their motion unless one appeals outside the chain.
To put it another way, suppose I have a chain of mirrors all with the reflection of a bear in them. The mirrors have no power in themselves to produce the image of the bear, no matter how long the chain. Therefore there must be a "principle of bearness" which actualizes the mirror's potential to reflect a bear.
MOVING ON, God the unmoved mover.
Now, let us consider all entities. Every entity that we experience, has the potential for non existence. The atoms and the subatomic particles of said entity could have been arranged in another fashion, or simply not have existed at all. Their potential to exist however, was actualized by something actual, as we saw in premise two.
So, when we ask, what actualizes this entities' potential for existence? We cannot appeal to an infinite regress because that carries no explanatory power, we must, as we saw, arrive at an "unmoved mover", or more specifically, an entity that has the "principle of existence" in itself. Or, as Thomas Aquinas phrased it, an entity who is "actus purus" or pure actuality, a being with no potential to actualize. A being with potential to actualize must have been actualized by a preceding actualizer, which, as we saw, does not answer the question.
What does a being with no potentiality look like? A being with no potentiality to actualize is to say that such a being cannot change (immutable). However, any being in time is subject to change, so this being must exist outside of time (eternal). What does a being that is immutable look like? It is one that cannot have any change or damage done to it's nature, something which cannot be destroyed. \
A being that cannot be destroyed, and actualized everything that exists, exerts power over every created thing, but no created thing can exert power over it. Therefore this being is omnipotent.
An eternal, omnipotent being is what we arrive at, by merely consider entities in the universe who have their potential's actualized. So, to recap.
1. There exist entities in the world who are in "motion" (their potential to exist is made actual by something else actual)
2. An infinite regress of actualizers carries with it no explanation for why any potential is actualized.
3. An unactualized actualizer does however, because it has the principle of existence in itself, and was not actualized by anything prior, because it has no potentiality to actualize. It is pure actuality.
4. A being that is pure actuality is, as we saw, eternal and omnipotent. We may call this being God.
5. Therefore God exists.
Con
#2
Thank you for this debate Soluminsanis.
DEFINITIONS
-Agreed upon
1. Exist - to have objective being in reality.
2. God - an omnipotent, eternal being.
3. Motion - Actualization of potential. Change. (I think "change in a physical state" is a more accurate definition since that is what my opponent's examples describe.)
-Those my opponent neglected, which I will now supplement.
1. Reality - The state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them [1].
2. Being (used in two ways in this debate) - (1) mass noun; Existence. (2) noun; A real or imaginary living creature or entity, especially an intelligent one [2].
3. Objective - Not dependent on the mind for existence; actual [3].
4. Universe - All existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos (spacetime and its contents) [4].
5. Evidence - The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid [7].
6. Fact - A thing that is known or proved to be true [8].
BOP
My opponent's stance on the resolution necessarily entails the burden of demonstrating how mere change in physical states is indicative of the existence of an omnipotent being that has objective existence in reality. This demand for objective existence in reality necessarily entails the burden of providing evidence of that objective nature. Otherwise, this claim may be dismissed as unfounded in any observable fact. Since the claim of putting the Universe into motion is necessarily a scientific claim about Cosmic Origins, it must also include some method of falsifying the claim, lest it be committed to the category of pseudoscience.
REBUTTALS
1. CLAIMS TO KNOW WHAT NOBODY KNOWS.
In an attempt to meet this burden, my opponent has brought out one of the cosmological arguments. Specifically, a Thomistic argument. I would like to precede this series of rebuttals with a simple one: arguments =/= evidence. In order to address this particular Cosmological Argument, we will start with the core syllogism:
"1. There exist in the world entities in motion (i.e. things which have potentials actualized)2. Whatever is in motion is set in motion by another. (i.e. whatever potential becomes actual is actualized by another, that "another" is something itself actual, as mere potential cannot actualize anything.)3. An infinite regress of movers carries with it no explanatory power for how any entity was set in motion. Therefore this chain of movers must terminate with a prime mover, in other words, an entity with the principle of motion in itself. An unmoved mover, or, more specifically, an unactualized actualizer. "
The first glaring problem is that this syllogism alone is not an argument for a god, only an unactualized actualizer at best. Even if we accept the premises, it makes no suggestions that this actualizer is a being, let alone omnipotent or eternal.
"A being that is pure actuality is, as we saw, eternal and omnipotent. We may call this being God."
We could replace the word "god" with any other noun and it would be equally unconvincing as indicative of that actualizer's nature, qualities, or existence. One cannot simply define God to be the explanation and then assert he is the explanation without evidence.
The current scientific understanding for the Universe as it exists is that it began expanding from a hot, dense state a few Billion years ago, and is expanding uniformly in all directions [5]. I'm assuming that for the purposes of this debate, my opponent does not dispute these well established facts of the universe. My opponent claims that this initial expansion was started by an omnipotent being, and that he calls this being "God."
Now, my opponent's claim is that an "unactualized actualizer" started the initial expansion of the Universe. This is a claim that flies in the face of our current breadth of human knowledge, for the simple fact that nobody actually knows what started the initial expansion. Furthermore, his idea of causes and effects (actualizers and actualizations) is a temporal concept. Since time didn't exist before the initial expansion, my opponent must demonstrate how his temporal argument makes sense when time words don't necessarily mean anything. Essentially, asking what came before the initial expansion is like asking what is North of the North Pole: the question is meaningless. And unless my opponent can demonstrate that time existed before time existed, then his core concept is meaningless in the context of how he is applying it. Spatial-temporal concepts are necessarily within the scope of the Universe, and without space-time (the universe), these concepts are incoherent.
Also, we cannot apply classical physics to the quantum realm, whose quantum laws would have dominated the Universe in its extremely hot, dense state. So the idea of dominoes needing a domino-pusher is incoherent in the quantum realm, where physics is not so intuitive.
" One does not arrive at an explanation for their motion unless one appeals outside the chain. "
The problem is that my opponent has not, and cannot demonstrate any precedent to suggest there is an "outside" the Universe. This is wholly conjectural and applies irrelevant concepts of cause and effect to a non-temporal realm.
This argument also refutes my opponent simply because, If god is outside the universe, then he does not have objective being in reality.
"To put it another way, suppose I have a chain of mirrors all with the reflection of a bear in them. The mirrors have no power in themselves to produce the image of the bear, no matter how long the chain. Therefore there must be a "principle of bearness" which actualizes the mirror's potential to reflect a bear. "
This is patently false. It is not the "principle of bearness" that is reflected in a mirror, it is whole bunch of photons [6]. Aquinas was not aware of the existence of photons, and so could not have known this. The ignorance of the Middle Ages of the nature of the world around us bleeds through the cracks of this argument. The mirror is simply a reflective medium, that bounces photons back, allowing for reflections.
2. VIOLATES THE LAWS OF PHYSICS.
" The atoms and the subatomic particles of said entity could have been arranged in another fashion, or simply not have existed at all. Their potential to exist however, was actualized by something actual, as we saw in premise two. "
The universe can be thought of as a closed thermodynamic system. One way we know this, is that the second law of Thermodynamics is a linear process. It is the only law of physics that doesn't look the same in reverse as it does going forward; this gives us our dimension of linear time. If the universe was not a closed system, we could observe the entropy decreasing, and our flow of time would not necessarily be linear. But instead, entropy only increases in our universe, and this gives us a clear linearity to our temporal dimension.
Since we established that the Universe is a closed thermodynamic system, then we may apply the first law as well: that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; energy can only be transferred or changed from one form to another [9]. In other words, the initial energy for all the matter in the Universe was already existent at the moment of initial expansion. Therefore, our atoms do not have the potential to not exist, they must necessarily always exist in some form of matter or energy.
At the crux of this contention, my opponent ignores models of the Universe that include matter and energy always existing. In the early Universe, the energy state would be so high that all the matter would be pure energy, and theoretically, any amount of energy can fit into any size. According to one model of the infinite universe [10], "Proper time ceases to be a useful concept for physical time if particles become massless." Which would have been the case in the state of the Universe we are discussing.
3. GOD OF THE GAPS FALLACY.
Fundamentally, my opponent is claiming that the explanation for why things are moving at all, is god. I have demonstrated that the actual explanation of why the Universe started expanding is unknown. My opponent attempts to fill this gap with a "being" called "god". However, he has not provided evidence that this is the case. It clearly does not follow that a being started the Universe simply because objects change physical states. This is supplementing one unknown for another, and simply begs the question of the existence of the supernatural and how that would affect experimental results.
4. MISC. PROBLEM AND CONCLUSION
" A being with no potentiality to actualize is to say that such a being cannot change (immutable)"
There is no difference between a being with no potentiality and a being that doesn't exist. Being unable to change, this being would be unable to make a decision to create the Universe. Furthermore, if it cannot change, then it is not omnipotent.
In conclusion, there is no need to invoke a being to explain why the Universe began expanding. This is a non-explanation, asserted without evidentiary backing, and is fallacious at every turn.
out of space
Round 2
Pro
#3
Thank you so much sum1hug me, for your well thought out and reasoned responses. I accept the further definitions you have offered, and appreciate them as well. A quick word about the BoP. My opponent has used the phrase "arguments =/= evidence." I do wonder though if this argument (A=/=E) is evidence for a his position (A=/=E)
All facetiousness aside, I am quite afraid that my opponent has profoundly misunderstood my argument!
The first glaring problem is that this syllogism alone is not an argument for a god, only an unactualized actualizer at best. Even if we accept the premises, it makes no suggestions that this actualizer is a being, let alone omnipotent or eternal.
Now remember, if we retrace our steps, we came to the conclusion that any entity that does not have potentiality must be immutable and have the capability of exerting influence over all created things. My opponent must contend with these conclusions. It will not do to merely question them.
IS THE UNACTUALIZED ACTUALIZER PERSONAL?
My opponent raised a good objection. How do we know the UA A is personal? Quite simply, it must be. If the cause is sufficient to bring about the effect, yet the effect did not exist with it from all eternity (all potentials were not actualized from eternity, obviously) then, at some point, the effect was brought into being from the cause, that bringing the effect into being must have been the result of either 1. A change in the cause. 2. A choice by the cause. Since a being lacking potentiality cannot change, it must have been the latter.
The current scientific understanding for the Universe as it exists is that it began expanding from a hot, dense state a few Billion years ago, and is expanding uniformly in all directions [5]. I'm assuming that for the purposes of this debate, my opponent does not dispute these well established facts of the universe. My opponent claims that this initial expansion was started by an omnipotent being, and that he calls this being "God."
Goodness me! the argument simply doesn't deal with the specifics of big bang cosmology! I claimed nothing of the sort, and Aquinas himself knew nothing of an expanding universe.
Now, my opponent's claim is that an "unactualized actualizer" started the initial expansion of the Universe. This is a claim that flies in the face of our current breadth of human knowledge, for the simple fact that nobody actually knows what started the initial expansion. Furthermore, his idea of causes and effects (actualizers and actualizations) is a temporal concept. Since time didn't exist before the initial expansion, my opponent must demonstrate how his temporal argument makes sense when time words don't necessarily mean anything. Essentially, asking what came before the initial expansion is like asking what is North of the North Pole: the question is meaningless. And unless my opponent can demonstrate that time existed before time existed, then his core concept is meaningless in the context of how he is applying it. Spatial-temporal concepts are necessarily within the scope of the Universe, and without space-time (the universe), these concepts are incoherent.
OK this is very important.
My opponent has confused a linear series with a hierarchical series. A linear series is dependent on time. Example, I turn on my fan because I am hot, I am hot because the room is warm, the room is warm because the sun has beaten on it. This is a temporal succession. A hierarchical series is independent on time. Example, my ceiling fan is being held up by a chain. The chain is being held up by a rope, the rope by the roof, so on. In the latter series, time is not relevant, what is relevant is dependence. Each memebr of he series is dependent on a logically prior not a temporally prior member. Likewise with the argument. Entity A exists because of it's dependence on B, and B on C, so on.
Again, the argument simply never touched on the expansion of the universe.
This argument also refutes my opponent simply because, If god is outside the universe, then he does not have objective being in reality.
Gracious! What circularity! You have defined the universe as "all that exists" and then concluded that God cannot exist because He is "outside all that exists!"
This is patently false. It is not the "principle of bearness" that is reflected in a mirror, it is whole bunch of photons [6]. Aquinas was not aware of the existence of photons, and so could not have known this. The ignorance of the Middle Ages of the nature of the world around us bleeds through the cracks of this argument. The mirror is simply a reflective medium, that bounces photons back, allowing for reflections.
Physically, yes, photons are in view. We are not speaking strictly physically though. I am using the analogy metaphysically. By principle of bearness I mean the agent that the mirrors derive their reflections from.
In other words, the initial energy for all the matter in the Universe was already existent at the moment of initial expansion. Therefore, our atoms do not have the potential to not exist, they must necessarily always exist in some form of matter or energy.
Even going with this physical type of fatalism, (which I would disagree with strongly) the argument can still run through.
1. The energy that existed in the singularity had the potential to exist as matter
2. That potential was actualized.
3. Whatever is actualized is actualized by another, something already actual.
4. An infinite regress cannot explain the actualization of any potential....so on
Even with an eternal universe, which Aquinas never argued against, we can still run the argument successfully.
There is no difference between a being with no potentiality and a being that doesn't exist. Being unable to change, this being would be unable to make a decision to create the Universe. Furthermore, if it cannot change, then it is not omnipotent.
Choosing to perform a creative act does not entail a change in essence or nature. Which is what is in view here. My opponent has merely asserted that there is no difference between a being with no potentiality, and a being that does not exist. My opponent has not provided any evidence for this claim.
FINAL THOUGHTS.
Ultimately, my opponent has committed two major blunders in his response. Number one, he has simply appealed to ignorance, claiming he does not know what caused the expansion of the universe. He has rejected the sound metaphysical proof laid out in my opening case in favor or a generic agnosticism. Secondly, my opponent mistakenly misunderstood the argument as dealing with the expansion of the universe. In doing so, my opponent has not truly dealt with the argument or it's conclusion.
Again, the argument is one from dependence. All transitions from potency to act require an actualizer, and this chain must terminate at something that itself was not actualized by anything temporally or logically prior. We saw what this being must look like, and the conclusion simply follows.
I have provided a sound argument for why this actualizer must be personal, and I have pointed out the glaring circularity in my opponent's definition of the universe as all that exists. Furthermore, my opponent's strongest objection, the argument from the laws of thermodynamics, I have shown do not invalidate the Thomistic proof.
I would like to say a huge thank you to sum1hugme, for the intelligent discussion. Thank you!
Con
#4
Thank you for your response. My opponent claims that I have misunderstood his argument, but I actually understand it quite well. Recall my opening, where I pointed out that this is a Cosmological Argument, specifically a Thomistic one.
Cosmological Argument - An argument for the existence of God which claims that all things in nature depend on something else for their existence (i.e. are contingent), and that the whole cosmos must therefore itself depend on a being which exists independently or necessarily[1].
"Goodness me! the argument simply doesn't deal with the specifics of big bang cosmology! I claimed nothing of the sort, and Aquinas himself knew nothing of an expanding universe.""...my opponent mistakenly misunderstood the argument as dealing with the expansion of the universe."
Since my opponent's argument is based on the fact that physical states change, then we can extrapolate back to the original physical state, that would be the Universe in it's hot dense state. He argues for an "unmoved mover," and uses it interchangeably with an "unactualized actualizer," indicating they are the same claim.
Since the first movement in the chain of events going back to the dawn of time would be the initial expansion of the Universe, then it is necessarily the claim of my opponent that a "being" initiated that expansion, and he calls this being God.
THE BURDEN
My opponent has failed to meet his burden, as there has been presented no evidence that the first movement was caused by a "being." Furthermore, my opponent has provided no method of falsifying his claim, indicating it is probably pseudoscience.
DROPPED
My opponent has dropped that his proposal violates the laws of thermodynamics, and that he is injecting god into the gaps in our knowledge.
__________
COUNTER-REBUTTALS
1. Lack of Evidence
"A hierarchical series is independent on time. Example, my ceiling fan is being held up by a chain. The chain is being held up by a rope, the rope by the roof, so on. In the latter series, time is not relevant, what is relevant is dependence."
An important objection to raise is that there is precedent that ceiling fans need support to hang on the ceiling, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Universe was caused by a "being." Again, my opponent has provided no evidence that the Universe is dependent on its existence in the same way a ceiling fan is dependent on its ability to hang from a ceiling.
2. Cause and Effect
"If the cause is sufficient to bring about the effect, yet the effect did not exist with it from all eternity (all potentials were not actualized from eternity, obviously) then, at some point, the effect was brought into being from the cause, that bringing the effect into being must have been the result of either 1. A change in the cause. 2. A choice by the cause. Since a being lacking potentiality cannot change, it must have been the latter. "
My opponent has ignored the model of an eternal Universe I provided in my opening. If the matter and energy existed for eternity, then my opponent's argument fails immediately. Further, he drops the idea that his notion of macro-physical cause and effect fails to hold meaning in the context he is applying it. To quote the paper from last round "Proper time ceases to be a useful concept for physical time if particles become massless.[2]"
3. Laws of Physics
If we recall, it was established that the Universe is a closed system, because it adheres to a unidirectional entropic cycle. To suggest that there is an outside "being," influencing the physical changes of the Universe is to suggest that the Universe could decrease it's overall entropy. This is not what we observe, rather that entropy only increases. This "being" is not observed, and can be dismissed as wholly conjectural. Therefore, my opponent's proposal of a "being" that actualizes things in the Universe runs counter to the observed nature of the Universe.
4. Begging the Question
"Gracious! What circularity! You have defined the universe as "all that exists" and then concluded that God cannot exist because He is "outside all that exists!" "
My opponent drops the fact that he has established no precedent to suggest that there is an "outside" the Universe. I simply pointed out that my opponent cannot claim that god Is both objective in reality and outside the Universe. This necessarily begs the question of the existence of the supernatural.
5. Metaphysics
"Physically, yes, photons are in view. We are not speaking strictly physically though. I am using the analogy metaphysically. By principle of bearness I mean the agent that the mirrors derive their reflections from. "
Unless my opponent is using another definition, I will provide one here [3]:
Metaphysics -
1 - The branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, identity, time, and space.
1.1 - Abstract theory with no basis in reality
My opponent's ill-defined principle of bearness is nothing more than the Bear itself. In order for photons to reflect light in a mirror to look like a bear, then a bear or bear shaped object must be put in front of the mirror with a light source nearby to provide photons to reflect. There is nothing nonphysical about the process. For this reason, the analogy fails.
6. Failed Syllogism
"1. The energy that existed in the singularity had the potential to exist as matter2. That potential was actualized.3. Whatever is actualized is actualized by another, something already actual.4. An infinite regress cannot explain the actualization of any potential....so onEven with an eternal universe, which Aquinas never argued against, we can still run the argument successfully. "
An infinite regress is not necessary and is not part of an eternal Universe model. In the hot, dense Universe the time dimension did not exist, and there is no infinite causal regress being invoked because time did not exist. A being is not necessary to explain why the Universe changed its initial state; and to claim it was a "being" is nothing more than conjecture.
7. Self Contradicting
"Choosing to perform a creative act does not entail a change in essence or nature. Which is what is in view here. My opponent has merely asserted that there is no difference between a being with no potentiality, and a being that does not exist. My opponent has not provided any evidence for this claim. "
It's ironic that my opponent demands evidence, while relying on metaphysical argumentation to assert things about reality. I invite my opponent to explain how we could tell the difference between a being with no potentiality and a being that simply doesn't exist, they have the same amount of evidence.
Also, my opponent did not specify that a change in "essence" or "nature" had to be in order for change to occur. Consider it this way: by my opponent's logic, God had the potential to create a Universe; then he actualized this potential. This constitutes a change, which would mean god is not unchanging. In this way my opponent contradicts himself.
8. Misc. Rebuttals
"Number one, he has simply appealed to ignorance, claiming he does not know what caused the expansion of the universe. He has rejected the sound metaphysical proof laid out in my opening case in favor or a generic agnosticism."
I am appealing to the fact that my opponent is plugging our ignorance with god, which is fallacious. It substitutes one unknown for another.
My opponent's argument is neither "sound" nor "proof." It ignores models of the eternal Universe, it is a god of the gaps fallacy, it has zero evidentiary backing, and zero precedent.
"All transitions from potency to act require an actualizer, and this chain must terminate at something that itself was not actualized by anything temporally or logically prior. "
This chain terminates with an eternal Universe. No "being" or UAA necessary, and there is no evidence for one.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, my opponent has provided absolutely no evidence for his conclusion. He ignores the fact that an eternal Universe doesn't require an actualizer. His ideas of cause and effects are not applicable. His argument from dependency fails because there is no evidence that the Universe is dependent in the way he suggests. His argument violates our observations of the Universe's entropic cycle, and his conclusion begs the question. Additionally, his demand for an unchanging actualizer is self-contradictory. My opponent has created a wholly conjectural argument that is fundamentally fallacious, and patently wrong in its understanding of how physical reality operates.
Round 3
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
Conduct for forfeiture. There was also a mild bit with the sarcastic over reactions.
Legibility took a minor hit with formatting issues highlighted by an all bold and underlined paragraph, but it’s not bad enough to cost the point.
I suspect con has earned sources, but I’m on my cellphone right not waiting on something, so can’t review those properly for their impacts right now.
This is kinda falling down to definitions. We have two definitions for being immediately offered by con, which clearly pro does not want his God to fall within the first (existing, at least in the usual sense within time and such), but does not seek to show why there’s a personal intelligence to make God a being as opposed to something akin to a force of nature.
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
While CON managed to cast serious doubt on the properties of God, the Thomistic argument was simply utilized in a way more flexible way than CON could deny. CON's entire argument was based on science, more specifically strict naturalism. These specific conditions under which the resolution might be negated are vastly inferior to the grand philosophical evidence by PRO. With regards to arguments, I have studied them and written an analysis of them. But the important part to remember is that the definition of God is flexible enough to survive the scientific critique from CON. While other first causes might exist, CON failed to debunk the existence of such a thing, and could not completely disprove that God is one of the very few valid explanations for motion in the universe. Therefore, motion in the universe points towards God. PRO doesn't need overwhelming evidence to affirm the resolution, he only needs it to point towards God.
Conduct: PRO forfeited
Arguments: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10EevM5KyL9S0m_uWuu55qXkPeyKr64YLNFP--QDy0Ac/edit?usp=sharing
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
THBT: This house believes: Motion in the universe points to the existence of God.
ARG:
This is crucial - Pro must demonstrate that motion (as was defined by himself) points to the existence of the entity "god" - Con must demonstrate the opposite, that this defined motion does not. Pro, therefore, MUST demonstrate that the "actualizer" was an entity - which Con points out. I simply do not buy the notion that the actualizer was a being without further evidence - it is simply assumed in the syllogism, as Con also points out.
Usually, I would require that Con have a constructive, asserting why god doesn't exist; however, that isn't the BoP that Con must defend, Con is arguing that motion does not point to God, and argues this successfully. Pro's entire argument relies on A) Accepting the terms provided, that's done, and B) Accepting the syllogism. The problem is that Con successfully points out many reasons for the syllogisms falaciousness.
Such as: A temporal view on causal relationships is nonsensical without time, The example of "The dominos being pushed over by an outside force" is reliant on the precursory knowledge that Dominos are pushed over (the same goes for the ceiling fan example as Con points out), that nowhere did Pro demonstrate that the cause would be an entity. I'm sorry, but Pro simply does not put in the leg work to demonstrate his claim, EVEN if we didn't buy Con's argument.
Conduct: Pro forfeited final round
First of all, way to drop the main point, second off no that example isn't analogous, why not? I do not claim that the universe as we know it is infinite, I claimed that is is possible that the universe prior to time is infinite... except, you should notice something, how can something without time be infinite, as in exist infinitely? It couldn't because there would be no time for it to exist in - you see- before the big bang our understanding of physics breaks down, you cannot apply logic to that pre-big bang or whatever you want to claim caused spacetime to exist, as you can now - it is simply not valid.
Thank you for voting.
A god of the gaps argument is any argument that attempts to answer a question we don't know the answer to, like, "what caused the big bang," or "what causes lightning." We used to say it was zeus that caused lightning. If your claim is that god caused either, then that is a god of the gaps since there is no evidence to suggest that corresponds to reality. The fact that we know what causes rain replaces the former gods of rain that we would pray and sacrifice to in order to bring the rain. You're just substantiating the point that it's a god of the gaps fallacy.
God was defined as a being. You can't prove that the universe was put into motion by a being. And my opponent failed to prove that.
Your categories are just incoherent. You can't prove god exists, or that the supernatural is even possible, therefore you can't use god as a category of things that exist. It's a non-starter if you can't indicate it even exists.
You contest that unicorns are post hoc but cede that FSM is also equally post hoc as saying it was god that started the expansion. I should've specified, magical unicorns, who necessarily exist to create the universe. It's the exact same argument. It's just a unicorn of the gaps.
Imagine you have a hotel with an infinite number of rooms. All of the rooms are occupied.
From every room with an odd number, the inhabitant leaves. Now, you have an actual infinity minus an actual infinity. The result? infinity-infinity=infinity.
Another scenario is that all rooms with a higher number than 3 are left by their inhabitants. In this case, infinity-infinity=3
In other words, such a hotel can never exist, because the same equation (infinity-infinity) gives us different results (infinity or 3 or any number)
This clearly is logically absurd. An infinite hotel with an infinite number of rooms could never exist.
Now, swap the hotel with spacetime instances, and the same problem emerges: if infinite, a universe becomes logically absurd.
We already have a definition for both words: God and a universe - a god is always a being - a universe is evidently not - therefore even if we were to subject that definition to the universe it would necessarily require you to assert that the universe is sentient, is an agent - that is evidently not the case - therefore you are either ad hoc claiming it is, or you are using an insufficient definition. Furthermore, if you do not make the argument yourself, I don't find it worth my time to check it
I assure you that my definition is correct.
If the universe is the word for God, then matter warps God, and God is expanding, and God is composed of other things.
Honestly, asserting that the universe has innate existence contradicts all logic, as an eternal universe is ABSURD.
Watch this video to learn why a universe cannot be infinite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vybNvc6mxMo
My definition of God is sound. You claim it to be nonsense, please elaborate.
The problem with that argument is that you are defining god into existence, if I were to define a unicorn as a "Mammal on four legs with a horn", then of course I could prove the existence of a Unicorn, we have all sorts of animals with those properties. The same goes for god, you are asserting a definition arbitrarily that way, "Of course he exists" the problem is we already have a word for it - the universe, your definition is nonsense.
Just the part of the vote that is written directly is enough to make the vote valid, on par with your vote.
Please elaborate on what went wrong in my vote, I thought the entire point of voting was using your own reasoning to analyse the debate.
Regardless, my vote still fits the criteria, and I analyse it thoroughly. I
Wrong. God of the gaps is using God to satisfy our seeking for knowledge when in reality God did not fill those holes. For example, I could claim "God sends the rain", but we know the sun drives the rain, not God. It is a God of the gaps theory, it contradicts rather than being supported by, loci. With creation it is different. God can be defined as "the thing that exists by necessity rather than contingency". Therefore, God existed eternally by definition. And anything that starts to exist has a cause. Therefore, the only logical conclusion I will now present.
Any existing thing falls into the following categories:
1. God
2. Things caused by God
3. Things caused by things from category 2 or category 3
Therefore, if something starts to exist, it must by definition exist BECAUSE of God.
Now, one can complain about the religious view of God, but his logically necessary nature makes "IT" an unavoidable conclusion.
The fallacy of comparing God to unicorns is that they, by definition, fit into categories 2 or 3, not category 1. If they truly fit into category 1, they would not have the properties of what we popularly attribute to a unicorn, it would just be to exchange the WORD God with unicorn.
In other words, a better wording of you complaint is this:
"Calling the immaterial creator God is equally uninformative as calling him Zeus, Allah, or even ofajieojfaoifmdwcqoiqoiwqeoicewuq"
God's nature is up for dispute. His existence is not.
It is evident that your vote is employing your own reasoning, not the reasoning of the debater, which is reportable - why not just have a debate - you and Sum1hugme?
Claiming it's an immaterial creator is equally post hoc as claiming it was unicorns or the flying spaghetti monster.
Spacetime came into existence at the moment of initial expansion.
In this debate, it was more my claim that my opponent had not touched his bop with any empirical data to suggest his proposition is correspondent to reality. He accepted the framework of cosmic origins being big bang inflation by not contesting that framework, and therefore he has to prove a creator initiated the first movement. He couldn't do that, and I drilled that point over and over.
Personally, I reject the idea because it's a post hoc rationalization that makes no testable predictions and is the definition of a god of the gaps.
If time didn't exist before BB, then why do you reject the existence of an immaterial creator? Nothing else could create the universe.
If the universe is not created, it must have existed before the BB. In other words, spacetime is either infinite or it has an external cause.
The geodesics coming out the back are part of the hypothetical model of cyclic cosmology.
It's not baseless. We are talking about temporal causality in a unidirectional time geodesic. Time is relative to the observer, which we know from general relatuvity. Following back the geodesics that represent relative timelines, then they will converge to a point where they do not go past; where Time=0. At which point, causality as we understand it, breaks down. Time didn't exist before time existed. Your objections are mute.
The video you sent me, that I also watched yesterday, says that the geodesics come out on another side, in an earlier universe. This continues the impossibly long chain of causes that my video debunks as logically possible.
The inflation model goes like this:
1. Energy exists very densely
2. Spacetime starts to expand rapidly, then slowly
3. Current physical laws starts explaining the universe
I see no reason to baselessly assert that causality didn't exist before BB simply because our perception of time falls short of describing it.
Tell me, if we define "time" as the rate at which change occurs, did time exist before BB?
No, in the Big Bang Theory, the Big Bang is the initial expansion. There is no claim as to what the cause was, but it is evidently incoherent to ask "what came before the Big Bang." There is no evidence to suggest that this or that "caused" cosmic inflation. Inflation is when time began. Energy isn't a "cause". It would've been just compressed where all energy is in the same point.
How can something whose existence is independent, have a beginning? In BB, you claim spacetime started to exist so that expansion and causality could happen. Doesn't that mean that the existence of spacetime is dependent on a real event, BB, and a real cause, energy?
I replied the dependency argument by pointing out that there is no precedent for a dependent universe like there is for dependent ceiling fans.
Logic doesn't govern the Universe. We use logic to describe aspects of it. You can't apply temporal causality where time doesn't exist.
I have already watched that video. It doesn't account for the problem of infinity. Even a cyclic universe breaks basic logical laws by proposing infinite change.
If the fan doesn’t need any external support but can support other things, then that fan is indistinguishable from the roof. However, if the universe can change and be altered by its environment then it cannot have this property of being eternal, as PRO proved. Thus, any objection against the "illogic" of God/first cause would apply even more so to a universe that doesn’t need God.
This is a better video : https://youtu.be/K8gV05nS7mc
And no, I didn't say the energy compressed into the "singularity" caused the universe. I didn't call anything god, you're just applying that term post hoc
The law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created only changes from one form to another. Any closed system would be eternal.
If something like a multiverse is where the energy before BB comes from, then that only widens our closed system.
To truly create energy out of nothing, aka initiating a closed system, one would need a cause that could release energy while still not changing.
Theists believe that thing to be God, but one cannot simply discard the idea as absurd because of the association with religion.
Where do you get your assumption from? Nothing cannot create something. Only something can create something.
You assume that the only way something can happen is by causality.... the problem there is that before causality, something necessarily would have to be for something esle to happen, in this case, that something else could be nothing. Nothing could cause something. This is unintuitive yes; however, that is where our case leads us logically.
IF there was no causality, THEN the big bang could have popped into existence, randomly began, a number of things - see that's where "we don't know" comes in handy. Asserting that it is a god, is literally a textbook god of the gaps fallacy.
Any future voters, I implore you to ignore this comment section in its entirety, only use the debate itself to inform your views.
But,,, isn't that realm the same as "god", in that it is
1) timeless,
2) unchanging,
3) causes the universe
You are merely asserting God is the energy before BB.
You can't apply temporal causality to a realm where time doesn't exist and doesn't apply. So eternal universe models are compatible with the big bang inflationary model. My opponent implicitly agreed to the framework by not contesting that we can extrapolate back the first movement, cosmic inflation. In the framework of inflationary cosmology, the above statements are true.
Reading your debate led me to watch this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vybNvc6mxMo
It claims that an infinite number of events cannot possibly have happened.
Ok, you assume time doesn't exist, neither does causality, before BB.
In other words, nothing *happened* before BB?
"I find it strange and meaningless to assume that energy is eternal, but then also reject causality and time before the BB. Is energy older than spacetime itself?"
Classical time is not applicable when particles become massless. When the universe is condensed into a point of infinite curvature, then all the matter would be just energy. So classical time doesn't apply. So I was not contradicting myself.
"CON’s last statement on this matter was that “An important objection to raise is that there is precedent that ceiling fans need support to hang on the ceiling” This argument is counterintuitive, but also not evidently true or logical. If the universe is not reliant on god for its existence, and “all that exists” exists BECAUSE of the universe, isn’t CON making the argument that the universe is the same as God? Indeed that is the case."
No I was not arguing that the universe is god lol.
Thank you for a brilliant debate.
Thank you for voting
Thank you for voting.
your bump has been answered
Very interesting debate indeed. I think of voting in the near future.
Vote bump
Vote bump
Hope you didn't quit the site.
Yeah np
Huge thank you for the debate, looking forward to your rejoinders!