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@Snoopy
Perhaps. Something being rationalized doesn't make it rational to believe though, does it?
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@secularmerlin
Since a "pixie" is defined according to its physical characteristics, a "pixie" cannot be non-physical. This would be a violation of the law of identity.
Leprechauns are described in terms of their physical appearance and therefore cannot be invisible, nor is invisibility a part of their defintion.
Evidence against something is encompassed by lack of positive evidence. So while 'no (positive) evidence' of pixies and leprechauns is true, the evidence against pixies and leprechauns is the important piece missing in that statement.
Evidence is just information indicating whether something is true or untrue. I haven't seen any objections to the existence of God in the case of pixies or leprechauns.
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@secularmerlin
Yes. The term "pixie" typically refers to a being that is "small and humanlike in form, with pointed ears and a pointed hat." Since pixies are comprised of physical characteristics, and since our best evidence indicates that the physical universe expanded from an infinitely dense point 13.7 billion years ago, it is unlikely that a pixie or any physical being existed prior to the big bang in order to cause the big bang.
Leprechauns are described as "solitary creatures who spend their time making and mending shoes and have a hidden pot of gold at the end of the rainbow."
A leprechaun, along with any other physical being, exists at a particular coordinate. There is no particular coordinate at which a rainbow ends.Therefore, a leprechaun cannot place anything at the end of a rainbow and the claim is false.
"You'll never swim out to the horizon , and you'll never reach a rainbow's end. The visibility of both requires distance between object and observer."
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@secularmerlin
Yes, you do need a reason for believing that universe creating pixies do not exist.
No, I disbelieve in the existence of leprechauns.
My default position is neither belief nor disbelief, especially prior to consideration of the claim. Once the claim has been considered, my "default" position is determined by the relative amount of evidence I have at my disposal for and against the claim.
Do you listen to "the atheist experience"?
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@mustardness
Ignoring the snide remarks, this is also actually the first post I've seen you make that has good, useful content.
Perhaps the first place we begin is by defining what the word "God" means.
Perhaps the better place to start is to determine what's minimally necessary to falsify the view that no God or gods exist.
What do you think?
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@secularmerlin
We would need a reason for believing that God does not exist.
On the other hand, we would not need a reason for neither believing nor disbelieving in the existence of God or gods.
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@secularmerlin
The problem is that you're claiming that your view is representative of atheism. That's defined by the word atheism, not your views. You're unable or unwilling to provide a defintion of atheism.
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@secularmerlin
I guess you don't know of any dictionary definition of atheism.
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@secularmerlin
It was a definition of atheism from a reputable source that showed the term "atheism" is a claim, contrary to what you said in post #2. You also seem unable or unwilling to provide a definition of atheism from any source.
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@secularmerlin
How about this one?
"Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods)."
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@secularmerlin
Which definition of "atheism" are you using?
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@TheRealNihilist
(From earlier)
"DEFINITION:
"The fine-tuned Universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can occur only when certain universal dimensionless physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different, the Universe would be unlikely to be conducive to the establishment and development of matter, astronomical structures, elemental diversity, or life as it is understood."
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Be skeptical of theism AND atheism. Too many atheists are skeptical of one only side, theism, and not the other, atheism.
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@3RU7AL
Do you have any justification for claiming that moral realism has no practical implications and is meaningless or are you making an argument from ignorance?
It doesn't need to inform my decision making on a practical level. I prefer to have as many true beliefs and as few false ones as possible. That in itself is practical.
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@3RU7AL
It matters because I prefer to hold as many true beliefs and as few false ones as possible. If evidence weighs in favor of the existence of God then I will hold that belief in the interest of holding as many true beliefs and as few false ones as possible.
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@3RU7AL
Are you asking what are the practical implications of acknowledging that you have the burden of proof or are you asking what are the practical implications of moral realism?
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@3RU7AL
The important part is determining what the best explanation is for the fine-tuned universe. It's highly indicative of intelligent design.
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@3RU7AL
As mentioned earlier, based on standard practices, you have the burden of proof to show why moral non-realism is true.
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@TheRealNihilist
Btw, Martin Rees wrote an essay entitled "Fine-tuning, complexity, and life in the universe" in which he details the evidence for fine-tuning.
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@TheRealNihilist
The six variables from the Wiki source were all quantified and again, not all of this research is coming from Rees. Rees is just the messenger, dispersing this information gathered from other phycisicts and cosmologists to a general audience.
"If the universe was fine tuned. Gravity would be, his fluctuation part would not be possible."
I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're saying here. It seems like you're under the impression that fine-tuning, if true, must mean that all variables in the universe, including gravity, must be fine-tuned as well. This is not what the fine-funed universe proposition means at all.
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@TheRealNihilist
The fine-tuned universe is a conglomerate of dozens of variables, and perhaps more that haven't been discovered yet. For the cosmological constant, this one variable alone is fine-tuned to 1 in 10^120. To give you a taste of how infinitesmally precise that is, there are estimated to be 1 in 10^80 atoms in the entire universe. It doesn't matter that we don't have a final number on exactly how ridiculously fine-tuned the universe is.
Nothing Rees said in the excerpt indicates that fine-tuning isn't true. Rees is the one who wrote the article saying that the universe IS fine-tuned. I've given you more than 6 variables, all based on scientific research, indicating that the universe is fine-tuned. There are even more variables that weren't covered by the Wiki source.
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@3RU7AL
I'm just gonna go one claim at a time. You generate new claims quicker than I'm making them.
An ad populum fallacy is when you believe that a claim is true because most people believe it is. Since pointing out that moral realism is the status quo is not the same thing as believing that moral realism is true because most people believe it is, it's not an populum fallacy.
Standard rules of debate set the burden on proof (1) on the person making the claim OR (2) the person arguing against the status quo. Since you fall under camp (2), I'm pointing out that the burden of proof is actually on you to change the prevailing view. I'm not basing my conclusion that moral realism is true on any of this. So, again, it's not an ad populum fallacy.
This was me responding to just one of your claims. If I responded to all of them I'd have to write a novel.
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@TheRealNihilist
His point that our universe is "certainly special" but that we have yet to quantify *how* special it is? I don't see how what he said works against my position. A "special" universe is consistent with intelligent design.
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@3RU7AL
My evidence for moral realism isn't conjecture. Moral realism, I may remind you, is the prevailing moral theory among moral philosophers by a more than 2:1 ratio. It's also the prevailing moral theory among ordinary people. So before you shout "ad populum" I'm merely pointing out that the status quo is with moral realism, not moral non-realism. Moral realism has superior explanatory power over moral non-realism empirically, rationally, instinctively, and intuitively. That's more than enough reason for me to accept moral realism and reject moral non-realism. The primary reason for believing moral non-realism is because it's the only compatible view atheism has with morality. Other terrible reasons include the belief that moral disagreement means that there are no moral facts and having no tangible evidence of moral realism must mean that it can't be true.
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@TheRealNihilist
Rees popularized the findings of fine-tuning to a general audience in an article he wrote in Discover magazine. Rees himself was not responsible for all of these findings. As quoted earlier, there is wide agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the universe is fine-tuned. The data Rees used in the Discover magazine article was from a variety of researchers.
I'd trust whatever the prevailing scientific views are on whether gravity is fine-tuned or not. I don't know whether gravity is or not. There are over a dozen fine-tuned variables so it wouldn't disprove fine-tuning even if it weren't.
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@3RU7AL
No, it doesn't sound fair, because that's not an accurate representation of my reasoning.
Various lines of evidence support moral realism over moral non-realism. Therefore, I believe moral realism. Moral realism logically entails the existence of a theistic God. By believing moral realism, I acknowledge that this belief logically entails the existence of a theistic God.
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@3RU7AL
Because the implications of moral realism require it.
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@TheRealNihilist
No.
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@TheRealNihilist
From the wiki source:
"Physicist Paul Davies has asserted that "There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the universe is in several respects 'fine-tuned' for life".
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@3RU7AL
No, I consider myself a theist because I believe moral realism and moral realism entails the existence of a theistic God.
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@TheRealNihilist
The "fine-tuned universe" is widely accepted by mainstream physicists and cosmologists. The "argument from fine-tuning" argues that God is the best explanation for the fine-tuned universe. I agree with both.
DEFINITION:
"The fine-tuned Universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can occur only when certain universal dimensionless physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different, the Universe would be unlikely to be conducive to the establishment and development of matter, astronomical structures, elemental diversity, or life as it is understood.
EXHIBIT 1:
N, the ratio of the strength of electromagnetism to the strength of gravity for a pair of protons, is approximately 10^36. According to Rees, if it were significantly smaller, only a small and short-lived universe could exist.[12]
EXHIBIT 2:
Epsilon (ε), a measure of the nuclear efficiency of fusion from hydrogen to helium, is 0.007: when four nucleons fuse into helium, 0.007 (0.7%) of their mass is converted to energy. The value of ε is in part determined by the strength of the strong nuclear force.[13] If ε were 0.006, only hydrogen could exist, and complex chemistry would be impossible. According to Rees, if it were above 0.008, no hydrogen would exist, as all the hydrogen would have been fused shortly after the big bang. Other physicists disagree, calculating that substantial hydrogen remains as long as the strong force coupling constant increases by less than about 50%.[10][12
EXHIBIT 3:
]Omega (Ω), commonly known as the density parameter, is the relative importance of gravity and expansion energy in the Universe. It is the ratio of the mass density of the Universe to the "critical density" and is approximately 1. If gravity were too strong compared with dark energy and the initial metric expansion, the universe would have collapsed before life could have evolved. On the other side, if gravity were too weak, no stars would have formed.[12][14]
EXHIBIT 4:
Lambda (λ), commonly known as the cosmological constant, describes the ratio of the density of dark energy to the critical energy density of the universe, given certain reasonable assumptions such as positing that dark energy density is a constant. In terms of Planck units, and as a natural dimensionless value, the cosmological constant, λ, is on the order of 10^−122.[15] This is so small that it has no significant effect on cosmic structures that are smaller than a billion light-years across. If the cosmological constant were not extremely small, stars and other astronomical structures would not be able to form.[12]
EXHIBIT 5:
Q, the ratio of the gravitational energy required to pull a large galaxy apart to the energy equivalent of its mass, is around 10−5. If it is too small, no stars can form. If it is too large, no stars can survive because the universe is too violent, according to Rees.[12]
EXHIBIT 6:
D, the number of spatial dimensions in spacetime, is 3. Rees claims that life could not exist if there were 2 or 4 dimensions of spacetime nor if any other than 1 time dimension existed in spacetime.[12]
The fine tuned universe proposition is better indicated by design rather than non-design. Therefore, since the fine tuned universe proposition is better indicated by design, this is evidence that God exists. Evidence just means information indicating whether something is true or untrue. We should believe a claim if there's more information indicating that it's true rather than untrue.
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@TheRealNihilist
I'm an irreligious theist. I believe that a prime, eternal consciousness created the universe. The universe having an origin from consciousness is the best explanation of what caused the Big Bang, the fine-tunedness of the universe, among other things.
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@TheRealNihilist
No, because I am not a Christian.
Sure. I believe that consciousness, rather than the material world, is fundamental. I call this consciousness "God." There are a series of arguments and evidence to support this view.
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@TheRealNihilist
Well I consider myself a theist and am not too busy trying to please God to debate. It's silly to believe that theists can't win debates or not have irrational views about God.
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@3RU7AL
He's using the term "observable evidence" two different ways. In one sense he means "independently verifiable perceivable" and in the second sense he considers similar behaviors between himself and others as "observable evidence" of the other person's consciousness when in fact consciousness is not independently verifiable and perceivable (at least not at this time -- although I don't think we'll ever be able to).
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During the Big Bang, matter was brought into existence from a zero-dimensional point. So to say that we can only reorganize matter is to overlook the fact that at one point the law of conservation of mass was broken down. Maybe everything we see is a manifestation of information.
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@secularmerlin
His commentary was directed at Keith.
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@keithprosser
What does consciousness create?
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Information.
There's a growing number of scientists who regard information as the fundamental building block of the universe with matter/energy and space-time as a product of information-processing.
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@secularmerlin
Eternal didn't include additional commentary with his response for me to respond.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
The Big Bang traces back to a singularity, which is a mathematical point. It doesn't involve estimation or probability.
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@3RU7AL
Yes, yes, yes. None of those things make nihilism false.
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@3RU7AL
Sure, but you can imagine meaningfulness in a nihilistic universe .
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Nihilism is true if humanity is the byproduct of mindlessness.
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@secularmerlin
There is nothing to suggest that it had a form other than it's current form.
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@secularmerlin
It sounds to me like the Big Bang represents the beginning of the universe. I don't see how you arrived at the conclusion that logic is insufficient to make a determination about the universe's origin.
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@secularmerlin
There is no sense in referring to the beginning of the universe as something other than the Big Bang itself. As Hawking states:
"At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang.
Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. "
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@keithprosser
Right, but whatever the external reality is, it must be mind-compatible in order for us to be generating an internal mental model off of it.
If reality is fundamentally mental then this implies that consciousness is fundamental too.
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@keithprosser
Is it relevant that external reality has only ever been known or defined according to mental concepts and perceptions?
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