JD's rebuttle

First of all thank you for posting my first response and thank you for
posting such an intricate and intelligent response yourself! Here is my
resonse to yours:

Metacrock,

I am pleased to see that you felt my post warranted a long response. Again
I disagree with the larger bulk of it. Clearly you are intelligent and you
make strong cases for the supernatural, however, the case for the
supernatural always comes with inherent implausibility and an impetuous
assertion. This assertion being that nature and the material universe is
reliant upon or caused by supernatural forces unseen and/or unknown. There
is much to discuss with regards to your long response and I would like to
begin with the more mundane.
In the beginning of your response you spend a good deal of time discussing
the hatred and hostility visited upon you by atheists. You talk about how
atheism has an inherent subculture of hatred. While these observations are
both true and false in differing degrees I would like to discuss this matter
further. First of all I do not doubt the accuracy of experiences recounted
in your post. There are many people (especially within the blogosphere)
that feel empowered by the anonymity and negate any responsibility that they
would otherwise assume ownership of. To single out the atheists as a group
of people and claim that they are guiltier of this than any other group is
irresponsible and biased. Atheists are people first, before they made the
decision to believe what seemed more plausible to them (that there is no
god) they were people just as everyone else; and as such they are subject to
the inequity, animosity, and failings of the human being in general. To say
that atheists represent more of these failings than any other group would be
biased and hateful in and of itself. Surely there are atheist blogs and
boards in which the atheists are all of the above negative attributes but
surely there are blogs and boards in which they are not; furthermore it is
also equally true that theists and deeply religious individuals exhibit
these shortcomings themselves. As is my personality I don’t care to
illustrate the malign and depraved rather I like to illustrate the kindness
and compassion, and if necessary the wrongness of an individual. It hardly
seems beneficial to speak of a group so derogatorily; especially a minority
group that still faces inequality. You provide examples of atheists being
hateful and negative, while this is true there are many examples of atheists
being positive and compassionate, hopefully I am an example of this also
check out the blog jewishatheist.blogspot.com for further proof. For proof
that theists are malign and hateful just as much as atheists visit the
website concernedcatholic.blogspot.com and witness depravity in it’s truest
form. I will not provide specific quotes for as I said I would rather focus
on semblance and positivity rather than the contrary. I am glad that your
one act of solidarity is that you attribute this behavior with the net more
so than the individual. I would agree, for the sense of anonymity seems to
harbor feelings of ‘anything goes’ and that what one does one is not
entirely responsible for. The internet (especially the blogosphere) is
notorious for fostering such ignorant and blatant hostility; and atheists
are no guiltier than theists themselves. My main issue with this portion of
your response is, why even include it? Obviously there are going to be
hateful and irresponsible atheists just as there are theists. Why include
this fact as if it was more congruous with atheism? It just seemed like a
very negative and biased issue to include. When I illustrate disagreement
with the assertion that many atheists believe that infants are born atheist
you suggest that I visit more message boards. This is almost condescending,
for you do not know my track record with respects to visiting blogs, if you
did you wouldn’t have made this comment. I frequent numerous blogs and
continually search out new ones, as I did with you own blog. I do not know
how many atheist blogs you have visited but I would seriously doubt the
number surpasses mine.
With respects to the brain being wired for god and/or the inert ideas of god
residing in the brain, these are true and false in larger or lesser degrees.
Where as it is true that many of us are predisposed to religiosity and to
god through the neuro-pathways of the brain this says nothing of the truth
behind religiosity and/or god. Look up Paul Kurtz, especially his book
entitle “The Transcendental Temptation”, or Richard Dawkins (any of his
books or essays will suffice). The fact that evolutionary upsurge may have
culminated in the side effect of religiosity surely does nothing in proving
the truth behind such superstition. On a note of armistice I do like the
reference you made with Andrew Newberg for he is definitely a decent source
of information upon this subject; his studies are usually within
neurotheology or also known as biotheology. He has conducted a good amount
of tests and has done extensive research (none of which claims there is an
inert idea of god in anyone). He is a distinguished scientist and his
research is valuable he is certainly not the top researcher in the field. I
would also like to note that his research has never illustrated an innate
belief in god and he surely doesn’t promote his research or findings as
such.
The rest of your response deals with cosmology and astrophysics, I would
like to make a few points. The first being that I am in no way a
credentialed astrophysicist my field of scientific knowledge is generally
held within the confines of theoretical psychology. The second being that
you misconstrue a good portion of what my ultimate thesis was, and this is
not to say that you are to blame I was guilty of being too vague.
First you ask why it would be fair to assume that natural existence is
eternal, I would answer because if something is the effect then it must have
a cause and as far as I see it there are only natural causes and effects, so
the cause of the material universe must be natural and obviously the effect
of such as cause is natural; it is fair to assume that natural existence is
eternal, assuming that any form of existence is eternal, for if anything
would be eternal it would be that of what we know to be true and actually
existent, that of natural existence. You say that scientists tell us the
universe is finite, I do not claim the contrary for all one must do is look
up the Hartle-Hawking boundary condition and come to their own conclusions;
however this is no proof that existence itself is finite or that existence
itself is subject to a beginning or end. I know this all sounds amorphous
but bear with me. When you give proof that our universe will come to an end
as we know it I would not disagree, for again I am aware of the science
behind this. What I was meaning to illustrate was that existence in its
fullest sustenance will not cease to exist that there is no beginning nor
ending in time in this regard; to say that time either began or ended is
proof of the lack of knowledge with regards to relativity as espoused by
Einstein.
One way in which you completely misconstrued what I was intending would be
when you go off on long tangents attempting to discredit chaotic inflation
(which is widely held) and the oscillatory universe, both of which I don’t
believe. What intrigues my rationale is the theory of brane cosmology which
stems from the string theory of the universe; I won’t describe in searing
detail as you have in your post. If you would like to review it do so, if
you would like guidance on where to review it say so and I will help, or
maybe you already know of it and just decided not to mention it in your
response.
Brane cosmology asserts that existence is in fact eternal and that a
collision of branes is what created the universe as we know it today;
whether or not this universe is itself infinite doesn’t negate that fact
that existence outside of it is. That was my main point and it was my fault
for not vocalizing as well as I should have. The only cosmological theory
for which I feel any commitment to would be the brane theory, not the
oscillatory universe I was merely allowing multiple theories be shown. I’m
sorry that you spent so much time disproving or illustrating evidence
against theories that I do not even subscribe to, although you did do a
magnificent job!
When I made the statement – “The theory certainly can be interpreted as the
beginning of the magnificent explosion and expansion of the material
universe, that before this extreme change there was the dense-hot state of a
gravitational singularity, and that prior to this singularity and explosion
there was an eternal state of natural existence.” I did not mean that prior
to this singularity there was only natural existence residing within this
singularity, I apologize for the vagueness of such a statement; all I mean
is that prior to the expansion or ‘creation’ or our universe there was an
eternally existing natural realm present, outside of our universe. Our
universe may be but one brane in a realm consisting of numberous branes, our
universe is the way it is and has been developed by the collision of two
such branes within this vast and natural realm.
You question the authority of Corliss Lamont the only explanation for this
is that you don’t know who he is and have done no investigation into it, he
was a highly esteemed humanist philosopher he taught at Columbia, Cornell,
and Harvard. He was the director of the ACLU from 1932-1954 and was then
the chairman until his death in 1995. He successfully challenged Senator
Joseph McCarthy's senate subcommittee and other government agencies. In 1965
he secured a Supreme Court ruling against censorship of incoming mail by the
U.S. Postmaster General. In 1973 he discovered through Freedom of
Information Act requests that the FBI had been tapping his phone, and
scrutinizing his tax returns and cancelled checks for 30 years. His
subsequent lawsuit showed the surveillance had no justification in law, and
set precedent for other citizen's privacy rights. He also filed and won a
suit against the Central Inteligence Agency for opening his mail.
You claim that god is necessary refering to “him” (sexist and egoistic) and
that matter-energy is a contingency. I disagree and I will provide a
paradigm put forh by one Benedictus De Spinoza helping me illustrate this
fact: Spinoza contended that God and Nature were two names for the same
reality, namely the single substance (meaning "to stand beneath" rather than
"matter") that underlies the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are
actually modes or modifications. The argument for this single substance runs
something as follows:
1. Substance exists and cannot be dependent on anything else for its
existence.
2. No two substances can share an attribute.
Proof: If they share an attribute, they would be identical. Therefore they
can only be individuated by their modes. But then they would depend on their
modes for their identity. This would have the substance being dependent on
its mode, in violation of premise 1. Therefore, two substances cannot share
the same attribute.
3. A substance can only be caused by something similar to itself (something
that shares its attribute).
4. Substance cannot be caused.
Proof: Something can only be caused by something which is similar to itself,
in other words something that shares its attribute. But according to premise
2, no two substances can share an attribute. Therefore substance cannot be
caused.
5. Substance is infinite.
Proof: If substance were not infinite, it would be finite and limited by
something. But to be limited by something is to be dependent on it. However,
substance cannot be dependent on anything else (premise 1), therefore
substance is infinite.
Conclusion: There can only be one substance.
Proof: If there were two infinite substances, they would limit each other.
But this would act as a restraint, and they would be dependent on each
other. But they cannot be dependent on each other (premise 1), therefore
there cannot be two substances.
My ultimate thesis and strong beliefs is that existence in its entirety is
natural, that there is no reason to conclude that supernatural phenomena are
the causes of natural effects, and that when scientific understanding and
ability has reached its furthest limits we must concede that we are not able
to understand such phenomena and resist subverting science and embracing the
irrationality of superstition and occult phenomena; that in any case what we
cannot yet understand today may surely be understood in the future and to
await this day accordingly. Religion has in the past opposed the fact that
the sun was the center of our galaxy, they opposed the fact that our planet
is a sphere, they oppose consciousness being an extension of the physical
body via the brain, and they oppose the idea that god did in fact not create
existence. These oppositions are fine and to believe in god and what “he”
has done is okay but to talk about physics and the ‘evidence’ that this
science gives in favor of god is incongrous with the scientific method and
reality.

-“But eternally existing anything would have to be ontologically necessiary,
but naturlism requires ontolgocal congingency for all natursiltic
phenomena.” – Why is this? In what way does the supernatural or god resolve
this conflict? What is the evidence of such gratuitous interactions from
the supernatural?

-“THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE!
THE BEGINNING OF TIME!"” – The beginning of the universe that we know not of
existence as a whole. Didn’t you speak of time in relativity just prior to
this, time is relative and really doesn’t have a beginning or an end.
Wouldn’t you say?

I read your argument for god as a cause under why God doesnt' need a cause
and the universe does, your god here doesn’t seem to be an actual defining
being or substance, I could easity isert the word nature for god within this
argument and change absolutely nothing; this is a vague, weak, and
ineffectual argument for god. By the way what is god? What do you believe
god is? A being? A pool of conscioussness? Energy? A being that resemble
humans? Your definition of god is so vague in this argument that it could
be refering to nature itself, do you not see the transience within this
argument? You must firmly define what god is, how it acts, etc. Otherwise
your giving an argument for nothing, this sort of god seems to encapulate
many individuals psyche now days, the god of everything and yet nothing.
Over all I was impressed with the cosmological argument you put forth, I
congradulate you! However, you were opposing theories that I do not
subscribe to. Cosmologically I would subscribe to brane cosmology (not the
oscilliotory universe), and even if this theory proves to be false this
hardly means that god has won out by default; ultimately there is no proof
of the existence of a god or of supernatural phenomena, the best the
religious can do is discredit and find faults within scientific theory and
insert the supernatural and god into convienient holes that are the as yet
unknowns of science (they are doing this with evolution right now with ID).
Ultimately I was just wanting to say that existence is natural, always has
been and always will be, and that the supernatural should be heavily
scrutinized and doubted. I am impressed by the extent of your knowledge
pertaining to astrophysics. I would be intrigued to hear your views on
brane cosmology.

Sincerely




JD:First of all thank you for posting my first response and thank you for
posting such an intricate and intelligent response yourself! Here is my
resonse to yours:

Metacrock,

I am pleased to see that you felt my post warranted a long response. Again
I disagree with the larger bulk of it. Clearly you are intelligent and you
make strong cases for the supernatural, however, the case for the
supernatural always comes with inherent implausibility and an impetuous
assertion. This assertion being that nature and the material universe is
reliant upon or caused by supernatural forces unseen and/or unknown. There
is much to discuss with regards to your long response and I would like to
begin with the more mundane.



Meta:I thank you for the kind words. Its' is nice to have a dialogue partner of good will with I can discuss and who is obvioulsy a man of intelligence and reason. Now to get down to it:

First, it seems a lot more likely that this would be the case since we know so little about relaity. You are weighing our little experince of this one dust mote floting in an endless sea of space, to the vastness that far out spans our ablity to even conceive of it; and you expect to know what's out there and to be able to exclude options you don't like. To me that seems rather arrogant, and rather short sighested, No offense.

Secondly, we know our uinverse exists in space/time which is a four coordiante system and that beyond the event horizon of our big bang is something beyond our cotninuum of space/time. So that would seem in and of itself to reaise qeustions of worlds beyond this one, and the possilbity of a supernatural.

thirdly, as I have marked out in my own essays on the Supernatural, I think there is a great deal of confussion about what exactly is meant by the term. Essentually it is God's power to transform the natural. So that is a far cry from another ralm you can go to or a realm of dark forces and so forth. At that rate SN would just be a consequence of belief in God per se.



JD: In the beginning of your response you spend a good deal of time discussing
the hatred and hostility visited upon you by atheists. You talk about how
atheism has an inherent subculture of hatred. While these observations are
both true and false in differing degrees I would like to discuss this matter
further. First of all I do not doubt the accuracy of experiences recounted
in your post. There are many people (especially within the blogosphere)
that feel empowered by the anonymity and negate any responsibility that they
would otherwise assume ownership of.

Meta: Excellent point! I wasn't trying to say that just the act of not beleiving in god makes you like that.Not only do I know many atheists who aren't like that, but I was an atheist and I don't think I was like that. so I'm sorry if I was misunderstood.



JD:To single out the atheists as a group
of people and claim that they are guiltier of this than any other group is
irresponsible and biased. Atheists are people first, before they made the
decision to believe what seemed more plausible to them (that there is no
god) they were people just as everyone else; and as such they are subject to
the inequity, animosity, and failings of the human being in general. To say
that atheists represent more of these failings than any other group would be
biased and hateful in and of itself. Surely there are atheist blogs and
boards in which the atheists are all of the above negative attributes but
surely there are blogs and boards in which they are not; furthermore it is
also equally true that theists and deeply religious individuals exhibit
these shortcomings themselves. As is my personality I don’t care to
illustrate the malign and depraved rather I like to illustrate the kindness
and compassion, and if necessary the wrongness of an individual. It hardly
seems beneficial to speak of a group so derogatorily; especially a minority
group that still faces inequality. You provide examples of atheists being
hateful and negative, while this is true there are many examples of atheists
being positive and compassionate, hopefully I am an example of this also
check out the blog jewishatheist.blogspot.com for further proof. For proof
that theists are malign and hateful just as much as atheists visit the
website concernedcatholic.blogspot.com and witness depravity in it’s truest
form. I will not provide specific quotes for as I said I would rather focus
on semblance and positivity rather than the contrary. I am glad that your
one act of solidarity is that you attribute this behavior with the net more
so than the individual. I would agree, for the sense of anonymity seems to
harbor feelings of ‘anything goes’ and that what one does one is not
entirely responsible for. The internet (especially the blogosphere) is
notorious for fostering such ignorant and blatant hostility; and atheists
are no guiltier than theists themselves.

Meta:Sorry I was misunderstsood in that way.






JD:My main issue with this portion of
your response is, why even include it? Obviously there are going to be
hateful and irresponsible atheists just as there are theists. Why include
this fact as if it was more congruous with atheism?


Meta: Well, first because it just happened and I was angry, I flet that I should make outgrages known. Secondly, I guess I feel that if I tell enough people they will stay away from those boards or demand that they change or soemthing.




JD:It just seemed like a
very negative and biased issue to include. When I illustrate disagreement
with the assertion that many atheists believe that infants are born atheist
you suggest that I visit more message boards. This is almost condescending,
for you do not know my track record with respects to visiting blogs, if you
did you wouldn’t have made this comment. I frequent numerous blogs and
continually search out new ones, as I did with you own blog. I do not know
how many atheist blogs you have visited but I would seriously doubt the
number surpasses mine.



Meta: Not at all. I've seen that on boards many many times.






JD: With respects to the brain being wired for god and/or the inert ideas of god
residing in the brain, these are true and false in larger or lesser degrees.
Where as it is true that many of us are predisposed to religiosity and to
god through the neuro-pathways of the brain this says nothing of the truth
behind religiosity and/or god. Look up Paul Kurtz, especially his book
entitle “The Transcendental Temptation”, or Richard Dawkins (any of his
books or essays will suffice). The fact that evolutionary upsurge may have
culminated in the side effect of religiosity surely does nothing in proving
the truth behind such superstition.


Meta: I woulnd't expect Dawkins to agree with me. I would expect him to try and expalin it through evoution. What else could he do? But I think a good argument is there to be made that evolution shouldn't be able to produce that affect. It should require innate ideas. Why should the feelings incurred just produced religion and not merely produce unity or social cohesion or any of the other opporative explains used. The theory is religion is a vehicle to some other thing, such as social cohesion. But that doesn't expalin why the warm fuzzies buzz for God talk and no other talk. Why not for talk of social cohesion? It would really require an innate knowledge of God to do that.






JD:On a note of armistice I do like the
reference you made with Andrew Newberg for he is definitely a decent source
of information upon this subject; his studies are usually within
neurotheology or also known as biotheology. He has conducted a good amount
of tests and has done extensive research (none of which claims there is an
inert idea of god in anyone). He is a distinguished scientist and his
research is valuable he is certainly not the top researcher in the field. I
would also like to note that his research has never illustrated an innate
belief in god and he surely doesn’t promote his research or findings as
such.



Meta: having a warm fuzzy when you heard Godtalk is an illustration of an innate beilef in God. Newberg is good because he doesnt' try to claim more than he can pull off. He did become a beilever due to his research, he does think it proves God, but in a subtle way. He knows its not enough to prove it to others. There are other things that go with a leap of faith than just proving some facts. But the mateiral is there if one seeks a rational warrant for belief.





JD:The rest of your response deals with cosmology and astrophysics, I would
like to make a few points. The first being that I am in no way a
credentialed astrophysicist my field of scientific knowledge is generally
held within the confines of theoretical psychology. The second being that
you misconstrue a good portion of what my ultimate thesis was, and this is
not to say that you are to blame I was guilty of being too vague.
First you ask why it would be fair to assume that natural existence is
eternal, I would answer because if something is the effect then it must have
a cause and as far as I see it there are only natural causes and effects, so
the cause of the material universe must be natural and obviously the effect
of such as cause is natural;


Meta: But there you are just begging the question. You assume all C&E is naturalistic, why? Because you don't have direct proof of first casue, but here is direct proof of the need for a first cause; the cosmological arguments that I made before, the impossiblity of an eternally exsiting universe. So your assumptions about C/E is just quetion begging.






JD: it is fair to assume that natural existence is
eternal, assuming that any form of existence is eternal, for if anything
would be eternal it would be that of what we know to be true and actually
existent, that of natural existence.


Meta: Sorry if I misunderstand you, but this sounds like more question begging.You seem to saying "since all we know for sure is natural existence, that's all we can assume existence is." But that's of course begging the question because the question is "is it it true that all we know is the natural world?" A lot of us think not. So that's up for grabs, you can't use it as proo of itself when it is the question being debated.


At this point we could go off into some very interesting discussions about the nature of Being if we were willing to leave behind the constrictive debate forematt. So I hesitate to metion it because I don't want it to be construed as an attempt at pulling some ace out of my sleve. But I do want to mention the idea of Paul Tillich's God as being itself. I'll discuss that more latter, because I don't want it to be part of the debate for rasons already stated. Just suffice to say we have a very heavy question about the nature of being and reality, and we can't resolve that just with ideologies. It's going to be a matter of one's metaphystics, thus no somehting one can resolve in a debate.



JD: You say that scientists tell us the
universe is finite, I do not claim the contrary for all one must do is look
up the Hartle-Hawking boundary condition and come to their own conclusions;
however this is no proof that existence itself is finite or that existence
itself is subject to a beginning or end. I know this all sounds amorphous
but bear with me. When you give proof that our universe will come to an end
as we know it I would not disagree, for again I am aware of the science
behind this. What I was meaning to illustrate was that existence in its
fullest sustenance will not cease to exist that there is no beginning nor
ending in time in this regard; to say that time either began or ended is
proof of the lack of knowledge with regards to relativity as espoused by
Einstein.


Meta: That's just a trick of language. There is no begining or end in time, because time itself is not eternal. time has a beging, that's established by the Big bang. That's what t=0 means. All Hawking does is change direction from going back chronologically to going down along that last moement; he constructs an infintessible in which one can pin down the exactly second at which there is a begining. This is no way means that the univese is sitting around forever and doesn't require creation.

If that's what you argue, you have to show how it overcomes arguments like the fininite stock of order of energy/matter being created in the Big Bang.



JD:One way in which you completely misconstrued what I was intending would be
when you go off on long tangents attempting to discredit chaotic inflation
(which is widely held) and the oscillatory universe, both of which I don’t
believe. What intrigues my rationale is the theory of brane cosmology which
stems from the string theory of the universe; I won’t describe in searing
detail as you have in your post. If you would like to review it do so, if
you would like guidance on where to review it say so and I will help, or
maybe you already know of it and just decided not to mention it in your
response.


Meta: I didn't discredit it. I said it doesnt' change my argument. Both of those still preserve the big bang as part of their major senerio. Of cousre there is no data to support the chaotic inflation part, there is only the t=0 and that's all. we have no data from "before" that. Becuase that's when time begins. Our space/time envoleope began at that point, so there can be no data form "before" or "beyond" that point. Thus all of those theoreies are unproven and can be just as easily plugged into my senerio of creation.


JD:Brane cosmology asserts that existence is in fact eternal and that a
collision of branes is what created the universe as we know it today;
whether or not this universe is itself infinite doesn’t negate that fact
that existence outside of it is. That was my main point and it was my fault
for not vocalizing as well as I should have. The only cosmological theory
for which I feel any commitment to would be the brane theory, not the
oscillatory universe I was merely allowing multiple theories be shown. I’m
sorry that you spent so much time disproving or illustrating evidence
against theories that I do not even subscribe to, although you did do a
magnificent job!



Meta: You are always going to be dealing with contigneicies. naturalistic pheomena are always contingent. But to deal with a world of contingencies with no necessity is nonsense. So to posit an eternal universe doesn't change anything God wise, there still is a need to posit and siealteniously eternal creator who is the ground of being and who makes possible the etneral contingnecies. An analogy would be an eternal flute player. As long as the floutist plays the music exists. So if the floutist palys eternally, the music is eternal. But if the player stops, the music stops. So the mustic, though eternal, is contingent upon the player. The reason for posulating that vis "the universre" would be the fact of necessity and contingency, naturalisitic phenomena are contingent. But That's assuming we just ingore the questions about finite stock of order and heat death.

If the universe will eventually die a heat death, it can't be eternal. Eternality cannot cease to be, it cannot ever change. And given eternal changces if it will do it it would have already done it.

This last point, think of this. If I had a billion billion chances I could flit enough coins enough times that the letters on them (use coins from all nations) would sepll out the play Othelo. But it would take of cousre anstronominal amouhnts of time. yet if the unverse is eternal we have already had astronmical amounts of time so it should have already done it.


JD:When I made the statement – “The theory certainly can be interpreted as the
beginning of the magnificent explosion and expansion of the material
universe, that before this extreme change there was the dense-hot state of a
gravitational singularity, and that prior to this singularity and explosion
there was an eternal state of natural existence.” I did not mean that prior
to this singularity there was only natural existence residing within this
singularity, I apologize for the vagueness of such a statement; all I mean
is that prior to the expansion or ‘creation’ or our universe there was an
eternally existing natural realm present, outside of our universe.



Meta: I see, but that's still asserting something of which we have no knowledge.


JD:Our
universe may be but one brane in a realm consisting of numberous branes, our
universe is the way it is and has been developed by the collision of two
such branes within this vast and natural realm.
You question the authority of Corliss Lamont the only explanation for this
is that you don’t know who he is and have done no investigation into it, he
was a highly esteemed humanist philosopher he taught at Columbia, Cornell,
and Harvard. He was the director of the ACLU from 1932-1954 and was then
the chairman until his death in 1995. He successfully challenged Senator
Joseph McCarthy's senate subcommittee and other government agencies. In 1965
he secured a Supreme Court ruling against censorship of incoming mail by the
U.S. Postmaster General. In 1973 he discovered through Freedom of
Information Act requests that the FBI had been tapping his phone, and
scrutinizing his tax returns and cancelled checks for 30 years. His
subsequent lawsuit showed the surveillance had no justification in law, and
set precedent for other citizen's privacy rights. He also filed and won a
suit against the Central Inteligence Agency for opening his mail.


Meta: sounds like a great guy, but it's still unncessary appeal to authority; what credentials has he as a cosmologist?




JD:You claim that god is necessary refering to “him” (sexist and egoistic) and
that matter-energy is a contingency.



Meta: I actually got out of the habit of refurring to God as "HE" in semianry! It was the feminsts in my secular history of ideas program when I went for my doctorate that got me back in the habit. I kid not!



JD: I disagree and I will provide a
paradigm put forh by one Benedictus De Spinoza helping me illustrate this
fact: Spinoza contended that God and Nature were two names for the same
reality, namely the single substance (meaning "to stand beneath" rather than
"matter") that underlies the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are
actually modes or modifications.



Meta: You make it hard to argue with you, as I am a big Spinoza fan mytself. However, as a Christain I can't quite go along with him, but I admire his intelligence and his lens grinding too.



JD:The argument for this single substance runs
something as follows:
1. Substance exists and cannot be dependent on anything else for its
existence.
2. No two substances can share an attribute.
Proof: If they share an attribute, they would be identical. Therefore they
can only be individuated by their modes. But then they would depend on their
modes for their identity. This would have the substance being dependent on
its mode, in violation of premise 1. Therefore, two substances cannot share
the same attribute.
3. A substance can only be caused by something similar to itself (something
that shares its attribute).
4. Substance cannot be caused.
Proof: Something can only be caused by something which is similar to itself,
in other words something that shares its attribute. But according to premise
2, no two substances can share an attribute. Therefore substance cannot be
caused.
5. Substance is infinite.
Proof: If substance were not infinite, it would be finite and limited by
something. But to be limited by something is to be dependent on it. However,
substance cannot be dependent on anything else (premise 1), therefore
substance is infinite.
Conclusion: There can only be one substance.
Proof: If there were two infinite substances, they would limit each other.
But this would act as a restraint, and they would be dependent on each
other. But they cannot be dependent on each other (premise 1), therefore
there cannot be two substances.



Meta: But Spinoza beileved in God.Now, it's true people think "not much of a God." but it was god enough for Spinoza. He was not an atheist and did not see himself as such. I like his take on the ontological arugment and it forms the baisis of my understanding of it. Spinoza did not say the universr and existence is only natural and there is no supernatural. He's more like combining sort of immanent transcendence or a naturalsitic supernatural. This is way after the concept has been degraded anyway. Ture he didn't believe in the conventional concept, but neither did he just consian existence to naturlism and become an atheist.

It's always amazing to me when I find people who have gotten other things out of a thinker and reached diametrically oppossite consclusions. I am not saying you are wrong even to look at his work the way you do. But I see there is a differnce in the way we each read Spinoza.




JD:My ultimate thesis and strong beliefs is that existence in its entirety is
natural, that there is no reason to conclude that supernatural phenomena are
the causes of natural effects, and that when scientific understanding and
ability has reached its furthest limits we must concede that we are not able
to understand such phenomena and resist subverting science and embracing the
irrationality of superstition and occult phenomena;


Meta: That satement is loaded with all sorts of presuppostions that are not in evidence and unproven, and in fact I don't think you can prove any of them. That they mark your feeling about the world I am prepared to be friends and agree to disagree. Those presupes include:

(1) that SN subverts science so the two are competing rather than represeting different magesteria.

(2) that SN is superstition: superstition opporates by a senes of dread at tresspass upon the realm of unseen forces; supernatural is a ratiaonl ontology that sketches out how divine power can affect and transform human nature. It has nothing to do with fear of illelutable forces.

(3) that SN is irrational: SN is more rational that you can imagine, it's the ultimate form of rationality because it says that relaity istself has a supersturcture and that superstructure is reason! there is an ordering pricniple, a logos that orders and manages the natural as its ground and end; the natural moves toward it teliologically; that is ratianolism that is not irrational forces.

btw if we can't understand it how do we know there is no supernatural? you say "and that when scientific understanding and
ability has reached its furthest limits we must concede that we are not able
to understand such phenomena": so we can't understand it but somehow we know the SN is not true?




JD:that in any case what we
cannot yet understand today may surely be understood in the future and to
await this day accordingly.


Meta: seems to me that you are just opporating on faith. Isn't faith a bit on the irrational side?

JD: Religion has in the past opposed the fact that
the sun was the center of our galaxy, they opposed the fact that our planet
is a sphere,


Meta: that's actaully guilt by assocaition (some religious people did x, therefore, religious people do x). It's also ahistorical. No The Chruch never oppossed teh idea tha thte sun was the center of the galaxy. What they oppossed was rejecting the authority of Arosttle. Others had aruged that the mathematics of the Copernican system made more sense of the calender and epicyles and all the fiddely bits of ptoemaic system, and and Copernicus never got in any trouble as long as he propossed it as a mathematical theory. The trouble only came when the authority of the chruch was questioned via the authoritiy of Arostotle (who had been installed by the chruch as a kindof previent saint). The chruch had no real interest in the center of the galaxy or where the sun was in relation to the earth.

I don't think you can show that they oppossed the idea of the earth being a sphere. But even so, Milton whent o see Galileo when he was young and told him "the Christians of Engalnd are with you." They never had any such persecution in Engalnd where science and chrsitaintiy were identified as one. So that's just a matter of chruch politics and not religious ideas per se.


JD:they oppose consciousness being an extension of the physical
body via the brain, and they oppose the idea that god did in fact not create
existence. These oppositions are fine and to believe in god and what “he”
has done is okay but to talk about physics and the ‘evidence’ that this
science gives in favor of god is incongrous with the scientific method and
reality.


It's a fond steriotype to think of the Monty Python scene where the woman weighs the same as a duck. "what do we burn apart form withces?" "More withces!" The truth is the middle ages were not filled with budding Enstines who were being burned at the steak fro their attempts to do science. There are really only a couple of examples. In fact the chruch did a lot to keep learning alive nd modern scinece was born in monesteries and it was the chruch that created it.See my essay I wrote in grad school:




JD (quoting Meta)-“But eternally existing anything would have to be ontologically necessiary,but naturlism requires ontolgocal congingency for all natursiltic
phenomena.” – Why is this? In what way does the supernatural or god resolve
this conflict? What is the evidence of such gratuitous interactions from
the supernatural?


Meta: break it down:

eternally eixsting anyting would have to be ontologically necessary


Because necessary means "cannot cease or fail to exist, and not dependent upon anything else for its existence. If it could cease, or if it could have been otherwise that would mean it is dependent upon something else, and that is contingency. It can't be necesary if it is contignent. It's contingency because if it could cease it isn't etenral and if it could be otherwise that would have to be becuase the circumstances that bring it about could have been otherwise. that means anything that is eternal would have to be either eternally contingent upon an ontotoglally "prior" cause or condition, or it would be a necessity (not contignent).




JD:-“THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE!
THE BEGINNING OF TIME!"” – The beginning of the universe that we know not of
existence as a whole. Didn’t you speak of time in relativity just prior to
this, time is relative and really doesn’t have a beginning or an end.
Wouldn’t you say?


Meta: I quoted sources saying time begins with the big bang. I could theorize that tmie is running eternally. But the evidence I've seen susggests it begins with the Big bang.


JD:I read your argument for god as a cause under why God doesnt' need a cause
and the universe does, your god here doesn’t seem to be an actual defining
being or substance, I could easity isert the word nature for god within this
argument and change absolutely nothing; this is a vague, weak, and
ineffectual argument for god.


Meta: You said in the first deal it was the best you'd seen. I think you are just used to dealing fundies and you can only think in terms of one concept of God; the big guy in the sky. Spinoza is not known as an atheist, he had his own version reilgious life, and he believed in God, he just had his own ideas about God. Would you call that "weak and ineffectual." IF it's so weak why can't you beat it? You haven't come close. you haven't got your foot in the door. IN fact your only arugment is just that it seems strange to you because I'm no saying things you expect to hear, and that's what you call "weak."




JD:By the way what is god? What do you believe
god is? A being? A pool of conscioussness? Energy? A being that resemble
humans? Your definition of god is so vague in this argument that it could
be refering to nature itself, do you not see the transience within this
argument?


Meta: Can't refur to nature because nature is contingent. God can't be contignency. God has to be necessity. But here I think the truth comes out that actually your definition of nature is weak. You seem to have a circular defition where by nature is what is and is is natural by virture of the fact that it is. That doesnt' tell us anything and it could potentually include God.


For the big lo down on my views about God read my essay on God as the Grond of Being. Essentually my concept of God is in line with that of Paul Tillich, the German theological emegree to America in the 50's.



JD: You must firmly define what god is, how it acts, etc. Otherwise
your giving an argument for nothing, this sort of god seems to encapulate
many individuals psyche now days, the god of everything and yet nothing.


Meta: I don't mean to offend you, because I feel that we have the basis for a good friendship. Nevertheless I think that argument is poppy cock. I do not have to define God in any way that pre-determines or pre-conceieves our understanding; and that would be contrary to my views anyway because my whole "thing" is that God presciley is not predicatble and is not something we can pin down to neat little categories. God is a mystical reality that blows away all our preconcieved notions and pre-set categories. All we can really do is experince God, or opporate within a tradition that calims to already understand something of God's will.

Now that's exactly my ratiaonle for being a christian, and it means that rather than trying to define God in some pesudo-sceintific way, all we really need to do is sketch out God as a proper object of religious devotion. God is the transcendental signifier, and as such we need only understand how that plays out in any given tradition as the object of devotion.

This is nature of one's belief, you can't dictate to people about their most sacred bleiefs, those have to be formed of thier own properly basic experinces of the world.





JD:Over all I was impressed with the cosmological argument you put forth, I
congradulate you! However, you were opposing theories that I do not
subscribe to.


Meta: but thank you for your kind words.


JD:Cosmologically I would subscribe to brane cosmology (not the
oscilliotory universe), and even if this theory proves to be false this
hardly means that god has won out by default; ultimately there is no proof
of the existence of a god or of supernatural phenomena, the best the
religious can do is discredit and find faults within scientific theory and
insert the supernatural and god into convienient holes that are the as yet
unknowns of science (they are doing this with evolution right now with ID).


Meta: Why do you put it in terms of conflict? This is one of the things that I think puts atheists in the box. Rather than thinking outside the box, you are still in the box, and that box is full of 19th century peraphenalia. The idea that science and religion are in competition and are somehow conflifting is sympematic of that sort of thinking. I think that weakens atheism beasue it puts it behind the times. While I agree that there is no absolute or direct proof of God, there is certianly more than amle rational warrent for belief. That can be adhuced from reading the back pages of this blog. But religion can do a lot more than just discredit scientific theories. There is more than ample reason to believe. Also see my list of God arguments: I'm up to 39 but I'm shooting for 42.


JD:Ultimately I was just wanting to say that existence is natural, always has
been and always will be, and that the supernatural should be heavily
scrutinized and doubted. I am impressed by the extent of your knowledge
pertaining to astrophysics. I would be intrigued to hear your views on
brane cosmology.


Meta: It's good to have our presups shaken up once and awhile and I respect your views and appreciate your attidue to ratioanl and plesant discussion.

I'll do some reading on brane cosmology and let you know.




I gave him the last word, so that is fond here


The last word in the debate



Read about my legs

Comments

Debate on God argument

this debate was with a guest commentator, an atheist who challenged me to debate. He was a nice guy and I liked this debate. It's one of my favorite so f those I've had with atheists. So I want to save it as it is about to go off the board and be lost.
it was 12/13/05

This guest commentary was sent to me by a well known bloger, JDHURF. I thank him for his contribution and am happy to offer it as it is very reasonable and reasoning. I like the idea of creation understanding rather than more anger:

Metacrock,

I enjoyed reading your post on atheism, although I do not agree with all of
it. I am a secular humanist hence I am also an atheist so this post was
certainly relevant to me. I do not believe in a god, a supernatural entity,
or any form of supernatural phenomena. I believe you are mistaken with
large portions or your diatribe; I would like to show you in what ways I
believe you are mistaken and how and why you are mistaken.
However, let me begin with armistice; I do agree with your definition of
atheism: the rejection of a belief in god, not merely the lack of belief,
for as you said that would be agnosticism. Atheism is merely an epithet
used by people to define and describe ones disbelief in a god, or
supernatural entity. Atheism is also a negative-reactionary belief it does
not affirm anything rather it repudiates. Atheism relies on theism to
exist; without a belief in god, there cannot be a disbelief in god, in this
manner atheism is reactionary.

“Atheists love to think that all people are born natural atheists, which is
obviously disproved by the recent studies about brain structure and innate
ideas of God.”

Most atheists, that I know, do not assert that individuals are born atheists
naturally; this cannot be true. The newborn infant has not yet been exposed
to the idea or notion of god and therefore cannot reject and/or disbelieve
such and idea or notion. What atheists and theists alike do say is that
infants are born with out the belief in god, not that they are atheists and
reject the idea of god rather that they do not believe nor disbelieve such
an idea or notion; for they are infants and have not yet developed the
cognitive capability to do either. You mention that the idea of natural
atheists has been disproved by recent studies regarding brain structure and
an innate idea of god. What are these studies? Who has conducted them?
Where can I review these studies and view the results myself? For I am
aware of modern research into such topics through psychology and
neuroscience and I have never heard of such a study and outcome.
I would also like to address your assumption that Big Bang cosmology either
contradicts itself or needs a supernatural force or god to justify it. The
Big Bang does not require the belief that before it there was nothing or
merely a supernatural existence, all it explains is the beginnings of the
universe, as we know it today. The Big Bang theory postulates that the
universe originated in an extremely dense and hot state, and since then
space itself has expanded with the passage of time carrying the galaxies
with it. The theory does not, however, force one to assume that before this
extremely dense and hot state there was nothing or only a supernatural
existence, it is surely fair to assume that material or “real natural”
existence is in effect eternal and has no beginning nor ending in time
meaning that there was no “creation” of the universe merely a growth and
transormation. A few scientific proposal to submit this theory would be as
lined out as follows: 1) chaotic inflation 2) brane cosmology models,
including the ekpyrotic model in which the Big Bang is the result of a
collision between branes 3) an oscillatory universe in which the early
universe’s hot, dense state resulted from the Big Crunch of a universe
similar to ours. The universe could have gone through an infinite number of
big bangs and big crunches. The cyclic extemsion of the ekpyrotic model is
a modern version of such a scenario.
Obviously there is no reason to assert that Big Bang cosmology either
contridicts itself or requires supernatural explanations to justify iteslf.
The theory certainly can be interpreted as the beginning of the magnificent
explosion and expansion of the material universe, that before this extreme
change there was the dense-hot state of a gravitational singularity, and
that prior to this singularity and explosion there was an eternal state of
natural existence; that in any case matter-energy is eternal and
indestructible as defined by the Law of the Conservation of Mass and
requires absolutely no supernatrual force or miracle. Here is a quote from
the humanist Corliss Lamont: “Thus creative matter needs no ultimate
theistic power to sustain it, no Divine Principle to impregnate it with the
capacity of flowering as a whirling nebula containing billions of stars, as
a warming and light giving sun or as a fertile planet that produces all the
wondrous forms of life, and at their apex the human race and it’s
indomitable powers of the mind. Matter is self-existent, self-active, self
developing, and self-enduring. It is auto-dynamic. Intellectually, there
is nothing to be gained and much to be lost for philosophy by positing a
supernatural Creator or First Cause behind the great material universe. If
everything has a definite cause, the God, too, must have a definite cause
and so on ad infinitum. The fact is that regardless of how far we push our
inquiries, at one point or another we are compelled to assume something self
existent that possesses certain powers and potentialities. Otherwise we
become involved in a never ending regress of explanations and assumptions.
God as a First Cause simply constitutes a large-scale miracle gratuitously
intruding at the alleged starting point of everything. Furthermore, the
argument form a First Cause takes for granted that there must have been a
beginning of the cosmos. However, no logical necessity forces us to the
conclusion that there is a beginning in time, and indeed it would seem more
sensible to accept Aristotle’s opinion that the universe is eternal. In
fact, those who postulate a supernatural God as Creator or First Cause
usually attribute to it a state of eternal being and are therefore assuming,
like most nontheists, an eternally existing reality.”
Obviously, there is no reason to assert that Big Bang cosmology or
naturalism is contradictory or reliant upon supernaturalism and theism to
justify itself and ultimately make coherent sense.
I am a secular humanism and an atheist, I believe that the universe is
entirely natural and requires absolutely no supernatural definitions in
order to understand it. Scientifically there is no reason to resort to
supernatural and occult postulates. You put forth one of the most
intelligible arguments against atheism, naturalism, and for theism that I
have read, however, it was flawed and does not, in any case, make a solid
case or prove your thesis. Again I would ask what studies and experiments
you where referring to in the beginning? I want very badly to review these
studies for myself and view the procedures and results, please share.

Sincerely

Jeremy








I would like to think JD for his kind and thoughtful commentary. I do have a few comments just by way of observation, but I have no inentino to "beat him" or "show him up."


JD:I enjoyed reading your post on atheism, although I do not agree with all of
it. I am a secular humanist hence I am also an atheist so this post was
certainly relevant to me. I do not believe in a god, a supernatural entity,
or any form of supernatural phenomena. I believe you are mistaken with
large portions or your diatribe; I would like to show you in what ways I
believe you are mistaken and how and why you are mistaken.


Meta: I know atheits in real life and we don't sit around putting each other down. But, certain borads seem to create an atmosphere of hatred. The banners, the services offered, the tone of the posts, what people get away with, these things are a clear and dead give away. The first time I went on the board that started all of this one the very posts I made, which was very modeate and with just enough infor to let them know I was a christian, was met with "haul your self reightous ass out of here!" I labared for days on long posts with plenty of facts and thoughtful arguments and all they would say is "you are pathetic, you could not have been to gradate school if that's how you reason." They actaully never attacked the arguments themselves, just my personality. This is a major board and I'm told one of the cheif offenders is a doctroal student at Ruttgers!

So I think its clear there is a subculture of hatred. They dehumanize christians and talk about us like we aren't people. The signature of the Rutters guy (I am not saying he doesn't go there just because he disagrees with me) basically implises that Christians are Nazis and we would send Anne Frank to the gas chmaber. The other guy said in a blaket stament, "all christians are machiavellians." These may be extreme cases by they are by no means the only one's like them. But I do realize not all atheists act this way. The one's I know in real life don't. I balme the net more than atheism per se.

JD:However, let me begin with armistice; I do agree with your definition of
atheism: the rejection of a belief in god, not merely the lack of belief,
for as you said that would be agnosticism. Atheism is merely an epithet
used by people to define and describe ones disbelief in a god, or
supernatural entity. Atheism is also a negative-reactionary belief it does
not affirm anything rather it repudiates. Atheism relies on theism to
exist; without a belief in god, there cannot be a disbelief in god, in this
manner atheism is reactionary.


Meta: It's rare I find an atheist who agrees about it being a rejetion rather than just a lack.




(Meta--before)“Atheists love to think that all people are born natural atheists, which is
obviously disproved by the recent studies about brain structure and innate
ideas of God.”

JD:Most atheists, that I know, do not assert that individuals are born atheists
naturally; this cannot be true.


Meta: You should go on message boards more often


JD: The newborn infant has not yet been exposed
to the idea or notion of god and therefore cannot reject and/or disbelieve
such and idea or notion. What atheists and theists alike do say is that
infants are born with out the belief in god, not that they are atheists and
reject the idea of god rather that they do not believe nor disbelieve such
an idea or notion; for they are infants and have not yet developed the
cognitive capability to do either.


Meta: I agree




JD: You mention that the idea of natural
atheists has been disproved by recent studies regarding brain structure and
an innate idea of god. What are these studies? Who has conducted them?
Where can I review these studies and view the results myself?


Meta: Many researchers. The best way to chatch up on the evidence is to see the book Why God Wont go Away by Andrew Newberb who may be the top reseracher in the field. The basic findings are that we are wired for God talk. When expossed to many different kinds of statments the only one's that excite certain areas of the brain and get "warm fuzzies" for respondents were "God talk (religious words)" and "sex talk." Newberg says an actaul phsyical change takes place in the brain when we hear talk about God. Of course you are right babbies are not born being christians or believing, but the capacity is there innately. That's all I was really suggesting when I said what I did about innate belief.






JD:For I am
aware of modern research into such topics through psychology and
neuroscience and I have never heard of such a study and outcome.


Meta: Perhaps my satement was a bit Hyperbalic.

I would also like to address your assumption that Big Bang cosmology either
contradicts itself or needs a supernatural force or god to justify it.



Meta:Not really what I said. I said it contradicts iself if we assume the notion of something from nothing and use quantum particles to suggest evidence for that. I didn't say it needs a supernaturl force to justify it (what would that mean to "justify it?"). I said it is indicative of the cosmological argument for God's existence.



JD: The
Big Bang does not require the belief that before it there was nothing or
merely a supernatural existence, all it explains is the beginnings of the
universe, as we know it today.

Meta: True, but it does leave open the possilbity since the engery in the Big Bang is thought to have been created in the big band, and there seems to be no real evidence that anything did come before it. But the major point is that shows the univese is contingent. Why? Because it came into being and it requires the prior conditoins since the elements that make it up are contingencies themselves.


JD:The Big Bang theory postulates that the
universe originated in an extremely dense and hot state, and since then
space itself has expanded with the passage of time carrying the galaxies
with it. The theory does not, however, force one to assume that before this
extremely dense and hot state there was nothing or only a supernatural
existence, it is surely fair to assume that material or “real natural”
existence is in effect eternal and has no beginning nor ending in time
meaning that there was no “creation” of the universe merely a growth and
transormation.


Meta: why would it be fair to assume that natural existence is an eteranl effect? The universe has a beginig, we know of beyond that event horizon, the elemetns that make it up are not eternally existing, but finte and contingent. Moerover, scientists tell us the universe has an end, therefore it must have a begining. The ened is the result of heat death wihch eventually will result even blacks holes leaking and all energy becoming radent and useless for work. Thus the universe as whole will disove into a cold of space. IF material universe was some sort of eternal becoming woulnd't it have met this heat death eons ago? In fact there are mechinsms working to hasten us to that end:

(1)Lambda force which speeding up expanding of the cosmos

(2) angular momentus

(3) flat universe

(4) missing mass.

All of this means we will continue to expland, we don't have the g forces to pull it all back, and eventually all energy will burn up in heat death and we find ourselves in the ciy cold forever. The thing is, if the universe were eternal it woudl have gone to this end a long long time ago. In other words, it couldn't be eternal because it's an open sysetm.


2) Cyclial Universe The concept that the universe is eternallay ocillating between big bangs and big crunches. When the matter from the explosion of a Big Bang reaches a certain point the gravitational pull draws it back, it callapses into superdense black hole and pops back out again. This notion does not require an initial cause, the cyclical universe is just always there always going through its cycles.



a) Universe continuing to expand

Evidence from three recent studies reveals that the final fate of the universe will be to drift apart and cease all useful functions capable of supporting life due to missing mass, which can't produce gravitational pull to bring it all back together and start again, and heat death in which case energy is useless for work. Several major studies show this to be the case.

[New Scientist Magazine, archive 11, April 98, archive; originally Oct. 96] you should be able to click here, but here's the url just in case) [http://www.newscientist.com/ns/980411/features1.html


"ON THE night of 5 March last year, the huge telescope of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile intercepted a message from deepest space. Transmitted a billion years before the Earth was born, its contents have proved to be of truly cosmic significance. The message was barely readable after its journey halfway across the Universe, and an international team of experts laboured for months to decode it. In January, Saul Perlmutter of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California and his colleagues revealed to the world what they believe to be its gist: "The Universe will never end." A month later, a team led by Brian Schmidt of the Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories near Canberra in Australia published the decoded contents of more of these cosmic missives, which arrive as bursts of light from supernova explosions in far-flung galaxies. The message was the same. Now Chris Kochanek and his colleagues at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, are about to publish more evidence, this time from light that has been bent and sculpted by the gravity of unseen galaxies."



* Omega force = Continued expansion forever (no Big Cruch)


"These three sets of cosmic missives all suggest that instead of collapsing in on itself in a big crunch, our Universe will go on expanding forever. And that's not all. They also hint that the expanding Universe is in the grip of a mysterious force that is fighting against gravity--a force that pervades the entire cosmos and springs literally from nothing."(Ibid.)


[mysterious force = "omega" ie the equasion of gravitational force vs. mass needed to close the universe; omega must = 1 to close]


* Missing Mass.


[New Scinentist article April 1999] "If it [the universe] contains enough matter, gravity will eventually slow its expansion, stop it, and reverse it--producing a cataclysmic big crunch billions of years hence. But if there is too little matter--or if there is an extra source of "oomph" at work in the cosmos--then the Universe will expand forever.... Cosmologists call the ratio of the actual density of matter in our Universe to this critical density 'Omega.' And whole armies of astronomers have spent decades trying to work out if Omega is less than, more than or equal to 1.,... "Studies of the gravitational effects of clusters of galaxies have revealed that there must be at least 10 times as much mass tied up in invisible "dark matter" in the Universe as there is in the familiar form of luminous stars and gas. Yet even when all this dark matter is thrown into the equation, it still doesn't make the theorists happy. Despite searching every cosmic nook and cranny, astronomers have never found anything like the amount needed to make Omega equal to 1."

"So the take-home message looks the same as that now emerging from the supernova and quasar surveys: the Universe is going to expand forever, and it may yet prove to be flat. Certainly the idea of the big crunch seems to have gone for good, but the exact values of Lambda and Omega, and the fate of the cosmologists' theories, are still up for grabs. These values may finally be nailed early in the next century, with the launch of NASA's Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) and the European Space Agency's PLANCK missions. These will use the heat left over from the big bang to try yet another way of measuring Omega and Lambda, which may lay the question to rest for good ("Genesis to Exodus", New Scientist," 19 October 1996, p 30).



Flat Universe means no contraction

Andre Linde, Scientific American, Sept 1997



"A second trouble spot is the flatness of space. General relativity suggests that space may be very curved, with a typical radius on the order of the Planck length, or 10^-33 centimeter. We see however, that our universe is just about flat on a scale of 10^28 centimeters, the radius of the observable part of the universe. This result of our observation differs from theoretical expectations by more than 60 orders of magnitude." [Messuer is a leading physicist and one of the first to invent the inflationary universe theory]


ABC News.com: Scientists: Universe is Flat another link Physics. ucsb.edu


Wayne Hu of the Institute for Advanced Studies, School of Natural Sciences in New Jersey said "temperature maps of the CMB form a snapshot image of the Universe when it was extremely young." "The...result supports a flat universe, which means that the total mass and energy density of the universe is equal to the so-called critical density," Wu wrote. "A perfectly flat universe will remain at the critical density and keep on expanding forever, because there is not enough matter to make it recollapse in a 'big crunch.'"



c) End of Universe reveals begining--universe would have already ceased.




Energy of the universe is being expended, as it burns up,it becomes useless for work. The fate of the universe will be eventual death in ciy darkness as all of its suns burn out and their energy disipates][New Scientist, April 1999, oct. 96


"But even if the Universe lives forever, its inhabitants will not be so lucky. A mere thousand billion years from now, all the stars will have used up their fuel and fizzled out. There will still be occasional flashes in the perpetual night: the death throes of stars so large that they have collapsed in on themselves to form black holes. Even these will eventually evaporate in a blast of radiation. For the next 10122 years, this Hawking radiation will be the only show in town. By then even the most massive black holes will evaporate, leaving the Universe with nothing to do for an unimaginable 10 to the power of 1026 years. Quantum theory then predicts that atoms of iron--the most stable of all elements--will undergo "tunnelling" and disappear into tiny black holes, which will themselves end in a final fizz of Hawking radiation. In the beginning there may have been light, but in the end, it seems, there will be nothing but darkness. ".[New Scientist April 1999]


Given infintie time and possibility all potentialities would have already come to fruition, the chain would have already been broken before our universe came into being. This just illustrates the impossibility of an infinte series of events. (being a series of events it would be "in time" so it's really redundant to say "an infinite series of events in time.") In other words, if this universe drifts apart because it lacks mass to produce omega, than the last universe would have too because energy and matter would be the same amount, just formulated differenlty (energy cannot be created or destroyed). The absurdity of the notion of an infinite series of big bang/cruches is driven home; how could there be an "infinite" series if one of the links in the chain can't make it? It can't "already be infifinte" and then stop because infinite means no begining and no end.

Note: If the Skeptic does not agree to this principle, that given infinite time every possibility comes to fruition than he can neither argue infinite chances nor multiple universes against the Antrhopic argument.


d) Universe contains finite stock of order, connot be eternal (because it would have burned out by now)

*Scientific conesnsus:


Paul Davies, in his article, "Space-time Singularities and Cosmology," says,"If we extrapolate this prediction to its extreme,we reach a point when all distances in the universe have shrunk to zero. An initial cosmological singularity therefore forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of space-time, through such an extremity. For this reason, most cosmologists think of the initial singularity as the beginning of the universe. On this view, the Big Bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the MATTER and ENERGY in the universe, but also of space-time itself."[ P. C. W.Davies, "Space-time Singularities in Cosmology," in The Study of Time III, ed. J. T. Fraser (Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1978), pp. 78-79.]



* Laws of Physics break down at singularity

The laws of physics break down at the singularity. 1st Thermo. would apply after the Big Bang, then the fixed amount of energy that is "put in" to the universe (as Davies puts it) would be finite (in quantity) and subject to 1st and 2nd Thermo.


* 1 LTD applies to matter also. Thirdly, the 1st Law of Thermo. applies to matter ALSO. If you argue that energy is eternal, you've got to argue that matter is eternal, which goes against all the empirical evidence we have for the Big Bang.

* 2 LTD Energy burn to heat death

Fourthly, if you opt for 1st Thermo. before the Big Bang, try being consistent and applying 2nd Thermo. as well. If the energy (AND matter) of the universe is eternal, it would have reached MAXIMUM heat death an INFINITE amount of time ago.

Theoretical physicist Paul Davies, in his book God and the New Physics, states:



"If the universe has a finite stock of order, and is changing irreversibly towards disorder - ultimately to thermodynamic equilibrium - two very deep inferences follow immediately. The first is that the universe will eventually die, wallowing, as it were, in its own entropy. This is known among physicists as the 'heat death' of the universe. The second is that the universe cannot have existed forever, otherwise it would have reached its equilibrium end state an infinite time ago. Conclusion: the universe did not always exist."


If you deny that the universe has a finite stock of order, you are essentially denying the 1st law of thermodynmics, as it requires a fixed finite amount of matter and energy. (check your Encyc. Britannica)

In your wider universe, does the 1st law of Thermodynamics apply WITHOUT the second? What reversed the entropy of this eternally existent universe? As we saw above, a universe containing eternal matter and energy would have reached maximum entropy an INFINITE amount of time ago. What organizing principle intervened 11-15 billion years ago and organized all that energy and matter that was no longer available for work? What or who (or Who) woundthe universe up?

Fifthly, we observe that the universe is expanding uniformly in all directions. Had the universe existed for an infinite period of time, the density of matter would have become zero. (Koons) How do you explain the observable expansion of the universe? We measure the recession velocity of distant galaxies by using Cepheid variables, type Ia supernovas, and now Red Clumps as standard candles. And the microwave background radiation and redshift (doppler effect that skews the red portion of thespectrum of starlight in proportion to the distance of the star) confirm this expansion also. Futhermore, within the very field equations of General Relativity, is embedded the fact of the expansion and decceleration of the universe. There are now 19 proofs of General Relativity in 12 isolated areas of Physics,making it the most exhaustively proven principle. Are you saying that General Relativity does not apply to our universe as a whole?!! It is accurate to better than a trillionth of a percent precision. Where is your scientific evidence for A) seperate portions of the universe which General Relativity does not describe B) seperate universes? If its not falsifiable, and there's no evidence for it, then its just not a threat to the standardBB model as it is not scientific.




JD:A few scientific proposal to submit this theory would be as
lined out as follows: 1) chaotic inflation 2) brane cosmology models,
including the ekpyrotic model in which the Big Bang is the result of a
collision between branes 3) an oscillatory universe in which the early
universe’s hot, dense state resulted from the Big Crunch of a universe
similar to ours. The universe could have gone through an infinite number of
big bangs and big crunches. The cyclic extemsion of the ekpyrotic model is
a modern version of such a scenario.



Meta: Sorry, the cyclical universe, or the "inifnite number of bangs and cruches" has been basically disproven and is all but abandoned. It is disproven by the lambda force and the other three things I spoke of. Chaotic inflation is just a theory with no facts to back it up. None of those theories really disprove the necessity of prior conditions meaning the universe is contingent upon an eternal origin, not that is etneral itself.




JD:Obviously there is no reason to assert that Big Bang cosmology either
contridicts itself or requires supernatural explanations to justify iteslf.



Meta: Again I didn't say eihter of those.




JD:The theory certainly can be interpreted as the beginning of the magnificent
explosion and expansion of the material universe, that before this extreme
change there was the dense-hot state of a gravitational singularity, and
that prior to this singularity and explosion there was an eternal state of
natural existence; that in any case matter-energy is eternal and
indestructible as defined by the Law of the Conservation of Mass and
requires absolutely no supernatrual force or miracle.



Meta: Sorry, you could say that, but no scientific theory postulates that mater-energy sat around in the singulairty etenrally; the major idea is that it was created in the Big bang itself, see Odewald from NASA. Also I suggest that an the idea of a natural contignecy being eternal is a contradiction in terms. All natural existants are contingencies, the very meaning of naturlism is contingnecy.



JD:Here is a quote from
the humanist Corliss Lamont: “Thus creative matter needs no ultimate
theistic power to sustain it, no Divine Principle to impregnate it with the
capacity of flowering as a whirling nebula containing billions of stars, as
a warming and light giving sun or as a fertile planet that produces all the
wondrous forms of life, and at their apex the human race and it’s
indomitable powers of the mind. Matter is self-existent, self-active, self
developing, and self-enduring. It is auto-dynamic. Intellectually, there
is nothing to be gained and much to be lost for philosophy by positing a
supernatural Creator or First Cause behind the great material universe.



Meta: And this source you are quoting is authoritative why? What are the scientific credentials here?



JD: If
everything has a definite cause, the God, too, must have a definite cause
and so on ad infinitum.



Meta:I've this babby to rest so many times I neglect to give it much work. Suffice to say: God is a necessity, thus needs no cause since "he" is eternal. Mater-energy is contingency and thus need a cause.M/E could fail or cease to be, and require dependence upon something ontolgocially prior (which is gravitational field) but God is eternal, meaning, cannot cease or fail or be.






JD: The fact is that regardless of how far we push our
inquiries, at one point or another we are compelled to assume something self
existent that possesses certain powers and potentialities. Otherwise we
become involved in a never ending regress of explanations and assumptions.


Meta: That's not really an argument for your side, because it's frank admittion that we need something like God, and that you have to demonstarte a neger neding regerss of explanation, which you haven't done; you try to leave it all rest in the hot dense gas of the singulairty.


Actually, my own cosmolgoical argument has moved beyond the concept of "cause." I argue "prior conditons." But I put up an early page on why God doesnt' need a cause and the universe does. I would be obliged if you would read it.



JD:God as a First Cause simply constitutes a large-scale miracle gratuitously
intruding at the alleged starting point of everything.


Meta: and that's bad? Why? What do you have to compre it to prove it's bad?



JD: Furthermore, the
argument form a First Cause takes for granted that there must have been a
beginning of the cosmos. However, no logical necessity forces us to the
conclusion that there is a beginning in time, and indeed it would seem more
sensible to accept Aristotle’s opinion that the universe is eternal.

Meta: the Big bang is beging of time and is predicated upon the idea that the universe, space/time began at a single point.

Most scientists see it this way.

Terry Herter, Cornell University, says:
"The present location and velocities of galaxies are a result of a primordial blast known as the BIG BANG. It marked:

THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE!
THE BEGINNING OF TIME!"



Astronomy 101/103 Lecture 29: Cosmology


It's real tempting to look at the singualrity like a seed with a little universe inside it just eternally wating to open. That's not the way scientiss see it, and it's not even logical because its contradiction in temrs. It can't sit around eternally and suddenly change and not be eternal anymore.

JD: In
fact, those who postulate a supernatural God as Creator or First Cause
usually attribute to it a state of eternal being and are therefore assuming,
like most nontheists, an eternally existing reality.”



Meta: But eternally existing anything would have to be ontologically necessiary, but naturlism requires ontolgocal congingency for all natursiltic phenomena.




JD:Obviously, there is no reason to assert that Big Bang cosmology or
naturalism is contradictory or reliant upon supernaturalism and theism to
justify itself and ultimately make coherent sense.



Meta: As I've already discussed, that's a rather inaccruate way of putiting it.


thanks for your views, your contribution to the blog. Rebuttle is welcome.



Read about my legs

Comments

I am debating one on one at CARM

My debate with Simple Theist.

we are debating the "women's Issue" (egalitarian). I hope you will all check it out.

I shall return to regular blog articles tomorrow at some point.

Tasty Wellness, You NOT on a Diet

My latest blog

nothing about religion, just nutrition, how I learned the proper relationship to food and lost a hundred pounds.

Love the Basis of Everything

I don't feel very loving right now, but I don't have to feel any way to talk about love, because love is not merely a feeling. A lot of people think that love is just the special way of feeling about a person, or the warm fuzzy that comes from being with a certain person. Love is much more than just a special way of feeling. It is also a value, a commitment, a sense of orientation toward others, a philosophy, a way of being in the world (an existential engagement).




There are degrees of love and kinds of love. The Greeks called sexual and romantic love Eros From which we get our word "erotic." The kind of love friends feel they called Phileo or "brotherly love" (as in "Philadelphia"). The highest form of love they called Agape. That is usually the kind of love the Bible speaks of when it speaks of God's love for us. 1 John tells us "He who loves knows God for God is love."

Agape Means: the will to value the other, or the will to the good of the other; the desire for the other to have the best. It entails the idea of according the other all rights and human dignity. It is not personal, it's a commitment to all people. Agape is sometimes translated Charity (as in kJ trains 1 Corinthians 13 "if I speak with the tongue of men and of angles and have not charity") but this is more condescending and patronizing than the actual meaning of the term. Charity can be paternalistic in the negative sense, controlling, colonizing, derogatory. Agape is a totally positive thing; one must actually seek the good of the other whatever that may be, even against one's own interest.

Now I will start saying "crazy stuff," these are things that I have theorized about and I guess they make up the radical edge of my own philosophy because they have been scoffed at plenty of times on these boards. But I don't care I'm saying it anyway.


Basis of everything: connection with Being

When I say love is the basis of everything, I mean it really is. I believe that when the Bible says "God is love" it means it literally. In other words, we should put an "itself" there. God is "love itself,": the thing that love is actually the essence of what God is. Now you may ask how can God be both being itself and love itself? Because these two are inextricably bound up together.

Love is giving, the idea of seeking the good of the other, according the other full human dignity equal to one's own, these are ideas that entail give over, supplying the other with something. It's a positivity in the sense that it supplies an actual thing to someone. Being also shares these qualifies. Being is giving in the sense that it bettors itself upon the beings and they have their existence. It is positive in the sense that it is something and not taking something away, it's not a void as nothingness is, but moves in the direction of filling a void; nothingness becomes being, the existence of things.

So love and being are really the same impulse and they both unite in the spirit of God. God is the basis of all being, of all reality. God's character is love; that is God seeks the good of the other and bestows upon us the ultimate human dignity of being a child of God.


Motivating force behind creation

Love is the basic motivating force behind creation. God's motive urge to create was not out of a need due to looniness, but out of a desire to create as an artist, and desire is fueled by love. Art is love, artists love art, as revolutionaries love. Revolutionaries are in love and their revolutions are often expressions of love, what He Guava called "a strange kind of love, not to see more shiny factories but for people." So God creates as a need to bestow love, which entails the bestowing of being.

Now let's not have a bunch of lectures about "perfection" based upon not knowing what perfection is. Let's not have a buck of Aristotle thrown in as though it were the Bible. There is no base line for comparison from which one can really make the judgment that need is imperfection; especially the sort of need one feels to be creative or to bestow love; that is a different sort of need than the need for food or shelter.

Basis of morality

Love is the basis of morality. Love is the background of the moral universe, as Joseph Fletcher said. Austin said it too. That means all moral decisions are made with ultimate reference to God's love which is the driving force behind morality. Many people think Christian morality is about stopping impurity. These people regard sex as the greatest offense and think that basically sin = sex. But nothing is further from the truth. Sin is not sex, sin is an unloosing nature, or a selfish desire to act in an unloosing manner.

Love requires selfless giving over OT the other for the good of the other. That means all moral actions must ultimately evaluated with reference to their motivational properties. That's why Jesus spoke as he did in the sermon on the mount: if you hate you are a murderer. Because the motivation itself is the true essence of the sin, the rejecting of love and acceptance of self as the orbit creates the motive that eventually leads to the act. He is not saying that the act sin OT sinful of course, but that the sin begins with the motive not just with the act. In that sense morality is somewhat teleological, although I normally eschew teleological ethics. I am not saying that the morality of a given act is based upon outcome, but that the end toward which moral motions are given is the goal of doing love.

help

Well the time has come to ask. I hate doing it, but I have to. I was without work for two weeks. I can't buy bandages or pay my light bill, food is getting pretty scarce too. I do provide the this blog and the research on Doxa, and all I ask for it in return is bandages. Seriously, I would do it anyway of course. I do it because I believe in it. But we are up against the wall and need hlep.

anything would be appreciated.

read about my leg problem below.

Read about my legs