ARCHIVE: Burden of Proof

[fool]

ThePhy.... to maintain your world-view you need to have faith that the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics might be breakable. I realize that. And you have your own will. You are free to think whatever you want to think I am not going to try to force you to believe in the conclusions of science.

But Knight your Yaweh buddy breaks em too. You try to dodge that by saying he's super natural, what about the super natural laws of thermodynamics? or by adding super to it do you think that you get to do whatever you want with no need to explain, or even concede that there is an explaination. You harmmer people on science and in the end your story is magic.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

But Knight your Yaweh buddy breaks em too. You try to dodge that by saying he's super natural, what about the super natural laws of thermodynamics? or by adding super to it do you think that you get to do whatever you want with no need to explain, or even concede that there is an explaination. You harmmer people on science and in the end your story is magic.

fool, by definition the SUPERnatural is not subject to the natural laws, if it were we wouldn't call it SUPERnatural.

There are no SUPERnatural laws of thermodynamics.

 

[fool]

fool, by definition the SUPERnatural is not subject to the natural laws, if it were we wouldn't call it SUPERnatural.

There are no SUPERnatural laws of thermodynamics.

Seems like it would be subject to the SUPERnatural laws, see'in as you're an expert on the SUPERnatural perhaps you could fill us in on how it behaves, we're all ears.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Seems like it would be subject to the SUPERnatural laws, see'in as you're an expert on the SUPERnatural perhaps you could fill us in on how it behaves, we're all ears.

We don't know what those SUPERnatural laws are do we? However we DO KNOW the limits of the natural laws.

fool you need to keep in mind.... I am not the one who is claiming anything unscientific. You are.

It is you, allsmiles, Granite, ThePhy etc. that are claiming that under natural circumstances matter and energy created themselves from nothing.

The burden is on you to show how this could be.

Me (on the other hand) recognize the gaps that science has closed and am satisfied with the conclusions of the unbreakable laws of thermodynamics.

 

[fool]

We don't know what those SUPERnatural laws are do we? However we DO KNOW the limits of the natural laws.

fool you need to keep in mind.... I am not the one who is claiming anything unscientific. You are.

It is you, allsmiles, Granite, ThePhy etc. that are claiming that under natural circumstances matter and energy created themselves from nothing.

The burden is on you to show how this could be.

Me (on the other hand) recognize the gaps that science has closed and am satisfied with the conclusions of the unbreakable laws of thermodynamics.

It's quite simple really, I can just declare everything to be SUPERnatural! (just like natural but more so :chuckle: ) Now I'm just like you :bannana:

 

[Nathon Detroit]

It's quite simple really, I can just declare everything to be SUPERnatural! (just like natural but more so :chuckle: ) Now I'm just like you :bannana:

You could do that.

But then you would have to remove the "a" from you atheist designation.

 

[fool]

We don't know what those SUPERnatural laws are do we?

See how easy that was?

However we DO KNOW the limits of the natural laws.

You do now do you?
You have complete and perfect knowledge of nature? Perhaps we should worship you!

 

[fool]

You could do that.

But then you would have to remove the "a" from you atheist designation.

Wrong, supernatural does not equal God. It mearly opens another branch of inquiry, one which seems uneeded, since we could put what we know about the Supernatural into the natual catogory once we know something about it,seeing as we only came up with the supernatural catogory to put things that we didn't understand in.

 

[Vaquero45]

This could be an endless circle. *sigh*

I understand what you are saying, But can't similar statements be made of God. How different is it to claim that God has "always existed". Why can't the universe have always existed? I am not saying I believe that, but why one and not the other? If we say the universe was created by God, where did God come from? It just comes down to faith

The "natural" universe could not have always existed because a fire cannot burn forever. (I realize you said you dont necessarily believe that)

I don't see any way to boil it down that doesn't end up requiring an uncaused supernatural cause. Again, asking who God's parent(s) were just pushes the uncaused cause back a generation. It's a pretty wild thing to think about but I think the argument holds water.

 

[ThePhy]

2+2 might equal 5, create a four sided triangle, determine the length of time it took before time came into existence. Knock yourself out! Everybody's got to have a hobby.

My “hobby” is dealing with ideas that are backed by an immense amount of research and mathematical analysis and laboratory testing, something utterly lacking in Creationism. Your need to portray the ideas in science that you dislike as inherently logical contradictions shows your inability to attack the logic and evidence for the real conclusions. Sorry you are forced to lower yourself to that level.

ThePhy.... to maintain your world-view you need to have faith that the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics might be breakable. I realize that. And you have your own will.

I don’t think of that as a world view. It is a recognition held by most scientists that science is an on-going process, and some of the ideas we previously thought were fundamental proved to be only good approximations. There is nothing degrading in admitting that science is willing to have its ideas continually subjected to inspection. Admittedly this opens the door for some to carry this idea to ridiculous extremes – saying that we can’t depend on anything science says, “because it may change tomorrow”.

And yes, this most certainly conflicts with your recent assertion:

However we DO KNOW the limits of the natural laws.

In response to this claim, I repeat a relevant question from several posts ago: Are you aware of the interpretation of the Second Law of Thermo saying that a closed system always tends towards a state of disorder? (It’s a variant of entropy generalized to handle things that are discrete, like things with finite energy levels). I want to see if you are willing to see if we really “DO KNOW the limits of the natural laws".

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Your need to portray the ideas in science that you dislike as inherently logical contradictions shows your inability to attack the logic and evidence for the real conclusions. Sorry you are forced to lower yourself to that level.

You are a bitter little man aren't you? :chuckle:

 

[Vaquero45]

But implicit in your question of “where did that come from” is that there was a time before the universe existed when there was nothing. But time did not exit prior to the big bang so your question becomes meaningless; there was no “before”. This idea of time coming into existence with the 3 spatial dimensions is not just a convenient invention to avoid having to answer questions like yours, it is a fundamental conclusion based on physical principles.

You still have something popping into existence from nothing. (it created itself)

And once again, I remind you that physics can handle what happened down to a blink of time after the big bang, but in that first primordial blink, all of our physics breaks down. “We don’t know” is a perfectly truthful answer for a lot of questions in science, and an understanding of the first moment after the big bang is in that category.

I admit I don't understand "supernatural" so I don't have all the answers either, but it's the only conclusion I see as plausible.

So if you need to posit “an uncaused supernatural cause” as the “only plausible answer” go ahead. Others prefer invisible pink elephants under their bed, and have equal proof of their correctness.

I guess as long as your pink elephant is an infinite supernatural one, it works.

Personally, I don’t find much comfort in inventing psychological placebos like “uncaused causes”.

Especially non-comforting if that uncaused supernatural might be a God you reject and may have to answer to, no? ( Sorry, couldn't resist... )

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Perhaps we should worship you!

You might as well.

At least then your faith could be in "something". :chuckle:

fool... we are not so different. We both have faith.

The only difference is one of us has blind faith.

 

[ThePhy]

You still have something popping into existence from nothing. (it created itself)

I don’t know that. My ability to say what happened stops rather close to the big bang, but before that, I admit to ignorance.

I admit I don't understand "supernatural" so I don't have all the answers either, but it's the only conclusion I see as plausible.

Supernatural has been the bucket that religionists have dumped things they didn’t understand into for millennia. Had you lived a few hundred years ago, you would have found just as much comfort in labeling earthquakes, comets, diseases, volcanoes, and tsunamis as supernatural.

I guess as long as your pink elephant is an infinite supernatural one, it works. [/quote} Not my pink elephant. Zeus told me there are no pink elephants.

Especially non-comforting if that uncaused supernatural might be a God you reject and may have to answer to, no? ( Sorry, couldn't resist... )

(You really could resist. You are just really trying to really get me bent out of shape.) But no, the idea of having to face God is something that holds no fear for me, even should I find that he exists. If he wants me to do differently than I am doing, then he wants me to go against what I know to be right and true.

 

[ThePhy]

You are a bitter little man aren't you? :chuckle:

Is this the last faint whimper of you actually trying to support your claims about Thermodynamics? A fitting end to an archival thread.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Is this the last faint whimper of you actually trying to support your claims about Thermodynamics? A fitting end to an archival thread.

Don't flatter yourself.

Earlier on this thread I asked you if you believed in perpetual motion machines. And without qualification you stated "no".

Would you like to change your answer?

 

[Lighthouse]

Does anyone really care about any of this?

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Does anyone really care about any of this?

I do.

And I care about ThePhy, fool, allsmiles, Calde-whatever, Granite and the rest. I do!

 

[fool]

Does anyone really care about any of this?

Looks like another senseless drive-by poster. :nono:
:Brandon:

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Looks like another senseless drive-by poster. :nono:
:Brandon:

:chuckle: