Originally posted by LightSon
You loose me Rob. You original presupposition is that "nothing would exist" to include God. Then you neatly and cleverly show that such "excludes the possibility" that "the world was created by a deity". Very circular.
Yes. And at the same time, when one states at the first premise that a Creator exists, and from there builts up a viewpoint of reality, and reasoning and arguing from that point of view always concludes: a Creator exists. Neither that proofs something, cause the conclusion was already put in as the premise.
I have no urge or necessity and am not raised with any concept of there being a Creator. So, it is quite natural for me to built up my thoughts about reality in a fundamental different way.
I could have left out the unnecessary addition that when there is nothing , this also includes the inexistence of God, since the statement that nothing exists already implies that.
But the theist argument would have lead you to probably arbitrarily introduce a creator at that point, who creates a world from nothing.
This is of course unreasonable. The assumption that there is nothing, does not permit there being deities either.
The strength of the argument is that it in fact provides an answer to why it is that there is a material world in the first place, without the need for introducing anything arbitrarily. We have no grounds for introducing anything arbitrarily, which means, that we should do without.
I will grant you that nothing comes from nothing. If God does not exist then you are right that matter has always been. This satisfies the first law of thermodynamics. But the second law is still there. Disorganized matter does not organize itself. Life does not spontaneously generate itself. If nothing else, common sense should tell you this. Your argument that "look, here we are" is no proof that life was generated from confusion, despite all your postulating. Without God you have no case. Without God we are all irrelevent specks, destined for dust and oblivion.
Even in anorganic matter, there are spontanious forms of structure and order arising. Take for instance galaxies. They supposedly are based on seeds of rimples that formed in the first nanoseconds after the Big Bang. The galaxies are organized structures of matter. The atoms are not flying around at random. A star is also a very structured material objects, and so are planets. It is a fundamental misunderstanding one has, if one argues that the universe is going to disorder. In fact wherever you look in the material world, we see progressive development.
Let us put in brief why the thermodynamic argument is invalid.
First it is stated that the universe is a closed system.
I could reason that this is not the case, but let us just assume that. A closed system means for the first law that the same amount of matter and energy would have to be there FOR ALL TIME. We can not arbitrarily let in any new matter or energy from outside. The second law says then, that the amount of usueable energy, would have to decrease.
But since there is no begin of the universe (it is a CLOSED thermodynamic system, so it can not have a begin; the matter and energy that exists now, must always have been there) this would mean that ALL the usueable energy of the universe would have already been used.
But... I look outside and I see that the sun still shines.
Contradiction!
In fact, it means that SOMEWHERE in our assumptions and reasoning we must have made a mistake. Since what we conclude from the assumptions, does not coincide with reality.
A closed thermodynamic system is however always a finite system that is isolated from the rest of the universe. But the universe is not finite. We can not use the definition of a closed system which is defined for finite systems only, and apply that to the universe. It simply does not work that way. You can not define a box of any size that would be large enough to fit the universe in.
For the universe therefore, the second law of thermodynamics does not apply as for finite closed systems. There is nothing that forbids the universe to become more ordered, and if you look around you well enough, you can see that there is progressive development. Undeniable!
You are drawn to these forums because they give you some sort of satisfaction. I can appreciate that. But without God, your interest is for nothing. Because you and your interest in polemics will fade away like the morning dew.
My reasoning system is built up on other premisis as yours. You are making the misjudgement that since I did not use the concept of God, there must be something missing in my reasoning.
I think it is the other way around. Your understanding of matter is incomplete. In first instance you deny matter the potential of being the primary essence of the world, being uncreatable and indestructable. Secondly, you are totally misunderstanding the laws that govern matter, and that enable progressive development within matter itself.
Since therefore you have a less then complete way of perceiving matter, you need a concept apart from matter, to in fact explain that the world is what it is, and how it develops.
But that is just a construct, and in fact artificial construct.
You don't miss something when you in fact try to see what matter is. Matter is the primary and essential thing about the world.
Without knowledge about matter is, we can never realy understand the world. Although matter is existence in objective form, we are all made from matter and were all developed by material processes that lasted billions of years. This is what makes matter into something realy incredible! If you can see that, you will never stop wondering about what the material world has to offer.
Please Rob. You are smarter than that. You have great intellect. It just didn't happen - you are no accident. Your brain and its great capacity for abstract thought were put there by a like-minded being who wanted you to conceive of Him and return to Him in mind, spirit and body. In short, you were created for a great deal more than wasting away your hours hobnobbing with a bunch of theists.
My reasoning capacity does not allow me even to envision the possibility of there being a creator. The reasons for that are quite clear and strong.
A conscious creator of the material world in total can on logical grounds not even exist.
I guess you never saw this argument before, but it is an inescapable conclusion.
The argument is this.
A conscious being is hypothized of being the creator of the material world in total. From that it follows that this being must have existed before there was any objective world. There was no matter, not even space or time.
Those conditions make it impossible for there being anything, which also includes a conscious being.
Therefore, a creation of the material world, could not have taken place, and a creation from nothing is same inconceivable.
This therefore means, that the material world must have existed always in whatever form.
Please consider Jesus: His words and His life's record. He is worthy or your consideration and your life's devotion. Come on over to our side; we could really use a man of your abilities. Accept Christ as your savior and friend and discover the true purpose for your existence. You would find the Christian life challenging and fulfilling.
There is nothing wrong with my life as it is, and I have my own challenges and fulfilment in life. I look for guidelines in life I am able of understanding myself, and I base myself on my own judgements and reasoning capacities. I have other people as Jesus to see as example.
