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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greg or e who wrote (9528)	11/7/2010 7:04:14 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

"Happy now?" It is not about my happiness. It is about stopping your squirming and dodging--and getting past your puerile behavior! And please do not pretend to educate me on the history of any philosophical argument, you uneducated fellow. I mean--enough is enough--LOL! "I did not cut and paste that from Craig" Of course, you did. "So to answer your question directly." After wasting an entire day... <<"Does everything include the universe?">> "Yes, but the universe does not include everything." In other words, you are not using the philosophical and scientific definition of "universe" as "the totality of all that exists". Rather, you have changed it to being a subset of the set of "everything". If everything includes the universe then the universe is merely a part of everything and not ALL of everything. Things exist outside or apart from the universe which may very well have caused it--if it was indeed "caused". "Of course there very well may be things that are not part of the created physical universe that also had a beginning. In that case I see no reason that those "effects" would not also fall under the first premise: "Everything that has a beginning has an antecedent cause."" So now we have (still strictly on YOUR assertion, and not through any logic) that: The universe had a beginning, and Whatever the universe is a part of had a beginning. As well, we have you pronouncing (again, an assertion on your part) that the universe (and something outside the set of the universe) had an "antecedent cause". So again, by following your assertions, we now are asked to believe that time exists prior to all these "caused" events because that is precisely what "antecedent" means--prior in TIME. And all causes (so far as science has ever determined) are "EVENTS"; and events all happen in time (which is one of the reasons why many philosophers and scientists do not accept the BB as being a "caused" event). So without getting into any arguments about that (you having made argument entirely unnecessary, for which I thank your limited schooling!) I may state without fear of rational contradiction that, while allowing you to pretend that science can make categorical statements about ultimate questions regarding the universe (discussing "beginnings" and so forth)--I certainly will not permit you to pretend to know whether or not anything outside our universe (that which you claim the universe is a subset or part of) is necessarily caused in time (antecedent)--or in any other particular meaning--unknown and invented, of the word "caused". For while you may stumble about insisting that the "Big Bang" was the beginning of our universe AND was caused, when BOTH those assertions are very much debatable--you certainly may not stumble about informing us that the cause of the universe (that "cause" being the other totality of things that you claim are not a part of our universe)--had a beginning. Because we certainly know of no "big bang" for these things which are strictly hypothetical on your part. Indeed, if you think the "everything" that is not in the universe is your imaginary being (and nought else), then there is no particular reason to make her an exception to your rules about beginnings--Craig's major premise. So not only is your original premise now negated by taking itself outside of the universe where we scientifically know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about causes or beginnings--but no gods (never mind such as yours with those hind parts referred to in the bible) were even allowed to show their heads. Short and sweet: It is thoroughly debatable and a subject of great controversy (if you know anything about this argument at all) whether the universe can be said to be caused. But when you make the claim that things exist apart from our universe...certainly you can make no a priori premises about these "things" that must perforce be 100% unknown to all of us (except for yourself). And if your imagined creator is one of these things outside the universe, then any assertion that she is uncaused would be both begging the question and special pleading. In other words, the particular fantasies of Greg or ee have no power to inform the ignorance of the rest of us. So much for giving you three free premises which were three more than you could handle! So would you like to "prove" anything else?? LOL!! Having dealt with that matter I now present you with Dr. Quentin Smith arguing very persuasively that the BB had no cause. His argument is very compelling. "The considerations advanced in this section suggest that there is no sound Kantian-style argument that the big bang singularity has a cause. I am not aware of any other even remotely plausible a priori argument that the big bang has a cause, and so I think it is reasonable to conclude that the prospects for such arguments are poor. If we combine this result with the results of Sections 2 and 3, we may conclude that there is no good reason to believe that there is a sound a posteriori or a priori argument for a cause of the big bang. Thus we reach a general conclusion: there is no philosophy of big bang cosmology that makes it reasonable to reject the fundamental thesis of big bang cosmology: that the universe began to exist without a cause."[4] qsmithwmu.com